After the War Is Over: A Novel

by Jennifer Robson

  “How did you find out?” Rosie asked.

  “She said she’d had a telephone call from the printers complaining that the proof hadn’t arrived. Of course the call wasn’t for her; we’ve none of us our own telephones, apart from Miss Rathbone. But her desk is close to the one at the front, and if ever Gladys is away she pretty much leaps on the thing to answer it. For all I know they didn’t even call, and she only said so because she was certain of the proofs having vanished.”

  “Do you have any idea at all why she’s so nasty?”

  “I don’t know, not really. I have my suspicions, chief among them that she’s jealous of me in some way. Perhaps because I left and then was welcomed back so readily by Miss Rathbone. Perhaps she thinks I’ll take her place . . .”

  “Isn’t she one of the clerks? Who does the typing and filing and things like that?”

  “Yes, and I’m one of the aides, which means I have my own office, rather than a desk in the main room. I thought of that, but it’s always been that way, mainly so that I can speak to visitors, constituents and the like, with some degree of privacy. It’s not as if I took her office from her.”

  “No, of course not. But I wonder . . . perhaps she envies how easily you were able to fit back in, as if you hadn’t been away at all.”

  “I suppose. Though it makes no sense—no one is unkind to her, and we always make sure to invite her if we’re going out as a group for lunch. I don’t even go half the time, for heaven’s sakes.”

  “Why don’t you confront her? Simply ask her why she is doing such things?”

  “I could, but she’d probably say it’s all in my imagination and I’m simply stirring up trouble. I think, for now, I’ll leave it be, and hope she eventually realizes that I’ve no intention of undermining her.”

  “A sensible approach. Now—on to more important things. Have you any plans for Friday night? Norma wants us all to go dancing at Holyoake Hall on Smithdown Road. Even Meg has said she’ll come. We can have our supper here and then walk over after.”

  “I’m not sure, Rosie. I don’t know any of the new dances.”

  “We can fix that easily enough.”

  Somehow, before Charlotte could utter a single syllable of protest, Rosie had led her across the hall into the sitting room, where the sofa and easy chairs had been pushed to the side and the rug rolled back.

  “Hooray for Charlotte!” Norma cheered. “Take my hand and let’s get you started. Why don’t we start with the fox-trot—you do know it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Norma. I haven’t been living in a nunnery.”

  “I’ll play,” said Meg. “I don’t feel quite like dancing tonight.”

  “Let’s start with ‘My Rainbow Girl,’” Norma suggested.

  “Let me run through it first?” Meg asked. “I won’t be a moment.” She set her hands to the keys and joyous, heartfelt music filled the room, a tonic for their battered spirits. As she reached the chorus, she began to sing, and after a few bars they all joined in, even the Misses Macleod.

  “When you are near, girl, you bring me good cheer, girl

  The love light shining from your eyes

  Is like a rainbow, radiant in the skies

  For you’re the sunlight that gleams, dear

  Thro’ clouds in my dreams, dear

  You set my senses in a whirl

  My little rainbow girl!”

  It had been an age since Charlotte had listened to music, and even longer since she’d danced. When had she last stood on a dance floor and let a man hold her as they moved together? Was it as long ago as Oxford?

  No . . . a memory stirred of a night at the hospital, a long, dark night in the summer of 1916, when every ward had been packed full of broken men. She and her colleagues had all been so tired, so downcast, but then someone had pushed aside the tables and chairs in the mess hall, and someone else had produced a huge old gramophone, of all things, and they’d danced for hours, all together, the nurses and doctors and orderlies. How strange that she’d forgotten it until now.

  With Norma in the lead, Charlotte soon felt comfortable with the conventional fox-trot, and then with the Baltimore and the Peacock Strut, variations that her dance partner assured her were all the rage.

  “Do you see the music for ‘Let’s Toddle at the Midnight Ball’?” Norma called to Meg. “Let’s do it next. It’s an older one, but they were playing it last week at the Palais. Almost exactly like a fox-trot, except you bounce on the balls of your feet, like this.” She demonstrated to Charlotte, her bobbed curls bouncing against her cheekbones. “See? It’s ever so easy.”

  “ ‘Let’s toddle, come on and toddle, toddling and waddling along. Listen to the music of the shuffling feet, oh, what a rhythm we’re going with them,’ ” Meg sang, her voice sweet and light, and soon they were all singing and bouncing together, even Miss Margaret, who had been coaxed out of her easy chair to dance, somewhat unsteadily, with Rosie as her partner.

  As soon as Meg had played the closing chords of the tune, Norma was over to the piano, shuffling through the pile of sheet music that rested next to Meg on the bench. “Here—we have to try this one. My friend Edith played it for me on her gramophone the other night. It’s ‘The Tiger Rag,’ straight from America.”

  “I’ve heard it, but I’ve never played jazz music,” Meg protested. “And the music is so . . . so different.”

  “Please try—please do. You’ll love the sound of it. You all will, I promise.”

  “Very well. But it’s going to be a bit bumpy at first.”

  Meg ran through the piece by sight, stumbling here and there over the unusual rhythm of the piece, though normally she was an accomplished pianist who could master a tune at first viewing. As she gained in confidence, the music from the piano grew louder, the syncopation more compelling, and though Charlotte had no notion how one ought to dance to such music, her feet were simply itching to dance.

  “It’s a one-step,” explained Norma. “Ever so easy once you get started. Dance with me, Rosie, and we’ll show the others.”

  They danced and danced until the clock on the mantel chimed ten o’clock and the misses, who normally retired at half past eight, declared that they were for their beds. So the women rearranged the sitting room and went to their respective rooms, and Charlotte, for the first time in weeks, fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  PART TWO

  How fortunate we were who still had hope I did not then realize; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die.

  —Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth (1933)

  Chapter 8

  The Earl of Cumberland

  requests the pleasure of your company

  at the marriage of his sister

  Lady Elizabeth Adelaide Sophia Georgiana Neville-Ashford

  to

  Mr. Robert Graham Fraser

  The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

  Haverthwaite, Cumbria

  Saturday, the seventh of June

  One thousand nine hundred and nineteen

  Eleven o’clock in the morning

  Breakfast to follow

  Cumbermere Hall

  At exactly eleven o’clock, the landau glided to a halt in front of the ancient parish church of St. Mary Magdalene. Charlotte waited for the footman to help Edward and Lilly descend, then came forward to embrace the bride.

  “You look beautiful,” she said truthfully. “Let me straighten your gown and veil before we go in.”

  Charlotte handed her bouquet of sweet peas and damask roses, a smaller version of Lilly’s, to the waiting footman. “There aren’t any creases to speak of,” she observed as she smoothed and adjusted the folds of the bride’s simple handkerchief linen gown. Her own pale blue frock was similar, though it lacked the drawn-thread and white-work embroidery of the bride’s, and instead had bands of organdy insertion at its middy collar and sleeves.

  “How is Robbie?” Lill
y asked. “Does he seem nervous?”

  “If he isn’t, he should be,” Edward answered. “Marrying into our lot . . . God help him.” For a moment Charlotte wasn’t certain if he was jesting or not, but then he smiled and she was reassured.

  “What are you waiting for? Take her arm and go on in,” Charlotte told him. She took her bouquet back from the footman, followed them inside, and waited for the music to begin.

  First the swelling chords of the organ, and then the voices of the village choir, singing a newer anthem that was a favorite of Lilly’s. “I was glad,” they sang. “Glad when they said unto me: we will go unto the house of the Lord.”

  The congregation rose to its feet as Lilly and Edward stepped forward into the modest nave, Charlotte a few steps behind. She could just spy Robbie, standing alone at the front; once Edward had escorted his sister into the church, he would move to his friend’s side as his supporter.

  Robbie looked terribly handsome in his kilt and doublet, smiling broadly as his bride approached, and for perhaps the thousandth time Charlotte thanked heaven that both he and Lilly, and their love for each other, had survived the war.

  The little church was full of Cumberland relations, although the bride and groom had insisted, and in this had been supported by Edward, that their friends be invited as well. Charlotte had met most of them the night before, at the prenuptial dinner at Cumbermere Hall, and found them an entertaining and friendly group, in particular Lilly’s former colleagues from the WAAC.

  By way of family Robbie had only his mother and several cousins present, though at least a dozen colleagues from the hospital in London had come north for the occasion, as well as friends from his days in the RAMC. Mrs. Fraser, whom Charlotte had found very warm and motherly, but also terribly shy, was doing her best to enjoy the occasion, though the poor woman likely wouldn’t feel herself again until she was back home in Scotland. Cumbermere Hall and its occupants had that effect on most people.

  Charlotte stood at the front as the service began, ready to assist Lilly, and though she ought to have been listening to the vicar’s welcoming remarks, she couldn’t help but cast her eye over the occupants of the Cumberland family pew. Lilly’s mother, predictably, had not deigned to lighten her mourning for the occasion, and was dressed head to toe in deadening black, while Lilly’s sisters wore complementary shades of mauve. All three bore the same expression of mild disgust, which made them appear as if they had smelled something very disagreeable but had no notion of what to do about it.

  Sitting at the end of the pew, her pretty face wreathed in smiles, was Lady Helena. Charlotte had spoken with her the evening before, though only for a few minutes, and had found her pleasant, thoughtful, and surprisingly curious about Charlotte’s work in Liverpool. She seemed a timid girl, constantly looking to Edward for reassurance, though Charlotte could see no evidence of the venality that so stained the character of Lilly’s sisters. It would take a sturdy soul indeed to withstand life among the Cumberland women, Lilly excepted, and Charlotte rather feared that Lady Helena wouldn’t be equal to it. Not, of course, that it was any of her affair.

  The service flew by in what felt like seconds: the exchange of vows, with Lilly’s soft voice faltering near the end; the hymn “Now Thank We All Our God”; the first lesson, read by Lilly’s friend Constance Evans, one of the WAACs she’d known in France. Then the psalm, sung beautifully by the choir; the second lesson, read by Colonel Lewis, who had commanded the clearing hospital where Robbie and Lilly had worked; and a mealymouthed homily by the vicar, who was new to the parish and entirely unequal to the occasion. And, last, a moment of peace in the Lady Chapel, as she and Edward witnessed the marriage register, and Robbie, embracing his wife, bent his head so he might hear her whispered thoughts.

  They assembled before the altar, ready to depart, but instead of the expected chords from the organ, a surprise: the rising, skirling notes of a single piper outside the church. They all looked to Edward.

  “How could I not?” he confessed. “It will give Mama indigestion for days.”

  Outside the sun was shining, the sky was a perfect shade of blue, and a crowd of well-wishers from the village was waiting to cheer the bride and groom. Lady Cumberland and her daughters and sons-in-law, together with the ever-obedient George, retreated to their carriages, not troubling to offer a word of congratulations to the wedded couple.

  Charlotte watched Edward’s face as his family’s carriages moved away, but he betrayed no sign of annoyance or disappointment. It wasn’t as if such behavior was unexpected, after all.

  He was squinting in the sunlight, his free hand shielding his eyes, and although he looked well enough in his morning suit, he was still far too thin. He had shadows under his eyes, dark smudges that gave wordless evidence of late nights and lost sleep.

  “Are you—” she began, but he smiled at her and squeezed her arm fraternally.

  “Shall we be off? I’m bound to take longer than everyone else. Ought to have brought my cane.”

  “I’ll hold tight,” she offered, and was immediately horrified by her boldness. What if he thought . . . ?

  “That’s very kind of you, but I had better offer my arm to Mrs. Fraser. My tiresome relations didn’t think to offer her a ride back in the carriages, so I had best see to her. And I suppose Helena will wish to walk with me. You’ll be all right, won’t you?”

  “Of course. I’ll walk back with Lilly’s other friends.”

  “Then I shall see you back at the hall.”

  She watched as he went over to Lady Helena, who really was looking very pretty, and detached her from the group of Cumberland cousins with whom she’d been speaking. He then approached Mrs. Fraser and said something that made her smile from ear to ear. She offered her arm and he set off with the two women, his pace measured and precise, along the graveled path that led back to Cumbermere Hall.

  Feeling a bit like a bump on a log, Charlotte walked over to Lilly’s friends from the WAAC—Constance, Bridget, and Annie—all of whom she had met for the first time the afternoon before. Most of the wedding guests, with the exception of immediate family and Mrs. Fraser, were staying at the Haverthwaite Arms, the village’s modest inn. Lady Cumberland had refused to countenance hosting everyone at the hall, insisting that she was still too overwrought by the loss of her husband to bear the ordeal of having strangers under her roof.

  Charlotte had been relieved to be at a distance, even if it meant she saw less of Lilly over the wedding weekend than she would have liked. As the inn was small, she was sharing a room with Constance, whom she liked enormously.

  “Hello, ladies,” she greeted the women. “Shall we make our way back to the hall for the wedding breakfast?”

  “Would love to know why they call it breakfast when it’s nigh on half past twelve,” Annie grumbled. “Shouldn’t it be the wedding dinner?”

  “Hush, you,” said Bridget. “Quit your mithering.”

  “I hope this breakfast is easier to make sense of than that dinner last night. Had no idea which fork to use—there were that many of them. Made a right pillock of meself.”

  “You did nothing of the sort,” Charlotte reassured her.

  “Was it me, or was Lady Cumberland looking daggers at all of us?” asked Constance worriedly.

  “She looked at me like I was something nasty she’d stepped in,” said Annie. “Gave me a turn, it did.”

  “She makes everyone feel like that,” Charlotte explained. “It’s nothing you did, I promise. If Mr. Lloyd George himself were to join us, she would treat him much the same. Besides, you mustn’t let her ruin your fun. Edward—Lord Cumberland, that is—is delighted to have you here. He told me so himself.”

  “He did, did he?” said Bridget with a naughty wink. “Too bad I’m engaged to my Gordon already, otherwise I’d give him a look-in, if you know what I mean. Talks so nice, and he’s ever so handsome. Shame about the tin leg, though.”

  “Bridget Gallagher! He might hear you,” s
aid Constance, pulling at her friend’s sleeve.

  “He’s not the sort to mind. His mum would fall over, though. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Her having to call for her smelling salts!”

  “And what would that do to Lilly’s wedding?” said Constance. “Behave yourselves, or I’ll tell Colonel Lewis, I will.”

  Simply the notion of being dressed down by their former OC had a leveling effect on Annie and Bridget, who were content thereafter to talk about their lives after their discharge from the WAAC.

  “We’re both at Brandauer’s, making pen nibs, right where we was before the war,” Annie told Charlotte.

  “In Birmingham, yes?”

  “Hockley. Never thought I’d miss it, back when I joined the WAAC, but I was glad to come home.”

  “At the factory—they didn’t give your jobs away to the men?”

  “Nah,” said Bridget. “Stamping nibs is women’s work. Pay is good, too, though we don’t get near as much as the men.”

  “I gather you’re both engaged?”

  “We are that,” confirmed Annie.

  “And when will the weddings be?”

  “No time soon, I hope,” said Bridget. “That’d be an end to work, at least for me. Gordon is that stubborn, he is, and once the kiddies start coming I’d have no time for it, anyways. So I’m content to wait awhile.”

  “Me, too,” added Annie.

  “And what about you, Constance? I believe you said you’re from Peterborough?”

  “I am. I’m living with my mum and dad again, just until I decide what to do. I’ll probably go back to being a clerk somewhere. I did love the driving, but there’s no hope of a job like that now. And Dad would never allow it.”

  “Are you still writing to that soldier who landed at the CCS last August?” asked Annie.

  “No,” said a blushing Constance, “but only because he’s back in Peterborough as well. He was an old friend from home,” she explained, turning to Charlotte, “and by some chance he ended up at our clearing hospital. He wasn’t hurt all that badly, only a broken arm and some wounds from shell fragments, but it was enough to keep him out of harm’s way until the end of the war.”