Page 20 of Last Letter Home
‘Of course they should, darling,’ Aunt Margo said. ‘Don’t take any notice. They’ll have a marvellous time.’ She rang a small bell and the maid bustled in to clear the plates.
Sarah hated Major Richards’ offhand manner with his son, as though Ivor were a dog to be kept on a tight leash. She reminded herself of the trials the older man faced and tried to feel charitable. It had been a matter of revulsion to her as a young child that Major Richards had lost his right foot to a hidden mine during the last days of the Great War. Now she was older she saw how the artificial replacement gave him discomfort, for he used a stick and the lines of pain etched into his face made him appear a decade older than his fifty-two years. And the wound had been more than physical. Soldiering had been his profession, her mother had once explained, but when he’d eventually left hospital in 1919 he’d found himself on the scrapheap as far as the Army was concerned, on civvy street with a small pension, a wife and a young son to support, and competing with thousands of others for the handful of jobs available that were suited to his station. After two years of bitter disappointment, the colonel of his old regiment wrote out of the blue advising him to apply to Sir Henry Kelling, whose estate manager was retiring and to whom Colonel Battersby had mentioned Richards’ name. The family had moved into Westbury Cottage and had lived there ever since; Major Richards being competent at his job as far as anyone knew.
Everyone oohed and aahed as the maid bore in the Christmas pudding, the brandy aflame with blue light. When they had each eaten a portion and old Mrs Richards had recovered from choking on the hidden sixpence in hers, someone remarked on how early it was growing dark outside.
‘It’s snowing again,’ Diane noticed with alarm. ‘What will happen if we get stuck here?’
‘You’ll all have to sleep on the floor,’ Ivor said, eyes twinkling. ‘And we’ll have cold goose for days and days and burn the furniture for firewood.’
‘Oh really, Ivor,’ Mrs Richards said, seeing Diane’s alarm.
‘What nonsense did the boy say?’ the old lady cut in.
‘Nothing, Mother.’
‘It’s so kind of you, Hector, to have sent your Mr Hartmann to dig us out this morning,’ Mrs Bailey said to get the conversation rolling again.
‘We didn’t send him exactly, Belinda. Ivor would have gone, of course, but then Hartmann called by to say he would.’
‘Really? Well, it was very thoughtful of everyone. Hartmann’s been very efficient. He’s your gardener, did you say?’
‘He’s under-gardener for the estate,’ Major Richards said, cracking open a walnut. ‘He lives with his mother in a little lodge up near the hall.’
‘He seems, well, a cut above the usual. And that accent. Is it German?’
‘He’s a Hun, yes, or half a one. That’s his father’s side. His mother is English, though you wouldn’t guess it. He was born and raised in Germany, but he and his mother arrived a year ago. Something rather unpleasant happened to Herr Hartmann.’ Here Major Richards drew a finger across his throat. ‘Fell foul of those Gestapo chaps, or so we gather. Anyway, Lady Kelling is some relation of Mrs Hartmann’s and Sir Henry made them welcome, gave the boy work. Hartmann seems pleasant enough, but I’d be careful what you say near him.’
‘Be careful?’ Sarah wondered. ‘Of what?’
‘If we go to war he’ll be the enemy, won’t he?’
‘Oh, surely not. Anyway, do you think we will go to war?’
‘Farmers like Bulldock and his ilk would say not. You were still in India, of course, but you could almost touch the sense of relief round here when Chamberlain pulled us back from the brink. I’m the last one to want us to go through war with Germany again, mind you, but this Hitler cove, I don’t trust him an inch.’
‘Mr Hitler, did you say? The man has no breeding,’ old Mrs Richards barked. ‘What are things coming to?’
Everyone was silent, in respect for what Major Richards had endured, Sarah imagined, or perhaps it was fear of what might be to come. Surely, though, it was unthinkable that Europe should go to war again. They had fought the war to end all wars such a short time ago and nobody would seriously contemplate a repeat of it.
‘War would be different this time,’ Ivor Richards said, his quiet words distinct enough in the silence even for old Mrs Richards to hear. ‘We’ve seen it in Spain. Cities bombed and set aflame. Women and children killed. And the Germans, those tanks they’ve got, remarkable machines, whole, terrifying divisions of them—’
‘Ivor, stop it, dear. It’s Christmas Day. I won’t have talk of it. You’ll frighten the girls.’
‘Sorry, Mother, you’re quite right, of course. It’s talk about Hartmann that started all this.’
He doesn’t like him, Sarah thought, surprised. She sat quietly and sipped her glass of cognac. Hartmann was dangerous, but not in the way Ivor meant. It was the animosity his name roused. But whatever it was Sir Henry Kelling saw in Paul Hartmann, she saw too. His parentage was irrelevant. She liked him for his kindness to them.
The snowfall did not last long and the woods seen from the drawing room where they’d retired for coffee were bathed in a rosy light. ‘I’d rather like a walk,’ Sarah suggested, but only Ivor offered to join her. They muffled themselves up to the eyes in coats, scarves and gloves and set forth into a dream landscape, following the path up towards the hall, because Sarah said she’d like to see the place.
‘It’s so wonderful out here,’ she said, laughing with pleasure as the snow crunched under their boots.
‘I’ve always loved snow. It’s like having a holiday. No one has to do anything except survive it.’ Ivor’s voice had a wistful catch that made her glance at him, but he was concentrating on staying upright.
‘Who are the Bulldocks?’
‘Oh, the Bulldocks.’ His sudden laugh caused birds to fly up in panic, scattering snow from the trees. ‘They’re an old Norfolk farming family. My grandmother fell out with old man Bulldock’s mother years ago and my father thinks Bulldock’s a lily-livered Nazi-lover. Part of the happy band of Hitler-appeasers in Norfolk, of whom there are more than one or two. Mr Mosley’s Blackshirts have been seen round here, you know.’
‘They sound appalling. I suppose none of this will stop Diane being able to go dancing?’
