War Brides

by Helen Bryan

  The next afternoon Alice and Oliver were in the vestry, discussing arrangements for the annual Harvest Fayre. There were so few amusements with the war on, and everyone was looking forward to it.

  “Every house in the village, except the vicarage, has a victory garden, and competition is dead keen over the biggest vegetables,” said Alice. “Nell Hawthorne has a new way of making dried-apple pies for the home-produce table, and we’ve lots of prizes for the tombola—Tanni has embroidered a sweet baby’s cap, the pub has donated a bottle of whisky, Constable Barrows has carved a wooden Noah’s Ark with animals, his wife Edith has sewn fifty lavender bags—even Mummy has crocheted a table runner. And there’s Shirley Temple, of course.”

  In the spring the village had clubbed together to buy a piglet. It was being fattened on table scraps and vegetable peelings and was to be butchered and shared out at Christmas. In the meantime the children had named it Shirley Temple, and it had become a pet. “They want Shirley Temple to have a pen at the Harvest Fayre. Margaret Rose Hawthorne has made a ribbon for her substantial neck,” said Alice. “Oh, and Nell said that if you don’t mind, she’ll come and pick the blackberries in the churchyard for jam. It’s got terribly overgrown since Jimmy signed up, but looking on the bright side there’s a good crop and she can sell the jam with her pies. Goodness, is Mrs. Gifford running?”

  Lady Marchmont’s housekeeper came breathlessly through the church gate, her apron crooked. “Vicar, come quick! It’s her ladyship! I’ve sent for the doctor, but she wants you, Vicar,” she panted. “She was gardening all morning in the heat, then after lunch she felt faint. I was clearing the lunch things when I heard her fall. I helped her to bed and sent to the home farm for Miss Frances and the doctor, but she’s gone all peculiar in the face, and—”

  Oliver grabbed the items he needed to administer Holy Communion and hurried off to Glebe House.

  An hour later the doctor arrived and pronounced Lady Marchmont dead of a massive stroke.

  Three days later two solemn men in black, one old and one young, with bowler hats and large briefcases, stepped off the morning train from London. Albert recognized Lady Marchmont’s London solicitor with his clerk. Over the years she had summoned them frequently. “Last time you’ll be needed, I daresay.” They frowned at him and marched off in the direction of Glebe House.

  At Glebe House, Mrs. Gifford served weak coffee to the two men, Frances, and Oliver, who had been summoned from the vicarage. She started to withdraw, but the solicitor asked her to stay while the will was read. He had advised the Marchmont family for years and had come to dread her ladyship’s periodic summonses to Sussex to amend her will. She had always ignored their advice about what was and was not legally possible, and now it was full of tortuous and incomprehensible provisos upon which she had insisted. He settled his spectacles on his nose, cleared his throat, and began, hoping that he could make sense of the bewildering document.

  He began with the least complicated provision, a small legacy for Mrs. Gifford and the right to stay on for life in her two rooms behind the kitchen. The solicitor paused. The housekeeper sniffed and said she was glad of the money, but that after thirty years she fancied a change from housekeeping, thank you very much. She planned to take on war work at a munitions factory near Reading.

  The solicitor continued. Lady Marchmont had not had time to alter her will before she died, and Glebe House was still left to Oliver, her only living relative. However, he had just received notification that the War Office was requisitioning it for the duration of the war, to use it as a recuperation home for wounded servicemen. The clerk interrupted to explain that, as Land Girls, Frances and Elsie would be allowed to remain in the house since the Land Girl hostel near Brighton was full and no other billet was available in the vicinity. There was something about shares and money for Oliver, while most of the contents of the house and Lady Marchmont’s jewelry went to Frances. “Though as far as we know,” the solicitor said, looking up at Frances and shaking his head, “there’s no jewelry of great value. Surprising really. There was a great deal once—quite valuable. Now there are only her everyday items—her watch, a few rings, some antique brooches. A few items of paste. There should be an inventory, but she was somewhat vague about it last time we asked.”

  During the reading Frances watched Oliver on the sofa. She wasn’t particularly interested in jewelry or furniture. His eyes were closed and she wondered if he was following what the solicitor was saying. If so he didn’t look particularly happy to hear that he was now a rich man and the owner of a grand house, even if he couldn’t live in it yet. Now he opened his eyes and rubbed them. He seemed to be thinking of something else. It struck Frances how much he had aged since she arrived. He often looked sad and worn with the extra demands the war placed on him. Of course Aunt Muriel had bullied him relentlessly, and he had just had word of the death of a local girl who volunteered to drive an ambulance in London. It had taken a direct hit. Frances knew he had spent hours the night before with the bereaved family.

  All of a sudden Frances thought that what he looked was lonely. He was a tower of strength for other people in their hours of need, but did anyone care for him? God, of course: Oliver seemed very firm in his faith. But on a more human level…Frances felt a surge of sympathy and an impulse to put her arms round him. As the solicitor’s voice droned on, it occurred to her that he was taller than she was, and if she stood on tiptoe and he bent down a little…her mouth opened as the scenario turned into a kiss and…

  The solicitor was staring at her, one eyebrow raised quizzically. Frances dropped her eyes and stared at her knees until at last they reached the end of the will. The solicitor asked if there were any questions, then solemnly accepted sherry and biscuits from Mrs. Gifford. Then he and the clerk packed up their papers to return to London.

  When they had gone Frances moved to sit beside Oliver and said, “Since the house now belongs to you, Elsie and I can try to squeeze into the hostel, but perhaps I may store things in the cellar for the time being?”

  “Of course, you are entitled to stay anyway, the solicitors said as much. But Cousin Muriel hinted strongly that it would be just a matter of time until you needed them for, er…” Oliver took off his glasses again and polished them with his handkerchief. Frances noticed that his white clerical collar set off the tan he had gotten from walking on the downs and that his eyes, with little lines round them now, were a deep brown. They held hers steadily, looking, she thought, unhappy.

  “Mmm,” she said. “You mean, she meant me to marry Hugo?”

  He nodded. “I think, well, people seemed to expect…think it’s…suitable.” He polished a clean lens vigorously.

  Frances shrugged. “Then they’re doomed to disappointment, I fear. For a start Hugo has never asked me. And, speaking of matches she planned…” She grinned.

  “I know—oh, I know!” Oliver groaned. He pushed his hair off his forehead and put his glasses back on. “She made it so obvious, and it was frightfully embarrassing at first. Then one day Alice let slip she’d once hurled an entire basket of apples through the vestry window and used every bad word she knew because Nell Hawthorne had tried to wheedle her into making apple tarts for me. We both laughed, and it’s been a joke between us ever since. But only a joke,” Oliver added in his new firm voice. “Alice is a brick, but marrying her would be like marrying my sister. Not at all what I…”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Aunt Muriel to come back and badger us from beyond the grave. She always wanted to have the last word. Jolly awkward of her, leaving things here and there. Much simpler if she had wanted you and me to make a match of it—that way her house, money, furniture, and jewelry could all stay together.”

  Oliver looked so taken aback that Frances cursed herself for her ill-timed speech, suddenly feeling that she had gone much too far. “Daft, really,” she finished feebly and blushed.

  Then he smiled at her and the little lines round his eyes deepened. “Vicars are warned
about elderly female parishioners, and I felt I was just getting the hang of dealing with her when she died. If she comes back as a ghost, I shall get the bishop’s permission to hold an exorcism. He had a run-in or two with her himself.” Oliver patted Frances’s hand in a vicarly way, then let his hand rest on hers for a moment. Frances was just thinking how pleasantly warm and strong it felt when he removed it and stood up. “Of course you mustn’t think of leaving the house. Nice to think of you living here. Oh, and Elsie too, of course.” He looked at his watch. “Mothers’ Union meeting at two. Must press on.”

  Frances sat on in the morning room, absurdly happy that Oliver wasn’t going to marry Alice. She felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her. Imagine spending one’s days in the infants’ school and going home to that dreadful mother afterward. No wonder Alice looked so bedraggled all the time. She would try to be nicer to her.

  16.

  Crowmarsh Priors,

  November 1941

  The prospect of turning twenty-one soon and being able to quit the Land Girls at last had sustained Frances since her meeting with her father, and had anything been needed to strengthen her resolve, the Wednesday three days before her birthday began particularly badly. At the farm the Land Girl team leader assigned Frances her least favorite job, milking. Grumpily Frances banged the pail on the ground and sat down on the milking stool. She fumbled for the teats, and the cow mooed and tossed her head. “Do shut up and stand still, Queenie,” she muttered. The cow shifted, knocking Frances sideways into the straw. Frances picked herself up and slapped Queenie on the rump. Irritated, Queenie kicked Frances hard with a mucky foot and peed over her trousers.

  Lugging milk pails back to the dairy she decided to take a shortcut through the bull’s pen since the occupant wasn’t in sight. Then out of nowhere, the bull was charging toward her from the far end of the field, head lowered. In her hurry to get out, Frances didn’t shut the gate properly and the bull ran off down the lane, tossing his head and bellowing. Fortunately two farmers were passing and went after him with a prod and a large forked stick. “Damn!” muttered Frances, sloshing milk into the tops of her boots.

  At midday the team leader ticked her off in front of everyone. Frances yawned ostentatiously. The team leader followed the Land Army Welfare Committee’s advice for handling awkward moments and keeping team morale up. “Right then! Now we’ll have a jolly good singsong over our sandwiches.”

  Frances snapped. “Not another! It’s like a bloody nursery! ‘Back to the Land/We must all lend a Hand!’ is too stupid for words, and I’ll be damned if I’ll sing it again, war or no war.”

  Uncertain how to cope with mutiny in the ranks and trying to hang on to her authority the team leader said, “Right! I shall report you for insubordination!”

  “Do. I’m going to the pub for lunch.”

  Elsie put down her spade. “An’ me, I bloody ’ate singin’.”

  “Elsie Pigeon, I’m reporting you too!”

  Elsie made a rude gesture with two fingers and muttered, “Bugger off!” She and Frances cycled off for some cider, leaving several Land Girls snickering and the team leader in a temper.

  An hour later and somewhat the worse for wear, they wove back to the farm on their bicycles. Elsie stopped. “I don’t fancy goin’ back. I’m fed up wiv farmin’.”

  “Me too, darling. So tedious! Whoops!” Frances wobbled turning a corner and tumbled off. “Ooops!”

  Elsie stopped too. “I’m ’ungry. You ’ungry?”

  “Always, darling!” sighed Frances, rubbing a bruised leg, light-headed from drinking cider on an empty stomach. Last night’s supper, at Evangeline’s, had been whale meat. “There wasn’t anything else,” wailed Evangeline, “even for coupons!” But the whale meat smelled and tasted like fishy rubber that had gone off. Everyone had tasted it reluctantly, then chewed the first bite very, very slowly. Tommy and Maude and Kipper simultaneously spat it out.

  “Ugh! Ain’t eatin’ that no more,” said Tommy firmly.

  “I’ll frow up if I do,” said Maude. Kipper looked at his big sister and nodded. “Me too.” In the end none of them could stomach it. Even Evangeline couldn’t do much with whale meat.

  “’Ere. I was savin’ this.” Elsie grinned and from beneath the pullover in her bicycle basket she produced a packet of ham sandwiches on thickly buttered bread, slabs of chocolate, and American cigarettes. The two girls fell on the food.

  “Ham! Oh lovely, lovely ham! Where on earth—with rations and all?” said Frances when she was licking chocolate off her fingers. She took a cigarette.

  “Bernie,” said Elsie.

  “Of course,” sighed Frances guiltily. Elsie always had treats in spite of rationing, things that were virtually unobtainable since the war started, pressed-powder compacts, perfumed soap, lipsticks, stockings, chocolates, bath talcum, silk underclothes, tinned salmon…

  “Bernie’s dealing in black market stuff, isn’t he? Darling, he’ll get caught! The papers are full of dire stories about people who break the rationing laws. Shopkeepers get fined and go to prison just for selling the tiniest bit of butter without coupons. Penal servitude! Months and months of it.”

  “Bernie? Naaoow, they never,” drawled Elsie, exhaling American tobacco luxuriously. “’E’s too good at it, knows how to go about it wifout callin’ attention to ’imself. Butter. Sugar. Petrol. Whiskey even. You name it, there’s a lot of it floatin’ about, an’ a lot of people can pay for it. ’E knows where to get it, so ’e does a bit of tradin’ ’ere and there, this an’ that. Lot of it goin’ on, Frances. Government can’t get their ’ands on everyfink. And anyway they turn a blind eye to what Bernie gets up to. Bernie says they see it as the price they pay for his work.”

  “Whatever does Bernie do, darling, to get away with it? Though I suppose it’s the most terrific secret.”

  “Oh, exactly what he done before the war,” said Elsie coolly. “’E’s not supposed to talk about it, but he can’t help tellin’ me. Forgin’ an’ burglin’ and, well, scavengin’ after the bombin’s mostly.”

  “What?”

  “Before the war the coppers was always trying to nick Bernie and send ’im away. Now ’e ’as a motor to pick ’im up and bring ’im back and they give ’im room and board with Constable Burrows to keep an eye on ’im. They even pay ’im. You got to ask, wot can the government want wiv Bernie Carpenter? Not like they need ’im to fix a dog race or fence a lorry load of cigarettes and jam, is it? The forgin’s one thing, ’e told me ’imself. It’s like ’e’s got a gift for it. ’Nother is, I fink, ’e goes scavengin’ in bombed-out buildings, like jeweler’s or a bank or a big ’ouse where they might keep jewelry, Bernie goes in quick. ’E’s supposed to look for diamonds, crack a safe to get ’em if need be. ’E gets a police guard even to warn people away while ’e’s doin’ it. I fink the War Office needs diamonds. Dunno for what, but Bernie says some things the authorities get up to you’d never believe. But that’s on the quiet, mind. Bernie says it’s all right for the people what owned the diamonds, they got insurance an’ all.”

  “Elsie, be careful. Even if he gets away with all this stuff now he’s bound to end up in prison eventually. He’ll leave you high and dry.”

  Elsie smoked and thought for a minute. If Mum had been there she would have agreed with Frances. But Elsie was on her own now, and for the time being she was following her heart. She would take care, though. “See, Frances, you don’t know ’ow folks like me and Bernie ’ave to live. You only know ’igh-ups and ’ow they live. Lady Marchmont and Sir Leander and that ’Ugo—even Alice and her mum who fink they ’aven’t much, but they’ll always ’ave more’n most.

  “You don’t know nuffink what it’s like round Norf Street, wiv the men out of work and not many jobs anyway, the glue factory smelling enough to make your ’ead ache, me mum skimpin’ every day just to feed us our dinner and keep a roof over our ’eads. Always ’ungry, we were, but Mum tried her ’ardest. She sold almost everyfink we o
wned, even ’er weddin’ ring, so’s she could pay the rent man. She hated sellin’ ’er ring worse than anyfink, always said no matter ’ow bad things got, at least people could tell she were a respectable married woman.

  “One fing I learned, you get a chance, any chance at all, not to live that way, you grab it quick. Aren’t many chances, for folk like Bernie and me. Bernie, ’e grabbed ’is chance to put somefink by for when the ’igh-ups are finished with ’im and toss him back to Norf Street. An’ anyway, what wiv what ’e knows about them givin’ ’im orders to do the forgin’ an’ safe-crackin’ an’ all, if they makes trouble for Bernie, ’e’ll make trouble for them.”

  “Ah. Blackmail. Good luck to you both, then. And thanks for the sandwiches, they were delicious,” said Frances, deciding she didn’t really care a hoot if they were black market or not.

  They were terribly late back, and the leader was in a frightful sulk. She sent Frances to join the potato diggers in a boggy field where the heavy mud clung to her boots like cement and Elsie to oil the tractor. She ordered the others not to speak to Frances and Elsie the rest of the afternoon. Elsie, feeling the effects of the cider, stalled the tractor when testing it, then drove it into a ha-ha. She emerged swearing and left the tractor on its side. The rest of the team sent them to Coventry, and Frances was glad she and Elsie didn’t have to go back to the hostel with them. For the time being they still enjoyed the relative comfort of Glebe House. As usual when Bernie was around, Elsie disappeared the minute work was finished.

  It started to drizzle, and by the end of the day Frances was chilled to the bone. Her shoulders ached and there were black half moons of dirt under her fingernails. Scrubbing her hands with hard yellow soap in the cold scullery in the November twilight, she thought wistfully of rose geranium bath salts, fresh white bath towels, manicures, nicely dressed hair, pretty dancing frocks…nightclubs, music, and laughter…now it was all mud, baggy trousers, dreary weather, bad news, gray skies, worry, cold, and Woolton pie and potatoes.