The Little Shadows (61 page)

One night they came upon a line of ambulance carriages along the street. Clover asked what they were waiting for, and Felix pointed up the street to St. Pancras station, far distant. ‘Wounded soldiers returning from France,’ he said. ‘Brought in at night, so the public does not panic at their numbers.’

It took twenty minutes to walk down the line. The wounded were brought out on stretchers, and a few walking, accompanied by nursing sisters and orderlies. Their faces were the colour of the stones; the darkness kept Clover from seeing their eyes. She saw them in dreams, though, after that night.

What’s One to Do?

As he had promised, one November afternoon Dr. Graham came to see how Mama progressed, driving his open car. Beside him sat Lewis Ridgeway, so muffled up against the dust and chill that Aurora could not make out his expression.

The doctor asked after Mama; Chum collared Ridgeway and took him into his study for a chat. Aurora was glad not to have to enter into polite conversation. She and the doctor went to the sitting room, where Mama was engaged in building block towers with Avery.

Mabel came out of the kitchen, gave Dr. Graham a quick embrace, and offered tea; the doctor sat at once to help with the blocks, telling Aurora that she might go about her business. So Aurora slipped her coat on and went out, telling Aunt Elsie that a walk to the post office would do her good. Not—she told herself—avoiding Mr. Ridgeway.

The air outside had a clean, cold bite. Smoke rose in spirals from burning leaves as the townspeople cleared their gardens for the winter.
Everything smelled of winter, making Aurora long for snow. It was just past four o’clock, time to walk out and back before dark.

But she had not gone past the end of the drive before she was hailed, and turned to see Ridgeway striding after her, his long overcoat slashing through the air.

‘May I walk with you?’ he asked, wanting permission, it seemed, after their strange conversation at the schoolhouse. She looked at him. His narrow face did not show emotion easily, she thought; or perhaps he had no easy emotions.

‘If you wish,’ she said, laughing a little at her own cowardice.

He made no attempt to take her arm but suited his step to hers, and they progressed along the empty road.

‘No snow as yet,’ she said, after a silence of a few minutes.

‘No.’ He turned his head at her gambit. ‘You are not usually a conventional conversationalist, Mrs. Mayhew, and I like that.’

‘If you wish, I will keep Silence, like in the library.’

‘I hope not. But—here, have you tried the path through the copse? It is smooth and clear.’

They veered to the left and entered a little wood that stretched out from the edge of town, poplars and scrub willows. Most of the leaves had fallen, soft-cracking underfoot; an early moon showed through bare branches. She waited for him to speak, glancing at his profile as they walked. He had a defined head: strong forehead and nose, sharp jaw and chin. She found it impossible to tell where his intellect left off and his human-ness began.

‘Your husband left you?’ he asked. Abrupt, in that quiet grey place.

‘Yes.’

‘My fiancée left me,’ he said.

There was a pause. ‘Yes, I’d heard that,’ she finally said.

‘What’s one to do?’

Not an idle phrase, she thought, but a real question. He sounded still desolate.

‘I’m sure your case is quite different,’ she said, seeking to comfort him. ‘Mine had gone bust, you know, and considered my mother and sisters
excess baggage. I did not know about Avery yet, so he did not desert his child—but I have no way of finding him, nor any intention of doing so.’

A relief to be able to tell all this without emotion. She had not told Uncle Chum the full story. ‘My husband was dishonest in every way,’ she said. ‘Not an honourable or admirable person. But I will find something good to remember about him, to tell my son.’

‘My—Miss Parker was honest enough,’ Ridgeway said. ‘Quite brutally so.’

‘I am sorry,’ Aurora said.

He laughed, lessening the intensity of the exchange. ‘Eloquent, in fact! But perhaps it was for the best,’ he said.

And that was all. Through the little wood, they emerged into the open and saw Uncle Chum’s Ford coming towards them, weaving its way tenderly along the ruts, to save her the walk.

‘Kind of him, but you know he very much likes a reason for an outing,’ she said. ‘Good night, Mr. Ridgeway.’ She stopped herself from saying
thank you
.

He said it instead. ‘Thank you. I will see you—oh, soon, I expect.’

The Ford stitched up the road to the post office. While Chum filled her in on the smallest details of Lewis Ridgeway’s antecedents and credentials, she thought about his face, so distinct in the moonlight.

Gas

The long silence was explained in letters brought for Clover and Madame by a London Territorial home on leave: Victor had been gassed at Loos. They were in his own handwriting, which Madame took as a sign. She was phlegmatic. Her astrologer had warned of catastrophe averted.

I am sorry to have kept it from you, but it was our own gas, blown back over the lines. It’s a shame you should be worried—I was convinced that it would be easier for you both if I could reassure you that I am perfectly well again, rather than sending one of the tick-cards. The headache was the worst of it, I was never as badly off as many. Their coughing was the continuo at the hospital, their yellowy-green faces floated upside down, beseeching, heads hanging off stretchers to get some relief.

The doctors bled me! I was under the misapprehension that bleeding was a medieval sort of treatment. They kept us warm with good blankets and hot-water bottles, a nice change from the trenches, and after a course of saltwater vomiting, I’m pronounced fit for light duty again. I’ll work at the hospital this month, and be back at the Front as soon as winking. If I’d been sent to hospital in England, I’d have had some sick leave. Only I can’t wish for leave when things are so desperate here. Perhaps you have heard some of it.

The Prince of Wales came to visit the Guards, tell my mother, I forgot to put it in her letter. They would not allow him near the Front, too dangerous, but he ordered his car to stop near Loos and while he was trying to get closer to the trenches to see the men, his car and driver were blown to bits.

Unable to bear leaving him in ignorance any longer, Clover wrote to Victor by return, telling him that he was to be a father. Within the week she received the warmest of letters in return, promising faithfully that he would return safe, and wishing her to take every care, as he would too, so that they could be the most fortunate and loving parents since the world was made. It was a letter in Victor’s old manner, his old poetic voice. She remembered him leaning over the edge of the Parthenon roof in Helena, shouting into the snow,
‘Children! This is your mother!
’

Clover wrote immediately to Aurora and Mama (asking Aurora to gauge whether Mama would find the news distressing) and to Bella. She requested their best advice—but felt she needed none. She had
passed the uncomfortable sickish part, and was feeling stronger than ever in her life.

9, 10, 11

Joyful from the Soubrettes was at the Pantages in Spokane, posing in scanty clothes as a magician’s assistant. In a happy reunion, she and Bella told all their sisters’ tales, including Mama’s stroke and Clover’s defection to England. East had tried to find Mayhew when they hit Spokane, but apparently he had not stayed in the city more than a month before he’d lit out for parts south with a dancer called Estella, or Elvira, and even in the small pond of vaudeville, nobody had heard of him since. Good riddance, Bella told Joyful.

The Soubrettes were scattered, Mercy in Australia with a theatre company, and Tempy out at the farm, where she had married a fellow who didn’t mind keeping Patience. Joyful whooped when she heard of Aurora’s baby—and now Clover’s, to come! After three or four glasses of sloe gin, Bella confided that she was quite afraid of being caught that way herself, especially now Clover was expecting too, and Joyful taught her about counting days.

‘Have you had your womanly time since?’

Bella nodded, not shy with Joyful. ‘Last week.’

Joyful nodded too. ‘You’re likely good, then. You take from then, from the first day, and count nine. Then you stay away from men—well, or give them only a French—for
ten
days, then you’re mostly good for
eleven
days. Doesn’t always work, but you can find a woman to help you. Mercy has special tea if you get a scare, if your visitor don’t come.’

Nine, ten, eleven
. She could do that. Bella started to mark off the days, using a carmine stick to smudge the day she started and counting nine, ten and eleven from there each month. She crossed her fingers that Pantages would not come at a bad time. He did not like it when she was on her monthlies; she could pretend to be, as long as she was reasonable about it, and get away with a French job or only canoodling.

So really she was hardly bothered by him. It was all right. When he gave her an extra present she sent the money to Aurora and asked her to send half to Clover, for the baby.

A Blanket from the Fire

In late December Clover ran out of work, the pantomimes taking over every variety stage. It was time, anyway; she was already much bigger than Aurora had been with Avery, and could only do Mrs. O’Hara and Madame Scrappati, whose costumes were loose round the middle.

Felix Quirk sent tickets to his panto. Madame sang along with the words on the screen let down from the flies, ‘
Keep the home fires burning …’
Clover sat hard as stone while the cheery patriots sang. Patriotism had burned out of her when Victor was gassed.

The last month went very slowly. Madame never seemed to worry about things but held that providence or the stars or Gali would provide—indeed, just before Christmas a large bank draft came from Qu’Appelle, so they had both heat and light, with plenty over for food. Although Clover had debated going to a lying-in hospital, wounded men were flooding all the wards, and she felt so well that she delayed making any arrangement. In the end, well into January, the baby was born at Galichen’s atelier—choosing to come in the middle of the night. Clover woke in a pool of water, hit by a wave of pain so shocking that she cried out for Madame, who came with spritely haste and gentle shrieks. Not daring to take time to fetch help, she wrapped Clover up and took the mountain to Mahomet the instant the wave had passed, hurrying her out to the street and down the area steps to the atelier’s kitchen.

The little girl was born on the well-scrubbed kitchen table, Madame exclaiming and Heather Jakes doing the work. Heather was a closed-faced woman. They had often met in the atelier kitchen, or crossed on the stairs, but during the long violence of the birth pains Clover came to love her. Not a talker, but her hands were sure and strong and she held Clover’s knees, from time to time giving some
useful direction: ‘Hold off now, no pushing—a bit longer, but it won’t be more than you can stand.’ And because Heather Jakes had said so, it was not. But bad enough.

When the baby was born finally and Clover was lying still, holding the miraculous creature and not in pain any more, Galichen came to the kitchen to look her over, and the child. After close scrutiny he pronounced his satisfaction, gave permission for it to live, and dedicated it to the moon. Clover would have laughed, if she’d had the wind. His one magnified eye glared at her, and winked, and then he left.

Heather Jakes brought her a blanket warm from the fire, the kindliest thing Clover had ever felt. She was so tired. In case she died, she said to the women, ‘Her name is Harriet, Harriet Avery—tell Victor.’

Luna

Snow heaped up around the stone house to the windowsills, a succession of blizzards keeping Qu’Appelle people more or less housebound in the first months of 1916. But mild spring air sent everyone searching for companionship. By April, dinners and teas filled the calendar, and Aurora watched the social life of the little town creaking to a start again.

Mrs. Gower was the queen of Qu’Appelle society, and a determined organizer. Her son was serving as aide-de-camp in Belgium; Mrs. Gower took war-work seriously. She and Miss Frye from the high school instituted bandage-rolling (in competition with the ladies of Indian Head) at the Opera House on Saturdays, and the Avery women were summoned to the first session.
Do bring Mrs. Arthur Avery as well, and your niece
, the invitation read, in flourishing peacock ink.
And any little items you can spare for packs for our brave soldiers
. A remarkably long list of those little items was attached, from tooth powder to warm socks to candy and
cigars, if any
. As well as the worsted socks they had knitted all winter, Aunt Elsie began obediently to gather whatever Chum could be persuaded to give up.

Since they were all going, Aurora brought Avery as well, a great consolation. In the shut-in months he’d grown from baby to child—walking
on strong legs, talking when it suited him. He had acquired a thoughtful, considering air. His flaxen hair fell into curls that begged for stroking, but he shrugged away too much petting, and liked to be his own man. Aurora saw some of Mayhew’s good qualities in him, in fact: independence, enterprise, the habit of command. He was a loving boy, and very good company unless enraged.

A photograph had arrived in February: Clover holding her tiny daughter Harriet. Aurora had shown it to Mama and Avery, the explanation as incomprehensible to one as the other, it seemed; but Mama still carried the photo with her from room to room. As they walked to town Aurora tried to imagine what Harriet would be like—what elfchild Clover and Victor had combined to make.

April sun warmed the steps of the imposing brick Opera House, companion building to the high school. The Dean and Nell Barr-Smith were arriving too; Avery knew them well and greeted them with warm embraces, which set all the parish pussies vying for kisses of their own. It was a happy afternoon, doing useful work in company with the ladies of the town. Aurora enjoyed watching Mabel in her element, moving among the women to gently encourage their efforts and smooth their frictions. Tea was served: crustless sandwiches and fancy cakes on tiered plates, courtesy of Mrs. Gower. Aunt Elsie was asked to pour and accepted the privilege; under the table her built-up black boot showed, turned sideways in a dainty flop over the smaller shoe.