by Anne Douglas
‘I’ll see you on your way,’ a now-subdued Jack told her, having paid the bill. ‘I do understand that you have to go. I’ve been lucky to have had time with you.’
‘There’s no need for you to come with me, Jack. I’ll be getting the tram in Inverleith Row – that’s out of your way.’
‘I’m seeing you to your tram,’ he said firmly. ‘Don’t deprive me of my last bit of time with you.’
Outside the Botanic Gardens, walking towards the tram stop, Rosa felt strangely vulnerable, as though exposed to the view of someone she knew who would see her with Jack, although there was no one around like that. And, of course, Jack, being so attuned to her feelings, knew that she was minding now being seen with him.
‘It’s all right,’ he told her quietly, ‘I’m pretty sure there’s no one who knows you round here.’
‘What if they do?’ she asked lightly, pretending she wasn’t worried. ‘We’re only walking to the tram stop.’
‘And here it is,’ he said sadly, standing with her in the small queue of people waiting. ‘We haven’t much time, Rosa, but I want to ask – I suppose there’s no way we could meet again, is there?’
‘No way.’
‘Then I’ll quickly ask: would you like me to do a portrait of Lorne for you?’
‘A portrait of Lorne?’ Her eyes were sparkling. ‘Jack, that would be wonderful, oh – I’d love it!’
‘I could do it from a photograph, if you could send one. Could you do that? Send one to the house?’
‘Yes, oh, yes, I will!’
‘Well, here’s your tram.’ Under the eyes of those at the stop, Jack, smiling as though he didn’t mind her going, shook Rosa’s hand and stepped back as she boarded the tram. When the tram moved off, he waved and so did she, after which he turned aside and slowly began to retrace his steps.
Fifty-Eight
As soon as Daniel came home the following weekend, Rosa prepared herself to tell him about her meeting with Jack.
‘Pure chance,’ she said, as Daniel, looking weary, sank into his chair. ‘We met in the Botanic Gardens, right next to the café, so we just had a coffee and chatted a bit. He was looking older, said he’d been in New York, but now he was back. Thinking of volunteering if there was a war.’
Daniel stared, his blue eyes shadowed, his face very pale. He lit a cigarette.
‘You met Jack Durno and “chatted” about a war?’
‘He seemed to think the Kaiser would start one.’
‘And that’s what you talked about while you were having coffee?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘Hard to believe, when Jack Durno’s in love with you?’
‘That was a long time ago. I’m sure if it was ever true, it’s not true now.’
‘You think people can give up loving because time goes by?’ Daniel’s face showed such sudden pain, Rosa had to look away while he stubbed out his cigarette and sat staring into space.
‘Can’t help feeling sorry for your Jack,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘To love and not have your love returned – that’s hard.’
‘Let’s not talk about him,’ Rosa said desperately. ‘Promise me that if there ever is a war, you won’t volunteer to go to it, will you? I can’t bear to think about it. Ordinary men never used to go to war; they left that to men already in the army, didn’t they? The professionals.’
‘There’s talk now that if war comes, it will be different from any other war we’ve had before. There are airplanes now, there are bombs. Civilians will be involved.’ Daniel rose. ‘But let’s leave talk of all that for now. I’ll go and wash. Might freshen me up.’
‘And I’ll start tea,’ said Rosa, watching Daniel depart with his small weekend case. She was thinking that he had taken the news of her meeting with Jack better than she’d expected. Not that he wasn’t interested, she felt sure, but clearly it didn’t worry him as it might once have done. Because he had something else to think about now? Another person, perhaps? A person now dead?
Jumping to her feet, Rosa decided she must stop her thoughts always turning to Lorne. Her sister was dead; she could not, surely, still be occupying Daniel’s thoughts? Oh, but why not? She had never returned his love, which meant that it was of himself he’d been thinking when he’d said that to love and not have your love returned was hard. For me too, then, thought Rosa. And for Jack. As she finally made herself begin to prepare the evening meal, it occurred to her that the love that everyone wanted was far too often only the means of bringing heartache. She must put it out of her mind – at least for the time being.
Over the meal, she remembered to tell Daniel that Jack had offered to do a portrait of Lorne from a photograph, and hoped Daniel would be happy that she’d accepted.
‘A portrait?’ Just for a moment, Daniel allowed himself to look pleased. ‘Well, why not? As long as it’s not in his modern style.’
‘It will be what we want, I’m sure. He knows our tastes. I’d like to have it, anyhow.’
‘Me too.’ Daniel suddenly laid his hand on Rosa’s. ‘It’s good of Jack to offer it. We must give him that credit.’
‘When I send him Lorne’s photograph, I’ll tell him you’re happy about the portrait, then.’
‘Yes, tell him that,’ Daniel agreed.
Yet it seemed to Rosa, as she began to clear the table, that though Daniel said he was happy about the portrait, he could not be said to be happy about much else.
Can I not be of any comfort to him? Rosa asked herself. Does my love mean nothing now?
No, she didn’t believe that. They’d been very happy, very content, before Lorne had come back into their lives. One day, things would be between her and Daniel as they’d used to be. She must just wait for that.
And so she imagined herself doing, as further time went by, but she had reckoned without the momentous events that came to a head in August of that year. An Austrian archduke had been assassinated by a Yugoslav national, causing Austria to declare war on Serbia and, in the chaos that followed, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, only to have Great Britain supporting Belgium and declare war on Germany herself.
At once, large numbers of young men began volunteering for army service, declaring that it might all be over by Christmas and they wanted to have a crack against Germany before that. And one of these volunteering young men, to Rosa’s despair, was Daniel.
Fifty-Nine
She had taken so much, accepted so much, it might have seemed strange that this latest action by Daniel had been the last straw, but so it came about. No sooner had news come that his country was at war than he had hurried down to enlist and now was gone, away to the Black Watch regiment in which his grandfather had once served, and it was goodbye, Rosa – he would write when he could and she was not to worry. So came that last straw, leaving her not just eaten up by anxiety but also angry. Yes, anger that she couldn’t remember feeling before. Now she was beginning to wonder if she would ever be at peace again.
For he hadn’t needed to go – that was what she couldn’t accept. Men were not being called up – though there was talk of that coming in the future. For now, it was left to them to decide if they wanted to go to war or not. So, Daniel need not have gone. If he had cared for Rosa as she cared for him, he would have stayed with her, wouldn’t he? Other men were doing that.
Of course, though, she had to swallow her anger and forgive him, for she couldn’t even be sure that he would return to her. Must see him off at the station where other men were parting from women who must stay behind and from which the train was about to depart, uncaringly bearing off loved ones while those left behind had to turn away.
‘I’ll get leave,’ Daniel had said. ‘I’m not going away for ever.’
‘You don’t know what you’re going to,’ Rosa had whispered into the handkerchief she’d pressed against her face, but Daniel had heard her and repeated that he would get leave. She’d see him again, no need to worry about that. They were meaningless words that did nothing to cheer her, but she’d tried to prete
nd she wasn’t crying when Daniel had to kiss her and leave her. Then the guard had blown his whistle and the long train began its journey, oblivious of both cries from those left behind or smiles from the brave.
Rosa, who did not try to be one of the brave ones, just kept on waving with tears on her cheeks until she could no longer tell whether Daniel was waving too, for the train had gone too far – oh, much too far – was out of sight, in fact, which meant that there was nothing else to do but turn away and go home. Home. Home just for herself? Rosa couldn’t bear to think about it, was still standing still on the platform with tears misting her eyes when she heard someone say her name. And it was Jack.
Brushing the tears from her eyes, she tried to focus on him, saw indeed that he was in uniform – nothing she recognized – and was smiling, beaming, at finding her, even though one look at her face must have told him how she was feeling.
Jack being Jack, of course knew at once that she’d been seeing Daniel off on the troop train and should be left alone with her sadness, yet couldn’t resist being with her. Perhaps he could expect nothing from a meeting at such a time and should try to make nothing of it, but how could he do that when he’d been so lucky to find Rosa? When he could at least try to comfort her?
‘You look exhausted,’ he said softly. ‘Come on, let me get you a cup of tea so you feel up to going home – I was just about to have one myself. God knows why I came so early – my train’s not due out for some time – but I’m glad I did.’
‘You’re joining up?’ she asked, letting him take her arm and feeling suddenly as exhausted as he said she looked. ‘What regiment?’
‘Artists’ Rifles.’ He smiled. ‘Yes, it exists. Artists want to do their bit too.’
‘Do their bit,’ she repeated drearily. ‘That’s what it’s called, is it? Throwing away their lives for nothing?’
‘Come on, that’s too hard! Anyway, this will all be over in no time. Chaps are just hoping they’ll get a chance to see some action. But let’s go and have tea.’
The tearoom was crowded but they were lucky to find a table a young couple were just leaving and Jack, as usual, turned on his magic and found a waitress to bring them tea and cake.
‘I’m not at all hungry,’ said Rosa, wiping her eyes, but Jack was masterful, making her drink the tea and even eat a mouthful of the slice of Madeira he put on her plate.
‘You’ll feel the better for something,’ he told her cheerfully, but when she gave him a tragic look from her dark eyes, he bit his lip and looked down at his plate.
‘You’ll have to forgive me, Rosa. I know I’m being unbelievably crass, talking to you when you’ve just said goodbye to Daniel, but I get so few chances to talk to you at all, you mustn’t blame me.’
‘All the same, there’s no point in you talking to me, Jack. What good does it do? You can’t change anything, however much you want to.’
‘I can at least let you know my feelings for you are the same and always will be. I know now isn’t the time to think about the future, with Daniel on his way to war and me soon to follow, but if there is one and we all meet again, maybe there will be changes, Rosa. Who can say? Promise me we’ll keep in touch. That’s not too much to ask, is it? At least let me write to you from wherever I find myself. You needn’t reply. Just let me write.’ Again, he looked down at his plate. ‘As long as I can, anyway. They won’t be love letters, Daniel needn’t worry. Just … notes from a friend.’
When she looked at him as he rose to pay the bill and made ready to leave – for war, as Daniel had done – Rosa’s heart drummed with pain and she feared for him as she feared for Daniel. Two men going to war, facing the unknown, perhaps never to return. How was she to accept such a situation, to live with it for who knew how long into the future? Seemed she must accept it, in just the same way as the two men were accepting it, taking about what came their way. How could she even compare her own situation to theirs, she, a woman safe at home, while they … She stopped her thoughts there, unwilling to dwell on what the men must face.
‘I’ll have to go,’ Jack was saying as they stood on the platform. ‘I see some of my chaps arriving – it’s nearly time we have to be off.’
His eyes, meeting hers, were suddenly as tragic as hers, though of course he was not allowed to shed a tear or two as she could do. He did, though, briefly brush her cheek with his lips – surely nothing Daniel could mind?
‘Oh, take care!’ she cried as he began to move away to join his fellow soldiers. ‘Take care, Jack! And come home!’
He smiled, waved his hand and was drawn into a different company from hers, one that was already setting him apart, as Daniel’s future had set him apart. And in moments, he was gone, on his way with his fellows, while Rosa was left alone on the platform, a silent witness to heartache.
Sixty
Over by Christmas? So some had prophesized, but Rosa had never believed it. Maybe the soldiers themselves would be glad to be free of a war not of their making – they’d been happy once to fraternize between trenches with the Germans – but the German leader was the Kaiser and everyone knew that all he wanted was war. And on the one time Daniel had been able to come home on leave, he’d warned Rosa not to hope for any quick ending to the conflict.
‘Three years it will take, at least,’ he’d said, his face darkly serious as it so often was. ‘Four, maybe – yes, I’d say it will be four years before we see an end to it.’
And which of us will be around to see it? he had thought, though of course didn’t put the thought into words for fear of upsetting Rosa. Too late, she was already in tears, wondering how she would cope with her worries for Daniel’s safety for what would probably be years, when every time she opened the newspaper there would be casualty lists bringing heartache to somebody – some mother or father, some sweetheart or wife.
I don’t think I can bear the parting! she wanted to cry, but worse for her was that she guessed Daniel might be able to bear it very well. She wasn’t sure, of course, but it did still seem to her that he was different now from other people in his acceptance of loss and suffering. He hadn’t always been so, and she thought she knew when the change in him had begun but she didn’t want to think that it had only developed since the death of Lorne.
Of course, she didn’t expect him to tell her everything about his life of danger in the trenches, yet if they could have shared their love and anxiety at this time, how different things would have been! But his leave passed and it was time for him to return to his unit. When she went with him to the station and waved goodbye alongside all the other wives, he did seem to melt a little, to kiss and hold her before boarding the train that would so soon bear him away.
Would she ever see him again? It was the same thought that was present in the minds of all the tearful wives waving goodbye and not something they could avoid. The only way to accept their situation was to believe strongly and truly that they and their menfolk would meet again, and that everyone would be together in the new, wonderful world without war that must surely await them all.
‘What are you going to do with yourself now?’ was one of the last things Daniel had asked before his train pulled out, and Rosa had been going to say she didn’t know, except that it came to her suddenly that she might take an assistant nurse’s course she’d seen advertised at the infirmary.
‘That’d be excellent,’ Daniel had said when she’d told him of it. ‘A great idea.’ And then surprised Rosa with a smile and a little mock salute as his train began to move away, which was why Rosa was able to get home without crying all the way, rather surprising Molly, who was coming down the stairs as Rosa arrived and whose sympathetic hug did bring the tears at last. Especially as poor Molly herself had just been through the same ordeal of saying goodbye to her husband, who had left the day before to join his regiment.
‘They say it’s worse to be the one who’s left.’ She sighed as she and Rosa hugged, but neither she nor Rosa could be sure if that were true. At least they co
uld make a cup of tea, and if there were tears shed as they drank it, nothing needed to be said.
Sixty-One
Four years, Daniel had prophesized for the duration of the war, but he was not to see those years, nor was Rosa really surprised that he did not. Ever since she’d made that last goodbye to him at the station, she’d had the strongest feeling that she would never see him again. The comfort that should have come from that last meeting was not there, for in spite of all her efforts, she could not lose her desolate certainty that she would never see Daniel again.
She never told anyone of this premonition, for she knew they would have tried to cheer her out of having it. After all, it wasn’t sensible, was it? Even though it was true there was the possibility that Daniel would not survive, which was the risk for all men fighting in the trenches, it was also true that he might be one of the lucky ones who ‘made’ it. For lucky ones there were.
So it seemed, but Rosa’s belief that she would never see him again remained with her – her own terrible secret, darkening her life, when others had no suspicion. Wherever she went – to her assistant nurse’s job or visiting Molly – she managed to keep her feelings secret and played along with the belief that there was always hope. Hope that Daniel would come through.
But then, in July 1916 came the battle of the Somme which, with almost 60,000 casualties being recorded for the first day alone, had some of the worst-ever infantry casualties. Of these, it had to be that some would be from the Black Watch, though it would be some time before news of the only casualty that mattered to Rosa would come to her via the dreaded telegram.
‘“We regret to inform you …”’ she began to read after opening it with shaking fingers. Then started crying, ‘No, no!’ And again, ‘No!’