She admired the pencils. ‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you lucky?’
‘Our mums give ’em to us,’ the taller of the two confided. ‘We got new boots an’ all, an’ I had roast beef Sunday. It ain’t half good now they’re on munitions.’
It’s taken a war to improve their lives, Octavia thought, as the snow dropped lacy curtains between them. ‘Come on,’ she said, taking their hands. ‘Let’s get inside in the warm. It’s too cold by half out here. Where’s your friend Minnie?’
‘Not here, miss. Her aunty got the telegram.’
They were the worst words in the language. Another death, Octavia thought. Poor woman. But now she knew what sort of death it had been and the pity of it was too great to be contained. Tears spilt from her eyes before she could stop them.
‘Ne’er mind, miss,’ the child comforted, squeezing her hand. ‘Me mum’s gone over ter look after her. You got ter look after one another, ain’tcher?’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Octavia went to her interview at St Barnaby’s High School still troubled by difficult emotions: guilt at the way she had treated Tommy, anguish at how poor Squirrel was suffering, doubt as to whether she ought to be leaving her children at Bridge Street when they were making such progress. But from the moment she walked into the building she knew she had made the right decision. It was such a clean, cultured, well-ordered place, the pupils neat and presentable in gymslips and white blouses, the floors well cleaned, the walls hung with prints of the great classical pictures. She noticed The Hay Wain, The Laughing Cavalier and When did you last see your father? as she was escorted to the staff room by one of the school prefects.
There were four other candidates, all of them women and all excessively genteel, talking of anodyne subjects like the weather and the price of bread and saying nothing about themselves or their applications. Tea was served in china cups and they sipped it politely, then they waited to be called – in alphabetical order, naturally – which meant that Octavia was the last to go.
The headmistress’s study was like a middle-class parlour, with a carpet on the floor, pictures and books on the walls, a fire in the grate, two comfortable armchairs and an imposing desk in the middle of the room. The headmistress herself was small, dapper and bespectacled but her questioning was skilled. She wanted to discover how well her applicants knew their subject and whether they had other skills that could be of use to the school.
‘We teach a wide curriculum here, Miss Smith,’ she explained, when she and Octavia had talked at length about nineteenth-century novelists and the Lake poets, parsing and clause analysis, ‘and however well qualified they may be, many of our staff do not restrict themselves to their chosen subject.’
Octavia supposed that she could teach arithmetic to the juniors and the fact was noted.
‘There is however one thing that I must make clear to you,’ the headmistress continued. ‘Your predecessor has been prevailed upon to join the army, which is why this position was advertised, and when he returns he will naturally expect to resume his post, so this is by way of being a somewhat temporary position – for the duration of war, you might say. Would you be prepared to accept it on these terms, should it be offered to you?’
Octavia agreed that she would and the interview was concluded. When she got back to the staff room the school secretary was sitting among the other candidates and obviously waiting for her.
‘The headmistress thought you might care to walk in the grounds while you wait for her decision,’ she said to them all. ‘Penelope will come and collect us.’
So they put on their coats against the chill – for although the snow had thawed it was still cold – and walked in the grounds, nervously, but still contriving to make polite conversation. Watching her competitors, Octavia thought how nerve-racking it was to know you were being judged and that only one of you would succeed and four of you would be found wanting. This, she thought, admiring the holly bushes there being very little else in the wintry garden to admire, is how children must feel when they have to take an examination and are afraid they are going to fail. The talk and the walk went on and finally, Penelope, who turned out to be the head girl, appeared on the terrace to say that she’d been sent to ask Miss Smith if she would be so kind as to return to the headmistress’s study. It was a moment of such relief and pleasure, Octavia was quite surprised by the strength of it. She’d got the job. It might only be ‘for the duration’ but she’d got the job.
‘The war affects everything we do,’ she said to her parents that night, after she’d told them her good news. ‘Even a teaching post can’t be offered without a proviso nowadays.’
‘If the government can alter the drinking laws with impunity,’ her father said, ‘which I have to say they seem to have done – even the king is teetotal now according to The Times – then no aspect of our lives is beyond their reach. We must be thankful they are not legislating on the amount of sleep we need.’
‘But how wonderful to be a grammar school teacher, my darling,’ Amy said. ‘Just think of all the good work you will do there. When do you start?’
‘Not till after Easter,’ Octavia said. ‘The start of the summer term.’
Amy was disappointed. ‘That’s a long time to wait,’ she said.
‘Not really, Mama,’ Octavia said. ‘I have to hand my notice in at Bridge Street and give them time to find a replacement. And then I shall have to study the syllabus and prepare lessons. There won’t be enough hours in the day.’
‘It can’t come quickly enough for me,’ her mother said. ‘I think it’s wonderful news. A real step up. I wonder what your Tommy will think.’
He didn’t seem particularly interested. ‘Well, bully for you,’ he wrote. ‘Just don’t forget me while you’re teaching your precious pupils.’
‘I could never forget you,’ she wrote back, ‘as you know very well.’
The exchange upset her. It reminded her of their awful quarrel and how rough he’d been on that awful leave. And it renewed her guilt. This damned war changes everything, she thought – even the most tender, private things. But is it any wonder when they’re out there in those awful trenches, facing death every day of their lives, like our poor Squirrel? Not for the first time, she grieved for the insanity of what they were being ordered to do. All those young men being sent out to that hell hole in France to kill one another – young brave, idealistic young men, and all for what? How did we ever get involved in such a hideous business in the first place? It was lunacy. No matter what the quarrels had been, they should have been settled by treaties and conferences and compromises, not by killing our young men. Thank God I’ve got my work to keep me busy.
During the rest of that spring term she kept herself extremely busy, coaxing her Bridge Street children by day to make as much progress as they could before she had to leave them and pouring over the syllabuses by night to ensure that she would know what she was doing when she took up her new job. By the time she said goodbye to her tearful pupils on the last day of the spring term, she was exhausted.
‘You push yourself too hard,’ her mother rebuked, noting her pale face and the shadows under her eyes. ‘I hope you will rest up over Easter. I don’t want you getting ill.’
But none of them were able to rest up that Easter. On Easter Friday Amy had a phone call from her sister Maud that took all the colour from her face and left her looking so ill that J-J was alarmed for her and shouted for Octavia.
Amy waved them both away, her hands fluttering like white moths in the half-light of the hall, while she went on listening to the voice on the other end of the line. ‘It’s Maud,’ she whispered to them eventually. ‘She’s got the telegram.’
‘Oh dear God!’ Octavia said. ‘Which of them is it?’ But she knew already. She’d been dreading it ever since she got that letter. It was Cyril.
‘I’m on my way over, darling,’ Amy said, reaching for her coat. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can get there.’
Emmeline wept uncontrollably, with her head on her mother’s shoulder. ‘Oh, my poor Squirrel!’ she said over and over again. ‘My poor, dear Squirrel.’ But Maud was stuck in a terrible, necessary disbelief.
‘They must have made a mistake,’ she said to Amy. ‘They must have, mustn’t they, Amy? It can’t be Cyril – I mean to say, he’s always so strong. They’ll write to us presently and say it was a mistake.’
A letter did come, two days later, but it was from Cyril’s commanding officer and there was no mistake.
‘Dear Mr and Mrs Withington,’ he said. ‘It is with the deepest regret and sorrow that I write to sympathise with you on the death of your son Lieutenant Cyril Withington. He was a fine officer and much loved by his men. I am sure you would want to know of the heroic way in which he died.
‘He and his platoon had been detailed to take out an enemy pillbox, which they accomplished successfully after many hours of fierce fighting and after taking many casualties. The last man to fall was a member of your son’s platoon, a soldier well-known to him and for whom he was responsible. Since he lay directly in the line of enemy fire, and the battle was still going on, he could not be reached by the stretcher-bearers. Without regard for his own safety, your son immediately ran out into no-man’s-land to rescue him. He was shot by enemy machine gun fire as he was carrying the injured soldier back to the nearest trench. It might be some comfort to you to know that he died instantly and did not suffer. Most of all, I am sure you will be proud to know that he died a hero’s death, laying down his own life to save a comrade in arms.’
Maud passed it round the family that afternoon and, although she was tearful, she said she was glad to know that he’d died a hero’s death. ‘My poor boy.’ But Octavia was thinking of what he’d said in that letter of his, ‘I have something to expiate,’ and knew with a numbing certainty that he’d thrown his life away.
‘We can’t even have a funeral,’ Maud was saying. ‘Or do they send their bodies home, do you know? No, how could they? There are too many of them. Oh, my poor Cyril.’
‘We can have a memorial service,’ Ralph said. ‘Lots of people do that.’
So it was arranged but it really didn’t comfort any of them because it was totally unreal, as if everything and everybody had been altered. Even Ralph’s fine white house was changed, subdued by a yellowy half-darkness because every holland blind had been drawn against the sun. The servants moved in and out of the parlour, soft-shod out of respect and silent as fishes, and Emmeline and her mother sat in the armchairs on either side of the fireplace, weeping into their black-edged handkerchiefs as though they would never stop. It was as if grief had cast a pall over the house and everyone in it. Now and then a breeze trilled the blind until it lifted and a shaft of bold sunlight knifed into the room. Now and then a blackbird sang with melancholy yearning from the unseen blossom of the apple tree out in the innocence of the garden. Now and then Aunt Maud sighed and said, ‘Oh, my poor dear boy! My poor, poor dear boy!’ But Emmeline crouched between the arms of her chair too pained to move or speak, and when Octavia bent over her, she clung to her hand for comfort and said nothing. All the frantic, disbelieving, terrible things had been said. Now there was nothing but loss and the aching void of extreme grief.
Eventually, there were murmurs out in the hall and the guests began to return. J-J and Amy were the first to venture into the room, and while J-J coughed and tried to find an unobtrusive corner in which to stand, Amy knelt beside the chair and took her sister in her arms. There was tea to be served. Should she attend to it? Should Annie bring it in?
‘A cup of tea, my dear,’ she suggested. ‘You must take something or you will be ill and what would Emmeline and your poor Ralph do then?’
‘I can’t eat,’ Maud said. ‘I simply can’t. You don’t know.’
‘I do, my darling. I do.’
The parlour maid was lurking outside the door with her tray and they could hear the next group of arrivals talking quietly in the hall. They might not have had a funeral but a funeral tea must be served nevertheless; the rituals of the lives that remained after this appalling death must somehow be observed. Octavia watched as the rest of the family made their entrances, clumsily concerned, awkwardly embarrassed, and she was torn by anguish all over again. There was no end to this sorrow and no escape.
Her uncle and his brothers talked gruffly about how well the service had gone, all things considered, and how kind the Reverend Allen had been. Teacups were rattled round to all the guests. Delicate sandwiches were offered and accepted. Aunt Maud made an effort to speak to those who were standing near her. The talk gathered into a paean of praise for their dead hero.
‘Fine chap,’ his uncles agreed. ‘Greater love hath no man and all that sort of thing. You couldn’t ask for a better end.’
His father said, ‘I always knew he had it in him. Valiant, you see, even as a little lad. Soldier of the king.’
‘Bred in the bone, old thing,’ his uncle John said. ‘Breeding always tells.’
‘Made of stern stuff,’ his uncle Albert agreed. ‘Good stock, that’s what breeds heroes. Good stock. That and a good education, of course. You made a good choice there, Ralph. Fine school. Fine tradition. All the best values and all that sort of thing.’
‘Terrible time of course,’ John said to his brother. ‘Feel for you and Maud.’
‘But he made a good end,’ Albert pointed out. ‘Mustn’t forget that, eh? A brave end. Something to be proud of. Greater love hath no man and all that sort of thing. He was a fine chap, your Cyril. A hero. A cut above all the riff-raff you see about these days. Made of sterner stuff. Not a cowardly bone in his body. That’s the truth of it.’
How can they stand there saying such stupid, fatuous things? Octavia thought. Her chest was so tight with irritation she was finding it hard to breathe. If they had to talk, they should try to say something truthful.
But now that they’d moved into myth-making there was no stopping them. ‘A fine chap,’ they said, nodding agreement with one another. ‘Good moral fibre. Straight off to save another feller. Not a thought for his own safety. A hero, you see. Not an ounce of fear in his entire body. Simply didn’t feel it.’
It was too much. She couldn’t stand quietly by and let them say such damaging things. It was as if they were burying him all over again, covering him with their warped view, changing him into an icon, hiding the real person as if he’d never existed. And the real person had been ten times better than this meaningless, fearless hero. She stepped towards them, her face flushed.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘You’re wrong. Quite, quite wrong.’ Her voice was loud in the hushed room. Faces turned towards her in the gloom, round-eyed, shocked and anxious. She knew she was upsetting them but she couldn’t stop. The words tumbled from her in an ecstasy of grief and anger. ‘He wasn’t fearless. He was terrified. That’s the truth. He told me. He sent me a letter and told me all about it. They’re all terrified, every single one of them. You’d be terrified if you were there. Look at the casualty lists. Imagine it. It’s a nightmare and they have to endure it. Think of that if you must think of something. They endure it, day after day, on and on and on. They’re not fearless. They’re made of flesh and blood the same as everybody else; the same as you, the same as our poor Cyril. You diminish him when you say he hadn’t got an ounce of fear in his entire body. Don’t you understand? He was paralysed with fear but he went ahead just the same. He did what he had to do even though he knew exactly what it would cost him, exactly what sort of death he was going to die. Even though he was frightened. That’s real courage. He was truly brave and he had a conscience. That’s what killed him. The need t
o ato…’ But no! She mustn’t tell them that. That was his secret. She stopped talking with an effort, swayed on her feet, gulped to prevent herself from uttering another damaging word. She was aware that they were all listening attentively, cups still poised, that her mother was reaching out towards her, that her father had a restraining hand on her arm, but she shook him off and wouldn’t look at him. She ran headlong out of the door and across the hall to the sanctuary of the drawing room.
It was warm in there because there were no blinds to draw across the long french windows and, although the curtains were closed, it had been roughly done and sunshine was streaming through the gaps between them. She opened the nearest pair and stepped into the forest of the conservatory. Oh, such white truthful light flooding through the high thick glass above her head; oh, such peaceful plants, all so fleshily green and alive and polished by sunshine; oh, such easy, soothing colours out there in the garden. And her dear brave murdered Cyril would never see any of it again. She put her head against the doorjamb and wept.
Presently, there was a disturbance in the air behind her and her father appeared. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I’m so sorry, Pa,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken like that. Are they very upset?’
‘They will understand,’ he assured her, putting his arm round her shoulders and leading her to the nearest wickerwork chair. ‘Grief takes us all in different ways.’
‘It was the letter, you see,’ she said. ‘He sent me a letter.’
‘I rather gathered he had. That was what you were referring to, wasn’t it?’
‘It was a terrible letter, Pa. He told me exactly what it was like out there and it was horrible. I promised him I wouldn’t let anyone else see it, but I suppose it doesn’t matter now he’s… I’ll show it to you when we get home. It was a terrible, terrible letter.’
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