Songs of Spring

by Amy Myers

  ‘You stay as long as you like, Mrs Lilley. Mrs Phoebe needs you and that’s more important than rations and agricultural rotas.’

  The minute the last two words were out of her mouth Margaret realised she’d put her foot in it. Mrs Lilley’s face was as horror-struck as Pearl White’s when she saw the train speeding down the tracks to which she was tied.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Dibble. I hadn’t thought of that. What am I going to do? I can’t possibly leave. I have my job to think of. And there’s the petrol allocations to do, not to mention a Rat and Sparrow Club meeting. Oh, what shall I do?’

  Margaret scrabbled for an answer, and the Lord provided one. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, Mrs Lilley. My Lizzie and her Frank can manage everything between them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But’s a word we don’t use in wartime, Mrs Lilley,’ Margaret said briskly. ‘Best foot forward, as they say, and your best foot is needed to take you to Mrs Phoebe at the moment.’

  And that was that. Mrs Lilley looked at her doubtfully for a moment, and left, relieved and convinced. Which was more than Margaret was. She hoped she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew – or, rather, than Lizzie and Frank could chew. She comforted herself that the cinema couldn’t take all his time, and he was well used to agricultural organisation. She decided to put her hat on and go straight away. Luncheon was only rissoles and they wouldn’t take long. Frank didn’t start at the cinema until the afternoon, and she found him at home looking after Baby Frank. She still thought of him as Baby Frank, for all he was toddling around.

  ‘Do you think you can do it, Frank?’

  ‘I think I can cope,’ he answered, so straight-faced she had her suspicions.

  ‘No laughing matter,’ she snapped. He was her son-in-law after all, and a bit of respect never did anyone any harm. Belatedly she realised he wasn’t her son-in-law at all, although secretly she hoped he would be some day.

  She found herself asking straight out: ‘How do you manage, Frank? Knowing …’ She broke off, appalled, but it was out.

  He didn’t answer her for a moment, staring out of the window as covetously as the Kaiser must look at the map of England. ‘You mean if Rudolf comes back?’

  ‘Yes.’ She didn’t add that it was more likely to be when, rather than if. He knew that.

  ‘I manage like we all manage in this war. I go on from day to day. Even now that we’ve pushed the Germans back, nothing’s certain. It could end this year, more likely next, and who knows who’ll be in the chauffeur’s seat after that?’

  ‘No need for talk like that, Frank. Not after this last week.’

  Only a week ago, at Amiens, our lads had driven them back seven miles, when they broke through on a fifteen-mile front. The newspapers were treating it as a great victory. That had happened before, of course, so like everyone else, Margaret was waiting to see. Percy said it was the tanks that made the difference. So far it looked good because the Germans hadn’t regained the ground, even though Ludendorff seemed to have endless supplies of troops. Children, many of them, so Joe had told Muriel, and even in England they weren’t too fussy about whether boys had reached their nineteenth birthday or not.

  ‘Can you come to see Mrs Lilley right away, Frank? I’ll look after Baby Frank.’

  He hesitated. ‘Only for ten minutes. I have another appointment at twelve.’

  ‘It won’t take you long to get to the cinema from the Rectory.’

  ‘It’s at the Dower House.’ Frank looked awkward.

  Wonders would never cease. What kind of appointment could Frank have at the Dower House?

  Margaret dismissed this puzzle from her mind by turning her attention to potatoes as soon as she was back. The only uncertainty about potatoes was whether they had enough. She might have to ask Percy to dig some more, for you knew where you were if you grew your own. The government couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted you to eat them or not. They had a pile of leaflets giving you potato recipes you’d learnt at your mother’s knee, and no sooner had that come through the letter box than one followed telling you not to eat them because they were scarce. Miss Caroline had told her that in London the polite thing to do when invited to dine at a private house was to arrive not with flowers or chocolates but a bag of potatoes. Quite right too.

  On her way through to the garden via the ‘servants’ hall’, she caught sight of Raymond. The Rector had returned the book and it was sitting not in her own room but on the communal bookshelf. It was with some surprise that she realised that she had not glanced at it for at least a month, and the amount she had to do nowadays it might be yet another month before she did so again. Would Fred mind? It struck her that he wouldn’t, because Fred was not Raymond, and Raymond was not Fred. She struggled with this thought for a time, since for months the two had become intertwined.

  If she put Raymond away, or passed it on to another grieving person – no, she wouldn’t do that. It would be influencing people. The important thing was that Fred would still be there, just as he always had been. In fact, she might see more of him. See? It wasn’t exactly seeing, just the sense that Fred was around, and that even if he wandered off on his own devices, that’s what he had always done. He used to lose himself for hours at a time in the garden or in the village. What was so different about heaven?

  ‘’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.’ She sang away with fervour as she put the book away in her own bookcase.

  ‘And if you should happen to run into Raymond up there, Fred,’ she added silently, ‘thank him for me, would you?’

  ‘Cumming has sent us an intercepted signal to von Falkenhausen in Brussels from Ludendorff. Have a look at it. It’s interesting.’ Luke tossed it on Caroline’s desk.

  She glanced at it, then read it with more attention. ‘He calls 8th August a black day for the German army. I agree. Very interesting.’

  Ludendorff’s tendency to gloom was by now well known, and if he foresaw the beginning of the end of the Kaiser’s scatty dreams, then the Army itself would soon see it, for it would percolate from the High Command down to the lowest ranking soldiers. Quite right too. Luke and Yves knew from La Dame Blanche that the indomitability of La Libre Belgique, which was managing to print articles smuggled out from the Vilvorde Prison, was a severe thorn in von Falkenhausen’s flesh, and more good news was that the French had just launched a successful offensive of their own, having failed to persuade Haig into following up quickly on the Amiens success.

  ‘It won’t be long, with this kind of intelligence, before Haig does launch another attack,’ Luke declared happily.

  Caroline did not reply, and Luke glanced at her. ‘Mixed blessing for you, sweetheart,’ he added sympathetically.

  ‘And maybe for you.’

  ‘Separate the two, Caroline. Rejoice that the war is creeping slowly towards some kind of conclusion even if it’s not an outright victory, and even if we have to wait for next year. We can deal with the results of it later.’

  That was easy enough to say, Caroline thought crossly, though she admitted he was probably right. The recent apparent upturn in the Allied fortunes had forced her to face the fact that she was living in a fool’s paradise. The paradise element was splendid, but she was careering headlong towards disaster if she ignored its short duration.

  Whatever the cautious hopes of the military, the general mood of the people, like Caroline’s, however, had not changed. Summer had not brought renewed hope, it had brought ration books, fines for hoarding, and the same old daily struggle; now in late August the thought that winter was coming once again, inexorably bringing even more shortages and hardships, added to the gloom. With no fuel, little coal, less food, and a grey drabness in clothes and entertainment, a hush had fallen over everyday life. Any rejoicing at military success was weighed down with the loss of loved ones, and fear that more might be in store. Caroline would have her own form of bereavement to face, and the fact that it was inevitable did not make it easier.
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  Yves had seemed distracted these last few days, although even more tender and loving towards her, as if the coming parting had become suddenly more real to him also. He had gently warned her that if the next British offensive was planned for the north, he would have to leave.

  ‘For good?’ The thought that parting was nearer than she had reckoned with had made her cry out in horror.

  ‘No, I would return,’ he had promised, ‘but for how long we cannot know.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you this, Caroline,’ Luke was now saying to her, ‘but I think I will. Have you noticed anything about Yves recently?’

  ‘He’s been preoccupied, worried about the next offensive.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Luke said gently. ‘He’s had news of his wife.’

  A sledgehammer hit her in the stomach. The wife was real; she was probably looking forward to Yves’ return. The monster Caroline had built up in her mind transposed itself into a normal, anxious woman, who was far more difficult for her to handle than a monster.

  She licked dry lips. ‘What news?’ She tried to dismiss a hope that she didn’t want Yves back, that she had found someone else to love, and even a sneaking, debasing hope that she was dead.

  ‘Nothing much. I think that’s what has upset him. He may have been hoping for a miracle. Life isn’t that obliging,’ Luke said wryly. ‘He’s discovered through La Dame Blanche that she’s still in their home, that she fiercely resisted billeting German officers, because she was determined to keep the estate for Yves. She’s remained close to Yves’ family. He has a nephew apparently of whom he’s very fond. Did you know that?’

  ‘No.’ Caroline’s voice jerked out its pain.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caroline. In my experience it’s better to know the truth.’

  ‘Is it?’ Just at the moment that seemed hard to believe.

  It was difficult to appreciate when you were just one aircraft in the sky, George reflected, just what was being achieved, if anything. One counted the enemy planes the squadron had scored, one did one’s best to add to it, but how far this was helping win the war was impossible to tell. The amount of bombs they were dropping must be achieving something, though. And then there were all the daytime offensive patrols. And, by jingo, they were offensive! Two days after Amiens, Captain Burden had run into a bunch of enemy aircraft and shot down two of them. Not content with that, he had a go at a second group, and shot down another one. Then in the evening he was up again and brought down two more. Then the other day Captain Halleran had dived between two Hannoveraners, with the happy intended result that they collided with each other in their eagerness to attack him, and crashed.

  Sometimes it went like that; on the other hand, sometimes you spent the whole day on patrol and saw nothing, or if you did, you shot down nothing. At the moment, however, it didn’t seem to matter who shot them down, just that they were shot down. There was, he felt, a change in the air, a growing conviction that at long last they were getting there, that the achievements outweighed the waste of absent faces in the mess.

  George was happy, for he had had a letter from Florence. She had told him she loved him, that yes, she would marry him. He would have to ask Father, he supposed, since he was still under twenty-one, but nothing could touch him now. He was Hun-proof.

  Something was going on. Normally Margaret wasn’t that curious as to what went on in the Rectory, knowing it would reach her ears sooner or later, but today she was riveted by the strange events. The first odd thing was that Lady Hunney came a-calling on the Rector, after Rector’s Hour. Normally the Rector would have gone to Lady Hunney. The second, even odder occurrence, was that Frank was with Lady Hunney, and moreover the Rector seemed to be expecting them both.

  Margaret was agog with curiosity, and walked past the study door as often as she dared. Agnes took them in some coffee and came back to report they seemed to be talking about Bankside. She didn’t hear anything about agricultural rotas at all, so that was Margaret’s first thought dismissed. So it must be something about the cinema, she decided. Perhaps Frank was saying it should be closed down. Or, more likely, Swinford-Browne was wanting to close it down, and Frank and Lady Hunney were asking the Rector to intervene. The mystery was solved, she decided, and wished them well, for although she had to admit she wasn’t in favour of the cinema when it first opened, she had felt she had a proprietorial interest in it since Mrs Isabel died. Besides, the cinema provided a nice evening out for her and Percy, there was no denying that. It wasn’t all war propaganda films and heroic tales. There was Charlie Chaplin – not to mention Mary Pickford.

  Lady Hunney didn’t stay as long as Frank. She left in the old carriage she used nowadays, for it was unpatriotic to use fuel for private motoring. Percy reported that Lady Buckford had joined her, and off they both went all pally and friendly just as if they hadn’t been at each other’s throats when Lady B first came to the village.

  Quite by chance – and it was chance – Margaret was in the entrance hall when Frank came out of the study, followed by the Rector. She was horrified to see it looked as if the Rector had been crying, and she looked hastily away.

  ‘I was coming to see you, Mrs Dibble,’ Frank said formally. ‘Can you spare a moment?’

  It seemed silly to call Frank sir, although he was calling on the Rector, so Margaret replied, ‘I’ll make a nice cup of tea.’

  Frank was grinning broadly by the time he reached her kitchen. ‘You got your way then?’ she asked. ‘No shilly-shallying?’

  ‘No. The Rector’s delighted.’

  ‘He wasn’t that keen on it when it first opened.’

  Frank looked blank. ‘Keen on what?’

  ‘The cinema.’

  He burst out laughing.

  ‘And what’s so funny, might I ask?’ Margaret asked belligerently, hands on hips.

  ‘You, Ma Dibble. Not often you get fooled as to what’s going on.’

  She drew herself upright, about to point out that she wasn’t Ma Dibble to him, thank you very much, but thought better of it. She was too curious now. ‘If it wasn’t the cinema you were discussing, what was it?’

  ‘Lady Hunney, instead of rebuilding the cottages on Bankside, is going to give the land to the parish as a memorial to Mrs Isabel. She was here to ask permission to call it “Isabel’s Garden”.’

  Margaret sat down heavily, in even more need of her cup of tea. ‘Oh, what a lovely idea of hers.’

  Frank patted her shoulder anxiously when she began to sniffle. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  Margaret blew her nose on the inadequate handkerchief, one Lizzie had sewn for her when she was a little girl, and now washed and ironed until all the colour had gone over the years.

  ‘It will have to be vegetables, not flowers, until the war’s over,’ he continued, ‘but I thought we might plant one rose now, just to remember her by.’

  ‘You? What have you got to do with it?’ Margaret asked rather rudely. When he said nothing, she realised exactly what Frank had had to do with it. ‘It was your idea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps, but someone would have thought of it. Lady Hunney herself probably, since she was looking for something to do in the way of a memorial to Isabel.’

  ‘Isabel?’ Margaret repeated sharply. Why did Frank call her that quite naturally? It wasn’t his place. Then as he went slightly pink, she decided not to enquire further. Whatever was the reason, it was past, and buried with poor Mrs Isabel.

  Frank didn’t answer her – or so she thought. After he had gone, however, and she thought about what he had said, she decided he had replied after all. All he had murmured to himself as he left was: ‘Just one rose for Isabel.’

  ‘Look!’ Caroline stopped short.

  Yves’ long stride had already carried him several yards ahead, and he returned to her side anxiously.

  ‘The leaves are beginning to turn already,’ she said dismally. ‘September has hardly begun, and look, there’s even some fallen
.’

  She shivered despite the sun, for it seemed to her symbolic of what lay ahead. Here they were, in St James’s Park, still full of late afternoon beauty, despite the hideous scar in its middle, and she was meditating on death and decay.

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘It means autumn is on the way – and General Winter.’

  ‘It was General Winter defeated Napoleon in Russia. Perhaps it will do the same for the Kaiser.’ When she did not comment, he continued: ‘I’m sorry, cara. I realise it is not the war that you see in these dead leaves. It is me. You think of our love in that way?’ He took her hand.

  ‘Not you, but your leaving.’ Her voice was unsteady.

  ‘That is good, for you must surely know’ – he stopped and took her in his arms – ‘our love will never be a falling leaf. It will be evergreen.’

  She could not help herself. ‘You know that is not so,’ she burst out sadly. ‘It will grow less and less as the years go on, and finally shrivel until you and I are just embalmed as photographs, to be framed as part of each other’s past. Though I don’t suppose your wife—’

  He put his finger across her lips. ‘No, cara, I do not know that, and nor can you. I do believe the pain will grow more bearable, but that is all. For you one day it can be laid gently aside as a new love replaces it.’

  ‘You cannot really believe that, Yves.’ Did he know her so little?

  ‘I believe that life is practical. That where it cannot conquer, it seeks an armistice.’

  ‘So that is the way it will be for you? You will lay me aside and remember only your love for your wife?’