Winter Roses (9 page)

The next day Caroline took the train for London, went
to the address she had been given and asked for the person she wished to see. Five minutes later he came down the stairs into the entrance lobby where she waited.

‘Good morning, Miss Lilley.’ He bowed as she rose from the chair to greet him.

‘Good morning, Captain Rosier. You told me to come to you if I wanted to take a job to help the war effort more directly. I am here.’

Margaret Dibble’s back was straight. She intended that these swish people in the carriage, who were looking down their London noses at her, to know she was well used to travelling, thank you very much. She supposed she was, now she’d been all the way up to Hertford and back with Percy. Even she didn’t quite know how she’d managed it. Worry over Fred must have been what made the journey there pass in a flash; coming back seemed to be taking much longer. You had time to brood, and she couldn’t very well burst into ‘Praise my soul, the King of Heaven’ in this solemn railway carriage. The tensions of London were only just beginning to subside. She seldom went to big towns, and when she did, she didn’t usually have to find her way on strange buses and underground railways clutching a suitcase. Percy was no help; he was more bewildered than she was. ‘Here,’ he’d said, ‘let me carry those,’ but what
she needed was help carrying burdens other than luggage. Ones you were weighed down by inside. But there, that’s what women were for, to carry on uncomplaining.

The Rector had fixed up a nice place for them to stay in Hertford, with an elderly vicar and his wife. The Reverend Jones had some funny illness which meant he couldn’t be a vicar any more; usually those called by God had to go on in His service until they were called up higher still, owing to them not having enough money to live on otherwise. Margaret knew all about that from the Rectory.

The Reverend Jones and his wife were Welsh, of all things. Naturally she was a little wary of them at first, but they turned out to be no different from anyone and they enjoyed a good sing-song just like her. When they sang that song about Wales, it brought tears to her eyes, for all they were singing in Welsh. She could hear it now, ‘
Gwlad, gwlad
…’ They told her in English it meant: ‘Wales, Wales, O but my heart is with you.’

She felt her eyes pricking all over again, not for Wales, but for Fred, and had to stare out of the window as if she was ever so interested in East Grinstead Railway Station. She couldn’t wait to get back to her kitchen and be surrounded by her own pots and pans, and be able to shout at Myrtle. On second thoughts, she wouldn’t do that, in case Myrtle changed her mind now the baby had gone, and decided to go to the munitions factory after all. Myrtle wasn’t what she would call ideal, but there was no such thing as an ideal tweeny to be had with the Kaiser still up to his tricks.

Once she was home, she’d be able to wipe the sight of Fred standing in that hut from her mind and think of him
again back in his workshop; he’d be mending wounded animals there, not training to kill Germans, as even on home service he’d have to if the Kaiser broke through and invaded. First though she’d have a strong cup of tea and a good cry. She couldn’t share her troubles with Percy; he had just retreated into himself and was pretending nothing was wrong.

She had hardly recognised Fred when he came into the adjutant’s hut. Short hair, uniform – she felt quite proud of him. Then she took in the fact he was limping and his puffy bruised face. There’d been trouble.

‘Hallo, Fred,’ she’d said, trying to be natural.

But he’d just looked at her blankly. The horror had hit her:
he didn’t know who she was
.

It was Percy who had saved the situation then. She couldn’t do or say anything she was so shocked, but Percy just strolled up to Fred and shook his hand. ‘Hallo, son.’ Fred had looked at him, then looked at her, but still said nothing.

‘What have they done to your hair, love?’ She had found she could speak at last, but it wasn’t the hair she was thinking about; it was the bruises. ‘How did this happen?’ Fear made her voice rise, but still he looked at her with that blank stare. Then, to her relief, he grinned, though he still said nothing.

‘Right, Percy.’ She had nerved herself up to march up to that stuffed shirt adjutant and demand to see the doctor; she informed him she’d see anyone if he wasn’t around, but she wasn’t going away without asking a few questions. In Ashden she’d never have the nerve to demand to speak
to Dr Marden, but then in Ashden Fred wouldn’t be black and blue.

‘Just a bit of horseplay,’ the doctor said when at last a reluctant adjutant had collared him. He sounded surprised that anyone would make a fuss about a black eye. ‘Lads will be lads.’

‘Fred won’t,’ his mother had replied. ‘Why isn’t he speaking?’

‘Private Dibble has his own little ways, you know.’

‘I do know,’ she replied grimly. ‘What I also want to know is what little ways you’ve used to make him like this.’

Fred was standing by with a silly smile on his face all the time, and never said a word.

‘He was off duty, at a public house, and the other lads have got it into their heads he’s an army-dodger since he’s been categorised home service only.’ The adjutant had clearly decided honesty would get rid of trouble more quickly. He was wrong.

‘A public house!’ she’d shrieked. ‘Fred never had a drink in a public house in his life. We’re loyal abstainers like His Majesty.’

‘Your son is an adult, Mrs Dibble.’

‘He’s a child, and you know it. Are you going to send him back home? He’s no use to you.’

The adjutant lost his temper. ‘This is the Army,’ he roared. ‘My job’s to make a man of him, one way or another.’

She’d fixed him with a look. ‘God didn’t make a man of him. How do you expect to?’

She had marched out, head held high. Her outbursts did
no good, but it relieved her mind. So did the familiarity of the lush countryside, now they were back in Sussex. When the train stopped at Hartfield, she could have wept for pleasure. Home was still there, waiting like a cocoon to swallow her up. Back at the Rectory she’d have support, she’d ask the Rector to intervene to get Fred released. Quickly, in case he got beaten up again in just a bit of horseplay.

Nevertheless, as they got out at Ashden Station she put on her most forbidding face, just in case her pleasure at being home showed too much. ‘Good morning, Mr Chappell.’

‘Morning, Mrs Dibble. How’s our Fred then?’

‘Doing splendidly, thank you very much.’

Even the Rector couldn’t achieve miracles, it appeared. ‘Once the medical examiner has passed him, and the appeal procedures have failed, there’s no legal way to obtain his release,’ he explained, after listening compassionately.

‘He’ll be dead without going to France at this rate.’ Margaret could see from the Rector’s face, the way he was looking at her so gently, that there was no hope.

‘I shall go on trying, Mrs Dibble. If I kick up enough fuss they may relent. I can also ask Sir John Hunney if he can get a release for him. But don’t pin your hopes on it; Sir John is not in the right department of the War Office to authorise it.’

‘I’m pinning my hopes elsewhere, Rector.’

‘On our Lord, Mrs Dibble?’

‘On His Majesty. I’m writing to him to let him know what kind of army is fighting for him.’

Margaret marched back to the kitchen where
she
was queen, and only the King of Heaven had precedence over her. It was time to re-establish that fact, and not a moment too soon. ‘What have you been doing here in my absence, Mrs Thorn?’ she demanded of Agnes, having stalked straight in to inspect her larder and stillroom. ‘There’s no flour left.’

‘Mrs Lettice is delivering today. There’s been a delay.’

‘It must have run out a couple of days ago. However did you manage with the cooking, if I may ask?’

‘I enjoyed it,’ Agnes replied peaceably, ‘and we didn’t run out till yesterday.’

Margaret sniffed suspiciously, observing that Agnes looked uncommonly happy. ‘What are you looking so cheerful about? Think you’re going to take over my place, do you?’

‘No.’ Agnes laughed. ‘You know that would be impossible. I’m not a real cook like you. I’m cheerful because Jamie’s home. He came yesterday on an unexpected week’s leave.’

‘God bless us, where is he staying?’ Already she was calculating whether there were enough eggs or whether she should run over to Nanny Oates to see if the hens were laying.

‘With me upstairs. I hope you’ve no objection, Mrs Dibble. Mrs Lilley said it would be all right, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t give you extra work.’

‘What about those Thorns? Doesn’t he want to take you to stay with them?’

‘He says he prefers it here. His mother was upset. Now
Len’s had to go into the Army she’s lonely, but ever since there was all that trouble over Ruth Horner, Jamie’s been funny about going home. I don’t try to persuade him too hard; they don’t like me, and I don’t like them, but he ought to take Elizabeth Agnes to see them.’

‘Where’s his lordship now?’

‘He’s in Fred’s workshop. Oh, Mrs Dibble, I’m worried for all I’m glad to see him. He just sits there. He’s polite enough, and talks at meals here, and talks to the Rector, but it’s all yes sir, no sir. He doesn’t really
talk
. Not even to me.’

‘Finds it strange being home, I expect,’ Margaret said knowledgeably. She remembered poor Miss Caroline pouring her heart out about this problem once. ‘He’s just getting his bearings, don’t you worry, Agnes.’

‘But he’s not my Jamie. He hasn’t been like this before.’

Margaret could see her point. The last leave Jamie had come strutting in fuller of himself than a turkey cock. On the whole she liked Jamie Thorn, but he had been getting too big for his army boots. Even Mrs Lilley had remarked on it, and Percy had been disgusted by the way he sat lazing around with those boots on her precious stool with the tapestry rose she’d worked before she was wed. So if he was quiet, she was inclined to think this was all to the good. In any case, she had other things to worry about. Rectory dinner for instance. Would the flour be here in time for pastry? She’d better get Percy to fetch it. The potato store was low. You never knew where you were nowadays. First it was ‘eat more potatoes’, then it was ‘you can do without potatoes, there aren’t enough to go round’. Ah well, time
to be thinking of winter. Lucky she got her bottling over early this year.

Margaret began to relax. She was home again.

After yet another meal at which Jamie said nothing more than he had to, Agnes summoned up her courage. She’d asked him twice to pass the potatoes to Mrs Dibble, and he had glanced at her as though she was a stranger, instead of his Agnes. He even ignored Elizabeth Agnes, and that was hard enough the racket she was making.

After she’d helped Myrtle clear up, and laid the drawing-room fire for the evening, she walked over to Fred’s workshop. It seemed ominous to her that though the sun was shining, the air full of autumn smells, and Michaelmas daisies, nasturtiums and chrysanthemums making the gardens as colourful as in the summer, there was a nip in the air as if to say: Agnes Thorn, you watch out. Winter is coming.

She could see Jamie through the window as she walked by it, so taking a deep breath, she lifted the latch and went in. He was hunched up in his khaki, sitting at Fred’s bench, staring at nothing. It was odd to see him there with Fred’s carved animals all around the shelves, and the bench all higgledy-piggledy like Fred always had things. It looked as if Fred had just popped out for a few minutes.

Jamie looked up warily. ‘Teatime, is it?’ She sensed he was trying to be jolly.

‘No. I want to know what’s wrong, Jamie.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Oh, yes it is. I’m your wife. You’ve got to tell me. Wounded, are you? Shell-shocked?’ She’d heard of such things, even seen one or two at Ashden Manor Hospital, men with vacant eyes, and no visible wounds. They were never the same again, so it was said.

‘No.’

‘What then?’ That was one relief anyway.

‘Nothing, I tell you,’ he shouted at her in sudden rage. Then he looked abashed. ‘Sorry, Agnes, I don’t want to talk. It’s bottled up.’

‘Like Mrs Dibble’s plums?’

He managed a weak grin. ‘Worse.’

‘You’ve only got to break the seal, Jamie,’ she encouraged him. So there
was
something, and she tried not to show her alarm. She needed to keep calm, if she was to help.

‘There’s no point. I don’t know where to begin. It’s this effing war.’

‘Jamie Thorn!’

‘You see?’ he said bitterly. ‘You don’t understand. Out there there’s more swear words than the other kind, so how can I talk to you if you behave like the blessed Salvation Army?’

‘You’re right, Jamie, and I do want to understand. But what am I to think? You won’t go to see your parents, you won’t talk to me, or even to the Rector. Why not?’

‘No one understands, that’s why. While I’m here I’ve got to see my mum and dad, but I don’t know how, or what to say to them.’

‘Seems to me you’d better talk, Jamie, if we’re ever to understand each other again. Remember,’ she said bravely,
‘what happened before when you wouldn’t tell me the truth, and we were nearly parted?’

His eyes took on a look of cautious hope. ‘All right, I’ll try. You remember the trouble two years ago. Well, my mum in particular didn’t believe me over you know what.’ He avoided looking at her now, both of them aware that Agnes herself had wavered at one time, until she came to her senses. ‘So I told her I’d never come back till I got a medal to show for it.’

‘That was daft, Jamie. It’s you we all want. Not a medal.’

‘But I’ve got one, Agnes.’ His voice went very quiet.

‘You what?’ She almost screamed in her surprise. ‘Jamie Thorn, why didn’t you tell me I was married to a hero? Why—?’

‘It’s not like that,’ he interrupted. ‘I couldn’t tell you. You see, they were recommending me for a Distinguished Conduct Medal, and now it’s been approved, that’s why I’ve got leave.’

Agnes’s mouth dropped open. She’d always wondered why they said shock had that effect, but they were right. Hers really did, and it was her turn to go quiet. ‘A DCM, Jamie. I’ve heard of them. You
are
a hero. You’ll be famous, and I’m married to you.’ Medals weren’t all for field marshals and officers; ordinary men like Jamie could win them too, for outstanding courage beyond the call of duty. It was a great honour. Her mind whirled as she tried to take it in, and excitement began to well up inside her. Perhaps they’d go to the palace and meet the King. Her Jamie and a parlourmaid, at the palace. This would show Ashden. She felt quite dizzy with the shock of it all, until
she came to her senses: ‘Then what’s wrong, sweetheart? Why aren’t you as proud as punch? You must have done something really special and brave.’