by Mary Mackie
What? I looked up at him, wondering if I had heard right. ‘I can’t possibly…’
‘Take it. Don’t say nothin’, just take it.’ He became busy checking the barrels of yet another gun, squinting through them and blowing them clean of dust. ‘Lou Roughton got wed, I now hear. Some young chap in the Gloucesters.’
I hardly heard him. My fingers had picked up the pendant, seeing the jewel sparkle in the lamplight. It was a sapphire – a family heirloom: he was accepting me as his blood. Was he also trying to tie me to him, because he feared Philip might not come back?
‘Philip could’ve done a lot worse,’ he said. ‘She’d have made a good wife. She was a worker, that one.’
The fire dazzled through a mist as I wondered if he was right. Would Philip have been happier married to his girl from Heacham? Both of us would have been happier if we had never met. But we had met. Fate… ‘He’ll find someone else,’ I said.
‘So he will.’ His voice had gone rusty and I saw him absently rubbing the leg whose weakness still plagued him. ‘And when he come home, girl, you’ll have to stay away. You know that. I ’on’t have you comin’ here upsettin’ him. Had enough o’ that with your mother. Blast…’
For two pins he would have turned on me and told me, then and there, to keep away, but his own need prevented him. He feared I might be all he had left. That was the only reason he tolerated my visits. By clinging to each other, we somehow held on to Philip.
But I couldn’t keep the pendant. I returned it to its envelope and laid it back on the velvet cloth, saying, ‘Thank you for this, but I can’t take it. It’s too valuable. Keep it… keep it for the next Farcroft wife.’ If I had kept the sapphire, it would have been like admitting that Philip was dead. And he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t!
* * *
I returned to the big house, intending to go straight to bed with a hot drink and console myself by recording feelings in my daily book, where I often wrote down what I could never say to Philip. Some day, perhaps, when we were both old and grey, I might amuse my grandchildren by showing them my youthful ramblings. Or perhaps I wouldn’t: did I want my grandchildren to know what a wicked, sinful woman their aged relative had been?
What grandchildren? I wondered, a hand to my stomach, which was as flat now as it had ever been. Perhaps it was my curse to be barren.
Leaving my wet coat and shoes in the side lobby, I went up the back stairs and along the first-floor hallway, where a lamp or two softly lit my way. As I neared the entry to the tower stairs, something made me glance towards the end of the wing, where an extra wedge of darkness showed – the door to Grandmother’s sitting room stood ajar. I went to close it, glancing around the room before I did so, seeing a misty light moving beyond the open door of the bedroom.
Wondering what nosy creature was snooping in forbidden areas – a new recruit to the staff, perhaps? – I went soundlessly across the carpet and gently pushed the door wider.
The ‘intruder’ was Oliver. He stood with his back to me, a lamp lifted in one hand as he surveyed the room, the four-poster bed with its red hangings loosened, the feather mattress stripped to its ticking with a thin blanket across it. Light glinted in crystal pendants on two glass candlesticks, matching the ornate lamp that hung from the ceiling. The room was darkly reflected in the old mirror over the mantel, where more delicate ornaments stood in a neat line, interspersed with photographs in fancy frames, above the black, cold hearth.
Behind my surprise at Oliver’s being there came affront, and then with a jolt of panic I wondered how long he had been home. Did he know I had been out?
‘Oliver?’
He looked round calmly. ‘Ah, my dear, there you are. I was just coming to find you. I concluded my business in Lincoln in time to catch the last train to Lynn, so I thought I’d drive home and spend the evening with you. I looked in here to make sure all was well – no rain coming in or anything. It seems a great pity for these rooms to be shut up. They’re the nicest in the house.’
‘That may be so, but—’
‘Is there any reason why we shouldn’t use them?’
An unthinkable idea! ‘We can’t do that!’
‘Why not? It seems an eminently sensible arrangement to me. As soon as we hear that your grandmother is coming home, we can vacate—’
‘No, Oliver!’ I shivered and rubbed my arms, thinking of the warm fire waiting in Frank’s room – our room – above.
‘Cold?’ he asked.
‘It’s bitter in here. I don’t like it. I’ve only been in here once, that I remember – the night Grandfather died.’
Scorn twisted his mouth awry under the dark moustache. ‘You mean, you sense ghosts in here?’
‘I mean it’s cold, that’s all. Please, can we—’
As I turned to the door, he said, ‘Has Vicky gone? Wasn’t it today she was leaving?’
‘Yes. Yes, she’s gone. I saw her, early this morning. She…’ and I told him what had happened at that unhappy parting.
Oliver snorted. ‘Why are you surprised? Vicky has always been jealous of you. She’s a spoiled darling – the youngest, the only girl among four older brothers.’
‘But why did she say she ought to be mistress here? Frank’s the heir now – his wife will be mistress of Denes Hill. And if he… if he doesn’t marry, then Eddy will some day inherit.’
‘Perhaps not automatically,’ Oliver said. ‘After all, you’re the oldest grandchild. The firstborn – as your mother was.’
That drew a sharp laugh from me. ‘I can’t see Grandmother leaving anything to me – not while there’s a chance of keeping the male line going. Oh… I don’t understand it. I thought Vicky and I were friends. I thought she was in love with Cavan Fielding.’
‘She is.’
‘But she said she ought to be your wife!’
A slow smile warmed his dark eyes. ‘My dear Kate… do I detect a hint of jealousy?’
‘I only meant, if she harboured some feeling for you, you might have sensed it.’
‘And returned it?’
‘No! I didn’t mean…’ Was I a little jealous of Vicky? Did I want some reassurance that he loved me?
Laughing, Oliver put the lamp down on the blanket chest at the end of the bed, and came to take me by the shoulders, leaning to kiss me. ‘I’ve missed you, Kate. Been away too long.’
I knew that note in his voice. ‘Oliver, please.’ But his mouth covered mine, and he guided me backwards to the bed, whispering love words. He was my husband, much stronger than I, overcome with lust and determined to have his way.
But the mood I sensed in him reminded me of that first night in the Mayfair flat and suddenly I felt sick. Revolted by his clumsy haste, I stiffened and fought him off.
‘Please, Oliver! Not here!’
Surprised by my vehemence, he desisted, getting to his feet and straightening his clothes, demanding angrily, ‘Why not here?’
‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable.’
‘Suppose I told you I don’t feel comfortable in Frank’s room? I feel as if he’s there, watching us, every time I make love to you.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Rolling off the bed, I completed my tidying, going to look in the mirror over the hearth.
‘You don’t think it’s ridiculous when you sense presences.’
‘Spirit presences. Sometimes. But Uncle Frank is still…’ I stopped myself, staring at my lamplit reflection in old glass darkened by age. In it, Oliver was a vague, shadowy shape behind me, and behind him, even more amorphous, other shapes shifted.
He sneered, ‘Are you sure of that? Maybe I’m psychic, too.’
‘Don’t say that!’ I spun round, stricken. ‘Frank isn’t dead. He’s not!’
Furious, he threw out his arms, shouting, ‘Maybe you’d prefer to go to bed with him, then. You do seem to have a fancy for close relatives!’ and stormed out of the room.
I felt them around me – familiar ghosts, those I had known and those gone before,
clustering to comfort me. Was Frank among them? I couldn’t tell: they were a mass of invisible wings, making me feel as if I were suffocating. Aware of a growing chill in the room, I shook them off and fled. It wasn’t ghosts I needed, however loving. What I needed was someone warm and alive. Someone who cared. I no longer believed that my husband cared for me. Oh, please! my agonized prayer went out into the void. Just let me hear that Philip is alive and well. Only that. I’ll never ask for anything more!
Later, Oliver apologized for his outburst. Of course we wouldn’t use the private suite unless I wished to, but it was a shame, it ought not to be left to go cold and damp; Grandmother had asked him to look after the house for her, she trusted him… ‘Very well, I’ll leave it for now. But think about it. And forgive me, please. I didn’t mean to be unkind. I’m tired and edgy. And I’m frustrated. The trials at Thorne-Thomas are going slowly and someone else may get there before us if we aren’t careful.’ He didn’t say what trials but I guessed he meant the land ironclads – the tanks – that would bring more death to the hapless boys at the front, both Tommies and Fritzes.
* * *
As the trenches – and disease, and despair – continued to reap their bitter harvest, all single men from eighteen to forty were called to sign up. They left vacant places at work benches, at lathes and behind desks, carting coal, mending roads, digging ditches, tending fields, manning railways and driving vehicles. Trying to fill some of those places, I saw groups of women off on trains, bound for work elsewhere, and I met other groups coming to work in Norfolk – with the Women’s National Land Service or the Women’s Forage Corps. I matched lists of openings against lists of volunteers, made sure my girls were all properly trained, found billets and answered calls for help over injuries, or unwanted pregnancy, or grief after bad news from the front. I worried about the yellow skin some of my girls developed from working with TNT and put in reports asking whether the staining was injurious or not, but it seemed it was one of the unavoidable hazards of the work.
Momentous events in human lives can happen very quietly. A telegram can destroy a family with bad news; a single word can ruin a reputation. In my case, the harbinger was a young boy with a scrap of paper.
Coming home from a trip to Savage’s aeroplane manufactory in Lynn, through a soft evening when spring scented the air and one could feel buds waiting to burst, I was approaching Denes Hill when a lad ran out in front of me, waving his arms. With a sense of déjà vu, I stopped the bike. The boy was the same one who had stopped me before, when the tree was down in the lane, the last time I had seen Philip.
‘Mrs Wells?’ he asked, thrust a scrap of paper at me and ran off.
Philip… Oh, God, please… My gloves hampered me. I couldn’t see for dusty goggles. I pushed them up on to my helmet, sank my teeth into my gauntlet and hauled it off, then straightened the piece of paper with a shaking hand. The note was from Mad Jack. ‘Philip safe’ was all it said. Two words. Just two short words that made me shout aloud, and laugh, and weep, and read them again, and kiss the paper… It was all I needed to know. Philip safe. Dear blessed heaven… thank you!
As soon as I had the chance, I went to the farm and shared my joy with Jack Farcroft. Three letters had come at once, one delayed from December, two more recent. Philip had been among the last out during the retreat from Gallipoli, which had been ‘quite a lively time’. He had been wounded, ‘nothing serious’, but combined with fever and dysentery it had ‘knocked me out for a bit’. He had got a friend to fill in a Field Service Postcard for him, saying he was all right, but a couple of ships had gone down and he feared the card might not have reached us, so he was writing again to say that he was doing fine, safe with his unit in Egypt, bitten to death by sand flies but otherwise top hole.
Unlike some of the others, I don’t amuse myself shooting stray dogs. They’re vicious, skinny things. I often think of good old Bess, and the farm, and you, of course, Dad. Do you see Kate at all? I hope she’s well and happy. Yr loving son…
We worried about his continuing illness, which he couldn’t seem to shake off. But when we heard that less than half of his battalion had escaped from Gallipoli, we thanked God that Philip had been spared. It was enough.
* * *
In May that year, as my twenty-third birthday approached, another conscription bill demanded a response from married as well as single men under the age of forty-one. Oliver mourned the fact that he was too old – he had turned forty-one the previous February. He was also putting on weight; he blamed the excess pounds on the contentment of married life.
My own figure remained thin, which irked him.
The new expression ‘conscientious objector’ made me think of Frank. What would he have done if he had been conscripted – gone as an ambulanceman, as some of them did, or refused to serve and be jailed for the duration? I wouldn’t have cared, only that he was alive. But we had no news of him.
Some men who objected to bearing arms on religious grounds were denied exemption and were shipped to France, where refusal to obey orders could mean death. Stupidly enough, that event caused a rift between Oliver and me, when I stood up before the Peace Association and gave vent to my disgust. My speech was reported in the Lynn News, together with a reminder of my German upbringing – as if that might have swayed my opinion. I was angry, but Oliver was furious. I happened to call in at his office on the morning the paper came out. He said I should have known better; I had shown him up, sullied his respectable name, made him a laughing stock…
‘I walked out,’ I told Saffron over tea in her sunlit garden, with Eddy playing bat and ball nearby. He was almost five, a sturdy, fair-haired boy just like his father. Watching him, I sighed heavily and looked down into my cup. ‘Of course, it wasn’t really about my speech. Lately he’s been using any excuse for an argument. He thinks I’m deliberately preventing myself from having his child.’
‘By what means?’
‘Witchcraft, probably. He caught me drinking camomile tea one day.’ I made it a joke, though Oliver’s reaction had not been funny.
‘You do, er…’ Saffron felt impelled to ask the indelicate question, ‘Live as man and wife?’
‘You mean, bicker whenever we meet?’ I said lightly, and sighed, ‘Of course we do. I’m beginning to think I’m barren.’
‘Nonsense, Kate.’ She reached and took the tea cup out of my hand, upturning it on its saucer, then held it between her palms and gazed into its depths. ‘There – see? A boy-child. A bouncing baby boy. Very soon now. Oh, and… yes, there’s a happy meeting, too. An old friend…’ She looked across at me, ‘Maybe Frank.’
If only I could believe it. Frank, or Philip… ‘That’s a lovely thought, but you don’t really think that tea leaves…’
‘Why not? You believe in premonitions, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said and, not wanting to get into a discussion about that, stood up and reached for my leather jacket. ‘I must go. I only called in to have a moan. I’m due to meet a train at three fifteen. More land girls coming in to help with haysel.’
‘Hazel who?’
‘Hay-sel,’ I laughed. ‘Cutting the hay. It’s a country expression.’
I had heard the phrase from Jack Farcroft, on whom I intended to billet a couple of my new girls. He needed the help; all he had that year was one old farmhand, plus the boy Dick, and anyone from the village who could spare an hour or two. Philip was still in Alexandria, fit and well, so he said, swimming, relaxing and route-marching amid endless dust and flies. I wished I could tell Saffron about him.
Eddy came running and I swept him up in the air and whirled him round, watching him laugh before I hugged him to me. ‘Goodness, Ed, I shan’t be able to do that much longer. You’re getting as fat as your uncle Oliver.’
Eddy wrinkled his nose at me, gave me a kiss and ran back to his games.
‘A boy-child,’ Saffron said with a significant look as I took my leave. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’ Considering she ha
d once predicted that Carl-Heinz would beg me to go back to him, I took this with a pinch of salt.
But, as it happened, Saffron was right in one respect: when the train drew in that afternoon, bringing my new contingent of Land Service volunteers, one face stood out, rounded and bonny, with blue eyes and a mop of butter-blond curls. She stopped and stared, then squealed and came rushing with her arms wide to hug me. ‘Kate! Oh, Kate, how lovely…’
Judy Love had come to Norfolk.
‘Had to come,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear not having any news of old Frank. I keep sending letters to that address he left with me, but I never get a reply. So I thought, well, all right, if you won’t write to me, I’ll jolly well go somewhere where I know you’ll be keeping in touch. I mean, he doesn’t keep his poor old mother waiting in suspenders, does he? How is he, dear? Where is he?’
Hardly aware of the other girls, or of the hurrying passengers and the sighing engines, I squeezed the hand that clutched mine. ‘I don’t know, Judy. We haven’t heard a word from him since… Well, Grandmother had a very brief postcard, in April last year. Since then…’
Watching the light die from eyes that suddenly brimmed with bright tears was a painful experience. ‘Fourteen months?’
‘I’m afraid so. But we haven’t given up hope. I’m sure I should know if anything had happened to him.’
‘So would I,’ she said stoutly, dashing her tears away and searching for her smile. ‘Oh, yes, I’d know. He is alive, Kate. Somewhere. And when he comes home I’m going to be here, waiting for him. Now… back to business. We’re supposed to be met by someone from the NUWW. Probably six feet tall with a face like a horse and a hide like crocodile skin, if the ones I met in London are anything to go by. Seen anybody like that?’
‘Not since I last looked in a mirror.’ Dear Judy, how glad I was to see her. ‘I’m your horse-faced crocodile. And, just for that, I know exactly where I’m going to put you, Judy Love. There’s one grumpy old man who is sadly in need of a couple of girls to help around the farm.’