Winter Roses

Could anything be more satisfying on a Saturday afternoon in June than the sound of a tennis racket hitting a ball? The rhythmic pit-pat, punctuated by distant shouts, was as comforting as the tick of the Rectory clock.

Caroline basked in contentment, ignoring a niggle of heartache that still obstinately lingered. Their yearly tennis match in the Rectory gardens was proving a peaceful haven from the storms of war. Even donning her white tennis skirt, which she had painstakingly taken apart and turned especially for today, had helped. Clapping the old straw boater on her head had seemed a further gesture of defiance.

The cost of food and its shortages had been bravely disregarded by her parents, who had decreed a breadless week at the Rectory in order to provide the ritual cucumber sandwiches, jellies, cakes and ices. Even Mrs Dibble, their
housekeeper, wore a smile on her face – what more could one ask? By concentrating very hard, Caroline decided as she emerged from the kitchen with a refilled teapot, she could even command the Rectory garden walls to keep all talk of war at bay for the afternoon. This week the mood had been particularly sombre. The death of Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, when the cruiser
Hampshire
was lost to a mine, was not only mourned in itself, but seemed an omen for the war he had come to symbolise. In this summer of 1916, it had been raging nearly two years and there was still no sign of its end.

‘It’s my belief,’ Mrs Dibble had announced cryptically this morning, as Caroline patiently buttered and margarined mounds of bread, ‘that he isn’t dead at all. They just want them Germans to think he’s dead.’

‘Whatever for?’ Caroline had been amused at this political acumen.

‘He’s working behind the lines, Russia or one of them places. Joe says that’s what the top brass think.’ Joe was her elder son serving in the 5th Royal Sussex Pioneer Battalion and at present on leave.

Top brass or not, the theory seemed improbable to Caroline, as, having done her duty by the teapot, she strolled over to flop on the grass with those of her friends still left in Ashden. Even the smell of the roses wafting over from the red-brick garden walls could not shut out war completely, for the dozen or so convalescent patients from Ashden Manor Hospital, some in invalid chairs, others in the motley collection of seating brought over from the house, provided a stark reminder.

And then there were the Hunneys, another painful recollection of war if Caroline cared to dwell on it. Which she didn’t. Lady Hunney was here, her married daughter Eleanor was here, Daniel, her younger son seriously wounded at Mons, was here. Reggie, her elder son, was not. A captain in the 2nd Royal Sussex, he, too, was at home on leave, but he had chosen not to come. Caroline tried to suppress her disappointment, aware she was being ridiculous, for she no longer loved Reggie – at least, not as she had done once. Their engagement had been broken last August. War had driven them apart, and that had to be that.

She had been pleased to see Daniel, however, quite confident now with his artificial leg, and joking with a friend whom she had briefly met in April. Henri Willaerts was able to walk for brief periods on crutches with his two artificial legs. With them was the same Belgian army captain who had been with them then, Captain Yves Rosier, although he now wore khaki, not the traditional Belgian army uniform with shako as he had in April. She had been equally pleased to see him for despite a slight limp he was able-bodied. An eleventh-hour rescue was at hand.

‘Thank goodness.’ She smiled at him in relief. ‘We badly need another man. I’d just told Janie – Miss Marden – that I’d have to co-opt her to play opposite her brother.’

He had seemed taken aback, almost offended. ‘
Je regrette
, Miss Lilley, that I do not play.’

Amazed at the sharp reply and not entirely convinced that the abrupt words were solely due to the fact that English was not his native language, she tried her most
winning manner. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re an awful player. We’re all rotten, but it’s still fun.’

It failed to win him, to her annoyance. ‘My apologies, but I came today merely to drive Captain Willaerts.’

‘He is
un homme très serieux
,’ Henri butted in, grinning. ‘It would do you good to hit a ball around, Yves.’

‘
Merci
, Henri,’ a gentler note in the captain’s voice, ‘but I prefer to walk down to the forest.’ (Ashdown Forest lay less than a mile away down the track called Pook’s Way.)

It had felt like a slap in the face, whether intended or not, and, irritated, Caroline made a grimace at Henri as Yves Rosier bowed and strolled off. His limp and the scar on his cheek suggested he had probably met Henri in hospital. She wondered fleetingly what his story was, recalling her first shocked reaction on meeting him in April, and then decided to waste no more time on such a prickly guest. Instead, she went in search of Janie.

‘You’re a man,’ she informed her cheerfully. ‘You’re doomed.’

Janie grimaced. ‘If I get poleaxed by one of Tim’s aces, I bequeath you my thanks.’

Since universal conscription had been introduced in May, the manpower both from the village and from among her friends elsewhere had steadily thinned. Many had already enlisted long before conscription became law, but now every man from eighteen to forty-one was vanishing, married and unmarried alike. And, it seemed, indiscriminately. Those who objected to fighting on moral grounds could face a military tribunal to hear their case, though they were greatly disapproved of. There were others not even as fortunate.
Men like Fred, who had received his papers, and whose plight lay outside the range of exemptions covered by the tribunals. The Dibbles’ younger son, childlike in mind and life, ambled through his days in the Rectory performing one or two small jobs. To his pride, these had expanded in wartime to taking Nanny Oates’s spare eggs into Tunbridge Wells for sale. Eggs were a luxury food now and poor Fred had been clumsy with them, until Caroline had had the bright idea of telling him that eggs were like tiny birds to be cherished. After that there had not been a single breakage. Dr Marden and her father had both appealed to the War Office asking for exemption for Fred, and since no more had been heard Mrs Dibble’s fears had been allayed.

Caroline, playing with the schoolmaster, Philip Ryde, had quickly been knocked out of the first round of the grandly named ‘tournament’ this afternoon – hardly to her surprise, for she did not pride herself on being a good player and Philip certainly wasn’t. In fact, she was delighted, for it meant she could enjoy the rest of the afternoon without having to display her lack of talent on the court yet again. She left that to the brighter stars such as her friend Penelope Banning, home from Serbia and as yet undecided what to do next, and Ellen, her friend from Dover where they had both been VADs. Under Caroline’s haphazard tutelage Ellen had picked up the game remarkably quickly, and her small quicksilver figure darted around the court, returning even the most impossible-looking shots.

Ellen was partnering George, Caroline’s seventeen-year-old brother. Having beaten – to everyone’s surprise – Beatrice Ryde, Philip’s formidable sister, and Joe Dibble who compensated
in heftiness for what his game lacked in skill, they would be competing in the one-set final after tea. Agnes, the parlourmaid, and Mrs Dibble were beginning to clear tea away, and Caroline jumped up to help them since it was obvious George couldn’t wait to get started.

‘We’ll win, Ellen,’ he yelled confidently, as he strode like W. G. Grace towards his wicket, although it was merely the Rectory tennis court with its worn grass and wobbly chalk lines painted by Percy Dibble. Hadn’t George cried out something like that two years ago, when he’d been partnering dear Aunt Tilly, much to his initial disgust? Caroline felt a sharp jab of pain as she thought of what else had happened on that glorious day, but instantly fought it. Some kind of new life must surely lie ahead. She did not yet know what it was, but in the meantime she had plenty to occupy her.

Her role on the East Grinstead Women’s War Agricultural Committee, which reported to Whitehall’s Board of Agriculture, combined with her duties in Ashden meant little or no spare time to mourn a lost love. With her mother’s help on the paperwork, she coaxed and coerced village women into volunteering their paid services to farmers to dig, muck out, saw, paint, clean and whatever else was needed. With fewer and fewer local labourers available, and the government calling for more and more food production, the women were increasingly necessary, and her rotas now came under the auspices of the WWAC. It was not too difficult to find volunteers, for money was sorely needed with prices soaring and menfolk away.

The Ashden hop gardens were Caroline’s biggest
headache at present. Frank Eliot, the manager, had been called up, and the owner William Swinford-Browne, interested only in his munitions factory at East Grinstead, was letting them go to rack and ruin. Lizzie Dibble (or Stein, as she was legally) at Hop Cottage was doing her best in Frank’s absence, but she was expecting their first child in late August and without wages to pay men or women it was a losing battle. Meanwhile the huge hop gardens were virtually untended. The sets had been planted last autumn, and the poles and stringing done, but little dressing, hoeing or nidgeting had followed.

‘Game, set, match.’

It was Dr Beth Parry’s triumphant cry this time. Dr Marden’s assistant, who because of her sex was winning only reluctant acceptance from the village, was playing with Charles Pickering, Father’s curate, who had applied to be a forces padre but was still awaiting call-up. He was a most serious young man – even more serious than Captain Rosier, and not nearly so interesting, in Caroline’s view. However, he and Beth had won, and George and Ellen lost – much to George’s obvious disgust.

Did it matter who won the tennis match? It had been all-important two years ago, but what had happened? They hadn’t won anything, for war had cheated them out of the rewards of summer. Today everyone had settled down into a stoical acceptance of the continued existence of war, and the days of peace were a distant dream. Life then had seemed for their taking but it had been snatched away. More fronts had opened up, the fighting was intensifying and
everyone
was involved, not just the services. Civilians were suffering
in the occupied countries, and here in England they suffered not only from bereavements, hardship and deprivations, but the ever-present menace of Zeppelin raids, which had increased in number this spring.

‘Make way for the punchbowl!’

Caroline’s mother was clearing a path through the spectators for Percy Dibble who, flushed with pride, was bearing the huge bowl that had belonged to Elizabeth’s grandmother. The basis of the recipe was Percy’s home-made wine, fortified with brandy, lemonade, fruit and a closely guarded secret ingredient. Alas, the brandy had all been used last year, except for a half-bottle kept for medicinal purposes, and as it was now not so much unaffordable as unobtainable, it would not be enriching this year’s brew.

Nevertheless, Caroline saw that her father, who had emerged from the fastnesses of his study – where he had been holding his daily surgery, Rector’s Hour – was ladling the punch into glasses with great aplomb. To her dismay, Caroline also noticed that Lady Hunney and the redoubtable Lady Buckford, Father’s mother, who had come to blight their lives at the Rectory last November, were
both
majestically moving towards Father for the honour of making the customary loyal toast to His Majesty. How did Grandmother know about that? She must have hidden sources of information, for her arch-enemy Mrs Dibble would never have told her. Phoebe? George? Isabel? Whichever of the family it was, Grandmother failed to benefit, for Lady Hunney arrived first to commandeer the special glass set aside for the toast.

‘A mistake!’ Caroline nudged Penelope, sprawling on the rug at her side.

Lady Hunney rarely put one of her daintily-shod feet wrong, but today she had. This was the Rectory, and to rout Grandmother so publicly did not bode well. Already their private armies were gathering around them. The Ashden Manor patients seemed to be supporting Lady Buckford, despite the fact that the Manor belonged to Sir John and Lady Hunney. Caroline had a suspicion that their choice was not due to her grandmother’s winning ways, but to the weekly sing-songs at the Rectory, over which Grandmother’s unexpectedly talented maid, Miss Lewis, presided at the piano. The Rectory resounded to the sound of ‘Goodbye-ee’, ‘Tipperary’, or in rarer, quieter mood, ‘Where are the Lads of the Village Tonight?’

The villagers, on the other hand, were on Lady Hunney’s side. Again, this could hardly be due to her benevolence; self-preservation was more likely to be the reason. The rivalry between their two ladyships since Grandmother’s arrival had become a game of chess, with the two queens slogging it out in defence of their kingdoms. In Lady Hunney’s case, the kingdom was Ashden; in Grandmother’s, it was power. So much for unity in wartime.

As Caroline sipped her punch, finding herself momentarily alone as Penelope abandoned her to talk to Eleanor, Daniel Hunney seized the opportunity to take her place, plomping himself down heavily on the ground and dropping his stick.

‘At last, I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you privately.’

‘Sounds exciting.’

‘It is for me. I’ve found a job.’ Daniel’s constant spells in hospital had put paid to any idea of his working even at a desk job with the army – which, with his father in the War Office, would have been easy to arrange, had he wanted it.

‘Daniel, that’s wonderful. Travelling?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Oxford?’

Daniel’s dream before the war had been to travel from one archaeological site to another, and when balked of that he switched to the idea of returning to university life.

‘If you’ll calm down, Caroline, I’ll tell you,’ he said patiently. ‘Not Oxford.’

‘Here? Or London?’

‘London, but before you ask, no, my papa did not find a job for his little wounded son to make him feel a big man again.’