Dark Harvest (24 page)

Caroline cringed at the memory. ‘The door was open.’

‘It was stupid of us. You see, Caroline,’ the large blue eyes fixed on her earnestly, ‘Robert is so far away. I haven’t seen him since July, and goodness knows when I will again.’

Caroline stared at her. ‘What difference does that make?’

‘Every difference.’ Isabel managed to sound indignant. ‘You don’t understand. You’re not married. There are needs.’

What about my needs, Caroline thought. ‘And Reggie?’ She could hardly get his name out.

‘He too,’ Isabel answered in a low voice. ‘The trenches, you see.’

‘But he loves me, Isabel. I know he does, despite what happened between us. Did that not affect your “needs”?’

‘He’s been so lonely since you broke it off—’

‘Me?’

‘Refusing to do the one single thing he asked—’

‘Stop it, Isabel!’ Caroline’s voice was so sharp that Isabel obeyed instantly. How could you live all your life with someone and not know them, she wondered. She and her sisters and brother had been brought up with the same set of beliefs and values. She had tried to hold on to them, and had assumed Isabel did the same. How very foolish of her.

Mrs Dibble put her feet up on Christmas afternoon with some satisfaction. All in all, it hadn’t been too bad. And her
real
mince pies had gone down a treat! It was nice to have Muriel and Lizzie here, and the children. Agnes had gone home to her parents, but Peck and Miss Lewis had stayed on with them.

To her amazement, Peck was playing with the children, Fred had joined in, and Miss Lewis had shown an unexpected flair for banging out music hall songs on the old piano, in which they all joined. Irreverent, even vulgar perhaps, on a holy day, but they sang a carol or two as well to make up for it.

Muriel was looking happier too. She heard from Joe regularly—so regularly, in fact, that she reckoned he was not in the fighting line. ‘He says he might even get leave soon.’ Leave. That would be good. They were always hearing about it but it never seemed to happen.

Only one thing bothered Mrs Dibble. Lizzie was oddly quiet. Perhaps she’s regretting moving in with that Mr Eliot, she thought smugly, and missing Rudolf. One letter in over a year she’d had; it had been smuggled out by a friend sent to Switzerland on duty, and dropped in at the British Embassy. Nothing since last November. ‘He’ll be back, you mark my words,’ her mother said severely to her over the washing up, ‘and then what will you do? When folks tell him? And they will, believe me.’

Lizzie did not reply, and Mrs Dibble looked at her sharply. ‘What’s wrong, my girl? That hop man working you too hard?’

‘No, Ma.’ Lizzie’s voice trembled. ‘You’ll have to know sooner or later, I suppose. I’m expecting.’

‘You’re what?’ Mrs Dibble sat down heavily on a chair, the dish mop still in her hand.

‘Don’t look like that,’ Lizzie pleaded. ‘I’m pleased, really I am.’

‘Pleased?’ her mother cried. ‘To be having a bastard?’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Did he force you? I told Percy that’s what he’d do.’

‘No, Ma, he didn’t. It’s not his fault I’m expecting.’

‘That it should come to this,’ Mrs Dibble moaned, rocking to and fro.

Lizzie was quiet. She couldn’t believe it when Dr Parry told her what was wrong with her. After so long with Rudolf, she didn’t think she could start a baby at all, let alone so easily.

‘Don’t look so gloomy, Ma. It’s Christmas.’

‘If it weren’t, my lass, I’d turn you out here and now. Bringing disgrace on me and the Rectory. Lizzie Dibble, how could you?’

‘Stein, ma. My name’s Stein.’

‘
You
forgot that, my girl. Not me.’

Laurence changed into his cap and bells costume, the traditional one he always wore for the ritual game of ‘Family Coach’ on Christmas afternoon, though this was far from a normal Christmas. It was true that all his family was gathered together, but the atmosphere was strained. They had invited the Hunneys to join them for Christmas afternoon as a formality, hardly expecting them to come. Instead, to poor Caroline’s obvious horror, shortly after luncheon, not only Sir John but Lady Hunney, Daniel, Eleanor and Reggie had arrived. What could he do? He could hardly turn them away.

Now it was time for the ‘Family Coach.’ Lady Hunney had never joined in the game, and he could not envisage his mother doing so. The tradition had been inherited from Elizabeth’s family, not his. However, he decided, now that it had become a Rectory tradition, it should be played by all, no matter who was here. Luncheon had passed off reasonably amicably, thanks, he acknowledged, to Phoebe.

When the Christmas pudding had been borne into the darkened room with due ceremony, flaming its blue alcoholic flames, his mother had commented, ‘I see your cook has liberally sacrificed her scruples so far as this pudding is
concerned; it is a pity that mince pies are not accorded the same status.’

‘Oh, but Grandmother,’ Phoebe had broken in immediately, wide-eyed with apparent shock. ‘On a Christmas pudding the alcohol has
religious
significance. Didn’t you know that?’

Laurence jangled his bells in private satisfaction as, attired to begin the game, he made his entrance into the drawing room to cheers from his family and even louder ones from Daniel and Reggie. Especially Reggie. Probably he felt awkward being here, in view of his treatment of Caroline in August, though that didn’t quite explain the odd signals Laurence’s intuition was receiving. He noticed that his mother, who had chosen the most uncomfortable chair in the room, took no part in the cheering.

‘Today, our subject is—’ he paused, as his audience waited expectantly. ‘The Mistletoe Bough.’ Cheers and claps.

Phoebe ran to the piano and began to bang out the old Victorian song.

‘This afternoon our text is drawn,’ Laurence continued in his most pompous voice, ‘from Mr Thomas Haynes Bayly’s scholarly study of the mediaeval verbal treatise on the lamentations of young Lord Lovel upon the disappearance of his beauteous bride in a game of hide and seek during the celebrations following their nuptials; and, after many years wandering the world, of his discovery of her skeleton in an old chest.’

‘The mistletoe hung in the castle hall …’ bawled Phoebe at the piano.

‘Later,’ Laurence pontificated, ‘when the
house is dark and quiet and full of secrets, we shall examine the mysterious disappearance of the fair bride and the dramatic search that then took place.’ (‘Oh!’ groaned his audience.) ‘Meanwhile, we shall consider the journey of the happy bridal party to the castle, unaware of the ghastly tragedy that will ensue.’ (Indrawn hiss of excitement from his flock.) ‘Had there been mishaps along the way that they should have noted as omens of disaster to come?’ (‘There had,’ Caroline shouted.) ‘Let the journey begin!’ Laurence cried. ‘Mother, you play the coachman. You and Lady Hunney and Daniel are excused from jumping up. Just wave your hands in the air.’

He held his breath, half expecting his mother to walk out of the room, but his gamble paid off. She hesitated, then barked out: ‘Kindly inform me what this entails.’

He had reasoned to himself that his mother could not refuse to lie for she had no means of knowing what Lady Hunney would do. If Lady Hunney agreed, Lady Buckford would look churlish, and Lady Hunney could now not refuse for the same reason.

Much relieved; he gave everyone else a part. (‘Bags I the wheels,’ George shouted). Once the bride, her father, her mother, the little bridesmaid; the footman; the horses; the doors and the baggage had all been distributed; and he had explained to Lady Buckford that on any mention of the word ‘coachman’ she must wave her hands in the air (in lieu of leaping up and turning round) the game started.

By the time the family coach had run through an hour of vicissitudes and finally rattled triumphantly over the drawbridge into Lord Lovel’s castle, the entire company was exhausted, and a harmonious atmosphere reigned. It even wafted around Lady Buckford—partly because Laurence had cheated and allowed her to stay in the game long after her slow reactions should have knocked her out.

‘Though we cannot know what lies before us. Lord, as our coach rattles into the future,’ Laurence concluded with his usual brief prayer, ‘grant that Thy grace which is with us now may strengthen us in the darkness outside and be a lantern to guide us to Thy everlasting light.’

Felicia drew the role of bride for the hide and seek that followed the game from the screws of paper in her father’s panama. She went to change into an old cream wedding dress from the dressing-up trunk and then disappeared to look for a place to hide. A few rooms had been declared out of bounds: Grandmother’s was one, Mrs Dibble’s stillroom another, and the servant’s hall and bedrooms were all inviolate. That still left a large part of the Rectory, not to mention the outbuildings.

At last they were ready, assembled with candles and torches in the drawing room, the only room now with lights. To Caroline’s surprise, her grandmother still remained in the drawing room to watch the proceedings.

‘Alas, alack,’ called Laurence, ‘during our festivities his lordship’s bride has disappeared.
Let us seek for her!’ And the stampede began.

Caroline decided to keep as far from Reggie as possible; bumping into him by mistake would be terrible. She thought she saw him going upstairs in the dark, so started her own search in the stables outside. Her nerves were on edge, however, and when she bumped into someone, she screamed. Luckily it was only Eleanor, and her pounding heart subsided.

‘You’ve been quiet today.’ Caroline said to her when she caught her breath. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Martin’s been called up. He attested, you know, and though there’s no general call-up yet under the scheme, there’s a need for vets in the Army Veterinary Corps. He goes off on Monday week.’

‘Oh, Eleanor, I’m so sorry.’

‘So am I. We carved his initials on the tree last night.’

‘And what about you?’

‘You mean us?’ Eleanor made a face. ‘We wanted to get married before he left.’

‘You’re not going to let your mother stop you?’ Caroline asked in alarm.

‘She asked Father to talk to Martin and he managed to convince him it wasn’t honourable to marry me before going to war.’

‘He didn’t convince you, I take it.’

‘Of course not. I know very well it’s nothing to do with honour; Mother doesn’t want me to marry a vet. The Prince of Wales might do at a pinch.’

‘Can’t you talk to Martin about it?’

‘I’ve tried. But now he’s got this idea about bally honour stuck in his mind. Look at Reggie, he says. He went off to war without—oh, Caroline, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned that. Does it still hurt very much?’

Look at Reggie, indeed, Caroline thought bitterly. What a splendid example of honour!

‘Would it be crass of me to kiss you under the mistletoe, Tilly?’ Simon crept up behind her while she was searching the wardrobe in Caroline’s bedroom.

Tilly shut the wardrobe door, very conscious of how near Simon was in the dark. She looked at his face, flickering in the glow of the candle. ‘There is none in this room,’ she pointed out.

He kissed her lightly, then harder, finding her lips more welcoming and eager than he had expected. ‘It’s not easy sleeping in this house,’ he said as he released her. ‘I want to be in your bedroom, not mine.’

‘Then let’s swap rooms.’

‘Don’t laugh at me, Tilly.’

‘I apologise,’ she said contritely. ‘That was crass of me.’

‘Is it a defensive weapon?’

‘No. Or, if it is, I’m not sure whether it’s permanent.’

‘Because of your war work?’

‘Yes, but also because of me.’

‘Has anyone made love to you before?’ he asked gently.

‘I’m fifty-one.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Tilly sighed. ‘Someday, I promise you, I will tell you the story of my life. But not today, and not here.’

‘Very well.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘I’ll hold you to that promise. Be sure of that.’

‘Come down, Felicia,’ Daniel hissed up the narrow winding staircase behind a well-camouflaged door that led to the secret room they had all used as children for meetings. ‘I know you’re there, and I can’t bally well get up. Is that why you chose it?’

There was silence.

‘If I get my peg leg in the New Year,’ he continued, ‘I’ll come over and climb the Eiffel Tower for you, but for now you’ll have to indulge my infirmities.’

Still silence.

‘Damn you,’ he shouted. Angrily, he hunched his tall body over the crutches, but there wasn’t room to manoeuvre himself up the narrow staircase on them.

‘Blast you to blazes, Felicia.’ Tears of anger combined with self-pity came to his eyes as he hurled one of the crutches away. The anger won. He collapsed on to one of the steps, threw the other crutch away too, and sitting on the step heaved his weight by his arms, up and back to the next step. And the next, and the next. It took him ten minutes before he reached out and found no step behind him, only a woman’s foot and a long silk dress.

Felicia swung the lantern she had been given
in honour of her starring role, and he saw her long dark hair framing the pale face. ‘I suppose this was an obvious place. I hoped it was so obvious no one would bother to look,’ she said.

‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at? I thought the Lady of the Lamp was supposed to show some kind of womanly gentleness towards injured soldiers, not put them through torture.’

‘You’re here,’ Felicia pointed out, sitting down beside him.

‘No thanks to you.’

‘Why come then?’ Her voice was gentle.

He was aware of every inch of her, breathing quietly beside him. Desire was in the mind, the eyes and the heart, not just in the body. How easy to say, ‘I wanted to reach you.’ But he wouldn’t do it for there could be no future for them. ‘I wanted to win the game,’ he said instead.

She sighed. ‘You have, Daniel.’

He had to touch her, so he kissed her cheek. ‘When I get my artificial leg and the war’s over, I shall travel, just like I wanted to. And I shall owe it to you.’