Chapter 15
15
The country slipped quietly into the new year, but no one felt comfortable celebrating because war was now an unhappy part of everyday life. Abroad, the battle lines had been drawn and, from what Olivia understood, there was little movement in the jagged line of trenches that split Europe in two, from the North Sea down to the Swiss border. That January, when the Zeppelins dropped bombs on Great Yarmouth and the Norfolk coast, the shock of the war possibly coming to British soil frightened everyone.
The manor was struggling with a much-reduced staff as most men of fighting age had enlisted, leaving only the chauffeur, a stable hand who professed to be a conscientious objector, and one of the footmen, who was deemed medically unfit. The only other male member of staff was Mr Rowe, the head gardener, who was far too old to be considered for active service. Olivia knew how frustrated the women were, unable to serve abroad unless in a nursing capacity, when the people they cared most about in the world were in such danger. In the end, Lady Fairchild set up the Merriford Lode Women’s War and Red Cross Working Group, gathering local women together once a week to knit socks, gloves and mufflers, sew underwear and kitbags, and roll bandages. The social side of this lifted everyone’s glum spirits, especially as tea, cake and occasionally sherry were provided, and they consoled each other that they were doing something, however small, for their boys on the front.
‘You won’t like this, Mother, but I’ve signed up,’ Louis announced when he was home for Easter, fortuitously coinciding with Clarence’s short spell of leave before being deployed to France. Olivia wasn’t convinced Louis liked the idea of going to war much either, but questions were already being asked of young, fit men who were not serving.
Their mother threw her hands up in despair.
‘So now I must bear the joint sorrow of Clarence shortly to be sent to the front line, and you imminently to follow? If the war drags on until the autumn, will Kitchener take Howard too?’ She refused to ask her second born any questions about his enlistment from that moment, as though her denial would make it go away.
As the morning of Clarence’s departure grew nearer, the atmosphere in the house shifted. Even the rowdiness of her sons settled down. Gone were the ribbing and playful shoves. Silence glided from room to room, her cloak covering all those she swept past. The time for jokes and false optimism was past. He was going out to do battle with the Germans and Olivia recognised that every name on the War Office’s casualty lists was someone’s father, someone’s oldest brother, some Titanic orphan’s friend.
Second Lieutenant Clarence Fairchild stood before them all the following morning, not even able to tell his family where he was going. All they knew was that he was sailing for France, where there was now a shortage of young officers – quite the reverse from the situation at the beginning of the war.
Sir Hugo instructed the chauffeur to take his oldest son to the station for the London train. Lady Fairchild had decided that seeing him off in a public place would be too much, so instead, the family gathered on the long, gravel drive outside the porticoed front door and said their goodbyes where no one other than the occasional curious housemaid peering from a window could see the stifled emotions of a family who remained uncomfortable weeping or embracing in view of others. Surely, Olivia thought, if there was any time for a mother to put her arms out to her son, it was now. But Lady Fairchild merely bent forward to kiss both his cheeks, and Olivia was not convinced her lips had even come into contact with his skin. Sir Hugo cleared his throat in place of words that he couldn’t find, and shook his eldest son by the hand.
This could not be the extent of their farewell. Someone had to show Clarence how much he would be missed, and so without a thought, she threw her arms about his neck.
‘Don’t die,’ she cried, saying what everyone else was thinking.
Clarence chuckled. ‘I’ll do my best, Livvy. And in the meantime, you take care of my family for me?’
‘Olivia?’ his mother questioned.
‘She’s the strongest one of us all,’ her son pointed out. ‘She confronts her emotions and talks about the things that matter.’
After the motor car had disappeared into the distance and the Fairchilds had retreated inside, Olivia stood alone on the shallow steps for quite some time, struggling to turn her feet around in case it was to be the last time that she ever set eyes on the future heir of Merriford. She’d experienced the raw grief of losing family, and this was her family now. How would she cope if something happened to Clarence or Louis?
Eventually, she walked to the east tower and climbed the spiral stairs to her room, pulled out her journal and tried to put her overflowing feelings into inadequate but heartfelt words.
* * *
A few days later and Howard returned home, having been first on an OTC training day and then staying with a school chum. He was sore to have missed his brothers by less than a week. Olivia was sitting in the Japanese garden, wrapped up warmly with a muffler around her neck, when he stumbled across her. The day was crisp but the maple trees and tall grasses sheltered her from the worst of the wind.
He stepped from behind the screen of bamboo and hesitated the moment he saw her, as though he wanted to turn and walk away, but she jumped up and ran over to embrace him. She felt his body stiffen but she needed an outlet for her emotions and one of her nearly brothers would have to do.
‘Oh, Howard, isn’t it simply awful that Clarrie is out there, and we don’t even know where?’
She felt his head bow towards her as he buried his nose briefly in her hair, and then he pulled back, taking hold of her shoulders and gently pushing her away from his body. It wasn’t aggressive but it was clear the intimacy wasn’t welcome. He looked awkward and embarrassed. Perhaps he was too old for such embraces now. She must remember not to be so overexuberant, especially if he had friends over.
She fussed with her skirt as she sat back down.
‘I’ve just seen Ernest Dunn at the house.’ Howard didn’t comment on Clarence. She understood; he simply couldn’t. ‘He’s walked up from the village to call on Father.’ He hitched up his trousers and joined her on the bench. ‘Something to do with securing a commission. Clarrie always said he was a driven young man, and he’s certainly making his mark at the shipping offices. It makes me realise how lucky we are to have the opportunities we do. I heard him say once that he would have given anything to study at university. Bright chap but lacking the necessary connections. Maybe the army will be the making of him – he certainly always knew how to deliver a punch. Makes me keen to do my bit. Get out there and have my innings.’
‘Don’t say that. It’s not a game, Howie. The vicar’s son has been quite badly wounded. Lost a leg, we were told. How long before the people we care about are injured or killed?’ Her lip started to wobble and he reached out to pat her knee. ‘I don’t understand. It was all supposed to be over by now.’
‘Don’t worry about us Fairchild boys. We’re made of stern stuff.’
‘I just want straight talking,’ she said. ‘I’m sixteen, not six.’
He shifted uneasily on the bench beside her. His eyes flashed across her body before he stared intently at the stone dragon.
‘I’m perfectly aware how old you are,’ he said, a slight edge to his voice. ‘I was just trying to protect you.’
‘I don’t need protecting, Howard. I’ve always been able to look after myself… Don’t forget, you were once on the receiving end of my right hook.’ She raised an eyebrow and he dipped his head to indicate that he remembered. ‘And I have been fully aware of the harsh reality of death since I lost my parents. You of all people should know I’m not a helpless little girl.’
He sighed, accepting she would not be fobbed off.
‘From everything I hear, we’re locked into a deadly stalemate, and the reality is neither us nor the Germans are making any significant territorial gains. A couple of the chaps at school have fathers in the government and they pick things up. The unpalatable truth is that no one predicted the horrific numbers of dead and wounded, but the artillery fire and use of machine guns make this a war like no other.’
‘Will it still be raging when you reach eighteen?’ she asked. ‘Will you get sucked into this too?’
‘Obviously, I want the war over tomorrow and my brothers safely home in Merriford, but I can’t deny there’s a tiny part of me that wishes to prove my worth alongside them. Can you imagine how insufferable Clarence will be in years to come if he’s some war hero and I’ve never even been shot at?’
‘You don’t have to prove anything. Not to Clarence, and certainly not to me.’
‘Perhaps not, but there are things I need to prove to myself. I’ve spent my life in his shadow, and Louis’s come to that. Clarence is the heir; Louis is the clever one. What am I?’
‘You,’ she said, leaning forward and engaging his eyes, ‘can be anything you want to be.’
‘Even Sir Walter Raleigh?’ He was teasing her but she didn’t mind.
‘Exactly.’ She gave him a wide smile and for the first time in months, he relaxed and smiled back.
‘I’ll still be joining up as soon as possible.’
‘I don’t understand why,’ she said, shaking her head and getting to her feet. ‘But we will simply have to agree to disagree. I’m heading back to the house. Are you coming?’
‘I’ll join you in a bit. I’m going to pick Mother a little posy of primroses from the banks of the boating lake. It’s always covered in a swathe of lemon yellow this time of year. Maybe it will bring her some cheer. She had a letter from Clarence a little while ago. He’s at the front now, but because he can’t say where, it’s done nothing to alleviate her worries.’
‘Your poor mother. Yes, flowers are a splendid idea, so long as you don’t put a frog in them.’
‘I am fully aware that the time for such pranks has passed,’ he said in a quiet voice.
There was a moment of silence where they acknowledged this truth and, unable to think of anything further to say, she took her leave. She walked over the red bridge and back to the manor, entering through the large French doors of the south-facing music room where her eager governess had occasionally tried to teach her restless pupil the piano. Momentarily blinded by moving from the bright sunshine and into the gloomy interior, Olivia realised Ernest was inside, as surprised as she to encounter one another.
‘Goodness, Olivia Davenport, you’ve grown. I haven’t seen you for over a year. Where did those curves come from?’ he asked, giving her the biggest smile. ‘You look absolutely enchanting.’
She was flattered that he’d noticed and, even though he was kind to everyone, she felt the heat rush to her cheeks. ‘Enchanting’ was such a grown-up word and she mumbled a thank you, before he gripped her hand with his and spun her around under his raised arm, as though they were in the middle of an opulent ballroom and she was the thing to be admired.
He bowed dramatically and then kissed her fingers, showcasing his gift of making everyone feel special whilst he was in their company. Despite her usual self-composure, Olivia’s knees behaved rather badly and refused to communicate with her brain.
‘Was Sir Hugo able to help?’ she asked, torn between feelings of giddy foolishness, and her fear that yet another innocent young man was off to war and might never return.
Instead of answering, he spun her under his arm again and then pulled her close, like she’d seen her father do when he’d danced with her mother around the drawing room, and she found herself pressed up against Ernest’s body. Thrilled and embarrassed all at once, she looked up into his deep-brown eyes. He’d always had the look of the undeniably handsome matinee idol Maurice Costello about him. Although a fine face was not always a guarantee of character – Costello had been arrested for beating his wife a couple of years previously.
‘How about a good-luck kiss for the brave local lad signing up to be a soldier?’
He gave her a cheeky smile just as the heavy, velvet curtain was flung back and Howard stepped into the room, surprised to find his older brother’s friend embracing Olivia. It took him less than a second to register their intimate proximity.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted, dropping a small posy of pale-yellow primroses onto the top of the piano and launching himself at the older man, pinning him to the wall. Even though Ernest was taller and stronger than him, the poor chap looked quite bewildered by the unprovoked attack.
‘I don’t know what you think is going on, Master Howard, but I’m not about to seduce her. What do you take me for? She’s just a girl. Seems as though someone is jealous, though.’
The lads glared at each other and Howard’s freckled face turned the colour of strawberries.
‘Have I hit the mark? Sorry, old chap, didn’t know you had feelings for her.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’s like a little sister. I’m just looking out for her.’
Howard couldn’t meet her eye as he stepped back from the older lad, but she’d heard enough. Ernest hadn’t meant anything by the dancing – he was like that with everyone, even occasionally Lady Fairchild. It was obvious that Howard had overreacted.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Fighting over nothing when your brothers are either facing the real enemy or preparing to. And you think I’m the child.’ She glared at them both and flounced out the room. But once in the hallway, she lingered, wanting to hear the remainder of their exchange.
‘Look here, old chap, I really didn’t mean to offend her, or you, for that matter.’
‘That’s not how gentlemen treat ladies.’ Howard’s voice was unusually shaky.
‘I’m sorry if you think my behaviour was inappropriate but it was merely a kindness. Do you not think young girls like someone older to take them seriously once in a while? I suspect the problem, dear boy, is entirely yours.’
From the thawing of her relationship with Howard only minutes before by the lake, a sharp frost was to creep back between them. For a long time after that, Olivia wished she had kissed Ernest that day, not because it would have meant anything to either of them but just to know what it felt like, and she couldn’t forgive Howard for interrupting their moment.