Facade (Timeless Classics Collection) by Ursula Bloom

Author:Ursula Bloom [Bloom, Ursula]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: 1940s fiction, women's literary fiction, classic women's fiction, Edwardian fiction, literary fiction, classic literary fiction, women's fiction
Publisher: Wyndham Books
Published: 2020-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

Twelve

The war came and passed over Fincham rectory. It seemed to be an interminable space of time, when event faded into tragedy, and the whole of life was held in the paralysing grip of anguish. The first autumn and winter, Kay pinned maps on the sewing-room wall, studding them with flags as the armies progressed. Then victory was delayed, it even seemed to be endangered, and the flags had to be set back and back, and the enthusiasm died. The grim routine of living, which undermines all war, had come to them.

Kay joined the bandage-rolling class at Mainwaring hospital, where Frances Lester worked as an almoner. She started Red Cross sewing parties in the rectory, serving tea with cake in 1914-15, with biscuits in 1916, and just tea in 1917-18.

Edward accepted the war with no patriotic fervour, but was always convinced that it would be a near thing, and we might even lose it. He blamed the dancing craze for it all. If Alexander’s Ragtime Band had never arrived, he was sure that there would have been no war. It was the hand of God evinced against decadence.

The young men left in a solid army for France. Those who did not join up at once, found themselves furnished with white feathers, and when she thought about it, Kay wondered if Aubrey had come in for his share of these. But she wasn’t thinking of him very much, for there was so much to be organized and planned that her days were full.

Then one March afternoon she saw Aubrey as she was cycling home from the bandage-rolling class. He was walking towards Hayworth, striding out, his face to the wind and flushed with it. He stopped at once, and she knew instinctively that he had something to tell her.

‘Kay, I’m going away tomorrow.’

‘Going away? You’re not joining up?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Although his eyes were smiling she realized that he loathed the whole idea.

‘But, Aubrey, you’re not the type; you’ll hate army life. I don’t see why you should go.’

‘I know, but the truth is that I can’t go on like this, when everybody else is serving. Biggins was killed last week. He wasn’t a bad chap, we never understood one another very well, but he wasn’t a bad sort. The atmosphere of this war is getting me down. I am collecting a wonderful assortment of those infernal white feathers, and although I laugh about it, it hurts damnably inside me. Something has got to be done.’

She didn’t know what to say, because the white feather campaign had always sickened her. ‘Poor Aubrey! It’s a topsy-turvy war, and ought never to have been, but it is some small consolation to think that once the Germans are thrashed, that will be the end of all wars.’

‘Will it? I’m not so sure. How can war end war? I don’t believe in it.’

‘Do you mean that you’re a conchie?’

He had been going to deny it, knowing only too well the unfortunate consequences of ever admitting what he felt; then remembering that it was Kay, he stopped dead.

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