Chapter 22
22
‘Such a shame you’re not in the tower any more,’ Howard said as they walked up the gravel driveway between the two wings of the house and towards the front door. Lady Fairchild and Sir Hugo were standing on the stone steps, anticipating the imminent return of their son. His mother would have been looking out from the library since Olivia had left to meet his train, so anxious was she to have him home. But, despite her eagerness to see him, if Lady Fairchild was going to cry, she would do it at the manor and not on a station platform for all to see.
‘It was felt necessary when the wounded young men moved in.’ One of the nurses had indeed been caught in flagrante with a young officer and been summarily dismissed, but Olivia had felt sorry for the young lovers, especially after the heartbreak of Major Turrell. ‘They were protecting my virtue.’
‘Exactly, because it’s your virtue I fully intended to violate, but I can’t do that creeping down the corridor that my mother may step into at any given moment.’ Although they had been intimate only a short while ago, they were walking some distance from each other, not touching, and with nothing about their demeanour to indicate this was the case. ‘Shall we tell them?’
Her eyes flashed wide. ‘That we’ve been together in the woods?’ She shared a close bond with Cynthia now, but they weren’t quite that close.
‘No, you silly goose. That we’re engaged.’
‘Your mother sees us as brother and sister. We need to tread gently. She’s so desperately excited to have you home, Howie. Let today be for her.’
And as a highly emotional Lady Fairchild ran towards them, arms outstretched and tears streaming down her cheeks, Olivia stepped to the side and allowed Howard’s parents to usher him into the house, wondering if everyone could now tell from her face that she was no longer a child, but a woman.
* * *
Howard was better than both his older brothers at tolerating his mother’s overexuberance. He’d always had the most open personality and, perhaps the truth was, he finally had the undivided attention of his parents that he’d so desperately craved growing up. By nightfall, however, the young lovers had not been able to snatch one minute alone, and his desperation resulted in a note passed to Olivia under the dining table.
They met at the end of the top corridor at midnight and he led her to the boathouse. It was, he confided, a place Clarence had held assignations in the past. The gamekeeper had long since been ordered to turn a blind eye to any nightly activities going on within, so they would not be disturbed. Somehow, Howard had arranged for a bed of blankets to await them and liberated a bottle of something dusty and strong from the cellar. They made love, slowly this time, and it was an improvement on their fumbled efforts in the woods.
Shafts of moonlight fell across his pale, exposed flesh as he lay face down next to her, his head tilted, and eyes wide with wonder, caressing every inch of her face.
‘This makes a change from picking lice out the seams of my uniform by candlelight.’ It was said in his usual breezy manner but she detected the resentment within.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
He rolled over and sat up, staring out the window, and she wondered if he had heard her request, until finally he spoke.
‘Was dear old Louis’s candour not enough?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Because, even if I wanted to, and even with all the vocabulary I have at my disposal, it’s a woefully inadequate dictionary to describe what’s going on out there.’
She shuffled closer to him and threw her arms about his shoulders, no longer embarrassed as the blanket fell from under her arms. He was exposing himself emotionally. What did her nakedness matter?
‘We got it so wrong, Liv. Thinking of it all as some great escapade – a chance for glory and sacrifice. There’s no glory in the waterlogged pits of death I walk through. I pray to God that it’s all over, one way or another, before Benji is dragged into it.’
‘You’ll be fine.’ She tried to reassure, to soothe. ‘You simply have to be. We’ve found each other now and I’ll not have you leave me too.’
‘Promise me that whatever happens, you’ll pursue those plans you wrote out in your notebook? That you’ll travel and have magnificent adventures?’
‘I promise,’ she said. ‘But we can do it together. As man and wife.’
He put his head in his hands.
‘I should have married you before I touched you. I’ve done my best to ensure that you won’t fall pregnant, but it’s never guaranteed. Assuming that you aren’t carrying my child, which would rather change things, I think we should wait until this bloody mess is over before we tell my parents, though. Our American brothers stand beside us now and surely, it can’t drag on much longer.’
Olivia nodded. ‘Your mother won’t like it. She insists I’m your sister.’
‘And that’s why I must be the one to do it. I can’t have her angry with you, especially if there are whispers from some of the more sanctimonious villagers.’
‘Until the war is over, then,’ she agreed.
* * *
It was an anxious few days for Olivia after Howard returned to the front but she was relieved to find that she was not with child. The days stretched into weeks and she missed him like crazy. She tried to hide her listlessness and frustration, but she found it difficult to focus on anything other than those passionate few days together, and she lived entirely for his letters.
One early June afternoon, she returned to the boathouse to recapture precious memories of their time together. The wooden door had warped with the spring rains and it was with some difficulty that she opened it and stepped inside. It smelled of damp and the blankets that they had lain upon back in the April were still folded up on a wicker chair.
Olivia picked up an abandoned striped jumper of his, left behind from their illicit night-time encounters, and held it to her face. She could smell traces of him in the wool and decided to take it back to her room to remind herself that the whirlwind of their romance was real. Surely, the war couldn’t last much longer and the need for their subterfuge would be over. Sir Hugo was convinced it was coming to an end – the Germans were exhausted – and then they could marry and be done with all the secrecy. She had every faith Howard would return to her, and that he would find the right words to soften the blow for his parents.
‘You love him, don’t you?’
Cynthia’s voice startled her and she spun to face the older woman, who had entered the boathouse without her knowing.
‘Who?’
‘Don’t treat me like a fool, Olivia.’ Her tone was gentle but her eyes were sad as she looked at the distinctive garment in Olivia’s hands. ‘Everything was written across your faces as you returned up the drive together in the spring. The very fact you would not touch each other – you, who embraces everyone from the cook to the postwoman – or meet each other’s eyes across the dining table, told me all I needed to know. But this afternoon, one of the hospital volunteers from the village mentioned she sat with him on the ten past twelve that day. So, I asked myself, why it took you both so long to walk back to the house and why you might lie about it.’
Olivia met the eyes of the woman who was all but a mother to her and swallowed hard.
‘Howard wanted to be the one to tell you. He thought you’d be angry, but it is only a very recent thing.’
Cynthia sighed. ‘I was shocked when I first suspected the truth – you know that I see you like a daughter – but then I thought about it all more sensibly. There is no blood link, so there is nothing improper about your romance, as long as my son’s intentions are honourable and this is no casual dalliance.’
‘We’re engaged,’ she confirmed, and Cynthia’s face broke into a smile. ‘Unofficially.’
‘I’m hurt that neither of you felt you could trust me with this information; however, this news brings me joy, when I have been joyless for so long.’ The older woman stepped forward and reached out to cup Olivia’s anxious face with her soft hands. ‘Leave Sir Hugo to me. Perhaps we can engineer a wedding before the year is out. I’m certain my husband can pull some strings. Get Howard back here as soon as possible. The war has taken its toll on my poor boy and they surely can’t deny him this. What good is it knowing people in high places if you can’t occasionally use it to your advantage? And, naturally, you must have my mother’s ring…’
And, as the older woman flipped from thought to thought, Olivia smiled to herself. Her wedding would be organised to within an inch of its life and she doubted she’d have much say in the proceedings, but honestly didn’t care. That their union could go some way to repairing all the damage and heartache that the war had brought upon this family was enough for her.
* * *
Lady Fairchild officially announced their engagement the very next day, much to consternation of the vicar and grumbles of the wounded men Olivia attended. Even Benji’s congratulations were muted, despite her reassurances that it would change nothing between them. But he was young; he would adapt. Olivia immediately wrote to Howard to say that the cat was out the bag, and that his mother had taken it surprisingly well and, as the days went on, the spirits of the whole household lifted. Everyone was excited to be planning for such a happy event after four years of misery.
Sir Hugo set about tugging on those strings, attempting to engineer leave for his son, but Howard’s commanding officer stressed that, militarily, this was a critical period and Captain Fairchild had not long been home. Consequently, no leave was forthcoming. The family eventually thought they’d secured leave for him at the end of the summer but he fell ill with pneumonia and spent three weeks in a French hospital.
Despite this, good things were on the horizon as, by September, everyone knew the war was coming to an end. The Allies were advancing and Germany was on her knees. Her army was disillusioned and her people were hungry. All Olivia prayed for was for Howard to stay alive until the end came.
How terribly cruel then, for a telegram to arrive one September afternoon to inform the family that their son was missing in action, having led a night raid in enemy territory.
All three members of the party had failed to return.