Dorothy Eden (17 page)

“Certainly you shouldn’t ride when you’re pregnant,” Kitty said in her practical manner. “That’s crazy.”

“I won’t ride at all,” Hetty repeated. “I don’t suppose I’ll be ostracised for that. People will only think I’m a quaint American. Anyway, there won’t be time for riding, there’ll be too many other things Hugo and I want to do. For instance, Tom Grubb said there must be some of the original plans of Loburn around, and I intend searching for them. It’s so exciting, like a treasure hunt. When we find them we can start planning restorations as they should be done. Uncle Jonas says I can have all the money I need. He can’t refuse me because it’s my money. Hugo will be terribly pleased, won’t he?” She was playing her trump card. She looked defiantly at Julia. Answer that, she challenged.

Julia’s eyebrows lifted delicately. “Is Hugo interested in architecture? I had never noticed. Had you, Lady Flora?”

“So many things come down to money,” Lady Flora sighed, under her breath. She added more audibly, “Of my two sons I would have said Lionel was the one to enlist in support of such ambitious plans. Don’t you agree, Kitty?”

“Goodness me, yes.” Kitty flung herself into the discussion, unaware that she was taking sides. “He’s been longing to take down the ceiling in the hall and expose the old beams. That’s the oldest part of the house, Hetty. That and the winter drawing room. They go back to Tudor times. I should think those old plans are somewhere in the library behind those acres of books. Oh yes, Lionel will be off his head with excitement if he’s allowed to scratch away at panelling and brickwork. But not Hugo. I don’t think you can convert him from being an outdoor man, Hetty.”

So the winter drawing room had housed ladies in fur-trimmed velvet gowns and close-fitting caps trimmed with pearls. Ladies who sat stitching at fine tapestries and had small pug dogs nestling at their feet. Hetty’s trump card had been out-trumped, but just now she didn’t mind. Her instincts about that room had been right. A frisson of pleasure ran over her. Now, whenever this complex situation she had involved herself in became too nerve-racking, she could retire to the winter drawing room and deliberately re-create the past, in whatever colourful and peaceful terms she chose.

More practically, since she had to live in the same house as Julia, a semblance of manners would have to be observed. This did not make Julia any less of an enemy, but her misconception of Hetty as someone rich and pampered and naïve would eventually be her downfall. Little did she know that she was tangling with a tough slum child accustomed to being bullied, cheated and deprived, and with a strongly-developed instinct for survival.

However, Hetty didn’t underestimate these stiff-backed English women either. After all, she had already had experience of Julia’s methods. From now on it was not to be just antagonism but war. A ladylike war? Hetty doubted it. And suddenly felt brilliantly alive again.

Her new-found equanimity was all too short lived, however. The next week in the hospital ward, inhabited by long rows of young men, some lying flat and heavily bandaged, some sitting up and grinning perkily at the new arrival, some staring with a hollow unreachable gaze, she was nearly undone.

Kitty had arranged with the sister in charge for Hetty’s visit, and had told her to go to the farther end of the ward where the partially or wholly blinded were.

It was bad enough that the high-ceilinged gloomy room with its iron beds and recumbent forms reminded her vividly of the room in Kinsale where she had recovered from her near-drowning. The awareness of human misery pressed on her with a deadly familiarity, and she had a choking feeling of being unable to breathe, of wanting to close her eyes and slip into unconsciousness.

But a cocky voice called after her, “Hey, miss, you going to waste yourself on chaps who can’t see you? Come and talk to me.” And to her relief she found that she could smile.

“Later I will. But I must talk to these men.”

There were four of them, three with bandaged eyes and relatively unmarked faces, the fourth so muffled in bandages that there were only small holes for his nose and mouth. It was this pathetic form, this travesty of a human being, that drew her. She stood near his bed and said brightly, “Hi, boys. I’ve come to write letters for you, or do anything you want. Just talk, if you like. Were you all wounded in France?”

One answered quite cheerfully, “Me and Bert and Ken were. Donnie’s an airman. Hadn’t even got to France, had you, Donnie? Came down in flames at the flying field near here.”

Donnie! Donald?

“How terrible. How—” Hetty’s voice trembled. This wouldn’t do. Stiff upper lip, Kitty had said. She bent over the mummified mask. “Can I do anything for you, Donnie? Do you want to send a message to anyone? I can write it for you.”

There was the slightest stir in the bed. A faint hoarse voice issued through the hole in the bandages.

“You’re … a Yankee … That voice … I’m sure I know it… Who … are you?” Then there was a grotesque sound of triumph. “I’ve … got it. You’re Hetty … Hetty Brown!”

A nurse came bustling to the bedside, speaking in a low voice.

“This won’t do, Lady Hazzard. You mustn’t excite my patient.”

Hetty had backed away, her hands pressed to her cheeks in the old panic-stricken way.

“He thinks I’m someone he knows. He must be wandering.”

The nurse’s expression remained calm and unsuspicious. “Not surprising, poor lad. He’s a Canadian. What’s more he nearly drowned on the
Lusitania
before collecting this.”

Hetty could hear the muffled longing whisper. “Hetty, is it you? Can’t be … They said she drowned …”

The nurse was pushing screens into place round the bed. She glanced at Hetty. “You’re no use here if you’re the fainting kind.”

“I’m all right,” said Hetty stiffly. “What will happen to—Donnie?”

The nurse’s calm broke; her whisper was angry.

“I’m not God. Now go and be cheerful with the others. If you can’t be, you’d better come back another day.”

In the end she didn’t disgrace herself. She managed to chat to the other three men and listen to their hardy jokes. No more sounds came from behind the screen. Donald Newman! How could it be that he had survived the shipwreck without her knowing? She wanted to go behind the screen and hold his hand. She despised herself for not daring to. She could have said it was only her American voice that had made him think she was this person called Hetty Brown.

But then she would have had to say that Hetty Brown must be dead, and the very thought of that made her throat dry up. How could she have anticipated what terrible pitfalls existed in a life of deception? If she had known Donald Newman had survived, would that have prevented her from embarking on her deception? How well did she know herself? How strong were her ambitions?

There was no use in imagining a different set of circumstances. But if Donald had survived, unknown to her, couldn’t Clemency have done so, too? She could be suffering from amnesia and sheltered by someone. It wasn’t likely, but in this nightmare moment anything seemed possible.

Could she go back to the hospital tomorrow? Yes, she told herself, she could. It was the least she could do. She would sit beside that travesty of a young man and talk to him about America, about Canada, about anything. And if he could answer her, she would listen. He wouldn’t be able to see her tears.

However, the next day the bed at the end of the ward was empty. The same nurse saw her staring at the smooth white sheets.

“Moved to London,” she said cheerily in a voice intended for the listening ears in the neighbouring beds. “To a hospital where they specialise in burns.”

“Oh, I thought—”

The blue eyes glittered, daring her to speak her fears.

“The boys will be glad you’ve come again. They took to your voice. Cute, they called it.”

And Hetty knew that Donald was dead.

Or was he?

Was she going to encounter him again at the some unexpected time?

Nothing was safe. Nothing. But at this point there was no turning back. Besides, she admitted honestly to herself, she didn’t want to. Loburn beckoned, the return of Hugo beckoned, the prospect of having another child beckoned most of all. If she could achieve that last desire, she surely would have made amends for all her guilt.

H
UGO WAS HOME. IN
the middle of the morning Hetty saw him walking down the circular drive, his kitbag slung over his shoulder. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She had to rush across the hall and out of the front door to see if he were real. She was so glad to be the first to welcome him, even ahead of Bates who hadn’t known the master was about to ring the doorbell, and therefore was not stationed in the right position.

“Hugo!” She threw her arms round him. “It really is you?”

He gave a smile that was uncomfortably not a smile. His face was gaunt and yellowish.

“You sound doubtful.”

“I’ve been inclined to see ghosts. Who doesn’t nowadays?” She was babbling. “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

“It was short notice. The C.O. said I could have four days while the company is in rest billets, before the next push.”

“Four days! Is that all?” Hetty saw his tightened face. “But that’s magnificent,” she said quickly. “How did you get here?”

“I got a lift with some airmen on their way to the airfield. In an old Ford that threatened to expire at any moment. Hadn’t we better go in?”

“I don’t want to share you with anyone,” Hetty said, clinging to his arm. The frown flickered between his brows. She saw that he would have to be humoured. “But I won’t be that selfish. Shall we go in and ring the gong triumphantly? No, better not. It will scare your mother. Oh darling, you do look as if you’re in need of rest and sustenance.”

“I’m perfectly fit.” The stiffness was in his voice again. “How’s Mother? Julia? The horses?”

And me, your wife? Ask me how I am. And smile at me properly, Hugo. Please.

“Everyone’s well.” She sighed. “Only four days. We must count every hour, every minute.”

Freddie said, “Why does Uncle Hugo look so angry, Hetty?”

“Angry?”

“You must have noticed,” Freddie said in his elderly way.

“I don’t think he’s angry. Just tired and trying to forget bad things. Bad things happen in wars, even in Hector’s on the plains of Sparta.”

“His eyes stick out,” said Freddie, “is that from all the banging of the guns?”

Hetty had noticed that distressing feature, too. Hugo’s bright blue eyes, so startlingly attractive when she had first seen them, had grown paler and somehow more bulbous. It must just be that his face was thinner, and stiffened into the mask of composure that he thought necessary to wear in all situations.

Four days were not going to be anything like time enough to ease the massive strain from which Hetty knew he was suffering. If she had sufficient time she would break down the barriers. What he needed was communication, loving, forgetfulness. But would she ever have time?

As it was the four women dined that night with a polite stranger. Kitty prattled, Lady Flora made vague irrelevant remarks, and Julia had a hectic flush in her cheeks and looked distressingly beautiful. Hetty remained almost as silent as her husband but not discontentedly so. After all, once again she held the trump card. She would presently be sharing his bed.

Though that turned out to be a farce, for, obviously in a state of extreme exhaustion, Hugo simply fell back on the pillows and slept.

She didn’t sleep herself until the early hours, and then when she woke, it was daylight and he had gone.

Riding with Julia, of course.

He hadn’t even asked how her own riding was progressing, nor whether she would care to be his companion this morning. It was Julia he met in the frosty dawn, and when they returned there was a distinct change in Hugo’s attitude. He looked more relaxed, his eyes brighter, and with a glimmering of pleasure. He even looked at Hetty as if he actually saw her.

“Morning, darling. Hope I didn’t disturb you when I got up. Julia’s been showing me the new filly. Nice creature. We’ll have her mated in the spring. Sorry. I’ll be boring you. Julia tells me you’ve decided you don’t like horses.”

It was good to see Hugo looking so rejuvenated. Nevertheless …

“Not as much as children,” Hetty said deliberately.

He put his arm round her waist, giving her a powerful squeeze.

“Julia told me. My poor darling. And you never said a word to me.”

“I expect Julia told you how it happened, too.”

“Yes. Wretched bad luck. She was crying, poor girl. She said she didn’t know how to live with her guilty conscience.”

“I expect she’ll manage. We all do.”

“It was an accident.”

“Of course.”

“And what have you got to be guilty about? It wasn’t your fault, either. A bit foolhardy, perhaps. Our next child will be born safely. It had better be, or I might start talking about carelessness.”

She didn’t mind his reprimand. Warmth flowed through her. Tonight was going to be different. He was rested, refreshed, they would make love, a child would be conceived. Which came first, his desire for her or for the eleventh baron, the new young lord to inherit Loburn?

Indeed, which came first with her?

“Hugo, I make you a solemn promise that the next time I will look after myself like a rare orchid, or spun glass.”

“Just sensibly, dear girl. That’s all I expect. And now tell me what Tom Grubb is doing up in the roof? Are we rebuilding Loburn?”

“We’re beginning to.”

“Absolutely splendid. You’re a capable woman, aren’t you?”

“And healthy as well,” said Hetty. “I expect we’ll end up with ten children. We’ll help to repopulate the world.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The shadow flickered in his eyes.

“Then let’s get mortality out of our minds. We’ve both had enough of that.”

That oblique remark was the only one he made about what had been happening on the battlefield in Flanders, the long terrible battle of Ypres, the uncountable dead.

They went upstairs early that night. There was a bottle of champagne on ice in the bedroom, just as there had been on their wedding night. Julia had disappeared earlier, almost tactfully, damn her. So had Lady Flora, but not to go to her room. She was playing the piano in the music room. Hetty thought that the pure muted sound would make a delicate romantic accompaniment to their love-making. She was wrong. A Brahms nocturne was not suitable to the violence of Hugo’s attack on her.