No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (29 page)

‘Jack! Old lady like me!’

‘You’re not an old lady, Celia. You’re exactly the same age as me, if you remember.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

She was always surprised by this; he seemed far younger than she was. She supposed that was what a lack of responsibility did for you. Except that being at the front under those appalling conditions, defending your country, could hardly be described as irresponsible.

‘Let’s go down and have dinner,’ she said, ‘it’s your favourite, steak and kidney pie.’

‘Celia! I’m more touched than I can say. Fancy you remembering that.’

‘I didn’t,’ she said, laughing, ‘Brunson did.’

‘Marvellous chap, Brunson. Every household should have one.’

‘It certainly should. Now come along. And you can tell me all about France.’

‘I’d rather you told me about London,’ he said, ‘do you still go out all the time?’

‘Oh Jack. If only I did.’

He kept her and LM entertained throughout dinner with stories of life at the front: funny, cheerful stories about trading tobacco and chocolates for the books she sent him, ‘Sorry Celia, but I never was much of a reader.’ He told tales of how a fellow officer had nearly got shot one night in the trenches ‘Doing the tango with his rifle, and wearing nothing but a German helmet, you know, with the spike on top. One of the men saw him, and thought he really was Fritz.’ Of how he had tried to conduct a love affair, ‘Rather a short one, with a very jolly nurse, one night in the field hospital. I’d escorted a chap over there who’d collected rather a lot of shrapnel, and got caught by Sister in the dressings tent, she noticed it rocking a bit. She was fearfully cross, sent me straight back to my quarters with a flea in my ear. I heard the nurse got into fearful trouble.’

‘Jack, you are dreadful,’ said Celia, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes; even LM had begun to laugh.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have to keep your spirits up somehow. It’s not quite the Cafe Royal out there in the evenings.’

‘I don’t suppose it is,’ she said sombrely; later, when LM had gone to bed, she said, ‘You don’t have to, Jack, but if you want to talk about it all, stop pretending it’s fun, I’m quite prepared to listen.’

‘I don’t think I do,’ he said carefully, ‘it’s safer, pretending. Protects you from the reality.’

‘Bad?’

‘Quite bad. Hard to enjoy soldiering, just at the moment.’

‘Even for you?’

‘Even for me. It’s not the battles, it’s not the huge casualties even, not even the discomfort. It is ghastly, the mud and the squalor, I have to say, worse for the men of course, we do get a bath from time to time and even to take our boots off. It’s the sense of frustration. I shouldn’t say this, and it’s Oliver’s claret talking really, and not for repetition, but you do get a feeling the generals don’t know what they’re doing. They’re operating miles from the front line and a lot of it doesn’t seem to make sense. I’ve never known anything quite like it, and nor have chaps who’ve seen a lot more fighting than I, out in the Boer War and so on. We have to obey orders of course, and accept the consequences, but – well—’

He saw her face, carefully adjusted his own, smiled at her quickly. ‘Oh, don’t take any notice of me, Celia. I’m just tired. A few days’ leave and I’ll be right as rain. And taking a much more optimistic view of it all.’

‘Good,’ she said quickly, picking up on his mood, his fear. ‘Now how about a brandy?’

‘A brandy would be fine. God, he keeps a good cellar doesn’t he, old Oliver.’

‘He does indeed. It’s mostly empty, but Brunson has been conserving what’s left.’ She got up; as she walked past him, he put out his hand, and caught hers.

‘You’re such a wonderful girl, Celia. Oliver’s a lucky chap.’

‘Oh, Jack,’ she said, telling herself that to withdraw her hand would be unkind, an unnecessary rejection when he was so unusually downhearted, ‘you’re always saying that.’

‘And always meaning it,’ he said, and lifted her hand and kissed it. First the back, and then, turning it over, he kissed the palm, slowly and very tenderly.

She stood there, looking down at his head, his golden head, so like Oliver’s and felt desire shoot through her so strongly that she was startled; he met her eyes, recognised the desire, pulled her down and kissed her hard. On the mouth. Just for a second she gave in; felt her own mouth, soft, hungry, yearning for him. It had been so long, she missed Oliver so much and Jack was so – so beautiful. Just for a second, she let her mind carry her forward, let it visualise what she knew she wanted, watched herself lying with him, softening to him, taking him to herself. But then, reality returned; reality, and loving Oliver, keeping faith. She stiffened, stood up, and pulled her hand away.

‘Jack. No. Don’t. Please I’m hugely flattered but—’

He smiled at her: a rueful smile.

‘I know. But we mustn’t. Mustn’t betray Oliver. Of course not. Not a brotherly thing to do.’

‘Or a wifely one,’ she said, and bent and kissed him lightly, gently on the forehead.

‘You’d like to though, wouldn’t you?’ he said, grinning at her.

‘No, Jack, of course I—’

‘Celia, I know you would. It’s all right. I’m not about to ravish you. I probably wouldn’t think much of you if you let me.’ He grinned. ‘I’d sure as hell like it, though.’

‘And I probably would, too,’ she said, smiling back. ‘Now I’m going to get your brandy, and then I’m going to bed.’

‘With me?’

‘No Jack, not with you.’

But it was safe, the danger had passed; this was the old Jack, the teasing, flirting Jack, the young brother. Her husband’s brother, with whom anything other then friendship would be the ultimate disloyalty.

The next night, anxious that their relationship should return to its old ease and friendship, she insisted he took her out; they went to the Savoy, and afterwards to a rather seedy nightclub he knew, where they danced. He was a wonderful dancer, much better than Oliver; they stayed for hours.

‘I could fall in love with you so easily,’ he said into her ear, as they stood, only halfmoving on the tiny floor.

‘I don’t think you could,’ she said, laughing up at him, ‘not if you really knew me. I’m terribly bossy. I drive Oliver mad.’

‘He needs bossing about,’ said Jack, ‘he’s a bit of an old woman.’

‘Of course he isn’t,’ she said.

‘Of course he is. And unless you admit it, I shall storm your room tonight and ravish you mercilessly.’

She laughed, said that her room had a very strong key, and refused to admit it – of course. But she never forgot that moment; or Jack’s words. And there were many times over the years which followed when they came back to her.

As well as looking after the horses, with only one girl groom whom she constantly denounced as useless and bone-idle, despite the fact she worked an eighteen-hour day, Lady Beckenham was working extremely hard in her convalescent home.

‘I have become,’ she announced to anyone who would listen, eyes gleaming with amusement, ‘a cook general.’

This was a slight exaggeration; but she did do a fair amount of cooking for the men, her own cook having departed for the munitions factory in Beaconsfield, along with several of the other domestic staff. The kitchen maid who was actually older than cook, had stayed on, and she did her best, but she needed a great deal of direction and it was easier, Lady Beckenham said, simply to put on a pinafore and do a lot of the work herself. She even did some cleaning.

‘I quite like it as a matter of fact,’ she said to Celia, who stood incredulously watching her one day. ‘It’s rather satisfying. At least it’s under your control. Although I do sometimes wish I’d done something a bit more adventurous. My friend, Bunty Hadleigh, you remember her?’

Celia did: the terrifying Duchess of Dorset, almost six feet tall with a booming voice, and a courage on the hunting field which even men envied.

‘Well, she’s gone out to drive an ambulance at the front. Got a letter from her this morning. It sounds terrific. She’s living in a cellar with another woman, actually drives men from the front line to the field station. Marvellous. Says I wouldn’t believe what she’s seen. Tough though; apparently they have to sleep in their clothes, can’t wash much and sometimes have to scrape the lice off themselves with a blunt knife. I can tell you I was very tempted to go out and join her. God, just look at that girl,’ she added, pointing out a particularly pretty young nurse, who was patiently feeding a man without arms. ‘Thank God Beckenham isn’t here. It would be a complete nightmare.’

Lord Beckenham was enormously enjoying his war: Employed at the War Office in the recruitment department, he felt more useful and happier than he had for many years. He was a little sobered by the endless stream of young men – growing younger now, and shorter too, as the height regulations dropped – eager to go out and show the hun what they were made of, with no idea of what they were facing. But he would sit talking to them as they filled in forms, or he filled forms in for them. He told them how much he envied them, what a privilege and a thrill it was to be on the battlefield, defending their country, and they listened, their eyes shining, their courage bolstered, his words still ringing in their ears as they marched out to the troopships taking them to what was an almost certain death.

Sylvia had been struggling since Ted went. The money she got was not nearly adequate, the rent had increased, food was in scarce supply, and she spent much of her life in queues. For a while she sent Marjorie and Frank, but they would come home after waiting for two hours, and tell her there was nothing left. She knew that if she had been there herself, she could have argued and almost certainly secured something, even if it was not what she had actually been queuing for. So there was nothing for it but return to the queuing herself. She got no letters from Ted personally, because he couldn’t write them, but, regular as clockwork, would come one of the printed cards, bearing various carefully ticked messages, such as ‘I am quite well’, ‘I have not been wounded’, ‘I have received your letter.’ And then the painfully printed TED and several crosses.

So far, it seemed, Ted had been right; he was lucky. Not a scratch. Her new worry was Billy, who was dead set on enlisting himself. He was only seventeen and a half, but the need for men was so urgent now that ages were not always checked. Bill was a big boy, he could easily be taken for sixteen. Sylvia had forbidden it of course, but she might as well have saved her breath; he wanted only to get out to France and join his father.

Very occasionally Sylvia would go and see Barty; Celia and LM would take her down for a weekend in their car and she would stay with LM, who she found less daunting than the others, in the Dovecot. She was terribly impressed by Barty; she was nine now and seemed so grown-up, with such a beautiful speaking voice and such good manners. She was pretty too, well not exactly pretty, not like the twins, but nice-looking, rather unusual, with her big eyes and her thick mane of curling hair. She was always delighted to see her mother, and when Sylvia was there, never left her side, dragging her from place to place to meet her friends among the men and the nursing staff, or to play with little Jay and even the twins. In the school holidays they would talk to Giles, who was, she told her mother, her special friend among the Lyttons.

‘He’s so nice to me,’ she said simply, ‘He doesn’t think I’m different.’

Sylvia asked anxiously if the others were nice to her, and Barty said yes they were, really, these days, and added that she much preferred Ashingham to London.

‘We have lessons in the old schoolroom with Aunt Celia’s old governess, Miss Adams. She’s very nice, but she’s quite old and she has a bad limp. One of her legs is a lot shorter than the other, and she can’t really cope with the twins, but she sends them off with Nanny after the middle of the morning, and then she and I have really nice lessons; she likes history best and English, and so do I. We’re doing a book together about the ancient Greek and Roman legends, I’ll show it to you, if you like.’

Sylvia said she didn’t think she’d be able to understand much of it, but she admired it anyway, awed by Barty’s beautiful handwriting, by her obvious skill with words; she often wondered what on earth would have happened to her if she had stayed at Line Street, and had to go to the Elementary. Although, of course, Frank had done well there; not so well at the Secondary, but then what school was any good these days with half the teachers gone to the war? She didn’t tell Barty about Billy’s military ambitions, knowng they would worry her, but she did reveal one night to Barty and LM, as they sat in the small circular drawing-room after supper, that she was having terrible trouble making ends meet.

‘Well, why don’t you get a job?’ said LM, ‘in a factory. You’d enjoy it, it’s good money and they’re crying out for people.’

Sylvia said she couldn’t possibly do that, Ted wouldn’t like it, and LM said what Ted’s eyes didn’t see, his heart surely wouldn’t grieve over. ‘Besides, you would be doing your bit for your country, especially if you worked in a munitions factory. Wouldn’t that be a good feeling? And you’d make friends too, and don’t you think you’d worry less, with something other than your own thoughts for company?’