The White Road

Book 28: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

In the Morland Dynasty series, the majestic sweep of English history is richly and movingly portrayed through the fictional lives of the Morland family. It is 1914, and the outbreak of war is greeted with euphoria. Thousands flock to volunteer. Everyone believes the war will be over by Christmas, so there’s no time to waste. Bertie, a reservist, is one of the first to go to France; Jack is invited to join the Royal Flying Corps, and Ned joins one of the new "Pals" units. The brutal reality of Ypres dispels illusion, but only fuels determination, as the war comes home to everyone, in ways they have not expected.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 480

Sample

3rd August 1914

Jessie moved restlessly to the morning-room window and stared at the bright August day outside. ‘It doesn’t feel a bit like
Bank Holiday Monday,’ she complained.


Ned looked up from the newspaper. ‘I’m not going to work,’ he pointed out. ‘The servants are all off. And the weather’s perfect.
What more can you want?’


‘I just said it doesn’t feel like it. No-one talks about anything but war. And there’s nothing special happening at Morland Place. We always used to have
a cricket match or a river trip or something. But Uncle Teddy hasn’t arranged anything at all, not even a family luncheon.’


‘I’m sure we’ll be going over there anyway. And I’ll lay any money that your mother has arranged enough food for a banquet,
never mind a luncheon.’


Jessie smiled at that. Her mother Henrietta still lived at Morland Place and acted as housekeeper, since Teddy’s wife Alice
didn’t care to. Alice had always been indolent, and since her miscarriage, her health had been rather delicate. Henrietta
remembered the standards of hospitality that had prevailed at Morland Place in her childhood, and was glad that Teddy’s wealth
allowed her to uphold them.


‘Well,’ said Jessie, ‘nothing was said, but I did think we’d go over there later. It would seem very odd not to, don’t you think?’


‘Very odd,’ he indulged her. ‘You don’t imagine you need to persuade me, do you?’

Ned was the illegitimate son of the late George Morland, elder brother of Teddy and Henrietta. Teddy had adopted the orphan Ned, had given him a name, an education, and finally a
business of his own with which he could support himself respectably. Though Teddy had since acquired two children of his own,
his affection for Ned had never wavered. Ned owed him everything, loved him as a son and called him ‘Father’. Had Teddy not
taken him in, he would have been put on the parish, and a very different – and possibly very short – life would have faced
him.


There were still some old-fashioned folk in York who would not forget Ned’s origins; but for most people it was enough that
he had been to Eton, owned a successful business, and behaved like a gentleman. For another section of society the important
thing was that he rode well to hounds (on fine Morland-bred horses), was a good shot and gave good dinners. Finally, he had
married his cousin Jessie, who was a gentlewoman and a good hostess. What more could a reasonable person demand?


‘But I suppose,’ Jessie sighed on the heels of his last remark, ‘if we do go it will be just war, war, war. I wish we’d hurry
up and get into it, so we could talk about something else.’ She looked across at the back of Ned’s newspaper. ‘I suppose it
is going to happen?’


For answer he folded the paper and smacked it into a square to show her an advertisement. It was a notice from the German
consul in London. She read aloud, ‘“Germans who have served, or are liable to serve, are requested to return to Germany without
delay, as best they can.”’


‘A mobilisation order, in effect,’ Ned said.

‘I wonder The Times printed it,’ Jessie said, with a touch of indignation. ‘Isn’t that aiding the enemy?’


‘There are thousands of Germans living in this country, and it’s probably a good thing to get them to go away of their own
accord, rather than have to round them up and imprison them. In any case,’ Ned reminded her, ‘they’re not officially the enemy
until we declare war, and we haven’t declared it yet.’


‘When will we?’

‘Very soon.’ He tapped the paper. ‘It says in here that the Germans have declared war on Russia, and both countries have mobilised. Germany has invaded Luxembourg and is on the brink
of invading Belgium. It can’t be more than a day or two at the most. We’ll be at war tomorrow, or the next day for certain.’


Jessie was silent. She had heard all the talk among the servants and in the streets, and knew that the majority of her fellow
countrymen had been anticipating the war with elation. Everyone seemed eager for ‘a scrap’ and longed to ‘teach Germany a
lesson’. But though it was impossible for her not to feel some of that pleasurable excitement, simply by contagion, the war
was not entirely welcome to her. She had inherited from her father his half of a horse-breeding business, to which Uncle Teddy
had added the other half as a wedding present. And three months earlier she had received a visit from the army’s local horse
procurer, John Forrester, who had been conducting a census. If the threatened war did break out, 120,000 horses would immediately
be ‘conscripted’, and that meant most or all of hers.


Some of her animals had been specifically bred for the army; but there were also the polo ponies – her speciality – and the
hunters, and her own personal horse, Hotspur, who had been given to her by her father, and Ned’s hack, Compass Rose. How could
she bear to part with them? Suppose they got wounded – or killed?


Ned had a shrewd idea what she was thinking, and said gently, ‘If Forrester comes for them, there’ll be nothing you can do
about it. In a war, everyone has to do their bit.’


‘I know,’ Jessie said. But that didn’t make it any easier.

Ned thought that when the war did come, there would be more serious things to worry about than the horses, but he did not
say so. He thought she was looking more than usually pretty that morning, with her cheeks a little flushed from agitation
and her eyes bright. He loved her so much, and he sought to turn her thoughts to happier channels. ‘Do you want to telephone
to Morland Place and see what time we should go over? Father may have organised something after all.’


‘Oh, yes, I’ll do that,’ Jessie said, pleased. She liked telephoning. She very rarely had the chance to do it, so it was a
novelty to her. She was very proud of the fact that Maystone Villa, their house in Clifton, two miles from Morland Place,
had had the telephone from the beginning: Ned had installed it because of his business. And now Uncle Teddy had had it put
in, after years of talking about ‘doing it one day’. Her face fell a fraction as she thought about that. Didn’t it prove that
he thought war was imminent?


Before she could go into the hall and make the call, however, the front-door bell rang. For a moment neither of them moved;
and then they remembered that the servants had the day off, so Daltry, Ned’s man who acted as butler, would not be answering
it.


‘I’ll go,’ said Ned.

Jessie waited, listening without interest, until the sound of the visitor’s voice at the door made her eyes widen. It was
a voice she knew very well and had not been expecting: their cousin, Sir Percival Parke, or Bertie, as he was always known
– he hated the name Percival.


Ned appeared in the doorway. ‘Look who’s here!’ he said, with pleasure.

Bertie was beside him. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, rather tanned at the end of this long, wonderful summer, his fair
hair bleached several shades lighter by the sun. At thirty-eight he was in the prime of life, and everything about him seemed
vigorous, from his brisk movements to the very curl of his hair. Ned, though handsome in his own way, looked somehow soft
and pale beside him.


‘I hope I’m not intruding?’ Bertie said, advancing into the room.

Jessie went quickly to embrace him. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘We had no idea you were in Yorkshire.’

‘I supposed I should have telephoned first, but I always forget you have the thing.’

‘You’re welcome at any time,’ Jessie said. ‘Come and sit down.’

Bertie settled himself in a chair at the table, and looked vaguely around. ‘Have I interrupted breakfast?’ he asked, of the uncleared table.

‘We finished ages ago!’ Jessie laughed. ‘It’s August Bank Holiday Monday – servants’ day off,’ she reminded him.

He smiled. ‘It’s the gypsy life I lead – I forget things like domestic routine.’

‘Talking of gypsies,’ she said, ‘what are you doing up here?’


‘And why aren’t you staying with us?’ Ned added, with mock sternness.

‘I only came up yesterday, and I was occupied until a very late hour, so I took a room at the Station Hotel rather than disturb
you. I had one or two things to see to at the Red House.’


‘You haven’t got a tenant for it yet?’ Ned asked.

‘No, it’s still empty.’ The Red House was Bertie’s inherited property at Bishop Winthorpe, about ten miles away. His wife
Maud had never liked it, and had finally persuaded him to move to a new place, Beaumont Manor, near Cheshunt – so much more
convenient for London, which was her first love. She had wanted him to sell the Red House, but he had not quite liked to do
that. He had hoped to rent it out instead, but though he had let the grazing land easily enough, no-one seemed to want the
ugly old house – to which he had such a perverse attachment. ‘However, as things are,’ he went on, ‘a use may be found for
it soon, in one of many ways.’


‘As things are? What do you mean?’ Jessie asked, puzzled.

‘A telegram found me at the hotel this morning. It had quite a round trip. It was sent to me at Beaumont, and the servants
sent it on to Maud in London, and she sent it to York. A miracle of modern communication.’


‘Never mind how it arrived. What is it?’


‘Mobilisation.’

The word brought a cold pang to Jessie’s stomach. She stared. It was Ned who spoke. ‘You’ve been called up?’

Bertie nodded. ‘The decision to mobilise was taken last night, apparently, and it will be officially announced at four this
afternoon. But some of us more experienced reservists had the word early. I’m to report to barracks at Sandridge tonight.’


‘It’s definitely war, then?’

‘The Germans are massing on the Belgian border. The Government sent a note to Germany demanding assurance that they will not
violate Belgian neutrality. But of course they will. We’ll be at war tomorrow.’


‘Oh, Bertie!’ Jessie cried.

Bertie said. ‘It’s a relief to come and tell it here. Everywhere else I’ve been, people are waiting for the war in high excitement.
York is full of young men longing to “have a go” at the Germans. You’d think it was part of the Bank Holiday celebrations.
There’ll be rejoicing tomorrow when war’s declared.’


Ned eyed him shrewdly. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not the least little bit excited. Come, Bertie! Not a tremor somewhere?’


Bertie grinned reluctantly. ‘Of course there’s a little bit of me that’s glad it’s come. Action rather than inaction – what
man doesn’t prefer it? It’ll be a glorious thing to trounce the Bosch. They’ve been asking for it ever since South Africa.
And it’s a relief that the waiting’s over. I haven’t been able to settle to anything for weeks. But of course –’ the smile
faded a little ‘– I fought in South Africa and I know war isn’t really exciting and heroic. It has its moments, but mostly
it’s a dirty business. Still, it has to be done. We can’t let Germany trample over the whole of Europe.’ He met Ned’s eyes
seriously. ‘If we don’t drive them back – if they overrun France – it’ll be us next.’


There was a brief silence, and then Jessie said, ‘Sandridge? Where’s that?’

‘Near St Albans. I’m gazetted to the West Hertfordshires.’

‘That’s not your old regiment, is it?’

‘No. Experienced reservists are being sent where they’re needed, to fill spaces in the regiments that are going out first.
In the army you go where you’re sent. Obedience first and foremost.’


‘Don’t joke,’ Jessie said. ‘You won’t like being a new boy, with no old friends about you.’

Bertie shrugged. ‘They’re short of experienced line officers. My own regiment had enough. But I shall be in the first wave of the British Expeditionary Force, which is an honour.’

‘I suppose you’ll have to be on your way, then,’ Ned said, ‘if you have to report tonight. Where’s your kit?’

‘At Beaumont. I shall have to call there to collect it, and arrange one or two things, but at least it isn’t far then to Sandridge.
I telegraphed as soon as I had the news, for them to look it out and have my horses sent on.’


Jessie saw the little frown of concentration as he thought ahead, saw how it altered his face. His carriage was different,
too. Already he seemed a soldier rather than her cousin, a man of authority and purpose. It was this, rather than anything
he had said, that brought the reality of war home to her. It was going to happen. And he would be going away, to face danger
and perhaps death. ‘When will you go overseas?’ she asked, in a small voice.


‘I can’t say. But very soon, I imagine.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘I wanted to call in and say goodbye. And I’d like
to take my leave of Aunt Hen and the others at Morland Place. Are you going over there today?’


‘We were just talking about it. Have you transport?’

‘No, I took a taxi up from the hotel.’

‘We’ll drive you, then,’ said Ned.

Edward ‘Teddy’ Morland, as the younger son, had not expected ever to inherit Morland Place. He had his own property, commercial
and industrial, in York and Manchester, and had always thought of himself as a town bird. George was the countryman, a squire
born, interested only in the land, in hunting and shooting and farming.


But George, with the aid of an expensive wife, had run up debts and come close to ruin. The tragic loss of his only son had
sent his wife to an early grave, and George himself to drink. By the time he died, the Morland Place estate was in a bad way.
Most of the land had been sold off, and the house – a moated manor house with its foundations in the fifteenth century – was
dilapidated and part-damaged by fire.


At first Teddy had offered it as a home to Henrietta, with her husband Jerome Compton and their children, when Jerome had suffered bankruptcy. Later, when Teddy’s first wife had died,
he had moved in himself with his baby daughter and adopted son Ned, and the two families had co-existed happily ever since.
Over the years Teddy had used profits from his commercial ventures to restore the house and buy back the lands, and had found
that he was not a town bird after all, but as much of a squire as his brother. Perhaps there was something in the blood, he
thought. He hoped, anyway, that he would be a better caretaker of the Morland inheritance than George had proved.


Though he had a new wife, Alice, and a son by her, James William, he could never have too many people around him. Family was
his delight. Two of Henrietta’s sons, Jack and Frank, had moved away and gone to seek their fortunes in the south, but the
middle boy, Robert, worked for a bank in York, and when he had married Teddy had persuaded him and his wife Ethel to live
at Morland Place. They had added two children to the nursery. Teddy’s only regret when Ned married Jessie was that they could
not be persuaded out of moving to Clifton – though Jessie was at Morland Place most days, one way or another.


It was, of course, the servants’ day off at Morland Place as well, and they had all been eager to go into York and see what
fun might be going. But the family had remained in the dining parlour, lingering over breakfast coffee, and then migrated
only as far as the drawing room, to smoke and talk.


The talk was of war, of course. ‘The sooner the better,’ was Robbie’s view.

‘It can’t be much longer,’ Teddy said. ‘If they invade Belgium, that will be that.’

‘Why is that so important?’ Ethel asked, sugaring her coffee. ‘I don’t see why we should go to war for Belgium. I don’t know
anyone who has ever been there.’


‘My dear child,’ Teddy said patiently, ‘we’re all solemnly bound to protect Belgian neutrality – us, France and Germany. We
signed a treaty. If Germany breaks it, we shall have no alternative.’


‘We must protect gallant little Belgium, dear,’ Robbie said. It was a phrase he had seen in another newspaper that morning,
and thought rather appropriate. Tiny Belgium had bravely refused to give safe passage through her territory to mighty Germany’s
armies.


‘In any case, the real target is France, isn’t it?’ said Lennie Manning. He was a distant cousin from the American branch
of the family, who had been staying for the summer. ‘Germany wants to add France to its empire. That can’t be allowed.’


‘What will you do, Lennie, if war comes?’ asked Polly, Teddy’s daughter. At fourteen she was just the right age to have a
crush on her handsome cousin. He was eighteen, between school and university, and was expected back home at the beginning
of September to prepare to go up to Yale.


Henrietta looked across at him. ‘I suppose you’ll go home at once?’

‘Lord, no!’ Lennie said. ‘And miss all the fun? Not for anything! Oh – unless you want me to go, I mean. If I’m in the way
…?’


‘Not at all,’ Henrietta said. ‘We love to have you here.’

‘You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,’ Teddy added.

Lennie sighed with relief. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, and thought that if things got exciting he could always delay his return
by a week or two.


‘If I were you,’ Polly said, ‘I wouldn’t go back at all. If there’s a war, you could go and fight in it.’

Lennie met her eyes and his own widened as the idea took hold. What a glorious thing that would be! The chances of getting
into a scrap like this at home were just about zero. The good old USA hardly even had an army, and there was no-one over there
to fight anyway. ‘That’s quite a thought,’ he said. ‘I wonder if I could? But I don’t suppose Pa and Granny would approve.’


‘I should think not, indeed,’ said Henrietta, foreseeing family complications.

‘Though I don’t know so much about Granny,’ Lennie said, on second thoughts. ‘She paid for my trip over here, after all, and
she might think it was a lark. She was quite a wild thing when she was young, if you can believe her stories.’


‘I don’t know whether foreign nationals are allowed to join the British Army,’ Robbie said.

Polly wrinkled her nose. ‘Is that what you are? A foreign national? It doesn’t sound very nice. But you aren’t one, Rob,’
she went on. ‘You could join all right.’


‘I’m a married man with two children,’ Robbie said. ‘Anyway, they won’t want volunteers. It’s trained men they need. War is
a matter for professional soldiers these days, not amateurs. What with the standing army, the reserve and the Territorials,
they’ll have all the men they need.’


‘Unless the Germans invade us,’ Teddy said, ‘and then every man will have to stand-to and defend our homeland.’ He smacked
his fist into his palm. ‘By George! If they invade us, they’ll find us a tougher nut to crack than they think! What a glorious
fight that’ll be! If I were younger – if I were your age! But there’s plenty even an old fellow like me can do. If they should
come to Yorkshire, they won’t take Morland Place, not while there’s a drop of blood left in my veins!’


Polly was quite taken with this bellicosity. ‘It’s a fortified house, Daddy. We could pull up the drawbridge and hold out
here for weeks. There’s your sporting guns we could shoot them with. And if we collected stones I’m sure I could learn to
use a slingshot. You can kill a man easily with a slingshot if you hit the right place. I read it in a book. And we could
pour boiling oil down on them from the barbican – oh, couldn’t we? I’ve always wanted to pour boiling oil!’


‘They’re sure to have artillery,’ Lennie pointed out, though reluctant to spoil her dream.

‘The walls are very thick,’ Henrietta said. ‘The house was besieged in Cromwell’s time – was it? Or some time in history,
anyway, and they didn’t manage to knock it down.’


‘I wish I’d got on and had the portcullis mended,’ Teddy said, ‘when little Emma Weston was visiting. You remember, she wanted
to see it lowered. I was very sad to disappoint her when it wouldn’t move. I must speak to the estate carpenter about it first
thing tomorrow.’


In this atmosphere, Bertie’s arrival with his news acted as a shake to a bottle of champagne. Excitement erupted, and everyone crowded round and bombarded him with questions. Only
Henrietta had reservations. She had seen him off to war once already, wondering if he would come back. Now – very soon, it
seemed – it was all to do again. Since his mother, her younger sister, had died, she had taken the place of a mother to him.
She called him her ‘extra son’. She felt tender towards him; proud, of course, but afraid and tearful.


To her Bertie played down the danger, told her old soldiers like him were too canny to get into trouble, promised letters
and souvenirs, said it would all be over by Christmas. But the others had no doubt that this was a great and glorious moment. Teddy
was pleased and proud, Robbie eager with questions; Polly was wild with excitement, Lennie frankly envious.


There was to be a cold luncheon, and when the men were settled around the table, smoking, and talking about the political
and military situation, Henrietta caught Jessie’s eye and beckoned her outside. ‘I think we’d better bring luncheon forward,
dear, so that Bertie can sit down with us,’ she explained.


‘Shall I get Ethel to help?’

‘No, leave her be. She thinks she might be in the family way again, so she ought to rest as much as possible.’

Jessie followed her mother across the hall, hearing behind her the lift of words above the murmur of voices, like the word
balloons of cartoon artists: ‘… great war between Britain and Germany …’, ‘… almost ordained …’, ‘… that fellow Le Queux …’,
‘… glorious cause …’


‘Why are they so pleased about it?’ she asked, as they went through the green baize door to the kitchen passage. It flapped
behind them and closed the last three inches with a sigh that was as much a characteristic sound of the house as the ticking
of the long-case clock or the ringing of the house bell. ‘Only Bertie’s going, but you’d think, to hear them, they were all
going to fight the Kaiser, hand to hand.’


‘Men are always excited by war,’ said Henrietta. ‘I suppose that’s why we keep having to fight. To them it’s a glorious adventure – and of course it must be exciting to travel to a foreign country and see new places and have a change from the
everyday things they do all the time.’


‘I suppose so,’ said Jessie. ‘If I had to go and work in a bank every day like Robbie, or go to the mill like Ned …’

‘And besides,’ Henrietta went on, ‘one has to stand up for what is right. The Germans are very wicked people, and they have
to be stopped. What would you think of a man who wasn’t ready to fight to protect his country and his wife and children?’


The last words brought Ethel’s putative condition to Jessie’s mind, and she said out of the thought, ‘Does Robbie know?’

Fortunately Henrietta’s mind worked in a similar way, and she said, ‘Oh, yes. She told him first thing. He’s very pleased,
of course. We all are.’ The next question was inevitable. ‘I suppose there’s no news for you and Ned?’


Jessie turned her head away. ‘Don’t you think I’d have told you right away if there was – war or no war?’

‘Never mind,’ Henrietta said, with quick warmth. ‘It will happen in God’s good time.’

Jessie acknowledged the words with a nod, but said nothing. Ned so much wanted children, and it was the one shadow in his
life that they had been married going on three years with only a single miscarriage to show for it. Jessie’s mind was divided.
She wanted children, of course she did, but she dreaded it too. It would put an end to her present way of life. There would
be months of inaction to endure, when every particle of her cried out to be on horseback, while her business at the stables
went undone, or was badly done. And at the end of it, there would be the pain of childbirth (which she couldn’t bear to imagine)
and more months of inaction – and then, in all probability, the whole thing to go through again. A woman’s life was a miserable
thing, she thought, compared with a man’s. He had all the fun, could go anywhere and do as he liked, could have children and a business, all without suffering and without giving up anything. So really, she thought, it was not entirely bad that God’s good time was being delayed like this.


The wonderful cold collation that Henrietta deemed necessary for a servantless luncheon reflected the bounty of early August.
There was a roast turkey-poult, a poached salmon in its jellied liquor, crayfish in a curried sauce, and a galantine of duck.
There was a magnificent pork pie – a speciality of the cook, Mrs Stark, with its crisp, golden raised crust decorated with
her favourite pastry device, a wheatsheaf, and the fragrance of its filling rising through the hole in the lid. There was
a pea and potato salad, French beans with garlic and almonds, a great bowl of lettuce and young spinach mixed, plenty of crusty
bread and Home Farm butter. There was a dish of gooseberry fool scented with Henrietta’s own elderflower-water, and a wonderful
array of fruit – plums, of course, and greengages, figs, Bon Chrétien pears, and a dish of the little Alpine strawberries
that grew round the edge of the beds in the kitchen garden.


The feast, accompanied by some of Teddy’s best bottles brought up from the cellar by way of celebration, was eaten early,
and then, much too soon, Bertie stirred, put out the cigar Teddy had pressed on him, stood up and said he was afraid he must
go, to collect his bag from the hotel and catch his train.


‘I’ll drive you,’ Ned offered.

‘No, let me,’ Jessie said quickly. ‘You stay here and talk to Uncle Teddy. You haven’t seen him all week.’

‘She wants to show off her driving,’ Ned said to Bertie. ‘Will you feel safe?’

‘It won’t be the first time she’s driven me,’ Bertie said.

In the motor-car, there was silence at first. Jessie was very conscious of Bertie beside her: the side nearest him seemed
to feel him, as if he were a furnace radiating heat. She was remembering, against her will, the time she had driven him home
to the Red House and he had kissed her and told her he loved her. But he had already been married to Maud then – and now she
was married to Ned, and there was a double barrier between them. They had sworn to be nothing but cousins to each other after
that; but now, on the eve of his departure to war, Jessie’s feelings were stirred up and her thoughts in a tumble. It was
obvious that Bertie’s were too. He breathed rather fast, and there seemed a flush to his skin under the tan. Though he was too much a soldier to fidget, she
felt his restlessness like electricity on the air.


‘Just this little time, then,’ he said at last, ‘to say goodbye.’

‘Don’t say it like that,’ she begged.

‘Like what?’

‘As though it’s—’ She couldn’t finish.

‘Jessie,’ he began.

She stopped him with a flicker of a look, sideways, away from the road ahead just for a moment. ‘Bertie, you won’t get hurt.
Promise me.’


‘As I told your mother—’

‘Yes, I know, but that was just for her. Tell me the truth. You won’t get hurt?’

‘I’ll certainly try not to,’ he said. Already they were turning onto the main road. The distance from Morland Place to York
station was so damnably short. ‘I came through the South African war without a scratch, didn’t I?’


‘You were wounded,’ she said fiercely.


‘Well, but here I am, fit to fight another day. Jess, I want to ask you something.’

She gave him another glan