We never knew when we should hear the air raid warning. They came fairly frequently and were given in the first place if enemy aircraft were detected crossing the Channel. We were then supposed to leave our room with the many windows and descend to the basement, but very often these aircraft were prevented from getting very far and so much time was wasted trooping up and down to shelters, so that what was called an “Imminent” was instituted which meant that we should only be warned when the enemy aircraft were almost upon us. Then we should make all haste to take cover.
How quickly those days passed! The working week, the weekends at Caddington, meeting with Richard when he could get away, lunches at the teashop. Life was pleasant as it had not been since Jowan had failed to be among the survivors of Dunkirk.
It was the end of March when I noticed that Dorabella was brimming over with excitement.
“Something has happened,” I said.
She shook her head from side to side in a maddening fashion.
“I shall tell you … with the others this time. I shall make an announcement … at supper, I think … when both parents are there.”
She pursed her lips together, as though fearing to betray her news.
We were never sure at what time we should arrive at Caddington, so my mother always had a cold supper awaiting us and my father made a point of being there, so there were just the four of us—unless Mary Grace happened to be there with us for the weekend.
We would sit in the darkness, so that we did not have to draw the black-out curtains, and we would talk about the week’s adventures. They knew of Florette’s secret ambitions, the dark secret which we believed Marian was guarding, and Peggy’s desire to be adopted as a pet.
As we sat down, I could see that Dorabella was finding it hard to restrain her excitement, and as soon as we were seated she said: “I have an announcement to make. James and I are going to be married.”
There was a brief silence. Then my mother went to her and kissed her.
“Oh, my darling, I hope …”
“It’s all right this time,” said Dorabella. “I am sure. James is sure. And so, it must be right.”
She was clearly so happy that we had to share in it. It was only because we had seen that other disaster that we hesitated.
“You’ll love James,” said Dorabella. “Everybody likes him. He is the most wonderful man in the world. Don’t look at me like that, Violetta. It’s right this time. I’m experienced now. I know what love means. Stop worrying.”
My mother said: “Well, you have known him for a little time.”
“For ages!” said Dorabella. “It’s perfect. I want Tristan to love him.”
“That is very important,” said my mother solemnly.
“Oh, come on!” cried Dorabella. “This is supposed to be a matter for rejoicing. Daddy, why don’t you suggest champagne?”
“I think there are a few bottles left,” he said. “Yes … we must drink to this. I am sure you will be very happy, my darling.”
“And I,” said Dorabella firmly, “know I shall.”
I knew my mother would come to my room that night when I retired. It was a habit of hers when she was worried about Dorabella.
“What do you think?” she said.
“One never knows with Dorabella.”
“You’re thinking of Dermot?”
“Of course. She gets these wild enthusiasms and in wartime people can do rash things.”
“Dorabella can do rash things at any time.”
I laughed and nodded.
“This young man …”
“He has an important job with the army, as we found out when Tristan was kidnapped. He is very charming and Dorabella has been fond of him for some time.”
“And he cares for her, I suppose?”
“He must to suggest marrying her.”
“Your father and I feel a little uneasy about her after what happened before. There was that jaunt to France … and all she did …”
“She may have learned some lessons. She was very upset about Tristan and ever since she has been absolutely devoted to him. She is very happy now …”
The door opened suddenly and Dorabella came in.
“I have been listening to you two … putting your heads together,” she said. “I can tell you, it’s all right. I’m happier than I’ve ever been before. I adore James and he adores me. So, stop acting like a couple of old witches prophesying gloom, and rejoice with me.”
Though we could not help our skepticism, I think both my mother and I felt it must be all right this time. Dorabella was so happy now and she carried us along with her.
We decided that if Dorabella was happy, that was all that mattered. We would take care of the future when the time came.
The following weekend James Brent came to Caddington. My parents had not met him before and they were favorably impressed. Captain Brent was urbane, much traveled, and an expert in many matters. He knew something about estates as his family owned one on the West Riding of Yorkshire, and before the war he had helped to run it.
My father obviously liked him and there was some interesting talk about the war, though guarded on the captain’s side, which made it the more exciting.
He said that there would have to be a landing on the Continent, and that now the enemy was in a weakened state, in his opinion it would not be long delayed.
They discussed the wedding. There was no reason for delay. I gathered that he expected, when the invasion of the Continent began, he would go overseas. There was a feeling of urgency in the air and we understood that, before the great battle started, he wanted to be sure of a little happiness with Dorabella.
Before the weekend was over, my parents’ doubts were diminished and they were caught up in the excitement of the preparations for the wedding. It should be a quiet affair and take place within the next few weeks.
Tristan liked Captain Brent from the start, and it seemed that everything was working out in the best possible way.
They were married in a registry office at the end of April; several others were married on the same day—men in uniform with their smiling brides.
Naturally I thought of Jowan and could not help the pangs of envy which beset me.
There was a small reception afterwards in a hotel in Kensington and I asked the girls from the Ministry to join us.
My mother was eager to meet the people of whom she had heard so much. Florette was rather flamboyantly attired, as became the great star; Peggy looked like a mournful puppy watchful for a home; Marian was at her most graciously refined and was very impressed to converse with Sir Robert and Lady Denver.
Afterwards my mother said: “They were perfect. Just as you described them. It was lovely to meet them in the flesh.”
And then a radiant Dorabella and her very attractive husband went off to spend a brief honeymoon at Torquay.
Richard had two days’ leave. I met him as usual and he was rather excited because a friend of his, who had a little service flat just off Victoria, had offered it to him to use at any time he cared to. The friend had been sent off to the north of England so the flat would be vacant and Richard might find it useful during his occasional leaves.
“Of course,” said Richard, “I could always go to the family, but I think that puts a burden on Mary Grace, without much help in the house.”
“I am sure she is always delighted to have you there—your mother, too.”
“There are times when one has a fancy to be on one’s own. It’s a pleasant little place, and easier to get to than going out to Kensington. In any case, I’ve accepted. I wonder if you would like to come along and look at it?”
I said I would and we went.
It was certainly an attractive little flat. There was one bedroom, a small box-room, a sitting room and kitchen, which was large for the size of the flat, and, being at the top of the building, was light and airy. The kitchen cupboard was stocked with tins of soup and food’—wartime variety, of cours
e.
“I’m to take what I want and of course I can replace it when I go.”
Richard was enthusiastic. Often he had only one day off and he liked me to go there with him. I would select something from the array of tins and we would enjoy preparing a meal together. Richard said it was more comfortable than going to a restaurant.
The girls were aware of this and I guessed they talked about it when I was not there. I think they had decided that I was going to marry Richard, and of course my going to the flat would give rise to more speculation.
They were all dreamers, especially Florette, of course, who lived in a world of spectacular theatrical success, whereas Peggy, who had very little hope of achieving her ambition, was ready to dream for others. As for Marian, I was convinced that she lived in an atmosphere of perpetual apprehension that some fatal secret from her past would be discovered. Mary Grace, I knew, would be delighted if I married into the family.
I was not in the least discomfited by any significance they might assume in my going to Richard’s flat and cooking meals for him. I talked freely of Jowan to Richard and he understood my feeling. He was practical, full of good sense, and I think he had decided long ago, when we drifted apart after I had declined his offer of marriage, that we were not completely suited to each other. But that was no reason why we should not be good friends, and that was what we were.
So I looked forward to those days when I was able to experiment in the kitchen of the little flat, and how triumphant we both were when I made a good meal from the material at my disposal.
Spring was on the way. In September it would be five years since the war had started. Everyone was saying, it won’t be long now.
Richard was cautious. He thought the landing would not be successfully accomplished in a few weeks. There was a good deal of fighting power left in the Germans and they were a formidable race.
Dorabella returned from her honeymoon deliriously happy. She had the gift of being able to live entirely in the present. Impressive events were about to burst upon us, but she paid no heed to that. And so the days went by.
Marian had a win on one of her horses and we went to the Café Royal to celebrate. The nights were light now, which was a blessing, for traveling through the black-out was a tedious business.
We sat with our glasses of sherry before us and were very merry.
“This is lovely,” said Florette. “This is where they always came in the old days. All the old stars. Marie Lloyd, Vesta Tilley … and the mashers would meet them here.”
“What’s mashers?” asked Peggy.
“Come on, Peg. Don’t show your ignorance! You know the mashers … the stage-door Johnnies. Always hanging around after the actresses. They’d be in the theater every night, picking out their favorites. Those were the days. No war then.”
“There was one in 1914,” I reminded her.
“Oh that! That was nothing compared with this.”
“I expect it was rather awful while it lasted,” said Mary Grace.
“It wasn’t the same. Won’t it be fun when it’s over? I reckon there won’t half be some goings-on.”
“People don’t take things as they used to,” commented Marian. “In the old days …” She sighed. “There was the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. There was a day’s holiday from school. There she was … a little old lady in a carriage. She was a queen, though. Anyone could see that.”
Suddenly she stopped and a look of panic came into her eyes.
“Do you feel all right, Marian?” asked Mary Grace.
“Oh yes … yes, I’m all right. Just felt a bit strange for a moment.”
“It’s the sherry,” said Peggy.
“I don’t know. It just came over me.” Her hands were shaking.
“You were telling us about Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.”
“Oh no … no. I didn’t mean the Golden Jubilee … it was the Diamond.”
“Sit quiet for a bit,” said Florette. “Then you’ll feel better.”
Marian did so and closed her eyes. We all watched her in consternation, but after a few minutes she opened her eyes and smiled at us.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Just a bit of a turn.” Then she started to talk about some horses she fancied for a coming race.
“It’s all a matter of form,” she said. “That’s what you have to study.”
We understood. She did not want to talk about the “bit of a turn.”
Mary Grace and I discussed the incident afterwards.
“Something upset her,” I said. “It was when she was talking about the past.”
“I think something must have happened. Some tragedy that she was reminded of, and it was connected with the Golden Jubilee.”
“That was years ago. I should have thought she wasn’t born then. She said the Golden Jubilee … and then seemed anxious to tell us that it was the Diamond one. It must have been the Diamond. If she had been at school, which she rather implied, she would be over sixty and they don’t have people in the Ministry over that age. I wonder what it was that happened?”
Marian became a cause for speculation at that time because both Florette and Peggy had been very much aware of the shock she had had in the Café Royal.
Whenever Marian was absent we talked about it. They fantasized about her. Peggy thought she had been “crossed in love.” She had met a young man who was above her in station.
“You know how she is about station and that sort of thing? He promised her a grand future; she thought she’d have a beautiful home where she would be petted and made a fuss of for the rest of her life. Then, right at the altar, he jilted her. Then she married Mr. Owen.”
Florette said: “He was a good husband, but he was not her true love and she never forgot. She had this rich lover. He was a great musical hall star and all the women were crazy about him. He saw Marian and she was different from all the rest. Those actors fall in and out of love very easily. He seduced her and there was a child. She gave the child away and then one day at this Jubilee thing she saw her child, grown up into a beautiful young woman.”
“She couldn’t have been more than five years old at the time of the Diamond Jubilee,” I protested.
“Oh, it wouldn’t have been that then. It was some other procession. There was the coronation of Edward VII, wasn’t there? I reckon it would have been that.”
“Well, whatever it was,” said Mary Grace, “it was undoubtedly there and we must not try to probe. She might tell us in time. Let us be especially gentle with her until she does.”
So we were. I wondered whether Marian realized this. There was certainly something stricken about her and it became more apparent since that outburst at the Café Royal.
It was about three weeks later when we discovered Marian’s secret. It happened in an unexpected way.
We came in one morning to hear that an inspector had arrived at the Ministry. There was a good deal of gossip about this.
“He’s come to investigate,” said one of the women.
“Do you think there is a spy here?” asked another, looking round suspiciously.
“Something like that,” said the first speaker. “Well, it’s ever so exciting and there’s a war on anyway.”
As the morning progressed, I noticed that Marian was in a state of increasing uneasiness. Mary Grace noticed it too.
“I am sure she is worried,” she said to me. “I wonder what it is she has done … or is doing?”
“I could not imagine Marian as a spy, or involved in anything dramatic,” I said.
“You never can tell,” said Mary Grace. “I could not imagine it either, but sometimes the most unlikely people do these things.”
Two or three days passed. We heard that the inspector was to be at the Ministry until Thursday. No one had any idea what he was doing. Billy Bunter was now and then called to his office and came back looking more important than ever.
Poor Marian was in a nervous state, I could see. Every time the door op
ened and someone came into the department there would be panic in her eyes. I tried to think of what misdemeanors she could have committed, and came to the conclusion that they must be serious to have this effect on her.
Thursday came. The inspector was leaving that day. She was safe. I could sense her relief. But then, during that morning, Billy Bunter came to our table.
He said: “Mrs. Owen, the inspector would like a word with you.”
I saw the color rush into her face, and then she turned so pale that I thought she was going to faint. I wanted to run to her but restrained myself. Billy Bunter was smiling his urbane smile. We watched her as she followed him through the door, then we looked at her in dismay, too shocked to speak.
We just sat there, pretending to work, shifting our papers round and seeing nothing but Marian’s stricken face.
And then, at last, she returned.
We stared at her. We had not expected to see her. We had imagined her handcuffed and taken away to prison. Spying for the enemy. Or perhaps she had murdered someone years ago and it had just been discovered.
She was smiling as I had never seen her smile, and she looked at least ten years younger.
We waited breathlessly. There was a new air of confidence about her.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve been worrying about nothing.”
“What was it?” demanded Florette.
Marian looked around the table.
“I shall not tell you now,” she said. “I want you all to come as my guests to the Café Royal this evening. Is that all right? Free, are you?”
“Oh, you are mean, making us wait to know,” cried Florette. “We’re dying to hear.”
“You must be patient,” said Marian.
She picked up her papers with a happy smile on her face and began sorting them.
Florette was right when she said we were all eager to know. We all sat at our favorite table and Marian ordered sherries and then she started.
“You see, I was very worried. I’ll tell you frankly. I needed this job badly. I had my little pension, but I just could not make ends meet. Then the war came and they wanted people for work. This was the kind of job I fancied. I didn’t want anything menial. This was a nice office job where you met nice people.”
We'll Meet Again Page 20
