He felt a stab of guilt at his own pomposity. What right did he have to censure his strong-willed daughter, when he indulged in the most delightful clandestine relationship on every trip he made to Yorkshire? But he smothered the guilt and waited for Ellen’s reply.
‘I assure you it’s highly respectable, Daddy dear. I’m to take on the accounting and book-keeping for Mr Peter Chard.’
‘Who is this man, Ellen? I’ve never heard of him,’ Clemence said at once, alarm and annoyance all over her face. ‘Where did you meet him?’
‘He’s a farmer, Mother, and he lives quite near Meadowcroft. He’s very nice – and before you ask, he’s fairly young, but he can’t go to war because he has a wounded leg.’ Her voice grew mocking. ‘Oh – and I do believe he has all his own teeth and his own hair –’
‘That’s enough, Ellen,’ Fred said coldly. ‘I would like to meet this Mr Chard before I give my approval. I can’t allow my daughter to work unchaperoned without being assured that the man’s not a rogue.’
‘Especially on a farm with all those uncouth animals,’ Angel breathed the words to Ellen before she could stop herself, and saw her sister’s mouth twitch.
‘Shall I ask him to tea on Sunday?’ Ellen said. ‘I’m sure he’ll wash his hands and wipe the farmyard muck off his boots if I ask him nicely.’
‘A very good idea. Yes, ask him to tea,’ Fred said steadily. ‘And before then, try to prevent all that acid cutting your tongue, darling. It will rot if you don’t.’
Ellen and Angel made their escape, knowing that Clemence would surely begin making objections to Peter Chard coming to tea. But if Fred had ordered it, then it would happen, and Angel wanted to know more about this farmer friend of Ellen’s. In her room, she sprawled across the bed on her stomach, while Ellen flopped in the easy chair, exhausted by the unexpected scene, and still furious with Louise for splitting on her to Clemence. That was something she would have out with her older sister later.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’ Ellen said airily.
‘You know what! Who is this Peter Chard that you’ve never mentioned before? Is he one of your campaigners? Or is he your secret lover? Have you been having me on all this time, pretending you know nothing about anything?’
She was teasing, and then, when her sister didn’t answer immediately, she saw to her surprise that Ellen’s eyes were filling up.
‘No, he’s not my secret lover. He’s so nice I cringe at the very thought of Mother walking all over him at Sunday tea. I like him enormously, and I know he likes me. We’re – the very best of platonic friends, and that’s all.’
Angel realised that all the family fuss had undermined Ellen’s usual brash self-confidence. She knew that feeling only too well. She sat up and smiled encouragingly at her sister.
‘Well, I shall like him, anyway. If he’s a friend of yours, I like him already.’
Ellen suddenly snapped at her.
‘That’s the daftest thing I ever heard. How the hell do you know you’ll like him when you’ve never met him?’
‘I was only trying to help. And you know you’re not supposed to say hell.’
Ellen’s mouth was mutinous. ‘Hell and damnation. Hell-fire and buckets of blood. Oh – rats and bats and creepy-crawlies –’
‘Ellen, stop it!’ Angel burst out laughing. ‘Calm down a minute and tell me about Peter.’
‘Do you realise that’s the first time anybody’s used his Christian name?’ Ellen said, still resentful. ‘Thank-you for that. At least it makes him sound like a real person instead of somebody who’s out to seduce me. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he even thinks of me as a woman. I’m just a good sort. It makes me sound as exciting as an old washcloth. I don’t have your luck to meet a mysterious and dashing aviator and get swept off my feet in the secrecy of some little hotel!’
Angel knew that Ellen didn’t mean to cheapen it all, but that was how it sounded. And it hadn’t been cheap. It had been beautiful. It was just that after all this time it was becoming more dreamlike every day.
‘Are you sure you’re not in love with him?’ she said matter-of-factly to Ellen. She went to her dressing table to take the pins out of her luxuriant fair hair and brush it out over her shoulders, watching Ellen’s reflected face. She couldn’t tell if the flush the words produced was from anger or something else.
‘I’m perfectly sure that I’m not going in for all that stuff, especially in wartime. People get killed in wars, and the people left behind are those who suffer all the pain. I’m not risking all that wasted emotion.’
Shocked, Angel twisted round on the dressing table stool, her eyes huge and dark.
‘Oh Ellen, that’s a terrible thing to say!’
‘Well, it’s the way I feel, and I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’m going to bed.’
She departed in a huff, and Angel was left to ponder on the fact that Peter Chard wasn’t going off to war anyway, so Ellen’s peculiar reasoning didn’t apply.
Or was it all just some strange kind of self-defence mechanism against the very idea of falling in love with someone who merely thought of her as a ‘good sort’? Whatever the reason, Angel couldn’t wait to meet him on Sunday.
Before the great day, a packet of mail arrived at Meadowcroft from London. Jones, the retainer who stayed on with his wife to air and take care of the Hampstead house, had instructions to send any mail in one packet every week. Clemence always opened it ceremonially after breakfast, and she studied two items very carefully before deciding what do with them.
Fred was still at home for the weekend, but had already gone off early shooting rabbits, and she and the girls were now having breakfast together.
Clemence thought very deeply, weighing up several things in her mind. Angel had been remarkably quiet lately. She had caused no disruption in the house, her nice friend Margot was coming down shortly to brighten the household, and Angel had also shown remarkable fortitude in the several trips to Temple Meads station with her mother recently. She deserved a little treat.
‘These two are for you, Angel,’ Clemence said quietly, handing over the two items.
Angel took them curiously, and then felt as though her heart would leap right out of her chest. One of them was a letter in a very creased envelope. She recognised the handwriting on it immediately. The other was a postcard in sepia tint, showing a wan-faced young lady holding a single rose, with elaborately printed words alongside. ‘All My thoughts of Home Begin and End with You.’ She turned it over quickly. Both communications had French stamps on them.
‘Will you excuse me please, Mother?’ She choked out the words, hardly able to believe that Clemence had handed them over so uncomplainingly. Clemence nodded, sensing for the first time the depth of her youngest daughter’s emotions.
Angel went into the garden, where the sun shone warmly in the late May morning. She walked away from the house to the small gazebo, where she could be alone with Jacques’ words. She could hear his voice so clearly in her head as she read what he had written. The brief postcard first of all. Not many sentiments on it, where all could read them – and her mother had undoubtedly done so – but the words were still infinitely dear.
‘Just to tell you I am well, and that I think of you constantly. Jacques.’
No more than that, but she hugged it to her chest, remembering the richness of his voice, and the brush of his cheek against hers. She kept the letter a moment longer, savouring it, before tearing it open. It was dated a month ago.
‘My dearest love,’ she read.
‘The war goes on, keeping us apart, and I have to keep reminding myself that we really met and loved, and shared our hearts. Perhaps only in wartime can a man express himself so emotionally, when all around me shells are bursting, and eternity seems never more than a heartbeat away. The countryside that was once so beautiful is desecrated and bereft, and I weep for it.
‘I do not mean to sadden you, my Angel. I write also with ho
pe and expectation, because I am to have a few days’ leave in the last week of June, and I shall be in England.’
Angel realised anew that her heart was pounding.
‘I am desperate to see you. I have to report to my base near Calne in Wiltshire, where my aircraft is in need of repairs. Is it possible for you to get away and meet me without causing too much trouble? I know I ask too much, and yet I must ask it, for I cannot bear to think that we will never meet again.
‘Angel, my chérie, I shall stay at the Swan Inn on the outskirts of Calne from June 27th. Please come there if you can. My arms ache to hold you.’
Her hands were trembling as she held the thin pages of the letter and read the final sentences. Jacques didn’t know that she was already away from London, near enough to Wiltshire to get there easily. And independent enough now to drive herself, which suddenly made all things possible. Her thoughts fizzed in her head, as though she were intoxicated with champagne.
From the direction of the house, she heard a voice calling her, and sobered immediately. By the time Ellen reached her, it was only her flushed face that gave her away, but Ellen knew her too well…
‘What’s happened? Is it bad news? Is it your aviator?’ She always said the word with regal importance.
Angel hesitated, then held out the hastily folded letter.
‘Yes, it’s from Jacques. And no, it’s not bad news, just the opposite. Read it, Ellen.’
‘But it’s private!’ She was well indoctrinated in the rules of etiquette, despite her controversial opinions.
‘I know, but I want you to read it. The way Jacques feels is the way I feel. His letter says everything – and I want you to understand. Please, Ellen.’
She looked away as her sister quickly read Jacques’ words, then handed the letter back without comment. Her voice was thicker than usual when she finally spoke.
‘You’ll go, of course.’
Angel looked at her with bright, luminous eyes. She gave her a quick embarrassed hug.
‘You do understand. I knew you would –’
Ellen spoke dryly now. ‘I’m not such a horse-box that I can’t comprehend true love when I see it!’
‘Oh Ellen, I do love you!’
The other girl pulled a face.
‘I know you do, old thing, but save your emotions for your aviator, and for deciding how you’re going to get to the Swan Inn without Mother’s eagle eyes on you.’
It was enough to make both girls silent for a few minutes. And then…
‘Margot!’ Angel said joyfully.
Ellen looked round, as though expecting Margot Lacey to materialise through the lattice work of the gazebo at any second.
‘Where?’ she asked.
Angel began to laugh, as the hazy plan took shape.
‘Margot’s coming to stay in a week or so. She doesn’t know anything about Jacques yet, but she will soon. I know she has an aunt who lives in Wiltshire. She must tell Mother that she wants to visit her, and I shall naturally offer to drive her there and stay for a couple of nights.’
The blood seemed to flow faster in her veins, knowing that those few nights would be spent with Jacques. Shivers of delight, of apprehension, of joy, mingled together in her mind as she saw the doubt on Ellen’s face.
‘It sounds terribly risky. You haven’t thought it all out. Mother will expect a letter from this aunt of Margot’s, and even then, she may well forbid you to go.’
Angel frowned and then nodded.
‘Margot will receive a telephone call while Mother’s out,’ she said swiftly. ‘Auntie will be ill, and since Margot’s mother wrote to tell her Margot was staying at Meadowcroft, Auntie said she would be so cheered up to see her niece, and her friend would be welcome to stay a few nights at her home as well. How does that sound?’
‘It sounds as though you should be in the acting profession, darling. Are you sure you haven’t done this kind of thing before?’ Ellen queried admiringly. Angel went a fiery red.
‘Does it sound too awful to you? No matter how badly I want to see Jacques, all these lies are wicked, aren’t they? Will St Peter bar me from entering the pearly gates, do you think, Ellen?’
She spoke facetiously, but there was an underlying worry in her words. Religious instruction was too deeply ingrained in her upbringing for her to practise deceit with any degree of comfort. Ellen squeezed her hand.
‘I think even St Peter would understand, darling. What’s the old saying? Love makes the world go round. Without it, none of us would be here at all, would we?’ She stopped, suddenly round-eyed, as a thought struck her. ‘Oh, Angel, you will be careful, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’ Angel’s voice was muffled, her face more scarlet than before as she thrust the letter into its envelope. There were some things she was definitely not prepared to discuss yet, not even with Ellen, with whom she seemed to have found an unexpected rapport lately.
‘Then you can count on my help,’ Ellen said more cheerfully. ‘When the time comes, I’ll support the fact that Margot had this telephone call from Auntie in Wiltshire – providing Margot agrees, of course. What will you do with her while you and Jacques are canoodling?’
‘I haven’t got that far! But she’ll agree, I know she will. Margot will see this as a tremendous lark.’ She could be sure of that. ‘And talking of Peters – which we weren’t, strictly speaking, how does yours feel at being invited to the royal tea party on Sunday?’
To Angel’s surprise, it was Ellen’s turn to go pink.
‘He’s not exactly my Peter. He’s an independent spirit, like me – like you. I enjoy his company enormously. He thinks for himself, and I admire that. He believed in what we were doing with the group, and he knew when it was time to stop.’
‘Well. He’s obviously got quite a champion in you.’
Ellen laughed. ‘And he’s quite capable of coping with anything Mother deals out to him. He won’t be demoralised by the Chinese silk afternoon gown and the flawless pearls and the wafer-thin sandwiches served up on the best china!’
Sunday afternoon followed the pattern of Ellen’s words so exactly that she and Angel found it hard not to keep looking at one another and exploding into undignified laughter. And it would all have been such a shame, Angel thought generously. Clemence really was being the gracious hostess to perfection.
The cream Chinese silk afternoon gown gave her an added elegance, as did the flawless strands of pearls around her neck. Peter Chard was offered the plate of wafer-thin sandwiches time and again, and did his best to hook his finger into the tiny handle of the bone china teacups … he and Sir Fred had the same difficulty and exchanged the same sympathetic glances.
‘You realise, of course, that one doesn’t really care for one’s daughters going into commerce, Mr Chard,’ Clemence spoke with the cool self-confidence of breeding that somehow completely exonerated the snobbery in her words.
‘I do realise it, Lady Bannister,’ Peter replied gravely. ‘I think this war has much to answer for, when we must call on our young women to perform work normally done by men. Ladies such as yourself are to be greatly admired, for being unafraid to move forward with the times.’
Clemence looked at him thoughtfully. If she detected a snuffle into Sir Fred’s teacup, she chose to ignore it.
‘In what way, Mr Chard?’ Clemence said pleasantly.
Peter put down his cup and saucer with relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ellen and Angel, both in their pretty afternoon tea dresses, and nearer to the window was the other sister, Louise. They were like beautiful butterflies, he thought suddenly, and yet there was more strength of character in the one dear to him, than would be imagined by onlookers to this little cameo scene.
Of the others, he wasn’t so sure, though Ellen had already hinted that her sister Angel was less of a flippity schoolgirl than a few months ago. He halted his wandering thoughts and looked their mother directly in the eyes.
‘Ellen has told me much about
you, Lady Bannister. Of your knitting circles and your care for the returning wounded. That a lady in your position should be so concerned is a tribute to British womanhood, and for what it’s worth I salute you.’
Fred cleared his throat noisily. ‘I think it’s worth a great deal, my boy. And what of you? Did you not feel the urge to go to war, or does your farming interest prevent it?’
Peter smiled slightly.
‘My farming interest, as you put it, Sir Frederick, is my life’s work. I am no gentleman farmer, but one who must work hard for every penny. The country needs farmers to provide food. Even so, I would have enlisted but for personal reasons.’
Louise’s cup clattered into her saucer.
‘You’re not one of those dreadful Conchies, are you, Mr Chard?’ Her voice was sharp and accusing.
‘Don’t be so objectionable, Louise,’ Angel said shortly. ‘Do you think Ellen would be friendly with someone like that?’
‘I really don’t know. After the exhibition I witnessed last week, and all her other activities, nothing would surprise me. Ellen makes friends with the most impossible people –’
Clemence gave her daughter a freezing look.
‘I think you had better apologise for that remark, Louise. It’s most unlike you, and I trust that Mr Chard will overlook it.’ She turned to Peter. ‘We’re all tense these days, Mr Chard, and the only excuse I can offer is that Louise is feeling so disappointed because her husband was expected home this weekend, and has had his leave cancelled.’
She looked pointedly at her eldest daughter.
‘All right, I’m sorry,’ Louise muttered. ‘But I would still like my question answered.’
Peter looked at her with more interest. This one wasn’t as spineless as she looked after all. Given the right company and the right circumstances, Louise would probably be as forthright as her sisters.
‘The answer to your question is that I’m not a conscientious objector, Miss Bannister. A farming accident makes me less than perfect in the eyes of the military, I’m afraid.’
Despite himself, Peter couldn’t stop the small edge creeping into his voice. No one knew that he had tried to enlist, only to be told brusquely that because of the weakness in his leg he could not be considered a whole man. It had been a bitter blow to his pride.
The Bannister Girls Page 11
