Lorimers at War

by Anne Melville

  Later, though, she lay awake in the darkness, listening to the noises of the night – the croaking of frogs, the rustling of the wind in the reeds, the gentle tapping of the willow trees against the canvas, the rippling of the river over the stones near the bank. How much longer, she asked herself, would her nurses be safe? Behind them was an advancing enemy army and in front of them was a country in anarchy. The hand-to-mouth existence they had been leading during the past three months had been only just tolerable in summer: how could they hope to survive a Russian winter in such conditions? There was talk of famine, and Kate believed this to be well-founded.

  All the nurses had been serving abroad for more than a year. They deserved to have leave, but they would know as well as she did that if they went back to England it would not be merely for a holiday: they would never return. In those circumstances many of them no doubt would be willing to stay on a little longer, but as Kate considered the situation it seemed to her that a choice which might exist now would very soon disappear. At the moment the sea route from the Crimea was still open, and foreign nationals were being taken out of the country, although no Russians were allowed to leave. But the unit was being pressed steadily further north. Very soon it might become impossible to reach Odessa or Sevastopol: very soon there might be no more ships.

  What disturbed Kate most was the unexpected change in attitude of the Russians towards the nurses. Always before, their profession by itself had been enough to earn them respect, quite apart from the fact that they were women. But in the last few weeks she had been aware of a change. Deserters would rob anyone they met unprotected on the road, and serving soldiers showed no chivalry in grabbing for food or shelter. If their uniforms no longer protected the women, it was difficult to see how else they could be made safe.

  The nurses were not, of course, Kate’s only responsibility. She must think of her patients as well. But during this evening’s round she had counted that out of forty-three Russian patients, thirty-seven had self-inflicted wounds. They had chosen with some care where to shoot themselves, so none of the wounds was likely to prove dangerous. Kate had given them the treatment they needed and in the circumstances it seemed reasonable that they should be handed back to the care of the Russian Army. Her own unit, after all, had been directed specifically to the care of the Serbs. There were so few of these left that she could take care of their wounded alone, and could count on the protection of the fit survivors.

  All this time, she realized, she was taking it for granted that she herself would stay. The assumption was an important one, and she forced herself to examine it. Why should she not take the chance to escape from a country which held as much danger for herself as for the nurses? The answer was confused, even paradoxical. She was able to accept the chaos around her as an inevitable – and temporary – result of changing a complete social order: she still had the same ideals, the same vision of a new society, which had so much excited her in Petrograd, and would be grateful for any opportunity to contribute to the task of reform. Stronger even than idealism, though, was her love for the man whom those ideals had turned into a fugitive. If she could have seen any way of taking Vladimir to safety, she would not have hesitated to do so. But this same society in which she had so much faith kept him a prisoner inside his own country; and as long as he had to stay, she would stay with him.

  Perhaps it was not paradox after all, merely a double reason for a decision which had really been made by her emotions and not by her reason at all. As the long hours of the night passed and the current of the river flowed and splashed only a few feet away, she forced herself to think the decision through, to be sure that she understood all its implications.

  The task was impossible. There could be no assurances in a period when history itself did not know which direction it was taking. Only uncertainty was certain. As far as consequences were concerned, she must assume the worst and decide whether she could accept them. The sky was lightening now as her sleepless night came to an end. Without disturbing Vladimir she slipped out of the tent and sat down on the river bank a little way away. There was a chill in the air, and frost had touched the spiders’ webs: winter would soon be here. Remembering the last two winters, she could not help shivering and for a moment or two it was difficult not to feel melancholy as in her mind she said goodbye to the past. Never again would she feel herself wrapped in the balmy air of her tropical birthplace. Her father would die, and she would have no chance to say goodbye. Would she ever visit Blaize again, to see Margaret growing old and the younger members of the family growing up? Perhaps it would be possible one day, when this time of upheaval was over; but if her choice now was to be sincere she must tell herself that no, she would never return. She gave a sharp nod of her head, a gesture to mark the promise to herself that there would be no regrets.

  ‘Is it decided, then?’

  Startled, she turned and saw Vladimir leaning against a tree. How long, she wondered, had he been watching her?

  ‘Is what decided?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘How should I know? But there is something, I know that. For two days I have watched you balancing arguments in your mind.’ He came to sit beside her on the bank, pulling a reed and dangling it to trouble the surface of the river. Without interrupting, he listened while Kate detailed her plans.

  ‘So your nurses will return to England. But you have not spoken of yourself.’

  ‘I shall stay, of course.’

  ‘All the dangers you have recognized, the dangers which you wish the others to escape, will still face you. And the ships which will take them away would have room for you.’

  ‘But not for you. Vladimir, do you believe that there’s any frontier you can safely cross? Can you think of any way in which you can leave the country?’

  Vladimir shook his head.

  ‘Well then, there’s no choice. I won’t go without you.’

  ‘It may be for ever,’ said Vladimir. ‘If you stay now, you may never see your own country again. Or your family, all the people you love in England.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve had to put my family into the balance. But I love you. However I hold the scales, the fact that I love you weighs down all the rest.’

  He took hold of her shoulders and pressed her back on the ground, kissing her passionately. Then he raised himself a little, so that Kate could look up at his face, framed by the golden lattice of the willows above.

  ‘And I love you,’ he said. ‘Katya, will you be my wife?’

  ‘I’m your wife already.’

  ‘I mean, in the old way. With a certificate.’

  ‘Is it possible?’ asked Kate.

  ‘It’s possible to try. The people in these little towns we pass are frightened, ready to run if the Germans come any nearer. Everything is unsettled, so we should be believed if we claim that we ourselves have had to abandon our home and friends. You will have to be the wife of Belinsky, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Shall I have to show my British passport?’

  ‘I think that would be unwise. Too unusual. You must tell them that you were in Petrograd at the time of the Revolution. Your papers were already lodged at the marriage court when it was burned down. Before we go, we will decide on a name, a Russian name, and a place of birth.’

  ‘They may be suspicious.’

  ‘Within an hour we shall have passed on, and they will be on the road themselves soon. If they’re suspicious, they may refuse us, but they can’t hurt us. I want you to marry me, Katya. I’ve nothing to offer you. Nothing but danger. But I want to be your husband, for ever. Will you take the risk?’

  ‘Of course.’ She stretched up her hands to grasp his head. But for a moment he resisted her efforts to pull him down so that she could kiss him again.

  ‘There will be no going back,’ he reminded her. ‘You will have become a Russian. That’s not a destiny to be embraced lightly.’

  Kate was not interested in destiny. It was Vladimi
r she needed to embrace. ‘I’m a Russian already,’ she said.

  8

  The people of Hope Valley, in Jamaica, knew almost nothing of what was happening in Russia during the spring and summer and autumn of 1917. What could a revolution in a cold and far-away country have to do with their own warm and contented lives in a remote tropical village? But their pastor, Ralph Lorimer, learned of every new development with the deepest distress. As accurately as anyone in Europe he could foresee what effect it was likely to have on the course of the war. From the very outbreak of the February Revolution Germans were able to profit from the crumbling of opposition to their armies on the Eastern Front; and by facilitating Lenin’s return to Petrograd from his exile in Switzerland they were actively promoting an early ending of hostilities with Russia, which would leave them free to concentrate all their forces in the west.

  The gloom engendered by conclusions such as these was not peculiar to Ralph. What struck home to him personally was the conviction that his only daughter had become a victim of the terror. She would surely have escaped if she could – or at least have let it be known that she was safe – but the enquiries which Lord Glanville made through the British Ambassador in Petrograd proved fruitless. In the months between the February and the October Revolutions almost all the British subjects who had applied for repatriation had been brought safely back to England. But Kate was not amongst them and those who returned had no knowledge of her whereabouts.

  Lord Glanville and Margaret both attempted to persuade Ralph in correspondence that at a time of such upheaval the absence of any message did not necessarily mean that the worst had happened: few letters of any kind were coming out of the country. But Ralph was not to be convinced. Already robbed of two of his babies, the wife he loved, the elder son he adored, he knew that God was punishing him for the wrongdoing of his youth by the destruction of everything he held dear. Kate had become a victim of revolution as yet another scapegoat for her father’s sins.

  The biggest sin lay like a millstone on his conscience. Ralph had never confessed to anyone – not even to his wife – the subterfuge which had resulted in the Bristow plantation becoming his personal property instead of being owned by the Hope Valley community of which he was the pastor. His claim that he was the rightful heir to what had long before been a Lorimer estate had been a lie. Almost as soon as he had spoken the words he had realized that the lie was unnecessary – but it was no more excusable for that. Later he had persuaded himself that all was for the best and that he had won God’s forgiveness because of his good intentions and practical achievements. Under his control the estate had developed a prosperity which it could not possibly have attained as a collection of small holdings.

  For many years Ralph had suppressed his qualms and at times he almost forgot that there had been any deception about the ownership of the rich coastal land. Now the news from Russia fanned his feelings of guilt into fear. The Russian peasants, he learned, were dividing amongst themselves the huge estates which they had worked for their landlords. Hungry for land, they killed any landowner who resisted them. The authority of the Church was under attack too. It was not Ralph’s church, but what was happening meant that temporal and spiritual authority were equally at risk: and in his own community Ralph represented them both.

  Common sense told him that the members of his congregation concerned themselves little with the world outside their island and did not know a great deal even of what went on in Jamaica, outside their own village. Nor could any agitator invade the valley without Ralph knowing of his presence at once. But he was unable to believe his own attempts at reassurance.

  The thought obsessed him that God was intent on punishing the wicked in France and Russia – and soon in Jamaica. In the beginning, when the first news of the February Revolution arrived from Russia, it had been possible to believe that Kerensky might be capable of controlling the forces of anarchy which had been unleashed. But the October Revolution was a different matter. Lenin and Trotsky made it plain that the message they preached was for the whole world to hear, not for the people of Russia alone. Bolshevism was contagious, Ralph recognized. Once the foundations of society began to rot, wherever in the world it might be, the rottenness would spread until no form of law or decency was left uncorrupted. When he had drunk too much rum he saw himself pressed backwards by an army of black workers, falling beneath the blows of their machetes, hearing in his dying moments their triumphant cries as they staked out their own plots of land. And the times when he drank too much rum became more and more frequent.

  He took the rum to control his fever. So at least he told himself and Duke, his young assistant. Both of them pretended not to notice that it was after the bottle was empty, not before, that his hands began to shake and his head to spin with dizziness. There were some moments of calmness when he realized what was happening and vowed to control both his fears and the remedy; and there were other moments, equally calm, when there seemed no point in pretending that he had anything to live for any longer. God would soon summon him to account. Although he still led the services on Sundays and paced the fields during the weekdays, exhorting his people to prayer and work, little of his time was spent in the estate office. But in his lucid moments Ralph looked clearly enough to the future of Hope Valley and considered how best to provide for what remained of his family.

  As the end of 1917 approached he studied the accounts which Duke prepared and made a series of careful notes. As soon as his mind was made up, he sent for his assistant.

  ‘We must consider what will happen when God has taken me to Himself,’ he said without preamble. ‘This letter is to Mr Arthur Lorimer. I’m going to tell you what is in it. You had better sit down.’

  The permission caused a moment’s delay, since Ralph’s office contained only one chair. Duke fetched his own from the adjoining cubicle. For a while Ralph stared at the young man’s intelligent brown face and was satisfied that he had made the right decision.

  ‘If Brinsley had lived, he would have taken over the management of the plantation,’ he began. ‘But Brinsley is dead. Whom the gods love, die young.’ He fell silent again, not concealing his bitterness at the loss of his son.

  ‘You have another son, sir,’ Duke reminded him.

  ‘Grant is only a child. And in any case – well, there’s no need for me to pretend any longer.’ He laughed at the admission. ‘Never did pretend very much, did I? I can’t bear the thought of him taking over the work that I’ve built up over so many years. He’s not fit to manage. He’s not able even to walk over the ground. If I try to picture it, I’m revolted. That is un-Christian of me, but we must be honest now. And practical. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I recognize my duty to Grant,’ Ralph continued. ‘I’ve made due provision for him. It’s all in this letter to my nephew, Mr Lorimer. I have funds in England, and they are to be managed in Grant’s interest until he is twenty-one and then used to buy him a business or a partnership or an estate somewhere else – whatever his talents at the time suggest. But not in Jamaica.’

  His silence this time lasted so long that Duke must have wondered whether the conversation was at an end. Then Ralph broke it abruptly.

  ‘I have one more son,’ he said. ‘Has your mother never told you who your father is, Duke? Never discussed him with you at all?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But you must have wondered. And guessed the truth, perhaps, although we have never spoken of it.’

  This time it was Duke’s turn to be silent. ‘I’m guessing now, sir,’ he confessed at last. His eyes, unshocked, stared steadily at Ralph. Duke was accustomed to wait for instructions. It was an indication, perhaps, of the strength of the Lorimer strain, for any full-blooded Jamaican would have wept and flung himself into his father’s arms.

  Perhaps the restraint was imposed by Ralph’s personality. He had long prepared for this interview, promising himself that it must be conducted on strictly business li
nes.

  ‘You had little help from me in your childhood,’ he said. ‘But I shall make up for that now. You’ve proved that you’re honest and competent. You know the work, what needs to be done. And I can trust you, can’t I, to remember that the land must be used for the benefit of all the people here? They will be your people.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But not for a long time, God willing.’

  ‘Perhaps not for ten years. Perhaps tomorrow. God alone knows. I shall leave you the whole plantation when I die. But there’s one condition. Kate.’

  ‘Kate is my sister, then,’ said Duke softly.

  Ralph glanced across at the young man. Surely he could never have hoped . . . No, of course not. Duke was married to an island girl and his son, Harley, was already four years old. He had been such a close friend of Kate’s when they were both children that he was bound to be pleased by his discovery of the relationship. That was all.

  Ignoring the interruption, Ralph continued his exposition. In his heart he feared that Kate was dead. But it was necessary to act on the presumption that she would one day return; he must give formal recognition to hope. He had given thought to the necessary details and, although his concentration was flagging and he wanted to be alone so that he could have a drink, he forced himself to explain to Duke how a second trust fund must be created, with Arthur Lorimer as trustee, into which the profits of the plantation would be put for the next ten years. ‘One third for you, as well as the salary you pay yourself. One third for the people. One third for Kate, if she is alive, or for her children if she has any. After ten years, if she cannot be traced, my nephew will divide her portion between yourself and Grant. You understand why you have to wait?’