I’m not easy in my mind. Not liking to fail her.
Miss Vita gave me a shilling, and said as how I was a good lad and to say nothing more about it.
She threw the deadbolt on the cottage door as I left.
4 April 1941
I fetched Mr. Harold from Staplehurst this afternoon, him coming down as usual for the Saturday and Sunday. Very absent-minded he was, and Is the Lady still unwell? he asks, as soon as I’ve seen his traps into the cart. He’d had a letter from Miss Vita, seemingly, them being the sort to write to each other every day. I told him I hadn’t seen the Lady since Wednesday night when she’d had her fit, me being that busy with turning the kitchen garden, but I hoped as she was on the mend. He called me good lad as he stepped down from the box, but when I carried in his things I heard him talk low to Miss Vita. Quite out of her head, Miss Vita said, and it’s clearly a return of the old trouble; do you think we should write to Leonard?
I’ve written to Maynard, he says. That should settle her.
When they saw me they fell quiet and I hurried with the bags, not liking to put my nose where it wasn’t wanted.
I hope they have her book put by safe. Maybe it’s fretting after it that’s driven her out of her senses.
5 April 1941
I was up with the light this morning, knowing full well how Mr. Harold is when he’s down for his two days, wanting to dig in his bit of garden. He was before me, all the same, smoking his pipe on the steps of the Tower, which is sandbagged and barricaded by the Home Guard and even Miss Vita barred entry. Very natural Mr. Harold looked, a proper gentleman in his old tweed jacket and flannel bags, and the smoke curling about his head. He bid me good morning, and said something about the beds in the Lime Walk, and I made to move on, me hoping to thin the peas, when he said, You did well to come to Mrs. Nicolson the other night. If anything like that should happen again, be a good lad and do the same, won’t you? And I said as how I hoped the Lady was faring better. He said I am sure we shall have her on her feet in no time. And then — for the life of me I couldn’t say why, or what moved me to do it — I says, very bold like, I hope as her book is kept safe. She was that worried about it.
Mr. Harold takes his pipe out of his mouth and looks at me as though my face had gone blue. Quite safe, he says. Provided no one talks when they shouldn’t.
I hope I know how to keep a secret, I says, on my dignity; and how to value the trust of my betters. I pick up my barrow and turn for the kitchen garden when Mr. Harold says, I have set an angelic host around it, and lifts his pipe to the sky.
I gave no sign I knew what he meant. But it’s clear as daisies. He’s hid the book in Miss Vita’s tower, where nobody can come nigh it.
I felt better after that. The two of them worked in the garden, and at tea time the Lady took a stroll among the roses, which is just starting to leaf. There was colour in her cheeks and no wildness about her looks and I thought, No harm done that I can tell.
Until bedtime, when she came looking for me again.
JOCK, SHE WHISPERED, STANDING RIGHT OVER ME so I was scared half to death. Jock, you must help me.
What is it? I says, sitting up with the sheet to my neck.
I can’t stay here any longer. If I stay here I shall die.
Now, ma’am, I says, don’t you think you ought to speak with Miss Vita?
Please, Jock, she says. I’ve no one I can trust. Please help me.
I asked her to turn around while I pulled my clothes on and then I got her back down the stairs as fast as I could. It not being seemly for a lady of her quality to be up in a hayloft.
Ma’am, I says, the only way I can help you is if I call Miss Vita now. Or Mr. Harold. You must know how it is.
Call Miss Vita and you will kill me, she says.
I tried to speak, but no words come. There was something in her eyes — that look like a cornered animal — that made me listen. She was terrified of Miss Vita and Mr. Harold. I was sending her for help to the very ones she feared.
Lord, ma’am, I said. Whatever is amiss?
They’re good people, she said, but they don’t understand. I place them in danger the longer I stay here. I know things I shouldn’t. They’re like children, they don’t see the risk. They’re supremely unconscious. They write letters to men who put guns to people’s heads.
Wild talk, and none of it any sense. What danger could such an old lady know? But I saw as how she was that scared. It was like throwing her in gaol, to call for Miss Vita.
Keep her talking, I says to myself. Keep her talking a while, and maybe one of them will hear. Maybe they’ll come for her. And you won’t have to do nothing.
I need to get to London, she says, like a woman in a fever. As quick as may be. You could take me now it’s dark. In the pony trap. I’d go myself, only I don’t know how to harness the pony.
The missus can’t spare me for so long, I said. Nor the trap for so far a trip as London.
Then take me to the station, she says. I don’t mind the wait. There will be a train soon enough. Please, Jock.
And she holds out a guinea, and presses it in my palm.
Now, ma’am, I says, there’s no call for that.
Take it, she says. With my thanks.
So I harnessed the pony. He didn’t half like it at that hour of the night, neither. And we set out in the darkness, me driving slow as slow and hoping all the time that Mr. Harold would hear the sound of the trap wheels and come shouting after. But he didn’t. The South Cottage where they sleep is far enough from the cow barn. Only the Home Guard in the tower, maybe, saw us go; and it’s not his place to sound an alarm for anything but Germans.
A chill night, and no moon. Close to midnight, maybe. There won’t be a train until half six, I told her. She asked how long the drive to the station would be. Maybe an hour, I says. You’ll have a fair wait, in Staplehurst.
But as it happened, we never got so far.
Just past the hillock near Cranbrook Common there was a car. A big, black monster with no running lights on account of the blackout, driving fit to bust. The road’s tight as a glove and the hedges high and the beast was on us before we knew what we were about. I doubt the driver even saw us before he hit, his big black fender taking the side of the trap at a mad clip, the pony shying and plunging, and me without a prayer of saving us. The Lady screamed and clutched at my arm but it was no good, the whole trap was over, and the poor horse caught in the traces and screaming, too.
I was tossed in the hedge when the trap overturned, and took a knock on the head; lucky, I suppose, not to break my neck. But it took me a moment to get up and when I did, I saw the car had stopped. There were gentlemen in proper long coats and trilby hats and dark gloves, and they’d got out of the car to see what was amiss. But the pony was my job; lying on its side, legs kicking, and that awful screaming. I went to its head and felt in my pocket for my knife, to cut the traces — but I’d forgot the knife in my room back home. I tried to soothe him, thinking if he was calmer I’d be able to get the harness off him. One of the gentlemen came over to help. Sat on the horse’s head while I worked the straps. Unpleasant, he was — What kind of fool drives a gig at this hour of the night? he asks, impatient, like I’m the village yokel that knows no better.