OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN WERE GIVEN leave when they had been under fire for a period. It was all very civilized. Hugh spent most of his leave in London. His mother too had fled to Town to recoup from the rigours of a winter spent in Scotland and, to his delight, Hugh was able to see his father who was also on home leave. As they had dinner together in a hotel, Hugh looked around incredulously. There was a war on, wasn’t there? Men, women, and children were dying horribly all over Europe, weren’t they, or was that part of that dreadful nightmare from which he hoped one day to wake up? There were no shortages here. Wine flowed more freely than the waters through the Flanders trenches, and the food – oh, God, the guilt as he ate as he hadn’t eaten for months.
Despite the good food and the champagne with which the family toasted the safe return of its men, it was soon obvious that the incredible politeness which had held together the marriage bonds of his parents was wearing perilously thin. Lady Sybill had recovered from the delight experienced when she realized that she was not going to be a war widow, at least not yet, and that her only child was being returned, and not before time, to her maternal bosom. Her usual disaffection with the state of her life had therefore returned.
‘I have spent months in that draughty place, Hugo, and with absolutely no society. How can you expect me to go back yet? Besides, I have nothing to wear.’
Since Lady Sybill was wearing a new, rather fetching and obviously expensive dinner gown as she spoke, her husband and son looked at one another deprecatingly.
‘I detest it when you look down your superior nose and smile as if to say, “Silly little thing”, when I utter no more than the truth, Hugo – and you are just as bad as your father, Hugh. I will not return to Scotland. I can’t even pronounce the name of that godforsaken place where you found that castle. Castle? A pile of stones: wasn’t even a decent battle fought over it. The English didn’t want it, being men of taste.’
Hugh saw the muscles in his father’s jaw tighten but he knew the Colonel would say nothing. He never did. To fight with a woman offended his code of honour. Lady Sybill, who would have loved a good squabble, thought her husband spineless. ‘Mummy,’ Hugh laughed, ‘you’re being a teeny-weeny bit naughty. Father’s more English than you are. Grandpapa’s family is all Norman, or so he says.’
Lady Sybill leapt eagerly on the bait offered by her son and, as Hugh had foreseen, the conversation avoided the ugly lane for which it had been headed.
‘I’ll go up to Aberannoch after you’ve left, Pa. Young Kirsty Robertson at Dingle Cottage has been writing to me and keeping me au courant with all the goings-on. I know all about the sewing ladies and the pennies for cigarettes, and that the primroses were out early in the valley this year. Wish I’d seen them.’
‘Next year, Hugh. We’ll have a picnic, do a bit of fishing.’
‘Who is Kirsty Robertson?’ demanded Lady Sybill. ‘Surely, Hugh, you are not corresponding with the daughter of a sewing teacher?’
‘Miss Robertson is a teacher like her late father, m’dear, and she’s writing to Hugh. Hugh didn’t say he was writing to her.’
His parents had forgotten their own animosity and were staring at him. He felt about twelve years old. In a second his father would say, ‘Go to your room.’
‘Actually, I started writing to her after she wrote and asked about the cottage. You remember, sir? I sent the letter on to you?’
‘The insolence!’ Lady Sybill was righteously angry. ‘This young person actually wrote to you and asked for a cottage? Really, the effrontery of the working classes.’
‘Are you wise, Hugh?’ asked the Colonel. ‘Think carefully, boy. Women, and especially young ones, are frightfully impressionable. Wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.’
‘Good heavens, Pa. What are you thinking about? Actually I tend to drop in on Kirsty, and Mrs Robertson of course, frightfully nice woman – Mummy, you must know her. She’s the leading light of your sewing ladies.’
‘Exactly, Hugh, my sewing ladies. I shall leave you two to your port. Hugo, I expect you to talk to your son.’
The men stood up as Lady Sybill swept from the table in a fury of satin and lace.
‘You’re a little big to be spanked, Hugh,’ said the Colonel when they were seated again, ‘but your mother has a point.’
‘Mummy’s a frightful snob. Oh, don’t glare at me and do your “women are to be cherished” routine, Pa. Kirsty writes funny little letters about her school, and they take me out of hell for a moment or two.’
They sat silently for a few minutes watching the candles burning down in their holders.
‘Well,’ said the Colonel, ‘if that’s all it is.’
*
Hugh was able to leave his mother to her London social round, his conscience clear. His father had gone back to the Front and wanted news of his estate. Blandly Hugh ignored the fact that the factor wrote to the Colonel every Monday morning; he always had done so, and would no doubt continue until he retired. Again, as he drove through the beautiful Angus fields, Hugh had that feeling of displacement. Was there a war on? The barley was high and golden; the briar roses and bramble blossoms fought with one another on the hedgerows, which were a mass of purple rosebay willowherb. He stopped for a while on the approach to the castle and looked over the calm waters of the firth.
‘This is the picture I want to keep in my mind,’ he decided. ‘If I can remember every field, every hill, every little cottage . . . if I can remember the way the barley nods when the wind runs through it and the way it seems to change colour as it moves. God, how I’d have laughed at Eton if any chap had said I’d be silly over flowers – and wild ones at that. I’d have blacked his eye for him.’
He started the car and drove quickly to the castle.
*
Kirsty was in the little front room of the cottage when he drove by. She had been filling up a record of work for her own information.
ARITHMETIC
The rules learned in previous classes.
Compound Practice
Compound Proportion
Percentages
Discount
Averages
Simple Interest
Arithmetical problems worked MENTALLY
‘Not bad for a mere woman,’ she said to herself, and then wrote the next heading in her fine flowing script:
NATURE STUDY
March
Sun and Pole Star
Compass
Map of school grounds
Quarries, etc., pebbles, sand
Frog spawn, tadpoles, frogs
Migratory birds
‘Bledding’ of trees
Daffodils
Flowers on leafless trees
April
Migratory birds
Mustard seedlings
Was that a car? It couldn’t be a car. Only Hugh or the Colonel . . . No, she would not get up from the table and rush to the window like a yokel to see the grand car drive by. It would be Lady Sybill with her condescending smile for the local riff-raff.
Daisy, etc.
Wallflower
The car had stopped at the gate. She heard the gate swing open and someone stride purposefully up the path. Kirsty reached the door and opened it just as her visitor raised his hand to knock.
‘Hugh.’ For a moment she stood looking up at him while her heart did strange things and her stomach seemed suddenly to have become a home for thousands of butterflies.
‘I’m sorry. Is this a bad time? Do you have guests? I’ll come back . . .’
Kirsty blushed in confusion. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you were in Flanders. Come in, please. Mother’s in the garden, I’ll get her. She’s embroidering a tea-cloth, and she doesn’t want anyone to see her so she can’t sit in the front. She should be working on baby clothes, but she’s not allowed to embroider them any more . . .’
She stopped the talking, which had given her heart time to settle itself down and the butterflies to alight.
‘Because Lady Sybill says plain smocking is good enough for the poor in time of war,’ he finished for her. ‘Actually, Mother’s wrong about that. More need for lovely embroidery in time of war.’
She laughed in relief. He wasn’t angry and, of course, that was exactly what her unruly tongue had wanted to say.
She went through to the kitchen to call her mother and turned in surprise to find that he had followed her.
‘How right she looks,’ he said, and following his gaze Kirsty saw her mother in her long black skirt and high-necked blouse sitting under an apple tree, setting exquisite stitches into a linen cloth.
‘It’ll be briar roses,’ she said because she was embarrassed by his closeness to her, ‘or bluebells. Scottish harebells, you know.’
‘I don’t, and I’d like to. Would you take me for a walk, Kirsty, and show me the bluebells so that I can remember them when I go back?’
She looked up at him and for a breathless moment they gazed wonderingly into each other’s eyes. Then Jessie looked up from her sewing and saw them standing at the kitchen window. She waved her tea-cloth and, after gathering up her threads, hurried in to join them.
‘Captain Granville-Baker, what a very pleasant surprise. I thought there was no one in residence.’
‘There isn’t, but Father is anxious about the state of the harvest. My grandfather in Surrey is watching his crops rot in the fields for want of workers.’
Jessie had shepherded them back to the front room and they were seated before the fireplace where a huge pot of geraniums blazed in the otherwise empty grate.
‘But what’s happened to the farm workers?’ asked Kirsty. ‘We lost our minister although he wasn’t allowed to be a combatant, but only a very few of our local men have joined up. The country needs fishermen and farmers.’
Hugh sipped from his teacup and smiled gratefully at Jessie as he silently accepted a second scone.
‘We’ve had a tremendous recruitment campaign in England. Baroness Orczy – you must have read her romantic novels – published an appeal in the Daily Mail to all women and girls in England, saying that since we’ve all laughed and cried over the fictional exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his league, women should form another league to encourage all their menfolk to join up.’ He stood up, put his hand on his heart and then squeaked in a falsetto tone, ‘I won’t ever, ever be seen in public with any fit and free man who isn’t in uniform.’ In his normal voice he continued, ‘Have you got the white feathers up here? It’s pretty awful in the south. Friend of mine went up to town in civvies the other day and was accosted by a whole group of “holier than thou” young women. He took the feather they handed him and then threw open his overcoat to show his VC. “Thanks for the present, ladies,” he said. ‘His Majesty gave me this other gift this morning.’
‘How dreadful for him,’ said Jessie.
‘Actually he regretted saying it: a cheap shot, he called it. They were only doing what they thought was right.’
Kirsty stood up because the feelings of anger inside her were so strong that she felt they would burst out if she stayed seated. ‘How dare they!’ she said finally. ‘How dare any woman encourage a man to enlist? War is madness, insanity . . . and death must hurt, mustn’t it? I couldn’t fight, I’m a coward. I should have a white feather. I . . . I think you’re wonderful, Hugh, and all the other soldiers, of course, of all ranks . . .’ She stopped talking. She had said he was wonderful, and she was so embarrassed she wanted to crawl into a little hole.
He rescued her. ‘We are wonderful,’ he laughed, ‘and I’m especially wonderful. I know because my mama keeps telling me. Am I wonderful enough to be taken for a walk on this lovely afternoon?’
‘Mother?’ Kirsty looked at her mother, her eyes shining, and Jessie gave her permission. Her eyes were sad, but Kirsty was too happy to notice.
They drove up to the castle. ‘I’ll have to let them know I’m here so that they can rustle up some food. Come in . . .’
Kirsty held back. ‘Your parents? I . . . I . . .’
‘They’re not here. I’ll tell the staff.’
He was ringing the doorbell as he spoke and soon Kirsty heard footsteps and then the door was pulled open and the butler, hastily buttoning his frock coat, beamed at his employer’s son in delight.
‘Master Hugh, we weren’t expecting you.’
‘I should have sent a telegram – sorry. My bag’s in the car. I’ll take Miss Robertson up to the library while I change. Come on, Kirsty.’
Meekly Kirsty allowed herself to be propelled up the stone stairs. She had been aware of a look of surprise from the butler at her presence, and lifted her head firmly. ‘Let him be surprised,’ she thought. ‘Why shouldn’t I be with Hugh?’
‘Are these unbelievably ugly women your ancestors, Hugh?’ she asked as she passed under the unseeing gaze of a line of portraits.
‘They are awful, aren’t they? A fifteenth-century job lot, Pa calls them, but don’t let Mama hear you say anything. Blue-blooded, every one.’
‘That’s why they’re so grey,’ said Kirsty quietly and thrilled to hear him laugh.
‘Wait in here for me,’ he said, opening a door. ‘I won’t be a sec.’ Kirsty was alone in a beautifully proportioned room and she almost gasped at its beauty. The walls were lined with bookcases that drew the eyes upwards to an ornately carved ceiling. On one wall a carved oak fireplace, big enough to roast a cow, supported a magnificent mirror, and she turned in awe to examine the portrait that was mirrored there. It was of a girl of the Regency period; she was caught, for ever poised, ready to dance, one small foot in its delicate little shoe pointed forward. It was as if at any moment she might slip from the canvas and dance across the room. Her gown was white muslin and below the rounded young bosom was a ribbon of rosebuds. She was astonishingly lovely, but it was the eyes that held Kirsty; they were deep blue, fringed with black lashes.
‘Grannie,’ said Hugh behind her. ‘Quite a Regency belle, wasn’t she? She died when I was two.’
‘Not related to any of these visions,’ teased Kirsty as they walked down the stairs again. ‘I think they disapprove of me.’
‘They disapprove of everyone. They were a wedding gift from my maternal grandfather. That’d put a blight on any marriage, wouldn’t it? They’re supposed to be incredibly valuable.’
‘No excuse,’ said Kirsty firmly and was amazed at her sophistication.
Hugh took her hand as they walked across the courtyard and down the path to the Dell.
‘Come on, teacher. Tell me all the names of the flowers.’
‘I haven’t seen a bluebell yet,’ said Kirsty, suddenly shy because his face was so close to hers. ‘That’s willowherb, and down here by the burn there are celandines, and water forget-me-nots. They’re sisters to these lovely blue forget-me-nots over here, and—
‘This is willowherb,’ he interrupted.
‘No, that’s purple loosestrife. It’s quite similar. Oh, look, Hugh, these are bluebells – they’re lovely, aren’t they?’
‘Not so lovely as you,’ he said quietly. ‘Willowherb,’ he murmured and kissed her forehead, ‘and bluebells,’ and he kissed her eyebrows, ‘and purple loosestrife,’ and he kissed her cheek, ‘but my favourite is forget-me-not,’ and he claimed her mouth.
It was right, so right. His mouth was soft and warm, the kiss almost as delicate as a butterfly’s wing. He held her gently against his chest and it seemed exactly the right place to be. They stood for a few moments in the quiet flower-filled glade and then walked on, stopping every now and again to look at yet another flower and to kiss, kisses that grew firmer and that began to do such delicious things to Kirsty’s heart that it seemed to be free of whatever held it in its rightful place. Kirsty threw her arms around his neck and returned the kisses with innocent abandon.
‘I’d best get you home, Kirsty,’ he said, and his voice was strangely breathless. ‘Summer evenings are deceptive – it’s later than I said.’
Kirsty wanted the moment and the kisses to go on for ever. She wanted to be caught in time, to stand there with Hugh in the enchanted meadow, and never ever go back to reality.
He took her hand and they wandered back towards the driveway.
‘What’s that pretty orange one in the meadow?’ asked Hugh as if he needed to find normality.
‘Poppies,’ said Kirsty, her own voice rather breathless. ‘They’re awfully pretty, aren’t they?’