But in actual fact, Nella had good reason for being quite glad of the diversion his visit brought about, hoping it might draw the attention from her. She was not in her grandmother’s good books at that moment by her refusal to comply with the suggestion their aunt had made quite suddenly one evening after supper at Oaklands. Would it not be a good thing, she asked, if Nella and Marianne should share Eunice’s coming-out functions in London the next year? She, Lady Sybil, had already put several arrangements in hand. There would be Eunice’s big dance to attend and invitations to other innumerable social events, with all the advantages that would bring the girls. Marianne had only smiled at the suggestion and murmured vaguely, ‘How kind, dear Aunt,’ which meant nothing except that she would not commit herself before considering all the possibilities and deciding what to say.
Nella, however, was too horrified to be tactful. The very idea made her feel as though all the air had been sucked from her body so that she could not breathe. Before stopping to think, she had cried out, ‘Oh no, absolutely not! I simply can’t imagine anything I should detest more.’
‘Fenella!’ said her grandmother, shocked.
‘I’m…I’m sorry.’ And, belatedly, she was. She knew her outburst would be seen as ingratitude for all that Aunt Sybil and Uncle Foley had done for them.
But their aunt only smiled and shrugged her slim shoulders. Her one great beauty was her eyes, almond-shaped, thickly lashed and of a darkness that seemed to reflect the colours of the elegant dresses she wore, so that one could never be quite sure what colour they were. She was wearing a simple topaz silk that particular evening, and her eyes were flecked with pinpoints of golden light. Nella hoped it wasn’t a danger signal; she and her aunt had crossed swords on occasions before now. Lady Sybil was inclined to sweep everything and everyone before her in her enthusiasms, and she did not like to be opposed – and this coming out of Eunice’s was the road to getting her married off, which she was as inflexible in her determination to achieve as any other society mother. But Nella had learnt early that if you stood up to her, Sybil bore you no ill will and perhaps liked you better for it. ‘No need to apologise, child. I like a girl with spirit.’ She laughed, her warm, rich laugh, and Nella released her breath. ‘Though you might be sorry later,’ she added. ‘Most girls would jump at the opportunity.’
Most girls, perhaps. London for the season, glittering social occasions and beautiful clothes (all generously and willingly provided for them by Uncle Foley, presumably, who was rich as Croesus, and had already provided them with too much, which was another reason Nella hated the idea).
‘Oh, I believe Nella will come round, Sybil, when she’s had a chance to think about it,’ Mrs Villiers said, with her eyes severely on Nella, steely for once in her determination that this chance should not be rejected.
Nella, however, vowed to stand her ground. She had no intentions of being cajoled, nor even influenced by the pleas of poor little Eunice, who was as horrified at the prospect as Nella herself.
‘Do say yes, Nella! You can’t think how much I admire you for refusing, but it would mean so much to me if both of you were to join me,’ she begged. All those parties and dances would be sheer torture to her, she would be expected to make herself pleasant and agreeable to various strange young men in order to catch one of them as a husband; or worse, she would be a failure, and come out of her first season having failed to catch any of them.
Nella thought that Eunice’s shrinking from this sort of exposure might be a chief factor influencing Lady Sybil’s offer to herself and her sister: that with the support of her two dearest friends, Eunice would be sure to find the courage to plunge into the social whirl and find it was not so painful after all. As she constantly reiterated, Eunice wasn’t the first girl to be terrified at such a prospect, but as far as she was aware, none had ever been destroyed by it yet.
‘I’m sorry, Marianne,’ Nella said later, ‘I’m too impetuous, I’ve probably spoilt your chances, too.’ It had belatedly occurred to her that her sister might, after all, not see things in the same light as she did, might in fact quite welcome the idea of going to parties and being surrounded by young men, which she undoubtedly would be. There was no doubt she had lately come to enjoy being the centre of attraction. Amy might not have been so far wrong, after all, in suggesting their romantic sister was dreaming of a prince who would capture her heart and carry her off. But Marianne just smiled composedly and told Nella to leave it be for the time being, things had a habit of working themselves out if you let events take their course.
Chapter Eight
‘What was that man doing here, Francis?’ asked Mrs Villiers, that same afternoon, coming into his study.
Francis, startled by the rapid knock on his door and the entry of his mother-in-law, was for the moment nonplussed. ‘Er…what man?’
His pretence was ludicrous, as if he had so many visitors that he could not remember – he, who still had few callers, even among his parishioners, perhaps especially among them. After working in the rarefied atmosphere of the cathedral precincts, she knew that he found the duties of a parish priest difficult, though she had begun to hope that he was beginning to be accepted. The work itself was not demanding. St Ethelfleda’s parishioners had never been enamoured of the genuflexions, lace-on-the-altar and incense-swinging, otherworldly ministry of Father Dorkings – nor of the parson before him, who had never been able to offer much comfort or practical advice – and had therefore learnt not to expect too much of their incumbent. Most of them asked for little more than a sermon on Sunday, marriages, christenings and burials. The occasions which demanded most of him lately – and to do him justice he did not seek to shirk the burden – had been when he had to call on wives and mothers whose husbands and sons had been lost in the trenches, or at sea.
Eleanor knew her son-in-law had never been amenable to her plain speaking; it made him retreat into his shell, but there was no way to put what she had to say gently. ‘Come, Francis, you know very well I meant that man Reardon, the detective who was sent here when…when Marianne was found. He was here not an hour ago.’
Francis had been writing something in a large notebook with stiff covers and now he blotted his last words, carefully rested his pen on the inkstand on his desk, and folded his long, shapely hands, giving himself a moment before replying.
‘Florrie didn’t recognise him,’ Eleanor went on. ‘And she wouldn’t have let him in, since he refused to state his name or his business, had it not been for…’ She stopped and began again. ‘He had very obviously been in the war.’
Florrie had believed him to be someone come upon hard times, reduced to begging, or selling matches on street corners, like so many more in these difficult days, when the number of unemployed was beginning to assume frightening proportions. The disillusion with the government was creeping through the whole country and had percolated even as far as Broughton Underhill – a sense of outrage that rehabilitation for men and boys broken in the war and opportunity for everyone were not happening. It did not help to be told that the war for which they had given up so much had nearly bankrupted the nation. The promised land, a fairer and more equal life for everyone, was as much a mirage as it had ever been.
‘No,’ Francis said with a sigh, ‘Florrie would not recognise him. He has been terribly wounded about the face.’
‘Yes, Francis, I saw that. I spoke to him. Poor man…’ she said softly, and paused, before going on spiritedly, ‘nevertheless, that doesn’t excuse what he intends to do. He must be told to leave at once. We cannot have him going round the village, asking questions. Opening old sores,’ she added more quietly, looking at his face with pity. This silent, haggard man was not the son-in-law she had once known, the man her daughter Dorothea had fallen in love with and adored. He had always been startlingly handsome, in that dark, ascetic way. She had, sometimes, in the old days, thought him a little vain. But now…
‘How do you know this? When did you speak to him?’ he
asked.
‘Florrie told me about him when she came back from answering the door. I was curious and I made it my business to be out in the garden as he left. There are still a few late snowdrops under the trees by the gate, and I stayed searching for them so that he would be bound to pass me. But…Francis, after you let him out and closed the door, he went looking for her grave and stood there until I went over to him. I asked him his business, and he told me something I find quite extraordinary. That although he is not yet back in his job with the police, for some reason I could not fathom he is making further enquiries into what happened to Marianne…I imagine I am telling you something you already know, of course. He must have told you the same thing.’
‘Did he tell you why?’
‘Exactly what I asked him.’ She hesitated, then added quietly, ‘He seems to think that it was no accident. But we all know that it was, don’t we? Which is what I told him.’
‘Do we know that? How do we know?’
She looked at his ravaged face with pity, paused for a moment and then said plainly, ‘Are you suggesting that your daughter would commit suicide, Francis? Marianne?’
Quite apart from suicide being regarded as a sin in some quarters, it was a tragedy that always left guilt behind it – those who were left asking why. Had it in some way been their fault? What could they have done to prevent it?
He said, ‘Maybe that is something we shall have to learn to accept. Maybe it is God’s will that we should ask ourselves why.’
Not for the first time, Mrs Villiers wondered if Francis was not a man who welcomed the burden of guilt on his shoulders, shouldering it until he sagged beneath its weight.
The day on the ward was as busy as Nella had predicted, and even more of a strain because, try as she would, she could not keep her mind entirely on what she was doing. Despite being so late, it had been a mistake to take the short cut to Oaklands, past the lake, but even if she had not, the memories could now no longer be shut out, not after that conversation with Reardon. As she mechanically performed her duties, took her meal breaks, joked with the patients, they crowded in on her: people, things she had forgotten, some things she never would forget…
Chapter Nine
1914
Out of all that time, one blisteringly hot July day at the beginning of the holidays stood out as the forerunner to everything that followed.
They had taken a picnic down to the lake: the three older girls and young Amy, who had pestered until she was allowed to go with them. Grev had been there, too, home from Paris, where he was studying musical composition at the Conservatoire; William, of course, and Rupert, who was working in London now but had come down with him to stay at the rectory for the long vac after a climbing holiday they had spent together in the Tyrolean Alps. Steven Rafferty had also been persuaded to leave his books and come along.
At first, when they reached the lake, they took turns in messing about for a while in the old punt in defiance of admonitions to the contrary, but the idea turned out to be better than the reality: the punt was so old it leaked excessively, and perhaps it was dangerous, and Steven especially was a very inept punter, so the idea was soon abandoned.
After a while, young Amy wandered off with a small basket to look for the wild raspberries that grew in the shade where the scorching sun did not reach, and all the boys except Grev donned bathing costumes and plunged into the water. Grev raised a languid eyebrow and professed himself quite happy to watch, thank you very much. He was home for the summer, bowling the girls over with his suddenly acquired self-possession and startling good looks, his dark hair falling romantically over his brow and a glint in his amused eyes. He was slim, even slight, but he had muscular forearms and the strong, sinewy wrists of the dedicated pianist. It was as if he had emerged from a chrysalis, from being a not very prepossessing schoolboy to becoming an assured and handsome young man of the world. He languidly professed to abhor all forms of physical exercise, especially the kind which had been forced on him at school, although he enjoyed tennis and riding, at which he was nearly as expert as his mother. He watched the others, as they climbed on to the rocks that surrounded the lake and began to dive off the ledge cut into the steep sandstone cliff above the dark water, with an amused indifference that seemed to the girls the epitome of sophistication. All the same, they themselves envied the young men their freedom to swim while they, young ladies now, were forced to be content with dangling their feet in the water. The idea of mixed bathing might have been taken up on the decadent beaches of southern England but it had not yet percolated to Broughton Underhill.
It wasn’t long, however, before Steven, very conscious of his skinny white body and the borrowed one-piece bathing costume which didn’t properly fit, came out to join them, wrapping his long, thin frame in a towel and rescuing his spectacles from the pocket of the shirt he’d left on the grass. He soon grew restless with being a mere spectator and, producing one of the books he always carried, he propped himself up on his elbow and began to read, a much more congenial occupation.
Nella twisted a stem of grass and chewed it, her eyes on Rupert and William, racing each other to the far end of the lake. William got there first and turned to continue the race back, but Rupert climbed out on to the warm rocks, from where he made some tricky somersault dives before beginning to climb higher. Nella watched the tanned, athletic body for a while until her attention was drawn away by Steven’s reply to some question of Marianne’s about his mother going up to London to meet some of her political women friends. ‘Who, the suffragettes?’ she asked.
‘They don’t like being called that.’
‘Why not? It doesn’t matter what they’re called, I think they’re admirable. I wish I could join them.’
‘What, smashing windows and being force-fed in prison? Come off it, Nella, you wouldn’t like that.’ This came from William, now hauling himself out of the water just in time to hear this last, shaking drops all over the girls, expecting them to shriek, which they disappointingly did not. ‘You’d be much better off listening to Grandy and looking for a husband who’d take all that nonsense out of your head.’
Nella pulled a face. ‘Well, at least they’re doing something.’ She knew he was only trying to provoke her – he knew very well, and sympathised with, the restiveness in her which had been growing over the last few months. She was aware that she must do something about her future, but unable to make up her mind what it should be – though it would certainly have nothing to do with wasting her time on social fripperies and looking for a husband, in the way that both her grandmother and Lady Sybil thought appropriate. When she found a man she could marry, it would not matter a fig to her who he was: her partner in life would be someone who could share her dreams, and her hopes, and who would not object to her finding some form of worthwhile and fulfilling work – though what this might be had not yet manifested itself.
‘Anyway,’ said William, suddenly serious, ‘those women will soon have more to worry about than getting the vote, if the news is anything to go by.’
‘If you’re going to be tiresome and talk about that archduke business again, I for one don’t want to hear,’ put in Marianne drowsily. ‘Don’t let’s spoil the afternoon.’
She lay on her stomach, in the shade of a tree, half dozing in the heat, with only her still-bare feet and legs in the sun, for fear of burning her fair skin. The sun had already brought out the faint band of freckles across her nose. What did the assassination of an Austrian archduke in Sarajevo by a hot-headed group of Serbian patriots, shocking as it was, have to do with Britain? There was said to be big trouble brewing in Europe and the Balkans because of it, but then, when was there not? They were always fighting over there, those people with unpronounceable names in countries no one had ever heard of.
‘Marianne,’ said Steven, looking up, ‘it’s serious this time.’ He removed his glasses and polished them with his shirt tail, prepared for a good discussion. ‘Austro-Hungary has declared war a
gainst Serbia over that – and make no mistake, we could all be drawn in. Germany will support Austria, and then Russia and France – and Britain – won’t be able to stand aside.’
Grev said lazily, ‘Oh, come on, Marianne’s right – let it alone, Steven, for now.’
‘We can’t be like ostriches, hide our heads in the sand—’
‘Let it alone, before our fearless foreign friend decides to join us again.’
Steven opened his mouth, and then shut it. It was a delicate subject where Rupert was concerned. They were all uneasily aware that if ever it should come to war, unlikely as that seemed to most people, Rupert would be on one side while they were on the other.
Eunice said suddenly, ‘Oh goodness, look!’ A bluff in the rock had hidden Rupert momentarily as he climbed, and it wasn’t until he called out to make sure they had all seen him that they realised he had been heading for a ledge to one side, much higher than the one they’d previously used.
‘The idiot.’ His veneer of sophistication slipping, Grev stood up, shouted and waved his arms. His voice carried clear across the lake and Rupert must have heard what he shouted but he stood there poised, until, like a wasp in his black-and-yellow striped bathing suit, he executed a perfect swallow dive.
Grev watched until he surfaced and began to swim towards them. He let out his breath. ‘He should be careful, the fool, there are dangerous rocks down there.’
‘No use telling Kess to be careful,’ William grinned. ‘He wouldn’t listen. He leads a life of unutterable recklessness, trying to outshine his arrogant soldier brother with his bravery.’
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