In Distant Fields Page 23

  ‘The meantime, John? What precisely do you mean by that?’

  ‘Until it’s been decided what to do, my dear,’ John added quickly, clearing his throat as if to pass over it. ‘Best to turn them away, I suppose.

  Let them down, let ‘em live out best they can. Except for the working stock – the shires, of course; any of them that’s busy working, stays working.’

  ‘You’re not intending to turn all the horses out, John? Not with winter coming.’

  ‘Going to have to, my dear.’ John cleared his throat once more and, folding his hands behind his back, stood staring out over his land, trying not to think the unthinkable. ‘They’ll be perfectly all right, once they’re roughed off, provided we give ‘em plenty of hay – which we shall, always provided they don’t requisition all the fodder. Anyway …’ He fell to silence as did Circe, as they both pondered on the seemingly endless list of things they had to do. ‘Anyway, Almeric’s with his regiment, as you no doubt know, and so too, I have to say, is Gus.’

  ‘I know,’ Circe said, staring down at her hands. ‘I know.’

  ‘All the boys are off. Young Catesby. Stapleton. Although I gather young Wavell has been spun.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that, John.’

  ‘Got something up with his ticker, it appears. Nothing serious, but enough to have him spun. Wavell tried to persuade him that was that, to stay at home. But young Wavell wasn’t for that at all. Off to drive ambulances, I understand. Wasn’t for staying at home at all.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be, John. None of them would be.’

  ‘No,’ John said slowly, still regarding the landscape. ‘Don’t suppose so. Dare say you’re right.’

  Circe stood up and went to her husband’s side, taking his arm. ‘It’s going to be all right, John,’ she said. ‘Everything will be back to rights very soon, don’t worry.’

  ‘I shall have to join my regiment, you do know that, my dear.’

  ‘No point in having your own regiment if you can’t do that, dearest,’ Circe teased him, smiling suddenly. ‘Gracious, it’s the Boer War all over again.’

  ‘I was a bit more active then, Circe. Dare say the only thing I’ll be armed with this time is a pen. But we’ll see. We’ll see.’

  ‘Your experience will be invaluable, Colonel,’ Circe said, this time seriously. ‘When it comes to command, I imagine there are few better.’

  ‘Didn’t tell you?’ John said, turning to her with a smile. ‘Been made a general, so they say. Means a little bit more pocket money and that’s going to be useful, what with Christmas coming up and all that. Now then – got to pop up to town for a bit, get things sorted. Sure you can manage all this without me?’

  Circe nodded but refused to let go of her husband’s hand.

  ‘John?’ she said. ‘John – I don’t think I tell you enough, truly—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said brusquely. ‘Course you do. Course you do.’

  ‘I don’t, John,’ Circe insisted. ‘I really don’t tell you nearly enough how much I love you.’

  ‘No need, Circe.’ John smiled. ‘No need at all. Chaps have feelings, you know. I can feel things, you know. I can feel all that sort of thing.’

  ‘You do make me smile, John.’

  ‘I do?’ John frowned. ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘Because you’re so sweet, John,’ Circe replied, kissing him gently. ‘And so shy.’

  ‘That so?’ The Duke smiled, shyly.

  ‘That is so.’

  They looked at each other for a long moment, saying nothing, just remembering in a flash the thirty years they had spent together.

  ‘You’re my girl, Circe,’ John said. ‘Always have been, always will be my girl from across the ocean blue.’

  ‘Thank you, John. That makes me feel eighteen years old all over again. Take care of yourself, John. I shall miss you.’

  John kissed her sweetly, gently, then touched her cheek with one hand.

  ‘Soon as this shooting match is over, my dear, we’ll start going to the opera again,’ he assured her. ‘I know how much you’ve missed it.’

  Wavell came in, attracting their attention with his usual discreet cough.

  ‘Your carriage awaits, Your Grace,’ he said.

  ‘Carriage?’ Circe laughed, pointing out of the window. ‘Oh, that is just so good!’

  John smiled as he saw what Circe was laughing at, although hearing her laugh made him feel suddenly sad as he realised how much he was going to miss that sound, as he was indeed going to miss all the sights and sounds of his family’s lives at Bauders. He took a last look at the drawing room, now all but stripped of its treasures, one last look at the parkland beyond, then took his leave, followed by the still gaily laughing Circe.

  The object of her amusement stood waiting outside, namely the new ducal carriage. In place of the usual fine conveyance with four matching chestnuts and gleaming harness stood the pickup pony and trap with Tully’s favourite pony, Trotty, between the shafts, brass blinkers burnished bright, hoofs polished, and tail and mane plaited, with Jossy holding its head. Since Jossy was to take the Duke to the station, even though he was driving a trap he had still dressed for the occasion, the buttons on his best coachman’s uniform catching the eye of the late August sun, his hat perfectly brushed and his boots spit and polished to a finish that would bring joy to the heart of even the sternest sergeant-major.

  ‘Case of needs must, John, yes?’ Circe enquired, as they made their way down the steps.

  ‘Case of start as one means to go on rather, my dear,’ John replied, going to the pony’s head and pulling one of its ears. ‘Looks like a three-year-old, Jossy. You do him proud.’

  ‘Not bad for twenty-two, Your Grace,’ Jossy replied, as Tully finished loading the last of the Duke’s cases into the trap. ‘Enjoys hisself more’n ever, so he does.’

  ‘Credit to you – and you, Tully. Do him proud, both of you.’

  ‘Always been my favourite, Your Grace,’ Tully grinned. ‘Even though all he did when I was a nipper was dump me.’

  ‘That’s Welsh for you, Tully,’ John replied. ‘Got a sense of humour. That’s what makes ‘em distinctive.’

  Tully handed the Duke into the trap. John was a tall, well-built man, and so a little out of proportion with the tiny trap, yet as always he managed to impart an air of great dignity to the proceedings, even when Boodles, his pet Parson Jack Russell terrier, had jumped up into the trap behind him, before clambering up to his favourite position on his master’s shoulder, over which he draped himself as if to be able to watch his mistress waving his master farewell, which Circe then did, standing alone on the front steps of the great house, and waving until at last the little equipage had finally disappeared from her sight.

  Somehow, even he did not quite know how, Almeric had managed to get himself a weekend leave to say goodbye to his mother and sisters, but more importantly, Kitty, before being sent off, so he at once took the train to London and from there to Bauders.

  The weather was still fine so Kitty and he spent as much time as they could away from the great house so that their thoughts and conversations should be private. All the time they walked they talked, and all their talk was about their future. Kitty understood this necessity at once, realising there must be no sense of perhaps, if or maybe, just when.

  ‘When I get back …’ as Almeric kept saying, and, ‘When we are married, this is what we shall do and this is where we shall do it and this is why. And we shall have this many children and their names shall be this, and that, and we shall grow old together and I shall always see the love light in your eyes and you will always remember me as I am now, now that I tell you once again how much I love you and how much you mean to me, and how I promise you when this war is over once and for all, I shall make you the happiest woman in the whole, wide world. It will be my life’s work.’

  Everything Almeric said to her, Kitty memorised, knowing that she would always remember these walks and these word
s, yet when she went to bed each night, all she found herself doing was gripping her pillow and praying.

  She no longer wondered whether or not she truly loved Almeric, because she now realised she had no right to ask such a question of herself at such a time as this. All she could do was what she knew she must do, and that was to return his love.

  In answer to his questions she assured him, ‘I love you and always shall do – and I will wait for you. You will not just be in my thoughts every waking minute, but you will become my thoughts. I shall think of nothing else except you and your return and the life we are going to have together – and when I am at last asleep I will think only of you so that all my thoughts become dreams and all my dreams become realities until I see you again, dearest Almeric.’

  He kissed her, somewhere away in the parkland, hidden by trees that had been growing for centuries, away in hidden pockets of land that had been grazed by deer before even the great trees had taken seed, and they held each other close and said nothing; and then they would walk again and laugh and fall silent and talk, then kiss again, so that even before he left for London on Sunday evening Kitty knew her heart was already breaking.

  ‘I have some good news before I leave, dearest Kitty,’ Almeric said, as he made ready to go. ‘I have just spoken to my father on the telephone, which is something of a miracle in itself, seeing how much he detests the wretched instrument, and blow me but if he hasn’t given his consent for our engagement to be announced. Now what a tonic that is, wouldn’t you say? I shall do the necessary tomorrow when I am in town, before I have to get back to camp.’

  ‘That is wonderful, Almeric,’ Kitty agreed, getting ready to accompany him to the station in the ponytrap. ‘I don’t think we could have had a piece of better news before you have to leave.’

  Circe too expressed her delight at the news and embraced them both, reserving an extra kiss and hug for her beloved elder boy, but diplomatically refusing to come to the station with the couple for reasons good enough for Almeric and Kitty. On the way to the Halt, driven sedately by young Tully, Kitty wondered among other things if it was such a good idea Gus joining up in the same regiment as Almeric?

  ‘Should something happen,’ she said carefully, ‘should you find yourself in a tight corner, shall we say, isn’t there a greater risk of both of you getting – getting hurt?’

  ‘Of course not, my darling Kitty!’ Almeric laughed, taking her hands. ‘I shall look after young Gus and he will watch my back too, don’t worry. Besides, we’re pirates, remember? And nothing happens to pirates – at least not these particular pirates – nothing except they always get their girls!’

  At the Halt the couple waited for their train, their conversation becoming slowly less animated until petering out altogether, silenced by the imminent arrival of the train, which now seemed to take on a great significance, Kitty imagining that once it had picked Almeric up it would steam at full speed non-stop somehow straight to France, its carriage doors flying open as it arrived at the battlefield to disgorge thousands and thousands of soldiers, young men who, like Almeric, had just kissed their loved ones farewell and goodbye and were now tumbling out of the train carriages, rifles already in hand, to be greeted not by more hugs and kisses, but by bullets and shells. Hearing the train at last approaching, Kitty flung herself into Almeric’s arms careless who saw them.

  Not that anyone would surely have minded, had there been anyone to observe them. As it happened, the Halt was deserted but for two loving young figures wrapped in each other’s arms until the great heaving locomotive finally drew up, groaning and sighing.

  As Almeric wound down his carriage window to lean out for his last goodbye, and as Kitty prepared to wave him farewell, all at once she saw herself in the company of thousands of women all over the country, all doing just the same thing at just that moment, the taste of their loved one on their lips, leaving their trace on his, the warmth of his embrace still enfolding her, the clasp of her hand still in his, the wave of her hand in the air, his kisses blown back through the smoke, the last calls of love shouted over the noise of the moving train and the blowing of guard’s whistle, the late banging of carriage doors, the warnings of the station-master, the slow, sad exhalation from the train’s whistle and the diminishing thunder of its departure, till all was oddly quiet. Silent, even though the back of the train was still visible somewhere down the line, an image pursued at first by those left behind as they took a few hopeless and pointless steps after it, as if to try to stop the impetus of war, as if perhaps they could just retrieve their love, just the one man, just one soldier less, the one who would never be missed, so that they could take him back to their beds for one last night of love and laughter, just one, just a few more hours spent in each other’s arms before – before – before. But the train was gone and with it they all knew went their hope, even though the words they said in silence were now no longer words of love but words of prayer. Please, God – please, God, please bring him home safe, please? Please let nothing happen to him and if You do I promise with all my heart I will love him and You for the rest of my days. Just please spare him, spare my man, my one, my love, please spare him God, please?

  Kitty stood there all alone in the company of ten thousand others, all of them silent, all of them watching until that train was no more, until it had vanished from their sight into the beginning of that late summer night, and then she turned along with ten thousand others to walk solely out of the station and return home, to a life where she and ten thousand others must pretend that life must go on as normal, when all the time a half of them was missing, soon, for so many missing, and presumed to be dead.

  Once the notice announcing his engagement to Kitty had been posted in The Times and the Telegraph Almeric called in at Knowle House for a last look round before returning to camp. When he arrived the house was already half shuttered up.

  ‘Already?’ he said out aloud to no one but himself. ‘This is quick work.’

  He stared up at the fine façade of the family town house before letting himself in, there being no one on duty at the doors, everyone too busy clearing the house of its furniture and valuables.

  ‘His Grace’s orders, Lord Almeric,’ Beaufort, one of the more senior servants, informed him, for a moment putting down a large chair he was carrying. ‘Everything to be put in store at Barnes until peacetime, till the world comes to its senses, and that. Never know, could be looting and all sorts of things, milord. Now we’re at war, who knows what we may expect? Who knows indeed, milord? But there you are, that’s the world today, and that’s the one we’re stuck with.’

  Almeric suddenly realised he had been far too preoccupied to consider the real implications of what was happening to them all, but now that he saw the family home being stripped and emptied, as he saw the servants crossing and recrossing the hall in their shirtsleeves, carrying furniture off to storage, coming down the stairs with fine paintings and gilded mirrors, carefully folding up the Persian rugs, taking beautiful, fresh flowers from their vases and wrapping them in newspaper preparatory doubtless to taking them to hospitals, taking down the superb curtains and drapes, and carefully wrapping glasses and decanters in yet more bundles of paper, he realised it was not so much that a great war was starting, but that everything else was stopping.

  ‘The whole house is to be emptied, is it, Beaufort?’

  ‘Those are the orders, milord. Everything is to go,’ Beaufort replied, looking with milky eyes about a house he had known since boyhood. ‘Everything. I only hope I lives to see it all back in place, so I do. My lad’s over there already, you know. Not that he’s a lad so much, more of a grown man now. Thirty-one years of age he is, and a good lad. Don’t know whether you remember him, milord …’

  ‘Of course I do, Beaufort. Tim Beaufort – he has red hair like – ’ he stopped, realising that Beaufort’s hair was as white as his shirt collar – ‘red hair like his brother. Worked as a footman here for quite a while before – what did
he go and do? That I can’t remember.’

  ‘Joined the Dorset Light, milord. Been in the army since he left here, and now he’s over there. His mother and I, we give him a lot of thought, of course, a lot of thought. There’s not a lot a soul can do other than give it a lot of thought, of course. But there you are, milord. That’s the sort of world we’ve made for ourselves and, as they say, what you sow, you reap. I just hope we all see each other again. I just hope it all comes back into place. Now if you’ll excuse me, milord, best get about my business.’

  Watched by Almeric, Beaufort lifted the heavy red and gold Louis Quinze chair and carried it out to the back of the building where the carters were busy packing everything up into large green, immaculately painted wagons drawn by four magnificent drays, to be driven by men in smart green uniforms and buff aprons, waiting to head south across the Thames to the gentle countryside of Richmond, well set with park and common land, where the Eden valuables would be stored away in a vast furniture depository by the river, and where they would remain until such time, as Beaufort had said, that the world regained its senses.

  ‘I thought you’d already left, Al,’ a voice behind Almeric said, and turning, he saw his sister Allegra, putting on her coat and pulling on her gloves.

  ‘And I thought you were learning to be a nurse.’

  ‘I am. I had a couple of hours off so I thought I’d come and take a last look round.’

  ‘We’re not selling Knowle House,’ Almeric laughed. ‘Only putting it in storage, as it were.’

  ‘Imagine,’ Allegra said quietly, looking up the stairs. ‘Does this mean one won’t be able to stay here at all?’

  ‘If you don’t mind sleeping on the floor. Everything is to be stored, and the house made into a club for young officers home on leave. I gather Opal and Julie and a whole lot of Mamma’s friends are going to run it. Good idea, don’t you think?’