Songs of Spring (24 page)

She heard the knock on the front door, but Agnes was out there, so Margaret didn’t bother to send Myrtle to answer it. After all, she had to finish chiding Myrtle for wasting too much potato on her potato peelings. The girl had answered back. Now that was a sign of the times, if you like. Then Agnes came into the kitchen.

Margaret cried out in alarm. The girl’s face was dead-white and she looked as if she were about to pass out. As she rushed forward to help her to a chair, the telegram fell from her hand. Margaret picked it up and read it. Shock jolted through her. Armistice hadn’t meant telegrams were over and done with. Nor grief, nor mourning. Grimly, she hurried to her still room for the sal volatile, and Elizabeth Agnes came bouncing in after her. She didn’t say a word of reproach. The poor little thing was fatherless, after all.

‘Caroline, I have some bad news for you – for us.’

St James’s Park looked bleak in its winter plumage, as bleak as the news she knew must surely come. She had guessed from today’s newspaper that it would be sooner rather than later. She was secretly surprised that Yves had
not already left. The timing was not his decision, after all. He was a serving officer in the Belgian army and liaison officer to a king who was about to reclaim his country. What else could she expect other than bad news for Caroline Lilley? A miracle? God did not work in such mysterious ways as that. One plodded on, and then He helped you, in her experience, and yet for all her plodding on in life, here she was about to lose Yves.
Boche napoo, guerre finie
, as the troops were saying everywhere. Caroline too was about to be
finie
.

‘Have you read the newspaper this morning?’ Yves asked quietly.

‘Yes. King Albert has made a state entry into Bruges and reviewed the troops.’

She knew that the Germans were not giving up easily. Even though in Brussels the newspaper reported that their soldiers had revolted, and Belgian armed troops were restoring order, the German army were leaving a trail of wreckage and rape behind them, as they had threatened. They had even deliberately flooded some areas in order to hold up the Canadian and British troops following them to Germany. Any secret hope Caroline might have had that this would delay the King’s return to his capital was doomed, for King Albert was not the sort of person to be prevented at this late stage from reclaiming Brussels.

Now Yves confirmed it. ‘His Majesty plans to enter Brussels in full state with British, American, French and Belgian army march-pasts.’

‘When?’

‘On the 22nd.
Cara, carissima
, I must be there.’

‘And after that you will rejoin your wife.’

‘I have no choice.’

‘One always has choice.’

He did not reply. Caroline knew she should feel ashamed, but was too depressed to feel anything save the foretaste of emptiness. Tomorrow the pain would come. ‘When do you leave?’

‘On the 20th.’

She could not help the cry. ‘That’s less than a week!’

‘Then, like Antony and Cleopatra, let’s have one other gaudy night. Only for us we will have a whole gaudy week.’

‘How?’ she asked dully. ‘And don’t tell me to be brave.’

‘I won’t. For at least where you are concerned, I am not.’

Counting the last dinner, the last day in the office, the last walk in the park, the last of love. How could she bear it?

It took nearly three weeks for the pain to override the merciful numbness that had prevailed this last week. Even their parting had seemed just another parting. Not a word was spoken, not a tear shed that would imply he was not returning. Even when she read the reports in the newspapers of King Albert’s entry into Brussels on the 22nd, the pain stayed away. Then on December 7th
The Illustrated London News
carried many pictures of the grand re-entries, and whereas words did not conjure up Yves’ image, photographs did. Photographs of the King on his white charger, Queen Elisabeth at his side, and accompanied by Prince Albert, King George V’s second son, in RAF uniform. Despite his shyness, Prince Albert
had obviously inherited his father’s devotion to duty and was well thought of by the Belgian king. Yves was probably in that photograph of the Belgian army, at the end of the long procession of the Allied forces, as they took the salute from King Albert at the Place de la Nation.

Caroline was beginning to feel resentful of King Albert; he took for granted what she would have given so much for – to have Yves at her side.
Everyone
talked about King Albert, she was heartily sick of the sound of his name. If only the general public knew that staunch patriot though he was to his own country, he had swayed to and fro in his belief in the ultimate victory of the Allies. As it was, even Aunt Tilly hadn’t lost a minute in accepting an invitation to visit him. She was there now, though she would be back in plenty of time for Christmas.

Yves, at this moment, was almost certainly reunited with his wife. Suppose they now shared the same bed? Suppose war had made a difference? A thousand such supposes flashed through her mind. She had heard nothing from him and she would hear nothing of him. All that was left was a gaping hole. Home at Queen Anne’s Gate was no home now. Yves had left, and though everyone did their best to cheer her and distract her, they failed.

‘Join me and Felicia for dinner, Caroline,’ Luke pleaded.

‘Come to the theatre,’ Penelope suggested.

‘Why don’t we go to the pictures?’ Ellen asked brightly.

‘Do come over, Caroline,’ Phoebe demanded. ‘I need you here – the baby’s due any moment.’

She dutifully obeyed, but nothing helped. Then one
evening the telephone rang, and she unhooked the receiver to hear her mother’s voice.

‘Darling, I know Phoebe’s baby is coming along, but I just wondered whether you could spare the time to come down here this weekend. Everything is so sad here, what with Jamie’s death, and Mrs Dibble doesn’t like to remind Agnes Christmas is only two weeks away. I thought if you came down you might cheer everyone up. She hasn’t even begun on the Christmas puddings. She just says that it doesn’t matter if they’re late, since they’re not proper puddings anyway, but that isn’t the point …’

Caroline listened to her mother’s rambling appeal, and reluctantly agreed. What good could one more grieving person do to help though? On the other hand, just to crawl back to the comfort of the Rectory might be a relief. She would escape a thousand daily reminders of Yves for two days. Escape? She vaguely remembered promising God she would plod on along the road He’d chosen for her. To do that, she should not go to the Rectory for comfort and escape. She would have to offer it something.

She also remembered her earlier conviction that, with Yves gone, the Rectory would prove her salvation. She had forgotten that in her misery, but now it suddenly returned with renewed meaning. She
did
have something to contribute to the Rectory, even if for the moment it was only stirring the Christmas puddings.

Margaret tried valiantly to sing the traditional Sussex carol ‘On Christmas Night All Christians Sing’ and to pretend this was like all other Christmas Eves, now the war was over. But it wasn’t, not here in the Rectory, nor anywhere in Ashden. There was too much grieving to lay aside even for the celebration of the Lord’s birthday. Even that, she supposed, had been tinged with grief. The slaughter of the innocents. The innocents in Ashden were poor Mrs Isabel and Nanny Oates. Then there was Agnes’s Jamie. Agnes was still walking around as if hit by shell blast and no wonder. What kind of a Christmas was it for her, with the end of all her dreams?

Margaret had done the best she could to make it seem like a real Christmas. She only had the mince pies left to bake now; they were oval-shaped, cut as her mother had taught her, but even they failed to raise the usual
anticipation in her. Today, everyone would be gathering under the Rectory roof, including Miss Tilly, Miss Penelope and her father. They hadn’t had such a full house since before the war. Agnes was busy making up beds, Mrs Lilley was looking flustered instead of absent-minded, and perhaps by this evening when they all attended the midnight service, the Christmas spirit would come in more generous measure. Most of them had problems, but being all together must help. Poor Miss Caroline had been looking like a white ghost when she came ten days ago, though she was pretending all was well. No mention of her Belgian officer though. No doubt he’d gone back to his wife with not a thought for the girl he was leaving behind him. Then there was Agnes. She was working too hard, for all her abstraction.

‘You ought to be with your ma, Agnes, or Mrs Thorn, at Christmas.’ Margaret was concerned. ‘Not that I can’t do with you here, of course.’

Agnes had just said flatly: ‘This is my home, Margaret.’ Margaret had shut up quickly, and Agnes obviously felt guilty for snapping for she continued: ‘At any rate, it’s
almost
as good as a home of my own, the one Jamie promised.’ That was all she could manage before she broke down. To Margaret’s way of thinking, she’d never fully got her strength back after the birth of little Isabel, and Jamie’s death had made life all too much. Margaret felt guilty at her own private joy. Joe would be home from Austria for Christmas, and he and Muriel had chosen to come here for Christmas Day. If it hadn’t been for poor Lizzie she’d have been on top of the world.

Lizzie had arrived last evening, clutching Baby Frank, and sobbing her heart out. Agnes and Myrtle took one look, and tactfully withdrew, leaving the kitchen for Margaret to cope with her daughter as best she could.

‘What’s the matter, love?’

‘It’s Frank,’ Lizzie wailed. ‘I told him he’s got to go.’ She burst out crying again, and Mrs Lilley put her head round the door to see what was up. She hastily withdrew it when she saw what it was.

‘I had this letter from Rudolf,’ Lizzie hiccuped. ‘I never told you, nor Frank I’d written to him. He thinks he can get back here in the spring, and says he understands about the baby. I told him Frank was ever so nice, and that he would like him.’

Bet that cheered him up, Margaret thought, while uttering clucking sounds of sympathy. ‘So you’ve chosen old Rudolf. Not that I don’t agree with you, but what made up your mind?’

Lizzie howled again, and Myrtle popped in with a glass of the medicinal brandy that Lady Buckford kept for emergencies, sent by courtesy of the Rector. A gulp of that, and Lizzie was calmer. ‘I love them both, like I told you. But Frank and me are different somehow, and Rudolf and I are the same. Do you know what I mean?’

Margaret did. It used to be called knowing your place, but nowadays it didn’t have a name. Not that Frank Eliot was gentry – far from it – but he was an educated man who’d seen the world, and, love Lizzie or not, it set him apart. And her Lizzie had had the sense to see it.

‘I’m proud of you, my girl.’

‘What for?’ Lizzie was astounded. Ma had never said anything like that before. Proud of Joe, proud of Fred even, but her?

‘For having the Sussex sense to see where your long-term interests lie, and they’re not in Frank Eliot’s bed.’

Lizzie giggled. ‘I wish I could have Frank in bed, and Rudolf the rest of the time.’

‘Lizzie Dibble, I’m ashamed of you.’ Two pink spots appeared in Margaret’s cheeks. In her day one might think such things, but never, never did one voice them. It was her own fault for speaking too free, she supposed. All the same, she felt very sorry for Frank. She’d been set against him at first, and looking back maybe that was because he was ‘different’, as well as being a foreigner to Ashden. Ah well, if there was one thing this war had taught them, it was that foreigners weren’t that much different to themselves.

Ah well, Christmas Eve morning and a lot of work still to do. Sir John had provided two geese and a turkey, which was all very well, but what was one to stuff them with? Supplies weren’t back to normal yet, and she hadn’t got that young Peter Bertram at the butcher’s trained to save her a nice bit of suet, the way his father did. Wally Bertram had hung up his cleaver at last when the war ended and decided to hand over the reins to his son, now Peter was coming back from war.

Luckily Mrs Coombs had come over herself from the Dower House with a lump of suet. Before the war, she wouldn’t give you the time of day, she was so proud of her position at the Manor. Now she was a regular jaw-me-dead,
and Margaret couldn’t get rid of the woman. She sat at the kitchen table drinking tea and telling her all about Lady Hunney and how the atmosphere had changed.

‘And a good thing too,’ Margaret said politely. But she was thinking of that new song everyone had been singing since the armistice: ‘What shall we be when we aren’t what we are?’

‘Mother, what can I do?’ Caroline was determined to be bright – made harder by the fact that her mother had long since given up trying to pretend all was well, and Christmas was just one more burden. She had a perpetual puzzled look as though continually wondering why there was one fledgling missing from the Rectory nest. It had its blessings in that she had taken the news of Phoebe’s deception remarkably well – which was more than Father had.

‘Tidy the drawing room?’ It was almost a standard reply to keep her quiet. The drawing room
always
needed tidying, although since it contained not only the presents awaiting wrapping in tissue paper but Phoebe and her paraphernalia, it was more cluttered than usual.

Caroline had been here since yesterday, having travelled down on the Monday evening. Luke had volunteered to man the office and to travel down on Christmas morning. It was very self-sacrificing of him, but as he said jestingly, he was so confident of Felicia’s answer that he didn’t mind allowing Daniel the field for another day. Phoebe had arrived by motor car yesterday evening too, beaming and very large. The baby was due in three weeks’ time,
but Mrs Dibble was still maintaining it would be early.

‘I think you decided to have a baby just to get out of household chores.’ Caroline cheerfully tidied up around her.

Phoebe grinned and stretched lazily. ‘Perhaps I like watching you do them, though.’ She ducked, as a duster came whizzing through the air. ‘It’s like old times, isn’t it, being here at the Rectory?’

‘You once told me you never did feel at home here.’

‘That was before I had a home of my own.’

‘O wise young sage.’ Caroline bowed.

‘Will you move back to the Rectory, Caroline, when your job comes to an end?’

‘I don’t know. I gather that Lizzie Dibble has decided to remain with her husband, and now the delightful Swinford-Browne has closed the cinema, I can’t even take over Frank Eliot’s job.’

‘You’re usually so enthusiastic about work.’

‘Just at the moment, sister dear, I don’t feel very enthusiastic about anything.’ Especially, she smarted inside, about younger sisters who sat smugly awaiting their firstborn and lording it over their elders.

‘I think Yves behaved very badly.’ Phoebe managed to put her dainty foot right in it, as usual.

‘No, he did not,’ Caroline yelled, red-faced, all good intentions of remaining calm forgotten. ‘It was always agreed what the end of the war would bring and so
would you please not talk about it
?’

‘Sorry.’

‘What on earth are you two shouting about?’ Elizabeth
came in crossly. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling, Caroline? Luke is telephoning from your office.’

Instant alarm. What had gone wrong? Was it a summons to return to London immediately, or to say that Luke could not come? And if so … She flew to the telephone, a hundred horrors flicking through her mind.

‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away,’ Luke reassured her. ‘I’ve had an odd telephone call from your own wild horse, however.’

It took a moment before Caroline realised whom he was talking about. ‘Yves?’ Her heart pounded in a fanfare of joy.

‘It was a very bad line from Belgium. I couldn’t hear all he was saying, and then we were cut off.’

Keep still, heart, she silently ordered. Keep still, hope.

‘What did he want?’

‘I gather he’s been sent back to England today. All I could make out was Caroline, Dover, Town and half past three, and then the line went completely. Oh, and Caroline, tell Felicia not to get married before I get there tomorrow.’

Caroline’s hand trembled as she hung up the receiver. Why couldn’t Yves have rung her here? She knew the answer. Lines were difficult, to say the least, across the Channel, and only the line to the office would have any priority.
Sent
back to England? For how long? For Christmas? For two days? A month? Frustration clouded her mind, and only one thing was obvious. Yves would be at Dover Town Station at half past three, and that was where she must go.
Now
. She flew to the
Bradshaw
in the drawing room, leafing nervously through its bulk
for the timetables she needed, for she’d have to change trains twice.

‘Tell Mother I have to go to Dover,’ she told Phoebe. ‘I’ll be back in time for the midnight Mass.’

Would she? She didn’t know, she couldn’t think. Would Yves be with her, or would it be just a fleeting encounter on his way to London?

‘Caroline, don’t be silly!’ Even Phoebe was alarmed and went through to find Elizabeth, who came back hurriedly from her glory-hole, but too late. Caroline was already running for the railway station. If she hurried, she could just get the twelve twenty-four to Tunbridge Wells, which might, if she were lucky with her connection, get her to Tonbridge in time to catch the Dover train from London. She’d arrive there at three-fifteen.

Why on earth had Yves cut it so fine? Was it a sudden mission?

The problem was that timetables were almost irrelevant nowadays with so many troop trains and delays, and that hadn’t stopped just because the war had. British troops had advanced into Germany to occupy it while they were establishing their political system and that, with returning POWs crowding trains in the opposite direction, guaranteed wartime train travel conditions still prevailed.

Suppose she missed Yves? Suppose he had been planning to go to London after seeing her? At the very least he might come down with Luke for Christmas Day. Even King Albert wouldn’t insist he worked then, so Caroline might have her Christmas after all. What
matter if her happiness was restored only for a short time? Omar Khayyám, whose
Rubáiyát
she had given Yves in 1916, worked to the philosophy of eat, drink and be merry. Very well, she would, she vowed, though could not quite convince herself that this was wise. All she cared about was that in about two hours’ time she would see Yves.

She leapt onto the train just as it was about to puff off once more, and it was only as the train steamed out she saw two familiar figures. Felicia had obviously just arrived and was now in Daniel’s arms. She hadn’t even had time to call out hello. No matter, she was decidedly de trop, and anyway she was en route to a tryst of her own. God had been listening to Caroline Lilley after all.

‘I feel we’ve both come home at long last,’ said Felicia contentedly, as they walked down Station Road.

‘Are you sure it’s a home with me you want?’ Daniel asked. She smiled at him, for they both knew the question was superfluous.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘And what of Luke?’

‘If the boot were on the other foot, would he be asking the same question about you?’

Daniel sighed. ‘I must be the most selfish chap alive – and the luckiest. Shall we live in Ashden?’

‘No. You want to travel, remember?’

‘But I can’t—’ He grinned. ‘I
can
, but it’s no life for a married man.’

‘I don’t want to prevent you from doing what you want.’

‘Climb the Himalayas? Go diving in the Seven Seas?’

‘Anything you like. And I’ll come with you.’

Caroline fumed. Why did trains have to be so maddeningly slow?
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, Yves is back
, she silently chanted in excitement as the train steamed on. At last it condescended to reach Dover Town Station. Why had he said the Town Station and not the harbour if he had come by ferry or troop ship? She dismissed this puzzle as she hurried over the bridge and into the booking hall. It was the scene of many family reunions, but there was no sign of Yves. Well, she was five minutes early. She tried to busy herself at the station news stand, then by staring at the timetables. Anything to make the time pass more quickly. With the short days, light was already fading and she envied those who had departed to their own homes, reunited with loved ones. How would Yves arrive here? It was a long walk from the harbour. A train? There was none due according to the timetables. A troop lorry from the docks?

Trying not to feel concern, she watched the hands of the station clock creep round to twenty to four, then quarter to the hour. She went to look at the timetable again. Could Luke have misinterpreted what Yves said? Could
she
have done so? Dover Town – suppose there had been a break between the two words: Dover … I’m going to town. That’s how everybody referred to London casually, and Yves had caught the habit. He could have gone straight to Victoria from the harbour and would be in London at three-thirty, not here.
That’s
where she should have met him.