by Nancy Revell
‘Oh, I couldn’t—’ Rosie started to object.
‘Rosie, ma chère,’ Lily stubbed her cigarette out, ‘George has more than enough money – and it’s just sat doing bugger all in the bank at the moment.’
‘Agree wholeheartedly!’ George said. ‘Lily’s right. It’s just sat there gathering dust – and very little interest – so you’d make me feel better knowing it’s actually being put to good use.’
Rosie looked at them both.
‘All right … But I’ll only accept your kind offer, George, if I pay interest – like I’d be doing if I borrowed it from a bank.’
‘Good God, girl, I’ll hear nothing of the sort!’ George went over to the decanter and sloshed a measure of brandy into his tumbler. ‘I’m actually insulted you’ve even suggested it!’
Rosie knew there would be no changing George’s mind. She sighed. ‘That’s very kind of you, George, and not at all “financially savvy”. Thank you.’
George raised his glass in the air.
‘So, that’s all agreed. Our Rosie is going to take her first step onto the property ladder!’
Lily raised her glass and winked across at Rosie.
‘Hear! Hear!’ she said.
Rosie looked at them both and felt a sudden rush of excitement that it was possible.
She was going to buy a flat!
She took Kate’s empty teacup and raised it in the air.
The smile on her face said it all.
After Rosie had left for the evening, along with most of the guests, Lily and George retired to bed.
‘Well, this has been an evening to remember, hasn’t it?’ George said, making himself comfy in the armchair next to the little open fire. ‘Our Rosie, a married woman … and now about to become a landlord. Or should I say, landlady.’
‘It certainly has been, my dear.’ Lily sat on the cushioned stool in front of her dressing table. ‘Buying the flat is a very wise move …’ Her voice trailed off as she removed her jewellery.
‘So, why do I sense there’s a “but” coming?’ George asked.
‘Well,’ Lily huffed, ‘I have to say I thought she might have told us first that she’d got married. It would appear every Tom, Dick and Harry got to know about this bleedin’ wedding before we did.’ Lily had been bursting at the seams to say those exact words since Rosie had mentioned that her squad of women welders had been the first to hear her news.
‘Even this Mrs Jenkins, the new neighbour,’ Lily shook her head with indignation, ‘even she knew before us! If Rosie had left it much longer, we’d have been reading about it in the births, marriages and deaths section of the bleedin’ local paper!’
George laughed. It always made him chuckle that Lily’s cockney twang came rushing back to the fore when she got irate or had one too many. And tonight, both had happened.
‘Lily, my dear, our Rosie could have come straight from the railway station as soon as she’d arrived back to tell us she’d got hitched, and you’d still not have been any happier about the situation.’
Lily puffed out air and reached for her packet of Gauloises. ‘I just don’t understand why they had to get married!’ She pulled a cigarette out and lit it, inhaling deeply. ‘I just hope to God he’s not swanned off to be a hero and left our Rosie with a little Peter or a little Rosie to bring up on her own.’
George looked at Lily. He had wondered himself if this was the case for the sudden nuptials.
‘I don’t think so. I saw Rosie’s reaction when you ever so subtly asked her if we might soon be converting one of the rooms into a nursery. She dismissed it out of hand straight away.’
George had thought she had done so a little too quickly. And there had been something else he had picked up on when Lily had been prodding Rosie for information. Was it sadness that he saw in her eyes? Or anger? Or both? He wasn’t sure. But what he was certain of was that they wouldn’t be knee-deep in nappies any time soon.
Lily blew out a plume of smoke. ‘Well, if she’s not in the family way, I really don’t understand why she married the bloke.’
George almost spluttered on his whisky. ‘Honestly, I think I’m about to get married to the most unromantic woman on this planet. I thought you were marrying me for love – or are you really just after my money?’
‘Both!’ Lily said, poker-faced.
‘Lily,’ George sighed, ‘has it never occurred to you that Rosie’s married “the bloke” because she loves him? Because he’s the only bloke she’s ever loved?’
‘Pah!’ Lily dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. She looked at George’s reflection in the bevelled mirror as she smothered her face with cream.
‘Rosie might have been lovelorn enough to marry for love, but that’s not the reason he asked her to be his wife. That much I do know!’ Lily tapped the end of her half-smoked Gauloise into the silver ashtray. ‘My reckoning is that it’s because he wants to make sure no one else gets a look-in while he’s away.’
‘I think, my dear, you might be right on one count and there is another reason for wanting Rosie to become his wife, but I don’t think it’s because he wants to fend off any other potential beaux. I think you’re too hard on Peter. There’s much more to that “bloke” than meets the eye.’
Lily turned around to look at George. ‘Please, don’t go all rose-tinted glasses on me. I can read you like a book, George Reginald Macalister. You think he’s married our Rosie so that she will get whatever’s his, should he die a hero’s death out on some godforsaken battlefield.’
George nodded. This was exactly what he believed. Although he knew that if Peter was killed, he would not be revered as a hero, nor would he breathe his last breath on some stretch of foreign land that was being openly fought over. If Peter did die for the greater good of his country, it would be behind enemy lines, and his death would probably not be a quick one. He was pretty sure that Peter had volunteered to become part of what was being nicknamed by those in the know as ‘Churchill’s Secret Army’.
George just hoped for Rosie’s sake that Peter’s French was a damn sight better than Lily’s, and that luck and God – if there was one – would be close by his side.
When Rosie climbed into bed it had gone midnight. She was tired and glad of it. If she could just keep herself as busy as possible – throw herself into work, both at Thompson’s and at Lily’s, and now with this new venture of being a landlady – it might just be possible to outrun the ache in her heart caused by her separation from Peter.
At least now, she thought, as she plumped her pillows and sat up in bed, everyone knew about Peter – her squad of women welders and, thank goodness, Lily. Rosie had expected a frostier reception to her news, but Lily had put on a good show, which made Rosie love her all the more. Just about everyone who needed to know had been told – she’d even taken the bull by the horns and gone to see Harold. He had been taken aback, but had seemed genuinely happy for her – and he seemed even happier that he now knew the mystery surrounding Rosie’s telegram.
‘Love and war,’ he’d declared, standing behind his desk and puffing on his cigar. ‘Let there be more love and less war, that’s what I say!’ He had then taken her hand in both of his, squeezed it, and told her, ‘I’ll make all the necessary name and status changes, Mrs Miller!’
There was only one other person to tell and that was her little sister, Charlotte. There had been a time not so long ago that Rosie could have predicted how her younger sister would have reacted – probably even the exact words she would have used – but not now. Over the past few months Charlotte had changed. She had gone from having an easy-going, happy temperament to being a rather moody and angry young girl, demanding that she leave her posh boarding school in Harrogate and come back to their home town. Lily had said it was simply down to her age, that, having just turned fourteen, she was ‘no longer a child, but not quite a woman’. Rosie’s intuition told her that it was more than that, but as she was not due to see Charlotte until the Easter break,
she resolved not to worry about it until then. At least she knew her little sister was safe and out of harm’s way there.
Rosie leant over to her bedside cabinet and reached into the top drawer, where she had put Peter’s letter. She smoothed it out and read it slowly, digesting every word.
Her eyes became heavy as she read it for the second time, and she fell into a deep sleep, still clutching her letter of love.
Chapter Thirteen
Wanborough Manor, near Guildford, Surrey
As Peter lay in his bed in the large, high-ceilinged room that was his new sleeping quarters, he knew by the cacophony of snoring around him that he was the only one still awake.
He and thirteen other ‘students’, as they were referred to, had just completed their second day of an intensive three-week course that the former Coldstream officer, Major Roger de Wesselow, had called an ‘instruction in the school of subversive activity’.
Their ‘school’ was the secluded Wanborough Manor, a country house in a small, secluded parish lying between Guildford and Farnham. Those who lived in the few cottages and houses nearby had been told the former family home had been requisitioned as a commando training base.
Peter had little knowledge about the workings of the Special Operations Executive before he arrived, other than the sketchy details his old university friend Toby had given him when he had ‘dropped by’ to see him – a visit he now realised had been for the sole purpose of recruiting him. He knew, however, that the manor was being used exclusively to train French operatives.
Peter had anticipated that his fellow recruits would come from all walks of life, but he hadn’t expected such diversity – there were two brothers who had been travelling acrobats, a chef, a fashion artist for Vogue and Country Life, a hairdresser who had once been a colonial boxing champion, a hotelier, an industrial chemist, a county council surveyor, a ship’s chandler and a diplomatic consul. They all had one thing in common, though – French was their second language, and one they were expected to use all the time from now on, even at meals. His mother’s refusal to speak English was something for which Peter was now eternally grateful.
Peter had thought he might well be the oldest, being in his early forties, but it seemed that age was no barrier. Philip, who was in the bed next to him, had recently turned fifty. Today he had quietly told Peter that he worried he wouldn’t be fit enough for the job, but Peter knew he wouldn’t have been approached unless the powers that be had something specific in mind for him. Just like he suspected they had for each of them.
The Major, who must have been in his fifties himself, and who they all knew to be a veteran of the First War, had explained yesterday that their training here would consist of lectures and practical exercises in map-reading, demolitions, weapons training, Morse code and close combat. He had stressed that once they were put into the field, it would be a ‘tough and solitary’ life. No one was to know what went on at the manor.
Their training officer had briefed them on exactly what was happening in France in both the occupied and unoccupied zones. He had drilled into them that security was paramount. A poster showing a sexy blonde in a red dress under the heading YOU FORGET BUT SHE REMEMBERS had been put up in the dining hall, although for Peter it only served as a painful reminder of Rosie looking ravishing in her own red dress.
They’d been told there was to be no leave, no phone calls, and any post would be checked and censored. It was why Peter had sent Rosie that one final letter, posting it just hours after they had said their goodbyes on Sunday.
Staring up at the elaborately decorated ribbed plaster ceiling of what had been the master bedroom, Peter hoped there hadn’t been any disruptions in the postal service and that Rosie would now have the letter. He had wanted it to be on the doormat when she let herself into her new home. He would have given anything to have been there, to have picked her up in his arms and carried her over the threshold, for Rosie to have spent her first night at Brookside Gardens as a married woman with her husband by her side. But it was not to be, so a letter was the rather poor alternative.
As he lay there knowing sleep was still a long way off, Peter ran over their precious time together. His anxious wait at the train station, unsure whether or not she’d come, then seeing her at the carriage door, looking stunning, tears of joy in her eyes, and how they had talked and made love and talked some more.
He realised now that Rosie would have said yes to his proposal of marriage without his carefully thought out arguments as to why she should become his wife. She had said yes simply because she loved him, because she wanted him to be her husband. A part of him wished he had tried the romantic approach first, and if that had failed only then gone on to the practical reasons for doing so. But he had been so convinced that Rosie was not the marrying kind, he had just presumed she would say no. He had decided on the honest, no-nonsense approach and told her straight up: if she married him now, should anything happen to him while he was away, she would inherit everything he owned. He had no children of his own (his wife’s cancer had robbed him of that chance), nor did he have any living relatives that he was particularly close to or who were in desperate financial straits.
Of course, he could have left everything in his will to Rosie without her being his wife, but he didn’t want there to be any kind of ambiguity. A legally binding union made everything black and white. Now she was his wife, she would inherit everything, as well as his police pension.
Rosie had listened quietly without interrupting as he had explained that by marrying him she could also move into his home. He knew how much Rosie loved the house, and it was a safer area of town to live in, not to mention the money she would save on the rent of her flat. He had added that it would also put his mind at rest if he knew the house would be looked after while he was away, but he knew Rosie wasn’t a fool and realised he was only saying that to make her think that she would be doing him a favour.
One advantage of getting hitched that he didn’t mention, however, but which brought him some comfort, was that should he be killed, as next of kin she would be the first to be informed. She wouldn’t have to hear it second-hand, or worry that he might be dead, but no one would know to tell her.
When he had finally finished what felt like the opening argument in a taut court case, he had been bowled over by her response.
‘Peter,’ she’d said with a smile and a sparkle in her eyes, ‘I have listened to every word you have said and taken on board all of your very well-rehearsed arguments for me agreeing to be your wife.’ She paused and her smile widened. ‘I will agree to be your wife for one reason and one reason only. And that is because I love you. Because I want to be your wife. Because I want you to be my husband. You could be a pauper for all I care; I’d still want to marry you.’
Her words had shocked him and for a short moment he’d been speechless, then he had leant across the little round table they were sitting at, cupped her radiant face in his hands and kissed her. She had got embarrassed, as she always did when he kissed her in public, and pulled away, blushing, but her joy at agreeing to become Mrs Miller had been almost parallel to his own at her agreeing to have him as her husband.
He had told her that she could and should spend his savings, which he had put in both their names – regardless of whether he lived or died. He hadn’t said as much but there was more than enough to enable her to leave the bordello and still be able to keep Charlotte at her school in Harrogate, or at the Sunderland Church High School should Charlotte get her way and persuade Rosie to let her come back. Something told him, however, that Rosie wouldn’t leave Lily’s and her cuckoo’s nest of waifs and strays.
The few days they’d had together had been a dream – the most wonderful, happy and loving dream imaginable. They had barely left their hotel other than to nip into a jewellers to buy the ring, and to the florist for the bouquet of pansies. Even the registry office had just been a short walk away from where they were staying.
It amazed
him how happy they had been, how they had been able to simply enjoy each other in the here and now, without the sadness of their parting creeping into their precious time together.
What had been so important for Peter’s own peace of mind was that Rosie understood why he was doing what he had signed up to do. Not that he had told her anything specific. He had explained there was very little he could tell her about where he was going and what he would be doing, but he sensed she had an idea. She had told him that George had ‘talked some sense’ into her and helped her to understand ‘certain things’.
He hoped one day to be able to shake George’s hand. Peter knew of men like George, those who had survived the so-called war to end all wars, who had returned to their homeland but had never truly been able to go back to the lives they’d lived before. Peter had a lot to thank George for. Not only for ‘talking sense’ to Rosie, but also for loving Rosie dearly and being there for her should he not make it back.
Despite the risks, though, there was still no doubt in his mind that he had done the right thing in signing up. The situations at home and abroad were far from good. Not only was it clear that Hitler was committed to continuing his Blitz on all the major industrial towns and cities in this country, he was also making inroads into North Africa and Russia, and now the Japanese were attacking the Philippines and were doing so very successfully. The scales of war were swinging heavily in favour of the Axis. Anyone who read a paper or listened to the BBC Home Service could see the future was looking decidedly dark – even with the huge dollops of propaganda being doled out to dilute the seriousness of the situation and safeguard national morale.
Peter knew there were no blurred lines in this world war. It simply came down to a battle between good and evil. And Peter would be damned if evil was going to win. He would sacrifice his love and his life to help his country win this godforsaken war.
As sleep finally started to draw him down, Peter pictured Rosie as they had said their goodbyes. They had stood on the station platform with their arms wrapped tightly around each other. He’d told her that it was unlikely that he would be able to write to her and she’d said she understood. He had kissed her, taking in the smell of her skin and the scent of the hotel soap that she had said was ‘pure heaven’, but then he’d said something he immediately regretted:
