The Wild Dark Flowers (34 page)

The US Consul has compiled a list of identified American bodies, but Mr. Gould is not among them. As it would be impossible to survive in the water for more than a few hours, and as Mr. Gould has not registered his own presence to either Cunard or the Consul, it would seem to be a logical conclusion that Mr. Gould will not be found, although searches are, of course, ongoing. It is possible that Mr. Gould is in a state of shock, or injured and unidentified as yet; I have to say that is possible, but unlikely.

I have left instruction that if his body is recovered, I am to be informed. I understand that a wire has been sent to his parents to the effect that it is likely he is among the dead.

With respect, Bretherton.

Octavia read the letter twice.

“This was very kind of you to inquire, William,” she managed, at last. “Thank you.”

Her husband said nothing for some time; he seemed to be struggling to frame his words. Then, he walked back to his seat. “Octavia,” he said, “don’t think for a moment that I don’t appreciate the tragedy of this. Simply in itself, of course . . . but for you personally.”

“I didn’t write to him,” she replied resignedly. “Only that one telegram. I want you to believe . . .” Her voice trailed away; with a great effort she began again. “I want you to believe that I tried to forget last year.” She paused, and then looked directly at William. “But it’s no use us living a life of complete pretense,” she said. “Here is the truth. I wanted to see him again.”

William’s expression did not alter much; if he was hurt, or surprised, he did not show it.

There was a prolonged silence. In Octavia’s mind, Bretherton’s words kept repeating themselves. Even now the letter felt livid in her hands. She knew how much John had feared drowning, feared a sinking ship; she kept returning to his terror.
Dear God
, she thought,
I hope it did not last long
. It tortured her to think that he might have held on for hours in the freezing water, losing his strength inch by inch.

She glanced up, and saw that William was looking steadily at her. He continued to hold her gaze. “Harry’s operation is tomorrow,” he said slowly. “A fine way to celebrate one’s twenty-first birthday.”

“Yes, indeed it is,” she murmured.

“I take it that we’ll return to Rutherford together with him afterwards?”

“Of course,” she replied. Very slowly, she folded Bretherton’s letter, and laid it aside. “But you realize that Charlotte will not be coming with us.”

“Yes, she has told me,” William said. “She has presented that to me as a fait accompli.”

“She is seventeen, William. She and Florence wish to train as VADs; they want to stay at St. Dunstan’s. What can we do? It’s important work.”

William looked at the ground, his hands clasped in his lap. Eventually, a small smile came to his face. “I began to tell her that it was impossible . . . but then, of what use are my wishes? She is a most determined young woman. I cannot deny her useful occupation, much as I cannot deny you, Octavia. You must live as you wish.”

Octavia stared at him, astounded. She could hardly believe that this was the same man who had been so severe, so reprimanding all her married life until last year. In fact, he bore little resemblance to the man who had railed at her less than a week ago. It seemed that his heart attack had shrunk his spirit. She saw, for the first time, a man frightened by his own mortality.

“When I was in Folkestone,” she said quietly, “I realized that my life had been very narrow. I think that will change. I think it must.”

“Only in Folkestone?” William asked. “You were not thinking of leaving me before that?”

A denial sprang automatically to her lips, but she stopped herself. Eventually, she said, “What John Gould was offering me . . . what I wanted from him . . . it was not only himself, William. It was the kind of life where I might be free to do as I wish, without constraint. When I got myself to Folkestone, do you realize that it was the very first time that I have traveled anywhere entirely alone? My life is too sheltered, William. I need to do more in the world.”

“To go to America . . .”

“Yes, if you like. John Gould traveled. He was a free spirit. I have led a fortunate life, but it’s not the life I would have chosen. I had such dreams, romantic dreams, of us both once. I abandoned them, I made myself into the person you required. But now . . . ”

She let out a great gasp of exasperation at her failure to tell him exactly what she meant. “William,” she said, “it’s not that I don’t feel a great affection, a great comradeship if you like, with you. We have raised three beautiful children. I daresay that they will concern us all our lives, whatever they choose to do with themselves. But, as much as I love them, I have a life. I have things that I want to achieve in Blessington. . . .”

“The work is going ahead.”

“I know that,” she agreed calmly. “But it’s not enough. The mills are making a vast amount of money. I would prefer to be a better employer. I look at Blessington and feel nothing but guilt. Elsewhere in England there are model villages, and hospitals, and schools, built by more enlightened employers than ourselves. I should like us to do something like that. There are men coming back from this war who need new employment. The blinded, the disabled . . . our own workingmen among them. We must attend to them.”

A silence grew between them. She could see that William was trying to understand her, and fighting with his own confines. At last, he sighed. “You must do what you want. Whatever it is that makes you happy.” He spread his hands. “I’ve rewritten my will in the last few days,” he told her. “I have left much more to you than previously. You are an entirely free agent.”

His pallid resignation, where once he would have automatically opposed her, broke her heart. She got up, and went to his side, and kneeled in front of him, taking his hand. “It’s nothing that we have done or not done,” she said. “The world has changed, that’s all. We can’t look back. We must look forward.”

His eyes ranged over her face. Finally, he raised her hand to his lips. “If only I could have made you happy,” he murmured. “As happy as he did.”

She gazed at him over their clasped hands. “You have made me happy,” she said. It was not exactly a lie; they had been happy once, and he had tried so hard to make it right. It was not his fault that her heart was elsewhere. She suspected that it would always be so.

William lifted his head and made a touchingly obvious attempt to lighten the mood. “There is a letter there in the bureau from David Nash, our footman.”

“Is he not in France?”

“Not quite. But before he goes he asks if he and Mary Richards might be married.”

“Good heavens!”

William smiled at her. “I don’t know why he has written to me. Observing the old order, I suppose.”

“But that is rather wonderful. Mary is a very good girl. I like her. When is the wedding?”

“Very soon, I should think.”

A sudden thought came to her. “William, let us give them a wedding in the Rutherford chapel on the estate.”

She could see that, instinctively, a denial sprang into his mind; only family were ever married in the chapel. Then, he relaxed. “If you think it wise.”

“I think it very wise,” she told him. “Let them have some joy. Let us all have some joy in this awful world.”

He sat regarding her seriously. “And ourselves?” he asked her. “We shall go on, then?”

“Of course,” she told him. “We shall go on together.”

She did not know if it were true.

But she would make it true.

There was simply no alternative.

*   *   *

A
fter a few more minutes, Octavia left William to go up to her room, but when Amelie came after her, she shooed the girl away. She closed the door behind her and leaned on it.

“John,” she whispered. “My poor love.” And she began to cry, sinking to her knees.

Only his name was left, haunting her in the silence.

A
ugust was a month of rain and sun, light chasing dark across the great parkland. At the beginning of the month, a deluge soaked the grass, scattering the petals of the roses in drifts over the terrace, darkening the walls of the house from ash rose to terracotta; the river broke its banks, and the leaves of the beech trees came wandering down in the mist. The moors were obscured.

But the morning of David and Mary’s wedding was, thankfully, bright. Octavia rose early, and discussed the day with Amelie as she dressed.

“Do you remember the party we had for Louisa on her sixteenth birthday?” she asked her maid.

“I do, ma’am.”

“We had linen flowers pinned to the table covers in the dining room—you and I made them as they would have been for hats in my mother’s day. Large flowers in shades of cream and pink, with lace. It took us some time. . . .”

“Like peonies, ma’am.”

“Exactly.” Octavia smiled. “I’ve been thinking how pretty they would be on the tables in the tithe barn, for the wedding supper. We could let the ladies from the village take them as mementos, too.”

“That is very kind, ma’am.”

“Well, they’re hardly of much use locked away,” Octavia observed. Finished, she regarded herself briefly in the mirror. “Would you go downstairs and ask Mrs. Jocelyn for me? I’m sure they were put away in the linen cupboards, in my old hat boxes.”

Amelie nodded briefly and left the room. Wrapping a paisley shawl around her, Octavia went downstairs and out into the garden. From here, she looked out across the terrace and lawns; she walked quickly along the herringbone path and down the steps past the orangerie. Here, she saw the person that she had been looking for, busy on a task that he had taken upon himself like a religious duty every morning. Mary’s father was sweeping every inch of the paths of the knot garden with elaborate, dutiful care.

“Good morning, Mr. Richards.”

He seemed to jump several inches, and then swept off his cloth cap. “Ma’am.”

“A wonderful day for you.”

“Yes, ma’am, indeed ’tis.” He had blushed a deep beetroot red; he was often tongue-tied in her presence.

“I have the key to the chapel,” she told him. “Shall we inspect it? The maids were all busy there yesterday.”

He followed her over the garden and down the long path to the fifteenth-century chapel hidden in the trees. When Octavia had moved here, family services were still taken every Sunday morning in what had looked to her like an ivy-covered mound, where the floor inside was spongy and the walls green with damp. During the renovation, it was found that the chapel was standing only because the ivy had been holding it together, and it was taken down, stone by stone, and the floor cleared of several centuries of dirt. When it had been completed, it revealed itself as an enchanting little building. Octavia now unlocked it; the heavy oak door swung back.

The verges along the lanes to the village had been raided wholesale, and the tiny space decorated in true country fashion: a mass of ox-eye daisies had been arranged in wall niches and on windowsills.

“How pretty,” Octavia murmured. Something in the scene struck at her heart; she couldn’t help it—flowers in chapels made her think of John Gould’s end, and the sadness that, without a body, there could never be a place to mourn him. She had no idea if his family had held a memorial service in New York—she supposed they may have done so. The sensation of being cut off from them, as well as him, was unbearable. Unconsciously, she put her hand to her mouth. Scalding emptiness inside that could never be shared. On some days, she felt that it must drive her mad, but there was nothing for it now but to conceal it as best she could, and smile at Mary’s father.

He had evidently seen that she was moved, without guessing the real reason. “’Tis a beauty,” he murmured.

“It is,” she agreed. “You will have such a lovely ceremony here.”

He was clutching his cap in his hands, twisting it around and around. “Will your ladyship come?” he asked.

“No,” she told him. “We shan’t intrude. There’s hardly room in here, and in any case, this is Mary’s day. But we shall come to the supper certainly.”

“You’re very kind, ma’am,” he murmured. “I been meaning to say such a long time, if you’ll pardon me. But ’tis such a great thing you’ve done for me.”

She patted him briskly on the arm. “Nonsense,” she told him. “It’s you who have helped us. Mr. March is very grateful you’ve been here, and so is Mr. Bradfield. We’re awfully short of help.”

Smiling, she entrusted the key of the chapel to him. “As father of the bride, you are in charge today,” she said.

She left him in the doorway, a thin man with the troubled life he’d led still etched on his face, and still clutching his cap to his chest, incongruously framed by the flowers in the porch and the overhanging horse chestnut trees.

*   *   *

A
s she came back towards the house across the grass, she suddenly saw Harry come out onto the terrace. She stopped, watching him as he made his way laboriously along the broad flagstone path fringed with roses; saw him sit down and take out his cigarettes.

He didn’t hear her coming.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

“Good God, Mother, you made me jump.”

She sat down opposite him. “How is it today?”

“Like toothache of the worst kind in both bloody legs.”

She would have corrected his language once; now, it seemed to her to be of no importance whatsoever. “Shall I call Dr. Evans?”

“Absolutely not.” Harry stared at the crutches. “Lord above, I hate these blasted things.”

“They won’t be forever. Perhaps just a walking stick in time.”

“I’m not going through the rest of my life with a stick,” Harry retorted. “Exercise is the thing. I shall take Sessy down to the river this morning. I’ve been thinking how much I used to like to fish. You used to take me down there, too. I’m sure Sessy would like it just as much.”

“Her nurse must come with her. And you must have the wheelchair. The slope is too much; the grass is still slippery.”

He regarded her with a twisted smile. “You do like to fuss awfully, don’t you?”

“I consider it my duty.”

They remained silent for a while, appreciating the brightness of the day after the torrents of the evening before. Then, Harry leaned forward. “Well, let me out of my misery. Tell me what you make of her.” He held up a warning finger. “And no flannel, please.”

Octavia considered.

“Very pretty.”

“Isn’t she, though?” he responded, beaming. “But that isn’t what’s best about her, of course.”

“No, darling. She is a very brave girl; that is evident.” She paused. “Tell me about her family.”

Harry began to laugh. “I shall not indeed. She can tell you herself if she wishes.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “Really, Mother. That’s the sort of question I would have expected of Father. What else?”

“Irish, by her voice. But by her name . . . Spanish? Dutch?”

“I’ve no idea,” Harry replied. “And I can’t say that I care at all.”

Caitlin Allington de Souza had arrived at Rutherford late the previous afternoon.

At first, when Octavia saw Harry’s friend descend from the motor taxi, she had felt slightly disappointed; for Caitlin seemed to be a very slight girl—tall, but very thin, and dressed in a severe gabardine coat of indeterminate color. Her features were hidden by a shapeless hat, a kind of large beret pulled over her hair. She carried a cloth bag, and wore flat laced-up shoes.

And then at the top of the steps, Caitlin had looked up at William and Octavia and smiled. They were confronted with eyes of the most startling shade of green and a face of arresting charm: not exactly beautiful, but unusual, memorable. But—there again—was the look that Octavia had seen in her son’s face: blank resolution. A face that had grown used to horrors. It had made Octavia keep hold of her hand and guide Caitlin indoors.

She had watched as Caitlin removed her hat before the hall mirror, and revealed a neatly cut bob of thick red hair. And, past Caitlin’s shoulder, she caught Harry’s look of pure admiration.

As if summoned by Octavia’s thoughts now, the girl herself materialized on the terrace. “How beautiful it is!” she exclaimed as she walked towards them.

Harry tried to get up; she shushed him down, laughing.

Caitlin turned to Octavia, “I’ve slept like a baby,” she said. “This is a wonderful place.”

Is it you who shall take it away from me, in time?
Octavia caught herself thinking.
Will it be your children who sit here in years to come?

And, astonished at this idea—sprung out of nowhere, she had not really considered such a future before—in a few minutes she excused herself, and left the two of them sitting in the morning sunshine.

She doubted very much that either of them had really noticed her leaving.

*   *   *

A
s Octavia came back into the house, she saw Mrs. Jocelyn standing at the foot of the stairs.

“Mrs. Jocelyn,” she said. “I’m glad to have caught you.”

It was odd; the woman was absolutely still. She seemed not to be going anywhere, but was staring up at Octavia’s portrait.

“Mrs. Jocelyn,” Octavia prompted, as she walked along the Tudor hall towards her.

At last, the housekeeper turned.

“Did Amelie speak to you?” Octavia asked. “About the linen flowers? Do you have them in storage?”

Mrs. Jocelyn blinked. She had a very high color, and looked almost feverish. “It’s not at all appropriate,” she said.

“I beg your pardon? What is not appropriate?”

Mrs. Jocelyn vaguely waved a hand. “This mixing of things,” she said. “Weddings for the staff in the family chapel, and a footman marrying a maid. And yourself.” She nodded as if these last words confirmed the worst. “Yes, yourself, madam.”

Octavia was so shocked at the impertinence, that she caught her breath for a moment. “What on earth can you mean?”

“It’s not right for them to be married at all, let alone in the chapel.”

“Mary and David?”

Mrs. Jocelyn let out a disapproving hiss. “I mean them, yes. Nash and Richards.”

Octavia held down her irritation. “It is most extraordinary for you to comment, Mrs. Jocelyn.”

“Extraordinary!” the housekeeper retorted. “But it is all extraordinary. It is all quite wrong, you see? It can do no good.”

“I don’t know what you mean at all. And I cannot see that it’s your place to make an objection.”

Mrs. Jocelyn let go of the carved bannister, which she had been gripping tightly, and took a step in Octavia’s direction, staring at her as if really seeing her in detail for the first time. “It started with you,” she said, in a low voice. “Yes indeed, madam. Tearing apart the place, and the waywardness of it all, the upset. It was peace before. Now there is never peace. And it came. Judgment came.”

Octavia frowned. She looked about her, hoping that someone else would appear. She had never much taken to William’s housekeeper, but Mrs. Jocelyn at least had been rigorously good at her job. She had always been somewhat frightening, though; self-effacing as a shadow—ghostlike in the house, ever watchful, ever sharply to the point. She knew too, how much Mrs. Jocelyn admired William and pointedly deferred to him above herself. But the housekeeper had always—until now—been excruciatingly stiff and polite.

“I don’t know what you mean by judgment, Mrs. Jocelyn,” Octavia replied now.

The housekeeper smiled. “Oh, they that sin,” she interrupted. “That’s what I mean. They reap the whirlwind,” she said. She stepped even closer now—much too close—her voice low and threatening. “It shan’t go on, it must be clean. It’s the way of it, the right way. He has gone, hasn’t he? Dragged down to the depths for his transgressions.”

“In heaven’s name, who do you mean?”

“Why—him. The American. And the Lord shall come for others. For you.”

“Good God,” Octavia breathed. She glanced behind her, looking for the hallway bell to press to summon Bradfield. “Yes, in heaven’s name certainly,” she heard Mrs. Jocelyn saying. “To be struck down in heaven’s name, that is quite correct. Quite correct.”

Appalled, Octavia looked back. She saw that Mrs. Jocelyn was calmly, steadily, walking away. She got to the green baize door, and opened it.

“I’ve put the linen flowers in the tithe barn, on the supper tables,” she said. “I take it that was where you wanted them?”

Octavia could not speak.

“And you see, madam . . .” Mrs. Jocelyn paused. Then glanced away, smoothing down her black dress. “To be done in heaven’s name, quite so,” she murmured. “Master Harry now . . . but he is brought back.”

At Harry’s name, anger at last ignited in Octavia. “You shall not speak of Harry,” she said. “What are you thinking of!”

“Of the lesson of retribution for error,” Mrs. Jocelyn said. It was with utmost disdain, as if explaining herself to a stupid child.

She regarded Octavia sourly for a moment—such a strange expression, bitterness mixed with triumph—and then the heavy baize door shut behind her, and Octavia could faintly hear her steps descending to the basement below.

*   *   *