by I'll Get By
‘Make a bonfire with it.’
‘Don’t be silly, Meggie. It can stay there. Denton has signed an agreement to that effect.’
‘Why don’t we sell it to a dealer?’
‘It’s part of the house. You won’t be able to afford to refurbish the place in the same style. Besides, your allowance comes out of that house, such as it is. You can’t get rid of assets, you never know when you might need them.’
‘Look mother . . . Foxglove House is a liability, not an asset. I don’t want the place, or anything in it. Can’t I just give it to charity, or something.’
‘Yes . . . you can, but not until you’re of age, and responsible enough to know what you’re doing. The furnishings are part of the house. I’m going to see if that storage place will be able to accommodate some of it though.’
Meggie groaned. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be old enough or responsible enough to do anything in your eyes.’
Her mother gave a light laugh. ‘I’ve never known anyone so eager to give a legacy away. It’s always been easy come easy go with you.’
‘I think you’re just as eager to get it off your hands.’
‘Yes, I am. It’s been a nuisance all these years having the weight of the Sangster family on my back, and an added responsibility for Denton . . . not that he complains. I wish the Sinclair legacy had died with Richard. Still, at least the house will be occupied now, and the maintenance kept up to date.’
‘Would my father have minded me giving it away?’
‘Richard? He might have because he grew up there, and was proud of the Sinclair connection and inheritance. But he never had any time for regrets, or self-pity. Life would have been different for all of us if his expectations had been normal, I imagine.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, I don’t know . . . still, it’s too late to change anything now.’
‘Would you want to?’
There was a moment of hesitation as her mother considered it, then said, ‘You always ask such odd questions. No, of course I wouldn’t want to. To deny Richard would be to deny you. Is that what you wanted to hear?’
It would explain what she felt sometimes . . . that although she was loved, it was because she existed, which didn’t disguise the fact that she was a bit of an inconvenience. But even while she thought it, she felt guilty. She’d always dramatized situations.
Her mother hadn’t asked her what the interview was for . . . which was just as well, Meggie thought, after they’d run out of things to say. It was one thing saying she was grown up and another actually being grown up. Her heart began to thump at the change she was going to bring about in her life.
For a moment she gave Rennie a thought. Where did he fit into her life? Did he fit in at all? She was too young to be in a serious relationship with anyone, which to her and her family meant courtship, an engagement ring and eventual marriage and children.
She liked Rennie a lot but that didn’t mean they couldn’t just remain friends. She had the strongest of feeling that they were going to be parted by circumstance anyway. Rennie had made his intentions towards her very clear – in that he had none. Besides she hardly knew him, and it would be stupid to contemplate building a future on two dates.
Now she’d convinced herself of that, she realized she didn’t actually want to fall in love yet, so it would be practical to avoid men altogether and just direct her energies towards establishing her career.
The atmosphere of concentration in the room was disturbed now and again by the scratch of pens on paper and the occasional clearing of the throat. Five other women were taking the exam.
It was all straightforward. Meggie answered the questions, checked through them in case she’d missed anything, and then handed her examination papers to a woman sitting at a small desk overseeing proceedings.
The woman scribbled a time at the top of her papers, and raising an eyebrow whispered as she pointed to a door, ‘That was quick . . . the galley is through there. Pour yourself a cup of tea and help yourself to biscuits – you might need to make a fresh pot.’
One by one the others began to finish the written exam and their papers were collected. Then the bell was rung to indicate time was up. The remaining two candidates smiled at each other with some relief, and stood around talking, and sipping tea.
One of them, an older woman made a bit of a face. ‘I don’t think I did too well. You seemed to get through it quickly.’
‘I’ve just finished school so I’m used to taking exams. I answer the questions I know straight away, and then go back to the ones I have to think twice about. It saves wasting time by trying to puzzle them out at the beginning.’
‘If I don’t get in here I might try for one of the other services, so I’ll remember that.’
‘Good luck,’ they said when Meggie was called in for the interview first.
Through the next door five women in uniform constituted a panel.
One of them had her examination papers spread out. ‘You did well in both your IQ test and the written examination.’
Meggie hadn’t doubted it, because the questions had been fairly standard. ‘Thank you. I’m pleased.’
Paper shuffled. ‘I see that both your father and grandfather served in the army in the last war.’
Meggie reminded herself of Leo’s advice not to talk too much, and to tell them what they expected to hear. ‘My paternal grandfather, Major Sangster did something in London. I don’t know what . . . he never told me except to say it was a secret and he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. As for my father, he fought in the trenches. Richard Sangster was gassed, and he died before I was born. He was a hero, and so was my stepfather, who served his time as a field surgeon. They were boyhood friends.’
One of the women smiled. ‘Why have you chosen to apply to join the Women’s Royal Naval Service?’
‘I like the uniform. I saw them at the parade in Hyde Park and thought they were very smart.’
When the women looked at each other and smiled Meggie said quickly, ‘I know that sounds horribly vain, but no woman likes to look dowdy, does she, and khaki is so dreadfully, well . . . khaki? After that parade I sent you a letter.’
‘Ah yes . . . you wrote to remind us that you’d put your name on the waiting list.’ She waved a sheet of paper in the air. ‘I have it here. Your enthusiasm does you credit.’
Meggie remembered an old recruiting poster from the First World War that she’d found in Foxglove House. It was a picture of a woman standing on a cliff and pointing out to sea, and had belonged to a maid who’d left her job to do her duty in the first war.
She realized that the answer she’d given might have sounded trivial. ‘Vanity is not the only reason I want to join, of course. I’m very keen to do something to help my country in its time of need, and I’ve wanted to join the WRNS since I first heard of the service.’
‘It says on your form that flying is one of your interests.’
‘Yes . . . though as a passenger so far. My uncle flies a Tiger Moth and he takes me up sometimes. It’s a wonderful experience.’
‘So you’re not afraid of heights?’
She remembered the manner of address she should have remembered earlier. ‘Not at all, ma’am.’
‘And you have a driving licence?’
‘I’m still learning, but should have one in a month or so. I’ve been practising in city conditions to gain some experience.’
‘Very good. I understand you’ve been accepted for Girton College.’
‘Not accepted, but I’ve passed the entrance exam. I’ve deferred entrance until after the war. At the moment my intention is to study law eventually.’
There was a heartening exchange of significant looks as though her intention was being approved of.
A woman at the end of the table shuffled through her papers. ‘It says here that you own property in Dorset, yet you live with your family. Tell us about that, if you would.’
‘Foxglove House
is a legacy, and is a small country estate. The legacy is complicated by the conditions attached to it. I can use the income, such as it is, but the depression has reduced that considerably. I’ll never live there. It’s too big and I won’t be able to afford to keep the house staffed, or maintained. Eventually it will be sold and the proceeds donated to charity. At least, that’s my plan at the moment, but I’m advised by my stepfather until I’m of age.’
The woman in the middle gazed at the two either side of her and they shook their heads to indicate they had no more questions.
‘Thank you, Miss Elliot. ‘What happens next will depend on your medical report. You can pop along and see the doctor after you leave here, after which you may return home. We’ll be in touch in due course. If you’re accepted into the service you’ll be measured for your uniform and sent to training school before you’re assigned to your duties. Do you have any preferences as to your placement?’
Although in awe of her interviewers, women who looked and sounded profoundly efficient, Meggie answered with a less than humble, ‘Apart from lacking the slightest desire to peel onions and potatoes or clean ablutions blocks, I have no preferences ma’am. Perhaps something clerical would suit me best. I’m sure you’ll have a better idea than me where I would best be of use. I just want to serve my country in any way I can . . . well in almost every way, as I . . . um demonstrated,’ she said, and then bit her tongue in case she began to ramble on.
‘I think that’s all then, Miss Elliot.’
Meggie wondered if she ought to salute them, but she was already self-conscious about acting the part when she wasn’t actually one of them yet. Had she gone too far by lying about her age? She wondered.
Just before she closed the door behind her she heard one of them chuckle, and hesitated.
‘The girl recorded her age as seventeen on the initial application, yet she said she was turning nineteen in October in her letter.’
‘In which case she wouldn’t need parental permission.’
‘Quite,’ another of them said drily.
Meggie’s smile faded when somebody said, ‘Close the door behind you please, Miss Elliot.’
Eight
An approach had been made to Leo to give basic training to would-be pilots in Tiger Moths and Avros, a position he accepted, even though he’d not be officially drafted into the Royal Air Force.
He was put through a rigorous two-week flying programme first at the RAF station at Uxbridge, and came out of it familiar with the controls of a fighter aircraft, and able to handle Hurricanes and Spitfires competently.
He was pleased by the offer because his contract at the teaching hospital had come to an end. His replacement was a junior doctor waiting to enhance his skills. Because the airfield was now closed to private traffic, it meant Leo could keep his hand in, and his flying hours up.
As well, he offered his voluntary services on his day off, and free of charge, to a medical centre in one of the poorer areas of London. He could also be called on as a specialist surgeon when needed, both of which would help keep him busy.
Meggie received a letter from the WRNS telling her that her application to join the service at this time would be filed, and it would help her application if she got some experience of being part of the workforce in the meantime. Her application would be reviewed again when she turned eighteen.
She applied for a job at the hospital her aunt worked at, and was offered a job in hospital administration as a junior clerk. Most of the office workforce were old, and disapproved of anyone who hadn’t yet grown a set of wrinkles. She made the tea, typed the letters because she was fast, and kept the office tidy. She was bored on the first day.
London changed in small ways. Sandbags guarded the entrances to public buildings. Shop windows were boarded up. Trenches had been dug that zigzagged across the commons and parks so people could hide in them in case of air attack.
Leo and Meggie constructed a bomb shelter in the back garden, to the side of the vegetable patch they’d been trying to cultivate and not far from the privet hedge dividing them from the house next door, to offer them extra protection.
Leo had bought the shelter in kit form. It had been named grandly after the Lord Privy Seal, Sir John Andersen. Bolted at the top, six curves of steel were partly buried in the ground over a hole dug in the earth. Lined with more metal sheets it had sacking covering the doorway, and was covered in earth.
The two of them gazed at it proudly, then Meggie said. ‘Won’t it fill with water if it rains.’ They gazed at each other.
‘Better to be damp than have the house fall down on you,’ Esmé said, coming up behind them with a mug of tea in both hands.
‘Your aunt speaks from experience. As you know, it happened to her in Australia when she climbed on a roof beam full of termites.’ His arm went round Esmé and he drew her against his side. ‘I thought I’d lost her before I’d really got to know her. How do you like the new home we’ve built for you, my love?’
‘Extremely cosy. I love the front door, and it has food handy if one likes cabbages.’
‘Would you like to launch it by officially naming it?’
‘Mole-hole Lodge,’ Esmé said. ‘I’ll paint a sign for it tomorrow.’
They were issued with gas masks, and although they smelled rubbery and moulded to the face with claustrophobic tightness, Meggie bore in mind that her father had been gassed in the trenches, and the damage had eaten away his lungs and eventually destroyed him.
When Aunt Es expressed her relief that Leo hadn’t joined up, he offered her a couple of grunts and said, ‘Don’t count your chickens yet, my love. The war has only just started and none of us can see what the future holds.’
Dressed in their best, their gas masks swinging from their shoulders, they travelled by train to Dorset for her uncle Chad’s wedding to Sylvia. Even the earliest train was crowded with noisy children, labelled with their names like living parcels being sent to unknown destinations. Babies cried and their harassed minders grumbled from the sheer fatigue of caring for so many at once.
Though they were all dressed in their best for the wedding, Esmé took one of the babies in her arms and comforted the child until it fell into fitful sleep. Meggie wondered how the mothers felt having to send their children away to be looked after by strangers. Some better-off ones had been sent abroad to Canada.
Better this evacuation than send them overseas, she thought. Meggie followed her aunt’s example and took a toddler on her lap. But the child took exception to her and grizzled for his mother all the way.
Leo stood in the aisle, his eyes turned towards the passing landscape and with a smile playing around his mouth. She thought he was far away, up in the air somewhere. Then she realized his dreamy gaze was on Esmé’s reflection.
It was a perfect autumn day; the leaves falling from the trees were a thousand shades of shaved ochre. But there was a nip in the air, and nobody would have guessed there was a war on – though Leo had told them of an incident where one of their own planes had been shot down by gunners who’d mistaken it as the enemy.
They left the children behind in the aroma of dried pee the carriage had collected, and headed towards Livia’s home on foot. There was a smell of bonfires in the air and the leaves crunched underfoot.
Meggie’s legacy was almost the same as she’d left it, except the long grass of Foxglove House had been trimmed back, and there was a man up a ladder removing the shutters from the window. She’d spent hours there by herself in the dusty, shuttered twilight, hiding from the world, making up stories, feeling like an outsider, even though she’d inherited the place.
Now she would be an outsider, because once the place became an institution it would be painted in efficient cream and green, and brown linoleum would spread over the floorboards like an expanse of river mud when the tide went out. It would smell of beeswax and perhaps disinfectant, and there would be notice boards screwed to the walls, with red arrows pointing every which way.
Gents Lavatory. Adjutant’s Office. Mess Deck . . . Spy Training Centre.
Her laughter brought a smile from Leo. ‘What’s tickled you?’
‘My mother thinks they might train spies here.’
‘Anything is possible, I suppose.’
Sheets of paper with commands would be attached to corkboards, and smaller, more important memos with exclamation marks would be pierced through their corners with bright brassy pins, so the paper agitated busily in the draughts, as if trying to escape and go about the business of spreading the news it contained.
She felt like a Sinclair Sangster memo, reluctantly pinned to the notice board and trying to escape from its grip.
Then they were past, and nodding to the postman who crossed their path in the opposite direction and ringing his bell, said in his rich, rural burr, ‘Good day to you sir, and young ladies. It’s a lovely day for a wedding, isn’t it? The church looks pretty.’
‘It certainly is a lovely day,’ Leo said.
‘Mrs Elliot, nice lady that she is, has invited me to the reception. I shall enjoy that.’ The postman began to whistle; ‘Here comes the bride,’ as he went past, his bicycle rattling over the potholes.
Aunt Esmé suddenly exclaimed, ‘There’s Nutting Cottage. It looks so pretty. They’ve painted it cream, and I love those cotoneasters, the berries are so red and the leaves so dark and green, and I like the way it spreads and flattens its bracts across the wall. Look, the picket fence has been repaired and painted to match the house.’
Meggie didn’t want to look. The shining red berries shone like beads of blood, she thought, and remembered seeing her grandfather dead in his chair on the other side of the window as if it had been yesterday – his mouth hanging open in his grey face. She’d only spoken to him a few minutes before, and he’d told her he was her father. But he’d been old and feeble and his mind wandered. It had been the worst day of her life.
She forced herself to look at the place. Yes, it was pretty, but she didn’t want to live there, and she hadn’t been inside the cottage since. She felt slightly ill. What if he had been her father? No! That terrible time when she fought her inner demons over that question had been dealt with.
