In that moment I knew with a sort of brazen certainty that everything was approaching its right conclusion. What was the power of war to the powers of rain and wind and thunder? I held out my arms to the storm as I stood at the top of the hill, the wind whipping my sodden hair across my face, the chilly drops falling from my nose and chin and the tips of my fingers, and I laughed. The storm was breaking directly over my head, but I didn’t care. It could not harm me in that time and place. I was its child, if only for that one instant. Tomorrow the world might fall apart, but today, this moment, all was well.
Chapter 22
The next morning I went in to the Women’s Land Army recruiting station in Wells with Mr. Bertram and, surprisingly, Mrs. Beaufort. I suspected that Mrs. Beaufort came less to support me and more for the prospect of an outing, but she was very kind on the occasion, patting my knee in what was clearly intended to be a comforting way and saying that she hoped the transport vehicles were clean.
The office was staffed by a severe woman of about fifty or so, with hard features and an intimidatingly businesslike air, and an older man who somehow managed to be both alarmingly friendly and incredibly dour at the same time.
“Hello, my dear,” he said when I introduced myself. “So you want to help, do you? Very well then,” he spoke slowly, much as if he had a mouth full of honey, and moved ponderously out from behind the desk to stand before a map which spread over most of the opposite wall. The map had pins stuck in it at various places, marking, I guessed, the farms and orchards and other places which were in need of help.
Mr. Bertram and Mrs Beaufort had left me there and gone their separate ways to take care of business of their own. I was glad. My courage, though always a flimsy thing, was strongest when there was nothing for me to hide behind.
The man called me over to the map. He sighed noisily, and the hanging flesh of his jowls trembled in a truly disturbing way that made me shudder. He was not fat, but there was no muscle about him and all his movements had the slow, heavy, plodding quality of the morbidly obese.
“Where are you from, my girl?”
I foolishly began to state the name of the Maine town where I had been brought up, then thought again and said, “Nettlebridge.”
“Ah. I suppose you would like to find something in the area? It might be difficult you know. Many of our girls have to move away from home and stay elsewhere. Sometimes if the work is close enough we have a lorry that comes by and picks everyone up in the early morning and brings them back at night, but, hmmm…can’t always happen you see… You should prepare yourself for having to be far away from home for long periods of time.”
I was starting to feel depressed. It was impossible not to feel depressed standing there listening to him drone on in a monotone. I had known before that I might have to leave Ashford. I just wanted him to get on with it. Preferably in as few words as possible. And I didn’t like the way he kept eyeing the northern tip of Scotland.
Just as he was starting in again with a cough and a “hem…hoi…” I was surprised to see the sharp-faced woman come around from behind the desk, take him by the elbow, and propel him towards the door.
“I’ll take this from here, Lionel,” she said briskly. “Why don’t you go down to the Crown and have a pint. You look like you could use it.”
At that suggestion he was out the door, moving faster than I had thought his form or mental state capable of.
The woman turned to me.
“There are two other girls from the Nettlebridge area who are working on a farm several miles west of here. Meet them in front of the Nettlebridge Inn at six o’clock Monday morning. You will be trained on the spot. Uniforms are in short supply but you should have yours in a week or two. For now, wear something you could run after sheep or operate a tractor in. Thank you.”
She gave me a small, automatic smile, handed me a stack of papers, and nearly shoved me out the door. Abrupt, but it got the job done, and all things taken together I preferred her method to the man’s.
I had to wait some time for my companions, for they had expected me to take longer in the office and of course had errands of their own, so I contented myself with wandering the street nearby, looking in shop windows and speculating on my new job.
The shop across the street had hats and umbrellas in the window. Remembering that Perry and I had left Mr. Bertram’s emergency umbrella lying in the mud in front of a strange farm house, I crossed over and entered the shop. I had some money with me, though I rarely spent anything except to help replenish the Ashford larder. But I would be earning my own keep soon. I planned to write to my grandmother that afternoon and tell her of my plans and that she need not send any more money. The knowledge of this approaching release from dependence made me feel freer than usual, and I thought perhaps I would buy something else, maybe something for Gloria. I still needed to talk to her, and it would be nice to bring her a gift, if only to show that I had been thinking of her. Part of me thought that anyway. The other part knew that it was partly just the easy way out, because giving gifts was easier than talking. Perhaps I would get something for Violet as well. The twins would need nothing. Mrs. Beaufort was probably out at that moment buying them all the candy she could on wartime rations. Cyryl and Haline now represented the whole of her passion for refugee children, and the sweet manipulative urchins knew it.
I found the umbrella first. It was basic and black like the other had been, but larger and sturdier, an umbrella that might keep two whole people dry. My attention had been caught at first by an incredibly garish one in a blinding shade of green with puce blobs that might have been cherries. I had to laugh a little when I saw it, for it reminded me of the distant Mrs. Whildon, with her colourful clothing and hearty chortle, and brought back many memories of our meeting in Italy.
Between searching the shelves for gifts for Gloria and Violet and looking out the window at intervals to be sure I had not missed Mr. Bertram and Mrs. Beaufort, I had a difficult time keeping my mind focused on the task at hand. I had little trouble finding something for Gloria. She loved things of beauty, and she loved colour. The hats were all too expensive even for my current feeling of financial freedom, but I found a little blue scarf in a shade that I thought would set off her spectacular hair to perfection. Violet was more difficult. She had very few small vanities. She never seemed to want anything material. The longing in her eyes was always for something Beyond, something that none but she would ever see.
I smiled to myself a little ruefully. “And you,” I whispered “are only beginning to guess what you long for, but I very much doubt that greater mental clarity on your part will make it any more likely.”
I glanced up, suddenly self-conscious, and noticed the girl behind the counter looking away quickly. I must have seemed very odd, standing there in front of the scarf display talking to myself. Then I looked out the window and saw Mrs. Beaufort standing out on the street corner, peering about her anxiously, probably worried that I had gone off alone into the city and been run over by a villainous cab driver.
I hurried up to the front and put my purchases on the counter, then remembered that I had not yet found anything for Violet. In a sort of confused desperation I reacted out of instinct. There was a display of picture postcards near the door, including one showing the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. I could just make out the railing at the top where I had stood once with Gloria and once with Violet, looking down at the city. It seemed a small but fitting gift.
“This one too,” I said, laying it beside the umbrella and scarf.
Mrs. Beaufort, in predictable fashion, had indeed filled her pockets with candy for the twins, and was also in a very anxious state as to my whereabouts. I found it a little bizarre that she seemed to worry about me more on these days when there was least chance of danger, as if by fussing over me between times she could erase the fact that in a crisis she hid behind me like a frightened rabbit.
But worry was an intrinsic part of Mrs. Beaufort’s n
ature. No sooner had I joined her and received her exclamations of relief than she began to fret over Mr. Bertram’s whereabouts, and it became my task to lay her fears to rest by assurances of Mr. Bertram’s capabilities, his superior knowledge of Wells, and the fact of his having had many things to do while we had had comparatively few. In times of war and upheaval we cling to very odd things, finding security in sturdy objects and unchanging things. Walls, roof, table, chair -- we love them for their solidity, and we love certain people for very much the same reasoning. Though my annoyance with Mrs. Beaufort remained, that day I felt, with some surprise, a hint of comfort in the sameness of our association. It was strange, to be sure, but there was something soothing in the idea that Mrs. Beaufort would always be Mrs. Beaufort, would never do anything unexpected, would never be much less well-intentioned or much more sensible than she was at that moment.
Though Mrs. Beaufort had prophesied that Mr. Bertram would keep us waiting on the street until the sun started going down and her hair turned grey with worry, he arrived only moments after I had joined her and as far as I could tell the number of grey hairs on her head remained unaltered. He asked all the questions Mrs. Beaufort (in her worry) had forgotten to ask about my visit to the office, and when I had told him he nodded briskly.
“I was afraid you might get stuck with old Sedgewick,” he said, and then added in answer to my questioning gaze, “Lionel Sedgewick. You’ve seen his son Chester on the train platform. Glad Miss Maria came to your rescue. Not too sociably inclined, but good at what she does, and she has almost a mania for fairness. She’ll see you’re treated well.”
I remembered the long, lugubrious face of the younger Sedgewick, with its large nose and wilting moustache, and recalled what Perry had said about the family on the occasion of our arrival in Wells. Yes, I too was grateful for Miss Maria. She might be intimidating, but she was efficient, and she didn’t make one feel patronised. I said so.
“Good girl.” It was all he said in reply, but I felt that somehow in spite of the cloudy weather a cheerful sun had come out and turned its rays on me, and though I wasn’t sure that what I had said deserved its glow I curled up on the seat of the car like a kitten and soaked up the beams. It was a gift of Mr. Bertram’s, this benign, enveloping presence that pulled one in for apparently no reason and made one feel warm and safe no matter how the various difficulties of life tugged at one from outside. It was a natural gift that he seemed to have no knowledge of, and he had passed it on to his son.
But thinking of Perry this time brought on thoughts of the last few days, and I was not ready to bring them out into the light and examine them. They still confused me, and I preferred for the moment to have them remain where they were, haunting the background of my mind with their vague associations of pain and pleasure. Would someone else, looking from the outside, say that I was falling in love? Perhaps, and perhaps I was blind not to think the same. In my defence let me only say that I had lived a very sheltered life with my grandmother, leaving shortly after my seventeenth birthday to travel with the Beauforts, whose company did not offer many openings for romantic education. Thus, I had not learned by this, my nineteenth year, to associate a queasy feeling and a pain like a hand squeezing my heart with the love of which the poets sang. I was grateful to him. I liked him a great deal. I respected him. I pitied his situation. He was much older than I. It felt presumptuous to think more, so I left the ache in my heart and my queasy stomach to themselves and forced my mind into other channels.
Chapter 23
I still hesitated over talking to Gloria. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, but had decided that I would keep putting it off forever if I waited for the right words to come to me ahead of time. I would give her the scarf, and let the words come as they may.
Luck was with me. We arrived back at Ashford after the family had lunched, and found Gloria in the orchard. Allowing Mr. Bertram and Mrs. Beaufort to hurry on ahead of me and console their empty stomachs with the remains of the lunch, I stayed behind, telling my own growling stomach that it could wait for tea, and joined my friend.
“How was it?” she asked, smiling at me as we turned to walk down the drive together. Her smile was genuine, but it fled very quickly and did not touch her eyes.
“Frightening,” I said, “but not terrible.” And I told her about Lionel Sedgewick and Miss Maria and my appointment for Monday morning, as well as about Mrs. Beaufort’s worries, which brought the desired amusement to her face, though only for a brief space.
“I brought you something,” I said, and pulled the scarf from the small bag I still carried. I had left the umbrella in the car, and Violet’s postcard I folded up in the bag and tucked into the inside pocket of my jacket.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, “and so soft. Thank you Anna. You didn’t have to.”
“I know,” I answered, pleased by her pleasure in the gift. “I’ll be working soon, and earning my own keep. I’m writing to Grandmother this afternoon to tell her to stop sending money, and I felt like making a little display of my new independence.”
We had stopped in our walk and I took the scarf from her hands and tied it on over her beautiful hair.
“There,” I said. “Perfect.”
We walked a little longer in silence. I was inwardly preparing myself to ask her about Tristan, though the method of asking had still not come to me. But as it turned out there was no need for me to say anything. The silence only lasted a little while longer.
“I rather envy you right now,” Gloria said. “I wanted to be the brave one, you know, doing a great thing for the cause, making everyone proud. Instead I’m the weak one, the one who couldn’t handle the sight of injured men and had to run away, while you go to join the Land Girls. I could join too. I could, but I won’t, because I don’t want to just follow in your footsteps. I wanted to be the one who took the risk and had the adventure, and because I can’t I will sit at home and watch everyone else do things. It’s pathetic. I know it is. Everyone thinks so. I couldn’t even bring myself to reply to Tristan’s letters after what happened at the hospital, because I knew he would be ashamed of me. I’m ashamed of myself. He flies missions over Germany. He sees his friends shot down. And I can’t even sit at the bedside of an injured soldier without fainting.”
“Tristan wouldn’t be ashamed of you,” I said. “Everybody has a weakness. You know, Mr. Bertram told me a few days ago that he’s afraid of spiders. And Perry…” I told her briefly of our encounter with the crippled young man. “I think he punishes himself every day for what he sees as his weakness, even though it is something that he has no control over. No one who knows what his trouble is blames him. You can’t expect to be the only one without weakness, and I think--” I drew in my breath “--I think that it’s rather selfish of you to not reply to Tristan’s letters, and make him worry about you, just because you can’t face up to being human like the rest of us.”
She stared at me in astonishment.
“You really have changed,” she said. “You were so timid when we met in Florence, always deferring to me for what to do or where to go. Now you’re going on the Land, and telling me off for not being more forthright.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, ashamed of my outburst. I had meant to be sympathetic, not accusatory. “I had no right to say that.”
She was quiet for a moment, then surprised me by saying, “You may not have had the right a year ago. I think you do now. I can’t say I’ll act on what you said. But I can’t hold it against you, though I have to admit a part of me would like to. Let’s not talk about it any more now. The air is cleared. Let’s walk to the mill and pretend the war is over.”
I agreed gladly, surprised at how painless our conversation had been considering the state of my mind leading up to it.
We walked to the ruined mill, talking of other things -- small things which were not related in any way to the war -- patterns in the clouds, the damp smell of leaves, how much the twins had grown in the l
ast few months, and how Mr. Beaufort’s bald spot had spread since our first meeting.
“I like this place,” said Gloria, looking around at the surrounding trees, the flowing stream, and the dark, moss-covered walls that still, in spite of their state of decay, exuded an impression of strength and deep-rooted solidity. “I like it, but sometimes it makes me angry. It sounds strange to say it aloud, but everything seems so calm and unmoving. It’s been here for so long, the house, or this mill. We all grow and change and are born and die or laugh or cry and break our hearts and these places just stay, with their ancient ghosts. I know it sounds silly, but at home it’s different. Our house was built by my grandparents, and I always felt before that that gave it some great lineage, but this goes completely beyond any of that. Our house still feels shapeable. Its personality could be changed, if you can call it that. It would care if something happened to us. At Ashford I feel that even if we all died it would stay the same. Sure, the garden would get even wilder and the drive would be overgrown, but the house would have the same feel, the same sense of…I don’t know...forever.”
She stopped, having run out of words.
“That’s what I like about it,” I said. “I don’t think it feels that way because it doesn’t matter what happens to us, but just because there have been so many lifetimes building upon each other to make it what it is that now it changes very slowly. I find it rather comforting to think that whatever happens to us now there will still be places that feel serene and quiet, where things don’t change easily. And I like to think that somehow all the lives that have been lived here before us are guiding us on. It helps me not feel alone. If there are ghosts at Ashford they are friendly ones. I don’t know why, but I know I belong here like I never belonged at home. I love it in a way I never thought I could love a place.”
She said nothing, but put her arm around my shoulders and together we sat on a pile of fallen masonry, keeping silent company with the ghosts, and I felt like one small strand of a large web, one brick in a huge pyramid, tiny yet essential. It gave me a restful feeling, but I felt Gloria shiver next to me. I could feel her fear and unrest as a distant shout, a call which a corner of my mind answered with its own hint of trembling before it was drowned by the greater silence.
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