A Time for Courage (2 page)

She had moved quickly now to the other curtain and pulled that back too then walked out into the sun, feeling its heat on her face, on her hands, seeping through her clothes and knew that she would redden and therefore be discovered, but just for now, this minute, it didn’t matter somehow.

The terracotta pots were brilliant with roses and their fragrance was in the air, filling it. She walked down the steps, out on to the lawn, seeing the dead black patches that had been the daisies that she loved but which were now salted and destroyed. How could anyone object to their summer beauty? But her father did, insisting a garden should be ordered, should be as their neighbours would wish, as society would expect.

She lifted her skirt as she walked along the paths to the borders of lavender, lemon, thyme and mint. This was the area that she loved, fragrantly tucked away on the west side of the garden, away from the geometrical shapes that her father and the gardener had devised and edged with miniature box hedges, clipped exactly, enclosing marigolds, alyssum and tight-headed neat flowers that did not stray beyond their allotted space.

Over here though, behind the herbs, were the remains of the guinea-pig hutches where she and her brother Harry had fed, watered and cleaned the soft, furred creatures; holding their warmth in their hands, rubbing their cheeks against the rosettes of coats, feeling the busyness of their bodies.

Further up, by the old horse-chestnut was the thick looped rope which hung empty now. She moved along and pushed it in the windless air. It was warm to the touch and frayed, bristling with small hairs for as high as she could reach. Here, before Harry had been sent to school when he was eight and she was six, he had spun her as she leant back with both hands clutching the rope, her foot wedged in the loop; spun her until the blue and green above merged and laughter filled the space around them both.

Here he had bowled her stumps clean out of the ground, and tried to teach her Ring-goal, but catching and throwing a ring with two sticks proved too difficult for her. Here he had chased her until she was hot in her combinations and heavy dress, until there was no breath left in her body and she had flung herself down and begged for mercy and he had lain beside her, his breath warm in her face. He had picked daisies and threaded them but left the dandelions, since they made you wet the bed and what a fuss there would then have been from Beaky, he had groaned. And then, at the end of that last summer, he had waved goodbye from the window of the train and nothing had been the same again.

She dropped the rope. Harry would be home for the holidays soon but that would barely change the pattern of her days. For, he had told her when he returned after his first term, after he had written the letter, you are a girl, and boys don’t play with girls, especially their sisters.

Now she didn’t run because it was not permitted; girls did not run or jump or put their arms above their head. Hannah swept her hair back off her face, where it had strayed from the pins which gathered it into the pleat on the back of her head, and stretched her arms high, her fists clenched.

She looked back towards the house. Her mother’s windows were shut, the curtains drawn. Above her, on the second floor, her own were also shut and she tightened her lips. Beaky had done it again.

She swung away, down to the bottom of the garden, her stride long now, her shoulders back, her skirt dragging on the grass. Down to the fernery, to the stream which ran along the back of the gardens in this suburb of London. Here there was no noise from the street, just the sound of the water and at last a slight breeze. She bent and grasped a fern, dragging her hands up the spine, tearing the fronds so that they curled into her hands, feeling the stinging on her palm. She opened her hand, it was stained green and scored red from the friction. It stung and she was glad. She tossed the curled leaves on to the water, watching as they passed on down, away from her and from the house. Where did the stream go, she wondered. Perhaps to the river and then out to the sea, the wide, wind-swept sea. She looked back again and knew that it must be time.

She walked towards the house, pausing by the shrubbed lavender, running her hand in amongst the bush, feeling for a large sprig. There was one near the centre but the woody stem was moist and green and she had to bend it backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards until finally the stringy fibre gave way. She rubbed the leaves, the oily flowers, and smelt the fragrance on her fingers, but the bitterness of the filigree silver still broke through so she stooped and crunched lemon thyme in her hands as well, rubbing the small leaves and their thin stems but leaving the shrub still intact. Now, at last the bitterness was gone.

‘Miss Hannah!’ The voice was shrill and Hannah turned to face Mrs Brennan who stood on the top step, her black dress stark in the sunlight, her small white apron startling in its contrast. She was shading her eyes.

Hannah looked up at the window. She moved quickly over to the housekeeper. ‘Mother might be sleeping, Mrs Brennan,’ she said quietly, wanting to clap a hand over the tight mouth which could shout so loudly through those thin wet lips.

‘Your poor dear mother is lying awake waiting to see you, Miss Hannah, and it’s a sorry tale I’ll have to be telling her.’ She stepped to one side and waited for Hannah to walk before her into the drawing-room. ‘There’s your embroidery lying undone on the sofa in spite of those young men that give their lives just so that you can learn the arts that young ladies should.’

Hannah stepped from the flagstones of the terrace on to the wood flooring, her feet in their patent boots clicking until they reached the carpet. All was dark again and she twisted the lavender in her hands. ‘What young men?’ she asked.

Mrs Brennan did not answer but said, ‘And these curtains should not be drawn back like this, Miss Hannah, you know that very well, now what would your father be saying if he could see this?’

Hannah turned and watched Mrs Brennan as she shook the curtains along the rails until the light no longer fell on the pampas-grass or the carpet. Until there was only shadow again.

‘How is mother now?’ She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know in case, this time, she was not going to get better.

Mrs Brennan turned; she was breathless now and her face was shiny. She was too fat, Hannah thought, and walked like the ships that wallowed in the harbour near her aunt’s home in Cornwall. Her grey hair was immaculately tidy, though, and Hannah tucked back the brown strands of her own hair that had shaken free from her pleat again.

‘Your mother is over the worst,’ Mrs Brennan said, her hands smoothing down the drapes, ‘and it’s a shame I shall have to tell her of your behaviour. It doesn’t encourage her recovery, you know.’

‘But perhaps if I just sewed for an hour when I have seen her there would be no need to say anything.’ She looked at the lavender in her hand, at her dress, crumpled where she had clutched it as she walked up the steps, into Beaky Brennan’s face and thought again how like an owl’s it really was. Did Harry still think so too?

Why was he always away when this happened with their mother? It was so much worse to be here, to see her and hear the comings and goings of the nurse, to try and shut out the noise from the bedroom. But Beaky was talking again.

‘That’s not the height of it, though, is it, Miss Hannah? Out in the sun without a parasol and you knowing how much your mother is trying to do her best for you. A pale skin is important, you know.’

Hannah nodded, feeling the sun still hot on her cheeks. ‘I’ll go up then, Mrs Brennan.’ Her voice sounded dead now, the sun far away through the narrowed gap. How far would the fronds have gone, she wondered. It was better to think of that than her mother’s disappointment, which was made worse as there was no defence. She had known at the time what the end result would be and wished, as she so often did, that there was not this urge within her to push against rules which seemed too tight and petty to be endured but were deeply ingrained in society and, therefore, in her family.

She stepped back as Beaky waited to be allowed to pass before her through the door, and walk heavily up the stairs, clutching the banisters as she always did; the only servant allowed to use the front stairs.

Hannah stood with her back against the door jamb watching the housekeeper pause for breath on the half-landing before hauling herself up the remainder and then into the bedroom with her mouth full of words which would bring that creasing of her mother’s forehead, that tightening of her lips.

She ran her finger round the high collar, now damp from the hot afternoon. The hall was dark with just two shafts of light, stained red by the coloured segments set into the small side windows either side of the door.

There were no visiting cards in the bowl set on top of the carved rug-chest for there would be no ‘At Home’ today or for some time to come. There were two letters, though, in the wire cage which jutted out on this side of the letter-box. She moved across and lifted the lid. One was from Harry to her parents, the other for her father, and she placed them on the silver tray, neatly butting up the edges so that they were exactly in line; but Harry’s was too long. She bent over, her breath clouding the silver; an inch either side and … there, they were exact. Still Beaky had not called. Hannah moved over to the foot of the stairs. The nurse would be there too. She would hear about the daughter who had …

‘Miss Hannah, your mother would like to see you now.’ Hannah heard the voice before the closing of the door and the sound of Beaky’s bulk on the stairs. As she came down the last flight Hannah looked up at her.

‘What did you mean about men dying so that I could sew antimacassars, Mrs Brennan?’ The banister was cool under her hand.

She could hear the loud breath of the housekeeper as she reached the bottom and, standing next to her, could smell the peppermint that she sucked so much of the time.

‘It’s those young men, Miss Hannah. The needle grinders of the Midlands. They sharpen the points, see, and the metal sticks in their lungs and they never see more than twenty-five years in all.’

Beaky Brennan moved past Hannah, dabbing her face with her handkerchief.

‘But why do they do it?’ Hannah asked, swallowing as she wondered whether the filings cut the throat too.

‘Because it’s a job, and at least it gives the families enough for a while after they’ve gone.’

‘But that’s dreadful, Mrs Brennan, it’s so wrong, so unfair. It would be better if everything was plain, surely, nothing was embroidered.’

Mrs Brennan stopped and looked. ‘We all know what you would like, Miss Hannah, less work for you.’ She smiled coldly and Hannah felt the heat rush to her face.

‘No I didn’t mean that, not that,’ she protested.

‘Go and see your mother now,’ Mrs Brennan was already at the end of the hall, opening the door on to the servants’ quarters.

Hannah grasped her skirt in her hands but the lavender caught and snagged a thread; gently she released it, pulling the material until it was no longer noticeable, and mounted the stairs. The nurse was outside the closed door, her white apron starched and clean.

‘Not too long now,’ she instructed. ‘Your mother is very weak.’

It was the smell Hannah hated. Hot darkness that smelt of illness. Would it be the same this year? She turned to the nurse as she opened the door.

‘Couldn’t we open the windows? I’m sure it would be more pleasant for Mother.’

‘Just go in please, Miss.’ The nurse’s face had closed against Hannah.

And it was dark and it did smell; that same smell but she wouldn’t think of it; she would breathe through her mouth, walk over to the bed, avoiding the small easy chair, she told herself; the one which was pulled out of place to make room for the empty white-draped cradle. Why did they leave it here to upset her mother? Why did she go on having babies and where did they come from anyway? No one would explain. Her mother had just told her that she must wait until her wedding night. But why did she keep having them?

Hannah dug her nails into the hard stem of the lavender. Had she spoken the words? She couldn’t tell but her anger had returned. Why did she keep having them? They only died. Wasn’t she enough, and Harry? After all, one day her mother might die too and that would leave her all alone with Father. Fear filled her chest but did not remove the rage which she was afraid would spill out all over that small figure when she opened her mouth to speak.

‘Hallo, Mother.’ And so it had not.

There was enough light filtering through the curtains where they did not quite meet for her to see her mother’s face, and it was not beautiful as it usually was, with calm grey eyes and pale smooth skin, but drawn and sunken and sallow and the mouth was tight, the forehead creased.

‘I’m so sorry, Mother.’ I will improve, she thought, knowing that to say so would irritate. And now guilt had taken the place of anger, though fear remained. Her mother turned towards her, her voice slow and tired.

‘It won’t do, Hannah. It really won’t do. You have wasted an afternoon, neglected your duty. Now that you have reached fifteen, you must learn to drive from your thoughts all but those designed to please others. There can be no room for selfishness in a woman’s life. Your priorities will soon be the care of a husband and children; it is wrong to think in any other way. You must develop the skills which will bring happiness and contentment to those about you; attract the right sort of husband.’

‘But I don’t think it makes men happy to have embroidered antimacassars. After all, Father never smiles, does he? And it kills the grinders, did you know that? Isn’t it a greater selfishness to continue to sew once we realise the real cost?’ She watched as her mother lifted her hand for silence. It was white and the veins stood out and it looked so small. Hannah moved her own hand towards it but stopped, for her mother did not like to touch, or be touched.

‘Hannah, can it be that Miss Fletcher is not teaching the right attitude? Should we take you away? This storm of words, this preoccupation with things that are nothing whatsoever to do with you. How can you expect your father to look happy when there is this attitude in his home? How can we hope for a good marriage if you allow your tongue to run away with you? And how do you expect Harry to cope with a sister who refuses to obey the rules of society, especially when he enters the Household Cavalry as your father intends? You simply have to remember who you are and your obligations. Your duties may seem trivial to you but they are essential to developing a respectable attitude, to becoming a lady.’ Her breathing was rapid now but she raised her head, holding up her hand to still Hannah’s protests.