The Summer Before the War (20 page)

Beatrice had the sudden thought that perhaps Celeste understood more English, and spoke it more fluently, than she professed. If so, she would not blame Celeste for choosing to protect herself behind the mask of foreign inscrutability. Beatrice had done the same in certain awkward situations abroad and once, to her shame, at home, fending off the advances of an incomprehensible and aged friend of Lady Marbely at a local hunt ball by looking the poor man in the face and saying quite clearly “I'm afraid I do not speak English” before retiring to the other end of the ballroom.

After a cold luncheon of bread and cheese, Beatrice left Celeste next door, where Mr. Tillingham had made his garden studio available as a club for Belgian refugees, and slipped into Mr. Tillingham's library, where she did not linger, for she hoped to maintain her privileges by being undetectable to the great man. With a new book in hand, she turned her steps to the graveled paths of the churchyard and a sheltered corner of a stone buttress which had become a favorite place to sit and read under the dappled shade of ancient trees.

The gravestones were mossy and weathered amid the cool grass, so that it appeared as if no one had died in at least a century. Thinking that she might like to write a small observation on the incongruity of immutable gravestones recording the fragile brevity of life, Beatrice reached in her satchel for a pencil and notebook but instead pulled out her letter from Mr. Caraway. She was reading it for a second time, as if the act of reading might change the words on the page, when a shadow fell across the paper. She looked up to see a young officer in stiff khaki. It took Beatrice a moment to recognize Hugh Grange, for he was thinner, and altered by the uniform and more severely clipped hair, though pleasantly familiar in his blunt chin and frank smile.

“Miss Beatrice, how do you do,” he said, removing his cap. She was much happier to see him than she could have expected and thought perhaps that the shock of the uniform inspired its own empathy.

“Just Beatrice,” she said firmly. “Formality, like many things, seems so silly these days.”

“I am honored,” he said. “I hope my uniform did not startle you?”

“There are so many men in uniform I did not expect it to feel so strange to see you,” she said. “Was your aunt very shocked?”

“I fear I have caused her the sort of palpitations she despises in other women,” said Hugh. “My arrival yesterday was impossible for us both, even though my Uncle John had prepared the way. Daniel could not stop making humorous remarks in the worst possible taste, and my aunt said nothing. I found myself wishing you were at dinner just to break the tension.”

“One longs to be invited where one is useful,” she said, but she smiled to soften her teasing because he was clearly too worried to have guarded his words and even now did not realize that he should have perhaps mentioned another young woman instead. She invited him to sit down.

“I have mostly been hiding in my workshop today, and at last I escaped through a hedge, at great risk to the new uniform, to take a walk.” He examined his sleeves as if for possible leaf stains and ran a hand through his hair. A slight strain was visible on his face, and Beatrice imagined Agatha's face pale and lined with worry. “I've only been in training for a couple of weeks,” he added. “I suppose the more one wears it the less of an impostor one will feel?”

Beatrice wished she could say something of comfort to him.

“Your aunt is the most sensible woman I know,” she said at last. “Her distress shows deep affection and conceals great pride. I am sure she will come around more swiftly if you stop hiding away.”

“You are the second most sensible woman I know,” he said. “May I ask why you are hiding away in the churchyard?”

“I am pretending to read, but really I am here to wallow in self-pity because my father's publisher declines my talents,” she said. “Such concerns are set in their insignificant place by your arrival.” She handed him the letter, which had remained crumpled in her hand, and added, “At least my father's letters are to be presented to the world in grand style.”

Hugh read the letter with a serious face.

“This is deplorable,” he said. “Your aunt has no business betraying your interests in this manner.”

“I'm not sure she has done so deliberately,” said Beatrice. “But even if she has, I should thank her for doing my father's legacy such a service.”

“It is a betrayal,” he said.

“It is perhaps I who sought to betray my father,” she said. “My efforts might have limited the project and thereby limited his legacy for the purposes of my own literary start.”

“Anyone can toss off an introduction,” said Hugh. “No one could match the close insight you would bring.”

“Of course, you don't even know if I can write,” she said, his frown making her somehow much more cheerful. “After all, I am merely a woman.”

“I take you at your word and assume a basic competence is open to both sexes,” said Hugh.

“Your casual assumption is heresy to most,” said Beatrice. “As I say, it now seems much less important in the grand scheme of the times. I will of course help as I can, and my father's legacy will no doubt be assured.”

“Who do you think they have asked?” said Hugh, still frowning at the letter.

“I can't imagine,” said Beatrice. “My aunt only reads sermons. I think the great John Wesley is dead, so I can't think who else they know. When I wrote to Aunt Marbely I had to explain to her who Mr. Tillingham was.” Even as she said the words, a great cold feeling of dread crept up her throat. She turned slowly to look at Hugh, and she could feel her eyes grow wide with a consternation she could not disguise.

“You don't think—?” he asked.

“Do you think—?” she replied.

“Surely Tillingham would have consulted you if he had been approached on such a project,” said Hugh.

“Why would he?” asked Beatrice, her voice bitter. “I am invisible to him, especially when it comes to writing.”

“We are merely being fanciful,” said Hugh. “It is impossible that Mr. Tillingham would agree to such a project when he barely remembered your father.”

“That is true,” said Beatrice. “How incongruous that a moment of literary invisibility might turn out to be a saving grace.”

“Mr. Tillingham is as ambitious as he is proud, and your father is hardly the sort of celebrated literary name with which he might look to gild his reputation. Quite beneath Tillingham's notice, I should think.”

“I believe my father to be quietly respected in the literary and historical communities,” she said, blinking away the sharp sting of a tear and trying to laugh.

Hugh must have noticed, she thought, because he coughed and added, “I'm not the biggest acolyte of our Mr. Tillingham. I speak only of his faults, not of your father's achievements.”

“You speak the truth,” she said. “But my father was pleased with the modesty of his contributions and content to live the quiet life of a scholar.”

“And such a life and work would have been well served by your own efforts,” said Hugh. “It makes me angry to see you pushed aside. We must think what is to be done.”

“It makes me happy to have friends who would feel that way,” she said. “You cannot know what it means to me.” In the kind expression of his gray eyes, she felt as strong a sense of comfort as if he had put an arm around her shoulders.

“One does not like to see injustice,” he said, patting her hand. His palm was warm and heavy on her skin. “You must not give up.”

“I will not,” said Beatrice. A confusing warmth of feeling caused her to withdraw her hand. She stood up and retrieved her satchel. With some effort she met his eyes again and smiled. “But right now I must make my fortune tutoring certain boys whose previous tutor seems to have spent more time on science experiments than Latin translation.”

“I trust they are not making your life too difficult?” he said.

“I did not expect young Snout to have such an understanding of Virgil,” she said. “Of course he would rather die than display his interest in front of the others, so all three sigh through the lesson as if they were saints being martyred.”

“As we discussed, Snout might make something of himself with a scholarship and a better attitude,” said Hugh. “But I've found that intelligence is often no match for the circumstances of life, Miss Beatrice. It takes an exceptional boy to fulfill such early promise.”

“I hope a determined teacher might make a difference,” said Beatrice. “I can only follow my father's example and give them the knowledge I have.”

“I would come with you, but I fear I must go home and face my Aunt Agatha,” said Hugh. “I report back for duty on Monday. Let's hope she recovers her usual sensible demeanor next week or I may have to spend all my future days off in London.”

“That would be a great loss to your friends,” she said, and she held his gaze, though a flush in her cheeks threatened to betray her.

It was hot in the kitchen. The back door was propped open with a chair and all the windows secured on the furthest points of their long iron catches, but the breeze could not quite clear the steam from the large copper pans of peaches and plums bubbling on the stove and the glass preserving jars and lids jiggling about nicely in their baths of boiling water. Piles of runner beans as fat as baby eels lay on sacking in the scullery along with small hills of carrots, cauliflowers, and small, early beetroots thick with mud about the roots. Agatha, swathed in a voluminous white apron, with her hair tucked under an old mobcap that was a relic of her mother's trousseau, was helping Cook to put up as much preserved fruit and vegetables as they could make against any further food shortages to come. Extra jars had been rescued from Hugh's workroom and from various corners of the stable, amid some grumbling as preserved laboratory specimens and Smith's collections of screws and nails were summarily tipped into less suitable containers.

If Cook wondered at the outsized effort, and Agatha's insistence on working in the kitchen all day, she did not say, and Agatha was grateful for her unusual lack of inquisitiveness. Hard manual labor seemed to Agatha to be just the thing to keep her thoughts from racing and her heart palpitating at Hugh's appearance in uniform. Though John had sent her a note to let her know Hugh's intention, it had been a shock to see him step off the train with John, all nonchalant in his khaki, and brimming with talk of battlefield surgery.

“My ability to serve has removed all my father's and mother's objections to my continued medical studies,” he had said over dinner as he and John discussed the details of the surgeon's plans for specific head injury facilities.

“I expect you Medical Corps chaps all have a signed doctor's note in your pocket in case you need a quick escape to Blighty,” Daniel had added. “How will you feel about amputating your own leg if necessary?”

Agatha had sipped her Earl Grey and tried not to feel sick. She had treated the war as another civic duty and had entered willingly into her many new commitments. She truly believed that all must serve to the best of their abilities, but the sight of Hugh in uniform, and the realization that his talents would send him to the battlefield, was like a physical blow to her enthusiasm.

“We shall have to clean out the cellar properly this year,” said Agatha. “I fear we have become used to ordering from the high street whenever we wish.”

“You'll be needing us to send boxes up to town as well, then,” said Cook. “I wouldn't want Mr. Kent to go hungry.” Cook had a country woman's disdain for the town and was quite sure that there would be starvation in London where there were minor shortages in Sussex.

“I expect Mr. Kent can always get dinner at his club,” said Agatha. “I'm not sure I shall be up in town much with all the work to do here.”

“We'll be using just about all our sugar and salt if we're to fill all these jars,” said Cook.

“When Smith comes back from the mill, we'll send him to the grocer's again and see if there are any new supplies to be had,” said Agatha. Smith had been dispatched in the hopes of purchasing larger bags of flour than were available in the town shops and to pursue any information about rumors of the government buying up future corn crops for the army. It was not Agatha's intention to indulge in hoarding, but to refrain from such practices called for credible information that food would continue to be in adequate supply. She was not above doing her own information gathering to supplement her husband's assurances.

“We could maybe keep a pig or two if we dug up a bit o' grass,” said Cook. She was not content with Agatha's carefully manicured vegetable garden and had been upset when she got rid of the chicken coop on account of the smell and an obnoxious rooster, who woke up houseguests. Cook did not hold with large areas of grass just lying there, mowed, for playing croquet or walking about.

“I think we'll keep patronizing the butcher as long as possible,” said Agatha. “The poor man is so embarrassed at how little he has in stock.”

“Tongue was all he had yesterday,” said Cook. “So many I had a sudden vision of a whole field of silent cows. Quite a nasty turn it gave me.”

“I had no idea you were so imaginative,” said Agatha. As she looked up from forcing the last half of a fat peach into a jar, she saw that Cook had lost all the ruddy color from her face. “Are you all right?” she added.

“I'm sorry, madam,” said Cook, sitting down too fast on a chair, a large carrot forgotten in each hand. “Only my daughter's husband has up and gone to the army, and her with the little girl to take care of.”

“I believe there are special allowances to wives and children,” said Agatha gently.

“Oh, he says it's more money and a bit of adventure, like,” said Cook. “But what if he comes home maimed or dead? What if he takes up with some camp follower and doesn't come home at all?” She shook her head and wiped away a tear. “He's never been happy to have a cripple for a daughter.” Agatha did not know what to say. An unworthy concern flickered through her mind that Cook might now take to being absent without warning, burning gravy because of tiredness, bringing her granddaughter with her to get underfoot in the kitchen. Agatha was forced to consider whether her sympathetic interest in her staff's families might have more to do with appearing generous than with any willingness to be inconvenienced by their actual problems.