Dark Harvest (25 page)

She did not comment. ‘Do you want to go down to claim the prize for finding me?’

‘Not yet. Tell me about your work, Felicia.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

She tried to answer his question. ‘To do so would make it seem unreal. This is one world, that is another. They co-exist, and one is as real as the other.’

‘I’ve seen a battlefield, Felicia, and I can guess something of what it’s like out there. Perhaps you need to talk to someone.’

‘I have Tilly.’

‘Are you shutting me out?’

‘You have done that to me.’ There was no bitterness in her tone.

‘I had to.’

‘But you made your decision without understanding anything of me.’

‘Then tell me about what you’re doing,’ Daniel pleaded. ‘About the men you look after, about the life, anything. I may not deserve it, but I want to hear about it and, in return, I’ll bore you with tales of ancient Greece.’

In the dark of the room, with only the lantern lighting them, how could she resist him? She felt his lips on her cheek, his hand lying over hers. Perhaps any bridge was better than none? Felicia took a deep breath and began to talk.

‘Simon—’

The name died on Caroline’s lips as she peered into a chest in the glory-hole and a man’s hand was laid on her arm. The chest top banged as she jumped in horror. It wasn’t Simon. It was Reggie.

‘Caroline, don’t go.’

She struggled to release herself from his grasp.

‘You’ve no idea—what it’s been like,’ he continued jerkily. ‘There’s no one left, you see. My battalion lost nearly all its officers at Loos. The gas—we couldn’t see—those awful
flannel masks. I looked round and there were only three or four men behind me. We saw the rest after they yelled at us to get back. They were all lying there. Dead. All we had to do was reach a road, then the Hohenzollern Redoubt and a small village; we didn’t reach any of them. I’m a full lieutenant now. Do you know why? Because there’s no one else. That’s why I can’t—’

‘No, Reggie.’ She tried to say it as gently as she could. Only a month or two ago, it had been her making the same plea, a plea which he had humiliatingly ignored. He had rejected her three times. It was not his fault, she laid no blame; but she knew now that the gate to the apple orchard of that last glorious summer was closed forever.

Caroline read the second paragraph in the letter from her mother with incredulity; in fact she read it three times to ensure she was not mistaken. It was All Fools’ Day, but surely her mother would not joke about such a serious matter? It was a miracle the letter had reached her at all with the enormous disruption caused by Monday night’s freak gales and heavy snowstorms. Railway lines had been out of service all over the country and many still were, telegraph and telephone communications
were cut, houses had been damaged, thousands of trees uprooted, and bridges washed away. Even today, five days later, the newspapers were full of the storm damage. Caroline turned back to the storm in her letter: Mrs Dibble, it appeared, had announced her intention to leave the Rectory.

‘Things haven’t been right since your grandmother came, Mrs Dibble maintains, and she’s decided that enough is enough, and she, Percy and Fred are going to live in Hartfield.’

Thoroughly alarmed, Caroline read on, imagining her mother at the battered writing desk carefully penning the words, resting her left elbow on the desk and clutching her hair at the temple, as she so often did when under strain.

‘Now I am writing to you, dearest, so that you may consider this very carefully, rather than making the instant decision I know you would, were I able to telephone you.’ The Rectory telephone was out of service due to the storm.

‘I have talked to your father,’ her mother continued, ‘but he sees no way of dislodging your grandmother for the moment, especially now the Zeppelins have started their antics once again.’ Antics was an understatement. Only last night there had been a heavy raid on London and East Anglia with many people killed and injured. Caroline had been at Drury Lane, enthralled by the magnificent new American film
Birth of a Nation,
and hearing about the raid on her return home had been a grim reminder of last October’s horror. The film had
been about the American Civil War, and had made her wonder if America would be joining the Allies in their fight against Germany.

‘There is some relief, however. Your grandmother has begun to appear regularly at church, which pleases your father, though I doubt if it is for the reason he imagines.’ Caroline remembered the rivalry between the Ladies Buckford and Hunney on Christmas Eve. ‘She presides also over a tea for wounded officers in the Rectory drawing room. This has proved an unexpected success since Miss Lewis has an astounding aptitude for thumping out cheap music on the piano, which (unaccountably!) has proved more popular with the soldiers than teas at the Dower House. It has become a regular arrangement, and develops into quite a rowdy sing-song. It deflects your grandmother’s attention from Phoebe, George and myself, and I encourage it. Your father is less enthusiastic, however, as on more than one occasion I have been forced to remind the soldiers that they are in a Rectory!’

‘Come on, Mother.’ Caroline was growing impatient at this rambling.

‘After great persuasion, I have managed to persuade Mrs Dibble to remain.’ Thank goodness! Caroline relaxed—but only for a moment. ‘There is, unfortunately, a condition. Mrs Dibble insists that I resume my role as mistress of the Rectory. I have therefore decided to give up my place on the local Women’s Agricultural Committee.

‘Caroline, my darling, could you bear to
return and take my position on the WAC? Phoebe, I am sure, will continue to assist us on the Ashden rotas, so that you may still have the time to help the cause of women’s work locally, if not in London.’

Go back to Ashden? Rather to her surprise, Caroline found she was weighing the matter up objectively. Outside in the London streets the flowering almond trees were in full bloom, the hooping season had begun in the parks, and the people she passed in the streets looked more cheerful. Nevertheless, she was finding her work for the WSPU increasingly frustrating. It certainly hadn’t been dull—in February, Scotland Yard’s Special Branch had again seized copies of
Britannia,
this time raiding WSPU premises in Mecklenburg Square. Why, she asked herself despairingly, when the Pankhursts seemed proud of having aroused so much attention, did they waste time fighting the Government?

In February too, the new Women’s National Land Service Corps had been formed. An offshoot of the Garden and Farm Union, it had full Board of Agriculture support. And Lord Selborne had announced a scheme for village registers of women ready to undertake farm work. Letters to the newspapers also reflected a need for more help from women on the land. Now, with her mother’s letter before her, Caroline knew her choice was clear. In Ashden, she thought with excitement, she could join the local WAC and help with organising similar rotas in other parishes.

Then she remembered Reggie.

For a moment she had almost forgotten her most pressing problem. It was true that Reggie would not be there all the time, but Isabel would. Caroline looked at her mother’s letter with its oh-so-innocent request, then into the bleakness of her own heart. Somehow or other she had to face it. If she let Reggie and the Hunneys continue to stand between her and what she wanted to do, the pain would never go away. She would go!

She ran to the telephone in Simon’s entrance hall, remembering belatedly it was out of action because of the storm. She decided to try anyway. To her delight, the operator was able to put her through to the Rectory and, less than a week later, she was back at Ashden in time for Friday luncheon.

To Caroline’s surprise, the first person to greet her, as she opened the front door, was Eleanor Hunney.

‘Martin and I are to marry.’ Eleanor’s face was pink with excitement. ‘Martin’s talking to your father now. The service is to be held
tomorrow,
Caroline.’

‘I’ve been away too long,’ Caroline laughed. ‘I thought Martin had left for the Army already.’

‘So he had. He’s a week’s leave and a special licence, and then he’s going overseas.’ Eleanor pulled a face. ‘Still, as a vet he won’t be in the front trenches, will he?’

‘Has your mother relented?’

‘I’m afraid not. She has refused even to
attend the wedding, though Father says he’ll try to come down. Daniel will be there, of course, prancing around on his new leg. And your mother is holding the wedding breakfast. She’s—’Eleanor choked slightly, ‘she’s always been as much of a mother to me as my own; more in many ways. You’ll find her in emergency conference with Mrs Dibble in the dining room.’

‘And the wedding’s tomorrow? Oh, Eleanor, I’m so happy for you. But what will you wear?’

‘I haven’t even begun to think,’ Eleanor said cheerfully. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t come over and give me some advice? The Dower House is like an ice-house at the moment; I could do with some friendly warmth.’

Caroline tried to sound enthusiastic. ‘Of course I’ll come—if your mother will let me past the door.’

In the event, Caroline found that going to the Dower House no longer caused her any concern. Lady Hunney had done her worst, and there was nothing more to fear. Nor were there happy memories of former times with Reggie to distract her. Once in Eleanor’s bedroom, however, Caroline looked through her friend’s wardrobe with increasing concern. Nothing was suitable; everything bore the hand of Lady Hunney and not a skirt was off the ground.

‘I could get married in my trousers,’ Eleanor suggested hopefully.

‘Let’s go into Tunbridge Wells. Now,’ Caroline said.

‘
Ready-made?
My dear, the skies will tumble. All right, but I’m not,
not
, having a long white dress with bones and lace. Martin wouldn’t recognise me.’

They compromised. Eleanor bought a cream turban hat with a veil, and a fashionably short cream silk and wool afternoon frock with a full skirt.

‘Legs,’ said Eleanor, peering down at her ankles. ‘They’ll be surprised to feel the air.’

‘We haven’t finished yet,’ Caroline declared. ‘We need stockings, shoes, and gloves, not to mention a trousseau.’

Her friend groaned.

True to her word, Lady Hunney did not make an appearance at Eleanor’s wedding, and caught by an emergency on the Verdun front in France, Sir John had to send his apologies too. It was left to Daniel, now walking merely with the aid of one stick on his new wood and metal leg, to give the bride away. Grandmother Buckford, Caroline noted, from her proud position as bridesmaid (in the fashionably smart blue jumper dress Eleanor had insisted on buying her) took the opportunity the Good Lord had sent and sat in the front pew on the bride’s side, taking precedence even over Mother. For once Caroline applauded and when, back at the Rectory, a photograph was taken of the group, she encouraged her grandmother to take a central position. Eleanor winked at her, fully aware of what she was doing.

A wedding was always nice. Mrs Dibble
contemplated the plates of sandwiches with satisfaction, remembering the last wedding here twenty months ago. Miss Isabel’s, and what a day that had been. Still, everything had all gone off well today, even if Miss Eleanor was marrying beneath her. Miss Caroline didn’t seem to mind a bit that her friend was wed before her. Poor Miss Caroline. Still missing Mr Reggie, she could tell that.

With some surprise, she remembered that only a week or two ago she’d been set on leaving the Rectory. My word, she was glad she hadn’t. It would have been dull in Hartfield, just keeping Muriel company while Joe was away. She brightened at the thought of Joe. He’d come home on a week’s leave in March, and what a grand time that had been.

‘Mrs Dibble!’

Agnes rushed in, looking agitated. What was it now, Mrs Dibble wondered. Had they run out of tea in there, or was it Fred and the baby again? Fred had taken a fancy to Elizabeth Agnes and, despite Agnes’s initial concern, he had been allowed to look after her now she was beginning to walk; he took the same care with her as he devoted to his wounded animals and birds.

‘Jamie’s coming home!’ Agnes cried, waving a telegram. ‘I thought it was to tell me he was dead, but instead he’s on his way. He’s got leave. He’ll be here tomorrow for a whole four days.’

‘Here?’ Mrs Dibble repeated.

Agnes’s eyes filled with tears. She and Jamie
had no home, she remembered. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Lilley if he can stay here.’

Mrs Dibble pursed her lips. ‘You ask her, of course, but tell her if she says no, she’ll have me to deal with!’

Their eyes met, and Agnes laughed in relief.

‘That’s it, my girl. A bit of laughter never did the blackleading any harm. Nor the sponge cake neither. Mop your eyes and remember you’re in your black.’

‘I’m enjoying it. It’s nice, a wedding.’ Agnes thought a little wistfully of her own hurried affair last Christmas.

‘The Rectory needs more of them. There’s more funerals at St Nicholas than marriages, it seems to me, and baptisms are down.’

‘They’ll be up next winter, what with compulsory military service coming in.’

‘Then the weddings had best be up to the same number,’ Mrs Dibble retorted. ‘Those that can.’ She thought of her Lizzie and the terrible shame of it. ‘Now Agnes,’ she finished briskly. ‘It’s time to stop talking, and get back to work.’

Robert flicked idly through the
Illustrated
London
News.
Home from Gallipoli, he was convalescing after a nasty bout of dysentery. He still hadn’t told Isabel of his decision, and this weighed on
his mind. He would do so this very evening, he vowed. She was being so solicitous and he didn’t want to mar this new happy atmosphere. She was even making an effort in the house, partly he suspected because she didn’t want him to move to The Towers. With Isabel cheerful and busy, home was beginning to feel like a home. Which made what he was about to tell her all the more difficult.

‘Isabel,’ he said, as she brought in the tea. ‘I have something to say to you.’

‘You’re not going back? You’ve resigned?’ she cried hopefully.

He smiled. ‘You don’t resign after you’ve taken the King’s shilling. You’re in until the end of hostilities.’

‘I suppose the battalion is going somewhere even more dangerous.’

‘No,’ Robert replied quietly. ‘The Royal Flying Corps in Ismailia is asking for volunteers. I’ve put my name down.’

‘The RFC. Oh, Robert!’ Isabel saw him winging his way through the heavens, dipping his wings in salute, battling it out with enemy aircraft over the Western Front. ‘That’s wonderful.’

‘You’re pleased?’ He was surprised. ‘It might mean officer training, after all, as otherwise you can’t be a pilot.’

‘But that’s even more splendid.’

Did Isabel know that the life expectancy of a pilot in the RFC was measured in weeks? Probably not, and he wasn’t going to tell her.

‘At least I’ll be around a little longer. It takes
some time to train.’

‘Never mind. The war is not over yet,’ she replied.

‘You’re right.’ On and on and on, battling against an enemy, getting nowhere; Turks or Germans, it was all the same. Eight feet lost in France, eight feet gained in Gallipoli. A battle lost in Gallipoli, another won in France. Robert burst into bitter song. ‘See saw, Margery Daw/Johnny shall have a new master.’ Johnny would have a new master indeed, the air. He began to laugh.

Isabel looked at him in consternation. ‘Robert darling, you’re still not well. It’s that horrid germ you caught.’ She paused. ‘Let’s go to bed early, shall we?’

‘Caroline!’ For a moment Caroline thought the voice at the other end of the telephone was—no, of course it couldn’t be. ‘It’s me, you chump. Penelope.’

It was her! ‘Are you ringing from Serbia?’ she asked in disbelief.

‘No! From Tunbridge Wells. It’s cheaper.’

‘Are you all right? Oh, Penelope, we’ve been so worried about you.

‘I’m fine. I survived the trek over the mountains to Albania—just. The whole thing was appalling, what with disease, the cold, and the ambushes by Albanians who didn’t agree with their country’s decision to help the Serbs. And we were all starving—you know how I like my food. Still, I’m here now to fatten up again.’

Caroline shivered. ‘You’re not going back to Serbia again, are you?’

‘No. I thought I’d go somewhere really dangerous!’

‘You’ll have to choose, Phoebe.’ Caroline chose her moment carefully, while they were walking to Seb Grendel’s Farm.

‘Choose what?’ Phoebe looked mutinous.

‘You’ll be eighteen soon. Are you going to work for Mrs Manning in the recreation hut? Or are you going to throw in your lot with me?’

For the last few months, Phoebe had been officially ‘helping’ Caroline with her duties in organising village rotas, but the ‘help’ had been somewhat less than eager. It had seemed to Caroline that Phoebe was avoiding a return to the camp at Crowborough Warren rather than embracing a cause in which she wholeheartedly believed. She was as uncommunicative now as she had been as a sixteen-year-old and that, as Caroline knew, might be storing up trouble. Phoebe had a great deal of vital energy, but there seemed to be nothing in Ashden that inspired her to use it.

Almost as if reading her thoughts, Phoebe burst out, ‘I know it’s valuable work you’re doing here, Caroline, but you don’t know how much I long to get away—anywhere—like Felicia, or like you when you went to Dover. Then I’d be able to think about something other than Harry.’

‘It doesn’t always work that way,’ Caroline replied gently, ‘Sometimes it’s better if you
confront the pain. As I’m trying to do each day.’

Phoebe looked puzzled. ‘But at least Reggie’s alive; there’s still hope for you both.’

‘No.’ Caroline cut across her gently. ‘There’s no hope. We weren’t meant for each other after all.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘We wanted different things, Phoebe, as I think you and Harry might have done after a while. At first I thought it was Lady Hunney’s fault for turning Reggie against me, and that he had allowed himself to be talked into it. Now I see that to some extent at least, he agreed with her, and that our relationship would never have been happy in the long term.’

‘But what will you do?’ Phoebe looked genuinely concerned.

Caroline smiled at her younger sister. ‘Don’t look so stricken. The world is a large place, and the future even larger. It’s you I’m worried about.’

‘You really think I should go back to Crowborough if they’ll have me?’

‘Yes, though I don’t want to lose you from my team.’

‘Janie Marden will take my place.’ Phoebe began to brighten up.

‘So you’ll go?’

‘Yes.’ For the first time in months, Phoebe sounded enthusiastic. ‘After all I don’t have to stay for ever, do I?’

Caroline was pleased to see Daniel at the
Rectory. He looked well, his new leg was working properly and he continued to use just the one stick for walking.

‘Dearest Daniel,’ she placed her hand on her heart, ‘you have but to ask and I am yours to command.’

He grinned. ‘Good. I need someone to drive me to Ashdown Park in the Lanchester. I can’t quite manage it yet, and I refuse to order the carriage. Or the dog cart.’

‘Can the Lanchester risk its reputation being seen with me?’ Caroline asked.

‘It’s not that far.’

She aimed a mock blow at him, and he laughed. She had learned to drive as a VAD, and now drove regularly. She enjoyed the feeling of independence it gave her. The Lanchester was as daunting as Lady Hunney herself, however.

‘How about tomorrow?’ Daniel suggested.

Formerly the home of a captain in the Army, Ashdown Park had been converted into a hospital and convalescent home for Belgian army officers by Lady Brassey who lived nearby. Caroline had visited the estate as a child, and was curious to see it again.

‘I met Henri Willaerts at Dover House in the Roehampton hospital, while I was having the leg fitted,’ Daniel explained of the friend he was going to see. ‘Henri was a lieutenant—a grenadier regiment—and was even more unlucky than me. He was in for two, but one stump became infected so he can’t wear the second leg. He’s been packed off here for a few weeks
to recuperate before having another go. Then he’s going to be sent to the re-education institute at Port Villez in France. It only opened last August, and does marvellous work with weights and straps and the right exercises. The patients even play sports. I’d thought of going there too, but my progress has been good enough not to need it. Besides, I’ve got a rather pretty massage nurse here. We have enormous fun in the douche.’ He broke off. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘I’m wearing a mental peaked cap today.’ His words, however, had instantly recalled what Isabel had said about Reggie and another nurse. But the memory no longer hurt. Oh glory be, it no longer hurt.

As they turned into the road—if it could be dignified by such a name—to Wych Cross, the forest still showed signs of the terrible March storm more than four weeks earlier. Branches torn off in the gales lay starkly over the new spring growth on the ground, and the earth was still muddy from the snow and subsequent heavy rain and sleet. Caroline turned into the driveway up to the house with some relief. It was only five or six miles from Ashden to Ashdown Park, but Lady Lanchester seemed to resent her driving every one of them.

The nurse on duty at Ashdown Park directed them through what must have been the morning room to a rear door into the garden where they could find Henri. What curious inscriptions were carved into the panelling, Caroline noticed. One above the morning room door showed a
porcupine and underneath it: ‘Those who are uncomfortable had better go out’. She could hear the sounds of voices from the communal room beyond: French, English and a more guttural sound she took to be Flemish and, with the porcupine in mind, she thought perhaps she should wait here until Daniel returned.

‘Shall I come?’ she asked Daniel uncertainly.

‘Of course. Henri likes ladies. You can leave us alone after a while to enjoy soldier-talk.’

The rear gardens were even more magnificent than those in front of the house, with superb wooded areas and lawns, and flower gardens which would look splendid when the roses came out. It was obvious, however, that the storm had taken its toll. Trees could be seen lying uprooted by the lake, mighty monsters of oak and elm caught by the gales.

‘There he is—in that invalid chair. Henri!’ Daniel waved his stick, and set off towards his friend so fast that he was almost dragging Caroline along. Henri was being wheeled across the grass on the far side of the flower garden by a tall man in what Caroline recognised as Belgian army uniform: dark blue tunic with red piping over blue-grey trousers, and a shako on his head. Presumably he too was visiting Henri, since he showed no signs of injury other than a slight limp.

‘Henri, my dear fellow!’ Daniel pumped his hand up and down.

‘Content de te voir, Daniel.’
Henri twinkled at Caroline.
‘Et
Mademoiselle?
Ta
femme?’

‘Pas sa femme. Je suis une amie,’
Caroline
informed him, conscious that her accent was not all that could be desired. She liked the look of Henri, a plump man, already balding and with expressive dark eyes. Daniel began to introduce Henri to her formally, but suddenly his voice seemed to come from far away. She was seeing everything—the trees, the chair, the house, the people—through the wrong end of a telescope. Even the bird song seemed muted. For a moment all that remained in focus was the pair of hands gripping the invalid chair. Surely, surely, she recognised those hands?

‘Mademoiselle
Lilley,
je
vous
presente
mon
ami
le
Capitaine
Yves
Rosier,
’
she heard Henri saying.

The captain bowed. He was in his thirties, and his face bore a scar and the set and bitter look of those turned out of their homeland. She had seen it so many times on the faces of Belgian refugees.

Henri waved a lordly hand towards his friend. ‘Yves knew Miss Edith Cavell.’

The captain frowned, and Caroline could see that he was displeased at Henri’s happy-go-lucky comment.

‘She was a very brave woman,’ Caroline said, and quickly changed the subject. ‘I’m sorry to hear about the problems with your leg, Lieutenant Willaerts.’

Henri was deflected into a breezy account of the sports he would be playing once he was running around like Daniel, only, so far as Caroline gathered from his broken English, he would be better than Daniel as he would have two wooden legs, not one.

Daniel turned to Captain Rosier again. ‘And what do you do in England?’ he asked. ‘Are you convalescing here?’

Caroline sensed a tiny pause before he replied, also in English, which he spoke better than Henri, ‘I am a refugee, like many of my compatriots.’ His voice was deep and heavily accented.

Caroline longed to ask why he wore a uniform, but it was none of her business. Anyway, she must have been mistaken about the hands. They looked quite ordinary now only one was lightly resting on the chair and the other was at his side. For a brief moment, she had fancied them to be those of the man who had assisted her on the night of the Zeppelin bomb.

‘I’ll leave you gentlemen to talk.’ Caroline remembered Daniel’s suggestion. ‘I’m so glad to have met you, Lieutenant Willaerts, and you, Capitaine Rosier.’

The captain gave a little bow. ‘I hope we shall meet again, Miss Lilley.’

Caroline strolled towards the trees under which the last of the daffodils were trumpeting the way to summer in a yellow splash of bloom. Despite the war, despite the Easter uprising in Dublin, despite the Zeppelin raids, despite all the awfulness that man could do, here in the wood the ferns were unfurling as they had done for thousands of years. Branches were starting to show their greenery, and a few lilies of the valley announced the imminent arrival of May.

For no reason at all, Caroline gave a little skip and twirled herself by one arm round the trunk
of a silver birch.

There would be storms to damage and destroy, but spring would always follow. Days of clear blue skies, new growth to cover dead bracken. At last the sun was beginning to shine, and might, if it tried hard enough, even spot Caroline Lilley far below it in Ashdown Park. Beneath her feet, all around her, and now within her heart, there was life. There was hope.