by Daisy Styles
‘I’ll be a rich woman!’ she gasped. ‘I’ll be able to buy my own house! I won’t have to move back in with my parents when the baby’s born.’ The tears came again as hitherto un-thought-of possibilities flooded into her head. Suddenly, Ruby’s face dropped. ‘We must tell them that I’m expecting Raf’s baby, that’s sure to give them something to live for,’ she said, as, overcome with emotion, she wiped tears from her eyes. ‘Maybe when this bloody rotten war is over I’ll be able to visit them with their grandchild.’
Maudie squeezed her trembling hand. ‘That would make them so happy,’ she whispered.
Bella was delighted to lend Ruby some money until the funds arrived from Poland, and the joy of going shopping with the excited mother-to-be made the girls smile.
‘I was going to get a second-hand pram,’ Ruby confessed, ‘but now I can splash out on a new Silver Cross. I ordered it in Holt this morning,’ she said with an excited laugh. ‘It’s almost bigger than me! Nothing but the best for my Raf’s child,’ she added soberly.
‘You’ll be able to wheel the baby round town like a little prince or princess,’ Ava chuckled.
‘I bought some wool, too. I thought I’d knit the baby a little layette,’ Ruby added.
‘We could help you with the knitting,’ said Ava. ‘Start a knitting circle. Between us, we could knit four baby’s layettes!’
‘Good idea,’ laughed Ruby. ‘We’ll knit for England!’
As the dark, gloomy autumn nights set in, the Walsingham knitting circle became a joy. After their work was done, Ava, Maudie, Bella and Ruby would sit around the kitchen table knitting, clicking their needles and winding wool as they drank cocoa and chatted. The baby’s tiny layette grew night by night: little cardigans and tiny woollen leggings, bootees and a shawl. Then Maudie announced she was going to knit socks for Kit’s pals at the airbase.
‘I said we’d knit for England,’ teased Ruby. ‘I never thought we’d go as far as kitting out the RAF!’
Shortly before Christmas, with the year’s second batch of trainees already receiving their postings in communication centres up and down the country, the girls sat knitting brightly coloured woollen squares that would eventually form a quilt for the baby. Uncomfortable with sitting too long, Ruby laid down her needles. Supporting her burgeoning tummy, she paced the room before announcing with a bright, triumphant smile, ‘I bought a house today!’
Thunderstruck, Ava, Bella and Maudie gaped at her in disbelief.
‘It’s a cottage, actually, Angel Cottage in Burnham Thorpe,’ she explained. ‘I heard about it in the estate office last week, so I walked over there to take a look and it was love at first sight. It’s right by the village green, opposite the Lord Nelson pub. Tiny, two up, two down, with a thatched roof and a pretty garden; it’ll be perfect for me and the baby.’
Ava, who’d shared a bedroom with Maudie for a couple of years now and seen her through all her good times, and bad times, too, burst into tears. ‘You’re leaving?’ she cried.
‘Yes, lovie, I’m leaving the hall,’ Ruby said incredulously. ‘Imagine that!’ she laughed. ‘Raf’s parents have given me the opportunity to set myself up as an independent woman.’
Bella laughed, too. ‘I never imagined you’d dash out and buy a cottage!’ she teased.
‘When are you planning on going?’ Ava asked, as she wiped away her tears.
‘As soon as Angel Cottage is ready,’ Ruby answered. ‘I’ll come into work when I can,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s only a ten-minute cycle ride from here.’
Maudie rolled her eyes in disapproval. ‘For God’s sake woman, you’re pregnant!’
‘So?’ Ruby giggled. ‘That’s not going to stop me from enjoying the pleasure of your company.’
‘What will we do without our little ray of sunshine?’ Ava asked.
‘Get another housemaid!’ Ruby joked.
Lighting up a cigarette, Ava apologized for her emotional outburst. ‘Sorry about the tears, it’s only ’cos I’ll miss moaning to you when we’re getting ready for bed!’
As Maudie resumed her knitting, she smiled thoughtfully. ‘You’re right to want your own home, Ruby. Nobody would want to bring up a baby below stairs!’
When Ruby took her friends to Angel Cottage, they could see why she’d fallen in love with it.
‘It’s charming!’ cried Bella, as she skipped excitedly from room to room. ‘We’ll help you decorate.’
‘I could make new curtains,’ Ava volunteered.
‘Everybody’s been so kind,’ Ruby said happily. ‘Peter said he’d build me new kitchen cupboards and install a toilet. I thought I was going to have to manage with an outdoor privy, but Peter took pity on me!’
True to their word, the girls helped Ruby to paint the walls; there wasn’t a wide variety of paint to be had in the local shops, but Ruby managed to track down a soft daffodil yellow for the baby’s room, and Ava made thick, warm, cream-coloured curtains to keep out the winter draughts. Maudie found a chest of drawers in Wells, which she painted a light green, before adding little smiling garden gnomes on each of the drawers, in which the baby’s clothes were lovingly laid, wrapped in tissue paper.
‘All we need now is the baby!’ Ruby giggled.
Bella found a stack of old bits and pieces for the house in the Walsingham attics, which the Brig drove over to Angel Cottage in Peter’s Land Rover. There was a small sofa, a table and a couple of rickety chairs, a little dresser, a rag rug and a collection of surplus kitchen equipment: cutlery, crockery, a chopping board, two pans and, most important of all – a brown teapot!
‘Time for a brew!’ cried Ruby, as she christened the pot and made tea for her first guests, who sat around the wood-burning stove in the cosy sitting room toasting bread over the flickering flames. As Ruby handed round mugs of hot, strong tea, she smiled contentedly, and said, ‘I can see that Baby and I are going to be as snug as two bugs in a rug here in Angel Cottage!’
33. A Quiet Christmas
There were no festive celebrations at Walsingham Hall that Christmas. Lord and Lady Walsingham stayed at home behind closed doors and Lady Diana went to London.
‘They’re too ashamed to show their faces to their snobby society friends,’ Bella said.
‘Fair-weather friends,’ Ava retorted. ‘Not there when they’re really needed.’
It was the quietest Christmas the girls had ever known at the hall; there were no suppers, dances, dinners or shoots. Maudie took the opportunity to go home to the East End, Ava took her Tom north to meet her family, and heavily pregnant Ruby cycled in from her cottage in Burnham Thorpe whenever she was able, which left Bella and the Brig mostly alone in the empty, echoing hall, with the Walsinghams upstairs.
‘I really don’t feel like putting up a Christmas tree in the hall. It feels like the wrong thing to do this year,’ Bella said to Ruby on one of her visits, as they prepared corn-beef hash and cabbage for lunch.
Ruby nodded. ‘I’m certainly not in the mood for big celebrations. Let’s just have a little tree below stairs to put our presents under.’
On Christmas morning, Ruby, who’d converted to the Catholic faith after Raf’s death, called in at the hall on her way home from Mass and, to her surprise, found Lady Walsingham in the kitchen with Bella.
‘Your Ladyship,’ Ruby said, as she did her customary servant’s curtsey.
‘Merry Christmas, Ruby,’ Lady Caroline said tentatively. ‘I’ve brought you a present,’ she added, handing her a small parcel wrapped in pretty paper and ribbons.
Ruby, who’d never received anything from the Walsinghams, apart from her wages, was shocked, but deeply touched. She carefully unwrapped the paper and gazed in wonder at the tiniest pair of lemon-coloured woollen bootees. Moved beyond words at the gift from someone so unexpected, Ruby cried, ‘Oh, ma’am, they’re lovely!’ Holding the bootees in the air for Bella to see, she laughed with pleasure. ‘Imagine my baby’s little feet snug and warm in these!’
‘They
were Annabelle’s,’ said Lady Caroline quietly.
Bella turned to her mother in stunned amazement. ‘You kept them all these years?’ she asked.
Her mother nodded and smiled sadly. ‘Along with your christening gown and a little wooden horse on wheels. You used to pull it around the garden for hours.’
Bella found herself strangely choked; she’d never sensed that her mother truly loved her, but the fact that she had chosen to treasure some of her possessions suggested that maybe she had been wrong. But before she could speak, her mother continued in her usual brisk tone. ‘Your father’s unwell. He’s staying in bed. He says he feels faint and dizzy.’ She took a deep breath. ‘So, if you’ll have me, I’d like to join you below stairs for Christmas dinner.’
Feeling intensely sorry for her mother, who had shed too much weight and turned grey with grief and shame, Bella smiled warmly and replied, ‘You’re very welcome, Mummy.’
‘Thank you, Annabelle,’ Lady Caroline answered, with tears in her eyes. ‘Given our ghastly circumstances, it would be too depressing for words to eat Christmas dinner alone.’
Peter, somehow, had managed to come up with something to grace the Christmas table: a squashed pheasant with one leg!
‘It’s roadkill,’ he chuckled. ‘But it’ll be all right once it’s plucked and stuffed.’
Only four sat down to dinner: Bella and the Brig, Ruby and her ladyship. It was an odd foursome, but in the cosy kitchen, pungent with the smell of the herbs and spices they’d managed to save, everybody enjoyed Bella’s Christmas feast: delicious rabbit pâté, heavily embellished with fresh thyme, pepper and a shot of Lord Walsingham’s best brandy; her famous rich gravy and sage-and-onion stuffing enhanced the flavour of Peter’s roadkill pheasant. And because there was no dried fruit this year, they had jelly and a thin custard instead of Christmas pud.
As the Brig served coffee in the library, Bella took a tray of food up to her father. Tiptoeing into his room, she whispered, ‘Daddy, Daddy, I’ve brought you some dinner.’
When there was no reply, Bella approached the silk-draped, high-canopied bed. which her father was slumped across.
‘Daddy …?’ she whispered fearfully.
Laying her hand on his, she gasped in shock. His face was twisted in a rigid expression of pain, and he was stone cold.
‘Oh God! Oh God!’ she screamed, as she dropped the tray and ran out of the room and down the back stairs.
Hearing her cry, the Brig intercepted Bella halfway down the stairs.
‘It’s Daddy, I think he’s dead!’ she cried, flinging herself into his arms.
Hiding his shock, the Brig hugged her briefly before saying, ‘Look after your mother. I’ll go and check your father.’
The doctor arrived in sleeting rain and, after examining Lord Walsingham, he declared that the cause of death was a massive stroke. After the body had been removed by the undertaker, Bella sat alone with her mother in the upstairs drawing room. Midwinter darkness now shrouded the hall and there was a sharp chill in the air. As Bella lit a fire in the grate of the pink marble fireplace, her mother talked quietly as she sipped the brandy her daughter had poured for her.
‘We must get word to Edward and Diana,’ she said.
‘I can tell Diana,’ Bella said, ‘but you must understand, Mummy, we have no means of contacting Edward.’ Seeing her mother wipe away a tear, she added gently, ‘We’ll announce Daddy’s death in the Telegraph. Maybe the news will filter through to him that way?’
‘I’ve lost my husband as well as my son.’ Her mother sobbed into her lace handkerchief.
Bella put a protective arm around Lady Caroline’s bony shoulders. ‘Mummy, I’ll always take care of you.’
Weeping, her mother leant against her for support. ‘Thank you, darling, I know you will.’
Bella smiled incredulously. She’d never thought the day would come when her mother actually needed her!
Ava and Maudie got back in time to help prepare for the funeral, which was the penultimate day of 1943, 30 December.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, lovie,’ Ava said, as she hugged Bella tightly.
‘Thanks, Ava. I can’t be a hypocrite. As you know, I’ve never got on with my father, but it was a huge shock seeing him lying dead in his bed. And whatever he’d done, he was my father. ‘
‘Your poor mother must be devastated,’ added Maudie, who looked stronger and happier after her stay with her doting parents.
Bella nodded grimly. ‘She is,’ she replied, ‘but we’re getting on a lot better these days,’ she added with a shy smile.
‘She appreciates you at last,’ Maudie chuckled.
‘Now, how can we help with the funeral?’ asked Ava.
‘Believe me, it won’t be a big bash ‒ my parents have hardly a friend in the world these days,’ Bella replied sadly. ‘Bloody Diana will come, and I’m sure some of the estate workers will want to pay their respects.
‘Don’t forget Timms,’ Ruby reminded her with a giggle. ‘She’s sure to come and gloat.’
The funeral party was larger than expected. Faithful estate workers turned up in their dusted-down black suits. At the last minute, Lady Diana screeched up in her expensive Daimler, and frowned in disapproval as she joined the small, sorrowful party making its way to the pretty little estate chapel.
‘God, aren’t any of Daddy’s friends and colleagues here?’ she asked, in an over-loud voice.
Bella groaned inwardly as she pointed out the blindingly obvious. ‘They disowned the family after Edward’s treachery was revealed. I actually think Daddy died as a result of it,’ she added sadly.
‘You’d think his little tart of a mistress would be here,’ Diana added caustically. ‘She couldn’t get enough of him and his money when he was alive.’
‘Shshh!’ Bella hissed. ‘Don’t let Mummy hear you.’
‘She knew all about it,’ Diana replied. ‘She’s put up with Daddy’s adultery for years.’
‘Shut up!’ Bella snapped. ‘She doesn’t need to be reminded of that today.’
After the simple service, Lord Walsingham’s body was buried in the arctic-cold family crypt, which echoed to the sound of the mourners’ clattering feet and whispered prayers. The shivering funeral party hurried back to the hall, where a welcome fire blazed in Lady Caroline’s drawing room, which quickly filled up with mourners. The Brig passed between the guests with bottles of sherry and whisky, while Tom and Ava handed out beef-paste and cress sandwiches and slices of coconut cake.
‘God! How the mighty have fallen,’ Lady Diana moaned, at the sight of the simple rationed food.
Lady Walsingham, deep in conversation with Timms, ignored her crass daughter, who got steadily more and more drunk until, eventually, she fell asleep on the sofa. The guests drifted away, and Lady Caroline helped Tom, the Brig and the girls to clear away the dirty plates and glasses. As she laid an empty tray down on the kitchen table, she made an astonishing announcement.
‘I’ve always felt guilty about doing nothing in terms of war work over the last three years. Now, I intend to make up for it. I want to do something substantial, something really useful – the problem is, I don’t know exactly what.’
Tom was the one to break the stunned silence. ‘You drive, don’t you, Your Ladyship?’
Lady Caroline nodded. ‘Of course ‒ why?’ she asked.
Handsome Tom grinned as he answered, ‘Wells Cottage Hospital are desperately in need of an ambulance driver!’
34. Diana’s Revenge
The day after her father’s funeral, Lady Diana, bleary-eyed and hungover, gazed out of her bedroom window, which gave a good view of the paddocks, which were presently covered in a sparkling frost. She scowled as she saw Ava, whose dark hair had grown back quickly since her accident, grooming Lucas. Diana’s fury grew as she watched her horse lovingly nuzzling Ava’s chest as Ava, laughing, ran a comb through his golden-chestnut mane and tail.
‘What the hell’s she up to?’ Diana
snarled. She got up, dressed and headed towards the Walsinghams’ small private dining room, where she found Lady Caroline clearing away the remains of her boiled-egg breakfast.
‘Hell’s teeth, Mother!’ she exploded. ‘We don’t have to clear away our own bloody breakfast, do we?’
‘It helps now that Ruby’s gone,’ her mother replied calmly.
Diana gazed at her mother in disbelief. ‘You sound like you’ve crossed over – joined the other side.’
Ignoring her daughter’s biting sarcasm, Lady Caroline said, ‘I’m just popping over to the cottage hospital in Wells.’
‘Why? Are you ill?’ Diana enquired.
Lady Caroline shook her head. ‘No,’ she retorted. ‘Their regular ambulance driver’s been called up. so I’m taking over his job.’
If Lady Caroline had said she was about to orbit the moon in a rocket. Diana could not have been more flabbergasted. ‘You’re what?’
‘Becoming an ambulance driver, darling,’ her mother replied briskly. ‘You should think about doing your bit, too, Diana. Your behaviour is shamefully unpatriotic,’ Lady Caroline said as she headed towards the door.
‘For God’s sake!’ Diana seethed. ‘Not you, too.’
Diana drank a cup of coffee, then, even more wound up, stormed over to the stable yard, where she found Peter mucking out.
‘Where’s my horse?’ she demanded.
‘Ava’s taken him for a ride on Holkham beach, miss,’ Peter replied.
‘And exactly who gave her permission to do that?’ Diana snapped.
‘Tom Benson, the vet. Lucas needed exercising, so he asked Ava. She’s an excellent rider,’ he added approvingly.
Diana glared at him. ‘So the bloody cook is exercising my horse!’ she yelled. ‘Outrageous!’
Busying himself with sweeping the yard, Peter turned his back on a seething Diana. ‘Good day to you, miss.’
Out on the wide sweep of Holkham beach, Ava was walking Lucas back through the lapping, shallow waves. As the sea hissed in and out, scraping pebbles and shells on the sandy beach, she thought about the year that was about to end. How could any of them have imagined, as they danced at the New Year ball, how events would unfold? That Raf and Lord Walsingham would be dead, that Kit would be shot down over Germany and that Lord Edward, outed as a spy, would flee to Germany. Tossing his head and snorting, Lucas interrupted her melancholy line of thought.
