Read Online The Wild Dark Flowers by Elizabeth Cooke - Free Book Online Page B

topiary rectangles, represented this unnatural, domineering strain. She wondered if it was in her. She wondered if she had any of the determination, the bloodlust and courage, of her distant ancestors. She knew that Louisa didn’t feel it, but she wondered if Harry did, up there in the sky dropping grenades on human beings below.
    She sighed to herself, irritated somewhat at the frustrating way her thoughts were going. She walked to the far wall, to the shade of a cherry tree. It was planted on the other side, but the blossoms were dropping all over this side and onto the path. She stood there for some time, at last absently picking the petals from her dress and hair.
    Out in the stable yard, the clock chimed eleven; soft brass notes falling with the petals.
    *   *   *
    W illiam was back at Rutherford before his wife and son, but he did not go out to see his daughters. Instead, he went up to his own bedroom and sat in the large chair looking out at the view of the valley.
    His conversation with Henry Atticker had been protracted and difficult; although Henry was an old friend, William had still not liked to admit the real reason for his visit.
    They talked for some time of their own estates, of whether a shoot could now be organiszd in August, given the lack of manpower, and of Rupert Kent and the worries that now faced that family.
    “You know of course what happened at Langemarck?” Atticker asked.
    William admitted that he knew no details.
    “Gas,” Atticker said. “The damned Boche used gas.”
    “In what way?”
    “Five thousand cylinders of chlorine, I’m told.” Atticker lit a cigar, blowing out the smoke with a great sigh.
    William sat aghast. “Surely that is against the Hague Convention.”
    Atticker began to laugh in a sour fashion. “The Hague Convention?” he repeated. “What cares the enemy for a convention? They launched their chemicals against the Algerians. The Canadians next to them thought that some sort of new gunpowder was being used: it came over in a yellow green color. Poor bloody French Colonials ran amok, choking.”
    “My God,” William murmured. “And this was what killed Rupert Kent?”
    “Most likely. Rupert and his men were brought in as reinforcements to the line. We had three thousand casualties.”
    William closed his eyes briefly. He was thinking of Hamilton and Elizabeth Kent in their grand Palladian mansion forty miles away. He hoped that Elizabeth especially would not dwell on the new horrors, but he almost worried more for Hamilton, the sort of man who was all charm and all smiles. Hamilton had a desperately soft nature, and was childlike in his enthusiasms. How he might be coping now was hard to imagine.
I must write to him at once
,
William thought.
    He looked up at his friend. “Harry has come home last night,” he said.
    “He has? Good show. How is he?”
    “Slightly wounded, but . . .” William again hesitated, before drawing out the letter from his breast pocket. “You know Charles Banbury, I believe?”
    “Charles? Yes. Distant cousin, in the Flying Corps now.”
    “He is Harry’s commanding officer.”
    “None finer.”
    William fingered the letter. “He has written to me about Harry.”
    “Has he? What for?”
    “He says that Harry is behaving strangely.”
    “Good Lord,” Atticker said. “Very odd. And what is your own impression of Harry?”
    William considered for a while before replying. “It’s hard to say.”
    “Stiff upper lip and all that?”
    “Yes.” William handed the letter over for the other man to read.
    It was, in its way, a very charming missive. Charles Banbury made very light of the dangers facing the air crews; he talked for a while of their being billeted in a place called Chateau de Rose—“
although any resemblance now either to a chateau or a rose is quite gone, I fear . . .
” He spoke of Harry’s courage, but also of his inability to sleep, and of his drinking.
“Naturally we are not averse to