by Amy Myers
The day was warm for September, and Isabel decided it justified her wearing the new light voile gown that she had purchased to compensate for the loss of all her baggage in France. The light, open-sided T-bar shoes she had chosen flattered her feet but made each step agony along the uneven stony paths to the farm, and the worn-down field paths where each spike of dried-out grass seemed to select her white silk stockings for its target. Few of the hop-pickers recognised her, rather to her chagrin. Most of them were East-Enders or other foreigners intent on their own raucous songs, shouts and guffaws, as they sat with bines across their knees, nimbly stripping off the hops – or, in the case of the men, it seemed, standing by and leaving the task to the women. She suddenly realised with a throb of excitement that George would be hard to find amid this rabble and that would mean – after all, why not? She was Robert’s wife.
‘Where will I find Mr Eliot?’ she demanded of the first Ashdenian she could see – she had a vague idea it might have been a Mutter. He certainly wasn’t very polite. A jerk of the thumb and the barest gesture of removing his filthy cap were all she received. He was, however, accurate. Following the direction of the thumb, she saw Frank Eliot at the gate to the next field. He was looking at his pocket watch, and certainly had not seen her, so that panther lounge was natural, not for her benefit. She longed for him to look up and walk to her. It wasn’t her place to approach him. Except of course in case of emergency like the borrowing of the milk. He had been most polite then, most helpful, though all the while she had had an annoying feeling that he was somehow mocking her.
He did look up. Naturally she didn’t notice, and naturally he was walking towards her to greet her. She would speak first, though she would take a long time deciding to do so – until he was almost up to her. But he did not wait for her to speak.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Swinford-Browne. I’m honoured.’ He swept off his boater – how unsuitable for a farm manager. She would speak to Robert.
She gave a theatrical start. ‘You did give me a fright.’ She managed to imply he would be forgiven.
‘My apologies.’ He ran his eye over her, reflecting how strange it was that she was Miss Phoebe’s sister: Miss Phoebe who looked so provocative and yet was so innocent, and this one, who pretended to be so aloof and dignified and yet – he was sure – was deliberately placing herself in his path. True, her husband was a weak sort of fellow, but he was his employer’s son. Frank was torn between wishing to avoid trouble and the feeling that Mrs Isabel should be taught a lesson, for everyone’s sake. If she didn’t choose to learn it, then his conscience would be clear, he decided. Quite what he’d do then, if anything, he didn’t know. Meanwhile: ‘I came to pay my respects, ma’am. I expect you are looking for young George. I will escort you.’
‘Thank you. I’m interested in my father-in-law’s concerns.’
She enjoyed her feeling of power as the hoppers in the alleyways, some of which were already cleared of their hops, made way for them. Every so often Mr Eliot would scoop a child up under his arm and place it firmly to the side, or even on occasion into the huge hessian bins used for the picked hops, whence the child was quickly pulled out.
‘They don’t like that. It presses the hops down too much, and they have to hover them up again before the measurer comes round.’
‘Indeed.’ It was double-Dutch to Isabel, who picked her way, smiling at the seated women when she remembered, but always conscious of the man at her side.
‘Smell Mrs Swinford-Browne,’ he said suddenly, picking a hop from a bine still on its wire.
‘I can, thank you.’ The air was heavy with their acrid, heavy smell. It made her feel trapped within it, repelling yet robbing her of the ability to walk away.
‘Smell it.’ It was an order, and he thrust it beneath her nose.
‘Very nice,’ she managed to say stiltedly.
‘It lulls your senses.’ His voice grew soft. ‘Like a woman.’
She gave a cry of outrage, but he apparently didn’t hear for he was surrounded by a group of hoppers. She stood to one side, showing her impatience at being ignored. Not for long.
To her horror, one of the hoppers, a huge, rough giant of a man, made a sudden swoop towards her, and she found herself swept up and suspended over one of the large bins of hops, to the great delight of the hoppers who gathered round shrieking with laughter.
‘Footshoe money,’ he shouted, foul breath hitting her in the face, ‘or I drop you in, missis.’
‘Put me down!’ Tears of anger welled up. ‘Mr Eliot, order him to put me down.’ But to her fury he made no move, despite the apparently shocked expression on his face.
‘More than my job’s worth, Mrs Swinford-Browne. Can’t go against the old custom. Mr Swinford-Browne knows that. You’re a stranger here, and you didn’t stop to have your shoes rubbed with hops before you walked the fields. That means you have to contribute to the hop party fund.’
She longed to refuse, but from her humiliating position was quite unable to do so. ‘Very well, I will. Put me down first.’
To the crowd’s cheering she was promptly replaced on the ground, and the ridiculous boater was waved in front of her. She fumbled in her handbag and dropped one of the new paper notes in it to a round of clapping.
The crowd drifted away, and she stared icily at Frank Eliot. ‘You will pay for this, Mr Eliot.’
He bent down and picked up the crushed hop spray. ‘You look after these hops from the day they’re planted, building up the hills round them, protecting them from the wilt and mould, like little babies, and then they grow, twining themselves round their poles and wires, ensnaring your heart with their young beauty and their fresh green leaves. A poor man has no say in it. He just hears their call, like Odysseus did those sirens.’
‘You’re mocking me!’ Isabel cried angrily, unable to believe it.
‘Me? I wouldn’t dare, Mrs Swinford-Browne. I’m just a farmer.’
He looked so startled, she almost believed him, but she was saved from answering by George’s indignant shout. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
She hurried gratefully towards him.
Frank Eliot watched her go, regretting that the Almighty had so arranged it that those to whom one’s body was attracted did not necessarily exercise the same appeal over the mind, and grateful that her position probably put the matter out of his control anyway.
‘My cinema. My palace.’ William Swinford-Browne complacently viewed his kingdom to be. No one had got the better of him in Ashden, not even his own son. All this balderdash about wanting to volunteer, even after he’d seen the casualty lists. No, he was still intent on breaking his mother’s heart.
Nor had Isabel made any headway with him. Love’s young dream did not seem to be working out to madam’s satisfaction. He wished he had the training of her. It was either money or the marriage bed causing the trouble. It couldn’t be the first so it looked as if Robert was not giving her what she needed. That was his diagnosis, and the young fool proposed to deal with the problem by running away to war. William couldn’t allow that, especially since Edith would promptly take over Hop House for refugees so that she could kick them out of The Towers, and that would mean moving Isabel in with them. William did not fancy this arrangement. She would be too close in every way. Sex was one thing, but personal security was another. He had had a narrow squeak with Ruth Horner, and did not propose to be caught out again. He’d take his amusement in London in future, well away from home ground.
Turning to more pleasant thoughts, he began to wander round the two cottages. Hovels is what he’d call them. One was empty, the other full of lumber. He’d told the Thorns to get rid of it by the end of the week. Then he’d tear the cottages down and in their place would arise a palace of white plaster and black beams, with a clock tower built in the centre. Ashden needed a village clock. That would show the Lilleys. He’d arrange for it to strike half a minute after the church clock, or perhaps before would be more subtle. Here s
hortly Charlie Chaplin would be delighting the whole of Ashden, and they’d be grateful to him, William Swinford-Browne. To think that Matilda Lilley had thought she could get the better of him. He didn’t usually have much time for doctors, but the fellow who had pointed out that one in two women went mad in middle age had his full support.
In Tunbridge Wells Matilda Lilley was reading The Times in the morning room. At her side were the ancient suitcases that accompanied her peripatetic life. She looked up as the door opened, expecting to see the butler, but it was Lord Banning.
‘Er - there appears to be a cab at the door for you.’
‘That is correct. I must apologise. I had thought you were away, Lord Banning. You must now consider me most impolite in leaving without thanking you for your hospitality.’
‘No. I was wondering why you were going, that’s all.’
Tilly was surprised. ‘Now Penelope has left, naturally I presumed that you –’
‘You are concerned for your reputation?’
‘Of course not.’ She had been going to continue, ‘for yours,’ but then realised she could hardly say this without putting herself in the role of ‘helpless womanly woman’. From his quizzical expression she also realised that he both appreciated this dilemma and had engineered it. It amused her. ‘Lord Banning, I have imposed on your hospitality long enough,’ she told him.
‘That is not for you to say, Miss Lilley. Now that Penelope has left, I should be grateful for your continued presence. I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.’
The words seemed familiar, and after a moment she recalled Shaw’s Pygmalion. She spoke briskly. ‘So, Lord Banning, have the police, and I shall not diminish the number of their opportunities.’
‘I understood Mrs Pankhurst had suspended suffragist activity. And pray, Miss Lilley, do not grasp that suitcase handle so firmly. The footman would take it as a slight to his professional status.’ He took the case from her hand and set it down.
‘That is so. But Christabel Pankhurst has made their attitude quite clear. I heard her speak in the London Opera House. If the Kaiser were to win this war, all hope of the vote for women would be lost. Besides, we have sought for a long time to be regarded as men’s equals in our daily lives. It follows we must be part of this war; if not marching with the troops then doing everything we can to support them, and to encourage them to go.’
‘Help recruitment, you mean?’
‘Certainly. Too many men will do nothing – it is their nature – unless shamed into going by their womenfolk.’
‘And what of those who do not believe in violence, Miss Lilley? And pray do sit down. I feel I am at a public meeting, and I cannot sit unless you will.’
Against her will she laughed, and obeyed, recognising a foe who, although he did not use her weapons, was worthy of her mettle. ‘You want me to say there is a difference between fighting to defend the cause of right and fighting on the offensive, so that you can point out there were no such moral issues when I burned churches. I won’t oblige you, Lord Banning. I merely say I must help beat the enemy by encouraging recruitment at the moment and, when I am completely well, by using any and all means at my disposal.’
‘You’re not looking your best,’ he agreed. ‘I daresay Holloway is to blame.’
‘Do not tease me, Lord Banning, if you please. I assure you that aspiring to be a womanly woman is not part of my convalescence. Planning how other women are to be made a little less wretched is.’
‘I assure you, Miss Lilley, that working for the WSPU, the Women’s Emergency Corps, the Women’s Convoy Corps, the FANYs, the Women’s National Service League, or any of the other thousand or so organisations now fighting for the war effort, has no bearing on whether or not you are a womanly woman.’
‘And what has? The trailing of admirers calling at my door – or rather your door – with bouquets of flowers?’
‘No.’ He smiled at her.
‘What then?’ she asked, impatient with such trivialities.
‘Yourself alone. The same imp of self that has sent my daughter galloping off on her white metaphorical charger to Serbia with Lady Paget’s mission.’
Tilly trod carefully on this delicate ground. ‘It must be a great worry to you, Lord Banning, but she is a resourceful as well as a brave girl.’
He said nothing for a moment, pressing the tips of his fingers together in a clichéd gesture, she noticed. Whatever would come would be a diplomatic cover over deep water. ‘Her decision was made on humanitarian grounds, to help the Serbs, not the cause of women’s role in society. Male surgeons accompany the unit. Leila – Lady Paget – was the most unlikely person, so it seemed, to have organised such an enterprise. But that was a verdict I made based on my acquaintance with her before the war. Now everything and everyone must be reappraised in the light of changed circumstances. We are all called to our personal colours, Miss Lilley. Therefore how can I presume to comment on yours? And in such a spirit I suggest you remain under my roof.’
Tilly eyed him doubtfully – and took up the challenge. ‘You are kind indeed, Lord Banning. I shall remain – regardless of our joint reputations – until my activities displease you.’
‘Then I may send the cab away?’
‘You may.’
‘I have in fact already done so. A glass of sherry, Miss Lilley?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘He is still missing.’ Felicia sat on the edge of her bed on the Monday evening. ‘Sir John can’t tell me anything other than that it’s hard to get information with the army across the Marne and on the move. I suppose it’s encouraging –’ her voice trembled for the first time – ‘that he’s not on the casualty lists for the first four weeks, but then I remember that the new lists are only for those lost during the Marne battles. Daniel was lost much earlier and if there were terrible news it wouldn’t now be in the lists. So Sir John says,’ she added forlornly.
‘He might be a prisoner.’ It was hard for Caroline to sound positive about this, faced as she was with Felicia’s stoical attitude, and feeling all the worse because of her own relatively good news about Reggie.
‘No. He’s lost – at least to me.’
Caroline longed to ask how Felicia could be so sure, but she knew it would be no use. Felicia probably did not know herself, so how could she explain? If it were Reggie, she too might have that certain knowledge. Caroline pushed that fear away; it prowled in circles round her continuously, kept away by the bright camp-fire of her own determination. If she let her guard down, the nightmare would close in. The idea that had been formulating in her own mind, however, suddenly gained strength. What if Felicia were to come too? That might prove the way for her to endure this time of terrible suspense. ‘Felicia,’ she urged, convinced she was right. ‘You remember I told you the Red Cross are asking for volunteers to travel with Mrs St Clair Stobart to set up hospitals for the wounded in Antwerp. I want to apply, so why don’t you come too?’
‘Me?’ It was hard to tell Felicia’s reaction from her tone.
‘I know what we are doing in the Royal Herbert is valuable work and that we have to be trained, but someone will be needed to scrub basins and empty bed-pans there too. Why not us, if the Red Cross would sanction it? Just as Reggie and Daniel felt they ought to go abroad to fight the enemy, so should we. If women are equal to men, we too should go to the front line, even if we’re not carrying muskets. Lots of this year’s debutantes have already gone abroad. The Munro Corps is leaving at any moment for Belgium, taking an ambulance unit. Lady Dorothie Fielding is going with it – remember her? – and one girl, Mairi Chisholm, is your age, eighteen.’
Felicia said nothing but Caroline could see she was listening, and grew even more enthusiastic.
‘I’m going to apply, Felicia. That way I feel I’m standing at Reggie’s side. Mrs St Clair Stobart is leaving on the 20th, and I’m determined to be with her. Do come. We could even suggest it to Eleanor.’ They had been amaze
d to hear that Eleanor had actually defied the Gorgon and offered her services as a VAD in Tunbridge Wells, and was just about to get her initial certificate in first aid.
Felicia spoke at last. ‘Yes, ‘I’ll come if they’ll have me. It will be one way of shouting “No” to the Kaiser, just as Daniel did.’ She jumped off the bed. ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘Elizabeth.’ Laurence didn’t stop to ask if she were busy this time. He almost ran into the boudoir to find her; as usual she was surrounded by heaps and heaps of knitted garments donated by enthusiastic volunteers, ranging from scarves that could have enfolded entire platoons from their length, gloves, ‘comforters’, and baby clothes for sailors’ wives. Why the latter should be particularly necessary now was a matter of bewilderment to Elizabeth, but she had obediently followed Edith Swinford-Browne’s excited instructions. ‘I have the strangest news from Sir John.’
‘News of Daniel?’ Elizabeth dropped the pile of comforters.
‘No. Maud has disappeared.’
‘What?’ Elizabeth sat down faintly in the basket chair, conjuring up an image of a pantomime Maud vanishing in a puff of smoke.
‘Eleanor returned from her first aid course after three days away to find her mother gone, and the staff ignorant as to her whereabouts. Sir John is alarmed for her sanity.’
‘You mean suicide?’ Elizabeth was blunt. ‘No, Laurence, Maud is not of such stuff as that.’