Dorothy Eden (15 page)

Freddie curled up beside her in the big leather chair and she read aloud, “
Thus all night long they sat across the corridors of battle, thinking great thoughts and keeping their many fires alight…
”

How could a little boy understand this complicated and diverse collection of characters? By his complete attention he seemed to. He was like a little elderly scholar. Perhaps he just enjoyed the companionship and being read to.

“You’ll make him into a Cambridge don,” Kitty grumbled. “Are you going to do the same with your own child?”

“I intend that he’ll be more than just a Master of the Hunt.” Hetty said.

Kitty was amused. “What a thing to say in this house!”

“Then don’t tell Hugo. Anyway, of course, he may be a girl.”

“Then you’ll have to go on trying until you get a boy. It will certainly be expected of you.”

The haunting anxiety came back.

“If only there’s time. Oh, Kitty, there’s got to be time for both of us.”

“Cheer up, the war will end one day. Or else—”

“Else what?”

“We’ll get back wounded heroes.” Kitty’s eyes momentarily went dark. “I see too many of those. But better than dead ones,” she finished briskly, although adding thoughtfully, “At least, some of them.”

Then there was the day of the tea party. In the summer drawing room, not in the garden, because autumn, though balmy and golden, could be changeable and one didn’t want the ladies to have to scurry indoors out of a sudden cold breeze. Fallen leaves lay like doubloons and tresses of dark golden hair on the smoky water of the lake. The lawns prickled with chestnut husks. There were not enough people available to tidy up, so the charming disarray would linger into winter.

The war in France seemed to be intensifying, rather than nearing an end. But Lady Flora had decided to have a modest female tea party, since so few men were available nowadays, and anyway only women enjoyed tea parties.

Hetty would have chosen to be anywhere, up in the roof rafters with Tom Grubb, in the library with Freddie, even down at the stables with Julia, rather than in the summer drawing room among all those formal women. She was three months’ pregnant, and therefore presumably safe from miscarriage. Now there could be no alternative to telling Hugo because eight or nine curious females would soon guess her condition. She had so treasured her secret, reluctant to share the coming baby even with its father—almost as though it could be something entirely her own. But she must guard against a tendency to become too secretive. Surely the time for extreme wariness and suspicion was past. Even Uncle Jonas had written:

I am making a further transfer of money to your bank, as you requested, since you seem to have set your mind on rebuilding that tumbledown old house. But don’t let these people bleed you dry. You’re young and romantic now. You may feel very different about your famous Loburn in a few years. Personally I prefer fine solid modern architecture such as ours. Don’t take offence at this advice. I am, as you know, a cautious business man.

There had been no trouble in that direction, thank goodness. She was accepted as the legitimate heiress to a large estate.

But the baby was private and personal, a delicate presence that was still entirely hers. It made this strange life, through which she was treading so carefully, real. In comparison with what she had already accomplished, she should be able to take a handful of inquisitive women in her stride.

They sat in their silks and laces and wide-brimmed hats, sipping tea out of Lady Flora’s fine bone china, and being waited on by a slightly flustered Effie who had been trained to dress, not to feed, her superiors.

Hetty had been bidden to sit in their midst so that they could all talk to her. They had previously only seen her in church. Even with a war on she was living too secluded a life, they said. They could scarcely believe it was by her own choice. She was so charming, too. Were her eyes grey or green? Like the sea, weren’t they?—though perhaps she didn’t want to be reminded of that. And didn’t Hugo love her dimples? And wasn’t she longing for him to be home on leave? Not to mention how desperately, poor fellow, he must want to return to his bride.

Somewhere a cup clattered. It was Julia’s. She had put it down too carelessly.

“Julia, my dear, ring the bell for some more hot water.”

“Of course, Lady Flora.” Submissive, slim and patrician, in her simple blue dress, furious behind her wide beautiful eyes. Did no one else sense that mounting rage in her?

It was the first time in public that she had had to stand back and watch Hetty, the foreigner, usurping what she had dreamed about being her position. She was finding it almost impossible to preserve the well-mannered obedience Lady Flora expected of her. Surely Lady Flora, who was a highly-intelligent woman, must be aware of this, and should have found Julia a safer, less emotional position. Was she then enjoying an explosive situation in the way of bored old ladies longing for drama? Or was it Julia who had privately begged to stay at Loburn?

No one else in the room appeared to be conscious of under-currents. Unless it was old Mrs Entwhistle, the lady in black lace and diamonds, who said vaguely, “We had always thought it was Julia Hugo was devoted to, Flora. Didn’t we, Margaret?”

Margaret, her elderly sister, concurred with a vague nod of the head, and Lady Flora outdid the determined vagueness of the two ladies with her murmur, “He was, of course. He still is, indeed. Dear Julia. We have made her one of the family. My boys are like brothers to her. Well, cousins, anyway.”

And then a beak-nosed lady with sharp eyes said directly to Hetty, “I met a survivor from the
Lusitania
only last week. The Eversleigh girl, Flora. She had been visiting an aunt in Boston and was coming home to join the Red Cross. Katharine Eversleigh, Hetty. I may call you Hetty, may I not?”

“Of course,” said Hetty, her throat dry.

“Did you happen to run into Katharine? She had a stateroom on the promenade deck.”

“Wasn’t that where you and your mother were, Hetty?” said Lady Flora with interest. “I seem to remember you saying that the lifeboats were launched from near your stateroom.”

Hetty swallowed. She was afraid her voice would come out in a croak. Instead it was a whisper.

“Yes, we were lucky to be so near the lifeboats. But that still didn’t save dear Mamma.”

“Poor child. Adelaide, you shouldn’t have brought up such a painful subject.” That was a kinder voice.

“I can’t hear what she’s saying. You didn’t run into Kate Eversleigh, Hetty?”

Hetty made another effort.

“There were so many passengers. We didn’t know their names.”

“Well, perhaps you’ll recognise her when you meet her again.”

“Again?”

“She’s bound to be at balls and parties. Unless she’s got herself sent to France with the Red Cross, which is quite probable. Brave gal.”

Hetty pressed her hands to her cheeks in her habitual defensive gesture.

“I’m a coward, I confess it. I still can’t bear to be reminded of that awful time.”

She meant to look up pleadingly at her innocent persecutor, but found herself staring right into Julia’s eyes, those enigmatic eyes with their held-back anger. She thought she detected a flicker of something else—awareness, excitement, determination?

Oh, bother this sunny drawing room full of chattering bejewelled parrots. She was going to make the winter drawing room hers, she suddenly decided, since she couldn’t have the music room, and this lovely garden-facing room was so much a family retreat. It was where somebody like her belonged. And it had the advantage of facing the sweep of drive down which Hugo would come home. She would move the pictures she liked best from the gallery, and arrange brighter furnishings.

Yes, she would sit in there this evening before dinner and write to Hugo about their child. She made the letter up in her head.

Your mother had some of her friends to tea today and they all stared at me, and I’m afraid they guessed my secret. Hugo darling, I have been hugging it to my breast for three months until I was absolutely sure. Now I can safely tell you that we are going to have a child before next spring. I hope it will be a boy, not only for your sake but because I would dearly like a son. However, if it is not a boy we will try again. Does this make you happier in your miserable horrible trenches? I do so hope it does …

“Hetty! Hetty! Can you come here? Kitty’s not home from the hospital yet and we can’t find Freddie. Nanny has been searching the house and garden.”

Julia was in the hall, and changed from her tea party dress into pullover and riding breeches.

Hetty sprang up. “I haven’t seen him since lunchtime.”

“Oh, dear, where is he? Pimm said he saw him on the edge of the woods earlier and he said something about finding Mount Olympus. Have you been putting these ideas in his head?”

Freddie had been so completely fascinated by Zeus, the Cloud Gatherer, the Queen of Heaven, Achilles of the fleet foot, Hector, Tamer of Horses, and the other immortals. What were immortals? “People who live for ever,” Hetty said. “Not like us.”

“I’d dearly like to see them.”

“You see them in your mind, the way Daddy does.”

“And the Black Ships,” said Freddie. “Can I see them in my mind?”

“He’s a very imaginative little boy,” Hetty said to Julia. Of course one put ideas in a child’s head, stocked his brain for future use. Julia didn’t need to sound so accusing. “I’ll come and look for him. He can’t be far away.”

“I’m going to saddle Monarch,” Julia said. “We think Freddie may have headed for the Four Hills. His version of Mount Olympus. Do you think you could ride? Then we could take different directions.”

Hetty didn’t wait to change. She could scramble on to Bessie in her skirts. She had a horrible premonition of disaster. Freddie was small for his age, and not at all athletic. He could have tumbled into a ditch or, worse, into a stream. Water, dark and menacing, always came into Hetty’s nightmares. She thought of the black lake beyond the yew trees. How terrible if that had to be drained. And if Kitty, and later Lionel, should come home to find their only son had drowned, while looking for the Black Ships of Troy.

Regret for stirring Freddie’s too fertile imagination with the
Iliad,
and her permanent suppressed guilt, made Hetty feel sick. She hurried behind Julia’s slim striding figure.

“Damn, the groom isn’t here,” Julia exclaimed. “I believe he said he was going to help harvest the last of the wheat. We’ll have to do this ourselves, Hetty. Do you feel capable?”

“Of course I feel capable,” Hetty lied. She was never going to be a bold rider. Truth to tell, she was still alarmed by horses, a fact Hugo would be bound to discover.

“Then you skirt the woods, and I’ll go through them,” Julia ordered. “Don’t gallop. For God’s sake, be careful. We don’t want an accident. You’re less likely to see a small boy if you’re galloping madly, anyway.”

The sky was still clear and bright over the hills, but in the valley the long shadows stroked the autumn grass. A cool wind was stirring. Bessie was fresh and wanted to gallop. Hetty tried to rein her in. She was so used to Julia at her side, watchful and careful, that she felt terribly alone and afraid. As she had been alone, clinging to a lifebelt in the endless sea. At first she couldn’t search in the dips and hollows for Freddie’s tow-coloured head. She was too intent on staying in the saddle. At last, however, Bessie settled down to a sedate trot, and she guided her nearer to the edge of the woods.

“Freddie! Freddie!” Her voice, or the horse’s intrusive presence, stirred a tawny owl from its perch. It glided soundlessly, a small feathered galleon, across her path, making Bessie dart sideways in fright. She soon settled down again, however, but one prayed that no foxes or other woodland creatures would dart out of the undergrowth.

Where was Freddie? Surely he couldn’t have reached the last of the Four Hills, his personal Mount Olympus. That was more than two miles away.

Were they right in assuming he was out in this evening landscape at all? Had Julia jumped too impulsively to conclusions? But what would Kitty say if he were lost? And Lionel, so dangerously scaling his own war-torn Mount Olympus?

One must—Hetty’s thought was never completed. For there was suddenly an abrupt explosion in the woodland, something towering and huge dashed out, and Bessie, startled beyond measure, flung herself sideways and then into a gallop. Hetty hadn’t a hope of staying in the saddle. Her foot caught for a wrenching moment in the stirrup. The last thing she was aware of was sliding rapidly and terrifyingly head first to the ground.

“H
ETTY!”

A small anxious voice came out of the mist, the memory of agonising pain, the weakness. She tried to move, pushing away the horrid debris floating on the waves, struggling to cling more firmly to the lifebelt.

“Hetty, you’re not going to die, are you?”

“No, no, I’m a survivor,” she shouted, and with reviving consciousness knew that her voice was inaudible to the bewildered little face at the side of her bed.

“Freddie!” Memory surged back. Her relief was so great that she was almost able to move her stiff lips in a smile. “You’re safe!”

“I wasn’t lost, Hetty. I was only up in the roof with Tom. He helped me up the ladder. Nanny needn’t have got into such a taking.”

“Now, young man, you must go!” Someone in nurse’s uniform was pushing Freddie to the door. A nurse. Good heavens, was she ill?

Yes, she was ill. She felt pain in her head, and a nasty sinister ache in her womb. She had a sensation of nausea and deep apprehension.

“Are you a nurse?”

“I’m Sister Best, Lady Hazzard.”

“Then where am I?”

Not in her lovely shadowy bedroom at Loburn, in the wide bed, with Hugo’s side kept immaculately for his return. This was a small dreary room, the bed narrow and iron-framed.

“You’re in the Cirencester hospital, my dear. You had a riding accident. You don’t remember?”

She tried to shake her head, but it hurt. Beneath the sheets her hands lay on her flattened womb.