The Rose Stone

by The Rose Stone (retail) (epub)

  “Know what?”

  “That you still love me. Still want me.” Her voice was low. “I told everyone you did. That I knew you wouldn’t forget me. Wouldn’t let them part us.” She lifted her face and he saw, in that instant, all that his loved and lovely girl had gone through – was still willing to go through – for his sake. His hands tightened upon hers. In her crib Felicity stirred, hiccoughed a little, and let out a yell that might have been heard three streets away. “Our daughter, I’m afraid,” Sophie said almost composedly, disentangling her hands, “has inherited my temper. Shall you be able to stand both of us do you think?”

  Their precious time flew. They spoke of personal things – of the time next year when both Rupert and Richard would receive their commissions, of Sophie’s plans to remain here at Bayswater with the baby, of Anna’s kindnesses and Alice’s intransigence, of Sophie’s wretchedness at the unhappiness she had caused her father. Inevitably they spoke too of the war, of the sinking a couple of weeks before of the Cunard liner Lusitania with the loss of more than a thousand lives, of the recent and long-expected heavy raid upon the East End of London and of Sophie’s fears for her parents and sister, living as they did so close to the river – the airships’ road to the heart of London – and the docks. But Anna’s clock prettily chimed the quarter-hours away and before they knew it the enemy, time, had defeated them and they fell silent. At last the moment came when they approached the crib together and stood, hands linked, gazing down at their daughter.

  “May I hold her? Just for a moment – before I go?”

  “Of course.” Sophie bent and expertly scooped the warm, soft bundle from the cot, deftly arranging voluminous skirt, shawl and lacy bonnet. “There.” She laid Felicity in her father’s arms. He cradled her awkwardly, studying the tiny face intently. Sophie, watching them both, blinked.

  “She’s going to be just like you,” he said.

  “Heaven forbid.” The words were heartfelt and only half-humorous.

  His mouth twitched at that. She relieved him of his burden, laid the child back in the cot. “And what shall you do when she comes to you and tells you that some strange and daring young man has stolen her heart?” she asked softly.

  He reached for her, rocked her gently against him. “I shall ask, ‘Does he love you?’”

  “And if the answer is yes?”

  “Then he shall have her with my blessing. For I shall have her mother; and nothing in the world could mean more to me than that.”

  They stood, each encircled in the other’s arms for a moment, utterly wordless. Then he stepped back. She picked up his peaked cap, brushed it off with gentle fingers, handed it to him. “Will we see each other again, do you think? Before—” she could not say it “—well, before you’re twenty-one?” She tried to grin, and failed.

  “I’ll try. I promise I will. But – you do understand? I gave my word – I had to give my word – I couldn’t see any other way.”

  She stopped his mouth with her fingers. “Of course, I understand. You know I do. And one day we’ll be together. All three of us. No one will stop us.”

  He kissed her swiftly, settled his cap upon his head. She watched from the door as he ran swiftly and gracefully down the stairs. At the foot he looked back, raised a hand to his cap, and was gone.

  She did not go to the window to watch him down the street. There would have been little point: she could not have seen him for her tears.

  Chapter Twenty One

  By January 1916 Britain alone had mustered one million men in the field, and the deadly and stubborn war of attrition had truly begun. The situation in Europe was deadlocked: campaigns the previous autumn by both the Allies and their opponents had failed. Within a month of the birth of the new year attention was focused upon the French lines at Verdun – the French, the Germans considered, were the most weakened of the Allies, and the most likely to break if subjected to a concentrated and determined attack. So it was at this hard-pressed point that, during those first months of the year, they unrelentingly battered the exhausted French forces. The French defence, however, was grim, courageous, and – to their enemies – dismayingly and surprisingly obstinate. Through bitter weather and beneath the heaviest bombardment of the war so far they held, despite crippling casualties. As bleak winter turned again to unpromising spring the snow melted, waterlogging the desolate landscape, and men lived, fought and died knee-deep in mud, while the wounded, helpless, drowned in flooded shell holes. Throughout the spring the fighting was the most furious of the war; attack, counter-attack – the same blighted piece of land taken, lost and taken again, and all at the most terrible cost. Quite clearly it would not last; something had to be done to relieve the intolerable pressure. German attention must be distracted from Verdun. British eyes turned towards the Somme.

  * * *

  It was Sophie who informed Anna that her daughter was in love. Anna looked at her in disbelief. “Victoria? Oh, no, Sophie. You must be mistaken. You’ve been reading too many penny romances.”

  Sophie laughed, watched with resigned exasperation as nine-months-old Felicity, beaming, systematically destroyed a small rag doll. “You mark my words. Something’s going on, or I’m a Dutchman, Aunt. It’s obvious.”

  “Has she actually said anything?”

  Sophie shook her head, deftly extracted a piece of sodden material from her daughter’s still almost toothless mouth. “Not in so many words. But she will – you’ll see—”

  Sophie was right. And perhaps it was just as well that Anna had had at least a little forewarning before her daughter made her shy confession.

  “I wanted to tell you first – before Papa comes home next week—”

  With sinking heart Anna smiled brightly and patted her hand. “Don’t worry dear. I’m sure Papa will be delighted—”

  Victoria, despite an obvious effort, did not look overly convinced. Anna could not pretend that she did not understand why. She knew the girl to be more than a little nervous of her unpredictable father, much as she loved him. And this somewhat unconventional romance would not be the easiest thing to confess to him. Victoria twisted her fingers together. She looked very tired. Her fair, fluffy hair was scraped back beneath her cap and her violet eyes were no darker than the shadows beneath them. Her fine skin was pallid. Unexpected sympathy stirred.

  “Would you like me to – explain – to Papa? Before you speak to him.” Anna could hardly believe herself that she had said it. She and Joss had exchanged barely half a dozen personal words in as many months. The prospect of confronting him with this was far from inviting. But it was too late to withdraw her impulsive offer. Victoria was looking at her with shining eyes.

  “Oh, Mother! Would you? I’d be so very grateful. I never really seem to know how to talk to Papa. And I do want him to understand – to be prepared when Samuel calls—” She spoke the name with shy hesitancy. “He’s a truly remarkable man. I know you’ll both love him.”

  “I’m sure we shall, dear.” Anna hoped that her lack of conviction was not too clear in her voice.

  For once Anna’s prediction of her unpredictable husband’s reactions was absolutely right. He folded his napkin, lifted his head and regarded her forbiddingly across the breakfast table with dark, disbelieving eyes. “A widower? A man old enough to be her father? Has the child taken leave of her senses?”

  “He’s a doctor at the hospital. A brilliant one, she says—”

  “With children older than she is.”

  She hesitated. “Yes.” Heartily she wished she had never taken this on; but having begun she stuck doggedly to her task.

  He shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Joss – please – at least talk to her. Listen to what she has to—”

  “What she has to say cannot change the situation. The man is too old for her.”

  “And is that all that counts?” Anna spoke quietly. “Is it such a great hurdle? Joss – what of love? Of Victoria’s happiness? She loves him.
She loves him very much. Does that count for nothing?” Her voice faded as their eyes met in a sudden disquieting communion that for no explicable reason brought a quick lift of blood to her cheeks.

  Abruptly he reached for his newspaper. “All right. I’ll talk to her. But I’m not promising anything.”

  She let out a small breath of relief. She had done her best. Victoria, now, must fight her own battles. “Are you in London for long?” Part of her mind registered, wryly, that the question might have been asked, politely, of a casual acquaintance.

  Joss had picked up his newspaper again. “No. A few days only.”

  “I see.” The lack of communication, of warmth, never failed to dismay her. She wished she had not asked.

  He had looked up at her tone, his eyes thoughtful. She applied herself to her toast, with its bare scraping of butter and marmalade. “This is the end of the marmalade. We must try to make it last.”

  He ignored the comment. Anna played with her toast. “Joss?”

  “Mmm?”

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  He looked up in quick surprise. She lifted her shoulders in a strangely defensive half-shrug. “I’m just interested, that’s all.”

  After the briefest of silences he said, “I’m making sure that the men who are laying down their lives for us in France have the armaments and ammunition to fight with.”

  “And are you making an enormous amount of money whilst you’re doing it?” The question, with all its inferences, was out almost before she knew it. She stilled the immediate, conciliatory urge that followed it. Let him make of the words what he would. She crumbled her sticky toast on her plate. Joss said nothing. Anna at last lifted her eyes to meet his. A dark glint of anger sparked in their depths. She held his gaze steadily.

  “Yes,” he said at last, briefly and without expression. “I’m making money.”

  I thought you might be. She did not actually speak the words, but knew beyond doubt that he heard them as clearly as if she had.

  He picked up the paper, folded it to another page, laid it on the table before him and within a moment was apparently completely absorbed. Anna watched him, irritation growing. Nothing exasperated her impatient nature more than this man’s provoking ability not to argue with her: an ability remarkable in one so volatile and which illustrated to her – perhaps perversely – the lack of commitment or passion that had been the hallmark of her marriage since the ruin of her father and the birth of Nicholas. She simply could not bear to sit here watching him in docile silence as he read his paper with apparent unconcern, as if the short exchange of words had not taken place.

  “Michael is greatly improving,” she said, seemingly inconsequentially.

  He did not look up. “Good.” Michael had been wounded the month before and thanks to a little gentle string-pulling was now recuperating at Bissetts.

  “I had a letter from him this morning.”

  Silence.

  Normally by now she would have given up, the chill of his lack of reaction stilling her tongue. Doggedly, however, she continued. “He seems worried about Papa. His health is as good as can be expected, he says, but his mind wanders sometimes—”

  As always when she mentioned her father she thought she detected a faint reaction in the man, a slight and sudden suspension of movement.

  “That isn’t surprising,” he said, evenly, after a moment. “Josef is, after all, an old man.”

  Faintly surprised that he had answered at all, she shook her head. “He’s only seventy-six. That isn’t so very old.” The scars left by what Joss had done to her father had, mostly because of the determined encouragement of the injured Josef, almost healed within the family. To her own surprise Anna herself rarely thought of it now. Only occasionally, sparked as now by some reference or comment, did the memory return in the full force of its conflict and confusion.

  Very precisely, Joss shook out his paper, refolded it, prepared to settle to reading it again.

  Anna’s impulsion to quarrel died abruptly. What on earth was the point? She pushed her plate away, and stood.

  He lifted his head. “Anna—” His voice was sharp.

  She waited.

  He picked up his knife, measured it against his plate, replaced it precisely beside it. When he spoke his voice was cool, his words measured. “At the start of the war – and for some of the time since – our forces were hopelessly handicapped by the incompetence of those who should have been backing them. And in particular in the field of munitions. If the Government – the country – had not been so criminally complacent, so wilfully foolish, the war might well have taken a different course by now. Last year, whilst our fighting men were at war, our working men were not. There were strikes and disruption – excessive wage claims, overtime bans, refusal to accept the use of women workers. Men died on the barbed wire in France because our armaments industry was in chaos and – worse – its products faulty. Did you know that at Neuve Chapelle the shells provided to the army were all but useless? Many of them didn’t even explode. Men were asked to fight with bayonets and bare hands because of the inadequacy of the artillery back-up. And they died for it in their thousands. Now – just a year later – the situation is entirely different. We are in the position of being able to supply our fighting men with literally millions of shells a day. Shells that will do the job for which they were intended. And no matter what you think of the morality of that it surely can’t be as bad as allowing men to die with no defence because of incompetence and lack of investment. Because British industry did not possess the accurate machine tools necessary to the manufacture of modern armaments we have had to re-equip whole factories using American tools. With men now being conscripted from the industry we have persuaded the unions to accept women in their place. The Government needs money to invest in new factories of its own—”

  She was watching him, thunderstruck, only barely listening to his controlled, yet strangely passionate words, understanding simply that her words after all had penetrated that apparently uncaring and invulnerable shell that was so often all that she saw of her husband. He was explaining himself. To her.

  “And that’s the whole point. It all takes money. The machine tools from the States. The new factories. The equipment. Yes – I am making money. To invest in the future. In the winning of this foul war. What would you have me do? Ignore what I am best at doing? Cut fifteen years from my age and trade my desk and pen for a private’s uniform?”

  “Of course not! I wasn’t criticizing—”

  “Not in so many words, perhaps. But by inference—”

  Deliberately she let the silence lengthen. Then, “I’m surprised that you care,” she said at last, evenly and softly. “I’m surprised that it matters to you, what I might think of your actions.”

  “No man likes to be criticized unfairly.” His voice was neutral, conceded nothing.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” The hint of warmth had gone, her voice was brisk. “I have to go. I have a meeting. And I promised I’d look after Felicity for Sophie this afternoon.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sophie has lost yet another nursemaid to one of your munitions factories – the new one seems far less trustworthy. It’s so hard to get good staff at the moment.”

  “Yet it hardly seems necessary for you to care for the child.”

  Anna hesitated. “I thought – for this afternoon – Sophie had quite enough on her plate. The last thing she needs is to be worrying about Felicity. She’s meeting Richard. The boys have joined their regiment. And they’ve got their posting. They leave for France next week.”

  * * *

  They were not the only young couple to be strolling by London’s river that afternoon all but blind to their surroundings and to the presence of others. The sky was overcast, the clouds of a colour with the battleship that lay at anchor on the far reach of water. A sailor and his girl leaned upon the stone parapet of the embankment watching the river traffic, wordless. A young
man, dressed, as was Richard, in spruce new army uniform, sat upon a bench with his head bent to his fair-headed companion, talking earnestly. Sophie let her hand rest in Richard’s and tried not to count the minutes that were ticking away so terribly fast.

  “—and is she well?”

  “Oh, wonderfully. Positively bouncing. She crawls like lightning – it’s impossible to keep her in one place for a moment. She’s a terrible mischief. She’s into everything.”

  He grinned. “I warned you she was going to be just like her mother.”

  She laughed a little. “God help us all when she learns to walk.”

  They sauntered on, stopped for a moment and leaned by the parapet, watching the naval ship. “I was at Bissetts earlier this week.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s so strange – so very different, with the nurses, and the soldiers – and yet so very much the same. I never realized before just how peaceful it was.”

  “Did you—” she cleared her throat, and he glanced at her sharply “—did you go to our little garden?”

  “Of course. Rupert came down. We spent a couple of hours tidying it up. We saw Uncle Josef too. He sends his love by the way.”

  “Aunt Anna’s worried about him. Uncle Michael seems to think that he’s – well – going a little strange in the head.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t put it that strongly. It’s true that he talks a lot of the past. And that sometimes he doesn’t talk at all. But he seemed perfectly rational to me – and we spent a whole afternoon with him.”

  “Has he forgiven us do you think?” The question was asked softly.

  Richard did not hesitate. “Yes. I’m sure he has. As a matter of fact he seems almost to have forgotten it all. As I said – he seems to live more and more in the past.”

  “It’s natural, I suppose.” They paced on. Sophie tried not to ask the question that had hovered on her lips for the past minutes, and was, as she had known she would be, unsuccessful. “And your mother? Has she—” she pulled a wry face “—forgiven us too?”