No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (23 page)

Love

Jago

If he was coming home, LM thought, clutching this letter literally to her heart, she must indeed be ready for him. It would be wonderful. She would get a tree, decorate the house, buy him such presents. And this time be happy and strong for him. If only she felt better herself. Perhaps now she knew he was coming home, she would begin to feel better. She’d never known ill-health before, not this dreadful constant sickness and lassitude and heartburn. And now her monthlies had stopped as well. She knew what it was of course; it was the change. She’d been half expecting it to happen for some time; she was, after all, forty. Her mother had had it early; but then she’d had cancer. LM stopped dead on her brisk walk down Haverstock Hill. Suppose that was it; suppose it wasn’t the change, suppose it was cancer. Then she shook herself. Of course it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. But she would see the doctor. Soon. Very soon. That very day if she could.

‘I’m pregnant. What do you think about that?’

‘Pregnant! Oh, Celia, I – I don’t know what to say.’

‘Nor do I, LM. I don’t know what to say to Oliver, either. He’ll only worry. Say I’ve got to rest and all that nonsense. And of course I can’t.’

‘Oh Celia. I’m – I’m sorry,’ said LM helplessly, hoping that was the right thing to say.

Although Celia was clearly anxious, she looked perfectly cheerful. But then she would; she met everything head on, nothing daunted her. She would cope with it, whatever happened. Her courage was immense. LM was brave too, very brave indeed about most things, but pregnancy frightened her. It was linked ineradicably in her mind with death: largely because of Jago, and the sad history of his Annie, but also because poor Jeanette had also died. And she had never forgotten finding Celia on her office floor that day, miscarrying, lying in a pool of blood. She thanked God almost daily she had never had to undergo it.

‘I’m sorry, LM,’ said Celia, ‘I shouldn’t have worried you. And what does it matter, really, with all these men dying every day. Oh I’m sorry, LM, I mean – oh God – don’t cry, don’t—’

‘It’s all right,’ said LM hauling herself into self-control with a great effort, managing to smile at Celia, ‘please don’t concern yourself about me. It hardly matters.’

‘LM, of course it does. Is – that is – have you – has he—’ her voice tailed away. ‘I’m sorry, LM I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘You have every right to ask,’ said LM, ‘you more than most. I should have told you, it was wrong of me not to. My friend, Mr Ford, whom of course you met.’

Celia nodded politely, as if she had met Jago at a literary luncheon party.

‘Mr Ford, is out in France.’

‘France—’

‘Yes. At the front.’

‘Oh LM, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. Is he – that is, what a stupid question, oh dear—’

‘He’s quite safe and well,’ said LM firmly, ‘and he writes regularly. But I have to admit I have found it quite worrying. But he’s perfectly safe and well. And, I hope, coming home for Christmas. I’ll keep you informed in future,’ she added,

‘LM, you don’t have to.’

‘I’d like to. You were so very – helpful that day. A good friend to us both.’

‘I’m just glad it was helpful. One never knows. And I did like him very much, LM, I thought he was extremely—’

‘But to return to you,’ said LM cutting into this smoothly. Giving Celia the facts about Jago’s war service was one thing; discussing him more personally was quite another. Celia flushed, recognising that she had said too much.

‘Sorry, LM. Yes, me and my pregnancy. Oh dear.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘I think I won’t tell Oliver. Not before he leaves. He’ll go off far more happily if he’s not worrying about me. Then, with luck, I can just get on with it after that. I might not even see him again until after—’ her voice crumpled slightly, then steadied, ‘after the baby’s born. That would be clever wouldn’t it?’

‘It would. When is it – that is when do you—?’

‘Expect it? Oh, let me see. July. Long way off. Nothing to show for it at Christmas, except perhaps a bit of sickness, which I’m sure I can explain away. Oh, dear LM, I do wish I wasn’t quite so fertile.’

‘It must be difficult,’ said LM politely. And thought yet again how fortunate she had been not to have that as one of her problems.

11th November

Dearest Meg,

The fighting is over for the time being, we’re told. No more big pushes for a while, so you can stop worrying about me. We are in what they call a rest camp, after what I can now tell you was some pretty bloody fighting. Some officers have been killed; they’re a good bunch I must say, the officers, brave and very good to us men. I wouldn’t hear a word against them. I was a bit doubtful at first, to be honest, hearing how they came out in the first class trains and so on, while we were herded in like cattle, but you put your life in their hands and they do their best for you. Anyway, yours truly has come out of it without a scratch. I seem to be lucky. Sergeant major says there’s no such thing as a lucky soldier, just a good one. If that’s so, I’m bloody good. Christmas more or less assured. Don’t know how long we’ll be here, only that it’s a relief.

I love you Meg.

Jago

Dear Celia,

I’ll be home for Christmas. Hope you can offer me a place at your table. Or at least under your tree! I could do with a good old-fashioned family Christmas with your brood. I think about them a lot. Jolly fine they are. Tell Oliver it’s perfectly all right out here, good fun in fact, but he’ll need plenty of warm underwear.

Love

Jack

‘Hallo, Mum.’

‘Oh – Barty! I didn’t hear you. How are you, dear?’

‘Very well, thank you’ said Barty politely. Of all the things she hated, becoming a polite stranger to her mother was the worst. That and the boys teasing her. Calling her a posho. That was horrible.

‘You’re looking very well. Is Lady Celia with you?’

‘No. She drove me here, but she’s gone to the office for an hour or , so.’

‘Will she be coming in then, when she collects you? Oh, dear, I must get the place tidy, wash the floor.’

‘Mum! Don’t be silly. It doesn’t matter about the floor.’

‘It does if Lady Celia’s coming.’

‘I think,’ said Barty, ‘she’s got more to worry about than your floor. Wol’s gone off to the war.’

‘Oh no! Oh dear, how dreadful, I am sorry. Is he at the front?’

‘No, training somewhere in England. She’ll tell you about it when she comes back I’m sure. Is – has Dad said anything about going?’

‘Oh no, dear. He feels he’s needed here more. Keep the home fires burning, that’s what he says. So many have gone, and he’s getting on a bit now, over thirty, they probably wouldn’t take him anyway, no need for everyone to rush off after all.’

‘No,’ said Barty, ‘no, of course not. Where is he? I’d like to see him.’

‘He’s out, dear. At the working men’s club. He spends a lot of time there now.’

‘What does he do there?’ asked Barty anxiously. She hoped it wasn’t somewhere you could get beer.

‘Oh, plays snooker. Cards. That sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I see. Did he – did he know I was coming?’

It hurt, that her father never seemed to want to see her.

‘Well, he wasn’t sure of course,’ said Sylvia carefully. ‘He’ll be sorry to have missed you though. Oh dear, I really want to clean the place up, Barty. Marjorie, come and help me. Barty’s here, look, and Lady Celia’s coming later, and I want the place clean.’

‘She can help you, can’t she?’ said Marjorie indicating her sister. She didn’t even say hallo to Barty; she was a large lumpen child, the image of her father, and of all the children she was the most overtly hostile to Barty. The boys might call her posho, go on about her voice and her clothes, but they were still intrinsically good-natured. Marjorie hated and resented Barty’s good fortune with a passion. More than once she had asked her mother if she and Barty could change places.

‘Why should it be her, why not me, if the idea was just to save space here and help you?’

Sylvia said as firmly as she could that Lady Celia had always favoured Barty, and wouldn’t want to change the arrangement now. ‘And besides she’s got Barty turned into a young lady now, she’d have to start again with you.’ This distinctly tactless explanation went no way towards reconciling Marjorie with the situation.

‘Yes, I’ll do it, of course. How are you, Marjorie?’

‘Oh, very well thank you, your ladyship,’ said Marjorie in mincing tones. ‘I’m so sorry, but I have a call to make. Do please excuse me, your ladyship.’

‘Marjorie,’ said Barty, ‘don’t be silly. I want to be your friend. You’re my sister.’

‘Yes, and who’d think that, looking at you with your fine clothes and your posh voice, who’d think I was your sister? Well I’m glad, I don’t want to be your sister, and I certainly don’t want to be your friend. I’m going out Mum, down the shop, meet Doreen.’

And she was gone, after making a face at Barty.

‘Oh dear,’ said Sylvia, ‘I have tried to make her see sense, Barty, but I can’t.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Barty, blinking back the tears. ‘So where are the boys?’

They were seldom there when she came home these days; they made themselves scarce, torn between embarrassment and hostility, and a guilty knowledge, in the older ones at least, that the huge gulf between them was not Barty’s fault.

‘Out playing. But Billy said he’d be back.’

‘Oh good. Did Frank like the book I brought for his birthday?’

‘He did, dear, very much. I explained it was one of Lady Celia’s own firm’s books, but he didn’t seem that interested. He’s good at school, Frank is. Might make the scholarship they said, only there’s no point. I couldn’t possibly get the uniform together if he passed.’

‘Mum, Aunt Celia would pay for the uniform. I know she would,’ said Barty earnestly, her large eyes anxious.

‘Oh, no. I couldn’t take any more from the Lyttons. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘It might help me,’ said Barty quietly.

‘Now, how could it help you? Pass me that bucket, dear.’

‘Make the others hate me less.’

‘They don’t hate you.’

‘I think they do. Let me ask her – Mum, is your arm all right? Doesn’t seem to work too well.’

‘Oh it’s all right,’ said Sylvia hastily. ‘Hurt it lifting the washing last week.’

‘Dad knocked her down the stairs.’ It was Billy; he had come in the front door.

‘Down the – Mum, that’s so bad. You can’t let him do that.’

‘Barty,’ said Billy, and the expression in his eyes was scornful as he looked at her, ‘living with those people has turned your brain. How do you think she’s going to stop him?’

‘Well I—’ Barty’s eyes filled with tears, partly because of Billy’s reaction to her, partly out of fear and anxiety at her mother’s plight. ‘I – don’t know. But I could tell Aunt Celia—’

Billy stepped forward, and gripped her arm in his hand. He was a big boy now, almost sixteen; it hurt. She winced.

‘You tell your precious Aunt Celia about our troubles, and I’ll break
your
arm. We don’t want her here, interfering in our lives. She’s done enough damage, taking you away.’

‘She hasn’t taken me away,’ said Barty staunchly. But she knew it wasn’t true. Celia had taken her away; and however much she might want it, she could never go back.

‘I know it’s the change,’ said LM, ‘I just wondered if there was anything you could give me to help.’

‘Ah.’ Dr Pitts looked at her carefully. ‘Any hot flushes, sweats at night?’

‘No,’ said LM, ‘but—’

‘Any – any flooding?’

‘No, I told you, the – the monthlies have stopped.’

‘Yes, I see. Er – Miss Lytton—’

‘Yes, Dr Pitts.’ She had known him most of her life, he had looked after her father.

‘Miss Lytton, forgive me, but I think – I can see this may come as a shock to you—’

He was looking very solemn, almost stern; it is cancer, thought LM, that’s what it is, I have cancer, I’m going to die, like my mother, before I see Jago again. She screwed up her courage, took a deep breath.

‘Yes?’ she said faintly. ‘Please tell me. Whatever it is. I would prefer to know.’

‘Yes, well you certainly have to know,’ said Dr Pitts. He almost smiled at her, then hesitated, as if hoping he would still not have to proceed. Then he took a deep breath and said rather quickly, ‘Miss Lytton, there is absolutely no doubt, I would say, no doubt at all, that you are pregnant.’

CHAPTER 10

Why was it always at Christmas, Celia wondered fretfully, stabbing her fingers endlessly on pine needles as she tried to fix the candles on the tree on Christmas Eve, that life became so emotionally difficult for her? This one was proving particularly so. Oliver was home, but he had to leave on the evening of Boxing Day, and so the happiness was short-lived, the effort to appear cheerful and festive immense.

He had made a huge effort to be cheerful himself, but was obviously wretchedly anxious; ‘They’ve given us some idea of what we have to expect,’ he said to her, ‘doesn’t sound too good. To put it mildly. But—’ he smiled at her rather weakly – ‘but we have to make the most of it. At least I’m home.’

‘Yes,’ said Celia soberly, ‘at least you’re home. We’re very lucky.’ LM had come into her office three days earlier and said, her voice extraordinarily unsteady, that Mr Ford would not, after all, be coming home for Christmas.

‘Oh LM,’ Celia said, ‘I’m so terribly sorry, why not?’

‘It seems that there aren’t enough forces out there to defend the French front until further battalions arrive, and it has been decided, naturally, that married men must take priority with the allocation of leave,’ said LM, rather as if she were reciting something learned by heart.

‘Yes, I see,’ said Celia. ‘How very, very sad for you. But you must come to us for Christmas Day, you can’t spend it on your own.’
^I

LM had said she didn’t think she would come, that she would prefer to spend the day in Hampstead, and disappeared into her office for several hours. But two days before Christmas she asked Celia if it would inconvenience her greatly if she changed her mind.

‘My thoughts are not very good company at the moment’ she said, with an awkward smile, ‘I think I should get away from them for a few hours.’

Celia said she thought so, too, that she was delighted, and that Jack would be home and he was enough to cheer anyone up; but in fact she was a little worried about the effect of LM’s gaunt misery on the general family mood.

And then there was the strain of keeping her pregnancy from Oliver; he had remarked that she was very thin, that she was clearly not eating properly, had asked her how he could possibly go away with any peace of mind if she wasn’t going to take care of herself?

‘Oliver I’m fine. Really. I’ve had a bit of a tummy upset, that’s all. Sickness and all that sort of nasty thing. So if I am thin, that’s what it is. But I’m much better now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite, quite sure. I feel wonderful.’

That was not quite true, for she was sleeping badly, as she always did when she was pregnant, and consequently was very tired; but the sickness had stopped, and she felt perfectly well enough to pretend. And mercifully she was indeed very thin. She had not wavered in her resolve not to tell him; but it was not easy, just the same.

Giles was causing her anxiety; he had come home from school in an odd state. She went down to fetch him, and he came out to the car perfectly composed, hugged her briefly and then climbed in beside her and sat, huddled very closely to her, not speaking much through the entire journey home. Once there, he shot up to the nursery where Nanny was greeted rather more enthusiastically than Celia had been. She told herself this was because at home he wasn’t being watched by his peers. He disappeared for a long time into Barty’s small room, and was quiet but cheerful at supper. But the next morning he came to find Celia.

‘Mummy, can I talk to you?’

‘Well, not for long, darling. I’m late already.’

‘Oh. Perhaps tonight then.’

‘Yes, that might be better.’

That evening he sat with her for a while, not saying very much at all, clearly nervous; but finally he took a deep breath and burst out, rather pink-faced, ‘Mummy, can I please, please leave school?’

‘Leave! But why? You’re doing so well, you had a splendid report, and you sounded so happy in your letters.’

‘They read our letters,’ said Giles.

‘Oh, I see. Well, what’s wrong?’

‘It’s the other boys. They’re horrible to me.’

‘What sort of horrible?’ asked Celia.

‘They tease me. All the time.’

‘Darling, everyone gets teased at school. It’s horrid but it doesn’t mean anything.’

‘It means a lot to me,’ said Giles. His voice was heavy.

She looked at him. ‘Tell me about it, what do they do?’

‘Call me horrible names.’

‘That doesn’t sound very serious.’

‘They’re really horrible names. And the prefect I have to fag for shouts at me and – and—’

‘What does he do, darling? He doesn’t ever hit you, does he?’

‘No,’ said Giles quickly.

Jarvis had made it clear to him that if he ever let on what they all did to him, his life would be hell. ‘And I mean hell, skewballs. Know what I mean?’

‘Well then. Shouting can’t be too bad. And you’re in the choir, I see, and starting the recorder. So it isn’t all bad. What do your friends say, do they find it difficult, too?’

‘I—’ Giles stopped. To say he hadn’t got any friends was too humiliating. It would brand him as a complete failure in his mother’s eyes. ‘They don’t like it much either,’ he said.

‘There you are then. You’re all in the same boat.’

‘Yes, but Mummy, I hate it, I’m so miserable and homesick and I miss you and Daddy so much – and—’ Perhaps he should tell her, perhaps he could. Risk the consequences from Jarvis; his mother was so clever, she would know what to do, how to manage it all, and if he didn’t tell her how bad it was, she couldn’t be expected to try to help.

‘It is quite bad,’ he said cautiously, ‘the other boys – they – they make me—’

‘Giles,’ said Celia. She felt rather weary suddenly. All the way home in the car she had been reading reports in the paper about the dreadful total of casualties just in those first few months of the war: there was talk of ninety per cent, if the injured and captured were counted in. One battalion alone had sent out eleven hundred men and had eighty left. Her mother had phoned that morning with grim news of deaths amongst their own friends: from the Grosvenors, the Gordon Lennoxes, the Crichtons, the Wellesleys. And she was having to say goodbye to Oliver, to send him off to what was beginning to seem almost certain death. A small boy’s homesickness at school seemed rather unimportant.

‘Giles darling,’ she said firmly, ‘we all have to learn to be brave about things. It’s part of growing up. There is a dreadful war on, and Daddy is going away to fight in it for us. Now, the last thing I want is for him to be worried about anything as he goes away. Anything at all. So I want you to be brave and cheerful, and certainly not mention any of this to him. It will get better, Giles. Daddy and your grandpapa, and just about everyone we know went through a bad time when they first went to school. They survived. Try to remember that.’

He looked at her solemnly for a long moment, and then without another word left the room, and went upstairs to the nursery. Later, mildly remorseful, she followed him, but heard him giggling with Barty. Obviously it wasn’t too bad.

Barty would not be with them; she was to spend Christmas Day with her family and she had been fizzing with excitement, choosing presents for everyone, wrapping parcels, helping Celia to do up a hamper with food and crackers and a bottle of port for her father. But as Celia set the last candle in place and turned her attention to the parcels, there was a knock on the front door. She opened it herself and saw Billy Miller standing there, stern-faced.

‘She’s not to come tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Barty’s not to come.’

‘Oh Billy, but why not? She’s looking forward to it so much.’

‘She can’t come,’ he said, ‘me mum’s not well.’

‘What sort of not well, Billy?’

‘She fell down the stairs. Doctor had to come. She’s broken her wrist and bumped her head, she’s in bed.’

‘Billy, that’s dreadful. Should I come and see her, can I get her anything?’

‘No,’ he said his face flushed, shifty with awkwardness, ‘no, don’t come. We’re best on our own.’

‘But is your father managing to look after her? And all the little ones?’

‘He’s fine,’ said Billy. ‘I’m helping him any case. Thanks,’ he added as a careful afterthought.

‘Oh Billy, I’m so sorry. Please give your mother my love. Did you walk here? It’s a long way.’

‘No it isn’t,’ he said sounding almost surprised, ‘only took me a bit of a while.’

‘I know, but it’s so cold. Look, let me send you back in the car. I’ve done a hamper for you all for Christmas Day, you can take it. Oh dear, Barty will be so disappointed. She’s not here, she’s gone to a carol service with Nanny and the twins. Anyway, let me call Truman, organise the car.’

‘Yeah, all right,’ said Billy.

He stood waiting for the car to be brought to the steps, gazing round him; clearly transfixed by the size of the house, the hall, the vast tree. Finally he said, ‘You live in the whole house do you?’

‘Well – yes,’ said Celia, slightly uncertainly, and then struggling to justify herself, ‘but there are a lot of us. Four children and my husband and me, and then there are—’ the servants, she had been going to say, and stopped, appalled at her own insensitivity. I’m getting like my mother, she thought, and hurried on, ‘my parents and my brother-in-law, and – well. Ever so many people. Ah, Truman. There you are. This young man, Billy Miller, Miss Barty’s oldest brother, wants you to take him home to his house in Kennington and I would like you to take the hamper which Barty and I have prepared. It’s down in the kitchen. Cook will give it to you.’

The hamper was being loaded into the car and Billy was having a glass of lemonade as Barty arrived home; she flung herself at him, starry-eyed.

‘Oh Billy, how lovely to see you. Have you come to fetch me early, I can be ready in a minute . . .’

‘You can’t come,’ he said gruffly, ‘Mum’s ill. She says she can’t cope. But to tell you happy Christmas.’

‘Oh. Oh I see.’

Celia never forgot that moment; for Barty did not cry, nor even argue, but, ‘Yes, very well,’ she said, ‘I understand. Happy Christmas, Billy.’

She stood on tiptoe, gave him a kiss and then ran, very quickly, up the two flights of stairs to the nurseries without another word. Looking up after her, Celia felt awed that a little girl of seven should be capable of such iron self-control. But later, when she went up, Barty was lying face-down on her bed sobbing endlessly; Celia sat down beside her and took her in her arms.

‘Barty darling, don’t be so upset,’ she said, ‘I know it’s disappointing, but it couldn’t be helped, your mother is clearly very unwell. After Christmas we’ll go and see her together. And—’ she gave her a kiss, ‘and I can’t help being a bit glad, I was going to miss you tomorrow.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Barty said between hiccups, ‘they don’t want me. If they did, they’d manage somehow, and anyway, I could have helped, it would have been easier for Mum. They don’t want me any more, they think I’m not part of them.’

Celia went rather heavily down the stairs, her heart aching for Barty, and her head tight with panic at what she seemed to have brought upon her.

Christmas lunch was tense, in spite of the large party round the table. The Beckenhams had joined them; and to her mother’s amusement, Celia always insisted that the staff sat at the table on Christmas day. Celia had placed Lady Beckenham next to Jack who was in high spirits, full of tales of victories in France and seeing off the Hun; Lady Beckenham liked and approved of him, and often said how extraordinary it was that he and Oliver were brothers.

‘He’s such a decent chap, seems to like doing all the right things, ridden a lot out in India you know, Beckenham thinks the world of him.’

LM, pale and gaunt, was seated between Barty, who was quiet and solemn, and Nanny. LM had not spoken very much, although she was gallantly wearing a paper hat and had read out her motto and Nanny’s. She had eaten quite a lot of goose and ham, but now that the pudding had been brought in flaming to the table, by Oliver, she was simply pushing it round her plate. Celia watched her; poor LM, she really did look wretched. And then LM pushed her chair back, said, ‘Excuse me,’ rather quietly, walked through the door and collapsed in a limp heap on the hall floor. Oliver leapt up, picked her up in his arms like a child and started up the stairs with her, instructing Nanny to call Dr Perring; but not before Celia had seen, with a thud of shock, as the loose jacket which LM had been wearing slipped open, that the neat broad waistband of her skirt was unfastened, and that the stomach just beneath it domed upwards in the unmistakable shape of pregnancy.

‘You saw, didn’t you?’ said LM. She was too exhausted, too wretched to pretend any longer; lying listlessly on her pillows, waiting for Dr Perring, she had greeted Celia with a half smile and then turned her face to the window in silence. Celia sat down beside her and took her hand.

‘Yes,’ she said gently, ‘yes I saw. But nobody else did. LM, when – I mean—’

‘In May,’ said LM, ‘early May, I’m told.’

‘And why didn’t you say anything, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t know myself until a few weeks ago,’ said LM. ‘I thought – thought it was the change. And then – I felt so ashamed, so foolish—’

‘Oh LM, you shouldn’t. Feel either of those things. And besides – well, it’s wonderful. I think so anyway. What does – does your—’

‘Jago. He’s called Jago,’ said LM. The shadow of a smile crossed her face. ‘I really don’t feel I can go on referring to him as Mr Ford.’

‘What a marvellous name. Is it in our dictionary?’

‘I don’t think so, no.’

‘It should be. Well, what does he say?’

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘He doesn’t know? I thought letters got out to the front very quickly.’

‘They do. I haven’t told him. I’m not going to tell him.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t. You don’t understand. He couldn’t take it, he would find it unbearable.’

‘Unbearable? LM, why? You’re right, I certainly don’t understand, why should he feel that?’

And she sat there, holding LM’s hand, listening to the sad story of Annie, of Jago’s terror of pregnancy and childbirth, of LM’s own. ‘He would be horrified and so afraid. It would add to his burdens. You must know that, you haven’t told Oliver about . . .’