by Daisy Styles
‘The problem is,’ said ever-candid Ava, ‘I should go home … but do I really want to leave Tom and miss out on seeing Ollie in the Christmas holidays?’
Maudie nodded. ‘I feel guilty about it but, actually, I agree with you, Ava, it would be wonderful to spend time here with Kit.’
‘If he’s here,’ Ruby interjected. ‘He might have a family to visit or …’ Her voice trailed away in embarrassment.
‘He might be on a bombing raid,’ Maudie starkly finished the sentence for her. ‘Which is all the more reason why I want to stay.’
‘We could do both,’ Ava continued. ‘I could spend Christmas and Boxing Day at home, then dash back here and spend the rest of my holiday with Tom and Ollie ‒ though I would be two whole days on a train,’ she added with a grimace.
‘That’s if they’re running,’ Ruby remarked.
‘The trains always run, they’re needed to move troops up and down the country,’ Bella pointed out.
Later, when all four girls were cleaning the trainees’ dining room, which, now empty, echoed to the sound of their cheery voices, Ava laid aside her mop to ask Bella and Ruby a question,
‘What will you two do over the break?’
‘I’ll be here all the time,’ Ruby replied. ‘Below stairs is like a second home for me and Raf.’
‘And without us breathing down your neck, you’ll be able to get up to all sorts of hanky-panky!’ Maudie teased.
‘For all I know, Raf might be on duty over Christmas, though I’m sure he’ll insist on us going to midnight Mass at Our Lady’s shrine on Christmas Eve,’ Ruby said fondly.
Bella’s eyes glowed as she imagined the time she’d spend with her beloved Brig. ‘We’ll go for lots of walks on Holkham beach and build up the fire in the library every evening. Bliss!’ she sighed.
The day before she left for the East End, Maudie cycled over to the airbase with Kit’s Christmas present.
‘It’s nothing much,’ she said, handing him the gift-wrapped present.
Kit smiled with pleasure as he unwrapped a copy of John Buchan’s The Thirty-nine Steps.
‘Thank you, darling,’ he exclaimed, kissing her. ‘I’ll take it to bed every night and think about you.’ Taking Maudie by the hand, he added with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Your present’s outside.’
Looking mystified, Maudie followed Kit on to the runway, where he positioned her in front of a bright yellow Tiger Moth.
‘Surely you’re not giving me a plane for Christmas!’ she giggled.
‘No, she belongs to me,’ Kit replied, leading her towards the aircraft. ‘And I’m taking you for a spin.’
Maudie gaped at him in disbelief. ‘But … I’ve never flown in a plane before!’
‘Then it’s about time you did!’ He laughed and bundled a warm jacket around her shoulders.
Maudie was horrified when Kit popped her in the front seat of the open-cockpit bi-plane. ‘It looks like it’s made of wood and wires!’ she exclaimed.
‘She goes like a bird,’ Kit said, sitting in the seat behind her. ‘Put these on,’ he instructed, giving her some earphones. ‘I’ve got a pair too,’ he added as he adjusted his own. ‘We’re connected, so now we can chat during the flight.’
Staring at the wide expanse of the engine bonnet looming up in front of her, Maudie began to panic. ‘Why am I in the front seat?’ she cried.
Kit burst out laughing at the sight of her petrified face. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. Believe it or not, I’m in the pilot’s seat! Ready?’
Shaking with nerves, Maudie adjusted her flying goggles. ‘Ready as I ever will be!’ she squeaked.
Kit gave Raf, who was standing on the runway, the thumbs-up, and Raf swung the propeller.
‘Chocks away!’ called Kit, as he released the throttle and the Tiger Moth started to taxi down the runway.
Maudie gasped as the plane bounced along, then gathered speed as they approached the turnip field that began where the runway ended. Thinking they’d go crashing headlong into the muddy field, she closed her eyes and prayed but, suddenly, she felt the Tiger Moth lift and, with graceful ease, she took to the wide, open skies. Opening her eyes Maudie laughed out loud with joy and wild exhilaration.
‘Hahhhhh! It’s so beautiful!’ she cried. Her fears fell away and she gazed in wonder at the world below.
Behind her, Kit smiled. ‘There’s nothing in the world like it!’
They flew out over the pine woods that fringed Holkham beach, then soared over the sweeping arc of dazzling white sand before gathering height and flying out to sea.
‘We can’t go too far out,’ Kit explained. ‘We don’t want to fly into enemy territory!’
Maudie was mesmerized by the dazzling light above her and the flat expanse of dark sea below her. ‘I feel like I’m in heaven!’ she giggled.
With the wind whipping around her, she peered over the side of the small plane as it lifted gently on the changing air currents. Excited as a child, she pointed down to the wild coastline they were passing over. ‘Burnham Overy Staithe and Brancaster,’ she called out to Kit.
They swooped over miles of marshland, then circled around Hunstanton before heading out over King’s Lynn. Maudie was disappointed when she realized that Kit was swinging inland and they were heading for home.
‘Shall we loop the loop?’ he asked, as they climbed into the sky.
‘No!’ she screamed.
Her stomach churned as, on a breathtaking nose-dive, they dropped height, before Kit took the Tiger Moth curling up and up again.
‘Wheeee!’ laughed Maudie, as they dipped and soared.
‘Feeling sick?’ he asked.
‘No! I love it,’ she replied.
Their journey back, in contrast to their coastal journey out, was idyllically green and pastoral. They flew over farms and churches, villages and grazing cattle, and followed criss-crossing lines of railway tracks and roads, where the few vehicles way below looked like toys in a child’s picture book. When they swooped over the Walsingham estate, Maudie could see the stable block and the formal gardens, the sweep of the long, winding drive and the high rooftops of the hall. She waved wildly as they passed overhead.
‘Hi, Ava, Ruby and Bella! Look at me – I’m flying!’
As the airbase loomed up and they skimmed over the turnip fields, Kit made his descent downwind. Closing down the throttle, he reduced speed and, with professional expertise, skilfully landed the plane back on the runway. They disconnected their earphones and he hopped out of his seat before helping Maudie out of hers. When she was once more safely on terra firma, Maudie, elated, rapturously flung her arms about Kit’s neck and kissed him long and hard on the mouth.
‘That was wonderful!’ she exclaimed.
Holding her close, Kit gazed into her green eyes, which sparkled more than ever with sheer exhilaration.
‘I’ve never know anything like it,’ Maudie babbled on. ‘The sky and the light, the sea and the shore, the wind … oh, it was so amazing,’ she finished, running out of breath.
‘I knew you’d love it,’ Kit said happily.
‘I was scared stiff to begin with,’ she admitted. ‘Especially when you plonked me in the front seat – I thought you were expecting me to fly!’
‘You should have seen your face.’ Kit chuckled as he recalled her terror.
‘But once we were up there, swooping and diving, I felt like I was an eagle soaring higher and higher into endless space.’ She sighed and slumped against him. ‘How am I ever going to go back to work when I’ve just nearly touched heaven?’ she murmured.
‘I’ll take you up whenever you want ‒ within reason, of course,’ he quickly added. ‘Wouldn’t want you on a bombing raid,’ he said, with a half-laugh. ‘You’d be too much of a distraction!’
Kit drove Maudie, who was chattering like an over-excited child, back to the hall, where she said a reluctant goodbye to him.
‘Thank you for an unforgettable afternoon,’ she whispered, as th
ey kissed goodbye.
‘It’s the first of many flights,’ he replied.
‘Promise?’
Kit kissed the line of freckles speckling the bridge of her nose. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ he replied.
24. New Year’s Eve
Walsingham Hall was a proper little love nest the Christmas of 1942. Raf’s spent his only day off in bed with his wife. In the room she usually shared with Ava, Ruby pushed the two single beds together so she and her husband could roll around in blissful abandon.
‘I might lose you in the night if these beds drift apart,’ Ruby joked, as she made up the iron-framed beds with crisp white sheets and newly starched pillowcases.
As she covered their improvised double bed with warm blankets and a blue satin eiderdown, Raf smiled adoringly at his young wife.
‘I hold you tight all night, my Rubee love,’ he promised.
Ruby smiled back at her husband, who she loved more with every passing day. She loved his pale, gentle eyes, his young, smiling face, the way he looked at her after they’d made love and his unconditional devotion to her. There wasn’t a single thing about Air Mechanic Rafal Boskow that she would change; he was simply the light of her life.
Bella and the Brig had more suitable sleeping arrangement for a couple who weren’t even engaged. Bella returned to the luxury of her own room upstairs, while the Brig slept in his room in the communications centre. Since Timms had taken herself off to some relations in Norwich, the two couples had the hall virtually to themselves.
‘God help the poor buggers in Norwich having Timms, the Wicked Witch of the West, for Christmas!’ an irrepressible Ruby joked.
Dodds wasn’t around either. He’d driven the Walsinghams up to Northumberland and remained there until it was time to drive them back.
As Christmas approached an icy wind blew in from the North Sea.
‘Straight from Stalingrad,’ Raf said sadly. ‘Poor Russkis they must freeze to death.’
The fire was permanently stoked high in the library, where the two couples gathered for chats and cups of tea.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ Bella laughed, lying flat out on one sofa, while Ruby lay prostrate on the one opposite.
‘I’m too relaxed to stand up and toast a crumpet!’ Ruby giggled, and nodded lethargically at the plateful they’d brought into the snug library, along with a pot of tea and some Walsingham estate honey. ‘We’d normally be dashing about like blue-arsed flies at this time ‒ supper done, washing-up to do and breakfast to prepare ‒ but here we are, in the lap of luxury, snug as bugs in a rug!’
‘I’m loving my holiday, but I do miss Ava and Maudie,’ Bella admitted. ‘I hope they’re enjoying being with their families. Mumia will be ecstatic to have her liebling home.’
‘I was thinking,’ said Ruby, as she eventually stretched out to pour some tea. ‘Shall we ask Kit and Tom and a few lonely lads from the airbase to Christmas dinner?’
Bella nodded, as she speared two crumpets with a toasting fork and set them close to the fire. ‘That’s a nice thought, though we haven’t got much food,’ she warned.
Ruby struggled to sit up so she could smear honey on the crumpet Bella dropped on to her plate.
‘I could ask around the estate to see if there are any pheasants going spare.’
‘Or we could do another mock-turkey with parsnip legs!’ Bella giggled.
‘It’ll be a treat for the lads and get them out of the airbase for a few hours,’ Ruby said happily. ‘And, let’s be honest, cooking for less than ten has got to be a piece of cake after what we’re used to!’
The snow was deep on Christmas morning, but Raf dug the jeep out of a drift and drove with Ruby to Our Lady of Walsingham’s shrine for Christmas Mass. Ruby had prepared the bread sauce and roast potatoes before she left, and Bella had strict instructions to baste the birds, a pheasant and a scrawny partridge, and keep an eye on the pudding, bubbling away on the back of the Aga. Low on dried fruit, they had been considering just a simple apple tart for afters but, luckily, Bella found a Christmas pudding wrapped in a white cloth at the back of the larder.
‘It’s one of the puddings I made last year,’ she told Ruby in delight. ‘I put one by, because they’re always better after a bit of ageing, but I completely forgot about it.’
‘Won’t it be crawling with maggots?’ Ruby asked, wrinkling her small nose.
‘No, they keep beautifully. The booze preserves them,’ Bella assured her.
They served a late lunch below stairs to Raf, Tom, the Brig, Kit and a couple of RAF officers, colleagues of Kit’s who were on duty over the Christmas break. Everybody brought a small gift: a bottle of red wine, some black-market bananas, a piece of Stilton, and Raf had procured Polish vodka for the seasonal toasts. Though their portions of poultry were meagre, their plates were piled high with crisp roasted potatoes, bread sauce, sprouts, parsnips and stuffing made from rabbit meat and sage and onion.
‘I couldn’t eat another thing!’ Kit announced when they had finished their meal, and passed around the cigarettes. ‘Thank you, Ruby and Bella, that was delicious.’
They took their coffee and the brandy that Bella had looted from the cellar into the library, where a log fire crackled in the large hearth.
‘This would be next to perfect if Ava was here,’ Tom said, as he settled back on one of the sofas.
‘And Maudie, too,’ Kit said with a sigh.
‘I’m sure they’re having a great time, being fussed over by their families,’ Ruby chuckled.
‘They’re due back the day after Boxing Day, so not long to wait,’ Bella added, as she poured brandy into crystal balloon glasses.
‘Then Ollie arrives, too,’ Tom said happily. ‘Both my favourite people home at the same time.’
The Brig passed around the glasses then raised his own. ‘Here’s to the finest cooks in Norfolk. Cheers!’
‘Cheers!’ voices chorused around the room.
Late that night, after the guests had departed in the falling snow and Raf and Ruby had wandered rather blearily off to bed, the phone shrilled out in the marble hallway.
‘Who on earth is phoning at this time of the night?’ Bella cried, as she dashed to answer it.
Ten minutes later she returned to the library with a face like thunder.
‘Who was it, sweetheart?’ the Brig enquired.
‘My mother,’ Bella replied with a grimace. ‘They’re coming back for New Year.’
‘So soon?’
Bella nodded and added, ‘They’ve decided on the spur of the moment to host a New Year’s Ball in Norfolk – the invitations have already gone out.’ Furious and disappointed, she bit back tears. ‘They’ve gone and done it again!’ she cried. ‘Disregarded everybody’s plans in favour of their own.’
The Brig pulled her down beside him, stroking her soft, blonde curls, and said, ‘There’s not much we can do about it, darling.’
Soothed by his calm words and gentle hands, Bella nodded. ‘You realize there’ll be no more time off?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘You’ll be swept up in elaborate preparations.’
‘More than that, darling, Maudie and Ava will be looking forward to spending the rest of their Christmas break with Kit and Tom and little Ollie.’
‘There’s no chance of that now,’ he retorted.
‘Oh, God!’ Bella wailed. ‘They’re going to be sooooo disappointed.’
Ruby hit the roof when she was informed of the Walsinghams’ change of plans.
‘They can’t!’ she exploded.
‘They can – and they have!’
‘But there’s no food!’ Ruby cried.
‘That’s exactly what I told my mother,’ Bella said. ‘She seems to think she can buy whatever she wants on the black market.’
Ruby shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’ll cost them hundreds of pounds,’ she exclaimed.
‘And a few years in prison, if they’re discovered buying black-market goods,�
�� the Brig added grimly.
Ruby gave a heavy sigh, then, characteristically, came up with a positive thought. ‘At least it’s only a ball,’ she laughed.
‘Only a ball!’ Bella repeated incredulously.
‘Well, it’s not as bad as twenty guests for Christmas dinner, like last year,’ Ruby reminded her.
‘But it will still be a lot of work, and … Ava and Maudie are in for a big shock.’
Ruby put a hand to her mouth. ‘We should let them know right away!’ she cried.
Bella shrugged and replied, ‘What’s the point? They’re due back tomorrow, anyway.’
Raf drove to Wells railway station to pick up Maudie at midday, then returned later to pick up Ava. Ruby and Bella had decided to tell the returning girls the bad news together.
‘I’d never have gone home in the first place if I’d known,’ Ava cried in disappointment.
‘Me neither,’ Maudie added. ‘I thought I’d have at least a few days with Kit. Now I’ll be lucky if I get a few hours.’
Typically, the girls buckled down to the job in hand. Numerous dust sheets had to be removed from the marble statuary positioned in cornices around the ballroom. As Ruby skipped up a ladder to remove one draped over a priceless biblical oil painting, she called out to Ava, who was standing below, gripping the ladder, ‘Hold on tight!’
‘Don’t worry, lovie, I won’t let you tumble to your doom like the poor buggers in the picture, drowning in the Red Sea!’ Ava chuckled.
The ballroom floor was swept, mopped and polished, evergreen garlands were looped around the room, sofas and chairs were pushed back against the wall and a dais was erected at the far end of the ballroom for Sydney Lipton and his Grosvenor House Band, who were travelling down from London to entertain the Walsinghams’ many guests. Dodds drove the family back in the Bentley two days before the event. Lady Diana followed in her smart Daimler, and Edward showed up with a couple of pals from Cambridge.
‘Can’t you tell they’re back!’ groaned Ruby, as she lit fires in various bedrooms on the first floor.
‘Yes!’ giggled Ava. ‘You can hear Lady Diana five miles before you see her ‒ she’s got a voice like a high-pitched foghorn.’
