The Care and Management of Lies (5 page)

These thoughts continued to trouble her. The grit became a stone in short order. Over Sunday tea, Kezia suggested to Tom that it might be a good idea for her to go up to London to see dear Thea, from whom they had received only one letter since the wedding—athough Kezia had sent her two long communiqués, the second with a note from Tom added at the end. Kezia informed her husband that she would go up to Charing Cross the following day—even though it was a bank holiday. She had checked, and there were some nineteen trains timetabled on the up line from Tonbridge, and she had the times noted down. She told him she had prepared plenty of food for him, which Ada had only to heat in the oven, and there was a goodly supply of extras in the larder to tide him over for a couple of days. She planned to be back on Wednesday afternoon. She was sure Ada could manage the men’s breakfast for two mornings.

Tom offered no counter to the plans. Given that he too was worried about Thea—“dotty Dorrit,” as he referred to her, with affection, on many an occasion—he was glad that Kezia was looking out for his family. It warmed him.

E
dmund Hawkes watched Tom Brissenden bring the gig to a halt outside the Brooksmarsh branch-line station. The farmer stepped down from the cart, then walked around to attend his wife. With his hands about her waist, he swung her down onto the cobblestones, whereupon he took off his cap and held her to him, kissing her as if he might never see her again. Hawkes turned away as the couple came towards the ticket office, Tom carrying a small leather case. A third-class fare for one was purchased. Tom led Kezia out onto the platform and, after looking back at the clock, kissed his wife once more to mark his departure. He set the case down beside her and left the station. Hawkes could not ascertain their conversation, though he realized that he was frowning as he watched them, scrutinizing their expressions as they bid farewell. There was only one other passenger waiting, an old woman reading a book, a pince-nez held up to her eyes. She paid no attention to Tom and Kezia; indeed, Hawkes thought she might be deaf. Apart from the ticket master, he was the only person who’d seen them at the station, and they had not even noticed him. Edmund Hawkes felt an unfamiliar emotion over this event that had lasted perhaps five minutes. He was envious of Tom Brissenden.

Chapter 3

Women, like men, have the desire to expand their realm of intelligence, to take part in the affairs of the world, which bear upon their lives, and the restraint and force of mere tradition, prejudice, or caste, have become intolerable to them.

—
THE WOMAN’S BOOK

E
dmund Hawkes was liked in the village; indeed, he was known and well thought of across the county. Not to the extent that he was feted, though his batting average for the local cricket team was talked about every year. He was simply liked. He had an easy way about him. He smiled readily, but not overly. He was gracious to shopkeepers and to the landlord of the Queen’s Head, where he occasionally stopped for a pint of ale, his Labrador dog, Millie, resting her head on his knee, and his hunter, Bella, tethered outside. He was considered a kind man. More than anything, it was generally agreed that he was a sensible Hawkes, not one of those foolish members of the family, like his father and great-grandfather before him. The Hawkes family were not lords of the manor, not aristocracy, though they were well-heeled gentry with business interests overseas and at home. Four large farms belonging to the estate brought in a good income. It had once been five, but due to weakness on the part of his great-grandfather, the most productive of those farms now belonged to the Brissenden family, who had gone from tenants to owners in the time it took to throw a double top in a game of darts.

Hawkes did not grieve for land that had never been his, though he could not escape what appeared to some to be a preordained element of character. It seemed that, throughout the history of the family, an heir of good sense followed an heir who could best be described as a dilettante. It was as if each generation bred a son at odds with his father. His great-grandfather had been a gambler, a man who would sit in the pub—any hostelry would do—and within a short time draw someone into placing a bet, even if that wager were money risked upon which of two raindrops would descend the windowpane first. There was no limit to what stake he might put on the table. His son, Edmund’s grandfather, had subsequently run a very tight estate, with every penny in or out of the accounts marked in a ledger at the end of each day. The restriction was like a noose around the neck of Edmund’s father, who grew to manhood with a liking for drink and a leaning towards profligacy. And so it began again. Edmund grew up knowing how to keep his father at arm’s length—and fortunately, his father had little interest in the activities of his son. A good estate manager kept Hawkendene Manor from complete destitution, and it was this man—Albert Hodges—who took Edmund under his wing, and taught him how to care for the land he had inherited. With his father rendered incapable by senility, Edmund could look back and know that it might have been worse for him. He’d spent most of his childhood in Sussex, at prep school, and then on to Bishopswell Hall, a senior school for boys where he had worked hard enough to secure a place at Oxford. He had studied politics and economics at university, but would rather have read novels all day and written poetry. Now, though, his work was the maintenance of the Hawkes fortunes, ensuring a good foundation should another generation fall foul of the whisky bottle or a passion for cards. If Edmund had a weakness, it was, as the village postmistress put it,
He can be a dreamer, that one
. . . Knowing this element of himself, he feared his son—a son yet to be born to a women yet to be met—might be a fierce man of purpose who forever moved at a brisk clip, in response to a father who preferred to stroll, and ideally to sit by the lake and work with verse rather than stocks and shares or trusts and investments. So Hawkes tried to balance desire and responsibility, and was generally considered to be a good man.

“K
ezzie, what are you doing here?” Thea came downstairs to greet her sister-in-law, having been summoned by the warden.

“Did you not receive my postcard? It should have arrived this morning, second post at the latest. I actually sent it before I told Tom I was coming, dear love that he is.” She set down her leather case. “I’ve come to see you—to stay, if that’s all right. Just for a couple of nights.”

“What—is my brother driving you to leave the farm already?” said Thea, responding to Kezia’s open arms, holding her close. She smelled the freshness of a Kentish morning in Kezia’s hair, and realized she had missed her friend very much. “And you’re forgetting—there was no post today, not on a bank holiday.”

Kezia stood back but held on to Thea’s hands. “Oh, dear. I did forget. We hadn’t heard from you, so I decided to come. Tom agreed with my decision. I came up on the train. We thought you might have been upset when your friends backed out of the excursion you’d planned. Don’t you think they were a bit hasty, in calling a halt to it all?”

“Hasty? Well, I might have risked it, but . . . Kezia, don’t you keep up with what’s happening?” Thea bent down to take Kezia’s leather case, but Kezia shook her head and reached for the handle.

“I can manage. And what do you mean, don’t I keep up? Of course I do, but you know how the farm can be.” She held her case in two hands. “And you should see Charing Cross—it’s packed with Belgians, and people trying to organize them, running round with ledgers, taking names, and doing their best to help out. I think everyone’s just overwhelmed by it all. And when I changed trains at Tonbridge, there were notices warning of delays due to troops being moved to the coast.”

Thea led the way back up the staircase towards her room. She responded as if she had not heard Kezia. “Didn’t you take account of what it’s like on the streets as you came from the station? Everyone’s waiting for news. And you would think it was the Jubilee, what with people drinking and dancing.” She took Kezia’s case and put it in her wardrobe. “If you didn’t notice, you must have walked here with your eyes closed.”

“Of course I noticed, but it seemed so strange to me, that people would celebrate the idea of going to war.” Kezia faltered, and she felt her eyes water. “You don’t think it will actually happen, do you?”

Thea nodded. “I don’t think there’s any going back now. And that puts
us
in a difficult position. Mrs. Pankhurst is coming out in support of the government by ceasing our battle to finally get voting rights for women. Frankly, I’m not sure where that leaves us. And as far as war is concerned, I’m for the pacifists, you know.”

“The pacifists? You mean, you wouldn’t support your country if it happens, if we go to war?”

“Oh, Kezia, you are a strange one, surely you are!” Thea folded her arms and stood by the window, looking down at the street. “I have friends who are German. Emily is walking out with a German boy, and he’s even met her parents and they like him very much. Now they’re frantic.” She sighed. “It’s all coming down like a pack of cards. And you know who it will hurt most at the end of the day? You, Tom, and me, people like us—and all those people walking along the street.” She pointed towards the window. “Everyone out there.”

Kezia hated to see Thea so impassioned, so taken; it was as if she were in pain. She had seen it so many times over the years—Thea, always standing for something, whether it was small children who came to school without food in their bellies, or London’s women of the night, many just girls, and most of them with little choice in how they could earn their keep. Kezia wanted to bring Thea out of herself, to stop her fretting about things she couldn’t change in the world. She wanted them to sit down together and share their confidences, as they had years ago. She had imagined Thea being so thrilled to see her, she’d want to go out window-shopping, or take an evening walk through the park. Kezia had brought cash from the tin in the bottom dressing-table drawer; her mother would doubtless agree that now would be a good time to dip into the fund, to give them both a good supper. She had hoped to see something of her best friend of old once more; she missed Dorrit.

“Come on, Thea, let’s go out to a dining room, somewhere we won’t be expected to have a chaperone. We’ll have something lovely to eat. It will be my treat.”

“Delving into your nest egg, Kezzie? Or is the harvest looking to be better than expected?” Thea’s response cut like a blade.

“This is my money,” said Kezia, who had instinctively laid her hand upon her heart as if to protect herself. “Now, I would like to dine, and I would like you to join me. Is that better for you?”

“I’ll get my coat.”

Soon they were back on the street, where Thea linked her arm through Kezia’s.

“I’m sorry, Kezzie. I don’t mean to snap.”

“I know. We’ll leave it at that, shall we? Now then, let’s go to that little Italian restaurant, the one where we went to celebrate when you got your job at the school. They were always so nice to us there.”

“Perfect,” said Thea. “Yes, perfect.”

As they made their way to the bus stop, they had to push past people going in and out of the pubs and talking on the street. Kezia thought it was like swimming against the tide. A newspaper vendor waved a fan of papers above his head and called out across the throng.

“England ready for war. Forces assembling. England ready for war . . .”

K
ezia sipped from her glass, having been encouraged to order a dark cream sherry by Thea, who chose the larger pour, a schooner.

“I don’t think I’ve been here since the last time,” said Thea. “Not that I have much to spend on going out to eat. And it’s not as if you’re entirely sure you know what you’re eating, in a restaurant.”

“Oh, you’re just like your brother, no imagination. If it doesn’t look like anything he’s ever eaten before, he pokes it around as if it were something found on the road. I have to disguise almost everything I cook as a pie.” Kezia laughed, half choking on the unaccustomed sherry. She pointed to the glass. “I only ever use this for cooking.”

The two women sat back in their chairs, at last settled in each other’s company. Kezia twisted the sherry glass, as if afraid that someone might see her and judge her worth. She thought this fear might be a residue from her church upbringing, a leftover from always having to watch what she said and did, knowing it would reflect upon her father and—ultimately—God.

“Thea, I can’t remember if you ever told me how your family came to own the farm. I mean, it was leased, originally, wasn’t it? From the Hawkendene estate?”

“That was years ago now—years ago. In my great-grandfather’s time.” She tipped back her glass and emptied it. “Gosh, I do believe I could do with another—but better not. Tomorrow will be a busy one, mark my words.” She looked at her hands, then at Kezia. “Have you seen it, the estate?”

“I have, yes. I went for a walk not long ago. Packed a lunch and set off across the fields, then followed the path at the back of Micawber Wood, through the forest there.”

“That’s not really a path, you know. Not any path you’d see on a map. It’s the old poachers’ way—leads through the woods, across another path, and right up to the lake.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re lucky their gamekeeper never caught you and hauled you in. He’d love to bag a Brissenden, and that’s a fact.”

“No, fortunately I never met him. I met Edmund Hawkes, though. He’s the son, isn’t he?”

“You met Hawkes? Well, I never. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“He was very nice, actually, considering he found me trespassing.”

“Oh, I bet he was all smiles and accommodating noise, was Edmund Hawkes.”

“Yes, to a point. He said I could go there any time I wanted.”

Thea looked at Kezia, as if searching for something in her countenance.

“What?” asked Kezia.

“Nothing. Did you tell Tom you’d seen him?”

“I can’t remember—I came home and was busy with his tea, so . . . um, I’m not sure. I probably did tell him, now I come to think about it.”

Kezia could feel Thea watching her, and hoped her friend would not credit any sign of her discomfort with significance.

“I’ll tell you what happened, and why those Hawkeses have never really forgiven us Brissendens.”

“Mr. Hawkes seemed as if it didn’t matter.”

“If he’s still like he was when he was a boy, he has that way about him, as if nothing matters enough to spur him to do something big. He probably said, ‘Oh, well, never mind,’ or something like that.”

“He had that air.”

“I will say this about him—and his great-grandfather, God bless his stupidity—they are gentlemen and keep to their word.”

“So, what happened?”

“Don’t tell Tom I told you, will you?”

“Whyever not?”

“He just doesn’t like to talk about it. He cherishes the farm, probably more than Dad, even, but he hates the thought that it was earned by means other than hard work. Mind you, if it had been down to hard work, rather than a bit of good fortune at the right time, then the land would have been ours in the Bronze Age. If toil got you a roof over your head and food in your belly, London wouldn’t have half the problems it has today. That’s why you see all those boys in a long line to enlist, and we’re not even at war yet—the king’s shilling will go a long way, and so will having food set on a plate in front of you if you become an army man.”

“But what about the farm?”

“Oh, yes, that. Well, here’s what happened, according to what’s been said—and I reckon it’s as close to the truth as makes no difference. We don’t talk about it in my family, you see—the farm’s just ours, and we get on with it. And Tom has always kept well away from Edmund Hawkes. Not that he’s got anything against him, but Hawkes came round once, to ask if Tom would like to join a shoot. I suppose Tom was about nineteen, and Hawkes would have been a bit older, perhaps twenty-five. Tom flat out refused, and that was the end of it.” Thea leaned across the table. “Anyway, Edmund Hawkes’ great-grandfather was a man who liked his drink, and he always liked a wager. He played the tables in London, and took himself off to France when he fancied, to the casinos over there. His father before him had been a canny fellow, and the estate was wealthy enough, but this Hawkes seemed bound to flutter away every penny—whether on cards, the horses, or if the sun would shine on Christmas Day. Bet on anything, that was him.”