The Very Thought of You Page 7

  Sixteen-year-old Claudia, helping with the nursing work, was taken ill on the third day of the outbreak. She lay in her old familiar bed, overlooking the broad sweep of parkland. Her head burned hot and she began to slip in and out of delirium, like the other victims.

  Robert and Miriam Ashton were telephoned in Sussex Place. They caught the first train to York, and forbade Thomas from joining them. For two days they sat by Claudia’s bedside in desperate agitation. They sponged her, they talked to her, they tried to rouse her. They walked up and down the room, and rocked in their chairs, and gripped at their own fretful fingers until they were sore. But they could not reach their daughter – her soul was drifting free. Sometimes, in her delirium, she seemed to be talking to her brothers, as if they were standing at the end of her bed.

  Her decline was too swift. Miriam was watching her daughter’s white face when she stopped breathing. Suddenly Claudia’s eyes were empty and still. She had vanished into the light of the sky, and nothing could bring her back.

  Miriam howled out loud, in animal sounds. Half-delirious with exhaustion, she held her daughter and breathed into her mouth, hoping for a shudder of life. But the girl was dead as stone.

  Robert stumbled into the room, and found his wife holding their dead daughter in her arms. He held them both, and tears seeped down his face for Claudia, for Miriam, for all of them.

  Thomas, waiting for news in London, was stunned by this capricious aftermath to the war. There was nothing to steady his heart but to walk, and he walked all day and late into the evening through the streets of London, through the darkening park, until exhaustion overcame him. Soon after dawn, he caught the first train to York, sleeping fitfully on the way. But when he arrived at Ashton Park, his mother sent him away, back down to the village, for fear that he, too, might get infected. It was another ten days before they would allow him to come into the house.

  By then the epidemic had passed, but not before they had suffered five deaths at Ashton Park. The house hospital was wound up and rooms which had been stripped for wards were left empty and forlorn, still smelling of disinfectant.

  There seemed to be an excess of iron buckets lying around the house.

  Thomas felt he had been cut off at the roots. In the months that followed, he grew oddly estranged from himself. a profound detachment separated him from hope, and his heart was numbed, leaving him distanced from the quick of his feelings.

  As soon as he could, he escaped from the silent dining room of his grieving parents, first to Oxford, later into the Foreign office. He wondered if perhaps his marriage, too, hadn’t been an escape from that time of loss. He felt a familiar twinge of regret that he had too readily yoked Elizabeth to his burden of sadness.

  Certainly, Ashton Park had receded from his life after his siblings’ deaths. For some years he had avoided his childhood home. But now, two decades later, it was both strange and rewarding to find the house filled with voices once more, with children running around the place. They felt right here, Thomas reassured himself, despite the sorry cause of their arrival.

  12

  Anna’s favourite time at Ashton was after supper. Most of their day was regimented, with lessons and chapel services and meals in the dining room. But there was always that empty time before the bell for bed, when they could race around the house – when friendships were formed and new games devised, and unexpected things happened.

  Anna loved to roam the dark corridors and unused rooms scattered about the house. There was a luggage room upstairs, stacked with musty cases and old paraphernalia of tennis rackets and cricket bats: she made a den there, behind an open trunk. But once she showed it to Beth Rothery, other children used it as their hiding place too, and the place lost its mystery.

  Some evenings she would run down to the parlour by the kitchens, where there was an old stand-up piano. Her mother had taught her to play Danny Boy: it was the only piece she knew, but she could play it with two hands, like a proper pianist. Still, she liked it best when there was a mob of children there, strumming chopsticks and pinging the piano strings, everyone singing and dancing about.

  Over time, their games turned to dares, led by Billy Carter, who climbed out of his dormitory window onto the stone ledge beyond and crawled his way round to the girls’ dormitory. But they dared him to go back to bed along the corridor, where Miss Harrison caught him, and made him stand against the wall for two hours.

  Another time, Anna pulled a short straw: her dare was to knock on a teacher’s bedroom door during the night, then run away.

  “Mr Stewart! Mr Stewart!” suggested Katy Todd, enjoying somebody else’s risk.

  “His room is too far,” argued Beth.

  “Miss Harrison, to see if she wears a wig—”

  “Miss Weir, I’ll only do Miss Weir’s room,” said Anna, already scared by what she had to do, but glad at least when they agreed with her choice: she hoped that kind, unhurried Miss Weir would not get too angry.

  The girls in her dormitory stayed awake until Miss Harrison had finished patrolling their floor. Then Anna crept out of bed and onto the long red runner carpet which snaked down the corridor, and round to Miss Weir’s room.

  She glanced back. Katy Todd was peering after her, checking she was doing her dare properly.

  She edged round the corner. There was a night light at one end of the landing, for the younger children’s dormitory. Softly, slowly, she stepped towards Miss Weir’s closed door. Her breathing was rapid, her eyes alert. She raised her hand – and knocked, as quietly as she could.

  Then turned and ran. But slipped and stumbled for a moment. Panicking, she picked herself up and raced for the corridor corner.

  She heard the door behind her open, heard a voice.

  “Hello?”

  She glanced round, saw Miss Weir standing at her door in her nightdress, looking after her. Just for a moment their eyes locked, before Anna turned round the corner, raced back to her dormitory and dived under the covers.

  “Did you do it?” whispered the others.

  “Yes. But she saw me.”

  “Is she coming?”

  “I don’t know—”

  Anna’s heart was still racing, and she thought Miss Weir would appear at any moment to haul her out of bed. But the minutes passed and nothing happened. Anna’s breathing calmed; the others fell asleep.

  But Anna kept replaying that puzzled look on Miss Weir’s pale, lamp-lit face as she ran away from her. She felt troubled, somehow, as she slipped away into sleep.

  The next day, she tried to avoid Miss Weir, hoping that she had not recognized her in the dim light of the corridor. But after assembly she met her in the Marble Hall.

  “Anna—”

  She shuffled over awkwardly, crabwise, unable to meet her teacher’s face.

  “Is everything all right, Anna?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “But last night you knocked—”

  “I’m sorry miss, I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “I’m not chiding you, Anna. Is anything wrong?”

  “Nothing, miss.”

  “Why did you knock then?”

  Anna looked up anxiously, then blurted it out.

  “It was only a dare—”

  “I see.” Miss Weir tilted her head.

  “I didn’t really want to do it.”

  A look came over Miss Weir’s face: Anna did not know whether it was cross or curious.

  “When are we going home?” she asked with orphan eyes, then felt immediately guilty about playing for pity. But Miss Weir’s face softened at once.

  “We don’t know that yet, I’m afraid.”

  Anna dipped her head, looking crestfallen, but worried she might laugh.

  “I hope it won’t be too long before you go home,” said Miss Weir gently.

  “Yes, miss,” said Anna, fighting back a smirk, trying to look solemn.

  “Do knock on my door if you ever need help, but stay to talk next time.”
/>   “Yes, miss.”

  “Off you go then—”

  Round the corner, back in her classroom, the other girls gathered round her.

  “What did she say?” they asked. Beaming, but still shaking in relief, Anna told them how she had pretended to be homesick and got away with it – not a punishment, not even a rebuke, nothing. She basked in her completed dare, knowing she had won some glory with the others.

  But as the day went on, she found herself feeling a touch uncomfortable – guilty that she had played a homesick child, and made fun of Miss Weir’s kindness. She felt shabby.

  Never again, Anna decided. In fluture, she wouldn’t cheat on anyone.

  * * *

  That morning, as Ruth Weir spoke to Anna in the hall, Elizabeth Ashton noticed the teacher and child talking together.

  Something about the pair of them struck Elizabeth, with a pang. By the time she had checked the new rotas in the staffroom, she realized that her pang had been a moment’s jealousy. It was their casual complicity which had pricked her.

  This whole school enterprise had been her initiative, and she, surely, should be the one who could connect with these evacuees. But she had seen that young teacher’s natural bond with the children, and she knew that ease eluded her.

  She decided to walk to the village to pick up the new batch of ration books, hoping the excursion would steady her. She walked fast down the drive, stepping carefully over the cattle grids as she tried to unpick her thoughts.

  Thomas was always busy teaching now, and enjoying it: she could see that in his eyes. He had so swiftly adapted to their new life. But she, meanwhile, had delegated all the pastoral duties, leaving herself only administrative tasks. She could feel her own confidence slipping.

  No matter how many customs and rituals there were in the new school, she found herself unable to settle into any routine. She felt perpetually restless, without a rhythm in her life. every Sunday, as Thomas prepared for the week ahead, a particular dejection would seep through her – a woe, a panic about the days to come – what should she do with the hours?

  She was smoking too much. In the evenings, she would draw too swiftly on each cigarette, as if racing to light up the next one – with another drink to accompany the rasp of tobacco. While Thomas read, tactfully ignoring her disquiet.

  Reaching the village post office, she admitted to herself that, as ever, what she needed, what she wanted, was her own child. She had hoped that all the many children at Ashton might cure that longing, but they had not, or not yet.

  Returning to the house, she walked back by the park lake and watched the slow sway of weeds under the water’s surface. Beyond, the rose garden was barren and empty, showing only the bare cropped heads of rose bushes past their season.

  Without sunshine the gardens sometimes looked too bleak, she thought, but the weather never seemed to deter the evacuees. When the break bell rang, she watched a band of children run outside and circle the fountain. They often ran around the fountain, she noticed. They always wanted to dip their hands in the water.

  Sometimes she wanted to reach out and touch one of them, as if that might ease her aching heart.

  “What did you do this morning?” Thomas asked her at lunch.

  “I went for a walk in the park, and it was looking lovely,” she replied, knowing he liked appreciative remarks. But she did not mention the children.

  Afterwards, as he went off to a lesson, she sat at her desk, answering letters and checking bills. Is this it, she wondered suddenly, or is this just an interim stage, a preparation for something else to happen?

  Ten years with Thomas, and she no longer knew what she felt about him or their life together.

  * * *

  It was in the summer of 1927 that she had first been introduced to Thomas, at a London cocktail party.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said to her with a courteous smile, as their stout hostess brought them together.

  “No, I don’t believe we have,” she replied politely. But she already knew who he was. They had both attended the same parties that season, where she had regularly watched him weaving from group to group – always, it seemed, unattached. Smiling, but giving nothing of himself away.

  Elizabeth had first become aware of Thomas across a crowded room. So compelling was his presence that even as he stood with his back to the party, admiring a Venetian painting with a friend, he drew people’s glances. Elizabeth manoeuvred her way round one side of the silk-walled room, curious to glimpse his face. He laughed for a moment, jutting his head back, and for the first time she saw a flash of him. So that is Thomas Ashton, she thought. He looks like God’s Englishman. She was at once afraid of him – but also wanted to meet him.

  She watched him make his way round the room. He was arrestingly attractive, with a wide, spontaneous smile which could instantly dispel any unease. She noted his steady blue eyes framed by dark brows, and his soft, thick hair swept back from his forehead in a dashing curve. And yet he did not seem to be vain: he appeared naturally modest, and quite oblivious to his own physical grace.

  Elizabeth was twenty-one then, tall and slender, with a dark-eyed quickness and auburn hair which fell in waves to her shoulders. She had been feeling unsettled and fragile that summer. Three years before, she had arrived in London to “come out” as a debutante, attending all the dances of the season, with rows of eligible men always in attendance. Most of the young men were aspirant guards officers, and she often found it tricky to think of something – anything – to talk to them about. There was an unwritten rule that girls should be both pretty and chatty: hostesses were quick to abandon those girls who could not make conversation.

  Her own “coming out” dance was held in her aunt’s Eaton Terrace house, with the ample drawing room cleared for a ballroom and festooned with carnations and roses. But there was no particular guards officer or banker or lawyer who touched her heart. She danced with many men – tall, thin, stocky, American, clever, dull, rich. The season ended, and an autumn of fox-hunting began. She drifted through London parties for the next two years, and worked intermittently at a charitable school in Chelsea, to stave off the ennui of her search for a husband.

  “Are you being too particular?” her mother had asked her. The smart parties had rolled on, with the same plates of salmon mousse and tongue, and the same gilded chairs arranged around the dance floors for the debutantes’ chaperones. But the older women who watched the dances could see that not every girl would be lucky in the musical chairs for a husband. They knew by now that there were four million too many women in the wake of the Great War, that four million young women up and down the country were fated to find themselves romantically thwarted. Mrs Fairfax feared for her own daughter, though she was confident that Elizabeth was beautiful and accomplished.

  “But she is choosy,” she would say to her husband, a decorated soldier who was privately relieved to defer the wedding bills. It was as if nothing could ever quite match the Platonic pictures fixed in Elizabeth’s mind, where the palette was always brighter, the light sharper, the shapes fuller. She had arrived in London so brimful of inarticulate longing, of ambition, of spirit. But without a university education, what could she do but wait to marry, she wondered?

  She began to grow jaded, cynical and bored. She toyed with the idea of opening a hat shop. She dreamt of voyaging to Africa. She tried hatching plans to do something, anything with her life.

  But her sightings of Thomas Ashton fired her with a new hope. Before she realized it, he had become her challenge. He was a bright young diplomat on leave from the Berlin embassy for the month of June, and she went to as many parties as she could in the hope of meeting him.

  Soon she found herself thinking of Thomas all the time. At first it was perhaps a question of vanity: Thomas was the most handsome, the most romantic, the most desirable man she saw at any party, and a stubborn part of her would not consider anyone else. But a humility born of desire soon followed, because he
showed absolutely no interest in her. Every time they met fleetingly, both of them would appear pleasantly surprised to see each other again. But while her surprise was assumed, his was genuine.

  By now, she was entirely smitten. She saw his intelligence, his kindness, his courtesy, but also his unusual detachment, which hinted at private melancholy. There was something taut and recessed about him, and she knew that when he did love, it would be something special.

  At any gathering, she was more at ease if she saw him first from afar, for then she could compose herself. Surprise meetings were an agony because, unprepared, she shook in his presence. She had to wind herself up to be vital, or witty and interesting. She tried, subtly, to engage his eyes. His level blue gaze fell on her, and she trembled, but could see that he felt – nothing. There was just his smile, and polite conversation.

  The season ran on – parties, dinners, cocktails. She acquired a taste for wine and went dancing at the Embassy Club with other young men, but they were coarse and dullspirited beside Thomas. Worse, he returned to Berlin, and Elizabeth knew it would be months before she would see him again. Perhaps he had found love in Germany. She ached over his absence, but this only heightened her desire.

  She sought time alone to think of Thomas. She would break away from friends and walk to the window to close her eyes and see his face. Once, she found herself stopping dead on the staircase at home, leaning against the wall and catching her breath at the thought of him. Sometimes her sense of him was so powerful that she cried out his name.

  She saw herself touching his hand. She ached to reach out her fingertips to his face, and look into his eyes. She craved the darkness of her room at night, when she could luxuriate in conjuring up his image. If she screwed her eyes close enough, she sometimes fancied she grasped, for a blinding moment, some elusive sense of the intimacy she wished for – but then the moment would be gone.