The Measure Of Days

Book 30: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1916. England is at war, and the Morland family is in the thick of it, with two men already in France and three more soon to go. Tragedy strikes Morland Place when Jessie's husband Ned is reported missing on the Western Front. His father launches a desperate bid to find him, but the family fear the worst. Jessie, in mourning and frustrated by her job as an auxiliary nurse, goes to London to work in a military hospital. There she is reunited with her old friend Oliver, posted to the capital under the RAMC. Also in London is Violet, whose affair with the brilliant artist Octavian Laidislaw is about to erupt in scandal . . . The Measure of Days paints a portrait of a family, and a nation, at war, at a pivotal point in history. With the onset of conscription, no one is left unaffected. Every man must hold himself in readiness; and every woman knows that when she says goodbye, it might be for the last time.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 560

Sample

30th September 1915

The first post arrived early at Morland Place. Eddoes, the stable boy, lived next door to the postmaster and was given the
early delivery to bring with him when he came in to work. So when Jessie came down at seven, the butler Sawry had already
sorted the letters and placed them on the table in the great hall. But there was nothing for her, nothing from the Front.
Her disappointment was acute. The battle at Loos had been fought on the 25th and 26th of September, and she had calculated
that there could be a letter today. She turned away, pushing down disappointment and worry.


It was one of her hospital mornings, and she had to be at Clifton at a quarter to eight. The house was quiet, and the small
dining-room seemed dark and a little chill. She sat alone at the long, polished table, with her dog Brach lying across her
feet. Her mother Henrietta would not be up for another half-hour – since Jessie had moved back to her childhood home, it had
been an object to get her mother to rest a little more. Uncle Teddy, the master of Morland Place, had already been and gone.
He took his first breakfast at half past six before going off round the estate, and would return for a second at nine when
the rest of the family came down. But Morland Place routine rose above all variations, and eggs and bacon were waiting for
Jessie under the covers. There was fresh coffee in the pot, and as she sat down Sawry came in with toast.


He knew, of course, that there had been no letter for her. His silence brimmed with sympathy as he placed the toast-rack on
the table and laid the newspaper beside her. In most households it was a cardinal sin for anyone to open the paper before
the master had had it, but Sawry’s gesture told Jessie that if she wanted to read it, he would see it was refolded properly
before Uncle Teddy returned.


Jessie left it unopened. In her state of suspended anxiety she had no interest in the military situation. She knew what the
paper would be full of. The Loos action had been hailed excitedly as the first real victory of the war. The German defences
had been smashed, the line advanced and held. Without opening it, she knew there would be pages of triumphant analysis, diagrams
of advances, maps showing where the front line had been and where it was now, with the area in between impressively shaded.


One day she might be able to be pleased about all that. For now, she wanted only to know that her men were safe. They were
her cousins, both, and dear to her: Ned, whom she had married, and Bertie, with whom – oh, helplessly! and since they were
both married, hopelessly – she had fallen in love. Bertie had been in France from the beginning; Ned had fought for the first
time at Neuve Chapelle, then at Ypres. Loos was his third major action, and Bertie’s … No, she had lost count of how many
Bertie had seen. They had come through so far with only minor wounds. But it didn’t make the waiting any easier each time.
She chewed and swallowed bacon, eggs and toast to fuel herself for the day ahead, but they might have been cardboard for all
she tasted them. All she wanted was the pencilled scrawl on a scrap of grubby paper that said, ‘I am well’, the lifeline flung
out from the Front.


At a quarter to eight she set off in the little Austin. Ned had bought it to replace their pre-war Arno when he left her to
join up. He’d always said the Arno was too big for a woman to drive – a point of contention between them. He didn’t really approve of women driving at all. There had been many of those little, uneasy differences between them. It seemed
that you could not know what a man was really like before you married him. She and Ned had grown up together, and he had been
as an indulgent and admiring elder brother. But as a husband he had what she felt were old-fashioned ideas about what she
should and shouldn’t do. Perhaps they shouldn’t have married … She shook that thought away, and replaced it with an urgent
prayer: Let him be safe! Please, God, let them both be safe!

It was a fine day, full of soft, late sunshine, a little hazy, with the smoky autumn tang of blackberries and dying leaves.
As she drove along her eye took note of things – the autumn colours just beginning in the elms and chestnuts, the hawthorn
berries reddening in the hedges, the sudden emptiness where the summer madness of martins had gone. The oats were ripe up
at White House Farm; the potatoes wanted a week or so more. At Woodhouse, where the wheat had been cut, they would be fleet-ploughing
this week. The natural world, the farming year went on in their massive immutability, as though there were no bloody struggle
in France, laying waste to women’s hearts.


At the hospital she was greeted by Sister Morgan with the usual snarl: like many professional nurses, she resented the volunteers
the war had thrust upon her. She began with an accusation about a bottle of disinfectant broken and the pieces hidden in the
dustbin. Jessie was not guilty, but she did not bother to protest. Sin was always attributed to the lowest and least nurse
on the ward. Whoever really had done it would not dream of sacrificing herself to save ‘the VAD’ – as Jessie was called, though
she was not one. ‘VAD’ was a pejorative term to Sister Morgan, who finished her dressing-down by giving Jessie all the toilsome
and disagreeable jobs to do. First there were bed-pans to clean; then the floors to be scrubbed. After the dressing round
she was given the bloody bandages to wash, and when she had finished that, there were the bed-wheels to clean and oil – anything to keep her away from the patients.


But she was glad of the hard work, which blanked out her thoughts. Besides, propriety demanded that she maintain a cheerful
mien. ‘Chin up’ and ‘There’s a war on’ were the phrases now commonly used in response to any hardship or privation. In peacetime
any show of emotion had been regarded as not quite the done thing; in wartime it had become positively unpatriotic. Waiting
for news from a man at the Front? So were ten thousand others. Grin and bear it. Don’t you know there’s a war on?


Her day’s work finished at nine in the evening, and by then she was in a state of physical exhaustion beyond thought. She
drove herself home, where her mother, knowing she could not have borne either company or conversation, silently helped her
out of her coat, saw that she had her supper – mutton stew and a baked apple – then sent her straight up to bed. Her maid
Tomlinson had a bath ready for her beside the fire; helped her undress, dried her afterwards and put her into a warmed nightgown,
as if she were a child. Jessie was grateful both for the attention and the restraint. How hard it must be for her fellow nurses
on Maitland Ward, who would not be so petted at the end of a hard day! She got into bed, and was asleep before Tomlinson had
finished folding her clothes. She wasn’t even wakened by the inevitable noise and bustle of removing the bath.


The 30th had been the last of her three hospital days that week, and on the next morning she slept late and went down to breakfast
at ten to nine. Uncle Teddy was already there, seated at the end of the table with the newspaper open. He looked up and smiled
as Jessie came in. ‘Something for you from France,’ he said, nodding to the letter by her plate.


It was from Bertie – she knew as soon as she saw it. He and Ned had both been taught in the same style, but his handwriting
was smaller and firmer. Relief flooded her. He had written – he was safe! But, oh, it was an envelope that had seen hard times! The corners were battered, there were muddy
marks on it, and the direction was smeared where water had dripped on it. Inside, the notepaper was no better – a cheap sheet
to begin with, rough and porous, with what seemed to be a coffee stain on one corner, and dirty fingermarks here and there.
It hurt her in a strange way, to think of Bertie’s having dirty hands, when he had always been so particular about his appearance.
It brought home to her the privations of the Front in a starkly simple way. Bertie was in a place where even washing your
hands was not to be taken for granted.


The letter was a brief one.

28th September, near Houchin

My dearest Jessie,

I am snatching a moment from duties to let you know I am all right. We came out of the line early yesterday morning and were
all day getting back to our billets, as the roads were choked. We did not get here until after ten last night. We had hard
fighting but acquitted ourselves with honour. My untried men never flinched, though the German fire was hot as Hades. We are
counting the cost today – around 400 of the battalion not at roll-call, though we hope many more stragglers will come in.
The fighting goes on, but we are out of it for now. I came through without a scratch – Fenniman too – but Pennyfather was
wounded, I don’t know yet how seriously. More later, but a thousand duties call me now. God bless you.


Your loving cousin,

Bertie

She read it again for the joy of knowing he had come through. Uncle Teddy was watching her. Bertie’s letters to Morland Place
were always addressed to her, but everyone was interested in his welfare. She got up and took the letter to her uncle, then went to serve herself with breakfast while
he read it, finding herself suddenly hungry. The sausages smelled wonderful, and there were mushrooms – the benison of autumn.


‘Well, that is good news!’Teddy exclaimed. ‘Now we only have to hear from Ned.’ Ned was his adopted son, the bastard child
of his late brother, but he had given him his name and a fortune, and could not have loved him more if he had been the child
of his body. It had been a cause of great joy to him when Ned had married Jessie. He liked to keep those he loved close about
him. ‘So they had fierce fighting of it?’ he went on. ‘Shame about his friend Pennyfather. Is Fenniman the one you met in
London, who took a fancy to our little Emma?’


Jessie chatted to him lightly until the others came down – her mother, Teddy’s wife Alice and his daughter Polly, and Jessie’s
brother Robert and his wife Ethel. Teddy announced the good news, and Henrietta threw him a look of silent relief. Bertie
was the son of their late sister Regina. In his rather turbulent youth he had often been at outs with his father, and had
taken refuge at Morland Place, where Henrietta had mothered him. She sometimes called him her ‘extra son’.


Ethel, who was not distinguished for her tact, immediately wondered why, if Bertie had written, nothing had come from Ned.

‘We shall hear tomorrow, mark my words,’ Teddy said at once, in a cheerful, confident tone. However worried he was, it was
necessary for the master of Morland Place not to show it at a time like this. He was looked up to by so many people, from
the servants and tenants to the townspeople of York and the volunteers in the York Commercials, the ‘Kitchener’ battalion
he had helped to found. Morale must be kept up.


The next day there was no letter from Ned. Early news from the Front was good news; each day that passed made good news less likely. Of course, his unit might not have come out of the line as early as Bertie’s – there was always that. And
the first of the officer casualty lists appeared in The Times that day, and Ned’s name was not there.


‘He’s all right, I tell you,’ Teddy told the uncertain faces round the breakfast table. ‘I feel it in my bones.’

Rob took up the cause. ‘His letter might have gone astray. It happens all the time at the bank. I had a very angry customer
the other day, who’d sent an instruction by post, which we never received. Ned could have sent a message and it got lost.’


‘That’s a likely explanation,’Teddy agreed. ‘But he’ll have had my letter by now, and he’ll write again. We’ll hear tomorrow
for sure. Tomorrow, or the next day.’


Jessie wrote another note to Ned, and replied to Bertie’s letter, asking if he knew anything. ‘If you have seen him, do let
us know. Or if you see him, ask him to send us a note to say he is well. We are all anxious until we hear from him.’


Another day with no letter. There were men, now, back in England, wounded, and talking to their relatives. Rumours began to
circulate. There had been a lack of organisation in the aftermath. The casualties had been heavier than anticipated, and insufficient
hospital trains had been provided to move the wounded to the base hospitals. The casualty clearing stations were clogged,
and problems had backed up all the way down the line. Men were still lying untreated in the fields around the medical tents,
their names not even having been taken.


‘He could be wounded, then, and we wouldn’t know about it,’ said Henrietta at dinner.

Jessie ate soup without answering. She saw that her mother had stopped hoping he was completely unhurt. She was settling for
his being wounded rather than dead – the latter was unthinkable. But Jessie knew a little of what machine-gun bullets and
shrapnel could do. She was not willing yet to bargain. She could not bear to imagine such damage to the smooth body she had
slept beside and taken such pleasure of during their marriage. He must be alive and he must be unhurt.


Still no letter came. Bertie’s reply to Jessie arrived, and she knew from the length of it that it was not simple good news.

6th October 1915. Near Houchin

My dearest Jessie,

I am sorry that you have had nothing yet from Ned – though you may have heard by the time you receive this letter. I hope
so. I have made enquiries of my own but have nothing definite to report. The Kents were in very fierce fighting, both on Hill
70 and at Chalk Pit Wood, and were very much cut up. I believe fewer than a hundred of them came back, but that is only hearsay.
Their colonel and all the staff were among the casualties, so there is no-one left in the battalion to make arrangements and
take names, etc. I understand someone from Brigade staff is to take over for the time being.


I cannot hold out much hope that he is entirely unharmed – I think my enquiries would have found him if he had been on his
feet and with the survivors – but there is every hope that he will be found among the wounded. You cannot imagine the confusion
and muddle here, and it is perfectly possible for a man not to be on any list. I am still having men turn up, having been
‘lost’ the best part of two weeks. Perhaps he is even now on his way home in a hospital ship without any idea that you do
not know his fate. Once he is in England you will be sure to hear from him. I shall keep making enquiries, and let you know
at once if I hear anything more.


As ever,

Bertie

There was enough here to keep hope going at Morland Place. Official notification generally took weeks to arrive, but in normal circumstances one could expect a letter from the battalion’s commanding officer quite soon after the event. In this
case, there was no commanding officer to perform the service, as Teddy pointed out with minor triumph. Ned’s name still did
not appear on any of the casualty lists, and that gave support to his hopes. Jessie would not talk about it at all. Her only
defence was to blank out her thoughts with hard work. At the hospital, at her stables at Twelvetrees, where she bred horses
for the army, she flung herself into the most exhausting tasks to try to keep out the fears that were knocking always at her
mind, demanding admission.


So things stood on the day the telephone call came. The apparatus was fixed to the wall in the kitchen passage, on the family
side of the green-baize door. Sawry came out from his room to answer it.


A woman’s voice said, ‘Am I connected with Morland Place?’

‘Yes, madam. To whom did you wish to speak?’

‘I’m not quite sure. This is Sister Wheatley of the Waterloo Ward in St George’s Hospital. To whom am I speaking?’

‘I am the butler, madam.’

‘Ah. Then perhaps I had better speak to your master.’

‘I will bring Mr Morland to the instrument, madam, if you will be so kind as to wait.’

Sawry went away, ascertained that Mr Morland was in the steward’s room with his secretary, Baskin, and delivered his message.
The mixture of hope and anxiety in the master’s eyes was painful to see. Behind the green-baize door the same arguments and
anxieties had been rehearsed as among the family. Sawry went back to the telephone in the hall, made sure that the call was
connected – and then hesitated. He was a good servant and it had never in his life before even occurred to him to eavesdrop on a Family conversation; but if this were – as surely it must be? – something to do with Mr Ned … Sawry’s
struggle lasted one fierce second before in shame and defiance he put the receiver to his ear.


‘What can I do for you, Sister Wheatley?’ There was the faintest discernible tremor in the master’s voice.

She explained. ‘I am in charge of an acute military ward and we have recently had an intake of wounded “other ranks” from
Loos. There is a soldier here, a private, who is quite seriously ill, and he keeps talking about Morland Place. At first my
nurses thought he was just raving, because he is feverish, but then a lady visitor heard him and said there was a Morland Place, in Yorkshire, and that she was slightly acquainted with the family. She said perhaps we ought to contact
them. So that is what I’m doing. I suppose he might be a servant or some other employee of yours. I thought you should know
in case you want to visit him.’


She sounded as if she didn’t think a man with a telephone and a butler to answer it would be likely to want to travel all
the way to London for the sake of an employee, but that it was her Christian and professional duty to make it possible.


Teddy’s feelings had seesawed wildly as she spoke, from the disappointment that it could not be Ned to the hope that it was
someone with news of Ned. Perhaps he was wounded and in another hospital, somehow unable to communicate. ‘What is the man’s
name?’ he asked.


‘Daltry,’ Sister Wheatley said. ‘Private Daltry of the North Kent regiment.’

Sawry drew in a breath at the name. Daltry was Mr Ned’s manservant, who had volunteered with him and gone to France as his
batman. It must be news of Mr Ned, then!


Teddy’s voice came after a pause. ‘I know him. Is he badly hurt?’

‘His wounds are severe, and his condition has been complicated by pneumonia. But he is a little better this morning. If you
wished to visit him, I think he would be able to talk to you.’


‘Yes,’ said Teddy. ‘Yes, I will visit him. I will come up at once. Tell him that Mr Morland is coming to see him today.’

‘I will certainly do so,’ she replied, sounding much more gracious after this compassionate response. ‘Does he have any relatives
who ought to be told? He has not been able to give us an answer to that question.’


‘As far as I know, he has no-one. He has been with our family for many years. But I will make enquiries.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you, Sister, for letting me know about him. Is there anything I can bring for him? Does he need anything?’


‘All our boys need everything, Mr Morland. They leave their kit behind when they’re brought out. If it weren’t for the volunteer
ladies they wouldn’t have a pair of pyjamas between them.’


‘Pyjamas. What else?’ Teddy was businesslike, now there was something he could do.

‘Facecloth. Shaving tackle. Soap. Those would all be useful. And, of course, they always want cigarettes and chocolate, and
things to read.’


‘I’ll see to it. Thank you, Sister, with all my heart.’

Simmons, the chauffeur, went off in the motor to fetch Jessie from Twelvetrees, while Teddy, with Henrietta’s help, assembled
such necessaries as could be found around the house. Soap and shaving soap were easy enough, as were a clean facecloth from
the linen cupboard, and an unbroached tin of cigarettes from Teddy’s own store. Henrietta sensibly suggested that matches
would probably also be needed. Teddy telephoned to Makepeace’s, the draper’s shop he owned in York, to have them pack new
pyjamas and a dressing-gown ready for collection. He told them to put in a dozen handkerchiefs, too, and asked them to send
an employee along the road to Toynbee’s to buy a razor and shaving-brush. Teddy’s elderly manservant, Brown, meanwhile packed
an overnight bag in case a stay in London should be indicated, while Tomlinson did the same for Jessie. So when Jessie arrived
back from Twelvetrees – in a state of some agitation, since Simmons had not been able to tell her what the summons was all about – she had only to wash and change
and they were off.


They drove into York, collected the package from Makepeace’s and stopped at the newsagent on the corner for a tin of chocolate
and some light reading matter. Jessie, remembering something Bertie had said in a letter, suggested boy’s comic papers, and
they took a selection of twopenny magazines and a couple of fourpenny ‘adventure’ novelettes.


Simmons dropped them off at the station, and they were able to catch an express just after noon. After the bustle of getting
away, sitting still in the train left them at the mercy of their thoughts and anxieties.


‘I wonder what it is he wants to tell us,’ Jessie said uselessly, as the train took the beautiful curve just past Chaloner’s
Whin, which her engineer grandfather had laid out long ago when the railways first came to York.


‘He must know something about Ned,’ Teddy said. ‘A soldier-servant stays near his master at all times.’


Jessie met his look. ‘Part of me doesn’t want to know. Suppose—’

‘Better not,’ Teddy said. He managed a smile. ‘We should have bought something to read for ourselves.’

‘Would you like to try the Boy’s Own Paper?’

‘No. Let’s go to the dining-car and have luncheon.’

‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

‘Yes, you could,’ Teddy said firmly. ‘You’ve been out since breakfast, and we may not have another chance to eat for hours.
Besides, it will keep us occupied.’


The train had moved into the straight and was picking up speed, and they could hear the steward coming down the corridor saying,
‘First service for luncheon, madam. First service for luncheon, sir.’ Jessie realised that she really was hungry, and followed
her uncle meekly from the compartment.


* * *

Sister Wheatley was a very different proposition from Jessie’s nemesis, Sister Morgan. Morgan was a desiccated wasp of a woman
who looked for trouble and found it. Sister Wheatley was tall, well-built, handsome, with warm brown eyes and an air of calm
behind her efficient briskness. She made Jessie think of a well-fed, well-schooled horse – and she always liked people who
reminded her of horses.


‘Private Daltry has shrapnel wounds in both legs,’ she told them, when they were brought to her in her room on arrival. ‘He
also received a grazing wound to the head; and he was lying out on the battlefield for two days before they brought him in,
which complicated matters and led to pneumonia. We did think at one time we were going to lose him, but he is fighting his
way back, and the surgeon hopes we can save the legs.’


‘Is he well enough to see us?’ Teddy asked.

‘He’s very weak, but it may ease his mind to see someone from Morland Place. He’s been quite agitated about it.’

They found Daltry halfway down the ward on the right. He had been a background figure in Jessie’s life for many years, coming
to Morland Place to valet Ned when he first reached a man’s estate. Then, when she and Ned had married, he had come with them
to Maystone, their neat villa in Clifton. There, he had become so much more than a gentleman’s gentleman. He had acted as
butler, footman and major-domo, steering the household through such crises as drunken cooks, financial recessions, the coming
of the war and the consequent depletion of staff. Quietly and efficiently he had filled gaps, anticipated needs, and kept
the other servants cheerful. He was a tall, good-looking man, calm and capable, and Jessie always thought of him faintly smiling.


Just for a moment she didn’t recognise him. How could this be Daltry, this unshaven scarecrow, hair dishevelled, gaunt face
waxy with fever? His head was bandaged, his arms stuck out of the sleeves of a hideous pair of pyjamas that were too small
for him, and his fingers twitched restlessly at the bedcovers, which were stretched over a cradle protecting his legs. When they stood at the foot of his bed he stared at
them with bright, hot, blank eyes for a long moment before recognition dawned.Then, to Jessie’s horror, he began to cry. It
was the worst thing of all, to see capable, rocklike Daltry cry. The tears rolled helplessly and he put up a feeble hand to
wipe at them. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he moaned. ‘I’m so sorry.’


Teddy had snatched out his handkerchief, but hesitated, fearing for the man’s dignity. Jessie took it from him and went to
minister. She drew Daltry’s hand away from his face, wiped his cheeks, stroked the hair from his forehead, and murmured, ‘It’s
all right. We’ve come to help you. Sister says you’re going to be all right.’


After a few gasping sobs he fumbled the handkerchief out of her hand and blew his nose. She poured some water into his glass,
and helped him to sip it.


‘We’ve brought you some things,’ Jessie went on. ‘Shaving tackle and so on. Pyjamas, handkerchiefs. And some cigarettes and
chocolate for when you’re feeling better. You mustn’t worry about anything except getting well.’


He looked from one to the other with a humble wonder that hurt Jessie all over again. ‘You came all the way down here to see
me?’ he said.


‘You’re one of the family,’Jessie said. ‘Of course we would come.’

Tears welled again, but he made an effort to hold them back. ‘I don’t deserve it,’ he said. ‘I’ve let you down. I failed him.’

So they had come to Ned at last, Jessie thought, and it didn’t sound hopeful. ‘I’m sure you haven’t let anyone down,’ she
said. He was still feverish, she could see, and his breathing was laboured. He ought not to talk too much. Questions could
wait until he was stronger. ‘Why don’t you rest now, try to sleep a little? We’ll leave you in peace and come back another
time.’


Daltry reached out to her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I must tell you about Mr Ned.’ He looked at Teddy. ‘You ought to know. I must tell
you now.’


There seemed nothing for it but to let him talk.

The fighting had been fierce on the way to Hill 70. All the officers had been lost, except Ned. Eventually he had found himself
in charge of about half a company of survivors, just north of Bois Hugo.


‘We were in the air,’ Daltry said, and then translated. ‘I mean, we were ahead of our line, isolated. Far out in front, stuck
there in a trench on our own, with the enemy advancing. We fought them off, but they kept coming. We had to fall back. So
Mr Ned sent the men off with the sergeant. He stayed with the rearguard to lay cover. The Boche were coming up through the
woods, outflanking us. And they were shelling ahead of them. There was only seven of us left. We made a run for the woods.
Mr Ned was coming last with Acres and the machine-gun. Then a shell burst, and he got caught in the blast. Broke his legs,
I think. They were all bloody, his trousers torn to shreds. He couldn’t walk. He told me to go on. I wanted to stay with him
but he ordered me. I swore I’d go back for him. I looked back when I got to the trees and he’d managed to crawl into a shell-hole.’


His voice had grown fainter, more breathless as he spoke. His interlocutors listene