Front doors were frightening while you were waiting outside for agonising long minutes before knowing whether the news inside was going to be good or bad. Caroline could hear her heart beating loudly, as she tried to restrain her imagination from fearing the worst. She hadn’t seen Phoebe since their quarrel at the end of July, nearly a month, but news that she was having trouble with the baby had brought her rushing over. At long last – or so it seemed – Judith, Phoebe’s general maid, opened the door. She had not been trained to deal with emergencies, and spoke by the book in her timidity.
‘What name shall I say, miss?’
Caroline brushed her aside with a kindly, ‘You know me, Judith. Mrs Jones’ sister.’
At the sound of her voice Billy came out from the morning room to greet her. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for days – and probably hadn’t. He also looked somewhat shamefaced, since he must surely know that Phoebe had told her the truth.
‘How is she?’ Caroline asked. ‘I came as quickly as I could.’ Not more bad news, she could not bear it after all that had happened.
‘She’s all right, and so will the baby be if she rests.’ Billy was crying, but with relief, not grief.
Thank you, God. Caroline made her own silent prayer of gratitude, and now that she knew all was well, Caroline felt the tears pricking at her own eyes. Another night summons, with all its awful recollections of May, had left her expecting the worst, since only the worst ever seemed to happen now. Each telephone call seemed to spell death or disaster, and Mrs Dibble hadn’t helped when she announced gloomily – though not in Father’s hearing – ‘There’ll be more bad luck, you’ll see. Troubles never come singly.’ A little Christian optimism and rather less Sussex superstition might be in order, Caroline felt. The night telephone call had convinced Caroline that Mrs Dibble was right, however, and it took some time for relief to relax the tension in her body.
‘Can I see her, Billy?’
‘She was dozing, but she may be awake by now.’
Caroline still found it hard to think of Phoebe as the mistress of a house. Marriage had only worked some wonders, however, for the house, run with a cook and a general maid, bore distinct signs of Phoebe’s happy-go-lucky approach to the finer details of household management. Not that she could talk. There were many times at Queen Anne’s Gate that she silently cried out for the help of Mrs Dibble, since Ellen’s household expertise was roughly on a par with Isabel’s. This unbidden recollection sent a fervent rush of gratitude through her that Phoebe’s baby was safe, and she pushed open the bedroom door quietly.
Phoebe’s dark hair was spread out around her, and her eyes were closed. The normally pink-cheeked complexion was pale, and lying unaware of Caroline’s presence, she bore little resemblance to the sister she had grown up with. Then she opened her eyes, and Phoebe was back, grinning with pleasure.
‘I saved it,’ she crowed. ‘All by myself. The midwife said I was a born mother. I didn’t need Felicia to nurse me.’
‘Felicia doesn’t get much call for miscarriages,’ Caroline managed to joke.
‘It wasn’t a miscarriage. Although,’ Phoebe admitted, ‘it was nearly. I have to stay in bed for at least two weeks. Isn’t that awful? I wanted to go on Billy’s next tour in France.’
‘It will be a chance to catch up on your reading.’ Caroline tried to keep a straight face. Phoebe was notorious for her lack of interest in books.
Phoebe’s face grew even longer, then brightened. ‘I thought I might embroider some cushion covers. Mother could teach me. Is she coming up?’
‘I haven’t told her yet, darling. I wanted to be able to assure her you were all right.’
‘Oh.’ Phoebe sighed. ‘I suppose it’s selfish to expect her to come rushing up when travelling is so difficult nowadays. She could stay here though. Do you think she would? If you could persuade her, I promise I’ll confess my dastardly deed to her.’
Caroline looked at Phoebe’s wistful face, then thought of her mother’s dazed grief over Isabel. ‘Do you know, Phoebe, I think it might be just the very thing she needs.’
‘Mrs Dibble!’
Margaret looked up in astonishment. Mrs Lilley actually sounded a little like her old self. She hadn’t heard that note of excitement in her voice since it had all happened, and here was the mistress hurrying into her kitchen just like she used to.
‘Mrs Phoebe isn’t well, Mrs Dibble. Caroline thinks it would help if I spent a few days there to ensure she does exactly what the midwife orders. My husband agrees. Do you think you can manage without me for a little while?’ Elizabeth asked anxiously.
It was hard for Margaret to keep a straight face. Poor Mrs Lilley was more hindrance than help nowadays; half the time she was unarranging everything that Margaret had just arranged. She had tried to help out with the shopping one day when Lady Buckford had one of her officers’ parties in the drawing room, and had managed to use a whole month’s sugar allowance. These newfangled ration books took some getting used to, even for those with all their wits about them, and Mrs Lilley was as scatterbrained as dear Mrs Phoebe at present.
‘You stay as long as you like, Mrs Lilley. Mrs Phoebe needs you and that’s more important than rations and agricultural rotas.’
The minute the last two words were out of her mouth Margaret realised she’d put her foot in it. Mrs Lilley’s face was as horror-struck as Pearl White’s when she saw the train speeding down the tracks to which she was tied.
‘Oh, Mrs Dibble. I hadn’t thought of that. What am I going to do? I can’t possibly leave. I have my job to think of. And there’s the petrol allocations to do, not to mention a Rat and Sparrow Club meeting. Oh, what shall I do?’
Margaret scrabbled for an answer, and the Lord provided one. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, Mrs Lilley. My Lizzie and her Frank can manage everything between them.’
‘But—’
‘But’s a word we don’t use in wartime, Mrs Lilley,’ Margaret said briskly. ‘Best foot forward, as they say, and your best foot is needed to take you to Mrs Phoebe at the moment.’
And that was that. Mrs Lilley looked at her doubtfully for a moment, and left, relieved and convinced. Which was more than Margaret was. She hoped she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew – or, rather, than Lizzie and Frank could chew. She comforted herself that the cinema couldn’t take all his time, and he was well used to agricultural organisation. She decided to put her hat on and go straight away. Luncheon was only rissoles and they wouldn’t take long. Frank didn’t start at the cinema until the afternoon, and she found him at home looking after Baby Frank. She still thought of him as Baby Frank, for all he was toddling around.
‘Do you think you can do it, Frank?’
‘I think I can cope,’ he answered, so straight-faced she had her suspicions.
‘No laughing matter,’ she snapped. He was her son-in-law after all, and a bit of respect never did anyone any harm. Belatedly she realised he wasn’t her son-in-law at all, although secretly she hoped he would be some day.
She found herself asking straight out: ‘How do you manage, Frank? Knowing …’ She broke off, appalled, but it was out.
He didn’t answer her for a moment, staring out of the window as covetously as the Kaiser must look at the map of England. ‘You mean if Rudolf comes back?’
‘Yes.’ She didn’t add that it was more likely to be when, rather than if. He knew that.
‘I manage like we all manage in this war. I go on from day to day. Even now that we’ve pushed the Germans back, nothing’s certain. It could end this year, more likely next, and who knows who’ll be in the chauffeur’s seat after that?’
‘No need for talk like that, Frank. Not after this last week.’
Only a week ago, at Amiens, our lads had driven them back seven miles, when they broke through on a fifteen-mile front. The newspapers were treating it as a great victory. That had happened before, of course, so like everyone else, Margaret was waiting to see. Percy said it was the tanks that made the difference. So far it looked good because the Germans hadn’t regained the ground, even though Ludendorff seemed to have endless supplies of troops. Children, many of them, so Joe had told Muriel, and even in England they weren’t too fussy about whether boys had reached their nineteenth birthday or not.
‘Can you come to see Mrs Lilley right away, Frank? I’ll look after Baby Frank.’
He hesitated. ‘Only for ten minutes. I have another appointment at twelve.’
‘It won’t take you long to get to the cinema from the Rectory.’
‘It’s at the Dower House.’ Frank looked awkward.
Wonders would never cease. What kind of appointment could Frank have at the Dower House?
Margaret dismissed this puzzle from her mind by turning her attention to potatoes as soon as she was back. The only uncertainty about potatoes was whether they had enough. She might have to ask Percy to dig some more, for you knew where you were if you grew your own. The government couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted you to eat them or not. They had a pile of leaflets giving you potato recipes you’d learnt at your mother’s knee, and no sooner had that come through the letter box than one followed telling you not to eat them because they were scarce. Miss Caroline had told her that in London the polite thing to do when invited to dine at a private house was to arrive not with flowers or chocolates but a bag of potatoes. Quite right too.
On her way through to the garden via the ‘servants’ hall’, she caught sight of Raymond. The Rector had returned the book and it was sitting not in her own room but on the communal bookshelf. It was with some surprise that she realised that she had not glanced at it for at least a month, and the amount she had to do nowadays it might be yet another month before she did so again. Would Fred mind? It struck her that he wouldn’t, because Fred was not Raymond, and Raymond was not Fred. She struggled with this thought for a time, since for months the two had become intertwined.
If she put Raymond away, or passed it on to another grieving person – no, she wouldn’t do that. It would be influencing people. The important thing was that Fred would still be there, just as he always had been. In fact, she might see more of him. See? It wasn’t exactly seeing, just the sense that Fred was around, and that even if he wandered off on his own devices, that’s what he had always done. He used to lose himself for hours at a time in the garden or in the village. What was so different about heaven?
‘’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.’ She sang away with fervour as she put the book away in her own bookcase.
‘And if you should happen to run into Raymond up there, Fred,’ she added silently, ‘thank him for me, would you?’
‘Cumming has sent us an intercepted signal to von Falkenhausen in Brussels from Ludendorff. Have a look at it. It’s interesting.’ Luke tossed it on Caroline’s desk.
She glanced at it, then read it with more attention. ‘He calls 8th August a black day for the German army. I agree. Very interesting.’
Ludendorff’s tendency to gloom was by now well known, and if he foresaw the beginning of the end of the Kaiser’s scatty dreams, then the Army itself would soon see it, for it would percolate from the High Command down to the lowest ranking soldiers. Quite right too. Luke and Yves knew from La Dame Blanche that the indomitability of La Libre Belgique, which was managing to print articles smuggled out from the Vilvorde Prison, was a severe thorn in von Falkenhausen’s flesh, and more good news was that the French had just launched a successful offensive of their own, having failed to persuade Haig into following up quickly on the Amiens success.
‘It won’t be long, with this kind of intelligence, before Haig does launch another attack,’ Luke declared happily.
Caroline did not reply, and Luke glanced at her. ‘Mixed blessing for you, sweetheart,’ he added sympathetically.
‘And maybe for you.’
‘Separate the two, Caroline. Rejoice that the war is creeping slowly towards some kind of conclusion even if it’s not an outright victory, and even if we have to wait for next year. We can deal with the results of it later.’
That was easy enough to say, Caroline thought crossly, though she admitted he was probably right. The recent apparent upturn in the Allied fortunes had forced her to face the fact that she was living in a fool’s paradise. The paradise element was splendid, but she was careering headlong towards disaster if she ignored its short duration.
Whatever the cautious hopes of the military, the general mood of the people, like Caroline’s, however, had not changed. Summer had not brought renewed hope, it had brought ration books, fines for hoarding, and the same old daily struggle; now in late August the thought that winter was coming once again, inexorably bringing even more shortages and hardships, added to the gloom. With no fuel, little coal, less food, and a grey drabness in clothes and entertainment, a hush had fallen over everyday life. Any rejoicing at military success was weighed down with the loss of loved ones, and fear that more might be in store. Caroline would have her own form of bereavement to face, and the fact that it was inevitable did not make it easier.
Yves had seemed distracted these last few days, although even more tender and loving towards her, as if the coming parting had become suddenly more real to him also. He had gently warned her that if the next British offensive was planned for the north, he would have to leave.
‘For good?’ The thought that parting was nearer than she had reckoned with had made her cry out in horror.
‘No, I would return,’ he had promised, ‘but for how long we cannot know.’
‘I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you this, Caroline,’ Luke was now saying to her, ‘but I think I will. Have you noticed anything about Yves recently?’
‘He’s been preoccupied, worried about the next offensive.’
‘It’s not that,’ Luke said gently. ‘He’s had news of his wife.’
A sledgehammer hit her in the stomach. The wife was real; she was probably looking forward to Yves’ return. The monster Caroline had built up in her mind transposed itself into a normal, anxious woman, who was far more difficult for her to handle than a monster.
She licked dry lips. ‘What news?’ She tried to dismiss a hope that she didn’t want Yves back, that she had found someone else to love, and even a sneaking, debasing hope that she was dead.
‘Nothing much. I think that’s what has upset him. He may have been hoping for a miracle. Life isn’t that obliging,’ Luke said wryly. ‘He’s discovered through La Dame Blanche that she’s still in their home, that she fiercely resisted billeting German officers, because she was determined to keep the estate for Yves. She’s remained close to Yves’ family. He has a nephew apparently of whom he’s very fond. Did you know that?’
‘No.’ Caroline’s voice jerked out its pain.
‘I’m sorry, Caroline. In my experience it’s better to know the truth.’
‘Is it?’ Just at the moment that seemed hard to believe.
It was difficult to appreciate when you were just one aircraft in the sky, George reflected, just what was being achieved, if anything. One counted the enemy planes the squadron had scored, one did one’s best to add to it, but how far this was helping win the war was impossible to tell. The amount of bombs they were dropping must be achieving something, though. And then there were all the daytime offensive patrols. And, by jingo, they were offensive! Two days after Amiens, Captain Burden had run into a bunch of enemy aircraft and shot down two of them. Not content with that, he had a go at a second group, and shot down another one. Then in the evening he was up again and brought down two more. Then the other day Captain Halleran had dived between two Hannoveraners, with the happy intended result that they collided with each other in their eagerness to attack him, and crashed.
Sometimes it went like that; on the other hand, sometimes you spent the whole day on patrol and saw nothing, or if you did, you shot down nothing. At the moment, however, it didn’t seem to matter who shot them down, just that they were shot down. There was, he felt, a change in the air, a growing conviction that at long last they were getting there, that the achievements outweighed the waste of absent faces in the mess.
George was happy, for he had had a letter from Florence. She had told him she loved him, that yes, she would marry him. He would have to ask Father, he supposed, since he was still under twenty-one, but nothing could touch him now. He was Hun-proof.
Something was going on. Normally Margaret wasn’t that curious as to what went on in the Rectory, knowing it would reach her ears sooner or later, but today she was riveted by the strange events. The first odd thing was that Lady Hunney came a-calling on the Rector, after Rector’s Hour. Normally the Rector would have gone to Lady Hunney. The second, even odder occurrence, was that Frank was with Lady Hunney, and moreover the Rector seemed to be expecting them both.
Margaret was agog with curiosity, and walked past the study door as often as she dared. Agnes took them in some coffee and came back to report they seemed to be talking about Bankside. She didn’t hear anything about agricultural rotas at all, so that was Margaret’s first thought dismissed. So it must be something about the cinema, she decided. Perhaps Frank was saying it should be closed down. Or, more likely, Swinford-Browne was wanting to close it down, and Frank and Lady Hunney were asking the Rector to intervene. The mystery was solved, she decided, and wished them well, for although she had to admit she wasn’t in favour of the cinema when it first opened, she had felt she had a proprietorial interest in it since Mrs Isabel died. Besides, the cinema provided a nice evening out for her and Percy, there was no denying that. It wasn’t all war propaganda films and heroic tales. There was Charlie Chaplin – not to mention Mary Pickford.
Lady Hunney didn’t stay as long as Frank. She left in the old carriage she used nowadays, for it was unpatriotic to use fuel for private motoring. Percy reported that Lady Buckford had joined her, and off they both went all pally and friendly just as if they hadn’t been at each other’s throats when Lady B first came to the village.
Quite by chance – and it was chance – Margaret was in the entrance hall when Frank came out of the study, followed by the Rector. She was horrified to see it looked as if the Rector had been crying, and she looked hastily away.
‘I was coming to see you, Mrs Dibble,’ Frank said formally. ‘Can you spare a moment?’
It seemed silly to call Frank sir, although he was calling on the Rector, so Margaret replied, ‘I’ll make a nice cup of tea.’
Frank was grinning broadly by the time he reached her kitchen. ‘You got your way then?’ she asked. ‘No shilly-shallying?’
‘No. The Rector’s delighted.’
‘He wasn’t that keen on it when it first opened.’
Frank looked blank. ‘Keen on what?’
‘The cinema.’
He burst out laughing.
‘And what’s so funny, might I ask?’ Margaret asked belligerently, hands on hips.
‘You, Ma Dibble. Not often you get fooled as to what’s going on.’
She drew herself upright, about to point out that she wasn’t Ma Dibble to him, thank you very much, but thought better of it. She was too curious now. ‘If it wasn’t the cinema you were discussing, what was it?’
‘Lady Hunney, instead of rebuilding the cottages on Bankside, is going to give the land to the parish as a memorial to Mrs Isabel. She was here to ask permission to call it “Isabel’s Garden”.’
Margaret sat down heavily, in even more need of her cup of tea. ‘Oh, what a lovely idea of hers.’
Frank patted her shoulder anxiously when she began to sniffle. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Margaret blew her nose on the inadequate handkerchief, one Lizzie had sewn for her when she was a little girl, and now washed and ironed until all the colour had gone over the years.
‘It will have to be vegetables, not flowers, until the war’s over,’ he continued, ‘but I thought we might plant one rose now, just to remember her by.’
‘You? What have you got to do with it?’ Margaret asked rather rudely. When he said nothing, she realised exactly what Frank had had to do with it. ‘It was your idea, wasn’t it?’
‘Perhaps, but someone would have thought of it. Lady Hunney herself probably, since she was looking for something to do in the way of a memorial to Isabel.’
‘Isabel?’ Margaret repeated sharply. Why did Frank call her that quite naturally? It wasn’t his place. Then as he went slightly pink, she decided not to enquire further. Whatever was the reason, it was past, and buried with poor Mrs Isabel.
Frank didn’t answer her – or so she thought. After he had gone, however, and she thought about what he had said, she decided he had replied after all. All he had murmured to himself as he left was: ‘Just one rose for Isabel.’
‘Look!’ Caroline stopped short.
Yves’ long stride had already carried him several yards ahead, and he returned to her side anxiously.
‘The leaves are beginning to turn already,’ she said dismally. ‘September has hardly begun, and look, there’s even some fallen.’
She shivered despite the sun, for it seemed to her symbolic of what lay ahead. Here they were, in St James’s Park, still full of late afternoon beauty, despite the hideous scar in its middle, and she was meditating on death and decay.
‘Why does it matter?’
‘It means autumn is on the way – and General Winter.’
‘It was General Winter defeated Napoleon in Russia. Perhaps it will do the same for the Kaiser.’ When she did not comment, he continued: ‘I’m sorry, cara. I realise it is not the war that you see in these dead leaves. It is me. You think of our love in that way?’ He took her hand.
‘Not you, but your leaving.’ Her voice was unsteady.
‘That is good, for you must surely know’ – he stopped and took her in his arms – ‘our love will never be a falling leaf. It will be evergreen.’
She could not help herself. ‘You know that is not so,’ she burst out sadly. ‘It will grow less and less as the years go on, and finally shrivel until you and I are just embalmed as photographs, to be framed as part of each other’s past. Though I don’t suppose your wife—’
He put his finger across her lips. ‘No, cara, I do not know that, and nor can you. I do believe the pain will grow more bearable, but that is all. For you one day it can be laid gently aside as a new love replaces it.’
‘You cannot really believe that, Yves.’ Did he know her so little?
‘I believe that life is practical. That where it cannot conquer, it seeks an armistice.’
‘So that is the way it will be for you? You will lay me aside and remember only your love for your wife?’
‘I do not love her. I respect her, I like her, we are companions, and that is all. But I do not believe you are listening to me. When I say my love will never die, I mean only that, with none of the interpretations forced on you by doubts and sadness. This has been a year of happiness I could never have dreamt of, and such love does not die. Like these trees of yours, it is still there despite the outward signs of winter. The trunk and branches do not perish. Only the leaves must renew themselves.’
‘Hold me close, Yves. Convince me that what you say is true.’
In uniform and surrounded by other embracing couples, they seemed just two more sweethearts thrown together by war, and about to be swept away from each other, like flotsam and jetsam.
‘And now,’ he whispered, as his lips left hers, ‘I must tell you something that will make you sad, cara.’
‘You’re going now?’
‘Very soon.’
‘The offensive?’
‘This month. But I will return. Death will not take me.’
‘You mean you’ll be fighting, not just on liaison work?’ A new terror gripped her.
‘There was a time when to do that seemed the obvious end to my dilemma.’
‘No!’ she cried, appalled. ‘Please, don’t fight!’
‘I must.’
‘Then do not be rash. Don’t seek death. Please.’
‘Even though the alternative is that I shall then return to my wife?’
‘Even that.’
‘Then you are even more loving and generous than I thought. What gives you the strength, Caroline, when I cannot always find it? Is it Isabel’s death? Do you feel you should battle on to compensate for the life she has lost?’
‘No.’ She saw he needed a serious answer. She did have strength, and it would remain with her even in her greatest agonies. In the last year or two, with Yves to love, she had almost forgotten from where it came. It came from the Rectory.
‘Porridge?’ Agnes wrinkled her nose up when she saw what Myrtle provided for their breakfast.
‘It’s only September, Myrtle.’
‘Don’t you blame her, Agnes.’ Margaret bustled into the kitchen. ‘It’s my instructions. The newspapers say we’ve got to eat plenty of porridge to keep away the Spanish flu.’
‘We don’t have to worry out here in the country, surely,’ Agnes remonstrated. She hated porridge. ‘It’s towns and places that have a lot of people sandwiched together that catch it.’
‘Mrs Thorn, do I have to remind you you have two young children? Do you want to come marching home from the Wells and pass it on to them?’
Agnes paled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Margaret rubbed in her triumph. ‘And if I were you, I’d do everything else the paper suggests; make sure you sneeze night and morning, and follow it up with deep breaths, and wash inside your nose with soap and water. I’ll be making the household some of those anti-germ masks too.’
Then she relented. ‘It’s only a precaution, Agnes, but with winter coming on this nasty flu is bound to spread, and it’s as well to be prepared.’
‘Flu?’ Frank came into the kitchen from the Rectory with a face like thunder. ‘Don’t mention that word to me.’
‘Are you here to see Rector about the garden again?’ Margaret was puzzled, for she thought everything was settled.
‘No,’ Frank snarled. ‘The cinema. I came to tell him that Swinford-Browne has seized his opportunity. He’s closing it down because of the risk of flu.’
She was in a boat, an upturned one, she was sinking. Caroline’s eyes flew open to find Luke bending over her, shaking her awake.
‘What is it?’ She shot up in bed. ‘Bad news? Yves?’ Yves had left two weeks ago and she had heard nothing since.
‘No. And not the Rectory either. It’s good news, Caroline. The new British assault has begun. Plumer has attacked the Passchendaele Ridge. Bulgaria has asked for an armistice. Oh, it’s all happening.’ Luke was excited, stars in his eyes. ‘Go to see Felicia immediately and tie her down. I don’t want her rushing back to Ypres again. The Belgian army is in action—’
‘But the German reinforcements on the way from the east—’ It was almost the end of September and she had almost begun to think Yves had been wrong about the timing.
‘Diverted to defend Serbia.’ Luke perched happily on the side of the bed. ‘This isn’t perhaps the most proper place to discuss business, but the Germans are on the run now. They’re on the losing side and they know it. Ludendorff is running around like a cat with ten tails. This time it’s a fight to the finish. It’s not going to peter out.’
‘How can you be sure?’ There had been so many false hopes. Ypres had been fought over continuously since the autumn of 1914. There had been three exhausting battles there already, and even though the salient had never entirely been lost, it was still possible, for the Germans would know that this could be their last chance.
‘My guess is Haig’s plan is to drive the Germans back, push round on the coast and free Bruges and eventually Brussels. What are the odds that Yves is in the thick of it?’
She felt sick with terror, just as she had been when Reggie had departed. This was worse for in 1914 they hadn’t known what it was like out there. Now everyone knew just what fighting on the Western Front was like, and Luke was happily chatting about Yves being part of it.
‘Please, God,’ she prayed, ‘return him safe to me.’ Even though when he did, he would have to leave again, and this time for ever.
‘What are you doing here?’ Felicia stopped in surprise at seeing Daniel waiting for her outside the hospital.
‘Not very welcoming. I thought we might have dinner if you’re off duty now.’
‘I am.’ Felicia was suspicious. ‘This isn’t bad news, is it?’
Daniel raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you implying that’s the only reason I’d make such an offer?’
‘Usually, yes.’
Daniel laughed. ‘Pure imagination. Not to mention a slur on my noble character.’
An hour later, dining at Rules, Felicia asked politely once more: ‘Why are you here?’
‘Caroline’s afraid you’ll scuttle back to Ypres now the offensive has begun again there.’
‘I was considering it,’ she admitted.
‘Then Caroline said “slug” to you. Don’t tell me what it means,’ Daniel added hastily when he saw the look of thunder on her face.
‘I see dear Tilly has been talking.’
‘Er – what about?’
Felicia hesitated. ‘Promise you won’t laugh.’
‘On my honour.’
‘Out at the front – well, you know what it’s like, and our job was gruesome. One day last summer it was particularly bad. We’d been working for eighteen hours without a break and – to say the least there was a lot of blood and gore around. Then I found a slug when we at last crawled into our blankets to sleep.’
‘Well?’ he asked when she stopped.
‘I screamed out in terror for Tilly to take it away. It was only tiredness.’ Felicia was defensive. ‘Tilly thought it was funny, and after a moment or two so did I. It was an antidote to laugh, I suppose. She said to me, “Now I know you’ve an Achilles heel like everyone else. Felicia, promise me something.” I could hardly refuse. “Learn when to stop,” she said. “How,” I asked brightly, “will I know when that is?” “You will,” she whipped back at me, “for I shall tell you.”’
‘And now she has,’ Daniel said thankfully.
‘Yes, I promised, so I must stay here.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I’ve done my bit to atone for Mons.’
Daniel stared at her. ‘Is that why you chose that part of the line? Because I was wounded at Mons?’
‘Yes.’
‘It wouldn’t work, my love.’
The calm certainty that had been with Felicia all her life that she and Daniel were inseparable suddenly deserted her. He had his own life, his own choices to make, and soon the time would come for decision.
‘It will, if we so choose.’
He looked at her compassionately. ‘And if I do not choose?’
‘You must choose me. Remember what you said to me when you brought me back from France? Choose life, Felicia. Now I say it to you. Choose life.’
‘I’m not so selfish.’
‘Is it selfish to grant me my dearest wish?’
‘Darling Felicia, damn you, Felicia. You know why I won’t. We can both choose life, but not with each other. We can’t be Abelard and Heloise. Nor, incidentally, have I any intention of going into a monastery after the war, and you shouldn’t be thinking of that way out either.’
‘I’m not. That decision was made a long time ago.’
‘Right. So if – when – I walk away from you, you’ll marry Luke.’
‘You have no right to ask me that.’
Daniel sighed. ‘Look, I don’t regard myself as a war-wounded cripple. My war work has been in London, it wasn’t the five minutes I spent at the front before a shell put paid, as I thought then, to any hope in my life. Now I know it didn’t, and the reason for that is you. You made me see there was life beyond what had happened to me. And there is, even without marriage. Would you want to take away what you gave me?’
Felicia listened, and certainty returned to her. ‘I thought,’ she said demurely, ‘you might like both, with me.’
Daniel surrendered, shouting with laughter. ‘I might. Oh, I might indeed.’
Yves returned as the leaves began to fall in earnest, tired and dispirited. The Germans were retreating, but far from defeated. A new assault on the Belgian Front was to begin the next day, 14th October, on the River Lys and the Deynze Canal, but he had been sent back to London because of the diplomatic situation. Ludendorff and the German High Command were at odds with the Kaiser and the Reichstag, but the army were still backing their commander. President Wilson’s admirable Fourteen Points for Peace a few days earlier had in theory been accepted by the German government, but there was little confidence in their acceptance, since Ludendorff was adamant that Germany should continue to occupy Belgium after the war was over. The enemy had just sunk a passenger steamer off the Irish coast with great loss of life and, worse, intelligence reports suggested that even if the Fourteen Points were accepted and Germany evacuated Belgium, the terms would leave Ludendorff free to devastate Belgium and other occupied land as they retreated to Germany, in order to hold up the Allies from following them there too quickly. Agreed peace therefore looked impossible, but there was no sign of the German High Command being willing to surrender.
‘The war will crawl on into 1919,’ Yves told her. ‘Perhaps a spring offensive might end it.’ His voice was tired and without hope, but against her will, Caroline’s heart leapt with pleasure at the thought of one last Christmas with Yves. One last Christmas at the Rectory.
If war was doomed to continue, was that so much to wish for?