London
1919
Harry leaned his head into the wind. London’s weather proved as appalling as his grandfather remembered. He had three hours before the train left again, and he had been too restless to sit in the station. He left his friend Mac on a bench sipping a mug of hot black coffee while he wandered the streets his ancestors once walked.
He found himself drawn to an elegant square in Mayfair, and a grand old mansion. He couldn’t explain what drew him; it was just a feeling really. He stood for a long while staring up and the magnificent old place, while traffic zoomed by behind him, wondering if it could possibly be a private residence. Many of the grand houses had been turned into hospitals or schools. Some even housed museums. He gave into impulse and knocked on the door.
A man in the formal clothing of an earlier time greeted him. How odd, he thought. He soon found it even odder. “Welcome, Lieutenant Wheatly. Her Grace is waiting for you,” the strange man said.
“Her Grace?” Harry parroted.
“Yes. If you would follow me,” the man said. What else could Harry do? He followed.
The man led him to an elegant sitting room where a tiny woman with silvery hair and sparking blue eyes greeted him and invited him to sit. A wave of her hand brought a liveried footman with a cart containing tea and cakes. Conversation seemed unnecessary while they served Harry. What are these people? Reenactors?
“Pardon me, er, Your Grace, but what era are you meant to represent?”
“Era Harry? You are visiting me in 1819, but I’m getting ahead of myself,” the woman said.
Harry clamped his jaw shut. 1819? She must be mad.
“Let me explain. I am the Duchess of Haverford. I’ve known your family for generations. Why, your great grandfather visited me earlier this month. Of course he is just a gangly adolescent at the moment, and having rather a difficult time of it at Harrow.”
“My great grandfather? Randolph Wheatly?” He had been the last of Harry’s line to live in London, the first to migrate to Canada. Randolph Wheatly died in 1893 when Harry was a toddler.
The duchess beamed at him as if he were a particularly bright school boy.
“The very one! You see, I know your family well, and so when I sensed your distress I had to reach out to you. It must be a very great distress indeed to come to me across… a century is it?” She gazed at him expectantly.
“A century. Surely you know it is 1919 and this…” he gestured around him with one hand, his expression troubled. “Confusing. What it is is confusing.”
The duchess chuckled. “I imagine it is. Let’s just say I knew you needed sympathy and a cup of tea and leave it at that. Don’t try to understand the rest.”
Harry felt his shoulders relax. It had been a long while since he had enjoyed such elegance. The chair and the tea were a far cry from army fare, and finer and more comfortable than even Rosemarie’s cottage—though he’d trade them in a heartbeat to be back with her.
“Suppose you tell me why you are in London and what troubles you,” the old woman said.
“I’m not staying here. I’m merely between trains,” he began. When she looked confused about “trains,” he wondered if he ought to explain the concept but decided not to. “I’m on my way to France to search for Rosemarie. We became separated in the last year of the war.”
“So much grief in time of war,” she murmured sympathetically. “I’m distraught to hear we’re at war with France again a hundred years from now. Does it never end?”
“Actually France was our ally. We fought the Germans for almost five years.”
“Which Germans?” she asked looking as puzzled as Harry felt. He recalled that the various German states unified late in the 1800s, long after this woman’s time.
He stared at her. Can this all be real? Surely not. “All of them, Your Grace,” he muttered.
She said something under her breath about never trusting Prussians, but she smiled up at him immediately. “Tell me about this Rosemarie. Why are you searching for her?”
“I need to reserve space on a repatriation ship to bring her to Canada. For that I need a marriage certificate. But I can’t marry her if I can’t find her. I’ve been given leave and I’m on my way back to Amiens to search for her and Marcel.”
“And who is Marcel?”
“Her son. Soon to be mine, I hope,” he replied.
“How wonderful! You are a fine young man, Harry Wheatly. Your great grandfather will be proud of you.”
“Now you best hurry. You won’t want to miss that… train, did you call it?”
He surged to his feet. “Yes train, and I most certainly don’t want to miss it. Thank you for the tea, Your Grace. It has been entertaining.”
“I’m glad to give you a respite. Now go find your Rosemarie, and God go with you.”
Moments later he stepped out of the mansion onto a busy street and rushed away dodging cars and rain puddles in the direction of St. Pancras Station.
Harry is the hero of Christmas Hope, a wartime story in four parts, each one ending on Christmas, 1916-19.
When the Great War is over, will their love be enough?
A wartime romance in four parts, each ending on Christmas, 1916-1919.
After two years at the mercy of the Canadian Expeditionary force and the German war machine, Harry ran out of metaphors for death, synonyms for brown, and images of darkness. When he encounters color among the floating islands of Amiens and life in the form a widow and her little son, hope ensnares him. Through three more long years of war and its aftermath, the hope she brings keeps Harry alive.
Rosemarie Legrand’s husband left her a tiny son, no money, and a savaged reputation when he died. She struggles to simply feed the boy and has little to offer a lonely soldier, but Harry’s devotion lifts her up. The war demands all her strength and resilience, will the hope of peace and the promise of Harry’s love keep her going?
Buy links:
Barnes & Noble * Kobo * Apple
Thanks so much for inviting Harry,Jude
Her Grace was pleased to meet young Will’s distant relative.