Without so much as the batting of an eyelid.
Helen, Lady Sutton closed the door behind her, then let go a gasp of annoyance.
‘The fool! The smug, unfeeling fool! I am so angry!’
‘Oh, dear.’ Julia MacMalcolm kissed her mother’s flushed cheek. ‘Why don’t you sit down and tell me what happened at the meeting to make you so very cross.’
‘That vicar! I don’t know how I kept hold of my temper!’
‘Don’t let him upset you. He’s only a locum. He’ll be gone when Luke Parkin is fit again.’
‘But Luke won’t get well and we all know it, Julia. Six months, at the most,’ she whispered bitterly.
All the men she could once rely on, lean upon – all dead, her husband, her sons, her son-in-law; bluff, brusque Judge Mounteagle and soon, Luke Parkin. That ugly war – how dare they call it the Great War – had taken so many young men and now the older ones, weakened by four years of too much responsibility and too little consideration and overburdened with the worry of it, were themselves falling victims to its aftermath.
‘Sssh. Just tell me?’
‘We-e-ll, it was the usual parish meeting – or should have been. I knew they’d be talking about the war memorial; I was happy about that.’ She had promised any piece of land the parish saw fit to choose so the war dead of Holdenby should be remembered. ‘But to suggest a German field gun should stand beside it!’
‘A what!’ Julia flushed scarlet. ‘Whose damn-fool idea was that?’
‘Our temporary vicar’s! He said that any city or town – Holdenby, even – could claim a German gun as spoils of war and wouldn’t it be a splendid thought to have one here and site it beside the war memorial? So I said that upon further consideration, I wasn’t at all sure that I could offer that piece of land – leastways, not if an enemy gun was to stand on it. Indeed, I said, if anyone was thoughtless enough to bring one here, I would hope to see the wretched thing rolled down the hill and into the river! That’s what I said!’
‘And then you swep’ out! Good for you, mother! How could he even think such a thing?’
‘How indeed, when not one household in Holdenby came through that war without loss. The last thing they want to see is a German gun. Julia – did we really win? It makes me wonder when I see heroes with no work to go to; men with a leg or an arm missing, begging on street corners. Half our youth never to come home again and oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to remind you.’
‘You didn’t, because I don’t need reminding. And I’m glad you put him in his place. If Luke retires, I hope that vicar doesn’t get ideas about getting the living for himself. When the time comes for a new parish priest, I think it should be Nathan. I’d like to have him here. He’ll be back from the African mission, soon – and who better?’
‘I agree, and since Rowangarth will have some say in the matter, perhaps we can help him. Nathan saw service as an army chaplain – he’d be a popular choice, hereabouts. But this is not the time to talk of such things. We must hope for a miracle for Luke. And meantime –’
‘No German field gun,’ Julia supplied.
‘Not on any piece of Rowangarth land!’ And since Rowangarth owned every square yard of Holdenby village and much, much more besides, it seemed that Helen Sutton would have her way.
‘I shall miss you when you go to Hampshire for the christening.’ Deftly, she changed the subject.
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right, mother? Drew can be rather a handful, now.’
‘Of course I can manage. I’ve been looking forward to having him all to myself. And isn’t it wonderful that Alice has a little girl of her own?’
Dear Alice. She at least was happy. It was to her, Helen acknowledged, they owed the beautiful boy who would one day inherit Rowangarth. So sad that Giles never lived to see his son.
‘I reared the three of you with no trouble at all. One small boy won’t put me out in the slightest.’
‘But we three had a nanny – and a nursery maid!’
‘So you did, but nannies are going out of fashion and there’ll be Miss Clitherow to help me – if I need help.’
‘Yes, and Cook and Tilda and Mary’ – all of whom spoiled Drew dreadfully.
‘A growing child cannot have too much love and affection. Children are treated differently, now,’ Helen smiled, calm again, for just to think of her grandson gave her such feelings of love and gratitude that any anger was short-lived.
‘I’d thought to leave a day earlier – stay the night with Aunt Sutton, whilst she’s at Montpelier Mews.’
‘A good idea.’ Her sister-in-law, Helen frowned, spent so little time in England, now. ‘How long since anyone saw her?’
‘Oh, ages.’ Since not long after Andrew was killed, Julia recalled. ‘She couldn’t wait to get back to France, once the war was over. We can have a nice long chat – catch up with the news, then I’ll go on to Hampshire. It will mean being away for five days – you’re sure you can manage?’
‘Of course.’ She loved him dearly, the grandson who was walking sturdily, now, and had cut most of his teeth with scarcely a disturbed night. Drew, who made her young again. ‘Think of it, Julia. He’ll be two, at Christmas.’
‘Mm.’ The months had rushed past. Soon, there would be the second anniversary of Andrew’s death to be lived through and that of Giles who died the day his son – Alice’s son – was born.
‘Julia?’ Her mother’s voice came to her softly through her rememberings.
‘Sorry. Just thinking …’
‘Aah.’ Her daughter was often just thinking. Sometimes she was far away, eyes troubled; other times there would be a small smile on her lips and she would be a girl again, impatient to come of age, marry her young doctor. There hadn’t been a war, then, nor even thoughts of one. Her elder son, Helen pondered, had been in India and Giles with his nose in a book, always, and nothing more to worry her than the next dinner party she would give. Lovely, gentle times. Days of roaring fires and hot muffins for winter tea and sun-warmed summer days and the scent of flowers at dusk and the certainty that nothing need change.
But then the war had come and nothing could be the same again. Only Rowangarth endured.
‘And talking about Alice – and we must talk about it, sooner or later – do you think you might mention it to her – and Tom, of course – whilst you are there?’
‘That people should be told she was married again, you mean?’
‘Well, it is all of eighteen months since she left Rowangarth; people will want to know what is happening.’
‘But it isn’t anything to do with people – not really, mother, though I agree with you. I’ll have a word with her. After all, she’s done nothing wrong. She had every right to remarry.’
‘I accept that – and Tom was her first love.’
‘Her only love.’ Her once and for ever love. ‘None of us ever pretended she cared in the same way for Giles – those of us who knew the real truth of it – about their marrying, so soon after Tom was killed, I mean …’
The real truth of it? Not even her mother knew that, nor ever could. There were things never to be told – even to Drew.
‘I