“Your influence has failed to protect Daniel, so I shall have no more faith in it,” said Agatha. “I will not let him go to France, John.”
“Agatha, we’ve talked about this before,” said John.
“Yes, yes, my boundaries as an aunt,” she said. “I held my tongue at Hugh’s enlistment because he is a doctor and will be well behind the lines. Daniel, however, is different. For God’s sake, John, Wheaton’s men are bound for the front line.”
“One step at a time,” said John. “They are still in training. No embarkation orders have been issued.”
“Young Craigmore is dead. The fishmonger’s boy is dead. I count five funerals to every wedding in this week’s social columns.” She could feel her voice crack as she spoke. She dropped her chin to hide the trembling of her mouth. She did not want to play the weak and weeping female, and yet when she thought of Daniel, waving from the window of a troop train, she felt a lifetime of strength and resilience evaporate, leaving her as hollow as a dry straw.
“You must bear up, my dear,” said John. “I will do what I can, but we must be subtle. Daniel is no less patriotic than the next young man and would be pained to find us against his going.”
“I would sooner go myself,” said Agatha.
“That would surely put the Germans to flight,” said John. “Unfortunately, they won’t have you.”
“Because I am a woman,” said Agatha.
“Because you are too stubborn and opinionated,” said her husband. “Imagine an army of Agatha Kents—all refusing to do as they are told.”
“You exaggerate,” she said. But though she knew her husband was deliberately diffusing her misery, she was comforted. It was their way. It had been so when he plucked her from the misery of her life after the death of her fiancé.
It was the uniforms that reminded her now. They had been in a hurry to marry because her fiancé’s regiment was posted unexpectedly to Suez, and she had been sitting in her wedding dress, waiting in the quiet afternoon for her father to come for her. There was a small munitions explosion at the railway station. A man in a captain’s uniform came to tell them. And then the long months in Gloucestershire, where they hoped her sister’s help would wake her from her dangerous lassitude. She could still smell the wilting jasmine in her bouquet. And she hated Gloucestershire, to which she had returned only once, for her sister’s funeral.
John had loved her in spite of her best efforts to rebuff him. He took her away to exotic foreign postings, where she became a stronger woman. Even when they knew they would have no children of their own, and she tore her hair and blamed herself, he held her sanity together with his small jokes and his kind words. She was always free to beat her fists on his chest and rail against the world, and he would calmly prevent her from her own undoing. She was ashamed to have been as surly tonight as if he had already failed her. She sighed. “I suppose I should leave all to you and just take pleasure, as I have always done, from each day that Daniel and Hugh can be with us.”
“In so doing I believe you have collected more maternal happiness than a mother of ten,” said John. “While I enjoy all the benefits of being an uncle without having to pay any of the expenses that accompany fatherhood. I believe we are both blessed.”
“Now who’s exaggerating?” said Agatha, who pretended to be unaware that John made modest contributions to the nephews’ educational expenses and slipped them substantial drafts at Christmas and on birthdays. While he enjoyed promoting frugality and hard work, he would, she knew, move heaven and earth for either boy. So she smiled and kissed his hand and did not show that she feared this time, with the earth shifting all over Europe, he might fail her.
—
In the days that followed, such rumors flew about impending embarkation orders for Colonel Wheaton’s troops that Agatha grew horribly anxious. While she had every confidence in her husband, he had sent no word, and what if his help came too late? Determined to set in motion a little scheme of her own to rescue Daniel from his foolish stubbornness, she arrived at the Wheaton residence one afternoon with her biggest smile, and a large basket of sausage rolls and cheese straws.
“A gift for the convalescents’ tea,” she said to Major Frank, who met her in the front hall. The hall was bare of paintings, and its statues had been draped with tarpaulins, whether to protect them from damage or to protect the soldiers from their bronze and marble nudity, Agatha could not be sure. A desk was staffed by a young corporal, and a large corkboard for messages was wired to the staircase banister. A drugget runner covered the marble floors.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kent,” said the Major. “They appreciate a bit of the homemade at tea.”
“How are things running?” she asked.
“I’m having some trouble accommodating all the ladies willing to play the piano and sing in the afternoons,” he said. “Between those who can’t hold a note, those who keep weeping over the ‘poor dear men,’ and those in search of a lightly wounded future husband, many of our patients are asking to take tea in their wards.”
“And my dear friend Lady Emily?” asked Agatha. “Are you and she getting along?”
“We have our arrangement,” he said. “Confidentially, my staff and I agree to all her plans and send to headquarters for immediate approval. Approval takes an appropriate amount of time, and so we go on nicely.”
“You sound just like my husband, Major,” she said. “Confidentially, there are one or two cabinet ministers with whom a similar arrangement keeps the work running smoothly.”
“Would you care for a tour of the place?” he asked. “It’s almost teatime and I can offer you a strong cup of tea in the ballroom?”
“Actually, I was hoping to see Colonel Wheaton if he is home,” said Agatha. “I didn’t want to go out to the camp and bother him on duty.”
“The family has retreated to the east wing,” said the Major. “But the Colonel usually strolls through at teatime to cheer up the patients. May I take you to him?”
The Colonel finished his round of the ballroom and came to sit with Agatha and the Major. The ever-discreet Major Frank made some excuse to leave, and Agatha thought the low hum of conversation and the rather clumsy but enthusiastic piano playing of Minnie Buttles provided enough privacy for her to make her plea.
“Not the most refined tea in the world. I think the army buys what they deem strong enough to take the fur from one’s tongue,” said the Colonel, drinking from his substantial green cup and saucer.
“I’m sure it does your officers no harm,” said Agatha. As she looked around the room, her heart sank at the sight of so many cheerful army officers, drinking tea, reading the newspaper, pretending to ignore a bandaged head, missing limb, or hard, racking cough. At the next table, a young captain with no visible injury tried to manage a tremble in his hands that clattered his teacup against its saucer and slopped tea on the tablecloth. As Agatha looked away, a nurse brought him a mug from the kitchen.
“They are terribly brave, aren’t they?” added Agatha.
“They are the lucky ones,” said Colonel Wheaton. “Alive and in Blighty—but likely not fit to serve again. For most of these men, their war is over.”
“I wish it were over for all of us,” said Agatha.
“Give me a chance to get in the thing first!” said the Colonel. “My lot is expecting orders any day now, you know. We want our crack at the Hun.”
“I know you do, Colonel, and I know it is very important to you and to your son to serve,” she said.
“More important to him than to me,” said the Colonel. “I’m an old dog brought out of the home. I’m happy to have another crack in the field, but Harry—he’s got a bright future. This war will be the making of many a young man’s career, and Harry has a real chance to advance if he can just get in the thick of things.”