Ella's War

by Lynne Francis

‘Don’t stay up too late,’ she warned Beth as she headed for bed herself. The sense that something was afoot kept her from sleep, so that she was still lying wide-awake when Beth crept into the room.

  She undressed noiselessly and slipped into bed, lying quietly for a short time before whispering to Ella, ‘Are you still awake?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ella murmured back.

  Beth turned on her side and lay facing Ella, who could dimly make out her features in the darkness of the room.

  ‘John has just told me he could think of no one but me all the time he has been away!’ Beth’s excitement was clear even in her whispered tones. ‘He’s asked me to be his sweetheart. And I’ve said yes!’

  Ella was silent.

  ‘Aren’t you happy for me?’ Now there was a slight edge to Beth’s voice, which had risen above a whisper.

  ‘Oh Beth, of course I am. Just very surprised.’ Ella paused. ‘And wondering how it will be possible. His parents will never agree, you know.’

  ‘It’s to be a secret. Just between the two of us. Although of course you know now, so you must swear not to tell a soul. It’s because he thinks he is going back to the Front Line. He wants to feel there is someone special thinking of him back home.’ Beth laughed. ‘That makes him sound very self-centred and he’s not. It’s more than that, of course. I do care for him, a lot. I was just so surprised that he chose me.’

  The more that Ella thought about it, the more she could see that it wasn’t such an unlikely situation. John had probably spent more time with Beth than with any other girl of his own age. They were friends now, but whether they could ever be anything more than that she didn’t know. Coming from different classes as they did, it would have been virtually impossible before the war, but now so many things had changed. She wasn’t sure, in the end, if it would even matter. If John’s belief was that his battalion was about to be sent to the Front was true, who knew what the future had in store? She had a sudden memory of Thomas, and an echo of the excitement in his letters when he was sent to the Front. Was the same fate lying in wait for John?

  She shivered, despite the warmth of the summer evening. ‘Try to get some sleep if you can,’ she advised Beth. ‘I know you’re excited, but if you don’t sleep you’ll be exhausted tomorrow.’

  Beth’s breathing steadied into the rhythm of sleep before long, and instead it was Ella who lay wide-awake, finally drifting into troubled sleep just before dawn. She tossed and turned with dreams of Thomas, John and Albert, who had somehow become combined into one person, a person who was walking unheeding into danger while she tried hard to warn them but could not make a sound.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Ella awoke in a sweat, her heart pounding, fearing she was late. The gritty feeling behind her eyes and the heaviness of her limbs told her that she had had very little sleep and it was going to be hard to get through the day. Beth was still sound asleep, so Ella climbed wearily out of bed and dressed before shaking her niece awake.

  ‘Time to get up now. I must get on. We’ve got tea this afternoon for the war widows. Where Mrs Ward imagines we’ll find the wherewithal to make scones for everyone, I don’t know. I promised Elsie I would give her a hand. I’ll see you downstairs.’

  The day was going to be a busy one but Ella was glad of the distraction, resolving for the time being to put the matter of Beth and John’s arrangement out of her head. Beth had volunteered to run the crèche today so Ella took her place at the tea party. She had started to find tea with the war widows hard to endure. It reminded her forcefully of the loss of Thomas and today she felt remorse for not having written recently to Lilian, his widow.

  Ella was still unable to think a great deal about Thomas’s death. It felt as though there was something terrifying hidden behind a door, a door that she only dared to open a little at a time to catch a glimpse of what lay behind. She hadn’t grieved properly yet and she wondered when she would. Perhaps it was because he was buried so far away, in France where he had fallen. The absence of a grave, of a proper burial service at home, seemed to have made his death feel unreal.

  It certainly wasn’t a topic she could touch on with the war widows. She dispensed tea and scones, along with the last of Elsie’s precious strawberry jam, a sympathetic smile on her lips at all times. The atmosphere was a little subdued; whenever one of the ladies laughed she would quickly stifle it, as if mirth was unseemly at such a time. The widows were mostly young; younger than Ella. One or two had brought young babies into the room with them and these provided a common bond for many of the group. Yet Ella saw that others stayed away from the babies, gravitating towards each other and forming their own small group around a table. She guessed they must have been widowed before they had had a chance to start a family. Like her sister-in-law Lilian, they were left with nothing but memories of the husband they had lost.

  When Ella at last fell into bed that night, she hoped her weariness would carry her swiftly into a deep sleep, but it was not to be. Beth had stayed downstairs, presumably in the hope of having a few last words with John before he left the next day. Ella found herself lying awake with her thoughts, which she could not prevent from following a loop. Albert, Thomas and now John. Was it possible that anyone could go to the Front and survive? She knew that of course they must, but tiredness dragged her down and muddled her thoughts until it seemed to her that everyone her family loved must be cursed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Beth, her mouth full of pins, was trying as hard as she could to stop her eyes straying from the task in hand: to pin up the hem of Mrs Ward’s dress to a length that would be acceptable to her. To Beth’s great alarm, declaring that it would be easier if she was closer to eye level, Mrs Ward had stepped onto a dining chair and from there onto the dining room table.

  ‘If Doris was still here she would be having kittens,’ Beth thought, watching Mrs Ward’s sensible heels on the table as she rotated slowly so that Beth could do her work. But Doris wasn’t here to worry about the polish on the table top. She was long gone, still working in the chocolate factory alongside Rosa.

  Beth couldn’t stop her eyes sliding over to a photo she had spotted, newly framed and set on the sideboard. Perhaps she could risk a question now that the hem of the dress, created from a serviceable pair of heavy brown curtains that until recently had hung in one of the servant’s bedrooms, was all pinned up?

  As she handed Mrs Ward down from table to chair, and then safely to the floor, she said, ‘I couldn’t help but notice, ma’am, that you’ve a new photo of John… of Master John,’ she added hastily.

  Mrs Ward swung round to look at the photograph in its frame. ‘Yes, it was taken when he became a second lieutenant. He looks smart, doesn’t he?’ She turned back to Beth and sighed. ‘We had a letter this morning. He’s at the Front as we speak, in the trenches. He made light of it but the conditions sound terrible.’

  ‘At the Front, ma’am?’ Beth repeated. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She had always known that this moment would come but it wasn’t welcome. It seemed that each day brought news that was either good or bad, depending on your perspective. The news was good because the Allies were pushing forward and making gains with each battle, forcing the German army back; yet, if you had family members at the Front then the news was bad, as more and more casualties were reported, and more units had to be drafted in to back up the exhausted troops.

  Mrs Ward didn’t appear to have registered Beth’s question. She had wandered over to pick up another of the photos on display, of a team of rugby players in striped jerseys. Beth had managed to steal a glance at this photo before, her eyes instantly drawn to John standing tall at the back, his half-smile seemingly directed at her, his hair looking fairer than she remembered it on what appeared to be a bright, sunlit day. She followed Mrs Ward over to the sideboard.

  ‘Might I have a look, ma’am?’ she ventured boldly. Mrs Ward, surprised, was about to hand over the sporting photo. ‘No, I meant the new photograph,’
Beth explained.

  ‘Of course.’ Mrs Ward had her surprise under control now. ‘There’s John, just to the right of the captain in the centre.’

  Beth was careful not to stare too long at the image, although she was drinking it in hungrily. She couldn’t be sure when she would next have a chance to take a look as her duties these days mainly confined her to the kitchen and the sewing room. She conjured dresses for Mrs Ward and Grace out of whatever fabric could be gleaned and endlessly patched and mended the servants’ uniforms. Even the household’s sheets had worn out, necessitating turning edges to middles in the worn-out flannelette, leaving the servants tossing and turning on the uncomfortable seams created down the centre.

  Beth dragged her eyes away from the photograph, suggesting to Mrs Ward that she could change back into her other dress. ‘I can finish the hem for you this evening, ma’am,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Beth. You’ve done a very good job on this dress. I don’t know what Grace and I would do without you. With no material in the shops to speak of, and dresses so hard to come by…’ Mrs Ward tailed off. ‘I can barely remember what it felt like to have a new frock. I’m quite sure I didn’t appreciate it half as much as I do today.’

  She sighed. ‘And now with Grace heading off to join those Land Girls, why, I don’t suppose she’ll be needing any more dresses. From what I hear, they wear breeches, overalls and gumboots all day long. Grace seems very excited, I must say, but it wouldn’t suit me.’

  Beth turned away to hide a smile and gathered up her pin box and tape measure. ‘I’ll come and fetch the dress from your room in the next half hour, ma’am. I’ll need to go and give Cook a hand with dinner now.’

  Mrs Ward sighed. ‘Dinner. I wonder if Cook has managed to work a miracle on the last of the vegetables?’

  Beth forced a smile. ‘I think you may be surprised, ma’am. She has found some recipes in a periodical for Seven Ways with Cabbage.’

  Mrs Ward looked faintly appalled. ‘Thank you, Beth.’

  That night Beth relayed her conversation with Mrs Ward to Ella. In her view, it showed that the barriers were coming down between family and servants, and that perhaps there was hope in the future that the family could accept her feelings for John, and his for her.

  ‘I know that times have changed because of the war,’ Ella said to Beth while she brushed her hair. ‘Men and women have worked side by side on an equal footing for the first time, and women have taken over men’s jobs while they are away. But I don’t know whether things have changed enough. Mrs Ward may have been down to the kitchen more often, and she may be more familiar with us than she was in the past but I don’t think those things have changed forever. I think as soon as the war is over it will be back to business as usual.’ Ella paused, then said thoughtfully, ‘Although I fear that too many men have died for any sort of return to normality. Who will take their places?’

  She registered Beth’s stricken face. ‘But you mustn’t worry about John. I’m sure his regiment will be fine. Why, the war will probably be over before he even reaches the Front,’ she added hastily, trying to undo the damage she had already done.

  ‘He’s already there,’ Beth said gloomily. ‘Mrs Ward said they had had a letter this morning.’

  John had given his signet ring to Beth before he returned from leave, and she wore it at all times on a chain around her neck, worrying that the outline of it might show through her work dress. No one had commented if it did, and that night she lay awake, turning the ring slowly through her fingers and wishing it could conjure up John, safe and well before her eyes. The memory came back to her of their first kiss – her first-ever kiss – exchanged just before he had given her the ring. She had had no idea that such a simple action could feel the way it did: the gentle pressure and warmth of his lips, the feeling of his skin against hers, his breath on her cheek, his hands in her hair. Nor did she know how she could remember it in such detail because at the time she had been so immersed in the experience that she hadn’t wanted the kiss to end.

  They hadn’t thought beyond the war at all, wishing only for his safe return. Now her thoughts were being pulled this way and that. If he returned safely, it was inconceivable that they could go on hiding their relationship from the family. Yet how could they do otherwise? And if he didn’t return… Beth gave a shuddering sigh, turned on her side and pulled the covers up around her ears, as if in this way she could shut out such a possibility.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  It was six months before John next came home to Grange House. The change in him was profound. He no longer looked fit and healthy – but the biggest shock was the change in his demeanour. His happy confidence had vanished and he not only appeared thin and pale but jumpy too. He came down to thank Elsie for dinner, as usual, but she knew from Mr Stevens, who had cleared the plates, that he had barely done justice to his food. His eyes sought Beth at every turn of the conversation and Ella, noticing this, racked her brains for a way to enable them to have some private time together. It was Beth who spoke up, having spotted John’s jacket hanging over the back of his chair.

  ‘Your button is hanging by a thread. Let me take it and sort it out for you. I’ll check the others are secure, too.’ She stood up and held out her hand for the jacket.

  Instead of handing it over, John rose to his feet. ‘I can’t let you do that,’ he protested. ‘We’re supposed to look after our own kit. I’m perfectly able to sew on a button if you’ll provide me with the thread.’

  He managed to produce the ghost of a smile as he spoke and Ella silently congratulated Beth as she watched them walk away together down the corridor to the sewing room.

  Nobody commented on their joint departure; indeed, Elsie and Mr Stevens were intent instead on discussing the change in John.

  ‘Good heavens, what has happened to the boy?’ Elsie’s face was crumpled with worry.

  ‘If he’s been in Flanders I daresay he’s seen sights the like of which he’ll carry with him for life.’ Mr Stevens stared down at his hands as he spoke. He had only recently visited a nephew who was convalescing at home after losing a leg in Flanders. Mr Stevens had been visibly shaken on his return, saying little beyond the fact that he hoped ‘never again would men be forced to endure such things.’ He told them a little about how the weeks of rain had turned the trenches into morasses of mud and how hard it was to maintain morale under the conditions the soldiers were enduring, let alone fight. He was heard to mutter about ‘cannon fodder’ and from then on, he had followed the newspaper reports on the fighting with increasing gloom.

  Ella hoped that the relative normality of life at Grange House, as well as Beth’s presence, might go some way to soothing John’s ills. He returned from the sewing room shortly after and wished them goodnight with a slightly brighter countenance. Beth did not reappear and Ella guessed she had arranged to meet John again in secret once he had spent a little more time with his family upstairs.

  The small group duly said their goodnights, Ella telling the others that Beth had some sewing that she needed to finish, and they each made their way up to their rooms. Ella must have dozed off, for the grey tinge to the light coming from outside told her that dawn was not far off when she heard Beth trying to slip unobserved into their room.

  ‘Beth! Wherever have you been? It must be early morning, for goodness sake.’ A rush of anxiety made Ella’s tone sharper than she had intended.

  ‘We’ve just been talking. John is in a terrible state. The things he has seen… I know he hasn’t told me the half of it. He’s carrying it around inside like a great weight. It’s to do with his men. So many of them lost and he holds himself accountable. And many of those that weren’t lost have been terribly injured. Can you imagine what it must be like trying to drag injured men away while the bullets are still flying, while you are out in the open with nowhere to hide except amongst the bodies? And these people are your friends, your family over the last few weeks, the people who have kept you sane, wh
o have watched over you while you slept.’

  Beth’s words spilled out in a rush and then she fell silent. Ella couldn’t decide whether she should feel angry with John for sharing such details with Beth, or proud that Beth was clearly the person he trusted most and felt best able to confide in. They had talked a long time; she wondered how much more he had revealed.

  As if reading her mind, Beth said, ‘He wouldn’t tell me anything else. He said he regretted telling me as much as he had, but he felt that if he didn’t tell someone he would go mad. We were sitting in my sewing room – we’d arranged that he would come back after you had all gone to bed. After we’d talked a bit he just put his head on my lap and fell asleep. He looked so exhausted that I didn’t like to wake him, so I just sat there.’ Beth paused. ‘I tried to doze but he kept starting half-awake and I stroked his hair to soothe him back to sleep. Then he started twitching and talking in his sleep. I doubt he had any rest even though his eyes were closed. Finally, he woke up properly and he admitted that he rarely had more than two or three hours’ sleep at a time these days. It’s no wonder he looks so worn and ill. He went back to his room; he didn’t want me getting into trouble on his account.’

  Beth sounded so despairing that for a moment Ella found herself wishing that John hadn’t chosen to make her his sweetheart. She could have been spared all this grief and upset. It was all the fault of the war, as were so many of the things in their lives that they couldn’t control.

  She became aware that Beth was speaking. ‘I’m sorry,’ Ella said. ‘What did you say? I was miles away, thinking of something else.’

  ‘I was saying that I wished I had a good-luck charm to give him,’ Beth said. ‘To keep him safe and remind him of me while he’s away. But I’ve nothing of any worth.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be something of worth,’ Ella said robustly. ‘Or at any rate, the worth lies in the emotion invested in it. It needs to be something to remind him of you, and of home.’