The Kissing Garden Read online

  Amelia frowned as she stared out of the window at the all too familiar fields and hills that they were passing, at the cows, at the leaves on the trees, each one of which seemed to be frowning back at her as she wrestled with the reality of the last hour. She had imagined a maimed George, a George without an arm, a George who might have been gassed, but not what she had just seen on the station, someone who had, in effect, gone missing.

  Sensing her disquiet, Constance tapped her daughter sharply on the shoulder making Amelia jump.

  ‘Uncross your ankles, darling – so common, you’ll give Lady Dashers a blue fit if she sees you like that.’

  Tea had already been set out on the lawn in the shade of the old beech trees. Trees which George had taught her to climb behind the backs of their parents, and up which they would both sit for what had seemed like hours on end being bored to tears by the conversation of the unsuspecting grown-ups below.

  But now they were the ‘grown-ups’, and George was sitting beneath the comforting shade of those same branches, as the shadows of the afternoon lengthened, but there were no children up the trees, just a uniformed officer below, silent, wordless, his hat and swagger stick on a chair beside him.

  Everything about him was quite still, excepting one hand which gently stroked the heads of the family dogs, the sunlight catching the gold of his signet ring. Perhaps because of this almost statue-like stance he was largely ignored by his family and friends, who sat eating their cucumber sandwiches talking to each other, politely and decorously, as if the appalling calamity which had just befallen the world had been a single skirmish in a distant foreign field.

  Now George had been welcomed home, it seemed that Clarence would return to his usual light banter as he sat alternatively sketching and sipping tea. That Constance would gossip to Lady Dashwood about the ‘ghastly newness’ of some house being built nearby. That everything would just resume, return to being what it had been two hours before the train came chugging merrily into the little Sussex station, and they had finally seen the reality of George, home at last. Even his father seemed reluctant to engage in any lengthy dialogue, although as Amelia suddenly determinedly moved her chair nearer to George, she did hear him say, ‘Good about your decoration, George, makes one very proud. The first in the family, you know. Quite something that.’

  ‘Thank you, Father.’

  ‘Lucky fellow, you know. Seeing as much action as you did.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Think what you’ll have to tell your children, and your grandchildren. First-hand accounts of the greatest war ever fought. First-hand accounts, quite something that, I should have thought.’

  ‘So I shall, Father.’

  ‘Better than fighting a war from behind a desk in Whitehall, I can tell you. They wouldn’t send me back out, after Ypres, unfortunately.’

  At that word ‘unfortunately’ George turned and stared at his father, or rather, it seemed to Amelia, that he stared through him. As if he was a ghost, or as if, Amelia suddenly thought, as if behind the General, beyond him on the lawn, George saw only ghosts.

  ‘No, you can’t fight a war from behind a desk, my boy.’

  ‘No, sir. I think that became increasingly apparent.’

  The General went on to say something, but seemed to think better of it, clearing his throat instead and drumming his fingers on one knee as he tried to form the words that were in his mind. ‘It will all fit into place soon, George. Take my word for it. It always does after a war, take a bit of time. Now here is young Amelia, come to make you laugh, doubtless. The way she always did, eh?’

  How Amelia wished that the General had not said that she was to make George ‘laugh’. It made her feel so utterly lightweight, and more than faintly ridiculous. How could she make someone ‘laugh’ who had just lost all his friends in a terrible war?

  Feeling more inadequate than she had ever felt, in desperation she plumped for those small and insignificant generalities which pass for conversation in polite society, remarking on the clemency of the weather for such a special day, the state of the Dashwoods’ garden and the number of friends who were about to call on the Dashwoods to welcome him home. To her relief George seemed more than happy to hold their conversation at this level, so Amelia did her best to keep him entertained, until she finally felt brave enough to touch on what she had written to him in her letters, reminding him of the funny, silly sketches of home life she had drawn for him. After a quarter of an hour spent in this fashion, George seemed a great deal more relaxed, eventually beginning to ask questions of his own, and starting to smile and even to laugh at shared memories drawn now from childhood, now from her letters. Gradually it seemed as if they both relaxed, until for a long lovely moment as they sat in the warm summer sunshine Amelia felt as if George had hardly been away from her at all, let alone for five long and dreadful years.

  ‘I had forgotten quite what a trout I was to your mayfly.’ George smiled suddenly while gently pulling his dog’s ears. ‘And how skilful you were at casting.’

  Amelia smiled back, also fondling the dog sitting between them.

  ‘What’s it like to be home, George?’

  ‘What do you think?’ George looked around him at the party in the lovely garden and at the fine stone house his grandfather had built for his family. ‘What do you think, Amelia,’ he repeated, but not as a question. ‘After all this time away.’

  They both fell silent, as George continued to stare without any apparent emotion at his surroundings, still rhythmically stroking his dog’s fine head. After a long moment he sighed and closed his eyes, as if suddenly infinitely weary, sitting back with his arms folded across his chest.

  ‘Would you rather not talk, George? You must be so dreadfully tired after your journey. And after – well. You must be most dreadfully tired.’

  ‘On the contrary, I’d rather talk,’ George said, without opening his eyes. ‘Don’t worry about me. Tell me all that’s happening here. All the gossip about our friends.’

  To indulge him Amelia related all the most frivolous gossip she could remember, and what she failed to remember she invented, keeping George entertained with the behaviour, supposed or otherwise, of all her girl friends, particularly her best friend Hermione – who, as both she and George knew, was just as struck on George as Amelia – until inevitably she arrived at the subject she most wished to discuss but was almost afraid to mention: the arrangements for her forthcoming birthday. As soon as she broached the matter George stopped smiling and fell into silence.

  ‘Is something wrong, George?’ Amelia began to falter, aware of George’s sudden mood change. ‘I haven’t said anything to upset you, have I?’

  ‘Not a thing. I was just thinking, that’s all.’

  ‘Can I know what you were thinking? Or was it private?’

  ‘If you must know, I was thinking that you might be a little short of dancing partners compared to – before the war, you know, when you used to have so many. That’s how I used to think of you when I was out there, dancing round and round, and laughing up at some lucky young man.’

  Not knowing how to reply lest she should say something utterly tactless, Amelia kept quiet, knowing that what George had observed was perfectly true. She and her mother had already encountered the greatest difficulty in trying to produce any sort of guest list.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a shortage which is going to prove a national one,’ George said after a silence. ‘A shortage it isn’t going to be easy to correct. Will you excuse me?’

  As George stood up from his chair Amelia said in a low voice, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘You haven’t. It’s just that I’m a little tired, and perhaps I talked too much.’

  ‘You mean I talked too much.’

  ‘You were as delightful as always.’ George smiled at her. ‘I really am very tired. So will you excuse me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Amelia got up as George left her and went to sit with her fathe
r, who was sketching in a pad on his knee in the shade of an old apple tree. She watched George disappear into the house before sitting herself down again.

  ‘Everything all right, Amelia?’ her father wondered, glancing in the direction in which he saw his daughter was looking.

  ‘I think I tired him out with my prattle, Papa. I wasn’t really thinking.’

  ‘I’m quite sure you were, darling girl. You’re not one to do things without thinking. Never have been.’

  ‘What are you drawing?’

  ‘People.’

  ‘May I see?’

  ‘I’m not sure you should.’ He looked at her, sighed, and then turned his sketch book round to her. He had drawn the gathering of people they could both see before them, seated and dressed as they were, drinking their tea and eating their sandwiches, and he had drawn George as well, bang in the middle of them. But instead of wearing his best uniform he was dressed in battle fatigues, with a helmet instead of a cap and a pistol in his hand instead of a teacup, and he was standing in a trench, not sitting on a garden seat, with the bodies of his dead comrades at his feet.

  Amelia stared at the drawing. She was used to her father’s poetic and often abstract interpretation of life, but somehow, because this was about George, and their friends who would never return, about the past which must be going to make for a very different and perhaps much more complicated future than they had ever anticipated, she was shocked. All the time he had seemed to be just passing the time of day, this was how he had been feeling.

  ‘It’s all right,’ her father assured her. ‘I’m not going to show it to anyone else. Least of all George.’

  ‘I do hope he’s all right,’ Amelia said, looking back at the house into which George had taken himself. ‘Although I am quite sure he is not.’

  ‘I’m quite sure you’re right, Amelia. But I’m quite sure he will be. Given time. The thing is not to press too hard.’ Her father closed his sketch book and began to fill his briar pipe. ‘The point is – try as we may, it doesn’t make any difference, because people like us can have no real idea. Not about what George has been through. We can’t have even the very slightest of ideas. So the thing is not to press too hard.’

  He put his hand on hers and squeezed it. ‘He will be all right, Amelia. Just give him time.’

  ‘But now he’s home, Papa—’

  ‘Now that he’s home, darling girl, he is going to find matters even harder to bear. What seems to you to be all behind him now will be in the front of his mind every hour of every day. And possibly every minute of his night, too. So just give it time.’

  * * *

  Anxious to hear what her mother might have to say on the matter of George’s welfare, Amelia sought her out before dinner that night, finding her in her dressing room where she was trying on a newly fashionable amber necklace and earrings.

  ‘You don’t have to be actually shell-shocked to be shell-shocked, if you get my meaning,’ Constance Dennison told her, leaning forward at her dressing table the better to examine her complexion. ‘Not that we women are expected to understand the niceties of war, you realize. Even though we’re the ones who actually give birth to soldiers. But then there you are. If men will make wars then it is the men who must fight them until one of them sees sense. Although why people want to fight each other the whole time is quite beyond me. Now I need reminding who we have coming to dinner this evening. Do you know who we’ve invited, Amelia darling?’

  Amelia told her who their guests were that evening, and then while her mother continued to make herself ready she stared out of the bedroom window at the landscape beyond and recalled the walk she and George had taken up on the Downs during his last leave. A sudden summer storm had blown up and caught them unawares, driving them to shelter in an old shepherd’s shed tucked in the cleft of a hill back on to the prevailing winds. They had stood there in silence at first, watching the changing patterns of light and shade as the rain swept in torrents across the landscape, but when the thunder began and the vivid lightning forked the brooding sky Amelia had become really frightened, as she so often was by storms. George had remembered this and given her his hand. She had often held his hand before, when she needed help over a stile or up a steep hill or climbing a tall tree, but this time the feeling was different, as electric as the lightning that was ripping the skies above them, so that when she had found herself looking up into George’s deep blue eyes it came as no surprise to find that George was looking back at her, as if they had both snapped on the moment as they had so often snapped on the same playing card.

  Amelia knew then, as George did, that only death could part them, but on that stormy summer’s day, although the sky was full of thunder and the clouds had burst with rain, death was the most distant thing from both their minds, even though now as she remembered the moment it seemed the skies had been filled not with thunder but with the rumble of great and distant guns.

  ‘I wonder if George will propose,’ Amelia said, coming out of her reverie and picking up the dark red velvet gown her mother had decided to wear with her new jewellery.

  ‘How on earth should I know, Amelia dear,’ her mother replied, stepping out of her dressing robe and unfastening her hair. ‘As your father always says, we all spend too much time in speculation and not enough in creation. I should imagine he will, of course. Why should he not? Unless of course he’s fallen for some foreign floozie or other over there, but then that would hardly be George, would it?’

  ‘Of course it wouldn’t, Mama. At least I hope not.’

  ‘Then you will just have to wait and see.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t want him to feel that he has to,’ Amelia explained. ‘Simply because of what he said on his last leave. Papa said he needed time to recover--’

  ‘George is man enough to sort out his own worries, darling,’ Constance interrupted. ‘Now be a good girl and call Rose.’

  ‘Rose left, Mama,’ Amelia reminded her. ‘After her brother was killed on the Somme.’

  ‘Of course. How stupid of me. What’s this new girl called?’

  ‘Betty, Mama. You should know by now.’

  ‘I know I should. It’s just that Rose was with me for so long. Blasted war. Now be an angel and find me Betty or I shall be even later than usual. And do stop looking so anxious. The war is over, and George is home. Just think of all those other poor young women who aren’t quite so fortunate.’

  ‘Of course, Mama. I’m sorry.’

  Duly chastened, Amelia went in search of her mother’s maid before going herself to change for dinner. Her father was dressed and ready by the time Amelia finally came back downstairs, sitting at his desk in one window of the drawing room, writing in another of the specially bound marbled notebooks which he favoured for both his poetry and his sketches of people’s dogs or horses – painting, and particularly animal portraits, being his other great gift.

  It was this talent far more than his verses that had endeared him to Society – and this despite the fact that he was much in demand by local hostesses who loved him to stand up and declaim his latest poetic works. But although such recitals were received in courteous if not reverential silence, they were not appreciated to quite the same degree as his portraits of spaniels or retrievers waiting for their masters. These deliberately evocative and extremely well executed paintings, with titles such as Are You Coming Walks? or Waiting for Mistress, had brought to Clarence Dennison the kind of affection which only the English can bestow on a favoured painter. He himself settled his artistic conscience with the knowledge that without such a profitable sideline he would not be able to produce the poetry that was his true vocation.

  This evening Clarence was writing rather than sketching and seeing his concentration Amelia knew better than to interrupt him, instead sitting down quietly by the open French windows to watch myriad small white butterflies fluttering around the pale blue night-scented stocks.

  ‘Done,’ he suddenly announced, putting his pen dow
n and getting up from his desk. ‘At least I think it is. See what you think, Amelia.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Amelia said, settling herself in her chair.

  ‘It’s only the first verse,’ Clarence explained. ‘Although maybe this is in fact only a one-verse poem anyway. See what you think:

  Quiet now the guns their killing done

  War’s fodder buried piecemeal in the mud;

  Unclaimed their shortened journeys run

  To lie beneath a simple wooden cross

  Asleep for ever in a grave they won

  In battle for a yard of ground they lost

  The month before – at fearful cost

  To mothers who had borne their sons

  To fall beneath these mighty guns

  Silent now their killing done.’

  ‘It’s very good,’ Amelia said, as her father closed his notebook. ‘Though maybe not one to read out over dinner,’ she added wryly.

  ‘I know what you mean. But you like it, do you, Amelia?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s possible to like something so tragic.’

  ‘Like is the wrong word, of course. I suppose what I meant was – is it good? And that’s not fair either. You’re hardly going to tell me whether it’s any good or not.’

  ‘I have before, Papa.’

  ‘Have you? When?’

  ‘When you wrote that awful poem about bluebells. It wasn’t you at all.’

  ‘I still like it.’

  ‘No-one else does. Even so, I remember regretting telling you, because you sulked for a week.’

  ‘Did I? Did I?’ Clarence frowned and then suddenly laughed. ‘Yes – yes I think I did, didn’t I? Now – where’s Grimes got himself to? A man could die of thirst in this household.’ Clarence Dennison rang the bell by the fireplace to summon his butler. ‘But this . . .’ He tapped his notebook which he still had in his hand. ‘I think this is more the stuff. The first line came to me after we’d finished talking this afternoon, and you’d gone to find Hermione. And I went on watching everyone making tea and exchanging small talk as if the last nightmare years had never happened. The first line then came to me.’