Softly Grow the Poppies (26 page)

‘That was Bessie, wasn’t it, Harry?’ he had said wonderingly but now it was clear from the expression on his brother’s face that he was bothered about something. He had known Alice, pretty Alice, but he could not contemplate getting into bed with her, which he knew was expected of him since husbands and wives shared a bed. And the boy, the boy who scowled at him and clung possessively to Harry’s leg, shouting defiance and crying broken-heartedly when the woman in the kitchen took him on her knee as they left him behind. This was his son. His son who scratched at his nerves and nearly drove him to violence with his screaming anger. Should he not have bonded with him? He knew he should, or possibly would in time but it was too much for him to manage just yet.

Rose spoke, tears in her voice. ‘Alice, you cannot mean to leave us when you are needed so much, whatever you say. You have gone to hell and back, we all know that but you must give it time. A couple of months is not long enough for us all to . . . to . . .’

‘To what, Rose? My son prefers you to his own mother and it seems I cannot give him what he needs. I spent eighteen months looking for Charlie, trying to bring him home to me and our son but it seems neither of them care whether I live or die.’

‘Don’t say that, darling. We all love you so and with time we shall be as we once were, won’t we, Charlie,’ turning to Alice’s husband who was beginning to look distressed.

Alice snorted derisively. ‘As we once were! I was a naïve ninny in love with the idea of being in love.’

‘And what was I, Alice?’ There was pain in Rose’s voice.

‘Oh, Rose.’ The pain was echoed in Alice’s voice. ‘I don’t mean to hurt you but don’t you see? For so long I have been helping in the war, helping to bring back the wounded, treated with respect as a valuable part of their battles and I find it hard to just . . . just . . .’

‘Be a wife and mother?’ Harry said bitterly. ‘For that is your role now. Until . . . until I marry, if I do, you are mistress of this house. Or why don’t you learn to ride and then you and Charlie could visit the farms on the estate. And I could do with some help with the accounts – paperwork that mounts up – and Rose has enough to do running her own estate, bringing it back to the productive business it was before the war. You could begin to teach your son to read and—’

‘No. No, I couldn’t, I’m not a teacher.’ Her voice rose shrilly, with what sounded like a touch of hysteria.

‘Why not? He’s four years old and needs some routine in his life. Perhaps in the afternoons you could go up to the old nursery and—’

‘
No
. I’ve told you I couldn’t. I’m . . . no, no, Harry, I beg you. He . . . he frightens me he is so—’

‘
Frightens you!
’ There was amazement in Harry’s voice.

Martha knocked timidly and popped her head round the door. She had come to collect the tureen and soup dishes but on seeing neither had been touched she scuttled out again, closing the door quietly behind her.

‘They’re ’avin’ a right old ding-dong in there,’ she whispered to Mrs Philips as though those in the dining room could hear her. ‘Sir Harry’s glarin’ at Miss Alice an’ Miss Rose looks ready to start bawlin’.’

‘What for?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Philips. Sir Harry looks as mad as a march ’are and Miss Alice is cryin’. I think it’s summat ter do wi’t little lad who’s a right hellion an’ if ’e was mine I’d give ’im a damn good hidin’. My mam’d soon knock some—’

‘Well, it’s got nowt ter do wi’ your mam, or you, fer that matter, but all I know is that if someone don’t do summat little lad’ll turn into a bad ’un. Eeh, many’s the time I could give ’im a clout but—’

Realising she was saying too much, she clamped her lips together and sat down in her rocking-chair in front of the fire. Martha stared at her waiting to see if she was going to say anything else but Mrs Philips merely looked into the range fire, her old face sagging with sorrow. This house, despite the old man’s many ways of frittering away his inheritance, had been a happy one with two lively boys who, though she often scolded them when they became too high-spirited, she had held in great affection. Now would you look at it, such sadness you could feel it in your bones, a loss of what had made it a happy home. They, unlike so many others, had come through the war with the lads unscathed and two good-hearted young women ready for married life, babies; wouldn’t she just love one of them to have a baby. Perhaps then that naughty boy, who was basically not a bad lad but wild, undisciplined and needing a father to show him the way of things, would calm down and realise he just could not have his own way all the time. Like Dolly at Beechworth, she shook her old head and sighed for the lovely days before the war.

In the dining room no one spoke then Harry broke the silence. ‘Well, since Mrs Philips has gone to a lot of trouble to provide us with a meal, perhaps we could eat now.’

The soup was cold, and the delicious salmon that followed – brought in by a nervous Martha who looked as though she was expecting some terrible scene – was pushed around four plates with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. Nobody round the table looked at anyone else.

Harry said to his brother, ‘I don’t know about you, old chap, but I could manage a brandy. Should we . . .’ And so, after a courteous bow to the ladies, he and Charlie left the room with great eagerness.

When they had gone, Rose rang the bell and Martha hesitantly answered it.

‘No dessert, Martha, tell Mrs Philips, just coffee I think. Perhaps you would ask the gentlemen if they want the same. They are probably in Sir Harry’s study. Mrs Summers and I will have ours in the drawing room.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Martha bobbed a little curtsey and almost ran for the door.

‘They don’t want dessert, Mrs Philips, just coffee.’ Martha was almost in tears. ‘The gentlemen are in Sir Harry’s study. Oh, Mrs Philips, ’ave I ter take it in? I’m that upset what with . . . could Polly take it in?’

Mrs Philips reared up in indignation. ‘No, she can’t. You begged to be a housemaid here and one of a housemaid’s duties is to serve at table. Now get on with it. Set another tray for Sir Harry and Mr Charlie and I’ll have none of these . . .’ She was about to say
tantrums
but they’d seen enough real tantrums in this kitchen with Will and Martha was really only a little lass and too young for the job. But it was so hard to get decent servants these days what with all the women who had done men’s work during the war and received much bigger pay packets not being willing to go into service as once they had done.

‘Go on, lass, they’ll not bite you.’

A fire had been lit in the drawing room and the two women sat side by side before the comfort of the glowing flames. They sipped their coffee, both of them preoccupied with their own thoughts.

Rose was the first to speak. ‘Do you really want to get away, Alice?’

‘I feel I must, Rose,’ Alice answered sadly.

‘But your husband – and your son?’

‘I don’t feel as though Will is my son, Rose. You are more mother to him than I could ever be. He totally rejects anything I do to get closer to him and to be honest it is only because it is expected of me that I really try. He is a dear little chap and though I gave birth to him, he is not my child.’

‘Alice, really, you must not—’

‘Let me finish, dear Rose. I married Charlie but he is not my husband, not in the true sense. I have been . . . well, I won’t say stupid in my search for him since during that time I know I helped other men to return to their families but I was a child when I married him. A fairy-tale princess marrying her Prince Charming. I wore a pretty dress and he was so handsome in his uniform and I thought I would never stop loving him but I have grown up since then. I am twenty–three and I am of no use to anyone. Harry is slowly healing Charlie and you and Dolly give Will all the love and care a child needs. He will grow out of his defiance when he realises that you and Harry are and will always be with him. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need Charlie, his own father, and I don’t know what is to happen there but . . . but . . . Oh, God, I’m sorry, but I love neither of them.

‘While I was searching for Charlie I thought I still loved him. It was a story, the brave heroine looking for the hero but again it was no more than a dream. When he walked through the door that first time I was still in that dream. Here he was, the man I had married, to whom I had borne a son and it seemed that I should wrap my arms about him, embrace him, the returned hero come to claim his wife and son but it wasn’t so. You see how he is with me. He is rather embarrassed since he doesn’t know how to deal with the situation, and neither do I. If he was in his right mind and stronger I would speak to him about it but he is still too fragile and I am afraid that if I make ripples in the calm and peace he feels with Harry I might undermine the strength he is slowly regaining.’

‘But, Alice, it has only been a few months. Surely it is too soon to expect the miracle of his complete recovery? Won’t you give it a few more weeks? I cannot bear to lose you when we have been brought together again. You are my only friend.’

‘Harry loves you, Rose. I have seen him look at you with such longing in his eyes.’

‘Have you?’ she said with bitterness. ‘I haven’t. He’s absorbed with his brother, putting
him
back to what he was, and with his farms, producing the much needed meat and crops to feed this nation, keeping an eye on the tenants and teaching Charlie the ropes, so he has no time for . . . for anyone. What with Charlie and Will he is fully occupied. I am twenty-eight, Alice. I want children
of my own
. I love Will though he can be exhausting at times but I believe, given time, he will settle. He should be told that you are his mother and Charlie his father. We are all so busy protecting this one small boy. Oh, sweet Jesus, I wish I could just say “I’m going away” but how can I leave?’

She leaned forward and put her hands to the fire, rubbing them together, her voice soft. ‘My grandfather built Beechworth after finding gold in a place called Yackandandah in Australia. Did you know that? No? I promised myself that one day I would go and see the place where it all started. When the war ended, I told myself, and everyone would be back in their place in life. You and Charlie together; I didn’t include Harry then, though I had fallen in love with him almost from the first day at Lime Street when we went to see the troops off. Then it seemed so wonderful that when he was home on leave he loved me in the same way. But that has gone, Alice, that dream, so one day I will return to my previous one. Yackandandah! What a wonderful name. It draws me and one day I shall go, but not yet, it seems. I cannot leave Will to servants, dearly as they love him, so if you are to desert him, I must stay.’

Alice was weeping broken-heartedly now, her hands to her face, tears dripping through her fingers. ‘Don’t, Rose, oh, please don’t . . .’

‘Don’t what? Don’t leave Will, is that what you’re asking me? You can speak so calmly of abandoning your own child
and
husband but I must stay here and take responsibility for your family. I’ve done enough, Alice. I’ve loved you since that day at the station. You were the little sister I had always wanted. And your idea of joining the suffragette movement is a ridiculous one. They have won the right to vote or will do soon, so what can you possibly mean when you say you want to help them? They no longer need it. The war made the difference. Well, my dear,’ she said, standing up and smoothing down her skirt, ‘I shall leave you with your tears and go to bed. I am tired and I must ride back to Beechworth. And what is to become of Will? It might be as well if I remove him to
my
home which, if I am to be his mother, will be his as well. Dolly will be pleased. Goodnight, Alice.’

F
or a week she did not go near Summer Place. She could no longer bear to be close to Harry, close to the polite stranger he had become. She had come to the end of her tether, which was a stupid expression she knew, but she could think of no other way to describe the utter hopelessness that had invaded her. She had lived only for this time when he would come home to her. It had been the life raft to which she had clung during the past four years. She had wordlessly begged some unknown, unseen being to fetch Alice home to them and for Charlie, merry, mischievous Charlie to be found. Which he had been. Charlie had been released and taken to Camiers and from there, by boat and train, returned to them just before Christmas. Charlie who could be relied upon to lift their spirits. For Will at last to be with his mother and father, and of course, the most cherished dream of all, Harry at her side, in her bed and life as it used to be. It had happened but it had
not
happened. They were all safe, uninjured, by which she meant, no loss of limbs, no blindness, no serious wounds but injured just the same,
all of them
. Will was just a baby and like young children he would adjust to the upheaval in his life but he was precocious. He had never played with children of his own age except for the children at Oak Hill Farm, the wounded soldiers, the servants and herself, she must be honest, had treated him as though he were older.

As Rose walked slowly down towards the paddocks she could see Mary from Summer Place hanging out the washing and for a moment she wondered why Mary was doing Bertha’s job. Where was Bertha? Perhaps she had gone over to Summer Place to give a hand. But Bertha’s soldier son, wounded in the last days of the war, was home, his leg beginning to heal but he was still virtually helpless. It was all Bertha could do to manage the laundry at Beechworth without coping with that of Summer Place as well.

Foxy and Sparky were in the far corner of the paddock but when they saw her they both ambled across the grass towards her. They poked their heads over the fence and Foxy nuzzled her neck then tried to reach her pocket where she sometimes fetched them an apple.

‘I’ve nothing for you, my lass,’ she said sadly, sliding her hand down the mare’s smooth neck. She fondled the two of them until they lost interest and began to crop the grass by the fence. But something was bothering her and she turned her back to them, leaning against the fence, her elbows on the top rung. Dolly had not told her that the housemaid from Summer Place was working in Beechworth’s laundry. Dolly was getting on, and the war and the consequences of it seemed to have drained something from her, taking that strength she had always shown and leaving her frail and dependent on Nessie, the cook and now more or less housekeeper, the decision–maker in the kitchen. Rose had been so focused on Alice and Charlie and the general air of sadness that hung about the two houses that she had taken little notice of the running of them. Dolly would see to it as she always had done, she had thought if she had thought at all.