Gifts of War

by Mackenzie Ford

  I took one last look at the field where Izzy’s ashes were now part of the landscape. I wouldn’t be coming back.

  I led the way back to the gate and then let Sam go first.

  She stepped into the angle but then blocked my way by holding the gate firm.

  “Those are beech trees over there, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Is that where the badgers live, where the bluebells grow in spring?”

  I nodded. “And the foxes.”

  “Is this the time of year for the Severn Bore?”

  “You remember that?” I was surprised. “I don’t know.”

  “I remember everything,” she said, reaching out and stroking the lapel of my blazer. She leaned forward and laid her head on my shoulder. “And I remember telling you, back on the platform of the station in Middle Hill, just after you had been promoted to the war ministry, that I didn’t love you. I said I didn’t love you but that I might learn to love you.”

  She kissed my shoulder. “I didn’t believe myself when I said those things and I’ve always felt guilty about saying them. Everyone I’ve ever liked—you know, in that way—I’ve liked right off, right from the start.” She raised my hand to her lips and kissed it. “Well… I was wrong.” She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked up at me. “I have learned to love you, Hal.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “So much has happened to us. Because of the war I’ve fallen out with all of my sisters, one by one. Two of them have lost their men. You’ve lost a sister.” She took another breath. “I didn’t hate the Germans, not to begin with—and I know you felt the same way.”

  She licked her lips with her tongue.

  “But now, after all the pain, all the blood, all the turmoil… it’s hard not to let some … bitterness creep into your heart.”

  I nodded. She was right. Isobel had never harmed anyone.

  “And I’ve been thinking about Will. Does he really have to know who his father is? There’s so much hate now, everywhere… it will always be hard for him, once he knows the truth. He thinks you’re his father. He adores you. Why can’t it stay that way?”

  She climbed onto one of the iron rungs of the gate, so that her face was level with mine. “I know that when I mention Wilhelm, Hal, it hurts you, so I’m going to mention him one more time—and then never again. He asked me to marry him at a gate just like this. The one by the river at Stratford, where you and I once walked. He loved these kissing gates—they don’t have them in Germany—I think I told you that. He said he had me trapped, just like I have you trapped now. He said he wouldn’t let me go until I gave him an answer. I never hid Wilhelm from you, Hal, but maybe I hid the depths of my feelings, when we first met. In a way you came into my life too soon after Wilhelm. There were times, early in the war, when… when I hoped our side would collapse, just so I could have Wilhelm back. How terrible is that?”

  She brushed wisps of hair from her face. “But he’s been gone years now. You’ve been wonderful to me, and to Will, and to my sisters. We can’t go on living in this halfway world, not being married, holding back at least some of the time, waiting … Waiting’s not living.”

  She smiled. “We’ve been here before, you know.”

  “We have? I don’t— What do you mean?”

  “Remember that day on the platform in Middle Hill station, amid all the steam and clanking signals? I told you that if I was going with you, to London, I had to say so before the school board met, before I found out what their verdict was; I had to choose to be with you…”

  I remembered but I didn’t say anything.

  “It’s the same now. What I’m going to say, I need to say before the war is over, before I find out, one way or the other… whether Wilhelm’s alive, whether … what his feelings are … I need to choose, to decide, all by myself.”

  She took off her Alice band, threw it away, and let her hair hang loose. “So, here on this gate, this is the best way I can think of to prove to you that I mean what I am about to say.” She kissed my hand again and stroked the lapel of my blazer. “You said, that day in the cricket field when you asked me to come to London with you, that we were both trapped. You meant it in a different way to Wilhelm but you were right and … and that played its part in persuading me to go with you. But I don’t feel trapped anymore.” She raised herself onto her toes, on the iron rung of the gate, and kissed me on the lips. “If you still want to marry me, Hal, dearest Hal, the answer is yes.”

  The wind blew her hair across her face. I could smell Will’s smell on her.

  All my anger had gone.

  “You’re not just feeling sorry for me?” I kissed her hair. “All this grief.”

  She didn’t move, other than to shake her head. “You saved Will’s life. That’s when… I think I’ve loved you since then.”

  She turned her head to mine and we began kissing. I kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck. Our tongues interlocked. I whispered, “Look, Sam, I’m flattered and honored by your offer, but the war will be over soon. If you want to wait for six months, in case—”

  She put a finger to my lips. “Shhh. You haven’t been listening to what I’m saying.” She brushed my cheek with her fingers. “It’s you I love now. Will’s always loved you. It took me a whole war.”

  She stepped back, so I could go through the gate. “Now come on, let’s not leave your father by himself anymore.”

  One thing I was wrong about. When we returned to Penrith Mansions from the funeral, there was a letter waiting for me—from Izzy.

  Dear Hal,

  Strange times. Now that the war is nearly over, men are taking fewer risks, officers are sending fewer men into exposed positions. Result: our workload has lightened. Not by huge amounts but significantly. Some sanity in the world at last.

  Now, I’m going to set you a challenge. You’ve been in London for a few years so you must know what the best restaurant is. I know there’s been rationing and fantastic shortages but even so there is bound to be a place that everyone swears by. Somewhere with a piano bar and plenty of gin, where the slimmest women and the tallest men go. And I want you to take me there. I can’t wait to get out of this uniform.

  Once I had admitted to myself after weeks of denying it, that I had had enough of nursing, I felt released. I really do want to be a journalist—I’m sure that writing can be just as noble a calling as nursing, and just as satisfying. Alan doesn’t mind, amazingly. He said I could always write about medical stuff but I told him no: it’s all up with me and blood. I want to write about anything but blood. Which will look best in print, do you think, Isobel Montgomery or Isobel MacGregor?

  Huge love

  Izzy

  As it happened, Sam and I didn’t have time to get married just then. Izzy’s death and my mother’s were too close to do anything immediately, and then events—and what events—intervened. Later that week, less than a fortnight after Izzy’s death, the Armistice was signed. No sooner was that done than plans were announced for a peace conference to be held in Paris in early 1919. Before that, however, there was a preconference conference in London, and the brigadier and I were fully involved in that. My Moral Cost of the War, as it had been retitled, was released at the same time. It created quite a stir.

  On 14 December, the female emancipation bill was published. Things really were going to be different now that the war was over. Izzy would miss all that.

  Sam and I did travel down to Edgewater to be with Dad on his first Christmas alone, and this time we had Will and Whisky with us. My father took to the boy immediately. Moreover, Will loved the rambling old house. Physically, Will was quite recovered from his fairground injury but psychologically he had lost a good deal of his curiosity. In fact, that’s where my father’s house was perfect for him. It was so much bigger than the London flat and, over the few days we were there, Will expanded his horizons, but within familiar territory. He and Whisky took to Einstein, and Einstein, still perplexed by my mothe
r’s sudden disappearance, was grateful for the company. The three of them did everything together. They also took my father for long rambles across the wolds, which Will also loved. Although he had been born in Warwickshire, all his memories were of London, and the beech woods and streams of the Cotswolds were a new world. I think my father needed those rambles as well.

  He and Will would come back with birds’ eggs, shards of terracotta—the remains of pots found near a Roman villa in the vicinity— and stories of monks they had seen in the nearby monastery. One day Will came back and announced proudly, “I had beer.”

  “What?” gasped Sam.

  Dad chortled. “Don’t worry. He had one sip. So did Einstein.”

  Over Christmas lunch Dad made an announcement. He said that he had decided to give up the house. Some years previously, he said, he had bought a cottage elsewhere in the village. It had been intended for my mother, assuming that Dad would go first.

  He looked at me, at us, really. “Do you want the house? It’s yours, if you do. Otherwise, I’ll sell it. You’ll get the money, of course, in time.”

  Neither Sam nor I knew what to say, but Will did.

  “You mean we can live here always? With Whisky and Einstein?” His eyes were rounder than ever.

  I could see that Sam, although she didn’t say anything, was taken with the idea, but I didn’t push it.

  “You’ll need weeks—months—to dispose of all your junk, Dad. We’ll try the idea on for size.”

  “I’ve already got rid of most of your mother’s things,” he said sadly. “I’d have done more, but this official history of the war is taking up quite a bit of my time just now. I’m just about to start on Izzy’s belongings—will you help me with the books, at least, while you’re here?”

  I nodded, but in the event I didn’t. My leave was cut short by a telegram and, two days after Christmas, I was ordered to Paris, where I was to form part of the team preparing for the peace conference. I couldn’t say no: after my brief stint at the Front and my rescue from the Stratford backwaters by Colonel Pritchard, the peace conference would be the crowning achievement of my wartime career.

  FOR SIX MONTHS AT THE BEGINNING OF 1919, Paris was the center of the world. More than eight million soldiers had been killed in the war and now hundreds of politicians, diplomats, bankers, professors, economists, lawyers, and journalists came to Paris to try to fashion a lasting peace.

  There were statesmen from many nations—more than thirty countries sent delegations—but the real work was done by what came to be called the Big Four: France, Britain, Italy, and the United States. The British staff alone consisted of four hundred people. It was an extraordinary time: new borders were drawn throughout central Europe and the Middle East, and there was, to begin with, a sense that all was now possible. By the second week of January, all delegations were in Paris.

  Paris: beautiful and sad at the same time. There had been a lot of rain and the Seine was in flood. People were mournful for the sons and lovers they had lost; half the people wore black, while the other half, mainly the women, did their best to look elegant, chic. There was a gaping crater in the Tuileries rose garden and a captured German cannon on display in the Place de la Concorde. Along the grand boulevards there were gaps in the rows of chestnut trees, where some had been cut down for firewood. Coal, milk, and bread were in short supply.

  We had very little time off in the early weeks but we did have a spring break for a month while President Wilson went back to America to try to persuade Congress to be more accommodating to his idea for a League of Nations. During this break I—like everyone else on the delegation—was allowed to bring my family, Sam and Will, to Paris for a few days before the conference restarted.

  Our delegation occupied five hotels in Paris, all near the Arc de Triomphe, and centered on the Majestic, where I was billeted. However, security was tight; our own Scotland Yard people were on the doors and our own kitchen staff cooked the food. Wives and girlfriends weren’t allowed to stay in the official hotels, so while Sam and Will were in town (Whisky was living with Einstein now) I moved out, to the Hôtel de Sèvres, near the Invalides, so we could all be together. The German delegation had not been allowed at the peace conference proper, but was expected in town any day now, to be presented with the Allies’ demands.

  By then, Paris was humming. There was more in the shops, the weather had turned cold but the races at Saint-Cloud had got going again, La Bohème was playing at the Opéra, and Sarah Bernhardt appeared for a charity gala. In the bars the new American cocktails were becoming all the rage, and the Majestic Hotel even held poetry readings. The dances at the Majestic also became notorious, featuring the tango and the brand-new fox-trot. Tours were organized to the battlefields, where German helmets and empty shell cases could still be found, as souvenirs.

  The visit by Sam and Will should have been a golden few days, and in many ways it was. Sam was traveling at last, at long last. We tired ourselves out—at the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the ruins of the Tuileries, Sacré-Coeur, Les Halles. We boated on the Seine, tried exotic French foods, gave a sip of French beer to Will (he made a face but pretended to like it), and even risked a fun fair, though I kept a firm hold of him at all times. We found a babysitter one night and I took Sam to Larue’s, a rather risqué nightclub.

  Toward the end of their stay, we also had a day out at Versailles. By now I knew my way around the palace, its great gardens and lakes. Sam seemed to enjoy it but it was all a bit much for Will. After a couple of hours, we went in search of a café, to have lunch, and on the way we came across a large crowd of people just standing in the road. They all seemed to be staring at one building, which I knew as the Hôtel des Réservoirs. When I asked what was happening, we were told that the people were hoping to catch a glimpse of the enemy. The Hôtel des Réservoirs was where the German delegation was staying— it had arrived the day before.

  I hoisted Will onto my shoulders for a better view but neither he nor I saw anything. Inside the hotel the Germans could see out, but we couldn’t see in.

  We didn’t stay long. Will was wilting (he liked that word; he thought it had been coined with him in mind) and we found somewhere for lunch.

  I have to say, though, that I sensed a change in Sam during those days in Paris. It was difficult to put my finger on. It crossed my mind that, after all her talk of travel, the real thing, the real Paris, was a disappointment. But I dismissed that. She wasn’t cold exactly, or distant, nothing so specific. But, undoubtedly, some of the intimacy had gone out of our relationship. She now preferred to read to Will herself rather than have me do it. She never once mentioned her new interest in psychology. Maybe I was being touchy—I had been away in Paris for a couple of months, after all. But still…

  She did, however, bring me a precious—an intimate—gift. It was a notebook, a journal, the journal written by Izzy.

  “Your father found this, in the box of things the Medical Corps returned after… after she was killed. He says it’s quite well written and, if suitably edited—by you, perhaps—could be offered to the old family firm. He thinks there’ll be quite a market for this sort of thing, now that the war is over.”

  I accepted it gratefully. Remembering Izzy’s letters, I looked forward to reading it. Her memoirs would be vivid, funny, compassionate. She shouldn’t have kept it, of course—there were rules about that sort of thing—but then that was Izzy all over.

  The day after the trip to Versailles, I saw Sam and Will off, back to England, from the Gare du Nord. One of the privileges of my position meant that they had good seats in a first-c lass compartment. I helped Will up into the carriage and kissed his forehead. I turned and leaned forward to kiss Sam. In a movement that was the complete reverse of an earlier moment, she turned her head at the last second so that, instead of kissing her lips, I kissed her cheek.

  She looked me in the eye but I couldn’t fathom her expression. “Will you write to your father about Isobel’s manuscript?” she
said.

  “I will, but it may take some time. Now that the German delegation is in town the hard bargaining begins and I’ll be pretty tied up.”

  She nodded.

  Whistles blew, steam hissed, a hooter sounded down the platform, and the train eased forward. Sam held Will as he leaned out of the window, waving. I waved back, waiting till the train had quite disappeared from sight.

  That afternoon I moved back into the Majestic. For the next forty-eight hours I was frantically busy, helping finalize our position papers for the resumption of the last phase of the conference.

  Lloyd George was in buoyant mood, despite having to cope with labor unrest at home even as great events were under way in Paris. He disdained the Foreign Office staff and preferred the use of his own people, which meant there was always plenty for us to do. I remember that one of our main problems just then was to curb the jingoistic mood among the French. We found that our allies had wired the rooms at the Hôtel des Réservoirs and always knew what the Germans were thinking. Some among the British delegation thought this was unsporting and bad form, but the full peace terms hadn’t been agreed yet, only the Armistice, so who were we to complain? In a sense the war was still on.