Summer House

by Nichols, Mary

  It was a resolve she was not allowed to keep. Her parents came the very next day to fetch her home. She was so pleased to see her mother she burst into tears and held out her arms. Her mother hugged her. ‘Hush, my child, it’s all over now.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Look at her, Mama.’ She pointed to the crib beside the bed. ‘Just look at her. Tell me you don’t feel something. She is your grandchild, for God’s sake.’ Instead of looking at the baby her mother looked at her father, but he was sternly implacable. Helen reached out and plucked Olivia from her cot and cradled her in her arms. ‘Look, Mama. See what huge blue eyes she has. And she has such a strong grip. Look.’ Helen lifted her hand to show the baby’s hand closed tightly around her little finger. ‘She is mine, my flesh and blood. I love her with all my heart. I cannot give her up. Don’t ask me to, please.’

  ‘Helen, don’t be silly,’ her father said, while her mother looked as if she was going to cry. Unable to bear the pain she knew her daughter was experiencing, not daring to share it, she turned away.

  The nurse who had helped at the confinement entered the room. ‘Everything has been arranged, sir. Doctor Goldsmith would like to see you in Matron’s office before you go. There are one or two details he needs to go over with you. I’ll take the child.’ She went to take the baby from Helen.

  ‘No, you don’t!’ Helen screamed at her. ‘You can’t have her. She’s mine.’

  ‘Helen,’ her mother begged. ‘Please…’

  ‘Tell them. Tell them I’m going to keep her. Tell them I withdraw my consent.’ She was hanging onto the child so tightly the infant began to wail and the nurse looked helplessly at her father.

  He strode over and forcibly prised open Helen’s arms so that the nurse could take the child. Helen, blinded by tears, saw the blurred form of the nurse disappearing through the door. Her father followed, leaving Helen sobbing uncontrollably.

  ‘Darling, please don’t take on so,’ her mother said. ‘You know it isn’t possible to keep her. What’s so terrible about giving her away to a good home, to someone who really wants a child and can’t have one of her own? One day you will have children with Richard and they will be welcomed. Now be a good girl and let me help you dress. I’ve brought one of your favourite dresses, the blue and grey striped wool. It will be nice and warm. We don’t want you to catch a chill in the car.’

  Helen got out of bed and began to dress like an automaton, then flung her few possessions in her case, strangely empty without the tiny garments which had been taken away with her baby. While they waited for her father to come back, she wandered over to the window and looked down on the busy street. Two storeys below her, a woman came out of the entrance carrying a baby. The infant was wrapped in the shawl Helen had knitted for her; even at that distance she recognised it. She beat her fists on the glass and yelled defiance until she was forcibly restrained and given a strong sedative. Under its influence she stumbled out of the hospital, flanked by her mother and father, and got into the back of the car, but she was not so subdued that she didn’t vow that one day, however long it took, she would find her daughter again, and then nothing on earth would part them.

  Chapter One

  1940

  THE YOUNG MAN in the hospital bed opened one eye and quickly shut it again. A half smile played about his features. Nice features, Laura thought, unblemished by the terrible burns that many downed pilots had to suffer, but he could do with a shave. And he was so young. She leant forward and smoothed the blond hair from his brow as his eyes opened and looked straight into hers. She smiled and dropped her hand.

  ‘This must be heaven,’ he murmured, grinning at her. ‘And you are my guardian angel.’

  ‘No, you are still in the land of the living. And I am certainly no angel.’

  ‘You look angelic enough to me.’ Beneath the starched cap, she had dark, not quite black hair, swept back and up from a distinct widow’s peak. She had warm amber eyes in an oval face with high cheekbones, a straight nose and a firm mouth. Her figure was as good to look at as her face, cinched into a tiny waist by the wide nurse’s belt. Her legs, even in stout, flat-heeled shoes, were long and shapely.

  ‘Have you met many angels?’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘There you are then; not qualified to judge.’

  He looked around him. There were twenty beds in two straight lines, each one containing a patient. A locker beside each held a jug of water and a glass; some had a vase of flowers, others a photograph. Some patients were sitting up reading, some had headphones and were listening to the wireless, others lay still and almost lifeless. A few were restless and being calmed by nurses. The rows of windows were heavily crisscrossed with sticky tape. Outside the sun shone, making the same criss-cross shadows on the beds and across the polished floor.

  ‘Hospital?’

  ‘Yes. The Royal Masonic, Hammersmith. Part of it has been taken over by the RAF. There’s a doctor here who knows a bit about burns.’

  ‘Burns?’ He lifted a bandaged hand and touched his face.

  ‘No, only your hands and they will heal. You won’t need skin grafts or anything like that.’

  ‘Thank God for that. Can’t have my boyish good looks ruined.’

  ‘No, you’re still the same handsome devil you always were.’ She smiled. ‘You were lucky.’

  He grinned. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Staff Nurse Drummond.’ She leant over to help him sit up, then picked up a cup of water and put it to his lips. He drank thirstily before sinking back onto his pillow.

  ‘I meant your Christian name.’

  ‘Laura.’

  ‘Laura,’ he murmured. ‘I like that, it’s pretty.’

  ‘Don’t let Matron hear you call me that. I’m Staff Nurse and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘Staff Nurse is too starchy for someone as pretty as you are. Are you married?’

  ‘No, but I will be tomorrow.’ Tomorrow. She could hardly believe her wedding was only a day away.

  ‘Congratulations! He’s a lucky dog. Airman, is he?’

  ‘Yes, a squadron leader.’

  In normal times this would be her last day at work; a man like Bob would not expect his wife to work and, in any case, the authorities disapproved of married nurses on the grounds that they could not look after patients properly and run a home at the same time. But these were far from normal times and women with no family ties were expected to work. She would have a week off, the same as Bob, and then return to duty, living at home until they could find a house of their own. It really would make no immediate difference to her working life, except for the gold band on her finger and the allowance she got as Bob’s wife. The young airman told the whole ward about the wedding and she went off duty with the good wishes of the patients ringing in her ears.

  At the door she was stopped by Matron. ‘Staff Nurse, a word if you please. Come with me.’

  Mystified, Laura followed her to her office and stood uncertainly as she flung open the door and gestured her inside. The room was packed with her colleagues, who clapped enthusiastically. ‘We wanted to wish you good luck,’ Matron said, bending down to retrieve a package from behind her desk. ‘A little something for your bottom drawer to show our appreciation of your sterling service.’

  Laura, surprised and delighted, took the parcel and to cries of, ‘Open it!’ she undid the ribbon. It contained a pair of sheets and pillowcases.

  ‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ she said, overcome by their generosity.

  Dr Gibbs produced a bottle of sherry. A strange collection of glasses was found and a toast drunk. By the time she left an hour later, she was surrounded by a warm glow of goodwill, helped on by the sherry. Clutching her parcel, she set off for the Underground and home.

  It was a balmy evening; the sun was just going down behind the rooftops, throwing long shadows across the road. It could have been any evening in peacetime, except for the barrage balloons swaying lazily overhead, the sandbag
s stacked round doors and the taped-up windows. And the uniforms. Almost everyone seemed to be wearing one of some kind: khaki, navy, air force blue or the green of the Women’s Voluntary Service. There was even a Boy Scout in a khaki shirt and shorts, cycling down the road, pedalling for all he was worth.

  Laura took the Underground to Edgware and walked the rest of the way to her home in Burnt Oak. She let herself in and carefully drew the curtain over the door before switching on the light and hanging up her cloak and gas mask on the coat stand in the corner.

  It was a typical three-bedroomed semi-detached house. The stairs went up on the left and there was a narrow passage on the right with two doors. The first led into a sitting room, which contained a three-piece suite, a table with a lace cover, on which stood a vase of flowers, a glass cabinet for displaying ornaments, a bookcase each side of the fireplace and a mirror over the mantelpiece. It had a square of carpet surrounded by lino. The second door led to the dining room. That had a dining table and chairs, a sideboard and a cupboard in the chimney alcove. Beyond that, facing her, a third door led to the kitchen. Here, her mother was putting an iron over her wedding dress.

  Unlike Laura, who was tall and slim, Anne Drummond was tiny, a little plump and she had fine blonde hair, very different from Laura’s dark locks. ‘You’ve done that once already,’ Laura said, kissing her cheek.

  ‘I had to press mine so I thought I’d give it another going-over. Go and hang it on your wardrobe while I make tea.’ It had proved almost impossible to buy clothes or even the materials to make them and Anne’s dress was a blue silk she had had in her wardrobe for ages and hardly worn. It was outmoded but they had altered it to bring it up to date, something everybody who could use a sewing machine and a needle was doing. Coats were being made into jackets, dresses into blouses, men’s trousers into boys’ shorts.

  ‘Did you manage to order the flowers?’

  ‘Yes, but they couldn’t guarantee what they’d be. They said they’d do their best.’

  ‘That’s all right. Just so I have some. They gave me some bed linen at the hospital and the woman who puts the Hammersmith emblem on all the hospital sheets and pillowcases embroidered our initials on them. Wasn’t that a lovely thought?’

  ‘Yes. Put them in the front room with the other presents. There’s more come today. Everybody in the street seems to have brought something. And our friends at the church.’ Anne was a regular churchgoer, though Laura, being so often on shift work, did not attend so often. She had gone the previous Sunday to hear the banns read for the last time.

  ‘Oh, how kind everyone is. I didn’t know I had so many friends.’

  Her mother had been shocked when Laura told her Bob had proposed, saying she hardly knew him, that he was a pilot and could be shot down at any time, making her a widow before she had had time to be a wife, that he came from a completely different background and she could not see Bob’s hoity-toity parents agreeing to it. Laura had countered that she had known Bob for six months but it seemed like forever, and as for the war, everyone had to take risks and seize what happiness they could when they could. And as for Bob’s parents, she wasn’t marrying them. It was said confidently, though she did wonder how she would fit in with his lifestyle. She had always watched the pennies, made her own clothes and never had a fire in her bedroom; economies like that were second nature to her, and nowadays everyone was being urged to do the same, but did that include a wealthy baronet and his wife? What was the point of worrying about it? ‘Bob loves me and I love him,’ she had said. ‘Please, please be happy for me.’

  Her mother had pulled herself together and smiled. ‘If you are happy, then I’m happy.’

  ‘That’s all I ask. It won’t be an elaborate wedding; it wouldn’t be right, what with the war and everything. I’ll buy some material and make myself a dress.’

  ‘You can have my dress. I kept it for you.’

  ‘Did you? I didn’t know that. Will it fit?’

  ‘We can alter it.’

  Laura had hugged her impulsively. ‘You’re the best mother in the world, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, give over.’

  On her way upstairs, she went to look at the gifts. They were small, inexpensive presents for the most part and most were useful things for the home. Besides the sheets and pillowcases she had been given by her colleagues, there was a glass fruit bowl and six little dishes; a set of fruit spoons; a matching teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl; two vases; a tablecloth; more pillowcases; two towels and a framed picture. She was overcome by how generous everyone had been. All carried cards of good wishes, and Laura had made a list so that she could write and thank them all. In contrast, there was a huge punchbowl and glasses from Bob’s sister, whom she had yet to meet. It was kind of her, but Laura wondered when she would ever use it. There was nothing from his parents, though they had not gone so far as to boycott the wedding, sending a formal acceptance of the invitation. She supposed they had given their present to Bob.

  She went upstairs and hung the dress on the wardrobe door, standing back to admire it. Mum had had to shorten it for her own wedding, but she had kept the spare material. They had joined it back on with a wide band of lace and used more lace to trim the bodice, then narrowed the wide tops of the leg o’ mutton sleeves. Laura was thrilled with the result. The veil was spread over the mirror of her dressing table and her shoes were standing side by side beneath it. She smiled, picturing Bob as she walked up the aisle towards him. He would be in uniform, of course, his cap tucked under his arm, smiling at her with love in his eyes. And Steve, as fair as Bob was dark, would be beside him with the wedding ring in his pocket. Already her nerves were beginning to tingle.

  Still smiling, she returned to her mother in the kitchen, where a batch of newly baked sausage rolls cooled on a wire tray. Even the butcher had been kind; as well as the sausages, he had found them some ham, sliced very thinly to make it go round. And her mother had managed to get a little dried fruit and a couple of eggs and made a cake. It was only eight inches across and two inches deep but they hid it under an iced cardboard cake borrowed from the local baker.

  They had barely sat down to eat when the siren wailed. Anne got up, covered the sausage rolls and put them on a shelf in the larder, then set about gathering up everything they needed for a night in the Anderson shelter: blankets, pillows, a torch, some matches, a packet of sandwiches and a Thermos flask of tea. She also grabbed a little attaché case in which she kept their birth certificates, her marriage licence, the rent book and a few precious snapshots and mementoes. ‘If we are bombed out, we’ll need to prove this is our house and we are entitled to be re-homed,’ she had told Laura, who had never seen the case before the raids started.

  In spite of the warmth of the day that had gone before, the shelter struck them as dank and airless. Seven pounds it had cost them for a few sheets of curved corrugated iron and some bolts. They had made a big square hole in the back garden lawn and assembled it, covering it with the turf they had dug out, though it didn’t go all the way over the top. After putting a couple of deckchairs and an oil lamp inside, they had left it and there it had stood, unused, mocking them for months when the threatened air raids failed to materialise. Now it was in constant use.

  They made sure the door was secure before lighting the lamp and settling down in the chairs. Anne had brought some knitting and Laura a book to read. But far from concentrating on those, their ears were attuned to the noises outside. They could hear the distant hum of aircraft, though whose they were they could not tell, and the sporadic sound of an ack-ack gun, and then, far away, a kind of crump. None of it sounded very close, but it was more than they had heard before.

  Anne unscrewed the Thermos and poured two cups of tea. ‘Might as well have this while we can.’

  Laura sipped hers reflectively, wondering if Bob was in the skies above her. She never thought of her own danger, only that of the man she loved. ‘Please God, bring him back safely,’ she pray
ed over and over again. Due to the losses, some from sheer exhaustion, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding had ruled that pilots must have a minimum of eight hours off duty in every twenty-four and a continuous twenty-four hours off every week, which meant they could leave the base. Bob always made for Burnt Oak and Laura. Sometimes they went dancing, sometimes to the pictures if it was an evening or, if it was daytime, they would walk in the park or listen to a lunchtime piano recital, or take a meagre picnic into the country. They had not been able to see each other quite so often lately; he had been in the air almost every day, at night, too, if the weather was clear enough for bombers to see their targets, but he phoned when he could to reassure her he was in one piece and couldn’t wait to make her Mrs Rawton. And tomorrow it would happen.

  She had asked Bob about his sister being a bridesmaid, but he had said she wouldn’t be able to get leave from the WAAF and so Nurse Bradley, one of Laura’s colleagues, was going to be bridesmaid instead, and she was providing her own dress. Her mother was going to give her away. Bob’s parents thought it was a strange arrangement but Laura would not go searching for male relatives she hardly knew to take on the role. Everything was ready but the nearer the time came, the more nervous she became.

  God forbid that Bob was shot down or she was caught in a raid, which would be the ultimate disaster. She would not let herself think of those, but there were minor problems that occupied her mind as well: the flowers not arriving, the ceremony being spoilt by an air raid, or dissension among the guests, who would be a very mixed lot. Her father’s mother and sister, who had never got on with Anne, had not even bothered to reply to the invitation Laura had insisted on sending them, which had prompted her mother to say she wasn’t at all surprised; they were an unforgiving lot, a statement that puzzled Laura. There would be a few of her mother’s friends from the church she attended, some of Laura’s schoolfriends, colleagues from the hospital and friends of Bob and his parents. He had taken her to see them the last time they had a whole day off and she had sensed they didn’t approve of her.