The Echo of Twilight Page 15

  “Couldn’t sleep, Mr. Watts.”

  “And is Her Ladyship . . . a little better, do you know?”

  “Oh yes. Time of the month, Mr. Watts, that’s all.”

  He stood staring into the sink where the water still flowed pink. “What you women have to endure,” he said, shaking his head, and then he walked away.

  In the days and weeks that followed, Ottoline slowly recovered. She never once spoke about the events of that night and instead resumed her campaign of letters—to Mr. Asquith and Lord Kitchener, and anyone else she knew or could think of in government, strangely humming rather than speaking the words as she reread them. She was obsessed with finding Billy, and thought everyone—Asquith and Kitchener included—should do their bit to locate him and return him home safely. She spent her afternoons in the drawing room, reading and rereading accounts of troop movements and battles in the Times, poring over murky images and casualty lists with the magnifying glass, quietly reciting names out loud.

  Then, shortly before Christmas, I was dispatched to Newcastle to purchase Christmas presents for the staff, along with two scrapbooks—later to be marked Hugo and Billy. It snowed heavily all day, and my return train was canceled. After a telephone call to Birling, I checked in to a hotel by the station, and then caught a train back the next day, shivering all the way and staring out at endless fields blanketed in white. No one could meet me; the roads were impassable. I had to walk all the way back to Birling through the snow—my feet numb, my back aching—laden with parcels. But I was thankful Ottoline had changed her mind about books in favor of Jacquard scarves for the female servants, and ties for the men.

  On my return, Ottoline was more interested in the scrapbooks than in any gifts—or my well-being. And later, I helped her with them, pasting handwritten notes and her sons’ first letters to her from school, including one from Billy, which read: Dear Mama, I hope you are well. The other boys here are all show-offs. I am doing Archery and Henry Paterson has a verooka. His mother sent him a quarter of sherbets and lickorish. Matron’s dog is called Susan. Yours faithfully, Billy Campbell.

  And beneath each photograph, Ottoline carefully penned names and a date:

  Hugo & Ottoline—Delnasay, Summer 1895.

  Hugo, Billy & Nurse Phillips—Birling, Christmas 1898.

  The Family—Delnasay, Summer 1905.

  Hugo & Billy—Delnasay, Summer 1909.

  Ottoline, Hugo & Billy—Delnasay, Summer 1912.

  These scrapbooks became Ottoline’s passion. As she stared through the magnifying glass at the small photographs and I busied myself with scissors and glue, we listened to records on the gramophone. Her latest favorite was entitled “Are We Downhearted? No!” And it was a catchy song, the sort that stays in your head and you find yourself humming, singing or whistling; the sort that actually makes you feel a bit better. And it became quite the thing below stairs during the run-up to that Christmas for one of us to sing, “Are we downhearted?” and another—or and more usually a few—to shout back, “No!”

  But then that all changed, and the War finally arrived at Birling Hall.

  “Mrs. Watts?” I repeated, staring back at Ottoline, dumbfounded.

  I’m not sure why I’d assumed Mr. Watts to be devoid of any lover, wife or family. But in hindsight, I realize I’d simply been caught up in the unfolding events of my own life and the war, and that I hadn’t been interested enough to find out. I had too quickly judged the man; sensed only an intensely private person who believed in the old ways and gave everything to his profession. All I’d seen was the conscientious butler—a man in tailcoat and striped trousers.

  Ottoline went on. “She’s been residing at Scarborough since . . . oh, shortly before war was declared. It’s where she grew up, and . . . well, he thought she’d be safer there than in Newcastle.” She paused and shook her head. “I did tell him. I said to him in Scotland—and as soon as war was declared—that she must come to Birling. But no, he said she wanted to go there to stay with her brother. He thought that was best.”

  But it hadn’t been best, and Mrs. Watts hadn’t been safe. Far from the battlefields of the western front, ten days before Christmas, and under the cover of the early-morning mist, German battleships had broken through minefields in the North Sea and launched an attack on the seaside town. Ethel Watts and her brother had both died in the house in which they were born, killed at home.

  Later that same evening, I went down to the kitchen in search of Mr. Watts. I sat with him and listened. He and his wife had met, he said, when he was still a footman and she a parlormaid. “And far too good for me.” After they’d wed, they had planned for both of them to leave service, planned to set up a nursery garden. But the business they had planned did not come about. “And then came Derek . . . and it made sense for me to stay on in service. But we planned . . . oh yes, we always planned,” he said. “We only ever thought of the future.”

  Derek Watts was now fighting in France, alongside Hugo and Billy Campbell and their friends, and Mrs. Lister’s three sons. And yet Mr. Watts had kept this knowledge to himself, beneath his starched shirt and buttoned-up waistcoat. But it was the loss of his sweetheart and wife that tormented him and made him weep, because he had told her to go there, assured her she’d be safe.

  “But I still have Derek,” he said, glancing up at me. “And he’s the image of her, you know? Oh yes, so like her . . . so like his mother,” he added, looking away, smiling, remembering. “And I’m very much aware you have no family,” he added, reaching over the table and patting my hand.

  “No, I have no one to lose,” I said, albeit disingenuously and without looking at him.

  “Oh, Pearl, I know that’s not quite true.”

  It was the first time he’d called me by my given name. And after that, he could only ever be Rodney to me.

  More snow fell, and the news came thick and fast. Mrs. Lister received a telegram and then a letter about her middle son, Peter: Valiant to the end . . . A credit to his country. She read these words out loud more times than I can remember, and looked up at us, smiling and weeping at the same time. We learned, too, that a gillie from Delnasay—a man I’d met and liked, a man whose family had worked for Ottoline’s for many years—had also been killed, leaving a wife and four young children. And then Ottoline told me about Virginia Parker’s eldest son—a heartbreaker—“notoriously handsome,” she said. And she wrote to Virginia, and I posted the letter.

  Throughout all of this, each and every day I thought of Ralph. And I waited until last to search the List of Wounded and Roll of Honor. Because everyone knew I had no one. Everyone, it seemed, apart from Rodney Watts, who often smiled and winked at me as he rose up from the paper, as if to say, No Ralph Stedman.

  I continued in my conundrum about when and how to tell Ottoline about my condition. And then I decided to leave it until the New Year.

  Christmas came, with holly and carols and church as usual, and I’d never been in a house as beautiful or as atmospheric. Ottoline loved Christmas and was determined that it should be the same as always. Thus, a tree went up, festooned in baubles. Candles flickered in a hallway scented with pine, eucalyptus and cinnamon, and each evening I went to look at the tree, to take in the rarefied atmosphere—made more magical by the white world outside and the shimmering colors and heavenly aroma inside. It was impossible to imagine war, or any evil. Good would prevail. How could it not? It had to.

  Then, finally, and rightly, on Christmas Eve, Ottoline received the letter she had been waiting for, along with a photograph. Billy was alive and well. And for a moment the war stopped and nothing mattered other than Billy Campbell and his well-being. Like a beacon, that photograph—of a smiling, uninjured, completely recognizable Billy in uniform—lifted our hearts and shone a light ahead. And later, when we heard of a truce, that the soldiers at the front had exchanged gifts, sung carols and played football together,
it lifted us further.

  But then it began again.

  On January the first, we read that the Formidable had been sunk and, two weeks later, that German aircraft dropped bombs on Great Yarmouth. And Rodney Watts, still unable to come to terms with his wife’s death, went again to the Yorkshire coast—the seaside town of Scarborough—as though he’d been mistaken, as though the funeral had been a figment and he’d find her there. We all wondered if he’d come back. But he did.

  And on the day he came back to Birling, as I reached over Ottoline to pick up her hairbrush, my waistband button, already moved once, popped and fell onto the carpet. She looked up at me, my face, and then lowered her eyes to my stomach and said, “Oh, Pearl . . .”

  And I told her. And I cried.

  She stood up, took me in her arms and held me. “Just as you looked after me, so I promise to look after you.”

  “But I don’t want to give away my baby.”

  “Nor will you . . . Nor will you. This is your home, Pearl, and it will be your child’s home, too. Don’t forget, I’m a blood relation to your baby.”

  I stared back at her. “But Lord Hector . . . the others . . .”

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  I nodded. I did.

  “Amidst war and death and destruction, you carry life. And with life there is hope. You carry hope, Pearl.”

  It was all Ottoline’s idea.

  She had thought it all through, she said, and the only impediment to my keeping my child was my unmarried status. If I could find myself a husband, become married, all would be well.

  At first, I thought she was having one of her turns.

  “How can I find a husband, my lady? I can hardly summon one out of thin air. Added to which, there’s a war on and few men around.”

  And I was waiting for her to come to, waiting for her to say, Ah yes, good point. But instead, she said, “Exactly. And this plays into our hands. Don’t you see?”

  I didn’t. But I would.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ottoline drove me to the station herself. A nerve-racking experience at the best of times, made worse by the snowy conditions. However, we made it, and as Ottoline exclaimed as she pulled on the hand brake, “Still in one piece!”

  There was no sign of the greasy chap I’d encountered months before. We stood alone on the platform. Ottoline said, “Remember, Pearl, all you have to do is come back married . . . Mrs. Whatever. The name doesn’t really matter, so long as everyone thinks you’re married.”

  The plan—Ottoline’s plan—was actually very simple: I’d go to London for a rendezvous with my “secret sweetheart” and then return to Birling a few days later, a respectably married woman. Voilà!—as she’d said.

  Ottoline left me in order to get home in time for a meeting of her Working Party. She had established it early in the New Year. The group was an unlikely mix of local gentry, estate workers and servants, who, within the sumptuous confines of the green drawing room—the winter drawing room—knitted and sewed, and packed parcels to our boys and our prisoners of war. The parcels contained books, magazines and food; balaclavas and scarves, and socks and mittens. Along with her war-chronicling scrapbooks, which had become more like journals and now numbered some half dozen, Ottoline’s Working Party had given her a focus. It offered her a distraction from her own recent and very private loss, and perhaps a distraction, too, from my situation.

  For despite her kindness and support, despite her acknowledgment of my condition, and her knowledge of the facts, Ottoline never mentioned Ralph’s name. And neither did I. It was as though he had never existed, or had died years before and been forgotten. And yet, I believed—had to believe—that she would have told me if she had heard anything.

  London was noisy. The city now belonged to Lord Kitchener and men in uniform. King’s Cross station heaved with them, and the Underground was a sea of khaki, male odor and voices. I was shocked by their number, shocked by their sound and shocked by the reality of war. For unlike Scotland and Northumberland, the great mobilization was here, in the capital, and London was very much at war. Ambulance bells rang out in the streets, where a steady stream of Red Cross vehicles moved up and down, carrying wounded newly delivered from the front. This was the scene even in the once quiet confines of Mayfair, and even on Dover Street, where Ottoline had kindly arranged for me to stay at the Empress Club.

  The seemingly never-ending procession of ambulances would stop, in a while, the gentleman on the front desk told me. The problem was, he said, three hospital trains had come within minutes of one another that afternoon, which was unusual, he added, unless there had been a great battle. It would quieten down in a while, until later, around midnight, he thought, when the next trains were due. “They usually come in at that time, when there’s less people about and it’s quiet . . . Grim business,” he added, shaking his head.

  Then, smiling, overly cheery, he asked me what time I would like to dine. But the thought of food made me feel sick, and the thought of stepping into the palatial dining room there sicker still. So I told him I’d be taking my meals elsewhere.

  “I see. I should perhaps warn you that quite a number of restaurants have closed for the duration. But if you’d like me to make a reservation for you, Miss Gibson, I know of a few that remain open and would be suitable for a young lady dining alone.”

  I smiled. “There’s no need. I shall be dining with my aunt. She lives not far from here.”

  A porter took my bag and showed me to my room on the third floor, overlooking Dover Street, and the moving canvas rooftops. The man on the desk was right: The ambulance procession did eventually cease, and by the time I stepped out onto the street once more, things were calmer and quieter. A fine drizzle had begun to fall, turning the smog a murky yellow beneath the glow of gas streetlamps. I bought a newspaper and headed for the A.B.C., and there, with Ralph’s ring on my finger, and pretending to read, I watched sweethearts: khaki-clad Tommies and their girls, all locked eyes and clutching hands, impervious to their surroundings, and me. The only thing I recall reading was that a man had been arrested for dancing in the street. But by then there were so many rules, mainly to do with the Defense of the Realm Act, DORA, and many of them designed to keep women out of public houses, restaurants and hotels—away from soldiers—at night.

  Later, walking back through the rumbling metropolis, past public houses filled with song, and darkened shop doorways with couples pressed up tight, I realized DORA’s rules couldn’t stop a Good Time; it was all that mattered now. Kitty’s world had been swept away.

  It was on the morning of my second day, finding myself on Regent Street—and right outside the place—that I stepped into the Café Royal Hotel. I went to the desk, asked for Miss Eileen Poynter. I was told that no one of that name worked there and was in the revolving door, about to step out onto the street, when I had another thought, and came back round.

  “Silly me,” I said to the man on the desk. “I forgot about the wedding. I think dear Eileen’s perhaps better known now as Mrs. Morton.”

  I was led from the main lobby down some stairs and then via a door disguised in the paneling to a passageway that stank of eggs and boiled cabbage, and where I was told to wait. I wasn’t altogether sure what I intended to say to Eileen. I suppose I was just curious about her, the two of them, but even then, as I waited, I realized my suspicions had been accurate.

  After a short while, a fair-haired woman—the wrong shape and older-looking than I remembered Eileen—emerged from double swing doors at the end of the passage. She looked me up and down, then came next to me. We stood side by side against the wall as uniformed staff wheeled trolleys of laundry past us. Eventually she said, “You’re not waiting for me, are you?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think so . . . not unless you’re Mrs. Morton?”

  “And what if I am?” she asked, folding
her arms.

  It was Eileen, and quite clearly she didn’t recognize me, had no idea who I was. So I improvised: “Stanley’s sister,” I said, extending my hand.

  “Oh my. I do apologize. But you have to be so careful these days, don’t you? It’s Cynthia, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Have you heard anything?” I asked.

  “Not a single word . . . Not in over four weeks.” She opened her eyes wider: “That’s not why you’re here, is it? He’s not dead, is he?”

  I began to laugh and then I said, “No! Well, not that I’m aware of, anyway.”

  “Good. I’d be bloody furious if he was.” She slid along the wall nearer to me. “Listen, Cynthia, I think you should know—I had a baby last year. Little boy. Stan Junior. He’ll be a year old in a couple of months, and already a handful, I can tell you. Anyway, that’s why I use the name,” she whispered. “I’d have been thrown out of here otherwise.”

  “I understand,” I said. And of course I did, and far more than she knew. But as I computed the numbers, I realized that she had already given birth to Stanley’s child when I’d last seen him—eight months ago. It felt like eight years.

  “Look here, I’ll be finished in an hour. If you fancy, we can go and have a little drink somewhere. What do you say?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. I promised to call in on my aunt.”

  “Nellie?”

  “No, Kitty.”

  “Oh, Stanley never mentioned her.”

  “No, well, she and Stanley have never quite seen eye to eye.”

  “Shame. I could’ve written to old bugger-lugs and told him we’d been out together painting the town red.” She smiled and unfolded her arms.

  “Why not tell him that anyway? Tell him me and you went out on the town and had a jolly good time to ourselves.”

  “Oh, Cynth—you are a one!”

  Warming to my theme, I went on. “You could even tell him that we met up with that lady’s maid friend of his . . . What was her name? . . . Gibson?”