Lorna Cook - The Forgotten Village

While Freddie collected his cases from the cart and paid the driver, Veronica went off to see if Cook could rustle up a meal. Most of the vegetables from the kitchen garden had been dug up in preparation for departure. Bertie was adamant if they were leaving the house to the army, they’d already taken enough from him. The army could grow its own food, Bertie reasoned. He was determined to leave nothing behind for the soldiers. Veronica was appalled at Bertie’s unpatriotic stance, especially as the stews Cook had been providing over the past week were far too plentiful for the household and most of it was being wasted. But she knew that to say anything would lead to what her mother would call ‘unpleasant behaviour that should not be mentioned again’.

Veronica thought of her mother. The idea of running to her had crossed her mind but had quickly been eschewed in favour of going it alone. Mrs Hanbury idolised Bertie. She’d never quite got the hang of calling him by his nickname, instead preferring the way ‘Sir Albert’ felt on her tongue and how it sounded to her bridge club friends when she spoke of her son-in-law, the MP. When Veronica had tried to discreetly mention that Bertie took to drink and was a little free and easy with his fists, Mrs Hanbury had told her never to mention it again. In that moment Veronica knew that in marrying Bertie she had made her own bed and had to lie in it.

Bertie hadn’t always been this way. It had been subtle at first, so subtle Veronica had managed to brush her fears under the carpet. Slowly, over the first months of their marriage, the honeymoon period had crossed seamlessly into silence and surliness on Bertie’s part. And what Veronica now saw as desperation on her part to get Bertie to engage with her. Perhaps that had been what pushed him over the edge. There had been many a time Veronica had worried Bertie disliked her. But whenever she had found her mind wandering in that direction she had accused herself of going mad.

There were many ‘firsts’ in Veronica’s life she could remember with utmost clarity. Her first day at boarding school and the fear of leaving her family behind; the first time she saw Freddie and how remarkably wonderful he had been – unlike any other man she had ever met. And the first day Bertie hit her. The memory of that day had burnt itself into her mind with the same ferocity as that which his fist had landed on her cheekbone. She would never forget it. It heralded the beginning of the end of their marriage, such as it had ever been.

The argument had been short and the violence had come from nowhere. Although if Veronica had analysed Bertie’s behaviour over the preceding months, she would have seen the layers of it thickly building within him.

They had been going to a party. Her dress had been too low-cut and in it, Bertie said, she had looked obscene. She had laughed, not at him, but because she thought he’d been making a joke. She hadn’t taken him seriously and had touched his arm to soothe as she had looked past him towards the wardrobe to choose her shoes. And then suddenly she was on the floor, wide-eyed and holding her cheek. Looking up at him, she saw a flash of satisfaction in his eyes before he issued his monotone apology. She didn’t go to the party. It had taken a fortnight for the bruise to fade enough for her to be able to cover it with powder and eventually be able to leave the house.

The next time he did it he didn’t apologise.

Bertie was not the man she thought he was. After the shock of realising this had worn off, she had felt so lost and alone. His violence was unpredictable and linked to his ever-increasing thirst for alcohol. But she knew now that if she was going to summon the courage and the strength to do anything about her situation, she would be doing it entirely alone. She thought of Anna. Thank God for Anna. Veronica was not quite so alone.

As Veronica made her way to the kitchen, her heart sank. She had almost left. She had almost tasted freedom. It was too late now. In the confusion of Freddie’s arrival, William had gone and with him her lifeline. She felt in her pocket for the little purse of pin money she’d scavenged together from coins Bertie had left scattered in his study over the last few months. It wasn’t much. She’d been summoning up the courage to leave him for the last six months – ever since she fully realised his drinking was now entirely out of control. He’d been drinking for as long as she had known him, but it was as Bertie had grown disheartened with the war and his place in the wider world that he had really upped his daily allowance to unprecedented levels. And with the drink came the madness and the violence he couldn’t keep at bay.

After she’d had a few words with their reluctant cook, Veronica moved into the sitting room that faced the front drive. The large room now only housed oversized settees, the wireless, a drinks trolley and a few old copies of The Tatler piled up on a coffee table. All the ornaments, portraits and Chinese rugs from the ground floor had been packed up and sent on. As such, the room echoed.

Veronica went to the fire and prodded it, sending sparks onto the hearth. She hugged herself against the cold of the December day and stared blankly into the flames. Her mind moved back to a simpler time. She and Freddie dancing together on the threadbare carpet of the little flat he’d just bought but hadn’t had time to furnish. How they’d both tried hard in his kitchen to master cooking something from a battered copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management . It had been the only cookery book they’d ever heard of and they had bought it together from a second-hand bookshop on a whim. They’d laughingly discarded the Victorian tome, wondering what on earth had possessed them, before Freddie had bicycled off for fish and chips.

A log shifted in front of her and sparks flew high in the grate, snapping her back from her memory. She could have cried thinking about how happy she had been then, how happy she thought he had been. But she’d been wrong about Freddie.

Why the hell was he here? And what in God’s name was she going to do now?

Freddie lugged his two small cases and his gas mask in its cardboard box up the stairs and deposited them at the top. He had intended to stay until the end, to see all his childhood friends from the village and leave when they all left together on the final day; if any of his friends were left. He knew many would have been called up. Or, like him, would have joined up at the first available opportunity. But he felt like a fraud. He’d not been back to the village in years and to stand with those that were here at the end in an act of solidarity didn’t feel quite right somehow. Unlike them, he wasn’t losing anything. He hadn’t lived in his family home for a long time. He wouldn’t miss it either. He told himself he was only here for his things. Perhaps he shouldn’t have responded to Bertie’s letter. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come at all.

A noise of something heavy being dropped onto the floor down the hall grabbed his attention and he glanced quickly to the right to see what it was. The maid Anna was in one of the bedrooms, picking up items that had fallen out of a black leather jewellery box. Around her were trunks that looked as if they had sprung open and had spilled their contents around the solid wood floor. She looked as if she was in the midst of chaos.

On seeing him, Anna moved towards the bedroom door and, with her gaze cast to the floor, closed the door gently but pointedly.

Strange girl , he thought.

Freddie turned his attention back to his suitcases and wondered what he’d actually left here all those years ago that Bertie, in his short and clipped mandate, demand he now remove.

On the train down from London, he’d been rather nervous about seeing Veronica. It had been so long. He’d pictured her face the whole way down. Imagined what he’d say to her. He compared her now to how he remembered her, before his brother had swooped in and set his sights on her. Back then she’d been fun, exciting, a breath of fresh air. He remembered the party where they’d met. He smiled as he recollected the moment he’d spotted her instantly across the room. She had been drinking champagne from a cut-glass saucer, laughing raucously and spilling it everywhere. A gaggle of men surrounded her, offering to mop up her spillage. Of course they had. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But she’d locked eyes with Freddie as he walked in to the party and it was as if his world had changed forever.