The Granville Affaire

by Una-Mary Parker

  Juliet realized at that moment that not in a hundred years could she ever tell Cameron the baby hadn’t even been his.

  She squeezed his hand. ‘You know what you should do, Cameron?’ she suggested, her voice gentle. ‘When our divorce goes through, find yourself a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. Maybe a war widow, not some young flighty bit like me. And explain to her fully what marriage to you actually means. Tell her it’s a semi-business arrangement, because you need an heir. Then there’ll be no disillusion. No disappointment. She’ll get a grand title and home to live in and you’ll get a son.’

  A glimmer of hope shone through the tears in his eyes. ‘You might be right.’

  ‘I know I’m right.’ For a moment Juliet looked like her old self, before she sank back against the pillows, exhausted. ‘One other thing, Cameron.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a Dower House on the estate? A comfortable home your mother could live in? Believe me, no wife of yours will be able to call Glenmally home whilst your mother’s still living there.’

  ‘Don’t you think so?’ Cameron asked, surprised, as he mopped his face with a silk handkerchief.

  ‘I know so. Where are you staying in town?’

  ‘At the Dorchester.’

  She nodded, glad that he hadn’t gone to the house. Her house now. ‘What did you tell Dudley?’

  ‘I told him that what with food rationing and all that, it was easier for me to go to a hotel.’ He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’d better go now, but I had to come and see you. Apart from anything I really wanted to say I’m sorry. So sorry, for everything.’

  ‘Thank you, Cameron.’ She closed her eyes, too tired to do or say any more.

  ‘I’m going back to Inverness this afternoon… so I probably won’t see you again.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take care of yourself. Get lots of rest.’

  She nodded, keeping her eyes shut so Cameron wouldn’t see her own tears. Were they for him? Or the end of her dreams? Her marriage? Or the loss of her baby, which compounded the loss of Daniel? In a way she realized they were probably for all those reasons, so she kept her eyes shut until she’d heard the door close quietly.

  Then they flowed once more because she’d never felt lonelier in her life than at that moment.

  * * *

  Henry looked worried when he returned to Hartley, after another long week in town.

  ‘They’re coming closer, Mother,’ he said to Lady Anne, as he joined her in her sitting room, for a glass of sherry before dinner. ‘The Germans are over-running France. At this rate, Paris will be seized within the next couple of weeks.’

  Lady Anne looked grave and put down her knitting. ‘Then they’ll invade us next?’

  ‘I had a quick lunch with Candida today.’ His sister now worked in the Cabinet Offices as one of many secretaries to Winston Churchill, who was now Prime Minister of a coalition government that had been formed on May the tenth. ‘Our troops in France are being pushed towards the coast. As long as Marshall Petain doesn’t surrender to the Germans and we can beat them back, then we’ll be all right.’

  ‘You don’t sound very certain, Henry,’

  ‘I’m not, Mother. I think we should be prepared for any eventuality. And that includes an invasion.’

  * * *

  ‘I’m fed up with sitting around doing nothing,’ Juliet exclaimed, swinging her tanned legs over the side of the hammock and standing up. Since her miscarriage she’d spent most of her time at Hartley, hoping the peace of the countryside and the presence of the rest of the family would alleviate her depression. Now that she felt strong again, she had decided she would join the Voluntary Aid Detachment.

  ‘What’s that?’ Louise asked, looking up from where she lay on the lawn.

  ‘A VAD is a Red Cross nurse. I want to be attached to an ambulance unit.’

  ‘Darling, won’t that be rather gory?’ Liza asked.

  ‘It probably will be, but I’m not squeamish.’

  ‘I wish I was young enough.’ Lady Anne declared. ‘Nursing is a very noble form of helping the less fortunate.’

  Henry looked admiringly at Juliet. ‘Did you say you want to work on an ambulance?’

  Juliet nodded. ‘A friend of mine works twenty-four-hour shifts at a First Aid Post, in the garage underneath Kingston House. At the moment they mostly deal with road accidents; people who have been knocked down in the black-out and that sort of thing.’

  ‘Isn’t Kingston House that block of modern flats in Knightsbridge? Facing Hyde Park?’ Liza asked.

  ‘Yes. I could walk to work across the park, from my house. It would be ideal. Laura said she’d put in a good word for me.’

  Henry looked deeply into his daughter’s eyes; the daughter with whom he felt a deep affinity. ‘Help to erase some of the pain?’ he suggested softly, while the rest of the family had gone on to chatter about other things.

  ‘Perhaps.’ She gave him a little smile. ‘No good sitting and moping. I might as well do something before I’m conscripted.’

  After a moment’s thought he said, ‘Why don’t you shut up your house for the duration? It’s an awfully big place for you to rattle around in, on your own. There’s a spare room in the flat in Campden Hill Court, you know. I’m sure Ian would be happy for you to stay there, and I’m there during the week. Sometimes Mummy, too. What do you think? It would save you having to…’

  A sudden change came over Juliet. She stiffened. The blood drained from her face. ‘I couldn’t possibly leave Park Lane,’ she said brusquely. ‘I must have my own home for entertaining. Thanks all the same, though.’

  Henry looked faintly hurt. ‘Right. I just thought you might like to be with Mummy and me, and as the flat’s in the basement it serves as a very good shelter.’

  ‘I’ve got a basement, too, Dads. Dudley has already fitted out his little sitting room as a shelter for us, with emergency rations and candles and bedding.’ Just as Daniel did in his cottage, she reflected, remembering with a stab of pain that it had been in his shelter, during what they thought was an air raid, that their baby had been conceived. Sadness fell on her face like a shadow.

  ‘Well, as long as you’re all right,’ Henry remarked equably.

  But she wasn’t all right. Her health might have been restored, but the nightmares had returned, and she thought about Daniel constantly; missing him, wondering where he was and what he was doing; regretting bitterly their quarrel. Now he’d never know they’d nearly had the baby she’d promised him.

  * * *

  Ian was grey and strained-looking. ‘Can’t stay,’ he shouted to Henry, who was making himself some breakfast. ‘I’ve just come home for some papers I left behind yesterday.’

  ‘Have you been at the FO all night?’ Henry asked incredulously, seeing Ian’s unshaven face and crumpled clothes.

  ‘Yup! The balloon’s gone up.’ He was scrabbling frantically among the papers on his desk. ‘Where the hell…?’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The Germans have reached the French coast. There’re half a million British and French troops stranded on a beach at a place called Dunkirk. We’ve lost everything. All out tanks, weapons; and our army.’ Ian’s voice broke. Then he grabbed the paper he’d been searching for and looked straight at Henry. ‘This is a monumental catastrophe; we could lose the war. See you tonight. Maybe.’ The door of the flat slammed and he was gone.

  So much for the Phoney War, Henry reflected, his appetite gone. If the Germans had managed to reach the French coast, it wouldn’t be long before they landed in England.

  * * *

  Juliet bumped into Edward Courtney outside the Royal Academy in Piccadilly. She hardly recognized him at first.

  ‘Eddie…!’ she called out, shocked by his gaunt face and haunted eyes.

  ‘Oh, hello, Juliet.’ His polite greeting and wan smile were forced, as if he didn’t want to emerge from some prot
ective carapace he was sheltering behind.

  ‘Eddie, are you all right?’ She grabbed his arm impulsively. Where was the merry young man with whom she’d once had such fun, getting drunk, dancing all night, and flirting outrageously? She knew he’d joined the Irish Fusiliers’ and from the pips on his shoulders, she saw he was now a Captain. A very young Captain.

  ‘I’m back from Dunkirk,’ he replied hollowly.

  Juliet’s hand flew to her mouth, aghast. ‘Oh, my God!’

  He nodded. His eyes were filled with pain.

  ‘I saw those dreadful aerial shots in the newspapers; all those thousands of soldiers stranded on the beach, hoping to be rescued by boat.’

  He nodded again, unable to speak. She noticed his hands were shaking.

  ‘You need a stiff drink, Eddie. Why not come back to my place?’

  ‘Thanks. That would be marvellous.’ His voice was still tight and clipped.

  In the taxi, Edward smoked quiveringly, silently distracted, while Juliet recalled the details of the most humiliating defeat the British Expeditionary Force had ever suffered.

  For the first time in her life, she had seen her grandmother weep at the plight of the British and French armies.

  Henry had murmured, ‘Unless there’s a miracle, we’ve lost the war.’

  That had been on June the third, but a miracle had happened. By June the seventh, the majority of the troops had been rescued and brought back to Dover by a motley flotilla of ships, from little sailing boats to merchant ships, from pleasure cruisers to destroyers. On the BBC news it was reported that ‘for five days the Channel was as calm as a mill pond, enabling the crossing to and fro of all the rescue boats to continue unabated.’

  Lady Anne, always a deeply religious woman, declared: ‘That was the hand of God, who stilled the waters and made it possible.’

  It was now June the twentieth. Juliet glanced at Edward’s profile and slumped shoulders and felt great concern; he reminded her of a beaten dog.

  ‘Dudley, will you bring whisky and glasses up to the drawing room?’ Juliet asked, as soon as they arrived at her house. ‘And I don’t want to be disturbed. If anyone telephones, please say I’m out.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  Juliet opened the French windows and settled Edward on the deeply cushioned white sofa over-looking the park. She sat opposite him and they sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes, while she waited for him to start talking, which she was sure he’d do when he was ready.

  Instead she saw a silent tear slide down his thin cheek and drop on to the lapel of his uniform.

  ‘Oh, Eddie darling.’ Without hesitation she moved to his side, wrapping her arms around him, holding him close. When she’d lost the baby, all she’d wanted was for someone to hold her tightly. There’d been no one who really understood how she felt, though, and she didn’t want Edward to feel like that.

  ‘It was terrible,’ he burst out, sobbing. ‘You’ve no idea. We prayed for the boats to rescue us. And they did but for many it was too late. It was ugly. Ugly.’

  He couldn’t continue. Juliet stroked his face and kissed his cheeks, and topped up his glass. Then she held his hand, her other arm still around his thin shoulders.

  After a while he seemed calmer and gave her a watery little smile.

  ‘Who would have thought it, eh? You, the most glamorous débutante of the year and me… the dashing stockbroker! And look at us now.’

  ‘Older and wiser, darling. But still the same, inside.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, Juliet. I’ll never be the same, and I can’t talk to my mother and father about it because it would upset them so.’ He paused, the pain returning to his eyes.

  ‘When you see your tanks and motor vehicles burning… and your friends, burnt to death inside them; and when you watch decent men, men you’ve worked with and trusted with your life, stamp on the faces of their friends in the water, in order to secure a place on one of the boats…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘I read you were all caught on the hop because the French Government surrendered to the Germans, without warning?’

  Edward shook his head. ‘That was British propaganda, to hide the fact that we were disorganized and very badly led. Communications broke down. We were uncoordinated in both our defensive measures and offensive tactics. And we weren’t strong enough or in the right position to fight the Germans.’ He paused, taking a deep breath. ‘In truth, Juliet, it was a catastrophic fuck-up. Thanks to Winston Churchill, it’s been turned into what sounds like a heroic episode. He’s still even saying we’re going to win the war.’

  Juliet felt her heart plunge icily. ‘And you don’t think we will?’

  ‘I believe there’s much worse to come.’

  ‘How much more leave have you got?’

  ‘Another twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Would you like to spend it here? With me?’ she asked softly.

  He looked into her eyes, those pale-blue sparkling eyes he’d been attracted to for years.

  ‘With you?’ he croaked.

  Juliet smiled her wicked smile. ‘In a silver Maharaja’s bed.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘but are you sure you want to do this?’

  For answer she raised her mouth to his, kissing him hungrily, bridging in that instant the gap between friends and lovers.

  For the next twenty-four hours they remained in her bed, eating the delicacies and drinking the champagne that she’d ordered Dudley to leave on the table outside her room.

  By the time he left to go back to his barracks, Edward’s spirits were soothed and his body sated. He’d also fallen in love with Juliet.

  * * *

  In the months that followed, Juliet worked hard to get her First Aid and Home Nursing certificates, attending all the lectures and demonstrations, and by August she’d passed all her exams.

  She was now qualified to be part of a nursing team on an ambulance, under the direction of a doctor. Enrolled in the Red Cross, her friend, Laura Walker, whom she’d met when they’d both been débutantes, had even managed to get her on to the same ambulance unit, at Kingston House.

  Then her divorce came through, but this time the scandal was swept off the front pages of the newspapers by epic news of the Battle of Britain. There was just a two-inch column on an inside page stating the bald facts of her deserting the Duke of Kincardine.

  Juliet decided it was time she reinvented herself. She had her hair cut short, to comply with her uniform regulations; make-up was not allowed either, nor nail varnish. Removing all jewellery, she even took off her wedding ring, never to wear it again. In her plain blue cotton dress, white apron and starched cap she was ready to report for her first twenty-four-hour shift.

  ‘I’d never have believed we’d be here, doing this, when we met,’ Juliet laughed. ‘And look at us! God! We’re not going to appear in the Sketch or Tatler as glamorous girls now, are we?’

  It crossed her mind that Daniel might have seen the short report about her divorce and she wondered if it might encourage him to contact her, knowing she was single once more.

  But there was not a word from him, and as they had no mutual friends, she couldn’t even find out what he was doing.

  At first she wondered if she’d find her shift dull and monotonous. The underground car park was vast and bleak, and even the brightly lit partitioned sections at one end, did little to cheer the place up.

  There were cubicles for treating minor injuries, an area for sitting in whilst on duty, a kitchen, a supplies room and a cluttered little office, occupied by the Commandant-in-Chief, a forty-year-old fattypuff called Miss Stafford. Sitting at her desk like a broody bad-tempered hen, in her scarlet cotton uniform dress, she endlessly worked out ‘duty charts’.

  ‘How many more times do we need to practise bandaging someone’s head, for God’s sake?’ Juliet whispered to Laura in exasperation.

  They were told to practise their bandaging skills on each other. It was only
after a week of wrapping and un-wrapping lengths of grubby crepe strips around heads, arms, chests and legs, or fixing slings and splints, or applying tourniquets until limbs turned blue, that Juliet twigged that it had more to do with Miss Stafford’s lesbian tendencies than looking after a patient who might have been knocked down by a bus. She took the opportunity to watch and touch as she selected her ‘favourites’, and having made her choice, she then became nasty to all the other nurses. Juliet, was fervently thankful not to be a ‘favourite’, but nevertheless, refused to submit to the type of bullying that included scrubbing the concrete floor which had taken them a total of six hours.

  ‘That woman is a bitch,’ Juliet told Laura, as they came off duty the next morning.

  ‘But what can we do?’ Laura was timid compared to Juliet, and hated unpleasantness. ‘Perhaps we can get put on the other shift, when she’s not on duty? She could make life hell for us, if we kick up a fuss.’

  ‘What’s this then? Heaven?’

  Saying good-bye to Laura, who lived in Kensington, Juliet walked home briskly through the park. It was the end of August, but there was something in the air that made her realize how soon it would be autumn.

  In a few days’ time the country would also have been at war for twelve months.

  As she neared Hyde Park Corner, she could never resist glancing through the trees at St George’s Hospital, her eyes searching for the window of the room where her baby had been delivered. And her tender dreams of motherhood had died.

  Today, tired after a long night sitting on a hard chair doing nothing, tears blurred her vision, and a feeling of desolation swept over her, as she stood still for a moment, gazing up at the window.

  ‘So you’re a sister-of-mercy now, are you? That’s a new role for you.’ The voice was deep and sardonic. The tall, strong-shouldered man raised his trilby as he spoke, revealing coal black hair.

  Juliet spun round, shock rendering her speechless. She stood rock still, looking up at him, her pale blue eyes bright with tears.