Dark Harvest (16 page)

Next day, Caroline set forth into the mouth of Hell. She hadn’t been to the Dower House since her last unfortunate meeting with Lady Hunney. This royal summons to luncheon had hardly been welcome, but as Reggie’s fiancée she could hardly avoid it, especially as Sir John had come down from London for the occasion. To her surprise Eleanor was not present. Nor was Daniel. For a moment she regretted this for she needed allies. Then she realised she was being silly. Why should she need allies with Reggie there?

Lady Hunney was in an unusually gracious mood. Dressed in a blue linen coatee gown, as
immaculately steamed of wrinkles as her face, her ladyship welcomed her as though no word of dissension had ever marred their meetings. Reggie seemed subdued but that was natural, Caroline told herself. After lunch was over they could walk together in the grounds and then she could reach his heart.

The luncheon began peaceably enough, the talk so general it would have been difficult to deduce a world war was currently being waged.

‘Do tell us of your work in London, Caroline,’ Sir John said quietly.

Surprised but pleased, she began to describe the WSPU’s successes in opening up new jobs for women, and of her own association with the Board of Agriculture.

‘And your work for the Women’s Social and Political Union, Caroline. Do you propose to continue working for the Pankhursts? I hear from Mrs Swinford-Browne that you took part in the procession yourself,’ Lady Hunney said.

Caroline glanced at Reggie, but he wasn’t looking in her direction.

‘Yes. It was splendid—apart from the rain. The response has been tremendous, and I’m sure the National Register benefited from it.’ She was beginning to feel more confident. After all, Sir John worked for the Army in Whitehall, so he was bound to be interested in the Government-backed procession.

‘And what was splendid about it?’ persisted Lady Hunney.

‘It was inspiring. Fifty thousand women
dressed in white, marching for the right to work for the war effort. If only you had seen them—’

‘I am not in the least sorry I did not.’ Her ladyship smiled. ‘I fear, Caroline, I hold to my concern that if women take men’s jobs, who is to perform those of women?’

‘But there will be plenty who cannot work,’ Caroline explained. ‘It’s just that we want more women to work. Lloyd George said that the war cannot be won without us.’ She remembered Swinford-Browne’s reaction when he saw her at the nightclub and wondered uneasily just what he had said to his wife, and she to Lady Hunney, to provoke such an inquisition? She was beginning to feel like Daniel in the lions’ den.

‘
Mr
Lloyd George is not a person of whose views I approve. He panders to the masses, and great harm is consequently being done to society. Even Ashden is divided on the issue.’

‘Not for much longer,’ Caroline said. ‘Don’t you agree that times are changing, Sir John?’

‘I believe circumstances are changing,’ Sir John replied levelly. ‘Times take a little longer, in my opinion. I suggest, Maud, we adjourn to continue this discussion in the drawing room. We feel we should, Caroline.’

Caroline was aware that she had misinterpreted the situation. This was not a casual conversation. It was about her. She looked at Reggie in appeal, longing for some sign that he was with her. But none came. He wanted her to win this battle alone, she realised. Very
well, she resolved. She would do it, and with a smile on her lips.

She positioned herself carefully in the drawing room next to Reggie and facing ‘the enemy’, sad though it was to include Sir John under that title.

‘Caroline, my dear,’ Lady Hunney began. ‘I have expressed my views before on the need for a standard of conduct as Reggie’s future wife. The squire’s wife must be above involvement, yet here you are allying yourself with a political party that is very controversial in Ashden. You are even taking an active part to further this policy.’ Her voice was gentle, even regretful. ‘Do you not see how unfortunate this is?’

‘No.’ Caroline tried not to sound belligerent.

‘We have asked you here today to request you give up this so-called
work
of yours in order to maintain a more dignified life in view of your future role. I’m afraid we feel strongly that it is most irresponsible of you to do otherwise.’

‘Irresponsible?’ Caroline was bewildered. ‘But I’m working for the war effort and with the Government, like you, Sir John.’

‘My wife’s reasons and mine differ somewhat, Caroline, but in essence I too would like you to stop what you’re doing.’

They meant it. They really did. And
still
Reggie was saying nothing.

‘But when I was here earlier this year, I wasn’t
allowed
to do anything,’ she pointed out angrily.

‘I agree with my wife that work on the land is highly unsuitable. There is plenty for you to
do in other areas. My wife will advise you.’

‘I can’t, Sir John.’ Caroline was appalled. ‘Can I, Reggie? Do you agree with your parents?’

The silence hit her almost physically when he did not answer. At last he replied awkwardly: ‘Partly.’

She felt suddenly sick. She needed fresh air, not this stifling den of unreason. Give up all she was doing when she believed in it? Could they not see the war was changing everything? Outside she might make sense of what was happening, and to blazes with convention. Abruptly she left the room.

As she breathed in the first gulps of garden air she remembered again her conversation with Reggie last year in which he told her that he could not escape being lord of the manor much as he’d like to. Everything had to be subordinated to this duty. And
everyone,
it now seemed. Even her. But he loved her; he’d told her so only last night.

‘Caroline!’ Reggie had followed her into the garden.

‘Well?’ She faced him, trembling.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘About what, Reggie?’ The words came stiffly.

‘That it has come to this.’

‘To what? I don’t understand.’ She almost shouted at him.

His face was grey. ‘I would like you to return to Ashden. But I don’t want you running around planting potatoes and jollying women into Wellington boots. You’re a VAD. Couldn’t you work in the hospital?’ he pleaded.

‘I can’t believe you mean this.’

‘Mother has a point. As lady of the manor you have to set an example, or the system doesn’t work, and if you’re gallivanting—’

She interrupted furiously.
‘Gallivanting?
Is that how you see it, Reggie? I wanted to work abroad at the front, you stopped that. I worked on the land here, you stopped that, and now you want to stop me even having beliefs of my own, and acting in accordance with them. Why?’

‘Women have one role, men another.’ He sounded as though he were trotting out a textbook reply.

‘You’re right. I do have a role. In London. And I won’t give it up.’

‘Won’t you?’ He looked so sad, her heart ached.

‘Would you have any respect for me if I walked out of something I believed in passionately?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. All that matters is getting through from day to day.’ He was shouting now.

She put her arms round him and rocked him to and fro. ‘Then let me do the deciding for you, and go on being strong,’ she whispered.

He remained still and presently she released him.

‘It can’t go on like this, Caroline. Mother—’

‘She’s not involved in this,’ Caroline interrupted fiercely.

‘But she is. Marriage is a social contract as well as a private one, and in the Hunneys’ case it’s hundreds of years and generation after generation of that society.
That’s
what we are
fighting to retain and here you are beavering away trying to create a new society.’

‘I can’t give it up, Reggie.’ She was close to tears.

There was a pause, and then came the worst words she could ever have imagined. ‘Mother and Father think we should suspend our engagement until the war is over.’

‘You mean break it, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you said you loved me.’ She thought he would come to her, such was the anguish in her voice, but he did not. Instead he seemed almost annoyed.

‘I’m so tired, Caroline, I just can’t think of anything save what’s happening over there. Nothing else seems important. I want you still, but I want you here. I really can’t take any more of those endless letters from Mother. My brain is so muddled I can’t see anything but trenches and mud and blood.’

She watched him, knowing she could not share this experience. Felicia could share it, and so could Aunt Tilly, but not her. Because he had forbidden it and shut her out.

She took the engagement ring off her finger; it was an old one belonging to the Hunney family and she had loved it. ‘You’d better take this now.’ She held out her hand with the ring on its palm.

For a moment she thought he would refuse, and a wild hope flared up inside her. Then, as he reached out and took it, the flame died.

Caroline walked back to the Rectory, clicking the side gate home by removing the tendrils of ivy that were reaching out from the wall to block its passage. She marched through the kitchen door, greeting Mrs Dibble as she had done thousands of times before. Then she ran upstairs to wash, before joining her parents and George for tea. She asked George when he was leaving for his visit to his school friend; asked Mother if she had gathered enough support to cover the harvesting requirements; asked Father how the baptism of Myrtle’s new baby brother Horatio (after Lord Kitchener) had gone; and agreed how terrible this summer’s strikes had been.

All as if life were normal. But it wasn’t, and never would be again. Once her mother would have noticed that she was upset, but now only Father gave her a curious glance from time to time. Fortunately there was no need for her to contribute more to the conversation; George took care of that. He’d just had another cartoon accepted by
Bystander
and was full of his own importance. He would soon be as well-known as Bairnsfather and Tom Browne, he boasted.

After tea, she tried to make her escape but her father stopped her as she turned to go up the stairs. Her first thought was that he’d seen something was wrong, but it appeared he had
not. ‘Caroline, are you meeting Reggie again?’

‘No.’

‘Then I would be grateful if you would come with me to see Nanny. She is fretting because her lumbago is worse and she isn’t able to collect as many eggs as usual.’

Caroline was appalled. She wanted to shut herself away and nurse the pain that was filling her from top to toe, and then to leave Ashden as soon as she could, and go back to London.

‘I should be grateful,’ her father repeated patiently when she did not reply.

Taking her sun-bonnet from the hat-stand, she went out to join her father in the porch. It was five o’clock but the sun still shone brightly and with warmth. How
dare
it, on such a day?

‘I take it,’ Laurence said quietly, as he turned out of the drive not for Bankside where Nanny lived but towards Pook’s Way, the track that led to the forest, ‘that Lady Hunney has finally succeeded in driving a wedge between you and Reggie.’

So he had seen something was wrong. And how easy it would be to say yes, and blame everything on her old enemy. Her lips took a long time to frame the words. ‘Reggie’s views are very similar to his mother’s. I had not realised that.’

‘So he has been persuaded to break off your engagement?’

‘No. Because to some extent he agrees with her.’ Her voice sounded normal to her, and she felt quite calm. That was splendid, wasn’t it?
No tears, no tantrums, no grieving for a love that was past.

‘And you cannot adapt to his way of thinking?’

Why did Father have to go on chipping away to get the whole story? ‘How can I give up what I am doing for something I don’t think I’m fitted for?’

‘Being Reggie’s wife?’

‘Being the squire’s wife.’

‘It has been an honourable calling for hundreds of years.’

‘Perhaps. But will it continue to be?’

‘Why should it change? The men who have volunteered must have jobs to return to after the war ends. Munitions factories will no longer be required; they will close and girls come back into service again. Guidance from the Manor will be needed all the more, while things settle down. Ashden will resume its old way of life—it will take time but it will happen. As Britain will continue to be the hub of her Empire, so will the Manor be necessary to drive the village.’

‘But I want to help win this war in my own way,’ Caroline said hopelessly. ‘Not Lady Hunney’s—and not Reggie’s.’

‘Then let’s turn round and go to see Nanny Oates. She is pursuing her own war effort too.’

Seeing Nanny was not the ordeal she had feared. Apart from a sharp comment that Caroline wasn’t feeding herself properly in London, and was looking as sour as a gazel (her native Kentish name for a blackcurrant),
she talked of her hens and eggs, and Caroline was left in peace.

Not for long. As soon as she was home, the second inquisition began.

‘Where’s your ring?’ Isabel asked curiously, as they crossed in the entrance hall.

‘Back with its owner.’ Families! Normally Isabel wouldn’t have noticed if Caroline dyed her hair pink, but today she was as observant as a blackbird after worms.

Isabel frowned. ‘You mean you’ve broken off your engagement?’

Caroline was tempted to say yes, but it took too much emotional energy to lie. ‘No. Lady Hunney and Reggie have broken it off for me.’

‘How could Maud do it?’ Isabel was bewildered.

Something snapped. ‘I don’t want to
talk
about it!’ Caroline yelled, pushing past her and rushing upstairs to her bedroom, where she slammed the door. A closed door in the Rectory meant no callers please.

Isabel broke all the rules by coming in after her and hugging her. ‘I’m so sorry, Caroline. Men are
horrible,
aren’t they? How could Reggie do it to you?’

‘It’s the war,’ Caroline answered, trying to respond to Isabel’s warm affection but failing. ‘It changes everything.’ Did it? Had it? Or might it have happened anyway?

‘I know, darling. I never thought when I married Robert that he would leave me. Now he’s in Gallipoli, and I don’t know whether
he’s alive or dead. Marriage isn’t so wonderful,’ she informed her sister earnestly. ‘You haven’t missed anything.’

By the time she returned to London on Sunday evening, Caroline had managed to paper over the wound of her unhappiness, though she still seemed to be dragging a heavy load around with her, like Marley’s ghost with his chains of penance. In the office it was easier to behave as though everything were normal. ‘If only they don’t notice the ring’s gone,’ she told herself. ‘I’ll be all right.’ She found that the huge piles of letters reassured her. There were obviously thousands of women who felt as she did that work was an answer to the problems of war. So why did she feel so desolate?

‘Where’s your ring?’ Angela asked on her next free day at Norland Square. ‘You haven’t lost it, have you?’

Like Isabel, Angela was not renowned for tact. ‘No.’ Caroline spoke through gritted teeth. She had to tell the whole story again; the only comfort being that it was becoming so familiar, at least inside her head, that it was beginning to hurt a little less.

‘I suppose it was inevitable,’ said Angela when she’d finished.

‘Why?’ Caroline was stung.

‘Well.’ Angela looked surprised. ‘I’ve only met Reggie once but he struck me as a stickler for tradition. He’ll turn into a regular Jorrocks in middle age.’

‘I’m a traditionalist too,’ Caroline countered,
somewhat disarmed by the thought of Reggie as a pot-bellied fox-hunting man.

‘Then what are you doing working in London? It’s different for me, of course. I’m a VAD so when the war is over I’ll go back to Dover and take up where I left off, but you’re rushing around on a crusade like Josephine Butler, except that you’re organising work for women, not saving them from sin. When the war’s over, and the men come marching home, you’ll have to decide whether you’re going to go on crusading for women to continue to do men’s jobs, or for the vote.’

Caroline stared at her. This was an aspect she had not considered; to her the present need was so urgent that she had ignored the wider implications.

‘Father thinks,’ Angela continued, ‘it’s secret of course—that when the harvest is over in France in September there’ll be a big British offensive. Really big, not just limited objectives.’

Once this news would have filled Caroline with terror. Now it had the ring of remorseless inevitability.

‘There’s a war of words on at present between the Government and the Imperial General Staff. The brass hats don’t think the Army is up to it after the awfulness of the spring, and the new troops going out there haven’t had enough training.’

‘What training do you need to be slaughtered?’

‘That’s not like you, Caroline.’ Angela was shocked. ‘Words like that don’t win wars.’

‘War, war,
war!’
Caroline shouted, goaded
beyond endurance. ‘I’m
sick
of it.’

‘Perhaps Reggie is too.’

Furious, because she knew Angela was in the right, Caroline stamped off to her room, aching with self-pity.

Despite her work, and despite filling her evenings with visits to concerts and theatres, her days dragged. Once she would have revelled in the new freedom; now she was beginning to take it for granted. Even George Grossmith in
Tonight’s the Night
at the Gaiety, singing ‘They Didn’t Believe Me’ with Madge Saunders, failed to enchant her; for at night she returned to face Angela’s words in the loneliness of her room. Perhaps Reggie was too.

Why had pride kept her from making the first overture? She would write to him, bridge the gap, make it easy for him to heal the break; she would tell him how much she loved him and that she would wait for him. On the Saturday, she could hold back no longer. She rose early and ran down to the morning-room desk, her fingers trembling with emotion as she seized pen and paper.

She hesitated for a moment, then plunged on. She had to pour out her heart no matter what the pain, to prevent further misunderstandings—for, surely, that was what had caused their rift?

Her eyes misted as their childhood game stabbed her with poignancy. Far-off days, those days of summer. But they would come again. They must, no matter how hard she found it to make this appeal.

Seized with conviction that she was doing the right thing, she signed her name with a dash, then stared in dismay at the ink blob which the nib had deposited on her name and blotted it quickly. Not carefully enough; it smudged. She couldn’t write it again, she couldn’t. Anyway, the blob would remind him so much of the old Caroline that it would make Reggie laugh. She would send it, blots and all.

Elizabeth did a little skip as soon as she was far enough along the footpath not to be seen. She felt like a girl again, hurrying to her father’s hopgarden.

Hop-picking time in Kent had been the major
event of the year in her village. On a certain day towards the end of August the main contingent of pickers would arrive in their hundreds from the railway station, children and luggage spilling everywhere, down from the East End of London for what was for them their summer holiday. Not all the pickers were East-Enders of course; in Kent, as here in Sussex, local women picked and helped repair pokes and baskets. Gypsies too, and waygoers, would arrive faithfully every year for six weeks’ sure money. With probably selective memory she remembered the long balmy evenings, as families sat outside primitive huts cooking over a fire. And she recalled lovers’ meetings in the cool of the day sheltered by unpicked bines. On such a night she and Laurence had sat, talking, laughing, loving.

It was in the hopgarden she had first met him. Staying nearby with his brother Gerald, he had come to pick at her father’s farm, dressed in rough labourer’s clothes, both boys pretending to be casual waygoers. She had been strictly forbidden by her parents to enter the hopgarden but, after one illicit visit, she had been so beguiled by this handsome ‘labourer’ that night after night she found herself sitting on his jacket at his side on the grass. And then, one evening he kissed her and that was that. Her life was decided.

As the soporific smell of the hops hit her nose, the illusion that she had stepped back in time was complete. Temporarily released from her Ashden role, she looked at the familiar scene
before her and wondered why in all her years as Laurence’s wife she had never thought to come here at hop-picking time.

She wandered down the rows of bines, delighted that she was all but anonymous; strangers were plucking hops brought down by the binman’s hook and dropping them into the waiting bin. Shouts, yells, wads, snatches of music-hall and popular war marching songs filled her ears; the buzz of conversation around her, ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ roaring out from the next row. Then she realised that an altercation was going on in the row on the opposite side from ‘Tipperary’. Abusive shouts and angry voices were so loud she wondered the binman had not intervened, and she went to see what was going on. At first she could not make it out. Just a crowd of men and women with something—no, someone—in the centre of them. She caught a brief glimpse and realised to her horror it was not only a woman but someone whose face she knew.

‘Leave me alone,’ Lizzie was shrieking.

A particularly vicious swipe with a stripped bine caught her round the face and she staggered back into the yelling crowd behind her.

‘Stop this at once,’ Elizabeth shouted. She had a strong voice and the workers stopped for a moment in surprise, giving her the chance to push towards Lizzie. It was no surprise to see that a Thorn was taking a leading part—George, Ernie’s elder brother—but most were strangers to her, East-Enders, no doubt still so incensed at Zeppelin bombs that they needed little incentive
to attack anything and anyone German, even if only by association.

By the time she reached Lizzie the girl was screaming in pain, her arms twisted behind her. Then, just as Elizabeth began to fear for her own safety, the crowd fell to one side as Frank Eliot appeared, threatening to pack the lot of them back where they came from and bar them from the hopgardens for ever. With a last cry of ‘German whore’ from an unidentifiable source the brawlers melted away, leaving the three of them together: Lizzie tear-stained and marked with red weals from the bines, Elizabeth, her heart thumping now danger was past, and a grim-faced Frank.