The whole family was subdued after Josiah left in April. The newspaper reports about the war suddenly had deeper meaning. Sybil found herself reading about the First World War online, so she would know more about it. The casualty reports and the nature of the casualties were grim. Mustard gas and poison gases of various kinds were released on the soldiers. The conditions in the trenches were ghastly. Sybil couldn’t bear the thought of Josiah going through that once he went to Europe, and neither could Gwyneth. Sybil had to remind herself again and again that in real time, Josiah had been dead for a hundred years. But in Gwyneth and Bert’s world, it hadn’t happened yet, and Sybil dreaded when it would, and what it would do to them.
The first Battle of the Somme had ravaged the Allied troops the year before in 1916, and the fighting was still continuing. It hadn’t ended yet. And what Sybil read had happened in 1917 was even worse. She tried to keep positive around Gwyneth, but she knew that it was all her friend could think of, and Sybil was grateful they both had Magnus and Charlie to cheer them up, and their daughters to keep them busy. Caroline missed Josiah too, and a few weeks after he left, she met a new boy at school, which Sybil thought might be a good thing. He was a senior and captain of the basketball team, a tall, handsome boy who was crazy about her and she liked him. She knew that Caroline would be shaken by what happened to Josiah. And it was better for her to dive into the real world for now, like a normal high school girl.
Caroline mentioned her new beau one night to Bettina at dinner, who warned her not to get involved with anyone, because he would be going to war soon. And Caro gently reminded her that he would be going to college like Andy, not to war.
Angus told Andy that he had best forget the University of Edinburgh, if he got in. It would be too hard to get to Europe, it was a dangerous time to be there, and he might get torpedoed on the way over. Andy politely didn’t comment, since most of the time Angus forgot that they lived in two different centuries. He kept telling Andy that he’d be going to war soon, and if he wasn’t drafted before he graduated in June, he’d have to enlist then, if he was even able to finish. Andy would nod and play with Rupert, who spent mealtimes either snoring loudly at his master’s feet or waiting for something to fall from the table. Magnus and Charlie fed him scraps whenever they could, and Rupert would bark at them when they didn’t and give them away, while the boys feigned innocence and insisted they hadn’t given him anything.
Andy provided the families with good news for a change. He got into the University of Edinburgh, and so did his two friends, and he was thrilled. They celebrated him at dinner, despite Angus’s warnings that he’d be drafted instead. Both families were delighted for him. But it was bittersweet for Sybil. She hated the thought of her firstborn leaving in the fall, but it was inevitable. She didn’t dare complain to Gwyneth, who was worrying about Josiah night and day.
Magnus and Charlie had been less adventuresome since their escapade with the secret passage, and Charlie reported to his mother that Magnus had gotten really good at videogames. He was almost as adept as Charlie, and had a real knack for it, just as his mother had learned to use Sybil’s computer with impressive skill. It was a dimension that neither of them could have dreamed of. Bert scolded Gwyneth when she hung around Sybil while she was working. She still talked longingly about having a job, which both her mother and husband told her wasn’t appropriate for her.
“I don’t see why not,” Gwyneth answered petulantly. “If Sybil can work, why can’t I?” She sounded more like one of her daughters than herself.
“Ladies do not work,” Augusta had told her in no uncertain terms. “The next thing you know, you’ll want to be wearing one of Caroline’s indecently short skirts. That’s for them,” she said, glancing at the Gregorys. “Not for us.” She liked them, and had accepted “the new family” as she called them, in their midst, but the same rules did not apply. And she had warned Sybil several times that if she ever choked at dinner again, not to leap on her with that German attack method to try to save her. She claimed that Sybil had nearly killed her, and said she was sure it was being used by the enemy in the war.
“She was trying to help you, Mother,” Gwyneth reminded her, but Augusta was not convinced.
During the weeks after Josiah left, Sybil noticed that Bettina was unusually quiet, and hardly ever spoke. Her brother was two years older, and they were very close. Bettina was twenty-one and didn’t have a beau. When Sybil had asked Gwyneth about it one afternoon in her office, while Gwyneth painted on her computer, she sighed and said it was a long story. Bettina was a beautiful girl, and from the moment war had been declared, she had severely withdrawn, and barely spoke to any of them. She had taken to going on long walks alone, and writing letters for hours in the garden. She seemed desperately unhappy.
“She fell in love with a boy two years ago, when we went to Lake Tahoe. He was a nice boy her age. He seemed very bright, and he was very taken with her, but he was entirely unsuitable. She had just come out the year before, and we presented her to a number of young men she refused. After a month at Lake Tahoe, she had her heart set on this boy. Bert was very upset about it, and he talked to the boy’s father and told him that his advances weren’t welcome. He completely understood, and I don’t think they liked the idea either,” Gwyneth said unhappily.
“What made him unsuitable?” Sybil was curious about it.
“It was quite impossible. Tradesman. The family is Italian, and they had a fish restaurant somewhere. The parents barely spoke English,” she said in her soft Scottish burr. It was the first time that Sybil had heard her sound snobbish, but she was very definite about it. There were rules and standards that they lived by, and they expected their daughter to do the same, and the son of an Italian immigrant restaurant owner was unthinkable for one of their daughters, even if the business was successful. “My mother would have had a fit if she’d known,” Gwyneth added. “His parents found the match as undesirable as we did, they had a girl picked out for him in Italy, which he was resisting. He had very modern ideas, and had no interest in working at the restaurant. He wanted to go to university. He was a bit of a revolutionary, and I think they blamed Bettina for his refusing the marriage they’d planned for him. After Bert spoke to the boy’s father, he forbid Bettina to see him again.”