Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford (10 page)

Though hardly an expert, I’d seen enough of the shelling in France to understand that here too something quite disastrous had happened, and that when it did, a great many people had died.

Pointing, Mark described the scene for me. “The walls were thicker on this side of the buildings, so that any blast would point away from the town just behind us. And the buildings were spaced for safety. Yet there’s hardly a wall standing now. We’ll never know how many survived the first blast. Or if any did.” He paused, to let me resurrect the mill site in my mind. “When they took over the mill, the Government put in railway lines to bring in workers from The Swale villages. This was necessary to replace men who had enlisted. A good many of the new workers were women, along with some older workers from the brewery when it closed for lack of men. Three hundred souls to start with, and more as the demands of the war increased tenfold. Thank God it was a Sunday. The Fire Brigade came racing toward the blast, but there was no way to contain it or what followed. Several firemen were injured trying.”

Turning slightly, he pointed north of where we were sitting. “That’s The Swale.” I could just see a line of blue water far to the right, at the foot of what appeared to be marshland. “It runs between the Medway to the west and the Thames Estuary to the east, and of course the Cran empties into it. Across The Swale from us is the Isle of Sheppey. Quite marshy where it faces us, just as it is on this side. The abbots sent wool and barrels of mutton and hops and other goods down the Cran to ships waiting to cross to France. Much of the gunpowder went out the same way, to the munitions factories where the cartridges and various types of shells were filled. Artillery, Naval guns, mortars— whatever the War Office ordered. There used to be a small fishing fleet in Cranbourne as well, a survivor of the days of merchant ships.”

I looked to my left. There was no sign of any railway station, nor the tracks coming into it. Both must have disappeared in the blast, save for a twisted length of iron that must have come from the train shed. I could pick that out now.

“We’ve never had any trouble. Not in over a
hundred years
. Not a single explosion.”

I could hear the distress in his voice. The Ashtons had been proud of that record.

I remembered what he’d said earlier, that it was dangerous work, but paid well. And again that it was feared that the Government had been pushing too hard for larger and larger outputs of powder. After all, there was a war on . . .

The Cran was hardly more than a stream now, a narrow channel that must have been wider at one time. It would probably have been dammed long ago to feed the mill. A tidal river, presently at low tide, for the small craft anchored there were literally high and dry, tilted to one side, most of them waiting for the incoming flood to give them buoyancy once more.

I couldn’t see what lay beyond the trees.

From something I’d heard the Colonel Sahib—my father—say, there were munitions factories somewhere out there on Sheppey, where women loaded shells and casings with the gunpowder brought from here. He would have known about them. And about the Ashton Powder Mill, surely. Of course there had never been any reason to speak of them to me. These were military matters.

I looked again at the ruins. Very much, I thought, like the abbey we’d passed, torn down by a very angry King. Only no one had wanted this rubble for Calais harbor. It lay where it had fallen two years earlier.

“Thank God, the tide was out that morning,” Mark was saying. “A Sunday, no one about, no boaters or picnickers, no families strolling along the water. Only the men working inside. Or the toll could have been staggering. As it was, the blast took out windows for miles, lifted roofs right off the sheds on our side of the Cran, blowing in their doors. For that matter, we lost windows at Abbey Hall, and also part of the roof. Masts of ships in the Cran and The Swale were broken like sticks. And the earth shook like something demented. That was felt as far north as Norwich. Even Canterbury was badly shaken. There were any number of injuries all over this part of Kent, mostly from falling tiles and masonry or broken glass. Many people thought the Germans were shelling Canterbury.”

I tried to imagine that morning, and failed. Frightened villagers rushing out of their houses to find out what had happened—and then, finally,
knowing
. And rushing on in horror to where we were sitting now. Their worst fears realized. A hundred men . . .

“The dust cloud was enormous. Stones rained down on everything. My mother heard them falling all around our house. I’ve always thought it was that dust cloud that set off the fire. Or at the very least fed it. But there’s no way to prove that.”

He sighed. “The main question after the explosion was, should the powder mill be rebuilt? The Government looked at the ruins, calculating the cost of removing all that rubble before they could begin. Asking themselves where to find the manpower to begin the task. But there was even a division of feeling about that. For some it was sacred ground, where their loved ones lay buried. For others it was well-paid work, and if the mill wasn’t rebuilt, many would be unemployed. In the end, it was decided to expand a mill elsewhere. Although Captain Collier did everything in his power to convince the Army to rebuild, my father was blamed for their decision as well, accused of not fighting harder for reconstruction for the simple reason that the new powder works rising on the site would belong to the Government, not to him. And the mill has always been our greatest source of income. Not the sheep or the fields—the gunpowder. What’s more, we couldn’t begin to consider rebuilding ourselves. The cost would be prohibitive because of what had to be carried away even before we could start.”

I had seen enough, and I was about to tell him so when an egg smashed into the windscreen directly in front of where I was sitting. Before I could stop myself, I threw up my hands to protect my face as it shattered. Another smashed on the bonnet, leaving a smear of yellow yolk.

Mark was swearing under his breath, already out of the motorcar, giving chase. It had happened so fast, I’d caught only a glimpse of whoever it was who’d thrown the eggs. A boy? A man? I could remember trousers—a cap pulled low. Mark, clearly, had seen him too, but I couldn’t tell if he’d recognized the person.

I was also out of the car, shouting his name. He was too angry, and if he caught the miscreant, he was likely to do something he’d regret later.

Mark stopped just as he reached the shed corner. He’d forgot about me in that moment of blazing anger. And I realized, as I caught up with him and could look down the long line of sheds, that whoever it was had vanished—most likely into an open doorway— before Mark could follow him.

“Did you recognize him?” I asked.

“Worst luck, no.” He stood there for a moment, then he turned back toward the motorcar. “It’s hopeless. There are a hundred places he could hide.”

“Has this happened before?” I asked, still shocked by the suddenness of the attack. “You mentioned property damage—this was very personal.”

Shaking his head, he answered, “Nothing so direct, believe me.” He helped me to climb into the motorcar again, and shut my door. “A wall or two pulled down. Sheep herded out into the marshes. A refusal by one of the shops in the village to fill my mother’s order. The hop fields—they were once the abbey’s—uprooted. The oast houses damaged. When we put up a watch, whoever it is seems to know where, and strikes at us in another part of the estate.”

“And you said the local man refused to help. I expect he probably knew who might have done such things and didn’t want to act.”

Mark was quickly reversing, back to a point where he could turn the motorcar and return to the street that followed the abbey wall. “He called it high spirits. Restless lads, their fathers in France, their mothers out of work since the explosion. Constable Hood did come out, I’ll give him that, looked around, shook his head, and said from the lack of evidence it was impossible to tell who might be responsible. It was true, of course, there was little to go by. But it was hardly helpful. And yes, my father also believed Hood had some idea who was behind what was happening, that was the worst part. And so the attacks went on. I think the constable must have known they would.” His face was grim as he turned to me. “I’m sorry, Bess. I shouldn’t have brought you down here to the river, but I thought—it seemed to be the best way to explain what happened.”

“And this is why you wished to see the inspector in Canterbury.”

“Nor was it the first time.”

“But the explosion was what? Two years ago? It’s understandable that people would have been upset at the time. But now?”

“For over a year after any chance of sabotage had been discounted, it was seen as a great tragedy. We were all affected by what happened. My parents attended every one of the memorial services. Then about four months ago—June, I think it was, although I can’t tell you precisely when, I was in France—there was talk. At first a whisper, and before very long a rumor. And then open speculation.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I have wished it
was
as simple as sabotage. We’d be united in blaming the Germans.”

“Yes,” I responded slowly. “It’s the whispers that are hardest to stop. And the rest follows.”

He turned to me. “Shall I take you back to Canterbury?”

“Of course not. I’m made of sterner stuff than that.” I said it with a smile, and he returned it. But I could read the embarrassment in his eyes.

“Good girl!” After a moment, he added, “They must have thought you were Clara. Otherwise they wouldn’t have dared—” He broke off, still quite angry.

“Who is Clara?”

“My cousin. She’s come to stay with us for a bit.”

I wondered if the “bit” was since the troubles had started or before.

It was even possible that with Mark only temporarily in England, Mr. Ashton had arranged for Cousin Clara to be there in the event that something happened to him. It was a foolish notion, I chided myself. Throwing eggs and tearing down walls in a field were not likely to escalate to murder. All the same, I couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that things were beginning to change, and not for the better. And perhaps Philip Ashton had feared that from the start, setting his defenses quietly in place.

W
E WERE DRIVING
down the lane that followed the abbey wall, branches of the trees marching beside us spreading like a canopy overhead. I could feel the tension lessening in both of us.

“Did Mother tell you? The Hall was once the old abbey guesthouse. It’s been in the family for generations.”

I could see it at the far end of the lane now, the same dark stone of the wall passing beside me, tall and quite old, with lovely windows framed in paler stone, some of them filled with diamond-paned glass. As we reached the door, the drive broadened into a circle. Over the door was a seal in an oval of richly colored stained glass.

“The abbot’s coat of arms,” Mark was saying, “although I have no idea which abbot. At a guess, it was the one who built the house.”

The door flew open as if someone had been watching for us and a young woman—Clara?—with fair hair and an oval face came flying down the short flight of steps. As soon as she saw me, she stopped short, saying, “
Oh
. . .” as if a visitor was the last thing she expected.

Mark was out of the motorcar at once. “What is it?” he asked, as if fearful of bad news. “What’s happened?”

“The morning post. More nasty unsigned letters threatening us. I tried to keep them from your mother, but I think she could read my face. She just held out her hand and I had no choice but to pass them over to her. Were you able to speak to Inspector—” She saw the slime of the egg on the bonnet. “Oh, dear. Where did this happen? Did you see who did it?” But her gaze turned to me, as if I’d been the cause of the egg throwing.

He hastily made the introductions as he opened my door to hand me out, then added, “Inspector Brothers wasn’t in. Or so it was said. They wouldn’t tell me when he’d be back. And so I came home. I brought Bess to cheer up Mother.”

Clara said over her shoulder to me as she led the way inside, “Aunt Helen will be so pleased to see you.” But there was little welcome in her tone of voice. “You’re the Sister who took such good care of Mark? Yes, I thought so. I’ve heard Aunt Helen speak of you often.”

We were in a large hall where what appeared to be a Georgian flight of stairs led to the upper floors. Passages led off to the right and left, embracing it. The exterior might be recognizable by the abbot who built the house, but sometime in the past, someone had taken it upon himself or herself to make the interior more fashionable. And dark woods had given way to brighter wallpapers. Here in the entrance it was a very handsome pale green printed with Chinese scenes, some of them picked out in gold leaf: the tips of the pagodas, the patterns on clothing, and the harnesses of horses catching the light.

“Where’s Father?” Mark asked, setting my kit bag by the stairs as Clara and he turned to their right.

“In his study. Brooding, I think. I went in to ask him when he’d like his lunch, and he wasn’t in the best of moods. At a guess, he’d decided he should have gone into Canterbury himself.”

“That wouldn’t have done at all. Take Bess in to see Mother. I’ll go and speak to him.”

He left me with Clara and went back the way we’d come, disappearing toward the far side of the stairs.

Clara opened the door into a sitting room decorated with blue-flowered wallpaper and a blue patterned carpet, giving it the air of a summer garden. I couldn’t see Mrs. Ashton at first. Her chair was turned toward the windows as if to shut out the rest of the room. But when Clara said brightly, almost as one might to a child, offering a treat, “Aunt Helen? Mark has brought Sister Crawford to see you,” she was out of her chair at once, staring at me.

“Is it you? Bess, dear, how wonderful to see you again.” She came to me, embracing me, adding, “Where on earth did Mark find you?”

“I was in Canterbury this morning waiting for my train to London. I’m afraid it’s been delayed. I went for a walk to pass the time, and Mark and I ran into each other by the cathedral.”

“Yes, he’s always liked Canterbury. But I thought he was going to”—she broke off, then quickly went on—“to run an errand for his father.”

“Inspector Brothers wasn’t in, and the desk sergeant wasn’t very forthcoming about when he would return.”

“Ah, you know about our situation. Just as well.” She managed a smile. “There won’t be any awkwardness now. Do come and sit down, Bess, and tell me how you are? Clara, could you ask Mrs. Byers to set another place for lunch, please?”

Clara said, “Of course,” but left the room reluctantly, as if she’d prefer to share our chat.

Mrs. Ashton and I rearranged her pretty blue chair so that I could sit by her, and she asked my news. I tried to remember anything I’d heard recently about the Sisters and the doctors who’d worked on Mark’s wounds, adding, “And I saw Matron not three weeks ago. They thought she’d caught the Spanish flu, but it was only a rather nasty cold.”

“The Spanish flu has taken its toll here,” she said. “Did Mark tell you about dear Ellie? Yes? Well, I must admit that it was an ordeal for all of us. And five of our neighbors didn’t survive. Mark’s old Nanny succumbed to it, as well as one of the housemaids. I’m glad Matron is all right. She’s a remarkable woman. She was another one who refused to give up on Mark.” She glanced toward the door as we heard voices in the passage. “I’ve been happy to have Mark at home, even so briefly,” she added quickly, lowering her voice, “although I know how eager he is to go back. Selfish of me, but he’s my only child. I take each gift of time to heart.”

The sitting room door opened and I looked up to see Mark and his father standing there. The resemblance between father and son was strong. At Mr. Ashton’s heels was a liver-and-white spaniel. It stared at me with interest but was too well behaved to bark or come forward to sniff at my shoes.

The older man looked tired, and there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept well in some time. I thought too that he must be under a good deal of stress, for his coat was larger in the shoulders than it ought to have been, indicating he’d lost weight recently. Still, he smiled in genuine welcome and took my hand as Mark introduced us.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said in a deep, warm voice. “If only to thank you for saving my son’s life. But I must also apologize to you for the shocking behavior you witnessed there by the river. I wonder sometimes if the war hasn’t brought out the worst in some people, just as it has the best in others.”

“It was unexpected,” I agreed, “but no harm done. I was grateful to Mark for showing me what a calamity had occurred here. I hadn’t known.” Mark had warned me not to speak of the explosion, but after Mr. Ashton had brought it up, I could hardly deny all knowledge of it.

“The Government thought it best not to publicize it.” He went over and kissed his wife’s cheek. I realized that he’d been out this morning as well, and she had been waiting anxiously for his return. It explained the chair turned toward the window, from which she could hear anyone coming up the drive.

“I’ve asked Bess to stay for lunch,” she said to her husband.

“And I was about to suggest that she stay the night. From what Mark has said about these delays at the railway station, she won’t see London before tomorrow morning late. Safer and more comfortable here, I should think.”

I protested, not wishing to intrude, but Mr. Ashton frowned. “Nonsense. The hotels are crowded, and the railway people are likely to put off telling you that it’s hopeless until it’s too late to find a suitable room. There’s nothing pressing in London, is there?”

Smiling, I thanked him and agreed. I had a little leave, I looked forward to seeing my parents, but a day more or less wouldn’t matter. And truth be told, I wasn’t particularly eager to find myself in a hotel the Nursing Service wouldn’t approve of. It was very strict about such matters.

“Good, that’s settled, then,” he said, briskly rubbing his hands. He gestured to the spaniel and it went obediently to the hearth rug and settled for a nap. “Now to business. I saw to the mending of another stretch of stone wall—”

“Again?” Mrs. Ashton asked sharply. “You said nothing about it this morning.”

“I didn’t know then. Baxter came to fetch me as I was walking out. We attended to it ourselves. I’ve decided the less said, the better. No sense in encouraging others to try their hand at troublemaking.”

Clara came then to tell us that lunch had been served. “A little early, but I thought you’d prefer it to tea. And Mrs. Lacey wants to look in on her sister this afternoon, if that’s all right.”

“Mrs. Lacey is our cook,” Mrs. Ashton explained to me. “Her sister has been recovering from a chill and doesn’t have her full strength back. Yes, do tell her to go on, my dear, and take a little of that soup her sister liked. It will keep up her strength.”

She led the way to the dining room, along this same passage, and Mark followed with his father while Clara went to speak to Mrs. Lacey. The spaniel came with us and disappeared under the table.

It was a cold luncheon, and after eating whatever the hospital canteen could provide, I found it delicious. But Mrs. Ashton apologized for the shortages. “If we hadn’t had the foresight to increase the number of hens we keep, we’d be no better than most. And much to our surprise, one of the housemaids is a marvel with them. As a girl, she looked after her mother’s flock.”

My mother had also looked to increase the chickens we kept in Somerset. Beef and pork allotments were stringently rationed, while chickens were a little less so if grown for a household.

It was a pleasant meal, and no one mentioned the problems facing the Ashtons and Abbey Hall. I was glad I had come here.

The Ashtons and Clara regaled me with descriptions of what it was like trying to communicate with poor Mark while he was as deaf as a post. Hasty searches for pen and paper when encountering him unexpectedly, falling back on shouting loudly in the hope of being understood, and then charades. They made it sound entertaining, but I knew it must have been very difficult for everyone. And Mark took it all with good grace, and laughed with us. But I could tell that his experience with silence had been worrying, because he’d never been able to believe his hearing would come back. I’d dealt with similar cases in France; I could read the signs.

We finished our meal and took our tea in Mrs. Ashton’s sitting room. Even Clara seemed to be less ill at ease, realizing, I think, that I was only a temporary threat. I had to smile. Much as I cared for Mark, I wasn’t in the market for a husband, certainly not with the war still going on. Then I found myself wondering how long she’d had this attachment to Mark. Since Eloise’s death or before? Because attachment there was.

Then at two o’clock, without warning, everything changed.

A
FTER THE TEA
tray had been removed, Mark and his father went off to speak to someone about estate matters, and I could see that Mrs. Ashton was tiring. All that vivacious chatter at lunch had been a mask. It worried me, because I’d seen how strong she was in France when Mark’s life lay in the balance. But she was under a great deal of stress, and I wondered if she was sleeping at all.

She offered to show me to my room, and on our way, Mrs. Ashton suggested that I might find the abbey grounds a pleasant place to stroll, if I cared for a little exercise after our lunch. “It’s safe enough,” she told me, “and Clara sometimes walks there.” As I thanked her, I realized that this was the perfect excuse for me to allow Mrs. Ashton to rest, rather than entertain her unexpected guest. She gave me directions, urging me to treat this as my own home and enjoy myself, even offering to accompany me.

“You mustn’t worry about me,” I said, smiling. “If I can find my way across the north of France, I’ll have no trouble. I only need to follow the abbey wall to a gate.” And if further proof was necessary that I’d done the right thing, I noticed that she made no objection.

“Of course you can!” she’d answered brightly. “An hour? That should be just right to see everything.”

I went down the drive with every intention of visiting the abbey ruins. Instead, when I reached the corner of the wall, I found myself walking back toward the river.

No one could mistake me for Clara now; my uniform would be the first thing anyone noticed. And so I felt relatively safe. Shocked as I’d been by the suddenness of the eggs flying at the motorcar, I had come to realize that they weren’t intended for me, and indeed, neither egg had been meant to hit the passengers. It was just a show of meanness, and if I’d been the Ashtons, I’d have taken that to heart.

My own reason for going back was to get a better picture of the scene, because it had occurred to me at some point during lunch that once I reached London, I might ask my father, the Colonel Sahib, what he knew about the explosion and whether something could be done to ease the situation here before it actually became dangerous. If the police were taking such a hands-off attitude, perhaps the Army might have a quiet word in someone’s ear about it. In India, my father had made something of a reputation for himself by defusing issues that way. The local people had come to respect him and understand that they could approach him. The remote hill tribes were a mutual enemy, and that had helped smooth the way too—no one wanted to find
them
on the doorstep, taking advantage of our troubles.

As it was, I found the quay deserted. The tide was only just turning, hardly stirring the beached boats. A pair of seagulls, spotting me, came flying out of nowhere to inspect me in case I was bringing their luncheon. They were raucous, and intent on making sure I knew they were about, but I ignored them.

This close I could get a better view of the ruins. I could see where Mr. Ashton must have forded the river before realizing that there was nothing to be done for those caught in the blast. I paused, looking to my right toward The Swale, and the low-lying Isle of Sheppey beyond. Marshy indeed, there, and also on the far side of the Cran below the mill. There the land sloped, running down to The Swale, while on this side of the Cran, rising ground kept the land dry, fit for sheep and hops and whatever else the abbey and now the Ashtons chose to grow.