The Storms of War (5 page)

Behind her, the lights of Stoneythorpe Hall glittered through the darkness. Her parents would be moving about inside, talking over the evening as her mother poured her father a glass of brandy. Rudolf would be saying that it would come to nothing, as he always did. She walked on.

The garden looked like a different thing at night, cool and angry, the magnolias and roses showing spots of colour through the gloom, the grass shimmering with rain. There was something magical about it. By day, it was a neatly trimmed piece of grass, edged with her mother’s prize flowers – hydrangeas, rhododendrons, camellias. At night, it erupted into disorder. The flowers grew greater and stranger, the trees bent and strained towards the moon, the shot light of the stars picked out cruel veins of colour on the petals. If you stayed there too long, Celia imagined, it would capture you and turn you into something. At night, the rockery where she sat sedately watching Michael play cricket became a stage where goblins might dance when no one was looking. The fairies hid from her, peeking through the trees, their eyes sparkling like beads. The flowers bent to stare at her, the roses clattered up to the sun and laughed. The insects crawled out from under their stones and grew large. She crept around, quietly.
Even though she knew she was too old, she hoped to catch an unsuspecting fairy. If she caught one, it would grant her wish. For things never to change.

‘Well, hello there.’

She looked up at Jonathan’s face in the darkness. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Taking a little air. Like you, I imagine.’

‘Don’t you get air in America?’ She could not help being rude to him. The little smile he wore was infuriating.

‘Oh, plenty. But I wanted to try some English air. Perhaps you could guide me as to where it might be best?’ The leaves on the trees behind them played in the breeze. ‘Or the stars? They look different here somehow. I am sure you know a lot about the stars.’

‘Why don’t you look somewhere else? Haven’t you seen enough of our family already?’ He had to move first. If she went towards her dell, he would know all about it. If she walked away, he might pull aside the tree and see it for himself.

‘Oh, that’s forgotten. These things happen. Sure he’ll come back for as fine a girl as your sister.’

‘I wish they wouldn’t let him in.’

‘They want your sister to make a good marriage, I can see that. He’s a man of great status.’

‘Still, he expects Papa to give him thousands. I’ve heard the discussions.’

‘I think that’s the way it works.’

‘I wish …’ She could not say it.

Jonathan’s cigarette burned in the darkness. ‘It’s not easy being the youngest, is it? Everyone growing up around you.’

‘I like being the youngest. I just wish they weren’t always so eager to please Sir Hugh.’

‘People are nice to you in life if you are rich.’

‘But he is horrid to everyone.’

‘A girl like your sister needs a rich husband.’

Celia felt the grass dampening her feet through her shoes. ‘I wish Michael wouldn’t talk about fighting. Does he talk like this at college?’

‘Not really. No more than the rest of them. He’s doing it more now. Maybe they all are. I suppose you’re out here to think. I hear you’re a great reader?’

She knew he was trying to change the subject. She wouldn’t answer.

‘I’m fond of books myself.’ He came a little closer. ‘When I was your age, I was always reading. My father said no to novels and poetry. He allowed only biographies and serious works of history.’ His ring gleamed as he waved his hand.

She shrugged her shoulders. Her parents let her read what she liked. ‘At least it keeps her quiet,’ Verena said.

‘You are named after a very wise heroine, you know. You should use your full name sometimes, don’t you think? Cordelia is very pretty.’

‘It’s too long.’ She waited for him to describe the play. That was the most wearisome thing about her name: that people would always keep telling her the story of ‘King Lear’.
Noble Cordelia,
they would say,
standing by her principles. Well, I’m not like her,
she wanted to cry.
I don’t even know who I am yet. My father simply chose the name because he no longer wished to be German.

Go on,
she willed Jonathan Corrigan.
Tell me about Goneril and Regan.

He did not. ‘Michael is always talking about you at college, you know. He’s very fond of you.’

She started and blushed a little at the thought of those fine young men who took boats on the river discussing her.

‘I don’t have a kid sister,’ he continued. ‘I always wanted one. It’s just me and my dad in my big old house. I’m the youngest, like you. My brother and sister are miles away. I envy you de Witts, always together. Almost the first thing Michael said when I met him was how close he was to his family.’

She nodded. She wasn’t going to tell him that she dreamt of there just being Michael, Tom and her, without Emmeline, or Arthur, who was even worse than Emmeline.

‘Bet you miss your big brother,’ he said, as if reading her mind.

‘Arthur? Yes.’
No. Not at all.
‘He’s in Paris.’ At least Emmeline
was just rude with words. Even at the farewell dinner they’d had for Arthur in February, he’d teased her and pulled her hair. She’d turned on him, said, ‘You won’t see me for a long time. Why can’t you just be nice to me?’ He’d only laughed.

‘You should go and visit him. Wouldn’t you like Paris?’

‘You should go and talk to Emmeline,’ she said. She knew she was being rude.

He shrugged and winked. ‘Your sister’s not my style of broad. Too showy.’

She knew that he wanted her to say,
What is your type of girl?
‘Arthur and Emmeline got all the looks.’ She walked on, but he followed her. His cigarette had gone out. He took out some matches, relit it. The end flamed and subsided.

‘Such a beautiful place you have here. So much green, it’s almost indecent. You know, every time I look out of my window, it’s as if time has stopped. The whole place is like it must have been in Tudor times. When I arrived in London, I couldn’t believe it. All those houses crammed together. All the rooms are so tiny. It’s one big museum, this country.’

She stepped aside to avoid a snail crawling along the grass, its white trail glittering in the moonlight. ‘Papa says America isn’t up to much. He says it’s just full of advertisements.’

‘Perhaps you should come see for yourself.’

She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t like it.’

‘I’d show you around.’ He gave her a smile, and looked so sure of himself that she felt even more annoyed. ‘Americans,’ her father had tutted. ‘They are coming to take over.’ One of his friends had already received offers for his factory. ‘They think they can buy everything with their dollars.’

She wanted to walk in the garden alone. She wanted to find Tom, even though Verena would never allow it. ‘I’ve much better places to go than America.’

He drew on his cigarette again, blew out the smoke. ‘Your brother told me that you had spirit.’ He said something so quietly she barely caught it –
Little German fräulein! –
then, in a moment that she could hardly comprehend, he swooped down. She had no
idea what was happening, and her body was not her own – and he was kissing her. She felt herself stiffen and then grow loose. He drew away and she stared at him.

‘I wasn’t sure I would have another chance,’ he said. ‘I leave early tomorrow. With everything that is blowing up in Europe, my uncle would expect me back in New York. I should go before he summons me.’

‘What are you doing?’ she said, brushing off his words. No one had kissed her before. She had heard some of the girls at school say that you should never let a man near you, and if you did, you would be cast out. She tried to say it, stammered and blushed. ‘It’s wrong.’

His face changed in the darkness. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t think. Please, Celia. Forgive me.’

The stars were hanging too low, scraping the trees. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Celia, I’m sorry. I don’t know – I didn’t mean it. It was just that … you looked so pretty in the light. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘You want to ask me not to tell my parents, don’t you?’

‘I’m sorry, Celia, I shouldn’t have. May I walk with you back to the house?’

She shook her head. ‘I want to stay here.’

‘On your own? You sure it’s safe?’

She stared at him, saw him blush through the gloom. ‘Sorry.’ He hesitated for a moment, and then turned to walk up the hill. ‘Sleep well, Celia.’ He looked at her; she thought he was hoping she would say something. She did not, and he turned away.

She watched him saunter towards the house. As soon as she knew he was far enough, she ducked under the tree and huddled on to her stone. But it was not as it had always been before. The leaves above her mocked, the stone below her was shifting. The blackness did not feel comforting.
How could this have happened?
she wanted to say. How could Michael’s friend have seized her and kissed her like this when she didn’t even like him? Everything had been sent the wrong way: the arguing, Michael being so strange, now this kissing in the garden. Last year, she had felt she was in
a sort of sleepwalk, that the small things around her were nothing compared to the greatness of what she expected to happen. Now, things were beginning – and she wanted them to stop.

A loud shriek from a fox at the end of the garden made her start, and her head turned. It was no use. She stood, bending to avoid the tree, and made her way back into the garden. Outside her dell, she waited for a moment and looked up towards her room. All at once, it was terrifying. The dark trees were looming, the grass was long and threatening and there were strange shadows in the clouds. She was convinced there was someone in the trees. Someone watching her. She picked up her skirts and ran towards the house, praying that she was leaving the dark shadows and the monsters behind her. Her mind careened with images. Jonathan putting his hand out for her, the smoke winding up into the night. She looked towards Stoneythorpe, hoping it would open its arms and let her in, like she was a little girl. But it stayed dark, unseeing, even though she was waving, running towards it, holding up her arms.

‘I shall go to London tomorrow to discuss my trip to the Berlin factories,’ Rudolf was saying as Celia walked into the breakfast room. No one else was there but her mother. Celia sent a prayer of thanks and seated herself at the table. ‘I have been meaning to visit for some time, and now, with these concerning events, matters seem more pressing. Mr Lewis tells me the London Stock Exchange continues closed. We need to plan business for when the Bank re-opens on Tuesday.’

‘My dear, I hardly think it the time,’ murmured Verena. Celia reached for a piece of toast.

‘I stand by what I said last night. This assassination will lead to nothing. But still, if it does, surely now is the time for me to travel, before anything that might occur. As I was already going to meet Lord Smith about our contract, it seems an opportune time to investigate a visit to Berlin.’

Verena fingered her teacup. ‘You must wait until after the party, at least.’

‘Of course, my dear. But the party is in two days. Then I shall go to Germany. We must look at every situation. If there is to be a conflict, we may be of use. Armies need feeding, after all – and what could be more ideal than canned meat?’

‘Arthur should come home,’ Verena said. ‘He should come home tomorrow. I shall write to him. France might be dangerous.’

‘Could I come with you to Germany, Papa?’ asked Celia. Away from Jonathan and Emmeline and all of them.

‘Of course not. What an idea.’

‘We didn’t see Hilde and Johann this year.’

‘Next year. Anyway, you’re needed here. You should help your mother.’ Celia kicked the table, hard. Rudolf turned to Verena.
‘My dear, I shall discuss it with the managers. But I feel it is imperative that I go.’

‘Michael could go in your place, dear. I am sure he could be an ambassador for you.’

Rudolf applied himself to his egg. ‘Perhaps. But at present I am in charge and it is my responsibility. Michael has his studies. I shall go.’ He put his hand on the table. It was his signal: the conversation was at an end. Celia watched her mother’s fingers flurry at the side of her plate.

‘Is Emmeline still asleep, Mama?’

‘Poor girl is exhausted after last night,’ said Verena.

‘Ah, love is tiring to the young,’ said Rudolf. ‘He will return today with apologies for all of us and devotion for my beautiful daughter.’

Verena raised an eyebrow. ‘He was very unhappy in his words last night, husband.’

‘I am sure he is sorry. He knows we have nothing to do with the Kaiser. And he loves Emmeline and wishes to marry her. You have often said that the British aristocracy are very eccentric. What about your own departed cousin who used to roll in the mud at the lake every morning?’

‘He did, that is true. I hope you are correct, husband. It was an ugly scene.’

‘All forgotten. I shall speak to him about it, offer something to make amends.’

‘Where are Michael and Jonathan?’ asked Celia.

‘Still in bed too, I think.’

‘You are my little early riser,’ said Rudolf.

‘Jonathan has not gone?’ she asked, unable to help herself.

Verena shook her head. ‘Why would he be gone?’

She ducked to hide the blush. ‘I thought I heard him say it, that’s all.’

Verena passed the toast to her husband. ‘No, no, Celia. He remains. After all, we are to show him a proper English village party. He has volunteered to give out the prizes.’ She gazed at Celia. ‘It would be terrible if he had gone. Do not say such things.’
Her eyes were glassy. Celia kicked herself inwardly for touching her mother’s nerves, letting the butterfly of uncertainty flutter around her heart. She hated it when her mother asked her begging questions, more frequent recently.
What did I do wrong? Mother told me I would be a great hostess.

‘The first encounter between the village and an American,’ said Rudolf. ‘It might be almost as stimulating as their first meeting with a German.’

Verena put her hand over Rudolf’s. ‘How lucky they are.’

‘May I leave the table?’ Verena nodded and Celia hopped down. If she went upstairs, she might encounter Jonathan coming to breakfast. She turned around and headed down the hallway. Her heart was full of confusion and fear. Everything from the night before was mixed up – the argument with Sir Hugh, the fight, the darkness, Jonathan reaching out for her and the movement of his mouth on hers.

I leave early tomorrow,
he’d said. That morning she’d been eager to dress herself before Miss Wilton arrived and began pushing and pulling at her, trying to force her waist into looking like that of a proper young lady, as she said every time. She didn’t want her coming close, as if what had happened last night was still there, somewhere on her skin. She tugged her hair into a bun, pulled on her boots and was just opening the door when Miss Wilton entered, as grey-faced and cross-looking as ever. Celia thought she looked like one of those long pointed shells you picked up on the beach, spiky. On Celia’s thirteenth birthday, Verena had told her that Miss Wilton would be dressing her and doing her hair every morning, and sometimes in the evening if there was an event.

‘Surely she has enough to do with you and Emmeline?’ Celia ventured. Verena didn’t reply and so she tried again. ‘I think she’d prefer to be just your maid.’

‘You’re growing up, Celia,’ said her mother, absently. Ever since then, Miss Wilton had wrestled with Celia’s tangled hair, tugged her skewed buttons and hems as Celia watched the clock, desperate for her to depart.

‘I’m already dressed, thank you,’ she said this time, hurriedly.

Miss Wilton raised an eyebrow. ‘So I see.’

‘I prefer to dress myself. You can go back to fixing Mama’s gown for the party or whatever you were doing.’

Miss Wilton nodded her small head. ‘Don’t mind if I do return. I have six gowns to alter.’

‘I’ll wait here.’ Miss Wilton had brushed past her, the musty smell of her black dress filling Celia’s nostrils. She had remained upstairs in her room until she was sure Jonathan must have gone and it was safe to come down, and still she had been first to breakfast. Surely he would have said farewell to her parents if he had left, so he must
still be in the house.
She hurried off towards the garden. He wouldn’t hunt her out there a second time.

She rushed past the women from the village scrubbing at the windows and the floor, supervised by Jennie, and pushed open the glass doors into the garden. Thompson and Smithson had already been there, marking out where they would put the tables and the sections for children’s play. Mr Vine was scaling it out by paces, his head bent in concentration. She ran down the lawn, turned and gazed at the house, forcing herself not to look at Jonathan’s window. She could just see her mother and father in the breakfast room. Rudolf rose, patted Verena’s shoulder and left the room. Her mother looked down again – presumably at her lists.

Celia ambled through the garden, past the markings for the placements for the party, thinking vaguely of how Rudolf might let her hand out a few prizes this year, or even oversee the cricket match.

And then her heart jolted. Jonathan had rushed out and was running, on the far side of the lawn, heading to the house. He had been in her spot, behind the hedge.

She hurried down, cut through the opening in the hedge. Had he been waiting there for her? ‘Morning, Celia.’ Michael was standing by the pond. He gestured to his cigarette. ‘Don’t tell Mama.’ His hands were always worse in the summer; the sun made the bitten flesh flame even redder.

‘Was that Jonathan?’ She heard his voice in her head.
Well, hello there.

Michael did not reply, turned his gaze back to the dried-up fountain.

‘When did you start smoking?’

He kicked at a leaf on the ground, avoiding her eyes. ‘All the chaps do at college.’

‘Can I try?’ She wished she could put her hand in his as she had done when she was a child. He used to help her play with her dolls. They had once set up a whole hospital in his room at Hampstead.

‘Of course not.’

‘I’ll tell Mama.’

He glanced up at her and smiled, crinkling his eyes and looking more handsome than ever. ‘Don’t try it.’

‘Mama would forgive you anything.’ Michael was everyone’s favourite now, that she knew.
My son attends Magdalene College. He has a scholarship,
Rudolf boasted to those men in business who looked down on him for not having a degree. Celia watched her parents’ eyes follow Michael out of rooms when they did not do the same for her any more, or Emmeline or Arthur. She had vowed that if she had children, she would not have a favourite. But, then, she knew, if she had four children like them, she would like Michael best. He was the kindest and most interesting person she’d ever met. She felt so fortunate to be his sister – and she hated Cambridge for taking him away.

She watched the grey mist curve up into the sky. ‘Does it feel nice to smoke?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘You’re sad.’

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘where the word “toady” comes from? You would think it’s because a man has to suck up, like a toad. But it’s not that. It comes from “toad eater”, a job. Professor Punter told us. In the seventeenth century, the pedlars who toured the country used toad eaters to sell their wares. When the pedlar had his crowd assembled, the man would eat a toad and then fall to the
floor, quivering with poison. The quack would cure him with his potion – and sell bottles to the village. An advertisement. Imagine that. Paid to eat poison every day. To be reviled by everyone.’ He scratched at his hand, reached up under the cuff to rub at the parts of it hidden by his sleeve.

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Dying and reviving every day.’ He puffed again. ‘Jonathan’s going to London. We’ve just had an argument.’

‘For how long?’ She hoped there was no expression showing on her face.

He shrugged. ‘Don’t know when he’s coming back.’ He bit savagely at his thumbnail.

‘He’s leaving now?’

‘So he says.’

‘You could stop him, couldn’t you?’ She said it reluctantly, for the last thing she wanted was Jonathan hanging around. But Michael’s face was so sad, she could not help it. ‘Go and say you are sorry.’

‘We argued about the war. I can’t take back what I said. It’s not just about German aggression.’

‘Oh well. Maybe he was going anyway.’

‘Last night was awful too. I don’t regret what I said, not at all, but I wish I hadn’t done it like that. I wish I’d taken Sir Hugh out, spoken to him like a man.’ He blew out more smoke. ‘Jonathan’s a great chap at college, Ceels. Everyone thinks him splendid. I was pretty taken aback when he picked me out as a friend. He could choose anyone.’ He held one hand with the other, and she knew he was trying to stop himself pulling at his fingernail.

‘So could you!’ She thought of the pair of them, wandering out on to the college lawn, books under their arms, joining in with games of croquet. The sun broke out over their heads and glittered on their hands.

He shook his head. ‘You’re kind to me, Ceels. Now I think he’s changed his mind. Something about us he doesn’t like.’

No,
she wanted to say, gripping his hand.
He said it was about Europe. And then he kissed me. Why did he do that?

‘Let’s walk a while,’ Michael said. He offered his arm, and she took it as if she was a real lady.

‘I was glad you shouted at Sir Hugh, though,’ she said. ‘He’s awful.’

She expected him to laugh, but he did not. ‘Emmeline’s very unhappy.’

‘It was his fault. He wanted someone to shout at him.’

‘Maybe.’

He fell silent again. They walked on. A year ago, he had allowed her to visit him in Cambridge, staying with a friend of Verena’s who lived near the station. Celia had thought she had never been happier. He took her for tea and to the covered market in the city. There was a shop there selling fine hats in which sewing women sat in the window, just as they had done hundreds of years ago. She’d admired the young ladies walking to lectures with armfuls of books; promised herself that she would one day do the same.

‘How many children do you think we will get this year?’

‘Who knows?’

‘I think more than ever. Forty, fifty?’

He shrugged and they walked on. She wanted to go back to the house, forget she had ever seen him.

‘You know there won’t be a war,’ she said. ‘It’s all talk.’

‘More’s the shame.’

‘Peace is better.’

‘What is the use of a man if he cannot defend his country, does not fight?’

She smiled at him but he did not look up. His face was still furious.

‘Would you play going to Paris with me?’ Last summer, it had been her favourite game with Michael. They’d both pretended to be writers living in Paris, walking along, discussing the latest theories. Exactly the opposite of what they knew Arthur would be doing. Sometimes they would discuss the founding of the world.

‘No. I don’t much like that game any more.’

‘Desert explorers, then.’ That had used to be his favourite.

‘We are too old for that.’ He turned to the house. ‘I’m going in now. I shall see you later, Celia.’

Please,
she wanted to cry out after him.
Please come back.

She stood for a while, watching him.
Will I be less lonely as a grown-up?
she wondered. But who could tell her? She brushed the grass off her skirts and began to follow him back to the house. Just at the brink, he cut off to the side, as if to walk around to the front. She watched him go, wishing she could follow. He didn’t want her with him, and anyway, she was not allowed around the front of the house without permission, not until she was eighteen, Rudolf had said.

‘So you were right, young lady,’ said Verena, as she walked into the front room. ‘Jonathan has gone. He said goodbye just now; apparently his uncle requires him. How did you know?’

Celia blushed. ‘It was a lucky guess, Mama.’

Verena’s face was pained. ‘But why would he leave? We were planning a party.’ Celia could not bear to look at the hurt etched on her face. She had been so proud that Michael had finally brought home a friend.