Storm Clouds Over Broombank

by Freda Lightfoot

  Meg hugged the child to her breast in an impulse of love as strong and natural as if Lissa really were her very own. She wished, in the intensity of that moment, that she was. Then she could keep her safe, for all time. ‘Of course you can. I’ll take you after your nap. Don’t be a nuisance now.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Warm hands wrapped tight about Meg’s neck. Hot, sticky lips pressed firmly against her cheek. ‘I wish you were my first mummy, Meg.’

  Meg’s heart throbbed in agony but she could find no words to answer.

  After a moment Lissa stroked back Meg’s hair, very gently, and cocking her little face on one side, smiled at her. ‘I do love you best, you see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  A fierce nod.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘More than all the world.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I won’t have to go if I don’t want to, will I?

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘With my other mummy?’

  A short pause. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘That’s all right then.’

  And as she skipped happily away, Meg bit down hard on her bottom lip, fighting back the tears. Oh, but she didn’t want Kath or Jack to come back for Lissa, not ever.

  ‘Why won’t you marry me?’ Wing Commander Wadeson glared despairingly at Kath.

  ‘You’ve been asking me that question for months now, Wade, and my answer hasn’t changed. I can’t marry you and I can’t tell you why, not just yet.’ It had been easy enough to say goodbye to him that day on Charlie’s station, quite another to mean it. In no time at all they were right back where they’d started.

  ‘Katherine, honey, I want to understand, really I do. This will be our last day together for heaven alone knows how long. All leave is cancelled until further notice, you know that. As from Monday.’

  ‘I know.’ A prickle of worry touched her spine. ‘You aren’t going on a mission, are you?’

  ‘Now, honey, you know better than to ask. I do what I have to do. The invasion is coming. No doubt about it.’

  ‘Let’s not waste time arguing then.’

  For a time they didn’t. They were in their favourite spot, deep in a wood some miles from the station. The times they could escape to it were rare and therefore all the more precious. Kath found it astonishing that Wade didn’t push her into more than she was ready to give. Their lovemaking was exciting but carefully controlled. And although Wade was becoming more and more irresistible, Kath had no wish for things to be otherwise, or to take risks, not just yet.

  The Kath of old was quite gone. Not for this Katherine the careless rapture of a moment followed by months of pain and guilt.

  So why didn’t she marry him, she thought, when it was what she wanted most in all the world? Wade had got his divorce, yet still she held back. Lissa. Why else? She had not yet plucked up the courage to tell him about her child. Bad enough to abandon a daughter, Kath thought. To deny her existence must be abominable.

  ‘I thought we said no more secrets. Sounds like a goddamned excuse to me.’

  She sighed. ‘Some secrets are hard to reveal. Look, I’m not a girl to be pushed around, Wade, so don’t try it. I’m my own person and I’ll tell you when I’m good and ready and not before.’ She trailed a hand over his chest. ‘Anyway, as you would say, what’s the big deal? You managed to ignore me this last three years, so why the rush now? And you had a few secrets of your own, remember, a wife no less.’

  ‘I didn’t ignore you. I thought it best not to pursue the relationship because of our rank. I got you in trouble once before, honey, I didn’t want to risk messing up your life. Hell, but it was hard. I kept asking that friend about you - Bella. I didn’t dare ask exactly where you were posted in case I forgot myself and came after you.’

  ‘So what changed your mind?’ she asked, guessing the answer.

  ‘It was seeing you again with that guy.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Yeah. Charlie.’ He pulled her into his arms. ‘You’d never believe how jealous I felt. It shocked me, I don’t mind telling you.’

  Kath chuckled. ‘That’s good. I was wondering what would bring you out of the woodwork?’

  ‘Out of the what?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘I need you, Katherine. I guess I’ve been pretty patient but hand holding and kisses won’t do for me much longer, however passionate. We have something special going for us. Be generous. I adore you, I love you, I want to make you happy. I want you to be my wife. I know it’s breaking regulations but no one need know, not till the war’s over, which it soon will be.’

  Kath softened, kissing him gently. ‘I think we have something special too, Wade. But I can’t give in, not yet. Maybe one day I’ll be able to tell you about my problem. When I’ve sorted a few things out. Will that satisfy you?’

  Wade put his arms about her and gathered her close, as if she were very precious. ‘What is it, honey? Tell me. You ain’t got a husband tucked away somewheres?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Only a daughter, she wanted to say. A child I had in a seedy institution for wayward girls. One I never held, didn’t love, and gave away to the woman I betrayed. For a moment his eyes, his touch, were so gentle and reassuring the story almost poured out. Almost. Would she ever be able to tell him? Kath wondered. He might leave her, once he knew the truth. Then it would all be over, and Kath knew that she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. Oh, what a mess she had made of her life.

  ‘Whatever it is, we can sort it out,’ he was saying. ‘No crime you may have done in your murky past can be so terrible as to put me off. Aw, Katherine. Come on. Trust me. We can get rid of the problem, whatever it is, honey.’

  Get rid of the problem. Was that what Lissa was? A problem to be disposed of? Kath’s guilt at ignoring her child during these first precious years of her life was bad enough. Could she abandon her own daughter for ever, or was that one sacrifice she wasn’t prepared to make?

  Connie’s matter-of-fact attitude to life and death gave Meg the courage to approach her with her own problem.

  ‘When will we hear for sure, about Jack?’ she asked.

  Connie’s keen eyes regarded her shrewdly. ‘Why do you want to know? You don’t seem to have been too bothered about where he’s been for a long while.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of little else these last months.’

  Connie’s eyes moved to the third finger of Meg’s left hand. ‘I’ve noticed that you no longer wear his ring. Haven’t worn it for years, have you?’

  ‘It gets in the way of my work.’

  ‘A ring from the man you love? Funny way of showing you care.’

  ‘I do. At least...’ Meg stopped to correct herself. ‘I did love him. Once.’

  ‘I thought that was the way the land lay.’

  Meg fell into shamed silence. After a moment she said, ‘I’m not sure that we - that we could carry on, anyway. Things had changed.’

  ‘It’s that Irishman, isn’t it?’

  Meg smiled. ‘I can’t - won’t - deny it. I never meant to love Tam but I do. But Jack and I, our relationship was over before - before Tam and I became friendly.’

  ‘Became lovers, you mean,’ said Connie sourly. ‘Don’t think I’m stupid. I’ve seen you making up that big bed that was your mother’s. Should be ashamed of yourself, you should.’

  ‘Don’t say that. I’ve done my best, really I have. It didn’t seem right to tell Jack, to end our engagement when he was so far away, fighting in the war. It seemed heartless and cruel to...’

  ‘Send him a "Dear John" letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you had an affair with someone else instead?’

  Meg’s cheeks flooded with heat. ‘That’s not fair. Jack had...’ She stopped. Why couldn’t she say it? Why didn’t she tell this narrow-minded, silly woman what her brother had done to her? Meg got up and walked to the door. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘I know wh
at you want to say. Why don’t you go ahead and say it? That Jack was the father of Katherine Ellis’s child.’

  Meg stopped and stared at Connie in shock. ‘You knew? You knew all along?’

  ‘Let’s say I made an intelligent guess. I thought she was yours at first, but then by the way you were behaving, so cold towards her, I realised who the real culprit was. Jack had talked about Katherine quite a bit. About both of you as a matter of fact. I put two and two together.’

  Meg was astonished. ‘But you never said. Why did you never say?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me. Men will be men, after all. That’s the way they are. It’s up to the girl to stop them. If she doesn’t, then she only has herself to blame.’

  ‘Oh, my God. I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You think Jack is innocent?’

  ‘I don’t see why he should pay for someone else’s lack of morals.’

  ‘You don’t believe he’s responsible for the child he has created?’

  ‘Why should he be? Don’t tell me you would have wanted him to marry Katherine Ellis, make an honest woman of her. I thought you wanted him for yourself, so you could get your hands on Broombank. But then you managed that anyway, didn’t you?’

  Meg was stunned into silence by this totally selfish attitude, this warped view of the facts.

  Connie continued with her venom. ‘There must have been something wrong, something lacking on your part for him to go looking for another woman in the first place.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’

  ‘I’m only saying God’s truth. A man doesn’t stray unless he feels unwanted.’

  ‘That simply isn’t true.’

  Connie sniffed disapprovingly, then dabbed at her eyes with her hanky. ‘That’s easy to say now. Now that’s he’s missing. Possibly even dead.’

  Meg could think of nothing to say in the face of this show of uncharacteristic grief. It was as if she were the guilty one, not Jack, or Kath.

  It certainly helped to ease her own sense of guilt for not having told either Jack or Connie that Melissa was a part of their own family. Connie had known all along and blamed everyone but her own selfish, foolish brother.

  ‘The ring he gave me is upstairs, in my room,’ Meg coolly told her. ‘I’ll go and fetch it for you. When Jack comes back, as I’m sure he will, I’ll explain to him about Tam and me. I agree that I should have told him before. I wish I had now. Before it was too late.’

  ‘Too late?’

  ‘Now it seems that my own life is on hold. I can do nothing. So long as Jack is missing, for whatever reason, I feel tied to him, trapped by my own soft heart, my strong sense of loyalty. If I couldn’t tell him when he seemed far away, stationed down south, how can I marry Tam, as he wants me to, while Jack is a prisoner somewhere? That would be even worse.’

  Connie gave a little grunt of satisfaction as if pleased that Meg found herself in this dilemma.

  ‘Things don’t always go as you would like in this world,’ she said sanctimoniously. ‘If you do finish with our Jack, what about Lissa? His daughter, mind? And what about your precious Broombank? Have you thought about that? You’d leave him homeless too, would you?’

  The invasion of Europe began in early June 1944. The weather was far from perfect with rough seas and too much wind. The Turner family, as did everyone else, listened constantly to the BBC for any scrap of news, good or bad. Bulletins were frustratingly brief. But everyone grew skilled at reading between the lines. No news was very definitely good news in time of war.

  ‘The bridgeheads are being held,’ Joe announced. ‘It’s going to succeed. This is what we’ve been waiting for. We’ll push them back, see if we don’t.’

  ‘There’s no question,’ Connie agreed stoutly. ‘It mustn’t fail. I never tolerate failure. Come on now, Joe, time for your exercises.’

  ‘What a woman,’ he said, gratification evident in his voice. ‘Worse than a little Hitler she is. Get up. Do this. Do that. Stretch. Pull. Lift. Never stops going on at me, she doesn’t.’

  ‘And look at the good it’s doing you. You can get out of bed on your own now,’ she said.

  ‘Aye,’ Joe agreed. ‘I’ll be giving that daughter of mine the run around yet.’

  As summer continued, the combined armies managed to make real progress on French soil, winning more and more territory into allied hands. At the end of August Paris was liberated, shortly followed by Brussels. But the jubilation was soon dulled with the failure to seize the last of a series of bridges at Arnhem, by which the Allies were to advance into Germany and finish off the war.

  A wet and windy summer turned into a depressing autumn where the allies seemed bogged down either by bad weather or German resistance. The thought of a sixth year of war turned Kath’s earlier exhilaration into fear and despair. Fear that even in these closing days of war, she could lose Wade, just when she’d realised how much she needed him.

  She knew that he was itching to be up there, in the skies, taking part in it all. Being grounded had never quite appealed, however vital his role in operations.

  But she had one piece of good news. In September she heard that she’d been posted back to Bledlow. She couldn’t wait to see Bella again who’d been lucky enough to spend her entire war in the same place.

  Nothing had changed. She found her old friend huddled over the belching stove, writing letters. She looked up in delighted surprise. ‘Kath, you old layabout. Let you out of HQ to come and do some real work, have they?’

  Kath laughed. ‘Am I glad to see you.’

  When the joyful reunion was over, cocoa was made and they settled down to a long catching up of news. A buoyant feeling of hope prevailed, that soon they would see an end to the agony of it all.

  ‘At least we’re making progress now,’ Kath said. ‘Pushing the Germans back where they belong.’

  ‘Aircrew always seem to be ready for off or coming back exhausted,’ Bella agreed. ‘Every night to Berlin and Nuremburg. Scared rigid most of the time, they are. It’s a long way across France and Germany to Berlin.’

  ‘It’s plain enough what they’re after. Not that we can say. Careless talk costs lives and all that. So long as they help our invading armies to advance unhindered, that’s what counts.’

  ‘Losses are heavy though,’ Bella said quietly. ‘You can see desperation in their eyes sometimes. Makes my heart bleed. I hope it’s all worth it.’

  ‘It will be.’

  ‘It’d help if the weather would be a bit kinder. If it isn’t the rain or the wind, it’s the fog. Thank God my man is reasonably safe. Works on the ground crew at the next air field. Handy, you know.’ She grinned. ‘Though it can get a bit dangerous when a plane comes back with its bombs still on board. Unsung hero, I tell him he is,’ said Bella, with her usual dry humour. ‘What about your commander? Don’t say he isn’t, because it stands out a mile what’s going on between you two.’

  ‘Nothing is going on.’

  Bella looked shocked. ‘Then it’s time it was.’

  ‘He wants to marry me, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all? Then why don’t you, girl? Jump to it, straight into bed.’

  Kath laughed. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

  ‘It is. You pull back the sheets and...’

  ‘Stop it, Bella. There are complications.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’d best tell him first.’

  ‘Fair enough. Get on with it then. Live for today. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? Everyone knows he’s crazy about you. Asked after every letter you ever wrote me, till he got posted too, so get on with it.’

  ‘Oh, Bella. I wish it were that easy. Maybe I’ll tell him tonight. What about old Mule, is she still here?’

  As if on cue, Waaf Officer Mullin walked in. Face as sour as ever, she ran a swift eye over Kath’s neatly dressed figure. Not a sign of untidiness. No scarlet lipstick on the sculpted lines of her wide lips. Hair grown longer but pinned
up, well off the collar. Nothing at all to find fault with. Kath could almost feel her disappointment.

  ‘I see we are to have the pleasure of your company again.’ The eyes fastened upon the two stripes. ‘Corporal.’

  ‘Nice to see you too, Officer Mullin.’

  And then, as if it pained her to have to say it, ‘There’s a telephone call for you. The Wing Commander, I believe. Asked for you to ring him back.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’ Kath waited until the woman had gone then looked askance at Bella.

  ‘What’s with her? Why didn’t she come down on me like a ton of the proverbial bricks?’

  ‘There’s more to worry about now than whether two different ranks get together. Go and talk to lover boy. Get that ring on your finger.’

  Kath had butterflies in her stomach long before she got through to him. It was often like that these days.

  ‘Sorry, hon,’ he said. ‘Can’t see you tonight. We have some Mosquitoes ready to go out here and we’re one experienced flier short. It’s a bit foggy so I can’t ask just anyone.’

  ‘A bit foggy? It’s like a pea souper out there. No one should be going out, let alone you.’

  ‘Sure, the weather is too bad for the Lancasters to take off but Mosquitoes are smaller, lighter. And our boys need whatever air cover they can get right now, at whatever cost.’

  ‘But not you, Wade! It’s months, years, since you flew.’

  ‘It’s okay. Like riding a bicycle. You never forget.’

  Suddenly Kath wanted to tell him, wanted to pour it all out, there and then. ‘Wade, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Sure, honey. I’d love to talk to you too. But tomorrow, when I get back. Take care.’

  A click on the line told her he had gone. Dear God, let it not be for good.

  Joe stood by Meg’s side, leaning on the rail by the auction ring. It was the first time he had been out since his stroke and his presence had caused a stir. Even so he’d been surprised by the obvious respect shown by the farmers to his daughter. Not simply a doffing of caps or inclining of the head towards a pretty young woman but they stopped to talk to her about farming matters. One or two even asked her advice. Joe could hardly believe it.