Death on the Ice by Robert Ryan

the horse into the driveway, past the severely clipped yew hedges and the lake where he had launched his leaky wooden ships only a few years before. There, beyond the lawns and the holly hedges, was the great house itself.
    Oates was pleased to see it, still draped in Virginia creeper and with its backdrop of proud elms and the avenue of two-hundred-year-old beeches to one side. The front lawn was as verdant as ever, but much of it was obscured by rows of tables that had been placed on it. The trestles were covered in gingham cloth and jugs of lemonade. There were more flags outside the entrance porch of the house, and at least thirty people who were stamping and whistling. Bryan, his excitable younger brother, was first to greet him, sprinting out of the doorway in a tangle of gangly limbs. ‘Laurie, welcome home. Maybe you can talk some sense into Mother now, about what she wants me to do with myself. Her—’
    ‘Now, now, Mr Bryan, don’t rush out all your problems,’ said Davies reprovingly. ‘It’s as nothing to what your brother has been through.’
    Standing demurely in the shadows were his sisters, Violet and Lillian, both looking radiant and healthy. Stanley, the butler, was behind them, with Billings, his footman, and Mrs Melton, the cook, to his left. Oates raised a hand to his sisters and they waved back, but he could tell from their expressions something wasn’t right. With Bryan hindering rather than helping, Davies guided him down and Oates positioned the crutches, telling Bryan not to make too much of a fuss about them, that they were mainly for show.
    His mother finally appeared, as graceful and regal as ever, but looking far brighter than he recalled. The sombre clothes she had adopted since her husband’s death were gone, replaced by sunny yellows and creams and she was sporting the first full grin he had seen for quite some time. As she stepped forward, however, her smile faded. A hand went to her mouth. Oates realised at once what he must look like to his sisters and mother. Thin, bedraggled, crippled; a shadow of the fit young man she had sent off to Ireland.
    ‘Hello, Mother,’ he said.
    ‘Davies, get these people out of here.’
    Davies hesitated, not sure he had heard the Mistress correctly.
    ‘There will be no party. Stanley,’ she hissed over her shoulder. ‘Make sure the children go off with some lemonade and biscuits.’ She cocked her head, as if just noticing a strange sound. ‘And tell the vicar to stop the bells.’ A hard, bitter edge appeared in her voice and she gripped his shoulder, wincing at the feel of bone. Her eyes glistened with moisture. ‘This is how Great Britain sends its heroes home, is it?’
    ‘Carrie, I’m fine—’
    She stepped towards him, and he caught the citrusy smell of her favourite perfume, so delicate compared to other women’s. Caroline Oates reached up and touched his face and said: ‘Don’t worry, Laurie, you’re home now. And safe.’
    Much as he had looked forward to seeing his mother, Oates felt the familiar crushing sensation in his chest as she ushered him inside, snapping off orders to the staff. If Oates was to do the full convalescence as advised by the army doctors, it was going to be a long six months.
    There was eventually a party, of course, several weeks after Lawrence Oates returned, once Caroline was certain her son could take the strain of frivolity and adulation. As Oates told his brother: ‘It’s more likely the strain of chicken broth and bad poetry will carry me off.’ His sisters’ regime had been unrelenting, with three a.m. feeds and copious quantities of Tennyson. Oates found he particularly hated The Charge of The Light Brigade— hardly the British army’s proudest moment—although he quite liked the restlessness and grit of Ulysses . At least by the fourth time of reading.
    The postponed celebration was finally held on a Saturday, and all the outlying villages emptied as people came to pay their respects.