The Diamond Waterfall (37 page)

You must miss Stephen very much still. I am a soldier now also, as
you will see from the address. Though I expect you may have heard locally. I enlisted about fifteen months ago.

Yours,

    Henry Firth (Hal)

PS. Sorry about the beginning bit but I'm not sure what to call you. I thought you might not like me to be familiar just because I used to call you by your first name when we were children. When you reply,
if
you do—perhaps you can indicate which you'd prefer?

12th June, 1916
Honiton, Devon

Dear Olive,

It was the most wonderful surprise to get a letter from you. I meant to say that you mustn't feel that you had to reply to mine. Anyway the things you said were wonderful, but
I would have quite understood
if you'd felt angry with me and our family forever and a day.

I'm so sorry your mother is ill all the time now and in bed. I know she wasn't well before. It must be very strange at the farm now with James gone as well—I can understand your upset especially when he did not need to go. And now that he is in France the worry will be worse.

It will be our turn here—one day. I thought we'd have gone sooner but they arrange things how they like. I'm lucky with my pals —at least I thought they were a bit odd at first but now we are all real friends. But I'm sometimes homesick. What happens about the hay—will the brothers be over this year?

I had forgotten about your aunt in Devon. Is there any chance that you would ever come down to see her?

It was lovely to see your handwriting again—do you remember when I used to help you with your homework?

I am hoping for some long leave at the end of the summer. If you really meant it about coming up to the farm, then I certainly shall.

Every good wish, from your friend,

Hal Firth

When had he last walked the grassy track? As Lane Top Farm came into view, it was like stepping back into a lost world. He had been nervous about it —how he should dress, whether to go with the motorcar, walk over, or bicycle. In the end he had settled for his khaki, and traveling on foot.

First full day of his leave. Arriving last night, he had found home as unwelcoming as it had seemed ever since it became a hospital. Officers wandering about as if they were weekend guests (“You the son of the house?” he had been asked this morning. He almost answered “No,” such a stranger did he feel.). He wished Gib could have been there. He and Alice, he had heard, hoped to be married next month, when she got leave at last.

His parents: happy of course to see him. But busy, and uncertain whether they might not have to entertain him. There was an air of such busyness about the whole place. In fact he walked straight into the midst of some bustle. A patient, meant to be almost ready for convalescent leave, hemorrhaging suddenly, severely. Even while greeting Hal, Mother was distracted by arrangements to be made, messages, a discussion with the doctor.

Teddy, just sixteen and full of self-importance. He found her exasperating. He couldn't believe that anyone would miss her if she went off to boarding school tomorrow. She rushed about (“Ripping to see you but I have to hurry—I'm reading to some of the officers at half past, they're frightfully nervy and get awfully upset if you're even five minutes late.”). She had with her always Amy Hawksworth—and now a Belgian girl too. All full of themselves.

Sylvia was as sweet and dear as ever. She had been in her dressing gown and just about to go to bed when he arrived. But she'd thrown her arms around him and put her little face up to be kissed. He had thought, She is sugar and spice and all things nice—just what a little sister should be.

Lane Top Farm. In the yard, an aged Tess barked as he approached. He waited at the door of the farmhouse. When it opened, he just stood and stared.

Olive said, “Don't you know me, then?”

Of course. Of course it was Olive. Not very tall—she had scarcely grown at all. But different. How?

“You're different …” he began. Then fell silent. It was suddenly too much for him. Back here, standing at the door—when last time it had been shut in his face.

“Of course I'm not,” she said, laughing. Then: “Come in, if you're coming. You're very welcome.”

First he had to pass the door of the room downstairs where Will and James and Stephen had used to sleep. Then the little cupboard room under the stairs that had been Olive's. It was all the same—and yet not. The smell, it could be baking, oil lingering from the lamps, milk, hay, all scents that seemed to have permeated the very walls.

“Come in the kitchen, Hal.”

The kitchen. It was like the first time, the first visit, when he had felt the room to be full of people. Then there'd been five. Today, only four. Granny Willans sat by the window. It was as if she'd never moved. Her feet were stuck out and he could have sworn it was the same pair of unlaced boots.

“Here's Hal Firth come to see us, Gran. He's a soldier now.”

But she wasn't sure of him and only shook her head. “Can't hear owt…”

Mr. Ibbotson acknowledged him, without enthusiasm. Grudgingly. I'm not forgiven, Hal thought. Whatever Olive has told them, explained, there is still bitterness.

Two men sat at the table, which was already laid up for a meal. Olive said, “These are Tom Thwaites and Arthur Pickering. They're family now. They help with farm, you see.”

He didn't see. He had not thought, really. Without James, and with Mr. Ibbotson not strong these days, how were they to manage?

It was then she took him upstairs to see her mother. He had dreaded this. Mrs. Ibbotson lay back against the pillows, her hair, thin and lank, about her shoulders. Her face was puffy, and she seemed, like Granny Willans, scarcely to recognize him. He preferred that. If she were to have mentioned the past …

“Mam's not having one of her good days—are you, Mam dear? Hal's only come to say ‘Good day.' Then you can sleep again, after I've brought you your dinner. She likes, needs to, sleep a lot,” Olive explained to him.

He wasn't sure why, but he'd pictured it that he would be at the farm alone with Olive. That the first awkward moments over, ghost of Stephen notwithstanding, they would talk and be at ease with each other.

But it was not going to happen. He saw that, before the meal was five minutes old. Olive bustling about, hurrying to and fro, pouring from the same old green teapot.

They made polite conversation. The two new men didn't say much. Arthur was only a boy, really: small and sturdy, with a freckled face and a wide friendly mouth. Olive explained that he was too young to go to war even if he'd wanted. Hal's escapade hung about them, was not mentioned. Tom, pleasantly fresh-faced, with already receding hair and carrying quite a bit of weight, had wanted to fight but hadn't been passed fit.

“It were only a notion,” he said. “I'm as well off here. Miss Ibbotson— Olive's—cooking. She bakes a good cake, does Olive.”

Hal thought, My first day here,
I
tasted her baking. Oatcakes, havercakes, it had been. He felt a sudden wave of jealousy. Someone else, a stranger, enjoying it, praising it.

“I hear you ran off for a soldier,” Arthur said later. He wanted to hear
all about it. But Hal, finding it perhaps an old, tired tale, couldn't get it started, or bring it to life.

Granny Willans was silent, except occasionally when she would talk out loud to herself. Mr. Ibbotson scarcely spoke, less even than Hal remembered. He wondered now, could not help being curious, whether he, or Olive, had told Tom and Arthur about the jewelry—about that Christmas four years ago. There is something wrong with the
feeling
in here, he told himself.

They asked him when he would be going abroad, talked about the hospital at The Towers. Then among themselves about farm matters. There was a goose fattening through in the scullery. Christmas wouldn't be all bad. Life had to go on. Up on the dresser was a field postcard from James. It had a tick beside “I am well.” “We got that Thursday,” Olive said.

When the meal was finished and the clearing done, he thought, It's nearly over and I haven't spoken to her at all.

He said, “I expect you've work to do.” Tom and Arthur had gotten up almost at once and gone outside. “Should I help them at all?” he asked. “There's lots I could do. I—”

“You're not dressed for mucking,” she said, smiling. She looked like a little brown bird. Brown hair, brown dress under brown apron.

It wouldn't be possible to stay in the kitchen—they couldn't speak there. There was no sign of Granny Willans moving. She looked to be asleep. Mr. Ibbotson said, “I'll mebbe take forty winks—and join lads afore light goes.”

Olive said, “Hal and I'll just go for a walk, Dad. If he wants to. If he'd like that.”

When they'd walked, without talking, about five minutes or so, taking the track that led in the direction of the high moor, she said:

“I wanted to tell you I'm sorry—that you've not had a great welcome. Dad's not—it's not that he's angry still, it's just he's not bothered with folk from outside. And now that Mam's badly …”

“That's all right,” he said. “I was happy just to be with you. I mean, with you all,” he added quickly, embarrassed.

A silence fell on them. What little sun there'd been had disappeared. A dull day in late August, and cold with it. Hints of autumn already in the air. They went through a gap in the cross wall—a hawthorn tree grew beside it. Ahead was open moor, the distant purple of the heather appearing almost brown beneath the leaden sky.

She said, “I haven't to be long out. There's work—”

“Do you do it all—in the house, as well as farm work?”

“I can't mind a time when I didn't, Hal. I was busy enough before Mam was taken bad. Since then, I've had the lot.”

“But if you weren't there?”

“They'd just have to get on with it, wouldn't they?”

He remembered now that side of her: who looked so gentle and could so
suddenly be definite and firm. He thought then, sadly, Four years ago, if she'd
wanted
to go on being friends, she'd have done that on her own. Defied them. If she'd wanted. But her own flesh and blood—whatever side could she have been expected to take?

He needed to keep on returning, probing, reopening the scar, looking under to see if it was healed. He burst out:

“I liked all you said, in your letter, about the jewelry affair being over and far back in the past, and how we don't need to speak of it again.”

“Well,” she said, a little briskly, “if I said that then—why are you starting it up another time?”

They were crossing the sheep bridge now, then along the stone footpath by the side of the stream—the water full after the recent rain.

He thought at first she was angry, but then she smiled. Seeing that smile, he realized it was the same he'd always known, only now it belonged to a different person.

Perhaps she was having some of the same thoughts, because she said:

“Being a soldier—or just getting older, or—I don't know, anyway you're like I remember, but
different.”

“Yes?” He wanted to talk about himself, if she did the talking.

“Your funny voices, we've not had any of them…. Perhaps that way you've changed—”

“I still have those—I do them all the time for my pals. I do them so much I expect I thought—perhaps I wanted a rest. I didn't think any of you'd want that sort of thing.”

“It was really good, was your Granny Willans.” She was laughing as she remembered. “And that Mr. Maxwell that reads the lesson in church. You had him, really
had
him.”

He said, “I do the Sergeant Major for my pals—I wouldn't like you to hear some of it. It's a bit—you know. But—'04 Greenwood,” he shouted loudly across the water. And then two of Sarge's parade-ground sayings.

“The rest, they're some of them much funnier—only the things he says, I —couldn't, in front of you.” He blushed now as he remembered (“… but at least cunts are useful”; “… if it had hair round it”).

“I expect I'd understand,” she said. “You see, you hear things—on a farm, and about.”

He blushed still. He wouldn't
want
her to understand. He said:

“I hope those two that help on the farm, I hope they're careful with their talk.”

“If Dad's around, yes, they take care. Gran they're not bothered. It depends if they've had a drink or two—”

“Do you like them?”

“They're all right. They're good lads.”

“Which do you like best?” He imagined suddenly that she might be close friends, that there was already something between her and Tom.

“Oh, Arthur, I suppose, because he's only a little small lad. No—I'm not sure. Tom, I think really. He's good, Hal. He's kindly and—”

Interrupting, as if he could not wait to say it, seeing in his mind's eye the farmhouse door already looming before them. Their time together nearly over.

“Olive, even if I don't go abroad for a bit—will you write to me? Getting letters in camp, even in England, it's really good. If you've the time.”

“I could find it, I reckon. If I've a mind to.”

She smiled, though, and he knew she would do it. They talked little after that—she had taken out her watch and seen that they must hurry back. A faint drizzle was beginning. The distant view quite misted over.

Back at the farmhouse she went in ahead of him. As she took off her hat hurriedly, some of her hair pulled from its fastening so that it hung drunkenly down one side. Thick brown, with just a little wave. There had not been so much of it before even when it hung loose.

“The other thing is—I just thought of it. I'm here for a bit and I wondered if there's not perhaps work—if I could help like I used …” He floundered. He didn't want to go back, yet again, to the past.