Easterleigh Hall at War Read online

  Jack winked at Evie as he about-turned, his hair riffled by the cold breeze, as he waited for Mr Auberon to precede him. She watched them troop back down the steps, one so dark, one so fair, following Lady Veronica into the corridor. Lady Veronica called. ‘Make the most of it, Evie, because though you have thus far only instructed me in the preparation of a roux and a passable cup of tea, I am here to help, so let the real havoc begin.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I have just the task, we need more onions chopped.’ Lady Veronica’s groan and the guffaws of the men wafted up the steps, to be cut short by Mrs Moore’s bellow. ‘Shut that door. We’re not living in a barn.’

  Evie heard Simon murmur behind her, and felt his breath on her neck. ‘No, not living in a barn here, but in reserve we do. Now, I have half an hour to show you how much I love you, Evie Forbes.’ She felt his arm around her waist, his kisses on her neck, and turned into him. He dropped the herbs, but the scent was still on his hands as he cupped her face. He was the same age as the other two and looked as many years older as they did, but she suspected she was no rose any more, if she ever had been. It didn’t matter, he was here, he was safe for now, and what was more, he was hers. They clung to one another. ‘I love you,’ he repeated. ‘I love you so much I could drown in it.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said against his mouth. ‘Don’t you dare or I will kill you myself.’ They didn’t laugh, because time was so short and the future so . . . what? Uncertain? Dangerous? Impossible? When would it end? Who would survive? What would happen if they lost? She buried her face in his shoulder and he rocked her back and forth and she thought again of her mother’s endless sayings, which frequently drove those who knew her to want to strangle her. She would say, yet again, ‘All will be well.’ This time Evie found comfort in the words.

  Half an hour later Lady Veronica used her hands to sweep the vegetable waste on to sheets of Mr Harvey’s out-of-date Daily Sketch. The juice from the carrot tops seeped into the front page, which told of the Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby deaths and casualties resulting from the shelling by the German navy. Evie said, ‘It’s hard to believe, Ver.’

  ‘Nowhere’s safe, Evie,’ Lady Veronica almost whispered, rolling up the waste and putting it into the compost bucket. ‘How is Mrs Green’s niece?’

  Mrs Moore was passing. ‘The shrapnel wounds to her leg are healing and she’s home with her mother, and so Mrs Green will be back from Whitby within days to take up her housekeeping duties. She thanks you for the hamper, Your Ladyship, and asks after your husband. I told her Captain Richard is improving but not yet able to function downstairs. I hope you find him improved again today, slightly at least?’

  Lady Veronica sat down on a stool, easing her back and wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I do believe he is, Mrs Moore. Just a tad.’

  Evie snatched a look at the clock before saying briskly, ‘Now, enough chat, let’s get the roasts out so they can rest. It won’t be for long enough, but it will have to do. It’ll be a bit of a trudge to get it all up to the ward, so perhaps you should suggest that Mr Auberon and his little troop help Archie and Mr Harvey transport the feast to the multitude, Lady Veronica.’ She tried to remember to address Veronica properly in the company of others. She passed her a heavyweight oven cloth. ‘You hoy out the turkeys if you wouldn’t mind, and Annie, you take the middle range, there should be six geese in there, and watch the fat. We mustn’t spill a drop as we’ll need every scrap for January. Who knows what food shortages are coming? I’ll handle the hams. How’s the soup, Mrs Moore?’

  Chaos took over for the last hour with only one mishap. Lady Veronica burned her arm. It was dusted with flour, and she was told it was a medal. She promised she’d wear it proudly.

  Somehow Mr Harvey had organised the tables in the ballroom ward so that everyone could be seated, though it would be shoulder to shoulder with one’s neighbour. All around would be the recovering enlisted men still bedbound; the officers had their own cubicles, created from the many bedrooms on the second floor.

  For now, sherry was served in the great hall and helped to ease the social revolution that was occurring. Nicely lubricated, Mr Auberon led the gaggle into the ballroom, taking his place at the head of the long, long table covered in pristine white linen tablecloths. The fact that they were really sheets was ignored. The glasses glistened, the cutlery too. Chrysanthemums on short stalks were arranged in shallow bowls down the centre of the tables, and candles were lit in candlesticks taken from the silver safe.

  Lady Wendover, a middle-aged VAD, was waiting to take her seat next to Maudie, one of the scullery maids, another VAD would sit next to Daisy, a housemaid. Evie thought they could discuss the merits of soda in the scullery, or the virtues of sprinkling tea leaves on the carpets before brushing, rather than the usual subject of how lazy the servants were. She grinned as Jack, who sat opposite her, and a few places down from Mr Auberon, raised an eyebrow. He’d always been able to read her like a book. So had her da and mam, who were to Jack’s left and chuckling at her.

  Mrs Moore leaned into her, saying in a voice meant to be a whisper but which was considerably louder, ‘If you feed the beggars well, it will always be an occasion of cheer no matter who has to sit next to whom.’

  Perhaps Mr Auberon heard, for not long after, when the turkeys had been carved on the side table, and the main course was about to begin, he proposed a toast to the kitchen, absent friends, and lastly, the King, mentioning that it was a rare occasion for cheer, grinning at Mrs Moore and Evie as he did so. After glasses were raised, sipped and replaced, they sat again, except for Roger the valet, who Evie saw hurrying to the baize door, having said to Simon that he wasn’t going to sit opposite ‘that monstrosity’ for a minute longer. The ‘monstrosity’ was Sergeant Harris, who wore a tin mask to hide his facial injuries and sat alongside Captain Simmons whose nose had got lost, as he delighted in telling everyone, due to carelessness. He would then stick his thumb between his fore and middle finger and say, ‘Good grief, and here it is, after all.’

  As Roger stormed off Evie and Jack exchanged another look, this time one of fury. Mrs Moore said forcefully, but for the family alone, ‘Then he’ll go hungry. There’s nothing left downstairs for even a sparrow to peck on, and with the dogs taking up both armchairs he’ll have to make do with a stool.’

  Evie pretended not to notice Millie, Jack’s wife, flush at these words, laying down her knife and fork. Jack sat next to her, his stepson Tim on his lap, with lashings of cranberry sauce on his small plate. Evie smiled. It was a sure bet that this would be the two-year-old’s favourite part of the meal. He was a lovely little lad, but was there an increasing look of his father, bloody Roger, about him? Dear God, she hoped not and if there was, that it was the end of any family resemblance.

  Simon ran his hand along her arm and it was only then she saw she had gripped her knife and fork so tightly her knuckles had whitened. He nudged her with his knee and whispered, ‘Stop fretting; Millie wouldn’t jeopardise what she has with Jack to go chasing after the bloke who made her pregnant when she was the kitchenmaid, and dumped her. She’s not that big a fool.’

  Jack helped Tim to another great dollop of cranberry and shrugged when his mam said it would rot the bairn’s teeth. ‘Sugar could get short soon enough, Mam. It’s Christmas, we’ll let him, shall we?’

  Soon conversations were fluttering more easily around the long table, and laughter was spreading. Bravo for Mr Auberon, Evie thought. He’d been right, everything had changed, even the nobs, but perhaps it wouldn’t take long to get back to the old order once the war was over, if it ever was. Evie whispered, ‘Si, we must remember this: good food, good company, and wine. When things get difficult let’s just think of it. I prefer it to looking up at a moon dangling in the sky like the poets say.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s because you live and breathe cooking, and I love you for it. One day I’ll be home, we’ll all be home and you can get on with sorting our dream of a hotel, at last.’
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  She lifted her glass of chilled white wine, taking a large sip, more a gulp really, but by, she needed it. Within seconds it seemed her shoulders were low, her muscles felt loose, her smile was growing. ‘You will sing and fiddle for the wedding parties and we can get Bern . . .’ She stopped. Bernie had been killed, so too Jack’s marra, his close pitman friend, Mart Dore.

  Jack had been listening and leaned forward, stroking Tim’s dark hair. ‘We’ll come back, Evie pet. We’ll all come back.’

  Mam said, ‘All will be well.’ The family laughed and Da patted his wife’s shoulder. It was then Evie noticed that Millie’s place was empty. ‘Where is she?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘She’s gone for more cranberry sauce.’

  Mam murmured, ‘I told her there was some further along by Captain Neave but she was determined.’ She mouthed, ‘Showing off for Jack, I reckon.’

  Evie placed her serviette on the table, and started to rise, her food like ashes in her mouth. ‘I’ll help her. She probably doesn’t know where it is.’

  Simon pulled her back down, saying for her ears only, his blue eyes determined, ‘Let someone else do something for a change. Every moment with you is precious. She’ll find what she’s after.’

  That was what Evie feared, because the only other person down there was Roger.

  Jack was watching and listening, and now he leaned forward yet again, saying quietly, ‘Let it go, pet. It’s the bairn that’s important. Over my dead body will he have Tim, who deserves better, and, by, I don’t want to have to keep leaning over like this to calm you down, it’s causing havoc with me innards.’

  She laughed. Jack grinned, lifting a finger towards the baize door. ‘Here she is with the cranberry, so I reckon you’ve counted two and two and made ten.’

  Millie sat, avoiding everyone’s eyes, her hair adrift from her cap, and Evie would have bet that nearer ten was right after all. Stupid woman. She always had been and always would be, and why had Jack ever married her? But she knew why, and it was best left alone.

  After the meal the nurses sang Christmas carols under Matron’s Amazonian conducting, and were joined by several of the wounded, as well as Simon and Evie, and Dr Nicholls, the Medical Officer. It was Simon whose solos brought the audience to their feet, his pure notes taking them from the present to a quieter, more blessed time. Jack told Evie how Simon had stilled everyone’s hearts in the trenches, during a lull in the fighting, when he had sung ‘Oh for the wings of a dove’.

  For that moment she allowed happiness to enter.

  Chapter 2

  Easterleigh Hall, 26th December 1914

  OVERNIGHT, LIGHT SNOW had fallen, but that didn’t deter Mr Auberon and Jack from joining Old Stan, the head gardener, in the arboretum to drag out the roots of a swathe of old trees cut down a few days before Christmas. Every spare space was to be used for vegetables, Captain Richard had insisted in a memo sent from his convalescent bed to the usual staff breakfast meeting in the kitchen on 23rd December. He had ended, ‘The Atlantic is relatively safe for merchant shipping, but for how long? We must be responsible. We must sidestep shortages.’

  In the kitchen, a Boxing Day morning would perhaps have dawdled for Evie in a perfect world, allowing her time for Simon, but it rushed past in the face of the never-ending demands of the kitchen. This was due, in part, to the fact that Mrs Moore, and Evie, had decreed that invalids needed food when their body clocks insisted, not when Matron’s chimed. At first Matron had hitched her vast bosom and huffed, but it was a token gesture. Almost immediately she had said, ‘I have never had a kitchen willing to put the patients first. My thanks to you and your staff and volunteers.’

  At eleven, whilst the turkey stock was simmering, and the calves’-foot jelly setting for invalid support, Mrs Moore and Lady Veronica ordered Evie and Simon to the servants’ hall, to sit on one of the ancient overstuffed and torn sofas. ‘At once, Evie, and turf those dachshunds out who have tried a different venue. They should be stretching their little legs,’ Lady Veronica paused. ‘The clock is ticking. Simon needs to see the rest of his family, who I believe are travelling to his parents in Easton for the day. Are you quite sure you won’t go with him? If you do, I will follow Mrs Moore’s instructions to the letter, I promise, and to prove it, I will now obey her and make the mayonnaise for luncheon.’

  ‘Must you?’ Evie said, grimacing. ‘Just a drop of oil at a time, remember. We don’t want another disaster.’ Lady Veronica sniffed. ‘It wasn’t that bad. Now will you go with Simon to Easton?’

  Evie longed to, but their lives were not their own at the moment, and he had said he needed time with his family, and that her patients needed her. She shook her head, and Lady Veronica ordered, ‘Get along with you, then.’

  Mrs Moore was opening the door into the central corridor as Simon tugged Evie along. Mrs Moore waved them through. ‘I’ll leave a bundle of carrots by the back door for Old Saul, that lovely old pony of your da’s, lad. Aye, he does grand work carting in the volunteers. There’re a few bits for the table and all. Now, go.’

  Simon kissed the cook, hugging her ample body to him. ‘You’re a belter, Mrs Moore. If I didn’t already love Evie I’d be after you.’ He earned a twisted ear for his pains. Mrs Moore called the dachshunds, who scampered into the kitchen after scraps, and far from stretching their legs they took over the armchairs again, scrabbling amongst the knitting. The door was slammed behind them. Evie and Simon crossed the central corridor into the servants’ hall, which was empty, presumably on Mrs Moore’s orders. It was a wasted effort though, because as Evie nestled into Simon’s arms there was no comfort to be found against his braced body.

  She lifted her head and saw that he was looking from one oozing horsehair tear in the sofa to another. She waited, so used was she to recognising the signs of anguish in their patients, to the point where, a few weeks ago, she had suggested to Dr Nicholls that she should ask new patients about their favourite foods, and produce it for them. It had helped some to connect again with the normal world. God bless food; the sight of it, the taste and smell. It could ease aside savage images, and reclaim better times.

  Simon removed his arm from around her and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasping and unclasping. ‘The tears are like wounds that I can smell and see. It’s what we live with. Will it be me next? Will I lose my face? It’s so easy, you see. You’re in the trench. You peer over. Bang. Shrapnel takes your face. Bang, you’re dead.’

  He stood and paced before her, and Evie wondered if it had been the best idea to mix these lads in with the wounded for lunch yesterday. She stood, taking his hands. ‘We’ll walk. You must show me where Old Stan is to plant the rose for Bernie.’

  She hurried him through the kitchen, noting that Lady Veronica was adding the oil drop by drop, and Mrs Moore and Annie were embarking on the vegetables. She snatched her coat from the hook in the bell corridor and his khaki greatcoat from his pack by the bootbox, heading up the steps into the snow-heavy wind.

  She shrugged into her coat, pulling the collar up around her neck. He did the same, lifting his head, sniffing the air as gardeners do. All sounds seemed muted as they walked arm in arm, sometimes slipping and sliding in the snow, round the back of the house and into the formal gardens. A few hardy soldiers and airmen, who were almost fully recovered, were slapping their hands and puffing on their pipes, or smoking their forbidden cigarettes.

  Dr Nicholls, who had been the district’s doctor before he had been seconded into uniform to head the medical staff at Easterleigh Hall, harangued them almost daily on the disgusting habit. ‘Soiling your lungs, dammit, after we’ve spent time and effort putting you back together.’ He became so red-faced on the subject that Evie and Lady Veronica felt that one day he would burst with indignation, though Matron said it would be from too much pudding.

  Evie told Simon this as he headed for the southern face of the garden, and he laughed in reply. A sergeant called to her. ‘Great meal, Evie. Marry me an
d we’ll live like kings.’ Another, Colonel Masters said, ‘Stand down, Sergeant. She’ll choose me if it’s anyone.’

  Evie called, ‘You’re all out of luck. It’s Si who’ll get fat around my table.’

  They reached the rose bed Simon and Bernie had dug, manured, and planted. Simon slipped his arms round her and held her against him. ‘Here, Old Stan will plant it, here. Bernie was our rose expert. Loved the buggers, he did. Do it for me too, will you, next to his, if . . .’

  There was a long pause, because there was little point in telling him it wouldn’t happen. She said eventually, trying not to cry, ‘I’ll do it for you, but we must hope. We truly must.’ It was easy enough for her to say, when she was just picking up the pieces, and not in jeopardy herself.

  They walked on, round the wall surrounding the nursery plants and back past the stables which had been turned into winter quarters for the pigs after the horses had been taken by the army. Evie’s da and Simon’s helped to tend them, but today it was Sergeant Harris, in his face mask, carrying a bucket of vegetable peelings, together with a couple of corporals whose wounds were healing more quickly than they would have liked. Simon squeezed her to him. ‘Poor bugger.’

  They returned to the warmth of the kitchen and she shooed Lady Veronica back to the acute cases ward where she had begun to work, under the eagle eye of Ward Sister Annie Newsome. It had taken a syrup pudding from Evie for Matron, and the threat of no more, ever, for her to agree to allow Lady Veronica to move on from VAD dusting, sweeping and sterilising to try her hand at proper nursing. The acute cases ward was to test her dedication, Lady Veronica suspected. Auxiliary hospitals were not originally intended for serious cases, but this war was determining otherwise.