The Bannister Girls

by Jean Saunders

  The baby had been another girl, and to appease Fred’s disappointment with Him Above who might think him an ungrateful sod, he’d called her Angel. And an angel she had turned out to be, growing more beautiful from her very first day. Golden-haired and green-eyed, Fred wondered how an old buffer like himself had ever fathered such a sweetheart. That he definitely had done, was unquestionable. Clemence simply didn’t have it in her to be unfaithful. It just wasn’t done…

  Fred steered the car into the gravel driveway of his elegant Hampstead mansion, knowing that Clemence would be hovering behind the curtains, ready with a glass of sherry in her hand to welcome him. The predictability of the woman was sometimes stifling…

  He left the car outside the front door for the chauffeur to put away. On his jaunts to Yorkshire he always drove himself, ostensibly for the need to keep up his driving practise, in reality for the convenience of his secret visits to Harriet.

  A maid opened the door before he could get out his key. One of these days he’d beat her to it, he thought with grim humour. Before he could register that her face was unusually flushed, he heard the uproar from the drawing room.

  ‘What the blazes is happening!’

  He strode across to the room and flung open the door. His daughter Ellen was standing in the centre of the floor screaming at her mother like a fishwife.

  ‘You say nothing when Louise marries that slimy oaf of hers, Mother! You let Angel stay out all night, but when I ask you a perfectly reasonable question, you flatly refuse!’

  ‘I don’t consider a request to fill Meadowcroft with your unspeakable friends to be a reasonable question, Ellen!’ Clemence snapped, her normally refined features scarlet.

  ‘I’m not intending to fill the house –’

  ‘But that’s how it begins, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Ellen, but I’ve told you before what I think of these people. They’re a danger to decent society –’

  Ellen’s square face was almost beautiful in its anger.

  ‘Mother, you’re a fool,’ she raged. ‘Can’t you see that the movement cannot fail? Women will fulfil their role in society, and suffragettes will go down in history as pioneers of the future. They already have, but you’re too stubborn and too snobbish to see it or admit it. This war is proving the need for self-reliant women. They’re already working alongside men in ways unheard of a short while ago. Why do you persist in shutting your eyes to it, Mother!’

  Fred decided that his daughter had gone too far.

  ‘You will apologise at once, Ellen,’ he snapped. ‘Anyone who is uncouth enough to call her mother a fool has no place in this house.’

  ‘I don’t need your help in this matter, Fred –’ Clemence snapped back, and Ellen turned on him at once.

  ‘You don’t understand, Dad. I only want to take Rose Morton down to Meadowcroft for a week or two –’

  ‘Who or what is Rose Morton?’ Fred ignored his wife’s annoyance at his intervention in her domestic affairs.

  ‘She’s a good friend of mine,’ Ellen almost choked. ‘And contrary to what you and Mother think of my choice of women friends, Rose was married to a young man who volunteered for service at the beginning of the war. He’s been killed in France, and she needs somewhere quiet to get over the shock of it, Dad. Meadowcroft is just the haven she needs.’

  Her voice was thick with grief as she finished. She didn’t really expect them to understand. Nobody understood her or her motives. They didn’t even try. She wasn’t like the rest, but she wasn’t a freak either.

  Fred looked at her, stiff and proud in her sensible tweed skirt, her arms tightly crossed over her small high breasts, and gave a small sigh. Clemence saw him waver, and spoke sharply.

  ‘Don’t give in to her, Frederick. I’m sorry for the woman, but it doesn’t change my views. And Ellen, please don’t call your father Dad. You know how I hate it.’

  Ellen looked at her mother speechlessly for a moment, and then rushed towards the door.

  ‘You see how impossible she is, Father? I can’t even talk to her sensibly. She’s a prig, and I hate her!’

  ‘Ellen, come back here at once!’ Fred roared after her, but it was too late. The drawing room door rocked on its hinges as Ellen banged through it, and Clemence rounded on her husband.

  ‘You never could control her! Now see what you’ve done!’

  Fred stared at her. He had done nothing at all as far as he could see, and Clemence had certainly never wanted his help in bringing up their daughters. He was still wondering how to deal with this situation, when he heard the slam of a taxi-cab door outside the house.

  He felt a sliver of relief, remembering that Angel had been to see that nice college chum of hers. Angel would soon fill the house with laughter again, telling them all about her visit. He poured himself the glass of sherry his wife had overlooked, noting that his hands were quite damp with all this upset, and depended on Angel’s presence to lighten the atmosphere.

  The minute she appeared, Fred sensed that there was something different about her. He couldn’t tell what it was. He only knew that his best girl was in a heightened state of mind, and it wasn’t merely from the excitement of a visit with a friend. As though Clemence sensed it too, his wife began to be unusually persistent in her questions about Angel’s evening.

  Wanting to get away, Angel leaned against the door in a most ungainly fashion that had Clemence tightening her lips. Her father thought that even in such a pose, Angel was still an enchanting sight. She was a picture in that lovely coat cut from the finest grey wool from his own mill. It complemented her flawless complexion and beautiful green eyes, as deep as gems this morning. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Come on, old girl. Tell us what you and Margot got up to, and cheer your mother up,’ Fred said encouragingly.

  It was as though he had set light to a torch that suddenly burst into flames. Clemence’s face burned with anger.

  ‘She can’t do that, Frederick, because she wasn’t with Margot Lacey last night!’

  Angel reeled as though she had been hit by a cold hard slap in the face. Indeed, her mother looked as if she would dearly like to do just that to her.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Fred demanded. ‘Of course she was with Margot. It was all arranged. She’s got her overnight bag in her hand, so where else would she have been?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I want to know,’ Clemence snapped.

  They both looked at Angel. She felt so cold she knew that her face must be devoid of colour, and she wondered with alarm if she was going to faint. What in heaven’s name had alerted her mother? It was impossible that she knew. She was bluffing.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mother. Margot and I spent half the night gossiping, and I’m deadly tired. All I want is a hot bath, and to feel human again –’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere until I have an explanation,’ Clemence snapped as Angel tried desperately to make her escape.

  ‘An explanation of what?’ Angel’s heart hammered sickeningly at the sudden doubt on her father’s face.

  What would he say if he knew that her mother’s intuition was right, and that she had spent a night of ecstasy and wonder that she couldn’t forget, however little it had meant to Jacques.

  ‘Margot’s mother telephoned this morning,’ Clemence said crisply. ‘You left your scarf at the house. She also said how sorry she was that Margot had got this wretched chill, and that she hoped you got home safely before dark.’

  ‘Well, Angel?’ Fred knew he had better say something, though somehow he already knew. Not often given a sixth sense feeling, this time it was different.

  He recognised now the look he had seen on his daughter’s face, and his parental anger was tempered by something he couldn’t explain. A sympathy, perhaps, that he could never share with his wife, because his own clandestine and loving association with Harriet gave him the same secret glow he had seen on Angel’s face. Yet it had been obvious to him too, that she was not happy. Whatever had happe
ned last night had been monumental, and Fred could only guess at what that was. And far from scandalising him, as it was clearly doing to Clemence, he felt an extraordinary tenderness for his youngest child.

  ‘Well, my darling girl?’ he said more gently.

  Angel threw out her hands as if seeking help.

  ‘All right. Margot had a chill, and I had trouble finding a cab when the tram broke down and there was a small hotel nearby. It seemed safer to stay there than risk coming home in the dark. That’s all – except to say I’m sorry.’

  The words sounded inane, even to herself. They gave away nothing of the wonderful night that was fast becoming no more than a lovely dream. She wanted to hold on to the dream, but suddenly Jacques’ face was no longer so clear to her, and it made her want to weep.

  She had truly believed herself to be in love, and she didn’t want to lose the love and feel the shame.

  ‘Was it beyond you to telephone us to let us know what had happened?’ Clemence demanded.

  ‘There didn’t seem any point. You would only have worried. It was better you thought I was safe at Margot’s.’ She spoke defensively, but her faint hope that they would accept the explanation calmly was soon dashed.

  ‘No point?’ Clemence cried out in outrage. ‘Is that how little you consider your parents? You were alone in London when those terrible Zeppelins might have dropped bombs on the very hotel where you were staying, and we would never have known! Is this how you repay us for allowing you to stay out all night? I assure you, young lady, it will be the last time. And your father may accept your ridiculous tale about a tram breaking down, but I do not. I’m not at all satisfied with your explanation. And the fact that you chose to lie to us makes me despair even more of all the money we threw away on your education.’

  ‘I’m not lying about staying at a respectable hotel!’

  Angel felt the furious tears start to her eyes. That part of it was certainly true. The night that had ended there had begun by her need to stand in the rain looking for a taxi-cab. That had led to Jacques de Ville pulling her back from the street … and more. Her throat ached with tears, remembering.

  ‘I think you had better take that hot bath, and leave your mother and me to discuss it, Angel,’ Fred spoke in a troubled voice. Clemence rounded on him.

  ‘Don’t be weak about this, Frederick. I know Angel can do no wrong in your eyes, but this time she’s gone too far. She’s out of control, and she must be punished for it.’

  ‘Mother! I’m eighteen years old!’ Angel said, incensed. ‘I’m not a schoolgirl. Girls of my age are married with babies, or doing honest war work.’

  ‘Well, if you think you’re going to work in one of those dreadful munition factories, you can think again,’ Clemence said. ‘I’m not having one of my daughters called a canary because her skin’s stained yellow with that ghastly stuff they put into the shells.’

  ‘TNT,’ Fred said mildly. ‘I never thought to hear you being so unpatriotic, my dear –’

  ‘I don’t care what the stuffs called, and you know very well I do whatever I can for the war effort, Fred!’ Clemence’s face was brilliant now. ‘My knitting circles are gaining support every week, and I’m going to join the groups who dispense tea and soup at the railway stations for the wounded soldiers. Angel can help me in those things from now on.’

  ‘There are plenty of other ways I can be useful,’ she said quickly, thankful that for the moment at least, her mother’s attention seemed to have wandered from the disgrace of last night. ‘I could be a nurse, or learn to drive an ambulance. I don’t really think your knitting ladies would want me around them, Mother –’

  And she could think of nothing more absolutely boring…

  ‘But the returning soldiers undoubtedly would,’ Fred put in, trying to ease the tension with a quick smile. ‘It would brighten their day to see a pretty girl pouring tea for them –’

  ‘We’ll think about that later,’ Clemence said coldly. ‘But you can forget any nonsense about becoming a nurse, Angel. Go and have that bath. Your father and I have got to talk.’

  Angel and Fred exchanged brief sympathetic glances before she slipped thankfully out of the room, and went upstairs. On the landing above, Ellen’s astonished face was watching her, and clearly she had heard every word. Ellen was blotchy with tears, but her admiration for Angel was evident.

  ‘I say, did you really stay at an hotel last night, old girl? What a lark!’

  Angel bit her lip. They were the very words she had used to Jacques, and it seemed like centuries ago.

  ‘Yes, I did. But I don’t want to talk about it, thank-you very much.’ She went to push past her sister, but Ellen caught at her arm, her voice lowered into a conspiratorial whisper.

  ‘Oh Angel, don’t go all huffy on me. What was he like?’

  Angel stared at her. They didn’t always get on together, and she had never thought Ellen particularly perceptive. And she had no intention of sharing her secret with Ellen or anyone else.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. If you were listening, then you heard what I said. The tram broke down and I got scared, that’s all. It seemed safer to stay in town.’

  ‘It’s such a long way, of course!’ Ellen didn’t believe her for a second. ‘Anyway, never mind all that. Did you mean what you said, about joining something?’

  Angel pushed past her on the landing. ‘If you mean, am I going to join your lot, then forget it. Some of those strident women make me sick.’

  ‘They’re not all like that. You haven’t met Rose –’ To Angel’s horror, Ellen’s square face suddenly crumpled. The vague suspicion of something ‘not quite nice’ about some of those women flared into her mind. Oh no, not Ellen…

  Her sister’s next words were a relief, quickly squashed as she heard the tearful story.

  ‘You missed out on my big scene with the parents, Angel. All I want is for Rose to have a few weeks at Meadowcroft to get over her husband’s death. He was blown to bits in France. Can you imagine that? She got a cold little letter from the War Office, and that was all. As far as they’re concerned, Gunner Ronnie Morton no longer exists, and his poor widow can go hang.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Ellen.’ Angel didn’t know what else to say. It sounded too ghastly.

  That was what war did to people. Tore them apart, made widows of young women on the brink of life, cut down virile young men … a frisson of gladness for last night swept through her, despite the pain of it all. She had known love. For a little while it had been perfect. And whether Jacques de Ville had been a rogue or not, she had sent him off to war happy. It was the only thing she had to cling on to now.

  Ellen sniffed. ‘Oh well, it was what I expected of the parents. They think we’re all queer, but it’s simply not true. All we want is the right to be recognised as people. We exist, Angel. Women have always played their part in history, and someday they’ll know our worth.’

  ‘Ellen, I’m sure you’re right, but please don’t give me a political lecture right now. I want a bath, and then I have to face the music again.’ She tried desperately to get away.

  ‘All right. But I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll stick up for your right to a bit of independence if you’ll back me in getting Rose to stay at Meadowcroft.’

  She held out her hand and Angel took it solemnly. It wouldn’t make a scrap of difference if their mother had made up her mind, and she really didn’t care whether Rose Morton stayed at Meadowcroft or not. It meant nothing to her. Except…

  The memory of Ellen’s terse words about her friend’s husband stayed in Angel’s mind while she soaped herself in a hot bath. Gunner Ronnie Morton, blown to bits in France … she never knew him, but the poignancy of those stark words wouldn’t leave her. How awful. How simply and terribly awful. It could have been Jacques de Ville…

  The words slid into her mind before she could stop them, and a sob tightened her throat. She couldn’t forget him. He had been the most important person in her life. The man to
whom a woman gave herself was surely that. They were bound together by something deeper than blood, stronger than hate.

  She looked down at her own breasts, silky white with suds, and remembered Jacques’ mouth on them, and it had been the first time a man had touched them. She felt a tingling in them at the memory. She remembered with an almost exquisite bittersweet pain the moments when the warm secret part of her had opened up to him like a flower blossoming in the sun, and in remembering, she felt the dampness of tears on her cheeks.

  It had been so beautiful. It had been love. Angel was sure of that. And love was like eternity. Intangible, but undeniable. It never ended, even after death. Rose Morton, whoever she was, was proof of that. Angel swallowed back the tears and let the bath water run out.

  By the time she was ready to go downstairs again, she wore a sensible frock of grey-green stripes with a big floppy bow at the neck, and her hair was brushed out into a golden sheen. She was extremely nervous at seeing her parents again. Her mother’s discovery had been a terrible shock, even though she knew little of what had really happened.

  But Angel realised that a pact with Ellen might be useful. They could present a solid front if need be. And why not agree to help the poor woman whose husband had been killed? In doing so, Angel cherished a strange hope that her good deed might repay her in Jacques de Ville’s safe deliverance. She sent up a little prayer to that effect.

  Fred was finding the problem of two rebel daughters a little too much to take all at once. Clemence was not normally a nagging wife. She had had no need of it over the years, since Fred had always given in to her. But now Clemence was insisting on his support, and he was very much afraid he was finding her a bore. For God’s sake, why not let Ellen and her friend go down to Meadowcroft? At least they would know where Ellen was. And what more could they say to Angel but to reprimand her and tell her to behave herself in future?

  What was done was done, and unless the girl had got herself in trouble, then no harm was done. Fred suddenly went cold at the thought, and refused to think about it. There was no point in meeting that kind of trouble halfway.