Hugo told Mr Shaw he would buy the house and there was nothing Libby could say that would persuade him otherwise. He also set up an account at Heal’s and Libby was to order anything she needed from bedroom sets to sideboards, sofas, a dining table.
‘Don’t worry about the cost,’ Hugo had said and because he’d made his own fortune, it meant a lot that he wanted to share it with Libby.
She travelled up to town to spend the day in Heal’s, taking notes and making lists. It was a rather daunting task for someone who hadn’t had a home to truly call her own for nearly twenty years and it was late afternoon by the time she got off the Tube at Hampstead. Libby was hungry – she was hungry all the time now – and although she was hot and sticky too, she was of a mind to go to the Flask for something hearty to eat instead of making do with the usual unpalatable vegetarian fare at Willoughby Square.
‘Miss Libby!’ There was an urgent voice in her ear, a hand tugging at her arm and Libby turned to see Hannah standing there. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages! You’re to come home immediately.’
All thoughts of pie and mash were banished. Libby had taken to carrying her diary with her, all her correspondence stuffed in its pages, as she didn’t trust Millicent not to have a good snoop through her things. So she was sure there was no incriminating evidence lying around but even so she felt her stomach clench in anticipation.
‘I said I’d be back by five,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m sure I don’t need an escort from the station. What ever is Millicent fussing about now? Are you all right, Hannah? You look very out of sorts.’
Hannah’s big round face was bright red. ‘You’re to come home right away,’ she said again, her words forbidding yet her voice was bubbling with glee as if she couldn’t quite believe that she’d been appointed the bearer of bad news. ‘There’s been a telegram from Mr Freddy’s editor. He’s been mortally wounded and Mrs Morton’s in hysterics.’
Libby ran all the way back to the house with Hannah at her heels. Hannah had left the front door wide open. Her mother had left the front door open too the day the telegram arrived from the War Office. Had run out into the middle of the street, where Libby and her sister had been playing, and dropped to her knees. Wailed. A keening. Such an awful sound. And all the other doors on the street had opened, women spilling out, wiping hands on aprons grubby from a day spent keeping house for men who might not come home.
There was no wailing when Libby stepped inside number 17. She paused with her hand to her heart, which was racing, then slid her hand down because the doctor had told her not to exert herself. But her stomach felt as solid as ever, though it roiled alarmingly as she pushed open the door of the parlour.
It was like a scene from a painting, something Dutch and gloomy. Millicent in her long black dress was arranged on the chaise longue, hands clasped together, the aunts and Mrs Carmichael sitting like three wise monkeys on the sofa opposite and little Miss Bettany perched on a chair, currant eyes filmy and swimming with tears.
For one awful moment Libby thought that Millicent might have died. She was lying there so still, her face an awful jaundiced yellow, then she whimpered. ‘Elizabeth, is that you, my dear?’
It had to be the very worst news if Millicent was calling her dear. Libby dropped to her knees by Millicent’s side. ‘I’m so sorry about Freddy,’ she said.
‘My poor Freddy, my darling boy.’ Millicent moaned and waved something at Libby. The telegram.
Libby smoothed it out and began to read, her brow knotted first in dread, then fury.
FREDDY SHOT MADRID STOP STABLE STOP ARRANGING PASSAGE TO LONDON STOP CANST MEET HIM IN PARIS QUERY ADVISE EARLIEST CONVENIENCE STOP FLEET SIX THREE FIVE NINE STOP
Libby rounded on Hannah who shrank back. ‘I’ve a good mind to box your ears,’ she snapped. ‘Mortally wounded means dead, you little ninny!’
‘Been shot though.’ Hannah was determined to stand her ground or at least stay in the parlour and watch the theatrics for as long as possible. ‘Don’t see how anyone could survive being shot. They never do in the pictures.’
Millicent gave another guttural whimper, the ladies twittered, Hannah leaned in closer and Libby felt sweat break out on her brow. ‘Stop talking nonsense and go and make some tea. Strong, sweet tea,’ she said firmly to Hannah, because tea would have to do when there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in the house.
‘My Freddy. Just like my dear Arthur,’ Millicent moaned and when Libby took her hand she clutched it tightly. ‘Both of them gone!’
‘Freddy’s not gone,’ Libby said gently. ‘He’s stable. If it were serious, if he were badly wounded, they wouldn’t be packing him off to Paris, would they?’
Of course they wouldn’t. Unless the situation in Spain was so dangerous that it wasn’t safe for Freddy. And hadn’t Libby read in the paper only a week or so ago that France had closed its border with Spain? Libby could feel one of her heads coming on; a deep throbbing between her eyes.
‘Elizabeth, you’ll go to Paris and fetch my darling boy back for me, won’t you?’ Millicent tried to sit up and for all her usual histrionics, her face was still that awful yellow colour and in the gap between words she was making a ghastly rasping sound. ‘Will you go and phone Freddy’s editor? Will you do it now?’
‘You really can’t be comfortable like that.’ Libby rose to her feet and rearranged the stiff embroidered cushions so that Millicent was propped up. ‘Now, if Freddy is well enough to get to Paris, then he can get back to London under his own steam,’ she added doubtfully. ‘It’s quite simple. A train to Calais, then the boat and another train from Dover to Victoria.’
Libby had done the journey, still weak and trembling from her weeks in a Paris hospital, so Freddy could do it too. It was a fitting sort of retribution.
‘But he’s been shot! The bullet may still be lodged inside him. He might be bleeding or infection might set in. He might die on the train. In a third-class carriage!’ Millicent’s voice was rising to a piercing pitch, her movements agitated. ‘Do you want him to die on his own on a filthy French train?’
‘I can’t go to Paris,’ Libby said and she cast her eyes about the room for a more suitable candidate. Someone who wasn’t expecting again and as the doctor had said, ‘lacking a certain youth’, so a jaunt to Paris was out of the question. ‘Maybe Potts could go. Or even Hannah?’
‘Hannah! Hannah? I hardly dare send Hannah to post a letter!’
‘Is she hysterical?’ Hannah was back with the tea and didn’t seem the least bit offended by her employer’s damning assessment of her capabilities. Her eyes gleamed. ‘Perhaps you should slap her, Miss Libby?’
‘Nobody’s slapping anybody. Perhaps someone from the newspaper could travel to Paris to fetch Freddy. Or Virena Edmonds,’ Libby added sourly, as Virena would enjoy nothing more than bossing and bullying Freddy and spoon-feeding him broth while being unspeakably rude to anyone foreign or from the lower orders. ‘Yes! Virena would be perfect.’
‘It has to be you, Elizabeth.’ Millicent seized Libby’s hand in a bruising grip. ‘Freddy is all I have. My only child; without him I have no one. Yes, you’ve had this silly argument but I know you love him and that he loves you. You’re the only one I trust to bring him safely back to me.’
‘But I haven’t been well, Millicent, you know I haven’t.’ Libby was starting to waver. The babies, the one she’d lost and the one she already loved, she’d do anything for either one of them. Would have laid down her life if the choice had been given to her, so she knew a little something about the maternal bonds. Still, Libby had trodden the boards long enough to smell ham at a hundred yards. Now that she’d taken some tea, Millicent was back to being sallow rather than yellow and liverish, and when she saw the assessing look that Libby was giving her, the older woman coughed delicately and placed her hand over her heart.
‘Perhaps Virena could go,’ Millicent agreed in a faint voice. ‘But she’s so busy with her committees that it might take her some time.’ The fingers resting on the bodice of her black bombazine twitched. ‘Oh! My heart is trembling so; it makes me feel quite giddy. I could be dead by the time Virena brings poor Freddy home.’
Libby knew when she was beaten. ‘Millicent, I’m quite sure that you’ll outlive us all. Certainly you’ll still be alive when I fetch Freddy home from Paris. I’m counting on it, otherwise it would be rather a wasted trip.’