Death of an Unsung Hero Read online

  However distressed she was, the Countess of Montfort was a resilient woman. High-strung? Certainly, and Mrs. Jackson was the first to acknowledge her ladyship’s little ways, but her mistress was not without an inner strength and vitality that never left her, even during these terrible days of war. She had rallied from the horrors of her trip to Scotland, and after several long walks in the frosty woodlands on the estate with her husband had persuaded Lord Montfort not only to offer up Haversham Hall to the War Office as a hospital for those young men who were on the road to recovery from neurasthenia, but to make a substantial donation to its running and upkeep.

  Mrs. Jackson had no intention of trying to explain the innovative new treatments used at the hospital to her doubting friend sitting across from her. It had taken her a while to overcome her natural skepticism in the first weeks of her employment, especially to this new “talking cure” that the doctors had come up with. It had barely made any sense to her at first and it was the last thing in the world she would repeat to the old butler.

  She got up and opened the window to let a little air into the slight stuffiness building in the room. “I have made the adjustment quite nicely, Mr. Hollyoak, I am glad to say. It was difficult at first. I was completely unprepared for how deeply distressed our first patients were when they came here.”

  The old man cleared his throat. “If I may just say this, Mrs. Jackson, I am veteran of the Boer Wars and I am unfortunately familiar with the distress war wreaks on its soldiers. Conditions were indescribable at the Siege of Ladysmith when I was deployed there during the African wars. Our suffering was considerable, but none of us shrank from what we had to do. Why, most of us survived by eating rats and existing on a canteen cap of water a day. Typhoid carried off at least one-third of our number, maybe even more. But you see, Mrs. Jackson, real men do not hesitate to fight to the bitter end, no matter how hideous the conditions are. I am not saying there were no cowards in my day, of course there were and we gave them very short shrift.” Mrs. Jackson concealed a smile and respectfully nodded along as he remembered his war. How often had Mr. Hollyoak regaled the servants’ hall with graphic and bloody tales of the African wars? He had described getting over typhoid as if he had shaken off a chill caught on some sort of Boy Scouts camping trip. But what it boiled down to was that in Mr. Hollyoak’s opinion, real men didn’t complain, even under the worst of conditions, they merely got on with it; only a coward would hide out in a place like Haversham Hall Hospital and talk about the horrors of war with his doctor.

  She summoned patience and tried again. “I understand, Mr. Hollyoak. Until I came to work here I thought of our patients as cowards too. Now I have to say I have had a complete change of mind. Every one of our officers say they want to return to the war as soon as they are able. Our job here, you see, is to help them function so they can lead their men in battle.” She saw Mr. Hollyoak’s look of disbelief and she stepped it up a notch. “They know they are thought of as cowards, they are painfully aware of it. What is the expression they use in the navy—swinging the lead?” Mr. Hollyoak acknowledged malingerers with a fervent nod. “We are low in numbers this week as thirteen of our twenty patients passed their Medical Board review and are now on their way back to the Western Front, to Mesopotamia, and Egypt. They went willingly and with brave hearts.” She caught his eye and tried to hold his gaze but he turned, reaching for his cup. When he had it in his hand she sought his eyes again. “Strangely enough, most of them here were decorated for bravery—before they became seriously ill.”

  He raised his eyebrows and took a sip of tea. Yes, I thought that might surprise you. “There were six Distinguished Service Orders alone among our first fifteen officers, twelve of them mentioned in dispatches, and four Military Crosses in our second group. One of our officers was even recommended for the Victoria Cross. And it is quite remarkable that straightforward, useful work in the open air does so much to help restore our patients to normal life—we call it ‘cure through function.’” He smiled politely and gestured with his teacup to the comfortable country house they were seated in, as if to say, Who wouldn’t want to hide out the war here?

  His eyes wandered to the little clock ticking away on the chimneypiece. She was losing him. She sought to change the subject. “Well, enough of my work. It must be wonderful to have Lord Haversham at home—is his arm healing well?” The old man brightened up at the mention of Lord and Lady Montfort’s son, who was home on medical leave from the Royal Naval Air Service with a fractured arm.

  “Just plain ‘Captain Talbot’ is the title Lord Haversham prefers these days,” he said with paternalistic pride. “The highest scoring ace of his squadron and decorated three times, but of course he plays all that sort of thing down.”

  “He was always a modest young man.” Mrs. Jackson did not want to precipitate another saga of heroic acts of derring-do from Mr. Hollyoak. Any man who fought in this war had her admiration, and Mr. Hollyoak did rather go on. “I am glad to hear that all is well at Iyntwood, Mr. Hollyoak. It certainly looks like Lady Althea is doing a lot for the county with her Women’s Land Army.” The war had curtailed the Talbots’ youngest daughter’s love of travel, and now that she was safely marooned on the family estate she had involved herself in representing the government’s volunteer force that provided local farmers with labor. “I can’t believe the jobs those young women are taking on, can you, Mr. Hollyoak?” She took a bite of cake. “Up at dawn and out in all weather. You have to take your hat off to them, don’t you? I simply don’t know what our farmers would have done without them, especially with this bumper harvest.”

  The old butler sighed and pursed his lips. His handsome old head was imposingly leonine and when he slowly shook it from side to side, as he did now, it gave him all the appearance of an offended biblical elder—Moses when he returned from Mount Sinai to find the children of Israel had relapsed into drink and idolatry sprang to Mrs. Jackson’s mind and she bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from laughing outright. “They wear riding breeches.” Mr. Hollyoak put down his empty cup with some finality. “Most immodest and unattractive in the female form.”

  Chapter Two

  Clementine Elizabeth Talbot, the Countess of Montfort, laid down her napkin and stood up from the dining room table. “Well, I must be off; I am going to look in on what Mrs. Jackson calls the cider detachment in the kitchen-garden courtyard this afternoon. Our Haversham Hall officers might be able to produce enough cider for the whole village for the harvest home supper this year.”

  “If you will wait a moment, I’m going that way too.” Her husband rose to his feet.

  “Harry?” Clementine turned to her son, who, half reclining in his chair, nodded to the butler to pour him another glass of hock.

  “Not today, Mama, thanks all the same. I told Althea that I would drop in on Mr. Howard at Holly Farm with her. She is still trying to convince him to use her Land girls to bring in his wheat. He’s running at least a week late and a heavy rainstorm would ruin the entire crop.” Harry instantly had his father’s attention.

  “If he doesn’t want help then Althea shouldn’t push him. He will just dig in—such an obstinate fellow. However much I welcome your interest in the estate, Harry, I think I had better talk to our other farmers and see if they can lend a hand. Or,” he turned to his wife, “perhaps some of your officers at Haversham Hall might pitch in. If Mr. Howard chooses to be finicky about using female labor then we must find some other way; every grain of wheat counts now that we can no longer depend on American ships to make it through the U-boat blockade.”

  Clementine was halfway across the dining room; she had no intention of being late. “I think we have two or three of our officers out at Brook End and Dodd farms already. I will ask Major Andrews if the others might be willing to help out.”

  “Do they know how to use a scythe?” It was unusual for Harry to be scornful of others, but he had made his dislike of the hospital known immediately on his arrival last
week. Unlike his sister, Althea, he never joined in the many conversations about the hospital’s occupants and had not once walked in the direction of his grandmother’s old house. His judgmental tone stopped his mother in the open doorway. Ever since he came home he has been withdrawn, almost sullen, and completely unlike himself. Clementine wasn’t sure how to be with this new Harry, just yet. Give him time, she thought, noticing the dark circles under her son’s eyes. As soon as his body mends and he has adjusted to not flying for a while he’ll come round.

  Harry leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out under the table, and lifted his wineglass. “If you don’t support Althea’s Land Army girls, Papa, then the farmers won’t either.” Two years ago, Clementine realized, he would probably have said much the same thing, but it would have been said with good humor and he would have accepted it, if his father chose to ignore any advice he might presume to offer about the running of his tenant farms. But the old carefree Harry was, these days, a far more burdened young man. He is surely drinking far more than he did on his last home leave, she thought as she watched him drain his glass. “Harry, I simply must dash, but I will see you at teatime,” was all she said and was rewarded for her tact with his quick, sweet smile. For almost a moment she saw the old Harry.

  * * *

  “How do you find our son?” she asked her husband as they left the house and walked together down the east drive in the direction of the stables and the kitchen-garden courtyard.

  He slowed his stride so that they might lengthen their time together and took her hand in his, as if they were still young and not a married couple of twenty-seven years. “It is more than he can stand to be at home,” he said and she heard the sorrow in his voice. “I have never known him so impatient … almost irritable. He says his broken arm does not give him pain, but the other morning he drank brandy. Brandy at breakfast, Clemmy!”

  She had been distressed to see streaks of gray in Harry’s dark hair when he had come down to the dining room the night after he had arrived. And for the past two days he had either walked for miles alone with the dogs or sat motionless for hours in a chair. But she was curious to find out what her husband thought so she said nothing and waited.

  “His moods change so quickly, when he was never moody before.” He laughed and she realized that he was as baffled by this new Harry as she was. He glanced at her, perhaps trying to gauge how much he should burden her with what worried him most—she hoped he would. But he shrugged his shoulders and assumed the cover-up they all practiced even more thoroughly than they had before the war. People like us must set an example for the rest of the country—even more so in these uncertain times. So instead of unburdening himself about our son he is going to make light of something we don’t understand, something about Harry that worries us but he doesn’t think we should refer to.

  “I have to ask him what he is talking about most of the time. He calls bombs whiz bangs; he takes a dekko at something rather than look at it. He talks about kites, blimps, and someone called Archie. I am continually asking for a translation!”

  “But surely that’s not what worries you, all his flying friends use slang and talk as if nothing matters,” she persisted. Lord Montfort whistled his dogs to heel as they walked past the orchard and the territorial flock of geese that grazed there in the afternoons.

  “Strictly between us, darling, I am not angry about this war so much as saddened,” he replied. “There seems to be no end in sight.”

  “And Harry?” she pushed, and her husband shook his head.

  “Harry is a part of this war as much as we all are. He is doing his part.” This was said with the stoic acceptance they all exhibited these days. We must show fortitude and self-restraint; displays of emotion are bad form. “I am far more concerned about Verity and our grandchildren. Why is she being so stubborn about leaving Paris for the safety of the Loire?” Their elder daughter, Verity, was married to a Frenchman. She and her two children had been visiting them when Britain had declared war on Germany. Both Clementine and her husband had begged her to stay on with them for the duration, but she had returned to her home in Paris, where, to Lord Montfort’s consternation, she insisted on staying instead of retreating to her husband’s estate in the Loire.

  “She says she wants to be close-by, so that when Etienne has any leave she will be there for him. I think I would do the same thing if it were me.” She nevertheless felt an undercurrent of anxiety for her daughter and their grandsons. “If the German army breaks through the line, she has plenty of time to run for the Loire.” This is what Clementine told herself every night as she lay wakeful in her bed. But she did not want her husband to be sidetracked from their son’s troubling withdrawal from ordinary life. She hesitated before she spoke thoughts that had not left her since Harry had come home. “Perhaps Harry might talk to Major Andrews while he is home on leave with us—it might help him to talk about … you know, the war and everything. After all, Ralph, the major has done wonders for our officers at Haversham Hall,” but she already knew the futility of her suggestion.

  “Harry talk to Andrews? For God’s sake, darling, Harry would no more talk to Andrews than … fly to the moon.” He sounded affronted, as if she had found Harry wanting in some way.

  She reluctantly turned away from the topic of their son to more-mundane matters. “About our guest, Mr. Bray—what time did he say he would arrive this afternoon?” She would have to keep her visit to the cider detachment brief and perhaps forgo a visit with Mrs. Jackson at the hospital if she was to be home and changed for the arrival of Mr. Bray, a man neither of them had ever met.

  “He said he was motoring himself down and expected to be with us by five o’clock or so.”

  “Motoring himself? I thought you said he could only walk with the aid of a stick.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Bad hunting accident apparently, left him without the proper use of a leg. That’s why he is at home on the family estate and not off at the war.”

  “Well, he must have a driver or someone with him. Anyway, I have arranged with Hollyoak that he should stay in the Blue Salon so he doesn’t have to negotiate the stairs, and there is plenty of room belowstairs if he brings his man with him.”

  The thought of entertaining a man who had come to visit his long-lost brother believed to have been missing in action in France but now a recovering patient in Haversham Hall Hospital had little appeal for Clementine and she guessed even less for her husband. Especially since we will be joined by his monosyllabic brother, Captain Sir Evelyn Bray, who had failed his Medical Board review again last week and spent his days silently double digging empty vegetable beds in the kitchen garden.

  They had reached the open archway into the kitchen-garden courtyard. “With Harry’s present mood of introspection, Althea’s frustration with Mr. Howard at Holly Farm, and now this Mr. Bray, it will be rather a heavy going next few days,” she said. He stopped and, turning her to face him, kissed her lightly on the mouth.

  “Heavy going? Oh no, I don’t think so! A man we have never met before is arriving to be reunited with his older brother who never says a bloomin’ word and might never completely regain his memory after weeks in Dottyville; I can’t imagine anything more enjoyable.” He pulled her closer into his arms. “And in case you were not aware, Harry knows our Captain Sir Evelyn Bray—met him before the war. Says he was a complete wastrel—always in London, never went home to the estate, left everything to his brother while he was simply…”

  “Unreliable with all the girls—yes, Harry did tell me. He also said that war heroes are made from very unlikely cloth and that whereas he didn’t particularly like our Captain Bray he certainly admired him.”

  “Ah, jolly good—more dissension in the ranks!”

  They laughed; theirs was not to be a peaceful end to the week it seemed.

  * * *

  The kitchen-garden courtyard is one of those quiet places that make me feel as if time has stood still, Clementine thought as
she walked into the paved area between the back of the stable block and the tall walls of the kitchen garden. A long brick-and-glass potting shed had been built against the stable wall, with a smaller building attached to it, which in the old days had been where the gardeners gathered to brew tea, shelter from the worst of the weather, and enjoy a good gossip as they ate their noonday dinner. On its right-side wall was a heavy wooden door giving access into the kitchen garden. Encircled by walls that did not obstruct the sun, it was an intimately pleasant space to spend an afternoon.

  She called out her hullos to three khaki-clad figures grouped around the apple press hard at work, in the methodical way of military men, making cider. A Royal Army Medical Corps hospital orderly, Corporal Budge, leaned up against a wooden keg, smoking a cigarette as he watched a younger man, wearing the single star of a second lieutenant on his uniform epaulette, shovel apples into the half barrel of the press. As the last apples rattled into the barrel, a tall man in uniform spun the handle attached to a heavy wooden screw, lowering the top board, darkened with many a cider pressing, slowly down into the barrel and the ripe apples. There was a satisfying crunching sound and the three men watched a cataract of golden juice pour into the wooden bucket below with evident satisfaction.

  “It’s the wosps yur gottur wotch,” Corporal Budge said as he stood away from the keg and drew himself up to lift the two forefingers of his right hand to touch his cap to Clementine. “Afternoon, ladyship,” he said in his thick West Country accent with its ripe round vowels and its generous burring Rs. “Thurr all drunk at this time o’year, tha’s wha’ makes ’um particularily aggressive.” Budge was from Somerset, a county renowned for its cider, and Clementine suspected he knew about things like the hazards of wasp stings at cider time. She rather liked the corporal, a compactly built and prematurely balding man continually on the alert to the well-being of his officer-patients. She waved away hovering wasps and inhaled: countless late-summer days were carried back to her on the scent of crushed apples. “Delicious,” she said appreciatively, remembering her first days at Iyntwood as a young bride when a much more sprightly Mr. Thrower had overseen the cider press. “You’re right about the wasps though, Budge, much worse this year. It must be the heat.