In Distant Fields (50 page)

As for Partita and Kitty, the organisers and co-stars of the panto, their own particular never-to-be-forgotten moments were Michael singing ‘Bless This House' after he has discovered that Cinderella will go to the ball, and Jack, who, having insisted on playing Buttons on crutches, brought the show to a stop when having made a wish to the Fairy Godmother he found it had come true and that he could walk unaided. The
moment Jack placed his crutches aside, and almost danced across the stage had a very special meaning to those who had nursed him for so long.

There was only one major difficulty to overcome and it was left to Circe to manage the diplomacy.

Shortly before curtain-up on the third night, as she was preparing for the evening, Circe was summoned to the telephone.

‘I am so sorry to have to telephone you in this way, Circe,' Consolata began, ‘but I have only just heard and I thought you should know.'

‘Is it – is it Peregrine?'

‘I am afraid so. I received a telegram an hour ago, informing me that my son is missing in action.'

‘Consolata,' Circe said, ‘while I don't know what to say, you must know that I do understand exactly how you feel.'

‘That is why I rang you, my dear.'

There was a long pause.

‘The telegram simply said missing, did it?'

‘It just said “missing in action”.'

‘Then you must live in hope.'

‘I think you and I understand what terms such as “missing in action” mean, my dear,' Consolata replied in a steady voice. ‘While of course I shall live in hope, and will of course continue to pray, I must also prepare myself for the worst, the very worst, news.'

‘I understand, Consolata. If there is anything I can do at this time … ?'

‘You are most kind, as always, Circe,' Consolata assured her. ‘Perhaps I might come to call after your pantomime is over. I should like that.'

‘Of course,' Circe assured her. ‘I shall telephone you and we shall make a suitable arrangement. In the meantime you are in our thoughts, and our prayers – all our prayers.'

Circe stayed in the telephone room, her mind rushing ahead as it always did, thinking of the practicalities.

It simply would not be fair to tell the girls the bad news before they went on stage. There was nothing they could do about Peregrine's disappearance, but then – just as she was about to put the finishing touches to her own makeup and costume as the Pantomime Queen, a voice inside her head wondered: but what if the news had been about Almeric? Or Gus? Would you still have kept the matter secret?

Circe looked at herself in the mirror as she made up for her part, and despite the laughter she could hear, the sounds of happy bustle all over the castle, she could not help recognising the sorrow in her eyes.

What would she have done, she wondered, if the young man posted missing had been Gussie? What in truth would she have felt and decided then? She had simply no idea, and for a moment she despaired at what she saw as her hypocrisy, until she remembered what John had said to her when she was trying to come to terms with the loss of their beloved boy.

‘These are not normal times, dearest. And the events that happen to everyone are not normal events. Yes, they have happened before – people down the ages have lost their loved ones, but war is not normal, and the things that happen within its context are not what we would call normal, and so we must not expect our reactions to be any different. Different demands are being made on us for very different reasons. They make us search inside for the right thing to say or do, but there is no such thing, never has been, probably never will be.'

Circe finished her preparation, and then prayed for Gussie, and most especially for Peregrine. Alter which she checked herself one last time in her dressing glass before descending the great staircase and making her way to the ballroom for another splendid performance of the Bauders pantomime.

When Partita heard the news that Peregrine was missing, she fainted, and had to be revived in the stills room.

‘I am so sorry, so sorry,' she kept muttering to Kitty, who kept wringing out cold flannels and pressing them to her forehead. ‘It was such a shock, somehow such a shock. Poor Consolata, poor Livia, what will happen?'

‘He has been posted missing, not dead. That at least is some comfort.'

Peregrine was not the only one to have vanished. Two other soldiers were included in
the casualty lists as missing presumed dead, but that was all that was known. It seemed that the enemy had set a clever trap, making it look as though they had deserted a farmhouse, when in fact they were all hidden in the roofs and rafters of the outbuildings, the haystacks and the pigsties. Peregrine's squad was hopelessly outnumbered and his commanding officer let it be known in his report that in his opinion the sortie should never have been ordered, based as it was on a slap-happy and lazy reconnaissance.

But it was no good protesting, either abroad or at home, because Peregrine had disappeared and no one knew where. The loss of her beloved brother had been hard enough for Partita to bear, but now the reported loss of the man she knew she loved coming so hard on the heels of Almeric's death, and the agonising, unbearable moment of the return of his uniform and effects, made life seem like a living nightmare, and there was no other word for it. She would never forget the look on her mother's face as she saw all that was left of her son, all that had been sent back to them, which was nearly nothing at all – except for Kitty's letters tucked where his heart should have been.

Kitty herself was resolute. She had to be, because she knew how strong the Duchess and Partita were trying to be. She insisted that she knew that Peregrine was missing, he was not dead, and so long as he was only missing, that was how they
would think of him, not as dead, but as lost for the moment.

Partita was also resolute.

‘I have decided that I will go to France and find Peregrine, Mamma.'

Her mother was seated at the kitchen table in precisely the chair where Mrs Coggle had used to sit. She looked up slowly.

‘They're short of volunteer nurses, and the closer I am to where it happened the better chance I have of finding out something more about what has happened to him. I will do it for all of us, we all loved Perry. More than that, I must do it.'

‘You must do as you feel best, dearest,' Circe told her in a tired voice. She paused. ‘Your patients here will miss you, but that is your decision, darling. As your father so rightly says, these are unusual times and the things that we do and decide to do aren't governed by the same rules as of old.'

‘What do
you
think I should do, Kitty?' Partita asked her friend later. ‘What would you do in my place?'

‘I think I'd feel exactly as you do,' Kitty replied. ‘But then I might also think it would be rather like looking for a needle in a haystack – mostly because all the men with Peregrine were killed, and those two or three that weren't are also missing, so I might think that no one would be able to tell me anything useful.'

‘While here …'

‘What you have achieved here is very special.'

‘What we
all
have done here, Kitty,' Partita insisted. ‘This is something we have all done. Everyone at Bauders.'

‘Of course,' Kitty agreed. ‘But in the end it is entirely up to you.'

In the end Partita stayed, and she did so because of the patients. At the back of her mind she knew that there was little if any chance of learning something about one missing man in a war where thousands were being killed, wounded and going absent believed dead, while at Bauders she was needed in a very particular way. In the field stations she would, of course, have her uses, but finally she would only be another pair of hands, whereas at Bauders she had specific work to do, work that was still unfinished.

Others left. After Christmas, celebrated in much the same style as the year before, at the next medical board, held to see which of their patients might or might not be deemed fit to return to either active or to home duty, among the many passes was Buttons, as Jack Wilson was now affectionately known, and Quiet Mike, now seemingly fully restored.

Naturally everyone remaining at Bauders was anxious to know where their friends were being sent, and were happy and relieved when they learned that, although passed fit, Quiet Michael was not to be sent back abroad but had been
assigned a posting at home. Young Jack Buttons, however, was to return to the Front.

‘Course I don't mind, Lady Partita,' he grinned. ‘It's not as if I didn't volunteer, know what I mean? If I hadn't bloomin' well volunteered I mightn't be quite so anxious to return to the fray, like, but I did and I tell you, I can't wait to get back and have a go at the blighters what have done this to me – and to all my mates here, including Mad Mike.'

‘You're not to call him that, Jack,' Kitty scolded him.

‘I din't, Nurse Kitty! It weren't me that called him that, it was Mike his bloomin' self!'

‘Yes, all right, Jack,' Partita sighed. ‘But even so.'

‘I do love you, Lady Partita – and your “even so's” and all. You're a right angel, and I shall always remember you. I shall remember you all, and that's a fact. What a cosy billet this has been, I can tell you –
and
I got the use of me Scotch eggs back, so I'm not grumbling.'

‘You will come back and see us, Jack?' Kitty asked him as she gave him a last haircut. ‘When it's all over, promise you'll come and see us all here?'

‘You try and stop me. If I'm still in one piece, or even if some of the pieces is missing, I shall return!'

‘And what about you, Michael? I hope you'll stay in touch?'

Michael looked at Partita. ‘You know my
conditions, Lady Tita,' he replied gravely. ‘Only if you promise to marry me.'

‘And you know what I told you,' Partita replied, equally straight-faced, this being by now an old routine. ‘I'm not the marrying type.'

‘Neither am I. That's why we're perfectly suited.'

‘Ask me again when the war is over, Michael,' Partita replied, taking his hand and leading him to the door, outside of which the transport waited for those leaving. ‘Although I would bet a penny to a pound that by that time you will have been snapped up by the prettiest of girls.'

‘I'll ask you to marry me every time I write,' Michael promised her. Then looking at his feet, he said, ‘Thank you for all you've done, everyone. All of you. Every one of you.'

‘It's us who should be thanking you,' they all chorused, and turning went smartly back into the castle.

It was a routine that Circe had devised.

‘Don't want any lachrymose moments when they leave us; it will only weaken them. Lots of jokes, lots of cheery faces, that is what they must remember, before they go back to the party.'

Valentine knew nothing about Almeric or, as it happened, anyone else in his group of friends who were missing. Cut off from all sources of information other than his immediate underground contacts and most importantly Nurse Cadell, he simply worked at playing the part at
which he had supposed he might excel. So far he had been proved right inasmuch as he had not yet lost one of his ‘cast', as he liked to call those in his charge. They had all been safely rerouted and delivered to the right location. What happened to them afterwards he could not know, nor did he make it his business to find out. That was something he had very soon learned.

His role in the war had been his own idea, born out of a conversation with his father. Despairing of the European situation and holding out no hope for any war shared between chaotic Allies against a superbly organised enemy, Ralph Wynyard Errol had advised his son to stay uninvolved, at least until he saw how events were going to unfurl.

It was difficult for Valentine to go against his father's wishes, but he had finally protested, arguing that since all his friends were intending to volunteer, the very least he could be expected to do was to follow their example, and by doing so gain the respect, not only of them, but of his wife.

‘Dear boy, you will make a hopeless soldier.'

‘I must do something, Father,' Valentine complained. ‘I can't simply sit at home and do nothing.'

‘The theatre of war is very different from the theatre you and I know. Besides, we are keeping the home fires burning, making people laugh, making people cry in the theatre every night, cheering them on before they go back to the Front.'

‘That is your role, Father. For my part I want something better – a part that I would enjoy playing in the theatre – a part such as the Scarlet Pimpernel.'

And that was precisely how father and son arrived at Valentine's role in the war. By appearing to be little other than a theatrical dandy, he would in actuality be working to help soldiers trapped behind the lines to escape. He was given a brief training before being dispatched to Flanders where he was to work, among others, with Nurse Cadell. Since he had been in the habit of spending all his holidays in Europe and was bilingual in German, and French was second nature to him, Valentine proved to be an ideal choice. It was only when a close comrade was caught and shot that he started to hope that while his current role would continue to be a success, the run of the play in the particular theatre in which he now found himself might prove to be for a limited season.

But against all his fervent hopes, the curtain still refused to fall.

‘It's so hot!' Partita collapsed into a kitchen chair. ‘It's so hot I could almost long for winter.' She stared dully at the iron bars that guarded the basement windows, iron bars placed there centuries ago to keep out, she suddenly wondered, what, or who? Certainly not bad news.

‘Winter was long enough without you wanting it back again,' Kitty said crisply.