Emeralds & Ashes

by Leila Rasheed

  She began to follow him along the road, waiting for a moment when she could cross. How could she accost him in the street? She would look like a common prostitute. She hesitated, and as she did so, he turned down a quieter street. She seized her chance, rushing across the road. She followed him into the street, and saw he had stopped to light a cheroot. He looked up, and saw her. “Ada?” he exclaimed. She could see in his face that he felt guilty.

  She did not reply. She simply ran to him and threw herself into his arms. He dropped the cheroot and pulled her tightly to him. Their lips met with a passion that Ada found both exhilarating and terrifying. His arms were so strong, so determined never to let her go. He stopped kissing her to whisper, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ada. I was afraid for our future. I was afraid—”

  “Don’t let’s think of the future,” she replied. “Let’s think of now.”

  This time it was he who pulled her into the embrace, with renewed passion, as London drummed past the end of the street, a desperate, hopeless rhythm.

  Somerton

  Georgiana walked toward the stables—so empty now that the army had taken all their horses. It was hard not to feel a pang as she crossed the normally bustling courtyard. So much had changed, she doubted things could ever go back to how they once were.

  She looked into the stables. Michael was where she had hoped she would find him, sitting on an upturned barrel, deep in thought. In his hand, she saw, was a copy of an old schoolbook: Caesar’s Gallic Wars. He looked up, startled, as her shadow cut across the sunlight.

  “I thought I might find you here,” she said, trying a smile. “Doesn’t it seem empty, now that they have taken the horses? Poor Beauty, I wonder where she is now.”

  Michael looked away.

  “Please, Michael. Let’s not quarrel. I understand how you must feel, I do. But we were so frightened for you. You don’t understand—perhaps you don’t understand—how much we care about you.” She swallowed. That had been a hard speech to say; it was so difficult not to give her heart away, not to say the wrong thing.

  “Everyone is making sacrifices,” Michael answered finally. “I only want to make mine. It’s not as if anyone would miss me—not now.”

  “But we would. We would miss you so much. It would—life would never, ever be the same if anything were to happen to you.”

  Michael looked at her in sudden surprise. Georgiana pressed on. “You are going to sign up as soon as you are nineteen. We can’t help that. But you know…you may never come back. So let’s not spend what may be our last days together quarreling.”

  He met her eyes finally, and she saw respect in them. “You’re right,” he said quietly. He got up and came toward her. Georgiana was aware of how close they were together, how much more like a man than a boy he was now. “You’re right, as always, Georgie. I don’t know what I’d do without your good sense and your kindness.”

  He put out his hand. She clasped it, and they shook hands. The gesture was so formal, yet so intimate. She hadn’t realized how much stronger his grip was than hers.

  “You are a very good friend to me,” he said.

  “Of course I am—how could I be otherwise?” She swallowed. Pain and pleasure mingled. It was the sweetest thing to see the warmth when he looked at her, but would she ever be more than a friend?

  They began to walk slowly back to the house together.

  “But I don’t want you to think,” she went on, “that just because I want peace, I would stand by and do nothing. We are in a crisis, and I want to help. I just wish I could see some way to do it without leaving Somerton. I’ve come to love it so much here.” She paused. She could see that Thomas was just opening the door and showing a man out. She did not recognize him. “Is that one of Mr. Bradford’s colleagues?” she said to Michael. “I hope there isn’t some new problem with William. What with Papa abroad, it would be difficult to deal with.”

  They sped up their pace without needing to exchange a word.

  They went up the broad marble stairs. Thomas was ready to bow and open the door for them. Georgiana went straight into the drawing room, eagerly looking to see who was there. She stopped, shocked. The countess was sitting on the sofa, sobbing into her handkerchief.

  “What is the matter? Mother?” Michael went to her side.

  “It’s over—there’s no hope—”

  “Who? What has happened?”

  “Sebastian. Oh, my baby!” The countess’s voice was hardly audible.

  “Sebastian!” Georgiana exclaimed. “What has happened to him?”

  “He has joined up. He has gone into the army, under a false name.”

  Georgiana and Michael exchanged a shocked glance over her head.

  “But how do you know?” Georgiana asked as gently as she could. She had never seen her stepmother so distraught. She knew that Sebastian was her favorite child. There always seemed to be some secret between them.

  “It is my fault,” the countess said instead of replying. “I do not understand it. How could he do it?” She began to sob again.

  Michael drew Georgiana aside. “I think my mother should see a doctor,” he murmured. “She seems hysterical.”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied in the same quiet tone. She crossed to ring the bell. Turning back, she went on, “But Lady Westlake, how do you know this? I cannot imagine Sebastian would do such a thing. Is it true?”

  “Yes. I hired a private detective to follow him. The man has just reported back to me.”

  “You hired a detective to follow him?” Michael sounded furious. Georgiana made soothing gestures at him. Now was not the time to get angry about her intrusion into Sebastian’s private life.

  Michael took a deep breath. “I understand your concern, Mother, but Sebastian is not dead yet. Let’s not give up before we have begun the battle, shall we?” He raised his eyebrows at Georgiana—Was that diplomatic enough?—and she beamed at him approvingly. “I shall telephone the earl and see if he can discover anything more about what has happened to him.”

  He turned and walked out. Georgiana could have cheered at his self-control, but she restrained herself. Instead she told Rebecca, who had appeared in response to the bell, “Please bring a glass of water for the countess.” She glanced back at her stepmother; it seemed she was somewhat recovered, so Georgiana did not ask for the doctor to be called. The less gossip the better.

  She turned back into the room. The countess was perched on the edge of the sofa, dabbing her eyes. “I do not know why all my children are so willfully disobedient,” she said. Georgiana was relieved to see that she seemed back to her old self, though there was a sadness in her voice where once there would have been only asperity.

  “Charlotte is not,” she said, hoping to encourage her to think of the bright side.

  “Oh, indeed! I have just received a letter from her. She has signed up as a VAD.”

  “Charlotte, nursing?” Georgiana was both shocked and pleased.

  “Yes, in some of the worst hospitals in London. I don’t know how she can do it. I could have got her a lovely little job on the board of some charity or other. I dread to think what she will have to see in the course of nursing. Certainly when I was young no right-thinking young man would ever have married a girl who had so compromised her womanhood.”

  “Well…perhaps today’s young men think differently,” said Georgiana thoughtfully. Charlotte’s action filled her with admiration. Her stepsister had more in her than she had ever supposed.

  Somerton

  “Annie,” said Thomas, frowning as he came into the kitchen, “have you seen anyone but me opening the silver cabinet? Or with the key?”

  Annie looked around from the mirror, where she was adjusting the flowers on her hat. It was her afternoon off, and she was looking forward to getting to the village and seeing what was going on, exchanging gossip with the postmistress. By the look on Thomas’s face, there would be gossip indeed. “No,” she said. “Has something gone missing, then
?”

  “We’re short of two teaspoons. Of course they might simply have slipped down the back, but…”

  “Or someone might have made off with them!” Annie exclaimed. This was delightfully shocking. The silver spoons were worth a good deal, and it would be a sacking offense at the very least. The police might even be called in.

  “I don’t like to think that.”

  “None of us are thieves, Mr. Wright,” Cook said. “We’re all long-standing staff, as you know; every one of us has been here long enough for our honesty to be beyond question.”

  “When did you find them missing?” Martha asked.

  “Just a few days ago.”

  “And no one new has been into the silver room?” Annie asked. “No one?”

  Thomas hesitated. Annie read his expression.

  “Except Rebecca!” she said, and drew in her breath. “Oh, do you think.”

  “I don’t think anything. Polishing the silver is her job,” Thomas snapped. “Just because she is the newest arrival, it means nothing. I wasn’t sure about her at first, but her work has been excellent so far, I have to admit.”

  “Well, it would be,” said Martha.

  “Of course! To throw you off the scent!” Annie exclaimed.

  “Now, now,” Cook said. “She’s a good girl, as far as I’ve seen.”

  “I want to think of these spoons as lost, not stolen,” Thomas said firmly. “I shall speak to everyone at dinner tonight and ask them to look for them. If they come back again, no more will be said about the matter.”

  “You think what you like, Thomas,” Annie said, heading for the door. “We won’t say I told you so!”

  “It’s Mr. Wright, not Thomas.” Thomas’s last words followed her down the path. Annie smiled to herself. He’d get over it.

  She walked down the road to the village, enjoying the winter sunshine. The sky was full of birdsong and the hedges were still thick and green.

  But once she reached the village, it was easy to see that things had changed, that the war was on. The recruiting office was still open, though everyone who could enlist already had. Posters everywhere urging her to do her bit, save food, build bombs. It was all so exciting!

  The post office looked as it always had, with red-berried holly hedges bringing a splash of color to the scene. The village was crowded with bicycles and people on foot; a square of soldiers paraded by the fountain.

  The postmistress was busy talking to her daughter, who was doing the rounds now that the postman had gone to the front. “I say it’s misdirected, and ought to go back where it came from.”

  “I don’t think it’s misdirected; just the name’s written all wrong.”

  She put the letter down where Annie could see the address. Annie scanned it and read:

  Miss R Freudemann

  C/o the housekeeper

  At Somerton Court

  Palesbury

  At once she realized what had happened. Rebecca had given a false name. She wasn’t Freeman, but Freudemann. A German!

  Annie thought fast. She wanted her suspicions confirmed. Without speaking to the postmistress, she turned and went out again.

  She walked down to the cottages. She could see some children playing in the road. She remembered that Rebecca had taken some castoffs of Master Philip’s down with her. And that little boy, who had the same red hair as her, was wearing clothes that looked very familiar…

  “I have a message from Rebecca Freudemann,” she said. “For her brother. Do any of you know him?”

  She saw the boy’s head turn toward her, and he opened his mouth to reply, then was quiet as he clearly remembered he was not supposed to answer to the name.

  “Sorry, miss,” said the oldest child. “We don’t know anyone called that.”

  “Never mind,” she said with a smile. “I must have made a mistake.”

  She wandered off to the village square, now and then glancing back to where the children were still playing. A few moments later, she felt a tug at her dress. She looked down. It was the boy with red hair.

  “Miss,” he whispered. “I know her brother. I could take the message for him.”

  Annie’s suspicions were confirmed, and she thought the penny she took out of her purse was well spent. “There you go; your sister sent you that,” she said.

  “Cor, thanks, missus!” He was so excited, she noticed with a smile, that he hadn’t thought to correct her when she said your sister. He raced off with it. Annie, full of her news, set off back up to Somerton Court. So Rebecca was German! She couldn’t wait to tell Martha. She felt a little stab of guilt when she thought of the little boy’s trusting face, but she stifled it. This was for her country, after all.

  France

  France was noise, thought Sebastian, crouched under the wet bivouac sheets on the back of the lorry. The rain, hammering down in the pitch-black night; the rattle, distant and almost lost in the heavy rain, of a machine gun; the growl and squelch of the lorry’s tires as they inched forward toward a trench, unseen, possibly nonexistent; the whine of some missile overhead; the dull underground tremble and boom of the artillery.

  Someone rapped on the side of the truck, and Sebastian pulled aside the sheeting and looked out to see their corporal, Morrison, squinting up through the rain. He had a lot of respect for Morrison; he was an old-timer from the Boer War, and he knew the ropes.

  “Moore, Brown, all the rest of you—down. We’re here.”

  Sebastian jumped down, followed by the others in his platoon, some with more grumbling than others. Joe looked around, and Sebastian saw his own doubt mirrored in the boy’s pale face. “Cor blimey, Corporal, are you sure? This don’t look like a trench to me.”

  “Welcome to the front, boys.” The corporal gave a bark of humorless laughter. He looked at Sebastian. “You, lad, you’re a sensible chap—come with me. Two of us are less likely to get lost.”

  He turned and plodded off through the squelching mud into the dark. Sebastian shouldered his pack—he’d come to hate the thing—and followed him down the walls of sandbags. The walls were collapsing in the rain, and he could see trickles of mud pouring through. Joe was right; it didn’t look much like the textbooks. Mind you, it wasn’t raining in the textbooks, and it appeared that all it did in France—or Belgium, wherever the hell they were—was rain.

  The corporal paused, and only when he pushed a rickety door open did Sebastian see that they were standing in front of the dugout. It was built from sandbags too, and the rain hammered on the tin roof. Inside, there was a broken table, a flimsy chair, and a scrawny, red-haired lieutenant with a twitch.

  The corporal snapped off a salute. “Corporal Morrison, sir, reporting for duty with B Platoon.”

  “Good show, good man.” The lieutenant rubbed his pink eyes. “Just got here myself, replaced Second Lieutenant Carlyle. We’ve, ah”—he picked up a printed message from the table, and Sebastian saw his hands trembling violently—“ah, just had orders from HQ, move out against the enemy and take the machine-gun emplacement west-southwest, so get your men ready.”

  A sortie? thought Sebastian. It was madness. The night was lightless; they wouldn’t be able to move in the mud. And they had only just arrived from Étaples—it was their first time in the trenches.

  “What, now?” said Morrison, then added, “Sir? What—now, sir?”

  “Yes, now. Those are the orders. God knows how we’re going to manage it. Must do it, though.”

  Sebastian swallowed his horror. It was obvious that the lieutenant was badly shell-shocked, and as sorry as he felt for him, he couldn’t be let near the men. He backed out with Morrison, who let out an expressive whistle as soon as the door was shut.

  “Right,” he said, and Sebastian knew he understood completely what a cock-up the whole business was. “Get the men together while I have a look at the map.”

  “We’re going out there, then?”

  “No help for it.”

  Without replying, Sebasti
an marshaled the exhausted, shivering men into some kind of order.

  “This can’t be true, chum?” Joe whispered to him. “They can’t send us straight out.”

  “Afraid they have,” muttered Sebastian.

  “Bloody hell. It’s murder,” said Jim Kelly, another of the platoon.

  “Chin up,” said Sebastian, though he didn’t feel the enthusiasm he tried to put in his voice. “We’re trained for this; we’re fresh and ready. Those poor German bastards have been stuck in the trenches for days; they’ll be exhausted and demoralized. We can do this, and if we pull it off we’ll be a lot happier here without that damned machine gun spitting down the trench every time we stick our heads out of the dugout.”

  “Well, that’s true,” said Jim, looking more enthusiastic. He scurried away to get his kit bags. “Come on lads! For Blighty!”

  Sebastian felt Morrison’s eyes on him; he suddenly felt embarrassed. Perhaps he had spoken out of turn.

  “You’d better look out, lad,” said Morrison, unsmiling. “Carry on like that, you’re going to get promoted.” He shouldered his rifle and plodded off down the trench. Sebastian followed him with mixed feelings. He hadn’t meant to encourage the men. He had done it without thinking, out of habit.

  A few hours later, they were in the thick dark of no-man’s-land. The ground had been churned into some kind of muddy sea by shell holes, punctuated by the tattered remains of barbed wire and the burned-out skeletons of gun carriages.

  “Bloody hell, I think we’re lost,” Joe muttered to him out of the darkness. “I haven’t seen the others for a while.”

  “At least it’s stopped raining,” Sebastian replied in the same tone.

  “It’s a marvel how you keep your spirits up in this hell.”

  “Oh well, it could be worse. Could be Eton.”

  Joe’s silence hit him at once, and he realized what he had said. He swallowed, feeling sick. But he heard a huge grin in Joe’s voice. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll keep your secret.”