Author: Jacqueline Winspear
Category: Mystery
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In the depths of a guarded building in Whitehall, Edmund was interviewed, weighed, and measured. His eyes were tested, his teeth inspected, and another doctor fingered his manhood.
“Just checking the crown jewels, sir. We know you’re fit, but just want to make sure. Now then, cough! Good—we don’t want hidden ruptures or any other funny business getting in the way of an officer’s work.”
And so it went on. When he emerged into the bright sunshine again, it was with a travel warrant for Aldershot. His next stop would be Hyam and Co. on Oxford Street, an outfitter that claimed a tailored uniform could be ready in a matter of hours. He would report for duty the following Monday.
Edmund Hawkes returned to his club and ordered a whisky and soda, which was brought to him as he sat by a tall bay window overlooking the street. The red velvet curtains seemed heavy for a summer’s day, but they obscured the sun. Hawkes was glad to be in the shadow, for the brightness felt a little too much at such a time. He closed his eyes and tried to transport himself to the seat of earth under the oak tree by the lake. He imagined Millie by his side and Bella, unsaddled, unbridled, munching on sweet grass while she waited. She’d lift her head, watch her master for the merest second, then, head down, would begin pulling grass once more, her ears bobbing from side to side as she teethed each tuft from the ground. And though Hawkes had paid attention to the tide of events since June, and had made plans for himself and the estate accordingly, he realized now, as the first sip of whisky burned his throat, that he had been fooling himself. Hawkes was given to introspection—he was, after all, a poet in his secret self, a man of words and thoughts that came from places he could never identify, as if his heart were rooted to something beyond the earth upon which he walked. But now, taking another sip, and another, he realized that in controlling the estate’s fortunes in recent years, then in formulating his plan to enlist, and last week, as war seemed even more imminent, in visiting the family solicitors, he was trying to direct events. And in enlisting before any pressure to do so came from another quarter—and of course it would—he was kidding himself that he could control what might come to pass in his life.
Thea was aware that her temper was changing, and sometimes it felt as if a new person were inhabiting her physical body. Though sometimes labeled a “quiet one” while at Camden, she had never been what might be called shy, never a precious flower of a girl—but she had never imagined feeling the welter of anger that often assailed her now. She suspected London might have something to do with it. There she was, teaching children of the well-heeled, earning a sufficient wage to live in comfortable, clean lodgings for women of good reputation. The mothers of her charges arrived at school in chauffeur-driven motor cars, or a carriage and pair, and could be heard talking to each other about how much better it was to have children at school, where they could mix, rather than having a governess at home. And Thea had thought, Mix? And the children in their uniforms would come into the class and do as they were told, when they were told, though there was always the one. Wasn’t there always the one, wherever you were a teacher? Yet if she had been a teacher in the East End, or south of the river, there would be more than the one—there could be three or four or eight or nine little thorns in the side, and every one bearing the welt of a clip around the ear for some infraction committed before they’d left what passed for home, and with no shoes on their feet, while thinking themselves lucky if they’d had bread and a scrape of lard inside them before setting off for the parish school down the road. Bread and scrape for breakfast, bread and scrape for dinner and then again for tea. She’d been to those houses—volunteering her time to help the poor by delivering discarded clothing, shoes, warm blankets, and the like from wealthier homes—and most of the time there were no plates, knives, forks, and spoons, because anything that came to the table was mostly eaten with the fingers. On Sundays a big pot of broth would be put out, with any scraps floating on the top that could be picked up off the street after the costers passed on their way home. She’d see the children running to claim the odd leaf of cabbage, or a floret of cauliflower as it fell to the ground when the horse and cart clattered over the cobblestones. For a few pennies the butcher might have a pig’s knuckle or a rabbit head—oh, how the brains were treated as a rare delicacy, white and curled, as if the mind of the animal had caused ripples of thought to run across the membrane. If the father was in work—and even if he hadn’t a job to go to—he’d have the best of whatever came to the house. These were the poorest of the poor, and Thea did everything within her limited power to help them. Was it any surprise, really, that so many lads wanted to go to war, when every day was a battle anyway?
But there was another Thea, the Thea who knew that, even though she worked for people she despised for their place in the social strata, and where they lived, and their ignorance about those who had nothing, she loved the children. Children brought her joy, whoever they were. It wasn’t the fault of these young ones, her pupils who went to their own beds at night after a warm bath and with a cup of hot milk served by the nurserymaid. It was their good fortune that they had been born to plenty. They were innocent, and—she knew this—so were their parents. They’d simply never had cause or perhaps the opportunity to learn. This Thea, the Thea who understood human nature because she understood children, saw her chance in the latest letter she’d received from Avril. Then she made ready for school, smiling into the mirror when she put on her hat before leaving the house, as if to remind herself that her face could be arranged in such a way.
About a fortnight following her return from London, Kezia set off for the village shop. Driving the gig was now well within her capability, and she depended less upon Mrs. Joe to make decisions regarding where to stop and which way to go. She considered it fortunate that the horse appeared to have a fine mind, and Kezia always came with a good provision of carrots to reward the animal for her kind nature. Now, as she waited her turn to be served, Kezia could not help but notice two things. The first was that talk of war had increased, though there seemed to be no escalation in venom towards the Hun, despite stories appearing in the newspaper—the local edition came in on a Friday. For the most part, dailies did not sell in the village, and one only saw a Times or a Daily Mail or the Evening Standard if a copy had been found on the train and then made the rounds of interested parties. Staff at the four large estates in the area would bring copies home, which went into circulation in due course. Thus, the village was in general a well-informed community, but not completely up-to-date. Perhaps it was an appreciation that their news of world events, of parliamentary debate and stories of poor little Belgium, was delayed that tempered the villagers’ response; however, it occurred to Kezia that while London boiled with opinion and rhetoric, inspiring young men to march to war, in this rural area there was a slow simmer—and, as she had discovered, a slow simmer could generate just as much heat underneath the pot.
It seemed that the sight of Edmund Hawkes in the uniform of an officer had been the source of some gossip. During her visits to the village, and especially to the shop, or to the library run by the vicar’s wife and a coterie of women whose husbands worked in London—He works up in Town, they would say, or He’s in the City—Kezia came to understand that the village’s confidence in the Hawkes family had never been that high, but that Edmund Hawkes was looked upon with an interest bordering upon fascination. It was noted that he traveled to London several times each month, that he had a serious demeanor and was always dressed in an appropriate manner for such an excursion. At the same time, he was spoken of as a man who would rather while away his days scribbling in his notebook—yet his management of the estate, his guardianship of the land, suggested otherwise. It was said that he had an arrangement with the landlord of the Queen’s Head and several other hostelries within a ten-mile radius that if his father were to venture in, there should be a limit to the number of times his glass could be refilled. It occurred to Kezia that Edmund Hawkes might like to perpetuate a
certain idea of himself, and in so doing had the upper hand, as if he held a cloak of invisibility over his true character. It also came to mind that if she had time to think about the likes of Edmund Hawkes, her brain was becoming stale.
Then there was the second thing that Kezia noticed as she awaited her turn to step up to the counter and read out her list of groceries, listening as other women asked for a pound of this, or half of that, taking account of the fact that she never saw the poorer women in the shop, or if she did, they bought only bread and dripping, or perhaps a quarter pound of the cheapest cheddar. Kezia noticed that each woman—and some remained to chat even after purchasing their goods—seemed to cast her eyes in the direction of her waist and then turn to nod to another woman, or frown and begin a natter. Such was this interest that Kezia thought the clasp on her belt had come loose, or the cloth puckered, bringing up her skirt. An unusual quiet seemed to fall when she read out her list—flour, butter, currants and raisins, some spice for stew, a bottle of gravy browning—and though she could not be sure, it was as if she had disappointed the company gathered behind her.
As Kezia drove back to the farm, she hoped Tom would not mention that she had already gone into the village every day so far this week. His mother went but once a week at most, doing all her shopping in one fell swoop and returning with her baskets laden. And as for her mother, Kezia was well aware that merchants called upon the parsonage, and that the cook placed the weekly order, to be delivered on a Friday. Kezia admitted to herself that it was company she sought. It wasn’t that her days weren’t full enough—there was the laundry, which took the better part of a day, and more if it was raining; there was cleaning and polishing, and the blacking of the stove, which kept her and Ada busy until the girl left at half past three to care for her siblings after school. Kezia found that she looked forward to the girl’s company. She discovered that Ada had been required to leave the village school earlier than most to look after her mother, who had been sickly after the birth of her eighth child. Only four had survived past the age of five, a fact that the girl took in her stride, as if such wounds were only to be expected. Most of the children in the village had lost at least one sibling—an infant stillborn, a little one taken by fever, an older child suffering an accident. Ada therefore could not read at a level that Kezia—who was discovering that relinquishing her role as a teacher was harder than she had anticipated—thought appropriate. Each day after Tom left to return to the fields following dinner—which Kezia still considered to be “lunch”—she would sit down with Ada at the table and tutor the girl in her numbers and letters. If she delved a little more into her heart, Kezia might admit she was trying to create an avid reader, another Cammie with whom to talk of novels and poetry. She used the books to hand, and began in the kitchen, so Ada might develop two skills at the same time.
“Now, this is what I plan to cook for Mr. Brissenden this evening, and I must start now. So, Ada, would you read to me from here.” Kezia had taken down her mother-in-law’s recipe book from the shelf above the stove, its yellowed pages dry and cracking as she pressed the spine, and set the open book before Ada, who leaned forward, placed her finger by the first word, and began.
“Cuh . . . cuh . . . a-a-a . . . b-b-b—cabbage. Cabbage w-w-w, i-i-i, th-th—with a wh-y-t.” She sighed. “Cabbage with a white sss-sauce. Cabbage with a white sauce.” Ada looked up at Kezia. “You go and put a sauce on the cabbage? I bet Mr. Brissenden never had that before.”
“No, I bet he hasn’t, and I’ve never cooked it. So we can get into trouble together, can’t we, Ada? Now then, carry on.”
And so they stumbled through. And by the time Ada’s work was done and she had returned home to the end cottage in the village, she knew that cabbage could be cooked with a sauce of water, salt, butter, the tiniest pinch of soda, and some flour. She also knew that Kezia hummed while she cooked, and that she strained lumps out of sauces with the sieve, and still managed to make the sauce lumpy again when she returned it to the stove. She knew that Kezia threw away all the goodness of the cabbage with the water—which Ada would have made a gravy with, if she’d had the browning and a bit of corn flour—and that this dish alone would have been a whole meal for her family. But Kezia had also bought fish, which she put on to bake a good hour before Ada thought she should have—fresh fish never took that long, and she knew the shop only ever had fish when it had come up straight from the boats at Hastings, or when they sold it round the back because it had been caught at the Hawkes’ lake without the gamekeeper knowing. But she also knew something else, an impression garnered while she watched her employer prepare food or stand at the stove, contemplating the sauce as it came to the boil—contemplating, mind, not stirring, which is what she should have been doing. Ada noticed that when Kezia cooked, it was as if she were blessing the food. Her brow knitted when things did not go smoothly, but she smiled again when a problem was solved. She lifted pots and pans with a gentle flourish, as if carrying something very precious. And though Ada could never have articulated her observations, there was something about the way Kezia moved in the kitchen that made her feel warm, as if she were caught in a glow.
Tom had been working long hours throughout the past week, as hop pickers began arriving from London. The annual hop-picking season was a holiday for the East Enders, a few weeks away from the Smoke, a time to get a bit of sun and fresh air, and all without losing money—even, with a bit of luck, earning more than they expected. Gypsies—who as a rule camped on Wimbledon Common, or who went from town to town, searching for work—turned up at the same time, looking to make enough to see them through the winter, and on the side the women would sell their posies of white heather, going door to door and persuading with their guttural, throaty tongue, “Gorn, luv, bring a bit o’ luck, that will.” They sold paper carnations, and clothes pegs made by the men, and as long as they kept to themselves, everyone rubbed along out in the hop gardens.
Amid the melee of the incoming tribes, there were always villagers too, taking stock of the outsiders and wondering how much they could get away with and blame it on these people who sounded nothing like them, and not even like one another. Tom loved the harvest season, whether it was soft fruits, hops, apples, or barley. The fragrance of ripeness filled the air, the spice aroma from hop pollen, the tang of blackcurrant, and the sweet waft coming from the orchards. This would be the last year of blackcurrants, though; men from the ministry had already come calling, and with the fruit picked and gone to jam makers and bottlers, the field was to be ploughed in ready for turnips and potatoes, hearty vegetables to keep an army marching. His father had always taken a chance on the fruits anyway, because money was in livestock. Wheat came in cheaper from Canada and America, and it seemed that output from farms across the Empire and refrigeration in ships had eased the need for British farmers to grow so much. Tom knew men who’d been letting land lie fallow, with trees coming back to re-form the forests of old, woodland that had been cut down when ancient Britons learned to furrow and plant. Young men had left the counties for urban employment, exchanging fresh air for smoke, for the factory and another master. But now, when the hops were ready to be picked, the city came to the country, and the farmer was happy to have it be so.
On this day, as Tom walked across the hop gardens, making sure everyone was settling in to the work, greeting people he hadn’t seen since last year, it was getting on for dinnertime, so the hoppers were already setting up kettles for tea, bringing out bread and dripping sandwiches or, if they were feeling flush, a bit of cheese. Tom pushed back his cap and felt the growl in his stomach—it had been a long time since breakfast, so he was ready to walk back to the house for whatever delicacy his wife had prepared. Since he’d married, Tom looked forward to meals for more than sustenance to get him through the next part of the day. Kezia fascinated him with her imagination. Time and again he wondered if life on Marshals Farm would be enough for her, but she smiled with ease, and was becoming softer against the land, a
s if all those sharp edges of the town were wearing away.
Yet he was a man with a hint of worry amid his contentment, as if he were like a sailor on calm seas who saw dark clouds in the distance. He’d lost Bill, Mattie, and one of the apprentices to the army already, and when the pickers began arriving, walking along from the station with prams, pushchairs, and handcarts filled with pots, pans, bed linens, and boots, he could see that it was mainly women, children, and the old who’d come. If there were young men among their number, they were the lame, the thin, the sort who looked as if they’d been sickly as children and never quite recovered. And already Tom was beginning to feel something akin to guilt, as if he should be with his men who’d left the farm, alongside those who’d enlisted from the village. These were men he’d known since he was no taller than his own thigh.
“When you coming, guv’nor?” Mattie had called out, on the day the whole village had lined the street to watch their young men marching away to war. He was all smiles and teasing. “We’re all in this one together—let’s show ’em what us Kentish lads are made of. Come on, join up with us.” And then they were gone, marching through the village with regulars sent to bolster recruitment, like a band of Pied Pipers taking away the children. So Tom was thankful for the workers who came this year, grateful for the Londoners and gypsies, and even for the fact that Danny would never be able to enlist, and Bert was too old. When all the harvest was in, winter would come, and surely the three of them could manage the farm as the days became shorter.