‘You mean he was – intoxicated?’
‘Yes. The poor chap must have been very sorry that he let himself down as he did.’
‘How utterly disgusting!’ she said indignantly. ‘What on earth would Valerie have done if you hadn’t been there?’
Philip noted Valerie’s acute embarrassment, and shrugged. ‘We must remember that he was wounded in the D-Day invasion. I believe he got home all right.’
Turning to Valerie, he smiled. ‘I wonder if you and your mother would like to come to tea with my aunt this weekend? Enid would be delighted, and it would be a treat for her as well. Would you be able to come on Saturday?’
Valerie’s eyes were still downcast, but her mother answered, ‘How very kind of Miss Temple, yes, we’d love to come, wouldn’t we, Valerie?’ Mrs Pearson beamed, secretly relieved to hear Mr Saville’s corroboration of what Valerie had said; her own awful suspicions were therefore unfounded.
Valerie nodded and managed a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, briefly raising her head to meet his eyes. How good he was, she thought. How courteous and kind!
Mr Richardson senior was so ashamed on behalf of his son that he said nothing when John woke from a stupor on the Wednesday morning, and realised how disastrous the evening had been.
‘I made a fool of myself, Dad, and I blame it on all the free beer,’ he muttered, his eyes glazed and his head throbbing. The very sight of food made him feel sick, and his clothes and bedclothes needed to be washed.
‘You must see to that yourself,’ said his father coldly. ‘I shan’t ask Mrs McNab to do it.’ He was referring to the charwoman who came in to do the house cleaning and washing.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ John repeated wretchedly. ‘I’ll apologise to Valerie and her mother.’
‘You’ll get the door slammed in your face, I shouldn’t wonder.’ Mr Richardson turned away and went into the shop to speak to Doreen, leaving poor John to his painful remorse.
As Philip had planned, his aunt and Mrs Pearson settled down to chat happily with each other after a tea and scones with last year’s blackberry jam. They were full of praise for Mr Churchill who would win the coming General Election. After second cups of tea, Enid Temple knew her duty.
‘Philip dear, there’s a couple of notices to go in the parish magazine. Would you be kind enough to take them over to the Rectory for me? They should be in by today.’
‘No problem, Enid,’ he answered, getting up. ‘Would you like to come too, Valerie? It’s a lovely afternoon, just right for a stroll.’
Of course she would, and their walk to the Rectory and back achieved all that Philip Saville had hoped. If Tuesday evening had been the worst in Valerie’s life, that Saturday afternoon was the very best.
He began by telling her that he was grateful to Lady Neville for bringing them together for the children’s outings to Pinocchio and the pantomime. She nodded, and said she’d thought he was more interested in Doreen Nuttall. He assured her that poor Doreen had got the wrong idea about him, for which he blamed himself entirely, and spoke of his disappointment when he saw Valerie in the company of John Richardson.
‘He wasn’t worthy of you, Valerie,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘And neither am I, but at least I’m wiser now than I was. The war has changed us all.’
She was hardly able to believe what she was hearing, and making an effort to overcome her shyness, she replied softly, ‘Yes, it has, Philip, and it’s changed me, too.’
‘If I may be allowed another chance, Valerie—’ He stood still, and turned to face her as they stood outside the Rectory gate beneath an oak tree misted with the tender new foliage of May. Still holding her hand, he said, ‘If I’m bold enough, if I dare to – to—’ his words gave way to an unspoken question, and she answered it with a look and one word, ‘Philip.’
And then he kissed her, and she responded, brimming over with happiness, all misunderstandings at an end. They were a man and a woman in love, destined to be husband and wife, father and mother.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1945
‘Is that you, Becky? Come into the garden room – Sally’s made tea and just taken her scones out of the oven!’
‘Sounds lovely, Mother, I’ll be with you as soon as I can. There’s something I’ve got to do first.’
‘What, Becky? What comes before tea and scones?’
‘Sorry, Mother, but I have to go down to Yeomans’ Farm and see Stefano. I just can’t go on as we are, with him refusing to talk to me in private and acting so unlike himself – I’m going to insist that we lay our cards on the table!’
‘No, Becky, no, no – wait.’ Isabel looked at Sally in dismay. ‘There’s a letter for you, and you must read it first.’
‘A letter? What letter? I’m not expecting one.’
‘But you’ve got one, Becky, and you must come here and read it before you go anywhere.’
Rebecca came into the room where her mother and Sally sat. She frowned. ‘You look glum – what’s up?’
‘Sit down, dear. It’s no use going to see the POWs, because Stefano isn’t there. He’s left the camp with Mario.’
‘What? Where have they gone? They can’t be repatriated yet.’
‘Do sit down, Becky, and here’s the letter he left for you.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Rebecca’s voice rose as she took the envelope from her mother.
‘Listen, dear, do as your mother says – just sit down and take a cup of tea, and read the letter,’ said Sally. Rebecca looked from one to the other with growing apprehension. Isabel longed to comfort her daughter, but first the truth had to be faced.
‘Stefano came to see us this morning – your father and I. We so admired his honesty, his responsibilities to his parents. We didn’t try to persuade him in any way, because we agreed with him. He’s left the camp, and is on his way to Southampton to get on any boat that will cross the Channel – to Calais, to Amsterdam, any European port. Mario’s with him, and they’ll find their way overland by one means or another.’
Rebecca had torn open the letter and was reading Stefano’s words; her hand went to her mouth. ‘You forced him to write this! You sent him away without saying goodbye!’
‘No, dear, it was his decision entirely,’ said Isabel sadly. She called to her husband. ‘Cedric, will you come, please?’
Sir Cedric, who had been waiting outside the door, now entered the room. ‘My dear girl, what that young man says in the letter is true. Italy’s at a low ebb, exhausted after the war, with poor prospects for employment. The car industry will be non-existent, and as he says, he can’t offer you a home other than the one he lives in with his parents.’
Rebecca sat still as a statue, her face pale. ‘I’d face all that and more.’
‘There would indeed be a lot more to face, my dear,’ Cedric went on, kindly but firmly. ‘You’d have to forfeit your British nationality or be classed as an alien with no rights. You’d have to speak Italian for the rest of your life, and your children would be Italian by birth – and Roman Catholics. He’s written it all down there – we didn’t try to influence him, and he came to us of his own accord, we didn’t send for him. As your mother says, we had to admire him.’
‘How can he and Mario travel all that way without a penny to his name? And what about a passport?’ demanded Rebecca, angry tears in her eyes as she questioned her parents.
‘He and Mario have enough money for the journey, including bribes if needed,’ said Cedric. ‘The only advice we gave him was to take a friend for company. He’s been very brave, my dear, and you must be brave too.’
‘You gave him money.’
‘Yes, Becky, we did.’
‘And let him go without saying goodbye.’
‘It was his wish, dear,’ said Isabel. ‘Please sit down now and have a cup of tea.’
‘No, thank you. I’ll go to my room.’ And without another word, she left them.
The news of Philip Saville’s engagement to Valerie Pearson took North Camp by s
urprise, and was generally approved. Mrs Pearson needed a little time to get used to the idea, and then became enthusiastic on her daughter’s behalf. There were congratulations all round, especially from Lady Neville who told Philip it was what she had hoped for when she had put them both in charge of the children’s visit to Pinocchio and the pantomime. One young woman who wept when she heard of it was Doreen Nuttall; her mother comforted her as well as she could, knowing that the disappointment would soon be forgotten. Rob and his father-in-law kept quiet about their brush with Saville when he’d come to visit Doreen, and thought his choice of Valerie was a good move. There was not much sympathy for John Richardson whose drunkenness on Victory night was talked about in North Camp, shocking the women and amusing the men. It became known that Philip, who had saved his money for years, was to purchase a house in North Camp, and that he and Valerie would share their home with Nick, to the boy’s great joy, having no wish to return to his life of abuse in London.
Rebecca Neville managed to find out Stefano’s address in Milan from one of the POWs, though he had told them not to disclose it. She wrote him a letter saying that she would wait indefinitely for him to send for her when he had picked up the threads of his life in his own country. A month passed with no reply, and she began to think that her letter had not reached him in the post-war chaos; she was about to write again when a letter arrived for her. With trembling fingers and racing heartbeat she opened it in her WLA office at Everham. He thanked her for her letter, which had reached him after a long and difficult journey with Mario across France and the Swiss Alps. He was reunited with his parents who had aged a great deal, but were looking better since his arrival. And he also wrote:
‘There is a girl, Emilia, who said she would wait for me when I left, and so she has for these long years, comforting my parents, especially when my father was very ill with pneumonia. You will understand that I have a duty towards her, and I shall be happy to marry her as soon as things are more settled here. I shall always remember you, Rebecca, and wish you great happiness in the future with an English husband who can provide for you as I cannot. May God bless you and all your loved ones.
S. Ghiberti’
She folded the letter and stared out of the window for several minutes. His message was clear and unequivocal, and she would not write to him again, though she would never know whether the loyal Emilia was a real person, or just a story he had made up to help her to forget the Italian prisoner-of-war that she had loved. Towards her parents she still felt resentment at the way they had interfered in her private life, as she saw it, and she resolved not to confide in them; let them go on thinking I’m waiting for him, damn them, she thought bitterly.
Close on the heels of the VE–Day celebrations came a general election, to elect a government to replace the coalition of the war years. Most of the ladies at the Circle were confident of an easy win for the Conservatives over the Labour Party. In the Tradesmen’s Arms there was less certainty.
‘It’ll be the forces’ vote that’ll decide the outcome,’ said Tom Munday, ‘and maybe it’s time for a change. The men coming home from the war after risking their lives and seeing their comrades killed – they won’t want to go back to the old class system, neither will the industrial towns up north. Same with the young girls – they won’t go back into service as housemaids and skivvies – not after taking over men’s jobs at home during the war.’
‘Maybe so, but old Churchill can’t fail to win after all he’s done,’ said Eddie Cooper, and most of the regulars agreed.
The outcome was a Labour landslide. Winston Churchill retained his seat in the government, but he was no longer Prime Minister. His place was taken by a Mr Clement Attlee whom nobody in North Camp had heard of, and the indignation on Churchill’s behalf was vociferous. At Hassett Manor, Cedric and Isabel foresaw the end of the pre-war inequality, and Isabel, a carpenter’s daughter, was less surprised than her husband, a descendant of the old nobility that had bequeathed him his title. Besides, Isabel had something far more important on her mind: the return of her son Paul Storey, within days of her nephew David Munday. She and Sally and Rebecca took turns at holding him in a close, tearful embrace, and Cedric expressed his pleasure in having a son, though adopted, who would inherit Hassett Manor and its estate.
But Paul shook his head, and exchanged a smile with his mother as he replied, ‘No, sir, I shall inherit something else. My father lost his life as a result of his experiences in that other war, and he also lost his faith. As a result of my experiences in this war, I have found faith, and I shall train for ordination in the Church of England, to carry on where he left off.’
Sir Cedric could not begrudge his wife her joy on hearing this, nor did he doubt that Paul’s decision was a right one. To himself he argued that a clergyman had as much right to inherit an estate as any other man.
At Munday and Pascoe, chartered accountants, there was a joyful reunion as David Munday returned home, though Devora insisted that the war was not over, and there could be no partying until Jonathan also returned. She and Ernest tried not to dwell on what life must be like in a Japanese labour camp where prisoners were being forced to work on building a railway in pitiless heat, with only a handful of rice a day.
On the sixth day of August something happened which was finally to end the war and usher in a new age. All over the country and the civilised world people listened with awe to the wireless announcement that a new and terrible bomb had been dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It took time for the realisation to sink in that this weapon of destruction was like no other; while scientists spoke of splitting atomic particles, the listeners pondered on the devastation it had caused – a whole city obliterated and thousands of citizens killed by the deadly radiation. There was no refuge, no air raid shelter that could protect anybody from this instrument of death.
‘The Japs have been left with no choice now,’ was the consensus of opinion of all who looked upon the photographs of an enormous cloud, like a giant mushroom over the doomed city, the wide area of total devastation. ‘They’ll have to surrender now – they won’t risk another one of those.’
But a day passed, and then another day, with no sign of a Japanese capitulation, no overture to the Allies from the Emperor, Hirohito. On the third day came news of a second atomic bomb dropped on the island town of Nagasaki, with the same terrible results, including radiation of the sea around the island. It brought about the surrender of Japan to the Allies. Victory over Japan! It was VJ-Day, celebrated in Britain with parties and bonfires.
There were a few voices, Sir Cedric Neville and the Reverend Alan Kennard among them, who expressed reservations about the mighty bomb which had caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, but they were drowned out in the rejoicing that the war in Japan was over, and it meant the return of those prisoners of war, British, American and Australian, those of them who had survived the experience. Devora Munday still refused to rejoice until she saw the nephew who was as dear to her as a son – in fact she feared that the Japanese guards might kill their victims in revenge for the atom bomb; but mid-September brought news that Jonathan Pascoe had arrived home and was now in a Southampton hospital with severe malnutrition. Ernest and Devora went to see him as soon as they heard, and Devora wept at the sight of her once good-looking adopted son, now twenty-one years old, a living skeleton with decayed teeth and almost bald. They were warned to be very gentle as they embraced him because of the fragile state of his bones – yet he was alive and smiling at them in recognition! A doctor told them that he would recover, put flesh on his bones and grow some more hair, but that he would need to wear dentures. He was even able to joke with his parents.
‘Being a Jew was no worse than being anybody else out there – they got us all building that bloody railway! We said it was the three aitches, Heat, Hunger and Hate, and it was the Hate that got us through – we wouldn’t give in to the buggers!’
Now the war was truly over for Devora Munday
, and she held belated parties to which all their neighbours were invited. The little girls, Ruth and Sarah, now nine and seven years, had been returned to their Jewish parents in London; likewise Lily and Jim had tearfully left Hassett Manor. Ken and Dan, sturdy lads of ten and eight years, had no home or family, so were kept at the Rectory with the Kennards’ two young daughters, and became their sons. Alan became rector when Roland Allingham took early retirement to look after his wife, whose mind was failing. Having lost their elder son at El Alamein, their younger never contacted them, though his name sometimes came up in the newspapers, as when cited in a society divorce, and being drunk and disorderly in the street – stories his mother resolutely ignored as malicious lies, for to her he was always their gallant war hero, the much-decorated Wing Commander Lester Allingham.
When the doorbell rang at the Nuttalls’ home on a chilly October day, Grace did not at first recognise the tall, smiling man in the uniform of an American serviceman.
‘Hi, Mrs Nuttall, pleased to see ya! Remember me? Gus Rohmer, alive and kicking and at your service. Here I am again to find the lovely Doreen if she hasn’t been whirled away by some other lucky son of a gun!’
Grace’s heart sank, for although the whole family had liked the young GI from Maine, she had no wish to lose Doreen to him or any other man.
‘She’s not in at this moment, she’s at work, er, Gus.’ Reluctantly she directed him to Thomas and Gibson’s in the High Street.
‘Thanks, Ma’am!’ He touched his cap and set out to find Doreen, while Grace went to tell Rob who was in his workshop.
‘He’s come back to claim her – to marry her – and I couldn’t bear to lose her, Rob, not after all we’ve been through together,’ she said, her eyes reflecting her anxiety.
‘Don’t worry, Gracie – he won’t be so keen when he knows what happened.’
‘Does he have to be told, Rob?’
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