CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
HUGO
Spring 1945
Weeks passed and there was still no letter from Sofia. Hugo told himself that the postal system in Italy was just not up and running yet. Maybe her letter had got lost in the mail. He’d wait until the official end of the war and then write again. Or better still, he’d go over and surprise her.
But then he had a visit from the family solicitor, Mr. Barton.
“I’m sorry to meet in such distressing circumstances,” he said. “I understand you will not contest the divorce your wife requests?”
“I will not,” Hugo said.
“Then that matter can be taken care of simply. But your father’s death has created the serious matter of death duties. I am afraid they are quite considerable based on the size and value of the estate.”
“What do you mean when you say ‘quite considerable’?” Hugo asked.
“Almost a million pounds.”
“A million pounds?” he demanded. “Where am I going to get that sort of money?”
“If you can’t raise it I’m afraid the estate will have to be sold.”
“But that is monstrous,” he snapped. “Unfair.”
“It’s the way the law works I’m afraid.”
“Could some of the land be sold off for building?”
“Possibly. Although I doubt it would bring in enough.”
“I’m going to make it work somehow,” Hugo said. “I’m not selling off a home that has been in our family for nearly four hundred years. I’ll see if I can get a loan to have houses built on the far field of the estate. People will need new homes after the war.”
But gradually he had to face reality. No bank was willing or able to lend him money to build houses, and no one wanted to buy part of the land so far from a train station. The regiment withdrew from Langley Hall, leaving damage throughout the house and estate. Hugo walked with Elsie Williams, the housekeeper, through the newly abandoned rooms. All around him was decay and destruction. Men had taken potshots at statues and ripped the wallpaper. They had even used dressing rooms as urinals—the floors were stained and rotting. The roof had leaked and allowed damp into upstairs ceilings. The main boiler had ceased to function. Good furniture had been piled willy-nilly into small bedrooms where the woodworm had found it.
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” he asked Elsie.
For once she couldn’t give him a cheerful answer. She looked as if she was fighting back tears herself. Instinctively he put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him.
Later, the letter to Sofia was returned unopened—“Not known at this address. Return to sender” stamped on the envelope. He told himself that she had probably got news that her husband was alive and had gone to be with him. A happy ending for her. He tried to believe it. He wanted to go back to San Salvatore to find out for himself. It didn’t take him long to find out how impossible that would be. The war had officially ended in Europe with the German surrender on May 7, but Europe was in turmoil and no civilian travel was allowed. Hugo had been invalided out of service and thus was now a civilian. He appealed to old RAF friends to see if they could find out any more, but none of them was stationed anywhere near San Salvatore. Finally, he wrote to the mayor, and this time he received a short answer:
Signora Bartoli is no longer in this village. She was seen driving away with a German officer and since then nothing has been heard of her.
It was the final straw. He returned to his solicitor.
“Very well,” he said. “Put the house up for sale.”
Later that summer, Hugo stood outside Langley Hall looking up at it as the last items of furniture were carried out. The servants had already left. He felt horribly alone, almost as if he had died. In truth he wished he had died that spring. Why had he been discovered among the German dead if only for all this heartache? It made no sense.
Elsie Williams came out of the servant’s door carrying a suitcase. He watched her coming toward him, her face not cheerful at this moment but stoic and resolute, her chin held high. He thought how sad it was that she’d be going off to work somewhere else and he wouldn’t see her again. During the summer he had come to rely on her sensible countrywoman’s judgment, her sunny disposition.
“I’m so sorry this had to happen, Sir Hugo,” she said as she caught up with him. “It’s just not fair after all you’ve been through.”
“You’re right, Elsie,” he replied. “It’s not fair. But then nothing has been fair for a long time, has it? All those chaps I flew with who went down in flames. All those poor sods sitting at dinner in their houses who were blasted to pieces by doodlebugs. And the poor, damned wretches in the concentration camps. None of them deserved to die.”
She nodded. “You’re right.” There was a long pause, then she said, “I hear you’re planning to stay on.”
He sighed. “The school has offered me accommodation at the lodge if I become the art master. Since I have no other options at the moment, it seemed like the easiest thing to do. At least until I find my feet again.” He looked down at the pitifully small suitcase she was carrying. “What about you, Elsie? Where will you go? There isn’t really a Mr. Williams, is there?”
She laughed. “Oh no, sir. It’s just the convention, isn’t it? You know that. Housekeepers and cooks are always called ‘Mrs.’ out of respect. And as for where I’ll go, I’m not sure. I expect I’ll find another situation, although one hears that many of the big houses are going to be closed up or pulled down. I expect I’ll find something.”
“You have no family, do you? I seem to remember that you were an orphan when you came to us.”
“That’s right, sir. I have no family. I don’t even know who my family was.”
Hugo looked at her and felt immense pity. Here she was, cast out into the world with no place to go and she was not complaining, just facing it stoically. He opened his mouth and was surprised to hear himself say, “You know, Elsie, you could always stay on here.”
She looked surprised, then shook her head. “Stay on here? Oh no, sir. They made it quite clear they will be hiring their own staff for the school.”
“I meant with me,” he said.
“With you? At the lodge?” She gave a nervous little laugh. “I don’t think there would be room, for one thing, and you don’t need a servant.”
He felt himself turning red. “I’m putting this badly. What I meant was that you and I have always got along well. You’re a kind and decent person. And recently I’ve come to value having you around. You’ve been a great comfort to me. And you have nowhere to go and I have nobody. If we got married it might solve things for both of us.”
“Married, sir?” She opened her eyes wide in astonishment, then shook her head. “That would never work, would it? I’m a good deal older than you. You can’t be more than, what, thirty-four?”
“Thirty-five,” he said.
“And I’m already forty-two, sir.”
“Not an unsurmountable gap, surely.”
“I don’t think you should make a hasty decision on something as important as this, not when you’ve had so much thrown at you and you’re on the rebound after Mrs. Langley left you. And I wouldn’t want you to make such an offer because you felt sorry for me, either.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you, Elsie,” he said. “Actually I envy you. You seem to be able to make the best of the bleakest of situations. I think you’re just what I need right now. Of course you might not find me much of a catch . . .”
She blushed then. “I’ve always thought you were very handsome, Mr. Hugo. In fact, when I was younger I used to keep a picture of you in my room.” She paused, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. “But then there’s the matter of class. You’re a baronet, an aristocrat. I’m a servant. Think of the talk.”
Hugo put a hand on her shoulder. “I have a feeling the war will have changed things. No more class distinction. And anyway, who cares if there is talk? Let them talk. I think we might be happy enough, don’t you?”
“I’ve always been very fond of you, Mr. Hugo,” she said. “And the chance to have my own home, not living under someone else’s roof—well, it’s very appealing, I must say. But I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret later.”
He smiled at her then, putting his finger under her chin. “No regrets, Elsie, I promise you. And for God’s sake put down that damned suitcase so I can give you a kiss.”