“He wouldn’t do that.” He didn’t need to. I carried him with me. He’d been there in my heart.
Dora made a delicious dinner for us. Two of Dickon’s four brothers were at the front, two were in the Royal Navy. One of his sisters had emigrated to Canada and another was a VAD, so I had the Picketys as guests and Dickon had Dora and Ash. Their children rushed about with the little Picketys and made our evening festive. Cook sent an elaborate cake.
We arrived at Willow’s cottage before midnight and unlocked the door without speaking a word. I was growing shy with what lay ahead. I think my mood was contagious. Dickon brought our valises into the bedchamber and came back to help me with my cloak. He kissed me tenderly, then led me by the hand to our marriage bed.
My husband was a thoughtful, considerate lover. His touches were gentle but never tentative. I answered every loving gesture with one of my own, loathe to cheat him of the blissful night he deserved.
If we had been in a different cottage, a different bedchamber, a different bed, I could have honored my husband. But I’d made rapturous love to another man in this bed, this bedchamber, this cottage. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Jeremy. Every time I opened them, the very shadows brought indelible memories back to me. I hid my face against Dickon’s warm shoulder.
At last my husband lay quiet beside me, fighting sleep.
“It will be better next time,” he whispered. “The first time is always difficult for a lady.”
I nodded my head, afraid to speak.
*****
We had a week of beautiful days, roaming the woods, climbing hills and eating out of doors when we could. When it rained, I sat in Willow’s chair by the fire, embroidering a set of tea towels for our new home. Dickon lay on the sofa, a book on his chest, but he napped as often as not. Time at the front had depleted his every reserve, and I wanted them replenished.
He liked it best when I sat at the end of the sofa, his head resting in my lap, my fingers combing through his hair and massaging his temples until he slept again. We watched the fire. From time to time we spoke of our new digs, the little stone house in the village.
“There’s a splendid pigeonhole desk in the study,” I said.
“Is the light good enough for your painting?” He took my hand and rubbed at the stubborn blue stain on my index finger.
“It’s perfect, despite the mullions. The room faces north and east, it’s filled with light during the day.”
The next afternoon we drove over and inspected every room. “I will paint the kitchen yellow,” I said as he ran his hand across the golden oak table, worn smooth by years of use. “I will cook your dinner,” I said.
Together we climbed the stairs to a bedroom whose papered walls ended in slanted eaves, whose high brass bedstead beckoned. Dickon sat down heavily, raising a cloud of dust from the red velvet cover.
“You have work ahead of you, Mrs. Scard,” he said after he stopped coughing.
“I will love every minute of it,” I declared, dusting off his clothes and keeping my arms around him. “I will love every minute I am married to you.”
“Clarry, look,” he said. Our bedroom window looked out over the fields to the far away hills. “I will love thinking of you here, waiting for me.”
I repressed a shudder. I would have a bad time of it thinking of him cold and wet, his life in danger.
We dined with the Picketys that night, holding hands beneath the tablecloth, the golden lamplight making each course into a rich display.
“Marriage agrees with you,” Amalia said, her eyes twinkling, her smile warm with approval.
A brisk wind blew as we walked back to Willow’s cottage. In the moonlight I saw it pleat the pond water and whip tender green leaves with little mercy. Dickon had me folded against him beneath his great coat, his body’s heat kept me safe. I could feel the great thud of his heartbeat.
Our lovemaking had been tentative as we found our way. Tonight, though, the cold night, his warm mouth on mine, the spectre of the battlefield hanging over our happiness, let me open my heart to him as wide as I could.
“There,” he said, when I lay trembling in his arms, “I knew it would come right for us. It only wanted time.”
We had so little time left of his days at home. “I want more,” I said aloud.
“A soldier knows his duty.” Dickon kissed me and pressed me down beneath him.
*****
I moved into our little stone cottage by myself. I had been a bride and a wife, now I was neither. I was alone again. I did for myself, the house didn’t need much care. I lunched at Hethering every day and ate a hearty tea before walking back across the fields. I never had much appetite for dinner, but Amalia set a place for me at the vicarage table every night.
“It isn’t the food you need, it’s the company,” she insisted and I agreed. Her sympathetic smile, Mr. Pickety’s kind eyes and their babies’ antics kept me connected to family life.
I would have loved a child to delight Dickon when he returned, but there was no honeymoon baby for us. I wondered in odd moments if I were barren. Two illicit trysts and one week of marriage had borne no fruit. Richard Marchmont would have felt vindicated in his choice of Caroline for Jeremy’s wife.
I wrote my husband every day, filling the pages with funny little sketches of our home. “I’ve adopted two kittens,” I wrote. “Litter mates and sisters, you must name them.” He decided on ‘Mimi’ and ‘Fifi’. Both grew into fierce mousers, with the appalling habit of leaving a carcass on my doorstep in daily tribute.
I wrote to Jeremy once a week as usual and posted these letters from Hethering to give Henry a spark of hope. I wrote little about my marriage, only mentioned I’d wed Dickon as he recommended, though the return address, “Mrs. Richard Scard”, told the story. Each week I described another bit of Hethering’s parkland and told him how it fared. If he received these letters, if he read them, I hoped they would bring him a glimpse of the England he loved best, and peace to his lonely heart.
My publisher wrote to ask for a meeting in London. I had to stay in a hotel. Genie and Helen had volunteered to drive ambulances at the front and sublet their flat for the duration. I enjoyed the coddling at the Ritz and the respectability and freedom granted by my new status.
“Marriage becomes you, Clarry.” I’d sent Henry Putnam a note and we met to share a delicious cream tea.
“It’s an odd state of affairs,” I said. “I was very married for ten days. Now I’m in limbo. A wife, but alone. I miss my husband, yet I can’t imagine what it would be like to share a home with him.”
He harrumphed and looked away. “The war should have ended months, I daresay a full year, before this. Now we hang our hope on the Americans.”
I thought of Daisy, the toast of New York society, and hoped her new playmates weren’t as selfish and shallow as she. When her love turned to grief she’d resumed old habits with a vengeance. “What will make them fight?” I asked.
“They’re a sentimental people,” he said. “Filled with idealistic fervor, but peaceable at heart and always practical. They won’t shed blood unless their wealth is threatened. J.P. Morgan’s assets at risk may move them, I don’t know.
His cynical attitude surprised me. My silence made him laugh a bit, shamefaced. “Pay me no heed. I’ve lost too many friends, that’s what. This carnage must end, but England can never fall defeated. America’s our best chance.”
*****
I met with Archibald Mosely the next day. He congratulated me on my marriage.
“But it won’t stop you painting, will it?”
“Not at all.” I had few distractions.
“Can’t fathom Eugenia’s desire for mud and blood. It’s a man’s job, driving through that muck.” I saw concern beneath his disapproval.
“She wants to do her bit.”
“She’ll catch her death from ‘her bit’,” he growled. “You’re a sensible girl at least.”
“I have my hands full wit
h Hethering.” Had my promise to Jeremy denied me the chance for patriotic action? I thought them one and the same, but Genie and Helen’s sacrifices made me wonder.
“With Miss Eugenia away, I have a gap in next spring’s list. Your story about the near drowned doll gave me an idea.”
I leaned forward. Jeremy’s story might come to print. Mr. Mosely had found its author.
“You told it simply with good detail. You write it.”
“Me? I’m not a writer.”
“You’ve good command of the English language.” He waved the pages of my letter at me. “Descriptive, succinct, poignant.” That’s more than I can say about half my authors. Have a go at it. Let me know in a month or two.”
I sat stunned. I never thought to write a word for publishing. I spoke through my painting and my embroidery. Even now I was stitching my way through pillow covers for —
“D’you have an answer for me young lady?”
“I’ll try, sir.” Bold emotion spoke without consideration, but I was glad of it. Who better to tell Jeremy’s story than me?
I returned to my hotel fussed and anxious for the comfort of a cup of tea.
“Clarissa Marchmont?”
Rutherford Dane’s bulk dwarfed a potted palm.
“Hello, Mr. Dane.” I wasn’t pleased to meet him.
“What brings you to London, Miss Marchmont?”
“Business, Mr. Dane. And it’s Mrs. Scard now.”
“Yes, I’d heard you’d married. Don’t suppose you’d care for tea?” I yearned for it, for pots of hot bracing refreshment. Alone.
He inclined his head toward the Palm Court. “You look thirsty.”
I was caught. “You’re very kind.”
I poured for us and drank several cups while Rutherford Dane demolished plate after plate of delicacies. We were a spectacle of hunger and thirst.
“I was sorry to hear you’d wed.”
“I beg your pardon?” He was a boor.
“Thought we might make a match of it.”
“Mr. Dane, you are my uncle.” An outrageous boor.
“No one need know.”
“I would know.” And if we weren’t related, he was the last man I’d marry.
“Don’t get upset, I almost never meet a woman with your mettle.”
“Mr. Dane, please lower your voice.”
His loud words attracted attention despite my quiet, furious replies. He stared down our watchers and turned back to me. “Sorry. It’s a common complaint. I’m deaf in one ear.”
This prevented me making an excuse and fleeing. I poured my fifth cup of tea.
“You are thirsty.” He lowered his voice from booming to loud. “I thought you were hanging out for your cousin.”
I put my cup down with a crack. “Jeremy is married.”
“You quit Cornwall fast enough when he crooked his finger. Cousinship don’t scare you. I thought you’d take to an uncle quick enough.”
I left him at table without making an excuse.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When my train pulled into our village station, both Amalia and Dora were waiting to meet me. My happy smile faded when I saw their faces.
“Dickon?”
“He’s been wounded,” Dora said. “I got the wire just last night. He never had a chance to change his next of kin for notification.”
“Is it very bad?” I sat down on the nearest bench. Not bad, not bad, I prayed. My heart would not stop hammering. I felt quite faint.
“One leg’s pretty cut up. Shrapnel from a mine that killed his sergeant.” Dora’s voice was tight, but she made a visible effort to remain calm. “He’s to come home to England, that big hospital in Watford.”
“Yes, I know Watford.” I shrank from another visit to the Watch Tower Inn, but Dickon was alive! I’d bring him home from hospital as soon as the doctors would permit it and I would care for him myself.
“Drink this.” Amalia offered a flask of strong, sweet tea.
“Where’s the baby?” I asked Dora. She’d been delivered of a healthy boy, Dougie, only a fortnight before. When we reached her truck, I saw him swaddled in his basket on the high front seat.
“How soon —?” I asked. How soon before my wounded husband would cross the channel. I winced to think of his pain, and rough seas.
“A week’s time, God willing. A VAD wrote a letter for him.” She gave me one thin white sheet of paper. Unfamiliar copperplate script could not keep Dickon’s words from resounding with good natured confidence.
“Clarry, Dora, don’t be fussed. My leg’s in a bad way, but I’m alive to tell the story,
and I’m coming home.”
I worked around the clock during the next days to prepare Hethering for my absence. Through his church connections, Mr. Pickety found a small inn near the Soldiers Hospital in Watford that kept rooms available for wives and families of the wounded. I could stay there and avoid the hubbub and searing memories of the Watch Tower Inn.
My valise was packed and ready. Amalia took Mimi and Fifi into her household, and we waited.
Dora arrived at Hethering ten days later with the official notice. Henry ushered her into my study with quiet deference.
“He’s arrived in hospital,” she told me. “There’s a train to Watford in an hour.”
“I’ll be on it,” I said. After I gave Henry some last instructions, Dora drove me home and waited while I changed into travel clothes and took up my bag. She brought me to the station and gave me a small parcel for Dickon wrapped in grease proof paper.
“My scones,” she said. “He likes them.”
The train crawled on its track, but when I arrived at the great hospital, the setting sun stained its ancient walls with splashes of blood red light. I took a deep breath before I pulled open the door.
*****
I’d sent my bag to the inn but carried Dora’s parcel down endless corridors. Three times I found myself lost. Twice I asked direction and puzzled over impatient, incomprehensible answers. At last, a sympathetic VAD led me to the proper ward and left me beside an imposing wooden desk.
“Have a care what you say to matron, she’s that fierce.” My guide scuttled away. I waited for what seemed like hours. I’d missed dinner and couldn’t remember lunch. My head swam with weariness and anxiety.
A tall, broad woman in an immaculate starched uniform approached me. “Visiting hours are over,” she said.
“Please Matron, I’ve only just arrived in Watford. I’m Mrs. Scard.”
“Well,” she sniffed. “You’ve arrived in good time, better than most. But if I make an exception for you —”
“Just this once, please,” I begged. “I’ll keep to the rules from then on.” I swayed, blinking away black threads.
“Sit down, Mrs. Scard.” She pulled up a hard wooden chair. “Betty,” she called to an unseen person behind me, “bring tea.”
She fixed me with a firm, clear gaze. Despite her authority, she was quite young, a few years older than I, if that.
“In ten minutes time, the ward will be settled for the night. I’ll have Betty slip you in for a brief visit — a few minutes only.”
“Thank you Matron.” The tea scalded my mouth, but I was glad of its thick bitterness. I’d be refreshed and able to greet Dickon without breaking down.
*
Betty led me down the length of the ward. There were heavily sedated men who lay like the dead, men who moaned in their sleep, men who watched me with listless, pain dark eyes. One blessed ginger bearded fellow gave me a cheeky wave.
I stopped when Betty drew two curtains around an iron bed. Dickon lay sleeping, flat on his back. The blanket on the length of his right leg was elevated by a tunnel like wire cage. He slept on while Betty lit a nearby lamp, but his face twitched with pain.
“No sleeping draught, Mrs. Scard,” Betty said before she left. “He’s exhausted, that’s all, he had a rough crossing.”
I sat down beside Dickon and took his hand. He woke
then and seeing me, he smiled. Despite his ghastly pallor and charcoal smudges beneath his eyes, it was the same crooked grin he flashed the day we met.
“Here we are then,” he said.
Every cheerful phrase I’d practiced on the train deserted me. I laid my cheek against his forehead.
“Don’t get my hair wet,” his voice was shaky. “Matron will scold.”
I gave a sniffly giggle and kissed his forehead. Then I kissed his lips.
“That’s better,” he said. “Come to visit or to stay?”
“To stay until I bring you home,” I said. “It won’t be my home until you’re in it.”
“Now our life begins,” he promised. I held his hand until he began a deeper, calmer sleep.
Matron escorted me from the ward, her mouth pursed. “I’m not vexed with you Mrs. Scard,” she cut off my apology. “What I want is more of your kind for my other men.”
*****
Dickon remained in hospital for a little more than six weeks’ time. His leg was badly damaged, he’d been lucky to keep it.
“He had the services of an excellent surgeon,” Matron told me while walking me to the main staircase. I imagine she thought I might sneak back to Dickon. I’d done it more than once. “It’s the luck of the draw,” she said with a nod of farewell. “He might have lost his limb if the man on call was tired or overwhelmed.”
Dickon suffered fevers and painful dressing changes without complaint. The bones of his face grew prominent and his lips were sore and dry from crimping them to keep from shouting with pain, but he greeted me every morning with good cheer and said goodnight with an encouraging word.
The first week was the hardest. I wouldn’t leave his side unless dragged away and Matron made one exception after another for me.
“I know I promised to obey your strictures,” I told her one evening. “I’ve never been such a rebel.” One other time, my heart whispered. With Jeremy, in defiance of the man I called my father.
“You’re the least of my worries, Mrs. Scard.” Matron’s eyes were tired, her posture weary. Twenty beds had been squeezed into the ward and the nurses were run off their feet.
Susan Speers Page 15
