Winter Roses (19 page)

The applause at the end was ten times as loud as that at the beginning, and she was amused to see Phoebe and George were leading it.

Full of good goose and pudding, Margaret sat down next to Joe to relax with a cup of tea while Muriel and Lizzie did the washing-up. She could hardly believe this strapping
son in uniform at her side was real; it had been only six months since she saw him but it seemed much, much longer. Later on they’d all have a sing-song, with Miss Lewis at the piano. The babies would enjoy it too, even little Frank. In the meantime she was going to talk to Joe, but she was forestalled by his following her into the kitchen on the pretext of helping her take back dirty teacups, there being no Agnes or Myrtle today. They’d both gone home at twelve o’clock.

‘I saw Fred, Ma.’

‘You what?’ Margaret went quite pale; she had been trying hard not to think of Fred too much even when they toasted absent friends. She didn’t want to start crying on Christmas Day.

‘I went to see him. They’re in the lines at Booty Wall and Cor.’

‘How –’ Margaret found herself choking ‘– is he?’ She’d never heard of those places, but it didn’t matter. Perhaps Joe had got it wrong.

‘He’s fine, Ma.’

‘In the trenches?’ She’d have to keep on at him. Joe was a dear, but he didn’t see much further than the end of his nose sometimes. Like his father.

‘No. In the cookhouse when I saw him. Peeling potatoes, he’s good at that. He’s always there, he says.’

Margaret could hardly believe her ears. She ran back to the servants’ hall yelling with joy. ‘Percy, do you hear that? Our Fred’s peeling
potatoes
.’ Tears streamed down her face. ‘Thank you, God, thank you. No one gets killed peeling potatoes, do they? To potatoes!’ She
seized the nearest glass, not caring what was in it.

‘Let’s have a toast.’ Percy was as relieved as she was. ‘To spuds!’

‘Here’s to potatoes,’ Peck bawled, in a voice that would have won him instant dismissal from her ladyship. He raised his teacup on high.

‘And bully beef,’ Joe added, in an effort to outdo the sensation he’d unwittingly caused.

‘Peeling bully beef?’ Margaret Dibble screamed with laughter. ‘Do you hear that, everyone? Our Fred’s peeling blooming bully beef!’

They didn’t hear. They were still bawling out the toast to spuds. It was Christmas, after all.

‘We shall seek it with thimbles,’ announced Father. ‘The Snark shall not escape.’ He gravely handed a thimble to Caroline. ‘We shall pursue it with forks and hope.’ A kitchen fork was duly given to Phoebe. ‘We shall threaten its life with a railway share.’ An important-looking piece of parchment was entrusted to Felicia. ‘We shall charm it with smiles and soap.’ He placed a bar of soap in George’s outstretched hand.

They had already drawn lots to play the Snark, and it was Kate who drew the short pipe cleaner, to her great amusement. She had promptly disappeared, and her heavy footsteps could be heard thundering up the main staircase. Caroline caught her mother’s eye and read her thoughts exactly: there would be no difficulty in finding this Snark.

They were wrong, for it took quite a lot of time. Some people, Caroline suspected, were more interested in
pursuing their private conversations than in hunting for the Snark. Well, they shouldn’t be; it was Christmas. She had bumped into Isabel who was with Robert, and showing no signs of wanting to leave the morning room in pursuit of any Snarks. In her own bedroom she found Felicia talking by the window with Luke, and felt fiercely protective of the emotions of absent Daniel. She had never seen Felicia so relaxed and forthcoming as she was with Luke, responding to his easy banter as if he was one of the family. Which, of course, he was determined to be.

It was eerie with the house in darkness. There were only the oil lamps turned down low on the ground floor, and one or two very dim torches for them to move round the house. Caroline began to wish she had someone with her to hunt with, since Kate had obviously done a good job in vanishing. The next person she came across was Phoebe.

‘Have you seen George?’ she asked crossly. ‘He was with me and he had the torch. Then he just disappeared.’

‘No,’ Caroline said, pleased. ‘You’d better come round with me.’

Phoebe decided differently. ‘No. I’ll go and find that nice marionette man.’

Monsieur Fabre had remained behind with Henri and the older generation in the drawing room; much as she liked him, she wouldn’t have thought he would appeal to Phoebe.

Caroline was irrationally disappointed to be left alone, especially since she had pressed the torch into Phoebe’s hand. She managed to find her way up in the dark to the attic floor where the servants’ rooms were out of bounds,
but several unoccupied lumber rooms remained to be searched. She opened the door to one of them cautiously, and recognised Yves standing there, lit by the moonlight coming in through the dormer window. She wondered what he was doing here, then saw he was smoking. On seeing her, he promptly extinguished the cigarette in an old candleholder which stood on the dormer windowsill.

‘I am glad to see you, Caroline,’ he said. ‘I feared I should rot here for ever.’

‘Like the Man in the Iron Mask?’ She laughed, delighted to see him. ‘Why?’

‘I am imprisoned by darkness, and there is no buxom Kate to console me.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to say if he found buxom Kate attractive, he
could
rot there for ever, but instead she heard herself saying: ‘Isn’t there a candle stub in that holder? If not, if you take my hand, I can lead you down the stairs. I think your buxom Kate must be outside. I’ve searched everywhere in the house.’

‘There is no candle.’

He meekly offered her his hand. It was large, warm, and oddly comforting in the dim light. As she carefully led him step by step down to the ground floor, she found it even more comforting in the dark. As his hands had been once before. Memories of the night of the bomb came rushing back, and she tried once again to concentrate on nothing but these hands in order to dispel the horror.

It took an effort of will for her to whisper in the darkness to break the spell. ‘She must be in one of the outhouses.’

‘Who?’

‘The Snark of course. Your buxom Kate.’

There was a silence. Then: ‘Shall we seek her? Do you still have your thimble?’

She fished in her pocket, drew it out, and stuck it on his little finger. ‘There,’ she said crossly. ‘That’ll help you to find her.’

She led him by the hand to a garden door through what was grandly known as the library and out into the darkness. There was still snow underfoot after the heavy falls of a few days ago, and a pile of coats and Wellington boots had been placed in the library for intrepid searchers.

‘We’ll try here.’ Caroline shivered and managed to push open the door to the old stables, although the moon had disappeared behind clouds. ‘It hasn’t been used since Poppy died.’

‘I am sorry – I had not realised. Another sister?’

That restored Caroline’s good humour. ‘No, our old horse. Since she died last year, we have shared one with the doctor. He has a motor car and we can borrow his old horse. He’s even older than Poppy, which is why the Army didn’t want him. Anyway, it’s too cold here.’ She dragged him out again. ‘We might try the applety and mother’s glory-hole.’

The glory-hole was empty, but the applety was not. This was the grand name given to a wooden shed where all the apples from the orchard were stored on an upper floor, and as she opened the door and drew him in, the smell of James Grieve apples was the first thing to greet her. The second was the sound of breathing. There
was
someone here. Yves
had left the door open and the pale light from outside revealed a figure. As he drew it to, and her eyes became accustomed to the lack of light, she saw it was two figures closely locked together. It was George embracing Kate. Not even the sudden shaft of dim light over her shoulder disturbed them, and Kate’s disarranged clothing revealed this was no light embrace.

In shock, Caroline stepped back accidentally onto Yves’ foot, then she tugged at him to pull him out of the applety, slamming the door behind them. She intended to run back to the house, but he would not let her. He opened the door of the glory-hole instead, drawing her inside. There was suddenly a glow of light there too.

‘What is wrong, Caroline? Tell me.’

‘Nothing … You’ve had a torch all the time!’ She could see it in his hand.

‘Yes. Now tell me what is wrong.’ He turned the torch out. ‘It is easier to talk in the dark.’

Was it? And why on earth was she crying? For George, her little brother, who was little no longer? Or for herself? She felt Yves’ arm round her shoulder, and allowed him to push her gently in her mother’s basket chair behind her. ‘I will stand over here, and you will forget my presence. Then you can talk. Like the confessional.’ In the dark he backed straight into The Heap, and his yelp of surprise made it easier to talk relatively normally.

‘George and Miss Burrows, Kate, they were—’

‘Making love. Yes. I saw them. Why does that upset you?’ His voice was very gentle. ‘Because Miss Burrows is who she is and your brother who he is?’

‘No.’ Caroline was horrified at that idea.

‘Because he is your little brother and you don’t want him to grow up?’

Less certain this time. ‘I don’t know. It was horrible,
horrible
.’ She surprised herself by her own vehemence. Would she have felt that way if it had been Felicia and Luke?

‘To you, perhaps, but for them it was not. Why do you mind so much, Caroline,
why
? Pretend your heart is the front line, and cut a trench along it. Look deep inside and tell me.’

When she still could not speak, he tried to help again. ‘You are twenty-four and the sight of physical love cannot be new to you. Does it repel you?’

‘No.’ She was sure about this too.

‘Then it must have struck a chord of memory. Of Reggie, perhaps?’

‘Oh!’ She jumped, burying her face in her hands. Last year, on Christmas Eve, she had faced both betrayal and loss when she saw Isabel and Reggie together. She had thought the pain long since surmounted, but seeing another incongruous couple in George and Kate had brought it back. As she swayed with the shock, she was hardly aware that he had come to her until she felt his arms round her, and his chest and shoulders against her.

‘Tell me,
cara mia
,’ he said quietly, one hand stroking her hair.

For a year she had tried not to think about it, in order to blot it from her mind, but now the whole wretched story tumbled out. Perhaps the dark did form a confessional, for when it was over she was still trembling, though aware
of how ridiculous this must seem to him. She disengaged herself from his arms in embarrassment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘For what?’

‘For standing here, dressed in Father’s old coat, a muffler and Wellington boots.’

‘No, that is not what you are sorry for. Tell me,
cara
.’

‘George and Kate. It seems so little,’ she blurted out.

‘But it was not little, was it? It was big, because of Isabel and Reggie, but perhaps because you have discovered this, it is not now quite so big.’

‘It won’t vanish though,’ she said forlornly.

‘Nothing can make it do so but yourself. You still love your sister, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You understand what made Reggie do it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then there is only yourself left to understand, Caroline.’

She felt his hands cup her face, then his lips gently first on one cheek then the other, then, even more gently, the fleeting touch of his lips on hers before he released her. She could hear him breathing, hear herself breathing, even hear the silence between them.

‘Yves?’

‘I am here.’

‘Would you kiss me again?’

This time his lips rested longer on hers and, as he drew her closer into his arms, harder, until the response they aroused turned the darkness into light. Almost as quickly, he released her again.

‘And now, we must remember our quest. The thimble has found our Snark for us.’ He took it off his finger and pressed it into her hand.

She began to laugh shakily, adjusting easily to his change of mood. ‘Shall we “softly and suddenly vanish away”? “For our Snark
was
a Boojum, you see”.’

‘Yes, let us leave our buxom Kate Snark to her baker,
cara
. If you will take my hand, I will lead you back through the night to the Rectory.’

‘You have a torch,’ she pointed out. ‘You cheated.’

‘And now I cheat again.’

Where was it all going to end? It was all very well her cheering the village ladies on about the wonderful things you could cook out of today’s meagre supplies, but somehow Margaret was failing to inspire herself. It was bitterly cold outside; even the heater in the entrance hall failed to distribute its usual warmth round the house, and the continuing coal shortage meant that fires had to be strictly rationed. If this wasn’t a rectory, she’d send Percy down to the forest to sneak a bag or two of wood when no one was looking. As it was, they had cold bedrooms, and Jack Frost iced the windows up so thick you hardly needed the blackout curtains. Most of the family had taken to sleeping with their doors open so that what warmth there was penetrated, but up in the servants’ quarters they couldn’t – not because a little heat didn’t find its way there, but because with old Peck the Peeper around the girls didn’t
feel safe. She and Percy were all right in their quarters, and if old Peck tried his peeping on her, she’d give him what for. At least in the kitchen she had the heat of the range to enjoy. It didn’t seem fair on the family somehow, but Mrs Isabel and Miss Phoebe had taken to coming in by the tradesmen’s entrance, not the front door, so they could have a warm-up first.

There was another warm spot too. Her achievement with her demonstrations was about to be crowned. Margaret hugged the glory to her. Last week her ladyship had told her that the Board of Agriculture under this new Lloyd George government was going to start training courses for women in economic cookery, because of the food shortage. They had written to Lady Buckford to see if she’d be interested in organising the training in Tunbridge Wells. At last someone up there in London was seeing sense, and saw that the Margaret Dibbles of this world could do their bit. Lady Buckford couldn’t do the work herself, so Margaret would be the organiser and give the demonstrations. She was sure she could arrange to visit the Wells one day a week; she’d spoken to Agnes who would take over the Rectory cooking. All she awaited was the official approval of her name from the Board of Agriculture, and then she too would have her national war work. She was a little nervous of lecturing anywhere so grand as Tunbridge Wells, but she couldn’t let this opportunity slip by.

It was only January; this winter, like the war, showed no sign of ending. And even when it did, that would only mean another grim time coming. Once spring had brought cheerful things like birds and flowers; now it
brought another big attack somewhere or everywhere, and with it the chance that Fred might be taken off his potatoes and Joe off his digging and pioneering work, and both of them sent over the top.

At least Christmas had been a happy time, so that’s what she’d think about. Miss Caroline had been full of beans at Christmas, and so had Miss Felicia. Miss Felicia was long since back in France, poor lass, and no doubt it was just as cold there. Margaret wondered what kind of hospital she was working in, and hoped they had plenty of coal to keep warm. That Captain Dequessy seemed very attached to her.

Miss Caroline seemed to have got over Mr Reggie’s death too. On the day after Boxing Day she had brought that serious-looking captain into the kitchen, and he was carrying a plucked chicken – from the Dower House, he said. Then Miss Caroline had announced that if Mrs Dibble had no objection the captain was going to cook servants’ dinner that day, and the family were going to have cold ham and potatoes. She’d do the potatoes herself.

Naturally, Margaret hadn’t taken her seriously at first; but after Miss Caroline had found a spare pinny and put it round the captain’s neck, she hadn’t been called upon to do anything apart from telling them where the ingredients were. Instead, she’d been ordered to sit down in her own kitchen and make a cup of tea. She’d watched with fascinated foreboding, as vegetables were peeled, and her large braising pan brought down from its hook. There was a spot of bother over something the captain demanded called ‘teem’, but Miss Caroline guessed what he meant and rushed out to scrape the hard-packed snow off the
herb garden to see if she could find any thyme snuggling under it.

Judging by the preparations, Margaret was not impressed by Belgian food. ‘That’s only chicken stew.’ Margaret didn’t sound too scornful about it, because she was relieved that foreigners’ recipes produced nothing better than good Sussex fare.

‘Ah yes, but for waterzooi we now need a liaison of cream and eggs,’ the captain had said.

‘Not in Sussex we don’t.’

Caroline laughed. ‘Just try it, Mrs Dibble. I’m sure you can spare one egg and I know there’s cream left over. It can’t have gone sour in this weather.’

Margaret watched dubiously. She was still shocked at the sight of the captain wearing her pinny. He stirred the mixture into the stew while Miss Caroline burnt her fingers tearing the flesh off the baked chicken. It didn’t do, she decided. It was the last time she’d permit any stranger to come walking in and take over her job, Christmastime or not. When Percy came in, he was flabbergasted at seeing a gentleman stirring a pan on the range, and she had to nod to him that it was all right in case he thought she’d gone off her head. She probably had, but Miss Caroline was laughing just like she used to, and that was worth an upset or two.

‘Where did you learn to cook, Monsieur Escoffier?’ Miss Caroline asked the captain jokingly.

‘My father was in the Belgian army, and he believed in bringing his sons up to survive anywhere from the Arctic to the jungle. When we were children, he took us out to
the forests of the Ardennes to camp. We cooked with an old Soyer portable stove, sometimes for a day, sometimes a week. We hated every moment.’

‘No wonder, if you had to cook this.’

He had smiled at that. ‘We did not. But much as I disliked the means, I did learn something of the art of cookery.’

Art? Margaret had never thought of her daily work like that, but she supposed it was in a way, and felt quite proud.

Miss Caroline and the captain didn’t only cook this waterzooi dish; they insisted on serving it to her and Percy, Agnes, Myrtle, Miss Lewis and old Peck in the servants’ hall. Even little Elizabeth Agnes was waited on.

Margaret hadn’t been able to get used to that idea at all, and kept trying to get up from the table to help. Miss Caroline wouldn’t let her, and Myrtle started giggling … She’d have to watch her, Margaret decided, in case she got above herself. It was kind of Miss Caroline to think of this treat, and she meant well. It didn’t do, however. Margaret preferred the old ways. Miss Caroline seemed to understand her thoughts, though, for she said placatingly:

‘It’s only because of the war, Mrs Dibble. Everything has to change a little.’

Maybe, but it could change back afterwards, and she wouldn’t stand for being told how to cook by foreigners, thank you very much. All the same, this captain seemed a nice gentleman, and if he took Miss Caroline’s mind off poor Mr Reggie, he could have Margaret’s full approval. As had, she was forced to admit, this waterzooi concoction. Though she still preferred Sussex chicken stew.

Now they were into January, and a bleak old month it was turning out to be. Miss Caroline had gone back to Folkestone, and yesterday Mr George had left home for the Central Flying School at Upavon in Wiltshire. She’d asked him why, if he had passed his flying test, he had to go to another school? He’d said something about having to get his RFC wings, and she’d pointed out he was no angel. She knew why he’d come here. You could always tell when there was a row in progress. The Rector went around with a wounded expression and whenever she took the dishes in to the dining room there was a nasty silence.

This one seemed worse than usual, however, and she’d caught Agnes and Myrtle talking about it in the servants’ hall, when she entered unexpectedly. She knew it by the way they broke off immediately.

‘What was that you were saying, Mrs Thorn?’ she had enquired politely, but in a tone that brooked no nonsense.

She could hardly accuse Agnes of gossiping, but that’s what it sounded like to her. Agnes flushed in embarrassment, but Myrtle piped up. ‘Mrs Thorn just said Master George seemed sorry to be leaving, and that Mrs Lilley had told her Miss Burrows is going as well tomorrow.’

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ Margaret was outraged. She was overall housekeeper here, and it wasn’t right for Agnes to know first.

‘It is very sudden,’ Agnes said apologetically. ‘You were in the village, and Mrs Lilley couldn’t find you. She only mentioned it to me because I was about to help Myrtle to change the sheets in Miss Burrows’ room.’

Margaret had been a little mollified, but it didn’t explain
the thunder in the Rectory air. When she had gone to see Mrs Lilley in the morning room, as she did most days, the mistress had told her: ‘One less for dinner today and two from tomorrow, Mrs Dibble. Mr George has left, and Miss Burrows has suddenly been recalled home.’

‘Will she be returning, Mrs Lilley?’

‘I don’t believe so.’ Mrs Lilley had sighed heavily. ‘It’s a good thing it’s winter. I don’t know how I’d manage otherwise without her. Miss Phoebe does a little, but her heart isn’t in it, and that means her mind isn’t either, half the time.’

‘How about Miss Ryde, madam?’

Mrs Lilley had brightened up. ‘That’s a good idea. If I could—’

She broke off, but Margaret had guessed exactly what she was going to say: ‘If I could put up with her.’ That Miss Ryde was a tartar, good-hearted but strong-willed. No wonder Mr Philip was so anxious to get married. That had been a surprise too – Dr Parry announcing her engagement to Mr Philip. You could have knocked her over with her own feather duster when the Rector called the banns. They’d be getting married in three weeks’ time, and there had already been a lot of conjecture about what Miss Ryde would do. Would Dr Parry move in to the schoolhouse or Mr Ryde move out to Dr Parry’s cottage? Or would they all live together? She couldn’t see Dr Parry being happy living in the same house as Miss Ryde. There had been much chat in the servants’ hall over this, until Dr Parry herself provided the answer when she came to see Elizabeth Agnes yesterday; the little girl had been poorly with a nasty
cough she couldn’t shake off. Dr Parry would be moving into the schoolhouse, and she would have her very own extension of Dr Marden’s telephone line. Marvellous the things they could do nowadays. Miss Ryde had elected to go temporarily to Beth Parry’s cottage in Dr Marden’s grounds, until she could decide what she wanted to do.

‘I’ll have a word with her today.’ Mrs Lilley had shivered, looking at the bleak greyness outside. ‘There’s a heavy ulster among the cast-offs in my glory-hole; I wonder if I dare wear that to see her? I can’t remember who sent it in, but I’ll just have to hope they don’t spot me.’

It had snowed heavily later that day, and snug in her kitchen, watching the snow driving against the window panes, Margaret was surprised when Lizzie thrust open the kitchen door, coming in like a snowman with flakes all over her coat, farm trousers and Wellingtons.

‘What are you doing out in the dark?’ her mother demanded as Lizzie lay down her dimmed torch. ‘And where’s the baby, if I might ask? Nothing wrong, is there?’

‘No. I’ve left him with Mrs Lake. Don’t want to bring him out in this weather.’

‘What are you here for then? Cup of tea and home comforts?’

‘Something like that, Ma.’

Margaret’s antennae were twitching. ‘Out with it, girl.’

Lizzie sat down, wet coat and all, and began to cry. ‘I’ve had a letter from Rudolf.’

For a moment Margaret thought she meant Frank, who was out east somewhere now, and though he wrote regularly, sometimes weeks would go by with Lizzie hearing
nothing at all, and then the letters would all arrive together. Then she realised Lizzie did mean Rudolf.

‘What’s he got to say for himself?’ Margaret asked in trepidation. She had liked Rudolf, everyone had; he was a slow, gentle sort of fellow, or so she’d thought before he went home to fight for the Kaiser. It was no use Lizzie saying he’d have been interned if he stayed here; her mother just wasn’t convinced he didn’t want to go. There was no doubt Lizzie was going to be in a pickle if he ever came back. Somehow Margaret had got out of the way of thinking about Rudolf, what with Frank and the baby.

‘He’s been wounded. He’s back in Germany until he gets well. The hospital train went through Switzerland and he managed to get this note sent. Oh, Ma,’ Lizzie wailed. ‘What am I going to do? He says he’ll be back the day this war’s over.’

Once more Margaret agonised over this dilemma. Once she’d never had a good word to say for the man who seduced her Lizzie – for seduction it must have been despite all Lizzie and Percy maintained – but she had to admit Frank had stood by her. Sent her money regularly through his bank, not that it came to much. She didn’t get an allowance because they weren’t wed, and so she and Percy were forced to dig into their purses for little extras for baby Frank.

‘Which one do you love, Lizzie?’

‘Both of them.’ Lizzie howled again.

‘When there’s nothing you can do, do nothing, that’s my advice,’ her mother informed her briskly, unable to speak the words of comfort that her heart was forming. ‘It’s no
use asking the Lord what to do – you got yourself into this mess … though He might lend a hand,’ she added consolingly, ‘since there’s baby Frank to consider.’

This didn’t seem to cheer Lizzie up at all, but suddenly Margaret’s heart found its way to her tongue. ‘Look, Lizzie, girl,’ she sat down and planted her hands on the table, ‘there is no answer to this. We don’t know when this war’s going to be over, but it ain’t going to be yet. So concentrate on getting through the little worries of the day ahead of you and sooner or later the answer to the big problem will come strolling along.’

What was in Margaret’s mind, though she didn’t hardly dare admit it even to herself, was that with the number of soldiers being killed everywhere now, it was highly likely that either Frank or Rudolf wouldn’t be coming back at all. Or perhaps neither of them would. She sent up a brief prayer to please turn a blind ear to what she’d just thought; she’d read in a magazine somewhere that out in foreign parts pagan witchdoctors killed people just by wishing them dead; or was it the victim had to believe they were dying? Whichever it was, she’d better not take any chances, and her knees had best stay down another few minutes tonight.