Coming Home to Island House

by Erica James

  It could still happen, he thought, stranger things and all that, because let’s face it, who would have thought he’d come back to Island House and be here in the garden with of all people Evelyn Flowerday?

  He’d asked Romily if she would mind an extra guest for dinner this evening, and in her usual generous manner she had said Evelyn would be more than welcome, adding, ‘While she’s here, she can meet young Stanley and see if she can make him feel more positive about starting school in the village.’

  Kit was aware that there were plenty of families in the village who had been pressured by Old Ma Fogg into accepting an evacuee – more than one in some cases – but he was impressed by Romily’s fortitude, that so recently widowed she had not only coped with Jack’s family, but now a nine-year-old boy, and not forgetting Annelise. When she’d first arrived at Island House, she could not have imagined this would be the situation in which she would find herself.

  As for his own situation, Kit had not foreseen how strongly his feelings for Evelyn would develop in so short a time. He was hoping she might agree to stay in touch and write to him when he embarked on his training. Other than his sister, there wasn’t anyone else who would bother to put pen to paper. He pictured himself composing long, interesting letters describing scenes that would make him appear wonderfully brave and persuade Evelyn to fall madly in love with him. Somehow he couldn’t quite imagine her doing anything madly, let alone falling in love with him. But he could hope.

  ‘It was very kind of Romily to invite me to dinner,’ Evelyn said once they were settled in the boathouse. ‘You know, she’s a remarkable woman; you’re lucky to have her as a stepmother.’

  Kit laughed. ‘When I recall some of the absolute horrors the old man brought home over the years, I’m inclined to agree with you. Although I still find it hard to think of Romily as my stepmother. I don’t think she approves of the title very much. But never mind Romily, it’s you I want to talk about.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Don’t sound so alarmed.’

  ‘You’re not going to do something rash like propose to me, are you?’

  ‘God, no!’

  ‘That’s a relief, because for an awful moment I feared the worst when you suggested we go for a walk in the garden.’

  ‘I’m crestfallen that you think so poorly of me that you would regard the idea of a proposal as so repellent.’ He put a hand to his heart for dramatic effect.

  She laughed and took hold of his other hand. ‘It would be hugely embarrassing, Kit, so don’t go getting any thoughts along those lines. We neither of us are ready for marriage. Least of all you.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ he said, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘But why on earth would you even raise the subject?’

  ‘Because so far this week, since war was declared, there’s been a rush to the altar in the village; the Reverend Tate’s never been so busy. Which naturally means there’ll be a good number of babies born early next summer for him to baptise. And talking of babies, I can’t help but admire your cousin Allegra for her courage.’

  ‘Gosh, and there was me thinking you’d be shocked.’

  ‘Just goes to show how little you know me. But I think we can safely leave the element of shock to my mother. Naturally she’s appalled, but then she would be appalled by just about anything.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you heard the news before I did.’

  ‘You can thank Mrs Bunch for that. Apparently she had her suspicions, and since she lives next door to Cynthia Blackwood, Dr Garland’s receptionist, and therefore is more or less privy to the entire village’s every diagnosed cough, sniffle and bowel complaint, there was no chance of Allegra keeping the pregnancy secret.’

  ‘Do you suppose Dr Garland has any idea that his receptionist has such a loose tongue?’

  ‘I doubt it, and if he did suspect anything, he’d be too scared to confront the old dragon. She probably knows some terrible secret about him that means he’s firmly under her thumb.’

  Kit shook his head. ‘I can think of no man less likely to have a terrible secret.’

  She gave a short laugh ‘Come off it, Kit, we all have something we’d rather keep quiet about.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said, turning to look at her. ‘Do you?’

  ‘If I did, I wouldn’t be telling you about it, would I?’

  Kit smiled. ‘And there was I thinking you would trust me implicitly.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

  In a more serious voice, he said, ‘So meanwhile poor Allegra is the talk of the village. The only good thing is, if I know my cousin, she won’t give a tinker’s cuss.’

  ‘And that,’ said Evelyn, ‘is why I admire her. Do you suppose she’ll stay and have the child here?’

  ‘I have no idea what she’ll do,’ Kit said with a shrug. ‘Besides, how would I know? I’m always the last to hear anything important.’

  ‘Well here’s something else you might like to know, and I say this not as malicious gossip, but because I rather hope something comes of it.’

  ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘That Allegra and Elijah are seeing each other.’

  ‘In what sense seeing each other?’

  ‘Oh Kit, what a chump you are! Where do you think she was in such a hurry to go just now?’

  He remembered back to dinner, when Allegra had excused herself before dessert had been served. ‘She mentioned something about needing some air and that she had a letter to post,’ he said.

  ‘And for that she had a rosy glow to her cheeks and her eyes were all lit up?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘I’d say be happy for her, and Elijah. Goodness, Kit, I do believe you look as scandalised as a Victorian spinster. Do you need me to fetch you some smelling salts?’

  ‘I think a glass of brandy would be more effective. But how do you know all this? Oh, don’t tell me, Mrs Bunch?’

  Evelyn shook her head. ‘In this case, no. Unlike you, I keep my ears and eyes open, plus I’m good at reading people. Something you could do with learning. For instance, what do you think I’m thinking right now?’

  ‘That I’m an idiot?’

  She laughed. ‘We’ll take that as read. Try again.’

  ‘I’m no good at guessing games, you should know that.’

  ‘True. How about I give you a clue?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If I closed my eyes and tilted my head up, what do you think that would mean?’

  ‘That you were tired and needed a rest?’ he said with a smile, admiring her charmingly pretty face while she couldn’t observe him. ‘Or that you were listening to something in the distance and concentrating on—’

  ‘Oh do get on with it!’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘A girl can’t sit here forever practically begging to be kissed.’

  He kissed her as he had the night of the village dance, and she responded with the same passion that had so surprised him then. It stirred in him the desire to lift her in his arms and lay her gently on the floor, and then explore every soft line and curve of her body. It made him want to feel the warmth of her smooth skin against his and to … But no! He daren’t rush things; she meant too much to him. He would be led by her. He had sufficient wit to know that with a girl like Evelyn, there could be no other way.

  ‘You’re thinking about something other than kissing me, aren’t you?’ she said, pushing him away from her so she could look into his eyes. ‘What is it?’

  Caught off guard by her perceptiveness, he tried to explain himself, but couldn’t find the right words. Instead he stroked her cheek. ‘I was thinking that given I’m such a chump, I’m at a loss to know why you would show the slightest interest in me.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d call you a chump with potential, and with the right sort of handling I might b
e able to turn you into very nearly the genuine article. I make no promises, mind.’

  He smiled happily and put his arm around her. ‘I don’t know why I put up with your constant mocking.’

  ‘You do it because you like me and I like you.’

  ‘Foolishly I was under the impression that when a person cared for another, it involved being nice to that person. Or have I got that completely wrong?’

  ‘My dear Kit, you have so very much to learn.’

  ‘I’m beginning to realise just how much. What about another lesson in kissing you?’

  She laughed. ‘You see, you’re getting the hang of this already!’

  ‘And now for the serious part,’ she said, when again they parted. She took both of his hands in hers, and clasped them firmly. ‘I will write to you as often as I can in the weeks and months ahead, if you’d like me to, but on one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That you promise not to do anything silly once you get yourself involved in this war. No unnecessary heroics just to impress me. Do you understand?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  After looking in on Annelise and finding her sleeping soundly, Hope was now in her own bedroom and studying the illustrations she had finished for her publisher.

  Nobody was more critical of her work than she was herself, and to her highly judgemental eye one or two of the pen-and-ink drawings were not her best, but given the circumstances, she was amazed she had managed to draw anything at all. She placed them carefully on top of each other with a layer of tissue paper between, then began to wrap them in brown paper ready to take to London in the morning. Kit had offered to deliver them for her, and she had almost been prepared to trust him with the task, but then she had received a letter from Edmund in that morning’s post inviting her to have lunch with him.

  To her shame, her immediate reaction on reading Edmund’s letter had been to accept the invitation, but then she had remembered she couldn’t just go off and leave Annelise. And then she had thought of Dieter. That her husband had not been her first consideration shocked her. How could she be so disloyal to Dieter? How could she think of enjoying herself having lunch with another man? Even if it was only Edmund, a childhood friend. She had stuffed the letter into her skirt pocket and blinked back the tears, but not before Romily had seen her. ‘Bad news?’ she had asked. ‘It’s not your publisher making unreasonable demands on you, is it?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ Hope had answered.

  ‘Anything I can help with? Other than maybe mind my own business?’

  And then, because she had suddenly felt so wretched, Hope had blurted out the nature of Edmund’s letter and her reaction.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Romily had said, her expression instantly one of empathy. ‘I understand completely. I would have the same reaction. But one thing I know, Jack wouldn’t want me to be miserable for the rest of my life, and if lunch with an old friend might cheer me up, he would want me to do it. Do you think Dieter would have felt the same way?’

  ‘Even if I answer yes to that,’ Hope had said, ‘there’s still the matter of Annelise, I can hardly take her with me.’

  ‘Of course not, you must leave her here with us. I rather think she’ll enjoy herself getting to know our latest arrival.’

  That was when Hope had learnt that they were acquiring a dog courtesy of Elijah, and mainly for the benefit of their evacuee. She wondered what sort of dog it would be; all they knew was that it had belonged to an elderly man in the village who lived alone and who had just died. Hope had always hankered after owning a dog, but her father had refused to consider the idea. She had been so upset, she had decided to teach him a lesson and run away. After packing a few things into a small canvas bag, along with a hunk of bread she’d taken from the pantry and a bit of cheese wrapped in some greaseproof paper, she’d set off. Her intention was to walk to the station and catch the first train that stopped there, but in the end she only got as far as Clover Wood, having chosen a densely wooded spot as her new home. It had soon grown dark, and her vivid six-year-old imagination conjured up all manner of prowling beasts hiding amongst the trees. She had wanted to go home, to be lying comfortably in her own warm bed, but fear, even when it started to rain, made her incapable of moving. Her father, drenched to the skin, had found her and carried her back wordlessly to Island House. All she could think of was that his terrifying silence, and the fact that his arms seemed to be trembling with rage as he held her tightly, proved just how cross he must be with her.

  Now as she recalled the memory, and knowing how panic-stricken she had been when Annelise was missing, she wondered if she had misinterpreted her father’s silence. What if he had been genuinely concerned about her running off and had been unable to articulate his feelings when he’d found her safe and well? Relief affected people differently, and at so young an age she had had no real way of understanding what she had just put her father through.

  The illustrations now all carefully wrapped and securely tied with string, Hope retrieved Edmund’s letter from the drawer of her bedside table. Silly to read it through again when she knew perfectly well what it said, and when she had already telephoned the number he’d given her in order to confirm what time to meet and where. But she couldn’t resist it; Edmund wrote so beautifully. As a teenager he’d spoken grandly of one day becoming a poet. His ghastly mother had treated his claim as though he’d professed an interest in pursuing a life of crime. More dutifully, he’d fulfilled her aspiration for him to study medicine, presumably so that she would have a convenient expert on hand to diagnose her many ailments. Just what every hypochondriac mother desired, a doctor for a son! Why, thought Hope, did the good people of this world – people like Dieter – die when a self-obsessed woman like Mildred Flowerday was allowed to live?

  As sorry as she felt for Edmund having the mother he did, at least he had been able to escape to London, unlike poor Evelyn, who’d had to make the sacrifice of giving up her teaching job in a prestigious girls’ school and return home to care for that cantankerous mother. A small mercy perhaps that she had just secured a teaching post at the school in the village.

  Well, they all had to make sacrifices now that they were at war. And none bigger than the one Otto and Sabine had made in handing Annelise over into Hope’s care. Stanley’s parents, and thousands like them, had also been forced to make a difficult decision.

  Hope had written to Otto and Sabine again, the day before war was declared, even though she was sure they wouldn’t receive her letter. She had sent it anyway, wanting to assure them that their precious daughter was perfectly happy and being well cared for here at Island House. She had tried to write a letter to Dieter’s parents, but had given up on the task. What could she possibly say to them? They probably hated her now; saw her as the enemy who had smuggled their granddaughter to England. With the views Gerda and Heinrich held, believing Hitler was a force for good in Germany, it scared Hope to think what lengths they might go to in their loyalty to the Nazis.

  Her mood darkening, she changed the direction of her thoughts and contemplated being back in London tomorrow. After delivering the illustrations, she would meet Edmund for lunch, and then go and check on her flat in Belsize Park.

  She wanted to believe it would feel good to be back there, but she knew it wouldn’t; it would be a return to a million and one reminders of Dieter, of coping with the pain of knowing he would never again walk through the front door and surprise her with a posy he’d bought from the flower seller on the corner of their street. At least being at Island House, a place where Dieter had never been, she wasn’t haunted by memories of him. But she couldn’t stay here indefinitely; she had to stand on her own two feet, even if it would be extraordinarily difficult.

  With her bedroom window open, leaning out to look at the garden in the shadowy darkness of dusk a
nd watching the swallows swooping through the cool September air, Hope knew that to do the best she could for Annelise, staying here, where she had so much help on hand, was the right thing. Why uproot the poor girl yet again – and deliberately put her in harm’s way in London – when she had Mrs Partridge who doted on her, and Florence who was so good with her? Yet it wasn’t the right thing for Hope. She had to prove to herself – and maybe to everybody else – that she could do this alone. Perhaps it was no more than stubborn pride that dictated her desire to leave Island House, having initially thought she would stay, but she could not ignore the feeling that it would be cowardly to remain here. She had to show some backbone.

  Romily had suggested that her father would have wanted her to make Island House her home while the world was in such a precarious state, and a part of Hope wanted to believe that was true, that he had summoned his family back here because he had somehow felt there would soon come a time when they would need a place of sanctuary.

  There were those who were firmly of the opinion that the war they had just got themselves into would be over by Christmas, and seeing her brother and Evelyn emerging from the boathouse at the other end of the garden, Hope wanted to believe with all her being that that was true.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  December 1939

  It was the day before Christmas Eve and the war was far from over. Five British ships and a number of foreign ones had recently been sunk by mines in the North Sea, and the pride of the German fleet, the Graf Spee, trapped by British warships in the South Atlantic near Uruguay, had scuttled herself on a direct order from Hitler. The ship’s captain had shot himself in the head, according to the newspapers. There had even been an attempt to assassinate Hitler.