Songs of Spring

by Amy Myers

  Lady Buckford had other things to worry about too, for last night there was an air raid on Dover with a lot killed, and a hospital bombed. Today her ladyship had been very quiet, the poor old soul.

  ‘How’s Felicia?’ Tilly was lying on a chaise longue by the morning-room window. Caroline liked coming to Simon’s London house where she had lived for a while in 1915, for it felt like a second home. Deprived of one, she still had this, and to see Tilly here seemed entirely natural. Caroline hadn’t seen her aunt since Christmas, and her visit to London provided an unmissable opportunity.

  ‘Much better.’ Caroline’s fears had been groundless. Felicia was much better, so Isabel told her. ‘She’s going home to the Rectory soon.’

  ‘You too, I hope.’

  Caroline sighed. Did the whole world know about her predicament? ‘Isabel, I suppose?’

  ‘Your father, in fact. I asked him why you left so suddenly at Christmas, and with some reluctance he told me.’

  ‘Do you disapprove?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of my refusal to stop loving Yves.’

  ‘You can’t stop loving him. Even Laurence would realise that. It seems to me that Laurence just expects you to stop sleeping with him, and preferably, seeing him at all. You must admit, Caroline, it’s a shock for a country rector who hasn’t seen what we have over the past year or two, and who is busy maintaining old standards in every situation. If you and Yves had planned to remain together at the expense of his marriage, I might agree with Laurence, but as I gather you haven’t, I don’t.’

  Caroline thought very hard. Should she explain the situation fully, for she doubted if Father had. ‘Yves’ is not a normal marriage,’ and when Tilly looked at her enquiringly, she explained.

  ‘Ah.’ Tilly reflected for a moment. ‘And how old is his wife?’

  ‘Twenty-seven or eight.’

  ‘She might change.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Caroline said wryly. Trust Aunt Tilly to go straight to the wound.

  Tilly grinned. ‘Don’t discuss things with me if you don’t want unpalatable comments. It’s what your father would be thinking.’

  ‘But I still don’t agree with him,’ Caroline burst out, ‘and that hurts. Father has always been my standard in life; you don’t have to trail across the world to see beyond your own horizons.’

  ‘No, but it helps. Can’t you get used to the idea that you can still love and respect your father without accepting everything he says?’

  ‘Not yet, but I suppose I will. After all, he disapproved of your suffragette activities, but he still defended you and housed you. Why can’t he do the same for his daughter?’ Caroline smarted anew.

  ‘Because you are his daughter, made in his image, or so he hopes. I gather your parents have had a mother and father of a row, incidentally.’

  ‘Over me?’ Caroline was appalled, though a tiny part of her registered pleasure. The wound of her mother walking away from her was still deep. Tilly nodded.

  ‘You mean my father relented, but my mother wouldn’t?’ In Caroline’s experience it had always been her mother whose standards were intractable, and Father who had more instant understanding of the situation.

  ‘Wrong. Your mother wants to accept the situation for the sake of seeing you.’ Tilly looked aghast. ‘What have I said? Why are you crying, Caroline? I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I thought she didn’t love me any more,’ Caroline sobbed.

  Tilly sighed. ‘Rubbish. I don’t always get on with Elizabeth but I know her well enough to know you could never doubt that, no matter what stance she takes. I think it’s Laurence beginning to demonstrate one more unfortunate effect of having my mother in his home.’ Tilly had looked after her mother for years, who had never suspected her suffragette activities. When she was sentenced to prison, and the truth emerged, her mother refused to allow her to return, and it had been Father who welcomed her, regardless of his opposition to her militancy.

  Caroline sniffed, blew her nose, and decided to change the subject. ‘What do you feel about the fact that you now have the vote?’

  Tilly shrugged. ‘A compromise. We wanted equal footing with men. They haven’t conceded the point at all; it’s lip service giving the vote to women over thirty, and there’s nothing about our being able to stand for parliament. That’s still gentlemen only. Patronising old fools.’

  ‘Tilly!’ Caroline laughed. ‘I’m shocked.’

  ‘You’re not. You feel the same, don’t you? In the middle of this mess of war it seems almost immaterial; even darling Emmeline has sided with the politicians.’ Whereas Tilly and most other militant suffragettes, as well as their non-militant sisters, had gone into war work, Mrs Pankhurst was still heavily embroiled in politics.

  ‘So what are you going to do now? Get married?’ Caroline asked.

  Caroline meant it as a joke, but Tilly did not take it so. ‘You were a suffragette too once, Caroline. Is that the way you think now? That once the war is over, women will return to purdah behind closed doors? Is that what you would do if you remained with Yves?’

  It was her own fault. Caroline knew she had brought this on herself, and must bear the consequences. ‘I can’t remain with Yves, so it’s no use even considering that question,’ she replied evenly. ‘And what will I do? I haven’t the slightest idea. Though’ – she searched for a painful honesty – ‘I most certainly won’t look for the first man to marry me.’

  ‘You can go back to the Rectory.’

  ‘To creep back into the womb of comfort?’ Caroline tried for honesty. ‘I would try not to.’

  ‘Well done,’ Tilly said approvingly. ‘Nothing wrong with doing so, but it just seems a pity after all you’ve achieved. I’m sure there’s scope for us both after the war.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ Caroline hesitated, but if Tilly could intrude on her private life, then so could Caroline on hers. ‘Tilly, don’t not marry Simon just to prove a point, will you?’

  There was a silence, then Tilly replied amiably: ‘No.’

  Chapter Five

  Margaret tried very hard not to show her irritation. Granted, it wasn’t usual for her to be in her own sitting room and not the kitchen, but this was her free time and today she wanted to be alone, not available for all and sundry to come wandering in.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Isabel. ‘I know how annoying it is to be interrupted when one’s reading, but I wanted to discuss something with you and I shall have to be off to the cinema soon.’

  She waited hopefully, and there wasn’t much Margaret could do except to say, ‘Sit down, Mrs Isabel, I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Government-controlled it might be now, but even if it tasted like sawdust it was still wet and warm.

  ‘No, don’t bother, Mrs Dibble. I can see I’m in the way.’

  Margaret was so touched by Mrs Isabel’s thinking of her for once that she made the tea all the same. And brought out some of the duchess buns she’d reserved for herself as a treat. They didn’t need the flour that most cakes did, and so her conscience was clear, and after all, Mrs Isabel was eating for two.

  ‘I know you’re busy with your Tunbridge Wells talks,’ Isabel said through a mouthful of bun, ‘and that’s why you’ve cut down on your cookery demonstrations at the cinema—’

  ‘They’ve heard all I’ve got to say,’ Margaret interrupted defensively.

  ‘Yes, but with the government pressing for a cinema propaganda campaign, and the National Food Economy League running this poster campaign and issuing recipe leaflets, I wondered whether you could begin again? With meat rationing coming in for the whole country in April, it’s the ideal time. You could display the amount of meat rations on the table, show what you can make out of it, and the same for marg and butter when that gets rationed.’

  Margaret sighed. ‘I’ll do what I can. I suppose we’ve got to get this war over with somehow. I’ll be serving up the same old thing though.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. It will help keep th
e village together, and anyway, rationing isn’t going to be straightforward in the countryside, even if it is in towns. There’s going to be a lot of trying to beat it by going direct to the farmers—’

  ‘Are you saying good Ashden folk will be trying to bribe the farmers, Mrs Isabel?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever asked for the extra chicken for the Rectory?’

  ‘That’s different,’ Margaret snapped. Of course it was. The Rector had to keep his strength up.

  ‘If you began your talks at the cinema again, I could tie the films in with them, a Charlie Chaplin tramp film, for example, to make them laugh. That way we could keep the village together, and not looking over each other’s shoulders to see what their neighbours are getting. It’s worth a try, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’ve got the time.’ Margaret was weakening, though. The idea of the village rallying round her stove was attractive. She’d let it all drop after Fred’s death, because she didn’t want to see the sympathy in their eyes – if sympathy it would have been. Enough time had passed, though; if she didn’t show herself again now they’d think she was ashamed of Fred, and that wouldn’t be right.

  ‘Some of the older villagers are going to need the coupon system explained to them. And there’s all this advice about eating slowly so you won’t want to eat so much.’ Margaret looked at Mrs Isabel, halfway through her second duchess bun. No eating slowly with her. ‘I’ll think about it,’ Margaret promised her in a tone that indicated the discussion was over.

  Her lips snapped shut as her eyes involuntarily returned to her book. She didn’t want Mrs Isabel to think she was turning her out, yet she longed to get back to it.

  Unfortunately Isabel’s eyes had followed hers. ‘Oh, Mrs Dibble, you’re not reading that rubbish?’

  ‘Rubbish? What’s wrong with it, might I ask?’ Margaret bristled, despite the fact that when Mrs Coombs from the Dower House had given it to her, she’d thought much the same.

  ‘This’ll give you comfort in your trouble,’ Mrs Coombs had said, and how right she was.

  Margaret had never had much time for Mrs Coombs, and had been surprised to find she was a book reader. It turned out she wasn’t, but she’d lost her nephew she was so fond of, and someone had told her about this book. Margaret had accepted it, because she couldn’t do much else. How could it comfort her though? Fred was dead, that was that, and no book was going to put it right. That had been yesterday, and now she couldn’t put it down. Raymond, it was called. The author wasn’t just anybody, he was a Sir and he was a famous scientist. His son Raymond Lodge had been killed in 1915, but he was alive and well on the other side. His father knew this for a fact, because he was in touch with him through one of these mediums, and from all the things this medium knew about Raymond, she couldn’t be making it up. Margaret had heard a lot about mediums and spiritualism; it had been a craze in the last year or two, and the Rector often talked about fakes exploiting the bereavement of others by setting themselves up as mediums, divine healers, psychic healers and what have you. The Daily Mail had put a stop to this racket by exposing it in the newspapers. She’d read all about it and thoroughly approved. That was before she’d read Raymond. Now she argued that just because there was a lot of imitation sugar around, it didn’t mean the real cane didn’t exist. It was the same with this book, and she’d just reached the exciting part.

  Over on the other side, Sir Oliver reported, a young girl called Feda, in control of a medium, Mrs Leonard, was passing on messages from Raymond, and Margaret had now reached the verbatim accounts of the conversations between himself and Raymond talking through Feda. It all made sense the way Raymond described the other side, and the thought that Fred too was up there having his poor body and mind put to rights, and singing and joking with his mates was indeed comforting. Raymond reported that they even produced cigars and whisky and sodas for any newcomers who requested them, but this didn’t last, and a good thing too, or Fred might get seduced into bad ways – if such a thing was possible in heaven.

  Early this morning as she avidly read the next page or two as she had her first cup of tea of the day, she had wondered whether this Mrs Leonard could be making things up, but then Sir Oliver wouldn’t have published it if he wasn’t satisfied it was true. He was not only a scientist, but the head of a university somewhere. Late last night, after she had said her prayers, Margaret had lain in the darkness, her eyes shut tight, thinking of Fred happily carving wooden animals as he used to in the gardens on the other side. He couldn’t be healing them for there wouldn’t be any to heal in heaven. Or would there? Maybe he helped out on the curing side when all those shot pheasants arrived. True, Sir Oliver had said nothing about animals so far, but then maybe Raymond didn’t like them.

  ‘You mustn’t read that!’ Isabel looked horrified. ‘It’s just a panacea.’

  For the first time in her life Margaret was rude to a member of the family. ‘I’ll read what I like, if it’s all the same to you, Mrs Isabel.’

  ‘But Father says—’

  ‘I’ll listen if he can explain how this medium got hold of all the details about that poor young man Raymond. What do you think mediums do? Spend all their time going round the country like the Unseen Hand, questioning the servants on what he likes for dinner, how the poor man died, etc? How do you explain that this medium could describe a group photograph of Raymond and his mates which at that time Sir Oliver himself had never seen? There are more things in heaven and earth, Mrs Isabel, as my mother used to say.’

  ‘Shakespeare, actually.’

  ‘And I daresay he got it from his mother.’ Margaret wasn’t going to give Mrs Isabel the last word, not in her own sitting room.

  Isabel flushed, and rose from her chair to leave. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I was just so surprised.’

  Margaret did not reply, but watched Mrs Isabel walk to the door. Then, as she walked out of the room, she delivered her olive branch. ‘I’ll do those demonstrations for you, Mrs Isabel. We’ll call it The Same Boat campaign.’

  Everyone was in the same boat in this war, and if Mrs Isabel couldn’t see that some of the passengers in that boat were unseen visitors from the other side, what did that matter? They were still there, however invisible to the rowers.

  Last week Felicia had moved back to the Rectory, and Luke had stayed there at the weekend. Caroline tried not to mind that Luke was welcome in the home she was forbidden to enter, for after all it had been by her own choice, but nevertheless it was hard. She had gone out with Penelope to see a Mary Pickford film yesterday evening, in order to not be at Queen Anne’s Gate when Luke returned, and though she enjoyed it she was disconcerted to find that he hadn’t yet come back. Nor was he at breakfast. Luke finally arrived at the office halfway through the morning.

  ‘And before you ask me what time I consider this,’ he said disarmingly, before she could speak, ‘I went to see Sir John at the Dower House last night, and the train was late this morning. And slow, and crowded. Does that satisfy you, ma’am? You won’t dock my king’s shilling?’

  ‘How is she?’ Caroline struggled to overcome her unreasonable resentment.

  ‘Doing well. She’s up and about – chiefly because the Dragon Grandmother refused to let me into Felicia’s bedroom unchaperoned.’

  ‘Serves you right. The very idea.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Felicia laugh so much in years. In fact, I’d never seen her laugh like that before. I can’t say it amused me. Anyway, Felicia climbed out of bed in her nightie, asked me to help her into her dressing gown and to carry her downstairs. That put Dragon Lady to silence. Unfortunately, as I did so, Daniel came through the front door, which was open for Rector’s Hour, and found me bearing her off like young Lochinvar. He was not amused either, though he tried not to show it like the gent he is. Felicia thought that was even funnier, so Daniel forgave me on the grounds that I was cheering her up. We sat either side of her in the drawing room like two gaolers, while Mrs Dibble
fussed around with fires, coffee and cakes, and worried about us all staying to luncheon since there were only five chops.

  ‘I must say,’ Luke added, ‘it must be a strange feeling for Lissy to return to the ways of the Rectory after life on the Western Front.’

  ‘Yes.’ Caroline remembered how odd even she had thought it, when Reggie asked her father’s permission to climb in her bedroom window as a surprise after coming home unexpectedly for Christmas from the front.

  ‘Anyway,’ Luke continued, ‘that gave Felicia a taste for downstairs life, and she even managed to get dressed with Isabel’s help the next day. She had great fun trying to find something from her pre-war clothes that didn’t make her look like something out of Dickens. Agnes is busy shortening all her clothes.’

  Oh, how painful those images of home. ‘Can’t she buy new ones?’

  One of the compensations for wartime life was that many young women previously dependent on families were now earning a wage. Even the Rectory’s finances had been eased this way – much, she suspected, to her father’s annoyance.

  ‘You know Felicia. Soldiers’ comforts first.’