The Londoners

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Mr Harvey’s in the drawing-room, Miss . . . Mrs . . .’ indicating the room Kate had seen her coming out of earlier in the day, the maid tailed off in embarrassment.

  Kate felt sympathy for her. It couldn’t be easy knowing how to address the mother of your employer’s illegitimate great-grandchild.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and then, remembering her only previous formal interview with Joss Harvey, she raised her head high and set her chin, determined not to be bullied.

  The moment she stepped into the room shock vibrated through her. It was a large room, high-ceilinged with a deep bay of heavily curtained windows. Two deep sofas flanked a marble fireplace; other chairs, some winged, some button-backed, proliferated. There was a low, large, glass-topped, Chinese-lion-legged table between the two sofas and other occasional tables dotted the room. One had a chess-set on it. Another was thick with silver-framed photographs.

  In that moment, as the atmosphere of the room impinged on her senses, Kate knew that Tumblers was no casually rented house. It hadn’t been appropriated after she had made her decision to allow Matthew to be given a home far from bomb-torn London. The room she was now in was a family room that had taken on its character over a long period of time. It was a room she knew with utter certainty Toby had been familiar with. It was Joss Harvey’s country home and there had never been any question of his taking Matthew to ‘somewhere in the country, perhaps Somerset or Dorset’. Joss Harvey had known all along where he was going to bring Matthew and that was to the house his father and grandfather had lived in before him.

  She wanted to be able to think out the reasons why Joss Harvey should have thought such deviousness necessary, but the realization that Tumblers was no casually rented property was not the only cause of the shock-waves vibrating through her. Joss Harvey was standing full-square in front of the fireplace and standing nearby him, a glass of whisky in one hand, was Lance Merton.

  ‘Good. I’m glad you felt able to join us,’ Joss Harvey said with a show of such unexpected civility that she had to restrain herself from turning around to see if someone had entered the room behind her. ‘I believe you know Group Captain Merton. He used to come here with Toby in the old days and has visited regularly since Toby’s death What would you like to drink? A sherry? I have a Sercial. I bought it in Madeira in the spring of ’39. If I’d known how soon we were going to be at war I’d have bought an extra crate.’

  ‘I’ll have a whisky, please,’ Kate said, certain that he would disapprove, and uncaring.

  With great difficulty Joss Harvey restrained himself from saying she would have no such thing and instead crossed the room to a generously laden drinks table.

  ‘I didn’t know you would be here,’ Lance said as she moved towards the welcoming glow of the fire. ‘When Mr Harvey told me you were visiting I don’t know who was the most surprised, me at realizing your son had been evacuated here or Mr Harvey at realizing the two of us knew each other.’

  ‘And so the two of you enjoyed a jaunt to Brighton the other week, did you?’ Joss Harvey asked her rhetorically, crossing the room towards her and handing her a cut-glass tumbler containing a surprisingly generous measure of whisky. ‘When he was small, Toby used to enjoy trips to Brighton. Of course, most holidays he spent down here, in Somerset, and then we went for seaside day trips to places such as Minehead and Burnham-on-Sea.’

  As the conversation moved from the attractions of various English seaside resorts to the attractions of the more exotic holiday destinations Joss Harvey had been to, Kate felt quite unpleasantly disorientated. Joss Harvey being openly hostile to her she could cope with. His apparent friendliness she found decidedly sinister. What was he trying to do? Had he decided that, as threats had failed to persuade her to allow him to adopt Matthew, a friendlier approach might succeed? Or was his change in attitude due to the fact that he had discovered she was on friendly terms with Lance Merton? And if it was, why did the fact matter to him?

  It wasn’t until the next afternoon, as she was about to step into the chauffeured Bentley with Daisy, that the answer came.

  ‘Britain can be proud of young men like Group Captain Merton,’ Joss Harvey said, standing on the gravelled drive. ‘It’s thanks to them that Britain is still free and not enslaved under the Nazi jackboot. He went to the same public school as Toby, did you know that?’

  Kate, too anguished at having had to part from Matthew again to give much thought to Lance Merton, shook her head.

  ‘His father owns a large amount of land in West Somerset,’ Joss Harvey continued as Daisy scrambled onto the Bentley’s rear seat. ‘They’re a very old, very well-respected family.’

  Kate stepped into the car. Nothing he was telling her remotely surprised her. The hint of arrogance in Lance Merton’s tense personality was the kind of arrogance that stemmed from the power of having money and of having had the kind of education that money buys.

  Joss Harvey stood at the open car door, looking down at her. ‘I don’t know what it is about you, young woman, but you appear to have a profound effect on young men. It’s my belief Lance Merton is as bewitched by you as my grandson apparently was.’

  The chauffeur approached, about to close the car door, and Joss Harvey frowned him away. Taking hold of the car door’s handle himself he said, ‘If I’m right, our little dilemma will be very neatly solved.’

  He closed the door and through the open window Kate’s eyes held his, tension shooting through her. She had been right in thinking that her acquaintanceship with Lance Merton was somehow responsible for Joss Harvey’s change of attitude towards her. And now she was about to find out why.

  ‘Lance Merton would make an ideal stepfather for Matthew,’ Joss Harvey said as if it was the most reasonable remark in the world.

  Kate sucked in her breath. The chauffeur fired the engine into life and Joss Harvey’s eyes flicked across to Daisy. ‘You’d have to make alternative arrangements for her, of course,’ he said, raising his voice and stepping back from the car as it began to move away from him. ‘You can’t expect an eligible bachelor to saddle himself with a bombed-out slum child as well as with a young-stepson!’

  Kate grasped hold of the handle, about to hurl herself out of the car and give vent to her red-hot rage. It was too late. The chauffeur’s foot was pressed hard on the accelerator and she knew that he would refuse any demand that he bring the car to a halt. Defeated, knowing that asking the chauffeur to stop would be futile, she sank back against the leather upholstery, her fists clenched, the knuckles white.

  Chapter Nineteen

  How dare he make such an outrageous suggestion to her? And how dare he refer to Daisy as a slum child? She didn’t know which of his disgraceful remarks she was maddest about. Slum child, indeed! No wonder he’d waited until his chauffeur had had the Bentley in gear before he’d expressed his opinions. And his idea that Lance Merton would make an ideal stepfather for Matthew was preposterous. Lance Merton wasn’t remotely interested in Matthew. When he had visited her, he hadn’t even troubled to ask where Matthew was.

  She was still simmering with anger when their train, crowded with soldiers, eased out of Taunton station. Joss Harvey was trouble. She had known it the moment she had met him and she had certainly been right to be suspicious of his sudden show of civility towards her. It wasn’t genuine civility. If Lance hadn’t visited and betrayed how interested in her he was, Joss Harvey wouldn’t have conceived his crackbrained idea and she wouldn’t have been invited down to the drawing-room for a ‘few words’.

  The mere thought of Joss Harvey’s rudeness and deviousness made her feel mad enough to spit and she made an exasperated clicking noise with her tongue.

  One of the soldiers crammed into the carriage looked across at her with interest. She was a beauty all right. He’d never seen a girl with hair such a rich shade of barley-gold. Not naturally, at any rate. Though it was wound in a heavy coil in the nape of her neck he could tell that it was uncommonly long. There was a prim nea
tness about her olive-green two-piece and white blouse that was at odds with the flash of fire in her eyes. He grinned to himself. She was certainly mad as hell at something or someone. He wondered if the kiddie with her was hers. His eyes flicked to the fourth finger of her left hand. There was no wedding-ring there. Maybe if he played his cards right he’d be in with a chance!

  Kate was too immersed in her own thoughts to be aware of the young soldier’s interest in her. She didn’t like Matthew remaining in Joss Harvey’s care. The longer he was with Joss, the more reluctant Joss would be to return Matthew to her.

  The train had pulled into a station and as even more soldiers, cumbered by kit-bags, squeezed onto the train she saw the headline ‘500-POUND BOMB HITS LONDON SUBURBAN DANCE HALL!’ emblazoned across a newsstand. Her thoughts of perhaps bringing Matthew back to London vanished. London was too dangerous. However much she distrusted Joss Harvey, at least she knew that Matthew was safe and well cared for with him. And when the time came to bring Matthew home, she would do so. Joss Harvey wouldn’t be able to stop her. An entire army wouldn’t be able to stop her!

  By the time she and Daisy arrived home she’d also given a lot of thought to her relationship with Lance Merton. Cross as she was with him for having betrayed to Joss Harvey that he was romantically interested in her, she didn’t want to cease being on friendly terms with him. He had been Toby’s friend and for that reason, if for no other, she wanted to remain in contact with him. And there was no reason why she shouldn’t. Joss Harvey could think what he liked.

  Some of her anger began to ebb. If, in thinking that she might marry Lance Merton, Joss Harvey continued treating her with civility, then her visits to Tumblers would be a lot less stressful and she would have the added satisfaction of knowing she was making a monkey out of him. She felt a surge of wicked pleasure. She would enjoy making a monkey out of Joss Harvey. She would enjoy it enormously.

  ‘The East Enders copped a packet while you were away,’ Carrie said when she brought Rose to the house to play with Daisy. ‘There were so many enemy aircraft overhead the house walls were shaking. I took Rose to Miss Helliwell’s and sat it out with her and Esther and Faust in the Morrison. Or should that be under the Morrison? It’s just like a glorified table with protective wire around the sides but Miss Helliwell has deep faith in it.’

  ‘Well, as she can presumably read her own future as well as other people’s, she should know whether it’s safe or not,’ Kate said wryly. ‘Harriet tells me the elderly couple who lived next to Daniel and Hettie have moved out and gone to live with their daughter in Berkshire.’

  Carrie nodded, looking regretfully towards the kettle. She was in her bus conductress’s uniform and on her way to work and didn’t have time to stay for a cup of tea.

  ‘That’s right. The last couple of raids broke their nerve. A bombed-out East End woman has already moved into the house. She seems a good sort but she’s got shockingly ulcerated legs and moves at a snail’s pace. God only knows how she manages to reach a shelter when there’s a raid on.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Nellie Miller said breezily to Kate. ‘When the Jerries are overhead I just stay in bed and curse the buggers.’

  She was sitting on a dining-chair in her handkerchief-sized front garden enjoying the warmth of the May weather. ‘I can’t sit in a deck-chair,’ she said to Kate, shifting her heavy weight a little more comfortably on the hard wooden chair. ‘If I sit in a deck-chair it takes nine strong men to haul me out of it again!’

  A fly landed on one of her elephantine-like, grossly disfigured legs. She swatted it away. ‘Nasty creatures. Anything suppurating attracts ’em. My legs should be bandaged, by rights, but I can’t manage it meself. It takes me all my time to put me shoes on let alone bend over long enough to put bandages on.’

  ‘Then how do you bathe them?’ Kate asked, concerned.

  ‘With bloomin’ great difficulty,’ Nellie said darkly.

  Kate transferred her wicker shopping-basket from her right hand to her left hand. She’d never done any nursing but she knew that ulcerated legs should be bathed regularly and then kept scrupulously dry and clean.

  ‘I’ll do them for you, if you like. Shall I come down and do them later this afternoon, about four?’

  Nellie’s heavy jowls trembled emotionally. ‘Bless you, dear. Would you really? It’s not a favour I’ve ever liked to ask of anyone because they’re not a very nice sight. In fact, they’re a bloomin’ ’orrible sight and they often stink to ’igh ’eaven, but if you’re sure you don’t mind . . .’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Kate said as Hector, who had been waiting impatiently for her to continue with their walk down to Lewisham High Street, finally ran out of patience and began running in circles around her. ‘Is there anything you want from the market? Any fruit or veg?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to a couple of nice apples. And I could do with some potatoes bringing in. Thank Gawd there’s some things that aren’t bloomin’ rationed. What I wouldn’t give for a nice piece of fruit cake stuffed with sugar and butter and eggs and currants and raisins and candied-peel!’

  As May progressed, fears that Hitler was on the brink of launching an invasion force increased. On the tenth, London suffered the worst air raid of the war. In brilliant moonlight over five hundred German planes dropped hundreds of high-explosive bombs on the city and over 100,000 incendiary bombs. The Houses of Parliament were hit and the chamber of the House of Commons was reduced to rubble. The twelfth-century roof of Westminster Hall was set ablaze and the square tower of Westminster Abbey caved in. Big Ben was scarred, though the clock itself cheered Londoners by continuing to keep perfect time.

  ‘Dear old Big Ben,’ Esther Helliwell said as her sister and Carrie lifted her gently back into her wheelchair after a long, harrowing night in the Morrison shelter. ‘The Germans haven’t silenced him, have they? And they won’t silence our dear Mr Churchill either!’

  London wasn’t the only city to have its heart nearly torn out of it. Portsmouth, Coventry, Liverpool, Belfast, Southampton, Hull, Plymouth, were all pulverized, with fires raging for days. And then suddenly the night skies were empty. No sirens screamed into life. No ack-ack guns opened up.

  ‘It’s a bit bloody eerie, ain’t it?’ Albert Jennings said uneasily to Mr Nibbs. ‘What do you think it means, Nibbo? What do you think old Hitler’s up to now?’

  Nibbo didn’t know and neither did anyone else. Every night Londoners expected the Luftwaffe to return. Night after night they didn’t do so. Then, on 22 June, all was explained.

  ‘German forces have this morning invaded Russia,’ a BBC newscaster announced portentously. ‘Hitler’s armies are believed to be sweeping towards Moscow.’

  ‘What an extraordinary move for Hitler to have made,’ Harriet Godfrey said to Charlie Robson as they walked companionably across the Heath together. ‘Another couple of raids like the raids of May the tenth and I don’t believe Britain could have held out for much longer. Now, just at the moment when he should have seized his chance and attempted an invasion, he’s turned his armies and his attention towards Russia.’

  ‘Well, while he’s doin’ that, ’e’s leavin’ us alone,’ Charlie said reasonably. ‘Do you fancy a quick drink in The Princess of Wales, ’arriet? Me throat’s parched.’

  All through the summer a spirit of optimism reigned. Though the Germans were making substantial advances through Russian territory, they were meeting fierce and courageous resistance.

  ‘The Russkies are proving to be pretty tenacious fighters,’ Daniel Collins said to Albert as they walked down Magnolia Hill together, Albert in his well-worn Home Guard uniform and Daniel in his Auxiliary Fireman’s uniform. ‘With them as allies we might just win the day, Albert.’

  Harriet also thought that Britain and her Allies might win the day. ‘Or at least we will if the Germans fail to capture Moscow before the Russian winter sets in,’ she said to Kate. ‘Remember Napoleon? He was defeated by the Russian winter. Pray God Hitler i
s as well!’

  Kate listened as tensely as anyone else to the news broadcasts charting the fierce fighting taking place in Russia, but her real interest wasn’t in what was happening in Russia, but what was happening on the high seas of the Atlantic.

  On one of her kitchen cupboards she had pinned up a map cut from a newspaper. It showed the various convoy routes across the Atlantic and also the routes German battleships and U-boats could be expected to take and the air range of German aircraft. In imagination she tried to be with Leon aboard his battleship but it was an impossible task. His letters to her were constantly cheerful and totally uninformative of what his day-to-day life was like.

  Over the weeks and months she did glean some information however. She learned that a convoy could comprise of as many as sixty ships and that it was the slowest ship that set the pace. She also learned that escort ships such as Leon’s took the convoys out to a given point and then sent them on their way, returning as escort for incoming convoys. Other information was far more important to her. In every letter he told her that he missed her; that he couldn’t wait to be striding into Magnolia Square again, past the Jennings’ and the Lomaxes’ and Miss Helliwell’s, towards her front gate.

  Her visits to Somerset took on a regular rhythm. Sometimes Joss Harvey was there, sometimes he was not.