Dorothy Eden (19 page)

Some weeks after the end of the Gallipoli fiasco a letter came from Lionel in hospital in Alexandria. He had got another bout of fever but was recovering and would surely then get leave. All the fit men were being sent to France where the Somme offensive was gathering strength. The sunburnt young Australians and New Zealanders, casual, heroic, and splendid in stature, were gratefully received and sucked into another form of trench warfare. Not unscalable heights this time, but the flat desolate stretch of no-man’s-land, glimmering evilly with mud and stagnant pools and unspeakable debris.

Hugo’s letters had become shorter, less frequent, and completely unemotional. He was in good shape, he hadn’t had a scratch, he hoped the roof at Loburn was finished and watertight, that Hetty wasn’t overdoing the hospital work, that everyone was well. He had no word of any leave at present.

Then there was a knock on Hetty’s bedroom door early one morning. She thought it was Effie with her tea tray. She looked at the bedside clock. Six-thirty. Hugo?

Her heart beginning to thump, she called eagerly, “Come in!” However, her visitor was already in, unable to wait for permission. The small head just showed above her bedside.

“Hetty! Hetty! Daddy’s home. He came in the middle of the night, at five o’clock. Mummy laughed like anything and then cried, and then he went to bed because he was tired.”

Hetty’s first reaction was sharp disappointment that the unexpected arrival in the early morning had not been Hugo. She chided herself for her selfishness and kissed Freddie, and said, “How lovely! Tell Mummy to come and see me the minute she can.”

Kitty came half an hour later, still in her dressing gown, her expression a mixture of joy and anxiety.

“Hetty, he’s so thin! And utterly exhausted. He came back on a hospital ship to Southampton, and then escaped from a troop train—so he says—and got someone to drive him here. He’s not medically discharged yet, and I’m insisting on him reporting to the hospital as soon as he’s had a rest. I’m really praying that he won’t be fit for active service again, though I don’t suppose I want an invalid husband either. It’s malaria, and they ran short of quinine on board ship, so he’ll soon improve when he’s properly treated. Lady Flora’s buzzing about like a queen bee, but even she’s not going to get to see Lionel until he’s rested.”

“Kitty darling! What wonderful news, Lionel home and not shot to pieces. That’s what I dread so much for Hugo, some sort of mutilation.”

“Yes, I know. But malaria’s no joke, either. I have to keep going in to look at Lionel and make sure I haven’t been dreaming. Hugo won’t get badly shot, Hetty. I just know. He could always look after himself. And when he gets home they’ll be the Hazzard brothers again. That’s how they’ve always been known. And we’ll be the Hazzard wives.”

The shape in the high-backed wing chair beside a fire that needed replenishing was scarcely more than a shadow. Hetty had been sitting at her embroidery frame for half an hour before she noticed that it was there. It was only when she switched on the lamp beside her that she saw the two dark eyes looking at her. For a second, fantasy possessed her. Here was Jacobina’s lover—for she must surely have had one—and he would have been a slim quiet cavalier like this, wrapped in a bottle-green velvet robe, his dark head tilted against the wing of the chair.

“You must be my sister-in-law,” said a weary voice. “I’ve been watching you. You make a picture of grace. Who told me Hugo was going to marry a chatter-box American? Or did I just think of a type for Hugo—like happy families, horsey husband, neighing wife.”

Hetty hardly dared to open her mouth. She had an instant and overpowering desire that he should like her voice, the words she said, her looks. “A picture of grace.” He must have thought he had been looking at the Tudor lady, busy with her long-ago needlework.

“You thought I was Jacobina. That lady.” She pointed at the yellow portrait. “I thought you were a ghost, too. You’re Lionel, of course. It did surprise me to see someone sitting there.”

“And I woke up and saw you,” he said. “But why were you so surprised to see someone here?”

“Because you didn’t make a sound, and because this is my room, and I selfishly made a rule that no one was to come in without my permission. The winter room. I suddenly fell in love with it. And no one else wanted it. Lady Flora and Julia have the music room and the summer drawing room, and Kitty has her own suite. I wanted somewhere of my own. I’m still rather an alien here.”

“Still?”

“So I sit in this room, kind of wrapping it round me like a soft old cloak. No, Kitty doesn’t let me be an alien, nor Freddie. But—your mother—she’s distant. And Julia—”

“What is Julia?”

Hetty couldn’t resist her answer. “I think of her as a high-stepping chestnut mare, rather mean at times. Oh—” she put her hand to her mouth, “Whatever is making me talk like this? Are you one of those men who make women say indiscreet things? Let me put on some lights so I can see you properly. And I’ll ring for Effie to bring some tea. Will you have tea with me?”

“If I’m permitted to stay. This room used to be a favourite retreat of mine, too.”

“Oh, did it? Then I must give it back to you.”

“I’ll refuse it. Or can’t we share occasionally? Hetty, do stand still a minute, will you? I’ve been looking at scruffy unwashed males for so long I’d almost forgotten there was another sex.”

Hetty stood in the firelight, not knowing what opinion he was forming of her. She wished vaguely that Hugo had sometimes looked at her with this deep totally absorbed interest. Then she forgot Hugo and was aware only of the thin face, the sunken fever-bright eyes. Satirical brows, narrow curving lips, an emphatic chin. A clever face that could be full of intolerance, or alternatively of sweetness. Or so she guessed.

Why had she not asked to see photographs of him, why hadn’t she been prepared for this? Freddie’s father who wrote funny letters about mermaids, and the gods of Olympus. Kitty’s husband.

He stared at her for some moments. Then all he said was, “Lucky Hugo. Let’s have that tea, shall we? I suddenly feel hungry.”

Hetty went to ring the bell. She switched on more lights and felt her cheeks hot.

“You’ve decided that I am a chatterbox?”

“I’ve never heard a chatterbox with a charming voice like yours. So if you are, another of my theories will have been proved wrong.”

Now that the lights were on the room was ordinary again, or as ordinary as it could ever be, with its old panelling and its deep-set windows. The dream they had both walked into for that brief few minutes, for she knew that he, watching her at her needlework, had been in the same dream as hers, had gone. He was a very tired sick soldier, perhaps hallucinating a little, and she was still bedevilled by her private ghosts.

She had the instinct to know the situation was a little dangerous. But she could control it, she was growing harder all the time.

“And the other theory?” she said lightly.

“The reason you married Hugo. Have I the right to ask for any explanations?”

“I expect so. You’re Hugo’s brother. Well, then, Hugo married me for my money and I married him to get a title and to live in an English manor house and to curtsey to royalty, and all that. That’s what they’ve told you, isn’t it?”

“More or less.”

“It’s only a fraction of the truth. I want to love Hugo and have him love me, if only we ever get enough time together. That’s the real situation. And it would have all been a success if I hadn’t arrived in such bad shape, and he hadn’t had to leave almost immediately for the front. There’s really nothing more to say. Here’s Effie. Bring tea for us here, Effie. Is Mrs Lionel home?”

“Not yet, my lady, but she said she’d be back by five. She couldn’t not go to the hospital because there was a dying man she’d promised. And excusing me, sir, she said you was asleep and not to be disturbed.”

“Then when she arrives tell her we’re waiting for her in here,” Hetty said. “And ask Bates to build up the fire. It’s still chilly in the evenings. You’ll feel it, Lionel, after Egypt. You’re terribly thin, aren’t you?”

“There’s a great deal more to say,” Lionel said.

“About what?”

“Your marriage. It intrigues me. Vastly. You’re not in the least a hostessy fashionable ambitious lady. You look as if you think too much, for one thing.”

“I suffered a sea change,” Hetty murmured. “That’s what Julia says.”

“Perhaps you did. You had a particularly horrible time, Kitty told me.”

“But I never was a hostessy lady,” Hetty said, and experienced the greatest relief to be speaking, for once, complete truth. “Hugo fascinated me. He still does. And I’m already besotted by Loburn, which pleases him. We’ve got all our lives ahead of us and we’re going to be very happy, and have children, and repair and rebuild Loburn in the way it should be done. I’m going to start looking for the original plans which I’m told should be somewhere in the house.”

“Of course. What a marvellous idea. Will you let me help?”

“Oh, yes. I’d be so happy if you would.”

Looking at his face which was full of lively enthusiasm, she couldn’t resist adding, “I only wish Hugo was more interested, but architecture doesn’t appeal to him, Julia says. The way you’re looking now is the sort of look he’ll have when he has a newly-born colt or filly in his stables.”

Lionel laughed and began to cough. Hetty exclaimed in remorse, “We’re talking too much. I think you should be quiet now.”

He did become quiet, but not before he said, “For a minute you had a tiny little viper’s tongue in that delicious mouth. How intriguing.”

Kitty found them there half an hour later. Lionel had fallen asleep again, as suddenly as a child. For the first time Hetty saw Kitty looking cross and put out.

“How could you have let him come downstairs? You can see the shape he’s in,” she whispered angrily.

“Don’t blame me, Kitty. I just looked up and saw him sitting there. So I rang for tea and we talked a little and then he fell asleep.”

Hetty was so overcome emotionally that tears began running down her cheeks. “Oh, Kitty, you’re so lucky, you have your husband home. If only I had mine.”

Kitty’s anger vanished and she came and clung to Hetty, weeping herself.

“Oh, goodness! Lionel might wake up. Don’t let him find two wailing women.”

“Did that soldier die?”

“Private Albert Mays? Yes, he died. But I was there to hold his hand.” A great sob came up out of Kitty’s throat. “He saw I had kept my promise, and he put his hand in mine and just went to sleep. Poor Kids. That’s all a lot of them are, wanting their mums’ hands to hold.”

Hetty looked at Lionel’s sleeping face. She felt overcome with an aching sorrow.

“And this one, Kitty?”

“We’ll get him up to bed. Doctor Bailey is looking in later. He says it sounds like a week or ten days in bed and no visitors. Not even Freddie except for a few minutes at a time. Lady Flora isn’t going to like that. And the rule applies to you, too, Hetty, and to Julia.”

“But won’t he be lonely?”

“I’ll be with him,” Kitty said simply.

The ache in Hetty’s throat grew sharper. She was afraid that she was never again going to like sitting alone in the winter drawing room.

The next time she saw Lionel was ten days later. Then, dressed in army uniform, he was being helped into the Rolls, with Pimm on one side of him and Kitty on the other. He was off to a medical board. Kitty was hoping he would be invalided out of the army, but more likely the verdict would be extended sick leave. At least, after today’s interview, he would be allowed more freedom. Hetty guessed that he would take it, with or without permission. Freddie had said that lately Daddy had been getting pretty irritable. Plain cantankerous, Nanny said.

That morning Hetty found the house, in spite of its size, stifling and claustrophobic. She set out on a long walk through the woods, across the bottom meadow, and on to the narrow winding road leading to the village. She encountered only sheep grazing, a startled cock pheasant erupting with a clatter from the long grass, a dappled troupe of cows like a patchwork quilt, and two of Hugo’s horses kicking up their heels in delighted freedom.

Far off, like a gnat buzzing, one of the aeroplanes from the training field hung in the sky, before plunging in what looked like a perilous dive. It was a beautiful morning, both exhilarating and poignant. Too many young men, like the unlucky flier, Donald Newman, were dicing with death, being killed or irreversibly damaged. Maimed in a way that, if they were animals, they would be humanely killed. Instead, they were kept alive to extract their price from those who had to care for them. Supposing Hugo came home scarred beyond recognition, or physically helpless? Supposing Lionel was returned, like repaired goods, to France and the terrors of the big Somme offensive?

Not Lionel, with his acutely sensitive face, his fascinating mind.

But you mustn’t think of him, you must think of your husband. Lionel is Kitty’s.

In the village the few people about looked surprised to see the young Lady Hazzard, the foreign lady, trudging along like one of them. She had been regarded as something of a recluse. They bobbed and said, “Good morning, my lady,” in a friendly way. Hetty wondered what purchase she could make to show her goodwill. Should she have coffee in Mrs Bryce’s little dark teashop? But a sudden stronger impulse had seized her. She turned down the lane leading to the church, crossed the small green graveyard, and went into the beeswax and hymn-book-smelling gloom.

She wanted to sit quietly, perhaps to pray. She had never been trained to prayer, for her mother had grown too cynical to believe in a God who had allowed her and her child to suffer so much hardship. One fought for oneself, that was the only certain way of achieving anything. But even if it were impossible to be aware of a benevolent deity, Hetty liked the mysticism and the poetry of the old incantations. She could forget, or find forgivable, her misdeeds, her deceit, her guilt. She could sense beauty touching her.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
she murmured under her breath as she knelt on the worn hassock and buried her head in her hands. She was just an innocent young woman praying for the welfare of two men, husband and brother-in-law.