Chapter Seventeen
The twins almost collided with Kate as she was passing the sitting-room door with a basket full of freshly laundered clothes. They danced around her calling out, ‘Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah!’ She placed the basket on the floor and stood waiting for them to calm down.
‘What’s got you two so excited?’ Kate asked.
Mrs Winton appeared behind them with Thomas and said, ‘Quiet children, do stop shouting. You are making my head ache. Your brother is pleased too but do you see him making such a fuss?’ The twins looked suitably chastened but continued to make little nodding and smiling gestures to each other.
Mrs Winton turned to Kate. ‘Philip and Clara are coming home. Their rooms need to be aired and made ready. Would you tell Mrs Bowden please, Kate?’
Kate felt a thud in her chest. She tried to control her breathing and not let her face betray her joy.
She had missed both Philip and Clara so much.
Hearing of Philip’s return particularly made her light-headed.
She could feel his breath on her face and hear the unmistakeable tenderness in his voice when he spoke to her.
How would their first meeting be? She could expect too much but she couldn’t stop herself from dreaming.
‘We can play hide and seek and Grandmother’s Footsteps. So much more fun with all of us!’ Simon said.
‘Ooo, yes, Clara’s so good at hiding,’ Sophie added.
‘And Philip can help me with my Latin,’ Thomas joined in. ‘If I’m to be a scientist or a doctor, Latin’s important, you know.’
Kate smiled at the simplicity of the children’s desires.
Hers were so much more complicated. She wanted to share her own excitement with someone too but who could she tell?
Perhaps, in time, she would be able to confide in Clara.
Their friendship had developed through their shared interest in the suffragette movement but would Clara understand the love she felt for her brother?
Or would she dismiss Kate’s feelings as a completely impossible situation that could never be reconciled with their social differences?
And what of Philip? Were his feelings for her as strong?
Would he dare to go against his parent’s expectations?
The spiralling circle of questions made her head throb.
Her only option was to deal with these things one at a time.
She would try to gain some impressions of how Clara might have been changed by her recent experiences.
She might come home a different Clara to the one who left.
She hoped she would be able to see Clara in private, although given all the hullabaloo around their imminent arrival, she thought it unlikely.
She had been instructed to assist Mary in the making up of the bedroom that was to be Clara’s.
As well as airing the room, there should be freshly laundered sheets.
The rugs were to be beaten and fresh flowers needed to be picked from the garden.
‘Roses, Kate, the pink and yellow ones will look well in that room and they smell so beautiful,’ Mrs Winton instructed.
Kate was just adding the finishing touches and plumping up the cushions on the window seat when she saw a carriage pull up outside.
She hardly recognized the young woman who got out.
She was wearing a neat hat with a huge green, white and blue band around it finished with a bow on the side.
Her hair was swept up neatly inside it. A shawl collar edged her pale green dress with pin tucks on the sleeves and, as the coachman took her hand, Kate could see she wore delicate, white gloves.
So, this was what finishing school was meant to achieve, Kate thought.
She wondered how Clara felt about being sent away and if she was relieved to be home?
She must have so much to tell about her travels in Europe.
She didn’t have to wait long for as soon as Clara had entered the house and been greeted by her parents, she heard the clatter of feet down the stairs and cries of, ‘Clara, Clara, you’re home, come and play with us, come and play.
I have a new doll’s house.’ Sophie’s voice rang out along the landing.
‘And I have the best set of soldiers,’ added Simon.
‘Where’s Thomas?’ Clara asked.
‘Thomas will be somewhere with his nose in a book,’ Mrs Winton said.
‘Don’t expect an enthusiastic welcome from him.
He’s a studious boy, my dear. He doesn’t see the need for such outbursts of emotion.
He’ll seek you out soon enough, no doubt, Clara, when he has some piece of new information to impart. ’
Clara was swept up the stairs in a tide of pulling, pushing and talking and, when Kate greeted her at the door of the nursery, it was as if she had never been away.
Her hat removed and her hair already slightly dishevelled, she beamed at Kate and said, ‘I’ve so missed that smiling face.
Oh, Kate, it’s good to be back. I can’t tell you what a prison I’ve been in for the past few months.
It feels like years. Even the Europe tour didn’t lift my spirits much.
I just exchanged one gaoler for another.
Aunt Beatrice is such a puritan. She’s stuck in the past. Paris and Venice would have been so much more fun if you’d been there with me. ’
‘It’s good to see you, Miss Clara, I’m so pleased you’re back,’ Kate replied.
‘Now, you must tell me everything,’ Clara said, taking Kate’s hands. ‘We have a good hour or two before dinner and I want to know all that’s happened since I’ve been away.’
They talked and talked while the twins constantly complained that Clara wasn’t paying attention. When the interruptions got too loud, Clara and Kate took a moment to admire their new playthings and then got back to the business of catching up with each other’s news.
Clara was intrigued to hear about Archie, and Kate was equally intrigued to hear about how Carnforth’s letters had been smuggled in to the school.
‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ Clara said. ‘You’d be amazed how inventive and adept at deception young ladies are,’ she giggled.
‘And what of Mr Arthur Makepiece?’ Kate asked. ‘Is he no longer after your hand in marriage?’
‘I sincerely hope not!’ Clara said screwing up her nose in distaste.
‘No doubt he heard about the post box thing and decided that I was not suitable material to make polite conversation around a dinner table. Father hasn’t mentioned any more about him, thank goodness, and I am certainly not going to raise the subject. ’
‘So when will Philip be here?’ Kate asked.
‘Tomorrow and there’s to be a dinner, a welcome home dinner party for friends and associates of the Winton family no less,’ Clara explained, ‘and guess who’s coming because he’s a friend of Philip’s?’
Kate didn’t need to guess, she could tell by Clara’s expression that it was Edward Carnforth.
Kate was told that she would be needed to serve at table.
So, she wouldn’t get to meet Master Philip until he was seated round the table with all the other guests.
She was disappointed. No, she was more than disappointed, she realized, she was upset.
She had tried to persuade herself that she could be happy with Archie and she did like him a lot, he was good company but she couldn’t stop thinking about Philip.
She didn’t want their first meeting for a long while to be in front of so many others, with her as the servant and he as the man whom she could never be equal to.
But there was nothing to be done. She was busy in the kitchens and getting the children ready for bed, and he was in his rooms, dressing and preparing for an evening of entertaining, eating and drinking.
Kate served all the guests with their main course but paid special attention to Philip, making sure he had enough of everything he wanted and retrieving more roast potatoes from the kitchen at his request. He thanked her and said to make sure to tell Mrs Bowden that she had not lost her touch.
‘Well, we had all better make the most of the splendid food and hospitality here this evening,’ one of the older guests with greying hair announced with a seriousness that hushed the room.
‘The way tensions are mounting in Europe, we could well find ourselves in all-out war before the end of the year. We’ve already sent troops into France.
And don’t expect it to be over quickly. This assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand has sparked quite a conflict.
We must expect there to be many casualties and if our enlisted men don’t prove enough to defeat the enemy then other means will have to be found. ’
‘What are you saying, Charles?’ a man with a huge moustache and red, veined cheeks said. ‘Are you suggesting that things might get so bad that we need to recruit more men?’
‘The German army is a formidable force,’ the grey-haired gentleman replied.’ We must fight might with might. The German aggressors must be stopped.’
‘Hear, hear. Well said,’ added another guest.
Kate returned to the kitchen upset by what she had heard. She relayed the information to Mrs Bowden and Mary.
‘Well we knew it was coming,’ said Mrs B.
‘The papers have been full of it for weeks. Things were bound to get worse. We can’t stand by and let those Germans invade other countries.
It will be us next! But war comes at a price and it’s paid by the men who fight it, not the men who declare it.
My brother served in the Boer War. He came home a changed man.
He’s no longer in the army thankfully, but it did for his confidence and he lost his cheeriness forever, poor soul. ’
‘My brother says that he’ll go and fight if they need him,’ Mary said. ‘He’s not in the army though and I can’t imagine him with a gun in his hand. He’s more likely to shoot himself in the foot, he’s that clumsy.’
‘I can’t imagine being asked to kill a man,’ Kate said. ‘Don’t know if I could do it.’
‘If you’re a soldier and you’re called to fight, then you must,’ Mrs B said. ‘Either that or be killed yourself. A good thing the Winton family are not army people, for we’d be waving our goodbyes to Master Philip and God knows what would happen to him then!’
Kate didn’t want to think about that at all.
Her thoughts turned to brighter things. She had the opportunity during the dinner to observe Clara and Carnforth.
Although they were not sitting next to each other, there was plenty of eye contact and the exchanging of discreet smiles.
Carnforth had done his best to impress Mrs Winton and engage her in conversation.
She noted that the mistress laughed several times during the course of the evening.
Perhaps Clara would get her heart’s desire after all?
* * *
Kate was sufficiently concerned about the thought of a war that she mentioned it to Archie the next time she saw him. Now Philip had returned, she felt strange about continuing to see Archie but she couldn’t let him down. Archie didn’t reply immediately but looked thoughtful. Kate prompted him.
‘Well, what do you think about it all, about civilians being encouraged to enlist?’ she asked him.
‘Kate, my brother’s in the army and he’s been posted to France.
What he said in his last letter sounds serious,’ Archie replied.
‘There just aren’t enough of our soldiers.
We have to stop these Germans. Before we know it, they’ll be invading our shores.
I’m going to be with my brother. I’m joining up. ’
‘But the war’s in France. We have the English Channel between us and them,’ Kate replied. ‘You don’t need to go, Archie. No one says you have to go.’
‘No one says I have to, no, but I want to. Look about you, Kate, you must have seen the posters on the shop windows, in the streets? Our country needs us. I’m not going to be one of those left behind.
It’s the national duty of every able-bodied man.
I’m fit and strong and I can learn how to be a soldier just like my brother.
Besides, I won’t be going on my own. There are several of us going from my street; we’re pals, known each other since school days. ’
‘It’s not a good reason to go to war, just because your pals are,’ Kate argued.
‘I don’t expect you to understand. My mother doesn’t understand either.’
‘Well she won’t be delighted to have two sons in uniform carrying guns, will she?’
Kate recognized a wild determination in his eyes. His lips were tight set and his hands were placed firmly on his knees. He would not be moved. She couldn’t keep her anger and disappointment down.
‘Isn’t fighting best left to those who are trained to do it?’ Kate said.
‘We will be trained,’ Archie replied. ‘I’m fit and able and ready. I want to go, Kate, and there’s nothing you can do to persuade me otherwise. I’m not going to be one of the ones left behind. I’m no coward. It’s my chance to prove myself.’
‘Prove yourself to who? Not me,’ Kate said. ‘What if you don’t come back? What if . . .’
‘Don’t you think I’ve considered that? I’m not a fool. I know what I’m letting myself in for, but the alternative is worse, Kate. Would you have me wave goodbye to my pals and not be there by their sides? We’ll look out for each other.’ He reached across and took her hands.
Kate wasn’t sure he did know what he was letting himself in for, but she knew what it would mean for her, waiting and not knowing.
She could feel the tears welling up inside her.
She had only just found Archie and now he was leaving her.
God knows when he would be back or if he would be back at all!
She let him hold her hands for a while longer, her mind racing through everything that had happened since she had left Micklewell.
She was good at her job, she was capable of taking on new challenges and she had survived the departure of Eliza.
She had found herself accepted by Clara and Philip despite being a servant in their parents’ house.
Oh God, Philip! What of him? Would he want to go to war too?
If Archie was going to join up then surely Philip would too. The tears trickled down her cheeks.
Archie pulled out a clean handkerchief and gave it to her.
‘It will be all right, Kate, you’ll see. I’ll be back home before you know it. And we’ll write to each other. It can’t last forever, can it?’
Forever was a place that she didn’t dare think about at that moment.
Even tomorrow, next week, next year was lost in a mist of unrecognizable shapes and shadows.
The future was a place that kept eluding her.
She wasn’t even sure of where she wanted that place to be or who she wanted it to be with.
All she knew was that she couldn’t hold on to those who were beyond her reach.