‘I was going to organise a tennis match on Saturday,’ Lydia said in dismay.
‘Ask Tibby to make up a four,’ suggested Esmie.
Lydia sighed. ‘I suppose I could.’
As the day drew near, Esmie’s dread mounted. Late on the Friday evening, after the Templetons had retired to bed, Esmie and Lydia sat on the swing seat of the upstairs balcony, where they had often gone to share girlish secrets long ago. The swing creaked as they swung gently back and forth. Lydia had been talking excitedly about a trip to the races she was planning for June, which was fast approaching.
‘You’re not listening, are you?’ Lydia accused. ‘What’s bothering you? Is it the Drummond visit? I’m sure they’d understand if you called it off. They probably don’t want to keep being reminded anyway.’
‘Can I tell you something?’ Esmie asked.
‘Of course you can.’ Lydia turned to scrutinise Esmie in the twilight.
‘I am worried about seeing the Drummonds – because I can’t bear it if they’re kind to me. I feel such a fraud. So guilty about David.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ Lydia was nonplussed. ‘Guilty about what?’
‘That I never loved him – not really – not the way he wanted me to.’ Her chest tightened. ‘I should have told him long ago, at the start of the War, but I didn’t have the heart. He signed up so quickly for the Scottish Horse that it seemed cruel to take away his hope. Not that we ever actually talked about marriage.’
‘So you were never officially engaged?’ Lydia asked.
Esmie shook her head.
‘So what are you feeling guilty about?’
‘Last October – when the War was swinging in our favour – David wrote to me from France proposing marriage. I wanted to wait until I saw him again so I could let him down gently, so I wrote back putting him off – saying we could talk about it when he got home.’
‘And?’
‘He wrote again and said he had to have my answer and that saying yes would make him the happiest man in the world. But I couldn’t pretend I loved him, so I told him I couldn’t marry him – not ever.’
Lydia pressed her. ‘And did David write back? What did he say?’
Esmie hung her head, her throat tight with tears. ‘Nothing. The next thing I heard was that he’d been killed – two weeks before the Armistice.’
‘So he might never have read your letter turning him down before he died?’
Esmie said tearfully, ‘I don’t know. It’s possible he didn’t. But I wish with all my heart I’d never sent it. He was such a kind, gentle fellow – he would have done anything for me – and yet I told him I didn’t love him. How awful if it was the last letter he got before . . .’
‘Well, he forced the issue,’ said Lydia, sitting back. ‘It would have been worse if you’d said yes and then broken off with him later. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about. You didn’t lead him on. He just misread your feelings for him.’
‘I suppose so,’ Esmie said hesitantly.
Lydia was adamant. ‘It’s not your fault David died so near the end of the War – it’s just bad luck. So stop feeling guilty.’
Esmie gave her friend a grateful look. ‘Thank you. You’ve always been good at making me feel better.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Lydia. She stretched and yawned. Beyond the balcony darkness had fallen. In late May the night would be brief and daylight would soon be seeping into the sky. Lydia stood and pulled Esmie to her feet.
‘Come on, bed. Tomorrow you can keep your visit brief. Give your condolences. Duty done. Then you don’t have to think about David and the Drummonds again.’
Chapter 4
For the first time in nearly three years, Esmie stood on the doorstep of the Headmaster and Headmistress’s house, heart thumping. Countless times she had entered here; first as a bewildered seven-year-old clutching her father’s hand and later as an orphan regularly invited in for tea by the hospitable Drummonds. All was familiar; from the uneven sandstone steps worn down by generations of passing feet, to the heavy outer door that was always left open. The ivy over the lintel had grown more profuse but otherwise the house looked just the same.
She had a sudden keen sense of loss for her long-dead father, remembering how he would ignore the brass bell and stride up to the inner door, knock on the glass and go in before anyone answered. ‘Hello! Is Drummond in his lair? Or the fair lady of the house?’
Esmie took a calming breath and pulled the brass bell. Its ringing echoed and died. A young maid she didn’t recognise answered its call and showed her into the drawing room to wait for her hosts.
Esmie’s heart pounded faster. The room was in half-darkness, the yellow blinds pulled down to allow only muted sepia light to penetrate. There was a musty smell of neglect – a room no longer in regular use – that made Esmie feel queasy. The heavy gilt-framed paintings of stags and mountains that Esmie had loved because they reminded her of Vaullay, were shrouded in black gauze. Only a portrait of a man in uniform that hung over the unlit fireplace was uncovered. Peering closer, Esmie gasped. It was David, though an older and more severe version than she’d ever known, his mouth unsmiling and his look resolute.
Esmie turned away, searching for the familiar. The piano that David had loved to play had been pushed into a corner. Its lid was shut and no music lay scattered across its top. The card table in the window – where they’d played during wet winter afternoons – was gone. In its place was a pedestal holding a vase of wilting flowers and a framed photograph of David in his graduation gown. His gaze was serious but there was a hint of a smile on his lips. Esmie’s eyes prickled with tears; this was the David she remembered. Yet within a month of the photograph being taken, war had been declared and his ambitions in the law put on hold.
The door opened and Esmie swung round. William Drummond came hurrying in. He was the opposite of her father in looks; thickset, bearded and with brown beady eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. But just seeing him again conjured up her father too. They had been the best of friends – walking companions who had put the world to rights and shared a love of the countryside.
‘My dear!’ William took hold of her hands and squeezed them.
She wanted to kiss him on the cheek but felt inhibited. He may have been her father’s closest friend in Ebbsmouth but he had also been her headmaster and classics teacher. So she smiled and said hello, her voice husky.
‘Please sit down.’ Guiding her into a bulky oak chair, William sat down opposite. Between them, a small table was covered in a white linen cloth. ‘Tea’s on its way and Maud will join us shortly. How are you?’
‘I’m well, thank you. Lydia and her parents are spoiling me terribly.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it. And Dr Carruthers? Has she settled back in Vaullay for good?’
‘I’m not sure. She has great plans for the hospital so perhaps she will. She misses Edinburgh and her friends though.’
Sadness clouded his face. ‘I imagine Edinburgh is not the same place as before the War. With Dr Inglis gone and . . .’
Esmie gripped her hands in her lap to stop them shaking. ‘I’m so very sorry about David.’
William cleared his throat. ‘Yes. You wrote such a kind letter. Thank you.’ Abruptly he stood up and went to the door. ‘I’ll just make sure about tea. The new maid, you know . . .’ He disappeared from the room.
Esmie felt clammy and hot, yet she shivered in the gloom. The room was a shrine to the Drummonds’ lost son, yet she felt David’s absence acutely.
After long minutes, William returned with his wife, followed by the maid who cautiously carried in a large tea tray that she plonked down on the table.
‘Mrs Drummond.’ Esmie stood up and went to greet her old headmistress, shocked at how old she looked in her black mourning dress. Her hair had turned completely white and deep lines were etched across her brow. Her once plump face sagged and looked colourless against the severe black of her clothing. In
charge of the pupils’ health and morals, Maud Drummond had always been a little intimidating. Esmie tried to dismiss the feeling that she was fifteen again and about to be admonished for untidy hair.
Maud gave her a strained smile.
‘Isn’t it lovely to see Esmie again?’ William said, his voice falsely jovial. ‘Just like old times.’
Maud, ignoring his remark, hovered over the young maid as she poured out the tea. ‘Try not to splash it in the saucer, lassie.’
The nervous girl slopped the tea over the cup.
‘Would you like me to pour?’ Esmie offered.
‘Maisie has to learn,’ answered Maud in a tight voice.
As Maisie began handing out the tea, Esmie stifled a gasp. There were four cups poured and four plates holding slices of gingerbread. Surely the fourth place couldn’t be for David?
Maud caught her look. ‘Yes, in memory of David – gingerbread – his favourite.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Esmie, still looking aghast at the extra place set for their dead son. ‘I was just saying before to Mr Drummond how sorry I was about David—’
‘Gingerbread without butter,’ interrupted Maud. ‘Doesn’t need butter if the cake’s fresh. We used to send him gingerbread when he was at the Front, didn’t we, dear?’
William nodded.
‘Very popular it made him with his fellow officers,’ Maud said.
‘I’m sure it did,’ Esmie agreed.
Maisie shot her a glance of sympathy before hurrying from the room. Esmie took a sip of tea; her insides were too knotted to eat the cake.
‘What he liked best though was getting letters,’ continued Maud. ‘Any news from home was better than any gift we could send. Red-letter days, David called them.’
‘And he was a good letter writer himself,’ said Esmie.
Maud gave her that direct assessing look that used to unnerve her as a schoolgirl; the woman had always seemed to know what her pupils were thinking. Esmie flushed under her gaze.
‘Did David write to you a lot, Esmie?’
‘From time to time, Mrs Drummond. More than I did, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, it must have been more difficult for you,’ said William generously. ‘You were so often on active service – nursing at the battlefront. David spent most of the War in tedious postings in England, ferrying the wounded to hospital.’
‘He spent the last year of the War in France,’ Maud said, her tone suddenly indignant. ‘Nobody could have done more for his country than our dear boy.’
‘Of course not,’ said William with a pained expression.
Esmie searched for something to say. She nodded at the portrait above the mantelpiece. ‘It’s a fine painting. When did David sit for that?’
William glanced at his wife, perhaps wary of speaking first.
‘He didn’t sit for it,’ said Maud. ‘We had it done from a photograph – one that was taken when he was last on leave.’ She gave a wistful smile. ‘It was last September. We had a lovely week of weather. David did all the things he enjoyed most – swimming off the rocks, playing the piano, reading.’ She glanced at Esmie. ‘You know; the sort of things the pair of you used to do together.’
Esmie felt as if a large stone was blocking her windpipe. She nodded.
‘He was full of optimism,’ Maud said, gazing back at the portrait. ‘Planning what he’d do when the War ended. Practise law in Edinburgh. Have a holiday first. Go and visit you in Vaullay. But then you must have known all that if he wrote to you often.’
Esmie’s cup rattled on its saucer as she placed it back on the table with a trembling hand.
‘I’m glad he had a happy leave,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ Maud said, her eyes filling with tears.
William nodded.
They sat in silence as the clock ticked towards four thirty. She had been there barely twenty minutes, yet it seemed an eternity. The grief in the room was palpable. Esmie couldn’t bear to think what life had been like for the Drummonds these past seven months.
‘Do you remember the time David brought that injured bird home?’ Esmie asked softly. ‘And Cook wanted to throw it to the cat but David kept it in a box in his room and wouldn’t let anyone touch it.’
‘He was always good with birds and animals.’ William smiled.
‘And every morning we expected the bird to have died in the night but it hadn’t,’ Maud recalled.
‘He nursed it back to life,’ said Esmie, ‘until one day it just flew away. And then he cried and laughed at the same time because he was happy he’d made it better but sad it had gone.’
‘Always a sensitive soul,’ said William.
‘He felt things more deeply than we ever did, that’s all,’ said Maud. ‘It wasn’t a weakness.’
Esmie coaxed them into more reminiscing. Briefly Maud’s bleak mood seemed to lift a fraction and William laughed at silly anecdotes. As the clock chimed five, Maud said, ‘Mr Drummond has to give a tutorial in a few minutes.’
‘Goodness, I quite forgot,’ said William.
Esmie got to her feet, relieved to be going. ‘Thank you so much for the tea.’
The Drummonds stood too. ‘It was good of you to come, my dear,’ said William. ‘Wasn’t it, Maud?’ When Maud didn’t respond, William filled the pause. ‘It’s comforting to speak to someone who knew David as well as you did – and cared about him. We did so hope that, in time, you would become a dear daughter-in-law.’
Esmie felt her throat tighten with emotion. Did they know about David’s proposal to her? Perhaps he had told them of his intentions on his final visit home. She was desolate that she would never have been able to fulfil their wishes had their son lived. She forced herself to ask. ‘Did you hear from him after his last leave before he . . . died?’
‘We have a precious letter,’ said Maud, ‘that told us how much he’d enjoyed being at home. It’s the only thing that gives me comfort – to know we’d made him happy on his last visit.’
Esmie’s pulse began racing. ‘And did his C.O. return any letters from me with David’s things?’
‘Oh, the letters!’ William cried. ‘It quite went out of my head. Of course you must have them back. Maud, dearest, they’re in your bureau, aren’t they?’
‘If you’re sure you want them?’ Maud asked.
‘Please,’ Esmie said.
Maud crossed the room to a corner in shadow and pulled down the lid on her writing desk. She opened the middle draw and retrieved a small bundle of letters. Esmie was ashamed that she had written so few over the four years of war. Her heart was hammering as she took them, resisting the urge to flick through and see if her final letter was among them. Perhaps it had never been delivered or if so it might have arrived after David was killed, so that he would never have known how his dreams had been dashed. If it was in the pile, she prayed that it was still unopened.
‘Thank you, Mrs Drummond.’ Esmie gave a nervous smile and pushed the letters in her jacket pocket.
They saw her to the door. William said, ‘Please forgive me, Esmie, but I have to dash off and see to my exam pupils. You’ll call again before you leave Ebbsmouth, won’t you?’
Esmie said she would. With a distracted smile, William hurried off towards his study.
Esmie was stepping through the outer doorway when Maud stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.
‘You won’t find it in that bundle of letters.’
Esmie’s heart lurched in fright. ‘Find what?’
Maud’s look bore into her. ‘This,’ she said, pulling a slim envelope from her dress pocket. Esmie instantly recognised her handwriting on one of Aunt Isobel’s buff-coloured envelopes. Her last letter to David. The top edge had been neatly cut by a pen knife or letter opener. She felt sick.
‘You’ve read it?’ Esmie asked.
Maud’s eyes blazed but her tone was icily calm. ‘My poor boy,’ she said, trembling. ‘How could you write such cruel things? I never thought you could be so heartle
ss. David adored you but you spurned him! How could you tell him that you never loved him? You played with his affections – with all our affections!’
Esmie gasped. ‘You had no right to read my letter to David.’
‘He was my son,’ she hissed, ‘so I had every right. You’re contemptible! Coming here and pretending to be sorry our son is dead.’
‘I am sorry,’ Esmie protested, ‘and I did care for David.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t make it worse by lying. The only reason I allowed you to come and play out your little charade was for my husband’s sake. He’s a good man who has been devastated by David’s loss. He’s the one who insists on having the extra tea cup at every meal, and who had the portrait done. So I kept this nasty little letter from him – it would kill him if he knew what you’d written.’
Esmie’s chest constricted as she tried to speak. ‘I wish I hadn’t sent the letter when I did, but it wasn’t a cruel letter. It was affectionate but truthful. I wanted to have the chance to talk to him face-to-face but David demanded an answer from me and wouldn’t wait. I never wanted to hurt David, just to make things clear between us.’
Maud shook with suppressed fury. ‘Hurt him?’ she cried. ‘You killed him! Once he’d read it, he didn’t want to go on – you gave him nothing to live for. He was reckless. His padre wrote and told us how he courageously went out looking for Germans in the enemy trenches to capture when it was all but over. Only a man with a death wish would do such a thing.’
Maud tore the letter in two and thrust it at Esmie. ‘I will never forgive you! Your father would spin in his grave if he knew how you’d treated our son. That’s how you repay our family’s kindness to you all these years.’ She shoved Esmie off the top step.
The Emerald Affair Page 6