by Leah Fleming
‘Some air force chappie left these for Poppy and a message for you somewhere in the middle of them,’ Selwyn laughed. ‘Watch out, I think you made a conquest.’
‘Hardly. What did he look like?’ She was curious though. Which one was it and how had he had managed to produce such lovely flowers when there was a war on?
The pilot arrived hours later, parking a little Morris tourer in the driveway. ‘Pilot Officer Harcourt reporting for duty with a jalopy, only borrowed, I’m afraid,’ he said, standing in the doorway with a grin a mile wide. Selwyn ushered him inside. ‘How’s the poor dog?’
‘Limping, but she’ll live,’ Ella replied, glancing up at the stranger with surprise. He was as fair as she was dark, with a forelock of straw hair, and not what she was expecting behind the goggles. His cut-glass accent spoke of public school and privilege. Selwyn was clearly about to give him a grilling.
‘How on earth did you manage to be off course, young man?’
The pilot pushed his hands through his hair and smiled. ‘Bit of a long story sir. Spot of mist over the Trent Valley and a navigator who needs better glasses and a refresher course. Lucky for us Lichfield aerodrome was on the map, though not fully operational yet. A bit of a dressing down at HQ is on the cards.’
Anthony Harcourt gave Selwyn a potted history of his own training from air cadet through flying school into Bomber Command. Now he was in an operational training unit forty miles east, preparing a crew for further missions. He’d come from the Yorkshire Wolds but his accent didn’t. He kept glancing over to Ella and round the drawing room as if to find some common ground.
‘I know it’s an awful cheek but would you care to join me for dinner tonight? Might as well take in a bit of the local scenery while I’m here.’
‘I’ve been called many things but not scenery before,’ Ella laughed, wanting to cut this bumptious young man down to size. He must be younger than she was by a good few years.
‘No, what I meant was, I’ve booked a table at the George.’ Then he looked up at Selwyn. ‘I’ll make sure your daughter’s back by lights out.’
‘Miss Smith is not my daughter. She is quite capable of deciding when to turn in for the night. Don’t you think you should ask her name before you whisk her off in your chariot?’ Selwyn was trying and failing to keep a straight face.
‘Oh Lord, I’ve made a hash of things again, haven’t I, Miss Smith?’ He had the grace to blush.
‘Call me Ella,’ she smiled, holding out her hand. ‘I’d be delighted to join you,’ she found herself replying, much to her own surprise. ‘If only because it’s fish pie tonight and I loathe it. Give me five minutes to change from my work clothes.’ She pointed to her plastered smock.
‘Ella is an artist. She’s not normally so grubby but she’s working on something out in the studio. So what did you do before the war?’ Selwyn continued his interrogation.
Ella smiled and raced upstairs. What could she wear? There was her church suit and her skirt and blouse. Her best frock was too chilly. Nothing seemed good enough. She wished she was in uniform to match his. There must be something at the back of her wardrobe. Everything was pretty drab. But when she opened the door, she smelled the camphor balls. No amount of her best perfume could mask that odour. If only she’d had warning to find a suitable dress. Then she found a peasant blouse, long-sleeved, embroidered on the collar and cuffs, something she’d picked up in Italy on her travels. It would dress up fine with her pleated skirt and jacket.
She tossed her hair out of the bun, tied it with a scarf to soften the effect, pinched her cheeks and put on her precious lipstick with care. Why were her hands shaking? Why was she so keen to make a good impression? Why had the sight of this handsome man suddenly made her nervous?
The day had begun so normally. She’d done her chores, been to her studio and walked the dog. And then suddenly out of the sky this young man had descended at her feet. How strange that he should just turn up expecting her to drop everything to amuse him for the evening. Yet she was doing just that.
How unlike her to dress up as if this was the most important night of her life when all they were doing was passing time until he went back to his base and out of her life.
When she glided downstairs, they were nowhere to be found until she saw Selwyn escorting Anthony out of her studio in the back garden. The place was a tip and she didn’t like strangers visiting, but this was Selwyn up to his old tricks again, trying to ensure she was not to be toyed with by showing her escort her profession and its tools. No liberties should be taken with a woman who could wield a hammer and chisel with such deadly accuracy.
Anthony stared at her. ‘You look lovely, and that bust in your studio, it ought to be in a gallery.’
‘I’m still working on that. So what did you do before all this started?’
‘University Cambridge, Trinity College, I enlisted straightaway. You’d like to see the stuff we have at home. My father is a bit of a collector. Music’s more my thing . . . classical, jazz He looked at his wristwatch. ‘Better be off. I will take care of her, Mr Smith.’
‘I’m Selwyn Forester. As I said, Ella is no relation to me, unfortunately, but that doesn’t stop me vetting her guests,’ he laughed. ‘Have a good evening and don’t worry about me eating Mrs Allen’s fish pie, dear. Waste not want not. It can always be reheated for you tomorrow,’ he called with relish from the porch.
They were shown to a table in the corner of the old coaching hotel’s restaurant. The menu was restricted to two courses. Anthony ordered wine and offered her smokes from a gold cigarette case. ‘This was my grandfather’s, a bit of a talisman of mine.’
She declined; smoking held no appeal to her. What am I doing here? This was a big mistake. They’d nothing in common. He was still a boy, at least five years younger than she was, and yet she felt like a schoolgirl on her first day, nervous, edgy. What on earth were they going to talk about?
‘Tell me about yourself,’ she began, hoping to draw him out.
‘Not a lot to say about Anthony Giles Claremont Harcourt,’ he paused. ‘I know, quite a moniker, isn’t it? My parents live in an old pile of stones near Thirsk. I’m an only child and I’m adopted so I’m not sure who I am or where I came from.’ He looked up, expecting her to take pity but she shook her head in amazement.
‘How strange, so am I. Well, sort of,’ she replied, and for the first time she voiced aloud some of her own strange history, about May’s voyage on the Titanic and her friendship with Celeste, leaving out the fact that no one knew who she really was.
‘Why am I telling you all this?’ she gasped, looking into those bright grey-green eyes. Funny how she wanted to cry as those words burst out of her.
‘You know why,’ he smiled, reaching out his hand. ‘Because you have to. We’re two of a kind. Why of all the fields in England should I have landed on yours? Why were you walking the dog just at the moment my plane conked out? Why do we share such a similar history? I’ve never asked about my parents. I could find out but I won’t. Sybil and Tom are the only folks I know and I love them. I don’t need to know anything else, but your story is different. A Titanic survivor – I’ve met one or two older ones. The son of our neighbour went down on that ship, their only son and heir.’
‘You’re the first person outside my family I’ve ever told. I don’t understand,’ she said, and she felt her face flushing.
‘Look at me. Don’t you feel this was all meant to be?’
‘That’s cheap novelette stuff. I don’t believe in such silliness.’ This was getting too personal, too serious, and yet she didn’t want to pull her hand away from his.
Anthony was not fazed by her resistance. ‘If war teaches us anything it’s to seize the moment. I’ve seen too many good chaps buy it in training without ever really having a life. You grow up quickly in war. I take each day as it comes and today something extraordinary happened. My engine cut out on a routine flight. It could’ve been curtains for us but up pops a
pancake of a field and I managed to save the show. Then, you appear looking like something straight off the silver screen from the Gainsborough Picture Company. We were meant to meet. It’s in the stars. I’m Pisces, by the way, a water sign, or so they tell me.’
Somehow the tension between them eased as they lingered over dinner talking equally about her passions and his career. They talked of the restrictions of the war, their hopes for the future, their families. She’d never talked so openly with a man before. Anthony might only be twenty-three but there was in him a weary look that aged him. Beside him she felt younger, untested, innocent and ashamed to have thought him shallow and brash. It was his defence against all that he was preparing for.
‘Do you have to rush off tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘As long as we’re back by 1600 hours, why?’ he asked.
‘I’d like to show you our cathedral. The services have choral singing and you could join us for lunch. I promise it won’t be fish pie,’ she giggled. ‘You may never visit Lichfield again, after all.’
He stared back at her with a look that set her stomach in a spin. ‘I’ll be back. Don’t play with me, Ella. Now I’ve found you, I’ll not be so easy to shake off.’
They drove home under the full moonlit sky in silence. Ella sensed the tension in his hands and body as he kept glancing at her. She felt her heart thumping as if she were savouring every moment with him. The smell of leather upholstery and cigarette smoke mingled with her perfume and petrol fumes, a heady brew.
‘Look, a bomber’s moon,’ he sighed, glancing up. ‘Someone somewhere will be in trouble tonight.’ He kissed her cheek and instinctively she offered her lips to him and was not disappointed. ‘Good night, Anthony,’ she whispered, tearing herself away, not sure if this was all a dream.
‘Cinderella’s pumpkin must be returned now, I’m afraid,’ he shouted. ‘It’ll be Shanks’s pony tomorrow.’
‘Fine by me, we can walk across the fields into the city. Thanks for a lovely evening.’ She was still standing there long after the roar of his engine had faded away, suddenly bereft by his absence. This was madness, a crazy folie d’amour but she’d never felt so alive, so wonderful in the presence of a man before. She wouldn’t sleep. How could she waste such a feeling?
Shoving her nightdress into her dungarees and putting on a thick jumper, she took the hooded lantern down her path into her studio, drawing the blackout blinds. By the lamplight she began to sketch, capturing every feature of Anthony’s handsome face, the way one side was slightly lopsided, the curl of his forelock, those full lips which had brushed hers, still flushed with the memory of his kisses. What was happening? How could one day change a whole life? But it had, and hers was never going to be the same again.
104
Celeste couldn’t believe the transformation in Ella over the past weeks. It was as if she was walking with spring coils in her shoes. When she introduced her new beau one afternoon, Celeste saw that wondrous look of love in her eyes. He’d snatched a forty-eight-hour pass, roaring across the county on a borrowed motor bike to meet them, Ella clinging to the back, her dark hair stuffed into a black helmet.
Nothing could disguise the windswept glow of a couple in love. Ella’s face was alive with excitement. It was as if this young man had turned her life upside down. Until then her only concern was war work and the row over women joining the Home Guard units. It was thought unseemly for women to pick up guns to defend their homes. Ella was furious so she had volunteered for fire watching duties. This meant she was alone in the dark on some rooftop all night, watching for incendiary bombs falling on factories and so dopey in the morning from lack of sleep. Now everything fitted around her time with Anthony. She would dash across to his base if there was a chance of some leave, and have to say farewell on draughty platforms, not knowing if she would ever see him again. How could two lovers survive in such a mad world? She was living for his letters, his precious leave, dreading news that he might be posted abroad. Only today Celeste had received a letter from her that changed everything.
Anthony’s parents have welcomed me warmly. The house is overrun with evacuee children; he wasn’t joking when he said Thorpe Cross was a pile of stones. There’s a ruined abbey clinging to one side of the house. It is so cold at night I have to put on all my clothes at once before I dive onto the mattress.
Anthony is busy sawing logs with some of the bigger boys. They follow him round as if he was Biggles. I am giving some of the little ones rides on his old pony. The northern scenery is wonderful with stone walls and rolling hills in the distance, fields full of sheep and crops, and big skies but there’s a bitter wind from the northeast.
The journey on the train was a nightmare, crushed in the corridor with a crowd of noisy soldiers. When I got off at York, I thought I’d been deserted and two of my travellers waited just in case they might get lucky. What a relief to see Anthony ambling down the platform. He’d been waiting outside the First Class compartments, as if I can afford such luxury. We do come from different worlds and I know I’m older than he is, but when we meet it is as if none of that matters.
We met just six weeks ago, but I realize he’s someone I could spend the rest of my life getting to know; all my old prejudice against romance has evaporated. He took me to a dance at his base and waltzed me round, not stepping on my toes once. That’s a first. The band were playing such a lovely tune, ‘J’attendrais’. I will wait. It’s continually in my head. But we can’t wait. If only life were normal and things could go at a normal pace. What a pity it has taken a war to bring us together.
Yesterday we took a picnic to Brimham Rocks, scrambling up to sit and stare at the countryside, so green and peaceful as if nothing has changed. Anthony turned to me and said, ‘We are going to get married soon, aren’t we?’ as if he was saying, ‘Pass the sugar, darling.’ I turned to him and said, ‘Of course.’
Please don’t tell Selwyn yet. Anthony thinks he should ask him for my hand as if he were my father. I think he would be touched by such a gesture, don’t you? Please be happy for us. We want to live each moment of time we have together, as close as we can. The future is not ours to know.
I’m going to ask Selwyn if I can join the Home Guard. I don’t see why women can’t take up arms if the invader comes. Anthony has been giving me shooting practice and I hit the target twice. I just want to do more than teaching, important as that is. When I think how he faces danger every day, how can I not want to match his effort in some way?
When Ella returned from her next visit to Thirsk wearing an antique ruby ring mounted in gold, there was no holding her back. She was full of plans. What could Celeste say? These two hardly knew each other but who was she to argue with the look of excitement on their faces? Theirs was a hungry romance, formed of snatched weekends and they seized every moment to be together. She wished them well.
‘Anthony knows a little place we can go to in the country for our honeymoon. You are pleased for us, aren’t you?’ Ella’s eyes were wide with pleading.
Archie sucked on his pipe, eyeing them both, smiling. ‘When you know, you know. I recall bumping into a little chap on the deck of the Saxonia and seeing his mother and thinking, I’m going to marry her one day. It took a little longer than I thought, though.’ Everyone laughed a little too loudly. ‘Congratulations!’
Anthony was a charming young man and devilishly good-looking but Ella could match him in looks and Celeste thought how handsome their children would be. They were so sure of themselves, so caught up in that first flush of passion. She felt afraid as well as anxious. Love like that wouldn’t last unless it evolved and mellowed into a deep contented friendship. Archie was her companion, her solace at the end of the day. She badly wanted that for them too, but war was dangerous work and the heavy losses in Bomber Command were no secret.
Celeste felt a shiver of fear. ‘We’ll have to get going, if you want a wedding trousseau.’
‘I’ll get some extra coupons but we don’t need an
ything too fancy,’ said Ella, brushing aside the idea of a traditional wedding.
‘I’m not letting you go down the aisle splattered with plaster of Paris. Indulge me, let me help you make the day special. We’ll go into Birmingham together and see what we can find.’
‘It’ll be chilly and a new suit will fit the bill. A Christmas wedding would be so romantic, but it all depends on Anthony’s leave.’
‘She’s right. It’ll have to be a short notice affair, I’m afraid,’ he agreed. ‘I just hope my parents can get down. The trains are so unreliable for civilians these days.’
Somehow Celeste knew these two would make it all happen for themselves one way or another. It was hard to think that there was a war raging when they sat by the fire sipping tea and eating seed cake as if they hadn’t a care in the world. But Celeste knew things had not gone well for the British troops this year, not after Dunkirk. The skies had been won by the RAF but not swept clear of enemy planes enough to stop the terrible night raids on the cities. They had seen the orange firelight over Birmingham and Coventry. How could those two make such promises of hope at such a dangerous time? Their wedding must be a wonderful spark of brightness in a dark, dark world; a defiance against the odds.
Ella deserved true happiness. It’d been a long time coming.
If only Celeste knew the same was happening for Roddy. She’d written to him to let him know the news.
Ella is getting married to an airman. Hardly known the chap two minutes but people seem to be rushing headlong into marriage judging by the number of notices in The Times.
I think danger is a great aphrodisiac, it fans the flames of love. I do wish them well but I worry.
To be honest I’d always hoped you’d return and sweep her off her feet yourself. Mothers have their dreams. But you will find your own partner in life one day. At least there is no beating of war drums over there to hasten your nuptials.
