In Distant Fields

About the Book

Christmas 1913. Kitty and Lady Partita are best friends despite vastly different backgrounds. Partita has invited her friend, Kitty, to stay at her ancestral home, Borders Castle. The grandeur of Partita's family seat is in stark contrast to Kitty's home in London where she and her mother, Violet, struggle to maintain appearances despite Kitty's father gambling away the family money. Kitty is introduced to the aristocracy; a fascinating, decorative and theatrical world. Kitty is enthralled and desperately wants to be part of this way of life, far removed from the genteel poverty in which she and her mother are forced to exist.

But war breaks out, not only irrevocably changing society, but also the lives of these two beautiful young women. The headstrong Partita and down-to-earth Kitty become nurses and selflessly care for the men horrifically injured in the trenches of WWI.

This novel is about the mothers and daughters, sisters and wives left at home holding things together on the homefront and caring for their men. It's about love and heartbreak, but most importantly of all, the remarkable nature of female friendship.

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: The Invitation

Chapter Two: Christmas at the Castle

Chapter Three: Dance Cards

Chapter Four: Comings and Goings

Chapter Five: The Pirates Club

Chapter Six: Waterside House

Chapter Seven: Love Affairs

Chapter Eight: Cupid's Victory

Chapter Nine: Off to War

Chapter Ten: Goodbye to So Much

Chapter Eleven: Home for Christmas

Chapter Twelve: Letters Home

Chapter Thirteen: Dawn Mourning

Chapter Fourteen: The Pantomime

Chapter Fifteen: Another Year Gone

Chapter Sixteen: When This Lousy War Is Over

Chapter Seventeen: The Last to Come Home

Postscript

About the Author

Also by Charlotte Bingham

Copyright

Charlotte Bingham

This book is dedicated to those heroes and heroines of the
Great War (1914–1918) who lie in distant fields, and
to those who loved them, and were left behind
.

They had spent long hours building the sandcastle and its surrounds, and it was truly magnificent. It had an outer wall with four towers, complete with make-believe narrow windows. It had a central portcullis, and a moat, which surrounded a keep, which in turn proudly flew its flag – a long stick to which the inevitable piece of seaweed had been neatly attached.

It seemed, as sandcastles always do, to be impregnable. Once it was complete, and they had duly admired it, ice creams were produced, brought down to the beach on wooden trays. After which the ladies went paddling, while the men – their boaters protecting their fair skin from the sun – stared out to sea, passing binoculars backwards and forwards between them, as they studied the horizon, watching the shipping that passed to and fro between the outer limits of their vision.

And so the pretty scene continued, until the sun which had shone on them all afternoon, started to sink, and the tide, creeping surreptitiously and
almost soundlessly, started to make its way up the beach.

Perhaps they had all been enjoying themselves too much; perhaps they had been distracted by the ice creams, or the dreamy preoccupation with the ships and boats. Certainly the arrival of the insistent tide, the onrush of the sea water, seemed to surprise them. Indeed, it seemed almost to be upon them before they were quite able to find their shoes and snatch up their buckets and spades. Excited laughter followed, and before very long everyone on the beach had fled up to the house, leaving the castle to stand alone and face the oncoming rush of water.

With the increasing tide first the outer towers succumbed, only for the house, its moat now filled to overflowing, to swiftly follow, taking with it the gaily fluttering flag. Meanwhile the joyful workforce – the fair-skinned young men, the pretty girls and their siblings who had put so much time and energy into the castle – were nowhere to be seen; so that as the lights in the house into which the happy party had disappeared, shone out on to the beach, it could be seen that the magnificent castle, built on sand, had disappeared without anyone even noticing.

Partita draped a fine wool shawl around her shoulders and, seating herself nearer the log fire the housemaid had set for her, she took up her old schoolroom pen and licked the nib to free it, before carefully wiping it on her handkerchief and dipping it in the ink pot in front of her. Writing a letter was not something to which she could look forward, but write this letter she just must. She began with the date. It should have been in Roman numerals, but she was very uncertain of her Vs and Xs so she merely wrote the day, the month and 1913.

‘I've been invited to Bauders Castle for Christmas!' Kitty stared at Partita's letter.

‘May I see?' Her mother held out her hand for the letter.

Kitty hesitated before giving it to her. ‘Imagine. Bauders Castle. Of course I can't go,' she finished quickly.

Violet shook her head. ‘But you must go. It is what you should be doing.'

‘I couldn't leave you alone at Christmas-time, really I couldn't.'

‘I insist on it, Kitty. You must go, whatever happens.'

‘No, Mamma, I could not, truly.'

Kitty turned away, went to the window of their narrow first-floor drawing room and stared out at the traffic below – new motor cars, and horses and carriages – everything mixed up, moving in and out of each other.

On the other side of the room, Violet stared ahead of her, all of a sudden hearing only music and laughter from what now seemed long, long ago.

‘Of
course
you must go, Kitty darling,' she replied finally. ‘I would not hear otherwise. No, no – no, my bewilderment is not at your having been invited, but at Lady Partita's atrocious handwriting, and as for her spelling … !'

Violet went to the window and gave the letter back to her daughter with an amused expression. ‘She cannot be learning very much at Miss Woffington's Academy, if that is how she writes, dearest.'

Kitty reread Partita's misspelled missive.

‘Do com, pleese,' the letter read. ‘We shood all luv it, really we shood. I am shore I will dye of boardom if you do not. Pleese deer Kitty promiss you will com! Your loving friend – Partita.'

‘At least she can spell her family name now,
Mamma,' Kitty murmured. ‘When she first arrived at Miss Woffington's she kept writing to her father as “the Duke of Ed-
on”
, instead of “Ed-
en
”! Woofie could hardly believe it.'

‘What could her governess have been thinking?'

‘Not her governess, her gover
nesses
, Mamma,' Kitty corrected her. ‘Apparently Partita has had a succession of governesses, all of whom left after a very, very short time. That is why she ended up going to Miss Woffington's. I told you, her father does not even know she is going to a proper school. He thinks she's just having private tuition in London, and it seems no one has dared to tell him because none of the girls in the family has ever been away to school before.'

‘No, no, of course not …' Violet murmured, her thoughts once again elsewhere.

‘But as it has turned out, Partita told me, the Duchess much prefers London to the Shires, loving to keep up with the fashions. Her Thursday afternoon “At Homes” are always such a riot of people and personalities, it is really better for the Duchess if Partita does not have a governess. But have no fear, Mamma, I shall not leave you to Papa at Christmas, really I won't.'

‘Oh, I think you must, Kitty, really I do. In fact, I insist that you do,' Violet replied firmly, ignoring the implied slight to her husband. ‘Such invitations are not offered lightly. Besides, it will be quite an adventure for you.'

‘They say the Duchess is extraordinarily
beautiful, that her figure has been so much admired and painted. Partita says she is still known as one of the most beautiful women in England, even at her age.'

‘Oh, she has always been beautiful, Kitty, I assure you. I remember, when she first came to England from America, seeing her at Lady Carrington's ball, and she is every bit as beautiful as they say. She and Consuelo Vanderbilt were the beautiful catches of that year, heiresses from America being all the rage in those days. Poor souls, they little knew of just what awaited them in their ducal husbands' large draughty castles.' Violet sighed. ‘American women have done so much for our interiors, of that there is no doubt, but just how much work would be required to make these old castles at all congenial does not bear thinking about. And I mean, Kitty, places like Bauders Castle are
impossible
, they are so medieval. Little wonder the Duchess prefers Knowle House in London, for however fine a seat Bauders Castle may be, the drains alone would give cause for worry. I believe they even have a nightwatchman still. Besides, the Duchess being a great beauty, she numbers so many, many clever, famous men among her friends, country life would not be congenial to her in the same way her London salon would be. But still, we must find a way to send you for Christmas to the castle, Kitty, really we must. I know we can.'

Violet's face was alight with enthusiasm, and for a second Kitty too looked enthused, before
giving a sigh and leaning back against the wall, her gaze once more returning to the scene outside the window, which seemed suddenly to be full of people going somewhere exciting.

‘There is no possibility that I can go, Mamma, when you think about it,' she said wistfully, tucking in a long strand of dark hair that had escaped from the black bow at the nape of her neck. ‘Apart from anything else, I have no suitable clothes to wear, and no pennies to buy anything new.'

‘If there is any way we can possibly afford for you to go to Bauders Castle, then afford it we most certainly shall.'

Kitty looked doubtfully at her mother, well aware that they were so financially straitened it was difficult for her to pay Bridie or the maid of all work. Their sad circumstances were due entirely to her father's profligacy, not to mention his reckless gambling. As she contemplated this, she found herself wondering yet again at the fact that her mother and father had remained married.

‘We must see if Aunt Agatha sends us her usual gift. Let us hope she does, and in time too.'

‘Could we not ask Papa for once?'

‘What can you be thinking, Kitty?' Her mother smiled and Kitty sighed.

‘But surely he might want me to go to stay at Bauders? Partita told me her father and my father are known to each other.'

Violet, too, sighed. ‘Yes, Kitty, but not I fear for
the right reasons. Besides, even if your father had the money, you know he would not spare it, fond as he is of you. Your father, alas, has only one use for money and that is to gamble with it – which is why we never have any.'

Kitty might be only just seventeen, but the constant vagaries of their life over the past years were apparent to her. Even now she could never hear a knock on the door without thinking it might be the bailiffs. How her mother had managed to clothe and educate her, let alone find the money to send her to Miss Woffington's Academy, she hardly knew. Certainly her father seemed to contribute little to their welfare, and nothing at all to their happiness. His presence in the house always seemed to signal an immediate downturn in their fortunes.

The moment he came home from some house party to which only he had been invited, Violet became pale and tense; and as far as Kitty herself was concerned, just the sound of his voice was enough to send her scurrying to her bedroom.