Easterleigh Hall at War

by Margaret Graham

  The next day, with some ex-soldiers, they had probed, searched and lifted, with the utmost delicacy; much had already been done by servicemen not yet demobbed, but more needed doing. Tomorrow, a month to the day, they would go again, while others continued with the scything. Monsieur Allard had said, when Auberon asked why he went, ‘Aujourd’hui à toi, demain à moi.’ Today thee, tomorrow me. It was enough. Auberon shook himself. Allard said this too often, but that was what life was, just enough, and that sentiment helped him through the day.

  The next morning Monsieur Allard was waiting in his farmyard, a basket of pâté and bread in the back prepared by Madame Allard, enough for an army but actually just for the pair of them. They set off, the geese squawking and following them in bursts out of the farmyard and down the lane, their necks forward, their wings arched.

  Allard was not given to talking, and his cigarettes were too strong for Auberon, so he smoked his own. The sun had dried the ruts on the tracks, and they lurched in and out. Auberon wore a panama, his host a beret. In the back several jugs of wine slopped in a bucket of cool water from the well. They stopped for lunch and drank several glasses. The mule knew the way to Allard’s cousin, fortunately, because they both slept, their heads lolling on their chests, lulled by the lurching cart. They woke to fields of red: poppies growing in profusion in the area south of Albert. ‘C’est approprié,’ muttered Auberon.

  ‘Oui, Monsieur.’

  They drank more wine at Allard’s cousin’s property. He was also an Allard. Monsieur Aristide Allard insisted that now he and Auberon would call one another by their given names. It made things simpler. Indeed it did, especially by the time they had finished three of the bottles. Monsieur François Allard lived in the barn which was all that was left standing, and to which he had returned a few months ago, leaving his wife in Poitiers where she had family. They had lost their son at Verdun. The men slept on the straw and this time there were no dreams or nightmares which had plagued Auberon since November 1918, just a raging thirst and a head fit to split apart in the morning. He preferred the headache.

  They travelled, all three together in the cart, to clear a small section of François’ land, both the Frenchmen in berets, their faces dark from the sun, their moustaches long, their eyes half closed. Auberon half closed his too. God, his head. The cart lurched. Oh God, he was going to be sick. He felt a tap on his leg. François held out a flagon of water. Auberon downed it desperately. François said something to Aristide, and both men laughed. Auberon had missed it but frankly didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to die, and thought of the time Mart and Jack had taken him to an estaminet and the same thing had happened. He was a lightweight, Jack had said then, and would say again today.

  He closed his eyes and must have slept, because he woke and feared he’d dribbled. He wiped his mouth, thank God he hadn’t, and his head was marginally better, but the sun was even hotter. Aristide had pulled up the cart and the two of them were eating cheese this time, with bread. François handed him some, his hands as strong and blunt as Jack’s. It made him feel at home. He ate, and felt better, though shook his head at the offer of more wine. Dear God, no. He asked François when he felt he could farm his land again. The Gallic shrug was familiar, because the toxins from the munitions raised a question mark about it all.

  They travelled on along tracks leading through poppies waving in the breeze. Auberon searched the terrain, as he had the first time he came. They must have marched through here, step by step by step, dragging their feet, ducking, sleeping on their feet. He didn’t recognise it particularly, just the shell holes, the churned-up earth, and always the poppies. Was there one for every soul?

  ‘Tonight we will sleep in the cart, under the stars,’ Aristide said, ‘dreaming of beautiful women, but first we will work.’ They pulled up. ‘First we will work.’

  There was a working party several yards from the track, several ex-soldiers among them. One man waved, spreading his arm to indicate the area they were to search. All three of them nodded, carefully, because of their heads. They gathered up their long prodding sticks and worked for hours, under the baking sun, and by then Auberon felt he understood van Gogh’s style of painting, because his headache was so appalling he could barely see. They had called for the ex-soldiers several times when their sticks had met resistance, and each time a shell had been carefully exhumed and carried to the dump near the track.

  He stretched his back as the sun began to slip down towards the horizon. Another shell was carried past by one of the ex-soldiers. ‘Soon, my friend,’ Auberon called across to François. ‘Soon you can farm here again, and bring life to it.’

  Auberon gently drove his stick into the earth, a second behind François. He heard nothing, but felt the gust. It tore the stick from his hand, he tried to think, he rocked on his feet, his head screamed, his ears were pulsing, pulsing, a wave drowned him, the explosion tore into his body, the pain, and now the roar, the sound, the smell, the pain, the nothingness.

  Chapter 20

  Auld Maud, May 1919

  ‘MART, PICK YOUR bloody feet up, you’re kicking up enough dust to drown us.’ Jack dipped down lower and lower as the gradient increased, and the roof lowered, but it was only for fifty feet. They were heading out of their cutting towards the main drag. They’d picked a good allotment when they’d drawn the cavil with a pure load at the club the other night. Jeb, the union rep, had a smile on his ugly face for once, because Davies was allowed sufficient money to provide enough decent props, and a rescue station positioned between Hawton and Easton. Sidon and therefore the Lea End lot, what remained of them, were to be a party to it. Dave would have been pleased.

  ‘Done your homework, have you?’ Jack puffed. His chest hadn’t been the same since that waft of mustard gas had caught them at Passchendaele, and enough had caught Mart to give him a snifter too.

  Mart was panting as he said, ‘Enough to treat meself to a beer. Bloody hell.’ He ducked smartly, but the sharp edge in the roof caught him. ‘There you are. If you stopped talking, I’d stop knocking me bonce.’ They were approaching the cage now, and joined the queue waiting for their turn. Mart wiped his forehead and muttered into Jack’s ear, ‘Bloody glad we’re doing the certificate. It’s not the same, not quite the home from bloody home it was with this chest of mine.’

  ‘Aye, I’m with you there.’ Jack eased his back. He couldn’t wait to get home to Grace, to have her scrub his back, kiss his mouth, laugh and tug his hair. Then he’d read to Tim, and spend the rest of the evening with his bonny lass. It was murder when he was on the back shift and they barely saw one another, let alone lay in bed together, as far from Edward’s room as possible. He wiped the dust from his mouth.

  ‘Where the hell is Auberon?’ Mart muttered, worry creasing his forehead.

  ‘No news is good news. He’s still drawing money from the bank and he did say we wouldn’t hear a ruddy word.’ Jack was trying to talk himself down, as well as Mart, who wouldn’t give it a rest, tapping his bait tin as he said, ‘Aye, but he’s not said whether he’s coming for the hotel launch, and that’s not too many months away. I don’t like him there, alone at the Somme. He’s one of us. He’s ours.’

  Eric was feeding the men into the cages efficiently for once, after Jack and Mart had told Davies that the bugger needed to up his game and the men didn’t want his dilly-dallying after a long shift. He was on a warning, the little rat, and it had given Jack the greatest pleasure to be allotted the task of spelling it out to him, with Jeb’s permission. Eric had been the only one to bad-mouth Da after he’d gone up to Deputy, and had had to join Brampton’s lodge, not the union.

  As Eric clanged the chain across the cage, he glared at Jack, who laughed. One tap. They creaked and groaned up towards the light. ‘What about Si?’ Mart shouted above the noise. ‘He’ll be back, surely?’ Jack just shrugged, and they shared a look which said he’d better bloody be, for Evie’s sake. Mart muttered into his ear now, not wanting to be heard by
the others, who were crammed close, ‘We should tell her that he wanted to stay for his own sake, not for this blather he keeps on about. He’ll give himself a medal soon.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘He could straighten out, become a man.’

  Evie and Veronica stood in front of Lady Margaret’s stables, as they’d recently been christened, in memory of her attempt to burn them down as part of Christabel Pankhurst’s pre-war campaign of destruction. Work was complete on the two apartments, except for a touch up here and there. The foreman called, ‘Clock is ticking, got to get on, lots more work needed around the place.’

  Evie replied, ‘Carry on, we’re on our way to the Captain Neave wing.’ They lingered, though. The wood had been replaced with brick from Brampton’s brickworks, which he’d offered at a discounted price, via his manager. Richard and Ron had dug about for a catch, but there seemed none. They knew that any sniff of a rift within the family would not have enhanced an image already besmirched by Brampton’s munitions gains. The press were having a fine old time whingeing about the profiteers, now the war was over.

  Not one to let an opportunity go by, Richard had grabbed the moment and ordered more bricks, because Evie had decided on Barry Jones’ advice to dismantle the wooden huts and rebuild them in brick, and had sufficient funds to do so. It just meant moving the men and the nurses from one place to another until the work was finished. They were also building a small annexe where Evie’s da and the blacksmith could work on their various limbs.

  Ver slipped her arm through Evie’s. ‘I’m so pleased Mrs Moore . . . No, Mrs Harvey decided on the ground-floor apartment. The thought of the stairs after her retirement worried the life out of both Richard and me.’

  Evie glanced up at the building. It looked clean but severe, though honeysuckle growing up it would remedy that. She should feel excitement, but she felt nothing. ‘Si will be pleased to live here, I know he will.’

  She knew nothing of the sort any more, because he seldom wrote. She wrote weekly, but with news about the hotel when she should have written words of love, words that failed to come. There was just a sort of anger, a disappointment, a fatigue at the thought of cajoling him as she had so often done.

  The first Sunday after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, at the end of June, Edward held a memorial service in Easterleigh Hall’s church. People arrived carrying white chrysanthemums and lilies, Evie and her parents amongst them, Grace, Tim, and Jack too. The scent was overpowering, and cleansing. The Forbes family sat with Richard, Veronica, and James, who objected to sitting on his mother’s knee and preferred to clamber on to Tim’s. Harry sat with Annie, and they held hands beneath the folds of her uniform. What would Sir Anthony Travers think of that, Evie wondered. Well, at the launch they might find out. Charlie sat with Mart, who was squashed against Maisie, the nurse who worked with the men who skipped from hut to hut, one step ahead of the builders. Matron sat with Mr Harvey and Mrs Moore, who had sighed at the last meeting, as everyone tried to remember to call her Mrs Harvey, ‘For goodness sake, call me Mrs Moore. It’s who I still am, if you get my meaning. Nothing’s changed.’ But it had. There was a bloom about her that Evie envied.

  The service began, and it was conducted jointly by Edward and Davy Evans, from the chapel at Easton. The church was so crowded that people stood outside, with the windows and doors open so that they could hear. The choir sang a hymn composed by Harry’s mother, with Evie as the soloist. For a moment, as she gazed out across the packed congregation, holding pristine white flowers for those who had not returned, she felt something stir, and it was a sense of great loss.

  Richard spoke of the courage of the patients at Easterleigh Hall, and of the staff with their enduring compassion. Jack spoke of the war, the larks that flew over the fields when away from the front, the ruin of the land as it now was, the kindness of some of the German guards which had made life tolerable. He spoke finally of Auberon.

  Evie watched as her brother faltered, searching for words, and for composure. ‘He became one of us. He fought with us, and for us. He watched our backs and we his. He is a grand man, a man of honour, one who returned to make good the promises he made to himself. I repeat that he is one of ours and we miss him, and want the silly bugger back here again.’

  The congregation laughed, and it was laughter that rolled out through the windows and doors to be joined by that of those outside.

  In September the invitations for the launch in November were sent out, though there was still decorating to be done, with no furniture yet reinstated. It was a gamble, but with a definite date they’d just have to make it.

  Veronica and Evie sat over stewed cups of tea in the kitchen with Harry, who had asked for the meeting just to check on a few details about the launch. Harry was to be front of house, operating from Lord Brampton’s old desk placed where the orderly’s station had been in the great hall. He poured himself some more tea and scoffed a scone, loaded with honey. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I’ve put the word about to all Father’s connections. The newspaper editors say they’ll send reporters, and they might, though they’re not known for reliability. It all depends if an actress is caught with a cabinet minister in a state of undress.’ He was talking with his mouth full. Crumbs landed on the table. Evie said, ‘Don’t be disgusting.’

  He laughed, and more crumbs showered out. ‘I’m not, it’s the sort of thing that does happen.’

  Veronica said, ‘She meant the crumbs, naughty boy.’

  He swallowed, and wiped his mouth, then flicked at the table with a serviette. Evie sighed. ‘Ver, can we possibly have this urchin as front of house?’

  Veronica shook her head. ‘He’ll have to show some improvement or Mr Manners will have something to say, indeed he will.’

  Harry grinned, and shoved a list across to the two women. ‘Have a look. I’ve sent to these, in my very best handwriting, ma’am.’

  At the top of the list were Lord and Lady Brampton. Evie and Veronica looked up, appalled. Harry held their stare, though his colour rose. ‘We have to, or it will look strange to our guests. It is still, to all intents and purposes, perceived as his house.’ Evie recognised the set of his chin. She had seen it so often when he struggled with his wooden leg. He would not move on this, and it was too late anyway.

  Veronica said, ‘Richard knows of this?’

  ‘No, it is my province and I thought you two should know first.’ He reached for the last scone, but at the last minute offered it to them. They declined, letting him lather it with honey and watching, fascinated, as it went in whole. Then they read down the list. Everyone who should have received an invitation was there. Beneath Lord and Lady Brampton was Auberon. Beneath him, Simon.

  ‘Now we wait,’ Harry said.

  Two days later Evie woke at midnight in her attic room, her head and heart pounding. She drank a little water, but her hand trembled and more spilt down her nightdress. She slept until a banging on her door woke her. ‘Evie, it’s late, it’s eight o’clock, breakfast is finished.’ It was Annie. Evie couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, her body ached, her lungs were full of water, she was drowning, swimming amongst reeds. Someone was touching her forehead. It hurt. Just the touch hurt.

  Matron was there. ‘Sit up, lass.’

  No, she couldn’t move, she was drowning. She felt an arm under her, it hurt. She was being lifted. No, it hurt. ‘Drink.’ The glass against her lips hurt. No. It was being forced. Rum scalded her throat. She swallowed. It hurt. No. No more. But there was more. It scalded.

  They laid her down, let her drift, let her swim and the waves were there, twisting and turning, throwing her up and then down, the sand was scraping her, hurting her. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s to cool you down, bonny lass.’ It was Mam, here in the water too.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, darling, just a sip.’ It was Ver, and it scalded. No.

  She was alone at last. The waves pulled her towards shore, and then away, further, further, deeper a
nd colder, deeper, colder, into a place where there were no voices, no one tugging but then Jack came, through the sea. ‘Come on, bonny lass. One sip, just one.’ No.

  ‘Try, lass, try to breathe.’

  I’m tired, Da. I’m just tired, let me be. I’m tired and I’m alone and it’s quiet. Now it’s quiet.

  ‘We need you, pet. Come along now.’

  No, Mrs Moore. I’m just too tired and I like it here, away in the deep of the sea, away from the roar of the surf, and the scratching of the sand, away from your newly-wed bloom which makes me happy and then sad, so sad. It’s dark here, in the river. Yes, it’s a river, not the sea. It’s softly flowing where no waves move me. I’m just floating, through pictures, fragments, lots of fragments. There’s Mam’s kitchen and the proggy rug. In and out with the strips, not the green there, Mam says. Not there, pet. Here’s Grace, digging in her garden, earthing up the potatoes. Jack, you’re in the water, why are you digging too? Timmie, you’re painting your soldiers. They’re grand, bonny lad.

  ‘No, Evie, no. You must not do this. You must try.’ It was Ver, too loud, too harsh. No.

  Mrs Moore was reading her recipe bible. There she is, her finger running along the page, her poor swollen finger. There are the fancies that Mrs Green should make but I do, for them, Veronica and . . . and . . .

  Jack smiled as he swam through the tendrils, and Timmie and there were no blue-black scars and it was cool and dark and no voices called. It was quiet, at last it was quiet and she could let the air from her lungs, and let her chest rest, let her heart rest, let everything stop.

  She was on her bike, the air was sweet, the larks sang, the sheep were in the meadows, the cows in the corn and little boy blue . . .

  ‘No, I won’t have it, do you hear.’ Ver was shouting.

  Be quiet, I like the quiet. Little boy blue . . . Such blue eyes. So very blue, so kind.