Ellie

by Lesley Pearse

  *

  ‘Morning, sunshine!’

  Her father’s warm greeting made Bonny turn in her seat to smile at him. Although she often felt irritated by her mother, she had no such feelings about him.

  ‘Why aren’t you going to work?’ she asked innocently.

  ‘Because I want to be with my princess,’ he said, kissing her cheek.

  ‘Bristles!’ Bonny rubbed her cheek indignantly. He hadn’t washed or shaved yet, his braces over his vest. It wasn’t often she saw him in such a state – her mother always insisted on the proprieties of at least a shirt, and usually a tie too.

  He sat down at the kitchen table. Doris put the sausage in the pan, then turned to pour her husband’s tea. Once again, Bonny felt the tension between them.

  ‘Are you taking me to dancing this morning?’ she asked her father.

  Dancing classes had been halted for a while when war first broke out and some of the pupils were evacuated, but they’d been back to normal for some time because the expected air raids hadn’t come.

  ‘You won’t be going today,’ Arnold said, stirring his tea with more force than was necessary. His smile was strained, accentuating the deep lines on his face, and his blue eyes were washed out and weary. ‘We have something to tell you, princess.’

  As her father gently explained about Miss Wynter and her cottage in Sussex, unaware that his daughter had heard it all before, Bonny found herself taking in all the familiar details of the kitchen which for so long she’d taken for granted.

  The glossy cream walls, the wooden draining-board, scrubbed white by her mother. The copper in the corner, the white enamel bread bin on top, the copper stick, scrubbing board and wooden tongs hanging on hooks beside it. Her father’s shaving mug next to his mirror on the window sill, a Reckitt’s blue bag resting on a tin lid ready for the next wash. The kitchen cabinet had its flap down, half a loaf sitting on it. All at once these so-familiar things seemed very dear to her.

  ‘Are you listening?’

  Bonny blinked and looked back at her father. ‘Yes, Daddy,’ she said, shocked to see his eyes were glistening with tears. She had often wished her father was younger: she disliked his scraggy neck and his baldness and bad teeth embarrassed her. But she didn’t notice those failings now, remembering only that he always had time to talk and play with her. Everything he’d told her sounded like a fairy-tale. To live with a dancing teacher in a beautiful house in the country and have private lessons! She wanted to go, and yet …

  ‘But when will it be?’ she asked him.

  Arnold gazed at his daughter, mentally cursing the Germans for forcing such a dilemma upon him. He didn’t think he could stand one day without a kiss from those rosy soft lips. The house would be as silent as a tomb without Bonny’s chatter, and Doris would be unbearable with nothing to occupy her.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘We’ll take you there on the train.’

  Lydia Wynter paused at her sitting-room door as she put on her coat, casting her eyes around it to make sure everything was perfect.

  The scent from the apple logs on the fire was delightful, mingling with beeswax polish. A vase of early daffodils on the window sill and the sunshine playing on the polished wood floor brought spring into the room. Lydia could guess what little Bonny’s home was like: she’d driven through Dagenham often enough to get a picture of tiny, dull rooms behind spotless lace curtains. How would she react to living somewhere so different?

  Briar Bank was a house of great character, quite unlike any of the other cottages in the village, which were mainly thatched and tiny. Built into a bank, on street level it had three floors, at the back only two, surrounded by an artfully designed terraced garden. The arrangement and size of the rooms made the house perfect for teaching dancing in. The floor in the lowest room was specially sprung, its walls covered in mirrors, and even with ten or twelve heavy-footed girls practising, the rest of the house remained relatively peaceful. There was also a tiny changing-room and an entrance separate from her living quarters.

  A small open staircase led up to the hall. The large, sunny sitting-room took up one side of the house, overlooking the lawn; on the other side, a kitchen, dining-room and a study-cum-music room faced a shrubbery and rockery. Upstairs again were three bedrooms and a bathroom. Lydia’s simple yet rather expensive tastes made the house look delightfully bright. Honey-coloured polished wood floors, deep, soft settees and armchairs and plain white walls set off the dozens of beautiful water-colours by her late grandmother.

  Lydia Wynter was thirty-five and, although labelled as a ‘spinster’, which suggested she was to be pitied for her single state, she was in fact blissfully content with her life. She had nothing to gain by marriage, except perhaps insurance against loneliness in her old age. She had a private income, a lovely home, a car and still plenty of admirers, two of whom would marry her at the drop of a ballet shoe.

  Even the most cantankerous of old men referred to her as ‘a fine figure of a woman’. She was still as slim and shapely as she had been at eighteen, with glossy chestnut hair and a clear, glowing complexion. She stood out from the other women in the village not just because she was taller, slimmer and more expensively dressed, but because of a certain poise and radiance they lacked.

  She had never had any maternal feelings. Not once in her life had she ever wanted to nurse a baby or wheel a pram and the thought of pregnancy and childbirth made her feel quite sick. Teaching dancing and music was a different thing altogether. To Lydia, each pupil was like a sculptor’s lump of marble; it was her job to chisel away the rough parts, to bring out beauty and grace. Just now and again she produced what she considered a masterpiece, a child who could win a scholarship to a ballet school or music college. But mostly her work was to give children social skills. To play the piano for their family’s enjoyment, to give them confidence when they took part in shows, sometimes just to learn to do the waltz and the quickstep well enough to pass muster at a ball.

  Lydia certainly had no intention of becoming a foster mother when she went to stay with her sister Estelle at Christmas in Romford. Yet for some inexplicable reason the moment she saw Bonny Phillips a strange yearning sensation coursed through her body.

  Lydia was helping Estelle to get the girls into their costumes for the first number of the show at the church hall. It was chaos; around twenty girls, ranging from five to fourteen, were all chattering at once, the floor and the chairs were covered in tutus, satin dresses and tap and ballet shoes. Estelle was admonishing one great lump of a girl for eating jam sandwiches and daubing her already creased tunic with blackcurrant jam.

  Then Lydia heard a voice which rang above all the others.

  ‘Don’t worry if you forget the steps, Amy. Everyone will be looking at me anyway.’

  Lydia turned quickly, astonished at hearing such arrogance, but instead of cutting the girl down to size she could only stare.

  The girl was wearing nothing but white knickers and a vest, ringlets cascading over her shoulders like gold springs. She had bright blue eyes and a mouth with the most perfect Cupid’s bow Lydia had ever seen.

  Estelle pounced on the child and told her off in no uncertain manner, but Lydia noted how the girl merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders, so sure of herself she wasn’t shamed in any way.

  All through the entire evening’s performance, Lydia saw the girl was right. Everyone’s eyes were on her. It wasn’t so much that she was an exceptional dancer – there were others as good – but she had star quality. Her smile as she danced was real, flashing out at the audience, giving each one of them a high. In the tap sequences she alone had true style, and although she clearly lacked the dedication to become a ballerina, her grace was achingly beautiful.

  During Christmas Lydia learned everything her sister knew about the child. Elderly parents, a mother who was something of a social climber, an overindulgent father. Estelle expressed the view that Bonny Phillips was spoilt, a trouble-maker, a liar
and something of a bully. But she also said that maybe if someone took Bonny in hand she could go a long way.

  It was during a snowstorm in January that Lydia came up with the idea of offering Bonny a home for the duration of the war. She’d often felt guilty that she hadn’t volunteered to take an evacuee when war broke out and there was talk in the village that people like herself might have part of their house requisitioned as a billet, or that she might be conscripted to do war work. A child in the house might be the ideal way of avoiding these unpleasant things. She was certain from what she knew of the Phillipses that Estelle would present the idea to them in a way they’d find hard to refuse.

  It was not as easy as Lydia had expected. Letters passed between her and the Phillipses and on both visits to London Doris made sure Bonny wasn’t present, as if afraid her child would be snatched against her will. It was Mr Phillips who finally talked his wife round.

  ‘On your head be it,’ Lydia said to herself in the hall mirror as she tilted her velour hat at a rakish angle. ‘You’re really too set in your ways to think of being a foster mother. She’ll probably scratch the furniture and ruin your social life, and Mrs Phillips will hold you responsible if she so much as catches a cold.’

  ‘Hello, Miss Wynter.’ Jack Easton saw the dancing teacher standing on the platform at Amberley station and came out of the waiting-room, grinning engagingly. His hands were black with Brasso from cleaning the fender. ‘D’you want to wait in here? The fire’s lit.’

  ‘It’s hardly worth it,’ Lydia replied, looking at her watch. ‘Only a few minutes till the train gets in.’

  Lydia liked Jack despite his dreadful appearance: flamered hair which stood on end, freckles, a snub nose. He was thirteen and the eldest of three brothers, the only evacuees from last September who hadn’t left. They were billeted with Bert and Beryl Baker in the station house and although everyone had predicted Beryl was too old to start again with three such boisterous boys, it appeared she was growing fond of them, despite having had no success in smartening them up. Apart from Jack’s black hands, he had a rip down the side of his baggy grey shorts, scabby knees and insisted on wearing a khaki battle-dress jacket intended for a grown man, not a skinny, undersized boy.

  Lydia and Jack had struck up an odd kind of kinship because of her car. Jack was impressed that a woman could drive, let alone own a new Vauxhall 10. Although the village was some distance from the station, Jack went out of his way to come past Briar Bank as often as possible. Lydia often saw him running his hands appreciatively over the gleaming paintwork and peering in at the dashboard.

  ‘Are you meeting the girl?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Lydia was surprised that this piece of information had reached Jack’s ears already, but then news travelled fast in Amberley. ‘Her name’s Bonny Phillips. She’s almost eleven, the same age as your Michael, so I’d be grateful if you’d look out for her at school, Jack.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jack looked none too thrilled at this request. He hadn’t much time for girls and one with a name like Bonny had to be a drip. ‘Can I clean your car then?’

  Lydia smiled at his bargaining technique. Jack had the soul of a salesman, one favour for another, and she respected him for it. ‘To be honest, Jack, I think I’ll have to stop driving it soon. I just can’t get the petrol.’

  Jack’s face fell. One by one most of the few cars in the village had been put away in garages and barns for the duration of the war. Alec, who ran the little garage near the station, was turning his hand to bricklaying and odd jobs on farms because he had so few customers.

  ‘Maybe you could help Alec take the wheels off and put it to bed for me?’ Lydia suggested. She knew Jack wanted to be a mechanic: according to Alec he was always hanging around the garage, wanting to learn everything.

  Their conversation was halted by Bert Baker the station master coming out of the ticket office. As always his uniform was freshly pressed, buttons and shoes gleaming, cap on straight, his flag under his arm.

  He kept his station like himself, neat as a new pin. In summer he had tubs of geraniums on the platform, in winter a roaring fire in the waiting-room. Despite losing his porter and ticket collector to the army, with Jack’s help standards hadn’t dropped an inch.

  ‘Aft’noon. Miss Wynter,’ he said, his ruddy face breaking into a welcoming smile. He took his fob watch from his pocket and glanced down the line. Lydia couldn’t actually see the train, just a faint hint of smoke on the horizon. ‘Right on time. Me and the missus hopes you get on all right with the little girl.’

  ‘I might be calling on Mrs Baker for advice,’ Lydia said. Beryl Baker was the expert on children, having had five of her own, all of whom were now grown up and married. ‘I just hope Bonny settles here as well as Jack and his brothers.’

  Mr Baker ran an affectionate hand over Jack’s red mop and grinned at the boy. ‘They’re nothing but trouble,’ he said. ‘Always into mischief, running the missus ragged. But we wouldn’t be without ’em now.’

  ‘Cor! Is that ’er, miss?’ Jack whistled through his teeth as the little blonde girl stepped out of the train, helped by a man.

  ‘Yes, that’s Bonny,’ Lydia said, surprised that even a thirteen-year-old boy was affected by the girl’s appearance. ‘She’s pretty, isn’t she? Now I must go and greet them.’

  Jack went back to the waiting-room to finish his polishing, but he was watching the scene outside on the platform with keen interest.

  Only a handful of people had got off the train and he knew all of them by sight, if not by name. But he was only interested in watching the girl, the couple with her and Miss Wynter.

  The couple couldn’t be the girl’s parents. They looked too old. The woman was fat and dowdy in a dark brown coat and a woolly hat, especially next to Miss Wynter in her stylish camel coat. The man was tall but round-shouldered and worn-looking, the way Jack remembered men round Kennington. His grey overcoat was shabby and his trilby hat greasy. As he lifted it to Miss Wynter, Jack saw that he was nearly bald.

  Jack never usually gave girls a glance, but he couldn’t take his eyes off this one. She was between the man and the woman, holding their hands, looking up at Miss Wynter. In contrast to the couple she was very smartly dressed in a dark blue coat with a pale-blue scarf and pixy hood, golden ringlets spiralling down beneath it.

  It was her face that affected Jack most. Not just her prettiness, her big blue eyes and her pink and white skin, but the expression on it. She was openly appraising Miss Wynter and unless he was mistaken, sucking up to her for all she was worth.

  Jack couldn’t quite make out if he was repelled or attracted by the girl. But he was fascinated.

  ‘This part of Amberley is called Houghton Bridge,’ Lydia explained as she drove out of the station forecourt. Mr Phillips was sitting beside her, Mrs Phillips and Bonny in the back. She waved her right hand towards a high chalk cliff on her right with railway sidings beneath it. ‘That’s the chalk works. Now I’ll just do a slight detour first so you can see the school and river before we go home and have some tea.’

  She turned left under the railway bridge and before them was the River Arun.

  ‘Isn’t it pretty?’ Lydia said brightly, aware that Mr and Mrs Phillips were very tense. ‘At Easter the teahouse opens and people come here to take out boats.’

  Arnold leaned forward in his seat, and Bonny wriggled into the space between him and Lydia, looking out intently.

  It was impossible not to be moved by the scene in front of them: the long, old, grey stone bridge with its many low arches spanning the wide river; a flotilla of swans gently swept along on the current. Rowing boats upturned on the lush grass bank, recently painted for the season, weeping willows, a few oil cloth covered tables and gaily painted chairs – all added to the charm of the view.

  ‘I hope you won’t allow Bonny down here alone,’ Doris said with a catch in her voice. She was unable to see the beauty, only the danger.

  ‘Of course not, M
rs Phillips,’ Lydia said soothingly. ‘Now let me show you the schoolhouse.’

  She turned left, parallel to the railway line just visible up a bank shielded by trees. Past the Bridge Inn and on up a narrow lane.

  ‘Here we are.’ Lydia stopped so they could view the red brick building. ‘The boys go in that door, the girls in the other,’ she said pointing to the two porches either end of the school. They had sharply sloping tiled roofs, each with a gothic arch.

  Lydia had already explained in a letter that the school catered for all ages from five to fourteen, although brighter children often went on to grammar schools in Bognor or even Chichester at eleven. As neither Mr nor Mrs Phillips asked any questions now she turned the car round and headed back to Amberley village.

  Bonny’s mouth fell open in amazement as Miss Wynter drove past a fairy-tale castle. ‘Look!’ she squeaked, shaking her mother’s arm.

  Lydia looked round from the wheel and smiled. ‘That’s Amberley Castle, Bonny. I’m friendly with Mrs Garside who lives there so I expect we’ll be invited to tea soon. She’s got a couple of peacocks and they make such a noise.’

  Just seconds later, before Bonny had even time to draw breath, they were in the middle of a scene from a chocolate-box lid.

  This time Doris gasped too, despite her desire to remain aloof. Almost all the cottages were thatched, with neat gardens bright with daffodils and early blossom.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ Lydia sensed a slight relaxation in the two adults. ‘Briar Bank was my grandparents’ country cottage and when I was Bonny’s age I spent some idyllic holidays here. You’ll be something of a sensation, Bonny. Many of my neighbours have never even been to London.’

  All three Phillipses were silent as Miss Wynter stopped the car and got out. Arnold eyed up the whitewashed cottage, noted the shrubbery, the rockery and the old red brick path, and wished he’d managed to give Doris and Bonny a home like it. Doris saw the sparkling lattice windows, the scrubbed steps to the front door and wished there had been some blemish which she could have used as an excuse to take Bonny back home.