“I know you do, and that will sustain me through to the end of the war, when we’ll be reunited, here in our secret place, where no one but Mr. Swift and Mama can find us.” His eyes grew serious as he caressed the contours of her face. “Whenever you miss me, put your fingers on the brooch I gave you and that will send a telepathic message straight to my heart.”
“Oh, Rufus, don’t. You’ll make me cry.”
He bent down to kiss her again. “If God spares me, Grace, I’ll come back and marry you. I promise you that. I’ll divorce Georgie. You’ll divorce Freddie. There’s nothing on earth that can keep us apart.”
• • •
The following day Rufus went back to war and Grace went back to work, and on the outside nothing seemed to have changed at all. But on the inside, everything had changed. Grace discovered she had a surprising ability to live two separate lives. An external life where she wrote long letters to Freddie, moaned about how much she missed him to Ruby, Josephine, and May, and an internal life where her heart pined for Rufus. She discovered to her shame that she also had a surprising ability to lie.
Rufus wrote her long letters from Africa, always addressed to Miss Bernadette Short, which was a name they’d made up in case Freddie was ever home on leave and chanced to come across one. She could always claim that Bernadette was a land girl from London who had briefly lodged with her, but had now gone. It was Rufus’s idea and a good one. He wrote the letter itself to “My darling little B” and signed “your ever-faithful Broderick,” in reference to the name of one of his ancestors which Grace had found particularly amusing. She treasured every letter, hiding them—with the two she had previously kept in her dressing table drawer—beneath a loose floorboard under the bed. Unlike Freddie, who never shared his experiences, Rufus was full of his, as much as the censors permitted. He seemed to want to off-load, and Grace was flattered that he should write about his feelings in such detail, sharing his failures with her as well as his successes. He was a highly intelligent and witty young man, and his letters were more like short stories, the men he described becoming characters she longed to read about, and, as the war raged on, characters she mourned when they were tragically killed. He wrote philosophically and wisely, but there was one line which stayed with her for days, causing her to cry into her pillow.
The noise of war is so great it destroys all living things. Sometimes I feel that Earth herself has stopped breathing altogether, because when I sit under the stars and see nothing but my own fears, I try to hear her breathe, in and out, in and out, and hear nothing but a deathly silence and my own weak heart, beating still for my one and only true love.
She went and sat outside in the middle of the night, wrapped in a sheepskin coat, and closed her eyes. At first she heard only the fretful throbbing in her ears, but then, as her heart rate slowed and her hearing grew more acute, she began to hear the gentle scuffling of a small animal in the hedge. She didn’t open her eyes but let her senses tune into the secret nocturnal life of her garden. She longed to hear the breathing that Rufus had spoken about, but she was reassured that war hadn’t yet robbed her garden of its life.
Grace was pleased to discover that Mrs. Emerson, the source of all gossip at the Hall, hadn’t found out about Lady Penselwood’s affair with Mr. Swift. The cook didn’t treat her any differently, either, which reassured her that she suspected nothing of her own affair with Rufus. The only person Grace went to great lengths to avoid was Lady Georgina. Most of the time Rufus’s wife kept herself to herself in the private part of the house. While the marchioness strode around the farm and gardens, rallying the women, milking the cows, collecting eggs from the chickens, riding out with Mr. Swift, her sulky daughter-in-law supposedly knitted socks for the WI in her little sitting room upstairs. Mrs. Emerson was full of it, as were the land girls who were high on tales of grand ladies from all over the county who were donning overalls and getting their hands dirty with the common folk. But Lady Georgina had a strong character and an unbending will, according to Mrs. Emerson, and not even Lady Penselwood could shame her into action.
Then, one spring day in 1942, Lady Georgina sought out Grace in the gardens. She seemed most determined to speak with her. By now, Grace’s secret compartment beneath the floorboard in her bedroom contained not only Rufus’s letters but a growing number of small ornamental bees which he had managed to send her. Among them was a porcelain box, a cigarette case, a silver bauble, and a gold pendant. He had also taken to drawing bees in his letters, which made her smile.
“I need to talk to you,” said Lady Georgina in her habitual lofty manner.
Grace’s heart leapt into her throat. “Yes, m’lady?” she replied, trying to find traces of suspicion in her features. But Lady Georgina looked at her impassively, giving nothing away.
“I need to send a box of honey out to Lord Melville.”
“I delivered the honey to Mrs. Emerson last September. There should be plenty left in the store cupboard.”
Lady Georgina appeared flustered. “I want the labels written especially,” she said.
Grace knew that prisoners of war, billeted at a nearby farm, hand-painted labels for the Walbridge honey jars. “I can organize that for you, if you like,” she said. “I’ll have to harvest early this year. I could certainly fill some jars for you, but not before May.”
“Aren’t the bees making honey all the time?”
“Yes, but we only harvest it once or twice a year.”
Lady Georgina smiled cheerlessly. “I thought one could simply pour the honey out whenever one wanted to.”
“The bees wouldn’t like that very much,” said Grace. “What would you like on the labels and I can organize it for you?”
“I want special ones for my husband. It’ll be a gift. He’s suddenly taken a great interest in bees.”
Grace knew she’d give herself away if she looked shifty, so she replied steadily, “Probably because the Dowager Lady Penselwood used bees to cure her arthritis.”
Lady Georgina raised her eyebrows. “Did it work?”
“It helped, I believe.” Grace noticed Lady Georgina’s gaze settle on the bee brooch she always wore above her right breast.
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s a beautiful brooch you’re wearing.”
“Thank you.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Grace knew she was right to assume she hadn’t bought it for herself and her father would never have had the money to indulge in such an extravagant brooch. “The Dowager Lady Penselwood gave it to me as a thank-you for helping ease her arthritis. It was I who ministered the beestings.” At least the old woman was dead and unable to refute her story.
Lady Georgina looked surprised. “How generous of her. You must have made her very happy to inspire her to give you such a thoughtful and kind present.”
“I wear it all the time,” said Grace.
“I hope it doesn’t fall off while you’re working. It would be a shame to lose it. I would advise you to save it for your best dresses and jackets.”
“It’s firmly fastened,” Grace replied, touching it with her fingers. She wanted to quip that nothing would cause it to fly away and almost smiled to herself because it was the sort of joke Rufus might have made.
“How is your Freddie?” Lady Georgina asked. “Does he write often?”
“He writes as much as he can.”
“Lord Melville seems to have far too much time on his hands, for I get too many letters.” She gave a miserable little chuckle, and Grace saw through her hollow boast.
She suddenly felt sorry for her. “I pray for an end to this senseless war,” she said with feeling. “I pray for the return of our husbands and a return to the way it was. I can’t bear living in fear of the worst, of trying to keep my mind on other things, while all the time I’m worrying that Freddie might be hurt or afraid or homesick.” She laughed bitterl
y. “I feel so useless here, and the not-knowing could drive me mad.”
Lady Georgina’s eyes softened, and for a moment they were two women scared for their men, and the distance imposed upon them by their unequal status was suddenly abridged. “We’re all in this together,” said Lady Georgina. “You with your Freddie, me with my Rufus, Arabella with Aldrich, and so many others, like us, feeling cut off and anxious. It’s beastly.”
“So, how many jars would you like?” Grace brought the subject back to honey. She didn’t want to get too close to Rufus’s wife. Lady Georgina’s face hardened again, and Grace knew it had little to do with her and a lot to do with her own unhappiness.
“Six, I think. I gather one can use honey to dress wounds.”
“It has antiseptic properties,” Grace told her.
“What a wonderful thing honey is. Aren’t they clever, the bees? I envy you with your simple life.”
“Is yours so very complicated?” Grace asked.
“Oh yes, you have no idea. But it’s all to do with expectation, you see, and I don’t suppose you, with your bees and your little garden, have many expectations that aren’t fulfilled.” Grace didn’t know what she meant and frowned. “I want the labels to be pretty. I want a picture of bluebells to remind him of our wedding at Thenfold, and I want our initials on them. R and G, intertwined. Do you think it can be done?”
“Most certainly,” Grace replied, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. However much Rufus loved her, his life would always be intertwined with Lady Georgina’s, like the letters on the labels.
“Good. Bring them to me personally, won’t you? I don’t want them getting muddled with the ones for the house. Mrs. Emerson can be quite batty, you know.”
“I will.”
“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you’ve got something useful to do in the garden.” Grace watched her walk away. She wondered whether their conversation had been motivated by Lady Georgina’s suspicions, or whether she really did only want honey jars sent out to the front. If she did have suspicions, Grace hoped she had allayed them.
• • •
Grace witnessed the devastating effects of war on those around her with a growing fear for her own fragile spirit. Mrs. Emerson lost a grandson in France, and Lady Penselwood lost a nephew in Africa. Alongside those two women were countless others who received letters informing them that their husbands and sons were killed, lost in action, or dreadfully wounded. Walbridge mourned and the mourning dragged on for months. Grace spent evenings on her knees at her bedside, praying for Rufus and Freddie, bargaining with God, hoping that her infidelity wouldn’t inspire Him to take Rufus from her out of spite. She knew that she should promise to end the affair, but it would be a promise she couldn’t keep.
She wrote letters to both Freddie and Rufus at the kitchen table and posted them together. Sometimes she wondered how it was possible to love two men at the same time. But there are many ways of loving, and the love between siblings, parents and children, friends, spouses, and lovers are all different, just as the seven shades of the rainbow are all part of the same arc of color. It seemed natural to tell both men that she loved them, and that was the truth.
And then in the autumn of 1942 Grace received a letter informing her that Freddie had been wounded in action in North Africa. She hadn’t even been aware that he was in Africa. It gave her a strange feeling to think that the two men she loved had been fighting in the same place. Freddie was now at a military hospital in a stable condition and would be coming home at the earliest opportunity. Grace sought comfort in Freddie’s family. None of them knew any details yet. Grace was grateful he was alive, but terrified of what his injuries might be. She knew of men who had returned without limbs, brutally disfigured, mentally damaged. She woke up in the middle of the night having dreamed that she didn’t recognize him. As she searched his bloodied, monstrous features, his indigo eyes turned into Rufus’s brown ones and she cried out in horror.
Her prayers for Rufus grew more insistent. Her anxiety mounted as weeks went by without any word from him. If he had been killed, wounded, or lost in action, how would she know? While she waited for Freddie’s return, she waited, too, for news from her lover. None came. She went out of her way to bump into Lady Georgina or the marchioness, inventing excuses to go into the house. There was nothing in the women’s demeanor to give Grace reason to believe anything terrible had happened to Rufus. She wrote to him, begging for news, expressing her anguish in ever more convoluted sentences.
Then she wondered whether Lady Georgina had somehow discovered their affair. Feverishly, she went over their conversation in her head, trying to recall whether she had unwittingly given them away. Had Lady Georgina seen the bee brooch before he gave it to her? Had he left it lying about? Had she threatened to leave him if he ever contacted Grace again? These possibilities shuffled about in her mind like a pack of cards full of spades. He had said that nothing on earth could keep them apart, but in truth, there was a very great deal that could.
Freddie came home after Christmas. Besides the wound on the left side of his face and his eye patch, he still looked like Freddie. But he wasn’t the same on the inside. He was bitter, resentful, and sad. It was as if his heart had been ripped out with his eye. Worst of all, he was silent.
He glared at Grace as if she were to blame. May reassured her that it was natural to take out one’s hurt on those closest, but Grace wondered whether he could see into her soul and whether he saw Rufus there.
She longed to ask after Rufus, but there was no one to ask. Months went by and still no letter. Presently, she stopped writing to him. It was more difficult now with Freddie at home. She never ceased believing that Rufus loved her, and when Freddie went to the pub to drown his sorrows, she opened the secret compartment beneath her bed and drowned her own sorrows in his letters. Perhaps he knew Freddie had come home and felt it was unsafe to send letters there, even if they were addressed to someone else. There was nothing she could do but wait for an end to the war and for Rufus’s return. She touched her bee brooch so often it became like a nervous tic, and Freddie, if he noticed, never asked how she had come by it.
PART THREE
Chapter 21
New York, 1990
Trixie couldn’t sleep. She felt a strange sense of dread in the pit of her stomach, as she used to at high school the night before an important exam. She looked across at the man sleeping peacefully beside her. He lay on his back, the covers carelessly swept aside, exposing his muscular torso and the glossy texture of his skin, which gleamed in the light from the street outside. His name was Leo and he was American of Italian descent. Attractive, athletic, and funny, he had all the attributes most women would kill for. But Trixie didn’t love him. She hadn’t loved any of the men who had warmed her bed, and there had been many. But she was fond of him. He made her laugh and didn’t annoy her, and it was nice to have someone to share her life with. He had lasted eight months. She knew it wouldn’t be long before they parted company. Fourteen months had been the longest.
She got up and padded into the sitting room, wrapping her velour dressing gown around her body. She sat in front of the large glass window that glittered with the eternal lights of a city she had called home for the last seventeen years. She gazed at the forest of towering buildings and felt a sharp pang in her heart for the wide-open sea and star-studded sky of her youth.
In the beginning she had run away from her unhappiness. She thought if she lost herself in New York the pain wouldn’t find her. The drugs, alcohol, and heavy partying seemed to comply and, for a while, masked the dead feeling inside and fooled her into believing she was happy and fulfilled. Big had pulled strings and got her a lowly position with a fashion magazine, making tea and filing, and she had slept with as many forgettable men as she could find in an attempt to erase Jasper from her consciousness. It had been Suzie Redford who had made her see sense, flushing the d
rugs down the toilet and shouting at her to get a grip before she lost her job and her future. No man was worth her self-destruction.
Little by little her job had saved her. She loved fashion, and the girls in her department soon became firm friends. She wanted to succeed and gradually her ambition supplanted her hedonism. As long as she focused intently on something, she could avoid being dragged back into melancholy; as long as she was in New York, she could be someone else. She went home as little as possible because she didn’t want to be that brokenhearted girl anymore, wrestling memories on every sand dune.
Trixie was now thirty-six years old. Most of her friends had married and were having children, but Trixie was married to her job. She had worked hard to get to where she was. Fashion editor hadn’t happened overnight. Everyone knew how dedicated she was; no one suspected why. To the outside world she had everything: beauty, a good job, a fine-looking boyfriend, a loyal circle of friends, a spacious loft apartment in Soho, and a wardrobe full of designer clothes. To the outside world she had everything; to Trixie, she lacked the one thing that really mattered.
She was in her office when the telephone rang. She was surprised to hear her father’s voice. He rarely called her. “Hi, Dad. How are you?”
He hesitated a moment, and the knot in her stomach grew tighter. “I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid,” he said. “Your mother’s got cancer.”
He might as well have announced her death sentence. “Oh my God!” Trixie gasped, holding on to the desk as her office spun away from her. “How bad is it?”
“It’s not great. The tumor was detected late, and being in the brain, it’s inoperable. She’s had chemotherapy but the tumor hasn’t shrunk. There’s nothing more they can do.”
“She’s had chemotherapy? How long has this been going on for?”
“About six months.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She didn’t want me to. She didn’t want to worry you.”
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