The Wild Dark Flowers (31 page)

His daughter came back in, carrying the newspaper, and laid it on the bed. He glimpsed the headline—“The Huns Sink the
Lusitania
” above a half-page photograph of the great liner at full steam. Beneath were photographs of passengers. He reached for the page, and stared at the faces portrayed there. Charles Frohman . . . Alfred G. Vanderbilt . . . Sir Hugh Lane.

Charlotte was looking with him, her hand on his arm. He kept the paper flat so that she would not see his hand shaking. “I met Vanderbilt once, long ago,” he murmured. “Decent fellow. Hunting man.”

“And Frohman?”

“I don’t know him.”

“And Lane . . . ?”

He sank back into the pillows, resting his head, looking up at the canopy above his head. “Did your mother hear about this before she left?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. She was in such a rush. Florence only arrived to tell me after she had left. But she said that the editions yesterday got it wrong anyway. A lot of them reported that everyone was saved. It wasn’t until late at night that the rescue boats started coming back into Queenstown. There was no news to speak of before that.”

He turned his head to look at her. “And that was not correct?” he asked.

“Was what not correct?”

“About all the passengers being saved.”

“No,” she told him. “Apparently not. Florence says there’s a notice in the Cunard windows. A thousand or more have gone. It sank in fourteen minutes. And lots of women and children, you know, on board.”

“Fourteen minutes,” he repeated. He closed his eyes.

Fourteen minutes, fourteen minutes.
And who survived, and who did not?
he thought. The pain at the base of his throat worsened slightly, pinching off his breath; it was a most uncomfortable, curious sensation, as if small sharp fingers were pinching his airway closed. He found himself coughing, while the thought still hammered insistently in his head,
Who did not? Who did not?

Charlotte stood watching him, frowning with concern. After a moment or two, she gently eased the newspaper from under his hands, and folded it, putting it on the bedside table.

“If you particularly want to know, shall I go via the Cunard offices on my way to St. Dunstan’s?” she asked.

He opened his eyes. “No, darling,” he said. “And please don’t go out this morning.”

“But . . .”

“There will be more riots over this. Don’t go.”

She hesitated, obviously struggling with her determination to help at the hospital as she had been doing so often lately, and her unwillingness to oppose him.

He felt for her hand, and gripped it tightly. “Just this once,” he said. “Stay with me for a few hours.”

“All right,” she murmured, biting her lip.

“And get me Cooper,” William murmured. “Tell him to come here at once.”

I
t was one of the prettiest little villages that Octavia had ever seen.

She stood outside the public house at seven a.m., pulling on her gloves and appreciating the cool sweetness of the air. Last night, the name
Plummington
had appeared in the darkness, a black-on-white sign on a single railway platform. After five hours of traveling in the train at a snail’s pace, she had been beginning to lose her temper. She dozed for a while, much the same as her silent companions in the hushed carriage; but as midnight approached she had felt increasingly irritated.

She had got out of her seat and walked down the corridor. Every seat was full, and, to her surprise, there were passengers even crowding the spaces between carriages. A young woman was actually on the floor, hunched up, her arms wrapped around her knees. She glanced up at Octavia, her eyes briefly ranging over Octavia’s clothes, before she looked resignedly away. She had a small child, a little boy, nestled into her side; he was partly covered over with his mother’s skirt, and fast asleep.

At the conjoining of the first-class and second-class carriages, a harassed steward almost collided with Octavia. “Are we stopping here for any appreciable amount of time?” she’d asked him.

“I’m very sorry, but I don’t know,” he replied. “There’s a delay on the line.”

She gave him a small smile. “I’m going to get off the train. Please hand me down my overnight bag.”

“Oh, but I can’t do that,” he said, flustered. “This isn’t a regular stop on the service.”

“That’s quite immaterial to me,” she told him, not unkindly. “I don’t intend to spend the night in this carriage.”

“But we’re not in Folkestone,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “My bag, if you don’t mind. I shall make it quite all right with the station master.” She turned back, and then paused. “Do you see the woman sitting on the floor ahead of us?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry about that. People is tired, and they . . .”

“Give her my seat,” Octavia told him. “She has a child to think of.”

It seemed that the station master had not anticipated anyone alighting at Plummington either. He came rushing out of his house, and stood on the platform hastily buttoning his collar when he saw Octavia. “This isn’t a regular stop on this service, madam,” he told her, his ruffled hair showing up under the single oil lamp as an unlikely halo.

“So I’ve been told,” Octavia said. The station master’s gaze ranged from her to the lavish Italian leather bag, back to her face, and then back again to the bag.

She held out her hand. “I’m Lady Cavendish,” she said. “I need to go on to Folkestone in the morning. Perhaps you might tell me where I can stay tonight? And I shall need a car tomorrow.”

He gazed at her hand, and then gave a jump as if he had been given a mild electric shock. “Oh yes,” he said, fumbling with her hand and after a few agonized moments unceremoniously dropping it. “It’s all very messed up, you see? The timetable. The trains. We run to the minute usually. But there’s troop transports, and they’ve taken to running them at night. We never had trains at night. We never know what’s stopping.” He gave her a helpless grin. “I’ve taken to sleeping in my clothes, as you see . . . just in case. It isn’t right, you know. I like to be spick-and-span. But just lately . . .”

She despaired of him. “Shall I wait outside?” she asked. “Or here?”

“Oh no,” he said. “No, no. Come into the house, your ladyship. It’s much more . . . more commodious while I find someone to . . . while I telephone someone. . . .”

Standing in the morning light now, Octavia suppressed a small smile of amusement. She had quite inadvertently thrown lovely little Plummington into disarray. A battered motor taxi had come along the road some twenty minutes later; she had been deposited at the public house just five minutes after that. In half an hour, she was in bed in the smallest room she had ever seen.

It was all rather thrilling, in its way. She had found a place to sleep, and she got herself within twenty miles of Folkestone, all without a maid, or staff, or a driver. It was a triumph, although she knew of rather a limited kind; she felt as if she had broken free. It was, she thought, very silly—perhaps even ridiculous in a grown woman—to be pleased by such trifles. She realized that she had never been on her own—truly on her own—anywhere.

Behind her, she heard the door open.

The landlady was standing uncertainly on the doorstep. “The car is coming, ma’am,” she told Octavia. “He won’t be a moment.”

“Thank you,” Octavia said. “And thank you for the tea this morning.”

“Oh, we would much rather have made you a good breakfast.”

“I don’t really have time, I’m afraid.”

“You’re going to Folkestone?”

“Yes.”

The woman stepped forward, out of the shadow of the thatched porch and into the sunshine. “You’ve got a very fine day for it,” she observed. “But it’s horrible busy now, you know, down there. Camps all over the place. Huts and what have you. There are Canadians everywhere, even just down the road here, billeted. And Belgian refugees.”

“Refugees?” Octavia echoed, surprised.

“Oh yes. They started coming here last August. Sixty-five thousand, now.”

“Sixty-five
thousand
?” Octavia said. “Oh, my goodness. But Folkestone must be overrun?” All she knew about the place was that it used to be a quiet seaside town that ran occasional ferries to the continent. “I had no idea.”

“We’re still quiet here, but only a few miles away . . . You just wouldn’t recognize it.” The woman suddenly stopped speaking. She inclined her head. “Can you hear that?” she asked.

Octavia listened. “Thunder,” she replied. “A long way off, though.”

“Not thunder. Guns. There must be a big push on.”

“Guns?” Octavia repeated. “You don’t mean artillery, surely? Not the guns in France?”

“Yes, ma’am. Quite regular. And . . . begging pardon for asking,” the woman continued, “but the driver last night said you were going to meet a hospital ship?”

“Yes. My son.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. We’ve had local boys back, and . . .” She stopped abruptly, evidently thinking it was best not to describe those who had returned. “You’ll have a terrible job finding him, I’m afraid, my lady,” she said, with soft sympathy. “It’s very difficult, with all the traffic and the troops. They stop people going to the harbor.”

“Do they?” Octavia murmured. “We shall see about that.”

They were distracted by the sound of a car coming along the road, the only vehicle in the early-morning light. She watched its approach under the line of horse chestnut trees. It drew up by her side, and a dapper-looking middle-aged man got out. “Good morning,” he said, “Anthony Smythe. Your arrival has caused quite a stir.”

“I’m terribly sorry for it.”

“Oh, no bother, no bother,” he said. He held out his hand. “Very honored.” She dipped her head by way of acknowledgement. “I warn you, it’s a brutal task trying to get into Folkestone.”

“So I hear.”

“But we shall do it,” he continued, with a broad grin. “Yes, we jolly well shall.” He picked up her overnight bag. “My pater knows his lordship in a roundabout way. Bit of a coincidence. Drafted into the admiralty last year at Whitehall, you know.”

“I see.”

“And so we . . . well, the pub here telephoned us last night . . . general opinion was you’ll need a comfortable car to take you.”

“I’m sorry they disturbed you. The regular cab would have been quite sufficient.”

“No, no . . . no trouble.” He smiled at her. “And I understand it’s to the
Princess Victoria
.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, either her or the
Marguerite
. Or with a bit of luck they’ll have had the
St. Cecelia
. She’s newer.” He saw her frown of confusion. “Ships, you know. In and out of Folkestone. Anyhow . . . we must make full steam ahead ourselves. Do make yourself comfortable.”

Octavia stopped just before she got inside. “This is rather glamorous. It isn’t a British car, is it?”

Smythe at once puffed up with pride. She could see his weakness now, his boyish adoration of anything mechanical; it reminded her painfully of Harry. He self-consciously gave the bodywork a pat. “She’s a 1913 Peerless,” he said. “I had her shipped over last year. Damnably good cars. I’ve been to America, and I saw these. . . .”

“America?” she said. “Have you?”

“I rather like Americans. Don’t you?”

She didn’t reply; she looked along the cream-and-black lines, the soft top, and the white-walled tires.

“Very much the movie star,” he admitted. “I had her shipped in the
Lusitania
, if you can believe it.”

She glanced up at him, at something peculiar in the emphasis that he had given the ship’s name.

“Wonderful boat,” he continued. “I sailed in it myself, to bring the car home. It’s because she’s the fastest, I should think. The Germans just hate that. Can’t bear it. Just simply can’t, you see?”

He had put her bag alongside him in the front. She climbed in, puzzled. The landlady gave a little wave as they pulled away. Smythe put his foot down, and glanced back at her over his shoulder. “We’ll have you there in a jiffy,” he shouted.

She tried to lean forward against the momentum. “What is it about her being the fastest, the
Lusitania
?” she asked.

But Smythe, one arm resting on the open window, had begun to whistle as the car hurtled, engine roaring, down the country lane.

*   *   *

F
olkestone was indeed overrun.

They came down out of the soft Kentish countryside and through what had once been quiet leafy roads, with large Victorian villas set back in enormous gardens, no doubt each with a view of the sea from their upper windows. They would have once been rather elite, Octavia supposed, although they were certainly under siege now.

The pavements and roads were crammed with every kind of transport, even horse-drawn carts piled high with deliveries. As they had traveled, the green of the Kentish fields was increasingly obscured by tarpaulin tents, and, closer to the town, row upon row of what seemed to her like hastily erected huts with the bare minimum of paths between them.

In the melee, Octavia at last saw the sea. Not the calm blue expanse that she had always associated with past travel, but a patchwork of boats, with warships farther out, and dirigibles dotting the sky. “Always on the lookout for those damned U-boats,” Smythe said. “The troopships and hospital ships have to be accompanied, you know. Rotten Hun. Imagine targeting something with wounded aboard, and nursing staff. Let alone women and children. If one could just get that U-boat captain in one’s sights; I should like to be the one to pull the trigger, by George, I would. Strikes me as piracy, plain and simple.”

Octavia said nothing. In truth, she was only taking in half of what the man said; she was so preoccupied about transporting Harry back to London. After a moment, Smythe slowed the car and looked back at her. “I do apologize,” he murmured. “Something of a family trait, opening the mouth and rapidly inserting the hoof. I’m sure your boy’s boat is already here, safe and sound.”

“It’s all right,” she told him.

The car had now been stopped at a road junction. “Look,” he said, “I shall go for the harbor, but I don’t know that we’ll get through. But let’s give it a try.”

But the warnings of the landlady and of Smythe had been accurate. After only another half mile, the car was snarled in a morass of both foot and road traffic; a column of Canadian troops was marching for the harbor, and the street was rapidly lined with people waving them off.

Octavia watched the Canadians responding, waving cheerfully, laughing among themselves; she looked into their painfully young faces and thought of the
Sunday Post
writing last week that there had been a great rush to colors when Canada heard about the use of gas in France. And of twenty-five thousand New Zealanders on active service; their Prime Minister had said that no sacrifice was too great “to keep the old flag flying.” She had to turn her face away from the Canadians marching so briskly into the baying artillery on the other side of the Channel.

She reached into her handbag. “I have a letter from Mr. Churchill’s office,” she told Smythe. “It might help us reach the ship.”

Smythe’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “Have you indeed!”

“I sent to the admiralty yesterday morning. He is in France at the moment, but his staff were kind enough to reply. They have sent a letter with his facsimile signature.”

“Good heavens,” Smythe said, almost to himself. “What a very resourceful lady.” He steered the car into a parking position, and got out, helping Octavia onto the pavement. “We ought to walk from here,” he said. “I know this path. It’s away from the crowds. One can reach the harbor this way.”

She went with him, but after only a few steps, Smythe stopped. “I wonder if it’s wise to show Churchill’s name,” he murmured.

“Why ever not!”

“You know what they call him now?” he said. “
The butcher of Gallipoli
. The Dardanelles campaign is a disaster, my father said. And as for the event two days ago . . .” He stopped. “That’s hush-hush, I suppose. Some say that our own Admiralty . . .” Smythe bit his lip, and changed tack. “However. I just wonder if the crews down here really might be all that impressed.”