In a Field of Blue

by Liviero, Gemma

  It had been three years since Laurence had started the fire. The insurer did pay a sum. But nothing close to its value, even though the firemen’s initial report suggested the fire was started from a lit cigarette. There were too many questions, and our lawyer, Roland, persisted with the paperwork until we received at least some funds.

  Mother, Peggy, Samuel, and I had moved to the bay house. We had sold off most of the land belonging to the estate and paid out money to the farmers so they could begin new jobs or trades elsewhere, and we had dealt with Laurence through Roland. With the letter I had from Edgar and instructions by Mother, Roland had altered the inheritance.

  Samuel’s money was to be held in trust until he turned twenty-one, and we would take care of the boy until then. He gradually spoke more English than French, though occasionally, and with the same sense of humor as his father, he would mischievously revert to French words.

  Our new home was large enough for us, and we had adequate land where Mother, with her share of the money, was in the process of building separate living quarters. She had improved considerably. There were no more migraines or afternoon naps. She had taken to things with gusto, even helping Peggy with various tasks. It was easy to imagine this lively woman with whom my father fell in love, and whom many before him vied for.

  Bert moved to another village nearby to live with his brother and nieces and nephews. He was happy to retire, and we had been to visit him.

  Several times my mother had taken the train to meet Laurence for lunch, though she chose not to update me on his fate. I suspected that she was still giving him money occasionally. I cannot judge her. She knows it was Laurence who took the jewelry, and the fire still hangs above us all, and yet as a mother, she has forgiven him. Perhaps he did her a favor in a near-disastrous sort of way. The estate, though beautiful, had become a burden, which had added to her poor health, the unpaid rents, and the constant worrying about the upkeep. She had not aged a day since the time we moved.

  Mother told Laurence about Edgar’s letter to me, and he did not challenge it nor mention any desertion. I think there was some negotiation during her private conversations with Laurence that Mother had not told me about, such as the fact that she decided against pressing any charges of arson, even though the insurance assessment made clear the blame. There were even greater things that may have prevented Laurence pursuing claims to the estate: the fear that he might have to face Edgar if he did anything to upset the beneficiary transfer to Samuel.

  But Mother did not abandon Laurence in any way. He was her son after all. She had no doubt sweetened the deal by offering to pay off all his debts using money from the sale of her own assets. Though with hindsight, I believe that Laurence’s earlier threat to Mariette to reveal Edgar’s desertion was hollow. I believe that vanity would have prevailed to prevent his name ever being linked with such an act.

  Roland had found a keen buyer for the Lakeland plot, someone who would live there and rebuild. Mother and others from the area were worried that the Lakelands would turn into a hodgepodge of hotels and lots of little properties, taking away from the delightful openness; she had joined a committee to ensure that property would not be sold to people who would overdevelop for commercial reasons.

  I kept Sheriff with several other horses in the paddock behind our new residence. Samuel was taught to ride Chess, and we would often ride along the beach together. In the years since his arrival, his confidence and strength had grown, and I saw so much of my brother there, which made us even closer. Samuel in time accepted that Mariette had had to move away to take care of “the uncle,” and letters were exchanged between them, Mariette collecting the mail from the closest town, I imagined, secretly so as not to upset Edgar, whose clear separation from the boy ensured less pain and a restful mind. Samuel learned about Helene, but he still referred to Mariette as his mother.

  Although I would have happily lived on my portion of inheritance, I continued to work as an illustrator for various publications as well as some advertising companies where demand for my services was growing. I now took the train to Manchester once a week and occasionally to London, which meant I could live and work mostly from the bay property. I had finally succumbed to the new mode of transport and now drove in a car to the train station.

  The advertising work wasn’t the only reason for my occasional long train journeys, but to visit the hospices and homes of men who had served in the war and sketch their faces. The pictures would then be offered to them as gifts when I had finished. Soon families of the missing, who had read about my work in the newspaper, were contacting me, sending photographs of their sons, brothers, fathers, and uncles, asking politely if I would do the same for them. Though there were offers of money, I never accepted it. They had paid enough in blood. There were other subjects also, links to the past—sailing boats, charming French chateaus, and fields filled with flowers—and these I did show and sell, donating all the money back to the hospitals. At first these activities were a way of distracting me from the loss of Edgar and Mariette, but soon it became a passion and a purpose also.

  As you might have guessed, Mother heard the story I told of Edgar. She had been anticipating the account of my adventure since the last time I indicated I had some news about him. Though the news she was expecting was only that of Edgar’s final resting place.

  She was unemotional at first, the shock of such news too great to make sense of.

  I told her the story, and all the while she gripped my hand, her hands trembling as she slowly absorbed the truth of it.

  “My poor boy,” she said, finally breaking down and sobbing into my chest. “How he suffered.”

  “He is someplace where he wants to be,” I consoled her. “And I believe not only that he is there for himself, but that he is there to protect us also.” Edgar, even in his illness, must have known the grief he would cause if he were to return. Not only by the punishment from authorities that his family would undoubtedly be drawn into, but his moods and irrational ways that might harm us.

  Mother’s grief was no longer about her own loss but about Edgar’s losses. She had to come to terms with an illness she knew nothing about and to resolve why Edgar would want to live so far away. I thought she would continue to be upset about his terms of contact and be desperate to go to him, but she was quickly accepting. She became strangely alive, awakened, for want of a better word, and eager to leave the hospital to make a new home at the bay.

  In the weeks following, she had transformed, abandoned her need for solitude, her health improving, and one day I caught her smiling at the sea. She threw herself into caring for Samuel: disciplining, caring for, and instructing the young boy. She had never been overly affectionate, and Samuel did not change her in this regard. But she loved the boy in a way that was far more giving than I expected, and without expectation. She no longer separated herself from the worries of children that had come with her station, but she embraced and enjoyed the role of grandmother actively, involved in every aspect of Samuel’s life. He would wake every morning and seek her out in her bedroom to share a pot of tea and discuss the day: a habit that continued into later years.

  I thought often of Edgar and fought the urge to write to him. He had asked me not to, but he had never said anything of Mother writing. He replied to her letter eventually, thanking her for her understanding. Though he only wrote the once. And that was the final reassurance Mother needed. Just knowing he was out there had inspired her further in her various local endeavors.

  And as you can imagine, I dreamed about her often. I did not receive any letters personally from Mariette, though I understood that for the separation to work, there should be no words, as they would only make it all the more painful. How could someone I only knew such a short time leave such an effect? That of course makes it love. What else could it be? I’d had no desire to court someone else and try to love again.

  The fog crept inward across the shoreline this day, and my thin cotton shirt failed to b
lock the chill from a light northeasterly wind that brought with it spots of rain. Gulls squawked around me, expecting me to offer something from the pockets of my coat as my footsteps crunched across the cool sand.

  A figure in white stood on the bluff to watch the sea below. Her bright-red-colored hair was piled high above her head, strands escaping with the wind.

  It wasn’t her. Nor was it the only time since I’d left Canada that my mind had played such tricks.

  Though barely a day would pass that I didn’t think about Mariette and Edgar, I had found a place in my mind to rest them both. I had over the past years made sense of everything and found my peace with our estrangement.

  Missy barked behind me, and I turned to see the cause.

  Samuel was running along the beach toward us. He called out something that was lost in the wind, waving his arms wildly in the air. As he was drawing closer, I saw that he clasped a piece of oatmeal-colored paper, his face was pink with exertion, and he was grinning.

  “What is it?” I called, always so pleased to have his company. He had grown to be a sweet and gentle boy who affected us all in ways for the better. It was difficult to imagine our lives without him now.

  “It’s Maman,” he shouted excitedly before he had quite reached me. “She’s coming.”

  It took only a moment to realize what that meant, my heart surging with a mixture of emotions: elation and trepidation of course, to be followed shortly by sorrow.

  Revelstoke Herald, Dated 15 March 1925

  A lumberman was killed in a felling accident in the Albreda region. Fabien Brown was approximately twenty-eight, according to those he worked alongside. A large contingency of Native Canadian Indians was in attendance at the burial. The deceased has no wife or known heirs; however, distant relatives from England were said to be planning a headstone.

  EPILOGUE

  Manchester News, July 1945

  Rudolph Leon Watts was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his WWII service in the battle to liberate France in 1944. Major Watts, a renowned artist, led an intense battle that waged for forty-six days and was shot and killed in the final days of the campaign. Major Watts was the son of Stuart (deceased) and Abigail Watts from Lancashire. Abigail Watts is a well-known Lakeland conservationist and active campaigner for better postwar treatment for soldiers. Following WWI, “Rudy,” as Major Watts was known, had donated earnings from his paintings to fund support services for soldiers with shell shock, a condition that affects a large number of returned servicemen.

  Abigail outlived all her children: the first son also died a hero, in WWI, and the second son, Laurence, was killed in a fiery automobile accident in 1927. She said the loss of her last son has been difficult to accept, but she has been greatly comforted by her daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

  Rudy Watts is survived by his wife, Mariette, and their four children, Samuel, Helene, Edith, and Layla.

  At the service, Mariette, who is French by birth and saw firsthand the devastation from the Great War, thanked all the men who served alongside her husband. She especially paid tribute to Rudy’s service as a husband and father and said that it is not only a loss for her and their children, but a loss for those he counted as friends. Mariette also revealed that Rudy had followed his conscripted son, Samuel, into the army in 1942.

  A private service was held at Bardsea.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to take the opportunity to thank the Lake Union team for their incredible editing, art, marketing, and production. The quality of work behind the scenes has made this experience seamless once again.

  There were countless sources for background information to assist me with the completion of this book, but I would like to give particular credit to the Cercle d’histoire et d’archéologie de Bailleul, the Sir John Monash Centre, and the Franco-Australian Museum of Villers-Bretonneux. Invaluable to my understanding and the storytelling were the firsthand war accounts by my grandfather, Alan Lindsay, who served at Gallipoli, and the archived diaries and letters of servicemen, which allowed me a very personal perspective of the relentless shelling and unimaginable conditions that soldiers were subjected to. Also helpful were the letters home from my great-uncles who established a lumber company in British Columbia in the early twentieth century.

  In April 1918, Bailleul and the surrounding villages were evacuated, and the Allies were once again forced into fierce battles to take back the region. I was fortunate to visit there, one hundred years later, to absorb the enormity of those sacrifices made on the western front.

  Most people in the region of Bailleul and the villages surrounding were evacuated prior to the second invasion by the German army. Some who didn’t leave were captured and taken to German prisons. But for the period of occupation in April 1918 in my book, I’ve taken some fictional license to imagine the conditions and setting for my characters at the end of their war experiences.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gemma Liviero is the author of the historical novels The Road Beyond Ruin, Broken Angels, and Pastel Orphans, which was a finalist in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. In addition to novel writing, her professional career includes copywriting, corporate writing, writing feature articles and editorials, and editing. She holds an advanced diploma of arts (writing) and has continued her studies in arts and other humanities. Gemma lives with her family in Queensland, Australia. For more information, visit www.gemmaliviero.com.