Chapter 19
19
Louis’s death, so soon after Clarence’s, hit them all viscerally hard. Howard, who was able to engineer a visit home before he was due to sail from Southampton, was particularly distraught as he’d not seen his older brother for months. It was small compensation, but he would, at least, overlap with Benji before he returned to school.
Olivia knew to expect a period of initial awkwardness whenever any of the Fairchild offspring returned home. Boarding school, university and then with the oldest two going off to war, there had been big gaps when she hadn’t seen them, and she was often startled by how much they’d changed in the intervening periods. Benji, for example, had grown a whole inch over the summer term, and even he was leaving his boyhood behind, apparent from the occasional pimple and high-pitched squeak.
But the first time she saw Howard in his uniform was entirely different. Something inside Olivia changed – or perhaps it had been changing for a while and it was the first time she acknowledged it.
She was huddled over a pair of knitting needles with Cynthia, as Her Ladyship tried to unpick a disastrous row for her. Olivia had been thinking about Major Turrell – one of the patients at the hospital whose eyes had been damaged by a mustard gas attack. It wasn’t that the major did anything to make her heart flutter; besides, she was only seventeen and he was almost thirty. It was more that she thought he deserved a happy ever after.
The man had a passionate and poetic soul – she knew this from the things he asked her to write to his mother – so she was imagining an uplifting end to his unfortunate circumstances, possibly with the stern nurse that she’d noticed cheered his spirits immeasurably every time she tended to him. But the lady in question was so matter-of-fact with her ministrations, and the strict overseeing eye of the matron would inevitably put an end to any untoward shenanigans of an amorous nature. As a way of coping with the devastating loss of Louis, Olivia liked to imagine a love blossoming for the major, and this had been at the cost of her knitting.
Howard was not expected until that afternoon, having cadged a lift from a friend who lived in another part of Norfolk. So, when he arrived early, loudly clearing his throat to alert those in the room to his presence, they were all taken by surprise – more so because he’d grown a moustache and Olivia almost hadn’t recognised him.
Lady Fairchild burst into tears, allowing the tangled knitting to fall to the floor. Her husband walked over to his third-eldest son, now tragically heir to his estate, and shook his hand, but Howard’s eyes were focused on Olivia, not leaving her face for a moment. She rose to her feet and began to wonder if she had something on her cheek – stray crumbs from lunch or ink from her writing.
‘What do you think of me now, Livvy?’ he asked. His hands swept across his uniform.
‘Very smart and more than enough to turn some young lady’s head.’ But it was the wrong response and she didn’t know why. His face had a dejected look about it.
Lady Fairchild walked to the doorway and kissed her son, much to his surprise, and then briefly embraced him, as Olivia took the opportunity to study him further. Her stomach constricted in an unexpected way. Howard, standing near the doorway in his khaki uniform and cap, looked so grown-up and yet so painfully young, all at once.
‘Confined to the drawing room, I see,’ he said, walking into the centre of the room. ‘The old place feels very different with all these strangers bustling about.’
‘We are doing what we can for the war effort,’ his mother said. ‘It’s not much but?—’
‘It’s everything, Mother. You’re giving them a place to heal, some peace and quiet and the odd pretty face to cheer up their day.’ He briefly flicked his eyes to the inexplicably nervous girl standing across the room from him.
‘Young Olivia’s been quite a hit with the men,’ Sir Hugo said. This time, Howard met and held her gaze as his father continued. ‘She reads for them and I’ve been told her passion really brings the books alive.’
‘Major Turrell always asks for her specifically,’ his wife volunteered.
‘Now, now, she’s far too sensible… far too young,’ her husband said, ‘to be getting involved with the patients.’ Olivia was many things but perhaps sensible was not one of them.
‘He comes from a distinguished line of Turrells… that’s all I’m saying. Now give your sister a kiss and we can ask the housekeeper to bring in a pot of tea.’ Lady Fairchild’s determination that the little orphan they had taken in was a legitimate part of her family brought a lump to Olivia’s throat. Her parents had chosen her guardians well and for that, she would be eternally thankful.
‘She’s not my sister,’ Howard stressed, quietly under his breath, but Olivia caught his words.
‘Oh, Howie, we have missed you terribly,’ she said, putting out her arms to embrace him but his face registered panic. It was fleeting but she saw it so let her arms drop back to her sides. Perhaps he didn’t want his two dead brothers replaced by a girl who was not related to him. He took a step towards her and leaned down to give her an awkward peck on the cheek, as his mother had requested.
The men waited for the ladies to settle themselves and then they all sat together in a cluster around the fireplace, Howard reluctantly taking the vacant space next to Olivia on the sofa, but placing himself as far from her as he possibly could.
The maid brought in a tray of tea, and she felt sad that the acceptance and closeness she shared with Cynthia, and had long shared with Benji, would never be shared with him. Things had always been difficult between herself and Howard but she’d hoped that would change as they got older. Or was there something else going on? Was he furious because he believed she was flirting with a blind major at the hospital? Did he disapprove that his mother was now treating her as one of her own? He’d certainly been displeased that Olivia had encouraged Cynthia to drive a motor vehicle, as she remained an absolute menace on the road.
Benji was summoned from the gardens to greet his brother, all gangly limbs and awkwardness, and then Lady Fairchild mentioned Louis and the mood dipped. Olivia’s eyes flicked briefly to the photograph taken at Haven-on-Sea all those years ago, as the youngest Fairchild wedged himself between Olivia and Howard, and five bereaved people struggled to find things to say – all of them acutely aware that two faces were missing from their family gathering.
* * *
Whatever was rankling Howard, it became ever more apparent over the next couple of days. In recent years, whenever the Fairchild boys were home, Benji would walk by her side, keen to chat and be involved in whatever she was doing. Howard had often trailed behind, like a well-trained gun dog, but perhaps it hadn’t been a desire to be part of their close friendship, as she’d always thought, and instead him observing her, checking that she didn’t overstep. Now, he seemed to move away from her whenever they were in a room together.
Determined to avoid confrontation, and mindful that his imminent deployment abroad and recent death of his brother were understandably on his mind, she continued to throw herself into her volunteer work with the wounded, often spotting him on the edge of what she was doing. When she read for a group of the men in the library, Howard appeared in the doorway. When she took Captain Smith for a turn about the lawn in his bath chair, she caught sight of him looking out through the French doors of the music room.
Taking some time for herself, she retreated to the Japanese gardens, jotting down ideas for another story, when she heard the thud of feet and turned to see Benji racing towards her.
‘Howard’s got into trouble at the boating lake.’ He was breathless and red-faced. ‘Come quickly.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, she dropped her journal to the ground and hitched up her skirts, running behind Benji over the bridge and down to the lake, all the time wondering what she was going to find. Had he been messing about in a boat and it had overturned? She knew he couldn’t swim, and had always kept to the shallow areas when the boys had mucked about in the water in years gone by.
Please God, she thought to herself as her thumping heart almost burst from her chest, do not let someone else I care about drown.
But as she approached the water’s edge, her eyes frantically scanning for signs of a distressed individual or, even worse, a floating-upside-down dead one, she was astonished to see Howard’s auburn hair and freckled face bobbing about in the middle of the lake.
He raised a hand and gave a small wave.
‘Ha! I reckon we had you there for a moment. But look, Livvy, I can swim.’