A Wife's War Read online

  ‘Aye. Well, maybe don’t leave it so long to drop by another time. And when you do next write to him, happen you’d let him know how me an’ his pa are going along just fine. I’m minded my shaky hand don’t put it down on paper so clear these days.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that too,’ she said. ‘And thank you again for the tea. I really enjoyed it.’

  Walking back along the lane a short while later, she reflected upon what Ma Channer had just advised. Fill your days, she had said. Well, there was sense to that. Doing something – especially something worthwhile, if it could be found – ought to overcome the feeling that she was merely waiting for something to happen – for good or for bad. For certain, keeping busy couldn’t make matters any worse! So, yes, as soon as a suitable opportunity arose, she would remind Naomi about their plan to volunteer in support of the war. If she filled her mind and her days with new and worthy things, then perhaps there would be less chance for it to dwell on other, more distressing, thoughts. And, in the meantime, she would do as Ma Channer had suggested and use some of her tediously empty hours to write a nice long letter to Luke. With a bit of luck, it would prove to be of comfort to both of them.

  * * *

  ‘Good God!’

  On her way to clear the breakfast things the following morning, Kate stopped in her tracks. Concerned as to the reason for Mr Aubrey’s sudden alarm, she then edged closer to the door.

  ‘What is it?’ she heard Naomi ask him, her question followed by the sound of the pages of the Telegraph being given a vigorous shake.

  ‘Here, under Prisoners of War,’ she heard Aubrey begin, ‘I’ve just spotted the name Ryland, W. A., Wiltshire Regiment. That’s William Ryland. I was at school with him. Quite by chance, he even enlisted the same week I did. We went through officer school together. Good Lord. I knew I was right to… well, no matter.’

  Hearing nothing more for a moment, Kate peered into the room. Naomi had risen from her chair and was looking over Aubrey’s shoulder at the newspaper.

  ‘Is this a list of all the men taken prisoner?’

  Alarmed to realize what lay behind Naomi’s enquiry, Kate shivered: both of their husbands were in the Wiltshire Regiment – the same as the man reported as captured by the enemy. The thought that either of them could be taken prisoner made her feel sick. Ordinarily, her concern was that he would get injured but now, here was something new for her to worry about.

  Trying to calm the rate at which she was suddenly breathing, she took a step away from the door but continued to listen intently.

  ‘In theory, it is a complete account, yes. But I’m afraid that in practice, that’s rarely how it works. You see, if a man is unaccounted for, then initially, he will be listed by his battalion as ‘missing’ or ‘died’, or possibly even as ‘wounded,’ it being presumed that any one of those fates could have befallen the poor chap. What you wouldn’t understand, you see, is that when a platoon comes under attack, things can quickly become confused, it being hard to keep good account of what has happened to whom. Both sides – ourselves and the Germans alike – are supposed to issue lists of any men they take prisoner, which, from time to time, they do. Look, it says here, for instance, that the German Government has provided the names of five hundred and seventeen men captured, many of whom had previously been reported by their regiment as ‘killed’, ‘wounded’ or ‘missing.’ But, by the time these lists were exchanged, these numbers and these names would already have been out of date.’

  Edging forward and risking another peek into the room, Kate saw Naomi sink onto the chair next to Mr Aubrey. Reaching to the doorframe for support, she wished that she, too, had somewhere to sit down. This was all just too distressing.

  ‘I see. So—’

  ‘Look, my dear lady, you have no reason to fear for Lawrence – none whatsoever. Were he listed as ‘missing’, then clearly, having been taken prisoner would be a possibility. But, on the rare occasion when an officer does go missing, his family is always notified. As his next of kin, you would learn of it quite promptly. That you haven’t heard from him in a while is more likely down to him being somewhere remote, where getting word out is difficult… or even inadvisable. In this war, as in any other, it is very much the case that no news is good news.’

  Standing in the hallway, Kate slowly shook her head. Oh, how she wished she could believe that!

  ‘I’m so glad you are here to explain these things to me,’ she overheard Naomi reply. ‘Most of the time I don’t even look at the newspaper for fear of what I might read. But then, as a result, I feel so terribly ignorant. As it is, I spend most of my time wavering between feeling either helpless or just plain useless.’

  Yes, she, too, knew how that felt.

  ‘I’m sure you must do. It’s only natural. But, if I know my brother, he’ll be doing his darnedest to keep himself and his men out of harm’s way. He’s sharp-witted… and thorough. He won’t be taking foolish risks – it’s simply not who he is.’

  ‘No. I know that,’ she heard Naomi reply. ‘And I’m sure you’re right. It’s just that seeing these lists – I mean, look at them, there’s hundreds of names here – you realize that they were all… are all… somebody’s husband or father, or son or brother. They’re not just names, are they? They’re men. Brave men like yourself and Lawrence.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Out in the hallway, Kate decided it time to creep away. No sense getting caught eavesdropping. And anyway, despite spending much of her time desperate to learn of anything that might help her to picture where Luke was – and what he was doing – when she did happen to read or hear of something, she quickly wished she hadn’t. Mr Aubrey’s tale, for instance, had painted an even starker picture than those that often haunted her dreams. Where he had been, men were routinely shot or taken captive and yet, despite the horror, he was still able to speak of it quite calmly.

  Having moved away from the door, she paused. What she would do was draw on Mr Aubrey’s calmness to still her own concerns for Luke. Having heard him reassure Naomi that no news really was good news, she would choose to believe him. He had been there; he knew these things. In any event, other than worry herself silly, she had little choice but to trust that he was telling the truth.

  * * *

  Good grief, what a mess she’d made! Now she’d have to start all over again; she couldn’t send it with a blob of ink at the top!

  Grateful to be alone, Kate growled with frustration and, ripping the top sheet of paper from her writing pad, screwed it into a ball. Another page wasted, another attempt destined only for the waste bin. Why was it, she wondered, that the words in her mind sounded so completely wrong once put down on paper?

  In despair, she shook her head and stared down at the fresh page of her notepad. Coming across it in her old chest of drawers had been a stroke of good fortune since otherwise, she would have been forced to wait until she could go into Westward Quay to buy another. Her patience couldn’t have borne that. Since her chat with Ma Channer yesterday, she had been desperate for a quiet moment to sit and write to Luke. If nothing else, she was hoping that setting down her thoughts to him would do as his mother had suggested and help to calm her mind. Irritatingly, though, while it appeared a straightforward enough thing to do – write to Luke and tell him that she missed him – finding the words to convey those thoughts was proving unexpectedly tricky.

  Dipping the nib of her pen into the bottle of ink, she started over. Since she was hoping not to be at Woodicombe for much longer, she had decided to put her address as Hartland Street. With that once again written out neatly, she paused to recall the date and then wrote that underneath. So far, so good. Next, she moved across to the other side of the page and wrote Dear Luke. Holding aside her pen, she sat back and stared down at her effort thus far. Her handwriting was tidy enough, but she wasn’t so enamoured with the way those last two words seemed to stare back at her. Did they sound too cold and wooden? Should she have chosen something warmer, such as De
arest Luke? Or even, My Dearest Luke? No, both of those were too soppy. Better, surely, just to be plain-spoken. After all, neither of them were people for flowery words.

  So, what next? What did she say now? With her hand hovering in readiness to write, she wracked her brains, dismayed to find herself once again lost for a way to start. Oh, but this was ridiculous! This was Luke she was writing to – the person she had known all of her life and then chosen to wed – not some stranger she was beseeching for a position of employment. So why wouldn’t the words come to her? Because, though you might have known him all of your life, you don’t properly know him as a husband, a little voice in her mind rather unhelpfully chipped in. The little voice spoke the truth.

  Then she had a thought. She would tell him how she came to be back in Woodicombe again. Yes, the sale of the house would be a proper piece of news for him. He would be staggered to learn that Hugh Russell had bought it. Well, assuming he didn’t already know as much – assuming he hadn’t already been told by Mr Lawrence, himself having already been told by Naomi. Either way, for sheer want of a better way to start, she would tell him.

  For a while after that she got along just fine, writing of Edith’s wariness at the discovery of what Hugh Russell had done, and, determining to be charitable, describing her reaction as understandable. Unfortunately, once she finally finished committing that piece of news to paper, she found herself once again stuck for something to say. What she wanted to do was convey to him some of her turmoil – to say that with him having been gone so long now, at times, she struggled to recall the details of his face and that, the harder she tried to do so, the more the finer details of it seemed to evade her. She wanted to tell him that when she tried to picture his features, in the places where his eyes and his mouth and his nose should be was just a blank and fuzzy flesh-coloured oval. She wanted to admit to him that while she knew that his hair was coarse to the touch, she could no longer remember the actual feel of it between her fingers. Most of all, she longed to confess that, most of the time, she didn’t even feel as though she was married. Of course, she couldn’t do that. Despite what Ma Channer had suggested, she couldn’t write a single word of it. It couldn’t possibly be the sort of thing he spent his days longing to hear. Longing to hear. That was it! She would tell him what he would surely be longing to hear.

  Once again dipping her nib into the ink, she started to write.

  I do miss you so. I do miss that we don’t share a home. I do miss that I don’t make you your breakfast or cook you your suppers. And though I do surely hate the job, I do miss that I don’t iron your collars. Or even darn your socks. I miss that we don’t never have a chance to sit down together come evening time and tell each other of our days. Naomi is forever reminding me to be brave and I do try my best not to complain. After all, I am well in myself and I have both a home and work with no worries on either score. But I do wish we were together in the way of proper married folk.

  With the words seeming to have poured from her pen – her only fear being that she might not capture them all – she finally paused to draw breath. Well, how much better did she feel for that! How badly must she have needed to admit to those feelings of missing him? Being brave was all well and good but, if these last few minutes of scribbling were anything to go by, there was still a place in this time of war for honesty – and for sentimentality, too – as well as for stiffness and brave faces. It was never helpful to bottle things up anyway – even Naomi, who always urged bravery in the face of adversity, held that speaking one’s mind was the best policy.

  When she read back what she had written, though, she was left wondering whether she had now been too honest, and whether Luke would think her letter either too soppy or too maudlin. Just in case he did, she would end by writing something cheering. She couldn’t tell him Naomi’s news – nor that they had seen Mr Aubrey. But then it came to her, and once again she started to write.

  The other afternoon, I went to visit with your ma. She brewed me some elderflower tea, what I didn’t know I liked. She is very well and busy as always. Your pa is fine too. Although on his own and without help, he keeps the gardens looking nice. His sweet peas are racing to the top of the poles, even though mostly he now gives his time over to the vegetables.

  She sat back in her chair. Yes, that was good. But now, what did she say to end with? To her surprise, she suddenly had no doubt.

  My dear husband, I do miss you so much. Every day I do think of you and do long sorely for this war to be over with. Meantime, please take every care to stay safe. I hope you can write to me soon with news of what it is like there.

  Your loving wife,

  Kate.

  Noticing that her hand had begun to tremble, she carefully set down her pen. And then, unexpectedly, and from out of nowhere, she felt tears racing down her cheeks and found herself sobbing as though she would never stop.

  * * *

  ‘Kate, there you are. Won’t you come and sit with me a while?’

  It was after supper the following day and going to check on Naomi’s whereabouts had brought Kate to the terrace, where she had found her sitting on one of the ornamentals benches, swathed against the evening chill in one of her shawls. Her face looked serene, not a fold to her forehead nor a crease to the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  With a smile, Naomi patted the space beside her. ‘Fetch a cushion and sit next to me, won’t you? It seems we’ve barely had a chance to speak to each other today.’

  The reason they’d barely spoken, Kate thought, returning indoors for a cushion, was down to their house guest. When he wasn’t teaching Naomi the rules of a new card game or playing a piece on the piano for her, he was explaining the finer points of the various battle campaigns being waged by the army. Not that she was complaining; Mr Aubrey was good for Naomi in ways she knew she could never be.

  Noticing Naomi eyeing her expectantly, she tried to recall what she had said. ‘No, well, ma’am,’ she replied, Naomi’s earlier remark coming back to her, ‘your time has been taken up with Mr Aubrey. Rightly so, of course, given what he’s been through.’

  ‘It does sound as though he’s been through rather a lot, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Though you wouldn’t know it to hear him talk,’ she agreed. Then, realizing how much of what she knew had been learnt from eavesdropping, she carefully qualified her remark. ‘Well, from the little I’ve heard him speak of it, it would seem so, yes.’

  ‘I must say,’ Naomi began afresh, ‘he looks remarkably well on it. The loss of a little weight suits him – sharpens his features. Makes him look more like Lawrence.’

  It was something she, too, had noticed. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Being in the army has smartened him up as well – has made him appear far tidier generally.’

  ‘Quite changed him,’ she felt it safe to agree.

  ‘Makes one wonder…’

  Assuming that Naomi would finish her thought, she waited. When she didn’t seem in any rush to do so, though, she ventured to enquire, ‘Makes one wonder what, ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, really.’ Again, she waited, hoping that if she kept quiet for long enough Naomi would eventually elaborate. In this instance, her patience was rewarded. ‘I was just thinking that had Aubrey been like he is now – last summer, I mean – I wonder whether I might have married him after all. I wonder whether I might now have been at Avingham Park, just as Mamma wanted.’

  Feeling disloyal to Mr Lawrence to be even considering the possibility, Kate decided to confine herself to only the airiest of replies. ‘I couldn’t possibly say, ma’am.’

  ‘No, nor I, I suppose.’

  Then, feeling that even her woolliness was a betrayal of Mr Lawrence, she added, ‘I still think Mr Lawrence far nicer. If it were me, even taking account of a fancy home, Mr Aubrey wouldn’t hold a candle to your Mr Lawrence.’

  Beside her, Naomi smiled warmly. ‘Well said! It’s just that one can’t help but wonder, can one?
Especially when one is, to all intents and purposes, still so newly married.’

  ‘Um… well…’ With a better understanding now of just how much she missed Luke, she could quite see how Naomi’s own thoughts might be similarly muddled, especially given that Mr Aubrey was Mr Lawrence’s brother – and that the two of them shared more than passing similarities.

  ‘And I never thought I would say this about Aubrey, but I’ve been glad of his company. At first, I resented that he should be the one to come home while Lawrence had to remain in France – and yes, I do know that he is only here by virtue of being wounded. Today in particular, though, I’ve realized that his presence has made me feel closer to Lawrence.’

  ‘That’s good, ma’am,’ she said, grateful that they now appeared to be on safer ground.

  ‘It’s difficult to explain but, through his stories of being at the front, I feel as though I have a better understanding of what Lawrence must be going through. Does that make any sense to you?’

  She nodded. ‘It does. I’ve learned from him, too. Though I can’t profess to understand the half of it.’ Glancing about the garden, she asked, ‘Is he not about tonight – Mr Aubrey?’

  ‘Gone for another walk.’

  ‘Oh.’ That Mr Aubrey should have developed a fondness for rambling still struck her as odd – out of character, to say the very least. But then many things about him seemed to have changed. For a start, his general manner was far less harrying. ‘Gone to explore in the other direction, has he?’ she enquired, largely in the name of conversation.

  ‘I didn’t ask. He just happened to mention that his previous outing had proved most rewarding and that he wished to see whether he might repeat the experience.’

  ‘If he’s gone tramping up over the headland,’ she said, trying to picture him puffing his way up the steep rise, ‘then he’ll need to have a care to turn back well before dusk. There can be no ferrying him home in the cab from out there. The only way back from that direction is the same as your manner of getting there – on foot.’