Goodnight Sweetheart

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Doesn’t everyone, sir?’

  ‘I am afraid you’re right, Walter. I suppose I had hoped that you might make a difference, that you might get through to her in some way; help get rid of all her ridiculous ideas, if that makes sense? Women so often fall for painters. Such a pity she had to choose that so-and-so of a young man Astley, wasn’t it? Just our luck, and hers, poor girl. But there you are, if a war breaks out, which we are told it will, sooner now than later, well, maybe that will change everything. Who knows?’

  He went from the room, leaving Walter staring after him. After which he turned and looked up, frowning, at his painting of Katherine in her blue dress with the great silver wings.

  Caro arrived on the dot of Smith’s now famous ‘naval time’, that is, five minutes early, but Smith did not smile. Instead he stared at her as if he could not believe what was about to happen.

  ‘Mr Garland has told me,’ he stated finally in lugubrious tones, ‘that he has it in mind to hand the Blue Angel over to you, Miss Caro.’

  To her intense annoyance Caro found herself blushing, but she was helpless to prevent the wretched colour flooding her face. She was all too aware that she still had several traces of the accident in the Bentley on show, namely a bruised cheek, and that, privately of course, Smith probably believed that it was Caro who had been driving, because, grudgingly, and reluctantly, and only a few weeks before, Smith had been finally forced to admit that Miss Harding was a very good driver.

  ‘Yes, yes, my father thinks I should take over the Angel because of my going to be in the FANYs, you see, Smith. I am going to London to join up, next week – Tuesday, probably,’ she finished, trying to keep the excitement from her voice, because it was really rather not on to feel excited about the possibility of war. ‘Will Trixie be going to London, do you think, Smith? Will she want to join up when the time comes?’

  ‘I imagine that she will, Miss Caro, but for the moment she is studying hard, trying to improve herself. Apparently she had some idea of going on the boards – becoming an actress. Over my dead body, I have told her, so she has compromised and is going for lessons in elocution, to a Miss Reed in the village. Thinks the world of her, does Miss Reed, which surprised me, because frankly, Miss Caro, my Trixie has always been a handful, what with having no mother, and I know not what.’

  Caro was just about to say, ‘Her reading’s whizzing along,’ when she stopped, realising that it sounded all too patronising, and anyway she had no idea whether or not Trixie’s reading lessons were something that her father knew about, so she kept her trap shut and contented herself with asking Smith to open up the bonnet of the Fraser Nash.

  ‘Here is the motor, or innards, as you like to call them, Miss Caro. Here’s where you put the water, unscrewing this cap here, and here’s where the petrol comes into the engine, and that there is the fan, and fan belt. It’s all very simple, as you will agree, until one of them gives out on you, and then, for some reason, everyone panics. Always carry a spare can of water, and of petrol, and above all a spare fan belt. The car can get overheated if you push her too hard, and she can get thirsty. Lack of water is a common problem with her.’

  At the sound of approaching footsteps Smith looked round.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Good morning, Smith.’

  ‘Just showing Miss Caro a few of the ropes, Mr Anthony.’

  ‘Good, good, Smith, no one better, I am quite sure.’

  Anthony stopped to admire the elegant motor car, which he loved for her elegant air and pretty lines. The Blue Angel, as she had quickly been christened by the family, had been his and Meriel’s eighteenth birthday present to Katherine. He stroked the side of the car, finding it impossible to free himself of the memory of how Katherine’s face had lit up when they had walked her round to the garages. He even knew that his face was softening as he remembered Katherine’s first sight of the car standing in the garage in all its dark blue glory, and how, the night before, Smith and himself had polished her up, as excited as the rest of the family at the prospect of handing over such a beautiful motor car to Miss Katherine on her birthday morning.

  ‘So, so – so.’ Anthony cleared his throat a little overloudly. ‘Well, then – not much for me to do, I dare say, so I will … I will leave it all to you, Smith. Good hands, you’re in good hands, Caro, as you know.’

  Anthony backed out of the garage and sped off to the house, leaving his chauffeur and his daughter to stand for a minute gazing at the car, which was rather better than standing looking sadly after Anthony.

  There was no need for either of them to say anything. After all, it was only too obvious that, in handing over Katherine’s car to her younger sister to take to London, Anthony was finally giving in to the notion that Katherine would never be returning to Chevrons.

  ‘Such a good idea to give the Blue Angel to Caro to take to London,’ Meriel murmured a little later when Anthony joined her for coffee. ‘After all, with war coming there is no doubt that as a Fany she will be given special petrol allowances and so on.’ Seeing Anthony sitting staring ahead of him rather than drinking his coffee, she continued smoothly, ‘I can’t remember what happened in the last war about transport. What did happen Anthony?’

  Anthony looked at her distractedly, and then picked up his cup.

  ‘What was that, dearest?’

  ‘What happened in the last war, as far as transport was concerned?’

  ‘Eight hundred thousand horses were killed, that was what happened to transport in the last war, Meriel.’

  Meriel nodded. ‘Yes, yes, of course, that’s what happened …’

  She looked away. At least with this war, whenever it came, at least this time no one would be coming for the horses. It would be all cars, except in the country when, in the event of petrol rationing, they would probably have to return to the horse.

  In the garage Smith was lecturing Caro, something at which he was only too adept.

  ‘You have to learn to look after your motor car yourself, the way you would look after Snowflake, Miss Caro.’

  ‘You mean go over him with the body brush and the dandy brush, clean out his hooves and brush his mane and tail, always remembering to plait on hunting days?’ Caro asked flippantly.

  Smith nodded, giving a final polish to the already shining surface of the car’s flanks.

  ‘That is exactly what I mean, Miss Caro. A clean car is a car in which you take care to drive carefully. A dirty car will always be a victim of neglect.’

  Smith nodded towards the two cars belonging to Jag and Francis, both of which, only that morning, he had spent some good time cleaning.

  ‘Inside and outside, a car must be as shining an example of its kind as the day it left the factory. Just remember the Blue Angel was made in a factory where the workers took pride in what they did. They didn’t turn out motor cars like this for people like you to drive them in dirt and filth. I hope I’m getting through to you now, Miss Caro?’

  Caro nodded. It was a rare day when Smith didn’t get through to her, but she couldn’t help saying, ‘Of course, the Fraser Nash engine was made in Ger—’

  ‘Those brothers of yours,’ Smith went on, ignoring her, ‘I swear whether it’s their ponies, or their motor cars – the truth is that those brothers of yours will be a hundred before they can be persuaded to wash a motor car, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but our mother says boys do come to those kind of things later. Alas, not everyone is like you, Smith, and what a much better place it would be if they were, is what she says.’

  Smith coloured a little. ‘Well, never mind that, I’m sure,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s go through the engine parts again, shall we? The combustion engine, as you know, Miss Caro, was invented …’

  Just for a minute or so Caro allowed her thoughts to wander from the business of the invention of the combustion engine, and to turn to Katherine’s whereabouts. She imagined herself in London, perhaps parking the Angel in Piccadill
y, or going down Bond Street with a smart officer as a passenger in the back, and perhaps suddenly hearing Katherine’s voice.

  Maybe Katherine would even bend down to look in the Fraser Nash’s window and say, ‘What are you doing in my car, Caro Garland?’

  Caro was sure that if that happened she would forgive Katherine everything, and she would laugh and indicate that as soon as she could she would drive it round to wherever Katherine was, and they would be reunited.

  Maybe they would even have a gin together, the way she and Robyn had enjoyed a gin together, followed by sardine sandwiches that were cut too thick, but which would squish beautifully. Yes, just maybe that would be what would happen when she was driving the Angel in London. It was certainly yet another reason to leave Chevrons, to motor towards that hope.

  However, leaving home, at least in her mind, as Caro had been for the best part of a week now, was, imaginatively speaking, a somewhat casual affair compared to when her last few days at Chevrons started to begin their hurried march towards departure time.

  Every moment seemed to be passing too quickly. People and events that she had taken for granted all her childhood, all her adolescence, seemed suddenly to have acquired a tender significance.

  ‘I expect you’re looking forward to going to London, Miss Caro,’ Betty asked her for possibly no must be the twentieth time, as Caro carefully folded the clothes Betty was handing her, everything having been in neat piles around her bedroom.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I am, Betty,’ Caro agreed. ‘I keep saying, why wouldn’t I be looking forward to it?’

  ‘Nothing, no, nothing, it’s just that I keep thinking you’ve never really been abroad before, not really. Your whole life has been here at Chevrons, same as – same as mine has been, and now you’re leaving it. It’s a big step, Miss Caro, you must agree, a big step.’

  Caro pushed yet another starched and folded blouse into the top of the suitcase, and then sat back on her heels.

  ‘We keep going through this, Betty, time and time again, and what is the answer? There is none. I have to go to London. There is going to be a war, everyone says so. I have to go and start helping to win it, even before it begins, so perhaps we should drop the subject, don’t you think?’

  Betty’s expression was mutinous. ‘I can’t drop the subject, Miss Caro, I just can’t.’

  ‘Why ever not, Betty?’

  ‘Because it’s on my mind all the time, because, well, if you really want to know, because I’m hoping to go to London too!’ The words burst out of her before she looked across at Caro, guilt flooding her face as if she had broken a vow. ‘I am,’ she went on bravely. ‘I am hoping to go to London to be a stenographer. I bought a book on Mr Pitman’s Shorthand, in the church bazaar, seems like years and years ago now—’

  ‘Pitman’s shorthand? You mean like secretaries do?’

  ‘That’s right, but I practised and practised, and now I can do it really fast. And the Vicar’s wife, Mrs Armstrong, all this time she has let me use their typewriter to practise on when the Vicar was doing his churching of women, which Mrs Armstrong says, of late, he seems to do all the time. At any rate, she thinks I’m coming along really fast – at the typing I mean.’ Betty leaned forward, her pretty face full of enthusiasm. ‘You see I’ve been reading the newspapers these last two years – only after Mr Smith had finished with them, mind – but I saw what they were saying about war, so I thought if I could get to London to be a stenographer—’

  ‘A secretary? But what about your painting? You draw so beautifully, I always thought one day you’d leave Chevrons to become an artist, like Mr Beresford downstairs. We used to talk about it, remember?’

  ‘I thought about it, really I did, but I know I couldn’t earn a crust with my art, Miss Caro, really I couldn’t. But what I could do, I thought, and perhaps it’s why I picked up the shorthand so quickly, is be a secretary to one of the high-ups; start making my way, as well as helping to win the war, that’s what I thought I could do, and I could earn my corn at the same time.’

  ‘Of course you could, Betty.’ Caro folded yet another blouse and put it in her suitcase. ‘Have you told my mother about this?’

  Betty shook her head, silenced. Mrs Garland’s kindness to the people who helped at the house was legendary, so naturally Betty dreaded telling her that she’d had it in her mind to leave Chevrons, not for weeks, but for months now.

  ‘No, I haven’t, Miss Caro. I haven’t said anything yet.’

  ‘Well, when I get to London, I will ask friends about what they can do for you, and then I will write and tell you, and after that you can tell my mother and, knowing Mamma, she will pull out all the stops to help you—’

  At that moment there was a sound outside the open door. Both girls looked round.

  ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing what you were both saying.’ Meriel stood in the doorway, smiling. ‘It’s all right, Betty, Mrs Armstrong has already told me about your typing, and I have to tell you that I guessed the rest when I saw you taking down my shopping list for the village a good few weeks ago. You wrote it down so fast I knew you must be mastering shorthand.’

  She smiled across at Betty.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’ll ask Mr Garland to put in a word for you with someone in government circles, get you into one of the Foreign or War Office places. In no time at all, who knows, I dare say you will be taking down shorthand from the dreaded Mr Chamberlain.’

  She turned to Caro. ‘I’ll finish here for you, Caro, because you are wanted rather urgently in the Long Room. Walter has to put a few finishing touches to your hair, or some such.’

  ‘Oh, I expect he’s just fussing—’

  ‘No, I think he really does need you for another hour or two, or so he said.’

  ‘Painters! Anyone would think that the world revolved around them and their work, and no one had anything else to do.’

  Caro left the room, sighing.

  Meriel looked puzzled. It was certainly not like Caro not to want to go to the Long Room. She kneeled down by her open suitcase. It was probably just nerves about leaving home for, of all Meriel’s children, Caro had the sunniest of natures.

  Downstairs, Caro pushed open the second of the doors that led into the Long Room, and then stood for a second or two looking up at Walter, who, as always, was perched at what seemed like the top of some tree, not just his borrowed ladder.

  He did not turn but continued painting, calling down to her, ‘Come in, come in, my lucky charm. I have missed you these last days. In fact I have had the decided feeling that you have been avoiding me. Could this be true?’

  Caro stared up at the wall for a second, not wanting to answer him, not even liking him to use his joking reference to her as his lucky charm.

  ‘You’ve been working very hard,’ she said in a considered tone, eventually. ‘And I see you’ve put Cook in, but not in the same way that Verrio put the cook at Burghley on their ceiling.’

  Walter did not turn. ‘Remind me …’

  ‘With hardly more than a tea towel covering her.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Verrio detested the cook deeply, didn’t he? Or he was in love with her, one of the two.’

  ‘Poor Cook, imagine having to wield all those wooden spoons and pots and pans with a painter hanging around.’ She laughed.

  ‘What can I say except – quite?’ Walter laughed, after which there was a long pause during which only the working of his brush on the wall could be heard.

  ‘I’m going to London,’ Caro stated.

  ‘So I hear. I gather you’re going to join the FANYs. Mrs Grant told me when she was sitting to me. In no time at all you will be driving some handsome young officer around town, and he will be falling madly in love with you. I predict it.’

  Caro smiled. ‘I hope so.’

  Walter climbed down the ladder before turning and looking her up and down in silent surprise.

  ‘You’re looking very grown up today, Miss Garland
,’ he said, having taken in Caro’s coat and skirt, her hair put up for almost the first time.

  ‘I know,’ Caro agreed. ‘The skirt and coat are not new; they were, they were – Katherine’s. I don’t know why, but she left this and a few other things behind.’

  ‘Perhaps she wanted you to have them, isn’t that a possibility?’

  Caro looked down at the coat and skirt, as if she too was surprised by them, before looking at Walter, and frowning. It had never occurred to her until that minute that Katherine might leave things behind for her. Why would she?

  Then she remembered that she had actually admired the yellow ensemble, just as she had admired the brown evening dress with the sequinned jacket, and that too had been left hanging in the wardrobe.

  ‘I expect you remember Katherine wearing these, don’t you? I know I do,’ she stated factually, willing herself to turn away from the idea that, even while planning her flight from home, even while perhaps hastily stuffing her clothes into her suitcases, and waiting for David to pick her up – heart beating in case someone caught them, or saw her suitcases – Katherine had nevertheless thought of Caro.

  ‘Yes, of course I remember her in that. Anyone would.’

  This time it was Walter who turned away. He remembered Katherine in everything that he had ever seen her in, but what he could not say was that he had dreamed of her in other things, clothes that he would put her in, clothes that she would wear for him, if she loved him.

  ‘Yes, Katherine left a whole lot of things behind – ‘Caro shrugged – ‘so everyone decided that I should have them; that if she left them behind she probably didn’t want them. But she is, was, is taller than me … than I … so Betty has had to alter the hems, which she’s done jolly well, actually.’

  Walter sighed inwardly. He had not expected to see young Caro in the yellow linen suit with the double collar, the top layer of yellow linen, the second of dark velvet. It was perhaps for this reason that he felt nothing but relief that she looked as different from her sister as it was possible to look. He really did not want Caro, his lucky charm, looking anything like beautiful, impossible, wrong-headed Katherine.