Until the War is Over

by Until the War is Over (retail) (epub)

  ‘Mother’s got a new plan for the future,’ Amy told him now.

  ‘There are several new orphans in Larchbury,’ Mrs Fletcher told him. ‘Besides the usual illnesses, men have been lost in the war and some people, mainly women, have died of the flu. They’re talking of extending the orphanage and looking for volunteers to help run it. I thought I might apply. Amy thinks it’s a good idea.’

  ‘You should: you’re just the kind of person they need,’ he told her.

  ‘Tell us how your studies are going, Edmond,’ Amy’s father said.

  He told him a little about his lectures. Mr Fletcher had been his tutor for a while; he was competent in most subjects but not well educated in scientific matters, and understood little of laboratory work, though he was eager to hear what Edmond was doing.

  ‘I’m determined to put my studies to good use when I leave, by working on the development of artificial limbs,’ he told his father-in-law. ‘War heroes like Charles deserve the very best modern devices.’

  Amy had already shown herself eager to support his plans, and now Mr Fletcher nodded approval.

  ‘I expect you find your studies demanding,’ Amy’s mother said.

  ‘I work hard at College and sometimes I need to study in the evening,’ Edmond said, conscious of the pile of textbooks cluttering the top of their small sideboard. ‘Grace tries to keep me in order but I don’t have much time to tidy up.’

  ‘I daresay you still tire easily,’ Mrs Fletcher pursued.

  Do I look as tired as I feel? he wondered. He had to admit she was right.

  ‘Don’t you spend time with your fellow students?’ Amy asked.

  ‘An occasional evening in the public house with Horace,’ he told her with a grin. ‘He’s a friendly young chap.’

  After the meal Amy put Beth to bed in the nursery. ‘I hope she settles there,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought her favourite toy rabbit so she has something familiar.’

  When they crept up a few minutes later to peep in at the infant she was sleeping peacefully. He caught hold of Amy on the landing, and embraced her more passionately than before, feeling the softness and warmth of her body, aware of her faint perfume. ‘How I’ve missed you!’ he said.

  Mrs Fletcher had valiantly done the washing up and she and her husband retired quickly to the guestroom, leaving him alone with Amy.

  ‘I was so desperately worried you’d catch the flu,’ he told her. ‘I worried more about you than about Ma.’

  They were soon settling in their bedroom. ‘At last you’re here,’ he said, drawing her into his arms as she joined him in the bed.

  ‘I should have come weeks ago,’ she agreed, nestling against him.

  ‘Let’s make up for lost time,’ he said, his lips eagerly finding hers.

  * * *

  Amy awoke, still drowsy, as it was getting light. Beside her Edmond began to stir.

  ‘Do you sleep all right now?’ she asked him. She had not been aware of him waking in the night.

  ‘I still have nightmares sometimes,’ he admitted. ‘Usually I’m tired when I go to bed, but later I may wake up after a bad dream and it can take a while for the dread to leave me. Or I wake up unnecessarily early, remembering what it was like in the trenches, or how I struggled to breathe when I was first wounded. But last night I slept soundly. Having you here is such a comfort.’ He still looked thin.

  She held him close. ‘I’ll move here properly just as soon as I can,’ she said. He looked as though he was continuing to recover, but she yearned to be with him every day, making sure he did not exert himself more than was wise.

  She looked around her. ‘I like this room,’ she told him, for although it was small its floral curtains and bedspread were cheerful.

  They heard Beth calling out from the next room. ‘She won’t know where she is,’ Amy said, and rushed to comfort her.

  It was chilly, so they agreed to stay in for most of the day. ‘But we’ll take you to a café for lunch,’ Amy’s father said. ‘We could go out for a meal in the evening too, but it might be rather late for Beth.’

  ‘There’s some leftover pie from yesterday,’ his wife said and they all agreed that would do for the evening.

  They went with Father to look around the little garden at the back. A few Michaelmas daisies were flowering in its overgrown beds.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to work on it,’ Edmond said.

  ‘Don’t do any such thing!’ Amy told him. ‘You’re not fit enough.’ Father began pulling out a few weeds, while she picked some of the flowers.

  She took them indoors and placed them in a jug. ‘We need a vase or two,’ she told Edmond as she set the jug down on the dining table. They went to join Mother and Beth in the parlour, which held the sofa from their room at The Beeches, and two easy chairs. She was impatient to make a few improvements. A little palm in a china bowl would add a pleasant touch. If only they could have a piano, but she would have to do without for now.

  On the mantelpiece Edmond had placed his photo of her, the one he had taken with him to Flanders. It was framed now but she could still make out its rough, damaged edge.

  They set out just before eleven and dawdled down to the river. The day had grown a little warmer and her parents enjoyed the view of the Colleges across the Cam.

  ‘I’m enjoying the trip,’ Mother told them. They had hardly spent any time away from Larchbury since before the war.

  From there they went to a modest restaurant that Edmond recommended. Young children were welcome there. ‘This is fine,’ Amy said as she ordered, ‘but tomorrow I’m going to cook us all a meal.’

  ‘There’s no need, darling, we can go out again.’

  ‘It’s high time I cooked you a proper Sunday lunch,’ she insisted. ‘Do you realise I’ve never been able to do that in nearly three years of married life, not once? I’ve often planned what I’d cook, but I’ve never even used the china we were given when we got married.’

  ‘It’s been waiting for nearly three and a half years,’ he grinned, remembering what had gone wrong on their first wedding day.

  After they had finished their lunch, Amy put Beth in her pram and took her to the shops. Mother willingly helped her choose food for the next day. She was content calling at the butcher’s, and buying vegetables from a barrow boy.

  ‘This is all fine,’ her mother said, ‘but you’ve been working hard at The Beeches and you’re not to exhaust yourself.’

  ‘I want to do it for Edmond.’

  ‘Let me help you prepare it, that’s all.’

  * * *

  The following morning she settled in the kitchen, trying out their pots and pans. Though space was limited she and Mother worked well side by side. Not long after midday there was a savoury smell of roast meat. Mother made the gravy while Amy concentrated on the mint sauce. She was still new to the layout of the kitchen and lunch was a little later than she had planned.

  The dining room was only just large enough to accommodate them all. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,’ Edmond said as she set a dish of lamb in front of him, served on a Royal Albert Crown china plate with a gold rim, part of their dinner service.

  ‘I like cooking. I used to help Mother with Sunday lunch most weekends,’ she reminded him. At last she was fulfilling her proper role.

  ‘I miss you so much when we’re apart,’ she told Edmond as they prepared to return to Larchbury. ‘I wish I needn’t return to The Beeches, but I’ve promised to look after Ma for a little longer.’

  * * *

  There was an air of anticipation, two Mondays later, for there was a rumour the Armistice would be announced. All through Ma’s illness the peace negotiations had dragged on.

  Beatrice lounged in an armchair, reading a fashion magazine, with other issues on the table beside her. Mrs Derwent had a better colour now and was recovering her spirits. Amy was hoping to make the move to Cambridge at the weekend.

  ‘Peter’s due home on leave soon,’ Mrs
Derwent said. ‘If the war’s really over they might let him stay for two or three weeks. They should be agreeable if he tells them I’ve been ill.’

  She turned and smiled at Amy. ‘And I keep meaning to tell you how grateful I am for all you’ve done to help me get better.’

  ‘I’m relieved to see you so much fitter,’ Amy said. Perhaps at last her mother-in-law was beginning to accept her.

  How would the Armistice news reach them, if it was really over? It would be announced officially in London, Amy supposed, and then people on the telephone would pass on the news: it should spread very fast.

  Beth was playing with her bricks. Soon she would try her next attempt at walking, Amy suspected.

  Mrs Derwent picked up one of the magazines. ‘Oh, dear, I seem to have left my spectacles upstairs,’ she said.

  Beatrice made no move, except to turn her page. Amy set down the tablecloth she was mending and got up to go to her in-laws’ room. Her walking was still a little awkward.

  ‘I’ll go!’ Beatrice offered suddenly.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ Mrs Derwent said. Soon her daughter returned with the spectacles and she reached for the magazine.

  ‘Listen!’ cried Beatrice, ‘I believe I can hear church bells!’

  Amy held her breath. Sure enough, she thought she could hear ringing from St Stephen’s. She opened the window a crack, though the day was chilly, and there was no mistaking the merry peal. ‘It must be the Armistice!’ she cried.

  Spontaneously the others rose to their feet and the three women embraced.

  ‘At last it’s all over,’ said Beatrice. ‘Our lives will begin to return to normal!’

  But it can never be the same, Amy thought. ‘It’s too late for so many young men,’ she said. ‘Think of poor Henry.’

  ‘Who? Oh, yes, the gardener.’ Just a week earlier they had heard he was missing in France. Young men who were described as ‘missing in action’ were seldom discovered alive.

  Nothing will bring back Bertie or make Edmond the robust young man he once was, or Charles, Amy thought. Even women have been killed, like poor Katherine. We have to make the best of the new situation.

  ‘No more young men will be killed,’ she acknowledged thankfully. She picked up Beth and swung her around, as she cooed with delight. ‘Finally we’re at peace!’ she cried. ‘May you never go through anything like we have endured.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  London and Larchbury, November

  There was a strange atmosphere in the hospital on the morning of the eleventh of November. Staff came into the ward, absentmindedly took temperatures or tended wounds, while discussing the possibility of the Armistice. A few minutes later some of them would come back to check they had completed the task properly. At eleven o’clock Charles heard bells ringing from two or three nearby churches, followed by the sound of car horns. Lieutenant Warner had managed to be sent on to a convalescent hospital, but Lieutenant Parker, the other officer in his ward, was sitting up in bed. Frustrated at not being able to move nearer his comrade, Charles shouted across to him. ‘The Armistice! The war’s over!’

  Parker, who was recovering slowly from exposure to mustard gas, climbed out of bed and shook his hand.

  Charles was overcome with a moment of disbelief. Was it really all over, or could it be a mistake? Then a nurse rushed into their ward to confirm the news.

  There was a mood of euphoria. Sometimes he could hear excited cries from outside. Would he receive a visit from Isobel, Charles wondered, or even from Lavinia?

  Nurses had accounts of crowded streets and swarming traffic as the jubilant public celebrated. In the confused, surreal atmosphere, some staff had to stay beyond their shifts because their replacements could not reach the hospital.

  He waited impatiently but the afternoon passed without any visits.

  By evening the cries on the streets had become raucous, and an orderly showed them a special edition newspaper that was circulating. Late into the night there were occasional rowdy cries.

  The following afternoon he sat beside his bed, reading a newspaper. The Armistice had been signed in a railway carriage at Compiegne, in France, he discovered.

  Then Isobel arrived in her smart winter suit. ‘Isn’t the news simply marvellous?’ she asked. ‘I’d have come to see you yesterday, but the streets were so crowded it was impossible. It’s a little less frantic today and I managed to go and buy a new hat.’ Strands of her dark hair, curly like his own, were visible beneath it.

  She went on gossiping about some friends, and their celebration dinner the evening before. He remembered now how her frivolous chat had irritated him somewhat before the war, and even when he was on leave, after the first day or two. Would Beatrice have come to annoy him like that, he wondered suddenly. He was almost relieved when Isobel left.

  ‘What a charming young woman she is, your sister,’ said Lieutenant Parker.

  ‘Yes…’ Charles said dubiously. There’s a new breed of young women out there, he thought, who’ve performed demanding war work in difficult situations. They have a capable, independent air. The social butterflies, however attractive, are beginning to seem shallow in comparison.

  An hour later Lavinia arrived, stepping excitedly into the ward. ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Charles!’ she exclaimed. ‘I wanted to come to see you yesterday, but it was useless trying to get across London!’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘You should have seen it – everyone was so thrilled. There were cheering crowds of soldiers, women waving flags, bands parading, people climbing lampposts…’

  He smiled at her excited description. ‘I wish I’d been able to go out.’ A picture in his newspaper had given him an idea of the atmosphere of rejoicing.

  ‘Let me take you to see the street,’ she said, fetching the invalid chair from the corner of the room. The nurse she had met on her earlier visit turned around from taking Lieutenant Parker’s temperature, and helped her manoeuvre Charles carefully into the chair then held the door open as she wheeled it outside. She took Charles to the end of the corridor, where there was a window with a view of the road outside.

  Through the misty late afternoon he could make out a handwritten poster in a window opposite, proclaiming To Hell with the Kaiser, and gaudy Union Jacks festooned on doors and railings. Passers-by had a noticeable spring in their step.

  ‘I’ll remember this view forever,’ he told her. He fell silent, recalling the men who would never return, and grieving for his own lost vigour.

  She seemed to sense when he was ready to return to the ward. Nurses generally found the invalid chairs heavy to move, but she steered him efficiently to his ward and helped him back on to his bed. She pulled up a spare chair beside him.

  ‘What do you think you’ll do now it’s over?’ he asked her. ‘Will you go on nursing?’

  She looked surprised. ‘It’s so soon I haven’t thought,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure how long they’ll keep us on, those of us who are VADs. I imagine they’ll need us while so many men are still being treated, and while the flu epidemic continues. Afterwards I could go back to being an art student, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s very soon to decide, as you say.’

  ‘I’d prefer to go on nursing, or working in some worthwhile profession,’ she said resolutely.

  ‘You should take a few days’ leave when you can. You’ve worked so hard.’

  ‘As it happens, I’m going on leave tomorrow. Father has a few days’ leave, so I’ll go home for a while. So I shan’t be around to visit you, maybe till next week.’

  He reached for her hand, warm, though not as soft as Beatrice’s dainty one. He looked at it curiously, noticing the slight roughness and occasional uneven nail, from less frequent manicuring. This was the hand of a woman who took on serious work, rather than being pampered at home.

  ‘Enjoy your leave, Lavinia, but come and see me when you can. You know how I enjoy your company.’

  * * *

  The follo
wing afternoon, while Beth was taking her nap, Amy had some unexpected visitors. Mr Westholme and Lavinia had arrived. ‘I hope you don’t mind us calling in to see Amy,’ he told Mrs Derwent.

  Greetings were exchanged, for she was acquainted with him. Beatrice, who was out visiting, had been at school with Lavinia, though the young women had little in common. Mrs Derwent was content to welcome the distinguished surgeon. ‘Let me send for some refreshments,’ she said, ringing the bell. ‘Amy, will you fetch my husband?’

  She brought Pa from his study to greet their visitors.

  ‘It’s lovely to see you,’ Amy said to Lavinia. ‘Do you think you’ll be in London for some time?’

  ‘Probably.’ She was smart in her coat with a fur collar, telling Amy the hospital where she was working; it was not St Luke’s or the one where Edmond had been sent and where Charles was now recovering.

  ‘I came over with some wounded,’ Mr Westholme told them. ‘I have to return the day after tomorrow, for even now many casualties in France aren’t well enough to send home.’

  ‘Florence came to see me yesterday afternoon, after she’d finished teaching,’ Amy told Lavinia. ‘She’s so excited that the war’s over and James should find it easier to get leave.’

  ‘I’m glad for her,’ Lavinia said. The three of them had kept in touch regularly through the tense final days of the conflict.

  They all exchanged polite conversation for a few minutes.

  ‘We came to discuss a matter with Amy,’ Mr Westholme said soon. ‘Don’t look anxious, it’s not bad news. Is there somewhere we can go and talk?’

  She did not want to take them to her bedroom, and the garden would be cold on a November afternoon. ‘Let’s go to the conservatory,’ she said.

  They followed her in there and settled on the wicker chairs. Some of the little palms and orange trees were wilting, for the gardener was inexperienced in tending them, but as the afternoon was sunny it was warmer there than sometimes in the winter.