The Summer Before the War (24 page)

Mr. Tillingham, whose attention had wandered, was completely put out of countenance by the question. “Well, it would not be fitting…I mean it is for others, not the mere writer…”

“In the parade, Mr. Tillingham,” said Agatha, patting his hand. “Do you want to wear a ruff and tights in the parade?”

“Good heavens no,” said Tillingham.

“Then we have Boadicea, Queen Elizabeth with Sir Walter Raleigh, and Nelson all driven in pony traps decorated with laurel,” continued Bettina.

“Perhaps I could wear the ruff and tights as Sir Walter,” said Alice, still grinning at Bettina's earnest presentation. “Minnie has the hair to play the Faerie Queen.”

“No doubt you would play Sir Walter as usually depicted, with full beard and moustache,” said Bettina sweetly. “I only fear the Vicar would not wish to see his daughter associated with such strange irregularity.”

“It's a costume parade, is it not?” Alice's eyes narrowed, and Minnie placed a gentle hand on her arm.

“Personally, I think all costumes and theatricals are designed expressly to allow people to cavort in indecent attire without being ostracized,” said Lady Emily. “I hardly think you need single out Miss Finch's suggestion as odd, dear Bettina.” The room became very quiet.

“No indeed, Lady Emily,” said Bettina. “But I assure you all our costumes will be most tastefully done and completely respectable.”

“Good. If we can just get to the end of the parade?” said Lady Emily.

With a chastened air, Bettina Fothergill took a large drawing block from behind her chair and displayed an elaborate pen and ink sketch.

“Britannia herself, on a golden throne, surrounded by representatives from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; and sheltering in her skirts the innocent handmaid of Belgium.”

There was a general pause at the scale of both the idea and the sketch. Bettina grew red at the silence.

“Where will we get a cart that big?” asked Alice slowly. “Not that I am criticizing, not at all.”

“I like the six white horses,” said Lady Emily. “But I am not aware of any such matched set for hire in the county. The army has already commandeered so many.”

Bettina looked hurt. Her long face seemed to stretch, her eyes assuming a sad slant, like those of a bloodhound. From the corner of her eye, Agatha saw Beatrice's lips begin to twitch.

“Do tell us who shall play your Britannia and handmaidens?” asked Minnie Buttles, cautiously adding her sweet compassion to the discussion. “Miss Nash would make a lovely red rose of England against the snow white of Miss Celeste's Belgium?”

“Miss Nash will have her hands full with the procession of her Latin scholars,” snapped Bettina. Agatha sighed to see compassion wither again on that stony bosom. “I will be selecting the maidens on the basis of their utmost respectability and their ability to purchase their own white silk,” she continued. “We must have only the best to represent our country's finest act of patriotism.”

Agatha admired the way Beatrice Nash refused to flinch at the slight. Several stinging set-downs hovered on her lips, but she did not utter them. She could only hope Beatrice would understand that the strategic advantage lay in encouraging Bettina in her absurdity. The grandiosity of the finale was a perfect opportunity to keep Bettina busy; and if it failed, so much the better for her thorough defeat.

“Well, I think it's a triumph,” said Agatha. There was a satisfying silence around the chairs. “I have complete faith that Mrs. Fothergill will pull off this Herculean task all by herself.”

“Thank you,” said Bettina.

“And we hope, dear Bettina, that you, yourself, will grace us as Britannia?” added Agatha.

Bettina looked so absurdly grateful that Agatha thought it almost unfair.

“Well, I was going to suggest asking Ellen Terry,” said the Mayoress. “But if you insist?”

“We do!” said Agatha, feeling the thrill of victory as she led them in a small round of applause. Bettina Fothergill blushed like a girl.

As the committee dispersed into the heavy fragrance of evening in the garden and the elongating shadows of the chimney pots, Beatrice paused to stand with Agatha in the doorway of the garden studio and watch until the last hat ducked under the arch of the gate.

“I'm sorry about Mrs. Fothergill,” said Agatha. “She can be so unthinking.” She would have liked to say more, to offer to assist Beatrice in the purchase of a silk dress should she care to be a handmaiden, but instinctively she knew such an offer would be as humiliating to this independent young woman as any of Bettina's blunt insults.

“I try to find her lack of subtlety amusing,” said Beatrice. “Poor Mrs. Fothergill stands such little chance against your powers of diplomacy that one could almost feel sorry for her.” She hesitated before adding, “But then she does bear you such very particular enmity.”

“I was once engaged to marry a man she admired,” said Agatha. “And then my fiancé died, and though I went away for quite some time, we have somehow never been able to move beyond our silly girlhood rivalries.”

“I'm so sorry,” said Beatrice, her expression softening in a way that invited further confidences. Agatha chided herself for bringing up old stories she had no intention of repeating.

“Now we are at war I really must try harder to be generous to her,” she said. “I have no great hope that Bettina will follow my good example, but at least it may confuse her long enough for us to seize advantage.”

“There is nothing quite
as satisfying as helping with real work such as this,” said Eleanor Wheaton. Eleanor, Celeste, and Beatrice were comfortably seated on chairs in the cool shade of an oak tree, stripping hops from a pile of long vines. “One feels such a connection to the land.” Eleanor, dressed for the occasion in a pink and white cotton lawn dress worthy of a shepherdess in an operetta, seemed cool and serene, as if stripping hops were no different from embroidering with silk thread. Her gloved fingers worked nimbly as hop flowers tumbled in a steady stream down her apron to the large piece of burlap spread at their feet. Celeste was also calmly engaged, though she picked the hops more daintily, as if she were coaxing butterflies from a flower. Beatrice found the task frustrating: the scratching of the woody vines, the bitter green smell of the buds, the wet streaks of sap across her gloves. She ripped and pulled, and bent to pick shredded leaves from the pile of bruised hops at her feet.

“There is nothing quite as satisfying as doing work because one chooses to and not because one is under an obligation,” she said, feeling waspish as she tried to wipe perspiration from her cheek without allowing any itchy sap to touch her skin. “I doubt farm work is as much fun for those who must scratch a living working the various harvests.”

“Everyone looks forward to hopping,” said Hugh, dumping a fresh armful of vines behind Beatrice's chair. His shirt, stained from carrying armfuls of hops, was open at the neck, and her eye caught a hint of the shadowed hollow of his throat. His sleeves flapped loose over his leather gauntlets as he waved a hand at the field. “It's a holiday for the London families and a child's winter coat earned for the country women.” A holiday atmosphere did seem to hang over the hop field. Women gossiped along the rows, small children played in the hedges, and cooking fires sent streams of smoke into the air from a group of rough wooden huts along the riverbank. In the full sun of the field, groups of men, women, and older children followed the falling rows of vines, singing as they picked. The other young men of the party, Harry Wheaton, Daniel, and Daniel's friend Craigmore, were cutting vines with the best of them. As Hugh surveyed the field, Beatrice saw a brief shadow cross his face. “I can't help but wonder how many of the young men harvesting here today will be here next year,” he added, so quietly that Beatrice doubted he had meant to speak aloud at all. She felt a chill brush the golden afternoon.

“It is true that if we lived by our harvesting talents we would quickly starve,” said Eleanor. “But it feels good to join in rather than just walk around and look, like a queen with her peasants.”

“The peasants are especially impressed that you brought them an earl's son this year,” said Hugh. It was hard not to admire the broad-shouldered young viscount, thought Beatrice. Craigmore carried himself with an easy politeness, with no trace of hauteur, and his pink cheeks added a touch of boyish humility to a strong chin and a brush of thick blond hair. As they watched him help an old woman to push her huge sack of hops onto a cart, Beatrice was forced to consider that in Craigmore's shining golden youth, the nobility of England might find some argument for pedigree that she had found absent in the withered remnants of the Marbely family.

“And unlike Harry, he doesn't try to compete with all the local boys and pinch all the girls,” said Eleanor, looking to where Harry was hacking at the tall strings of vine with the wildness of a pirate. “My brother must always try to win,” she added. “It's so unreasonable of him.”

“All young men try to win,” said Hugh. “That's why I prefer not to join in at all.” At this, Beatrice could not contain a bubbling chuckle. Hugh looked confused and then frowned as he added, “I didn't mean to imply any prowess on my part. I merely understand, as a man of science, that I am not immune to the competitive urges of youth.”

Daniel and Craigmore soon left Harry Wheaton to his labors and made their way to the tree, carrying additional piles of vines.

“Cold drinks must be fetched at once,” said Eleanor as they arrived. “Daniel, do go and find the footman. He will have put the bottles in the river somewhere.”

“Hugh, be a sport and go instead, will you?” asked Daniel, throwing down his gloves and pulling a small notebook from his pocket. “Only I must get down a few lines that have been dancing around in my head.” He slumped to the ground, rolled away onto his stomach, and began to scribble with a chewed stump of pencil.

“Daniel is always inspired to write just when someone suggests real exertion,” said Hugh.

“In Florence, he once seriously considered renting a bath chair to carry him up into the hills just so he could finish a villanelle,” said Craigmore, with a broad smile. “I offered to break his leg to make him look less ridiculous.”

“I'm not listening,” said Daniel.

“The inherent laziness of the creative classes,” said Hugh.

“I assure you it's just the poets,” said Craigmore. “We artists are always more than ready to put a shoulder to the wheel.”

“You are ruining my concentration worse than that dreadful singing,” said Daniel. “I shall fetch refreshments just to have some peace.”

“I will come with you in case you swoon into a sonnet between here and the river,” said Craigmore.

The two young men set off down the slope to the meandering green river, laughing, exchanging a few shoves as they leaped over tussocks of rough grass and negotiated patches of hairy thistle. Beatrice was forced to admire the easy way in which they seemed to manage their friendship, as if they were still young boys, with none of the hesitancies and awkwardness that she felt as a woman. She could argue that it came from less perception, less thought as to social negotiation, but she still envied the ease with which they strode down the field, with no thought but the present task and the delight of each other's company.

“I like Craigmore,” said Eleanor. “Not as stuffy as his father, who is terrorizing all the footmen with his long stare.”

“It must be a strain to entertain guests while also getting ready to open the hospital,” said Beatrice. “Your mother must be quite exhausted.”

“Major Frank, who is in charge of the hospital, keeps suggesting the same,” said Eleanor. “But Mother assures him that she will continue indefatigable in her efforts.”

“I'm sure he is quite reassured,” said Hugh, laughing.

“I would feel sorry for him,” said Eleanor. “But he stutters so whenever I enter the room that I'm reasonably sure he thinks my marriage to Otto makes me a spy.”

“You and the German nanny make quite a nest of terror,” said Hugh.

“Harry likes to egg him on by asking Fräulein to take all our letters to the Post Office,” said Eleanor. “He sends her right by the Major's office window, and she does have a rather furtive way of clutching the post to her bosom.”

“No one could seriously doubt your loyalties,” said Beatrice. “The man must be a complete idiot.”

“Of course I would not be foolish enough to have anything of importance sent to or from my mother's house,” said Eleanor. She spoke with no wink or other hint of guile, but as Beatrice caught Hugh's eye she saw reflected her own consternation that perhaps Eleanor was foolish enough to believe the new restrictions on mail did not apply to her.

“Madame is married to a German?” asked Celeste in a small voice. Beatrice was surprised, as she had never heard Celeste make such an abrupt comment. She realized that in all the small talk of their tea visits, and sundry gatherings, there had never been an occasion to discuss Eleanor's situation. The Wheaton family had quietly resumed referring to Eleanor as Miss Wheaton, and of course the baby was simply baby George. No one in the county seemed to dare gossip about them, one of the privileges of rank.

“Yes I am,” said Eleanor. “I am sorry for any pain that might cause you, but I assure you he is completely opposed to the horrid tactics of the Prussian hordes who overran your country.” There was an awkward pause. Celeste picked at a hop flower in her lap, Eleanor looked away to the river, and Beatrice dropped her eyes to the grass.

“I am sorry you and your baby cannot be with your husband,” said Celeste at last. “There are so many families who have been divided. It is a great suffering.”

“It is indeed,” said Eleanor. “You put it so gracefully, my dear.” They worked on in silence, save for the sound of hop flowers softly dropping onto the canvas at their feet.

Daniel and Craigmore came back from the river, each loaded down with sodden wicker baskets containing stoppered bottles of lemon cordial and barley water, which had been cooling in a pool under the shady riverbank. They were accompanied by a man and woman dressed in the flowing linens and broad straw hats of farm workers from some entirely different country. Possibly Italy or southern Spain, thought Beatrice, looking at the woman's dark bodice laced loosely across a muslin blouse, the bright overskirt looped on one hip. The woman carried her hat, her thick auburn hair glowing in the sun as it threatened to escape from its tortoiseshell combs. The man, in his shapeless tunic and broad breeches tucked into tall, rough socks, carried a basket in one hand and a stack of cake boxes dangling from a string in the other. His forearms, sticking out from rolled sleeves, were as tightly muscled as a peasant's, but his face, under his broad, fraying hat, was pale and smooth, as if he were seldom outdoors.

“We have found unexpected friends at the riverbank,” called Daniel, placing his baskets in the shade of Eleanor's chair and popping open a bottle of cordial. “Eleanor, may I present Mr. and Mrs. Frith? They are great friends of Mr. Tillingham's, and Mr. Frith has been a friend to many a young poet, including myself.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Eleanor. “May I introduce Miss Beatrice Nash, and this is Miss Celeste, our Belgian refugee friend.”

“Mr. Frith?” asked Beatrice as she shook hands. “Are you Algernon Frith?”

“Are you one of my creditors?” asked the wiry man with a serious face.

“No. I mean…” Beatrice stumbled. “Only if you are Algernon Frith, the writer, it might explain your romantic garb.”

“Great powers of observation,” said the man, shaking her hand. “I am indeed Algernon Frith, writer, newly returned from a long and financially prudent honeymoon in Andalusia. Hence the garments. I haven't had time to ask my tailor for appropriate hopping attire.”

“Don't listen to him,” said the woman. “He has an insatiable appetite for wearing costumes, and I assist his muse though it renders me ridiculous in company.”

“On the contrary,” said Eleanor. “You look most charming and romantic, Mrs. Frith.”

“Do call me Amberleigh,” said the woman.

“Mrs. Frith is better known as the writer A. A. de Witte,” said Daniel.

“I am a great admirer of your work,” said Beatrice, unsure by which name to address the author of several famous medieval novels so frank and sensational Beatrice had not thought they were written by a woman. Then the newspapers had shown a picture of A. A. de Witte as the cause of Algernon Frith's marital troubles. “Though I must admit,” she continued, “it is the only work I have ever read without telling my father.”

“You are very kind,” said Amberleigh, laughing. “But I wouldn't broadcast it about. It is more fashionable to never have read a word of mine.”

“My wife and I are grateful to hear any kind opinion these days,” said Frith. “I'm afraid I have not made her life easy these past two years.” The two lovers had fled to Europe, where Frith claimed to have been granted a divorce, and where they had married. Perhaps because of the reputation of her books, Amberleigh de Witte's marriage was the subject of scurrilous whisperings.

“Mr. Frith has some twelve books in print and three volumes of poetry,” said Daniel to Eleanor. “He is one of our great voices.”