‘Is he an aviator, your man?’ she guessed.
Angel gave a short laugh.
‘Yes. My man is an aviator. And that’s all I’m going to tell you. What you don’t know, the parents can’t get out of you, and Mother would still dearly like to know all about the scandalous affair! She thinks I’m quite a scarlet woman now.’
‘Instead of which, you’re just a woman in love,’ Ellen concluded with more perception than usual.
‘That’s right.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘I’m cold. Let’s go down to the village and see if we can find out any more about Mr Strube.’
Ellen jumped up at once, all remorse.
‘How awful! I’d forgotten about him already.’
Clearly, the villagers hadn’t forgotten, and weren’t likely to for some time. As the Bannister girls pedalled through the long winding street of the sleepy village, with the public house at one end and the church at the other, and the hotch-potch of cottages and shops in between, there seemed more activity than usual in the place.
Folk stood on doorsteps chattering and nodding together. The village bobby leaned on his cycle, taking notes from anyone willing to make a comment. As they rode along slowly, the sight of Mr Strube’s hastily boarded-up shop was a sober reminder of how people could take matters into their own hands, and to Angel it was suddenly frightening.
‘I don’t think we should stay,’ she muttered. ‘We’re outsiders as much as Mr Strube was –’
‘Of course we aren’t. We’ve been coming down here since we were children.’
But Ellen realised that what Angel said was true. A small community could close its doors on those who didn’t belong, and they had enough to contend with without the daughters of the smart London folk from the big house poking their noses in.
‘We could call at the tea room for a drink of lemonade. It’s a hot day, and what could be more natural?’ Ellen went on, still reluctant to be forced out.
Angel agreed, but it became clear that neither the plump tea room owner nor her few other customers were going to talk about the unfortunate incident at the greengrocer’s shop. Not to the two of them, anyway. They were kept politely but firmly in their place.
‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ Angel said in amazement as they pedalled back through the lanes. ‘Even Miss Norton seemed to want us out of there, and we’ve known her for years!’
‘They want to keep their stories correct without any awkward questions cropping up,’ Ellen said shrewdly. ‘The whole village could be involved in poor old roly-poly’s death, and the truth of it will probably never come out.’
‘I don’t want to think about it any more.’ Angel leaned over her handlebars, upset at the very thought of such injustice.
‘You can’t close your eyes and ears to every nasty thing that comes your way, Angel. That’s being chicken-livered.’
‘I don’t care.’ Angel’s voice floated back to her as she rode ahead furiously. ‘There’s no law that says I have to keep imagining Mr Strube’s head being bashed in, is there?’
Ellen guessed instantly that it was Angel’s way of saying that she did keep imagining it. That because she was so sensitive and finely-tuned, there was no way she could keep the atrocity out of her mind, any more than she could forget what had obviously been a very deep and emotional experience for her with the unknown aviator.
Ellen didn’t have much room in her make-up for envy, but in those shared moments when Angel had bared her innermost thoughts to her sister, Ellen had envied Angel with a fervour that had stunned her.
They didn’t talk much for the rest of the journey back to Meadowcroft. Each was concerned with her own thoughts, each wishing vaguely that the earlier closeness wasn’t evaporating, and not really knowing how to recapture it.
The house was beautiful in the late afternoon sun. Angel wondered with a catch in her throat just how many lovely buildings across the English Channel were at this moment being blown into fragments, to be left as smoking ruins. The war was definitely worming its way into her. She hated it, but without any conscious effort, she couldn’t escape it. It was as though she was becoming a part of it, and it was part of her. It was as potent a factor in her life as love.
They left their bicycles in the out-house and walked towards the house together, linking arms. It was the nearest either of them could come to putting into words how they felt. They were met in the hallway by their mother, who was looking sorely put out.
‘Your friend has gone,’ she announced accusingly to Ellen, as though it was her fault. ‘After all we’ve done for her, and my efforts this afternoon to find her a place of work, she’s packed her things and left. Cook said she telephoned for a taxi, and went as soon as our backs were turned. I knew it was a mistake to bring her here. Didn’t I say so from the beginning?’
‘Yes, Mother, you did.’ Ellen breathed a long sigh of relief, allowing Clemence to have her say. What did it matter? The fact was, Rose could only have been an embarrassment from now on, and she had saved them all the problem of what they were going to do with her.
She caught sight of Angel, who was trying hard not to smile, and blatantly grinned back at her. And then the two of them were suddenly holding on to one another and doubling up with laughter, while Clemence stared at them in disbelief.
Such a display! It was good riddance to Rose Morton if she could have this kind of influence on her girls, and the sooner they were all back to normal, the better. Mercifully, they seemed to have forgotten for the moment the upsetting incident of the little German shopkeeper’s death, and as she went out of the room with her head held high, Clemence completely failed to discern the desperation in her daughters’ laughter.
Chapter 7
‘Angel, darling, whatever’s been happening to you?’
Margot Lacey’s voice screamed through the telephone wires, so that Angel had to hold the instrument a few inches away from her ears to avoid being deafened.
‘Margot, how wonderful to hear your voice!’
‘I tried telephoning you heaps of times, but there was never any reply, and so I decided you must have gone up north with your father, or something equally ghastly. Then I gave you one last chance, and your old retainer fellow answered, and said you’d all gone down to the country for Lord knows how long. Darling, is it simply awful?’
She paused for breath, and Angel laughed at the metallic sound of Margot’s voice. Right now, it was like a breath of fresh air blowing through the house. And the assumption that anywhere outside London was ghastly was so typically Margot.
‘Not awful, just pretty boring! Oh, except that we had a murder in the village a couple of weeks ago –’
‘A murder?’ Margot squealed. ‘But how frightful! And they say nothing ever happens in sleepy old Somerset. Weren’t you all simply terrified?’
Angel considered this.
‘Not really. More sad than anything else, because the man who was killed was a perfectly nice old German shopkeeper –’
‘Ah!’ Margot’s tone said everything. ‘And he was quietly disposed of afterwards, I’ll bet, and no witnesses ever found. Does that sound about right?’
‘Exactly,’ Angel said bitterly. ‘Isn’t it all beastly?’
‘Absolute hell,’ Margot said with the frankness that had made her tutors despair of her. ‘But when am I going to see you, Angel? Can you get up to town, or do you insist that I come down there? You know that I go faint at the thought of cow muck and gumboots, but I’m dying to know what you’ve been doing since the night I caught that rotten chill and your visit had to be cut short. I was so sorry about all that, darling, and I did mean to contact you long before this, honestly.’
Angel listened to her prattling, hardly registering the words. Swift nostalgia for that night that had begun so badly, and ended so stunningly, surrounded her like a soft blanket. She could almost taste Jacques’ mouth on hers. She could feel the strength of his arms around her. She knew at last the mysteries of love. She was
warm and safe and alive … she started as she heard Margot’s insistent voice.
‘Are you still there, Angel? Have we been cut off?’
‘No. I’m sorry. I was just thinking.’ Angel tried to drag her thoughts back to the present from the hazy warmth of remembering. ‘Tell me what it’s like in London now.’
She could almost see Margot shrugging her slim shoulders, and running her hand through her mass of dark hair in unconcern.
‘Not so bad. The Jerries send their beastly Zeppelins to frighten us most nights, and we have to keep our doors and windows closed to stop their pilots seeing any lights. A waste of time if you ask me. The skies are criss-crossed with so many searchlights, they light up London far more than any gaslights would. Still, you can’t argue with the government.’
Her tone said that she would certainly do so if she got the chance. Angel found herself laughing again.
‘Oh, Margot, it is good to hear you. I’ve missed you!’
‘Well then? Come up to town if the parents will let you, and stay for a night or two. It will help relieve the dreary arguments Mother and I keep having.’
‘I didn’t think you and your mother ever argued.’ Angel was somehow cheered to think that other families had their problems too.
‘We do now. Edward came home from his boarding school absolutely keyed up with this enlisting nonsense, and as you can imagine, Mother went berserk.’
‘What? But he’s only fifteen, isn’t he?’ She remembered Margot’s pimply brother as being red-faced and stammering whenever she came into the room.
‘Sixteeen now, and grown so huge in the last six months that he’d easily pass for older, and Mother thinks he’ll lie about his age and be in France before we know it. Edward’s really grown up, Angel. He has a mind of his own now, and I have more than a sneaking admiration for him, but I can see Mother’s point of view too – well, just about,’ she added obstinately. ‘Anyway, what do you say to coming for a visit?’
Angel spoke positively. ‘It would be better if you came here. We’re all getting on each other’s nerves, as a matter of fact. Mother wants to get me involved in her Good Works, and Louise is a pompous ass, and Ellen’s miserable because her friend who was staying here has gone back to London and she doesn’t know what to do with herself.’
‘Good Lord. It does sound as if you need someone to cheer you up! All right. I’ll try and get down in a week or so if my mother hasn’t thrown a fit over Edward by then. She always thinks of you as a calming influence on me, anyway. I’ll find out the times of the trains, and perhaps someone can meet me at Bristol.’
Angel smiled into the receiver.
‘I’ll arrange that as soon as you confirm the date and time. It will be marvellous to see you. We’ve got such a lot to talk about.’
She hung up the receiver. Margot didn’t know that Angel could now drive a car. She would surprise her by turning up at Temple Meads station herself. In fact, she thought guiltily, she was quite capable now of driving her mother there for her returning heroes rotas. The tea and biscuits once provided were now tea and a cigarette, which the soldiers appreciated far more, Clemence said a mite primly.
Angel sought out her mother at once to make the suggestion, and also to ask if Margot could come for a visit. She had already put the cart before the horse, but she didn’t anticipate any objections.
‘I’m not sure that I approve,’ Clemence said, to Angel’s intense surprise. ‘I haven’t forgotten the furore after the last time you and Margot were supposed to be together, though to be fair, I presume none of your indiscretion was planned, and that Margot knew nothing of it.’
‘She still doesn’t,’ Angel said quickly, her face fiery.
‘Then she may come, of course,’ Clemence said graciously. ‘I shall look forward to seeing her again, and some fresh company may revive Ellen a bit.’
Angel hesitated, and then spoke her mind.
‘I think she’s lonely, Mother. You and Louise are so self-contained, somehow, and I have my driving practice, but now that Rose has gone, Ellen seems to have no purpose in her life.’
Clemence was decisive. ‘Nonsense. A young woman with no purpose in her life? She has everything to look forward to, not like some of the poor boys coming home crippled from the Front. Perhaps you would drive me to the railway station today, and see for yourself, Angel. Ellen could come too. Where is she, by the way? I haven’t seen her for hours.’
‘Neither have I,’ Angel said noncommittally. But from the few hints Ellen had dropped recently, she had a strong suspicion as to her sister’s whereabouts, and if her mother even guessed, she would be scandalised.
*
The small group of people on the Downs overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol crowded together a little more closely, as if to present a solid front to the angry hecklers and spectators in their audience. Two of the group held placards on which were painted the words, Justice For All.
One of these two was Ellen Bannister. Her nearest companion was a man in his late twenties, with a shock of unruly dark hair above the collar of his jacket, and a noticeable limp when he walked.
‘It’s time we got out of here,’ he muttered to Ellen, as the crowd that had gathered around them looked more and more menacing. It was their third different venue in a week, and they had met with the same hostile response each time.
‘Not yet, Peter,’ Ellen pleaded. ‘Let’s have one more try to make them see reason.’
‘All right. But only a few more minutes.’
He conceded as he usually did, because he thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Strong and fearless and beautiful. Not in a simpering, silly Way like some of the harshly made-up film stars at the bioscope show, but in a way that made him feel he could walk shoulder to shoulder with Ellen Bannister in any emergency, and she would never let him down. She was a woman who could be a true partner to a man with none of the love nonsense intruding. Unless he wanted it to, of course.
‘You all know why we’re here,’ he shouted to the angry onlookers, and suddenly ducked as a rotten egg was aimed his way. It missed his jacket, but smeared over the placard.
‘We know, all right, Jerry lover!’ One and another in the crowd began to scream and jeer. ‘Tain’t only them who should be put in prison. ‘Tis all Jerry lovers as well. You’re as disgraceful to your country as they conchie bastards!’
‘Just listen to us, please!’ Peter and the others tried to shout above the roar of approval. ‘All we’re saying is that the Germans who have lived here most of their lives should be allowed to remain peaceably, in separate communities, perhaps –’
‘So that they can start up a private war right here in England, I s’pose –’
‘There’s no reason to kill a man just because he’s of a different race to our own!’ Ellen shouted back, tears of frustration very near. Why wouldn’t they understand?
‘Have any of you seen how an ordinary shopkeeper can be victimised in a small village where he was always loved and respected? Have any of you seen how he can be killed in cold blood, and then realise there’s not one witness? No killers? We’re all killers, while we allow these things to happen. These are people, the same as us –’
‘They ain’t the same as us. They’re Jerries, and they’re killing our men in the trenches, so we’ve every right to kill them in return! They know the risks they take. They should go back where they belong. We don’t want them here!’
Other missiles were hurled towards the group of pacifists. Stones, rotten fruit, sticks … one of them struck Ellen on the side of the face, causing the blood to spurt. She gave a little cry, and rubbed furiously at the graze.
The ultimate insult came when a woman onlooker dragged a handful of white feathers from her shopping bag and threw them into the faces of the men. Sensing even more trouble if they stayed, the group began edging away from the Downs to where an old van stood by the side of the road.
‘Come on, Ellen. We’
re doing no good here,’ they yelled back at her as she lingered. Peter grabbed her hand and bundled her into the van in front of him.
But not before a woman in a small car on her way through the city from her charity organisation headquarters had taken in the scene with horrified and disbelieving eyes.
Once the group was safely inside the van, the driver moved away quickly, and Ellen leaned back, her small breasts heaving with fury.
‘Are we so wrong?’ She almost wept with the stinging pain in her cheek now that she was out of the cooler air. ‘We’re acting in the name of common humanity, for God’s sake!’
The others muttered and whispered uneasily among themselves. In the beginning, it had seemed a noble enough effort to campaign for the rights of the German immigrants, and the smart city girl had encouraged them with an inspired fervour. But it was clearly time to come to a decision.
At Meadowcroft late that afternoon, Clemence and Angel sat exhaustedly together over a very welcome pot of tea. Angel was more unnerved than at any time in her life before. She had gone to Temple Meads station with her mother, not really knowing what to expect, but vaguely assuming that everything would be clean and tidy and clinical; sweet-faced nurses helping the wounded into the waiting ambulances; calming doctors on hand to give relief to those in any real pain.
The reality was a nightmare. The casualty train had been packed. One end of it was for the slightly wounded and the walking cases; the middle was for the more serious; the rear carriages for the hopeless, for whom there was no hurry. It was neither the railway’s nor the army’s fault that the men were herded inside like cattle. They simply couldn’t cope with the sheer numbers of returning wounded, and this was only one station among many.
Temple Meads railway station was the setting-down point for the southwest, for the city and country hospitals and the outlying convalescent homes, and for those fortunate ones returning to their own homes on compassionate leave, those who were still able to walk and talk and see…
The Bannister Girls Page 9
