Disturbed, the Colonel lowered his paper and managed not to look too put out. He was an immensely courteous man.
‘Rupert.’
‘Please don't get up, sir. I'm sorry. I'm a bit early…’
‘Not at all. Not at all.’ The newspaper was folded and set aside. ‘Pour yourself a drink. Come and sit down.’ Rupert, grateful at the prospect of a bit of Dutch courage, went to do as he was bidden. ‘Hope you're comfortable. Enough hot water? Good bath?’
‘Splendid, thank you, sir.’ Carrying his drink, he went to sit by the Colonel's side, perched on the fireside stool, with long legs folded like jack-knives. ‘I was feeling a bit hot and sweaty. Athena made me play tennis…’
Despite the fact that Rupert had planned this interlude alone with his host, he had, at the same time, slightly dreaded it, because, for all his charm, it was patently clear that inconsequential chat was not Colonel Carey-Lewis's forte and that, basically, he was a shy man. But fears proved groundless. They slipped easily into conversation, and their common interests gave them plenty to discuss, and shooting, horses, and the Regular Army, quite painlessly, broke the ice. Then the Colonel asked about himself, and Rupert told him about Taddington, and his parents, and his career. Eton, Sandhurst, the Royal Dragoon Guards. Postings to Egypt and Palestine and now the Equitation Centre in Northamptonshire.
‘The trouble is, Long Weedon is too close to London. The temptation is to buzz up to town at every opportunity, and then of course one has to buzz back, usually in the early hours of the morning with a crashing hangover, and somehow be on parade on time.’
The Colonel smiled. ‘That is simply one of the problems and disadvantages of youth. Any word of the Royals being mechanised?’
‘Not so far, sir. But to be truthful, in a modern war a cavalry regiment does seem to be a bit of an anachronism.’
‘How would you feel about tanks?’
‘I'd be sorry to say goodbye to the horses.’
The Colonel shifted in his chair. He raised his head and his pale eyes gazed through the open window, to the gardens that lay beyond, washed in the gold of the evening sun. He said, ‘I'm afraid we will have to go to war. So many months slipped by, filled with compromise and treaty. For no point, as far as I can see. Hopes are extinguished, one by one. Just as Austria was extinguished, and then Czechoslovakia, and now Poland. And suddenly, it's too late. Poland is just a question of time. Hitler has no reason to mobilise. The German Army is ready to march the instant they are given the word. It must be soon. The first fortnight in September, before the rains of October. Before the muds of November can halt their tanks.’
‘And Russia?’
‘The great question mark. If Stalin and Hitler sign a pact, then Russia gives Germany the go-ahead to proceed. And that will be the start.’ He looked back at Rupert. ‘What about you? What will happen to you?’
‘Probably back to Palestine.’
‘This will be a war of air power. Edward will fly with the Royal Air Force.’ He reached for his glass, and abruptly finished his drink, tossing it down his throat as though it were medicine. ‘Pour me another, there's a dear fellow. And how is your own glass?’
‘I'm all right, thank you, sir.’ Rupert got to his feet and went to refill the Colonel's tumbler, and then returned to his place. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I wondered if I could have a word with you.’
A gleam of humour crossed his host's features. ‘I thought we were having a word.’
‘No, it's…’ Rupert hesitated. He had never done this before and was anxious not to make a hash of it. ‘I would like to ask your permission to many Athena.’
There followed a moment's astonished silence, and then Colonel Carey-Lewis said, ‘Good God. Why?’
Which was an unexpected reaction and a bit of a facer. But Rupert did his best. ‘Well, I'm extremely fond of her, and I think she is of me. I know it's not much of a time to get married, with war on its way and no certainty of our futures, but I still think it would be a good idea.’
‘I don't know what sort of a wife she'd make.’
‘You sound doubtful, sir.’
‘She's always been such a fly-by-night. I suppose her mother all over again.’
‘But you married her mother, sir.’
‘Yes, I married her. And she has never ceased to entertain and beguile me. But by the time I married Diana I had loved her for years. You and Athena haven't known each other all that long.’
‘Long enough, sir.’
‘Have you discussed it all with her?’
‘Yes. Yes, we've discussed it.’
‘Army wife. Years of separation. All that?’
‘Yes. All that.’
‘And the future. The far future, when this terrible disaster that is hanging over us all is a thing of the past. What then?’
‘I can't say. I can only tell you that when my father dies, Taddington will come to me.’
‘Athena and Gloucestershire? Is that a good idea? She hates horses, you know. Won't go within a bloody yard of one.’
Rupert laughed. ‘Yes. I know that.’
‘And you still want to marry her?’
‘Yes. I do.’
‘When?’
‘I think as soon as possible.’
‘Takes months to plan a wedding.’
‘We…well, we wouldn't have that sort of a wedding, sir. Athena has a horror of big weddings. I'm afraid it will be rather a disappointment to Mrs Carey-Lewis, but we thought something very small, or even a Register Office. I could get a special licence.’
‘Oh, well. It'll save me a bit of money. I suppose we have to be grateful for small mercies.’
‘I really do love her, sir.’
‘I love her too. She's a sweet and funny girl and I have always thought her quite enchanting. I am just sorry that you will have to face up to such uncertainty, but if the worst comes to the worst and you are torn apart, then Athena can always come back to Nancherrow and wait for you here.’
‘I hoped you'd say that. My parents, of course, would welcome her and make her as happy as they could, but she and my mother are chalk and cheese and I don't think the arrangement would be very comfortable.’
The Colonel said drily, and with some perception, ‘It's clearly unfortunate for you that your intended has no love of horses.’
‘Yes. Unfortunate. But not the end of the world.’
‘In that case, we seem to have talked it through. All I can say is, yes, you may marry her, and I wish you both all the good fortune and happiness that this cruel world will allow you.’
‘There's just one thing, sir…’
‘And what is that?’
‘When the others come down, don't say anything. I mean, don't announce an engagement or anything. If you don't mind.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, we've talked about it, Athena and I, but I haven't actually asked her yet. And she hasn't, actually, said yes.’
The Colonel looked a bit bewildered, as well he might. ‘Very well. Not a word, but get it all settled as soon as you can, there's a good fellow.’
‘I will, sir, and thank you.’
‘No point in letting these sorts of arrangements hang fire. Strike while the iron is hot, I always say. Otherwise, things are inclined to collapse.’
‘A bit like a soufflé, sir.’
‘A soufflé?’ The Colonel thought about this. ‘Yes. Yes. I see what you mean.’
The Nancherrow kitchen, on the Sunday mornings when there were a lot of people staying in the house, habitually simmered like a cauldron of furious activity. Despite opened windows and doors, the temperature, on this balmy August day, rose by the moment, causing Mrs Nettlebed to go red in the face and perspire freely, and her pesky ankles to swell like balloons over the straps of straining shoes.
Nine in the dining-room, and five in the kitchen to feed. No, she corrected herself, not nine in the dining-room, but eight, because Mrs Carey-Lewis had taken to her bed — a bilious attack, the
Colonel had said, and would probably have to be taken a little tray. Mrs Nettlebed had accepted the bilious-attack excuse without comment, but privately she and Nettlebed had made up their minds that Mrs Carey-Lewis was simply worn out; all that junketing in London, and then having to come rushing home because everybody thought that old Mrs Boscawen was on her way out. She wasn't on her way out, of course, because, miraculously, she had rallied, but even so, the anxiety was still there, and the house crammed full of guests. Not very restful. If Mrs Nettlebed had been Mrs Carey-Lewis, she too would have retired to her bed, and not got out of it until things had calmed down a bit.
She stood at her kitchen table and rubbed flour, sugar, and butter briskly through her fingers into a large earthenware bowl, rather as if she were making scones. Whatever the season, and however high the temperature, the Colonel always enjoyed his hot pudding, and this Sunday it was to be apple crumble, sweetened with mincemeat and laced with a spoonful of brandy. The apples had already been peeled and sliced and lay, like pale-green petals, in the pie dish, waiting for the crumble. Hetty had prepared the apples, just as she had already peeled pounds of potatoes, cleaned two cauliflowers, chopped a cabbage, and hulled four punnets of fresh strawberries. Now, she was clattering about in the scullery, washing up what Mrs Nettlebed always thought of as ‘the oddses’, pans and bowls and colanders and kitchen knives and graters.
In the oven, a twelve-pound sirloin of beef on the bone was simmering away to itself, and through the firmly closed door, an aroma seeped — of rich meaty juices, mingled with the scent of the onion Mrs Nettlebed had tucked into the sirloin's flank. With it would be served roast potatoes, roast parsnips, Yorkshire puddings, horseradish sauce, gravy, and freshly made, red-hot English mustard.
The puddings, just about, were done. Two glass dishes, containing fresh strawberries and a chocolate soufflé, stood ready and waiting on the cool slate shelf of the larder. Once she'd popped the apple crumble into the hot oven, Mrs Nettlebed would start in on the Yorkshire puddings. Hetty could have made these, but she had a heavy hand with batter.
The kitchen door opened. Mrs Nettlebed, imagining that it was her husband, did not raise her head from her task, but said, ‘Do you think we should have whipped cream with the soufflé?’
‘Sounds delicious,’ said a man who was not Mr Nettlebed. Mrs Nettlebed's hands were stilled. She jerked her head around and saw, standing in the open doorway, none other but Jeremy Wells. Her mouth fell open in a delighted gape, and it occurred to her that at this moment, bang in the middle of getting Sunday lunch on the road, he was just about the only person whose unexpected appearance could fill her with pleasure.
She said, ‘Well!’
‘Hello, Mrs Nettlebed. What splendid smells of cooking. What's for lunch?’
‘Roast sirloin.’ She stood there, with her cap askew and her hands all floury, and beamed at him. ‘Dr Wells! You're some stranger.’ (In the old days, when he was tutoring Edward, she had always called him Jeremy, but as soon as he passed his finals and qualified, she had addressed him as ‘Doctor’. She reckoned he deserved it, after all those years of studying books and taking examinations. To save confusion, when talking about him, he was referred to as young Dr Wells, while his father, rather to that good man's chagrin, was relegated to old Dr Wells.) ‘What are you doing here? Did the Colonel send for you? He never said nothing to me.’
Jeremy closed the door behind him and came over to the table. ‘Why should he send for me?’
‘Mrs Carey-Lewis. She's poorly. He says a bilious attack, but me and Nettlebed thinks different. Tired out, I'd say, with one thing and another. Did you know Mrs Boscawen had been ill?’
‘Yes, I heard. But she seems to be over the worst of it?’
‘Some fright she gave us all. Everybody rushing home from London and Scotland and goodness knows where, thinking that she was about to breathe her last. It was as bad as that.’
‘I'm sorry.’
She frowned. ‘If the Colonel didn't send for you, then why are you here?’
‘Just to see you all.’ He reached out and took a bit of apple from the pie dish, and ate it. If he had been Loveday, she would have slapped her hand. ‘Where is everybody?’
‘All gone to church. Except Mrs Carey-Lewis. Like I said, she's in her bed.’
‘Perhaps I should pop up and see her.’
‘If she's asleep, then leave her sleeping.’
‘I will. Have you got a houseful?’
‘Bulging, we are.’ Mrs Nettlebed reached for her pie dish and began to sprinkle the topping over the apples, pressing the mixture down into a firm crust. ‘Athena brought her young man, Captain Rycroft, and Edward's got a friend staying, too. A Mr Callender.’
‘And Loveday?’
‘Yes, Loveday, of course. And Judith's coming back this morning.’
‘Where's Judith been?’
‘Staying in Porthkerris, with the Warrens.’
‘Is there enough lunch for me?’
‘What do you think, you silly thing? Enough and over, I would say. Seen Nettlebed, have you?’
‘No, I didn't see anybody. Just walked in.’
‘I'll tell him to lay another place…now why don't you go up and see Mrs Carey-Lewis. And if she's talking about getting up, you just tell her to stay where she is. Hetty! You nearly finished in there? There's more to be washed, and I need you to whip some cream for me…’
Jeremy left her to it, went out of the kitchen and up to Diana's bedroom by way of the back stairs. He knocked gently at her door, and her voice called to him to come in. He had half expected drawn curtains and an invalid's gloom, but the room was filled with sunshine. Diana, however, was still in bed, propped up on a pile of downy pillows and wearing a lace-trimmed voile bedjacket. Beside her, with a snow-white, lace-trimmed pillow all to himself, Pekoe lay in state, curled into a ball and fast asleep. Diana had been reading. The book lay open, face-down on the white satin quilt and her thin red-tipped hand lay upon it.
‘Jeremy!’
‘Hello.’
‘What are you doing here? Oh, Edgar didn't bother you with a summons, did he? I told him not to get in a fuss.’
‘No, he didn't call.’ He closed the door and came to sit, unprofessionally, on the edge of the bed. She looked not feverish but washed out, pale as paper, and as though her fine skin had been pulled taut over the classic bone structure of her face. Her usually immaculate hair was disarmingly tousled, and beneath her astonishing eyes were smudges of exhaustion.
He said, ‘You're looking worn out.’
‘I am. But Edgar's telling everybody it's a bilious attack.’
‘So what have you been up to, to get yourself in this state?’
‘You make it sound as though it's all been fun. But at the moment, nothing's fun. Lavinia's been so ill, and there's too much to do. And sometime, Mary and I have got to go and buy thousands of yards of horrible black cotton and somehow make curtains for every window in the house. The truth is, I'm tired and miserable and depressed and I've run out of the energy to go on pretending that I'm anything else. So I came to bed and told Edgar I was feeling ill. He'd much rather I felt ill than have me unhappy.’
‘Are you worrying about Mrs Boscawen?’
‘Yes, a bit, still. She's not out of the wood yet. She gave us all such a scare. And I was frazzled out anyway, after London and strings of late nights, and then I had to come bolting home. I'd never driven the Bentley so far and so fast before, not by myself. All along that dreadful A30, and the Exeter by-pass choked with traffic.’
‘But you made it.’
‘Yes, I made it, to a hysterical Isobel, and having to find nurses, and then everybody coming home, and bringing people to stay. And then to cap everything, Edgar told me last night that this young man of Athena's wants to marry her!’
‘Captain Rycroft?’
‘Who told you about him?’
‘Mrs Nettlebed.’
‘He's called Rupert. He's terribly sweet.
Royal Dragoons. Rather conventional and totally unexpected. But we're none of us to say anything, because apparently he hasn't even asked her yet. People are funny, aren't they?’
‘I think that sounds rather cheering news.’
‘Well, it is, in a way, but if they do get engaged, then they're going to insist on a hole-in-the-corner wedding, all terribly quick. A Register Office, or something, and it all seems a bit joyless. But how can anything be joyful when the papers are full of such gloom and doom and everything gets worse every day and Edgar makes me listen to the nine-o'clock news every night with him, and sometimes I think I'm going to be sick with terror.’
Her voice shook, and for the first time Jeremy felt a real concern. In all the time he had known her, he had never seen Diana Carey-Lewis in anything even approaching a state. She had always seemed to him nerveless, insouciant, able to see the ridiculous and so, funny side of the most impossibly serious situations. But this Diana had lost her spirit and so her greatest strength.
He laid his hand over hers. ‘You mustn't be afraid, Diana. You're never afraid of anything.’
She disregarded this.
‘I've been like an ostrich all this year. Burying my head in the sand, and pretending that it's not going to happen, that some miracle will occur, that some black-hatted idiot will go and get another bit of paper signed, and we'll all be able to breathe again, and go on living. But it isn't any good any longer. Deceiving oneself, I mean. There isn't going to be a miracle. Just another terrible war.’ To his horror, Jeremy saw her eyes well with weak tears, and she made no effort to brush them away. ‘After the Armistice in 1918, we told ourselves that it would never happen again. A whole generation of young men wiped out in the trenches. All my friends. Gone. And do you know what I did? I stopped thinking about it. I stopped remembering. I simply put it all out of my mind, shut it away like a lot of old rubbish in a trunk. Fastened the locks, did up the straps, pushed the trunk to the very back of some dusty attic. But now, only twenty years later, it's all starting again and I can't help remembering. Dreadful things. Going to Victoria Station to say goodbye, and all the boys in khaki, and everything fogged in steam from the engines. And the trains rolling out, and everybody waving…and mothers and sisters and sweethearts left behind on the platform. And then the pages and pages of Casualty Lists, columns of tiny newsprint. Each name a young man, cut down by war before he'd even had time to live. And I remember going to a party and there was a girl, and she sat on a grand piano and swung her legs and sang “Let the Great Big World Keep Turning”, and everybody joined in, but I couldn't because I couldn't stop crying.’