The Summer Before the War (14 page)

“Why don't we go to the parlor and ask Lucy to give us a cup of tea?” said the surgeon, gently. “I know she has been counting the moments to your arrival.”

To walk into a parlor filled with colleagues and friends, with the great surgeon's arm across his shoulders, was to receive such attention, acknowledgment, and not a little envy that Hugh could not but feel comforted. That the surgeon's benevolence might be self-interested did not preclude a genuine warmth, thought Hugh, and he basked in the knowledge that all assembled knew he had just been closeted with the great man.

“Our star brings tales from his country doctoring,” said Sir Alex. “I hope you've left him some tea cakes, Michaels?” Hugh shook hands with his colleagues and was introduced again to several young ladies of Lucy's circle who seemed to delight in coming to tea with the young doctors and then conversing among themselves about all the young men they knew from higher circles. The tea party spilled into the conservatory, where more young people perched amid troughs of fern and glazed Italian urns of aspidistra and rubber plant. Under the slender arms of two tall potted lime trees that shaded the glass roof, he spotted Lucy sitting on a wicker settee, a low table at her elbow containing the tea urn and a large platter of cakes. Two of her friends sat with her, doing their patriotic duty by knitting green wool socks for soldiers. His nearest rival for the attention of both the daughter and the father, Carruthers, had obtained a favored spot on the settee itself, where he held a skein of green wool for Lucy to wind. As Hugh paused to admire Lucy's white lace dress with its girlish pink ribbons on the tight bodice, and her pale blue French boots propped alluringly on a low footstool, she raised her heart-shaped face from her winding and gave him her most brilliant smile.

“You must cede your place now, Mr. Carruthers,” she said in a charming tone that brooked no opposition. “You have had the monopoly long enough, and I promised our friend Mr. Grange a real talk.” As Carruthers got to his feet to shake hands and to make his somewhat grumbling departure, the two knitting girls also made their whispered excuses, Lucy leaning her pale curls towards them and lowering her lashes over her blue eyes as they spoke. Hugh had the distinct impression that she and her friends were fully aware of her father's plans, and he wondered how many of the surgeon's other students had been persuaded with tea cake and a private chat in the conservatory.

“Now, Hugh, you look even more stern than usual,” she said, pouring tea into a china cup. “You are quite the most serious and least charming of my father's acolytes, and yet I must confess it makes me like you the most.”

“I am honored,” he said, sitting by her side and accepting a cup of tea and a buttered tea cake from her long, pale hand. His pulse quickened at the touch of her elegant fingers, and as he felt her breath on his cheek and the slight heat of her body against the coolness of the flowers, he was ashamed of his churlishness.

“Those other boys are so quick to flatter and be silly,” she said, smoothing her skirts across her lap. “They present no challenge at all.”

“I do not mean to be difficult,” he said. “Have I been rude?”

“Not at all,” she said. “But as usual, how to make you smile is a puzzle.”

“I am not good at parlor conversation,” said Hugh. “How were the Lakes?” She talked at some length about her trip, and Hugh learned that she had noticed the baronet and white horses rather more than her father suspected. But she was charming in her insistence that she had missed Hugh's conversation, and when she put her pale hand on his arm, he thrilled again with all the feelings he had discovered in her absence.

“But enough of my silly holiday,” said Lucy. “These times make light conversation less attractive, and I know you might prefer to talk of serious matters.”

“Indeed I would,” said Hugh, wondering how to begin some sort of declaration of his intentions.

“My father is set on going to France,” said Lucy, with a more serious face than he had ever seen. “I know he has asked you to go with him.”

“Yes,” said Hugh. It was not the opening he wished, but he would follow her lead. “What will you do when he goes?”

“My father wishes me to go to my aunt in Wales,” she said. “But it is not a pleasant house, nor as lively a city. I have asked to stay in London, where my friends and I plan to contribute to the war effort in so much larger a fashion.” She paused and gave a pretty sigh. “But I know I should not worry my poor papa when he is making ready to sacrifice so much.”

“I'm sure he'll be quite safe,” said Hugh. “He won't be in the front line, you know.”

“I do so hope you'll go with him,” said Lucy. “I won't flatter you, but only say that it would give me such peace to know he has you.” She looked into his eyes, and Hugh felt a vibration between them that inspired him to be bold.

“I find that I have missed you this summer, and I do not welcome the idea of going away,” he declared.

“Why, Hugh, I missed you too,” she said. “The Lakes were so dull, and full of portly old people, that I thought of you with increasing fondness.” He thought she was teasing, but her face revealed no irony. That she should so often be unaware of the funny things she said was a contrast to the sharp wit of such women as his aunt, or the schoolteacher, Beatrice Nash, but he thought it a charming symptom of her youth.

“I was afraid my focus on my work had made me a dull companion too,” he said. “You are surrounded by medical men.”

“They believe they know so much more than they do and yet insist on lecturing me as if I were a child,” she said. “I like that you always speak plainly.” She glanced towards the parlor, where he noticed Carruthers was frowning at them over his tea. His was not the only glance, and Hugh saw with great clarity that to be at Lucy's side was to be in the very center of the company. Affection for Lucy and for her father blossomed in his heart. He understood that the tall brick house and the respected consulting rooms might be his. And that Lucy, raised to understand a doctor's needs, would offer him all her pretty freshness now and be eager to mature under his guidance.

The moment hovered in silence while a small fountain plashed in its mossy bowl and a breeze, stirring across the cool, tiled floor, set the flower heads to nodding. At last, Hugh put down his teacup, balancing his large buttered tea cake on the saucer. Wiping his hands swiftly on his napkin, he seized Lucy's hand.

“Dearest Lucy,” he said, and now as he looked into her eyes, he felt no hesitation in laying his heart before her. “For some time I have hoped to speak to you…”

“Forgive me, but I must beg you not to,” she said. She did not withdraw her hand, but she turned her pretty eyes away and added, “You know that I hold you in very high esteem, Hugh.”

“Then why may I not speak?” he asked, pressing her hand. “Just a brief word no one else need hear?”

“I fear you mean to make some sort of declaration,” she said, and lowered her long lashes to her cheeks. “But as I told Mr. Carruthers only last week, it is not possible for an Englishwoman to entertain any pretty declarations from a man not in uniform.”

“I don't understand,” said Hugh.

“My friends and I have sworn we shall entertain no declarations, no matter how handsome the gentleman or advantageous the match, until he has enlisted,” she said. As she withdrew her fingers and clasped her hands together in her lap, he saw her give the faintest nod towards a large stand of aspidistra. The two girls with whom she had been knitting nodded back.

“Surely love must rebel at such an arbitrary test?” He could not restrain his impatience at what seemed a silly contrivance. “We are not in some fairy tale where dragons must be slain and golden apples fetched for the princesses.”

“Mr. Carruthers swore he would give up his August holiday in Brighton and go straight to the recruiting office,” she said, a pout to her lips and a flush in her cheeks.

“I wish you much happiness with Mr. Carruthers,” he said with mock severity.

“In his case I had hoped he would refuse and I would be rid of him altogether,” she admitted. “But in your case, Hugh, surely you mean to sign up and go with my father? He says it is to be the greatest opportunity for all who follow him.”

“I'm sure your father considers duty above opportunity,” said Hugh. “I can assure you I do not fault your patriotism or doubt the importance of your father's plans, but I won't join the fools dashing thoughtlessly to the recruiter.”

“I would expect no less from my stern friend,” she said, smiling again. “I shouldn't say this, but if you decide to join us, you would be well served to let my father know before the first week in September.”

“I have asked time to write to my father,” said Hugh.

“My father plans to hold a large general enlistment rally during his first lecture back at the hospital,” she said. “You will be expected to attend, and it would look well to show your commitment ahead of the crowd.”

“A general recruitment of doctors?”

“The Army Medical Corps is found to be much smaller than required,” she said, taking up her knitting again. “My father has pledged to recruit a hundred men, and I am pledged to attend every rally to hand out hand-painted flag pins to every new recruit.”

“A charming incentive,” said Hugh, glad at last to have hold of an opportunity to return to romantic banter. “Perhaps I should delay my decision to claim my token from the lady's fair hand?”

“I must warn you that my friends and I will hand the white feather to all who dare leave the hall without signing up,” she said, and though she ducked her head and smiled with her familiar youthful charm, there was a hint of steel in her eye that he had not seen before. “I have given up an entire swan's wing hat to the effort, and it was from Paris no less.”

Standing in the high
street, her basket on her arm and her straw hat shading her eyes from the bright August sun, Beatrice could see the striped shop awnings with their hastily produced Union Jack pennants strung from edge to edge, the municipal flower trough sporting stiff paper flags on sticks, and every empty wall and post displaying a handbill urging attendance at this evening's public meeting on the war effort. And yet the town's business went on as normal. A delivery dray off-loaded crates at the ironmonger; a woman swept the pavement outside the milliner; the fishmonger's boy set off at an awkward run, a parcel of paper-wrapped fish under one arm and a large bucket of live crabs on the other. As the boy tripped on a wayward cobble, and almost lost a half-dozen crabs from his bucket, England seemed as peaceful and pastoral as the ages.

Beatrice's basket contained a paper bag of broken biscuits, three small currant buns, and some elderflower cordial. Her pupils were coming this afternoon for their usual tutoring, and though she did not plan to spoil them, their bored and gloomy faces at the first two lessons had prompted her to try these small inducements. The bakery and the grocer had both displayed thin shelves. The big loaves were usually sold out by the afternoon, but today all bread in the bakery was sold and there had been no fancy sugared cakes at all, not even their almond smell, but only buns that looked smaller than usual. In the grocer, all the fresh food was sold, the glass-fronted pie and dairy counter empty, and women were reduced to competing over tins of pressed meat and dried fruit from the uppermost shelves. Honey and sugar being sold, they took black treacle and even brewer's malt.

“I'd like a standing order for a quarter pound of sugar and a pound of flour,” said the lady being served ahead of Beatrice. She had a long paper list and was accompanied by a stout boy who carried a straw basket of immense size.

“Sorry, madam, I'm not taking any more standing orders,” said the grocer, who looked drawn and nervous, perhaps from delivering such news all day to unhappy customers. “Even my current orders are being reduced, and likely I won't be able to fill them all.”

“When will you get in more sugar?” asked the woman, and made a written note of the day he mentioned. “I'll be here first thing and I shall expect to find you have kept some available,” she added.

“I'll do my best, ma'am,” the grocer said. “But it'll be all cash money, small notes only and nothing on the accounts.” He mopped his balding brow as she swept from the shop, the stout boy laden with a full basket behind her.

“A bottle of elderflower cordial, please,” said Beatrice. “And a pound of loose biscuits.”

“Biscuits is all gone, miss,” said the grocer, reaching up high for the last, slightly dusty bottle of cordial on his shelves. Beatrice thought it must have been retrieved from deep in the storage cellars. “I've only got broken ones.”

“A pound of the broken then,” she said, reluctantly. Shop-bought biscuits might be the necessary compromise of those who lived in rented rooms, but she would not have willingly served broken ones even to servants. However, they might not be frowned upon by hungry boys, and she must have something to nibble on when hunger struck between Mrs. Turber's small meals. The grocer shoveled loose, broken biscuit pieces into a bag and quoted her a price that she was sure she had paid a few days ago for intact ones.

“Everything is very dear these days,” she said, counting out her coins.

“And everyone complaining and accusing me of making a tidy profit,” he said. “No one asks me what I'm being charged up and down.”

“I didn't mean…”

“And how I'm to keep the shop stocked and make a living when there's nothing being delivered,” he added, shaking his head. “I shall be forced to close my doors if things go on this way.”

“It must be very hard,” said Beatrice, noting that his wife, knitting green socks in the corner of the shop, looked very well fed and that she had a large slice of fruitcake at her elbow. “I am so sorry for your troubles,” she said to the lady.

“Try us tomorrow—might have a crate of tinned pilchards coming in, and also some French soap,” said the wife, in a cheerful tone.

“That's right,” said the grocer. He laid a finger against his nose to signal the pilchards were a secret. “But better be early. Be twice the price by afternoon.”

Beatrice did not go in the butcher's shop, but she could see the marble slab in the window was empty save for some dried sausage and a large gray piece of liver. The haberdashery was doing a brisk business, as if people feared a sudden shortage of rickrack ribbon and polka-dotted Swiss muslin by the yard. Beatrice bought the last two yards of some dove-gray grosgrain ribbon to lighten a black mourning dress that had too much wear left to discard. Only the tiny bookshop seemed full of merchandise, and the bookseller stood in his doorway watching the bustle of the high street pass him by. Beatrice would have dearly loved to go in and buy a book, if only to cheer him up, but the increase of prices and the lack of cash in the streets and banks made it prudent to hold on to her dwindling purse. She merely smiled as she passed, and he raised his hat in acknowledgment.

At Mr. Samuels's, purveyor of fine wines and liqueurs, an assistant took the last two bottles of Spanish sherry from the window. Through the open door, Beatrice saw Harry Wheaton, in the uniform of his father's reserves. He was lounging against the counter with his cap askew and collar loosened, as if he were wearing boating flannels. As the assistant wrapped the bottles for him, she heard him ask, “I assume my father's account is in good standing in this crisis?”

“On any stock we have, sir,” said the assistant. “But if you were able to pay in advance, in gold sovereigns, my guvnor, Mr. Samuels, may be able to procure you some Bordeaux or even some cognac.”

“Please make some specific inquiries and send me a note if you can,” said Wheaton. Beatrice walked on so she would not have to meet him, but before she could reach the street corner, he called to her loudly. Though her ears burned to be so hailed in the public street, she stopped and turned back to greet him.

“Miss Nash, you look the picture of domesticity with your little basket,” he said, straightening his cap and mimicking a formal bow. “I hope you have been more successful than I in our meager shops?”

“People with money seem to be enjoying the scramble to stock their cellars and pantries against the end of the world,” she said. “But I'm afraid the empty shops and high price of bread and meat will be a hardship for many.”

“It's hardship all right,” said Wheaton. “Not a decent bottle of wine to be had in the county. I took two bottles of sherry but not sure why. Overpriced and I never drink the stuff anyway.”

Beatrice laughed at him. “If you don't drink it, you have paid too much, Mr. Wheaton,” she said.

“You are right, Miss Nash,” he said with a wry grin. “But if I give it as a gift, in these sparse times, it will be worth more than its price?”

“Very true,” she said.

“So please allow me to tuck one of these bottles in your little basket. I know ladies enjoy a spot of sherry now and then.” He made to tuck a bottle next to the bag of biscuits.

“I couldn't possibly,” said Beatrice. But in rescuing the biscuits from imminent crushing, she created just the room he needed to slip in the bottle and step back laughing.

“Now, Miss Nash, I will have to ask my sister to bring me with her when she comes to tea, and you can offer us sherry with our scones.”

“Which I assume you will refuse?” she asked.

“In times like these you should only offer your food and wine to guests you are sure will refuse,” he said. “My own mother is currently offering all callers gooseberry jam hoping they will leave hungry.”

“Since to refuse your gift would mean further public tussle in the street,” said Beatrice, “I shall accept with all proper thanks.”

“Good,” he said. “I will tell my sister I have made further amends. My sister has been doing nothing but talk of your little cottage. She seems enamored of playing shepherdess, like Marie Antoinette.”

“I am honored to receive her,” said Beatrice. “She has been most generous.” In addition to inviting her to tennis games and luncheons, Eleanor had come to tea at the cottage twice, each time bringing some household items of her own to give. A heavy linen shawl embroidered with crewelwork cabbage roses, a quantity of French tulle left over from dressmaking, and a silver chocolate pot were among the gifts.

“My old nanny made me the shawl,” Eleanor had said. “I could never find a decent excuse to part with it, but I'm sure it's much too country cottage for my husband's family.” Beatrice had merely smiled and thanked her, caught between a genuine gratitude at Eleanor's attention and the small creep of humiliation at being treated, however gently, as a charity case.

“Now if I give the other bottle to the German nanny, she might forgive me for dropping the baby on the lawn yesterday,” said Harry Wheaton, stroking an imaginary beard. “And on the other hand, I am in the middle of pursuing a rather fetching young lady whose widowed mother might think well of a gentleman bearing such a gift.”

“You are a disgrace, Mr. Wheaton,” said Beatrice firmly.

“Unless some upstanding paragon of a woman undertakes my reform, I fear I shall remain incorrigible,” he said. “Will you not save me, Miss Nash?”

“I shall not,” she said. “Good day, Mr. Wheaton.” He raised his hat and went away laughing. Beatrice, looking around, saw two old ladies frowning and whispering about her in a doorway. She straightened her back and walked away at a dignified pace, resisting the urge to scurry.

Beatrice was rearranging fresh paper and sharp pencils on her parlor table, and hesitating between passages from Virgil and Horace in a dog-eared anthology of Latin suitable for schoolboys, when a loud knocking on the back door indicated the usual arrival of her pupils via the alley. Abigail came from Mrs. Turber's side of the house to let them in, and there seemed to be some sharp discussion in the scullery before Snout shuffled through the doorway alone, cap in hand. As always, he had clearly been subject to the scrutiny of his mother, for he was scrubbed red about the ears and his wet hair was slicked to his head. His clothes, though threadbare, were brushed and ironed, and Beatrice appreciated such respect and felt it as a quiet rebuke to her urge to warn Abigail about the young Gypsy. He had removed his boots in the scullery and hopped into the parlor, twisting his socks as best he could to disguise several holes. She almost gave him a smile, but the absence of his fellow pupils meant she must not be charmed, but must offer her most severe frown.

“Arty and Jack are awful sick, miss,” Snout began. He looked her straight in the eye as he lied, and his face wore an impressive frown of concern. “Might be the bronchitis again, miss. They both had it bad in the winter.” Bronchitis was a stubborn pestilence in the damp British winters, and her father's family had fussed about it as if it might carry him off instead of the cancer. She was not pleased that Snout would raise such a specter as an excuse, nor that he would think her so gullible as to accept bronchitis in the middle of one of the sunniest and driest summers on record. But she understood that he was the scapegoat, delivering the message for boys who were no doubt among the dozens of children waving at troop trains from the railway bridge, or watching Colonel Wheaton's reserves drilling at their camp out in the fields.

“I hope they do not plan to die just to avoid my lessons,” she said. The gloom with which all three boys obviously regarded the good fortune of having a Latin tutor for the summer was almost comical. She was not surprised that they should attempt to evade her. “I trust you have no such life-threatening symptoms, young man.”

“A bit of a tickle in the throat, miss,” said Snout. “Perhaps I should go home and get into bed just in case.”