Lorimers at War (35 page)

As the train thrust steadily on, she stared out of the window at the empty countryside. The first snow had fallen in the previous week, covering the vast plains which stretched to the horizon. Its smooth surface was unbroken here, so different from the area around the train's stopping place which had been churned up and spattered with blood. She felt utterly alone in this enormous, uncaring country. How would she ever find Vladimir again? She tried to persuade herself that he was on the train, not daring to return to her under the eyes of the Cheka; but in her heart she did not believe it. What she could manage to hope was that his papers had been good enough to protect him from the fate of those who had been shot out of hand.

When the train at last reached Petrograd she was faint with hunger and anxiety and lack of fresh air. Hauling out her baggage, she sat down on it without regard to the chaotic movement and shouting all round. For an hour she waited to hear her name called or feel Vladimir's hand on her shoulder, but he did not come. It was scarcely a disappointment; only a confirmation of the fears which she had already been forced to accept.

She allowed no sign of emotion to show on her face. If anyone noticed her, it must only be as a pregnant woman, tired after a long journey, resting or waiting to be collected. But inside her head, silently, she was screaming.

At last, bringing her panic under control for the third time, she rose to her feet and picked up her bags,
consoling herself with the reminder that they had had time to arrange a rendezvous. Russia had become a country of forced partings, but this parting need not be for ever. She knew what to do, and she must do it. Exhausted and unhappy though she was, Kate picked up her baggage and began to make her way towards the hospital.

The speed with which the war changed direction in the autumn of 1918 took almost everyone by surprise. At one moment the Allies were on the verge of defeat; almost at the next, their armies were once again pressing forward. There were rumours of a new weapon, the tank, which would transform battle tactics once its mechanical unreliability had been overcome. More certainly, there was a promise that five million American soldiers would be sent to Europe in 1919, and the advance force which arrived in time to take part in the new offensive had a value out of all proportion to its numbers, bringing healthy and bright-eyed young men to a continent whose own youth were dazed or dead.

By October the Turks had been defeated and the Bulgarians had surrendered. Even without victory on the Western Front, a way into Austria and Germany had been opened through the back door. Little by little Margaret allowed herself to hope. A hospital in a prisoner-of-war camp must be as safe a place as anywhere on the Continent. One day, and perhaps quite soon, Robert would come home.

In the meantime there was no relaxation in the pressure of work at Blaize, for a new problem had arisen. England had been invaded not by the German Army but by an enemy more difficult to fight. No cannons or machine guns
could hold back the advance of the influenza epidemic. It had taken the lives of sixteen million Indians, it had swept across the Near East and had reached France earlier in the summer. Now it crossed the Channel and, on a scale comparable with that of a battle, began to claim the lives of civilians whose resistance had been lowered by the shortages of food.

The patients at Blaize, weakened by their wounds and the amputations which many of them had suffered, were especially at risk. Margaret saw the danger and did her best to divide the long ward in the converted theatre and introduce barrier nursing procedures in the hope that any infection could be contained. It was a further burden of work on someone who had been under strain for so long. Although only too well aware that the disease was a killing one, she felt almost relief when after two days of indisposition she awoke one morning to find her body heated to fever pitch and her head swimming with dizziness. Now at last she could shed all her responsibilities and lie back to sleep.

In her illness she was more fortunate than most victims of the epidemic, for there were trained nurses on hand to care for her. The time came when she was able to stare up at the ceiling, too weak to move but cool and comfortable for the first time since the attack began, and confident that the worst was over. She accepted a drink of hot milk. Within a few hours she even began to feel hungry.

‘What day is it?' she asked as the tray was brought and she was propped up on pillows to receive it.

‘Sunday, Doctor.' The nurse sat down to help her eat, for she hardly had the strength to lift a spoon.

‘Then Lord Glanville will be at Blaize, I imagine. Will you tell him how much better I am?' No doubt he had come to sit beside her during her illness, but she had been conscious only of a confusion of comings and goings and could not recall who her visitors were. It was too
soon for any of the children to be admitted to her sick room, but she looked forward to showing her brother-in-law that she was on the way to recovery, and to hearing all the news of the family and the hospital.

‘Lord Glanville isn't here, I'm afraid, Doctor. He's in London.'

That was a surprise. It was true that within the last month or two, as peace came into prospect at last, Piers had spent more time at the House of Lords. Political life was beginning to revive. Lloyd George had united the country behind the single aim of winning the war, but once it was won the parties could be expected to separate again, each with its own policies. Lord Glanville had never been a member of the government, but he was politically active. The campaign to allow women the vote, which was one of his chief interests, had achieved its first great success earlier in the year, but there were other battles to be fought. Younger women were still excluded from the suffrage, and a whole range of social problems would need to be solved if peace were not to bring as much hardship as war.

So although most of the house in Park Lane had been closed for the past four years, with its staff dispersed and its furniture under dust covers, one chilly bedroom in Glanville House had been kept open for his use, with a cook to prepare any meals which he did not wish to take at his club. For some months now he had been spending only one day a week at Blaize – but that day was Sunday, so that Margaret's hope of seeing him had been a reasonable one.

‘And Lady Glanville?' she asked instead.

‘She's in London as well.'

That was even more of a surprise. None of the concerts which Alexa organized for soldiers in their camps or hospitals ever took place on a Sunday. The nurse, seeing her puzzlement, began to talk in an ill-concealed attempt to change the subject. The war was almost over, she said.
The Germans had appealed for an armistice and the terms were being negotiated at that moment.

Perhaps it was not such a change of subject after all. If events were really moving with such rapidity, Alexa might be preparing to reopen Glanville House. Margaret lay back again in the bed and tried to imagine a world at peace.

She had fallen ill in October; it was November by the time she recovered. The fog which shrouded the river valley imprisoned her in her room even when she was ready for the stimulus of fresh air and exercise. She was still confined to the house when the chief physician of the hospital brought in a letter.

‘Lady Glanville asked me to give you this, but not until I considered that you were strong enough.'

Alexa's message was a brief one, written from Glanville House.

‘Piers is very ill. Come if you can.'

Margaret looked at her colleague, who answered the question before it was asked.

‘It's the influenza again, the same that attacked you. But unlike you –'

‘Are you trying to tell me that he's dying?'

‘Lady Glanville wrote to me by the same post. She's very much alarmed by his condition.'

‘How long have you had the letter?'

‘Two days. If you'd left the house in that fog, it would have killed you. Even as it is –'

Margaret wasted no time in arguing. Dressed in her warmest clothes, she set out at once for London.

Even before the cab which carried her from the station had come to a standstill she knew that she was too late. The curtains of Glanville House were drawn and outside in the road a boy was sweeping up the straw which had been laid in front of the house to muffle the sound of traffic. She sat without moving until the cab driver realized that his passenger was too weak to walk and rang the front door bell for a servant to help her.

Alexa came into the drawing room as she sat there, still shocked, shivering in spite of her heavy coat. For a little while neither of them could speak or move. When at last Alexa broke the spell and began to pace the room, her voice was bitter rather than brokenhearted.

‘When I think of the years I wasted!' she exclaimed. ‘We had such a short time together, and it could have been so much longer. I was a fool to send him away when he first asked me to marry him. And even before that, when I was singing in Italy – he may not have said in so many words what he felt for me, but I knew. I knew all the time, right from the moment his wife died. And I kept him away all that time. Eight years, Margaret, that's all we had together; only eight years, when it might have been twenty.'

Margaret's own marriage had lasted for only a few months, and the years of separation from Charles which preceded it had been made necessary by the complications of her family history rather than her own waywardness. There had been a time, too, when she had loved Piers herself and found it difficult not to resent his infatuation with the beautiful young singer who seemed not to care for him at all. But this was not the time to admit any feeling of jealousy to her heart. The man who had died had been loved by both of them; but although Margaret had lost her closest friend, only Alexa was widowed by the death. Margaret did her best to provide some kind of consolation, reminding Alexa that at least during those eight years of marriage she had brought her husband great happiness. Yet there was nothing she could say which would provide real comfort. The evening was filled with silences, until in the end they took their separate sorrows early to bed.

The next morning there were decisions to be made. Alexa was as a rule more practical and businesslike than might have been expected of a prima donna, but now she was numbed not only by the shock of bereavement but
also by the sudden realization of the huge responsibilities she would have to shoulder until her son was old enough to take over the Glanville estates. It was Margaret who decided that the funeral should be held at Blaize and who made all the necessary arrangements – and for the printing of cards, the wording of newspaper announcements, the listing of friends and political allies who must be informed, the planning of a memorial service in London later. In a way it was a relief to concentrate on the mechanical decisions which were so unimportant compared with the loss of her dear friend. She was not aware of the passing of time, and it was only when she paused to shake her chilled fingers back into life that she realized how dark the afternoon had grown without the appearance of luncheon.

Alexa had been too upset to give domestic orders, no doubt, and Margaret herself had not yet recovered her appetite since her illness, so the omission was of no importance. But later she rang for a servant to post her cards, and no one came. Yet Alexa, she knew, had summoned staff from Blaize as soon as she realized that her husband was too ill to be moved to the country. Margaret rang the bell again.

It was answered at last by a young girl. She had been left behind to do anything that was needed, she explained with a trace of sulkiness, while the others were out celebrating.

‘Celebrating!' For one horrified moment Margaret, unable to think of anyone but Piers, assumed that for some ghoulish reason the servants were rejoicing in the death of their master. The girl noticed her incredulity and was surprised by it in turn. Then an explanation occurred to her.

‘You've heard the news, I suppose, ma'am,' she said. ‘At eleven o'clock this morning it happened. The war's over.'

‘No,' said Margaret. ‘I hadn't heard. I see. Thank you. Post these letters straightaway, please.'

After the girl had gone she walked across to the window. Drawing the curtain slightly to one side, she looked over Park Lane to Hyde Park. It was dark by now. A bonfire was burning in the park. Round it danced a circle of people, hands linked, while others searched the ground for wood to throw on the flames. The street, too, was full of people, all pressing towards Buckingham Palace. There seemed to be a great deal of hugging and kissing going on. Not everyone in the crowd was completely sober.

Margaret allowed the curtain to drop again and tried to open her heart to happiness. This was the moment they had awaited so long. For more than four years the phrase ‘after the war' had summed up every future pleasure, every future hope. And now, it seemed, the moment had come. ‘After the war' had arrived. Why was it, then, that she found it impossible to feel any pleasure, any hope – impossible, in fact, to feel anything at all?

She had waited too long and lost too much. ‘After the war' had been a time to enjoy with those she most loved, and where were they now? Lydia was dead, Ralph was dead, Brinsley was dead, Kate had disappeared, and now Piers was dead as well.

A series of bangs came from the direction of the park, startling Margaret by its resemblance to gunfire. She looked out again and guessed that children were throwing fire crackers on to the bonfire. It was going to be a noisy night.

Disturbed by the sound, Alexa came down from her bedroom. She had been crying. Margaret moved to one side so that she could see out of the window.

‘The war's over,' she said.

‘When?'

‘Seven hours ago. Odd, isn't it, that it should just slip away. One had imagined something dramatic happening. But in France, I suppose –'