CHAPTER ELEVEN

Summer was sliding over Antibes, and the evening was warm and restless. A wind had sprung up – scion of the gale that was battering Grande Bretagne, they said in the bars. Gouts of dust swirled in from the maquis countryside lapping the town, bringing with them the scent of herbs and pine. Windows rattled, shutters banged and the debris in the gutters lifted.

The Dion slid to a halt in front of the convent. Kit got out and went round to the passenger door.

‘Je ne vous fais pas attendre très longtemps,’ he said to the nursemaid sitting in the passenger seat. Young, and more than a little nervous in a wilting starched collar, old-fashioned hat and linen coat designed expressly to conceal the female form, the girl nodded and fiddled with the buttons on her gloves.

This time when Kit knocked at the wooden door it swung open at once to reveal the hushed corridor beyond.

‘Monsieur Dysart. If you would step inside.’

Ushered firmly, but politely, into the portress’s room, and no further, where there was a table and a chair, Kit understood he had sinned too greatly to be shown into the Mother Superior’s cell. On the table, papers had been arranged in front of an inkstand. A nun, face sculpted by time and prayer, was waiting under the window. As Kit entered, she stepped forward.

‘Monsieur Dysart. I am deputed by the Mother Superior to act for her in this matter. If you would read the papers before signing them, please. They are to witness that you consent to take the child, that the mother also consents...’ The nun paused, and Kit imagined that she was forcing the words over her tongue. ‘That you do so in the capacity of the father of the child.’ She spoke good, fluent English.

Kit smiled his uneven smile at the face which had retreated so far into holiness that it did not belong in the living world. ‘I’m sorry, Sister. You must find this difficult.’ For a second the nun’s expression almost yielded to Kit’s charm and to his entreaty, and then it hardened.

‘You are wrong, Monsieur. I do not find it difficult, only sad for the child.’

‘I understand, Sister,’ he said gently. ‘This must be distasteful for you, but could I ask you to do something for me?’ He waited until the nun gave an infinitesimal nod. ‘This concerns Miss Chudleigh’s future plans. She will be staying in France for a little while and I have bought a small villa at the Cap for her use. The papers are being finalized at the moment in her name. Would you please tell her that the notaires will call on her as soon as it is considered wise, and that she may move in at the first opportunity. Tell her also that I have contacted Miss Annabel Morely who is travelling over with Mrs Chudleigh, her mother. I thought she would like to know. Miss Morely is a very close friend.’

‘I will do so, Monsieur.’

Kit hesitated. ‘Could you tell Miss Chudleigh one more thing, please, Sister? It’s important. Could you say that the house comes from the American shares, and from nothing else. She will understand.’

He held out his hand for the pen. Careful to avoid physical contact, the nun gave it to him.

It has been agreed between Sir Christopher Dysart and Miss Marguerite Chudleigh that the former should take possession of his son at the request of the latter. The child has been handed over willingly... the father undertakes to convey the child to a safe and suitable home... etc.
Dated 21 May 1932.

There were three copies written in small, neat script, and Daisy’s signature was appended at the bottom of each. The unfamiliar version of her name startled Kit.

Without wasting any more time, he dipped the pen into the inkwell and signed beside Daisy.

‘Thank you, Monsieur.’ The nun blotted the paper. ‘I am sure you will understand, Monsieur, that we needed to be quite sure that we are permitting the right thing.’ She looked down at the papers on the table. ‘The child is the most important consideration.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Kit picked up his hat.

‘We will give one copy to Mademoiselle Chudleigh. The other will be placed in our archives. This is your copy. And here... here is the birth certificate.’ She regarded Kit without a trace of sympathy. This is an extraordinary, distasteful business, she seemed to want to say. Instead, she clasped her hands into her sleeves and turned towards the door. ‘If you will have the goodness to wait for a few minutes, Monsieur, the baby will be brought to you.’

Kit toyed with the idea of making a second dash to Daisy’s room and rejected it. They had said goodbye, and that part was over. But for Kit, the prison gates of his childhood had been pushed open.

It was – had been – more painful and prolonged than he ever could have imagined, this sloughing of the passion first acknowledged at the Villa Lafayette. He had read once that to master pain required room: the space of a desert dune or mountain sweep, rather than a portress’s tiny cell.

He thought of Daisy lying in the white bed, and traced every breath, every murmur, every heartbeat. He smoothed his finger over the wide mouth, the forehead, the full breasts. Each ache of her shrinking, still bleeding womb, each flicker of discomfort as her body returned to normal, the heavy weight of fatigue on her eyelids, all were his. Her tears were his. As he waited for their son, Kit possessed Daisy and said goodbye.

The baby could be heard wailing long before he was brought into the room. A thin, reedy howl, accompanied by a pair of feet moving down the corridor.

Please take him, Daisy had said, turning her tired, drained face to his. I owe it to him. The world, you know, is not a kind place. I trust you, Kit. You will know what to do. Don’t worry, I won’t ask for him back. Not ever.

The ward sister was all smiles under her coif. ‘Here is the little man,’ she said, relinquishing a parcel wrapped in a shawl. She peered at Kit. ‘Apprehensive, Monsieur? The responsibility... Do not worry, there is milk made up in the basket. There is spare clothing and I have written out a timetable with instructions for the feeding. Your nurse will be able to deal with it.’

Kit hefted his son from one arm to another and wished he had had the sense to bring in Mademoiselle Motte. ‘Thank you, Sister. You are kindness itself.’

Her head dipped and swooped like a white swallow. ‘The baby is in good health,’ she said.

‘And his mother?’

The white swallow came to an abrupt standstill. ‘She is as well as can be expected, Monsieur. Now, if you will excuse me.’

And that begrudged piece of information was all Kit had left of Daisy.

Mademoiselle Motte fussed over settling the baby into the back of the car. According to the registry in Nice, she was both competent and experienced and Kit was more than happy to leave the details to her. Eventually, the baby fell asleep in the cumbersome travelling box (bought at some expense), and Kit and Mademoiselle Motte climbed into the car. The Dion eased its way out of Antibes.

From time to time, Kit was conscious that Mademoiselle Motte sent him a furtive glance from under her hat. Was she, it asked, expected to make conversation during the long night ahead? No, said Kit to himself. Definitely not.

He negotiated a corner and said, ‘You must try and get as much sleep as possible, Mademoiselle. I don’t know how often you will need to feed the baby.’

She shrugged and looked straight ahead so he could see only her profile. She had a pretty, delicate nose. ‘Perhaps twice. I don’t know him yet.’ He could tell that she considered the arrangement odd but, in receipt of a substantial payment, was prepared to go along with it.

‘We will stop for dinner in about an hour.’

She shrugged a second time. ‘Of course, Monsieur.’

They ate at an unprepossessing looking hotel at the side of the road. Mademoiselle Motte ate her way silently through moules farcies, boeuf provençale, some excellent local cheese and a tarte aux pruneaux. She also drank a respectable amount of wine.

The sun set in a swirl of red light, and a black cloth was thrown over the landscape. They motored through scrub and pine, dotted with stone villages whose oil lamps sent cornets of light into the blackness. At Avignon the road turned and they headed north, leaving the scent of the south behind.

Near Montelimar, Mademoiselle Motte became restless. ‘Monsieur,’ she said finally, ‘I think... I think I must ask you to stop. I do not feel well.’

Kit brought the car to a halt. Mademoiselle Motte wrenched open the door and stumbled out into the night. Sounds that should have been kept private floated back to him: obviously she was being copiously sick. Kit sighed and swivelled in the seat to check the baby. He, at any rate, was asleep.

Mademoiselle Motte did not reappear for fifteen minutes or so and Kit was leaning against the car, smoking, when she lurched back into sight, the linen coat now creased and stained.

‘I apologize, Monsieur. Perhaps it was the motion of the car.’

Near Valence, they were forced to stop again. This time she spent considerably longer in the darkness and when she dragged herself back, she was moaning.

‘My God,’ said Kit, taking one look at her. ‘I’d better get help.’

Smelling of vomit which she had tried to disguise with cologne, Mademoiselle Motte hunched into the seat and pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. Behind them, the baby stirred and woke, and she said faintly, ‘I am afraid, Monsieur, I don’t feel well enough to give him his bottle.’

Kit swore and got out to retrieve the basket stored on the ledge at the back of the car. Inside it, he found a curved bottle wedged against the side wrapped in a napkin. He extracted the baby from the box in the back, clamped the now screaming little body against his and applied the teat to the open mouth.

The baby ignored it, and continued to wail. Kit looked up at the sky dotted with stars. He had survived desert treks, inadequate food and little water. He had been fever-ridden in filthy rooms and in danger from angry natives. Surely to God he could manage to give his son a bottle?

Once again he tried to insert the teat. The baby opened his mouth, drew back his lips, caught the smell of milk and roared even harder. Then, unexpectedly, the lips swooped down on the teat. There was silence and Kit realized he was sweating.

‘Mademoiselle Motte,’ he called softly, ‘is he supposed to finish the bottle?’

She stirred and groaned and did not answer. Kit peered at the bottle in the dark: the milk level was descending. Five minutes later, a bubbling noise indicated that the bottle was empty. The baby let go the teat, turned his head and gave a fretful whinge. Kit stared at the shape in his arms. He couldn’t still be hungry? Now awkward to hold, the baby tensed and gave a sharp cry. Kit threw the bottle onto the driver’s seat and hauled the baby upright. The small form was now rigid and screaming in earnest, a different calibre of scream from previously. Frightened that he had given him too much milk, Kit did the only thing he could think of and held him up against his shoulder. Then he began to pace up and down along the gritty road.

‘Shush,’ he said into the darkness. ‘Shush.’

The dark outlines of the trees lining the road did not seem friendly.

The little head on Kit’s shoulder reared up, and then sagged like a stuffed cotton doll. Instinctively, Kit put up a hand to support it and felt the warm, downy skull fit into his palm. Again the baby screamed, and Kit began to feel panic edge into his stomach.

Suddenly, the baby belched explosively, and the crying faltered, drained away and stopped. The peace that followed was invested with a miraculous quality, despite a damp stain spreading over Kit’s shoulder.

Delighted by his triumph of baby management, he grinned up at the sky. ‘Good boy,’ he said.

‘Fire!’ screamed Matty, knowing her voice would not carry very far, and flung herself down the main staircase at Hinton Dysart. ‘Fire in the stable! Get up, everyone! Please! Please get up!’

She skidded to a halt on the rug in the hall and looked up at the landings. No one answered her. Nothing stirred in the blackness. She cupped her hands and screamed through them, ‘Fire!’ Then, in desperation, she seized the hammer and beat the gong on the telephone table. ‘Get up! Get up!’

She jettisoned the hammer and flew down the passage towards the back door. The door to the Exchequer was open and the fierce, unnatural light flickered through its window. Matty stopped only to dart into the laundry room and scoop up a handful of sheets that had been airing before tackling the bolts on the back door.

Tyson was in the stable-yard filling buckets from the tap. He had not had time to put his boots on and his stockinged feet slipped over the cobbles. Already the game larder was ablaze and the flames were leaping towards the gun room.

‘Will it reach the house?’ Matty shrieked at him above the roar. ‘Which way is it blowing?’

‘From the west. I’ve telephoned for the fire engine. The house should be all right if it gets here quickly.’ Tyson’s face was a lurid black and orange. Behind them the horses drummed their hoofs against the stalls and whinnied in fear. Matty thrust the sheets at Tyson.

‘Help me wet them.’

Holding boxes of ammunition, Ned emerged from the gun room, ran across the yard and placed them on the lawn. Then he dived back into the gun room.

‘Quickly!’ said Matty. ‘The horses! How long will the fire engine take?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am.’ Tyson filled the next bucket. ‘I must douse that wall to try and stop the flames getting a hold on the house.’ He pointed.

Matty’s fear rose. She made herself say, ‘Where are the halters?’

‘In the stalls.’

‘I’ll see to the horses.’

Oh, God. Not horses, not horses, not horses. Matty felt her skin turn icy in the heat of the fire. Then she thought, You damn well do it, Matty Dysart.

Choking in the smoke and debris, the horses were almost demented with fright. Matty fought with the bolt fastening the door of the pony’s stall and wrenched it open. With a shudder and a shriek, the pony pressed back against the wall, gathered itself up and flung forward, hoofs scrabbling on the flagstones, sending Matty reeling.

‘Hey...’ Matty pulled herself upright and ran after the terrified pony. It swirled in a crazy circle, mane and tail skirling and drifting, and disappeared up the path towards the walled garden.

Matty stumbled out of the stall.

Behind her, flames slid up the central block towards the cupola and roared as they torched the roof. Shaking with terror, Matty hesitated, then hurled herself at Guinevere’s box, where the horse sidled and sweated and rolled her eyes. Catching up a sheet, Matty slid back the bolt and let herself in.

‘Easy,’ she said, her hands, clumsy with fear, and tried to remember what Tyson or Flora did with horses. Guinevere tossed her head and backed away. In desperation, Matty grasped her mane with one hand, edging the other towards the halter hanging on the peg.

‘Come on,’ she whispered, grabbing the halter. Her fingers scraped over the velvet nose and Guinevere jerked. Matty had a vision of being trampled under the huge hoofs.

For Christ’s sake, Emma Goldman, she thought, don’t desert me now.

‘Your mistress wouldn’t want you to be difficult, would she?’ she whispered to the horse. ‘I know you’re frightened, so am I, we’re both frightened, but just do as... you... are... told.’

For a fraction of a second, Guinevere listened, not sure whether to trust this voice or not. Matty seized that second, and thrust the band over the terrifying head and pulled the horse’s ears through. With a scream, Guinevere threw up her head, almost wrenching Matty’s arm from its socket, and swung her haunches against the wall. Matty was pulled forward and smashed into the wood. Her hands bleeding from the rope she grabbed the sheet and somehow, she never knew how, wrapped it around Guinevere’s head.

‘Come on,’ she said, low and soft, as the animal quietened. ‘Come on.’

If she doesn’t come... Matty said to herself. If she doesn’t come...

She pulled at the halter rope with one hand while with the other, she eased open the stall door. The glare was brighter and the heat hit her. The horse stiffened and, for a second, Matty thought she was going to refuse to move, but the wet sheet cut off the stimulus, and Guinevere allowed Matty to lead her out of the stall.

Talking to her in the soft, gentle voice, Matty pulled Guinevere up the path towards the walled garden where iron tethering rings were set into the wall. Then she collapsed panting and shaking with shock against it.

Holding the baby in one arm, Kit banged at the front door of the Hotel des Voyageurs which looked neither prosperous nor welcoming. Wild poppies and flax wove through the slats in the wooden fence and the iron bell-pull was rusty.

Anxious for Mademoiselle Motte, who no longer responded when spoken to, Kit knocked harder. In the crook of his arm, the baby made snuffling noises.

‘Qui est là?

A head poked out of an upstairs window and Kit stepped back and launched into his explanation as to why a lone man, holding a baby, had arrived on the hotel doorstep at one o’clock in the morning.

Madame Regne proved to be one of those women to whom emergencies were the breath of life. Within minutes, Kit was ushered inside, the baby had been commandeered and tucked into a cradle, which just happened to be spare, and Mademoiselle Motte had been conveyed to bed. The doctor was summoned.

‘It could be serious,’ he said, after he had made his examination. ‘Acute seafood poisoning. She ate moules, you say? She must stay where she is.’

At first, Madame Regne was horrified when Kit explained that he would continue the journey alone with the baby. ‘You cannot, Monsieur, it would be highly unwise.’

But Kit, nagged by unease and by the need to settle things with Matty, was not prepared to take Madame Regne’s advice. He left a large sum to pay for Mademoiselle’s medical expenses and promised Madame faithfully that he would let her know when he arrived in England.

Eyes pricking with fatigue, Kit drove on through the night towards Paris, pulled home by connections more numerous than he had imagined – some so tenuous that a jolt would sever them, others that were pulsing with life.

He glanced at his watch. According to the wonderful Madame Regne the baby would want his milk in twenty minutes or so. Kit picked up the map lying on the passenger seat and squinted at it; providentially he would reach Auxerre in twenty minutes or so where he would give his son and himself their breakfast...

When, at last, he drove into Paris, back aching, head throbbing, seat damp with sweat, Kit congratulated himself on managing the journey so well. At Auxerre the baby had taken his milk without a murmur and fallen asleep, leaving Kit free to observe the snub nose with its funny sunburnt look, and eyelids so transparent that he could see a suggestion of the pupils underneath. He was getting the hang of it, Kit concluded.

He was getting the hang of having a son.

Negotiating the Place de la Concorde, a thought struck Kit. It was neither a philosophical thought, nor one that was to have huge ramifications in his life, but it was important all the same.

He had forgotten to change the baby’s nappy.

*

Grabbing another sheet, Matty scraped hair which felt like red-hot wire out of her eyes and looked up at the flames. They were inching closer to the house. Tyson and Ned were heaving buckets and throwing the water feverishly into the flames.

Matty hovered in front of the stalls, willed herself to go back in, and with a little cry, pushed herself at Vindictive’s stall. At her entry, the horse reared – a black, quivering mass. Matty froze, cast a look over her shoulder – at the rolling flames and burning debris – and almost ran for it.

This is Kit’s horse, said a voice in her head. It’s his, you are not going to leave him to burn. Or his house.

It’s your house.

Matty flung the damp sheet over the horse’s head. ‘Come on, Vindictive, boy, don’t let me down.’ Slowly, far too slowly for comfort, she coaxed the sweating, trembling beast through the doorway. ‘Come on, boy, come on...’

‘Get out, ma’am.’ Tyson appeared in the doorway. ‘You must get out. It’s too dangerous to stay.’

‘Help me, then,’ she panted, dragging the terrified horse at the end of the halter. With a slither and high whinny of distress, Vindictive ejected himself from the stall and bucked over the hot stones, with Tyson clinging to his mane.

‘Here,’ Matty thrust the rope at Ned, ‘tether him by the walled garden.’ She did not wait for Ned’s reply. ‘Tyson!’ she shouted. ‘The house. We must do something.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Matty saw that Robbie and Ivy had appeared, drenched ghosts in cotton nightdresses. They were taking turns to fill the buckets. Ivy’s nightdress hampered her and, with a deft movement, she knotted the hem around her thighs, revealing a pair of slender white legs. Robbie’s nightdress was even more of a hindrance, its soaked lace and flounces flapping under her dressing gown.

‘We must try to save the house!’ Matty shouted.

Matty fetched, carried, threw and ran because she was not going to let it happen. It was as if the fire had penetrated to some secret, molten source in her, a lava-flow of energy which burst to the surface. A spark scorched a hole in her jersey and, at one point, she was too near the flames and felt the ends of her hair frizzle and split. The heat burnt through her slippers and her hands were raw. But she pushed on.

‘They’re here,’ shouted Robbie, stumbling across the yard. ‘It’s here.’

Clanging the bell, the village fire engine drove up the drive with ten or so men hanging off it and skidded to a halt.

Ned caught Matty as she staggered away from the flames and pulled her out of the yard into the garden, where they stood, huddled together, and watched.

Like an offering from the Spanish Inquisition, the cupola, now a blazing cross of fire, collapsed with a hiss into a whirlwind of ash.

I saved three horses, she thought, in bewilderment.

Nether Hinton’s fire engine might have taken its time to arrive, but it was efficient when it did. Amid the roar and the crackle, the men set to and directed the hoses onto the west side of the house and fanned out ready to tackle any new blaze.

‘Go on,’ prayed Matty through gritted teeth, thinking of Kit’s face if he came back to a burnt-out shell, and how she would do anything to prevent it. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she clung to Ned’s arm and he steadied her. They watched the sparks rain over the garden, and spill softly onto the roof of the house.

A figure staggered out of the trees and over the lawn.

‘I’ve come to help,’ shouted Danny.

‘Right,’ said the chief fireman. ‘Over there.’

The wind was dropping and Matty, Ned, Robbie and Ivy watched in silence for the next few minutes. ‘How do you think it happened?’ she asked Ned at last.

‘Tyson thinks a lamp went over. Maybe Jem left it. He isn’t sure. Either that or the wind blew the electricity cables together and they shorted.’

But Matty was not listening. ‘What am I doing standing here?’ she said. ‘We ought to be getting the paintings and the furniture out of the house.’

‘Easy.’ Ned restrained the small figure with both hands. ‘Look, they’ve got it under control, Lady Dysart. See?’

With a hiss, the water hit the roof and pooled in the gutters, sending eddies of steam into the dark. Men ran in all directions, shouting orders, their boots ringing on the stones. Gradually, the glare dimmed into yellow, then red and eventually extinguished. The air was thick with the smell of burnt hay and wood.

Matty tasted scorch on her own lips and salt from where she had sweated and cried. Clinging to Ned, she shuddered with shock and anti-climax – and, because it was a strange and unrepeatable situation, Ned put out his arm and drew her to his corduroyed chest as he would have done to Betty.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Don’t take on.’

‘I must tell the men what to do,’ Matty said, through chattering teeth. Ned let her go. Stumbling, aching, eyes and skin smarting, bones made of water, Matty walked forward to organize the aftermath of a disaster in her house.

‘Ivy,’ she called. ‘Could you and Ellen organize hot water and some tea?’

Teeth amazingly white in her black face, Ivy nodded, untied her nightdress which was causing some merriment among the men, and disappeared.

‘Robbie.’

Matty looked round for Robbie, and a virtual stranger stepped forward. ‘Oh, Lady Dysart,’ she said.

Matty looked at Robbie. Someone must have driven a hat pin into her: the large figure had shrivelled. ‘It’s all right, Robbie,’ she said gently. ‘Would you like to go down to the cellar and bring up a couple of whisky bottles? The best malt. I think we all need some.’

Robbie fingered the torn, blackened lace on the sleeve of her nightdress. ‘If you wish.’

‘What to do next, ma’am?’ said Tyson, materializing out of the dark.

They were all expecting something from Matty – the men from the village and the people who lived in her household: courage and direction, perhaps, and Matty had never imagined she possessed much of either. But perhaps – perhaps, after all, she did.

After the storm, a mist came down over Calais and hung over the huddle of buildings at the port. Seagulls swooped, screaming, up to the sun which shone above. The air was chilly: Kit turned up his coat collar and tried to light a cigarette. The thought of his home warmed him, and he pictured it in the spring sunlight, surrounded by brown and green fields.

The loading was due to begin any minute. He scrutinized the ferry boat, then the rough, crested sea outside the soothing influence of the port, still unsettled from Hurricane Betsy. Almost three years ago, Matty had proposed to him on a ferry and set in train a series of events, of causes and effects. Hurt, unsure, hung-over, Kit had gone with her.

On such half measures, he thought, as embarkation began, are lives made.

The hotel in Paris had telephoned through his reservation for a private cabin, and instead of settling himself in the first-class lounge with a brandy as was his habit on crossings, he remained in the cabin with the baby. The baby fussed and grizzled. Remembering his previous transgressions, Kit sighed and picked him up.

‘Nappy, is it? You’re testing me again.’

He wrestled with the pins. The little bottom was red from insufficient changes and Kit dabbed at it with a dampened towel. That produced a real shriek. To quieten him, Kit laid his hand on the round, froggy little belly.

‘I’ll get you some of my famous ointment,’ he told his son.

The baby opened light blue eyes and focused on his father. With its huge head and spindly limbs, there is a curious imbalance about a baby’s body, and Kit, who had never studied one before, found himself stroking the diminutive pelvis and ribcage, and offering his finger to be grasped.

Apparently enjoying the air on his bottom, the baby made a feeble kick and Kit caught his foot. Like tiny molluscs, the toes were almost transparent, traced with hairline veins and studded with pearly nails. All this had come from Daisy. For a moment, Kit stared at the foot, hating the baby for what he had done to Daisy. For her suffering. Then the baby kicked again, and the blood pulsed under the tender skin. Deep inside Kit a new emotion stirred, powerful, adhesive, fiercely novel, and he surrendered to it. This was his son and he loved him.

With it came fear for the preservation of a small life, and then a second, more profound, terror – that he might have to give up his son. The idea made him shake inside.

Matty was in her garden when Kit arrived, and did not hear the car spin over the gravel and stop with a jerk in front of the burnt-out stables. Nor did she hear his shout of anguish at the sight.

Kneeling in front of the main bed under the wall, partly because her feet hurt, partly because she needed to feel the earth on her fingers again, she snipped, pruned and pulled up straggles of couchgrass and bindweed. The earth smelt of spring and crumbled between her fingers into a satisfying loam.

Compost and manure, she thought.

The tail-end of Hurricane Betsy blew over the garden from the Harroway and whipped up over Jonathan’s Kilns but, protected by the wall, her garden was secure and still. A curlew dipped above Matty’s head and sent out its cry. Soon, the swallows would be coming in from Africa. Matty thought that in future she might keep a record of them, when they came and when they departed.

A clump of infant cat-mint gave off a spicy smell: Matty had chosen the giant kind to sprawl in the bed beside the path. Behind that rose the spikes of a white bearded iris and the buds of a ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peony. Matty sat back on her knees and contemplated her creation. Perhaps the effect needed a little more greenery? Perhaps a grey-green senecio?

Did it need more compost? She rubbed her hands together and got to her feet.

Where was Kit? The wind sent a chill through her contentment. Except for yet another brief telephone call from Paris saying he was on his way back, there had been nothing.

The ‘Perle d’Azur’ clematis was in need of more pruning – she should have cut it right to the ground last winter but had been too tentative – and she stopped to tidy it up. She was so busy clipping and tying it in that she did not hear Kit.

‘Matty... Matty? Are you there?’

She shaded her eyes. Kit was hurrying down the path through the birch trees. The secateurs dropped by her feet, and she made a gesture as if to run to him, to tell him she was so glad, so very glad, that he had returned.

‘Matty, I’m home.’ He stopped a little way from her and, suddenly, her elation vanished. Out of habit, she fumbled for her handkerchief, no longer sure about her capacity to continue suffering for love. Kit moved towards her.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked, in the voice she now knew so well and had longed to hear. ‘I’ve just heard the news. You’re not hurt.’

After so long, he was almost a stranger. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Perfectly, apart from my hair... and my hands.’ She held them out.

‘Thank God for that and thank God no one else was hurt.’

‘No. Everyone is fine.’

He came closer. ‘I’m back now, Matty, and I want to talk to you. Please.’

‘Yes.’

Matty’s heart thudded, and dived. The terror of new anguish made her sound cold and distant. Riven with doubt now that he was here, and with the enormity of what he was going to ask, Kit faltered. He took off his hat.

‘Daisy is over, Matty.’ He took a step closer to his wife and she saw his hands were trembling and that helped to steady her. ‘I have to ask you something.’

To give herself time, Matty picked up the secateurs and dropped them into the trowel. Despite the scorched hair, she looked well, thought Kit. He had forgotten how small and exquisite she was, and how the brown eyes suggested comfort. Unfamiliar tenderness took him by surprise, and he wanted to snatch up her damaged hands and cherish them between his own.

Matty rubbed her forehead with her forearm and pushed back the frizz from her face – just as she had so long ago on the ferry and as Kit had seen dozens of times since. She was wearing an expression with which he was also familiar, a still, frozen expression which now he understood: the look of a woman who was frightened to be happy in case it was taken away. With a flash of guilt, he also knew he had helped to keep it there.

‘What is it, Kit?’

Kit shoved his tell-tale hands inside his pockets, for he knew he was going to push Matty to the limit – and he had pushed her so often, and so far. Daisy’s tear-streaked face hovered in his mind, and he closed his eyes for a second. Then he opened them and looked at his wife.

‘I would go down on my knees,’ he said, with a hint of his uneven smile, ‘if it would help.’

‘No,’ she said.

He smiled properly at her vehemence, moved towards her, put out his arms and pulled Matty to him. She did not resist and he said, ‘Daisy is finished, Matty. For ever. I’ve come back home to ask, not only for forgiveness, but for you back and our marriage back. But before you make up your mind, I have something else to ask you.’

Matty gave a shuddering sigh and disengaged herself, almost, he thought, as if she could not bring herself to trust him. He searched her face for clues.

‘What I am going to ask you is so big, and will require such enormous love—’

‘What is it?’ she interrupted. ‘What more do you want from me?’

He winced at that. ‘A very big thing,’ he said. ‘Which I could only ask of you.’

She did not dare to reply.

‘Will you wait a minute while I fetch something?’ he asked.

She swallowed and fluttered a hand. ‘If you wish.’

‘Stay there, then.’

Matty watched as he disappeared up the path and, because she could not think of anything else to do, turned back to the clematis and chopped at it with frantic, jerky cuts.

Her back was towards him when he returned, carrying the white bundle. ‘Matty. Will you still allow me to ask you?’

He sounded so strange that she swivelled sharply, took in the shawl and the baby and understood the mystery of Daisy’s telegram. She swayed in shock and disbelief.

‘What are you asking me, Kit?’

Kit held out the sleeping baby. ‘Matty, you do not have to accept him. I will stand by whatever you decide. Believe me, that is my punishment. If you do not want him, can’t accept what I ask, then I will take him away for adoption and, whatever happens to us, I will never reproach you.’

Matty’s chest rose and fell.

‘Do you understand, Matty?’

Bitter anger clenched the muscles under her sternum. Agony. Jealousy. Pain that it was not she, never would be, whose body brought forth Kit’s son. Humiliation that she had been brought to a position where her husband offered her another woman’s baby. Daisy’s baby. Truly, oh, truly, she had come to the end.

Kit, she cried silently. Where have you taken me? Down a valley paved with ashes. Blindly, she turned as if to run away.

‘Matty!’ Kit cried out, despairing. ‘Matty. Forgive me.’

A note sang out from the field below Hook Meadow. Thin and uneven. Another followed. Then a third.

Matty stopped. The bugle band of the Odiham-Nether Hinton Scouts was practising, and someone – one of the boys? – was playing the Last Post.

It rose into the air, playing for the Hamps, the Wilts, the miners, sappers, messengers and bombers. For Danny and Rupert, Edwin and Hesther, Robbie and her Sergeant Naylor who never came back, for Rose, for Bert Stain’s missing lung, and Hal Bister’s missing mind. For all who had lost.

And with it rose a shadowy multitude, limping on rotting feet and gas-filled lungs through the crushed poppies and dog roses into the mist and smoke and roar of battle. An army — no, ten thousand, thousand armies, of crowding shades.

They had gone. They had all gone.

‘Oh, no,’ said Matty. She took a step back into the flowerbed and the earth sank beneath her feet. The sun slid a beam across the garden, lit up the plump rosebuds and threw a shadow from the statue – if you looked quickly it could almost be said to resemble the outline of a small girl.

The pulses in Matty’s neck, wrists and deep in her groin beat in painful time to her heart.

‘Your son?’ she said, a thaw more agonizing than her anger rushing in her chest. Slowly, infinitely slowly, she stretched out her blistered hands and accepted the weight of the baby as Kit placed him between them. ‘A son?’

The bugle stopped as abruptly as it had started, and in the silence that followed Matty looked up from the baby to Kit. Their eyes caught and held, each questioning the other.

Love was an act of will. You had to keep on living it. Each day, each moment, each second. It had to exist without conditions. It had to be carried, nurtured and suffered for. You loved, and that was it. Again, she stared down at the small human in her arms, who could confirm that truth. He stirred, and she shifted him so that his head rested more comfortably, and, then, propelled by an urge she could not control, drew him into her breast.

‘Kit?’ she said, painfully, tentatively. ‘I think... I think it’s all right.’

Kit picked up the fork lying by the ‘Queen of Denmark’ and drove it deep into the earth. He was crying — with relief, with gratitude, with aching loss, with the knowledge that he had been vouchsafed more than he deserved. He put up a hand to wipe the tears away, then he turned and drew Matty and the baby into his arms.

The shadow under the statue lifted and all resemblance to a child vanished.

With all its blood-lettings, its sudden passions and silences, with its longueurs, its ententes, its peaces, a marriage had begun.