‘Olive,’ Clarrie said hoarsely. ‘Olive!’
Her sister looked up.
‘Go to the door,’ Clarrie urged, ‘go to the door now — you’ve got a special visitor.’
She saw the look change on Olive’s face, her eyes lighting in half-fearful expectation. Clarrie nodded and smiled, her throat suddenly filling with tears. Olive stumbled towards the door and heaved at the latch with skinny hands. Clarrie watched at the window as her sister ran into the yard. Olive would have fallen over if Jack had not reached out and caught her. His unshaven face showed bewilderment, then quickly recognition. His wife had changed more than he had in the eighteen months of separation.
‘Olive?’ he croaked.
‘Jack,’ she sobbed, touching his face in disbelief.
As their arms went about each other, Clarrie turned away with a shameful stab of envy. Yet she was thankful at Jack’s safe return, for her sister could not have endured much more. Olive was worn out both physically and mentally. Jack was the only one who could restore her to life. Blinking back tears, Clarrie hurried upstairs to prepare George and Jane for their fathers return.
The next day, Clarrie moved back permanently to the flat above the cafe, although both Jack and Olive asked her to stay. But she saw how much they wanted to be left alone together. She trusted Jack to look after her sister now.
‘I can’t thank you enough for helping my Olive out with the bairns,’ Jack said. ‘I know how difficult it’s been.’ His look was contrite. ‘She’s told me everything about the tea room and what Bertie Stock did to you. I’m that sorry, Clarrie. If we can ever help you out in return, you just have to ask.’
Clarrie left, promising to return and visit on Christmas Day. Lexy, Dolly and Ina were overjoyed to hear of Jack’s safe return. But Clarrie could not hide her anxiety that there had been no word from Will about when he would be demobbed. It was well over a month since he had sent the telegram.
‘Probably gone to Paris for a knees-up,’ Lexy joked.
‘Bet he’ll just walk in the tea room whistling any day now,’ Ina said.
‘Aye,’ Dolly agreed, ‘he’ll turn up like a bad penny, don’t you worry. Start scrounging for food and asking when it’s teatime.’
They talked and laughed about Will until Clarrie felt reassured. She just had to be more patient.
Two days before Christmas, she was helping Jared lift parsnips in the cafe allotment when Lexy and Ina appeared. Their breath billowed in the sharp air as they approached. Clarrie did not see their strained expressions until they were close.
Her heart jerked. ‘What is it?’
They came either side of her. Ina was clutching the local newspaper. It trembled in her hands. Clarrie saw her gulping as if she were trying to speak but could not.
Lexy said, ‘It doesn’t make sense!’ She sounded bewildered and angry.
‘Tell me,’ Clarrie whispered.
‘There’s to be a memorial service,’ Lexy said. ‘But they must have got it wrong.’
Ina held out the folded newspaper and pointed to a short announcement. Dread clawing at her insides, Clarrie took it and read.
‘A memorial service will be held for Capt. William Henry Stock in the side chapel of St Nicholas’s Cathedral on Friday 27 December at 2 p.m. Capt. Stock, the younger son of the late Mr Herbert Stock, solicitor, died tragically of septicaemia on 9 December and is buried near Albert, Northern France. Mr and Mrs Bertram Stock request the attendance of family and close friends only.’
The words danced in front of Clarrie’s eyes. Will dead? Impossible! He had survived the war. How could he possibly have succumbed to blood poisoning after it was all over? It was not right. She would not believe it!
‘No,’ she gasped, shaking her head, ‘no, no, no!’ She read it again. But it could only be about Will. Her Will. There was no other. He had been dead for two weeks and she had not known. No one had told her. How long ago had Bertie and Verity been given the terrible news? Her heart pounded so hard she could barely breathe. Her legs were suddenly too weak to support her. Lexy and Ina grabbed her arms and held her up. Jared quickly upturned a pail and guided her to sit down.
‘They should have told me,’ Clarrie gasped, ‘not let me find out like this!’ She shook the newspaper. ‘How could they let me find out like this?’
‘They’re a pair of wicked selfish devils!’ Lexy cried.
‘Poor Mr Will,’ Ina said tearfully, ‘such a kind, canny lad.’
The hugeness of what had happened crashed over Clarrie like a tidal wave. She buckled forward, gripping her stomach to try to contain the pain. But she could not; it spewed out of her in a high-pitched wail.
‘Oh, Will,’ she sobbed, ‘my darling, darling boy!’
In the bitter dank air, Clarrie rocked to and fro in distress as her friends tried to comfort her with loving arms.
CHAPTER 37
Clarrie could not wait until the memorial service to confront Bertie and discover what had happened to Will. She could neither eat nor sleep. She could not contemplate celebrating Christmas. The decorations and excitement on children’s faces, the brass bands playing Christmas hymns in the street, all made her want to weep. They brought back poignant memories of a young, affectionate Will showing her his nativity scene the very first Christmas she had spent in England. She yearned for something of Will’s — something tangible — that she could hold on to and remember him by.
Lexy wanted to go with her to find Bertie, but Clarrie insisted she stayed to run the cafe. It was Olive who volunteered Jack to support her sister in the ordeal.
‘I’ll not have you facing that man on your own,’ a tearful Olive said. ‘Jack’ll take no nonsense.’
But they found the house at Tankerville still shuttered. When Clarrie enquired at the neighbouring house, there was no sign of the gossiping maid and no one knew when the Stocks were returning.
‘They must still be living on the Rokeham estate,’ Clarrie concluded. She wanted to go there at once, walk all the way if necessary, but she hesitated to say so. Jack’s ordeal in prison had left him less robust than he had been and he tired easily. She could not jeopardise his health further when he needed to regain his strength to take up his old job at the tea company.
‘We could always try Summerhill,’ Jack suggested. ‘Someone there might know.’
Clarrie nodded in resignation, and then had an idea. Before they left Jesmond she would seek out Johnny Watson. The last she knew from Will was that his friend had qualified as a doctor and was working in an army hospital in Edinburgh. But perhaps he was home for Christmas. When Johnny came to the door, she could hardly believe her luck.
‘Oh, Johnny!’ she cried.
At once he gripped her hands in his and said, ‘I know, I heard. It’s awful, awful.’
He guided them inside and, in the quiet of his parents’ drawing room, asked Clarrie what she knew. She shook her head.
‘Only what I read in the newspaper,’ she said with a bleak look.
‘Bertie Stock never bothered to tell Clarrie in person,’ Jack explained, growing breathless with indignation. ‘He’s never tret her like proper family. It’s a disgrace.’
Johnny looked stricken. ‘Tell me what I can do to help, Clarrie.’
Clarrie gave him a grateful look but shook her head. ‘Just be there at the service with me.’
She left, her heart a little less sore for having seen Will’s old friend. It made her feel closer to her lost stepson. But of Christmas and Boxing Day she remembered little. Numbness settled over her like a smothering blanket, distancing her from the world. She was aware of Lexy and Ina being with her — a distraught Dolly had been dispatched home to her family — but she did not take in what they said. Jared made her pea soup. Olive and Jack brought the children round as a distraction. Only George and Jane managed to reach through her defensive cocoon.
‘Why are you sad, Aunt Clarrie?’ Jane asked, eyeing her with curiosity.
‘Cos Uncle Will�
��s gone to heaven,’ George answered for her. ‘Here you are. We made this for you.’
The boy handed Clarrie a picture, the figures cleverly made out of pressed flowers and scrap pieces of cloth. It showed a tall woman on a tiny horse riding through trees.
‘That’s you, Aunt Clarrie,’ George told her. ‘I know you don’t have a horse, but Mammy says you like them.’
‘I want a horse too,’ Jane said. ‘I want to be like you.’
Overwhelmed, Clarrie hugged them both and gave Olive a grateful look.
‘Aunt Clarrie, you’re crying again,’ Jane exclaimed. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I love it,’ Clarrie croaked, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Thank you.’
At the memorial service, Clarrie was well supported. As well as Olive and Jack, there were Lexy, Ina, Dolly, Edna and Jared from the cafe, and Johnny and his parents. Rachel in South Shields had read about it and come to pay her respects too. The old friends hugged with emotion. They all sat together in the packed side chapel while Bertie, Verity and her brother Clive sat on the opposite side and barely nodded a greeting. Among the dozens of mourners were men in uniform from Will’s regiment.
It occurred to her that Wesley might make an appearance. Will had mentioned him in some of his earlier letters but not since the spring. Most likely he had been deployed elsewhere and was now safely back in London with his wife.
Clarrie knelt down and closed her eyes, trying to summon Will’s youthful grinning face to mind, but it would not come. The service began. The lump of grief in her throat was so stifling that she could not manage to sing the first hymn. Prayers followed, the sombre words ringing around the echoing stone chamber. Then they sat for the eulogy. Clarrie tensed as a uniformed man walked forward from the back of the chapel.
He turned and faced them. Her heart jolted at the sight of Wesley. His hair was closely cropped and face leaner than before, but his eyes had lost none of their vitality. They shone with emotion, almost fiercely, as he surveyed them all. Clarrie’s pulse drummed as he began to speak.
‘Before the war I hardly knew Will Stock. To me he was Bertie’s younger brother — bashful, musical, not a sportsman, friendly but perhaps a bit too gentle for his own good. Very much in his older brother’s shadow. Will did not strike me as tough enough to succeed in life. He had no ambition to go into the family firm and seemed content to settle for being a schoolmaster.’ Wesley gave a rueful smile. ‘I have to admit that my heart sank a little when I discovered we would be fellow officers in the same company. I imagined that I — the older more worldly-wise man — would be the leader and protector. How wrong I was.’
He went on to tell them of Will’s courage, his kindness to frightened comrades, his irrepressible good spirits and humour.
‘Will was hardly ever quiet,’ Wesley smiled wryly. ‘If he wasn’t chatting about cricket or horses or music, he was whistling tunes and singing songs. He didn’t let the fact that he had no musical instrument with him hold him back. He could do impressions of a whole brass band or orchestra and raise the spirits of the most downhearted. Not once did I ever hear him complain or criticise others. I was the one who lost my temper with the men and got depressed at the conditions. It was I who railed against our lot. Will was the one who listened and sympathised, then encouraged and chivvied me out of my brown study.’
He paused, and Clarrie saw his jaw clench. ‘He was wise beyond his years,’ he continued. ‘He showed far more common sense and sensitivity to others than many of us older men. Yet he had a childlike quality, an optimism and belief in the goodness of others that was humbling. When anyone asked him how he could remain so cheerful amid the hell of war, Will always said, “I think of home and the people I love. There lies the real world, not this madness here. They are my anchor.”’
Wesley looked round the congregation, his gaze briefly meeting Clarrie’s. ‘Will was sustained by thoughts of his beloved Newcastle and the northern hills that he loved to ride over. But most of all he was kept going by the knowledge that he was dearly loved by so many — by his family and friends.’ He hesitated, his eyes glimmering in the dim light. ‘Will was a man of greatness. He would have made an excellent teacher of music. The world is a lesser — and a duller — place without him. I count myself privileged to have known him, to have served beside him and to have received his generous friendship.’
He bowed his head. Clarrie felt a sob rise up from deep inside that nearly choked her. Tears streamed silently down her face. She was amazed by Wesley’s tribute, so frank and yet so tender. He had captured the spirit of his friend and by doing so had conjured up the Will she had known.
As he came by, she gave him a grateful look. He glanced at her, frowning, then gave a brief nod and strode on.
After that, Clarrie felt lifted by the music. How Will would have enjoyed it! At the end of the service they emerged into icy rain. Clarrie, seeing that Bertie and Verity were making straight for a taxi-cab without any attempt to speak to her, rushed after them.
‘Bertie, please,’ she cried, grabbing at his coat sleeve. ‘I need to talk to you.’
He shook her off. ‘I have nothing to say.’
‘Why did you not tell me about Will?’ she demanded.
‘I have no obligation towards you,’ he said with contempt.
‘Hurry up, Bertie,’ Verity said impatiently, ‘you’re letting in the rain.’
Clarrie held on to the door. ‘Will’s things,’ she said. ‘I know they will have been returned to you. Can I have something to remember him by? A keepsake — anything — his pen or a book of poetry—’
‘Will’s possessions will be passed on to my son Vernon — his nephew and blood relation,’ he said coldly. ‘Now please leave us in peace to grieve for my brother.’
He yanked the door closed and the cab moved off into the traffic. Clarrie stood shaking and staring after it in pained disbelief. Lexy and Johnny hurried over. Johnny held his umbrella over her, putting a protective arm round her shoulders.
‘Forget about them,’ Lexy said. ‘Haway, you’re wet through. Let’s get you home.’ She invited Johnny and his parents back to the cafe for refreshments. As they moved towards the tram stand, Clarrie saw Wesley break off from the huddle of uniformed men sharing a smoke together and approach her.
Rain streamed down his face into his upturned collar. He eyed her cautiously under dark furrowed brows. ‘I’m so sorry about Will.’
Clarrie nodded. ‘Thank you for what you said about him. It was a great comfort.’
‘I was pleased to do it,’ Wesley murmured. He hesitated. ‘How are you?’
She wanted to say that the pain of Will’s dying was like having her insides gored, that she could not imagine how she would get through the days ahead without him. That she was utterly worn out and war-weary.
‘I’m getting by,’ she said. ‘I have good friends.’
‘So I see.’ He glanced at Johnny sheltering her under his umbrella. Clarrie introduced them.
‘Would you like to come back to the tea room?’ she asked, suddenly not wanting him to go. There were so many questions she wanted to ask about Will that he might be able to answer.
He gave a regretful smile. ‘I’m afraid I can’t. I have a train to catch in half an hour.’
‘Back to London?’
‘Yes. I shall be back on the trading floor at Mincing Lane tomorrow. It hardly seems possible that life will take up just as before.’
Clarrie’s insides twisted. ‘It can never be as before,’ she said quietly.
‘No, I suppose not.’
They held each other’s look.
‘Were you with Will — at the end?’ Clarrie forced herself to ask.
His expression clouded. He shook his head. ‘I was on a few days’ leave — resting behind the lines. He died in the field hospital.’
‘How did it happen — the blood poisoning?’
He gave her a sharp look. ‘Don’t you know?’
Clarrie shoo
k her head. ‘I’ve been told nothing,’ she said bitterly. She saw the pity in his eyes and wished she had not spoken.
‘Will cut his leg on some barbed wire. He didn’t tell anyone. He wasn’t the type to make a fuss. It went septic. They were going to have to amputate, but he died before they could.’
Clarrie groaned, feeling suddenly faint. Johnny gripped her round the waist to steady her.
‘Come on, Clarrie, you need to sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for a cab.’
Swiftly, Wesley nodded and exchanged polite goodbyes. He returned to his comrades. Clarrie, supported by Johnny and Lexy, allowed her friends to lead her away.
CHAPTER 38
1919
Herbert’s Tea Rooms were Clarrie’s lifeline in the months that followed. She did not allow herself to think beyond each week, planning her days around the needs of the cafe. Slowly, she began to pull it round from its precarious wartime position. Olive, who was rediscovering her love of painting, helped her redecorate with a more modern Egyptian design.
Through sheer hard work and stubborn determination to persevere, Milner’s tea delivery business had also survived and with Jack’s help was beginning to pick up again. They gave Clarrie generous credit terms and she was able to offer quality teas once more. To her relief, Stable Trading allowed her to continue running the business as she saw fit, despite Will’s death. They kept her rent low and did not interfere, merely asking for accounting details at the month’s end, which she sent to an address in North Shields. Somehow, Will appeared to have secured the company so that Bertie could not get his hands on it, for she was sure that if he had, the grasping man would have sold it from under her once more.
Rumours abounded about Bertie’s financial difficulties. Lexy’s sister Sarah, who had once worked for Verity, heard that the Tankerville house was up for sale. Summerhill had changed hands. Back in February, Jared had spotted in the newspaper that it had sold at auction. Gossip reached the tea house that Bertie had fallen out with Clive Landsdowne over some investments and that the Stocks were no longer welcome at Rokeham Towers. Dolly had heard that Bertie and Verity were back in town living in a small terraced house in South Gosforth with one maid-of-all-work. Clarrie could only imagine how ill-suited Verity would be to such reduced circumstances. Yet there were many well-to-do who had lost a lot more, their pre-war stocks and shares worth only a fraction of their former value.
THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER:A wonderfully moving story of courage and enduring love: First in the India Tea Series Page 38