THE DAY OF KIP’S memorial service, the Mayfield church was packed. People who had known Kip since childhood, had been friends and neighbors of both the Montrose and Cameron families, were represented there. A group of others who had come out of respect and love but could not be seated in the small sanctuary was clustered outside on the steps and in the courtyard.
Kitty sat beside Cara in the Montrose family pew, feeling her sister’s pain as if it were her own. At one time it could have been she who was newly widowed, grieving for the man who never quite grew up, the boy they had both loved. Perhaps he had died in a way he might have chosen.
Cara had been composed but numbed, so Kitty had made the funeral arrangements. With Cara’s approval, she found something appropriate to be read at the close of the service. It was a poem written by a young British airman. Kitty felt even Kip, who professed to be “illiterate,” would have loved it.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter’s silvered wings:
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence, hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew.
And while, with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.*
The young minister, soon to leave to become an army chaplain himself, read the poem with great emotion. The hush that followed showed how moved by it everyone was.
Cara turned to Kitty, her eyes bright with tears, and whispered, “We must send a copy of this to Luc.”
They regularly sent Red Cross packages to Luc in the German prison camp, not knowing whether he got them or would get the sad news of his father’s death. How strange that Kip had suffered the loss of his son and now it was the son who had lost his father.
Kitty remembered the poem she had recalled at the time they received the news of Luc’s being shot down, taken prisoner. She had prayed then that Kip would someday “have back what once he stayed to weep”—his son. Now she knew it would not be in this life, but she had the assurance that one day, however far off, father and son would be reunited.
At the graveside Cara accepted the folded flag that had draped Kip’s coffin. Kitty prayed she would not have to accept another one later for Luc. She remembered the horror stories told by Allied prisoners after World War I. In 1918 Germany was considered a Christian country, not the godless nation it was now.
Back at Montclair, after all the family and friends had left, Cara sat alone at the kitchen table, sipping tea. She was alone as she had not been in years. Niki was in England, Luc who knew where? And Kip—she kept listening for his footstep, his call, knowing it would never come again.
When Niki read the account of Kip’s funeral printed in the Mayfield Messenger sent to her by Cara, she wept as she had not wept since the news of Luc’s capture. Kip dead was something she could hardly imagine. He had always been larger than life to her. The tall, strong American who had appeared at the orphanage when she was four years old had remained in her heart and mind as her idol. He had been more than a father; he had been the enduring symbol of security and unconditional love. She could not remember a time when he had scolded or corrected. Kip had always left the discipline to Cara. He had laughed a lot, hugged a lot, loved her just as he had loved Luc, his own son. Now Kip was gone from her life forever, and she would never be able to fill the void he left.
Kip’s memory echoed through the silent house. The emptiness of the large home reflected the great emptiness within Cara. With Kip, a part of herself was gone forever. Whatever had happened between them in their childhood, their lives, their marriage, her life had been inexorably bound up in his. There had been too many years, too many shared experiences; there were too many bonds tying them together, even into eternity.
In the weeks that followed Kip’s funeral, more and more Cara realized it was impossible for her to manage the stable and the acreage by herself. She sold all but three of the horses—hers, Luc’s, and Niki’s. Someday Luc and Niki would both come home. In the meantime the Pony Club lessons were suspended. People were busy with war work. Even the children were busily occupied in various collection efforts—aluminum cans, foil, rubber bands.
The house was achingly lonely for one person. Montclair was meant to be full of the sounds of life, of children’s voices, of doors opening and slamming, of laughter, music, and running feet on the stairway. It had ceased to be a home, had become an empty shell.
Cara spent many sleepless nights walking the floor, going in and out of the rooms, trying to decide what to do. Finally she determined she couldn’t continue living here alone. She looked into the possiblility of renting Montclair for the duration. However, realtors reminded her that since it was wartime, there’d be no interest unless she wanted to turn it over to the government for some purpose such as to provide a rest and rehabilitation center for servicemen. These days, with all the shortages of civilian help and workers needed to maintain such a large estate, it would be too much responsibility for an individual. Montclair had once required twenty servants to keep its high-ceilinged rooms dusted, the furniture polished, the floors shiny, the windows sparkling. And the grounds—well, where could you get gardeners nowadays? Discouraged, Cara came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to close it for the present. God willing, after the war Luc would be coming home, taking over the magnificent heritage of his father, grandfather, and ancestors. Until then the house would be waiting for him.
Cara was unsure what she would do next, but she knew that eventually she would be guided as to what her purpose should be. How could she contribute to the country’s war effort? There must be something she could do. She went to the local Red Cross board, applied for any sort of work for which her previous war experience might qualify her. Much to her surprise, within two weeks she was assigned to the army hospital near Richmond as a program facilitator.
It was with a sense of anticipation mixed with nostalgia that she prepared to leave Montclair for her new job. There was a finality about it. Cara was too much an optimist to imagine she was leaving forever. She held on to the hope that some happier day she would come back, that one day Luc and his children would live here. She closed the door for the last time and placed the key under the mat as she had always done.
*Author John Gillespie Magee. Reproduced by permission from This England magazine