‘Thank you,’ Harriet said uncertainly. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m cooking dinner,’ Timothy answered. ‘Your niece—Mercy is it?—she called around with a couple of rabbits. Something about a swap for courgettes or something similar. One’s hanging in the larder, the other I took the liberty of skinning and preparing for our dinner: rabbit pie.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Sorry, I hope I haven’t overstepped a line,’ Timothy said.
‘Gosh, no. Not at all,’ Harriet replied, sitting at the kitchen table. ‘It’s just…a first, is all.’
‘What’s a first?’
‘Someone in this house cooking me dinner,’ she laughed.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘And did you have a productive day?’ he asked.
That was a question Harriet had mulled over for much of the train journey home. ‘Yes, I suppose so. The Duchess of Westminster was very kind. She remembered Malcolm perfectly. A curious thing, though: she said she was almost completely certain that Malcolm used his one yearly eight-day pass to return to Woolwich—to those wretched gas labs.’
Timothy stopped peeling and stared at her. ‘That is odd. If they’d wanted him back at the labs, then he wouldn’t have needed to use his pass for that.’
Harriet shrugged. ‘Only one way to find out, I suppose: a trip to Woolwich. Do you know where Fraser is?’
‘No, haven’t seen him all day. He set off out not long after you.’
‘Oh. Did he say where he was going?’
‘No, I just heard the front door go, and that was that.’
‘So, it was you who did the front garden, then?’
‘Yes. Again, I hope I haven’t overstepped a line.’
‘No,’ Harriet answered. ‘Thank you.’ She had been about to protest at the amount of work, which he was doing, but then she realised the sense of purpose that it must have given him, and, for the first time, he appeared to be something close to happy.
A light knocking came from the front door, and Harriet went to answer it.
She inwardly sighed upon seeing her sister-in-law, Hannah standing there. ‘I just wanted to check that you got the rabbits,’ Hannah said, barely audibly and straining her neck to look over Harriet’s shoulder.
‘Yes, thank you very much.’
‘Only, Mercy said that there was a man here…’
‘That’s right, yes,’ Harriet said.
‘A friend of Fraser’s, is it?’ Hannah pushed.
‘That’s right, yes,’ Harriet agreed, thinking Hannah undeserving of a wider explanation and enjoying the slow drip-feeding of information.
‘Oh. Mercy seemed to think that he was living here.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Right,’ Hannah said, clearly puzzled.
A few seconds passed where neither woman spoke.
‘Well, I’d better get on, then,’ Harriet said finally, moving to close the front door.
Hannah raised her index finger and lowered her voice even further to the point that Harriet could barely hear her: ‘There was one other thing.’ Slowly and deliberately, Hannah peered over her shoulders. ‘Young Fraser was seen this morning, getting on a coach.’
Now it was Harriet’s turn to look perplexed. ‘And?’
‘And…’ Hannah whispered, ‘…and he was with you-know-who.’
Harriet shook her head. She didn’t know who.
Hannah mouthed, with great exaggeration, two words: ‘Louise Ditch.’
Harriet didn’t wish to show her dismay at this news. ‘Oh, that, yes,’ she said loudly, as though the whole village could be privy to this news, should they wish to eavesdrop. ‘Nothing untoward going on there.’ She found herself emitting a very odd high-pitched laughter, with which she surprised herself as much as it did Hannah.
Hannah nodded doubtfully. ‘Well, cheerio for now.’
‘Goodbye,’ Harriet said, closing the front door. She exhaled noisily and closed her eyes for a moment. What on earth was Fraser thinking? Malcolm, or even Edward, come to that, would never have done such—
No, she couldn’t think like that. The boys were all different, none of them perfect.
Harriet and Timothy were sitting together in the garden, just beginning to eat their dinner, when Fraser returned home.
‘That looks delicious,’ Fraser commented, when he saw the pie.
‘Timothy made it,’ Harriet said pointedly.
‘Oh,’ Fraser replied.
‘Yours is being kept warm in the oven,’ Timothy added.
Fraser began to head back into the house, and Harriet called after him: ‘Only, we didn’t know how long you’d be cavorting with Miss Ditch...’
Fraser said nothing, as he continued into the house.
‘That was a little churlish,’ Harriet remarked to herself.
‘I wasn’t cavorting,’ Fraser said upon his return to the table. ‘Louise is a friend, one of a very select few of my friends, who are actually still living. Or, because of her gender, am I to be denied her companionship, too?’
‘Of course not,’ Harriet replied. ‘It’s just—’
‘What will people say?’ Fraser interrupted.
‘Just be careful, is all,’ Harriet said, setting down her cutlery. ‘Life is changing, Fraser—goodness me, I can vote now—but it’s changing so very slowly. We live in a small village within a society where a man’s friendship with a woman engaged elsewhere is viewed at best with distaste and disparagement.’
‘I don’t much care,’ Fraser said. ‘I’m thirty years old. I will see whomsoever I please. Does it give you a distaste?’ He stared at her, unblinkingly, waiting.
She herself had just said it: life was changing. The prevailing Victorian attitudes were gradually receding, making way for goodness only knew what new norms of morality. Five years ago, she would have been mortified beyond belief and would have taken firm action to prevent his ever seeing Louise Ditch again. Now…now, like so many other areas of her life, she just didn’t know any more. ‘Just be careful, Fraser,’ she eventually said.
Fraser turned his attention back to his food, and the heated moment passed, allowing the mood to simmer back down to quietness.
A minute or so later, Harriet said brightly, ‘I need to book a trip for us.’
Fraser groaned. ‘Where to, now?’
‘Woolwich,’ she replied, then proceeded to tell him all that she had learned from the Duchess of Westminster.
Chapter Seven
31st August 1919, Woolwich, London
The day was miserable. Heavy rain had greeted Harriet and Fraser, as they had left Linton House and had continued to plague their entire journey to London. They arrived at Woolwich Library with their sodden clothing stuck uncomfortably to their skin.
In the library vestibule, Harriet paused a moment to shake off as much as she could of the water from her black coat. ‘I feel like the wreck of the Hesperus,’ she complained, turning to face Fraser, who was standing beside her, clutching a small suitcase in each hand. They had travelled to London by train, then taken a taxi directly to Woolwich Library, having absolutely no idea where the day was going to take them, or indeed, where they would be sleeping that night.
‘You look like it, too,’ he replied.
‘Thank you, Fraser,’ she said, striding into the overly warm library. ‘Do come along.’
Harriet spotted the sign for the lending desk and called to the elderly gentleman standing behind it: ‘Reference section, please.’
‘First floor,’ he barked back, frowning at the puddle of water pooling around hers and Fraser’s feet.
‘Much obliged,’ Harriet said with a nod of her head, aware that she was attracting attention due to the curls of steam now rising from her clothing, as though she were on the verge of combusting.
On the first floor they were confronted by wall-to-wall shelving and several triangular islands of wooden bookstands.
&nbs
p; ‘You look over there,’ Harriet directed, pointing at the back wall, ‘and I’ll look at these.’
Fraser strutted off to the back of the room, while Harriet cast her eyes over the nearest bookstand. ‘Local history, local history, local history,’ she muttered, peering around each of its three sides. ‘Next.’ She marched purposefully to the following stand and checked its contents. ‘War—well that’s the single last thing I would wish to read about…’
‘Can I help you, madam?’ a voice said from beside her.
A young prim lady, with neat curled hair and a pleasant face, was standing beside Harriet, holding a stack of books.
‘Ah, yes, thank you. I’m looking for something that will give me a list of guesthouses near to the Royal Artillery barracks in 1917,’ Harriet said with a smile.
‘That’s very specific,’ the lady commented with a light chortle. ‘Let’s see what we have. Follow me.’ She led Harriet to one of the bookshelves, close to those where Fraser was seemingly taking an age to check a single shelf. ‘Right, here we are—Kelly’s Directories.’
In front of the lady was a run of fat red tomes, dating back to the last century. She ran her index finger over the dates etched on the spine in gold lettering. ‘Here,’ she said, extracting it with the care and precision expected of a librarian, before placing it delicately into Harriet’s hands.
‘Thank you so much,’ Harriet said.
Fraser wandered over to Harriet, making no attempt at haste, while she flicked open the book and began quickly thumbing her way through.
‘Guesthouses!’ Harriet declared, thrusting her index finger at the page. ‘Go and ask that nice young lady if she’s got a map of Woolwich. Quick, before she disappears...’
Fraser ambled off on the trail of the young librarian. Harriet let out a muted laugh at the sight of her son, still copious amounts of steam rising from him and trailing a dwindling puddle, as he walked with the two suitcases in hand. She watched, as he reached the librarian and smiled courteously, properly removing his bowler hat to speak. The lady reciprocated his smile, then led him to one of the bookstands out of Harriet’s line of sight.
Harriet waited impatiently. After a few moments, he returned, carrying a large map of the area.
‘Let’s go to that table over there,’ Harriet suggested, noticing a cluster of empty desks.
Fraser opened the map on the desk, then began to scan it for the Royal Artillery barracks. ‘There!’ he said, prodding a finger forwards. ‘We’re looking for anything close to Repository Road…’
Harriet began to read through the twenty-three guesthouses listed in the directory, with Fraser checking off each one as she read. In the end, they had noted down six potential locations, all of which fell within a half-mile radius of the barracks.
‘Well, that wasn’t very conclusive,’ Fraser complained. ‘Now what? I am really going to need a nice hot bath and a decent hearty meal, later.’
Harriet tapped the piece of paper on which she had just written the six addresses: ‘Well, with a spot of luck, we’ll be able to get rooms in whichever one it was that Malcolm stayed in when he came here. That way, we’ll get a roof over our heads and some information about what exactly he was doing here.’
‘What if he stayed in some God-awful dive?’ Fraser asked disdainfully.
‘That’s enough of that language, thank you very much,’ Harriet snapped. ‘Let’s go: the sooner we get moving, the sooner we can settle in somewhere for the evening.’
‘Number eighteen,’ Harriet said, hastily re-pocketing the now soaked piece of paper with the six addresses. This guesthouse, like most properties in the surrounding streets, was a modest two-storey brick affair.
‘Doesn’t look too awful,’ Fraser commented, as Harriet knocked on the door.
‘Let’s hope it’s this one, then’ she murmured, as the rain continued to heave down. She was now wetter and colder than she had believed it was possible to be; even her under-garments were now entirely saturated. Given the atrocious conditions, which Fraser must have endured, though, she thought better of it than to complain to him.
The door was pulled open with a suddenness, which startled her.
‘Yes?’ said a small woman in a dirty apron. She was in her forties, had olive skin, long black hair and incongruous piercing blue eyes.
Harriet smiled. ‘Terribly sorry to trouble you—’
The woman noticed the suitcases in Fraser’s hand and instantly smiled, as she opened the door. ‘Come, come, come!’ she said, practically singing.
‘Thank you,’ Harriet said, sighing with gratitude at even a moment’s respite in from the rain.
‘Two rooms, yes?’ the lady asked. ‘How many nights?’
‘Well,’ Harriet began, unsure of the best way to explain that in fact they would not be staying at all, if Malcolm, too, had not stayed there two years previously.
‘We’re looking for where my brother stayed,’ Fraser stepped in. ‘He stayed somewhere nearby in June 1917. Could it have been here? Do you keep a register, or something similar?’
The woman looked between them, evidently very confused. ‘So, you don’t want rooms, no?’
‘Well, it all rather depends on whether my son stayed here, or not,’ Harriet said. ‘It’s all rather complex. If he stayed here, then yes, we will, too.’
The landlady sniffed hard, an action that signified a distinct shift for the worse in her demeanour. ‘Wait here.’ She walked off, rocking from side to side on oscillating, bulbous hips.
‘I’m not sure that I do want to stay here, now,’ Fraser whispered behind her.
‘Sshh.’
The woman re-appeared with a scowl, holding a thin ledger. ‘Name?’
‘Malcolm McDougall,’ Harriet said, enunciating the word very carefully. ‘He was a soldier with the Royal West Kents and worked in the gas labs in—’
‘Nope,’ the woman said, snapping the book shut definitively, and gesturing that they should now leave the house.
‘Thank you very much for looking,’ Harriet managed to say, before the woman had gained on her and, by her ample proximity, forced her to turn and bump into Fraser’s back. ‘Come on, move.’
The door slammed smartly shut behind them.
‘That went well,’ Fraser said, placing his long-inadequate bowler hat back on his head.
A heavy wind was now whipping up the rain, driving it into their faces.
Harriet ignored his sarcasm and quickly pulled out the piece of paper with the blurred addresses. ‘The next one is just at the end of this road,’ she remembered, just as the wind caught the sodden paper and tore it into two. She hurriedly stuffed the two pieces into her raffia bag and led the way along the deserted street.
In under a minute, they were standing in the doorway of a house similar in design to the last one. They read a handmade sign written on a piece of card in the front window: Rooms to rent. Short / long term stays. Harriet rapped with the iron knocker twice and waited.
A lady of a similar age to Fraser, with a small child propped on her hip, opened the door and smiled. ‘Rooms?’ she deduced, standing back to admit them inside.
‘Before we come in,’ Harriet said, having learned her lesson, ‘I must quickly explain: my son, Malcolm was killed in the war and, before he died, he came to stay at a guesthouse in Woolwich, and we—that is, my son, Fraser and I—are trying to find in which guesthouse it was he stayed. When we find it, we will stay there. Do you have anything that might say whether or not he came here in June 1917?’
‘Come in and I’ll have a look for you,’ she said pleasantly.
Harriet thanked her and entered the house, followed by Fraser.
‘This is Kate,’ the woman said, suddenly handing Harriet the toddler in her arms.
‘Oh, goodness me—it’s been a while since I’ve held one of these!’ Harriet said with a laugh.
The girl seemed quite used to being passed from pillar to post and simply stared unblinking at Harriet. She didn�
��t even seem to care that Harriet was soaked to the skin. The woman, whose house it was, went upstairs and Harriet could hear her talking to herself.
‘Aren’t you a marvellous little thing?’ Harriet said to the girl, rubbing the end of her nose. ‘Isn’t she, Fraser?’
‘Hmm?’ Fraser said, apparently unaware that she was holding a child.
Harriet remembered, then, what her sister-in-law, Hannah had said about not having grandchildren. The possibility was still there for her, she supposed, but Fraser had never shown any inkling of wanting children before. Maybe her family line, too, was one destined to be extinguished within a generation; an idea, which saddened her so very much.
‘June 1917?’ the woman clarified, appearing on the stairs before them. She shook her head. ‘No, I had three long-terms here—Belgian women—and that was it for June. Sorry.’
‘Oh…never mind. Thank you so much for looking,’ Harriet said. ‘Onwards and upwards.’
The woman regained her daughter from Harriet and said, ‘I lost my husband in the war, too. Good luck finding what you’re looking for.’
Harriet smiled sympathetically, stroked the little father-less girl’s cheek, said thank you again and goodbye.
Once again, they found themselves standing on the pavement in the street, as a thick curtain of rain thrashed around them.
Harriet removed the two pieces of torn paper, managed a quick glance at them just before a violent gust of wind ripped them clean from her hands, instantly whirling them high into the air.
She and Fraser silently watched the two pieces of paper rise, fall and dance at the whim of the wind, neither one making any attempt to go chasing after them.
With the paper taken from sight, Fraser turned to her, his wet face expressionless.
Harriet held up the two torn corners of paper still in her hand, entirely blank. ‘I saw the road of the next one but not the number in time. It was the one on Love Lane—do you recall what it was?’
Fraser shook his head glumly.
Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star Page 8