The Summer Before the War (15 page)

“Pity you cannot stay to eat up all the buns and biscuits,” said Beatrice, as Abigail came in with a jug of elderflower cordial and a plate with the buns and some lumps of partial biscuit. “It was to be a treat and now I'm sure they will go quite to waste.”

“I can stay if it doesn't bother you, miss,” said Snout, his eyes widening. “I did my homework, and I brought their homework with me too.” He rummaged in a battered leather satchel and produced the dirty, ink-stained copybooks in which they attempted to translate the passages from Cicero or Caesar she set them.

“I would be delighted if you would stay,” said Beatrice. “I would like to show you a book that is very special to me.” She went to the nearest bookcase and took down the slim leather-bound copy of Virgil's
Aeneid
from which her father had taught her the poetry of Latin. “Perhaps you can look at this while I mark your work. Start anywhere you like.”

As she marked her changes, she could see Snout munching on biscuits and slurping from his cup. He seemed to become so engaged in his reading that he reached for both without looking, and she bit her tongue and tried not to picture splashes of cordial and crumbs spoiling the pages of her father's precious text. She was surprised to find that Snout continued to display a simple but accurate sense of translation and that his handwriting, while abysmal, showed some laborious care. Arty and Jack made fewer ink blots, but each rushed into easy translation mistakes, and Jack seemed to have a policy of never looking back, because his paragraphs always finished in cheerful incomprehensibility. When she was done, she joined Snout at the table in the window. He looked up from the book, his face sticky with bun, and gave her an unexpected grin.

“It's a grand story, the
Aeneid,
isn't it, miss?” he said, his eyes lit up with eagerness. “You can smell Troy burning and you think Aeneas must die, but then he comes striding out of the flames with his old father on his back.”

“He is a virtuous son,” said Beatrice quietly. She could not read those books of the epic now without a tear for her own father, who had weighed so little at the end that she would gladly have carried him beyond death's reach.

“He has nothing left, but he never gives up, does he?” said Snout. “And his men—‘One day you will look back on your problems as if they were nothing,' he says to 'em.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
”

“In the future you may be helped by remembering the past,” Beatrice added.

“If you don't die first, of course,” added Snout. “He lost half his ships just on the way to Italy.”

“I've always thought Virgil's
Aeneid
quite the most exciting of the Roman texts,” said Beatrice. “Would you enjoy us all reading it together?”

“I'm not sure the others will,” said Snout, wrinkling his nose in doubt. “Usually, we just read a passage or two and use the dictionary to help us write it out?” Though he did his best to appear uninterested, she noticed he brushed some crumbs carefully from her father's book and closed it with unexpected gentleness.

“Written translation is far too much work for the summer, don't you think, Snout?” she asked and was amused to see how suspicion and interest mingled in his face. “It's much more entertaining to read the whole story and just argue about it.”

“I'm not sure Arty and Jack'd see it as easier, miss,” he said. “You'd really have to try and understand what it says, so you know who lives and who's all lying on the ground with his head chopped right down the middle and his cheeks and brains falling on opposite shoulders.”

“It's true the book is rife with bloody gore,” said Beatrice.

“The bit where the Queen of Carthage climbs the funeral pyre and stabs herself with a sword, miss; that's a gory bit,” he added.

“Would it be too much, I wonder.”

As Snout hastened to assure her that they could stomach the full horrors of ancient combat, Beatrice smiled and hid her surprise that the boy had obviously already read the entire epic before.

“Maybe it would help if we acted it out?” she said. A vague plan to excite the whole Latin class with the fun of group performance began to form in her head. “We could acquire some swords and those round shields…”

“And bash each other in the head while we recite?” said Snout. “I'm all for that, miss.”

“Very well, we are agreed,” she said. “We will spend the summer enjoying our
Aeneid
again; and in the autumn you three will help me bring the excitement of Aeneas and his quest to the whole Latin class.”

“I'm not sure Arty and Jack are going to like it,” said Snout, frowning again. “They'll probably work out how to blame me for it somehow.”

Beatrice sighed in frustration. “Mr. Grange informed me that you might have a serious chance at the annual Latin Scholarship if you work hard,” she said. “If you keep worrying about what others will say, I'm afraid you'll deny yourself a real future, young man.”

“Me, sit for a scholarship?” said Snout. He snorted. “They'll never give one to the likes of me, miss.”

“It's offered strictly on merit, Snout,” she said. “No one will be counting the holes in your socks.”

“Sorry, miss.” He blushed, and Beatrice regretted her snappishness. No doubt the boy suffered much at the hands of his peers.

“We can talk more about scholarships when the term begins,” she continued. “In the meantime, I suggest you grumble loudly when you tell Arty and Jack of my dreadful plans, but be sure to emphasize the cordial and buns.” Bribery might not be financially possible or morally defensible for the Latin class she would teach in the autumn term, but she smiled to know that for the summer she had two she could bribe and one who, disguised as the most prickly and unprepossessing of boys, had the makings of a real scholar.

Mrs. Turber, wearing a hat like a cabbage, was crushed into the back row of the Town Hall's council chamber amid a crowd of similar hats while Mr. Tillingham sat up front, wearing brown tweeds as if they were a general's uniform. Every one of the small leaded windows in the vaulted chamber had been opened to the evening air, but this merely allowed in the dust of the street and the raucous sound of the town brass band playing down on the cobbles below. Beatrice, who was torn between her moral duty to attend and a healthy fear of being cornered by any number of officious-looking ladies, had almost decided to slip away when Agatha Kent waved her over to a spare seat.

“If the war could be won by the wearing of red, white, and blue ribbons on one's hat,” said Beatrice, sitting down behind a lady with a particularly large and festooned example, “perhaps it would already be over.” She thought her father would have been appalled at the abundance of frivolous ornament detracting from the seriousness of the times.

“I assume that the good burghers of small German towns are at this very moment holding similar hot and crowded meetings,” said Agatha, fanning herself vigorously with a copy of the printed agenda. “Apparently, we must attempt to create more committees and official titles than the enemy.”

“You are alone?” asked Beatrice. She could not ask directly after Agatha's nephews, but she had not seen them in a few days, and while she would never admit such a thought publicly, her independence did not preclude a lively interest in the young men.

“Hugh has been busy helping Dr. Lawton out at the encampment, and Daniel has gone walking the Downs with some disreputable-looking poet friends,” said Agatha. “So I'm quite alone.”

“Where is Lady Emily?” said Beatrice. “I expected you both to be in charge.”

“Emily Wheaton is preoccupied with turning a wing of her house into an officers' hospital,” said Agatha.

“That's admirably patriotic,” said Beatrice.

“She hinted that it might forestall the army from taking the whole house and allowing all ranks to run amok in her flower beds,” said Agatha.

“Patriotic and practical then,” said Beatrice.

“Quite,” said Agatha.

On the dais, the Mayor, in full regalia, gaveled the meeting to order. Colonel Wheaton, whose local territorials, it was rumored, were about to be given official standing as a regiment in Kitchener's new volunteer army, sat to his left. To his right he was flanked by Mrs. Fothergill, dressed in full uniform of the Voluntary Aid Detachment with an extra sash of blue and white satin pinned with red roses.

The coming of war had given prominence to anyone of official status and in uniform, and so the front rows of the room contained those who had managed to drum up some sort of insignia. They were currently engaged in the tedious process of standing one by one to add their ceremonial notices of support to the afternoon's proceedings.

“The Sporting and Working Dog Association wishes to record its unconditional support of His Majesty's Government,” said Farmer Bowen, wearing the green sash of the Association Grand Marshal. The Boy Scouts, the Fire Brigade, and the Merchants Guild followed suit. Beatrice tried not to feel the dribble of sweat collecting along her spine as Agatha continued to fan energetically and the room cheered and applauded, leaving each speaker pink-faced and very pleased. As the flow of speakers diminished, Mrs. Fothergill rose in a great rustling of starched linen and waited, stern-faced, for quiet in the room.

“The Voluntary Aid Detachment of East Sussex, Rye Chapter, offers its colors to our sovereign,” she intoned. At her words an entire row of similarly dressed ladies stood up from their chairs and processed up the center aisle carrying an array of crutches, boxes of medical supplies, and flags of the nation and the association attached to stretcher poles. Farmer Bowen looked quite put out, as if he suddenly wished he had thought to bring dogs wearing rosettes.

“Are we all done?” the Mayor asked, as the ladies processed back to their seats. A tall woman in a severe black linen suit and a small hat rose from her chair. She wore only a single lapel button of office and carried a stack of newsletters.

“Who is that?” asked Beatrice.

“That's Alice Finch, a friend of Minnie Buttles, the Vicar's daughter,” whispered Agatha. “They have recently come from London and opened a small photography studio in a converted stable at the lower end of the high street.” She peered closely at Miss Finch and added, “I must say that to speak at a public meeting seems a little forward for such a newcomer.” Beatrice smiled to find that Agatha Kent was not entirely immune to the provincial suspicion of outsiders. The smaller the town, the more decades one was likely to be viewed as a newcomer; though in a town like Rye, newcomer was considered a step up from being a summer visitor and totally disregarded by all.

“The Women's National Suffrage Union, East Sussex Chapter, echoes the official statement of its national headquarters in suspending all suffrage campaigning and declares its sacred duty and intention to support all national war efforts,” said Miss Finch. Her voice was hoarse, as if she were recovering from a bad cold. “We have more information here if anyone would like a copy of our national directive.” The woman next to her, whose wispy curls and ruffled blouse gave her the look of a wind-tousled chick, stood with a hesitant smile and waved a pamphlet. Beatrice assumed she must be Minnie Buttles. The clapping was distinctly muted and mingled with some low chuckles and whispers. The severe woman looked tight-lipped, while her companion blushed.

“Suffragettes!” whispered Agatha as if communicating a great scandal. “I'm quite sure invitations to tea are being quietly withdrawn all over the room.” Beatrice, who had some intellectual interest in the question of emancipation, had never met a suffragette in person. She tried to disguise her quickening interest, for it would not do to show any such enthusiasm.

The Mayor banged his gavel. “The town thanks the ladies for their sensible response,” he said. “I'm sure my wife, Mrs. Fothergill, could use your members' help with her sock-knitting drive.” Mrs. Fothergill and the severe woman each looked distinctly alarmed at such a prospect, and Beatrice noticed that Agatha hid a smile behind her printed agenda.

“I intend to offer our services to the Territorial Army in the form of a bicycle- and motorcycle-based messenger service,” said Miss Finch, her tone as severe as her manner.

“Quite so,” said the Mayor. “All plans will be submitted during tea; ladies' organizations to Mrs. Fothergill at the tea table and gentlemen to Colonel Wheaton and myself at the desk down here on the right.”

The Mayor was then induced by Colonel Wheaton to accept nomination as Chairman of the War Relief Committee and proceeded to read a slate of other committee candidates: the local butcher, Mr. DeVere, to manage food supplies; Mr. Satchell, the shipowner, to coordinate maritime security; the Vicar to manage issues of morale and pastoral care; and Dr. Lawton to coordinate medical services and programs.

“That is a pretty neat coup d'état,” said Beatrice. “Aren't you going to object? Don't you wish to be appointed?”

“I would never presume to interfere in the gentlemen's sphere,” said Agatha, folding her hands in her lap and assuming a neutral face. “I will wait with all feminine patience to learn where I am needed.”

“Really?” asked Beatrice.

“No, of course not,” said Agatha. “But the easiest way is always to work through a suitable man. You see, I already have Dr. Lawton in place, which quite puts Mrs. Fothergill and her volunteers where I want them. Now there is just the question of the Belgians.”

“As you all know,” said the Mayor, “the advancing scourge of the German army has been laying waste to poor little Belgium with a ferocity unprecedented in Europe in these many centuries.”

“Well, if you don't count the Turks,” said Colonel Wheaton.

“Precisely,” said the Mayor. “Such savagery has no place in the civilized countries of Europe or in civilized warfare, and we are called upon to bring relief and succor to the tens of thousands of our poor, innocent Belgian brethren fleeing these atrocities.”