His sincerity was very touching and it pulled her together. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to come and risk infection,’ she said. ‘But I am so pleased to see you now. We haven’t been opening the door to anyone, but I’m very glad I did this time. Come on in.’
As the door closed behind him he put his arms around Belle and hugged her tightly. ‘I know a gentleman isn’t supposed to take such liberties,’ he said gruffly. ‘But you know that I’ve always thought of you as family.’
Belle hugged him back and kissed his smooth cheek, which smelled of sandalwood shaving soap. ‘If I could’ve picked a brother, I’d have picked you,’ she said, emotional tears springing into her eyes. ‘Shall we go in the kitchen? Mog’s just made some bread.’
Mog appeared then in the kitchen door, her apron and her cheeks still dusted with flour. ‘Oh, Noah,’ she cried and ran over to embrace him, ‘how good it is to see you! We were only saying this morning that you’d know what we should do.’
‘Dear Mog,’ he said as he held her. ‘I am so sorry you lost Garth. I thought I’d still be seeing him when he was a very old man. It was such a cruel blow for both you and Belle to lose your husbands. How did you get through two funerals?’
Because of people’s fear of infection and their own grief, both Belle and Mog had agreed that Jimmy’s funeral should be a very quiet one. They had served tea and cake afterwards to the few people who had insisted on coming, but the number of people who came to the church and those who left letters of condolence and flowers at the pub showed how highly Jimmy had been thought of.
‘We coped quite well until the day after Jimmy’s,’ Mog said, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘But it’s been awful since.’
Noah looked at Belle and she nodded to confirm this. There had been nothing to fill the void the men had left. The place was too quiet, too tidy. Even the closed bar seemed like a reproach. But even if they had felt up to opening it again, there were proprieties of mourning to think about. It wouldn’t be seemly for two such recently widowed women to be working in a public place.
Mog had pointed out that even if they wanted to open again, neither of them had the strength to bring up barrels from the cellar, or had any real knowledge about the different kinds of beer or how they should be treated because Garth had always handled that side of the business.
It was only today that Mog had rallied herself enough to make some bread. Up till now they had been picking at food left from the tea after Jimmy’s funeral, as neither of them had any appetite.
Noah’s presence in the kitchen was like a light being switched on. Mog made tea, laid her fresh bread, still hot from the oven, on the table, got out the butter and cheese, and as she busied herself she told Noah how it had been.
He had always been a good listener. As Mog talked and poured the tea, he nodded, taking it all in.
‘Tell me how it was after Jimmy came back from France,’ he asked Belle after a little while. ‘It must have been very difficult for both of you.’
Belle made her account as brief as possible. She and Mog had talked and talked about it all week, and they were now at the point when they didn’t wish to go over it again.
‘You tell us about Lisette, and Rose and Jean-Philippe,’ she said after telling him the absolute minimum. ‘We could do with hearing something cheerful.’
‘We rented a cottage in Devon to get them away from London,’ he said. ‘I thought the children needed some sea air, green fields and less sadness around them. I couldn’t stay with them for the whole time unfortunately, I had to go over to France. But Jean-Philippe learned to swim while I was away and it was good to see roses in their cheeks and Lisette looking more relaxed when I got back. She wanted to come today but I thought it was better to come alone.’
‘I wouldn’t have wanted her to come here so soon after,’ Belle said. ‘A mother needs to stay healthy for her children.’
‘Lisette thumbs her nose at the risk of infection,’ he smiled wryly. ‘She wanted me to stress that isn’t the reason and to ask you both if you’d like to come back with me today and let her look after you for a while.’
‘That is so kind,’ Mog said, her lower lip quivering. ‘You married a good one, Noah.’
‘As we all did,’ he sighed. ‘Without Garth and Jimmy’s influence in the past, I wouldn’t be where I am now, nor would I have Lisette. I don’t really need to tell you how much we care for you.’
‘You always did have a way with words,’ Belle said fondly. Noah had never suffered from the usual male reticence to say what was in his heart. But he was a man who backed up his words with action too, and she knew any advice he gave them today would be sound.
‘You say you don’t know which way to turn,’ Noah said, looking from Belle to Mog. ‘On the way here I was thinking that might be the case, and I do have suggestions that might help.’
‘It’s the pub really,’ Mog said wearily. ‘We don’t know how long we should be seen to be in mourning, not just wearing black, but before it would be acceptable to open the bar again. We are both perfectly capable of serving at the bar, and we know a little about ordering beer and spirits. But there is so much more we don’t know, Noah, and the pub needs a strong man at the helm.’
‘Yes, of course it does,’ Noah said. ‘Most of your anxieties could be solved by taking on a manager. Neither of you would need to be seen in the bar then. But let me tell you, the etiquette of mourning is virtually dead itself. Almost everyone in the country is mourning someone. Widows have to go out and work to keep their children, and people can’t afford to spend what little money they have on black clothes. I understand you both think it right and proper to be wearing black for a while, and not appearing in public places. But quite honestly, only very old people with a limited outlook would expect you to stick to that now.’
That had been Belle’s view too, but Mog had been affronted when she raised it, and insisted they both wore black dresses. Noah could say such things to her, however; Mog saw him as the fount of all knowledge.
‘A manager?’ Mog said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Wouldn’t that be too expensive?’
‘You won’t have any money coming in if you keep the pub shut,’ he said. ‘I could help you with advertising for someone and interviewing the applicants.’
‘Yes, but it would be so easy for a manager to fiddle us,’ Belle said. ‘You know how it is, Noah, men in this trade are not always the most honest. Garth himself knew every trick in the book.’
Noah nodded agreement. ‘I think the real question is whether you even want to stay here.’
Belle and Mog looked at each other. ‘I don’t particularly,’ Belle said. ‘But then, it all belongs to Mog now. She has to decide how she feels.’
Mog looked troubled. ‘I don’t really want to be here any more either, not after so much sadness. But I’d feel I was letting Garth down by leaving. He loved this place.’
‘He loved you more,’ Noah pointed out. ‘I know he wouldn’t turn a hair at you selling it. Remember his views on women in bars!’
Both Belle and Mog managed a weak smile. ‘He’d never have allowed anyone in a skirt to come through the doors if he’d had his way,’ Belle said.
‘Well, he did mellow on that,’ Mog chipped in. ‘I was serving with him for most of the war. Only because he couldn’t really afford to pay a barman, and he did eventually let soldiers bring their wives and sweethearts in there too.’
‘So we agree then that he wouldn’t expect you to try and keep running it?’ Noah said. ‘I think we also know he’d turn in his grave if it failed. So why not sell it, Mog? You could buy another little business that you both liked and would be good at. Maybe Belle could make hats again? A tea shop? A small hotel?’
‘I’d love a tea shop,’ Mog said. ‘One of those pretty places with a garden where we could serve tea outside during the summer.’
Belle smiled. Mog had mentioned that in the past, and she certainly had all the talents to make it a success. It was also good to hear her talking with some animation again. ‘Wouldn’t you miss the friends you’ve made here?’ she asked.
‘What friends?’ Mog said with a touch of bitterness. ‘The women who snubbed me when they read all that about you? They only came round later because I was useful to their different causes.’
‘That was a shameful episode,’ Noah agreed. ‘And it is another very good reason for upping sticks and moving away. Unless of course you both feel you need to be close to where Jimmy and Garth are buried.’
‘Garth said such things were sentimental nonsense,’ Mog said sadly. ‘And if Jimmy had been buried in France, Belle wouldn’t have been able to visit his grave.’
‘Then there’s nothing stopping you. I think you need to be born into the licensing trade to be really good at it, not to mention being as hard-headed as Garth was. I’d say you two would be much happier with a more feminine business.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t want to have to clean out that lavatory at the back every day for the rest of my life,’ Mog grimaced. For a second she looked and sounded much more like the old Mog.
Noah grinned. ‘Well, would you like me to contact agents to sell it? You could do that yourselves of course, but they might browbeat women into settling for a lower price.’
Belle looked questioningly at Mog. She hesitated for just a moment. ‘Yes, Noah, I’d like you to do that. The sooner it’s sold the better.’
Belle got up from her chair and hugged Mog. ‘That is very brave and very sensible,’ she said. ‘We can get a little flat to live in while we decide where we want to go and what we want to do.’
‘Sooner than later is good,’ Noah said. ‘The longer the pub is closed the less attractive it becomes to a potential buyer. Blackheath is a good area, with a reliable train service. I’d stake my reputation on it becoming a very popular place to live once the war is over.’
‘Will that be soon?’ Belle asked. Noah would know the real truth about it, and she didn’t think he would give her one of those idealized versions printed in the newspapers.
‘I’d say before Christmas,’ he said. ‘It’s run its course now, too many millions dead, and the Germans are as demoralized as us. They are calling the third battle of Ypres, the one where Jimmy was wounded, Passchendaele now, after some benighted blown-apart village they have yet to gain. I’d like to hear the whole sorry episode known as the Atrocity of Passchendaele. If I had my way I’d see General Haig horsewhipped through the streets for sending the cream of Britain and the Commonwealth’s young men to be blown apart or drowned in the mud. It has been, and still is, a pointless, wicked sacrifice.’
‘You were there?’ Belle asked. The sheer passion of his words seemed to confirm it.
‘Yes, I stood on the Menin Road, amongst burned-out tanks, dead men, horses and mules and observed awesome, terrifying shelling. Where the shells hit the mud they exploded like geysers a hundred feet up in the air, bringing with them body parts of the dead. I saw thousands of men like ants bent double under weight of their packs, trying to run through that bog under heavy fire, yet bravely holding their rifles out of the water even when they were cut down. Sometimes it took four stretcher bearers to carry a man just a hundred feet, the mud was so thick. There were wounded that lay up to their necks in water and amongst the dead for four days before being rescued. And all the while the generals drank tea from bone china cups in safety behind the lines and planned to send still more men to their deaths.’
Belle covered her face in horror.
‘I wrote a piece telling the truth but the paper wouldn’t print it.’ He pursed his lips in disgust. ‘But after the war ends I shall write that truth in a book. It will be a testament to the horror, barbarity and senselessness of it all. And perhaps too it will make the widows, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of the tens of thousands of men like Jimmy understand how brave their men were.’
A little later Mog excused herself, saying she had some jobs to do upstairs. Belle felt it was her tactful way of allowing her time to talk to Noah alone.
‘How are you really feeling now?’ he asked once Mog was out of earshot. ‘Lisette told me that you confided in her about how difficult Jimmy was after he came home.’
‘To be truthful, I’m confused about how I feel,’ she admitted. ‘I feel terribly sad of course. It just doesn’t seem right that Jimmy had to go through all that misery of being wounded, and just when he was beginning to deal with it, he got that terrible flu.
‘But I won’t lie to you Noah, he was very difficult to live with, especially when he first came home. So many awful moods, he said nasty things, and he wouldn’t let me get close to him. Mostly the future looked very bleak. So sometimes I feel relief that it’s over. But just to think that makes me feel so guilty.’
‘I can imagine how confused you must feel,’ Noah said soothingly. ‘On the day you married Jimmy I really believed that from then on your life was going to be so happy. You’d had more than your fair share of misery, and with Jimmy, Mog and Garth beside you, I thought I needn’t ever worry about you again. But this damned war! Nobody has been untouched by it.
‘I don’t think there’s many that went through the battles Jimmy did, who aren’t changed by what they saw. And to come back with a missing arm and leg too! I was terrified out there, Belle. And I didn’t have to do anything but take shelter and observe. The smell, the filth, the noise – it was a scene from hell with the added spice of sheer terror as you didn’t know if and when you were going to be blown up.’
He paused, looking at her. ‘But you did all anyone could possibly do for him. You loved him and you cared for him. Now it’s time you thought about yourself.’
She couldn’t reply, she was too choked up by his sympathy.
‘You are thin and pale, Belle. You’ve got to be kind to yourself now,’ he went on. ‘I did suggest you came home with me, but seeing you both, I think it might be more beneficial if you went away to the seaside for a rest. Recoup your energies. Think about your future.’
Belle began to cry again and Noah moved his chair closer to her and drew her into his arms.
‘You’ve been through more than anyone I ever met,’ he said in understanding. ‘Etienne once said you had been manipulated by other people right from a child. And he was right. But now is the time to break out of that, to decide what you want. You are still a young woman with your whole life ahead of you.’