Easterleigh Hall at War Page 4

  He turned the key, checked that the door was firmly locked, and strode across the Indian carpet to the vast walnut desk in a way he could never, perhaps, have done, had he not killed his fair share of men. Some he had killed at quarters close enough to smell and touch them before ramming his knife into their guts, looking into their eyes. No, he would never let that bastard lift a hand to anyone again. Instead he would probably kill him. But he wouldn’t think of that now.

  There was a window overlooking the side of the house, and another at the front. The clouds were thickening. Was there more snow on the way? Would it hold up Ted in his taxi? Would it make bivouacking in France and standing there in the trenches that were being dug everywhere even more of a bloody misery? He must hurry.

  He dragged a piece of paper from his pocket, checking the numbers Miss Wainton, their beloved governess and his dead mother’s friend, had given him before he left for Oxford University. She had advised him to keep it safe, and secret. It was the last time he had seen her alive. But he wouldn’t think of Wainey now. He had work to do.

  He skirted the two large sofas set either side of the fireplace, which was laid with the best coal from Auld Maud, but not lit. Auberon removed the oil painting of London Bridge hanging to the right of the fireplace, revealing the safe. He turned the combination lock, hoping it remained the same. There was a click, then another until it was done. He turned the brass handle and pulled the door open. Auberon found he was holding his breath. He made himself suck in air, right down, and again. He steadied his hands and took out the stack of papers, carrying them to the desk, shoving aside the blotter, making space.

  He returned to the safe and pressed the right-hand corner of the back panel. He pulled it down. Inside there were many more papers. He carried these to the table, and laid them down, too. His hands were shaking. He drew in more deep breaths, and steadied himself. It was like going over the top of the sandbagged trenches into the rattling guns. He removed the folded parchment deeds, laying them to one side; these were not what he needed.

  Outside the snow was falling in earnest; it darkened the room. There was enough light for him, though. He leafed through the papers. Please don’t let him have taken it to one of his other lairs. He had seen the letter on the desk during a beating for failing to prevent the parson and the Forbes family buying Farmer Froggett’s houses; the only independent houses in the pit village. He had seen the letter, and the letterhead, but it had held little interest until the war began. Now it could hold the power to change his and Veronica’s future security and the well-being of everyone under this man’s thumb, especially the miners.

  He reached the end of the pile. God damn it. It wasn’t here. There were the usual figures on the Leeds brickworks, the steelworks, mines and the new armaments and netting factories, which were possibly legitimate, but they were of no interest to him. He swung round to scan the safe. Had he left anything? No. He rubbed his hands over his face. Think. Think.

  He made himself begin again, slowly, slowly, turning the papers face down as he started a ‘seen’ pile. And there it was, halfway through, the letter with a German factory address, and another, more recent, dated 5th August 1914. How had he missed them? He held them up towards the window, to read in the weakening light. He scanned the fractured English of both, quickly. He replaced the earlier one, but placed the more recent letter on the blotter. It contained the name of a German company, and one in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. He read the recognisable words ‘acetone’ and ‘cordite’, not enough to bring his father down, but it was a start.

  He sat at the desk and wrote a letter to Veronica, blotting it and tearing the blotting paper from the pad, ripping it into strips so that nothing could be deciphered. He burnt the strips in the metal waste-paper bin. He put his letter and the most recent one from the German firm in an envelope, sealing it with wax. How dramatic. But it must only be opened if he died or became totally insane, which seemed to him a distinct possibility. He laughed. He must be mad to prefer northern France to England.

  He put everything else back as he had found it, then locked the safe, replaced the painting and shoved the envelope in his uniform pocket. He retraced his footsteps to the door and unlocked it, slipping out into the corridor. He was shaking, but that might not be because of his father; it was something that was beginning to happen with monotonous regularity. It comforted him that Jack sometimes shook when they wrote their letters of condolence in the dugout by the light of a candle.

  One of the irritations of the front line was the lack of jam jars in which to stick the bloody candles. Auberon’s captain, Alan Bridges, similarly regretted that the supply was so limited. ‘Glass shatters so easily these days,’ he would say, tutting at the German artillery which frequently fixed their position accurately and rocked the ground around them, causing the jam jar with its candle to crash to the ground, plunging them into darkness. ‘Mother wouldn’t like the mess.’ It was funny, really and truly funny, every time he said it.

  Auberon made his way to his sister’s room. On the door was the label Lady Veronica. Inside, though, would be Captain the Honourable Richard Williams, who had returned some time ago, severely injured. His progress had been slow but now, under his wife’s care, he was improving daily. He knocked gently, knowing that Ver was downstairs, making yet more beef tea to be available day and night for the badly wounded. He had gathered that rum was also on the menu and probably did a damn sight more good, but he hadn’t shared that information with any of the kitchen staff. His bravery had its limits, and getting on the wrong side of Evie, Mrs Moore or Ver was beyond the call of duty. ‘Come.’ Richard’s voice was weak but at least he was speaking.

  Auberon entered, making his way towards the bed where Richard was sitting against heaped pillows. The curtains were drawn back and weak sun entered. The snow shower had ceased. Richard lifted his remaining arm, the right, in a sort of wave. His left leg had been amputated below the knee. What remained of his left ear was jagged. His cheek had been scorched and torn by the shrapnel. Once he had been handsome but now he was not, though he was loved. He had told Auberon on Christmas Eve that he much preferred the latter.

  Auberon sat on the easy chair beside the bed. ‘Ver’s doing her bit in the ward, then?’

  Richard laughed. ‘Indeed she is. I’m sorry you’re going back and bloody glad I’m not.’ The two men exchanged a glance. ‘It’s worse now, isn’t it?’ Richard asked.

  Auberon smiled. ‘It’s never been a picnic. You were right, it’s an industrial war and absurd to think in terms of a short conflict. We’re entrenched, deep in mud, blood and shit, and the war of movement is finished. It will be a rotten hideous slog and we’ve a chance of winning if the generals realise that attacking is absurd; it’s sitting it out defensively that will bring most of us home in one piece. Or so say I, and what do I know? I’m glad you’re out of it, and that Ver’s come to her senses and is pleased you’re here. It was all the years with Father, you see. Well, you know what she’s told you about the beatings he gave me. I think she saw you as capable of the same violence, perhaps also that you would stop her doing what she wanted.’

  ‘I know, old chap. We’re getting our lives . . . arranged.’ Richard eased his back, moved the stump of his leg. ‘It’s as well she is a determined woman with a mind, a proper mind, because look at me. But I like the fact that she and Evie didn’t approve of the violence of the suffragettes, nor did the parson’s sister, Grace. But, for all that, they make a frightening trio, you know. Grace was home on leave two weeks ago and supported Evie’s campaign to let Ver loose on the patients by telling Matron that when Evie gave her word, she kept it. So no more pudding meant just that. I’m pleased that at last Ver has a couple of proper friends, especially in Evie, which is a strange one, in this day and age. Light me a cigarette, would you, old lad, bloody difficult one-handed.’ Richard’s hair was long, and fell into his eyes. His face was drawn.

  Auberon did so, then lit his own, snapping shut hi
s silver cigarette case. Richard looked at him through the spiralling smoke. ‘Grace Manton found me in a clearing station and I was on that bloody train before the surgeon could stop her. Straight to Le Touquet. Evie shoved Veronica on a train this end, in spite of her protests. You know, old lad, I thought she might not come and I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye. I loved her but knew she didn’t love me. Your stepmama and my mama are a formidable force, you know, and pushed the poor girl into the marriage.’

  Auberon nodded, feeling uncomfortable. One didn’t usually share such things. It was women’s talk, but the wounded were different. He had heard this from Richard before, several times, but the wounded man’s memory was strange and he repeated himself. Dr Nicholls said it would perhaps improve and then had shouted, removing his pipe to do so, ‘If you’d had a mighty crack on your thick head, wouldn’t you be a bit knocked sideways?’

  Auberon had replied, ‘Probably. By the way, it’s one rule for the men – no smoking – and one for you, is it?’

  Nicholls had grunted, ‘Pipes are different and enough of your impertinence.’ He had charged on his way to the next crisis.

  Richard was muttering again, waving his cigarette in the air. ‘I believe Ver has a cause, you know, with the hospital, and I think that it makes her happy. All I have to do, it seems, is to step to one side and let her work, and her love will continue to grow. Or so Evie said. I think I should get a cauldron for all three of them, but especially . . .’

  Auberon reached for the ashtray on the bedside table and held it beneath the growing ash on Richard’s cigarette, and then his own. Both of them tapped, the ash fell. ‘Evie,’ Auberon finished for him. ‘Yes, a cauldron might be good, but nothing bad would be created, just some of her special magic.’

  Both men laughed.

  Auberon stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray he had laid down on the sheets, and dug into his pocket. ‘I have this letter. I need you to keep it for me, safely. If I don’t return, I need you to pass it to Ver for me. Make her use it. You’ll need additional information, from Father’s deposit box in a bank in Rotterdam. You won’t understand at the moment, but I repeat, make her use it, and help her to do so. Now where can I put it that you’ll remember, but where it isn’t obvious?’

  Richard pointed towards his portmanteau, his cigarette almost finished. ‘There’s an inside pocket. It contains my will. Put it there, then it will be found if either of us pops our clogs, old lad. Now, have I told you that we have bought you boots with a heel that contains a compass? Did I? I know I forget. Your batman has packed them but you must wear them in action.’

  ‘Yes, you have told me, but it’s unlikely I’ll need it. Not done to be caught by the Hun, better to die.’

  Richard’s ash fell on to his pristine sheets. ‘Sister Newsome will murder me, that she will. Calls it a fire hazard to be smoking in bed. Don’t be bloody silly, don’t die, think of Veronica. If there’s nothing else for it, you must stick your bloody hands up and surrender, others do. Yes, you’ll have to fill a bloody form in on your return giving a damn good reason but sometimes there’s no alternative, or so my general said, so hands up, live. Then use the compass to get yourself back to the lines, pretty damn quick. They should insist we all carry one. Well, now you do. Now, have I told you how I thought Ver might not come to fetch me?’ Auberon smothered his sigh and lit them another cigarette. If he stayed much longer he’d ask for a bullet in the brain. ‘No, what was that then, Richard?’

  Auberon had half an hour before Ted and his taxi arrived. He had promised himself tea and fancies in the kitchen, just as he and Veronica had done before the war. They’d probably be in Evie’s way but if they were, she’d tell them. The very thought amused him.

  He headed through the green baize door and along the internal corridor, his boots ringing on the tiles, and into the kitchen. Veronica had the tea ready and the fancies. She laughed at his face. ‘No, don’t worry, Evie made them, not me.’

  But that wasn’t why his smile had faded. Veronica said, ‘Evie thought we’d like time to ourselves, so they’ve all taken their breaks and Sister Newsome has given me half an hour.’ Auberon looked at the servants’ hall, and there they all were, knitting something khaki. The war was everywhere. Evie was knitting a balaclava for which someone would be thankful.

  Ver was pouring tea into enamel mugs. ‘You don’t mind a mug do you, Aub, but we haven’t time for niceties.’

  He laughed. ‘And we have, out there?’

  Behind her the pan of beef tea was almost finished, except for skimming the fat. The tea poured, he watched as she reached for a sheet of greaseproof paper, stood by the range, laid it on the pan’s surface, soaked up some of the fat, placed the paper on a plate beside the pan. Again and again she did it until it was fat-free. They talked of nothing of importance, except for the fact that Ver was trying to knit a pair of socks, and would use Kitchener’s stitch to create a seam-free finish. ‘Hopefully fewer blisters,’ she muttered, nodding towards her needles stuck into the ball of wool on the armchair. Raisin and Currant were curled up beside it, asleep.

  He said, ‘You’ve no idea how blessed you will be by some soldier out there. Keep at it, keep making them, trench foot is a bastard and blisters are harmless but bloody painful. I have a feeling our mother would be doing exactly the same. Do you still miss her?’

  Ver smiled at him. ‘Always. She died too young, and she’d know that we knit because we’re so worried, all the time. Grace writes to us from her VAD perspective and here we live amongst some of the results. But then again we don’t really know. We can only imagine. What more can we do for you all, dearest Aub? How do you get through it?’

  He sipped his tea. ‘Do you remember Saunders, my old tutor? He always talked of the River Somme, which is Celtic for tranquillity. He’d fished it. Said it was a slice of heaven. I think of that. One day, I’ll go, when this is over. But in the meantime, Ver, there’s a sense of it here, tranquillity I mean. It’s partly because Father’s absent.’

  ‘Partly?’

  He said nothing more but looked into the servants’ hall again, seeing Evie, the tilt of her head, the frown of concentration. Then it was time to go. Ver walked with him through the great hall and down the steps to where the taxi waited. Roger sat in the front, the luggage in the boot. Auberon said, ‘It seems better with Richard, Ver.’

  ‘Aub, I love him. It’s as though everything is beginning to settle. He drives me to distraction with the repetition, but it is improving. Evie’s father and Tom Wilson, the blacksmith, are making him false limbs for when Dr Nicholls says his stumps can cope. Simon’s father helps too. It’s wonderful. We’re all working together and the mood is good, but then of course there are times when we have to telegraph a relative with the worst news. We send telegrams to the enlisted men’s families too, though the army doesn’t. Did you know that, Aub? Their families have to wait for letters and it can take weeks.’

  Auberon could not bear to hear more. He kissed her hand. ‘Be happy, Ver. You and Evie look after one another. I will try and see Grace Manton if I can. You must write, please, if you can spare some time. I love to hear news of you all.’

  He hugged her then, looking over her head towards the house, and the old stables, but Evie had not come.

  He turned, opened the car door, and at last Evie’s voice rang out. She was standing at the entrance to the stable yard. ‘Mr Auberon, be safe, be lucky.’ The dogs rushed at him, barking. He stroked them. They tore back to Evie.

  He took a moment, and when he could be sure his voice would be steady he called, ‘Thank you, Evie. I will bring your Simon safely home, and Jack, if I possibly can.’

  She waved. ‘And you, you come back too, bonny lad.’ Then Mrs Moore shouted, ‘You’ll catch your death, lass. Come in here this minute.’ Evie waved again and disappeared.

  He and Veronica laughed, and then he left. Yes, he must bring Simon back, because Evie’s happiness was everything to him, and at last she’d given h
im the marras’ farewell.

  As Ted drove down the drive Auberon wondered if his father would ever accept that he employed a Forbes as his cook. Probably not, so Evie must continue to be known on the books as Evie Anston. How absurd it all was.

  Chapter 3

  Northern France, early March 1915

  THE NORTH TYNE Fusiliers were in deep reserve, well to the west of Rouen, after a winter that was supposed to have been quiet as far as the war was concerned. Some bloody hope. Jack and Simon took a last puff on their roll-up stubs before tossing them away, each pulling the strands of tobacco from their lips. The strands clung, as though reluctant to follow their brethren on to the damp ground where the stubs hissed, then died. The men leaned back against the door to the barn, out of the wind, shoving their numb hands into their pockets, watching the reinforcements right wheel, left wheel and everything in between. They’d been recruited after Kitchener’s Your Country Needs You.

  ‘Well the bugger isn’t far wrong there,’ Jack muttered to himself, eyeing the tumbling dark clouds barrelling over the old oaks, and the village a kilometre distant, hearing the distant sound of shells. The road running between here and there and onwards was busy with lorries that churned through the mud, men marching in single file, carts carrying shells, and ambulances.

  ‘What’s that you say?’ Simon tipped back his cap, and shook his head at the training troops.

  At least the rain had stopped, for now. Winter had been a bugger, not just because of the noise, the crash and groan of shells, the snipers, the forays, but it was the day-in day-out sheer bloody misery of the the snow-drenched trenches, worse if you slid off the duckboards, so you pretty soon learned not to. Even when they were in the second line it had been little better, huddled in disintegrating billets with shells plummeting down just to keep them alert. Here, in deep reserve, none of them had rid themselves yet of the sense of chill, though they’d been here for almost a month. At least the Auld Maud pit had been bloody hot.