The Summer Before the War (3 page)

“I only know that I want to teach something other than elementary school,” she said. “I want to teach and study and write, as my father did, and to have my efforts treated no less seriously just because I am a woman.”

Agatha sighed. “You are an educated person and can be of use to the country, but women like us need to demonstrate our worth, rather than demonstrating in the streets. Besides,” she added, “we don't need all the housemaids declaring their independence and running off to join the music hall, do we?”

“Who would boil the tea?” said Beatrice, before she could stop herself.

“You must know, Miss Nash, that you and I will be under severe scrutiny these next few months. I must be blunt in saying that I expect you not only to demonstrate your own superior merit and irreproachable respectability but to protect my reputation too. I have spent many years, in a quiet way, establishing a position from where I can do important work in this town, but I am not without enemies.”

“I see,” said Beatrice.

“I don't think you do,” said Agatha. “I have never pushed for something as outrageous as hiring a woman to teach Latin, and I am personally responsible for you. Should you and I fail in this task, many other projects may come undone.” Beatrice saw a moment of weariness in the kind face. “I have put all my eggs in your basket, Miss Nash. Do I make myself clear?”

Beatrice was curious to feel a tiny sense of purpose flowering. It was different from the purpose—the stubborn fury—with which she had pursued her escape from the Marbelys. She had not been needed by anyone for many months. Now Agatha Kent appeared to need her, and Beatrice felt an echo of the same feeling of determination that her father's plans always inspired.

“I will not let you down, Mrs. Kent,” she said.

“See that you don't,” said Agatha with a warm smile. She rose to her feet and held out both hands. It was gracefully done, but Beatrice recognized that she was being dismissed.

“Good night, Mrs. Kent.”

“And just one more thing, Miss Nash,” said Agatha, as Beatrice moved towards the hall. “I would not be public about any yearnings to write. It would be an absolute disaster for a lady in your position to earn a reputation as a bohemian.”

In the billiard room, Daniel busied himself over the selection of a cue as if he had not been familiar with Uncle John's four old cues since both he and Hugh were in short trousers.

“I do wish Aunt Aggie would stop taking on projects,” he said, sighting along the length of the ebony and rosewood one picked up by Uncle John in Morocco. He began to chalk its India rubber tip, and Hugh, as usual, was left to turn up the lamps and rack the balls.

“I think her interest in education might be considered a cause,” said Hugh, enjoying the smooth, dull click of red ball against yellow as he arranged them in a triangle.

“The school governors, yes,” said Daniel. “But then it was the urchins she foisted on you.”

“Alarmed about the rise of the working man, are you?” said Hugh.

“Not at all,” said Daniel. “It's absurd to think any of them will even make it to factory clerk. It's just that she risks making herself look foolish.”

“And those around her…”

“I'm only thinking of Uncle John,” said Daniel. “And now, championing a woman to be Latin master at the grammar school? It's just outlandish.”

“I believe the other candidates were quite lacking in skill,” said Hugh.

“I imagine one only needs the rudimentaries,” said Daniel. “The profession is mostly about having a good strong arm to wield the cane.”

“I think Miss Nash believes it will be a pleasure to share Caesar and Virgil with the young,” said Hugh.

Daniel gave a loud snort, and his face, dropping its unpleasant curl of the lip, broke into a grin. Hugh sighed with relief. It usually took Daniel some time to relax into life in Rye. As a young boy he had always seemed to arrive with a scowl, shoulders hunched under some imagined weight, eyes as wary as those of a kicked dog. Hugh, older by two years, would pretend not to notice and busy himself with a book or with helping the gardener pick lettuce for the kitchen, impatient for his younger cousin to shed his outside shell and get back to leading them in crimes and adventures around the woods and town.

It was Daniel who planned the midnight orchard raids, the fishing expeditions, the hikes to the seashore. It was Daniel who could charm the cook into stuffing his satchel with pork pies and hard-boiled eggs, or persuade the milkman to let them ride on his cart into town. Hugh would have liked to be as fearless as Daniel, as filled with ideas and plans, but he was sharply aware that he was endowed with responsibility and a conscience that understood all the potential pitfalls of Daniel's wilder plans. At least that was what Aunt Agatha told him when Daniel got them lost overnight in Higgins wood; when Daniel broke his arm falling off a tightrope they had strung up to practice for a circus career; when they brought home a sick, three-legged piglet and tried to keep it in an orange crate in the nursery and it deposited dung all over the rug—and frightened Cook with its squealing, rolling escape down the back stairs.

“You are the responsible one.”

“You are the oldest.”

“Daniel doesn't have a mother to tell him these things.” This last admonition seemed slightly unfair to Hugh. It was hardly his fault that he had a mother still living. They both had fathers, though Hugh's father was admittedly a much jollier man than Daniel's. Besides, he was sure plenty of other people, from Aunt Agatha to the Sunday School teacher who clicked his ceramic teeth when he shouted at unruly boys, were available to communicate basic morals to his cousin.

While it seemed unfair to Hugh that he should always be spoken to as if he had been the one to suggest spying on the Gypsies down on the marsh, or borrowing the neighbor's donkey to re-create an expedition to Bethlehem, he kept his tongue. Even at a young age, Hugh understood that, for reasons that were not explained to him, allowances were made for Daniel's wildness as well as his scowling arrivals.

Hugh had heard his aunt and uncle discuss quietly, on several occasions, Daniel's austere boarding school, Aunt Agatha wanting to speak to Daniel's father and Uncle John urging her not to interfere. Hugh had never thought the school to be the problem, since Daniel seemed to arrive equally morose whenever he came from a visit to his father's London house. As they grew up, Daniel gradually replaced his brooding with a distant air of cynical composure. He became more popular at school, and Hugh had the distinct impression that his cousin had studied the art of society much harder than mathematics or Greek. At Oxford he seemed to have become quite sought-after by multiple sets, and Hugh had seen less of him in London or Sussex as Daniel accepted invitations to visit country houses, to accompany families to foreign capitals, or to go tramping in the Dolomites or some such rustic area.

“Speaking of Virgil, how was Florence?” asked Hugh.

“For the most part, filled with a crush of English and American matrons all doing their best to squash centuries of history and art into the usual routines of some provincial summer watering hole,” said Daniel. “No more than an hour and a half in the Uffizi because of course there is a luncheon at noon and then it is too warm in the early afternoon to visit churches and tea is at four. And they are all campaigning to show off their gaggle of daughters and so the evenings are all dinners and parties.” He took aim at the phalanx of balls and sent them scattering smartly across the billiard table's green surface. “They worked very hard to make Italy no more exotic than the middle of Surrey.”

“How did you stand it?” asked Hugh.

“I developed a recurring summer cold,” said Daniel, “so that several whole days were supposedly passed in my room. Soon as the coast was clear, my friend Craigmore and I would sneak off and spend the day in the city by ourselves.”

“Craigmore shares your affinity for poetry?” asked Hugh.

“Oh, God no,” said Daniel. “He is a rather brutish artist and an athlete of the worst kind. But he is a great walker, and we tramped the whole city and up into the hills. I was in charge of taking in the beauty and the art, and telling him what to record in his travel journal, and he taught me how to kill the opposition at tennis.”

“You don't usually have much patience with philistines,” said Hugh, gripped by a small jealousy that his cousin had so easily traded their summer companionship for another. “But then I believe he has a title?” he added.

“Ouch!” said Daniel. “You don't usually go in for such blows of sarcasm.”

“Sorry,” said Hugh.

“But you can always be counted upon to apologize.” Daniel jabbed his cue and sank a red ball firmly into a corner pocket. Hugh felt his face flush at the suggestion that his good manners were a kind of weakness. At least they were sincere. He had heard Daniel make many pretty apologies that were all charm and no substance.

“I'm sorry, Hugh, that was unpardonably spiteful.” Hugh searched his cousin's face for irony but found none this time. “He is Viscount Craigmore, Lord North's son,” continued Daniel. “In some romantic fit his mother named him Lancelot, so he always goes by Craigmore, even to his closest friends.”

“I quite see his point,” said Hugh.

“He and I intend to go to Paris this autumn to write and paint. We're talking about starting up a journal that might combine poetry and illustration.”

“How on earth would you get your father to support such a jaunt?” said Hugh. “I thought you kept your poetry pretty well hidden from him.”

“I keep many things hidden from him,” said Daniel. “In this case I'll tell him that Craigmore's father has invited me to stay with them in Paris. Father won't mind me playing the gentleman—especially if I mention that Craigmore has a highly marriageable younger sister.”

“Daniel, don't tell me you're in love?” said Hugh. Hope flickered, for if Daniel was in love, he might broach the subject of his own romantic hopes without fear of being mercilessly teased.

“Good heavens, no,” said Daniel. “She's a poor, pale squab of a thing and she smells like tapioca—but Craigmore feels his father can be persuaded that a few months in Paris, with extra funds for the maintenance of a suitable mistress, is just the gilding a British gentleman needs before settling down to his responsibilities.”

“So poetry will be the mistress?” asked Hugh, as he missed a corner shot and stubbed his cue into the baize. “Would she not be better served by your telling the truth?”

“Good God, no,” said Daniel. “Lord North doesn't like me much. I think he's suspicious of people who read.”

“Well, Craigmore's father may deserve to be fooled, but good luck fooling Aunt Agatha,” said Hugh. “She has expectations that you will now follow Uncle John into the civil service this year.”

“I just have to convince her that I will have regrets for the rest of my life if I fail to grasp this opportunity now,” said Daniel.

“Surely one can write poetry and pursue a responsible career,” said Hugh.

“Perhaps surgery can be a Sunday hobby, but I assure you poetry is life and death for me, Hugh,” said Daniel. “I simply must write, just as you must apparently peer into people's bleeding bodies on the operating table and pickle chicken heads in Aunt Agatha's largest jam jars.”

“No need to mention the jars. I put them back in the pantry before Cook notices.”

“No need to mention Paris,” said Daniel. “The new schoolteacher should distract Aunt Agatha. We should take up the poor girl, Hugh, and make sure Aunt Agatha continues to shelter her under her matronly wing.”

“I'm not sure that's a good idea,” said Hugh. “Miss Nash is no tapioca pudding.”

“She did have the unfortunate air of a bluestocking,” said Daniel. “You'll have to engage her in scholarly debate, Hugh. But if all else fails, I can always write her a sonnet.”

“A sonnet?” said Hugh.

“No woman can resist having her name rhymed with a flower in iambic pentameter,” said Daniel.

The sun had not
yet evaporated the dew from the lawn, and the scents of honeysuckle and wallflowers rose on the salty breeze. Early morning was Agatha's favorite time, recalling the simple joys of childhood and beckoning one outside, she thought, to walk barefoot on the wet grass. In pursuit of this goal, she finished tying the bows at the neck and waist of her plain cotton wrapper, stuck her feet into a pair of shabby, low-heeled slippers, and headed for the back stairs.

Only in the early mornings did Agatha use these stairs, and never did she feel more at home in her own house than when she popped her head in the kitchen to ask Cook for a cup of tea from the big brown pot kept fresh all day for the staff. For a brief moment, in the black-and-white-tiled kitchen, with its high, sunny windows and gleaming new gas range, they did not have to be mistress and cook, ruling separate domains on either side of a green baize door, but could come together as two women, up before anyone else in the family, in need of the day's first cup.

Today there were two bowls of raspberries on the kitchen table, and Cook was busy straining cream from the top of the milk jug.

“I hope it was all right to have them?” said Cook. “Only milkman had them on the cart and I know how partial Master Daniel is to a few raspberries—and ours still green on the canes.”

“I fear you will never stop spoiling those boys,” said Agatha. “And how is that granddaughter of yours?”

“Better for the sunshine and fresh air,” said Cook. “She gets about so fast now.” The small girl wore braces to correct legs twisted and weakened by rickets, a scourge among the poorer classes. Agatha sent frequent baskets of beef tea and butter home with Cook, but the child, now five, remained stubbornly frail and sickly, and caused Cook such distress that Agatha had to choose carefully which days to ask after her.

“I'm glad to hear it,” she said, and sent a silent prayer of thanks for the health of her own tall, strong nephews.

Cup of tea in hand, Agatha passed through a wooden arch in the thick yew hedge, closing the tall, close-boarded gate behind her and rattling the latch loudly just in case the gardener was about early. All the servants had been discreetly made to understand that this quiet corner of the garden was off-limits when the gate was shut. Still, Agatha preferred to announce her occupation rather than be shy about it.

She took a moment to enjoy her own ingenuity in creating this small green box of a room with its chin-high yew hedge overlooking the sea and its taller yew walls on the three landward sides. The plain, well-manicured lawn looked almost smooth enough for croquet, and the single heavy oak bench in the middle gave her much satisfaction in its charming French blue paint. She set down her tea mug, uncloaked herself from her wrapper, and kicked off her slippers. She was revealed to the sunny morning in a chemise and a pair of short bloomers over wool stockings from which she had cut off the feet. Wriggling her toes in the damp grass, she took two long, deep breaths, stretched both arms above her head, and began to make energetic circles with her upper body and head.

Whenever she exercised here in the garden, Agatha was transported back to the camellia-scented air of Baden-Baden, where she and John, on a short holiday, had gone to hear a lecture on the benefits of strenuous daily exercise. They had gone out of a desire to see the green and white copper and glass magnificence of the assembly rooms by the lake, and to take in the splendor of the summer crowds in their stiff white finery. The Germans seemed to go in for a lot of colored sashes encrusted with medals, or brooches that resembled medals, so that a summer evening took on the aspect of a military parade rather than a promenade in a provincial lake town. The lecturer, a slight, wiry Scandinavian man, had not seemed up to the task of commanding the large, empty stage, and while he extolled the virtue of muscle development and the healthful qualities of the cold bath, the hall grew restless. But a sudden stripping off of his trousers had a galvanizing effect. Clad only in a loincloth, the man proceeded to stand on his head, to fold himself up and over a bar six feet from the ground, to have a man in the audience bounce up and down on his stomach, and to perform the splits. John was of the immediate opinion that neither of these last capabilities would be an asset to any man of gentlemanly rank and would only detract from sales of the poor man's book, but despite the titters of shock from the excited crowd, and some outrage in the local newspapers, the Scandinavian and his exercise regimen became quite the fashion that summer. Both Agatha and John read the little book to be able to keep up with dinner party conversation, but John had been won over by the commonsense ideas—sleeping with the windows open, daily sponge baths—and six years on, he had developed an admirably slimmed physique. He chose to be modest about it and was a source of frustration to his tailor, from whom he insisted on ordering clothing in his old measurements.

Agatha had regretfully resigned herself to the fact that she did not have her husband's willpower. Her inconsistent use of the program, combined with her love of cakes, cream, and good, thick gravy, had destined her to retain a plump midsection that refused to succumb to exercise or to corseting. A roll of flesh got in her way now as she lay on the grass, feet tucked under the bench's crossbars, and attempted to haul herself up to a sitting position, twelve times. However, she enjoyed the routine here in her private garden, on a dry, sunny day, and she looked forward to the end of the set, when she allowed herself the prescribed dose of the sun's healthy rays.

Beatrice awoke to sunlight appearing to dance on blue wallpaper and the sound of birds squabbling for their breakfast in unseen trees. Her window was open, and the breeze brought the scent of a hot morning into the slight coolness of the room. For a moment she could not place where she was, and with a brief skip of her heart wondered if she were not still in Italy, in the village above Florence, and her father already at the
pensione
breakfast table on the terrace below, reading two-day-old newspapers and calling for more hot milk. She squeezed down into the pillow and tried to remain in the semiwaking moment that felt so happy.

When she finally opened her eyes, the unfamiliar room swam into focus along with a slow awareness that she had made good her escape from her aunt's family. She was in Sussex, and her room smelled of the garden outside and, faintly, of the sea. At least the grief, which weighted her limbs to her bed most mornings, could not win today against the anticipation of a new beginning. For the first time in months, she almost sprang from her bed to greet the summer day.

Scrubbed and tidy, in a gray cotton dress with a tucked bodice and a wide belt fastened with bone buttons, Beatrice left her traveling bag closed and ready by the bedroom door and descended in search of breakfast. The polished hall was quiet and empty, as were the drawing room and a dining room across the way. Some faint sounds came from behind the stairs, but Beatrice hesitated to penetrate further into the house before being invited. The drawing room's French windows stood open to the breeze, and so, anxious not to be seen hovering, she slipped out onto the terrace beyond.

The stone terrace already looked older than the house, softened to a pleasant mossy gray under the relentless dripping of English rain, its stone balusters pressed by fat shrubs and draped in twisting vines of honeysuckle, wisteria, and the teacup-sized pale green flowers of a clematis. White roses climbed up the house from beds filled with brilliant blue agapanthus. Beatrice stooped to cup in her hands a waxy blue flower head as large as a hat and to wonder if plants ever sensed how far they were from home: this African lily carried on ships to England in the time of Henry VIII, rhododendrons dug from the rippled flanks of Chinese mountains, the passionflower twining about itself in air so much drier than the South American rain forest. Beyond the terrace, a croquet lawn fell away on its farthest edge to a lower terrace of rolling grass, hedged above the steep escarpment of the ridge. Below, the stacked red roofs of Rye poked up from its flat skirt of marshes, and beyond, the sea formed a broad, glittering swath under the wide blue bowl of the sky. On the left, the terrace ended in a thick wall of pine trees that separated the house from its nearest neighbor, but to the right it extended further, beckoning Beatrice along the flank of flower and kitchen gardens to a door in a hedge and old woodland beyond.

Agatha Kent was dozing on the folds of a white cotton robe, on an intensely blue bench, perched on a smooth green lawn—entirely naked. If Beatrice had processed her pinkness as flesh a moment earlier, if she had only registered the rolling expanse of skin instead of the blue paint of the bench, she might have withdrawn before Mrs. Kent's eyes snapped open. Instead she froze. She was aware of Mrs. Kent, a plump woman, flailing like a landed fish as she tried to collect her limbs, and then the edges of her robe, and attempt an awkward draping of her ample form. Beatrice felt her face flush hot as she cast her eyes around for some other place to focus. The lawn turned blurry under her stare.

“I am so sorry,” she managed. “So very sorry.” The vast pink landscape still danced before her eyes.

“You weren't to know…” said Agatha, puffing out her cheeks as she sought to breathe and tie ribbons at the same time. “Everyone knows not to disturb me.”

“So sorry,” repeated Beatrice, wondering if she should pick up her bag and head for the station now. “I didn't mean to spy.”

“I always meant to put a lock on that gate,” said Agatha. “Only it looks so funny in a garden and—”

“I'm always up too early,” said Beatrice. “I don't sleep very deeply.”

“I was bathing in the sun,” said Agatha, her breath slowing and her voice assuming a more authoritative air. “It is prescribed as a vital part of my exercise program.”

“Of course.”

“You should try it yourself,” said Agatha. “No girl your age should look quite as drawn about the face.”

“I'm not a girl,” said Beatrice. “And I wouldn't look so pale if it didn't rain here all the time.”

“All the more reason we have to drink in the sun when we can,” said Agatha. “Why don't you come and give it a try right now?”

“I shouldn't intrude.”

“Oh, don't worry; we're not going to cavort like wood nymphs. Just come and sit by me. I'll turn this way and we can both get a little sun, if not the whole bath.” With this she moved to the far end of the bench and shrugged her gown down from her shoulders, using a hand to keep it drawn above her large bosom. Beatrice moved swiftly to the near end of the bench and sat down. She unbuttoned the collar of her dress and turned its stiff edges down. She rolled up her cuffs to the elbow.

“You're going to have to shrug that dress right down to get any benefit,” said Agatha, turning her chin up into the sun and closing her eyes. Beatrice undid more buttons and pulled the dress from her shoulders. The breeze breathed across her collarbones and ruffled the edges of her light chemise. The sun felt like a warm hand on her shoulder. It began to heat the smooth rise of her chest and the fragile skin inside her elbows. She felt her nervous breath slow and relax. As she tipped up her face to the sun, she felt the strangest urge to take off her shoes and walk barefoot on the grass.

Hugh was pretending to enjoy a quiet breakfast, with one of last week's London newspapers spread carelessly in front of him, but he was listening for noises in the hall which might mean the ladies coming to breakfast. He was aware of a pleasant sense of anticipation at the chance to see the young schoolteacher again this morning and had already run a few opening conversational gambits through his head. A desire for new conversation and companions his own age sparked his eager mood.

A rustling in the hall and a murmur of voices caused him to wipe his hands on his napkin and tweak his collar straight. He did not have time to fold the newspaper before the door was opened by the maid.