The telegram came on a grey day in mid-November, two days after the Armistice had been signed and everything was meant to be over. All morning Eleanor Sanderson had been restless, uneasy, flying from this to that, never settling to anything, as if a part of her, some deep, barely understood part, already knew what was going to happen.
“What is wrong with you today, Eleanor?” her mother asked, putting down her book of poetry as she gazed at her nineteen-year-old daughter who sat perched on a velveteen armchair in the sitting room, by the front window that overlooked the muddy sheep pasture.
“Why hasn’t Father done anything with that pasture?” Eleanor asked, nodding rather truculently towards the few sheep that were huddled together under a slate-grey sky. “It’s meant to be our garden, you know.”
Her mother raised elegant eyebrows. “Do we need so much garden?”
The vicarage had a sizeable garden at the side of the house, with enough space for garden parties – they hadn’t had any of those in a few years – and vegetables and anything else they could need. Reasonably, Eleanor knew they didn’t need a muddy acre of pasture that stretched from the front of the house all the way to the beach road. Her father leased it out to a local farmer for his sheep; the dumb beasts kept lumbering up the stone steps that led from the pasture into the rose garden and nibbling on the blooms, much to the chargrin of Mr Lyman, the church gardener.
Yet as Eleanor stared out at the once grand stone steps now crumbling and covered in brambles, leading to nothing but mud and sheep, she felt an almost angry surge of feeling that things should be better than that. They should have an acre of lovely, verdant lawn on which to play croquet when the weather turned warm and Walter was home.
Walter had always liked croquet; he’d jauntily swing the mallet round by the handle while waiting for his turn and call out to Eleanor, teasing her about hitting the ball too hard.
You don’t do anything by halves, Ellie. That’s what I like about you.
Perhaps it was the thought that he would be home soon that was making her restless, although some had said troops wouldn’t be back until near Christmas or even after. But maybe he would be able to come home sooner, since he was an officer. He’d never been much of a soldier, really; he’d studied English Literature at Oxford and had wanted, eventually, to teach.
“All you like are fusty old books,” Eleanor had teased him, snatching whatever tome had captured his interest at that moment, and Walter would just smile and sigh.
“You should try one sometime, Ellie.” She could picture the way he would lean forward and take his book back between his long, elegant fingers, perhaps ruffle her hair. “You might like it.”
She’d flounce away, bored, because she’d never been much of a one for books or school. “Why don’t you play the piano instead?” she’d plead, and eventually, as he always did with her, Walter would give in and play some ragtime before Father came in and scolded them, smiling a bit, to be quieter.
When Walter was back, the house would be filled with music again. Eleanor and her older sister Katherine had taken lessons, but neither of them had Walter’s easy talent. Eleanor had banged out Chopin and Katherine had played every piece meticulously yet without any real enthusiasm or passion; Walter had once said, not unkindly, that Katherine approached music the way a physician approached surgery.
When Walter came back again. It felt like a prayer. When Walter came back again, the world would have righted itself. Things would go back to the way they were, the way Eleanor needed them to be. They would laugh on the lawn as they played croquet; they would have garden parties and tea dances and Walter would teach her a ragtime duet, taking over her part when her fingers fumbled with the keys, as they always did. Katherine might even come in to listen; Walter had always managed to soften her hard edges whereas Eleanor just rubbed up against them, drawing blood from them both.
The war was over; it couldn’t be long now before things settled down, and they became just the way they were before.
“Eleanor,” Anne Sanderson murmured, the word a gentle reproof, and Eleanor realized she’d got onto her knees right there on her chair, her hands balled into fists, everything in her aching for Walter to be walking up to the door right now, his officer’s cap in his hand, his dark hair ruffled by the wind, that whimsical, slightly crooked smile on his face.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, and was about to scramble down when she saw Robbie Sykes from the telegraph office on his bicycle – he was so proud of that broken-down old thing – his cap jammed low on his head, and everything in her went terribly still.
“No…” she whispered and Anne looked up from her book again, her worn face creased into a tired smile.
“What is it now, my dear?”
Eleanor just shook her head. She felt suspended in that moment, as if by denying it she might keep them from hurtling forward into the future, when Robbie Sykes knocked on their door and handed them that telegram. When they read it. “No,” she said, louder now, and Anne frowned.
“Really, my dear. You sound like a child.”
And she felt like a child, a child who wanted to bang her fists and drum her heels against the floor. Who wanted to cover her ears and hide her eyes.
Robbie Sykes propped his bicycle against the side of the vicarage, his expression grim underneath his cap. He glanced up, and met Eleanor’s gaze through the drawing-room window before quickly looking away.
No.
She stood by the window now, her hands pressed flat against the glass, her heart beating with slow, sickly thuds. Perhaps it would stop altogether. Perhaps she’d fall down dead right here, crumpled on the Turkish carpet, just like Walter might be—
No.
She would not think like that. She couldn’t, because it felt disloyal to Walter. He was alive – of course he was; the war was over and in summer she would ask Father to turn the sheep pasture into a lovely lawn for croquet. They would all play together, even Mother, if she were well enough, and Katherine would take ages to line up the ball, so Walter would do a jig to hurry her up. Eleanor would hit the ball too hard, as she always did, and Walter would pretend that he couldn’t find it, that it had gone all the way into the sea, and Father would quote some obscure poet or philosopher as he stared up at the clouds, and Tilly would bring them all lemonade.
Robbie Sykes was at the door. Eleanor pressed harder against the glass, her nose nearly touching the pane, everything in her silently imploring him not to knock. Not to make them move from this last moment of sweet ignorance.
“Eleanor.” Her mother rose from the chair, her pale-grey day dress swishing about her ankles, and crossed to the window. “You’ll smear the glass,” she said, and gently removed Eleanor’s hands from the windowpane. They fell limply to her side and Anne Sanderson stilled, one hand on Eleanor’s shoulder, for she’d seen Robbie’s bicycle.
They heard the sound of the brass door knocker, two terrible thuds.
“Shall I get that, miss?” called Tilly, their downstairs maid, in her cheerful Cumberland brogue. Katherine had teased Eleanor that she sounded like a local; Eleanor had been furious, even though she knew she shouldn’t be. She’d been born here, after all. Katherine had been born in Wigton, which made her from Cumberland too, even if she made sure not to have a trace of accent in her clipped voice.
Anne was frozen by the window, still staring at Robbie’s bicycle. It had a basket at the front, Eleanor saw, and one of the leather straps had snapped, so it hung crookedly.
“Yes, please, Tilly,” Anne called finally, her voice a little faint, and she squeezed Eleanor’s shoulder. Eleanor risked a glance towards her mother and saw her face was nearly the same colour as her dress. “Come, Eleanor,” she murmured, and walked with slow, measured steps to the hall.
The door was open and a draught blew in from the porch. Robbie Sykes stood on the front step, his cap now crumpled in one hand as he offered that terrible, thin envelope with the other.
“Hello, Robbie,” Anne said, stepping forward with a wan smile. “You must come inside. It’s dreadful out there today.”
“I won’t, ma’am—” Robbie began, abjectly, and Eleanor wondered how many telegrams he’d delivered, how many cups of tea he’d refused. There had been over thirty deaths of village boys in the last four years of fighting. Had Robbie delivered the telegrams for them all? He was the Grim Reaper, she thought with a sudden spike of bitterness and fury, dressed in a woolly jumper, flat cap, and muddy boots.
“Nonsense,” Anne said kindly. “Tilly will take you to the kitchen. I believe there’s some marmalade cake left over from luncheon.” She smiled and with her hand trembling only slightly, held it out for the telegram.
Robbie handed it to her, hanging his head. “Sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled, and with a firm hand on his shoulder, Tilly bustled him towards the kitchen.
Anne glanced over at Eleanor. “Will you read it for me please, darling?” she asked quietly.
Eleanor opened her mouth to say she wouldn’t, couldn’t, but then she saw her mother sway slightly before reaching out to steady herself on the hall table, her knuckles white as they gripped the marble edge, and wordlessly Eleanor took the telegram.
She slit the envelope and held the slip of paper in her hands without unfolding it, wanting to suspend this moment forever. Then a sudden, blazing thought occurred to her: maybe it wasn’t about Walter. Perhaps it was about James, Katherine’s fiancé. Of course, Eleanor thought in a rush of giddy, and only slightly guilty, relief. Of course it can’t be Walter.
Walter couldn’t die. Not now, not ever. He was too alive and important for that, with his crooked smile and his soft laugh and the way he’d gaze out at the distance when you were talking, but you still knew he was listening. Really listening, and more importantly, understanding. She thought of the way he whistled when he walked, his hands jammed in the pockets of his trousers, and how he’d ruffle her hair and slip her mint humbugs. She was his favourite; everybody knew it. Katherine said he spoiled her, but Eleanor didn’t think it was true. He loved her. He couldn’t be dead.
But even as these thoughts were tumbling wildly, desperately, through her mind, awful realization trickled in coldly after. If it were James, the telegram wouldn’t come here. It would go to his parents, in Whitehaven.
“Eleanor,” Anne said, her voice sounding soft and yet somehow broken. “Please.”
Eleanor opened the telegram.
“Dear Reverend and Mrs Sanderson,” she began, and then her voice faltered and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
Anne pressed a hand to her chest. “Go on.”
Eleanor took a shuddering breath and continued: “It is my painful duty to inform you that a report has been received from the War Office, notifying the death of—”
She broke off, not wanting to say the words, as if saying them would make them true, and Anne just nodded, her eyes closed. Eleanor forced herself to read on: “—the death of Lieutenant Walter Sanderson of the Border Regiment, Second Battalion, on the Fifth of November, 1918.”
She lowered the telegram, unable to go on. Walter was dead. He’d been dead for days, less than a week before the war had ended. It was so unbearably unfair that Eleanor wanted to rail against it, she wanted to stamp her feet and insist, like a child, that it simply couldn’t be true.
“Finish it, darling,” Anne said quietly.
“It just says a full report will be posted on receipt,” Eleanor answered dully. The fury she’d been feeling left in a rush; now she felt empty inside, which was preferable, she suspected, to the grief that would surely overwhelm her, if she let it.
Anne nodded slowly. “His commanding officer will send a personal letter, I should think,” she said, and took a few steps into the hall.
“I don’t care about that—” Eleanor burst out, her voice accusing. “How can you even think of such a thing?” Walter was dead. Her beloved brother with his thoughtful eyes and whimsical smile, his dark hair that stuck out every which way unless he plastered it down with pomade, was dead, never to return, never to smile at her and chuck her under the chin—
She felt the tidal wave of grief rising within her, and she whirled to glare at her mother, angry, resentful, childish words ready to spill forth about how her mother didn’t even seem to care, but they died on her lips when she saw Anne in the hall, doubled over, one arm wrapped around her waist.
“Mother,” she cried, and ran to her. Her mother sagged against her as soon as Eleanor put her arm around her; she staggered under the weight.
Tilly must have heard her cry, for she came running from the kitchen, Robbie Sykes not far behind, looking alarmed and also strangely guilty, as if this really was all his fault for bringing the wretched telegram.
“It’s all right, Mrs Sanderson,” Tilly said quietly, and put her arm around Anne’s shoulders. “All right, now.” She looked at Eleanor. “Where’s the Reverend?”
“Father’s at the Carmichaels’…” He was meeting with the grieving parents of another village boy who had died in the days before the Armistice. And only hours ago Eleanor had felt a passing flicker of sympathy for his family, no more than that. It had seemed so unfair, for a boy to die so close to the end. And yet the injustice of it had been trifling rather than the overwhelming devastation she felt now. She could feel the pressure of the sobs she longed to let out, a burning in her chest, and she swallowed hard.
“Miss Eleanor,” Tilly said sharply. “Listen to me now. We must get your mother upstairs to bed.” She glanced at Robbie, not without some sympathy. “You’d best get yourself off now, lad.”
Robbie nodded, looking thoroughly miserable, and headed towards the door.
Eleanor glanced at her mother, whose face was still sickly pale. Anne’s health had always been fragile, although no one would guess it from the way she taught Sunday School most weeks, and had people to supper and ladies to afternoon tea. She was always graciously welcoming, always putting her own needs or wants aside, even if it meant she spent a day or more in bed to recover.
Looking at her now, Eleanor wondered how long it would take her to recover from this. Could you ever recover from the death of a child? The death of a brother?
“Come on, Mother,” she said, her voice trembling only a little. “We’ll get you to bed with a nice cup of tea and a hot brick for your feet.”
Her mother moved woodenly, as if she were a puppet with an invisible hand pulling her strings, and jerkily at that. Her eyes were closed, her face looking so lifeless Eleanor felt a chill of foreboding. Neither of them spoke as she helped her mother up the stairs, and then down the hallway to her bedroom.
She pulled back the coverlet and helped her mother to take off her shoes; she was like a child, silent and obedient, lifting each foot in turn so Eleanor could ease the shoe off. Anne lay back on the bed, and Eleanor pulled the coverlet up to her mother’s chin; her face was nearly the same colour as the pillow slip.
“Let me stoke the fire,” Eleanor murmured. She took the poker and pushed at the coals rather ineffectually; Tilly usually saw to the fires. She straightened, wishing she could do something more, something to make this better.
But it would never be better; nothing could ever go back to the way it was.
Eleanor blinked, the room seeming to slide and waver before her eyes. Walter dead… It was impossible, it had to be…
She could picture him the last time he’d come home for leave, in the summer. Mother had fretted a little because he’d been rather pale, seemed rather listless. And yet when they’d all sat outside when the weather had been fine, he’d agreed to a game of boules on the lawn and teased Eleanor about her hair, which she’d put up in a too-elaborate style because she’d wanted to appear grown up. She was nineteen and yet she’d had no beaux, no courtships, no mild flirtations, and even less of a prospect of any romance in the years to come, with so many young men dead or wounded.
But she hardly cared about that now. She could only think of Walter, and how he couldn’t be gone, and yet she knew from the horrible hollowness inside her that he was. She was afraid of what might happen if she probed the emptiness inside her; it might fill up with emotions she couldn’t bear to feel. And yet she knew they would come anyway, a gathering horde that would stampede over her sensibilities, make life nothing but grief.
“Thank you, Eleanor,” Anne said. Her voice sounded distant and her eyes were still closed. “You must tell Grandmama, you know. And Father.” She let out a tiny sigh. “And Katherine, when she returns from Carlisle.”
“I can’t—”
Anne opened her eyes, gave her a wan smile of sympathy. “I know it’s difficult, my dear. We’ve spoiled you in some ways.”
“Spoiled—” Eleanor blinked, stung. “I don’t feel very spoilt now,” she snapped, childish hurt easier to feel than the endless grief. “Don’t make me tell everyone, Mother. It isn’t fair.”
Anne closed her eyes again. “Please, Eleanor. I haven’t the strength. And you do. You’re so young, so full of passion and fire…” Her mother’s voice trailed off and in shock Eleanor wondered if she’d fainted or fallen asleep.
“Mother—”
“Please,” Anne whispered, her eyes still closed, and Eleanor swallowed past the burning lump in her throat once more.
“I’ll go tell Grandmama,” she whispered, and turned from the room.
Downstairs Tilly and Mrs Stanton, the cook, were huddled in the kitchen, weeping. Eleanor could hear their murmured words and hushed sobs as she took her coat from the porch and stepped out into the blustery afternoon. It had been raining for days, the wind blowing it sideways, the sky dank and grey and low. Now Eleanor hunched against that unforgiving wind and walked towards the church, past the ancient, nail-studded doors, and around the corner, following the worn slates that led to Bower House.
Father had had the house built for Anne’s mother ten years ago, after she’d been widowed. He’d come into money when his own parents had died, and he’d known Anne had wanted her mother close.
It was a funny little house, perched on a lip of property on the other side of the church, and the walled garden in the back had been said to be the herb garden for the monastery before the Reformation. Grandmama had had it dug over for potatoes and lettuces since the war started, and Tilly and Mrs Stanton had worked it with Mr Lyman, although he was getting too old and arthritic to manage much more than clipping hedges or offering advice.
With her heart like a stone inside her, Eleanor skirted the side of the walled garden and came out to the front of Bower House, built like a little castle, complete with a turret. Grandmama liked to call it Father’s Folly; he’d named it Bower House – a play on words, since it was a kind of dower house.
“I always thought you had aspirations to a dukedom,” Grandmama had teased once, and Father, Eleanor remembered, had swanned about for a bit, as if he were royalty. They’d always liked to tease each other, Grandmama and Father, and Walter had often joined in; he had a flair for the dramatic, just as they did. He’d had, Eleanor corrected herself. He didn’t any more; he was gone.
Thinking about Walter was like probing a raw wound; Eleanor gasped from the sudden flash of pain. She stood immobile by her grandmother’s front door, reeling from the realization that had shocked her yet again, one hand raised to knock. She’d been about to lift the heavy brass knocker but she felt now as if she couldn’t.
And in the end she didn’t; Grandmama must have seen her coming and opened the door herself, her face pale, the set of her mouth resolute.
“Eleanor, my darling. Come inside before you’re soaked.” Elizabeth Chorley drew her granddaughter inside by the shoulders and Eleanor went as woodenly as her mother had gone to bed.
“Grandmama…” she began, and found she could not go on.
“Don’t say anything, dear. Not until you’re warm and dry. It’s dreadful out there today. You’re already soaked, and just from walking across the churchyard. I’ll have some tea brought into the sitting room.”
Eleanor let her grandmother lead her into the sitting room with its bow window facing the high street, now awash in mud. Mary Sutherland, Grandmama’s housekeeper, bustled forward with a tea tray.
“There, now,” she clucked. “Let’s get something warm inside you.”
Eleanor sat down and stared at Mary; she’d never given the woman much thought at all, if any, but now it occurred to her that Mary had been widowed in this awful war; her husband had died a few months ago, at Havrincourt. She had a small son too, little more than a baby; Harry, his name was. Mother had given him a silver rattle on his christening day, and Mary’s sister, also widowed, watched him while she worked.
Mary pressed a cup of tea into Eleanor’s hands; her fingers closed round the porcelain, registering the comforting warmth for a second before it all came rushing back.
Walter.
“Grandmama…”
“Don’t say anything, not yet.” Elizabeth shook her head, her lips pressed together. “Not yet,” she said again, and with a jolt Eleanor understood that her grandmother already knew.
“How—” she began, and Elizabeth smiled sadly and gestured to Eleanor’s thin slippers.
“Why else would you come out on a day like this with nothing more than slippers on your feet?” she asked, and when she pressed her lips together again they trembled. “I don’t suppose you know the details,” she said after a moment, and Eleanor shook her head.
“It was just a telegram.”
Elizabeth nodded and took a scrap of lace handkerchief from inside her sleeve. She dabbed her eyes, her only concession to grief, and took a deep breath. “Your mother will take this badly,” she said. “Your father will be devastated, of course. His only son…” She shook her head, took another shaky breath. “But Anne… you know she’s not strong, Eleanor. Not like you.”
That was the second time she’d been called strong in the space of an hour, and Eleanor wanted to fly at her grandmother, to rage and rail and insist that she wasn’t strong at all, and she certainly couldn’t be strong enough for everyone else.
Elizabeth levelled her granddaughter with a single look. “You must be strong, Eleanor. For your mother’s sake. Your cheerful, bright ways will do her a great deal of good. Katherine won’t be able to manage, not with her own fiancé to look after.”
“James isn’t even back yet,” Eleanor protested. “Although why he should live and Walter die – it’s his fault, you know. He insisted they join up—”
“Hush, Eleanor, you don’t mean such things.”
“I do,” Eleanor snapped. She’d cling to anger rather than grief. “I’d rather James died than Walter! I’m not even sure Katherine loves him, anyway. They barely spoke the last time he was here on leave—”
“That is quite enough.” Elizabeth’s voice was like the crack of a whip. Eleanor blinked, chastised. “You are nineteen years old, Eleanor, and nearly a woman grown. You must learn to control your tongue.”
Eleanor stared down at her mud-caked slippers. “It’s just not fair,” she muttered.
“No, but our idea of justice is not the same as God’s. We want everything to go our way, and that simply isn’t possible.”
“Why not? If God is all-powerful, He should be able to manage it.”
“Oh, Eleanor.” Elizabeth sank into a chair opposite her granddaughter, her face grey with fatigue and loss. “If you want to argue theology, go speak to your father. But trust that just because something bad has happened—”
“Something bad?” Eleanor cried. “The worst, Grandmama.”
“Even the worst,” Elizabeth answered steadily. “God is greater than even the worst, Eleanor.”
He didn’t seem very great to her at that moment, Eleanor thought, but even so, she knew it was useless to argue with her grandmother, or be angry with God. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring Walter back.
“Be strong, Eleanor,” Elizabeth said quietly. “For your family. For Walter. He’d want you to remain as bright and happy as you ever were – you know that.” Her grandmother took a deep breath, gave her a shaky smile. “And when it all gets too much and you need to cry, you may come over here,” she finished, and after a tiny pause, Eleanor, her throat now too tight for words, just nodded.