THOSE WHO WISHED had been accepted immediately and unusually into the North Tyne Fusiliers and had left yesterday, within days of the declaration of war, just like that. The house seemed half empty. Evie prepared Lady Veronica’s breakfast which she had thought to restrict to a few dishes – a decision that had been vetoed by Mr Harvey, who insisted that standards were to be maintained, at least until further notice.
Archie delivered the food to the dining room. Evie had to prepare the porridge and take it to the servants’ hall, because Dottie had left three days ago for Newcastle. She would be looking for work in one of the new war industries that were already setting up, as though they had known for a while they would be needed. Kev the bootboy had gone too, to the recruitment office. Evie and Annie cleared the table, feeling the loss of Sarah, who had followed Dottie yesterday.
Mr Harvey entered the kitchen with Mrs Green. Mrs Moore was stocktaking in the big pantry. He called her out and explained that Lord Brampton had telephoned late last night, requesting that he raise Lady Veronica from her bed as he wished to speak to her. Mr Harvey had done so, and this morning Lady Veronica had conveyed to him his Lordship’s request that they use Easterleigh Hall as a convalescent home for the troops. Mr Harvey’s mouth was so pursed it must have hurt.
Evie smothered a smile. The telephone had only been installed a few months ago, and Mr Harvey felt it was a machine liable to explode at any moment and held the receiver with trembling hands. But a convalescent home? Perhaps that was the only good idea the Bastard had ever had in his life.
Mr Harvey asked Mrs Moore and Mrs Green to accompany him to his parlour where they would discuss the viability of such an undertaking, as Lady Veronica had requested. He ended, ‘We should consider whether to lay in extra supplies anyway for our day-to-day needs, as others are doing, or to lead by example and not panic buy; patriotism versus pragmatism, to buy or not to buy?’
Evie watched the house servants hurry to their tasks. Lil had left for London. James and Arthur and three of the other male indoor servants had left with the platoon. Bernie, Thomas and Simon had gone too, and several more of the other under-gardeners, and over half the grooms.
Evie sat suddenly at the kitchen table. Simon.
She’d said, gripping his suit lapel, ‘You can’t go.’
‘I must,’ he’d replied, his hands covering hers. She could remember the feel of those hands, warm and strong. ‘But Si, not you.’ She mouthed those words again now. ‘You’re safe here. Someone must live. Jack’s going, Timmie’s gone. I need someone to be safe, can’t you understand?’ She’d been shouting by the end. He’d pressed his mouth on to hers, saying, ‘I’ll live, I know I will and it will be over soon. The gang are going, so I must. It’ll be exciting.’
She looked down at her white knuckles, which were gripping the table so hard that her fingers had gone numb. The oven cloth lay in a heap and she picked it up and threw it across the room. ‘Exciting? What about our gang, you stupid, lovely lad? Damn the war. Damn it to hell, and damn Auberon for taking you.’
She reached for the photograph she carried in her apron pocket. They had gone to Gosforn, he in uniform, she in her best dress, and found the studio. There they were, with an aspidistra poking up behind, as though they were frozen in black and white. Soon she must put it in a frame, but not yet. She replaced it, patted it. Not yet.
Annie called from the scullery, ‘Fat lot of good that little tantrum will do, Evie. They’re marching round some square near Newcastle with Roger buggering up the about turns, so what’s all the fuss about? It will all be over before they’re needed, the daft beggars, and if they do go they’ll be as much use as that oven cloth and be sent home. They’re not soldiers, so they’ll just get in the way.’
Mrs Moore was opening the door into the kitchen. ‘The generals would differ. They’ll say they’re needed, pinch their cheeks and take them away.’ Suddenly everyone was laughing. What else could they do, really?
Mrs Green came into the kitchen and sat at the table. How strange. ‘We can’t manage on the staff we have left if this is to become a convalescent home for the soldiers, so what do you suggest, Evie?’
Mrs Moore settled herself beside the housekeeper. ‘I told her you’d have some ideas, Evie. You always do.’ Both women looked at her as though she had the answers to the problems of the world, but she had none. Mrs Moore called through to the scullery, ‘Stop lurking over those pots and have a cuppa with us, Annie. We need to put our heads together if we are to convert this place as Lord Brampton wants. It’s just nonsense. It won’t be needed.’
Evie poured tea. Perhaps it wasn’t nonsense, and if any of the North Tynes were injured she wanted to be one of those that helped. As she passed around the tea she wondered if Lady Veronica would want Captain Williams here, poor devil, taking with him the merest kiss on the hand, or so James had reported. And why no baby on the way? They’d only been married in May, sure enough, but even so.
Annie joined them, her hands as red and raw as always. Evie insisted, ‘We need experienced staff in the kitchen, because this is the powerhouse. Food is vital, for staff and patients. Annie, you must take the position of kitchenmaid now that Dottie’s deserted us.’ She held up her hand at Annie’s shaking head. ‘I know you like your little empire in the scullery and think it will be too difficult out here in the kitchen, but it won’t. You’ve seen we have a method that works.’
She had to be careful because nothing must be said about Mrs Moore’s limited involvement in front of Mrs Green and she merely looked hard at Annie, who finally changed the shake to a nod, and a grin. Mrs Moore was looking into space. Evie continued, ‘We must get at least one more, if not two, for the kitchen as well, and perhaps two in the scullery, then there’s the laundry. By, it will be heavy on that, but that’s your pigeon, Mrs Green.’
Mrs Green pulled out the notebook that she attached to her belt with string, and wrote furiously. Mrs Moore sat with her swollen hands around her cup, and set her lips. Evie stared; she’d never seen the cook look so serious and felt a tension build. Mrs Moore spoke. ‘Yes, indeed we must have Annie promoted, and others to help because, Mrs Green, I confess I barely manage and haven’t been able to for a long while now.’
There was a long silence with just the range crackling and the stockpot bubbling, and Evie’s heart sank. Why now? When she was needed like never before.
Mrs Green said quietly at last, ‘We all understand that, Mrs Moore, and are, and have been, cognizant of the situation.’ What long words you use, Evie thought. But what do you really mean, because if you cause Mrs Moore to be dismissed then I go too. As the sale of the guest house has been cancelled, I will find war work. But she said nothing yet because Mrs Green was smiling slightly, with a kindness that was not often evident.
Annie said, ‘I don’t understand the words, but I’ll go if Mrs Moore goes.’ Mrs Green shook her head. ‘I don’t think anyone is thinking of any more of the staff leaving. Mrs Moore might not have the hands any more but she has the wisdom, don’t you agree, Evie? I think everything should remain as it is and I’m sure, as is Mr Harvey, that you have already come to an amicable financial arrangement?’
Evie and Mrs Moore looked at one another. All this subterfuge, and the upper staff knew all the time. Mrs Moore reached out and touched Evie’s hand. ‘Yes, indeed. I persuaded Evie just a few months ago, at last, to share my income and since Lady Veronica was kind enough to increase my wages at about the same time, it has made it more equitable for us both.’
So there, Evie grinned to herself, Mrs Moore can use long words too but any further discussion was interrupted by shouting from the yard, and the sound of horses, hooves, many of them. Dear God, not fire again?
Evie and Annie ran out of the kitchen and up the steps. In the stable yard several khaki-clad soldiers were struggling with roped horses who were shying and baulking as Raisin and Currant barked and snapped at their heels. At the entrance to the stables the head groom barred the soldiers’ entrance with a pitchfork.
He yelled to Evie, ‘Fetch help.’
A sergeant was bearing down on him, shouting, ‘Stand aside. This is necessary for the war effort.’
Mrs Green puffed up the steps. ‘You’ve got young legs, Evie, so run upstairs and fetch her Ladyship from the dining room.’
Evie rushed back down the steps, up the back stairs, her heart hammering, turning off for the first floor. She slammed back the green baize door into the dining room and tore in.
Lady Veronica was reading The Times. Mr Harvey swung round, moving from his position as guardian of the kedgeree at the sideboard, his hand up, his face appalled.
‘Excuse me, my lady, but they’ve come for the horses, the army that is. The dogs are down there too. It’s bloody chaos, begging your pardon.’ Evie was panting. ‘They’re taking the lot, or I think they are. They’ve already got some roped from somewhere else.’
Lady Veronica threw down the newspaper. ‘Come with me, Evie, I’ll need you.’ She ran round the table towards the landing. Mr Harvey stuttered, ‘This is most unusual, Your Ladyship. Staff should use the baize door.’
Lady Veronica didn’t slow but shouted from the landing as she headed for the stairs, ‘Oh be quiet, Harvey. Come on Evie, I won’t have them just barging in. It will be stones through the window next. Remember the hat, Evie. I need you. Mr Harvey, get Stan, the head gardener, and what men you can summon.’
Evie joined her, rushing down the main stairs and across the hallowed ground of the front hall. She opened the huge door for Lady Veronica, then they were both through, running and crunching along the drive towards the stable yard. Evie’s ankle twisted, the pain stabbed. She ignored it and ran on, catching up and keeping pace with Lady Veronica, then into the stable yard. Here, three soldiers were holding back the grooms, whose numbers had been depleted as half went to war. Other troops led startled horses, rearing and bucking, out into the yard. Some already had their halters threaded through with ropes.
The horses had spilled into the kitchen yard as well. Raisin and Currant were still barking and milling and Mrs Moore and Mrs Green had corralled the sergeant at one side of the huge stable doors, blocking his way. Annie was there too, with a saucepan which she brought down, trying to hit his head. The sergeant parried the blow, twisting the saucepan from her hand, and brushing aside the elderly women as though they were nothing.
Evie was charging now and hurtled into him, knocking him off balance. He stepped backwards and she charged again, pursuing her advantage, pushing at him and now Annie was with her. They jammed him against the stable wall. ‘Don’t you touch them,’ Evie was shouting. ‘Don’t you dare touch these women.’
Annie yelled, ‘I’ll clobber you if you move.’
Rough hands were on them, dragging them back, but now Lady Veronica stood beside them, so that the sergeant would have to push against her if he moved. He put up his swagger stick as though to strike. ‘Put that down this instant and instruct your men to unhand Miss Forbes and Miss Fisher. And before you take any horses from this establishment you will talk to me, do you understand, or has common courtesy deserted you in this rush to abscond with our possessions?’ Lady Veronica snapped.
In her voice was all the fury and frustration of years of . . . well, what. Bastard Brampton, perhaps, Evie thought. Currant was jumping up at the sergeant now, and only stopped when Lady Veronica roared at him, ‘Enough, for God’s sake, you ridiculous dog.’
The soldiers holding Evie and Annie let their hands drop at a look from their sergeant, who groped in his breast pocket and handed Lady Veronica a requisition form. ‘You are required to hand over all horses at this establishment, and I believe there is a stable behind the house in which there are the hunters and field horses.’
Lady Veronica read the form and handed it back. ‘Carry on, Sergeant, but if you touch Tinker I will shoot you.’ She pointed to Tinker’s stable. ‘She’s fifteen years old and not an asset to the military in any way.’
The sergeant straightened, tucked his swagger stick beneath his arm and ground his heels into the cobbles as he marched from her. ‘I think that’s a fair point, Your Ladyship.’ He was flushed, and rattled. Evie felt the excitement roaring inside her as she watched him leave and at last understood why her menfolk had gone to war. It was, after all, just a game, a damned game.
By lunchtime the horses had gone and the remaining grooms too, because without their animals what was the point? Together they trooped off to the recruitment office in Gosforn. Lady Veronica would attend to Tinker herself, she insisted.
After lunch Lord and Lady Brampton arrived, to the surprise, and disappointment, of them all. Len their chauffeur appeared in the servants’ hall in his uniform, with his boots glistening as usual. At teatime, Lady Veronica crept into the kitchen unexpectedly just as Evie was about to enjoy a mug of tea. She held her finger to her lips, her eyes red from crying. Raisin and Currant skittered at her feet before settling under the table. She sat and stared at nothing, and then lifted her head. ‘I need your help, Evie. Father says they have to be shot. They’re German dogs. He’s insane as well as a bastard.’
Annie had come to the doorway of the scullery and now she faded back into her burrow. Evie knew from the newspapers that this ridiculous panic was affecting the whole of the country like a plague. She sat down and poured tea into the enamel mugs she had set out for Annie and her. She needed some, even if Lady Veronica did not. It had been a hell of a day. ‘Well, I’m not going to do it, my lady,’ she said.
Lady Veronica threw back her head and laughed. ‘God, I wish you lived upstairs, Evie.’
‘Aye, well you’d get no objection from me,’ Evie muttered taking Annie’s tea through to her, and whispering that she should slip out through the rear door of the scullery and into the servants’ hall that way.
Lady Veronica was absent-mindedly drinking Evie’s tea when she returned. Evie collected another enamel mug from the dresser. Lady Veronica watched, then blushed, and put down the mug. ‘I’m so sorry, Evie, I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t realise. Oh, damnation and bugger. Evie, can you find someone who would have my babies? I will pay for their keep, of course, but this war won’t last long and then I can take them back. I will not have them shot and that’s that.’
Evie smiled. ‘I’ll need a few hours off to go into the village and ask around.’
‘I rather hoped you’d say that, and thank you for being my right hand this morning. Please thank Annie for me.’
Evie said, ‘I’d have done it without mention of the hat.’
The women smiled at one another. ‘The slate’s wiped quite clean, I believe,’ Lady Veronica murmured.
Mam had the dogs, of course. ‘Why not, pet,’ she said as Millie and Evie helped with the proggy mat, while Tim built bricks on the floor. He was crawling fit to burst, and attempting to pull himself up. He’d be walking soon. He was a grand lad at sixteen months. ‘Tim will love them and it won’t be for long. Christmas they say it’ll be over. You know they came for your da’s pigeons? Someone told them that he had some good homers. I believe it was Mr Auberon’s batman. Your da’s right upset, he is, Evie, but he’ll have the shift to take his mind off it.’
Millie was concentrating harder than usual on the proggy mat, shoving through a blue length, her head down. Tim knocked his bricks over with a clatter. ‘How could Roger have known about the homers?’ Evie mused, her eyes fixed on Millie, remembering Roger accosting her on the bank holiday. Surely she wouldn’t have told him? But what was the point of even asking? By a huge stretch of the imagination it could simply be put down to common knowledge.
Tiredness had carved deep lines on her mam’s face, but she smiled as she checked the clock. ‘Grace is at the retirement house today. Why not pop in before you leave, she’s still not herself, you know.’
Evie did so, strolling along the path to the front door which Grace opened before she could knock. ‘I saw you arrive at your mam’s and hoped you’d come.’
Her face was similarly tired. She stepped on to the path. Evie said, ‘Mam’s taking the Brampton dachshunds, so if she finds them too much, would your families have them for a bit? It won’t be for long, will it.’ She sounded more cheerful than she felt.
Grace linked her arm in Evie’s and they studied the marrows. ‘I’ll ask them, dearest Evie, but I was coming across to tell you that I’m joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment, you know, the VADs.’ Evie wasn’t surprised, somehow.
‘Well, a sight more exciting than cooking.’ She nudged her friend, and then nudged her again. Grace laughed gently and nudged her back. ‘Nothing’s more important than your food.When will the convalescents come, has it been decided yet?’
They stood at the gate. Above them the Stunted Tree was as unchanging as ever and now Evie’s mind seemed to stutter and stop, then circle round again and again. Yes, it hadn’t changed in centuries. The pits had come and the valleys had changed, but not the Stunted Tree. It had always been there, just quietly there. But what if the Germans came, what if their guns blasted their homes, their country? What if they destroyed their houses, these houses?
She gazed at her family’s home, and the retirement and emergency homes behind her, and down towards the village, and the pit gantry, the slag heap. What if they tore into their houses like the soldiers had charged into the stable yard, but with rifles blazing?
Evie turned to Grace. ‘It’s really here, isn’t it? War is really here and nothing will ever be the same again because they’re taking our own men, not just the soldiers, so it really is going to be a long job, isn’t it?’
Grace had her arm around her. ‘Some say so. But think, Evie, they’ll need the women because the men are going, so we can prove ourselves. We can show them that we’re just as good as them, and when it’s all over they’ll have to take us seriously. You know there are no more meetings for the duration, and that Christabel has declared a truce. We’re to be good girls and support the men.’ She stopped, then shook her head. ‘But though it will help us, we’re at war and everything else, including votes, is trivial and like ashes in our mouths.’
Neither spoke, just looked around. How could it be such a glorious day? The sheep were in the meadows, the cows in the corn, but dear God, no horses. They were gone to war.
Evie said at last, ‘Will you come to see the men off when they finally go? If you’re still here, of course? They’ll train down to Southampton.’ She opened the gate, wrapping her shawl more tightly around her, feeling chilled though the weather was balmy.
Grace moved to the gate and opened it. ‘Why would I? I have no one who is leaving.’
Evie just looked at her. ‘You must come. Who knows if you will see him again.’
Veronica dined with her parents and listened to her father as he ranted at the loss of his hunters. ‘Why that idiot husband of yours couldn’t pull strings I do not know.’
‘He was too busy going to war, Father,’ Veronica said, wondering how Evie could produce such magnificent quenelles when she had had barely an hour, or had Mrs Moore managed to squash them through the hair sieve? She knew the answer to that. She needed to learn to cook, it was disgraceful that she knew the terms but couldn’t have done it to save her life. She stopped. Why did everything come back to life and death?
‘Of course he was, and I spoke to him about gazetting Auberon. I can’t have Richard shining and Auberon shirking.’
‘Auberon doesn’t shirk, Father.’ She hated the way he used his knife to peel his apple. It was as though it was a weapon; slicing and slicing. Why didn’t he use a dessert knife and fork?
‘Don’t contradict your father,’ her stepmother said sharply. ‘You are in his home and should show proper deference, especially as he has allowed you and your husband houseroom.’
‘Yes, Stepmama.’ Veronica was damned if she’d call her Mama after that little homily.
Archie was at the sideboard. What did the staff think about when the interminable pettiness of upstairs life was played out in front of them? Why had Archie not enlisted? Ah, Auberon had said some must stay. What about the pitmen, they could have stayed safely in the pit? But what a nonsense that was with one dead every few weeks, more injured and the same throughout the coalfields. Veronica laid her napkin on the table. When could she go to her room?
Lady Brampton was looking at Lord Brampton. ‘My dear, weren’t you going to discuss with Veronica setting up a hospital here, rather than a convalescent home? You thought the latter smacked of malingering, I seem to remember?’
Once he had dismissed Archie, Lord Brampton described his plan; discussion was an extravagance unknown to him. He listed the steps that he had taken, the provisional order for beds, dependent on final details, the employment of the nurses and VADs, the gazetting of Dr Nicholls as Medical Officer in Chief. ‘I have obtained funding from various sources.’
‘I’m sure you have, Father.’ Veronica’s tone was dry. ‘Will you both be on hand to assist?’ She could barely keep the contempt from her voice.
He flung his napkin on to the table, pushing back his chair. The simmering violence of the man frightened her. It was ever thus. One moment she stood up to him, the next she feared him.
‘Do you think I have time to spend on the housekeeping of a hospital? It will be your task to decide the details of how and where everything will be set up. You were bleating to your stepmother about preferring work to the prospect of marriage, so perhaps you’ll make more of a success of this than you have of the pathetic disaster of the other. Still no grandchild, I gather?’
There it was, the mental blow between the eyes. He should be sent in against the Germans to use every one of his dirty tricks to wreak havoc. She sat quite still. Outside, the sky was darkening. Soon it would be September and with the relentlessness of nature, autumn would come. It was unchanging, while everything else went to hell. The worst thing was that her father was right. She had made a pathetic marriage and it was solely due to her. It wasn’t Richard’s fault. He was just a man, but she didn’t want a man, not yet, and besides, he had chosen to kill as a career. Who knew what he might turn into?
Her father said, ‘You will arrange to send down produce to London from the Home Farm and gardens. I will be in Leeds frequently, but London more often. I will not be here above and beyond the bare necessity.’
‘Well, we must endure the loss as best we can.’ She wished she was able to keep her mouth shut. It was then that he reached back in a lazy circular movement. She watched it happen, saw the flash of his arm as it struck, felt the shock throughout her body and wanted to groan with the pain of it. Her stepmother delicately touched her napkin to the corners of her mouth. ‘Perhaps you’d like to retire to your room for the evening. We will be leaving after an early breakfast and your father will make a list for you of his requirements.’
Veronica stood, her legs trembling. She fisted her hands, turned on her heel and left the room, but not before she’d noticed that her stepmother’s hands were trembling, and in her eyes was a mirror of her own fear. For the first time she wondered if the price the woman had paid for the riches her father had accumulated was proving too high.
She climbed the stairs, her head swimming. She vomited in the bathroom, and was pleased that Lil had left her employment. She wanted no one to see her like this. She struggled to her bed and lay down, looking out at the last of the August afternoon. If Auberon had been here he would have taken the blow in her place. Richard, though, would have parried it like the sergeant had Annie’s saucepan, and would then have killed him.
‘But would he really have done that for me?’ She whispered the words. She could see him so vividly for a moment, feel the kiss he had laid so gently upon her hand before he left, and something stirred.