‘Are you going to give me your support or not, Fred? You seem to be in a world of your own these days. I think you should stop going to Yorkshire so often. You’re not as young as you were, and these long journeys do tire you out. Either that, or let Charles drive you as he’s paid to do.’
Fred became alert at once.
‘Nonsense. I’m perfectly capable of driving myself anywhere I want to go,’ he said tartly. ‘Besides, how would you get in and out of town without Charles driving you in the Sunbeam? I’d much rather leave you in his capable hands, old girl, than have you in and out of taxi-cabs all the time. One hears such odd things at times about the driver fellows.’
He didn’t need to look at her face to know that she would agree with him instantly. Clemence really was a dreadful snob. She had passed it down to their eldest daughter, Louise, and sometimes the two of them were insufferable. At least his other girls were more down to earth, even if one of them had progressive ideas, and the other one was growing up and away from him at the same time.
He felt a swift sorrow, knowing that it was bound to happen, and in his heart he wouldn’t want to stop it. But Angel was no longer his little girl. In one swift exchange of glances earlier that day, he had seen that she was a woman.
And later that afternoon, two things happened that were to make the decision for the future crystal clear.
Chapter 4
Louise Bannister Crabb drove herself to her parents’ house that same afternoon, braking the car with a screech of tyres that could only forebode bad news. Louise was normally a sedate and slightly nervous driver, and her husband Stanley rarely agreed to her taking out the car alone.
Fred frequently compared the two of them with Siamese twins rather than husband and wife. He doubted that the Hon. Stanley did much in the marital bedding department either, but if Louise was anything like her mother, she wouldn’t be too bothered on that account.
He and Clemence were ostensibly reading the daily newspapers, each still wondering what to do about Ellen and Angel, when Louise burst in on them like a whirlwind.
‘Stanley’s volunteered!’ Her eyes were brilliant, her voice as shocked as that of a spoilt child deprived of its favourite plaything. Which on reflection, Fred thought, was exactly what she was.
Clemence jumped up at once, and put her arms round her eldest daughter.
‘Oh, darling, how wonderful. You must be very proud!’
Louise looked furious.
‘Mother, I thought you’d understand! Oh well, yes, I suppose I am a bit proud. I mean, King and Country, and all that. But I want him home! I don’t want him in the trenches in France or wherever it is they’re sending them –’
‘But darling, he’ll be an officer, surely? He’ll be in some command or other. They won’t put such a clever and well-connected young man in any danger!’
Fred wanted to fetch up. He listened to the two of them, extolling the virtues of his inept son-in-law, whose qualifications for brilliance centred mainly around his father’s money, horse breeding in his Hertfordshire home, and putting his horses to stud.
Which was possibly why he seemed to have no energy for what Fred suspected was an infrequent sex life of his own.
‘Is there anyone we can talk to about it, Mummy? Do you know anyone, Daddy?’
‘No, I do not,’ Fred said shortly. ‘If Stanley’s volunteered, then it’s the finest day’s work of his life, and it’s not up to us to interfere and make him seem a Mummy’s boy.’
‘Really, Fred,’ Clemence said sharply, as Louise began to wail in a most undignified manner.
‘But I shall be all alone!’
‘Of course you won’t, darling,’ Clemence said soothingly. ‘You’ll move right back here with us, won’t she, Frederick? Your old room is the same as when you left it.’
Fred groaned inwardly. They were two of a kind. He loved them both, but together they would be insufferable.
‘Perhaps Louise would rather stay in her own home,’ he said as casually as he could.
She shook her head vigorously.
‘I hate the smell of horses all the time. I can stand it when Stanley’s there, because he loves them so much, but it will be perfectly beastly without him. But London’s so dangerous now, isn’t it? Everyone says so.’
‘You mean all these country experts who know everything about the city, do you?’ her father retorted. ‘Perhaps you’d better go down to Meadowcroft with Ellen and her friend, then.’
‘Nothing’s been decided about that yet,’ Clemence said sharply.
‘If you all think London’s so dangerous, and you don’t like the idea of Meadowcroft, we could always go north to Yorkshire. It would be handy for me for the mill –’ and for Harriet too, Fred thought, though knowing he was on perfectly safe ground.
If there was one place Clemence hated it was cold and windy Yorkshire, as she called it. She knew nothing of its beauties, the rolling dales and clean fresh moors … and it was as well that she knew nothing of Harriet either…
‘Thank-you, Fred,’ Clemence said tightly. ‘You know very well that if we go anywhere at all, it will be to Meadowcroft.’
Fred congratulated himself on trapping her so neatly.
Louise had a faraway look in her eyes.
‘Meadowcroft. It’s so lovely there, and I haven’t seen it for simply ages. I don’t have to decide right away, do I?’
She dithered as usual. For a young married woman of twenty-four, she took an interminable time to make up her mind about anything, Fred realised. She relied on someone else to do her thinking whenever she could, which was probably why she was so hot and bothered about Stanley volunteering. Neither of the other two girls was so indecisive. Ellen knew exactly what she wanted to do, and Angel … Angel always said she could make a snap decision whenever something felt right.
There was a tap on the drawing room door while Fred was still ruminating over whether or not something had felt very right to Angel last night.
One of the maids bobbed a curtsey, her eyes bright with speculation. In her arms she held a great sheaf of spring flowers enclosed in tissue paper. Printed all over the tissue was the name of Simone’s, London’s most exclusive florist. The bouquet consisted of tiny white mignonette and freesias, budding jonquils and tiny, outrageously expensive hothouse forced pink tea roses. They were all bound together with a flamboyant pink ribbon, and there was a card attached.
‘Someone’s just delivered these for Miss Angel, m’lady,’ the maid said excitedly. ‘They came in a big florist’s van, ever so posh –’
‘Thank-you, Sophie,’ Clemence said irritably. She took the flowers from the girl’s hand, looking immediately at the card. She gave a strangled gasp.
‘To my Angel,’ she read out. ‘Until we see the lights of London together.’
‘Is that all? No signature?’ Fred demanded as she stopped.
‘None,’ Clemence said furiously. ‘Now will you believe me when I say that something’s got to be done about that girl, Frederick?’
‘I say. Has Angel got a beau?’ Louise forgot her troubles for a second and stared at the flowers.
Stanley was a darling, but he usually forgot the little niceties of life, leaving things like birthdays and anniversaries for his secretary to remind him, and often to make the necessary purchases. Louise’s envy of Angel soared.
‘That’s just what I’d like to know.’ Clemence told Louise rapidly what little they knew of Angel’s movements of the previous night, while Louise’s eyes grew round as she listened. There was nothing of the rebel in Louise, but all the same, she could suddenly identify with the excitement Angel must have felt, unexpectedly having the freedom to do as she wished for one night in her life, and being daring enough to act on it.
‘Is she in her room? Shall I take the flowers up to her?’ Louise said eagerly, dying to find out more.
‘Certainly not. I want to see her face when she reads the card,’ Clemence said. ‘You may call her down, Loui
se, but please don’t mention the flowers.’
Dutifully, Louise left the room. Fred hid a little sigh. If Clemence told Louise to throw herself off Tower Bridge, she would probably do it without question. There must be a happy medium somewhere between the cloying obedience of one daughter, and the out-and-out contrariness of another. And Ellen, his middle girl, was certainly not it.
Angel and Ellen were talking together when Louise went upstairs, and the three girls came into the drawing room together. They were not often here en masse, and as if for the first time since they had grown up, Fred was struck by the differences and yet the similarities in them.
Louise stood above the other two by a few inches, though none of them could be called tall. They were all fair, with Angel having the softest honey-coloured hair of all. They all had Clemence’s green eyes. In shape, they were very different.
Louise was going to be matronly very soon if she didn’t watch her diet. Ellen was almost tubular in shape, while Angel had curves in all the right places. Fred cleared his throat. He had no doubt at all that many young men would find Angel irresistible before too long.
Without saying a word, Clemence handed Angel the sheaf of flowers, and Angel took them automatically, her eyes puzzled. She read the note, and felt her face flood with colour.
And suddenly nothing else mattered in the world but that Jacques had cared enough to send her flowers. He hadn’t quite abandoned her as she had thought. She knew that he’d had to report back to his squadron early. Perhaps after all, he simply couldn’t bear to say good-bye…
‘Does that answer all your questions, Frederick?’
Angel heard her mother’s accusing voice as though through a mist of joy.
‘Until we see the lights of London together…’ it spoke of continuity, of finding one another again no matter how war and circumstances parted them … or time, or space…
Fred took a quick glance around. Ellen sat sullenly after her initial interest in Angel’s gift, still smarting over her mother’s refusal to let Rose Morton go to Meadowcroft with her. Louise was still hot-faced over her husband’s apparent determination to prove that he wasn’t as spineless as he looked. Clemence was stiff with righteous indignation, and Angel looked as though she had just glimpsed heaven.
Fred asserted himself, knowing that it was time to act like the master in his own house.
‘I have my own answer. We shall all go down to Meadowcroft for the duration.’
He ignored his wife’s gasp of annoyance, and Angel’s startled exclamation. He went on doggedly in a voice they all knew. When Fred had made up his mind, nothing would change it. He held up his hand for silence, though he didn’t really need to.
‘We have already established that London is becoming a dangerous place, with the risk of the Zeppelin raids and the strange characters roaming the city these days.’ He avoided Angel’s eyes. ‘With Stanley volunteering, Louise will be all alone in that great barn of a house –’
‘Except for a score of servants,’ Ellen muttered.
‘So she’ll be glad of her family’s company. It will certainly ease her mother’s mind if Angel comes down to the country, away from the risks of the city, and as for Ellen’s friend, I see no reason at all why we can’t offer hospitality to her if we’re all going to be living there. We’ll shut this house up and move down wholesale as soon as possible.’
Clemence and Angel were still gaping at him as Ellen leapt towards him and threw her arms around his neck in an unusual burst of exuberance.
‘I say, Dad, that’s jolly sporting of you! Thanks a million. Rose will be so bucked. I’ll get off now and tell her. I’ll bring her along tomorrow to meet you all, shall I?’
‘Oh, of course. Bring her to tea,’ Clemence found her voice, and oozed sarcasm. ‘Bring the entire suffragette movement with you, if you wish!’
Ellen didn’t take the bait. Instead, she grinned at her mother and blew her a kiss on her way out.
‘No thanks, Mother. You wouldn’t want an army invading the house. And I promise you there’s enough of them to qualify for the name! See you all tomorrow, then – oh, and don’t forget that Rose is in mourning, will you?’
Her voice sobered as she went through the door, and the little group in the drawing room felt suddenly uncomfortable. They hadn’t had to deal with grief yet. The war had barely touched their lives, for all that Bannister’s Textiles were now providing cloth for uniforms instead of fine top quality wool for ladies’ and gentlemen’s garments.
The war was insidiously touching them now, Fred thought. His eldest daughter’s husband had enlisted; his second daughter was comforting a war widow; and his youngest had apparently had some secret liaison that was still holding her entranced as she buried her nose in the sweet-smelling flowers accompanied by the cryptic note.
‘Thank-you, Frederick.’ Clemence assumed the haughty tone for which she was famous. ‘The very last thing I wanted was to encourage Ellen, and you’ve just undermined everything I’ve tried to do with one stroke.’
‘Because I’ve offered hospitality to some poor woman whose husband was blown to bits in the trenches?’ He didn’t try to soften the words, and he saw her flinch. ‘Have you so little humanity in you, my dear? I thought your knitting parties and tea and soup wagons on the railway stations were in the same good cause, or am I mistaken?’
‘I do those things because I choose to do them. I don’t have them rammed down my throat,’ she said stiffly. ‘And Angel – take those flowers and put them in water in your room. Their scent is making my head ache!’
Angel escaped gladly, knowing that everything was going to make her mother’s head ache now. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Louise – dear Louise – go to her mother and place gentle fingers on her mother’s brow to soothe the pain away. Angel went to the kitchen and asked Cook for a large vase of water, and took it and the precious bouquet upstairs.
Their perfume filled the room. Angel arranged them with as much care as if they were priceless gems. To her, they meant as much. Jacques de Ville had not seen her as a flighty piece of fluff to take to an hotel room for a night and then forget her. He had cared after all. She had known it in her heart.
She fingered the silken petals of one of the pink tea roses and hugged the secret of her love to herself. There was no way of knowing when they would meet again, but it was certain that they would. Not even Kaiser Bill could destroy what last night had begun. She felt buoyant for the first time since waking up alone in the bedroom of the Hotel Portland.
There was a tap on her door, and she turned away from the artistically-arranged flowers and turned to see Louise.
‘I say, Angel, who are the flowers from? Is it someone Stanley and I know? Do tell. I won’t let on, honestly.’
Angel gave a half-smile. Louise meant it sincerely, but Clemence would worm the secret out of her in no time. And Angel would be in deeper disgrace than she was already.
‘I can’t tell you, Lou,’ she said lightly. ‘It must be a secret admirer. A mystery man!’
Louise stared at her.
‘I’m not sure that I believe you –’
Angel opened her eyes wide, knowing how it always gave her an air of artless innocence.
‘Do you think a well-brought-up young lady would tell such a fib, sissie dear?’ She gave an elaborate shrug. ‘Anyway, whoever he is, he’ll have to wait to show me the lights of London, if we’re all to move down to Somerset.’
Her heart seemed to churn as she spoke. Jacques knew this address, but he wouldn’t know where to find her in Somerset. It hadn’t been necessary to give him the country address. Her parents would naturally arrange for mail to be sent down, but then her mother would know if a letter arrived for Angel with masculine handwriting on the envelope. And knowing Clemence, she would connect it immediately with the writing on the florist’s card.
Perhaps he wouldn’t write to her anyway. He might just turn up at Hampstead one day, expecting her to be here … her t
houghts raced on haphazardly, just thinking of this complication, but knowing better than to suggest that she should be allowed to stay on alone in the town house with a handful of servants. What an outcry that would cause!
‘I’m not sure that I want to go, but I suppose it’s for the best,’ Louise said slowly, her attention already wandering from Angel’s mystery man. ‘At least Stanley can come down from time to time. He loves the country, of course. I do worry so over where he’ll be posted. It would be too much to expect that it will be somewhere near us, of course.’
She rambled on, already back in her own closed world, selfish enough to dismiss Angel’s wan face, and hardly giving a second thought to Ellen and her friend’s problems. Was that how marriage affected people? Angel wondered. Certainly it had done so with Louise and Stanley.
It created a barrier between the two of them and the rest of life. They had become one entity instead of two, which was why Louise was so disorientated all of a sudden because she would have to think for herself once more.
Angel suddenly thought of Rose Morton, whom she didn’t know, but who was going to become part of their lives from tomorrow. She too must learn to think for herself all over again. And there would be thousands of women like her before this war was over. The thought had never occurred to Angel until now.
Afternoon tea the next day was a fairly awkward affair. Clemence had ordered Cook to prepare tiny sandwiches and little cream cakes and ginger nut biscuits, but Rose Morton only toyed with the food and looked very ill at ease. Ellen constantly glanced at her, as though she were a child in need of mothering.
Angel was shocked to see how young Rose Morton was. She looked little older than Angel herself, yet she had been married and widowed in the space of a year, and she was independent enough to have joined the suffragette movement and to find support in women like Ellen now when she needed it most. She was quite obviously of a different class, but to Ellen that made absolutely no difference. Angel grudgingly admired her sister for the ability to accept people for themselves.
The Bannister Girls Page 5
