In Distant Fields Read online

  Allegra looked down at her teacup. She used to hate tea, most particularly this kind of tea, but nowadays, after a long day on the wards, it tasted like nectar.

  ‘How strange you should mention it. It’s a fortnight since I heard anything from him,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Until today. Then I got a letter from him, unfortunately it was dated over ten days ago.’

  ‘That is worrying, but at least you know he was in one piece ten days ago.’

  ‘At least he was when he wrote. But one does wonder for how long? The losses out there—’ She stopped. ‘The officers more than the men even, ten to one, I believe, or something like that.’

  ‘If we hear nothing we assume the best until we hear otherwise,’ Sister said crisply, but she sighed.

  ‘The only thing I find that works at times like this is – work,’ Allegra said. ‘One can’t dwell on things when one is busy.’

  ‘I was the same when Fred was sent to the Dardanelles.’

  Allegra stared at Sister. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘And why should you?’

  Allegra did not dare ask what the outcome for Fred might have been.

  Sister shook her head. ‘It was a slaughter. Altogether a slaughter. The boys lost there, doesn’t bear thinking about. You have to think the people who organise these shooting matches – because it seems to me that’s how they see them – no offence, Allegra, but they do, you know – it’s as if they’re planning a few days out on the moors and wondering about what sort of bag they’re going to have. It’s the same mentality except God didn’t bother teaching the wee birds how to shoot. But anyway, you have to wonder about their sanity. How they can go to bed at nights and sleep is way past me – and here we are. Those poor souls have to take the damage and us poor souls have to try and repair it.’

  ‘Fred was … ?’ Allegra wondered.

  ‘He was my boy. He was my son.’

  ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘I was very young. I hadn’t even started nursing – and I fell, the way we girls do, you know. He was a soldier too, the father. A cavalry man, a Dragoon, and he’s dead too, killed in the first month of the war in a mêlée somewhere between Mons and Brussels.’

  Allegra said nothing, trying to imagine Sister, whom she had never seen out of her uniform, as a young girl falling. She struggled with a picture of her as a young woman falling for a Dragoon and having his baby.

  ‘My mother brought Freddy up,’ Sister continued. ‘I went nursing. I had to earn my living, and with my father dead and my brothers all in the army, my mother could bring him up fine. Which she did and he was a very bonny, happy child. But there you are – that’s who they send off to war – our bonny, happy boys. So let’s just hope and pray you hear good things about your James. I’m sure you will. I have a feeling about these things.’

  Sure enough, three days later Allegra got the good news that James was indeed alive, the bad news being that he was not exactly in one piece, having been badly hit by shrapnel, wounds that resulted in the amputation of his left arm. He had been transferred to a French coastal hospital in Calais and when the doctors considered him fit enough to travel he would be returned home and awarded an honourable discharge from the army.

  ‘As well you’re a nurse, my dear,’ Sister said, smiling when she heard the good news. ‘You’ll know best how to care for him.’

  Harry had been drowning in what he now called the Red Tape Sea, trying to get a bunch of stuffed shirts to understand the need to move the dressing stations, when, in answer to Kitty’s invitation, he was able to borrow a car from a generous friend, and drove to Bauders.

  Wavell opened the door to him, and for a second, it seemed to Harry that everything was as it had been. His father at the great doors of the castle, the hall beyond him, until he saw how much his father had aged, how crumpled and creased he looked, and a little bent.

  ‘May I help you, sir?’ Wavell asked.

  ‘Father?’

  Wavell stared at his only son, unseeing.

  ‘Father?’

  Harry grew closer. ‘It’s me – Harry.’

  Wavell put out his hands and took Harry’s. He started to pump them up and down, and as he did so Harry realised that his father’s hands were no longer those of an upper gentleman servant, but of a groundsman, so much must the nature of his work have changed.

  ‘The old eyes are going, you know! Or I surely should have known my own son. Her Grace advises some spectacles, but I haven’t yet had time to go into Milltown.’ Wavell stood back. ‘You are handsomer than ever, Harry, my boy,’ he told him. ‘Now give me just a moment to change my jacket and we will go straight home.’

  At home, in his father’s estate cottage, Wavell prepared a simple dinner for them both.

  ‘I’ve had to get good at cooking for want of Cook and Mrs Coggle and I don’t know who else going off to the factories,’ he told Harry, and the dinner he set before them both was good and tasty, and plenty of it.

  He then ran Harry a hot bath, and left him to sleep the sleep of a returned hero before returning to the castle where there were still plenty more duties waiting for him.

  ‘Harry’s home, Harry’s home, Harry’s home,’ he could not help saying, stopping everyone he met.

  Finally it seemed that only Kitty was unaware that Harry was home.

  ‘Who’s that, Kitty?’ Partita nodded ahead of them the next morning. ‘I’m dashed if I don’t think I know that figure rather well.’

  They had just finished clearing the patients’ breakfast. Kitty turned from her work and stared out of the vast arched window. Partita was right. There was a familiar figure outside. Below them on the lawn, hands in pockets, standing smiling up at them was Harry.

  Partita smiled. ‘Out you go, Kitty Rolfe. Go and see Harry, before Harry comes to see us.’

  ‘You might have said you were coming,’ Kitty called as she hurried out to him.

  ‘Why? Is there someone you don’t want me to see?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ Kitty stopped, taking off her apron and patting her hair. ‘No, no, it’s just that we’re all so busy—’

  ‘Of course you are, that’s why I didn’t say I was coming. You would say you were too busy.’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t. Oh, Harry, it is so, so good to see you, and in one piece!’

  Kitty stood back from him. If she hadn’t known he would hate it, she could have cried with relief.

  ‘I’m not only in one piece, Kitty, I am better than I was. Even Father was forced to say so. “Better than you were before you left Bauders, Harry,” he said last night.’

  ‘You certainly look as fit as a general.’

  Harry nodded and, taking in the sight he had dreamed of for so long amid the blood and the horror, amid the terror and the waste, he could have burst into tears, except he knew Kitty would hate it.

  ‘Come for a walk, Kitty, please?’

  ‘Harry …’ Kitty protested feebly, looking back at the house where she knew Partita would be watching them. ‘Of course I can’t come for a walk. Besides, I have work to do. I can’t just drop everything. You really are impossible sometimes.’

  ‘Of course I’m impossible. Would I be Harry if I was possible? Besides, have I asked you to drop everything just because I’m here? Do you even know it was you I came to see? I might have come to see my father – or the Duchess. Or Partita – or even Percy, our magnificent peacock here. Don’t jump to conclusions, Miss Rolfe – won’t do you no good, not never.’

  ‘Stop putting on silly voices, Harry,’ Kitty chided him, finding herself becoming quite flustered. ‘And tell me what you want exactly?’

  ‘How do you know I want anything, Miss Rolfe?’

  ‘Because I can tell by the expression on your face – and stop calling me Miss Rolfe.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Harry …’

  But it was no good – as always the particular expression now on Harry’s face made her start to laugh and once she bega
n to laugh she knew she was undone.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, taking her by the arm and walking her back towards the house. ‘What I want is a multitude of things but I don’t think we have the time to discuss them all – except the most pressing of them, and that is to find out if you will come out with me tonight? I only have a forty-eight-hour pass, and lucky beyond belief to get that.’

  ‘Come out with you?’ Kitty echoed, putting a hand automatically to her neck. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, surely you know what going out with someone entails, Kitty? We get all dressed up to the nines and—’

  ‘I don’t understand, Harry. I don’t understand why you – why do you want to take me out?’

  Harry didn’t bother with an answer. He simply raised his eyes to the heavens and laughed.

  ‘Harry …’

  ‘Father suggested – there is some sort of hop this evening at The Wycombe,’ he said. ‘The hotel on the road into town? I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time I went dancing. I would love to go dancing. And most – most of all – I would love to go dancing with you.’

  ‘Should I?’ she asked Partita later that morning when they had a break from their work. ‘I’m not sure whether I should go dancing. It really does not seem at all seemly, at this time. I’m really not sure I should go, Tita.’

  ‘If you think it’s unseemly then you must go. No fun in doing anything seemly, surely?’

  ‘You’re as bad as Harry.’

  ‘Come along – if it’s a lesson in protocol you want, then we’d better consult the oracle. We had better speak to Mamma.’

  But the Duchess was quite adamant.

  ‘Of course you must go. You can’t be hidebound by the latest news, my dear, you know you can’t. You’re a young woman, you must go dancing.’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘It really doesn’t seem right.’

  Circe stood up and went to Kitty, taking her hands in her own. ‘Kitty, what is right during a time of war? A war that has taken so many, that is not right. You must have some gaiety in your life. You can’t become an old maid because Almeric was killed. Truly, you can’t.’

  ‘Even so …’ Kitty dropped her eyes.

  ‘Almeric loved Harry, Kitty, you know that.’ The Duchess touched Kitty briefly on the cheek. ‘He loved you. Most of all he loved fun. Off you go.’

  Partita helped Kitty get dressed for the evening, just as they both always used to when Kitty first came to stay at Bauders, fussing round her as if she was a mother sending Kitty, her favourite daughter, out on a date, while Bridie stood back to sigh, cluck or admire, depending. If they made Kitty change her dress once, they must have made her change half a dozen times until finally, in a state of mock exhaustion, Partita declared Kitty ready, while Bridie sat down fanning herself with a hand mirror.

  ‘Sure you will pass the mustard always providing you doesn’t go fiddling with your hair. Oh, how me poor old feet are killing me.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to help me, Bridie. You volunteered.’

  ‘And sure wasn’t I born with me arm stuck up in the air? Don’t worry, Miss Kitty – I’ll call in the favour when I gets married. You can help me get dressed.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Partita. ‘We can get our own back for all the sighs and groans we’ve had to put up with from you.’

  ‘Any news on that front, Bridie?’ Kitty wondered, taking one last look in the glass. ‘How is Tully?’

  ‘Ah, he’s going to be fine, thank you, Miss Kitty. ‘The wonder is he got off so lightly. I mean ‘twas dreadful, the Lord only knows, but when you think … No, he’s going to be just fine and dandy, and God and everyone willing, we’ll be wedded as soon as we can.’

  ‘Wed, Bridie,’ Partita corrected her. ‘You will be wed as soon as possible.’

  ‘Not me, Lady Partita.’ Bridie raised her eyebrows and smiled. ‘Me, I intend to be well and truly wedded.’

  ‘You won’t guess who I’m working for, Kitty,’ Harry remarked as he drove them to the hotel. ‘Not for all the tea in China.’

  ‘Dr Charles,’ Kitty promptly replied, taking the wind clean out of his sails. ‘Dr Richard Charles, to be precise. And if you’re wondering how on earth I know – my mother mentioned it in her last letter.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s amazing?’

  ‘Astonishing, to say the least,’ Kitty agreed.

  ‘Yet you didn’t mention it?’

  ‘I wanted to win all that tea.’

  ‘He’s a fine doctor and a brave man. No one to touch him, not in my book.’

  ‘Really?’ Kitty stared out of the window at the passing countryside. ‘I don’t know very much about him, other than the fact that he was in general practice and my mother ran off with him.’

  ‘Your mother – your mother ran off with him?’

  ‘Yes. I really could not blame her, although it was something of a shock at the time. My father – my father is completely horrid, you know. Although I believe he has been trying to make amends in the trenches. His men love him, apparently. Which is just as well, because very few other people could. And it all goes to show something good can come out of something – or in his case someone – so terrible.’

  ‘You would admire Dr Charles. He’s become a brilliant surgeon. Like so many thrown into the work, he has proved himself to be quite extraordinary. He could operate not just under fire, but with shells exploding round him, and not make a mistake.’

  Kitty was silent. Her mother and Dr Charles was still not a subject that she enjoyed either to think about or talk about.

  ‘It’s all in the past Harry.’

  Harry pulled on the brake.

  ‘Good. In that case let’s not talk about it any more,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s just have what we haven’t had for centuries – fun.’

  The hotel ballroom was crowded but the band good, playing all the latest music including a selection from the latest hit musical in London, Chu Chin Chow.

  Harry and Kitty danced and they talked; they talked while they danced and they danced while they talked. In the end they just danced, and the slower the music got and the more they danced, the more they both knew where the dancing and the talking was leading them.

  As Harry drove them back to Bauders he started to wonder if he had forgotten how to kiss a girl, but as soon as he started to kiss Kitty, he realised that he hadn’t forgotten at all but, more than that, he had never kissed a girl the way he was kissing Kitty, nor had he been kissed the way Kitty kissed him.

  The parkland was lit by a full moon, there was an owl calling somewhere in the distance, and then as they began to walk back towards the house in the small woodland close a nightingale sang a heavenly song.

  ‘You see,’ Harry said sotto voce, as they listened. ‘It’s so beautiful it’s almost unbearable. You could almost wish him to stop, to put you out of your sublime agony.’ He turned to Kitty. ‘You feel the same.’

  Kitty felt quite the same. More than that, for the first time in her life she felt at peace, knowing that, in some strange way, not only had Harry come home, but so had she.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Last to Come Home

  At last the ones who were destined to come home had come home, while those who had fallen had to be left where they had fallen, so many were they. Finally Gus came home, as his mother knew that he would.

  All the young went to greet him at the station, Jossy driving ahead with Trotty pulling the trap, and the rest piling into whatever they could find. Once back at the castle gates, the pony was taken from the shafts, and everyone pulled the trap up to the castle doors where his father and mother were waiting to greet him.

  James was long home, recovered from his ordeal and nursed to health by Allegra, to whom he was now married. Valentine – the dark horse of them all – had also returned, quietly and without fanfare, reunited with Livia. Dr Charles was home, his war done and the VC and bar he was awarded for sho
wing exceptional courage in the treatment of the wounded under fire was put modestly away in his desk drawer, never to be again referred to either by himself or Violet.

  Tully was home to Bauders, healthy and fit once more, and looking forward to marrying Bridie, when they had saved up enough money for some furniture, both of them determined to stay working at Bauders.

  Pug was home to Elizabeth, minus an eye, lost in one of what he was in the habit of referring to as ‘mes skirmishes petites, my deahs’. Pug, having been filled with a glass eye, happily revived the use of his long-abandoned monocle, which he allowed to drop from his glass eye whenever registering shock, horror or dismay.

  ‘And even Scrap has survived!’ he wrote to a friend. ‘Bit greyer, bit wiser, but still with us.’

  Finally, too, Peregrine came home, released at last from his captivity, even leaner than when he had left but, in Partita’s eyes, still as elegant, and a great deal more handsome, if that were possible.

  ‘I so very nearly made it,’ he told the welcoming party at Bauders. ‘So nearly made it. There we were in a heavy mining area and making my way, because I speak fluent French and luckily Jerry couldn’t really distinguish between a Belgian accent and a French one, I so nearly made it. Then as I was sitting in a bar actually in the port where I was to get on this cargo boat, I allowed myself to have a large brandy. And while I was drinking it, I dropped my matches just as a German officer was walking by. He very kindly handed them back to me, and I thanked him. In English – whereupon he invited me to journey with him to a really rather flea-bitten sort of prison camp, from which I was then transferred to an officer camp in a very draughty Schloss – which I duly survived, as you can see – thanks to your unending stream of parcels.’

  ‘Thank heavens for Nestles milk, butter and Cadbury’s chocolate.’

  ‘Thank heavens to each of you, to all of you, for your letters. Letters are what kept us all going, right the way through – even Mamma’s!’ He turned to Partita. ‘Come on, Mischief, time I took you for a walk.’