The First of July(17)

Connie said in her usual gentle voice, but firmly, “You should tell him what Mr. Williams said.”

“There’s no telling Stanley anything,” Nancy answered. “He’s a law unto himself, Stanley Hutton, my ma says.”

“Well, then, you should refuse to speak to him. If we go to war, he’ll be killing people. You wouldn’t go to Wormwood Scrubs and tattle to murderers there, share your tea. It’s no different if he is your cousin.”

The sun was beating down as Connie looked at me, to see if we were still friends, given that Isaac was more my pal than hers, and Nancy more hers than mine, so we should be evens.

“I pray every night there won’t be war,” she said. “But if there is, I shall never hold conversation with a soldier—or a sailor, come to that.”

“My uncle says if there’s a war, our boys won’t have no choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Nancy,” Connie said. “Isn’t there, Frank?”

Even as I said yes, I thought with foreboding of Mr. Frederick Richmond. Mr. Richmond, the kindest, fairest man you could hope to meet, who brought his dog, Bosun, into the store, he loved him so much, Mr. Richmond was such a man for war that you could almost think he wanted it to come. He was friends with all the top admirals, the lads said. “Lance the boil” was Mr. Richmond’s cry every time some foreign country played up, while Bosun took tidbits from his hand. And there was the Reverend Williams, as fiery a bruiser as you might see in the streets around Seven Dials, and he was furious for peace.

Mr. Richmond addressed us male employees the next week. His subject: duty.

“We are not at war yet,” he said; “but mark my words, the clock is ticking. If war comes, I hope to see every one of you single men go forward to serve the King.” He looked around benevolently as if he was our father. “And for those who go, I shall, personally, give a parting gift of five guineas. When you return, you may be sure that there will be a place for you here. We shall use ladies to fill your places temporarily until you get back. If it comes to war, of course. Which we all sincerely hope it does not,” he added, not very convincingly. We all knew he had conceived a hatred for the German Kaiser, for all that the German monarch was our King’s cousin.

Five guineas. Five guineas was half a bicycle. With my savings already, I could have it in six weeks. But by then I would be away, marching up and down and polishing badges and learning how to shoot men, when I had only ever shot crows and rabbits for the pot, and that was back when I made coffins, and even that I’d never tell Connie. I could buy a bicycle, but what was the point if I was off marching?

Thinking of coffins made me think of Dad and how it was an ill wind that brought no good. War would mean dying, and a few extra deaths never came amiss for a coffin maker. Mind you, if it happened, would the Austrians and the Germans come and fight us here, or would we go there? How were such things agreed upon when it was disagreeing that caused war in the first place?





CHAPTER SEVEN


Benedict, London,

June 1914


BENEDICT HAD NEVER REALLY TRUSTED Davies. Always more Theo’s friend than his, plain David Ivor Davies had gone to Oxford and then to London in the process of becoming the urbane Novello. He’d left Gloucester ages ago but always seemed to be returning. Benedict suspected it was to remind himself of how far he had risen since he left.

Now here he was again, with them in London.

Dr. Brewer always arranged the choir’s triennial trip to London down to the last detail. They were boarding with a Fellow of the Royal College, although Novello had offered to put them up. Brewer could hardly hide his horror, but Novello was undoubtedly just teasing him.

A bus took them northward from Paddington Station. Theo and Novello, heads together, were laughing about people Benedict had never heard of and he doubted Theo had either. Novello was confiding rather loudly that he and a friend had written a song.

“What a humdinger! It will express the mood of the nation before they even know what mood they’re in,” he said. “‘Till the boys come home.’ All we need now is the war to send them away in the first place.”

Benedict opened a recent letter from Lettie. She was innocently excited about his trip to London. She seldom left their home town, and he knew she feared that her duties as a daughter were leading her inexorably into a spinster’s life. From time to time, Benedict had wondered if he could introduce Theo to his sister, but in the last year Theo had become more and more fixed on Agnes Bradstock.

What had started as a challenge had appeared to have grown into a genuine attraction. Theo wanted Agnes. Wanted to marry her, he said. Possibly it was true; but Benedict hoped, privately and intensely, that Agnes would say no, or the bishop would say no, or Theo’s father would say no, or maybe Mrs. Bradstock, who clearly had ambitions for her beautiful daughter, would place somebody more compelling in Agnes’s path. At any rate, Theo would have to wait three more years until he could hope to support a wife.