“For how long?” asked Beatrice.
“When the jar be empty you’d best stop,” said Maria. “And it be good luck to return the jar wi’ something in it.”
“Thank you,” said Beatrice.
“How d’you find the babe?” Maria asked Hugh.
“Much improved,” he said. “The lungs sound quite clear now. I think with rest and careful diet he’ll be running around in a week.”
“Thank ’ee,” she said. “I’m afeared of nothing except when the children get the fever in the lungs, and then I go all to pieces with worry. Tell the doctor I’m grateful he came out.”
“I will.”
“And thank ’ee, ma’am, for coming,” she added, pressing Agatha’s hands. “Precious few ladies would put themselves out for a child o’ ours, and us don’t forget.”
“We must thank you for helping our young friend,” said Agatha.
“The boy can go back with you and take the machine to his father if you like, miss,” said Maria.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s too much bother,” said Beatrice, in a hasty manner she hoped would not betray her reluctance.
“No trouble, miss,” said Snout. “Bicycle is going to need some hammering out and a new chain.”
“Save ’im a long walk if you’ve no objection to my great-grandson on your step,” added Mrs. Stokes.
“That’s settled then,” said Agatha smoothly. “Mr. Sidley is the very best in all mechanical repairs.”
—
The rooftops of Rye were ahead of them, the sun indicating the lateness of the afternoon, and Beatrice’s head nodding with exhaustion when Hugh stopped the trap in a small turning before the river. Snout hopped down from his precarious perch on the rear step and untied the bicycle.
“I’ll bring it when I come for me lesson, miss,” he said, and paused before asking, “No reason Arty and Jack got to know anything ’bout it, though?”
“Silentium est aureum,” she said. He was surprised into a grin, by which she knew he had understood her promise to be silent. He tugged at his cap and wheeled the bicycle away.
As Hugh flicked the horse on, Agatha turned to Beatrice and shook her arm. “I think you’d better come home with us,” she said. “We have hot water for a bath and Jenny to help you. You have some cuts and scrapes that should be swabbed with iodine.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Beatrice. “I’m sure Mrs. Turber can spare me a kettle of hot water.”
“In case you haven’t met my aunt, I don’t think her invitation was optional,” Hugh advised with a laugh.
Beatrice felt she should further protest, but the thought of Agatha’s gleaming white bathtub, the soft bed in the blue room, and a freshly cooked hot dinner seemed irresistible after such an exhausting day, and so she agreed with the politest of thanks.
They pulled into the driveway, laughing over the pungency of Mrs. Stokes’s salve and Hugh’s insistence that she also offered love potions, and claimed she could poison a pig without ruining the meat but said she never would. The front door stood companionably open, and a pleasant-looking man in shirtsleeves and tie was somewhat incongruously admiring the front gardens while smoking a cigarette.
“John, whatever are you doing home?” called Agatha. As the horse pulled to a standstill, he stepped to hand her down from the trap, and they embraced as if young lovers, he swinging her off her feet while she clutched for her hat. “Do put me down, for shame,” she said. “You will throw out your back again.”
“It would be worth it as ever,” he said. “But I will settle for a kiss.” She kissed him on his graying sideburns and he kissed her back and then he was shaking Hugh’s hand.
“And this is Beatrice, whom you met in London, who has fallen from her bicycle,” said Agatha, and Beatrice found herself given a hearty handshake by John Kent.
“Do you need a hand to get her down, my boy?” said John, but Hugh assured him he did not.
“I think we have this down to an art now,” he said, and Beatrice subjected herself once more to being lifted from the trap and carried into Agatha’s front hall.
“It is so good to be home and to worry about something real, such as a lovely young woman’s injured ankle and the fact that Cook is not happy to have had no notice about dinner,” said John Kent, following them inside. “I swear it gives one faith that England will always stand.” He was smiling, but he rubbed his temple as if a very tired man.
“Why, John, it’s not like you to wax lyrical in the middle of the afternoon,” said Agatha, taking off her hat and tossing it on a peg. “Whatever can be the matter?”
“I am just grateful to be home,” said John Kent, catching his wife by the waist and kissing her again on the cheek in a very firm manner. “You have no idea how grateful.” Hugh slowly let Beatrice down and held her arm as she balanced as little weight as possible on her bad foot. She was grateful once again for the pressure of his touch as John Kent looked gravely into his wife’s face.
“What Uncle John is trying to say is that home and England may not stand always,” said Daniel, leaning against the drawing room doorway, a large glass held in his hand and his tie unacceptably askew. “So we are drinking to them now.”
“Why is Daniel drinking whisky so early?” asked Agatha.
“Is there bad news from London?” asked Hugh.
“I’m afraid so,” said his uncle. He caught Agatha’s two hands in his and held them to his lips.
“Germany has invaded Belgium,” he said. “Tomorrow we will be at war.”
—
Agatha Kent tucked a strand of hair back into its roll and wondered if she should call Jenny to come and fix her hair more tightly. But she had declared that they were not dressing for dinner. John was exhausted, and while a note had been sent to Mrs. Turber’s to bring fresh clothes for Beatrice, Agatha thought it easier not to request evening dress. She added a small hairpin, decorated with an emerald turtle, to the wayward hair and smoothed down the clean blouse she had added, happy not to have to exchange her loose stays for an evening corset. She always enjoyed the peaceful half hour before the sound of the dinner gong, and at her dressing table, the evening light coming in the window and the companionable sounds of John, changing his shirt in his dressing room next door, it was easy to believe for a moment that this evening was no different, that John had not come home for such a brief visit, and to give them such terrible news.
“Can you help me with this damned cuff link,” he said, wandering in with his shirt untucked and his feet in his favorite Moroccan slippers. He sat comfortably on the end of the bed and held out his arm. Agatha turned around on her dressing stool to oblige, and while she struggled with the stiff cuff, John sighed deeply and leaned his head forward onto her shoulder, tucking his cheek against her neck. Securing the cuff link, Agatha placed her hand on his back, and they sat a moment in an embrace of silent mutual comfort, which was, she often thought, the reward of those long married.
“We thought the Kaiser would compel Austria to show restraint in the east,” he said. “Instead they are turning on France. They are already in Luxembourg, and tomorrow they will rip apart Belgian neutrality.”
“You have done all you could, I’m sure,” said Agatha.
“We have been caught flat-footed by Berlin,” he said, raising his head and running a hand over his hair in weary frustration. “And as we refuse, above all else, to look publicly foolish, I fear they have left us no room to remain outside the conflict.”
“It does seem unimaginable that we would be enemies,” said Agatha. “What is Emily Wheaton’s daughter to do? Her husband is such a lovely young man.”