Of course he wanted to ask for her opinion, but was far too proud. Besides, there was something about young Caro – an inner silence, if you like, a piece of her that she kept to herself – that he was finally forced to respect.
‘You’re a handful, Caro Garland,’ he murmured as he finally packed up his paints for the night, preparing to retreat to the village pub, where there was mixed company of the kind that artists were traditionally meant to favour, and certainly, in that respect, Walter Beresford was no exception.
Aunt Cicely stared at Robyn.
‘You must do as you wish,’ she said. ‘I quite understand, I truly do.’
‘It’s important to get going before the real need, don’t you think, Aunt Cicely?’
The old lady nodded, her expression as inscrutable as ever. She had pale grey eyes, which, it had always seemed to her niece, looked out on the world with unblinkered objectivity. All during her childhood Robyn had found a sense of calm around not just Aunt Cicely, but many single or widowed women. There were so many of them living in the country: women made widows by the seemingly interminable tragedies of the Great War; women whose fiancés had been killed in the war to end all wars, and who had never thought to marry again, or who had never found anyone who sought to marry them.
Of course they were not all either passed up or lovelorn. Some, like Aunt Cicely, had been quite determined to stay single, having no desire to have children, and in consequence these women always seemed less confused and foolish than the rest of the world.
‘I think you’re right to go to London and get fitted for your uniform and so on, Robyn,’ Aunt Cicely murmured eventually. ‘There is definitely going to be another war, and it is just as well to get yourself lined up and ready in the right way.’ She nodded. ‘We have been sadly let down by the politicians – now and for ever, perhaps.’ She sniffed. ‘My father always used to say that professional politicians were always going to be a bad idea, because they were bound to be out only for self-advancement, as against men of standing who took decisions based on patriotism, thinking only of what is good for all, not what is going to enhance them.’
She picked up her glass and drained it.
‘Do you want another sherry, Aunt Cicely?’
‘I certainly do.’
Robyn could not believe her luck. Her father was still in London, sorting out goodness knew what. For once she had her beloved Aunt Cicely to herself. If all went well, Robyn could be packed up and gone before her father returned.
Robyn poured them each yet another glass of sherry, and sat down opposite her relative.
‘You were in the Boer War, weren’t you, Aunt Cicely?’
‘I certainly was,’ she agreed. ‘I ran away from home to join the FANYs, as you know.’ Aunt Cicely certainly did not mind being prompted into talking about her time with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. ‘Couldn’t wait to help, and we did help. For most of us it was completely against the wishes of our families, as was Florence Nightingale’s work in the Crimea. The FANYs were different, of course, because we rode out, on our own horses, to fetch the wounded and dying. We brought them back to the field stations we had set up, thereby saving many lives.’ She paused and her face became sad. ‘Saw some terrible things, but we just had to do it. When the war was over, we came home believing we had done quite a good job, whereupon my family refused to have anything more to do with me.’ She laughed. ‘Everyone still thought nursing and being in the FANYs was tantamount to being a woman of loose morals, which of course it certainly was not. We were all respectable girls from good backgrounds, but we wanted to do good; we wanted to do something more than sit at home with our stitching, waiting for some young man to ask for our hand in marriage.’
‘So what happened after, after your family turned their back on you?’
‘I went to London and rented a flat just off Sloane Square. No money, of course, so I took in lodgers, just got on with it. You had to.’
‘Well done, you,’ Robyn murmured, and she looked at Aunt Cicely with renewed admiration.
‘At first my lodgers were quite dubious people, raffish to a degree, I would say now, at any rate to start with; so much so I had to sleep with a revolver under my pillow. But after a while we managed to get a better class of person, and it all became quite jolly, until the Great War, and then off we went again, but to the Front this time.’
‘Awful for you.’
‘Yes, we saw terrible things, we didn’t like it, but we knew that if we didn’t stick it out, hundreds, no thousands, more would die, so we had to carry on. And by the time that was all over, your grandparents had been gathered to God, so your dear mamma and my young brother, your papa, asked me here. But then, of course, on your arrival into this world your mother too was gathered, poor darling, and so here we were left, just the three of us at Brookefield, my brother and I, and you, and here we have been ever since. But now,’ she turned to look directly at Robyn, ‘now everything is about to change once more, because here we go again – another war.’
It seemed to Robyn that the expression in her aunt’s eyes had become clouded with the realities of war, with the horrors that she had seen, but sad though she was to see such a look on the older woman’s face, Robyn imagined to herself that all these things grew worse when you aged, simply because you had more time to think about them.
It was not many seconds later when she became disabused of this notion.
‘My dear, we must not romanticise the war that is undoubtedly ahead, not for a single second. War is terrible, terrible, terrible; and never more terrible than in retrospect. However much one tries to turn away from the memories of the things one saw when one was young, believe me, it is impossible. They are stained, and I mean stained, on your mind, never leaving you, returning to you again and again in your dreams, in waking moments, when one is half asleep, when one is waking. One smells and hears again and again the scents and sickening sounds of war, and the only thing that stops one from falling into an abyss of despair is the knowledge that one did something towards limiting the suffering, sending back the young men to their families – oh, and sending back the enemy to their families too, because when a young man lies dying in your arms, believe me, it doesn’t matter where he comes from, he is just another young man dying for no good purpose. At least, to be honest, for no good purpose that I could ever make out, certainly not one that one could point to with any certainty, either then or now.’
Later that night, after dinner together, the younger woman and the older woman embraced each other and went off to their bedrooms in the great draughty house, knowing that they had reached a pretty perfect understanding. Robyn was being handed on the torch. She would take it up from where Aunt Cicely had left off.
Back in her room Robyn started to pack up her things preparatory to leaving before her father’s return, which she knew – and Aunt Cicely obviously also knew, cunning old thing – might, to say the least, complicate matters.
Robyn could hardly wait to telephone Caro and invite her to join the FANYs with her. She knew she would be as keen as mustard about the whole idea, although she feared that, in the aftermath of Katherine’s disappearance, the Garlands would be more than ever reluctant to let Caro off the leash.
‘Don’t worry about your father. I will explain everything to him when he returns,’ Aunt Cicely murmured the next morning as she helped Robyn pack her suitcases, having sent for the Bentley to be brought round.
‘Do you think Father will really mind?’
Aunt Cicely considered this for a good few seconds.
‘Yes, but he won’t show it. He will mind, of course he will, but knowing my brother he will also accept. He is very fond of you, you know but, being a Harding, he will never show it. It is not the Harding way. We do, I think, have the same feelings as everyone else, we just don’t display them the way other people do.’ She stopped in front of Robyn’s bedroom window and stared out into the distant landscape. ‘I don’t know whether it is a good thi
ng, or a bad thing. It is just how it is. If you are a Harding you don’t complain, and you don’t show your feelings, you just expect to get on with it, and for everyone else to do the same.’
Robyn, who was sitting on her suitcase, bent over to do up the buckles on the straps. She was terribly excited about going to London to get her uniform fitted, about leaving for her great adventure, but she was even more excited when she heard from Caro via the telephone half an hour later, to the astonishment of both of them, that her parents had agreed that she could come too.
‘How absolutely too-too, my deah!’ Robyn responded, because she, like Caro, loved to make fun of jumped-up county voices. ‘What do you think made them agree?’
‘I don’t know. I just went in to them this morning, after your telephone call last night, and I said, “Robyn’s going to London for her uniform, she’s going to join the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and I would like to do the same,” and so on. And guess what, Robyn? They said “yes” straight away. I mean the words had hardly left my mouth and they had agreed, which when you consider it, with Katherine gone, is pretty decent of them, don’t you think?’
‘Utterly decent,’ Robyn agreed, her mind already straying on to whether or not she had topped up the Bentley with its usual gallons and yet more gallons of petrol.
Meriel and Anthony had hardly given their consent to Caro going to London with Robyn, when Meriel rung for Mrs Grant to help Caro to start to get her things together for London – so much to do.
It was only when Caro had left them in hardly suppressed high spirits that on seeing Anthony’s bewilderment, Meriel also saw the need to reassure him.
‘It could not come at a better time, could it, Anthony? Robyn Harding going to London, Cicely Harding putting her Mayfair flat at the girls’ disposal – it could not have come at a better time, really it couldn’t. At least I don’t think it could. Manna from heaven, if you think about it,’ she murmured.
‘If what you have said is true, it could not have come at a better time,’ Anthony agreed. ‘We can’t have—’ He stopped, before going on. ‘We can’t have any more troubles with our young, we really cannot. As it is,’ he pointed to the newspaper lying on his desk, ‘it seems that Katherine is busy ruining Caro’s chances of finding a husband in the county. No decent young man will want to go near a Garland daughter now.’
‘She hasn’t seen that wretched piece, has she?’
Meriel went quickly to the desk, opened the drawer and pushed the newspaper into it.
‘No, Caro hasn’t seen it,’ Anthony agreed. ‘Nor must she. Happily she has very little interest in newspapers at this moment in time, if what you have told me is true – only in painters.’
‘I must make it clear, Anthony, Caro’s never said anything to me directly,’ Meriel put in quickly. ‘Never, ever said anything about Walter Beresford at all.’
‘Then why are we, all of a sudden, in a hurry to send her to London?’
‘No particular hurry, no, at least, certainly no flat panic. I just know that it would be as well if she leaves Chevrons sooner rather than later.’
‘I dare say you’re right, Meriel. My mamma always used to say that mothers always know.’ Anthony sighed. ‘He’s a nice man, Walter Beresford, but hardly suitable for Caro, being a painter and rather older too, isn’t he?’
Meriel laughed suddenly.
‘What’s so funny?’
Meriel touched his cheek lightly. ‘You were older than me, remember? As a matter of fact, you still are!’
Anthony frowned. ‘That was different. Besides, we’ve made a success of it.’
Meriel turned away, still smiling. ‘You’re incorrigible, Anthony, do you know that?’
Anthony looked across at his wife. Meriel hadn’t really smiled, not really smiled, since Katherine had run off. Maybe she was getting a little more used to the idea of Katherine’s having left them. Maybe the coming war would give them reason to pretend that, like all the other young people around, Katherine had merely gone off to do her bit.
Whatever the truth behind the sudden encouraging warmth of his wife’s smile, Anthony now knew that someone disappearing was in so many ways almost unendurable. Going to sleep with that dread of what might have happened, to wake every morning to what for a second you thought and hoped would be the dawn of a bright new day, only to be left wondering, always wondering, how she was, where she was, or even if she still was.
As it turned out Robyn had to leave for London immediately, as her father had telephoned to say he was returning home later that day.
Aunt Cicely, ever the diplomat, murmured, ‘your father could complicate matters for you. I should leave as soon as you can, really I should. Much the best, in the circumstances.’
Robyn’s precipitous departure within hours of Caro’s telephone call meant that Caro was left feeling as if she had been let down, though of course she hadn’t been, but somehow the idea of leaving by train a few days later seemed much less exciting than whizzing off to London in the Bentley with Robyn. Nevertheless she was far too aware of her parents’ feelings to admit as much.
Perhaps her father realised this, or perhaps he had come to some new conclusion about his life, or her life, or all their lives, because the day after Robyn’s departure for London, he came into the Long Room frowning and looking even more pensive than usual.
Walter, all too aware of the family situation, all but flung himself down his stepladders, and promptly repositioned them before flinging himself up them once more.
‘Caro?’
Caro stood to attention, herself now also firmly in place in front of the mural, while all the time edging slowly towards Walter so that they would make a solid front.
‘Yes, Papa?’
Anthony stared from Walter to Caro, back to Walter, and then at Caro again, where his eyes remained fixed, frowning.
‘I have been thinking.’
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘Yes, I have been thinking, Caro. As a matter of fact, I have been thinking quite hard, and I have come to a conclusion.’
‘Yes, Papa?’
‘And the conclusion that I have come to is this.’ He paused, staring around him, and then at the mural, before his eyes dropped down to Caro’s face once more. ‘Yes, Caro. And what is more, as you might surmise, your darling mamma agrees with me too.’ He nodded, obviously agreeing wholeheartedly with both himself and his wife. ‘So that is settled then.’
Caro frowned.
‘What is settled, Papa?’
‘You’ll have to come with me and check it through, of course.’
‘What will I have to come and check through with you, Papa?’
‘Why the Blue Angel, of course. Your mother and I have agreed that you should take the Angel to London next week. Most especially if you are to join the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, Caro. You will have to have a motor car. Being in the FANYs without a motor car would be about as sensible as being a painter without a set of brushes. You can’t drive an officer around town in a taxicab, can you?’
‘But the Angel is—’ Caro stopped, quickly rethinking what she was about to say. ‘But the Angel is so special, won’t you miss her?’
‘No, no, not at all. Neither your mother nor I, nor your brothers use her, no, we don’t use her at all, and Smith won’t miss her. He is adapting a couple of vans to carry everything and anything for future needs, whatever they may be,’ he added ominously. ‘So if you would like to go to see Smith we can go through the various points again. I would like you to be able to tell everyone that you know how the combustion engine works, you see, Caro. I want you to be the first of your sex to know how a motor car really works.’
Caro thought of Robyn and her already very efficient approach to the Bentley and its needs, having been taught everything she knew by the brilliant Pilkington. Nevertheless, Pilkington or no Pilkington, she found herself wondering why it was that the opposite sex always thought girls were duffers when it came to engines.
&n
bsp; ‘Can you spare Caro, Beresford?’
‘Yes, of course, sir.’
The old man was to sit to Walter tomorrow. It was, Walter felt, going to be interesting, to say the least.
‘Very well, cut along then, Caro. You mustn’t keep Smith waiting.’
Caro hurried from the room. She knew how Smith dominated her father, how much in awe he was of him. They had grown up together, and Smith was not only a better driver than Anthony Garland, he was a better shot, and played cricket for the Chevrons village team like an angel in white flannels.
As Caro walked ahead of her father out of the room, Anthony paused and, turning back to Walter, said, ‘Oh, and by the way, Beresford, very decent and sporting of you, and so on, but there is truly no need to cover up Katherine by standing in front of her every time I come into the room. Really, decent of you to try and hide her from me, but truly, there is no need.’ He paused, nodding at the mural, which was now beginning to be closely peopled. ‘I came in with her mother late last night, actually. We thought it very good of Katherine; strangely so, as a matter of fact.’
Anthony again paused, but Walter did not say anything, fearing to interrupt him.
‘Fell in love with her, with Katherine, did you, Walter?’ he asked with a sad smile, using the painter’s Christian name for the first time, which had the effect of making Walter wish Garland hadn’t, because he could hear from the older man’s voice what an effort it was for him to speak about his beautiful daughter in such a purposefully casual manner, as if she meant nothing to him.
Goodnight Sweetheart Page 8