Grace's Story

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Grace's Story Page 8

by Jennie Walters


  ‘Leave it for now, eh, Ma?’ I said. ‘Listen to this.’ My news would take her mind off Ivy’s omnibus. Not the fact that I’d been dismissed, which I’d decided to try and keep secret from my mother for as long as possible (she was bound to say, ‘Didn’t I tell you working in the stables was a mistake?’), but the plans to turn Swallowcliffe into a home for wounded soldiers, and the Vyes going off to America. Ma hadn’t been up at the Hall that day so this would be the first she’d heard of it.

  ‘That’s one way of riding out the war, I suppose,’ Ivy remarked when I’d finished. ‘Do you think they’re hoping to stay away till it’s over?’

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’ Ma was outraged. ‘Lord Vye’s only doing what’s best for Swallowcliffe; he has things on his mind that we can’t possibly understand. I don’t know, Ivy, you’re so contrary these days. Why can’t we get along like we used to?’

  Ivy had got out of the habit of being at home, that’s what it was. She’d forgotten nobody can say a word against Lord Vye in Ma’s hearing; if His Lordship said black was white, she’d agree with him. The funny thing is, Ma can’t bear Colonel Vye, even though he’s part of the same family. Everything Lord Vye does is right, and everything his brother the Colonel does is wrong - that’s what you have to remember when you’re talking to our mother.

  There was a fire burning in the front room, so Ma told Ivy and I to take our tea through there and have a chat while she finished cooking the mince pies (her pastry melts in your mouth, it’s so light). I think she realised we needed a little time to ourselves. I sat on the hearthrug opposite Ivy with my back against a chair, watching the flames leap and flicker, while she told me about her new life.

  ‘It’s such fun, Gracie! I can’t tell you. When I heard a rumour they were looking for girls to fill in on the buses for the men going off to war, I jumped at the chance. I knew I’d love it, and I do. You can have a chat with the passengers, and we do get all sorts, Ma’s right. Such interesting people, sometimes! There’s the odd awkward customer now and then, but I can give as good as I get.’

  She broke off to blow her nose, then tucked the hankie back in her dressing-gown pocket. ‘We had ever such a grand lady waiting for the number 19 last week - Ma would have been delighted. All dressed up in furs, she was, and you could tell she’d never set foot in an omnibus before. There was a girl with her, about your age, and she was pretty wet behind the ears as well. Goodness knows why they’d decided to take the bus and not a hansom cab. Perhaps it was their war effort, mixing with the lower classes and all that. Anyway, we drew up at the stop and the girl jumped on first with the duchess following behind. She waited for me to help her up on the platform - probably expected me to curtsey, into the bargain - but then she got herself into a terrible flap. Started thumping with her stick to call the girl back, and you’ll never guess why. She said - ’ and here Ivy put on a quavery high-pitched voice, ‘“Gwendolen! Come here! We must get awff this omnibus immediately.” The girl said, “But why, Great Aunt? It’ll take us to Chelsea.” “So it may,” said the duchess, “but it’s simply full of people we don’t know.”’

  I laughed so hard my stomach ached. You can say this much for Ivy - she can tell a good story. She was chuckling too, but then her face grew serious as she stared into the glowing heart of the fire, sipping her tea.

  ‘I’m never going back into service when the war’s over,’ she told me. ‘I couldn’t, not now. It might be better for you, working with Father in the stables, but I’m not fetching and carrying or bowing and scraping to a mistress after this. I want a life of my own, not the leftovers of somebody else’s.’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact - ’ I began, about to explain what had happened to me that afternoon, when suddenly Ma rushed into the room and stopped me in mid-sentence.

  ‘Grace, your father’s outside. He needs you. Quickly! Here’s your coat.’

  What on earth could be the trouble? Da knew I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the horses now. I’d had to tell him about being given my marching orders; we’d had a long, sad talk about it in the harness room before I came home, with a good few tears on my part, I have to admit. To have found a job that made me so happy, only to have it snatched away, seemed very cruel.

  I hurried outside, to find my father waiting with Moonlight and the gig by the gates. ‘What is it?’ I asked, while Ma went to open them. ‘How can I come with you after what Mr Gallagher said? He’ll have my guts for garters.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ he replied. ‘This is an emergency. I may need you to hold the horse or drive the Vyes home while I stay behind, and Mr Gallagher will just have to put up with it. There’s been an accident. Quickly now, Grace - don’t waste any more time.’

  It was a while before Da came home again, in the early hours of a raw, frosty morning. I was already up at the stables putting Moonlight away, having taken Lord and Lady Vye back in the gig as he’d predicted. No one had been hurt in the accident, thank goodness, but Mr Gallagher had driven the Rolls-Royce into a ditch on the way back from their dinner party, and there it was firmly stuck. Luckily there had been a public house with a telephone not far away, so they were able to call for help. Her Ladyship was quite shaken, and Lord Vye was spitting tacks.

  ‘The man was blind drunk,’ he muttered, climbing up into the gig in his immaculate dinner jacket and white bow tie. ‘The cheek of it, helping himself to port in the butler’s pantry while we were having dinner! He could have killed us all. And goodness knows how much the motor will cost to repair.’

  ‘William will sort everything out,’ Lady Vye said. ‘I only hope he won’t have to wait too long for the policeman to arrive. Thank you both so much for rescuing us, Grace.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, M’lady.’ And so it was. I’d have driven the gig twenty miles through a snowstorm to see the back of Mr Gallagher, weaving unsteadily down the road towards the pub. Lord Vye had given him five shillings to cover the cost of a room for the night, and sent him packing to sleep it off. ‘He’s lucky to get that, the scoundrel! If he ever shows his face at the Hall again, I shall have him arrested. Dash it all, how are we to manage without the motor-car over Christmas? I’ve offered Freddy Warburton a lift to the golf club tomorrow. He won’t appreciate having to ride in a dog-cart.’

  Well, as it turned out, the Rolls was back in the barn before His Lordship woke up next morning. Da and the policeman had managed to push it out of the ditch and discovered that the damage consisted of a smashed headlamp, a dented front wing, and a long scratch in the paintwork along one side. The motor-car could still be driven, so my father drove it home. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the sound of the engine, and looked out of the harness-room window to see the Rolls-Royce sailing past with Da sitting in the driving seat as though he’d been born to it. He tooted on the horn for me to open the barn doors.

  ‘This driving business isn’t so difficult if you take it slowly,’ he said, steering the motor carefully inside.

  The next day, he drove Lord Vye and Mr Warburton to the golf club, having arranged to take the Rolls-Royce into the mechanic’s after Christmas, while I looked after the stables. His Lordship declared my father would benefit from a few more driving lessons, but he seemed to be a safe pair of hands and at least he could stay on the road. Mr Gallagher had gone, I had my job back, my parents could stay in the gate lodge and Tom was coming home; if it wasn’t for the war, everything would have been perfect. The thought of what my brother was about to face hung over us like a dark, heavy cloud. This war was meant to have been over by Christmas, that’s what people had said, but there was no sign of it ending any time soon. Our boys were sitting in their trenches, the Germans were stuck in theirs - how was the stalemate ever going to be broken?

  Da and I were giving the horses their mid-morning feed on Christmas Eve when we had a couple of visitors in the stables: Colonel Vye and Philip Hathaway. I hadn’t seen the Colonel since he’d sent me packing down the hill that time in the summe
r and shrank back inside Bealla’s stall, hoping he wouldn’t notice me now. Still, I knew he’d been out in France and a girl would have to be stony-hearted indeed not to feel glad he was safe for the time being. I assumed he wanted to talk to my father but, after they’d exchanged a few words, it was me he came to find. ‘Grace, isn’t it? I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you the last time we met.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir. You had no reason to.’ I’m not sure I would have picked him out in a crowd now. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for a fortnight, and he must have lost about a stone in weight: his riding breeches were hanging off him.

  ‘Sad news, I’m afraid,’ he went on briskly, ‘but I thought you ought to know. Copenhagen’s gone, I’m very sorry to say. A shell went off next to us and he caught a fragment in the neck. Severed his artery, and there was nothing we could do. Still, at least it was all over quickly.’

  ‘Oh,’ I gasped, feeling a pain in my chest as though someone had hit me. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Yes, a very great shame.’ He gave me a sad smile. ‘He was a fine horse, one of the best. Always put his heart into the job, and the men loved him. Used to cheer them up just to see him, that’s what they said. It’s a jolly good thing I was able to take him out to France with me and I’ve you to thank for that, or so Philip tells me. One good turn deserves another, eh? Anything I can do for you, just let me know.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said automatically.

  He patted my arm. ‘I don’t think he suffered much, you know. And it was the way he would have wanted to go, in the thick of things. A hero’s death, you might say.’

  But I could think of nothing but the glorious ride we had shared, Copenhagen and I, racing over the lush Swallowcliffe turf with the wind in our faces and the sun beating down on us. What a waste! Such a beautiful, intelligent creature, killed in a second for no good reason at all. And then suddenly the terrible thought occurred to me that perhaps I’d played a part in Copenhagen’s death. Maybe if he’d been taken away with the other horses, he wouldn’t have ended up in such danger, having to gallop about near the enemy lines in a hail of shells and bullets. Colonel Vye was still talking, but I couldn’t hear a word. Copenhagen might still be alive if I’d minded my own business. Whatever had possessed me to interfere?

  ‘Grace?’ My father was standing behind me. ‘I’ll take care of Bella. Run along and saddle up Moonlight for Master Philip.’

  I went about my business automatically, although my fingers were trembling and it took me a while to get Moonlight ready. Trust Philip Hathaway to turn up, adding to my difficulties.

  ‘It’s not your fault, what happened,’ he said quietly when I handed the horse over. ‘Uncle Rory says if someone else had been riding Copenhagen when he was killed, it would have been a great deal harder to bear. They were together till the end, and that’s down to you.’

  But I only turned my head away, not wanting him to see me cry.

  Eight

  The French Riviera is now easily and comfortably reached from England via Dieppe by through trains with sleeping accommodation. A few hotels have been requisitioned by the military authorities for wounded soldiers, but only slight cases are sent as the Riviera is too far removed from the seat of war to allow of serious wounds or illness coming there. The Season 1914-1915 will be quiet and ‘Germanless’ - an old-fashioned ‘Riviera season’ with every sports, distraction, etc.

  From The Times, 23 December 1914

  Christmas wasn’t quite as wonderful as Ma had hoped. How could it have been, with such dreadful news every day from the battlefields, and train after train pulling into London packed with wounded men? The thought was in all our minds that Tom might be one of them soon, if he came back at all, and I prayed in church on Christmas morning as I’d never prayed before. We had a fat pheasant in the oven that had run in front of the motor-car one day, with Ma’s crispy roast potatoes and brussel sprouts, but there was plenty left over when we pushed our chairs back from the table after an awkward meal. The effort of not mentioning the war made us either silent (Da, Hannah and me) or inclined to gabble (Ma, Ivy and Tom). The next day Tom went back to barracks and, two weeks later, we had a postcard to say that he was leaving for France the next day. I don’t want to say any more about that; it is too painful to remember. Da and I shut ourselves away in the stables, Hannah hurried back to Mrs Vye and the babies, and Ivy took up her life in London on the number 19 omnibus, despite Ma’s best efforts to persuade her otherwise.

  Up at the Hall, the farrier came a couple of times to check Cracker’s foot and declared that she wouldn’t be blemished once it had healed. Lady Vye suggested that perhaps she should be sold as she was a little on the small side for Master Charles, and she was bought in the end by a young lady with a lovely light hand; I watched them riding around the paddock and thought they would get along together very well. It was sad in some ways to see Cracker go, but probably the best thing for her and a relief to me. Meanwhile, preparations began for the Vyes’ trip to America, which would coincide almost exactly with the arrival of our first wounded soldiers. Mrs Hathaway moved into one of the empty staff cottages so that she could be on hand to direct operations, and Philip came with her. Now I understood what he had meant about us seeing more of each other; he’d given up his medical degree for the time being to help his mother. At least he was doing something for the war effort, I suppose, and it would be company for Mrs Hathaway since her husband had gone to work in a field hospital in France.

  Being rather out of the way of things over in the stables, at first I had to rely on Florrie and Dora for news - and Ma, too. Some of the village lads had been recruited to work in the kitchen garden, so now she was spending several mornings helping out in the house. Word had spread about the Hall being turned into a convalescent home and there were more volunteers than we could cope with. Lady Vye’s knitting party were particularly anxious to do their bit; they had been set to sewing pyjamas for the patients.

  ‘You should see what a dog’s dinner they’re making of it, too!’ Ma tutted. ‘Half the pattern pieces cut out the wrong way round, and legs joined on where sleeves should be. If it wasn’t such a nuisance, you’d want to laugh. Mrs Paxton and I are having to unpick most of the seams and start again.’

  There was a great deal of work to be done before Swallowcliffe would be ready for its new role. Lady Vye had ordered that all the carpets should be rolled up and stored in the attic in case they were damaged, and most of the paintings and fine china put away too. A quantity of iron bedsteads and mattresses had started arriving from all over the county which were to be laid out in the ballroom, the dining room and the main drawing room. One of the guest bedrooms on the first floor was to be turned into a dining room for the family, which didn’t please Florrie one little bit. ‘How are Dora and I ever going to manage? We shall be rushed off our feet, taking trays all that way upstairs.’ (Lord Vye had already dismissed the parlourmaids, to save money.) ‘And what if there are guests to dinner? It’ll be impossible!’

  ‘The Vyes will be gone soon,’ I told her, ‘and I can’t imagine Mrs Hathaway will have time for entertaining. Charles and Lionel are back to school tomorrow, so you’ll only have old Lady Vye to worry about. She shouldn’t be too much trouble.’

  We were all beginning to realise how different life was about to become at the Hall, and it did seem strange that Lord Vye wouldn’t be there to keep an eye on things. I think most of the household had mixed feelings as they stood on the front steps to wave our master and mistress off to the railway station. Da was taking them in the Rolls-Royce, along with His Lordship’s valet and Her Ladyship’s maid, while I followed on behind with the rest of their luggage crammed into the dog-cart and one of the village boys to help unload it.

  You could tell Lady Vye didn’t really want to go. She looked worried half to death, and spent so long giving Mrs Hathaway last-minute instructions that her husband practically had to drag her away. When you say goodbye to anyone thes
e days, I thought, it’s hard not to wonder whether you’ll ever see them again. We’d had a letter from Tom the day before, and he was very much on my mind.

  18 January 1915

  Dear Ma and Da,

  Well here I am in France after a very long journey with stoppages all the time. It was a rough crossing so we were heartily glad to get off the ship and on to dry land. The countryside around here is in a terrible state - ruined houses, shell holes and rubble all over the place. It has been raining heavens hard every day since we arrived and mud everywhere. We are presently fairly comfortable, bedding down in some abandoned buildings in a small village (I cannot tell you any more or this letter would never get through) and being trained some more to prepare us for the Front. Please send my love to the girls. I think about you all and the dear old place very often. Try not to worry about me because we are in the best of spirits here and looking forward to seeing some action. Excuse this short letter but things are still in something of a muddle and as you know I was never much of a one for writing.

  Hope this finds you well as it leaves me,

  Tom Stanbury

  PS If you could send some more socks it would be a great help as mine are all in holes and no one to darn them for me. I shall have to learn to sew. Won’t that make you laugh when I come home!

  The next day, Mrs Hathaway came to see us in the stables. She’s what my father calls ‘a bustler’, marching about as if to say she means business, so you’d better sit up and pay attention. I’d met her a few times before when she’d visited us at the gate lodge and liked her very well. She has auburn hair and kind blue eyes, and while she might be bossy, at least you know where you stand.

 

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