Grace Hardie

by Anne Melville

  He held out his hand and Grace, after a moment’s surprise, took it in her own. ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  ‘That’s something I have.’ He was still smiling, but his eyes were serious. ‘Some people are born lucky. I’m one of them. Everything always turns out well for me in the end. You must have noticed. Even when I arrive at a shop after closing hours, there proves to be someone at hand to open the door. I shall be all right. So I hope we shall meet again.’

  Chapter Two

  The excitement and movement of the first few months of the war did not endure for long. When the German army ceased to retreat and instead dug itself into trenches guarded by barbed wire, the British casualty lists printed in the newspapers became daily longer and more alarming. But even before Grace and her mother became aware how short was the expectation of life of a young officer in the trenches, another anxiety grew. Why was there no news from China?

  Gordon Hardie had left on his latest plant-hunting expedition in the autumn of 1913. He had written once to announce his safe arrival in China; and six months later a second letter, sent by runner from the Tibetan frontier to his agent in Shanghai and forwarded from there, had been safely delivered. After that, there had been only silence.

  Although he was not due to return until July 1916, Lucy had written to him as soon as the war began and Frank left home, suggesting that he was needed back in England at once. She knew that it would take many months for the letter to reach him in the wild area of the Himalayan valleys which he was once again exploring, and more months after that for him to return to England: the end of 1915 was probably the earliest time at which he could be expected to arrive. But why were no letters reaching Greystones?

  Because she had once accompanied her husband to China, she knew all about the difficulties of communication. For the same reason she was well aware of the dangers which would be surrounding him now. To those which she had experienced herself, the war had added another. For whilst many families in England hung a map of Europe on their walls, marking the hard-fought advances or retreats of the opposing armies with flags or pins, the Hardies referred more frequently to the large globe which stood in the schoolroom. They noted with alarm the passage of Admiral von Spee’s squadron through Chinese waters and the attacks of the Emden on British shipping in the Indian Ocean. The voyage home might well prove as hazardous as the exploration itself.

  Grace did her best to provide reassurance by reminding her mother how many ships had been requisitioned by the Navy. Overseas mail services were bound to be disrupted – and it was more than likely that some of the letters so eagerly awaited were at the bottom of the ocean, victims of U-boat attacks.

  In spite of these attempts at comfort, Grace shared her mother’s growing unease. And she had her own reasons for sympathizing with the daily hope and disappointment with which each delivery of post was greeted, for she too waited hopefully for letters. The conditions of war made it impossible for Andy to write regularly, and letter-writing did not come easily to him. To his own mother and father he sent as a rule only the army issue of printed postcards which assured them that he was well. But he had written Grace the first two love letters of her life, and she longed for more.

  The second, written during the Christmas truce, reached her early in 1915. After that there was no further news. Grace waited patiently for some weeks and then could be patient no longer. Doing her best to pretend that the question was a casual one, she approached the head gardener as he pricked out seedlings in the potting shed.

  ‘Do you hear regularly from Andy?’ she asked, when they had exchanged comments on the weather and the likely effect of a late frost on the fruit trees.

  ‘Not for more nor three months. Can’t be expecting to, neither.’

  ‘What’s happened? Is he hurt?’ Fear tightened Grace’s throat, so that her voice hardly seemed recognizable as her own.

  ‘Wounded, yes.’ The gardener set down the trowel with which he was mixing a compost. ‘End of January. His officer wrote a letter.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Reckoned the mistress had enough to worry about on her own account, with Master Frank and Master Philip both being away at the war. Didn’t want to bother her with our troubles.’

  ‘Is it serious? What happened?’

  ‘A shell on the billet. There were six of them, in some kind of farmhouse barn behind the line. Sent there for a night’s rest, but they might have been safer in the trench. Three of them killed. Two hit by shrapnel but able to get away. Andy couldn’t walk, though. The Frenchy farmer’s wife said she’d do what she could until a stretcher could come for him.’

  ‘And did she? Was he all right?’

  ‘Well, now.’ His father gave a sigh. ‘Bit of time must have passed. The shell that hit him was part of an offensive. A new German push. A lot of noise and confusion, I don’t doubt, and other casualties to be brought in. By the time they sent to look for Andy, the Germans had advanced and the farm was behind their lines.’

  ‘So where is he now? D’you mean that he’s a prisoner?’

  ‘Don’t rightly know. Not on any lists yet.’

  ‘You mean – you mean he might even be dead!’

  ‘The officer didn’t think so, and so no more do I. Can’t manage to persuade the wife that she doesn’t need to cry. According to his mates, though, his legs were in a bad way but that was the beginning and end of it. Likeliest is that he’s a prisoner of war. It takes a bit of time, I’m told, for the names to come through.’

  Close to tears, Grace needed to be alone, but managed to remain calm enough to ask one more question. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘You must be terribly worried. You will let me know, won’t you, when you hear anything? Anything at all.’

  The gardener tipped his hat in acknowledgement of the request and returned to his work. Grace, for her part, should have hurried off to Oxford. Now that the days had become lighter she rode to The House of Hardie on her bicycle every day instead of waiting for the light delivery trap to come and pick her up. But she needed to recover from her feeling of giddiness before she could feel safe on the machine. Pushing it slowly down the long drive, she brought herself under control at last. It was inconceivable that Andy should die – and so, because she could not conceive of the possibility, she brought herself to believe that it could not happen.

  From that time onwards Grace made a point of calling every month at the lodge where the Friths lived. Her visits were ostensibly to offer sympathy to Andy’s mother, but actually to enquire whether there was any news. The wait was a long one and, on the day when she found Mrs Frith in tears, she naturally feared the worst. But they proved to be tears of joy, and there was no need for Grace to ask her usual question.

  ‘He’s alive, Miss Grace. In hospital and not able to walk yet, but alive.’

  ‘I’m so glad, Mrs Frith. Where has he been? How was it that he couldn’t write?’

  ‘He was in that farmhouse all the time. The one with the barn, where he was wounded. They kept him hidden there, the farmer’s family, even when the whole place was swarming with Germans. And now our boys have got the village back again, so he’s been able to come out.’

  ‘But in hospital, you said?’

  ‘One of his legs isn’t right, like. He was on his feet, in a manner of speaking, but limping. They’ve broken the bone again and reset it, or some such thing. Still, with proper doctors and nurses, he’ll be coming along a treat now. Not that – what’s her name?’ Mrs Frith fetched her son’s letter from a drawer and found the place, running her fingers along the words as with some difficulty she spelled them out. ‘Madame – I don’t know how to say this. Funny sort of word.’

  ‘May I see?’ Grace leaned over, almost as excited by the sight of Andy’s handwriting as she would have been by his presence in the room. ‘Madame and Mademoiselle Delavigne.’

  ‘That’s right. They did their very best for him, he says, and it’s not their fault that his leg didn�
��t heal up right.’

  Grace was still looking at the letter. The address was a number, which presumably identified the hospital. Memorizing it, she said goodbye so that she could write it down quickly before it slipped from her mind.

  It was natural that Andy should first of all reassure his parents; but with that accomplished, he would certainly write next to her. Grace sent off her own message of relief and happiness and waited for a reply, watching for the postman’s arrival as eagerly as she had done six months earlier. Letters from France did indeed arrive, but they were from Frank or Philip, and were addressed to their mother.

  Grace was glad to learn that all was well with her brothers, but disappointment was mixed with relief. When would there be a letter addressed to her?

  Chapter Three

  The day came at last when a letter with the familiar markings of a Field Post Office bore Grace’s name on the envelope; but it was delivered to The House of Hardie, not to Greystones.

  ‘For you,’ said Mr Witney. He had set it aside from all the business correspondence on seeing that it was marked ‘Personal’.

  ‘Thank you.’ Grace’s first joyful reaction was that Andy must have chosen not to write to her at home lest her mother should disapprove. But her excitement faded as she studied the envelope, for the handwriting and the writer’s name were unfamiliar to her. Who was Christopher Bailey? She was still struggling with her regret that the letter was not from Andy as she read the words with which Mr Bailey re-introduced himself.

  Dear Miss Hardie,

  You won’t remember who I am, since I expect you have to deal with dozens of customers like me every day of the year. But perhaps not all of them impose on your good nature by keeping you at work after closing time. I haven’t been able to forget you so easily, because my conversation with you was the last civilized thing that happened to me.

  There seems to be a kind of rule out here that people at home should never be told exactly what life in the trenches is like, so I can only say that for the past seven months I’ve done my best to put each day out of my memory as soon as it’s over. That leaves me with an unclouded recollection of Oxford and your smile and your voice.

  You’ll be thinking that it’s a frightful cheek on my part to write to you when you hardly know me. I can only say that it seems desperately important to be able to feel that ordinary life is still going on. I imagine you walking down the High at the end of every day; perhaps pausing to look down on the river as you pass over Magdalen Bridge. Your garden, I like to think, is full of roses. Of course, it’s not really your garden that interests me, but the thought of you sitting in it in the sunshine. In my mind, the sun is always shining in Oxford.

  I didn’t mean to write in such a tone. But to ask, in a business like manner, whether I may visit you one day. I’m overdue for leave – it’s been cancelled twice in the past month, but it can’t be long in coming now. May I call on you? Well, you won’t be able to stop me calling, but please don’t turn me away. I want so much to see you again.

  Your most indebted and humble servant,

  Christopher Bailey

  Astonished by the letter, Grace read it through for a second time before pushing it into her pocket. That evening she showed it to her mother, who raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘You didn’t tell me –’

  ‘There was nothing to tell,’ Grace assured her. ‘He came into the shop to pay his bill. That was all we talked about. It was months ago – I’d forgotten all about it.’ But even as she said this, she wondered whether it was true. During the course of the year there had been similar conversations with other undergraduates who were anxious to settle their affairs. Every time she repeated what Mr Witney had told her to say, she remembered the handsome young man to whom she had first spoken the words.

  In earlier days Grace’s mother would certainly have hesitated before encouraging a visit from a young man whose own family she did not know, and to whom none of the Hardies had been introduced. But the war had relaxed social conventions. It was generally felt that young men who were enduring so much in the trenches deserved to have their every wish – or nearly their every wish – fulfilled when they came on leave. Any mother in England was prepared to treat a stranger in uniform exactly as she hoped other people would treat her own son if for some reason he could not reach his home. The fact that young Mr Bailey and his father had accounts with The House of Hardie was also a consideration. It offered some reassurance that his background was respectable.

  ‘Well, of course,’ she said. ‘If your admirer arrives on the doorstep, he must certainly be made welcome.’

  ‘He’s not an admirer.’ Her mother’s choice of words made Grace flush.

  ‘You don’t think so? Well, your customer then, if that’s how you prefer to think of him. But you’ll have admirers now, you know, Grace. You must notice when a young man begins to find you interesting, and not be taken by surprise.’

  Her tone of voice was encouraging, but it increased Grace’s embarrassment. She did not want to find herself surrounded by admirers. All she wanted was Andy safe home again.

  Her hunger for his presence, or at the very least for news, drove her to call again at the lodge on her way home from work the next day. The first thing she saw when she was invited in was a letter from Andy flattened out on the table. But his parents, instead of looking pleased to have heard from him, seemed gloomy and at first disinclined to talk. Only when Grace asked a direct question did Mrs Frith find her voice.

  ‘Yes, we had a letter today, and no pleasure in it, I can tell you. These Frenchies! Andy was always a good boy. He’d never have got into this sort of trouble if she’d been a decent sort of girl.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The maddymoselle or whatever she calls herself.’

  ‘She saved him from being taken prisoner,’ Mr Frith reminded his wife, trying to calm her down without disagreeing.

  ‘And now she’s making him pay for it. Imposing on his good nature, I call it. He should have stopped to think about us. He must have known that we couldn’t be doing with a foreigner in the family.’

  ‘In the family? What’s happened? What has he done?’

  ‘He’s gone and married the Frenchy girl,’ said Mr Frith. ‘Because he had to. It’s done, and that’s the end of it. No good getting ourselves into a stew about it now.’

  ‘What do you mean by saying that he had to marry her?’

  There was an awkward silence. It was impossible for Grace to tell whether the subject was considered unfit for her ears or merely too discreditable to Andy.

  ‘Because she’s going to have a baby,’ Mrs Frith said at last. ‘Andy’s baby. That’s what. I know it’s a terrible thing for an unmarried girl to have a baby, but she should have thought of that earlier, shouldn’t she? She’s had her mother and grandmother and the priest and the schoolteacher and heaven knows who else all telling her she’s got to marry the father or else she’ll go to hell. What else could Andy do? He’s not happy about it – we can tell that from his letter. But he’s made his bed and he’ll have to lie on it.’

  Grace was unable to speak. What else was there to be said? At any other time her silent departure might have led the Friths to suspect the truth, but on this occasion she could feel sure that they were too deeply upset on their own account. Forgetting the bicycle which she had leaned against the cottage wall, she ran across the meadow and into the wood, where nobody could see her cry.

  But the wood was full of Andy. Here as a boy he had planted seeds to grow a miniature forest. Here he had held her hand to comfort her on the day when Pepper was killed. Here, beside the boulders, he had kissed her. Grace had been sure that he would love her for ever, as she would love him. And perhaps he did still love her – but what was the use of that, if he was married to someone else? Angry and hurt and miserable, she paced up and down beside the stream until all her tears had been shed.

  Only when at last she felt that she could behave normally did she walk stiffl
y up to Greystones, keeping her eyes away from the young oak tree which Andy had planted as an acorn to reach to her tower window. Was there nowhere she could go without being reminded of him?

  Her mother came out into the hall to greet her.

  ‘There’s a letter for you, Grace.’

  It was the letter which she had been awaiting for months. Her mother would know who had written it because the writer’s name could be read on the top of the envelope, under the censor’s stamp.

  Grace stared down at the silver tray on which it lay, but did not touch it. ‘I’ll look at it later,’ she said with an indifference which a few hours earlier would have been a pretence. There were questions to be asked, but she must wait for a moment when her mother would be receptive. Meanwhile, she rehearsed in her mind what she wanted to be told. Later that evening, not knowing how to lead up to it, she broached the subject abruptly.

  ‘I’d like to know about babies,’ she said. ‘How do they come?’ Her pale cheeks reddened with the embarrassment of a forbidden topic.

  Her mother did not meet her eyes, but bent her head over the khaki sock she was knitting for Philip.

  ‘When you’re ready to get married –’ she began. But Grace, not usually irritable, was barely in control of her emotions and determined to be given an answer.

  ‘Why do you treat me like a child? I’m almost eighteen. I ought to know these things.’

  Mrs Hardie raised her head and considered the question.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ she said at last. ‘When I married your father, I didn’t know what to expect. That was my own fault, of course, because I ran away from home before anyone had thought that it was time to talk to me. I remember, when our first baby was on the way …’ She paused, and it was Grace who broke the silence.