Winter Roses (7 page)

Margaret hurried to open the kitchen door. As she did so, however, the Rector emerged from the study further up the passage and called out to his daughter.

‘Caroline, I need to talk to you. Could you come in here for a moment?’

As she returned disconsolately to her tea, it briefly crossed Margaret’s mind to wonder what the Rector wanted to talk to Miss Caroline about. And why he had been talking quite so long to Mrs Lilley, who was still in the study with them. But she forgot both these things, as she remembered it was almost time to bath baby Frank.

Why were
both
her parents here? Caroline, trying to subdue a sudden jolt of fear, followed her father’s suggestion that she sit down in the comfortable armchair at the side of his study desk. This only increased her apprehension, however, and she found herself on her feet again. Felicia? Aunt Tilly? Isabel? No, if this were a mere matter of where Isabel was to live, there would be no need for both Father and Mother to be here. She began to feel slightly sick.

‘It’s Reggie, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, my darling.’ It was her father who answered, and both he and her mother rushed to put their arms around her. Father reached her first. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’ He hugged her. ‘I know how much you care for him even though—’

‘Yes.’ She knew what he was going to say. Just because her engagement had been broken, it didn’t mean that love had entirely vanished. How could it? There had been a
lifetime of Reggie and a few months without him. Love had merely been defeated.

She knew she should say something, for her parents wore that concerned look that close friends and family have when no words seem adequate and silence has to speak for them. Even her father, so soothing and comforting to bereaved parishioners, was dumb. As was she, for there was nothing but numbness in her mind.

‘Is it in the newspaper?’ she managed at last.

‘Not yet, my love. Sir John heard this morning and came down immediately with Daniel to break the news to his wife; then he telephoned us. He particularly asked me to tell you first, Caroline.’

‘That was good of him.’ Was this her, responding with such apparent normality? Perhaps, but the real Caroline was curled up in a ball inside her, conscious that if a last flicker of hope for a life married to Reggie had been lingering inside her, then it had been snuffed out for ever. ‘After all, I’m not engaged to Reggie any more.’

‘He has a high opinion of you, and they too need support.’

Support? With a mighty effort, Caroline forced herself to think of the Hunneys. Tragedy had hit their family another mighty blow. Three years ago they had two healthy sons, both with brilliant futures before them. Now, one was dead and the other maimed for life, even though by his own efforts he was struggling to resurrect his former hopes. Many families had no such comfort. The newspapers were full of stories of those who had lost their complete families; she had read of one widow who had lost seven sons.

‘Poor Lady Hunney,’ Caroline jerked out in compassion, recalling how she had looked a year ago when she had told Caroline that the offensive at Loos had begun that day. Lady Hunney had known that the 1st Division, which included the 2nd Royal Sussex, was engaged in it, and for the first time Caroline had seen her as a woman and not as an enemy to be conquered. Reggie had survived Loos, however, although he had been wounded, and over the intervening months Lady Hunney had reacquired her former monstrous image in Caroline’s mind. It was gone for ever.

‘Where did he die, Father?’ Did she want to know? It didn’t matter. Nothing did, but if she knew now, she might not agonise over unanswered questions in future.

‘Have you read of High Wood?’ Her father was obviously trying to judge whether or not she really wished to hear the whole terrible story. She was sure now that she did, whatever the pain. Reggie’s death was part of Reggie.

‘Yes.’ Newspaper reports of the Somme offensive were still seizing on each minor success, to counteract the appalling casualty lists, which told their own story of disaster, not gains. The battle to clear the way to this wood had begun in mid July, and now that Delville Wood had been captured, High Wood had become the focal point. Daniel had told her last week that the British were trying out a new weapon of war there. Camouflaged tanks, which were like huge metal armoured vans, were being used in advance of the infantry, and casualties would be vastly reduced. Well, so far Caroline had read little sign of that. The first major influx of recruits of Kitchener’s armies were
now being poured into battle, as if sheer numbers could overwhelm the Germans. That policy had never worked in the past, but tactics never seemed to change, even when, Daniel had confided, bombardments destined for enemy trenches sometimes shelled our own lines.

‘Sir John told me,’ her father continued, ‘Reggie’s battalion was holding a front-line trench on the eastern corner of High Wood ready to attack a track called Wood Lane. The Germans have their best troops there, and all the trees had already been destroyed. So little cover was left that the advance was mown down by shells and machine-gun fire. Even when they went into the fight, the battalion had only four or five officers and 150 experienced men. All the rest had been killed, and the reserves rushed up to reinforce them were new and inexperienced.’

‘Does that matter in this kind of warfare?’ Caroline asked bitterly. ‘Do you have to be experienced to die?’

‘It matters whether you go forward or retreat. It matters that the regiment has leaders like Reggie, and he knew that. When he died, he was, as you would expect, at the head of his men.’

A line from one of Reggie’s letters came back to her. ‘All is quiet, leaving me too much time to contemplate whether in action one might fail to do one’s Hunneybest … Well, you haven’t, Reggie, you did it, and now you’re dead. A wave of bitterness overwhelmed her.

‘His body was at the nearest point to Wood Lane that the battalion reached,’ her mother put in quietly.

‘But he’s
dead
, Mother,’ Caroline cried out. She had wanted to know, but now that she did she found it of no
comfort. It was waste, pure waste. ‘So are thousands of others. All for a few tree stumps.’

‘And God may seem dead too,’ her father replied steadily. ‘You may not feel He is near, but He is among those tree stumps and He is in Ashden Rectory. Sooner or later you’ll bump into Him again.’

‘I know you’re right, Father, but at the moment it means nothing.’ Caroline knew she had to go before she collapsed, and all the loving sympathy in the world was not going to help. She went blindly towards the door, and then remembered the one question she had not yet asked.

‘When was it, Father?’

‘Early on Saturday evening.’

She had been at the
theatre
. How could she have been enjoying a play when Reggie was dying? Somehow, surely, she should have known, and guilt was added to the pain of loss. However much Caroline struggled to assert logic over heartbreak, she came back to the same point: she had failed Reggie. The Rectory seemed for once claustrophobic, not comforting. She needed not the companionship of her four bedroom walls, but fresh air, where her brain might lose this fog, and she went out into the gardens. If Reggie is anywhere, he will be in the orchard, she told herself. In June she had gone there hoping to see him, and had found no one but Captain Rosier. This time at least she would be alone with Reggie.

It was sentimentally foolish, she told herself; it was sense, came her answer. What did it matter if she cried, for how could she suppress Reggie’s death as something
irrelevant to her life? Reggie deserved a mourning. It was there in the orchard they had first realised they were in love; there the love had flowered and now had reached a bitter harvest.

As soon as she opened the wicket gate to enter the orchard, she knew she had been right to come. The orchard was full of the rich smells of ripening apples and damp grass, and of a sense of someone or something waiting for her. Whether it was God or Reggie or both, she did not know, but she felt that here she could attempt to face the agony inside her. ‘I’m sorry, Reggie,’ she whispered. ‘How could I not have known that you were dying?’ It was useless telling herself that Reggie would forgive her one evening of escape, for she would not forgive herself. There was no escape while this war raged on. She, like everyone else, must do whatever lay within her power to help end it. She could almost sense Reggie nodding his head in approval, and had a sneaking suspicion he was suggesting to her the first thing she should do. It wasn’t a welcome suggestion, but she would act upon it, in accordance with the rules of their childhood game. The whirling dervish would obey the orders of the great Lord Kitchener.

Next morning, she took the familiar route down Silly Lane, through the side gate and across the Ashden Manor park. Instead of turning towards the Manor, as she had done for so many years, she took the path to the Dower House. If Lady Hunney did not wish to see her, she would sympathise but her ladyship would at least know she had called.

She rang the bell and the butler moved aside to let her
in, the first time that had ever happened in their hostile relationship. Normally they went through a ridiculous charade of ‘What name shall I say?’

‘I don’t want to disturb her ladyship if she does not feel—’ Caroline began, but she got no further. Lady Hunney herself, clad in deep mourning, came out of the Dower House morning room. She was dry-eyed, and her marcel-waved hair was as impeccable as ever, but today that could not deceive Caroline.

‘Oh, Lady Hunney,’ she cried impulsively. To her later amazement she ran forward and threw her arms around her ladyship, feeling a tremor of emotion in her enemy’s rigid figure. After a few moments, Lady Hunney disengaged herself, but Caroline could have sworn there were tears in her eyes, or maybe that was because there were so many in her own.

She laid a hand on Caroline’s arm. ‘Dear child.’ Surely she only imagined she heard that, for in a moment she had become Lady Hunney again. ‘Will you take coffee, Caroline?’

‘There is no need,’ Caroline said awkwardly. ‘You should be with your family.’

‘I should be pleased if you would.’

Pleased?
In a daze, Caroline found herself taking coffee in the morning room. Lady Hunney smiled slightly as she handed Caroline the sugar, as if she understood Caroline’s bewilderment. ‘One’s son, one’s husband, are a support, but a woman who understands is a comfort.’

‘But you know so many ladies, and I—’

‘Whom do I know, Caroline? Whom does any of us
know?’ Lady Hunney interrupted. Her voice was almost gentle. ‘All that matters today is that we both loved Reggie.’

By the time Caroline returned to the Rectory for luncheon, it was obvious that Isabel had heard the news, for she came running towards her as soon as she walked up the path. Caroline had been dreading this moment, fearful that the dragons of last Christmas were not dead after all, but might be resurrected by what Isabel might see as a common bond. In the event, the meeting proved simple, for Isabel just hugged her.

‘Oh Caroline, I know how you must feel. All empty and achy, and sick and not sick.’

‘Something like that,’ she replied guardedly. How did she feel? She could not even decide that. The distance between her and everyday life seemed an enormous void. Only Lady Hunney had understood.

Isabel hesitated. ‘Can I say something?’

‘No.’ Caroline dreaded what she might say, and she could not bear it.

‘I’m going to anyway. Reggie never loved me, whatever you may have thought. It was all my fault. He was lonely and upset because of you, because he
loved
you, he really did and never stopped.’

‘Don’t,’ moaned Caroline, ‘
please
, Isabel. Let’s just say we both grieve for him, and that it should bring us closer together, not separate us like last year.’

Isabel burst into tears. ‘I’m
not
going to leave you, I’m
not
going to horrid East Grinstead whatever Robert says. Somehow or other I’m going to stay here. You
need
me.’

The pastry mix became blurred, and Margaret Dibble was surprised to find herself crying. It wasn’t for Fred this time, but for poor Mr Reggie and Miss Caroline. It was a weary old world. Even Lizzie was leaving her as soon as she was churched. She’d said that Peck was spying on her, and Margaret could believe it too. She had no time for him. A regular Uriah Heep to her ladyship, yes, ma’am, no, ma’am, but a Mr Jack-in-Big-Boots to everyone else. Lizzie was looking forward to going to the new cottage and Percy had been fixing it up nicely for her in his spare time. After she’d gone, she and Percy would go to Hertford to see Fred. She had had a vague idea that Hertford must lie within easy reach of the front line, otherwise why send soldiers to train up there? The Rector said not, however, when he’d come in with some wonderful news that morning. He didn’t even stop to knock, just burst in as excited as Master George over his aeroplanes, waving a letter.

‘Mrs Dibble, at last I’ve heard from the medical officer. He’s assigned Fred for home-service duties only. He won’t go to France.’

She couldn’t believe it. The milk boiled over and she didn’t even notice while she was taking it in. She’d gone to tell Percy straight away, and when she got back the saucepan had boiled dry, and Myrtle was looking at it as if she’d never seen a burnt pan before.

‘I’ll do it, Myrtle,’ she’d said, and Myrtle looked at her as though pigs were flying all round the kitchen.

In all the fuss, good and bad, she’d almost forgotten about Lady Buckford’s plans, and it was a shock when
Mrs Lilley came in to apologise for not having been able to speak to the Rector about the problem.

‘The idea’s not practical, ma’am.’ Margaret decided to mince her words for once, for there was no point upsetting Mrs Lilley by revealing the true strength of her feelings. ‘There’s not enough room and time in the Rectory to have cookery lessons. What’s more, the Rector wouldn’t get no peace and the village would think I was giving myself airs.’

‘Why don’t we think of something between us to satisfy her ladyship? If we cook up a good plan, I’m sure my husband would accept it.’

‘I’ll put my thinking cap on, ma’am.’

Mrs Lilley clearly had something else to say, because she had that look which said: ‘You’re not going to like this, but I have to say it.’

‘There’s one other matter, Mrs Dibble. Mrs Isabel told me yesterday she’s planning to move back into the Rectory when her parents-in-law move to East Grinstead.’