by Phillip Rock
His hearing was not so numbed by shellfire that he couldn’t detect sarcasm when he heard it. He leaned forward and tapped on the glass.
“Stop here, driver.”
They walked along Piccadilly in silence, not because they had nothing to say to each other, but because the wind had picked up and was driving grains of ice into their faces. He took hold of her arm and led her into Half Moon Street and into the warm, spacious lobby of the Torrington Hotel.
“Did your friend’s uncle ever buy the child a pink gin?”
“He may have,” she said thoughfully. “But I doubt it.”
“May I buy you one, or will it alter your growth?”
“You’re angry, aren’t you?”
“Don’t you think I have a right to be?”
“Yes . . . and no. Let’s just say, for the sake of fairness, that we both have a right.”
The saloon-bar was crowded with officers and well-dressed women. There was a tiny dance floor—every hotel saloon-bar had a dance floor now—and a four-piece ragtime band was playing the Castle walk. Winifred cast a stony glance at the women and a wildly cavorting Canadian second lieutenant.
“Could you find someplace quieter?”
He escorted her upstairs to the main salon, where more sedate couples sat taking tea or cocktails. An elderly waiter in livery showed them to a table on the glassed-in balcony that had a fine view of Green Park. Fenton ordered a pink gin and a whiskey-soda and the drinks were quickly brought out on a silver tray.
“You feel that I’m being patronizing, don’t you?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I think you’re just being noble . . . the honorable thing to do. A less considerate man would have simply ignored the situation entirely and not called on me at all.” She took a sip of her gin. “Quite tasty. Odd. Us having a drink together in a public place. Quite unthinkable a year and a half ago, but ‘tempora mutantur’ and all that.”
“Yes, times change, but human emotions do not. If I’ve hurt you, Winifred, I’m deeply sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. The war has changed everyone’s plans. I suppose we’d be married by now if Germany hadn’t marched into Belgium. I wonder if we’d be happy. Probably. I would have a handsome husband and you would have . . . what? Why did you choose me, Fenton? It wasn’t love. I wasn’t under that illusion even then. Fundamentally monetary, I suppose. Or is that an uncalled-for remark?”
“No. You deserve to know why. It’s true I needed money to stay in the regiment. It was either marry well or resign my commission. Your father understood my motive, so did Andrew. Their feelings were that I’d make you a good husband. That was my rationale as well. And I would have. But it wasn’t just money—I wasn’t that cold-blooded about it. I would have sought out some simpering daughter of a Sheffield millionaire if I had been. God knows there were enough of that sort fluttering about Mayfair ballrooms. I liked you . . . enjoyed your company. I enjoy it now.”
She toyed absently with her drink, turning the slender glass between her fingers.
“What would you do if I held you to your obligation to at least ask me to marry you?”
“I would propose, of course.”
“Of course. I hardly needed to ask the question, did I?” She set her drink on the table and looked at him, her face expressionless. “I have difficulty sometimes in remembering what I was like that summer . . . or what you were like. We’re different people now, aren’t we? Not just in a physical sense. I mean to say, too much has happened in our lives for us not to have been altered quite drastically. But I recall how infatuated I was . . . how utterly giddy I felt. I knew in my heart that you couldn’t possibly be in love with me, but I was desperate to be engaged by the end of July. I felt I owed it to my mother for all of her efforts to see me wed. She made me feel that it was all my fault Charles hadn’t dropped on one knee . . . that, somehow, I’d made a mess of it. But then she never had to walk in the garden with Charles as I did, knowing that every time he looked at me he was comparing me with Lydia Foxe. That was cruel. I couldn’t possibly compete. I felt like such a frump. And then, out of the blue, you strolled into my life with a box of sweets under your arm. No man’s timing could have been more perfect . . . or more deliberately planned.”
He took a hefty pull at his drink and then dug into his jacket for a tin of cigarettes.
“I hope you don’t mind if I smoke.”
“Not at all.”
“This is rather like hearing a story about two unattractive strangers. You’re an exceedingly beautiful woman. You don’t need to feel grateful if a man looks at you.”
“And you don’t need a rich wife in order to stay in the army. The slate has been wiped clean, Fenton. It’s like meeting for the first time.”
“My feelings exactly. What say we make a proper evening of it—dinner at Romano’s or upstairs at the Cafe Royal . . .”
Her smile went unnoticed as she took a sip of her drink.
“Sounds like fun, but I really don’t feel up to celebrating. Will you be in London long?”
He felt a twinge of disappointment and a sense of having been deliberately cut by her. How deeply did she resent him? he wondered. He blew a thin stream of cigarette smoke from the corner of his mouth.
“On and off for the next two weeks. I’m going down to Abingdon for the weekend. May I telephone you next week?”
She looked at him without a flicker of emotion—a cautious, deliberating gaze. “Yes,” she said with a slight nod. “If you really want to.”
There was a bleakness to the countryside that Fenton had never seen before during all the many winters he had spent in the North Downs and the Weald. A shabbiness and neglect that was not solely attributable to the weather. The lack of able-bodied men, he supposed, as the train lumbered slowly past one neglected-looking village after another: Effingham and Horsely . . . Clandon and Merrow. Roofs needed repair, walls thirsted for whitewashing, orchards were unpruned. The train was delayed at Abbotswood Junction to permit a battalion of New Army troops to double-time across the tracks. The West Surreys, he noticed, catching sight of the flag-bearing lamb badge on an officer’s cap. The officer was gray-haired and rode his horse with taut-bodied fury, probably mentally cursing the shambling mob of soldiers, who were obviously in the first stages of their training and could not run across a railway track without stumbling into each other or tripping over the rails. The West Surrey officer saw only a thousand green troops foisted on his ancient, noble regiment to meet the needs of the war. Fenton saw one thousand bricklayers, house painters, carpenters, well diggers, tree pruners, butchers and butchers’ boys, and God knew what else. The heart’s blood of the shire running across the embankment and on into the misted, sleet-covered fields beyond.
Charles had warned him that there might not be a taxi for hire in Godalming and to telephone the house when his train got in. There was a taxi, if he cared to wait an hour for it, but Mr. Pearson, the brewer, was driving his lorry into Abingdon with six barrels of ale and offered Fenton a lift.
“Like when you was a young ’un,” Mr. Pearson said jovially. “You and young Mr. Charles and your brother, God bless him, ’opping on the wagon when I’d slow them old Percherons o’ mine on Burgate Hill.”
Summer fields and dray horses. Fresh in old Pearson’s memory, but beyond recall to Fenton. He got out at the iron gates that marked the mile-long road to the house and walked the rest of the way, his kit bag slung over one shoulder. The Pryory looked as weathered and bleak as everything else he had seen, the house stretching away in the afternoon gloom like some abandoned relic. The once-manicured quadrangle of the Italian garden seen beyond the weed-dotted terrace was a tangle of unpruned cypress. The stables, he knew without seeing, would be empty, the horses given to the cavalry. They might just as well have stayed in their warm, comfortable stalls for all the good they were doing in France.
But the house only looked abandoned. There were a number of cars parked at the end of the
driveway, and when Coatsworth opened the door, Fenton saw he was in full livery.
“Why, Mr. Fenton, sir, good to see you.”
“Thank you, Coatsworth. Did I walk in on a party?”
“Just a few of his lordship’s friends. Last gathering for some time, sir.” He took Fenton’s trench coat and kit bag and whispered, “They’re closing the Pryory after Christmas, sir. We all move to the Park Lane house. Only forty rooms there . . . much easier to keep up.”
Only forty rooms, Fenton thought wryly as he walked down the corridor toward the library. Well, everyone had to make sacrifices in wartime.
The candles in their silver holders were reflected in the highly polished surface of the long table. But for the lack of footmen—there were only three, who were old, older even than Coatsworth—it could have been any gathering for dinner at Abingdon Pryory at any time. The war was snugly tucked away as Lord Stanmore sliced the roast mutton and Coatsworth uncorked the hock. It seemed to Fenton that he had but to close his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again Roger would be arguing with Charles about current trends in modern poetry and Alexandra would be chattering away about Paris frocks or what was playing at the cinema in Guildford. But time did not come back, no matter how familiar the surroundings. Roger was dead. Charles was a married man, and Alexandra hadn’t opened her mouth all evening except to say hello. Some things never changed, however. Mr. Cavendish, squire of Dilton Hall and the second largest landowner in the district, still bore his grudge against the Liberal party, although Lydia Foxe Greville’s presence at the table caused him to keep his comments to a near-inaudible mumble.
Lydia Foxe Greville. Fenton was seated opposite her and it was impossible for their eyes not to meet. What did he see there? A hint of triumph? A veiled smugness? Perhaps. It had always been difficult to tell what Lydia was thinking. When toasts were offered, he raised his glass to her and she smiled at him, as though saying, “You see, I told you I would do it.” The future Countess of Stanmore. It seemed incredible, but there she sat, looking to the manor born—and almost excessively lovely.
“So the fighting has wound down for the winter and I would like to know what we’ve got to show for it.” Brigadier General Sir Bertram Sturdee, long retired, tapped his wineglass with a spoon. “Nineteen fifteen is not a year I would ever like to see again.”
“Must we talk of the war, Bertram?” Hanna said.
“It’s on everyone’s mind, Hanna. Nonwar conversation always seems to flounder somewhat. And with Fenton’s DSO ribbon staring me in the face, I can’t quite keep my thoughts on local matters.”
Hanna rose majestically. “You may talk of the war all you wish over the port. We ladies would prefer to be spared.”
Alexandra stood up with the other women and then walked to the head of the table and kissed her father on the temple.
“Good night, Papa. I’m going to bed.”
“Still feeling under the weather?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “a bit.” She turned to Fenton and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Good night, Fenton. It’s so good to see you again.”
He touched her hand. It was cold and her face had a waxen appearance.
“Alexandra not well?” he asked after the women had left the room.
“One bout of flu after another,” the earl said, passing a box of cigars to his right. “Caught a chill of some sort in France and can’t shake it.”
“Alex was in France?”
“Thought you knew. Yes. Went over with the Red Cross . . . came back in October quite ill.”
“Mustard and vinegar,” Mr. Cavendish said. “Rub it thickly on the child’s chest, wrap it in flannel, and keep her in bed. Works wonders.”
Brigadier General Sturdee lit a cigar and waited for Coatsworth to pour the port.
“So Sir John French is out and Sir Douglas Haig is in. So much for the politics of the high command. You’re in Whitehall these days, Charles. What sort of wild tales filter through the War Office halls?”
“Not too many filter down to my office,” Charles replied, scowling at his glass of port. “I’m rather a new boy and not on the grapevine. But I understand that Haig would like to end the war next year with one huge blow in late summer . . . up at Ypres. Joffre would prefer having our offensive launched closer to the French buildup in Champagne . . . perhaps along the Somme. Either way, it’s going to be a big push and nineteen sixteen might just be the victory year.”
“Don’t bet a quid on it,” Fenton said. “They’re just getting light-headed up at GHQ seeing all these New Army battalions come into being. A million men under arms. They’re mesmerized by the figures, but it doesn’t change the formula. Ten million men could have gone over the top at Loos, and they still would have been stopped by the wire and the Boche machine gunners. The Hun formula for defense is basic, simple, and works like a bloody charm. We have to make a radical change in our strategy, and Haig isn’t the man to do it. He thinks the infantry’s sole function is to find a path through the wire and punch a few holes in the trench system so that the cavalry can pour through and win the war with saber and lance. That’s lunacy and every Tommy knows it.”
Mr. Cavendish cleared his throat loudly. “Dash it, Fenton. That sounds defeatist . . . like an article in one of those damnable pacifist broadsides one finds scattered about in railway stations or on the street. I am quite surprised at your attitude, sir.”
Sturdee chuckled softly. “You said the same thing to me once, Tom . . . when I came back from the Transvaal. I said Buller’s an ass and you nearly shoved the Union Jack down my throat.”
Lord Stanmore coughed discreetly. “Let’s break out the whiskey and play some pocket billiards. I agree with my dear wife . . . must we talk of the war?”
The old general accompanied Fenton on the way to the billiard room. He walked slowly and stiffly, because of the Boer bullet that had terminated his career and that was still deeply embedded in his right hip.
“Your uncle was kind enough to take the time to write me a letter. He’s damn proud of you, Fenton. He predicts you’ll be commanding a brigade before summer. I assume you plan to stay in the army . . . make it your career.”
“I don’t know anything else.”
“You have all the qualities it takes to make field marshal one day. That is to say, all the qualities but one. You’re too quick to express an opinion. You’re bound to rub the mossbacks the wrong way, and there are a great many mossbacks above you in rank. Believe me, I know. I would have retired a major general instead of a brigadier if I had been less vocal about the debacle of the Tugela River crossings. If you will permit an old man to utter an old saw, A word to the wise, dear fellow . . . a word to the wise.”
By midnight, only Fenton and Charles remained in the billiard room, playing in a desultory fashion. Fenton poured two whiskies and watched Charles miss an easy shot.
“You haven’t said much about Whitehall.”
Charles glared at the tip of his cue stick. “Not in Whitehall actually . . . small building of our own in Old Pye Street. Just started, really, so I don’t quite know what it’ll be like. We’re an odd group—officers and NCO’s, mechanical engineering and chemistry dons from London University, mad scientists with Viennese accents—a whole gamut of oddballs talking to other oddballs and crackpots. Strange people come to us with mad ideas on how to win the war—death rays, stuff like that.”
Fenton sank the five ball and scanned the table. “Don’t exaggerate.”
“Well, they’ve come up with some good ideas. Steel helmets—all the troops will have them by spring—a truly decent gas mask, an improved trench mortar, and more powerful grenades that always work. So I suppose they’ve justified their existence to date.”
“Sounds like a very worthwhile place to be.”
“I suppose it is. We used to make our own grenades at Gallipoli, jam tins stuffed with guncotton filched from the navy. One out of six actually exploded. It’s just that— Well, dammit,
I feel I should be with the Windsors. The regiment’s back in England . . . what’s left of it. Seventy-five-percent casualty rate . . . almost all of the officers either dead or in hospital. I should be on the square helping drill the new battalions, not talking to farmers about their experiences with caterpillar-tread tractors. Someone, somewhere, came up with the whimsical idea for a land battleship—a sort of enormous armored tractor with naval cannon in gun turrets, its iron sides bristling with machine guns. Bound to be a washout. We simply don’t have the technocracy to develop something that exotic, and even if we did develop it, we don’t have the generals who would know what to do with the bloody thing. Generals hate machines, you know that. If they can’t saddle it or boot it in the arse, they don’t want it in their commands. I have the sinking feeling that I’m devoting my energy to a doomed enterprise.”
“If you feel so strongly about it, you shouldn’t have volunteered for the job.”
Charles flubbed another shot and watched in disgust as the cue ball drifted into a corner pocket.
“I was picked right out of the hospital . . . ordered to report to General Haldane as soon as I could walk without crutches. He told me that he wanted me to work in NS Five, shoved a mass of technical journals at me, and that was that. It’s only a temporary assignment, of course. When the medical board finally gets around to certifying me fit for active duty, I can say goodbye to talking to Hampshire farmers and looking at moving picture films of muddy old tractors crawling over muddy old ditches.”
“Well, at least you have a lovely young wife to go home to every night. Count your blessings.”
“I do,” he said gravely. “In fact, I feel guilty about having so many to count.”
“Remind me to send you a hair shirt. Be sensible, old boy. I’ve been watching you. You walk rather painfully.”