The Soldier's Return

by Rose Meddon

  Eventually, she’d had no choice but to get up. Going to great lengths to avoid everyone, she had busied herself with clearing away meals, washing up in the scullery, and then, later, slipping out to scurry away across the lawn and take a walk under the cover of the wooded lanes. None of it was sufficient to take her mind from Rowley, though. Moreover, all the while the matter between them remained unresolved, she knew that nothing would.

  Clearly, she couldn’t marry him. But neither could she bring herself to tell him that, which had to be why she felt such guilt. It was tensing her limbs. It was strangling her throat. And it was contorting her insides to the point where she couldn’t have eaten anything even had she wanted to. In addition, there was the guilt she felt at having accompanied him down to the beach in the first place. And the guilt she felt for having let him take her hands. And for having stood there and heard him out – led him to think that she might just say yes. Layer upon layer upon layer of guilt.

  Most of all, there was the guilt she felt for agreeing to consider him when she wasn’t free to do so. She was in mourning, for heaven’s sake. And there was another thing: what sort of woman cast off her mourning gown simply because she was fed up with it making her look miserable? She was supposed to be miserable – her husband had been blown to pieces on the battlefield. He deserved to be mourned – properly – for his sacrifice.

  Yes, hers was a blanket of guilt that showed no signs of lifting. In fact, when, having somehow made it through the day, she opened her eyes the following morning, it felt as though under cover of darkness, her guilt had simply doubled its weight. Completely worn down by it – crippled by it – she didn’t even attempt to get out of bed. Instead, she curled into a ball and stayed there, completely lost to know what to do.

  The first person to come in search of her was Naomi.

  ‘What can I get you?’ she asked, perching on the side of the bed, her voice gentle.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re not hungry? You wouldn’t like a nice cup of tea to get you going?’

  ‘I don’t want to get going. I don’t see the point.’ Feeling Naomi’s hand coming to rest upon the eiderdown, she felt mean for sounding ungrateful. But she didn’t want to be coaxed from her mood. What she wanted was to unravel everything that had happened down on the beach, such that she might be freed from her shame: to have a clear conscience; to be facing some sort of life on her own, perhaps here, in Woodicombe, where no one would expect anything of her and there would be a natural order to things – an order she understood.

  ‘I know how it must feel—’

  ‘No,’ she said from under the covers. ‘You don’t.’

  ‘No. You’re right,’ she heard Naomi reply. ‘I don’t know at all. I know how I felt when Lawrence came back, so different to the man I knew – so brutally changed and unreachable. But at least he came back. And he is getting better. Going forward from here, things between us will be different to how I once imagined them – less certain. But, while he might no longer be the steady and competent man I married, neither is he quite so stiff and so buttoned-up. And that can only be a good thing. So, no, I can’t imagine what you must be going through. What’s worse, I don’t know how to help you, either. I could say something trite, like Mamma would, about time being the best healer, but I wouldn’t insult you. Aunt Diana would know what to say. But she’s not here.’

  ‘Please, Naomi,’ Kate said, folding back the cover for just long enough to look at her. ‘Go and take care of Mr Lawrence… and Esme and Ned. Ain’t nothing you can do for me, but you can see to it they’re all right.’

  From Naomi she heard a long sigh. And then she felt her get up from the bed.

  ‘Well, I’ll look back in on you later. In the meantime, try to get some sleep – I can see that you haven’t had any.’

  The next person to arrive – after what seemed to Kate to be an interval of about twenty minutes – was Mabel.

  ‘It’s the shock, love,’ she said, setting a tray on the occasional table and then, clearing a space on the nightstand first, bringing across a cup of tea. ‘Does strange things to a person, shock does. The moment you think you’ve seen the worst of it, and think you’re getting back to normal, you realize there’s no such thing as normal any more. And that’s when it hits you all over again.’

  Slowly, Kate pushed back her covers. Even more slowly, she raised herself up. Mabel was right. She had thought she was getting over it. Perhaps then, she reflected, brushing back handfuls of her hair, what she was feeling had as much to do with losing Luke as it did with Rowley’s proposal. Perhaps, with Rowley offering her a way to move on with her life, it was forcing her to accept that Luke truly wasn’t coming back. Perhaps, as much as feeling guilt, her feelings were down to shock – were more muddled than she had realized.

  ‘I just wish…’ But, having started, she felt unable to finish.

  ‘I know, love,’ Mabel said, reaching for her hand. ‘It’s terrible, terrible hard. But, take it from me, it does get better.’

  She looked back at Mabel’s face. ‘Does it?’

  ‘I lost a son and I lost a husband. Not a day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about one or other of them – oftentimes both. But, not only are you a good deal younger than I was, with a chance to one day start over, you’ve a good many folk who care about you, and who won’t let you struggle on alone.’

  Slowly, she nodded. ‘I know. And I feel selfish for wallowing like this, truly I do.’

  Picking up her hand, Mabel gave it a squeeze. ‘There’s no need to feel selfish.’

  ‘It’s not just that, it’s…’ But, with Mabel looking back at her, Kate knew she couldn’t say what was really on her mind, which was, in essence, that someone had already proposed a way for her to start over – but that she felt guilty for even entertaining the idea, no matter how briefly.

  ‘Go on, love. It’s not just what?’

  In a wave of panic at realizing how close she had come to confessing the true reason why she was unable to drag herself out of bed and get on with things, she shook her head and stared down at the bedspread. ‘No,’ she mumbled, ‘it’s nothing.’

  ‘All right, then. Well, drink your tea, and I’ll pop up later and see if you want something to eat.’

  Once Mabel had left, though, Kate felt even worse: now she had added lying to her list of transgressions. Whatever was she going to do? These feelings wouldn’t go away on their own: to be rid of them was going to require action on her part. But, what to do?

  Swinging her legs down to the floor, she padded across to the window and drew back the curtains. The vibrancy of the colours beyond them came as a shock. Rather than being the sort of grey and dreary day that befitted her mood, the sky was the most summery of turquoises, the newly-mown lawns bore emerald stripes, and the mid-morning sunshine was picking out a flash of ruby-red among the rhododendrons: Pa Channer’s neckerchief; rain or shine, he never set to work without it.

  Watching as he moved about in the dark foliage, she felt the stirrings of an idea: she would go and see Ma Channer again. Not only did she listen without judgement, she was discreet. And, given that there wasn’t much she didn’t know about a woman’s nature, she might have some advice.

  * * *

  ‘Very well,’ Ma Channer indeed commented once Kate had confessed to being in a turmoil over a proposal she had received. ‘What troubles you most about it? That you felt obliged to turn it down? Or that you’re minded not to?’

  Once again seated at the Channer’s kitchen table, Kate realized that she felt less tense than she had in days. By rights, she ought to feel haunted – ought to feel as though within these walls, Luke was able to hear what she was saying. Maybe that was even what she had been hoping for when she had thought to come here – that she would get some sign of approval from him. But the truth was that she felt nothing of him at all. The smells were familiar enough: lavender drying in bunches on the rack; lamb stewing in the pot; a faint dampness from be
neath the floorboards. And the sounds were familiar too – sparrows chirping in the yard and the slow ticking of the clock on the mantel. But, of Luke, she sensed no presence whatsoever.

  ‘Neither of them things,’ she replied.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I just feel immense guilt to even be considering marrying someone else so soon after Luke’s passing—’

  ‘Natural.’

  ‘—and at how upset Ro— the person who proposed to me is going to be when I must say no.’

  ‘Tell me, love,’ Ma Channer said, looking directly at her. ‘Why it is that you feel bound to say no.’

  ‘Well, Luke and my obvious state of widowhood aside,’ she said, the fact striking her as sufficient reason by itself. ‘Because… the person in question… and his folks… are far above my station. They’re academics.’ Once uttered, the word seemed to hang accusingly. Belatedly, she hoped it meant what she had come to suppose it did.

  ‘Look, love, purely for the ease of it, what say you we give this poor fellow a name – save us skirting the matter of who he is? What say you we call him… Frank?’

  Having until then been pressing her lips together in thought, her amusement burst from between them with unexpected force. ‘All right,’ she said, unable to stop giggling. ‘I’ve had a proposal of marriage from Frank. And not only do I feel guilty that he should think of me like that and want to wed me, I feel guilty that I’ve yet to turn him down.’

  ‘Aye, girl,’ Loveday Channer said. ‘But what I’m more interested to know is why you think you should? Turn him down, that is.’

  ‘Because I promised I would be true to Luke—’

  ‘And you were.’

  ‘And he promised to be true to me.’

  ‘He did. And, so far as I know, you both kept your promises. But now he’s not coming back. So, tell me, what else is going on in that head of yours? Is this supposed matter of your folks being so different of concern to him, as well as to you? Did he say, “I would ask you to marry me, but our folks are too different”?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, of course not. Nothing like that.’

  ‘So, if the differences between your family and his are of no concern to him, then why do they trouble you?’

  ‘Because I just can’t see me being a part of his sort of a life—’

  ‘Pah! I doubt you’ve even tried seeing it – else you’d be telling me just what it is in particular that you can’t see. Do you like this feller – this Frank?’

  At the mention of Frank, Kate still couldn’t help laughing. If ever there was someone who didn’t look, sound, or act like a Frank, it had to be Rowley. ‘I don’t know him well enough to answer that.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! When you look upon him, do your breath catch in your chest?’

  ‘Ye-es…’

  ‘And before all this business with his proposal, did you lay in your bed come nightfall a-thinking of him?’

  ‘I tried my best not to.’

  ‘And when he asked you to wed him, was your instinct – your very first thought deep inside of you, not the one in your head – to say yes to him?’

  She forced herself to swallow. How to answer that? ‘Um…’

  ‘I’ll take that as more properly being a yes.’

  Ma Channer was right. Her first instinct had been to wish that she felt able to accept him; his advance, although wildly unexpected, had made her feel warm and thrilled and delighted. And wanting to say yes. But had that just been down to relief – a way out of her situation, or even a sort of balm to her grief over Luke?

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered nonetheless. ‘I wanted to say yes.’

  ‘Then you must fathom what stopped you, and find a way to accept this young man. For surely ’tis better to marry someone you’re drawn to liking now, than to one day marry out of necessity, and risk ending up with a pig in a poke.’

  Laughing yet again, Kate felt as though her load was lightening. And when, almost an hour later, she was back in her room, her guilt felt to be giving way to a sense of purpose. Ma Channer had helped her to see that the question ahead of her had nothing to do with Luke. Luke was gone; he couldn’t be offended or upset by what she chose to do next. In fact, as Loveday Channer – his own mother – had pointed out to her, he would want only that she should find a way to be happy. Were he able to give it, she would have his blessing to move on with her life rather than waste it or spend it living with regret. According to Ma Channer, she should confine herself to considering only whether “this Frank fellow” was the man to whom she truly wanted to pledge the rest of her life. That, she had said, was the only decision she now faced. And the truth was that eventually, and despite Naomi’s assurances about her being able to continue living with them for as long as she wanted, she was going to need a life of her own. And for her, as an unskilled young woman without private means, that meant finding a husband. On that score, Ma Channer was right again: better a man she liked and respected. But that didn’t mean she should just go into it willy-nilly. Surely, she should only consider the idea if she could more properly acquaint herself with Rowley’s thoughts and views – and get to know him a good deal better than she did at the moment. “Tell him,” Ma Channer in her wisdom had urged, “that you need to know more about what it is he’s offering you. And tell him also that, in return for his honesty and his patience, you will consider him on the same basis.”

  Crossing to the window, she stared out over the gardens. Pa Channer had gone now, but she could just pick out where he had left his mattock leaning against the trunk of a tree. Now he would be eating the lamb stew that had been simmering on the stove, with potatoes, and carrots fresh from the kitchen garden.

  With a thoughtful sigh, she turned back into the room. She had been right to go and see Ma Channer. She talked sense. It was a Channer trait.

  Glancing about, her eyes came to rest upon the floral dress she had worn for Mr Lawrence’s tea party. She wouldn’t wear it again yet; she would remain in her mourning, the feel of the stiff crepe reminding her not to act in a manner that she might later come to regard as foolish or rash. That said, she would find a way to talk to Rowley – but not down on the beach, or indeed, anywhere else that was out of sight of other people. No, she would ask him, in a plain and straightforward manner, to tell her more about himself. And then she would try to work out whether or not she should accept his proposal.

  * * *

  ‘So, now we just have to wait. And hope for the best.’

  Listening to Naomi speaking, Kate shifted her weight upon her chair. How selfish to have become so wrapped up with her own affairs that she hadn’t noticed what had been going on elsewhere in the house. Mr Lawrence had been called before a medical board and, just yesterday, had travelled to Exeter to have his fitness assessed for return to duty – and she hadn’t known a thing about it. And now, probably at this very moment, the panel before whom he had appeared were discussing his fate. No wonder Naomi had asked her to join her for coffee – the poor woman had to be worried half to death: Mr Lawrence could be heading back to the front.

  ‘I didn’t realize,’ she said, rueing that she hadn’t known earlier.

  Beside her, Naomi replaced her cup on its saucer. ‘Why would you have?’ Thankfully, her tone contained neither judgement nor recrimination. ‘You’ve had quite enough on your mind without having me bend your ear with my concerns. Truly, I had no intention of adding to your woes. Besides, by comparison, my fears are far more modest.’ I haven’t lost my husband, was the inference Kate drew from her words.

  It was the morning after Kate had been to see Loveday Channer and, sitting on the terrace with Naomi, she was growing more and more unsettled to discover just how much she had missed. Without her realizing it, Rowley had also gone somewhere – and had yet to return. According to Naomi, he had “…said something about having to go somewhere to see somebody about something”. What on earth use was that to her? Could Naomi be any more vague? The only thing she could think was
that he had gone to see someone in the RAF regarding the letter he’d received about his next post. Perhaps he had gone to try and find out more about the job in Gloucestershire. Perhaps he had gone to accept it. Being only able to presume – knowing nothing for certain about a matter of such importance – made her feel restless and fidgety. The only thing she could think to do – just as soon as she could get away from Naomi – was to go and see Ned. He might know what Rowley was up to.

  For now, she must turn her mind back to Mr Lawrence.

  ‘So, where does Mr Lawrence think he’ll be sent, then?’ she asked Naomi, recalling what they had been more properly discussing.

  ‘He has no idea. I’ve asked him over and over whether they gave any clue as to their leanings, but he says only that they gave no hint whatsoever. The only comfort I can draw from any of this is that when he was first assessed – you remember, when I went with him to Wiltshire – it seemed they did at least consider him unfit to return to the front. There was, I believe, talk of desk jobs with no downward chain of command. Were that to be the outcome, I shouldn’t mind at all. The trouble is, Lawrence would. He’d mind terribly. If it transpires that he’s headed for an office, he’ll fight tooth and nail to get them to change their minds.’

  Listening to Naomi talking, Kate was inclined to agree. Since his return from Priory Glen, Mr Lawrence seemed lively and purposeful – at times possibly even overly so. But, equally, he had moments of reflection, too, talking often of how he hoped to be allowed to return to his men. As Ned had separately remarked, though, how many of the men Lawrence had in mind would still be there? Either way, being informed that he was to remain in England, especially behind a desk, would devastate him. Poor Naomi; for her, both possible outcomes had the makings of a disaster.