Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

  ‘Let me give you some advice. Finish your course, by all means–you can be a secretary all your life, but a mannequin is for a short time only. Alas a few years, then other girls will come and take your place. Why not enjoy the chance of a career here? It will take you out of Yorkshire and beyond. Why not give it a try?’

  The man in the pin-striped suit with razor-sharp creases and slicked-back hair smiled a warm smile. ‘Think about this offer. It’s genuine.’

  Why not? Maddy breezed out of the department store with both feet off the ground. Why ever not? This bit of news would give them all at the Brooklyn something to splash on the walls, and the Misses Meyers too. Bella would be envious, Ruth and Thelma appalled, Caro and Pinky nonplussed. Their hearts were stuck in muck and sheep; they wouldn’t care either way. But Madeleine Belfield, a mannequin?

  Skinny mallink, boss-eyed Maddy? Who’d ’a thowt it! She laughed all the way back to her digs.

  16

  ‘Come on, Charlie, pedal to the metal!’ yelled Greg as they tore across the forest track at breakneck speed.

  ‘You just concentrate on the map and stop giving me orders. This bit is going to be tricky in the slush and mist,’ said Charlie Afton, Greg’s co-driver.

  It was only the second time that Greg had navigated for his friend and he still hadn’t got the hang of it. They were making good time, but Charlie was cautious round the bends. Only he who dares would win this time trial. It was fun, but Greg knew he ought to be back supervising the guys on the building site. He didn’t trust them to keep at it without him beating the stick.

  He navvying days were almost over, but if need be, he would take off his jacket and muck in with the best of them. He’d bought some land, just a derelict plot outside Headingley, jumped in quick and made an offer, and now he’d got four semis going up, with inside bathrooms, proper kitchen-cum-diners, in the American style.

  All of them were sold just from the plans alone, and he was on a deadline and shouldn’t be out enjoying himself. But hell, it was good to be getting some fresh air.

  ‘Where next?’ Charlie said.

  For a second Greg had lost concentration. ‘Sorry. Just keep going ahead, I think.’

  ‘Keep your flaming mind on the bloody job, Byrne!’

  They were still arguing when the car skidded, crashed into the side of a tree and spun off the road into a ditch.

  ‘That’ll teach you to concentrate on the job. You can pay for the damage!’ Charlie was furious but unhurt.

  ‘You OK?’ Greg sighed, knowing he should’ve stayed in Leeds and got on with his building. He jumped out of the car and went for help.

  The motor rally was in full throttle, engines roaring through the forest in the distance when Maddy Belfield arrived late for the photo shoot in the park. It was one of those dark winter snowscapes, a grey light, monochrome, with the old house etched against a darkening sky as a backdrop.

  They wanted her to model the latest fur wraps and jackets, and she was frozen stiff standing in the muddy slush, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. There was a rush to get her hair coiled into a chignon. She must give her best Lady Muck look, standing by her sleek Daimler hired for the shoot.

  Nobody had warned her how unglamorous being a photographic model could be. Piers, the flamboyant photographer, was fussing like an old hen, clucking about getting the right light and shadow for the glossy shots needed by Marshfields store, who were promoting this winter advertisement in a Yorkshire magazine.

  As one of their favourite mannequins, they had demanded Maddy made herself available.

  Her toes were numb in the patent court shoes and her make-up had to be touched up to disguise a blue nose. The assistant had shoved a hot-water bottle up the hidden back of the coat just to warm her through.

  They’d borrowed the big Georgian house outside York where Bella’s family lived, so at least she had a bed for the night.

  Since leaving Yorkshire Ladies’, Maddy’s feet had scarcely touched the ground, much to Miss Meyer’s dismay.

  ‘We didn’t train you up for you to go off and be a window dresser’s dummy,’ sniffed Hilda as she handed over Maddy’s certificates. ‘You young gals…where will it end?’

  It was Miss Hermione who wished her good luck and slipped a lovely compact into her hands. ‘You enjoy yourself while you can,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t listen to her. We never got much of a chance after the Great War–no young men left for us. Hilda is bitter. I shall look out for you in the papers.’

  Now her weeks were filled with fittings, rehearsals, shows, parades. Sometimes she was sent into the big warehouses for their seasonal show for buyers. It was hard work, stripping off and on, keeping her hair smart, pouring into waspie waist cinchers and silhouette corsets and huge petticoats, trying not to snag her nylon stockings.

  Sometimes she did feel like a painted doll, especially when she looked in the mirror. In her eyes she was still plain Maddy with the gawky frame and hunched back, but now she could switch on and become ‘La Madeleine’ the minute she walked down the catwalk.

  If Plum was disappointed in her new career she said nothing. She was too busy with her own business. Her sidekick, Gloria, ignored all the fuss over this new career and never showed any interest when her picture appeared in a local magazine.

  Maddy preferred to think she was in demand because she turned up on time, didn’t complain when they stuck pins in her, was pleasant to buyers and tried to show off the clothes as best she could, even though some of the stuff was ridiculously froufrou and over the top with beading or lace. Tight waists were de rigueur now, full skirts à la Dior, which took yards of material, fussy hats and gloves that must be spotless, make-up that must not be smudged or look too theatrical. She suffered constant backache from standing in high heels, trying to look haughty and sophisticated, which gave her a fixed smile. This was the look for now.

  For all the glamour on the outside, there was still a burning part of her inside that remained distant and uncertain, as if all this was happening to someone else who deserved this success, not her.

  ‘Madeleine, hold that faraway look,’ someone shouted. When she was tired her slow eye turned slightly, but no one seemed to mind and it didn’t show on the full shot.

  Now, on this freezing slushy afternoon all she could think of was a hot bath and a mug of cocoa, of being wrapped in a thick silky eiderdown, but the roar of the engines kept whirring, disturbing her reverie and she turned.

  ‘Don’t move!’ yelled Piers. ‘Just one more.’

  How many times had she heard that line? ‘It’s only a motor rally in the forest. Take no notice. They’ll be gone soon…’

  But the engines seemed to be getting closer, and they heard a screech of brakes and the unmistakable crunch of metal against tree, and then silence.

  ‘What was that?’ Maddy shouted, turning as someone came running out of the woods in mud-splattered leathers and a helmet like a parachutist.

  ‘Where’s the nearest phone? There’s been an accident…’

  Then he stopped, staring at this strange set, backing off.

  ‘Oh, I could use you for contrast…just move over closer to Mads,’ said Piers. For a second the man stopped again, distracted by the scene, and then he ran on.

  ‘Go up there,’ Maddy yelled, ‘to Foxup Hall…We ought to go and help too.’

  ‘No need, love,’ shouted the mystery man in his dark leathers. ‘Just need a bit of a shove out of the way. Only a prang, no bones broken.’

  ‘The driver?’ Maddy asked, wondering just how bad it was.

  ‘A bit shook up. We don’t want to hold up the race, though. The marshals are seeing to it.’

  The man raced off up the drive and soon Bella and her father were racing down with the gardener.

  ‘Damn rally boys! I knew it was a mistake to let Alexander’s lot loose. This is all your doing, Bella. That bloody husband of yours…’

  ‘Oh, Daddy, it’s only a bit of fun, a practice run, and no
one’s hurt–well, not too bad.’ She turned to Maddy with a smile. ‘Darling, you look absolutely frozen. Go back up and thaw out, the light’s going. You will stay for the party tonight?’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘I’d better get on my way. I promised Aunt Plum I’d fetch her up for her birthday.’

  ‘That’s tomorrow. Saturday night is party night and you’re going nowhere. Come on, chop chop.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ yelled Piers. ‘We’re not finished yet! Mads, keep your pose.’

  ‘We’ll send you the medical bill if she catches pneumonia,’ Bella yelled back, unimpressed. ‘Slave driver…See you later, darling!’

  Maddy had stayed up at Foxup before. She hadn’t gone to Bella’s wedding, making a feeble excuse. She’d not been feeling sociable for months but she’d asked Plum to find some beautiful skin fleeces and they’d sent them as a gift. Bella had written back to ask her over for a weekend to meet Alexander and somehow they’d stayed in touch. The house was a huge pile of grey stones and inside was as cold as a Frigidaire, full of grand furniture, portraits and stag horns on shields. It was twice the size of Brooklyn Hall but the family always made her welcome.

  Bella’s brother, Morgan, was just out of the army and a bit of a handful. He and Alex spent every waking hour under the bonnet of some fast roadster. Bella and Alex tried to make them a foursome but Maddy found him a bit of a buffoon; anything on four legs or four wheels and he was off boring for England. Now they had made part of the forest a time-trial track for rally teams.

  It was funny how out of all the girls at Yorkshire Ladies’, the two friends who’d stuck were Bella and Pinky, the farmer’s wife. Thelma and Ruth had never forgiven her for running out of the Hebron Hall meeting: ‘You’ve sold your soul to a worldly occupation. How can you parade yourself in peacock’s finery when half the world is starving?’

  There was no easy answer to that but she was earning her own living, paying her way, and it kept her away from Sowerthwaite.

  She needed no excuse to stay away from Brooklyn Hall as reminders of her secret shame hit her whenever she walked out of the station and smelled that fresh damp Dales air.

  Gloria was still being cool and disinterested in her travels. Aunt Plum was full of how former evacuees had returned to see her. Big Bryan Partridge was now in the army and had roared up the avenue in a Jeep with his friends to show them where he’d spent the war.

  Walking up the Avenue of Tears to Brooklyn brought back such painful memories. She hated going back, but tomorrow she must brace herself and make a special effort, snow or not.

  Now she was too weary and chilled to protest when the housekeeper, Mrs Pilling, ran her a bath in the great roll-top tub and brought her a hot toddy of whisky, lemon and hot water on a silver tray.

  ‘Her ladyship’s orders,’ she smiled. ‘Get that down you. Dinner is at eight.’

  Luckily Maddy had her best woollen two-piece in her overnight bag, which was otherwise full of accessories for the shoot. A mannequin needed to have gloves, scarves, bits to dress up the clothes if the dresser’s stuff was boring or plain awful. At least she had her Shetland wool spencer, light as gossamer, to wear as an extra vest. She had a paisley cashmere shawl that had belonged to Grandma, which wrapped round like a blanket and kept the draughts from howling up her skirts. It was a night for Gran’s pearls too.

  Lady Foxup was wrapped in a white fox fur stole, Bella wore a fancy plaid jacket and Alex wore tweeds. The fire was lit but it usually made no impact on them sitting round the table. The best was to hope that one of the dogs took a fancy to her and warmed her feet under the table.

  ‘Will you take the horses out tomorrow after church?’ Bella’s mother turned to the girls.

  Maddy shook her head. ‘I must get back. It’s Aunt Plum’s birthday tomorrow, we’re having a special tea.’

  ‘I was meaning to ask you about your aunt Plum. Was she, by any chance, a Templeton? Prunella Templeton of Underby Hall?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maddy smiled, her soup spoon pausing in the air.

  ‘Good Lord! Prunes and Custard…We came out together. Tell her Totty Featherstone was asking after her. She married Sir Jasper, didn’t she?’

  ‘No…Gerald.’

  ‘The same,’ grinned Totty Foxup. ‘We used to call him Sir Jasper. N.S.I.T–not safe in taxis! How are they getting on?’

  ‘Fine. Uncle Gerald works down in London most of the time.’ Maddy hesitated, not wanting to give too much away.

  ‘Do tell her to ring me and we’ll have lunch. What a hoot, Prunes and Custard being your aunt.’

  The soup, made of indeterminable vegetables, was followed by roast lamb, then stewed fruit cobbler and cream: rib-sticking fare that warmed her through.

  ‘I’ve invited my rally cronies back for drinks, a bit of a party,’ Morgan said, smiling across the table at Maddy. ‘No bones broken this time but one of the chaps is a bit dazed. They’re down in the kitchen warming up. Pilling’s doing a grand job keeping them entertained and sorting out their boots. We’ll put the gramophone in the billiard room and they can have a bit of a singsong. Car’s a write-off, by the way,’ Morgan added. ‘An MG roadster, all souped up. Pity…some chaps from Leeds or Harrogate, new recruits. You girls must come and meet them all, chivvy them up.’

  Maddy groaned, wanting to go to bed to be ready for an early start in the morning, but she was their guest so must oblige.

  There was a bunch of guys hugging the fire in the billiard room, some faces she’d seen before, regular chums of Morgan’s, standing in steaming socks and leathers, sipping from crystal glasses and looking awkward.

  Morgan did his best to introduce them all. ‘That’s poor Charlie–father owns a string of garages, and his co-driver over there. This is their first time and they’re a bit brassed off, losing their car like that. Silly mistake, eh, lads?’ Morgan was off round the room, trying to make everyone at ease.

  Maddy recognised the tall young man in black leathers who’d shot out of the wood to raise the alarm. Without his helmet and gear he was handsome in a rugged Yorkshire sort of way, she thought, rough round the edges and looked you straight in the eye.

  He was staring round at the panelled walls, the trophies and swords. There was something about his stance, his eyes, something familiar. Was it a trick of the firelight on that shock of fair hair, those lean features? Something about him tapped into old memories but she just couldn’t place him. It was a pity he’d not given his name but better not to embarrass him by singling him out in front of the others.

  ‘Now I want you to meet my friend Madeleine,’ Bella suddenly announced above the clatter. ‘She’s the poor soul trying to sell fur coats out of our driveway when you lot interrupted the proceedings, Mr Afton. Rallying can be a dangerous game but that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’

  Maddy caught the driver eyeing her up with interest. She walked over in his direction. ‘Hello, I’m Madeleine,’ she smiled. She smelled the whisky fumes on his breath. He’d been knocking them back. ‘I hope your friend is recovering.’

  He laughed. ‘I knew a Madeleine once, long time back.’

  Charlie Afton rose to greet her. ‘You never told me about that one, Greg. Watch him, miss.’

  Maddy was searching his face with renewed interest. ‘Greg?…Not Gregory Byrne?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ he replied, as light bulbs of recognition went on in both their eyes. ‘Not…Maddy Belfield of Brooklyn Hall? You were the girl in the fur coat freezing down on the drive. Maddy? I don’t believe it. How’s everyone? Mrs Plum and Gloria and old Mr Batty…? Surely not? This is Maddy, one of the evacuees I was telling you about, Charlie. Maddy, is it really you?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I knew you were in Leeds. Gloria told me.’ They shook hands, laughing. Maddy drank him in with relish. ‘It’s incredible! After all these years…’

  ‘You are now speaking to Byrne Bespoke Builders Inc,’ Charlie interrupted. ‘He’ll give you his card given half a chance,’ he laugh
ed. ‘And he wrote off my MG this afternoon.’

  ‘Ah, that’s definitely the Greg I remember. Tell Charlie about the motor bike on battery field. I can’t believe it’s really you, and here of all places.’

  ‘It’s a bit grand for the likes of us,’ Greg said, Charlie nodded.

  ‘And me too,’ Maddy smiled. ‘But Bella’s my friend from college. We borrowed her grounds for the shots. I work for Marshfields store. As you saw, I was nearly frozen to the spot.’

  Greg stood before her, rough hewn, broader, but still the same straw hair parted neatly, and those electric-blue eyes flashed. Suddenly the rest of the room faded into a blur as the noise in the crowd silenced and she stood fixed to the spot. It was as if all the lights in the room were turned off and just the spotlight surrounded them. How strange on a freezing winter’s night to feel such a warm glow, such a sense of peace. It was Greg, her old friend, but when she looked at him it was not friendship she was feeling but that strange excitement she once felt for Dieter.

  Greg stared down at Maddy as she circled around the room, no longer a lanky schoolgirl with a turn in her eye but this slender, elegant vision in lavender. How strange that their paths had crossed once more. How strange to find her in here, in this barn of a mansion–but then why not? This was her world, after all–a private education, a finishing school, county friends, horses–a world away from his tough building sites. This was not where he’d expected to spend his Saturday night. To think, he’d nearly done a bunk to the nearest pub.

  Charlie’s rally cronies were a wealthy lot and thought nothing of racing all over the county over borrowed land, cadging hospitality where they could. Now they were waiting for the garage to bring out a towing truck to get the roadster back to dock. It looked a crumpled mess but there was just a chance the big end had not gone for a burton.

  When he was nervous Greg drank too much, gulped too fast on an empty stomach. He’d met Arabella once before. She was OK but he couldn’t stand the usual toffee-nosed ‘gals’ who’d never done a day’s work in their lives, poring over the sports cars in the garage, feigning interest, draping their long legs in and out of the seats, knowing that they looked good. They were all the same and made him nervous. Coming to Foxup Hall was a first, and he felt out of his depth with all this old money and grandeur, but they’d made them all welcome.