The Ravenscar Dynasty (60 page)

‘Oh, my God! We've got to get there!' Ned shouted, and started running down the cliff road, followed by his brother and Will.

They were all out of breath and heaving when they came to the curve in the road, and Edward put out his
hand, held them back from the edge of the cliff. ‘It's a six hundred foot drop, get back,' he instructed. Edging carefully onto the grass bordering the road, he looked down at the beach.

He could see the Daimler far below, overturned and on its side. Neville's body was nearby but there was no sign of Johnny. His heart was beating so rapidly he thought it would burst out of his chest, and fear shot through him. He was shaking, for a moment felt sick. He stepped back, looked at Richard and Will, said in a hoarse voice, ‘Neville's lying on the beach…I can't see Johnny. Maybe he's still in the car.'

Not waiting for any response, Edward set off at a run, making for the steps which cut through the lower part of the moorland and swept down to the beach. The others ran after him at full speed.

Half running, half falling, Edward stumbled down the steps and onto the shingle in minutes, and he saw Johnny immediately. He lay near the overturned car; Neville was a few feet away.

Ned saw Neville move, and ran to him, knelt down by his side. Then he realized it was the wind that had ruffled his cousin's clothes.

Edward felt his pulse. Neville was dead. There was blood on his face, and his head was askew. Edward was certain he had broken his neck as he was thrown out of the car. As he looked down into Neville's face he noticed how clear his eyes were, as clear as they had been in life, a pure turquoise. Such unique eyes, such a unique man. He closed the lids gently, and walked over to Johnny.

Will and Richard were kneeling next to Johnny's body.
Will shook his head. ‘No pulse…he's gone,' Will murmured in a choked, voice, his face wet with tears.

Richard, who was sobbing, looked up when he saw his brother approach. ‘I thought Johnny was still alive,' he gasped between sobs. ‘I opened his collar. Look, he still wore your medallion.'

Edward nodded, then said almost harshly, ‘Let's carry Johnny over to Neville. So they can be together.'

Once the bodies were side by side, Edward knelt down on the shingle with his Little Fish and Will, and said a prayer for them. And he wept for Neville, and all that they had meant to each other in the past. And he wept for Johnny, whom he had loved.

They stayed for a while with the bodies, none of them wanting to leave the two men who had been such a major part of their lives. A stillness surrounded them. It was as if the world had stopped. The only sound was the waves swishing up onto the beach and rolling back, and the cries of the kittiwakes as they floated high above in the cloud-filled Yorkshire sky.

Much later that day, after an ambulance had taken the bodies to the morgue in Scarborough, Richard found Edward alone in the ruined stronghold.

Speaking softly, his youngest brother said, ‘Ned, can I come in?'

Turning, Edward nodded. His face was ravaged with grief.

Without a word, Richard handed his brother the white rose medallion which Johnny had still worn.

Edward's hand closed on it; he put it in his pocket. And later that night he took off his own medallion and fastened Johnny's around his neck. And he wore it for the rest of his life.

Four months later Edward's personal grief was swept to one side, as the guns of August roared.

Europe was engulfed in war after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Holy Roman Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife the Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo. Within days most countries were involved in the fearful conflict caused by this act of terrorism in a small Balkan state.

Edward sat in his office at Deravenels, reading
The
Times
, his attention caught by an interview with David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer: ‘
I felt
like a man standing on a planet that had been suddenly
wrenched from its orbit by a demonic hand and that
was spinning wildly into the unknown
,' Lloyd George was quoted as saying last night, the night of August fourth, when Britain declared war on Germany.

Dismay flooded through Edward. He knew they were in for a long fight; he also knew it would be a war that would spread to the far corners of the globe. He dreaded it; he was still unable to understand why people were so excited about going to war, why people
were rushing through the streets of London filled with a strange kind of jubilation when war heralded nothing but death and destruction.

He picked up the
Daily Mail
, one of Northcliffe's newspapers, and scanned the front-page headline: BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY. There were other smaller cross-headlines inside:
Belgium Invaded.
Two New Battleships for our Navy. British Minelayer
Sunk. War Risk at Sea
.

Thank God Winston Churchill is First Lord of the Admiralty, Edward thought, sitting back in his chair, the
Mail
discarded for the moment. Only Churchill and a few other enlightened men had seen the menace of war approaching, and had tried to make ready for it.

There was a knock on the door, and Will came in, a bleak expression in his eyes. ‘We're in for a long siege, I think, Ned, don't you?'

Edward nodded. ‘Churchill told me that the other night. I can only say that it's a good thing he recognized the threat of increasing Germany sea power in 1911. By withdrawing our Fleet from abroad and concentrating it in the North Sea, he's certainly increased our strength.'

‘Not to mention
safety
,' Will pointed out.

‘I've been told I cannot even attempt to join up,' Edward said in a low voice. ‘Because I run this sprawling global company I'm required to remain in this seat for the duration. However long that will be.'

‘I read somewhere that the German Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, predicted in Berlin the other day that the war would be very short, maybe three to four months. But I say more like three years.' Finally sitting down, Will
continued, ‘Anyway,
this
is where you are meant to sit. You have no right to even contemplate marching off to war carrying a gun with a bayonet fixed to it. Whereas, I—'

‘Stop right there!' Edward exclaimed, holding up a hand. ‘You're not joining up either.'

‘I'd thought about it, Ned.'

‘No, no, you can't. Anyway, the government is only calling up single men. You're married.'

‘So is George, but he is going to enlist, so he told me only half an hour ago.'

‘I don't think he'll pass the medical. George has always had bad eyes, he doesn't see very well. So, he won't make it. Please rest assured of that, Will.'

‘This memo you sent me, about the factories in Leeds. Am I to understand that the government's going to requisition them? That we're to make army and navy uniforms?'

‘Yes, exactly that. But the government's not requisitioning the clothing factories. They just want us to switch our production to uniforms.'

‘No problem. I wasn't quite understanding. Anyway, I really came in to see if you're free for lunch today.'

‘I am. I didn't make any lunch dates, since I thought I would be in Yorkshire for the grouse. War has put paid to that, I'm afraid, and a lot of other things.'

‘I know. I've just cancelled our trip to Paris. I was taking Kathleen there in September. Well, we can say farewell to the
belle
époque, Ned. France is gearing up for war, just asweare. I'ma bit worried about the vineyards, you know, but there's nothing we can do.'

‘I realize that we have just to sit tight…' Edward shook his head. ‘It's all so disheartening. But we must hope for the best, as far as our French vineyards are concerned.'

‘Shall we go to White's?' Will asked.

‘No place better,' Edward answered. ‘I can't make it before one, though.'

‘I'll pick you up at twelve forty-five.'

Will slipped out of the office and Edward went over the letters his secretary had left on his desk, and then he sat back, a worried expression crossing his face. If the whole world was engulfed by this war, what would happen to them all?

He stood up, went to look at the map his father had hung there years before. It seemed to him now that there wasn't a country in the world where they didn't have offices.

He suddenly laughed to himself. Deravenels had existed for well over eight hundred years, so why should it falter now? But then there had never been a war like this one was going to be.

‘Let's have a drink before lunch,' Will said, as they walked into White's around ten past one. ‘I think I need one to cheer me up.'

Edward smiled. ‘You've taken the words right out of my mouth, old chap.'

The two of them sat down at a table, and Will ordered for them, then said to Ned in a quiet tone, ‘I heard last night, at a dinner party we attended, that
the navy is the only service that's strong. The army is apparently not at all well organized, and we have only minimal air power, even though Churchill has attempted to boost it lately.' Will took a cigarette out of a gold Cartier case and lit it, drew on it. ‘We're in a bloody mess, actually, Ned, if the truth be known.'

‘We need a new Secretary of State for War,' Edward told him.

‘Do you think Asquith will appoint one?' Will looked at him alertly. Edward knew more than he did; he had politicians as friends.

‘He'll have to, he can't be Prime Minister and run the War Office as well,' Ned replied. ‘I hope he appoints Lord Kitchener. He's a great General, and also a national hero.'

Will nodded. ‘He would have a very uplifting effect on the public, yes.'

The two of them fell silent, sipped their sherry, and smoked, listening to the different conversations flowing around them. The Smoking Room was packed today, and the only talk was talk of war.

‘We don't have a compulsory draft system,' a voice said at a table behind them.

‘I didn't know
that
, Hartley,' his companion replied.

‘Well, it's true, and we'll have to raise an army to fight this bloody war. We'll have to start a campaign to recruit single men, that's a fact.'

‘Asquith knows what he's doing, he's been an excellent Prime Minister,' another voice intoned from the right.

‘And Churchill has the right attitude. Beat 'em before they beat us,' a fourth man pronounced.

Will shook his head, and murmured, ‘What about Meg? Will she stay in France, do you think?'

Edward sighed. ‘I don't know. When I spoke to her yesterday at Ravenscar she said Charles was already talking of going back to Paris immediately, and on to Burgundy. I'm sure he has to, he can't just leave his vineyards at a time like this. And listen, Will, don't worry about ours. They're in good hands, we have wonderful managers.' Ned nodded. ‘You'll see, everything will be all right. As far as Meg is concerned, knowing her, I do believe my sister will go back to France with her husband and she'll stay there until the war is over.'

As the war dragged on through August, September, and October, right up until the end of 1914, Edward realized he was dedicating most of his time to Deravenels. His work load was enormous at the best of times, and this was the worst. It seemed to him that he had to have a single-minded sense of purpose in order to get through every day. But there was a big war effort on, and everybody was in the same situation as he was, working day and night, trying to do their bit.

The guns of August 1914 roared on through 1915 and 1916, without cease. Hundreds of thousands of young men died on the bloody fields of Europe, felled in the trenches as they bravely fought the enemy. The overall losses were so monumentally high the world was horrified.

Many of the men who worked at Deravenels had
joined the forces, and in May of 1916 Edward was alarmed one morning in May when he began to realize how many single men now had to enlist because of the bill that had been passed earlier that year: compulsory military service was now enforced. He knew that it would soon be married men who would be called up to fight for their country at the Front. He was not worried for himself, but for Will, Oliveri and Christopher Green. All were married, young and fit. They would most certainly pass the physical.

He was somewhat surprised that evening when he arrived home, to discover that Elizabeth, who rarely read anything, had spotted an item in the
Evening
News
.

As he went into the small parlour of the house in Berkeley Square, she glanced up and waved the newspaper at him. ‘Ned, have you seen this in today's paper?' Not waiting for his reply, she added, ‘Married men will be called up soon. The Prime Minister is introducing another Military Service Bill, and if it passes the House then married men will have to go and fight the Boche.'

‘But I won't, sweetheart,' he soothed as he went in and sat down in a chair next to her. ‘I told you, I'm exempt because I run a huge company.'

A smile of relief crossed her face. ‘I'm so glad. I couldn't bear it if you had to go to war.' She frowned, added worriedly, ‘My brothers will though.'

‘Yes, I know, darling. But let's not dwell on war tonight. I'm going to go upstairs to see the children, and then I'll have a glass of wine before I go to the theatre.'

‘I'll come up with you. I think I have to rest.'

Elizabeth was pregnant again, and they mounted the stairs together so that he could support her. She went into her bedroom; Edward climbed to the next floor, the nursery floor, the domain of all the young Deravenels.

The moment he went in, three girls and one little boy, all with reddish-blond hair and eyes of varying shades of blue, flung themselves at him.

Laughing, crouching down, he opened his arms, and they scrambled close to him, and cries of ‘Papa! Papa!' filled the nursery.

His son, Young Edward had been born in 1913, and he was now two and a half, a sweet, docile child with a happy temperament and the looks of a Botticelli angel. He was terribly spoilt, because he was the youngest in the household, and also very beautiful.

Edward unscrambled his little scramblers, as he called them, and reaching down he lifted Young Edward into his arms, and held him close. ‘You know what we shall do on Saturday, Edward?' Ned asked his small son, kissing him on his warm pink cheek.

‘No, Papa.'

‘Have you forgotten already, sweetheart?'

The boy shook his head, looked puzzled, and then his face lit up, and he cried, ‘Buy the puppy! You promised, Papa!'

‘It's true, I did indeed, and I will, but that's not what I meant. I told you that when we went down to Kent this weekend I would take you to paddle in the sea, and that we might even go sailing on a special boat, a new boat.'

‘Oh Papa! The boat! Oh, oh, I can't wait.' The child began to squeal with delight.

Edward, smiling into his son's eyes, felt a tug on his jacket and he glanced down.

Bess said, ‘Can I come on the boat, too, Papa?' She sounded so woeful, Edward put the boy down on the floor, and took hold of her hand, led her over to a chair. Seating himself, he brought the seven-year-old forward into his arms, and said gently, ‘Of course, you can. It's a new boat for
all of us
. And do you know what it's called?'