Grace Hardie (21 page)

‘I never have.' They walked slowly up the hill together. ‘Was it worth it, Aunt Midge? The choice you had to make. Do you wish that you'd chosen differently and married?'

‘If I'd lost a husband now, and not a friend, I should be left with nothing at all. But –' She seemed to be weighing the words she was about to speak, as though to test whether they were true. ‘But I don't think there was ever really a choice. I believe that each of us was put into the world for
a purpose. As soon as we know what that purpose is, we have to follow it. Whether it calls us to be a nun, or the mother of twelve children – or a teacher.'

‘But suppose you never feel that call?' asked Grace. ‘There's something inside me, I'm sure, waiting to burst out. But I don't know what it is. How do I find the key?'

‘Perhaps “purpose” is the wrong word. I tell my girls at school that each one of them has a talent; a gift. It's part of what the staff and I must do, to search out those talents and develop them. That's what
my
gift is, I suppose – for helping them. Not everyone can have great abilities and great ambitions. The talent of most girls is for loving – for bringing up children in a happy home. That may prove to be your talent as well.'

‘I remember Jay saying something like that once,' commented Grace. ‘A long time ago.'

But it couldn't really have been so very long ago. It was just that everything that had happened before the war seemed to belong to a different chapter of history.

‘He was talking about happiness,' she explained. ‘You're happy if what you do is the expression of what you are, he said. It's odd, really, that someone like Jay should think that, because
he's
only happy when he's pretending to be someone else. But I know what he means.'

For a moment they walked on in silence, but Grace was still considering Jay's theory.

‘You know, Aunt Midge, Frank loves being a soldier. When he joined up, it was as though he'd been waiting all his life for the war to happen. Last time he came on leave, he was terribly tired, and unhappy because so many of his men had been killed. But within only a day or two he seemed to become excited. Packing as much as he could into a couple of weeks, but then almost longing to get back again. Being a soldier was what he always wanted to be.
Whilst Philip hates it. He doesn't say, but I can tell. When
he
has a leave, he just wants Greystones and the family to swallow him up.'

‘Philip's a very clever young man,' said Midge. ‘It's a waste, a terrible waste.' It was easy to tell that she was still thinking about Patrick Faraday. ‘Grace, dear, will you tell your mother what I've told you? If I try to say the words myself, I shall start to cry again. Tell her that I'm all right again now, but I don't want to talk about it. I'll join you for luncheon. And then I must take the train back to London. The girls will expect to see their headmistress standing on the platform as usual tomorrow for morning assembly; and I shall be there.'

She made a brave attempt at a smile, and Grace smiled back, admiring her aunt's courage. They were approaching the house now, making their way towards the front door; but the sight of a boy on a red bicycle brought them both abruptly to a halt, clutching each other's hands.

There had once been a time when the appearance of a cheerfully whistling telegraph boy had been a welcome sight, bringing news of a visit, or the time of a train by which the master of the house would return. But since the beginning of the war telegraph boys had ceased to whistle, knowing that too often they carried tragic news.

The boy, brisk and smart in his navy-blue uniform, leaned the bicycle against the steps, opened the pouch which hung from his belt and took out a small orange envelope. He handed it to the maid who answered the door and waited while it was carried inside. Within a few moments the girl returned, shaking her head. There was no answer.

‘Oh God!' Midge's voice was hoarse with sympathy even before she knew what the telegram contained. ‘A Blighty wound. Pray hard that it's a Blighty one, Grace.'

They ran up the hill and arrived breathlessly at the front door. News these days was never good, but how bad would this be? And would it be of Frank or Philip?

Five weeks after the news of Frank's death reached Greystones, Grace returned home from her duties in The House of Hardie one Saturday to find the household in turmoil. One of the maids met her at the front door and began to chatter in agitation even before she had had time to take off her hat. The words made no sense. Grace held up a hand to check the flow.

‘Start again,' she said. ‘What's happened?'

‘It's the mistress, Miss Grace. She's been crying and screaming and groaning, but she won't let any of us in to see to her. We've tried asking through the door if she's ill, but all she'll say is “Go away.” Thank goodness you're here, Miss Grace. We didn't know what to do.'

‘You should have sent down for me at once. Or for the doctor.' But there was no point in being angry with a foolish girl. What could have caused her mother to collapse? The most likely answer was that something terrible had happened to Philip. She hardly dared to ask her next question. ‘Was there a telegram?'

‘No, Miss Grace. But there was a parcel. I took it in myself. It was about ten minutes after that that we heard her scream. Cook and I went running; but she just said, “I don't need you. Leave me alone.” Later on we went again, because there were noises and we was worried. I looked from outside the window and Mrs Hardie was crying; but when she saw me she came rushing over and hit on the glass as though she was mad, like, and shouted, “I told you to go away.” So after that we didn't like to bother her any more.'

‘Where is she?'

‘She was in the conservatory when I took the parcel in. I asked if she wanted scissors and she said she could use her gardening ones. She'd gone into the drawing room by the time we ran to her.'

‘All right,' said Grace. ‘I'll ring if I want you. Have a kettle boiling ready to make tea.'

Outside the drawing room she stood still, listening, but could hear no sound. ‘Mother,' she called, and at the same time tried the handle. The door was locked. ‘Mother, it's Grace. Will you let me in?'

There was no interruption of the silence. Not even the sound of breathing was audible through the heavy mahogany door. She lingered for only a moment before hurrying along the corridor. It was impossible to lock the double doors between the dining room and the drawing room – had the maids not thought of that? Crossing the dining room with a quick but quiet step, she opened both doors at the same time before standing still with her arms outstretched, one hand on each handle.

Her mother was lying face down on the carpet, so still that for one terrible moment Grace feared that she was dead. But no; the slightest of movements revealed that she was breathing.

‘Mother!' Grace knelt down beside her and took one hand in her own. Lucy Hardie's blue eyes opened and stared blankly at her daughter. Then they closed again, as though she wished to see nothing of the world.

‘Come on to the day bed.' With her arms beneath her mother's shoulders, she lifted her off the floor and supported her across the room. Panting from the exertion, she pulled a chair close and looked down at the reclining figure whose eyes remained firmly closed.

In the few hours since seven o'clock that morning, Mrs Hardie seemed to have aged by several years. Her long
corn-coloured hair had been torn from the smooth chignon in which she usually wore it, to hang untidily round her shoulders. Her skin, which had retained the pink and white delicacy of a young girl's complexion, was blotched and puffy with weeping.

Although she had never been extravagant in her wardrobe, finding no need in a quiet country life for elaborate balldresses or fashionable city outfits, her tall slender figure was always dressed neatly, even for such everyday activities as gardening or painting. Within the last few hours, however, it seemed that she had torn at her own clothes, ripping off the buttons which fastened her bodice. Her habitually straight-backed and graceful posture was in a state of total uncaring collapse.

Grace took her hand and held it gently. ‘Tell me what has happened, Mother.'

Mrs Hardie shook her head as though even an attempt to speak was too much.

‘There was a parcel, Hetty told me. Where is it?'

Mrs Hardie's eyes opened at last; and her lips made the effort to move. ‘Conservatory.'

Unable to imagine what had caused such a reaction, Grace stood up and walked slowly into the conservatory. It was in chaos. All the pots and plants so lovingly tended throughout the year had been swept off their shelves and stacks. The floor was covered with a mixture of earth and sand, compost and pea gravel, pieces of smashed china and scattered red petals. At first she mistook the geranium petals for drops of blood, and it was a moment or two before she raised her eyes and saw the contents of the parcel laid out on a table. Captain Frank Hardie's personal effects had been returned to his next of kin.

Her mother had set the first items out in a neat row. Here were the binoculars which had been a twenty-first birthday present from his father. An electric torch was
next to them, and a battered tinder box. A compass in a metal case stood on top of a map pouch. Two leather wallets, filled with money and photographs, lay beside a cigarette case. There was a muddy copy of the New Testament, and a large brown envelope stuffed full of letters. A toilet bag revealed the familiar items which members of the family had sent him at Christmas – the silver-framed shaving mirror from his mother, the tortoiseshell soap case from Jay, the beaver shaving brush with his initials carved into the ivory handle which had been Grace's own gift.

Her fingers moved over the contents of the bag, fingering each object in turn as though in doing so she could make some kind of last contact with Frank, who must also have touched them on the last morning of his life. But his possessions were as dead as he was. A great heaviness descended on her spirits as she turned away from these small, intimate articles to the pile of clothes behind them.

Her sadness deepened as she looked down at what Frank had once kept as his ‘best' uniform. How proud he had been when he first appeared to display it to his family; and how he had smiled, eighteen months later, as he waited for them to notice the third pip which signified his promotion to captain. Now the cloth was stained with damp and smelt musty. How odd it was that everyday objects like this could, simply by being neglected, make it so clear that their owner had disappeared from the world. Tears streamed silently down her cheeks. It was no wonder if this had caused her mother to collapse. There had been no hope even before, but this gesture with which the army closed its books on a dead officer held a terrible finality.

It was only as she turned back towards the drawing room that the emotional bomb contained in the parcel exploded in her face. Lying on the floor, where presumably her mother had thrown it, was another uniform – the one
which Frank had been wearing when he was killed. It was not scattered in individual items, but was stuck and pressed into a single cube by mud and congealed blood. Hardly liking to touch, Grace bent down and turned it over. Then, at last, she understood.

The letter which Frank's colonel had written to his family had described the manner of his death. A sniper's shot straight through the head, they had been told; he would have felt no pain. But here was a bloody refutation of the kindly-meant lie.

From the condition of Frank's jacket it was possible to deduce the manner of his death. He had been hit in the chest by something large and jagged. He must have collapsed face downwards and lain for some time in his own blood before a nurse's scissors cut through the fabric in order to pull it away from his body. He must still have been alive then, for a field hospital would not have wasted its care on the dead.

For how many hours or days had he endured that agony, knowing that he was dying? What pain had he suffered? What had been his thoughts as all his hopes for the future slipped away? Grace heard herself groaning aloud and, as her mouth filled with a bitter bile, had to turn quickly towards the conservatory's deep earthenware sink to avoid being sick over her brother's effects.

As she retched and gasped for breath, she became conscious of a movement behind her.

‘I've never been hysterical in my life before,' said her mother apologetically. ‘But the sight of this took me by surprise. And the lies made me angry. A quick death, they said! Get rid of it for me, Grace, please. Burn it, bury it – I don't want to know what you do. I don't want to think of Frank like that. He was such … such …' For a moment she broke down again and the two women clung to each other, weeping as though they would never stop.

‘I'll do it at once,' Grace promised, drying her eyes. But first she helped her mother up to bed. Then, changing into her oldest clothes and heaviest walking boots, she collected up all the pieces of her brother's uniforms.

Frith and the boy who was now his only assistant had finished their work for the week by the time she reached the garden tool room. She pulled out a barrow and loaded it with the clothes and a spade and fork before setting out down the hill. Her destination was the wood. This was partly because anything buried there would be safe from accidental disturbance, but there was another reason as well.

The wood had been Frank's special territory. He had claimed it as his battleground in the first moment of his arrival at Greystones, and through all the years of Grace's childhood took command of his brothers and sister whenever they went to play there. Whether the game was cowboys and Indians, Roundheads and Cavaliers, Robin Hood or any of his special inventions, it was always Frank who laid down the rules and chose the sides and told them what to do.