A Season of Secrets (6 page)

‘I understand Charlie is finding it difficult to earn a living, Mrs Hardwick,’ Blanche said, her voice as friendly as if they had known each other for a long time, ‘and I would
like to give him employment at Gorton.’

Mrs Hardwick gasped.

Carrie heard a similar sound come from beyond the half-open staircase door.

Unsteadily Mrs Hardwick said, ‘I think maybe you don’t understand quite ’ow bad my Charlie is, m’lady. He frightens folks, you see.’

‘Gorton Hall is a convalescent home for wounded officers, Mrs Hardwick. Charlie won’t frighten them. Every one of them will know that what happened to him could easily have happened
to them too, and other people at Gorton will take their example from me. What kind of work did Charlie do before he enlisted?

As Mrs Hardwick hesitated before replying, a shadow fell across the last three steps of the staircase.

Seeing it, Carrie wondered if Blanche was aware that someone was standing just out of sight on the stairs – and had now moved down them a tread or two in order not to miss anything being
said.

Mrs Hardwick plucked again at her apron. ‘Charlie was an agricultural worker, m’lady. Sometimes he worked for Mr Lumsden, sometimes he worked for Mr Benson at Sproggett Farm, and
sometimes he worked for a vicar over at Nosborough.’

‘A vicar?’ Blanche’s sleek, dark eyebrows rose. ‘But why on earth did Nosborough’s vicar require an agricultural labourer?’

Mrs Hardwick cast another nervous look towards the half-open door leading to the stairs. ‘The vicar ’eard as ’ow Charlie was good wi’ flowers – laying ’em out
prettily like.’ Almost apologetically she added, ‘It’s summat Charlie enjoys doing, m’lady.’

‘And will the vicar want Charlie to continue gardening for him?’

Carrie, who had been shocked rigid by the revelation that Blanche intended offering Charlie employment at Gorton Hall, bit her lip, fervently hoping that Mrs Hardwick was going to say yes and
that Blanche’s offer – an offer that would surely terrify Violet out of her wits – wouldn’t need to be taken up.

‘No, m’lady Not now everything’s planted and blooming . . .’

From the staircase a voice raw with bitterness cut across hers. ‘That’s not the reason, Ma, and well you know it.’ Still hidden from view, Charlie said, ‘It was the
vicar’s wife who put paid to me working on t’ garden – and I could ’ave worked, for it’s my face that’s been burned away, not my ’ands. He said she was
very sorry for me, but that I gave ’er a funny turn and that ’e couldn’t ’ave ’er being taken ill on account o’ me.’

Blanche rose to her feet and, facing the stairs but making no move towards them, said, ‘I have Carrie Thornton with me, Charlie. She was in the post office this morning and told me what
happened there. From what she said, I gather you haven’t yet found work. If that is the case, I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider becoming an estate worker at Gorton Hall. The
gardens and parkland have been virtually untended since Gorton’s gardeners enlisted with the 7th Yorkshire Regiment. Mr Crosby –Jim Crosby – does his best, but he’s also
doing stable work and odd jobs, and a house as big as Gorton is never short of work needing doing to it.’

For a tense moment there was still no response and then Charlie said in an odd, abrupt voice, ‘I’m very appreciative of your kindness, Lady Fenton, but you ’aven’t seen
me yet and might think twice when you do. I already scared Miss Violet ’alf to death this morning. I don’t want to do so again.’

‘Violet was scared because what has happened to you hadn’t been explained to her, and because the sight of you was so unexpected. That won’t be the case in the future, as it
won’t be the case with my other two daughters and with everyone else at Gorton, both household staff and nursing staff.’

There was another silence and then came the moment Carrie had been dreading; the moment when Charlie walked down the last of the stair steps and entered the room.

Despite her fierce determination to show no outward sign of horror, Blanche sucked in her breath, shaken to the depths of her being, as everything she had imagined paled in comparison to the
reality.

Charlie stood perfectly still, his eyes holding hers.

Carrie could hardly bear the tension as she watched and waited – and then Blanche dug kid-gloved fingers deep into her palms, saying in a voice that was only slightly unsteady,
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Charlie. I do hope you will become one of Gorton Hall’s estate workers. A tied cottage goes with the position and, if you are agreeable, I will tell
both Mr Heaton and Jim Crosby that you will be arriving tomorrow morning to take over the care of the Hall’s gardens.’

‘Thank you, m’lady.’ There were tears in Charlie’s eyes. ‘I vow you’ll never regret the asking – and if it’s beautiful gardens Your Ladyship
wants, I’ll make gardens so beautiful they’ll be the talk o’ the county!’

NOVEMBER 1918

On a misty day a little over a year after Blanche and Carrie’s visit to the Hardwicks, Blanche burst into Thea and Olivia’s schoolroom with news she had been
praying for every day for four long years.

‘The war is over!’ Her face was radiant with joy. ‘The Germans have signed an armistice!’

Hermione Cumberbatch had been writing on the blackboard. Tall, thin and angular, she dropped the chalk, clapped a hand over her mouth and then, when she could trust herself to speak, put her
hands on either side of her pedestal desk, saying emotionally, ‘Dear Thea and Olivia – remember this moment, for you are living through history. The most terrible war ever known is at
an end. Years of unimaginable struggle, bloodshed and sacrifice are over. There will be no more grieving war widows and war-orphaned children. Today . . .’ her voice surged with pride,
‘today, we are a Christian nation seeing the dawning of a brave new world!’

She turned to Blanche and, in an action so unexpected both Thea and Olivia were never to forget it, the two women hugged each other tightly, tears of relief and joy streaming down their
cheeks.

Aware that such momentous news could, with luck, mean no further lessons for the rest of the day, Thea pushed her chair away from her desk. ‘Do the officers and the nursing staff know the
war is over, Mama? If they don’t, can I go and tell them?’

Laughing through her tears, Blanche broke away from Miss Cumberbatch’s embrace. ‘They already know, darling. Listen!’

By now the sound of jubilation was spreading through the house like wildfire.

‘Then can I go and tell Hal, Mama?’ Thea’s voice was urgent. ‘I do so want to be the first to tell someone.’

‘And me, too, Mama.’ Olivia was also now on her feet. ‘I want to tell Carrie. And what about Mr Crosby and Charlie? Will they know yet? Can I tell them?’

Another sound merged with that of a score of convalescing men roaring out ‘Rule, Britannia!’ at the top of their lungs. Blanche ran across to the window and flung it open, letting in
the distant sound of Outhwaite’s church bells as they rang out peal after glorious peal.

‘I think everyone knows by now, darlings,’ she said, still laughing, so happy she thought she was going to burst with it. ‘But as it is such an extraordinary, historic,
wonderful moment, I’m sure Miss Cumberbatch will let you off lessons for the rest of the day.’

Miss Cumberbatch, who as a staunch Methodist was eager to hurry to the little Methodist chapel in Outhwaite’s High Street in order to give thanks to her Maker for her country’s
deliverance from evil, gave an affirming nod of her head.

Gleefully Thea and Olivia scampered from the room. ‘I’m going to find Hal,’ Thea said as they raced upstairs to their bedroom for hats and coats. ‘You go and tell Jim and
Charlie.’

‘But they’ll already know! How could they not know? The singing and cheering the officers are making can probably be heard as far away as Richmond!’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Still running, they skirted around two housemaids who, with piles of clean linen in their arms, were dancing a jig and singing the national anthem.
‘It’s the being the first to share in the news with them that matters now.’

Once in the bedroom, Olivia hurled herself into a coat and crammed a beret on her head. It was a Monday, so Thea would be heading to the village school in order to find Hal – and if she
found Hal in the school playground, it meant that, of the two of them, she would not only be the first to share the news with Hal, but she would also be the first to share the news with Carrie.

Without waiting for Thea, who was still hooking up the buttons on her winter boots, Olivia ran from the room. It was too bad that she wouldn’t see Carrie before Thea did, but she would
have the kudos of being the first of the two of them where Jim and Charlie were concerned.

The entire west wing of Gorton had been converted into wards and sitting rooms for convalescing soldiers, and as Olivia shot past the double doors of the main sitting room she could hear, above
the singing and cheering, the sound of champagne corks popping. It was a sound that hadn’t been heard at Gorton since before the start of the war, and that it should be heard now would, she
knew, have been her mother’s idea.

Once outside the house the sound of Outhwaite’s church bells was clearer than ever. Olivia paused, breathless from running, wondering who she should seek out first. She knew where Charlie
would be, because for the last month or so he had been busy building a walk-through rockery of large boulders and tree-ferns where the ground shelved down on the far side of the east wing’s
grand lawn. It was a project Jim sometimes helped him with, and she decided to head for the rockery-in-the-making in the hope that she would find not only Charlie there, but Jim as well.

Taking a deep breath and beginning to run once again, she headed for the east wing’s grand lawn, reflecting on how odd it was that Charlie and Jim had become such good friends. Because
Charlie had enlisted at the first opportunity and suffered such a horrendous legacy for having done so, and because Jim hadn’t seen a day of fighting, everyone – even her mother –
had expected that even if Jim was able to come to terms with Charlie’s nightmarish disfigurement, Charlie would want nothing to do with him.

Olivia hadn’t been there when her mother had taken it upon herself to make the potentially difficult introduction, but much later, when she had finally been able to be in Charlie’s
presence without shuddering and wanting to run away from him, he had told her how Jim had made things easy between the two of them right from the beginning.

‘The instant folks see me, they can’t hide their feelings, no matter how hard they try. And truth to tell, I don’t know which of their feelings is the worst: horror, fear or
pity.’

He had been taking a break from scything grass that hadn’t been tended since the last of the gardeners had left for the front.

With his hands around a mug of steaming tea he’d said, ‘There was shock on Jim’s face, but nowt else. Then Jim said, “Holy hell, mate! But you well and truly copped
it!” and he shook my hand and said he’d show me around so that I could get my bearings. It was the way he said “mate” that made things grand between us, right from the off.
Jim might have a bit of a roving eye for the ladies, but he’s a champion bloke and, if he could have enlisted, he would have.’

By the time she was only halfway across the great east lawn Olivia was too out of puff to continue running. She staggered to a halt, taking in great gulps of air. There was a smell of damp
leaves and wood smoke, and the grass beneath her feet was rimed with the remainder of the previous night’s frost. She set off again at a fast walk, beginning to hope that although Charlie
would have realized the ringing of church bells meant good news, he might still be unaware it meant the war was finally over and that, if he was, she would be the one to break the news to him.

Ground at the far end of the lawn, where the rockery was being built, shelved down to a stream that eventually ran into Outhwaite’s river. She found Charlie and Jim at the bottom of the
dip and, though it was obvious they had been working, their shovels and pickaxes had been cast aside and Jim was sitting on one of the giant boulders while Charlie leaned against an adjacent one.
Both of them had cigarettes between their fingers.

‘It’s over!’ she shouted, holding onto her beret and slipping and sliding down the slope towards them. ‘The war is over!’

Charlie nipped his cigarette out. ‘We reckoned it was when the bells began ringing.’ He smiled at her. ‘It’s kind of you to come and tell us, though.’

‘I wanted to be the first to break the news to you.’ She came to a breathless halt in front of them, confused by his lack of emotion. ‘Why aren’t you singing and
cheering? Everyone at Gorton is.’

‘Aye, well, they’ll probably calm down a bit when they think on what’s been achieved and at what cost.’

The expression in the one eye that was now visible – the other eye had long been covered by the black eye-patch from the dressing-up box – was bleak.

Seeing her confusion, Jim tossed the butt of his cigarette into the stream. ‘It might be victory, but what’s the prize? Millions dead, and God alone knows how many more millions
wounded and maimed. And for what? You tell me, Olivia lass, because I’m jiggered if I know. Officers may be singing and cheering this morning, but it won’t be long before they’ll
be remembering today as a day of mourning – and you can’t be jubilant when you’re mourning.’