‘I’m sorry we can’t go outside. It’s a bit of a bore, when the weather’s like this.’
‘I’m not bored.’ Nina sounded surprised at the suggestion. ‘If you think this is boring, you should try staying in school for the holidays. I love being here. I wish I lived on a farm.’
‘Really?’ Again Celandine caught a glimpse of how Nina’s life must have been before they had met. ‘Do you miss your mother and father?’
Nina nodded, and said nothing. Celandine saw that she had touched a nerve. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Is it my go?’ She laid down a card, and tried to imagine what it would be like if her own mother and father were constantly away. Would she miss them? She wasn’t at all sure that she would. Was that wicked of her? She missed Freddie. And Tobyjug.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Nina, honestly I am. You must come and stay every half – if you’d like to, that is. It does get a bit lonely by myself, and it’s so much better if you have a … a friend.’
Nina nodded again, and managed to whisper, ‘Yes. It is.’ But now her eyes looked more watery than ever and so Celandine decided that she had probably said enough.
Ten minutes later, they looked up from their card game. The unfamiliar sound of a petrol engine came rattling into the yard, and a few moments after that two heads flashed past by the window, one of them wearing a peaked cap. Both faces were screwed up against the rain.
‘Gracious,’ said Nina, above the rhythmic thumpeta-thumpeta noise outside, ‘whatever’s that?’
Celandine looked at her blankly. ‘Freddie,’ she said, after a moment. ‘I think one of them was Freddie. Not the one in the hat.’
They got up from their chairs and peered through the streaming window. A brief exchange of raised voices was just audible above the engine noise and the squalling wind. Then they saw a large motorcycle swing around the yard and roar towards the open gate once more – ridden by a young man in a cap and greatcoat, his passenger now no longer visible. He looked wet through. The motorcycle disappeared through the gateway in a cloud of smoke and steam.
‘Come on,’ said Celandine. ‘Freddie’s home! Don’t know why, though. I thought he was supposed to be staying with someone from his school.’
They arrived in the hallway at the same time as Mrs Howard. Freddie was standing on the coconut matting, shaking the drips from his summer jacket – an entirely inadequate piece of clothing to be wearing on the back of a motorcycle in mid-October. His trousers clung to his legs, and muddy rainwater simply streamed from him onto the mat. He was carrying a small leather suitcase.
‘Freddie! What is this? Are you here—? Oh, I am so glad! Give me a kiss! Come – come out of these clothes. Yes, yes, at once! I will fetch Cook for bringing a hot bath.’
‘I’ve no time, Mother. No – really. I have to be gone again in three-quarters of an hour. Just popped in to get changed, you know. Hallo, Dinah! And er, hallo … er … oh, Nina is it? Hallo.’
‘Changed? You are leaving again this shortly? Freddie – no! There are no clothes here ready, nothing is ironed on …’
‘Now don’t worry, Mother. I have a suitcase here, with clean clothes … won’t take me a minute. Is there a towel in my room? I’ll be down again directly – then I’ll explain. Back in a jif. What have you done to your wrist, by the way?’
‘I boiled it on the teapot.’
‘Oh. Bad luck.’
Freddie bounded up the stairs, taking his suitcase with him. Mrs Howard and the two girls were left to stare wonderingly at one another.
‘What is this place – a house for mad ones?’ Lizzie Howard threw up her hands in despair. ‘Accchhh! Well, he shall have some thing to eat, in whatever case. Celandine, lay a little plates in the parlour, and I shall find Cook.’
By the time they could hear Freddie coming back downstairs, there was a tea table laid in the parlour, with a plateful of bread and butter, a dish of damson jam, half a fruit cake, and a fresh pot of tea. The parlour led directly on to the dim hallway, and something about the deliberate and measured tread of the footsteps on the stairs made them all look towards the open door. Through the banister rails they caught a shadowy glimpse of khaki and brown leather, and Mrs Howard already had her hands to her face in shock as Freddie appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in army uniform.
‘No … oh no …’ Celandine could hear her mother beside her, breathing into her cupped hands, but she could not take her eyes off Freddie. He looked … foolish. He had scampered up the stairs an excited schoolboy, and had come back down a soldier – except that he was not a soldier. He couldn’t be. He was just Freddie, dressing up again, and in a costume that didn’t fit very well. It was too big.
‘Jock’s coming to pick me up again in half an hour.’ The voice was as familiar as ever, but the booted feet sounded foreign and strange, a leathery creak as Freddie walked towards the table, and the smell of the new serge uniform was somehow ominous. Mrs Howard sat down heavily on one of the parlour chairs.
‘Well, I wish somebody would jolly well say something.’ Freddie picked up a piece of bread and butter and put a blob of jam on it. Celandine watched the knife spreading the home-made jam, saw how the tip of it carefully picked out one of the damson skins … he never would eat the skins. She looked at the scrap of dark skin, curled up and glistening now on the side of Freddie’s plate, and knew that she would remember it for ever. There was something so sad about it that she had to turn away, swallowing back the tears. She didn’t want Nina to see her cry.
‘Freddie … no! You are too young.’ Mrs Howard had found her voice at last. ‘Too young. You must listen to me …’ She struggled to stand up again.
The sound of the front-door latch clicked out in the hallway and Freddie put down his plate, expectantly.
‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘I’ve already enlisted.’ It was apparent that he was bracing himself against his father’s appearance, for when Thos put his dripping head around the door, Freddie looked relieved and picked up his plate once more.
Thos looked anything but relieved, however. He stood open-mouthed in the doorway for a few moments, then slowly began to remove his wet coat.
‘What the devil’s all this, Freddie? Did I just hear you say … you were enlisted? Enlisted? You’re sixteen, for God’s sake! How can you possibly …?’ He seemed to realize that he was dripping water onto the carpet. ‘Wait there,’ he said.
Freddie shot a glance at Celandine and raised his eyebrows. Thos’s deep voice echoed out in the corridor. ‘And anyway, it’s illegal. You’re below minimum age.’
‘It’s too late, I tell you,’ Freddie shouted back. ‘I’ve signed up. And what’s more, I think you should do the same.’
Thos reappeared in the doorway, wiping his head and neck with a scarf, red in the face now, with fury.
‘The same? I should do the same? You don’t think I might have more important things to worry about, you blithering little fool? Do you imagine I have the time to go chasing around the continent with a lot of Frogs for company? There’s a farm to run here, if you hadn’t noticed. Perhaps you can afford to miss a few Latin lessons and go off on the spree, but I have to work. Now get out of that stupid uniform and go back to your school desk.’
‘I tell you, I’ve signed up,’ said Freddie. ‘And there’s an end to it. I’m leaving in about fifteen minutes and reporting to barracks.’
‘Reporting to …’ Thos looked as though he might explode. ‘Reporting to barracks? You’re barely out of short trousers, you dolt! And just look at you! You’re … ridiculous. I tell you, it’s illegal. They simply wouldn’t sign a schoolkid. How old did you tell them you were?’
‘Sixteen,’ said Freddie.
‘Well, there you are then. And what did they say to that?’
‘Told me to walk around the corner, and see if I wasn’t eighteen by the time I came back.’
‘What? And you were stupid enough to do that? What do you think the school will say when they hear of it? For th
at matter …’ – Thos played his trump card – ‘what do you think Father will say? Do you imagine he’ll just let you go waltzing off without a word?’
‘Where is he?’ said Freddie.
‘He’s gone to Radstock for a few days. And when he comes back—’
‘I shall be gone.’
‘Freddie …’ Thos gave a long sigh. ‘Freddie, listen to me …’
‘Yes, Freddie,’ said Lizzie Howard, ‘listen to your brother. He has more of the good sense.’
Celandine looked at Thos. He was obviously trying to calm his temper now, trying to reason with Freddie rather than simply bully him.
‘Freddie … it just won’t work. Father will be down at those barracks the minute he hears of this, you know he will, and he won’t leave until he gets you out – and then you’ll really be for it. I’m sure that you just want to … I don’t know, help your country and all that. But they don’t need schoolkids. They’re not sending boys out to France.’
‘I shan’t be going to France,’ said Freddie. ‘Not for a while, I don’t think. There’s training first. I shall be in England for ages yet. It’ll probably all be over before they let me anywhere near the fighting.’
‘Well, then – why go?’
‘Because … because I’m sick of everything else, that’s why. I don’t want to be at school … don’t want to be a priest, or a lawyer … or a farmer. And things like this don’t happen very often. Thos, there’s a war going on – thousands of people are enlisting. Thousands every day. We’re at war. It might not seem like it, stuck down here, but we are. I want to be doing something … real. Something that matters a bit more than Latin and Greek. As you say – some work.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, Freddie. They don’t need you. What you do can’t possibly make the slightest difference.’
‘It can to me.’
There was silence. Freddie would not change his mind, and everyone there apart from Nina had known it from the beginning. For all their differences in temperament, the Howard children were similar in one respect: their stubbornness. There wasn’t one of them who would readily let go of something once they had a firm hold on it – and each recognized this in the other.
Freddie said, ‘Dinah, I want to show you something – quickly – before I go. It’s only a new butterfly, but you might like it. Come upstairs a minute.’
The two of them could hear Thos’s voice, angrily rumbling away beneath them, as they stood in Freddie’s room.
‘Dinah – can you keep a secret?’
Celandine had to smile to herself, despite her sadness. Oh yes. She could keep a secret.
‘I expect so,’ she said, looking around her. ‘Where is it?’
‘Where’s what? Oh, the butterfly? There isn’t one. Dinah, I would have gone straight to the barracks, but I wanted someone to know where I was … where I really was … and you’re the only one I can trust. Thos is right – Father will come to get me as soon as he hears about it, and so I’ve enlisted under another name.’
‘What? But he’ll still find you, won’t he? Taunton barracks can’t be that big. He’s sure to know people there, and he only has to see you …’
‘I haven’t joined the Somersets. I’m with the Dorsets. Can you remember that? Dorsetshire Regiment. I enlisted at Sherborne, not at Taunton – and I’ll be based at Dorchester. Will you remember that?’
‘All right. But Freddie – don’t do this … please don’t go …’
‘I must. And you mustn’t worry. And you mustn’t tell. Promise?’
He looked so young and anxious in his too-new army jacket, his fair hair still wet from the rain – how could anyone believe he was eighteen?
‘All right. What name did you give?’
‘Frederick Thomas. I just took my first name and Thos’s. Wasn’t really thinking about it at the time – but at least I shan’t forget it.’
‘No.’
The deep growl of the motorcycle made them turn towards the window, and they saw the greatcoated rider swing into the yard once more. The machine came to a halt and the rider sat astride it, casually adjusting his gauntlets. He pushed his army cap back a little and grimaced up at the rain. This time he wore goggles – like a strange disguise, they were, but a disguise that could never hide what lay beneath: another face too young for this venture.
‘Come on,’ said Freddie. ‘Jock’s here.’
*
Erstcourt Howard’s reaction, two days later, was predictably noisy – and his voice carried as far as the stables, where the grooms bent their heads a little further to their tasks as a consequence. Why had word not been brought to him immediately? What on earth were Thos and Lizzie thinking to simply let the boy go? Could he not turn his back for two minutes at a time without some disaster should occur? Was he to attend to every little detail? Without stopping for sup or bite, he strode out into the yard and yelled for Mr Hughes, the foreman.
‘Hughes – get that wretched gig out, and any lump of horseflesh that’ll stand the whip! Yes, now! I don’t care which. It’s two hours to the barracks, and damned if I don’t do it in one!’
Celandine and Nina peeped fearfully out of the parlour window and watched Erstcourt rattle out of the yard at a very smart pace.
‘I think Freddie’s awfully brave,’ said Nina.
‘To go and enlist, you mean? Hmph. I think Freddie’s idiotic. Quite … preposterous,’ said Celandine – although she couldn’t help but feel just a little bit proud.
‘No, I mean to risk getting caught by your father. I think I’d rather be caught by the Hun than by him.’
‘Oh, Father’s preposterous too. My whole family is quite preposterous.’
Chapter Ten
MARY SWANN HAD simply been biding her time, of course – waiting for the right weapon with which to attack. Now she had found one. At breakfast on the first morning of the new half, the talk was of the war. One or two of the girls could now claim a personal connection in that they had neighbours or family friends who had gone away to fight, and at the Hardy end of the long refectory table Alicia Tremlett was gaining some attention for herself in this respect. She had a cousin, she said – ‘dear Peter’ – who had just enlisted.
‘Oh Alicia! How brave of him – but how awful for you. Were you very close?’
‘Yes,’ said Alicia, lowering her eyes, ‘we’re … well, perhaps I shouldn’t say. But if anything should happen to him … you know … I should be …’ She looked as though a tear or two might not be out of the question.
‘Oh! How terrible – and how romantic. What’s his name, dear?’
‘Peter Breugel. His family were Dutch, although now they’re completely British of course. They were descended from a famous painter called Peter Bruegel. Peter – my Peter – is named after him.’ Alicia took a delicate bite of bread and marmalade.
‘Oh Alicia! Listen, dear, you must be brave too – for his sake. Which regiment is he with?’
‘Oh. It’s the er … the um …’
‘Alicia – it mightn’t be wise to give away too much information …’ Mary Swann leaned forward and looked pointedly at Celandine, who was sitting a little further along the table, opposite Nina.
‘Why – what do you mean?’ said Alicia.
‘Only that you can’t necessarily trust everyone, you know. Your cousin might be completely British, even though he has a Dutch name. But there are some people with British names who aren’t completely British at all.’
Mary continued to look at Celandine, and gradually all heads turned in that direction.
‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘There are some people with British names who are actually half-German. It makes you wonder whose side they might be on. But …’ Mary sighed. ‘That’s up to them, I suppose.’
‘Who do you mean – the Witch? Is she half-German?’
‘Of course, the other thing you have to be careful of is sympathizers,’ said Mary, directing her gaze towards Nina. ‘My father was talking about them.
People who might be British, but who are actually friends with the Germans. Sympathizers are even worse, according to Daddy. They’re as bad as the white feather brigade – cowards. He’d shoot the lot of ’em. Is there any more milk in that jug, Chlo?’
It didn’t take long for the word to get around; Celandine Howard was not only quite possibly a witch, she was also half-German. And that meant that Nina Jessop must be both a witch’s assistant and a German sympathizer – a dangerous if unlikely mixture of black cat and white feather. Mary Swann had played her hand well, so well that she could now afford to sit back and let others do the rest of her work.
Whereas Celandine and Nina had previously been ignored mainly by those in their own dormitory, it now became an unwritten law of the entire Lower School that nobody was to speak to them. This would have been more bearable if it wasn’t for the low hissing that accompanied them wherever they went. If a question were asked of either of them in the classroom, the unsuspecting teacher would look up in surprise at the brief ‘ssss’ that erupted at the mention of the name Howard or Jessop. In morning Assembly, as the third form filed past the first and second forms to take their places, the barely audible hissing sound followed the footsteps of the two girls like a shadowing snake – so that the prefects at the end of each row had to repeatedly call for silence, though they well understood what was going on and made no serious attempt to stamp it out. On the hockey pitch no ball was ever wittingly passed to either Celandine or Nina, which actually suited Nina very well, and if either of them should accidentally find themselves in possession, then the hissing would begin and continue until the wretched ball had been surrendered. In the washrooms no girl would ever touch a bar of soap that had come into contact with the tainted skin of the two outcasts, and at the dinner table no jug or dish would ever be accepted from their sullied hands.
Of the two, Nina suffered the worse treatment. Like pack animals, the Lower School instinctively singled out the weaker prey, and if ever Nina was alone she was in trouble. Celandine was regarded with more caution. She was understood to be violent by reputation, perhaps truly dangerous, and so was never physically jostled or slyly kicked – and certainly never cornered. Besides, there were growing whispers that she was possessed of mysterious powers, whispers made the more believable by her wild appearance: the gypsy-dark eyes, the Medusa-like hair. Hadn’t she laid a curse upon poor Carol, as revenge against Miss Belvedere? Hadn’t she caused oranges and sweets to levitate and float from locker to locker? These were the rumours. Who knew what she was, or what she might be capable of? No, Ninky was easier game, and far safer to deal with.
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