Softly Grow the Poppies Read online

  Harry was without exception kind and patient with him. He had managed to find a gentle mare for him which seemed strange because Charlie had lived and breathed horses before the war and was capable then of controlling the wildest, but until his brother was a great deal better Harry felt it would be wiser to start him on a gentle animal with a sweet temper. A young grey mare totally unlike Lady, who had been a bit of a handful but had been blown into a bloody haze on the battlefield, so that there was nothing to trouble his brother with memories. They rode out together to visit the farms on the estate, much to Will’s fierce resentment since he had considered Harry to be his friend and not this other man’s and they were treated to frequent tantrums. Will was almost five years old now, strong and wilful, and Harry was of the opinion that he needed a good ‘walloping’ for he was thoroughly spoiled. He told Rose so, knowing it was no good appealing to the child’s mother.

  ‘Harry, you must try to be patient with him. He has been raised in trying circumstances.’ Trying! What a ridiculous word to describe the past four years when the boy had not had the benign childhood given to most children. He had been loved, of course. He had been the centre of not only the servants’ world but the hundreds of wounded who had passed through the hospitals. They had doted on him and many of them could be said to have been helped in their recovery because of him.

  ‘He has had no mother nor father and though I have done my best to be both, Dolly has petted him, refusing him nothing. Tom’s the same. They have loved him trying to make up to him for his lack of—’

  ‘I know that, Rose, and I’m sorry for it but it can’t continue. I’ve been on the lookout for a small pony for him then he can ride out with me and Charlie but until his mother is recovered again someone has to discipline him,’ and it won’t be Charlie, the words unspoken.

  ‘Oh, Harry, please tell me you won’t—’

  ‘Won’t what, Rose?’

  She was going to say ‘Beat him’ for in the back kitchen Will could be heard yelling that he was going with Harry and no one was going to stop him!

  Rose could see the anger on Harry’s face change slowly to sadness. For how could he, who was himself only just beginning to recover his own sanity, manage not only his badly damaged brother but this demanding child who was his brother’s son? Strange it was that Charlie had not questioned anyone about Will. He must know that Will was his but he ignored him, escaping with Harry into the burgeoning spring countryside, slowly gaining confidence on the lovely little grey that he had called Misty. Dear God, were they ever to get back to normality, to the contentment of the past? To reality. She wanted a child of her own but she could not manage it without Harry, could she? And what were Charlie and Alice to do with the rest of their lives with Charlie off each day with Harry and Alice drifting about, staring out of the window, drooping from room to room as though looking for something and with an unhappy and bewildered little boy creating mayhem between them all.

  Charlie had been home two months when Alice dropped a bombshell into their midst.

  ‘I wanted to tell you while we are all here together. I’m going to London at the weekend. I want to help the suffragettes to continue their fight for the vote.’

  ‘But . . . but surely they are bound to get it now the war is won? They stopped all their protests when war was declared,’ Rose stuttered, while Charlie looked from one face to another, an expression of bewilderment on his gaunt face. They had spoken of many things to bring back his memory, but universal suffrage had not been one of them. Though the fight was being fought long before he went to war he could not remember it.

  Harry shook his head in despair. Was he to be burdened for ever with his brother? He felt great affection and pity, for Charlie but there was no hope of his recovery if Alice left him; no reconciliation between husband and wife and a normal life for Will. Harry had believed – hoped – that with his wife and son Charlie would regain what had been taken from him in the carnage of France. His terrible injury, his time in a German hospital and then the prisoner-of-war camp: those days would be repaired by the love he gave and received with Alice. And the sturdy, handsome, winsome boy who was his son. The child needed a father, and he, Harry Summers, needed Rose who had held it all together through the last four years. Sweet Jesus, how he loved the woman who was at this moment staring in horror at Alice and he knew deep in his wounded heart that she loved him but neither of them could move on with this little family hanging round their necks. His guilt racked him but when was his life to begin? He wanted Rose. He wanted children of his own. Rose should be mistress of Summer Place, living here with him and the family they should have. Charlie had a wife and a child and must take responsibility for them. But how . . . HOW?

  They had just sat down round the dinner table at Summer Place, unfolding their napkins; their new housemaid, a niece of Jinny Herbert called Martha, was bringing in the soup that Mrs Philips had made. Martha was very proud of her position as housemaid to Sir Harry Summers and for a moment she did not notice the curious tension in the air. She was fourteen and pretty and was even now entertaining the exciting prospect of allowing Jossy, who though he was really a cowman was helping Tom with the gardens at Beechworth, to kiss her behind the stable block! There were several ex-soldiers working about the grounds who winked at her and life could not be better. She was no longer the schoolgirl she had been before the war and enjoyed lording it over Polly, who was a scullery-maid and not considered suitable to be made up to housemaid.

  She suddenly became aware of the absolute stillness of those round the table. Martha had never seen the inside of Summer Place before she became housemaid but her mam, who also had been a housemaid before she married Pa, had told her that the gentry always dressed for dinner. Dressed for dinner? What did that mean for goodness sake? Then her mam had told her about the lovely frocks of silk and taffeta and velvet that the ladies wore and the black and white evening suits worn by the gentlemen. Martha could not, for the life of her, imagine such things but then that was in the olden days before the war.

  Martha stood as though frozen to the spot, just inside the doorway wondering what was wrong. Was it her? Had she made some blunder? Because if she had she couldn’t think what.

  Thankfully Miss Rose saw her. ‘Leave the soup on the sideboard, Martha, there’s a good girl.’

  Again Martha hesitated for it was part of her job to serve the soup and she had became right good at it, she had told her mam, spilling not a drop.

  ‘You can go now. We’ll help ourselves.’

  ‘But miss, I’m . . .’

  ‘Just leave it,’ Miss Rose said, right sharp, she was.

  Martha placed the soup tureen on the sideboard and fled.

  It had been one of those lovely days that come in spring. Not a cloud in the sky. On the terrace stood urns of lavender and Tom was in his element with his preparations for his herbaceous borders, his rose-beds and the re-growth of the lawns. Will was in bed in what had once been the nursery, where the two Summers lads had played out their childish games. Rose had read to him and he had fallen asleep with his thumb in his mouth, something he had not done for several years, and it was an indication of the uncertainty in his life that he had reverted to the habit.

  The old ways were gone and they no longer changed for dinner every day as once had been the custom. Alice wore a dress she had not worn for five years, old-fashioned but attractive. It was composed of a collarless, bloused bodice fastened down the front with a row of tiny pearl buttons which were repeated at the wrist of the long sleeves. It was attached to a plain seven-gored skirt in the semi-princess style, the colour a delicate apricot which touched her cheeks. She looked as once she had done, the only difference being the length of her pale silver hair. It lay like a curly cap on her well-shaped head, the fringe almost reaching her eyebrows. Rose had gasped when she saw it and was sorry and so was Harry but Charlie seemed not to notice. Rose herself was in what she called her usual ‘get-up’: an ankle-length skirt in a s
hade of pale coffee, a white, open-necked shirt, a wide leather belt about her waist and her riding boots, as she had ridden over from Beechworth to check on the people she loved and worried about, and to dine with them as was her custom. She had grown thinner since the return and the apparent indifference of Harry Summers. The only one to notice was, naturally, dear Dolly, who begged her to eat up since she was nowt but skin and bone. Dolly had believed that once the brothers and sweet Alice were home, all would be as it once had been but sadly she had remarked to Nessie that they were all going to hell in a handcart and she didn’t think she could take much more, shaking her old grey head in sorrow.

  ‘What is this all about, Alice?’ Harry asked Alice quietly.

  ‘You cannot change my mind, Harry. I am no use to—’

  ‘I don’t think that is true, Alice,’ Harry interrupted, knowing what she was going to say. ‘You have a husband here,’ indicating Charlie who sat open-mouthed, not understanding.

  Charlie was not absolutely sure what they were talking about but somehow it made him feel as though he should be involved in whatever it was. He had been home two months and was beginning to feel secure in what they told him was his home or had been before the war. Sometimes he had flashes of memory, some particular event or object brought back a moment from when he was a boy or a young man. The woods behind the house where he and Harry rode; a certain hedge which he knew before they got there on their horses hid a wide ditch and was a bugger to jump; the welcome from the farming tenants, some of whom he recognised in a hazy sort of way; the woman who hung out the washing who had shouted, ‘Good to have you home, Mr Charlie.’

  ‘That was Bessie, wasn’t it, Harry?’ he had said wonderingly but now it was clear from the expression on his brother’s face that he was bothered about something. He had known Alice, pretty Alice, but he could not contemplate getting into bed with her, which he knew was expected of him since husbands and wives shared a bed. And the boy, the boy who scowled at him and clung possessively to Harry’s leg, shouting defiance and crying broken-heartedly when the woman in the kitchen took him on her knee as they left him behind. This was his son. His son who scratched at his nerves and nearly drove him to violence with his screaming anger. Should he not have bonded with him? He knew he should, or possibly would in time but it was too much for him to manage just yet.

  Rose spoke, tears in her voice. ‘Alice, you cannot mean to leave us when you are needed so much, whatever you say. You have gone to hell and back, we all know that but you must give it time. A couple of months is not long enough for us all to . . . to . . .’

  ‘To what, Rose? My son prefers you to his own mother and it seems I cannot give him what he needs. I spent eighteen months looking for Charlie, trying to bring him home to me and our son but it seems neither of them care whether I live or die.’

  ‘Don’t say that, darling. We all love you so and with time we shall be as we once were, won’t we, Charlie,’ turning to Alice’s husband who was beginning to look distressed.

  Alice snorted derisively. ‘As we once were! I was a naïve ninny in love with the idea of being in love.’

  ‘And what was I, Alice?’ There was pain in Rose’s voice.

  ‘Oh, Rose.’ The pain was echoed in Alice’s voice. ‘I don’t mean to hurt you but don’t you see? For so long I have been helping in the war, helping to bring back the wounded, treated with respect as a valuable part of their battles and I find it hard to just . . . just . . .’

  ‘Be a wife and mother?’ Harry said bitterly. ‘For that is your role now. Until . . . until I marry, if I do, you are mistress of this house. Or why don’t you learn to ride and then you and Charlie could visit the farms on the estate. And I could do with some help with the accounts – paperwork that mounts up – and Rose has enough to do running her own estate, bringing it back to the productive business it was before the war. You could begin to teach your son to read and—’

  ‘No. No, I couldn’t, I’m not a teacher.’ Her voice rose shrilly, with what sounded like a touch of hysteria.

  ‘Why not? He’s four years old and needs some routine in his life. Perhaps in the afternoons you could go up to the old nursery and—’

  ‘No. I’ve told you I couldn’t. I’m . . . no, no, Harry, I beg you. He . . . he frightens me he is so—’

  ‘Frightens you!’ There was amazement in Harry’s voice.

  Martha knocked timidly and popped her head round the door. She had come to collect the tureen and soup dishes but on seeing neither had been touched she scuttled out again, closing the door quietly behind her.

  ‘They’re ’avin’ a right old ding-dong in there,’ she whispered to Mrs Philips as though those in the dining room could hear her. ‘Sir Harry’s glarin’ at Miss Alice an’ Miss Rose looks ready to start bawlin’.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Philips. Sir Harry looks as mad as a march ’are and Miss Alice is cryin’. I think it’s summat ter do wi’t little lad who’s a right hellion an’ if ’e was mine I’d give ’im a damn good hidin’. My mam’d soon knock some—’

  ‘Well, it’s got nowt ter do wi’ your mam, or you, fer that matter, but all I know is that if someone don’t do summat little lad’ll turn into a bad ’un. Eeh, many’s the time I could give ’im a clout but—’

  Realising she was saying too much, she clamped her lips together and sat down in her rocking-chair in front of the fire. Martha stared at her waiting to see if she was going to say anything else but Mrs Philips merely looked into the range fire, her old face sagging with sorrow. This house, despite the old man’s many ways of frittering away his inheritance, had been a happy one with two lively boys who, though she often scolded them when they became too high-spirited, she had held in great affection. Now would you look at it, such sadness you could feel it in your bones, a loss of what had made it a happy home. They, unlike so many others, had come through the war with the lads unscathed and two good-hearted young women ready for married life, babies; wouldn’t she just love one of them to have a baby. Perhaps then that naughty boy, who was basically not a bad lad but wild, undisciplined and needing a father to show him the way of things, would calm down and realise he just could not have his own way all the time. Like Dolly at Beechworth, she shook her old head and sighed for the lovely days before the war.

  In the dining room no one spoke then Harry broke the silence. ‘Well, since Mrs Philips has gone to a lot of trouble to provide us with a meal, perhaps we could eat now.’

  The soup was cold, and the delicious salmon that followed – brought in by a nervous Martha who looked as though she was expecting some terrible scene – was pushed around four plates with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. Nobody round the table looked at anyone else.

  Harry said to his brother, ‘I don’t know about you, old chap, but I could manage a brandy. Should we . . .’ And so, after a courteous bow to the ladies, he and Charlie left the room with great eagerness.

  When they had gone, Rose rang the bell and Martha hesitantly answered it.

  ‘No dessert, Martha, tell Mrs Philips, just coffee I think. Perhaps you would ask the gentlemen if they want the same. They are probably in Sir Harry’s study. Mrs Summers and I will have ours in the drawing room.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Martha bobbed a little curtsey and almost ran for the door.

  ‘They don’t want dessert, Mrs Philips, just coffee.’ Martha was almost in tears. ‘The gentlemen are in Sir Harry’s study. Oh, Mrs Philips, ’ave I ter take it in? I’m that upset what with . . . could Polly take it in?’

  Mrs Philips reared up in indignation. ‘No, she can’t. You begged to be a housemaid here and one of a housemaid’s duties is to serve at table. Now get on with it. Set another tray for Sir Harry and Mr Charlie and I’ll have none of these . . .’ She was about to say tantrums but they’d seen enough real tantrums in this kitchen with Will and Martha was really only a little lass and too young for the job. But it was so hard to get decent servants these days w
hat with all the women who had done men’s work during the war and received much bigger pay packets not being willing to go into service as once they had done.

  ‘Go on, lass, they’ll not bite you.’

  A fire had been lit in the drawing room and the two women sat side by side before the comfort of the glowing flames. They sipped their coffee, both of them preoccupied with their own thoughts.

  Rose was the first to speak. ‘Do you really want to get away, Alice?’

  ‘I feel I must, Rose,’ Alice answered sadly.

  ‘But your husband – and your son?’

  ‘I don’t feel as though Will is my son, Rose. You are more mother to him than I could ever be. He totally rejects anything I do to get closer to him and to be honest it is only because it is expected of me that I really try. He is a dear little chap and though I gave birth to him, he is not my child.’

  ‘Alice, really, you must not—’

  ‘Let me finish, dear Rose. I married Charlie but he is not my husband, not in the true sense. I have been . . . well, I won’t say stupid in my search for him since during that time I know I helped other men to return to their families but I was a child when I married him. A fairy-tale princess marrying her Prince Charming. I wore a pretty dress and he was so handsome in his uniform and I thought I would never stop loving him but I have grown up since then. I am twenty–three and I am of no use to anyone. Harry is slowly healing Charlie and you and Dolly give Will all the love and care a child needs. He will grow out of his defiance when he realises that you and Harry are and will always be with him. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need Charlie, his own father, and I don’t know what is to happen there but . . . but . . . Oh, God, I’m sorry, but I love neither of them.

  ‘While I was searching for Charlie I thought I still loved him. It was a story, the brave heroine looking for the hero but again it was no more than a dream. When he walked through the door that first time I was still in that dream. Here he was, the man I had married, to whom I had borne a son and it seemed that I should wrap my arms about him, embrace him, the returned hero come to claim his wife and son but it wasn’t so. You see how he is with me. He is rather embarrassed since he doesn’t know how to deal with the situation, and neither do I. If he was in his right mind and stronger I would speak to him about it but he is still too fragile and I am afraid that if I make ripples in the calm and peace he feels with Harry I might undermine the strength he is slowly regaining.’