‘No worries, Alan, it’s just our own home-brewed cider warmed with a few cloves and a dash of Mrs Tanner’s sloe gin,’ he said with a grin. ‘You’ll all be singing your heads off after this!’
Alan Kennard smiled and accepted a small half glass. The Christmas Eve service had been moved from midnight to eight o’clock for the benefit of tired families on a frosty night, and would follow on from the carol singing, scheduled to reach the church in good time for the service. He reckoned he would probably have to take all the Christmas services, as the rector had to stay to comfort Mrs Allingham; Lester had phoned briefly to say he was not coming home for Christmas, but was staying in London, and his mother was heartbroken, blaming the newspapers for causing him such embarrassment.
Looking round at the singers in their winter coats, scarves and gloves, he smiled gratefully at Rebecca who was in charge of the children – Lily and Jimmy from the Manor and Kenny and Danny from the Rectory. Their ages now ranged from seven to ten, and young Nick would be fourteen this year. All except Nick would be going home when the singing ended, meanwhile they were overjoyed at being allowed to join the carol singers. Alan noticed that Dora Goddard, now home on Christmas leave, had come to join them, and was hearing all the latest news from Barbara Seabrook.
‘Look over there, Dora,’ she whispered, ‘at those three Italian prisoners of war. I wonder who gave them permission to attend. It’ll start tongues wagging again, and my Dad says he wonders why Sir Cedric allows it.’
‘The children all seem pleased to see them,’ observed Dora. ‘They all want to hold their hands! And they look like really nice fellows.’
‘Yes, that dark one uses the children to worm his way into Hassett Manor and flirt with Rebecca Neville!’
‘Good heavens! And does she – er – respond?’
‘People have seen them walking close together, deep in conversation,’ said Barbara, lowering her voice. ‘You know she gave up a very nice chap who was Paul Storey’s friend at university and lost a leg after Dunkirk. He adored her, and the Nevilles must have been so disappointed – and if she marries a prisoner of war, just think of the scandal!’
‘Not really our business, though, is it?’ said Dora. ‘Who’s the chap with the soulful eyes, talking to her ladyship?’
‘Oh, you must remember Philip Saville, the organist – he was another casualty of the first war, and became a semi-recluse, living with his aunt. He’s opened up a lot since the war started, and the boy carrying the lantern is an evacuee who’s billeted on them – a nice boy.’
Dora reflected that she too had benefitted from the war, in that her life had been changed by joining the ATS and discovering a wider world, but she thought it better not to tell Barbara who had stayed in North Camp and served in her father’s butcher’s shop.
‘Right, then – are we ready?’ called Alan. ‘We’ll make for the High Street first, and start with “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and everybody’s to sing up!’ Dora and Barbara joined them, Dora remarking that the rector was not present.
Barbara did not answer, and when Dora repeated her remark, she replied with a shrug, ‘You know that they lost their son Howard, and now I believe the younger son is giving them trouble of some sort.’
‘Wait a minute, Mum was telling me about some rumpus he got into in London, and it was in the papers – of course, he’s a great war hero, and it must have upset the old people,’ went on Dora as a memory came to mind. ‘You used to go out with him, didn’t you, Barbara? I seem to remember you two as the stars of the tennis courts! You didn’t keep in touch, then?’
‘That was a long time ago, and it petered out when he joined the RAF,’ said Barbara quickly. ‘Oh, look, there’s Valerie Pearson – with John Richardson, another wounded hero! Hello, Valerie – and John! Did your mother let you out?’ she asked with a broad wink.
‘I called to ask if she’d come with me to sing carols, and I have a way with dear old ladies,’ laughed John. ‘I persuaded her to let Val off the chain for one evening!’
‘That’s just not true, don’t listen to him – my mother told me to join the carol singing,’ said Valerie, frowning. ‘She wanted to listen to the carols from King’s College on the wireless, and so did I—’
‘Until you got a better offer,’ chuckled Dora. ‘My oh my, things have changed in North Camp since I left!’
Philip Saville, seeing Valerie walking with Richardson, felt a sense of disappointment, regretted that he had not followed up Isabel Neville’s subtle praise of Valerie, bringing them together at the children’s outings to Everham, when he had so admired the girl’s kindness to the evacuees. Then had come Doreen Nuttall’s open adoration of him, and his stupidity at not discouraging her firmly from the start. He had got over his hopeless infatuation for Isabel Neville, but had failed to recognise Valerie’s sweet nature, and now she had been taken up by Richardson, the latest war hero. He sighed over his own folly.
Apart from the children, the carol singers attended the Christmas Eve service and Holy Communion, and to Alan’s fervent prayer that this would be the last Christmas of the war, they responded with a heartfelt ‘Amen!’
Isabel Neville bowed her head and prayed that when victory came at last, her son would be safely returned to her, while at the Rectory Agnes Allingham wept for the son she had lost in the war, and the son who had chosen to desert his parents at Christmas.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1945
‘Cry – God for Harry! England! And Saint George!’ roared Laurence Olivier, charging full-tilt into the battle of Agincourt, the sky black with the arrows shot by the English longbowmen. John Richardson tightened his grip on Valerie’s hand which he’d been holding since the film began.
‘All right, darling?’ he asked, his lips touching the tendril of hair at her temple.
‘It’s brilliant,’ she whispered back. ‘He really is King Henry V, isn’t he?’
He let go of her hand, so that he could put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to him.
‘If you say so, sweetheart.’ He kissed the side of her face. ‘I’d watch anything with you, even Shakespeare. Mmm … you’re so sweet, Valerie.’
‘Let’s just concentrate on watching the film, John.’
‘Sssh!’ said a male voice in the dark. ‘If you can’t shut up, get out!’
Valerie was embarrassed. ‘Yes, John, be quiet,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not fair on other people.’
‘Sorry, dear,’ he whispered back, though she could hear his amusement in the words. ‘It’s just that you’re so lovely, and I want to make love to you.’
She shrugged her shoulders and determinedly gave all her attention to the film, finding a parallel between Henry V inspiring his troops at Agincourt with Mr Churchill’s leadership of Britons through the war towards victory at the present time. Six or seven years ago she had adored this man, dreaming of a passionate love affair; and now here he was, returning her love beyond all her dreams. His wartime experience had clearly changed him for the better, and he had eyes for no other woman. He’d been totally honest with her, admitting his earlier infatuation for Rebecca Neville, now completely evaporated.
‘And by what I hear, she’s found consolation in a very different quarter – but don’t let’s talk about her now – you’re the only one I’m interested in,’ he’d told her, proving his point with a long kiss on her lips, closing his eyes. And Valerie had responded as he’d wished: what woman could possibly resist such adoration? Times have changed, she thought, and I’ve had to change too. The whole world’s changed.
The war was coming to an end. There was an air of expectancy as the British and US armies advanced across Europe from the west, and the Russians from the east; it was clearly only a matter of time before they met in Berlin. But it was not all good news: what had been vague and terrible rumours over the past few years began to emerge as horrifying reality.
‘Here, what d’you make of this business in Poland?’ asked one of
the regulars at the Tradesmen’s Arms. The question met with head-shakings.
‘Haven’t you heard about it? The Russians have come across this place called – er – can’t pronounce it, sounds like Ostrich. They say thousands of Jews were put into gas-chambers there, and killed – piles of bodies, they say, chucked into mass graves or left to rot in heaps.’
‘Watch what you’re saying, mate,’ said the barman, looking round to check if there were any women present. ‘I don’t take too much notice of it. You always get propaganda in wartime, and I reckon the Russians have exaggerated it, to show up the Jerries in an even worse light.’
‘It’ll all come out at the end of the war, that and a lot else, I dare say,’ said Tom Munday who had come in with his son-in-law Rob. Eddie Cooper was not such a frequent visitor since his daughter Mary had come to live with him, making his life much easier.
‘We all know old Adolf’s a villain, and a mad villain at that, but I can’t believe even he’d order something as hellish as that,’ said the barman, drawing a pint of bitter. ‘And if he did, surely nobody would obey.’
February brought more news of the wickedness of war, but this time it was the British who were the perpetrators. It caused a heated discussion at the Ladies’ Circle.
‘It seems a bit late to go on a bombing spree like that,’ said Mrs Tomlinson. ‘I mean, Dresden is a historic town, full of treasures and—’
‘And full of innocent civilians,’ Joan Kennard broke in. ‘Sixty thousand killed in one night, four hundred injured. Just think of the children – imagine little souls trapped under wreckage, crying for their mothers who’d been killed. That “Bomber Harris”, as they call him, must have a lot on his conscience – and just as the war looks like coming to an end. I wonder that Mr Churchill agreed to it, I really do.’
‘For all we know, Dresden may have been at the centre of a secret network of information, just because it had no heavy industry,’ said Mrs Pearson. ‘But if that story of the gas chambers at Auschwitz is only half true, it shames the whole of Germany.’
Mrs Tomlinson shrugged. ‘Even so, such devastation at this late stage of the war does seem ill-advised, to say the least.’
‘The same thing happened to Coventry, don’t forget,’ said Mary Goddard, now a regular member of the Circle. ‘Not to mention the blitz on London and all the other towns and cities that suffered the same as Dresden.’
Her sentiments were entirely echoed at the Tradesmen’s Arms.
Ernest Munday, senior partner in the Everham family firm of chartered accountants still called Munday and Pascoe, was not expecting a visit from a client, but when he looked up and saw that Isabel Neville had come into the office, he at once rose and held out his arms to her.
‘Isabel! Oh, my dear, how are you?’
‘I just had to see you, Ernest,’ his sister replied as they embraced. ‘I just had to. Ever since we heard about that dreadful place in Poland – such wickedness – I’ve thought about you and Devora. How is she? How are you all?’
He experienced a rush of affection for his sister whose son Paul had been away in the army for the past six years, and was now with the liberating army in Europe, as was his son David. Without giving him time to answer, she went on asking questions.
‘And your nephew Jonathan, have you had any news of him?’ she asked.
‘No. They don’t have post-boxes in Japanese prison camps. We worry about him all the time. And by the way, Isabel, we call Jonny and Ayesha our own children now, seeing that they lost their parents to God knows what fate.’ He gave a shudder. ‘One good thing is that Miriam and Ayesha have grown very close as sisters, both having brothers away, and Ayesha’s asthma seems to be getting better – well, at least no worse.’
‘That’s good. But oh, Ernest, this dreadful war. We both lost our dearest loved ones in the last war, and here we are going through it all over again. I pray for Paul every day, and of course I can’t expect Cedric to feel the same – Paul isn’t his son.’ Her voice faltered, and he drew her head against his shoulder. For a minute they silently clung together, and then he spoke again, deliberately changing the subject.
‘Is there – has there been any reconciliation between you and Grace?’
‘I’m afraid not, Ernest. I’d be very glad to be sisters again, but any overture would have to come from Grace. She owes Rebecca a full apology, but to date Becky’s still too shocked at what Grace said to her in front of half the congregation. Everybody heard it – so unnecessary, so spiteful. I’m not going to urge Becky to forgive and forget. Grace must wait until she’s ready. She’s got over her nervous breakdown, which is good news for Dad and Rob, and Doreen’s gone back to Thomas and Gibson’s, which is good for her. But if Grace wants forgiveness from Rebecca, she’ll have to come and ask for it. Oh, Ernest, how petty these family feuds seem, with so much cruelty and suffering in the world!’
He patted her shoulder. ‘It will come in time, Isabel. Now, let’s go and find Devora who’ll make us a cup of tea. Come on!’
Isabel was taken aback at how Devora had aged, but reckoned that her sister-in-law probably thought the same about herself. They exchanged news about their evacuees, the two little Jewish girls, Ruth and Sara, much the same age as Lily and Jimmy at the Manor, and all four doing well at their schools.
‘They’ve been a blessing to us, Isabel,’ said her brother. ‘They’ve given us something to occupy our minds, and we’re quite proud of them – aren’t we, Devora?’
‘Yes, indeed we are,’ replied his wife emphatically. ‘Our children have saved me from losing my sanity over our sons, David in Europe and Jonny in a Japanese prison camp.’
‘Well, Isabel’s Paul survived Dunkirk, El Alamein, Monte Cassino and now like our David, fighting their way across Europe,’ said Ernest.
‘Yes, the end of the war really does seem to be in sight at last,’ said Isabel.
‘Not in Japan,’ said Devora quickly.
‘The Japs will probably give up soon after the Germans,’ Isabel said seriously. ‘There was a tremendous air raid by the US air force on Tokyo the other night – they said on the news that it destroyed the centre of the town, and thousands of civilians were killed and injured. The suffering there now must be frightful.’
‘The American air force can flatten Tokyo – bomb it off the planet as far as I’m concerned,’ returned Devora in a coldly matter-of-fact tone. ‘Until we’ve got our dear sons safely home again, alive and undamaged, don’t ask me to weep for the Japs.’
Ernest and Isabel exchanged a glance, both silently reflecting that the cruelty of war, though sometimes inspiring heroism in ordinary people, also brought out the worst in humankind.
As April turned into May, those who had doubted that Auschwitz, known as the death camp, had really been as bad as described by the Russians, now had to face the truth of a whole series of concentration camps in Europe, with names like Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau and Ravensbruch, discovered by British and American armies in their progress through Germany. Their reality was proved by newsreel films shown at the cinemas by Gaumont British News and Pathé News. Audiences gasped and then fell silent as the dreadful truth was unfolded. Instead of gas chambers as at Auschwitz, these prisoners had simply been left to perish of starvation and disease. Horrified troops discovered the dead and the dying, skeletal bodies lying in heaps, and it was said that the overwhelming stench could be smelt for miles around. The weekly magazine Picture Post devoted a whole issue to this dreadful discovery, and Ernest and Devora Munday could only imagine the last days of Jonny and Ayesha’s parents and their baby brother Benjamin, lost in this indescribable hell. Having no words, they wept together, and the dreadful facts could not be kept from Miriam and Ayesha; newspapers were hidden from Ruth and Sarah, and their teachers at school also tried with partial success to shield them from the mass annihilations of their race; Ernest wondered if the facts would be pushed down into their subconscious minds, to re-emerge as neuroses later in life.
<
br /> On a mild Saturday evening in late April, Rebecca arrived home in her uniform, wearied after trying to sort out the problems at Yeomans’ Farm. She found her mother holding a letter.
‘I’ve received this today, Becky.’
Rebecca sank down on the sofa. ‘Oh, yes? Who’s it from, and what’s it about?’ she asked, stretching herself and yawning. Her mother answered with a question.
‘Will you be coming to church tomorrow, Becky?’
‘Yes, unless there’s more skirmishing at Yeomans’ Farm. Billy’s threatening to give it up altogether, but he can’t; it belongs to the two little boys – and as for Pamela—’
‘You’re always having trouble with that man – but listen, Becky, this is important.’ She spread the short letter on her lap.
‘Oh, my God, it’s not from Geoffrey Bannister, is it?’
‘No, it’s from my sister Grace.’
Rebecca sat up sharply. ‘Oh? What does she want?’
‘She wants us to be reconciled, Becky. She says she’ll never make any claim on you, other than as an aunt.’
‘I should hope not!’ Rebecca’s pretty mouth had hardened.
‘She’ll be at church tomorrow morning, and she begs for us to talk to her afterwards. She longs to be forgiven, and all you’d have to do is touch her hand and smile, Becky. It’s ridiculous to go on like this, when there’s so much real suffering in the world.’
‘I’m sorry, Mother, the very thought of touching that woman repels me, and I shall never forgive her. She’s lucky to have Doreen as her daughter after the way she treated the poor girl. No, Mother, I can’t, and please don’t ask me.’
‘But Becky dear, when we say the Lord’s Prayer we ask for our trespasses – our sins to be forgiven, as we forgive those who sin against us,’ said Isabel seriously, saddened to see her daughter’s face so closed and unyielding. At that moment they heard the front door bang, and Sir Cedric’s steps approaching rapidly. He strode into the room.
A Family's Duty Page 24
