In Distant Fields (33 page)

For springtime there would be first the green and half-white of Lenten roses, followed by the brilliance of many types of narcissi, then the pale cream and pink and mauve-hued bells of the fritillaria, before the blossoming of the spring and summer flowers, the delicate china blue of forget-me-nots, the gentle white of her favourite genus of foxglove, the columbines, the London pride, the begonias, the nepeta, and, of course, the roses – masses and masses of roses, all in the pale English colours that were Circe's favourites.

‘I must take these out to the gardeners,' she said, after showing the designs to Kitty, Partita having excused herself to go up to her room to change her clothes. ‘Will you come with me?'

‘Of course,' Kitty agreed, wondering whether or not to say anything about the incident in town, then deciding against it since Circe had hardly seemed to notice Partita's abrupt disappearance, nor shown any real interest in how they had got on at their first-aid class.

There was no one in the walled garden, just several spades and forks abandoned, stuck upright in the earth where the gardeners had left them. Seeing the inactivity, the Duchess assumed they had taken a break for refreshment since their tools were still in the earth and several jackets and waistcoats were hung on the makeshift hooks on the old brick walls. While she waited for their return, Circe walked the plot with Kitty, plans in hand, explaining the
intended planting so that Kitty too could imagine the beauty of the finished garden.

Five minutes or so after they had arrived on the site, two of the more senior gardeners returned, caps on the back of their heads, pipes clenched firmly in their mouths. Seeing the Duchess, the caps were immediately whipped off and the still smoking pipes stuck in back trouser pockets, while Tim Scroggins and Bob Eldridge – known to all as ‘Ole Bob' – greeted the Duchess.

‘No, please, don't mind me at all,' Circe told them. ‘I've only come down to show you Miss Jekyll and Mr Lutyens' plans. Yes, Tim, and Ole Bob, the plans have finally arrived. I wonder if there's somewhere we could spread them out? Don't you have a rather good table in that workshop of yours, Tim?'

As Circe was ushered into the big stone shed that served as an office, storeroom and resting place for the garden force, several of the younger men who had been grouped round the wall at one end of the room jumped to attention, nodded politely to their employer and hurried back to work. Then as Circe went over the plans with her two head gardeners, the papers spread before them on the large well-worn table up against a wall, Kitty became curious as to what all the younger men might have been up to when they were disturbed.

As she walked up to the wall she found the object of their activity. On the wooden panelling
of the wall they had been busy carving their names below the previous gardeners' names, names which seemed to go back to the very date when the garden house had first been built.

The first name, a Thomas Goode, had written beneath it, ‘Head Plantsman, Bauders Castle 1709–1740'. After him there came an increasing list of names, under which was written ‘Head Gardener', or ‘Head Plantsman', or more recently with the advent of John Eden's grandfather, always known as the Cricketing Duke, ‘Head Groundsman'. Beside these, in a torrent of names, came inscriptions from all the junior gardeners, plantsmen and groundsmen, the latest being the young men who had just returned to work: ‘Peter Nesbitt 1908–', ‘Fred Welton 1899–', ‘Nathaniel Thrush 1900–', ‘Will Hickox 1892–', ‘Jem Panter 1896–' and ‘Albert Carroll 1903–'.

Those were the last names on a long, long list, several years below the names of ‘Tim Scroggins 1875–' and ‘Bob Eldridge', Ole Bob's starting date being given as ‘1874'. Above all the names, on a cream board fixed to the wall, someone had painted the legend:

We are nearer God's heart in the garden
Than anywhere else on earth.

‘Do you think we can get this done, Tim?' Kitty heard the Duchess asking as she stood rolling up her precious plans. ‘I know it's a lot to ask at this
time, but if we could perhaps make a start, it might be a cheerful occupation, wouldn't you say?'

‘We shall do our very best, Your Grace,' Tim replied, pipe back in mouth. ‘It all depends on how many hands we got, if you understand me, Your Grace. Hands is getting fewer by the day, Ole Bob and I is finding.'

‘Of course,' the Duchess said tactfully. ‘There are other things a little more important than this going on, but if you can find a way to make a start, I should be eternally grateful.'

‘We'll get it done one way or another, Your Grace,' Ole Bob put in. ‘We'll get ‘im done fer Your Grace, e'en if I ‘ave to dig the blighter meself.'

That evening before dinner, Circe sat down to pen a letter to her garden designers.

Edwin Lutyens, Esquire
17 Queens Gate,
LONDON                                                                                                                                        31. viii. 1914

Dear Ned,

There is much to which to look forward in your and Miss Jekyll's plans for the old walled garden; and that I shall be reminding myself of this, over the next weeks and months, is not in doubt. Meanwhile, I shall put the plans on the Duke's desk, awaiting his return to Bauders. I know that whatever the
future may hold for us, whatever comes to us, your garden will contain nothing but hope and beauty.

Yours truly,

Circe Eden

Kitty was sitting in the library, the one room the Duchess and the Duke had ordained should remain as it was, no matter what.

‘Something so comforting about a book-lined room in times of peril,' Circe kept murmuring, as she bustled in and out.

As she put the finishing touches to a gift she was making for Almeric, Kitty could only agree with the Duchess. It was as if the thousands upon thousands of pages of writing that the books contained were reaching out to reassure Kitty that nothing she was going through now, or might be going through soon, had not been experienced, and written about, before.

Kitty was alone for once, Partita having taken herself off to practise bandaging and first aid on Tinker, of all people. It was so typical of Partita that, having said nothing to anyone about their experiences in nursing class, she had nevertheless decided that if she was going to be a nurse, she was going to be the best nurse of all time, leaving all the rest of them straggling behind.

‘Where's Tita?'

Kitty looked up as Allegra came into the library, accompanied by her little dog, who promptly
settled at her feet, once she had selected a book from the shelves.

‘Tita is off practising bandaging on Tinker.'

‘Poor Tinker,' Allegra murmured as she sat down and began to read.

‘Yes, poor Tinker indeed. Tita's bandaged and rebandaged her so often, I think she's given her a sore arm.' As Allegra looked up, laughing, Kitty continued, ‘You know your sister, she's setting her watch on it. I believe she's improved her time by fifty seconds already! Next thing, we will be having a bandaging Derby.'

‘What on earth is that?' Allegra wondered distractedly, after a few seconds of watching Kitty.

‘It's a sleeping bag, actually,' Kitty replied, stuffing the last piece of precious insulation into the lining, the wadding made up of a mixture of crumpled-up tissue paper and netting cut from the underskirts of old ball gowns retrieved from an attic by one of the chambermaids. ‘Not a very romantic present, but one I think might be appreciated in the coming months.'

‘I wonder what a romantic gift might be?' Allegra wondered, staring at Kitty with her head tilted to one side. ‘What do you suppose a romantic gift would be under the circumstances?'

‘I don't really have an idea,' Kitty replied, doing her best to ignore the cutting edge to her future sister-in-law's voice. ‘I would like to have given your brother something nice to take away, but since he is going off to war and since winter
is just around the corner I thought something practical might be more appropriate.'

‘Hardly the sort of thing to give to your knight before he goes off to battle,' Allegra sighed, replacing the book of poetry on its shelf and taking out a book on nursing from a small valise. ‘Still, as you say, under the circumstances … Heard anything from him yet?'

‘Not yet,' Kitty replied, shaking her head as she stripped the end of the thread with which she had been sewing up the lining. ‘But he's only been gone for ten days.'

‘I should have thought you'd have heard something by now, really I would. Just something, seeing you two are now engaged. But knowing Al he's got too stuck in to remember to write to you, I dare say.'

Kitty put down the sleeping bag. ‘I told him not to write to me, not to think of me at all. It would be weakening, I thought, to think of home when you are so far away, and in a battle. But he insisted he would.'

‘You know Cecilia is coming to London. She is going to join me nursing,' Allegra stated, as if Kitty had not spoken. ‘Proper nursing, that is – not Bauders-type nursing such as you and Tita have plumped for,' she added, with a falsely innocent look.

‘I wish I could join you both, but your mother needs all of us to help her here.'

‘Mamma loves pretending to be a doctor. She will soon be in her element.'

Kitty picked up the sleeping bag again.

‘How is London nursing?' she asked after a minute's silence during which Allegra silently repeated something from her book.

‘What did you say?'

‘I said, how is London nursing?' Kitty said again.

There was yet another pause, this time longer.

‘If you really want to know, Sister is a bugger,' Allegra announced suddenly, looking almost as surprised at herself saying such a word, as Kitty was at hearing it. ‘If she says, “Well,
Lady
Allegra Knowle,”' Allegra continued, ‘“I never thought to see someone the likes of
you
wielding a bedpan” – if she says that
one more time
I think I shall probably crown her with one.'

Kitty laughed, both shocked and pleased at Allegra's outburst, as did Allegra, for the same reason, after which they started to chatter and cheer each other up, both grateful for some amusement, however trivial.

‘Do you really think Tita and I should go to London as well, and learn to be bona fide nurses?' Kitty asked finally. ‘Because if you do—'

But Allegra stopped her with a shake of her head. ‘I was just being spiteful, forgive me. I'm just jealous, frankly, of you being here at Bauders – and Tita too. And even Harry.'

‘There's no need – and Harry's gone, by the way. He went earlier today, off to drive ambulances.'

‘I had no idea. I'm really rather out of touch. Good for Harry.'

‘He failed his army medical, you see. He was devastated, really devastated.'

‘Then even more good for Harry. He's come on a stone, he really has. But to get back to London nursing, you will be of much better use, both of you, if you stay and help Mamma, as you said earlier. I don't think she has any idea of what she is letting herself in for.'

Allegra shook her head, a worried look in her eyes.

‘What do you mean exactly, Allegra?'

‘It doesn't matter, Kitty,' she said. ‘These things have to be done, don't they? And somebody has to do them.'

Kitty said nothing, resuming the folding of her now finished sleeping bag, while Allegra picked up her nursing book again, and pretended to study it, before looking up yet again.

‘There is one more thing, Kitty. I wonder if you would mind looking after Jolly for me? It would be such a favour if you would take care of Jolly.' She lifted the still half-asleep little terrier up on to her knee to hug him. ‘He's such a country boy I really can't possibly have him with me in town, and I really don't want James talking him with him, although he is quite happy to do so.'

‘Almeric told me that a lot of his friends
are
taking their dogs, which I don't think is altogether fair, really I don't. So bewildering for them, don't you think?'

‘I could not agree more. Poor dogs – why should they be subjected to all that noise and
heaven only knows what else? And suppose he got lost – the French don't have the same understanding of dogs as we do, so I would hate to think what might happen to him. So, all in all, if you wouldn't mind keeping an eye on Jolly for me … I notice he does so like you anyway, and I would be grateful.'

‘I will take extra special care of him, Allegra,' Kitty reassured her and she touched her lightly on the arm as she saw the look in her eyes. ‘I shall look after him as if he was my own.'

Livia was staring at Valentine, whom she was quite sure she still loved with all her heart, but whom, just at that moment, she thought she might not be going to understand as well as she might have once hoped.

‘You don't wish to enlist, did you say?'

Valentine strolled over to the window and, drawing aside the net curtain, he stared out at the street below. Only a few months before, London would have been filled with impeccably dressed men and women making their stately way about the capital, their stylish clothes the envy of Europe. Now all he could see were uniforms, and more uniforms, and the figures of hurrying women, all of whom, for some reason he could not understand, seemed to be dressed in grey. Not that they were dressed in grey, they just seemed to be dressed in grey, dark grey.

‘No I don't want to enlist, Livia, my beloved. It isn't compulsory – at least as yet it is not – and
frankly what use would someone like me be in the army? I might make quite an impressive soldier on stage, but people like me, brought up in the theatre all our lives, what possible good would we be at the party?'