Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis (32 page)

They had been happy days old Edgar mused, leaning back in his wooden armchair and closing his eyes against the dazzle of the warm sunshine.

No one, least of all young lovers, bothered about the political happenings across the Channel. The course of the seasons rolled steadily onward. Ploughing, harrowing, drilling, planting—the long days in the fields and farmyard passed swiftly away, and their wedding day was only two or three months ahead. The two were as blithe as nesting birds, when the blow fell.

War with Germany was declared on August 4, 1914, and within a month Edgar was training in Dorset with other young men from the Caxley area. He and Arnold Fletcher had leave at the same time in November, and both came to Beech Green to see their girls. For Arnold, it was the last time, for he was killed by a hand-grenade thrown into his trench near the Ypres Canal, one cold and cruel February day in 1915.

The months which Edgar spent fighting in France were like a nightmare to him. Remembering them now, in the September sunlight, so many years later, they still seemed unbelievable.

The constant noise, the habitual grip of fear, the stench of rotting corpses, the rats, the sea of grey mud broken only by the stark splinters of shattered trees, were so alien to the young Edgar's home background of quiet green beauty that he was in a constant state of horror and shock.

Some men managed to keep up a stout heart, even addressing their dead comrades with cheerful badinage as they passed up and down the trenches. This ghastly bonhomie Edgar found callous and macabre. His gentle nature was crushed and appalled by the sights and sounds around him.

When the gas attacks finally caused his collapse, and he was invalided out of the army, he returned to England with a thankful heart.

A thankful heart, indeed, remembered old Edgar, stirring uncomfortably in his armchair, but a changed one too.

What went wrong with his love for Emily in those dreadful months that followed? To say that his war experience had unsettled him was to make the whole affair seem too slight and uncomplicated. But, nevertheless, that was the root of the matter.

Lying in his white bed at the Bournemouth hospital, he had gazed at the green trim lawns and the leafy trees, remembering his comrades in that grey, shattered landscape overseas.

On some days the English soil trembled with the thunder from the distant guns in France. Edgar rolled his aching head from side to side in sympathetic anguish.

It was as though his mind were split in two. One half was here, with his suffering body, in this quiet room with birds and flowers outside. The other half, writhing and tortured, still inhabited that nightmare world of dying men and hopelessness. Perhaps there was an element of guilt in poor Edgar's mind at this time. Other men were in danger. He was safe. But should it be so? He tortured himself with thoughts of Arnold Fletcher, and other young men who had been his friends at Beech Green, sharing his background, his work and his play—men who had ploughed, sown and threshed with him, batted and bowled on Beech Green's cricket pitch, shared his laughter and his hopes. Where were they now? And could he ever return, to face those who had loved them, seeing the sadness—and perhaps the resentment—in their eyes?

When Emily came on her weekly visits, the first flood of joy at her approach gradually ebbed away in the face of these secret fears. Outwardly, Edgar seemed calm, but Emily sensed that all was not well with him. There was a barrier now across the easy passage of their affection. She put it down to general physical weakness, and to the horrors which a sensitive spirit like Edgar's would find hard to overcome. She never doubted that all would be well in time.

Remembering that steadfast trust, old Edgar groaned aloud, and buried his face in his hands. He should have waited! He should have waited! All would have come right for them both if he had been patient—as patient as poor Emily was!

He rocked himself to and fro. To think that something which happened nigh on sixty years ago could still give such pain!

He remembered his terrible tears when Emily had gone each week to catch the last possible train back to Beech Green. It was not her going which upset him so dreadfully, but the knowledge that he would never be able to face life with her. For in his present state he never wanted to see Beech Green again, or those who lived there.

He wanted to run away from all that had happened, to start afresh, where no one knew him, where he could make a new beginning, leaving the pain and heartbreak behind.

The Irish nurse, Eileen, had comforted him during these outbursts. She was kind and motherly, it seemed to Edgar, ready to hold his hot head against the starched bib of her apron. Later, he realised, she never spoke of Emily or his return to her.

In his weakness, he clung to her for support and advice. She gave both freely, never displaying the quick temper and sharp tongue which made her so heartily disliked by the other nurses.

In truth, Eileen Kennedy was looking for a husband, and in Edgar she thought she had found one who would suit her very well. She liked the idea of being a farmer's wife. She knew that Edgar would follow his father one day, and she enjoyed country life. Also, she was tired of nursing. She was twenty five and was determined to marry. The fact that Edgar was already engaged weighed with her not at all. Emily she considered a poor thing. Victory should be easy.

She conducted her side of the campaign with ruthless subtlety. Circumstances were on her side. She was with him constantly, and he was dependent on her for all his comforts. She was careful to keep out of Emily's way, when she paid her visits, so that her rival's suspicions were not aroused.

Edgar, weak in body and torn in spirit, gave way with little resistance. Eileen, as a young woman, had physical charms which faded after a few years of marriage, but in her nursing days she was trim and comely, with fair hair neatly waving under her flighty starched cap.

By the time Edgar's convalescence came, and he was moved a few miles away, there was a firm understanding between them. Now there was a dream-like quality, for Edgar, when Emily visited him. It was if she were a ghost from the past—that past he wanted so desperately to forget.

He was too weak to tell her about his plans. This cowardice was to colour his whole life. It haunted him whenever he was unable to sleep, in the long years which lay ahead. He never forgave himself.

Eileen encouraged him to keep silence.

'You aren't up to a scene,' she persuaded him. 'Write her a letter. You can put it all so much better in a letter.'

The little she had seen of Emily made her realise that she would accept the situation more readily with a letter before her. She recognised Emily's pride, and suspected rightly that she cared enough for Edgar to abide by his decision, no matter how cruel it might seem.

The scheme worked. Edgar was freed from his engagement, and he turned to a triumphant Eileen. Emily continued as best she could. No other man came into her life. For Emily, Edgar was her only love, both then and forever.

It was a week or two after his engagement to the nurse, that Edgar first had an inkling of her true nature.

He broached the subject of where they should live when he had quite recovered.

'Why, Beech Green, surely? You say there's a house there for you,' said Eileen briskly.

Edgar gazed at her in dismay.

'But you know how I feel about going back. I want to start somewhere quite new.'

'Who'd have you, except your father?' asked Eileen flatly.

'I expect I could get a job with another farmer,' began Edgar, much shaken.

'Another farmer would want a full day's work from you,' said Eileen. 'Your dad will let you go your own pace for a bit. And there's the house. It sounds just right for us.'

Edgar roused himself.

'But surely, you wouldn't want to go back there, where everyone knows about me and Emily. You'd feel uncomfortable.'

Eileen gave a hard laugh.

'It'd take more than Emily Davis and a parcel of gossipers to make me uncomfortable. She had her chance, and lost it. It's our life now, and we'd be fools to throw away a house and a job ready-made for you.'

'But, Eileen—' protested Edgar, tears of weakness filling his eyes.

'No buts about it,' said Eileen ruthlessly. 'It's Beech Green for us, so get used to the idea.'

She whisked out of the room, leaving Edgar to his melancholy thoughts. For the first time, he began to realise that he had made a mistake, and one which was to cost him dear.

Old Edgar sighed, and reached for the last potato.

Humiliation, self-reproach, gnawing remorse and a lifetime of bitterness had been the result of a few vital months of sheer cowardice. God knows he had paid heavily for his mistake! Worse still, he had made innocent, loving Emily suffer too. The encounter by the wood had told him clearly all that he had suspected—that Emily's love remained constant, and that his did too. It had been his lot to see the finest woman he had ever known tortured, year after year, on his account. And now she had gone.

He bent his grizzled head over the last of his task, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

'What's up?' snapped his wife, appearing suddenly, throwing a shadow between him and the sunshine.

'Sun in my eyes,' lied Edgar.

But he knew that, for him, the sun would never be as dazzling again.

T
HE
news of Emily's death spread rapidly when
The Caxley Chronicle
made its weekly appearance. Most readers turned fairly quickly, after reading the headlines, to the column headed 'Births, Marriages and Deaths', choosing the one of the three divisions most appealing to them, according to the age of the reader.

Ada Roper, widow of the prosperous greengrocer Harry, and sister of Dolly Clare, naturally looked first at the 'Deaths'. When one is in one's eighties there is a certain macabre pleasure in reading about those whom one has outlived.

She sat in her sunny drawing room on this shimmering September morning, a cup of coffee beside her, and a magnifying glass in her hand the better to read the small print.

The house, 'Harada', which Harry had built in the 'twenties, weathered the years well, and though her son John had once tried to persuade her to move to something smaller, Ada was resolute in her refusal.

'Why should I?'

'Because it's so expensive, for one thing. Fuel, rates, furnishings—and so much housework. I could easily find you a nice little flat—'

'I don't want a nice little flat. And anyway, I shan't need to buy any more furniture, and if I did move into a poky little place somewhere, what should I do with all these nice pieces your Dad and I collected over the years?'

'You could sell them,' suggested John.

'Never!' cried his mother. 'No, John. This is my home and I'm stopping here. I've quite enough money to see me out, thanks to the business, and with Alice to help me the work is very light.'

Alice was the companion who had come to live with Ada soon after Harry's death. She was a gentle soul, herself a widow, but a penniless one, and glad to have a comfortable home and pocket money in return for an amount of work which would have daunted many a younger woman.

John, seeing the position pretty clearly, was sensible enough to insist on plenty of reliable daily help. Alice, he knew, was worth her weight in gold as a companion. She was genuinely devoted to his mother and took her somewhat over-bearing ways with cheerful docility.

If she left, it would be impossible to find another person so amenable. John had no desire to have his mother living at his own house. His wife and children were positively opposed to the idea when he had once broached the subject tentatively.

'No fear!' said his wife flatly.

'Grandma? Live here? Oh no!' cried his children. And though he had upbraided them with their selfishness, secretly he was very relieved. If his mother was happy to squander her money on that great house, then he would see that things were arranged to keep her there in contentment. But, now and again, a little secret resentment clouded John's thoughts. What would there be left, when the old lady died, if she continued to live in this way?

John's good business head always ruled his heart, which is
why his parents' shop continued to thrive under his management.

At the time of Emily Davis's death he was a man in his late fifties with the dark florid good looks of his father.

A fine moustache and an expensive dental plate improved his looks as he grew older. As a young man, the slightly protruding top teeth had given him a rabbity look. Whether the comforter, abhorred by Emily, and the subsequent thumbsucking had anything to do with it, one could not be sure. His mother, rather naturally, thought not. But Emily's words rankled for many years, nevertheless.

John took infinite pains with his clothes, going to London for his suits, which did not endear him to the local tailors. He presided over the shop in well-cut tweeds or worsteds, his dark hair carefully brushed, his expensive shoes as glossy as horse chestnuts.