“No, don’t,” he said.
“Don’t? But you don’t know what I was going to say.”
“My name—my name’s enough,” he said, his voice trembling; and with his eyes still closed, barely discernibly, he whispered, “I’ve imagined hearing you say it for so long . . . so long.”
And finally I moved over to him, wrapped my arms around him and held him. And he placed his head on my shoulder and wept.
I never let go. I held on to him for hours in that room. He didn’t want to talk about himself—or the war—he said. But he did.
I heard how his map-reading skills and knowledge of France and its language had kept him away from active service. For almost two years he had served with the Artists Rifles as a map-reading instructor in the safety of an Essex training camp. But in the summer of 1916, after the Somme, everything changed. He spoke about his quick promotion—to second lieutenant and then to captain—and about his training for warfare: a sixty-minute talk from his CO and a copy of the Field Service Pocket Book. Twenty-four hours later, he’d found himself the only officer in a new company of the Seventh Division and therefore the company commander.
“The most rapidly trained, poorly equipped company commander in the history of the British army,” he said.
He mentioned Ypres, the battle of Passchendaele and other places vaguely familiar to me. Places I must have read about. And in a quiet, steady voice, one devoid of any emotion, he told me how killing men had sickened his soul, how his mind had blocked out everything other than the moment-to-moment instinct for survival, and how his body had fallen apart through dysentery. When I said the word brave, he flinched. “No, there were others far braver than I.” Then, slowly at first, he began counting on his fingers and listing names—surnames that meant nothing to me but something to him.
I didn’t say anything. I watched his fingers and listened to his voice as I held him, and I continued to stroke his once golden hair. But as he gathered pace, as the names began to run one into another, I realized there was some masochism in the activity of his hands, some self-cruelty in the reciting of names. I had no wish to know how many men he had seen killed, or how agile his memory was in recalling them. And eventually I said, “No. That’s enough. Stop.”
And he did.
I had no idea, then, that Ralph had been awarded the Victoria Cross. No idea that his war would rarely if ever be mentioned again, and would instead, like the medal, be locked away. What I did know—and all that mattered in that instant—was that he was there, and alive, and with me.
So when he said, “I should go,” I said, “No, you can’t.” And I think I said something about it being too late, or too stormy, or both. Then I turned out the lamps, took his hand and led him upstairs to Ottoline’s bedroom. I wrapped him in an eiderdown and lay down next to him, listening to the rain falling from an invisible sky to an invisible dark earth.
“Who gave you the white heather?” he asked.
“Billy.”
He pulled me to him. “What are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure . . . But I have to explain to Lila.”
“And then?”
“Then . . . I really don’t know.”
“What about this place? Will you stay here?”
“Only if you’re here with me.”
“I’m not sure it’s to my tastes,” he said. “But I have the land.”
“How many acres?”
“Ten.”
It seemed a paltry amount from an estate of some ten thousand acres, and all the more paltry considering Ralph had been Ottoline’s cousin. I said, “Well, I suppose ten acres is ten more than most have.”
“No, ten thousand,” he replied. And as his grip tightened, I felt his mouth on my hair, and then his voice, heavy and laden with sleep, said, “I’ll die if this is just another dream.”
Within seconds his breathing deepened and slowed. But I did not close my eyes, nor did I want to. Instead, I continued to hold on to him, my golden boy—battered, scarred and gray, lying beneath an eiderdown on his lost cousin’s bed, in his newfound daughter’s house. And as the rain continued to pound against the windowpane, my mind bounced back and forth, spewing out random images and words.
I saw Billy Campbell leaping down a hillside with a knapsack on his back, singing a song about good luck and another time. I saw a filled-out Harry Rankin polishing up buttons on a uniform; and Mrs. Bart, in her usual chair, peeling a boiled egg and telling me to pace myself because life is a very long road and one never quite knows where it may lead; I saw Kitty, her blue eyes as bright as ever, assuring me that my life would be different to her own, and different to my mother’s; and then I saw Ottoline, motoring south, toward the sun . . .
And then the rain stopped, and all was still and calm. And as darkness gave way to a flickering light, I unwrapped myself, climbed from the bed and went to the window. Beyond the glass, the earth exhaled in a long sigh, and so sweet was the mist rising, I could almost taste it on my tongue. And so new was the rippling in my heart, I wanted to go outside and dance; dance, just as I had one other dawn so many years before.
I looked down to the grass, and picturing myself, my younger self, and remembering the loneliness beneath the bravado, the optimism despite the odds, I smiled. Kitty would have been proud of her, I thought; not because it took a superior sort of girl to be a lady’s maid, and certainly not for an illicit affair, but simply because she had not drowned.
When I heard Lila calling for me from the landing, I quickly moved over to the door. She stood in her nightgown. “What are you doing in—”
I put a finger to my lips. She peered past me, into the room, rising up onto her tiptoes to see the bed. I pulled the door shut and took her hand.
“Why is Mr. Stedman asleep?” she whispered, her finger still to her lips, his lack of consciousness more surprising than his presence in a bedroom.
It wasn’t yet six, and I had had no sleep. But as I led Lila back toward her bedroom, and amidst more whispered questions—Is he not very well? . . . Did you put him to bed, Mummy?—I decided there was no better time.
I pulled the bedcovers over her, sat down and took hold of her hand. I said, “Darling, you know I said I’d tell you about Daddy and Mr. Stedman?”
With her thumb in her mouth, she nodded.
“Well, you see . . . your daddy is Mr. Stedman.”
The strange thing about delivering what to an adult might be earth-shattering, is that to a child the world can reorder itself in the blink of an eye. Matters deemed sensitive are only so if a grown-up has determined them as such. And Lila, whose father had been a void filled with a name that meant little to her, was that morning offered something tangible and real. A man she had met, talked to and liked; a man who was alive.
And so her reaction was not one of shock, dismay, recrimination or anger. She pondered on what I had said for only a few seconds, and then she said, “Did you know he was going to be here?”
“No. I thought . . . Well, I thought he had died in the war.”
“Oh, poor Mummy,” she said, sitting up and wrapping her arms around my waist.
And it was then that I finally cried. As though I had been holding my breath for her, holding my breath for six years. She got out of her bed, riffled in her yet-to-be-unpacked bag for a handkerchief, and as she handed it to me, I saw the embroidered initials, RSS. She stroked my brow, showered my face in sweet kisses.
A little while later, after she had led me down to the kitchen, and whispering once more in soothing tones, she asked me about Henry Gibson. And I told her. I sat at the kitchen table and told her about her grandfather.
Together we made tea. And then, clutching a teapot, I followed her back upstairs as she slowly—very slowly and very carefully—carried the tray with three cups and a jug of milk. I sat down in the armchair by the window, as instructed, a
nd watched her pour the tea, her hand struggling with the weight of the pot. She perched herself on the edge of the bed, staring, watching, waiting. And when this man—her daddy—eventually stirred and stretched out, I saw him open his eyes and turn to her, and I saw him smile as he said her name.
He sat up, glanced at me briefly and then turned back to Lila. And having waited patiently, and for far longer than the minutes it had taken him to stir, and dying—positively dying—to say one word, she said, “Here you are, Daddy. We made you a cup of tea.”
Ralph kept his eyes fixed on her—frowning, smiling, mesmerized, his mouth from time to time trembling as he listened. “You haven’t got any jamas, have you? . . . Not everyone has jamas . . . Mummy thought you were dead . . . I had a funny feeling in my tummy when I saw you . . .”
Only once, as Lila took his cup and poured him more tea, did he look at me. Then he stared at me with a half smile and raised eyebrows, as if to say, How?
Later that day, before my body finally succumbed to exhaustion, I stood at the bedroom window once more. I watched Ralph and Lila walk out from the house and down the driveway hand in hand. And I could’ve sworn I heard Ottoline’s voice: “There. There, now . . . What did I say? Didn’t I tell you?”
She had.
Epilogue
Delnasay
June 28, 1925
Dear Theodore,
Thank you for your letter, and for the book & card you sent for Lila—whose thank-you note I enclose. Luckily the fine weather held out and she had a splendid birthday party in the garden. Ralph led the singing—a baritone, decidedly operatic version of “Happy Birthday”—and took photographs, including one of her as she raised her eyes to him and blew out ten candles (which I also enclose). He managed a spectacular fall in the egg & spoon race, and another—even more spectacular—in the sack race. It caused his children & their friends great hilarity until sympathy overcame them and they all rushed to console the giant, clumsy-footed but nevertheless gallant loser.
Rodney is with us once again for the summer. Lila adores him, and he is particularly good with Billy, and of course I have Mrs. Lister—now universally known as Granny Lister—to help with baby Kitty. She is completely besotted and has abandoned all efforts in the kitchen in favor of what she calls her “grandmother’s duties.” (Ralph is convinced she actually believes she is the children’s grandmother, and in the absence of any other, she does an excellent job. I really can’t imagine she will ever return south.) And Amy arrives next week with her new beau, a man she claims quite different to the others. We shall see!
I must say, you did make me laugh with your reference to our “antique perambulator,” but it does the job fine and as you already know, Ralph is not one for unnecessary expense or luxury, and I quite like the fact that it is old, served the Campbell boys and has now served Lila, Billy & Kitty. And yes, we have finally finished the hallway—and you are most welcome to your pick of stags’ heads & weaponry! It is now pink—a darkish pink—and it was a family effort with all of us, bar Kitty (who looked on from that fine baby carriage), having a hand in its transformation. Ralph has hung what he calls the Stedman Portraits: the one of me he finished last summer when you were here, which was in fact produced from a sketch he made of me in 1914 at King’s Cross station, along with his rather brooding self-portrait, and his latest—of Lila. Billy & Kitty will no doubt be added one day, though I’m not sure Ralph will ever again have time for family portraits as he is struggling to keep up with the demand for his paintings and is working all hours in preparation for his forthcoming exhibition in London. His latest dilemma is whether to continue with the figurative bucolic landscapes of his prewar days, which seem to sell so well, or go in a new direction—one he prefers—and produce more abstract work.
As regards our marriage, it was quick and quiet and without any fuss. There has been no announcement, of course. (No one knew, apart from you & Rodney, and we are both extremely grateful to you for handling Marie Therese so well—and for seeing to the documentation & paperwork, particularly the children’s birth certificates.) From the moment I told Lila, almost exactly four years ago, she never doubted that we were married, and to her and everyone else in the locality, I have been Mrs. Stedman for all of this time, so there has been no change, nothing new for me to get used to, and it is very queer for me to think of myself as a “newlywed”! And no, Ralph is no longer bitter about Marie Therese, that she held out for so long despite Lila—and Billy & Kitty’s births. He says it is time to look forward and not back.
Rodney accompanied us to the registry office at Elgin and acted as a witness, along with one of the clerks there. As for “a celebration” . . . there was none, as such. But Ralph took a hip flask, and on the way back here we stopped at a particular place overlooking Delnasay & the glen. We left Rodney in the car while we walked up the hillside—to the cairn at the top. We each placed a stone, took a nip or two from the flask, and Ralph said some words I will treasure until the day I die. But perhaps most poignantly—when we looked down, we could see the shapes of Lila, Billy, Mrs. L. & the “antique perambulator” moving along the road by the river.
Finally, I am touched by & grateful for your words. However, I thought we agreed last summer that there would be no more guilt or recrimination? It was, after all, thirty-five years ago, and you did not know, so how could you have done anything differently? I realize now that life is never how we plan, and that judgment is the luxury of inexperience. Rest assured, I am happy—immeasurably happy. I consider myself blessed to be living amidst such beauty with the man I love and our three children. I could want for nothing more. And I try to live by Ottoline’s motto—to seize every moment and make each one count.
Yours,
Pearl
PS: I forgot to say, Ralph and I are to have a honeymoon of sorts. A holiday (our first) at Biarritz in October—along with Mrs. Lister, two dogs & three children!
Dear Mr. Godley,
I hope you are well. Thank you for the book of poems. It was very kind of you and a bit of a coincidence as well because I write poetry. I had my birthday party in the garden and seventeen friends not including Billy because he wasn’t actually invited and Kitty doesn’t count anyway. Kitty is our new baby but you won’t remember her because she wasn’t here the last time you came. She doesn’t do much but Granny Lister who is not really our Granny loves her to pieces and calls her the Queen of Babies!!! Daddy is taking me camping next week and says we will be able to stay up all night to look for shooting stars. I have already seen three. We are not taking Billy as he would only cry for Mummy and Kitty is just a baby.
Yours Faithfully,
Ottoline Stedman
(Aged 10)
Acknowledgments
This novel is set in the landscapes of my childhood and early life, and much of my inspiration came from people who once inhabited those places. They seemed to be waiting in the wings to be given their cue, and I am grateful to all of them.
I am grateful to my father, to whom this book is dedicated and whose boyhood memories of the interwar years are inexorably woven into my writing, not least this novel. I am also indebted to my brother, Geoff Sample, for his help and expert advice on birds and birdsong, and the natural history of Northumberland and Scotland.
Once again, I would like to thank my mother, Elizabeth, for being my first reader, and for her enthusiastic support; and my husband, Jeremy, for his love and unwavering kindness.
Finally, thanks to my agent, Deborah Schneider, and to my editor, Jenn Fisher, and the team at Berkley and Penguin Random House USA.
JK
HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND
MARCH 2016
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
The relationship between Pearl and Ottoline is central to the novel and, at times, complex. Was this relationship convincingly developed, and who do you think was more loyal—Pearl or Ottoline?
Discus
s the ways in which a failure to tell the truth caused misunderstanding and altered Pearl’s path. Who do you think was the most honest character in the novel?
Ottoline’s perception of marriage and her attitude to fidelity are clouded. Can infidelity be excused in an arranged marriage or in one in which there is mental instability?
Women’s attitudes to their roles at home and at work changed during the First World War. How is this depicted in the novel, and why was being in domestic service “no longer something to be proud of”?
Discuss the novel’s depiction of early twentieth-century morality, including attitudes concerning sex and pregnancy outside marriage. How did the men’s behavior contrast with the women’s?
Were you surprised by Hector Campbell’s attitude concerning his wife’s unfaithfulness? Why do you think he tolerated her behavior?
Loneliness, mental illness, and depression are recurrent themes in the novel. Discuss how the author handled them, and which characters suffer and why.
Part three of the novel takes place after the end of the war. Discuss the ways in which its effects continued to be seen and felt by the characters.
Apart from Pearl, which character do you feel undergoes the most dramatic transformation in the novel?
Were you shocked by Ottoline’s and Hector’s deaths? Who do you think was driving the car, and do you believe it was an accident?
Was Kitty’s lie to Theodore Godley about the baby (Pearl) dying understandable and forgivable? How did you feel about this revelation, and did it alter your view of Kitty?
Is Ralph Stedman a convincing romantic hero, despite his absence for most of the story? What was it about him that Pearl fell in love with? Did you believe he survived the war?
Lila innocently and inadvertently reveals to Ralph that she is his daughter. How realistic is this exchange, and how do you foresee Ralph’s future relationship with Lila?
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