No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (33 page)

‘Robert’s business is doing very well, apparently; whole streets owe their existence to him, he says. Imagine that.’

‘Well, whole authors owe their existence to us,’ said Celia just slightly irritably. She had always found LM’s adoration of Robert difficult to cope with. Oliver thought he was wonderful too. As, most unfairly, had Grandpa Lytton. Of course he’d made a lot of money, but it was hardly on a par with building up a publishing house that was the envy of the literary world. He was very charming and she liked him; but he lacked Oliver and LM’s fearsome intellect. Still, he was the oldest in the family, maybe that had a lot to do with it; not that her own oldest brother, Henry, impressed her very much. She saw him very clearly: as someone neither very bright or very competent. He was fifty now; he’d followed his father into the army, never managed to rise higher than the rank of major, and had left military life to run Lord Beckenham’s Scottish estate. He had a rather dull wife and several extremely plain children; it depressed her to think of him inheriting the title and Ashingham. Anyway, that was a long way off, judging by her father’s rude health and zest for life.

‘And then he says – this is the bad news—’ said LM with a grim smile, ‘his partner’s wife, her name is Felicity, has written some poetry and he wants to send it to us for our opinion.’

‘Oh heavens,’ said Celia, ‘how absolutely dreadful. Yes, I did meet her. Very pretty, but rather – wifely. Oliver thought she was wonderful. The sort of woman he should have married, I suppose. I’m sure it will be quite awful and we shall be duty bound to write at least a page of admiring appreciation. Do tell them when you write back that we don’t publish poetry, won’t you?’

‘Too late. Robert read an article in one of the papers about the explosion of poetry being written at the moment in England with a list of all the poets, and who their publishers were.’

‘Oh God,’ said Celia.

In just a year now, Giles thought, he would be leaving St Christopher’s and going to Eton. It seemed unimaginable, and equally unimaginable that he would be quite sad to go. After the first wretched two years, he had really begun to enjoy it. And now he was house captain, he had his own study, he had a fag of his own – who he was usually very nice to – and he still won every race at every athletic meeting in which he competed. In fact he could fairly claim to have turned St Christopher’s into an athletics school. Standards at rugby had continued to fall; although Miss Prentice had turned herself, by sheer determination and a refusal to let St Christopher’s become a laughing stock, into a soccer coach.

‘I’ve seen photographs of women’s football teams, mostly at the factories where they work, so don’t tell me it can’t be done.’

She had sought the help of the bigger boys in this and had formed a games committee; training was twice a week, and she ran up and down the pitch in a football jersey and a pair of shorts, blowing her whistle and shouting instructions. At first it was fairly chaotic, but old Mr Hardacre, who was over sixty, but knew the rules, had helped from the sidelines, and so did the bigger boys, and gradually the team had shaped up. The head had been most unhappy about it, particularly Miss Prentice’s shorts, and had asked her if she couldn’t possibly wear something more seemly, but she had suggested briskly that he try running up and down in the mud in a long skirt, and he backed down.

All the boys adored Miss Prentice; like the dead David Thompson, she was a caring and thoughtful influence in the school, and like him, gave Sunday afternoon tea parties, organised treats for the boys’ birthdays, kept a kindly eye on the small new ones, and generally made the rather bleak school life warmer and more bearable. The thought of leaving Miss Prentice behind was another source of sadness to Giles. Although she was so old, twenty-three now, she was more like an older sister than a teacher, and actually talked to them all over the Sunday tea and toast.

‘What I really want,’ she said one day, ‘is to have a school of my own. A bit like this, only for boys and girls.’

‘Girls!’ someone said incredulously. ‘Girls in a school?’

‘Yes, why not. Well, I’m a girl aren’t I?’

‘Not quite,’ said someone else, and they all giggled; Miss Prentice laughed too.

‘All right. Well I was a girl once. Anyway, that’s only one idea, I’ve got lots more, most of which would horrify the head and Mr Hardacre.’

‘Like what?’ asked Giles.

‘Well – it would have lots of scholarships for a start. So that poor children could benefit as well.’

‘I don’t know that that would work,’ said Giles.

‘Why ever not?’

‘The other children, the ones who weren’t poor, might not be nice to them.’

‘Oh Lytton, what a ridiculous thing to say. Of course they’d be nice to them. We’re talking about children, not a lot of prejudiced adults.’

‘I know we are,’ said Giles soberly.

‘You can just stop snivelling and pull yourself together. And you can’t need the bedpan again, I’ve only just emptied the last one.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Billy. His voice was low, his face flushed with embarrassment.

‘Of course you can help it. You seem to me to lack self-control in every way. I don’t have Major Hawthorne calling out for bedpans all the time. I can only imagine it’s—’

‘Sister, please fetch Corporal Miller a bedpan at once.’ Celia Lytton’s voice, at its most ice-edged and autocratic, cut into Sister Wright’s monologue. ‘And when you have done so, and he is comfortable again, perhaps you would like to come and inform me. I shall be in matron’s office?’

‘It was so awful,’ she said to her mother, ‘poor Billy has some problem with – well with his stomach. It’s the morphine, apparently. Binds them up and then they need medicine to unbind them. So of course he needs the bedpan a lot. And that witch of a sister won’t let him have it. Makes him wait and suffer. And when I got there, he’d obviously been crying.’

‘Crying!’ said Lady Beckenham.

‘Yes, and she was vile to him about that as well, told him to stop snivelling. Well, wouldn’t you cry, if you were little more than a child and only had one leg, and it hurt you all the time, and you had no prospect of any kind of future in life? I certainly would.’

‘No you wouldn’t,’ said Lady Beckenham. ‘You’d buckle down and get on with it. As you have over the past three years. Can’t have been easy. Only thing to do of course, but I’ve admired you for it.’

‘Oh.’ Celia stared at her mother. She couldn’t ever remember being praised by her for anything in her entire life, except once, when she had fallen off her pony out hunting, broken her wrist, had to have it rather painfully set and insisted on going out again the very next day.

All her mother had said, even then, had been ‘Thank heavens you didn’t make a fuss in front of the master,’ but Celia had recognised it as approbation nonetheless; this was effusive by comparison, almost shocking.

She rallied. ‘Well anyway, he’s so wretched. In pain and utterly miserable. And the staff are just taking it out on him.’

‘Taking what out on him, Celia?’

Celia ignored this. ‘I reported Sister’s behaviour to Matron. She was horrified, said she would speak to her.’

‘She probably wasn’t horrified at all. But I daresay a few brisk words will be said. Anyway, I agree, there is no excuse for unkindness. I might go down there and visit him myself. He seems a pleasant enough lad. And it would keep Matron on her toes, let her know I’m aware of what’s been going on. Dreadful woman.’

‘She’s better than Sister Wright.’

‘No she’s not,’ said Lady Beckenham. ‘She’s extremely common.’ Three days later she arrived in Billy’s room. Barty had begged to be allowed to come too, but she refused. ‘I want to talk to your brother alone. Tell me a bit about him, Barty, what does he like doing?’

‘Oh – well, he likes playing cards. And he used to be good at drawing. But he does quite like reading. Those adventure stories Aunt Celia took him really cheered him up.’

‘Yes, but what are his interests?’ asked Lady Beckenham impatiently.

‘He—’ Barty stopped. She really didn’t know what Billy’s interests were. She had left Line Street when she was far too tiny to be aware of such things, and they had effectively cut her out of their lives soon after. She didn’t want to admit that though. And – what was it he’d been looking at in the
Daily Mirror
the other day, and talking about? Oh, yes, horses. Saying how he’d hated seeing the horses suffering out in France more than anything. ‘Poor beasts. At least we know why we’re there. They don’t.’

‘He likes horses,’ she said quickly.

‘Horses? Does he now? I’m surprised he knows anything about them at all.’

‘Well, there were a lot in France. Apparently.’

‘Yes. Yes of course there were. Well, that’ll give us something to talk about.’

Billy was lying staring at the window when she got there. He turned his head to her, said, ‘Good afternoon,’ and then went back to the view.

‘Good afternoon, Corporal Miller. How are you?’

‘B1 – pretty awful.’

‘Really? Leg hurting you?’

‘A lot. Got to have some more off.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘Not as sorry as I am,’ said Billy, and burst into tears.

Lady Beckenham passed him a handkerchief and sat in silence, while he composed himself.

‘Why is it necessary?’ she said.

‘Ain’t healing. And they can’t make it. So it’s got to come off above the knee, the doctor says.’

‘I see. Well – I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about.’

‘He’d better,’ said Billy. He blew his nose. ‘Sorry.’

‘There’s no need to apologise. I can understand you being upset. But the only way is to be positive, you know.’

‘Positive!’ said Billy. ‘Positive, when me life’s over before it begun. Who’s going to give me a job, eh? What girl’s going to look at me? I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. With respect,’ he added, after a pause.

‘Oh yes, I do’ said Lady Beckenham. ‘My grandfather lost a leg as a young man. Out in India. During the Mutiny. Know anything about all that?’

Billy shook his head.

‘Well I’ll tell you about it one day. It’s a good story. But he fought at Delhi and had to have his leg amputated on the battlefield. Not pleasant. Anyway, he came back, got the Military Cross and won my grandmother’s heart. She was a great beauty too. They had a wonderfully happy marriage, and she had thirteen children. And he rode to hounds until he was sixty. So let’s have no more despair. Now then, Barty says you like horses. Is that right?’

Billy nodded silently; he was altogether beyond speech.

‘Where did you get to know anything about them?’

‘They had them at the brewery. Where I worked.’

‘Oh, the dray horses. Beautiful creatures.’

‘Yes. I used to give ’em apple cores sometimes. And once I helped hold one while it was being shod. Shoe come off, just as it was going out. Stood like a rock.’

‘And in France?’

‘Yeah, well, that was horrible. Seeing them there, in the mud, struggling. I see a mule drown once, in that mud. We all tried to drag him out, but wasn’t no good. And then hearing them scream in battle, watching them lying there, dying. Officers always shot ’em if they could of course. That was something. But still horrible for them. And they’re so nice-looking, horses are. And so brave.’

‘Yes. Yes they are. Well now look. When that leg is on the mend – and I’m sure it will be, I’ll have a word with the doctor myself – you can come out and see my horses one day. Would you like that? Not that there are many of them now. Just a couple of hunters, and they’ve been on nothing but grass for years, terribly out of condition. We don’t get out much these days, of course.’

‘Out?’ said Billy.

‘Yes. Hunting. And then we’ve a few farm horses still. And I thought I might try and get a pony for the children. So we have a few for you to meet. How does that sound?’

‘All right,’ said Billy. ‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Fine. Now, you mustn’t allow yourself to despair. It’s very important. Half the battle is being positive, you know. Keeping your spirits up. Not brooding. At least you’re not blind. So many of those poor chaps are. That would be far worse now wouldn’t it?’

Billy nodded.

‘Good. As soon as you’re up to it, I’ll take you over. You’ll enjoy it. Good to have someone to talk to about horses. Know anything about bloodlines?’

‘Not a lot, no,’ said Billy with the shadow of a smile.

‘Well you must learn. Half the trouble with you, I’d say, is you’ve not got enough to think about. And it’s a fascinating subject. I’ll send you some books over with Barty. How would that be? I think she said you could read.’

‘Course I can read,’ said Billy indignantly. But he didn’t really mind. He was transfixed by her.

‘Good. Right then. And I’ll send some stuff on the Indian Mutiny as well. There are some terrific yarns about that, you know. Including my grandfather’s diary. You’ll enjoy that enormously. He couldn’t spell too well, but you won’t mind that, I don’t suppose. Good heavens, look at the time. I must get back. Dozens of animals waiting to be fed. I came on my motor bike, it’s my new toy. Uses less petrol than the car.’

‘A motor bike!’ said Billy. ‘Cor!’

‘Yes, it’s jolly good. It’s got a sidecar, thing you can sit in. You could come over to Ashingham in that, now I come to think of it. Goodbye, Billy. Chin up.’

From that day on, Billy was Lady Beckenham’s slave.

‘You know,’ said Celia, ‘these aren’t bad. In fact they’re quite good.’

‘What?’ asked LM.

‘That woman’s poems. Felicity Brewer. You know, Robert’s partner’s wife.’

‘Oh – oh yes, I remember. Really? I’m very surprised.’

‘So am I. Although I don’t know why we should be. She’s as likely to be able to write poetry as anyone else, after all. Here, have a look at them. I think we could include a couple in that anthology we’re doing. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

‘The standard’s hardly high,’ said LM.

‘I know. But it’s not exactly low, either.’