‘It’s bloomin’ grand, ain’t it?’ Jack said with sudden wistfulness.
‘The house might be grand, but I’m not,’ Louise replied, ‘and thank you for the present.’
‘That’s OK. See ya soon.’
She heard the clatter of his lace-up boots going down the lane again, and then there was silence. The countryside had closed down for the night. There was no one about, and it was almost dark. But inside Louise’s head, birds sang, music wafted on the gentle breeze, she could smell the summer roses, and peeping, she saw Jack had given her a bookmark as a present. Could life be more perfect?
* * *
‘I’ve got the most marvellous news,’ Rosie said, rushing to Freddie’s side, as he sat in the wheelchair, by his bed. Her cheeks were ruddy from the icy wind, and as usual she had a basket full of goodies.
‘Kiss me first,’ Freddie said, grabbing her arm.
‘Oh, Freddie… people will see,’ she protested laughingly.
There was already a barrage of friendly whoops and catcalls from the other patients.
‘Let them see,’ he said gaily. ‘I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘No, but I…’ she pecked him lightly on the mouth, ‘I have, Freddie. A husband who says he’s going to come home on leave quite soon.’ There was a strained look in her eyes at the mention of Charles.
‘I’ll be out of here by then.’
‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. I’ve got a long lease on a cottage in the village, but I moved out, so I wouldn’t be alone with the children when Charles joined up. Well, I’ve been there and opened it up again, it’s really very cosy and sweet, and I wondered if you’d like to stay there for a while, when you leave here?’ She sat on the edge of his bed, looking triumphant.
Freddie’s face was a study. ‘You mean it? Really?’
Rosie nodded. ‘You’re on leave for a while, when you get out of here, aren’t you? To get used to your new leg? A sort of rehabilitation time? So what could be more perfect?’
‘That’s marvellous,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s bloody marvellous.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she agreed ecstatically. ‘It’s got two bedrooms, so I thought I’d tell my family that I’m going to put up patients when they first leave here, to ease them back into normal life. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? Then I can pop down to be with you every day,’ she added with a knowing look.
Freddie’s eyes swept over her long legs and up to her breasts. ‘I can hardly wait, darling.’
Rosie could hardly wait either. Today was New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow would be the start of 1941. Whatever the future held, she would be able to spend more time with Freddie; never the nights because of her family, but long afternoons, in bed. The sort of afternoons she’d expected to spend with Charles, before they’d married.
* * *
Rosie peered out of the cottage window, and then drew back sharply, half drawing the curtain so she wouldn’t be seen from the street.
‘What is it?’ Freddie asked lazily, from the warm bed she’d just vacated.
‘It’s Louise,’ she said, frowning.
‘What about her?’ Freddie hadn’t met any of Rosie’s family because she kept him hidden, her secret lover, her all-consuming passion, but he knew all about them.
‘She’s with someone… they’re walking hand and hand.’
‘What? A boyfriend? Good for her.’
‘No Freddie, I mean, yes, it’s a boy, but it’s a village boy. One of the evacuees. What on earth is she doing?’
‘Maybe on her way to do what we’ve been doing?’ he laughed.
‘Freddie, she’s still only fifteen!’ Rosie sounded profoundly shocked. ‘I’ve seen that boy before. He can’t be more than fifteen either. Oh, my God. This is dreadful. Mummy will kill her if she finds out.’
‘Come back to bed and kill me, darling, with love,’ Freddie pleaded. ‘I want you again.’
Rosie dragged her gaze away from her sister, and looked over her shoulder at Freddie. ‘You’re insatiable,’ she laughed.
‘And you’re not?’ His eyes drilled hers, his smile mischievous. ‘Come on. Get back into bed, or I’ll start without you.’
‘Freddie!’ She glanced out of the window for a last look. Still holding hands, Louise and the boy were turning the corner going towards the bridge. She’d have to talk to her, later. Much later. When she and Freddie had exhausted themselves, and she felt happier and more fulfilled than she’d ever been in her whole life.
* * *
‘Are you warm enough?’ Jack asked anxiously, as they took their normal perch on the side of the bridge.
‘I’m fine.’ Nothing in the world was going to get Louise to admit she could no longer feel her feet, and her fingers pinched with pain. She dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her overcoat. ‘Are you all right?’
‘The cold don’t bother me,’ Jack replied easily. For Christmas she’d given him a warm scarf; it was one of hers, because she had neither money not clothing coupons, but she’d never worn it. Jack had kept it muffled around his neck, ever since. But his jacket was thin, and his wrists poked out of the sleeves, and the cheap fabric strained across his back. She wondered if she could get hold of one of her father’s old jackets, as long as Jack wasn’t offended.
‘What do you wish for the New Year, Jack?’
He thought about it for a long moment. ‘I wish I was old enough to join up,’ he said at last. Then he looked straight into her eyes. ‘An’ I wish I thought we could always be together.’
Louise was so moved her eyes filled with tears.
‘Wot’s that for?’ he asked incredulously.
‘It’s such a nice thing to say.’ She was smiling and almost weeping at the same time. ‘We can always be together. If we want to.’
He turned his head to look in the direction of Hartley Hall. ‘I don’ think they’d like that, up there. Your posh family.’
‘It’s up to me who my friends are,’ she replied indignantly.
‘Even so.’
‘They’d like you if they met you,’ she said rashly.
Jack didn’t answer. He wasn’t a fool. People like the Granvilles looked down on the likes of him. ‘’adn’t you better be gettin’ back? They’ll wonder where you are.’
Louise sighed. These snatched few minutes in the afternoons, when she told the family she was ‘going for a little walk’, were a sweet agony. Every day she looked forward to seeing Jack, and then in no time at all, she had to say goodbye to him.
‘I suppose so,’ she agreed, depressed.
In sad silence, they walked up the lane to the gates of Hartley.
‘G’-bye, then,’ Jack said.
On a sudden impulse, she reached up and kissed him on his cold cheek. ‘Good-bye, Jack.’
For a moment he looked taken aback. Then a grin spread across his face. ‘’appy New Year.’ He waved as he turned back down the lane.
‘Happy New Year,’ she called after him. ‘See you tomorrow.’
* * *
‘If you see that boy again, I’ll tell Mummy,’ Rosie warned.
‘But we’re just friends,’ Louise pleaded, desperately. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met.’
‘But can’t you see he’s unsuitable? He’s a common boy from the slums. What were you thinking off, Louise?’ Rosie had cornered Louise in the pantry after dinner that night, determined to put a stop to her sister acting so unwisely.
‘I don’t care,’ Louise retorted. ‘He’s kind and he’s interesting. We talk about books. And he wishes he was old enough to fight in the war. There’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘There’s everything wrong with him,’ Rosie said fiercely.
‘You’re getting just like Mummy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re a snob. Just like her. Talking about people being “suitable” and “unsuitable”. And look where it got you. How important is it being a titled lady, if
you’re not happy with your husband?’
‘But…’
‘And look at Juliet. Married a Duke – and now she’s divorced.’
‘Louise. Really…’
‘No, Rosie. Stop living in Never-Never Land. I’m going to have the friends I want…’ Louise was scarlet in the face with anger. And also fear that Rosie would tell their mother, who would most certainly forbid her to see Jack again. ‘If you tell Mummy, then I’ll tell her you put a wounded soldier into Speedwell Cottage, and that you spend every afternoon with him.’
Rosie turned white, her eyes widening with horror. ‘How did you know…?’ she stammered.
‘I’m not a child any longer.’ Louise raised her chin, suddenly feeling quite grown-up. ‘I’ll lead my life, and you can lead yours, for all I care.’ Then she stalked off across the empty kitchen, feeling as if she’d scored a major victory over the rest of her family.
* * *
February brought stinging rain and bitter winds to the countryside. Lady Anne, confined to the house with a heavy cold and cough, watched the comings and goings of the rest of the household with puzzled interest.
Rosie, Louise and Amanda suddenly seemed very interested in having afternoon walks. Rosie, however, never took her children, but left them with Nanny, saying it was too cold for them. When questioned she said she was either visiting the patients at Piltdown Court, or checking up on the chaps who apparently stayed for a few days at a time at her old cottage.
Louise and Amanda, who’d never been particularly close, now set off together, at weekends, for a ‘long walk’, yet returned to the house separately, an hour or so later.
When the new term started, Charlotte who had joined her sisters at Ingram House School, came back with Amanda, while Louise arrived later, preferring to walk, ‘for the exercise’.
Their grandmother wasn’t a fool, but decided to say nothing for the moment. It was all probably completely innocent; Louise and Amanda were still children, anyway.
Then Rosie got a telegram that was to change everything.
‘Charles is coming home on leave next week,’ she announced at dinner that night.
‘That’s lovely, darling,’ Liza enthused, ‘we must give him a big welcome. When does he arrive?’
‘On March the third.’
‘Will he still be here for his birthday, on the eighth?’ Henry asked.
Rosie nodded. ‘He’s got ten days.’ She gazed down at her plate of pale watery mince, and wondered what they were going to do with themselves for ten whole days. The weather was appalling, there wasn’t enough petrol to drive around and go anywhere, the local cinema only seemed to show old films, and as Charles wasn’t interested in books or music, it was going to be pretty hellish.
Especially as she wouldn’t be able to see Freddie, or dare go near Speedwell Cottage.
‘Charles will probably be glad of home comforts, won’t he?’ Henry suggested. He knew he longed for nothing more than to get back to the peace and quiet of Hartley at the weekends, always providing he wasn’t on ARP duty, in the city.
‘Why don’t you go up to London?’ Liza asked, brightening at the very idea. ‘You could stay at the Savoy. All the theatres are open you know; there are some great shows.’ Her voice took on a tinge of longing. Henry didn’t encourage her to stay with him while the bombing continued, and she was really pining for the bright lights. ‘Restaurants are packed, too. You could have a really lovely time.’
‘I know what I could arrange,’ Rosie said thoughtfully. The worse thing was the dread of being alone with Charles. They had nothing to say to each other. But as long as there were other people around, it helped dilute the agony of deathly silences.
As soon as dinner was over, she went to the hall, having put on her fur coat first, because of the whistling draughts that flowed freely through window frames of the old house, which they could no longer heat owing to fuel rationing.
‘Juliet? What a bit of luck. I was afraid you’d be on duty, or something.’
‘I’m giving a dinner party; it’s my night off.’ There was the sound of music and laughter in the background.
‘I’ve a favour to ask you,’ Rosie explained. ‘Charles is coming home on leave, at the beginning of March, and as there’s nothing happening down here, and it’s his birthday on the eighth, I wondered if we could stay with you for a few days. We’d bring our own food, of course.’
‘Yes. OK. But don’t bother about rations. Dudley looks after all that side of things, including booze. I won’t be here that much, you know, and…’ Juliet paused to flip through her diary, ‘I’ll actually be on duty on the night of the eighth, but you can go somewhere nice, can’t you? The Café de Paris is great at the moment, and there’s always the Four Hundred.’
‘That would be terrific, Juliet. Thanks a million. Is everything OK? Presumably your house is still standing?’
‘Yes. Listen, I must fly. We’re just about to have jugged hare; God knows where Dudley got it from. Let me know when you’re arriving. And Rosie…? Is this a second honeymoon?’ she added teasingly.
‘No, thanks,’ Rosie replied crisply, although there was laughter in her voice now. ‘The first one was quite enough.’
* * *
Charles looked better and fitter than he’d done before the war. His face looked healthy and tanned, his body was still lean but muscular now, and his eyes shone blue and clear; an indication, Rosie hoped, that he was drinking less.
‘How are you, Rosie?’ he asked, rather awkwardly, as if she were a stranger he was supposed to know.
‘I’m fine.’ She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘You’re looking very well?’
‘I’m OK. Glad to be home.’
At that moment Sophia came running into the hall, followed by Jonathan, swaying uncertainly on his little legs.
‘Hello there!’ Charles exclaimed, crouching down and opening his arms wide to them. Then he scooped up first Sophia and then Jonathan, hugging them close, kissing first one then the other.
Watching them together, Rosie felt deeply touched. The children were giggling and Charles was smiling like a carefree young man, and anyone seeing would think they were a happy little family.
Then Lady Anne and Liza appeared to greet Charles, the former with gracious warmth, the latter with girlish excitement.
‘You look so handsome in uniform,’ Liza gushed, patting his shoulder. ‘Doesn’t he look marvellous, Rosie?’
Rosie nodded, smiling. ‘Uniform certainly suits you, Charles.’
They took the children for a walk after lunch, with Sophia splashing in puddles in her new red gumboots and Jonathan swathed in layers of shawls and blankets in his push chair.
‘What do you do with yourself, down here?’ Charles asked, hunched in his greatcoat. ‘There can’t be much going on.’
‘I visit the patients at Piltdown Court; Granny comes too, if there’s enough petrol,’ Rosie replied, managing to keep her voice steady. ‘Some of them have been terribly badly injured.’
‘That’s nice of you. I suppose the children keep you busy?’
‘So does housework, and shopping, and helping with the washing up. I never realized that cooking meals for nine or ten people every day is so relentless. Thank God for Mrs Dobbs, and for Nanny. Things have changed so much since the war began. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever get back to normal.’
‘It depends what you mean by normal,’ Charles observed. ‘They’ll never get back to the way they were.’
She turned to look at him, wondering if he was joking. ‘Why ever not?’
‘There won’t be the money. And now the servant classes have realized they can have a good life and get employment without being domestic minions, they’ll be off. Getting jobs on the buses and trains, or in shops, factories and offices. They’ll never go back to being servile to the likes of us.’ Rosie felt quite shocked. How were her parents going to run the house in Green Street without at least six servants? Not to mention a butler,
like Parsons. ‘What will we do then, Charles?’
‘We’ll have to do the work, ourselves. The days of running big houses are over, Rosie. Most people will live in flats if they stay in town. It’s all going to be different.’
‘Goodness…!’ In the last few moments her vision of the life she’d been born into had vanished, as if a conjurer had waved a wand and made it all disappear.
He picked up Sophia, because she’d begun to tire and lag behind. ‘Want a piggy-back?’ he asked.
‘Yes! Yes!’ she cried excitedly, clinging round his neck.
Rosie felt quite disorientated. She’d believed the war was merely a horrible blip in their lives, but that as soon as it was over, everything would be as before.
Breaking into her thoughts, Charles spoke diffidently, ‘Would you mind very much if I spent the next couple of days with my mother and Henrietta? In Cumbria? I’m going to be posted abroad any minute now, and, well, you know…’ His voice faltered and faded.
‘Of course,’ she said, suddenly and unexpectedly feeling depressed. She hadn’t been looking forward to having him home on leave but now he’d decided to spend some time with his family and not her, it was as if he already recognized their marriage was over.
‘Where will you be posted?’
‘I’m not sure, and if I knew I’m afraid I wouldn’t be allowed to say.’ His smile was slightly sheepish as he glanced at her, almost as if he expected her to explode with anger.
‘You’ll be back for your birthday, on the eighth, won’t you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Good. Because I’ve arranged with Juliet that we can spend a few days in London, staying with her. I thought we could go out on your birthday?’
‘Great idea!’ He sounded delighted with the arrangement. ‘Why don’t we meet up in London, then, when I get back?’
* * *
‘Make yourself at home. Dudley will get you anything, within reason, you want,’ Juliet told Charles, when he arrived from Cumbria, a few hours before Rosie.
The Granville Affaire Page 12
