Heart of War (10 page)

Jane looked doubtful, ‘What will he do? Look into Bob's head, like? He won't cut into him, will he?'

Rose shook her head, ‘No, there's no operation, though Dr Deerfield may give Bob some medicine … he's a real doctor, too, as I said, so if the trouble is physical – he'll find that out, before going on to the special treatment.'

Jane said, ‘But … what does he
do?'

‘Gets the patient to talk,' Rose said. ‘Tell all that they remember about their lives from the very beginning. He's looking for clues in the past that could explain what the person does in the present. Once the patient sees the connection he himself sees the origin of the compulsion, and can break free from it.'

‘Bob won't like that,' Jane said doubtfully. ‘He's never talked about when he was a boy, let alone a child …'

‘That's just the point,' Rose said. ‘He's suppressing something.'

‘But …'

Rose said gently, ‘It's that or the police, Jane. Bob has to be stopped from ruining other little girls. Society will want to do it by sending him to gaol for a long time. This is better, isn't it?'

Jane began to sob again, mumbling, ‘Yes, m'm. He'll do it. I'll see that he does.'

So, another huge offensive had begun, Cate thought, another war within the framework of the whole gigantic conflict. He admitted that he was glad the blow had fallen on the French; then at once told himself that he was a fool to allow his thoughts to go in that direction. The Allies were in the war together, and if one fell, they all fell; and if the Germans planned to break the French at Verdun, England would obviously have to throw all her forces into the battle, one way or another, or let the Germans take on their enemies one at a time.

He got up, folding the paper. He was already dressed in breeches and Newmarket boots, for he had thought he would be riding … and now he knew where – to the cottage; to see his daughter, the bride; and tell her that Johnny's Aunt Isabel Kramer was coming down to spend the weekend at the Manor, in two days' time.

A cold wind from the north blew down the furrows, and there was a hint of snow in the air, the low sun half obscured by a denseness of the atmosphere close to the ground. Probyn Gorse and his grandson, Fletcher, sat under a hedge at the corner of Howard Ashcraft's thirty-acre field of winter wheat, their backs to the hedge, facing the sun. The lame lurcher, Duke of Clarence, lay silent at Probyn's feet. The men had been poaching partridges.

‘Are they going to take Bert to court?' Fletcher asked.

Probyn sucked on his teeth and watched the edge of the wood opposite. Without turning his head he said, ‘Can't do anything to a man for blowing off his own big toe. It's his, not theirs.'

‘But they can say he did it so they couldn't take him for the Army, can't they?'

‘Don't know, boy … but they won't. Too many men doing it already, in France. They'll want to keep it quiet.'

I'll go and see him in hospital tomorrow … They'll be sending for me, soon.'

‘You won't like the Army, boy.'

‘That's what I think. But I'll give it a while … a month or two. Perhaps it won't be worse than picking hops, and I do that every year.'

‘Only for a week or two. Well, one thing, Fletcher, don't you go blowing off your toe or finger. Bert doesn't want his – all he uses is his mouth … but you need all your toes and fingers, and always will. So listen to me, eh?'

‘I will, Granddad. I won't do anything like that … Think Florinda's married yet?'

‘Maybe, maybe not. That fellow's drunk enough to change his mind a dozen times, from what Florinda told us … Time we went home.'

The two men rose to their feet, dropped into a sunken lane, and headed for Walstone. Round a bend a minute later Christopher Cate came walking toward them, wearing a thick tweed suit and cap, with a Norfolk jacket, a stout blackthorn stick in hand. On one side of him walked Betty Merritt, and on the other the older, rich American woman Probyn had talked to at the wedding, Betty's aunt, Mrs Kramer.

He stopped, touched his forelock, as the three came close. Cate acknowledged the salute with a smile and a touch of his finger to the peak of his cap. ‘Morning Probyn, morning Fletcher … You know Mrs Kramer and Miss Merritt, don't you?'

Fletcher nodded. The girl was good-looking, light brown hair, tall, the breasts small but high and firm, a freckle or two on her face – moved well, as though she lived in the country and walked a lot … her eyes were the best thing about her, dark blue, large, deep – looking at him now.

Cate said, ‘A fox got into our chicken run last night, Probyn.'

Probyn said, ‘There's too many foxes around, since the hunt sold the dog pack … only meets twice a week, too.'

‘They didn't sell the dogs,' Cate said sadly. ‘No one would buy them. They had to put them down.'

‘Oh, what a shame!' Mrs Kramer cried.

Probyn said, ‘Some of the farmers be shooting the foxes, now.'

‘Can't say I blame them,' Cate said. ‘Fletcher, I was going to walk down to the cottage later to give you a book, but we're close to the Manor now. Come along with me, and I'll give it to you now.'

‘Thanks,' Fletcher said.

‘I'll go on home,' Probyn said, touching his forelock again. Fletcher watched him go, then fell in beside Betty Merrit, behind Cate and Mrs Kramer, cheerfully aware of the weight and bulge of the three partridges in the deep pockets at the back of his coat. In front of him Mrs Kramer, too, walked well, in her fashionably cut tweed coat and skirt. She looked as though she could handle a gun or a horse, for all she was much shorter than the girl beside him … but handle a man? The squire?

Betty said, ‘I haven't forgotten our trip to the sea, Mr
Gorse – but we'll have to wait till the weather improves, won't we?'

‘Suppose so,' he said. He liked her accent, sort of flat; and calling him Mr Gorse! Wait till he told granddad about that! He added, ‘Maybe I'll be in the Army by then.'

She turned and faced him full as they walked – ‘Are you looking forward to going into the Army?'

He looked at her then, gazing into her eyes. Inquisitive, she was, like most women. ‘No,' he said, ‘but I don't want to go to gaol either. Or blow my toe off, like my Uncle Bert.'

‘I should think you'd be a good soldier. You can shoot very well, Mr Cate says … and move about in the dark without being seen.' She was definitely smiling at him now, teasing, flirting.

He said, ‘I can do those … but I don't know about standing still while fat sergeants shout at me … be told when to eat, when to sleep, what clothes to wear …' If she was asking him questions, he'd ask her some. He said, ‘Visiting the squire, miss?'

‘My aunt was coming down for the weekend, so I came down too – from Hedlington. Between you and me, I'm chaperoning them – Aunt Isabel and Mr Cate.' She winked at him.

He smiled lazily at her. She was interested. He could tell. He said, ‘Ever seen any ferreting, miss?'

‘Never. What is it?'

‘Killing rabbits with ferrets. They're like weasels, only bigger, and tame, sort of.'

‘Is it … very bloody?'

He shrugged. ‘You kill the rabbits with your hand, less the ferret gets one underground.'

‘I'd love to see it once,' Betty said. ‘I can't tell whether I'll like it till I have, can I? When can I come?'

‘This evening?' he said. He raised his voice – ‘Mr Cate, mind if I take a couple of rabbits from that big warren by Cawthon's copse? Miss Merritt here would like to see the ferreting. I'll take her this afternoon … about four.'

‘A good idea,' Cate answered over his shoulder. ‘Do you want to go too, Mrs Kramer?'

‘I've seen it,' she answered, ‘and it's cold, and may be snowing. Let the young enjoy the sport, I'll enjoy your fire.'

Cate said, ‘Good. I'll warn Cawthon after lunch.'

Then they were coming up to the Manor, walking across the cold lawn, the wind blowing harder, steel-grey snow clouds hurrying overhead, not yet ready to drop their burden.

Inside the house the women excused themselves to go upstairs, and Fletcher followed Cate into his library and music room. Cate wandered up and down the shelves while Fletcher waited, the partridges weighing down the skirts of his coat, his back to the window. Cate muttered, ‘The collected works of John Milton … not quite right, uplifting, but … no. Shelley … Keats … both guaranteed to bring on acute attacks of homesickness … the Restoration poets … no.
The Canterbury Tales
… Homer, in translation … perhaps, but a translation is only as good as the translator, and the fifteenth Earl of Derby, though a worthy nobleman and statesman, was not a great poet … Tennyson … Swinburne … Kipling, even … no. Well, as I said, I am thinking, really, that you will have this book by you when you go out on this adventure so vital for England, and for yourself. It will be the greatest event in your life, Fletcher, so it deserves the greatest … William Shakespeare.' He pulled down a leather-bound gilt-tooled volume and handed it over –
The Collected Works
.

Fletcher looked with a keen sense of pleasure, as though at a flying cock pheasant in the sun, at the artifact in his hand. Cate sensed his feeling and said, ‘It's even better inside.'

‘Thank you,' Fletcher said. And then, after a pause, ‘I'd best be going. I'll be back by four.'

‘Better make it half-past three, Fletcher. You need more time before it gets dark.'

Fletcher nodded and walked out into the passage. Betty Merritt was coming down the stairs and paused, one hand on the banister, as he passed. He looked up, and for a moment their eyes locked. As he went out of the front door Fletcher thought, I've got her … or maybe she's got me! It was a strange sensation for him, and he didn't know whether he liked it or not. No woman had ever put the tether of even a single silken strand of her hair on him before.

Probyn Gorse sat in the chair by the scrubbed deal table, thinking. He'd have to go out when it was well dark, and
retrieve the gun and kite, and it was likely to snow: cold work for a cold night. Well, the constable would be in his cottage rather than walking the village, and the keepers, the sort they had now, would be sitting over their fires. He said gloomily, ‘It's getting too easy … taking a brace of pheasants these days. Or snaring a hare, like I did day before yesterday … keepers gone to war, or taken work in towns, for more money … old fellows hired, instead, or sick men who don't know nothing … no chance of a thump on the back of the head some windy night, these days … might as well be buying it at the butcher's.'

The Woman said, ‘With berries for coins, like?'

Probyn said irritably, ‘'Tisn't the money. It's boring, that's what it is … not like when I was a lad. I mind when Fishlock – he was head keeper at the Park before Skagg, and this was when he was young – I mind when him and me stalked each other five hours one night, all up and down the Scarrow. He knew I was there, with a brace of pheasants, and I knew he was there, with a gun, and I knew he meant to put a charge of shot so close to my head I wouldn't have to cut my hair for a month after. I never saw him, and he never saw me … but we knew, we knew. These keepers now … bah!' He cleared his throat and spat accurately into the fire.

The door opened and his grandson, Fletcher, came in carrying a leather-bound book. ‘Squire gave it to me,' he said, laying it down on the table, and then, fishing in the skirts of his coat, he brought out three partridges and laid them beside the book. ‘One's for Garner,' Probyn said. ‘I'll take it up, when I go out to get the gun and kite.'

Fletcher said, ‘I'm going out, too, to show the young American lady ferreting … in Cawthon's copse, the big warren there. 'Tis squire's game.'

‘You ain't going to take my ferrets. Mrs Keppel's coming in heat and won't be no good. Queen Alexandra has the colic.'

Fletcher said, ‘I promised to show the lady ferreting. What can I do?'