by Helen Bryan
The fourth member of the clique was already in Crowmarsh Priors. She had been there for so long that only a handful of people remembered where she had originally come from. Some who did were still living in New Orleans, white-haired widows who had been at the French convent with Evangeline Fontaine many years before. Now they passed the afternoons rocking on the porch of an old people’s home that had once been the Fontaine mansion, fanning themselves and talking about the same things they had discussed for fifty years, including the night they had attended Evangeline’s coming-out ball in this very house, before the Fontaines had fallen on hard times and had to sell the place. “It was a real shame, when it had been in the family for so many years. Something to do with the war, why they lost all their money. That was after Evangeline ran off.”
Evangeline Fontaine’s elopement had been a scandal at the time and still was.
“That’s right, just before the war. I forget the name of the boy she ran off with, nobody knew him from Adam or who his people were. I wonder what became of her,” said one. “It was a shocking thing to happen in one of our old families.” The others rocked and agreed.
“But the Fontaines hushed it up, and nobody’s seen Evangeline since.”
“I reckon she’s dead by now,” one or the other of the old ladies would finally remark.
“I reckon she is,” another would say. “Most folks we knew are.”
In Crowmarsh Priors, Evangeline Fontaine Fairfax was awakened by a fleet of catering lorries that ground to a halt on the village green. Soon cheerful young Australians were shouting “g’days” and directions at each other. Lorries banged open and marquee poles clanked as they were unloaded. Evangeline pulled back the bedclothes and scrabbled for her slippers with blue-veined feet. She pulled on a frayed satin robe, drew the curtains open, and squinted in the bright morning sunshine toward the channel.
She glanced at Elsie’s letter propped on the dresser between a jumble of photographs in tarnished silver frames, one of her late husband in his naval uniform, another of herself holding their son, Andrew, as a baby, then Andrew graduating from university, and with his wife and children at their home in Melbourne.
She picked up an ivory-backed hairbrush engraved with a “P” and poured a tot of sherry from the bedroom decanter into her tooth mug. She took both back to the bed and sat down. “Well hey, Laurent, hey, Richard, hey, Frances, fifty years and they say that sorry old war business is over and done with. Folks who weren’t there say that, leastways. Maybe today we finish it. Here’s to y’all,” she said aloud. The southern accent had thickened now and the once-soft voice was husky. She drank some sherry, then brushed her hair while she planned her outfit for the big day ahead. “Yes indeed, y’all watch.”
1.
Crowmarsh Priors,
Boxing Day 1937
At twenty-two, Alice Osbourne was the sort of girl people called a “brick,” sensible and responsible, though they were inclined to add that she was pretty when she smiled. She was tall like her father, the late vicar of Crowmarsh Priors. Her features, brown hair, and air of bookish distraction were also his. She was nothing like her mother, whose early prettiness had faded after years of “delicate” health and disappointed hopes that her husband would rise higher in the church than an East Sussex country parish.
A serious, stolid only child, Alice had few friends among the village children except Richard Fairfax, who was two years older, also an only child, whose father had been at Cambridge with the vicar. Alice spent long afternoons with Richard and his nanny, playing in the Fairfaxes’ garden in good weather and inventing games in the cellars where Richard’s father kept his wine when it rained. The Reverend Mr. Osbourne coached Richard in Latin and Greek, and after he was sent away to school, Alice saw him only during the holidays. Each time he came home he seemed handsomer, and by the time they had reached their teens, he had become a god in Alice’s adoring eyes.
With Richard away and her mother usually indisposed, Alice’s main companion and confidant was her father. She was happiest on Saturdays when they rambled across the Sussex Downs, sometimes as far as the coast, and the vicar, who had a lively imagination, indulged his love of local history. He enthralled Alice with stories of the Roman legions who had fortified the coast, pointing out coves where the Vikings might have landed and where eighteenth-century smugglers had had a network of tunnels and caves to bring in contraband—silks and lace and brandy—from France. On the way home for tea one or the other of them would sing “The Smugglers Song”:
If you wake at Midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!
And they took it in turns to recite verses and then joined in the chorus after each one:
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the Parson.
’Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Then they would race each other back to the vicarage for tea, and Alice would muffle her laughter in case Mummy was resting.
When Alice was sent to boarding school she missed those outings, and during the holidays these happened less frequently. Gradually it fell to Alice to take over her mother’s job of preparing the altar for Sunday service on Saturday afternoons, Mrs. Osbourne’s only concession to the duties of a vicar’s wife. She still saw Richard when he came home but felt awkward and tongue-tied in his presence, though he never seemed to notice. He and his widowed mother, Penelope, often came to the vicarage for sherry after the service on Sunday morning, when he would chat to Alice and call her “old thing.” She felt embarrassed later when her father teased her gently about her “beau.”
When Alice came home from school for good, it was clear that the vicar was less well than his chronically ailing wife. Dutifully Alice followed his advice, trained as a teacher in Brighton, then came home to take over the infants’ class at the Crowmarsh Priors school and nursed her father through his last illness. Meanwhile Richard went to naval college, and Alice heard eventually that he had been appointed as a naval attaché to someone important in London. Penelope took a keen interest in her son’s career and passed any news of him to Alice.
As Richard rose in the navy, Alice’s world shrank. The first Christmas after her father died was a sad little observance. “I don’t know what your father would have said if we didn’t keep Christmas,” said Mrs. Osbourne mournfully, pouring the last of the vicar’s port for them to drink with the lopsided Christmas cake Alice had baked. They drank and ate in silence as the gloomy December evening drew in, the vicar’s place at the head of the table painfully empty. Alice went to bed feeling too miserable for words.
Next morning, Boxing Day, dawned clear, crisp, and bright, and Alice, cheered by the weather, got up with a sense of purpose. As soon as the holidays were over she and her mother had to vacate the vicarage for its new occupant. They were moving to a small Edwardian cottage on the edge of the village and there was a great deal to be done. Today Alice planned to pack up her father’s study. After breakfast she left her mother drinking her tea by the range, briskly tied an apron round her waist, and was on her knees tossing papers into boxes when she heard the front door knocker. “Bother!” she muttered and struggled to her feet. She wiped her dirty hands on her apron and opened the door to find a tall, blond man on the step.
“Alice!” Richard Fairfax exclaimed and kissed her cheek.
“Richard! Oh! I…um…I thought you were away.” The unexpected sight of him, not to mention the kiss, had made her head spin. How mortifying that he should find her wearing her oldest skirt and a moth-eaten cardigan she used for housework!
“Got leave in time for Christmas with Mama. Thought if you were free we might go for a walk, as it
’s such a lovely day—we’ll have lunch at that little pub, you know the one. And there’s something I want to…well, do say you’ll come, old thing!”
Fancy him asking her to lunch! It was the first time a man had invited Alice to do anything. “Oh! How lovely! I’ll just…” Alice untied her apron, glancing with dismay at her clothes.
“Come as you are, old thing.” And before she knew it Richard had bundled her into her coat and scarf and they were going down the path.
Now, an hour later, Alice, who would normally have looked subdued and cold and red-nosed in her old tweed coat, was arm in arm with Richard Fairfax, glowing with happiness. The wind had turned her cheeks pink and made her eyes sparkle. Darling Richard! The only man, apart from her father, whom she could ever possibly love. As soon as they had reached the top of the downs he had spoken the words. She’d thought she had imagined it, had stopped and stared up at him blankly.
He had taken her hands in his and blurted out, “Dear Alice, I said, ‘Will you marry me?’ Rather sudden sort of proposal, I’m sure, but we’ve known each other since we were children, and all through naval college I’ve thought of you. I used to look forward so much to coming home, because you would be there. I can’t imagine you not being there, so I thought that, now I’m in a position to marry, you might say yes. Mama has been hinting how much she’d love you as a daughter-in-law. Dearest Alice, please say you’ll marry me!”
“Oh, Richard! Oh, yes! Yes, of course! With all my heart!” she had exclaimed, breathless with disbelief at the turn of events. Even Mummy would be pleased.
“Now, darling,” Richard said, untucking her hand from the crook of his arm and reaching into his pocket, “of course you shall have a new engagement ring if you prefer, but Mama wondered if you might consent to wear hers. It is rather special.” He held out a velvet jeweler’s box.
Tentatively Alice took it, undid the clasp, and opened it. Against a satin lining with the jeweler’s name in faded gold script, a magnificent diamond flanked by sapphires in an old-fashioned setting blazed at her. She caught her breath. “Oh!” She had never seen anything so beautiful. Richard’s father had been dead for years, but how could Penelope bear to part with it?
Richard was waiting anxiously.
“Oh, Richard! I should love…does your mother truly mean for me to have it?” she added.
Richard chuckled. “Mama was delighted when I said I intended to ask you to marry me, and I’m to tell you there is other jewelry you shall have too. Apparently I’m supposed to have it all reset for you. And she hopes we will live in the house here, which I thought you would like as it means you’ll be near your mother.”
Penelope Fairfax had been as effusive as her brusque nature allowed when Richard broached the subject. “My dear boy! It’s high time you were married. A naval officer needs a wife, keep the home fires burning, that sort of thing, but the right sort of wife is terribly important in the navy. I’m happy to say that Alice, unlike most modern girls, has her feet on the ground, not like those foreign hussies in that rackety crowd the de Balforts have taken up with.”
“Mama, they’re hardly hussies! Hugo made friends travelling after university, and naturally he has them to stay. Probably amuses Leander having some young people about. But you’re right, except for the shooting, that crowd does run to foreigners, and some of them are a bit fast for my taste, not my sort any more than they’re Alice’s. There’s something so…so wonderfully English about Alice!”
“Thankfully she doesn’t take after that mother of hers. No, Alice is a brick. Of course she will have the Fairfax jewelry, and I shall be happy to give up this house for you both. Alice’s mother will be company for her when you’re at sea, and I’ve so much committee work in London that it’ll be far more convenient to stay in the Knightsbridge flat. I’ve been longing to move there for ages, actually.”
Penelope held up a hand imperiously as Richard tried to protest. “At my time of life, after a busy day of trying to make cabinet ministers see sense, I prefer peace and quiet, a nice cocktail, little dinners with friends, perhaps the opera or the theater. I’ve always found it rather quiet in the country. I need to be doing, Richard! Besides, you’ll be needing the nursery floor before long, darling. Before you know it there’ll be nannies, and prams in the hall, so chaotic, but darling Alice will manage splendidly…”
“Yes, Mama definitely approves.” Richard slipped Penelope’s ring onto Alice’s finger. Alice held out her hand at arm’s length, and they both admired it glittering in the sunshine. “Bit large for you, darling, I think. I’ll take it to Aspreys at the end of my leave, so they can reset it and adjust it to fit,” said Richard. Reluctantly Alice watched him replace the ring in the box. He grinned and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t look so glum. I’ll make sure they reset it beautifully, I promise. The minute I come back we’ll name the day.”
Back? “Are you going away again?” asked Alice.
“There’ll be rather a lot of back-and-forth, but as the wife of a navy man you’ll get used to it, darling. And I’ll always come back to you. The thought you will be waiting for me makes me unspeakably happy.”
Alice had given a little shiver of pleasure at the word “wife.” “I’m going to be married!” she thought incredulously. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve been seconded to a mission to Washington. President Roosevelt, you know. The situation in Germany. Then I’ll be travelling round the United States, meeting industrialists with businesses in Europe. We leave next month, probably come back from New Orleans. We needn’t have a long engagement, need we?” he asked, drawing her into his arms.
Alice nearly swooned at his kiss. “No,” she murmured giddily into his shoulder when he finally stopped kissing her and she could speak again.
They walked on briskly to keep warm until they reached a summit where they could see the coast and the sea sparkling in the distance.
“I love it here,” said Alice. “Father and I used to…if only he were alive to marry us. He would have been so happy!” Her voice had wobbled. “We used to come up here,” she went on, “and he’d tell me stories about what used to go on round the coast. An old man who was dying once told Father there had been a smugglers’ tunnel that opened in a grave in the churchyard.”
“Is it true?”
“The old man insisted it was, he’d been down it as a lad. Father had an old book about smugglers in his study, privately printed, I think, he’d found it in an old bookshop in Lewes. It even had a map that showed the tunnels, but it wasn’t very clear. But Father tried to use it to work out where the tunnels were and actually thought he’d found one. There were some scary stories about a smuggler called Black Dickon who had a gang and used them to get their contraband past the excise men. Mummy got quite cross when she overheard him reading to me about the gang. They were betrayed and all hanged, and their ghosts came back to lure the customs men to their deaths on the cliffs. I had nightmares about it for a while.”
Richard put an arm around her and they gazed out to sea, at the sun dancing on the waves. “I shan’t let you have nightmares, but keep an eye out for that book. I like those old stories about the coast too. We’ll tell them to our children, and leave out the frightening bits. Now, old thing, let’s go and have lunch. I’m starving, aren’t you?”
Holding Richard’s hand, Alice tried to remember where she had last seen that book. She vaguely remembered putting it into a box with some of her father’s papers. She would find it and give it to Richard as a wedding present. Some of the stories were grim. Now she remembered they said Black Dickon had been hanged on the spot where the pub stood now. She shuddered.
As they went in, wood smoke from the pub’s fire tickled Alice’s nose. She could smell chicken roasting on a spit, and Richard called for champagne. She hadn’t known you could get it in a country pub. He must have brought it in specially. The publican beamed and led them to a table with a vase of Christmas roses in the saloon bar. “You arranged this be
forehand, didn’t you! Oh, Richard, what a wonderful surprise!”
Richard smiled and squeezed her hand under the table. They raised their glasses to each other. “I shall remember this day forever,” she thought, sipping her first taste of champagne, giggling as bubbles tickled her nose. With such happiness before her, she knew nothing bad could ever happen to her again. She and Richard would live happily ever after. She banished all gloomy thoughts of smugglers and their tunnels.
2.
New Orleans, March 1938
In the shuttered dining room of her New Orleans mansion, Celeste Fontaine surveyed her luncheon table, beautifully laid for thirty. Her brow creased with irritation and she snatched a place card bearing the name “Maurice Fitzroy” from its silver holder, tore it in two, and slipped a card that said “Lieutenant Richard Fairfax” into its place, beside “Miss Evangeline Fontaine.” She was upset to have to rearrange her seating plan at the last minute, but Maurice had telephoned to say he was unavoidably delayed by plantation business and would join them for coffee. So rude of him. Or was there more to it? Maurice was too old-fashioned to be rude. She straightened a lopsided flower arrangement. It was such a strain to entertain during Mardi Gras.
Everything went wrong. The colored servants spent every night in the Quarter, drinking and carousing. Next morning they had headaches and were good for nothing. But Celeste’s husband, Charles, had insisted they invite an important English delegation, which had met with the president in Washington, to today’s luncheon. The day had begun disastrously: the cook had claimed that her rheumatics made her too sick to get out of bed. Celeste had swallowed her pride and telephoned her mother-in-law in the country to borrow her cook, Inez. Now Inez was in the kitchen, grumbling, clattering pans, and bossing the maids at the top of her voice. Suddenly Celeste smelled food burning, heard a slap, then a shriek and the sound of glass shattering. A maid sobbed loudly in the pantry.