But that was what Polly would have done. In and out of love with amazing regularity and unflagging enthusiasm, Polly was passionate about most things. Zoe’s feelings, however, were more tender, and, where Stephen was concerned, infinitely more vulnerable to pain. In her present mood of uncertainty, she was far from sure what it was that Stephen wanted to hear. It was all very well for Polly to maintain that he had telephoned simply because he cared, and that his sharp manner had been prompted by jealousy. It might be true, but he was set against commitment on either side, and in Zoe’s book, a declaration of love was a serious matter.
In the end, having slept on the matter, she chose the lesser of two evils and wrote a letter explaining Philip Dent, from the circumstances of their first meeting to the moment of realizing it was all a waste of time. She would have liked to be frank and say, ‘and furthermore, I don’t think he really fancied me,’ but it sounded as though she judged men on their performance, while that aspect was merely the final nail. In the end she settled for, ‘There just wasn’t any magic in Philip, and other than our mutual friends, we had little in common...’
She hoped Stephen would now understand that Philip was well and truly in the past, and not likely to be resurrected by chance meetings or the offer of a lift to Sussex.
Suppressing a desire to tell him how much she loved and needed him, Zoe gave vent instead to the awfulness of that moment on the road when they had overtaken the tanker. She did not hold back in describing her reactions to that.
Although she laboured over the first half of the letter, the rest, comprising a description of Saturday afternoon, almost wrote itself. Despite her efforts to contain it, emotion crept in as she wrote about Tisha’s house and the memories stirred by her visit.
‘It was probably the wrong time, in one sense. In another, maybe it was needed. But after what turned out to be a thoroughly miserable weekend, writing all this to you has acted like a purge. And having raked over the ashes of those years and really looked at them, I find they are less dreadful than they appeared to be.
‘And I think I must say the same about Philip. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you at the time – I wish I had, but I felt so badly about it. The silly thing is, Polly put it all in perspective for me when she said he was boring. He is, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Looking back on that episode, even talking to him the other day about Clare and David, it strikes me I don’t need that kind of thing in my life. And after the row we had in the car, he won’t be offering again.
‘My one regret, as I’ve said, concerns your phone call. It was so wonderful to hear your voice, I just wish we had been able to talk – really talk, I mean. But I was shocked by your news, and you were so obviously wondering about Philip...
‘Anyway, you have the truth of it now – I just hope you can understand…’
Zoe paused and read her letter through. The more she wrote about Philip, the more she wanted to go over and over it, like a criminal obsessed by his crime. Which was silly, because as Polly said, it was giving him an importance he did not deserve. There was no need to say more. Hesitating over how to close, instead of her usual ‘love Zoe’ which was affectionate but casual, she wrote, ‘All my love to you...’
For a moment, its straightforward honesty made her feel better; but then uncertainty over his reaction attacked again, and she stared at it helplessly. She could hardly cross it out, and she did not want to write the whole page again, so in the end she let it stand, bestowing a sentimental kiss before she sealed it into the envelope and took it to the post.
It was a bright morning, invigorating, with a sly breeze that made her shiver a little as she returned from that short walk. She had a sense of fragile hopefulness, as after a brief but debilitating illness; not a conviction that things would turn out well, but an awareness that the only way forward was with one step at a time. Stephen’s wrong impression the other day still bothered her, and she hoped that when he read her letter he would understand that the last thing she wanted to do was to play fast and loose with either his emotions or her own. She hoped too that he could sense the love between the lines, because she knew, more certainly than anything else, that he needed love, whether he was aware of it or not. When he came home, they would have to begin again. It was as far as she could think, but it was enough. It had to be enough.
That letter, however, and the weekend’s reflections on motherhood, brought something else to mind. In the act of analyzing Tisha on paper, it struck Zoe that in all Louisa’s correspondence, she had so far come across nothing from her daughter.
In a large cardboard box resided all the as yet untouched bundles, now much depleted. In another were letters identified but still unread, and, filed in a series of smaller boxes, the ones already dealt with. Each envelope was numbered in pencil, each number corresponding to a series of notes Zoe was making in a large, stiff-backed notebook. It was a mammoth task and there were cross-references everywhere; but as she had so recently remarked in her letter to Stephen, it kept her occupied and interested, and left little time for anything else. Particularly a social life.
Not that she regretted it. Indeed, the task was becoming something of an obsession, since most of her spare time was spent reading and making notes, the rest of it searching for books in the reference library. Reminiscences, retrospectives and official histories of the war had, together with the letters and Stephen’s transcript of the diary, formed her staple diet for weeks, to the extent that she thought of little else. It was perhaps fortunate that she had no important commissions to undertake, for all her recent doodles were of crosses entwined with poppies and barbed wire, which seemed, like recent odd and disturbing dreams, to be the result of that extensive and sometimes distressing research.
Now, eager to get back to Louisa’s correspondence, Zoe was glad of a need to look for something else, something lighter which might provide a clue to Tisha’s early life, form a bridge between the difficult girl referred to by Letty Duncannon, and the sophisticated woman she had become.
That Tisha had been a source of much anxiety to her mother, was evident in the replies Louisa received from her old friend in Dublin; although once the girl had left for London, Letty’s advice had been sound if unsympathetic. ‘You really must stop worrying about her now. Robert will keep a discreet eye upon her, and despite your present hard feelings towards him, he will not allow her to come to any harm.’
In the next sentence, Zoe recalled with much satisfaction, had come the confirmation that she and Stephen had been seeking for so long: ‘After all, Robert is her father.’
Good old Letty, she thought with affection, having grown fond of Robert Duncannon’s sister with her quirky opinions and eccentric interests; and that little tit-bit would be an unexpected present for Stephen when he received his letters in the Persian Gulf.
That striking photograph of Robert, taken in full uniform when he must have been in his early thirties, stood on her bookcase along with other copied pictures of the family. It caught Zoe’s eye as she crossed the room. Almost a hundred years stood between that moment and this, and yet she could feel something of the power of the man. It was in his face, in the way he held himself; not the arrogance at first suspected, but confidence. He knew himself very well. It seemed to her that he was a man who would make few apologies.
Like Stephen.
That thought came unexpectedly, sending little shock waves through her awareness.
But after all, she reasoned, his blood ran in Stephen’s veins and genetic inheritance was a strange thing, often skipping generations to reappear in unexpected quarters. Physically, they were not alike, except perhaps in height and build. Stephen favoured Liam in looks, apart from his hair, which was curly, and Liam had favoured his mother more than Robert. Zoe was already aware that she bore a strong resemblance to Tisha, but who did Tisha resemble? Studying the gathered photographs, it seemed to Zoe that her great-grandmother had Robert Duncannon’s Irish colouring of dark hair and pale skin, whil
e the shape of her face was Louisa’s. Broad forehead, high cheekbones, round, determined chin. Only Tisha’s mouth was different: small and cherubic – how misleading that was! – where Louisa’s smile had been both wide and generous.
And what was it that Stephen had said? That she had Louisa’s mouth. The memory pleased her, made her smile even as she touched her lips with a fingertip. Perhaps she was not so much like Tisha after all; perhaps she had more of Louisa in her than she had suspected.
Poor Louisa. For the first time, in her own uncertainty over Stephen, in that longing for him which could not be assuaged, Zoe felt something of Louisa Elliott’s pain. Robert could never be hers, not in the way she needed him to be; so she had turned her back on him and married Edward, and as far as anyone could know, they had been happy together. But had she ever stopped loving Robert? In spite of everything, all the sadness and misfortune, all the terrible things that had happened over the years, could the ties be cut, irrevocably? Zoe thought not. However much Louisa might have wished otherwise, the children held those links, and not even death could dissolve them.
In leaving York for London, Tisha had, willingly or not, been placed in the care of her natural father, which meant that by 1916 he had had two daughters to keep an eye on, one the dedicated nurse, the other perhaps already showing signs of what she was to become. Zoe wondered how he dealt with them, and, in his apparently frequent absences from London, how he managed to supervise Tisha’s life. Letty’s confidence that her brother ‘would not let her come to any harm’ gave rise to a wry smile. It was obvious to Zoe that Letty had not known her niece very well.
She had never been familiar with Tisha’s handwriting, so her search through the box that day was for the unfamiliar, a difference of style that would declare itself. She knew Liam’s hand at a glance, despite the variety of inks he had used, and Robin’s too, while Letty Duncannon was characterized as much by the quality of envelopes and paper. In each beribboned package most of the outer envelopes had yellowed with age, and some were scuffed and faded which made identification difficult, but at last Zoe came to a bundle addressed in an ink that had paled to beige, in a hand that was not dissimilar to her own. Convinced by the London postmark that she had found what she was looking for, Zoe retired to the sofa, tucked up her legs and prepared herself for an interesting hour or so. Very carefully she untied dusty ribbon which held perhaps a dozen letters.
Unlike Zoe, Louisa Elliott had never, in haste, ripped open an envelope with her thumb. Each one had been slit with a paperknife, each letter carefully refolded into its original pattern, making every one look as though it had just arrived.
Opening the first letter, she glanced at the last page for the confirmation she expected. But this letter was not from Tisha. It was from Robert Duncannon’s other daughter. Registering the fact of Georgina’s signature, Zoe was first disappointed and then annoyed; she almost thrust the pages back unread. But in the act of refolding them, an address, engraved at the head of the first sheet, leapt out at her. It was her address. This house in Queen’s Gate, London.
For a second she thought she had imagined it, that it was some kind of hallucination. She rubbed her eyes and stared at it; touched her finger to the lettering and felt its slight indentations. She looked again at the signature and then the heading. It sank in slowly. Georgina Duncannon was living here, at this address.
Feverishly, Zoe opened all the other letters, trying not to tear the pages in her trembling, fumbling haste. Not all were written from here; some were on cheap notepaper, from a hospital in south London.
Was she nursing there? She must have been, Zoe thought, noting the irregular dates. Living in, while this was her real home. Or was it? A vague recollection of something Letty had written sent her scurrying for the thick notebook with its listed references. What was it that Letty had said about her niece?
Yes, that she was sharing her father’s apartment in Kensington. And in brackets beside that note, Zoe had added a query as to the address. Well, now she knew. But which apartment? What floor? A sudden thrill of instinct told her that it had to be here, this floor, these rooms, and a dozen strange dreams slipped into place like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
But there had to be a way of proving it, of finding out who had owned this house at that time. Halfway to the telephone to speak to her father, Zoe stepped over scattered pages which had fallen to the floor. Guiltily, she scooped them up, noting a date, March 29th, 1916, and in that neat script Tisha’s name in the first paragraph.
Seventeen
Georgina’s bedroom was not very big. It contained a three-quarter bed, a small wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a wash-stand, and those items almost filled it. Overlooking the mews at the back was a tall window draped with lace and a pair of gold brocade curtains, and on the floor, between one side of the bed and the wall, a warm Turkey rug. The room was small and overcrowded but, compared to her spartan quarters at the hospital, luxurious. The feather bed was soft, the eiderdown matched the curtains, and a triple mirror stood on the chest of drawers. It was a haven of comfort and privacy.
As always before making the effort to rise, she looked round, appreciating every item, the row of novels on a shelf, and photographs of the family within reach. As always, she blessed the day her father had insisted she make this place her home. At first, unsure whether she wanted to commit herself to such an arrangement, she had hesitated. But he had pointed out that his absences were frequent and often protracted, and Georgina had remembered the blessedness of escape from hospital life, even when she was in York. Then, the cottage her been her haven; now the refuge was her father’s apartment.
Originally, before the army purchased it, the building had been one house, tall and deep; a nightmare, she often thought, for the servants constantly up and down ten flights of stairs from cellars to attics. This floor comprised two large rooms, a lobby, and two other rooms which might have been dressing rooms, or even part of the nursery quarters. One room had been converted into a sort of butler’s pantry, with sink and gas oven and cupboards; it could hardly be called a kitchen, although it served as such. And the other, which for a few years had been her father’s dressing room, was now her bedroom. Robert’s servant shared quarters two floors above, and there was a communal bathroom on the floor below, for the use of the four staff officers who lived there. One had a wife who stayed occasionally; the others were single men whom she passed occasionally on the stairs.
There was no sense of community, but she had enough of that at the hospital. Here was privacy, a peace and quiet which reminded her of Dublin before the war, of home and luxury and all the things she had then despised and since come to long for with all the passion of nostalgia. Here were no bells, no demands, no broken bodies to care for, no shattered minds to soothe, no sudden deaths to sweep away before the next batch of wounded arrived. Here was peace where she could write letters, read books, or simply sleep the sleep of exhaustion, gathering strength and wits in a brief respite from work.
It was pleasant, too, to see something of her father. She found him much changed from the man who had once opposed nursing as a career. If there was often anxiety in his expression when he looked at her, there was a measure of pride, too. He knew what she did, and while he might regret the hours she worked, he saw its necessity. He also seemed to appreciate how valuable had been her training at the Retreat.
Army doctors were not renowned for their embrace of new ideas, but just occasionally one of the more enlightened would, in a roundabout way, seek her opinion; and when it was not sought Georgina did what she could within the limited sphere of her time and influence. More and more did it seem to her that one day, when this war was over and there was time to understand, special hospitals would have to be set up, or units within hospitals, simply to treat the injured minds.
Lacking in moral fibre was no way to describe a volunteer whose spirit had been battered beyond endurance; and while shell-shock was kinder, she was beginning to realize that it w
as more than just the sound of shells firing and exploding that destroyed a man. It was the sight and sound and smell of death, sudden and ever-present, sweeping down with a scream to gather friend and foe alike.
What astonished her, seeing the results of what was going on across the Channel, was the resilience of the human spirit. Not all succumbed to fear; most managed to thrust the horror aside, while some could still laugh and joke, still talk of excitement and comradeship and patriotism. They were the ones she found hardest to understand. Georgina was no longer patriotic. She did what she did because it had to be done and she was trained to do it; but from that well of compassion which refused to dry up, she thought of all the others in German hospitals, tended by German nurses who were as tired and stretched and heartsick as herself. The war for her had been reduced to exhaustion, to an aching back and sore, calloused feet, legs that continued to walk, stand, bend, far beyond what she considered to be their ability to do so. And her hands, constantly in and out of hot water, were like those of a maid-of-all-work, chapped and chilblained, their touch, she knew, like sandpaper on tender skin.
All winter Louisa had been sending pots of cocoa butter mixed with scented, soothing herbs; but while that preparation helped, it had no chance to cure. Robert joked about those little pots, made occasional acerbic comments when Georgina read Louisa’s letters aloud, although he wanted to know what she said, what she had been doing, what life was like in York. And while his guilt was less acute these days, he always said, when Georgina was writing back, that she must enclose his love and sincere regards.
At Christmas, Robert had managed to use his influence with certain people at the War Office to obtain a week’s leave for Robin. A lot of string-pulling, but with the news so bad from Gallipoli, and Liam completely outside Robert’s sphere, he had been determined to do something for Louisa, anything to lighten the load of their collective anguish. They had managed to see Robin on his return to the Front, just an hour between trains in a dismal tea-shop near the station, but it had been worth the effort involved. He was cheerful, but he was older, much less buoyant. Georgina remembered touching him, holding his hand, thinking of Liam.
Liam's Story Page 31