Chapter 17
17
Howard had always been as keen as mustard to sign up, and announced his intention to do just this on his eighteenth birthday. Lady Fairchild was distraught. Initially, she tried emotional blackmail. Hadn’t she given enough? Two sons had already volunteered. Surely, she begged, she should be allowed to keep her youngest children safe. Could God, King and Country not grant her that small kindness?
He was persuaded to wait, but everyone knew it would not be long until he was called up, regardless. And then three months later, conscription was introduced, in the January of 1916, when it became apparent that the numbers of voluntary recruits were not enough to replace the mounting casualties. God, King and Country had remained unmoved.
Within weeks of enlisting, Howard was sent off to train. Olivia didn’t like it any more than his mother, but she understood there was a part of him that needed to do his bit. Besides, since the outbreak of war, the schools had instilled in these young men that it was their duty. Clarence and Louis had been in the OTC in case there was a war. Howard had been in it because there was a war. He had known this day was coming. His brothers, at his age, had not.
It was mid-April and Lady Fairchild and Olivia were parcelling up packets of cigarettes all morning for Louis, who didn’t smoke but who’d requested some for his men. It had actually been Olivia’s idea, after receiving a letter from him complaining that he’d overheard them calling him uncaring and aloof. She’d written back suggesting that bribery could be surprisingly effective in winning people over.
As the women worked, they talked of books. Olivia was astonished to learn Her Ladyship had not read much since her school days and so, after they’d finished, they went to the library to look out some novels. They were standing side by side, gazing out one of the huge windows and discussing Dickens, when they both spotted the telegraph boy cycling up the driveway.
Olivia’s heart stopped.
The conversation dried up and they watched his bony, white legs pedal frantically up the gravel, as he hunched forward over the handlebars, focused on the road ahead. She knew him from Sunday School and dancing at the village fetes, but she had no desire to run downstairs and speak to him. He was a nice lad but he was not welcome here – not in this capacity.
Lady Fairchild sank into one of the upholstered sofas, all colour draining from her face. A few minutes later, the housekeeper, who had taken over the butler’s duties since he’d signed up, entered the room with tentative steps and handed her mistress an envelope before discreetly departing.
The two women looked at each other and the room was unnervingly still for far longer than was comfortable. Olivia’s eyes focused on anything other than the feared missive: the way the sunlight fell across the wooden floorboards in oblong strips, the steady ticking of the large, bronze clock on the mantel, the rows of gold lettering running up the book spines and glinting in the pale sun.
‘Perhaps Sir Hugo has been delayed in London longer than he thought,’ Lady Fairchild said with false optimism. ‘Or maybe that aged uncle of his has finally passed away – the poor fellow must be about a hundred. Or one of my boys has unexpected leave.’ She managed half a smile but they both knew it was none of these. Her hand visibly trembled as she finally found the strength to slide the silver letter opener under the flap and face the brutal news within.
Please God, let it be an injury, Olivia thought. Something that had taken Clarence or Louis away from the front lines and out of danger, but that they would make a full recovery from. Even losing a leg like the vicar’s son was better than her worst fear.
She studied Lady Fairchild’s face as the sheet of paper was slid from the envelope: intense concentration, a fleeting frown, and then the poor woman’s whole face collapsed, along with her privileged, hitherto cushioned, upper-class world…
It was with regret that they were informed Lieutenant Clarence Fairchild had died two days previously.
Lord Kitchener expressed his sympathy.
* * *
One of the hardest crosses they had to bear was the news that followed. Five days after the telegram, they received a hand-written letter from Clarence’s divisional commander, and learned that the eldest Fairchild son had not been killed in action, nor had he died from wounds sustained in battle. He’d been knocked down by a passing ambulance behind the lines as he helped to transfer one of his injured men onto the back of a truck and died instantly. His death was an accident and, in many ways, a tragedy even greater than had he died in battle. The noble death that he had so wished for, and that might have offset their overwhelming grief, even if only slightly, had been denied him.
For his mother, this was the knowledge that almost destroyed her. His death was avoidable. Unnecessary.
But for Olivia, the moment that hit the hardest was two weeks later when she walked into the drawing room, having heard that Clarence’s personal possessions had been delivered to the house.
Because there, on one of the side tables, amongst the jumble of his pocket watch, fountain pen and books, was a bundle of letters, in the handwriting of the eldest Fairchild son, addressed to each of his brothers and tied together neatly with parcel string…