A Girl in Wartime

by Maggie Ford

  What was being said, she’d no idea as she sat on the edge of her bed in the bedroom, hers now, her brothers away and Ron and Dorothy given the downstairs front room, he on crutches unable to use the stairs.

  Finally she heard the front door open then close and knew Stephen had left. What had he said? What had Mum said?

  She was only too glad her dad hadn’t been here or there’d have been a real bust up, knowing him, but she knew that Mum with her quiet voice had won the day. What would Stephen tell her when she saw him? She wanted to see him so much.

  She was still sitting on the edge of her bed as her mother came into the room.

  ‘How you feeling, love?’

  Connie shrugged and said nothing.

  ‘You’re lucky your dad wasn’t here, love,’ she went on. ‘I’m not saying anything to him. He came ’ome worn out last night, humping coal to all them households. In this chilly weather people go through coal like a dose of salts. He went to bed early so he didn’t know you wasn’t ’ome. And this morning he left ’ome early. But I ain’t saying nothing to him. But I warn you, love, you be careful what you doin’ cos I don’t want you bringing trouble ’ome ’ere. I got enough trouble with Ronnie and Dorothy and his little’un. And our Bertie and George at the front, and me worried all the time about their safety. So I don’t want you bringing ’ome … well, you know what I mean … trouble.’

  Mum was no fool. Connie felt chastened, ashamed, as her mother went on in her quiet, level way. ‘I’ve ’ad a word with your Stephen and he knows ’ow I feel. I trust he’ll honour you now with more concern fer your well-being. Cos there’s many a slip, as they say, despite all the care …’ She broke off, then said quietly, ‘I trust you, love, not to let this family down. You seeing ’im later today?’

  Connie nodded and said in a small voice, ‘We’ll probably go to the pictures this afternoon and then have something to eat.’

  ‘Then don’t go back for a nightcap, love. Tell ’im to bring you straight back ’ome. He can come in ’ere for a nightcap if he wants – nothing posh, just a glass of beer.’ She gave a little smile at the humbleness of her own home. ‘Then you can say goodnight and he can go on his way.’

  ‘We hope to get married early September,’ Connie heard herself burst out. It was earlier than the time she had arranged just last night, but she was sure that Stephen would be pleased.

  Again her mother smiled. ‘You can wait that long, can’t you? You know what I mean, don’t you?’

  Connie nodded. Her mother briefly brushed her forehead with her lips and said she probably could do with taking a bit of a rest anyway and, leaving Connie to herself, gently closed the bedroom door behind her.

  That afternoon Stephen called for her as if nothing was wrong. However, Connie could feel the tension between them. After leaving the cinema they had dinner but as they left the restaurant, he said, ‘I think it best I take you straight home, my darling.’

  She knew what he meant. Her mother had told her what she had said to him. But still she felt cheated. It wouldn’t ever be the same again. That beautiful bed he’d bought just for them; it would be months until she would be able to lie beside him in it. Yes, she felt deeply cheated, hurt, even angry with him for honouring her mother’s plea. She should have lauded him for it, but she felt let down, discarded almost. She said nothing, but it gnawed at her.

  Connie had Sunday dinner at home with the family. Stephen was not invited. She didn’t ask why – she could guess.

  Monday at work was significant in that he didn’t once come near her. She watched him as he moved about his office and several times she found him looking in her direction, turning sharply away every time she looked his way. She found herself doing the same thing when she caught him looking at her. Nor did they have lunch together; he was called to some meeting or other. It felt as if some invisible barrier had descended between them.

  She was almost glad in the afternoon to be asked to accompany a photographer and reporter recording the disembarkation of a shipload full of the wounded – but only almost glad, because it was nearly always stressful, the sight of those being borne down the gangplank on stretchers or being gently assisted down between two helpers, arms about their necks, heads and faces swathed with grubby bandages, their gallant grins showing relief to be back on home soil but their eyes betraying the memory of what they’d gone through, and the fear they now held of what their future might be as men too crippled to be employable.

  She recorded it all in pencil. The results, if approved, would be printed in tomorrow’s London Herald, to the horrified fascination of its readers, while Mr Mathieson coolly enthused that it certainly helped increase the paper’s readership.

  Connie herself could only feel a deep sorrow for those whose eyes – the mirrors of the soul, she recalled again – she sketched. She felt something entirely different towards the men who gloried in seeing it selling more papers. At night the sights she’d witnessed often hung in her mind before she finally fell asleep, her last prayer at night always, ‘Please God, keep my brother Albert safe and unhurt – and my brother George too.’ Ronnie was safe now, but her prayers went to him as well. ‘Please dear God, make Ronnie better, please.’

  That night, her sleep wasn’t a peaceful one, her dreams filled with her and Stephen quarrelling, he walking away, she running after him only to lose him as she turned the corner of God knows where, then searching for him, calling his name.

  It was calling his name that woke her up. She hoped she hadn’t cried it out for the whole household to hear. Lying inert, she watched the miserable March dawn filter through the curtains, heard her father stir in the next room, heard him cough – one didn’t need to be a coal miner for the black dust to get down a man’s throat; humping it through customers’ doors was enough – heard him come downstairs, go into the kitchen, washing himself in the kitchen sink, spluttering and grousing. Mum followed him downstairs. Connie heard the dull clink of the kettle being filled and placed on the gas hob to make tea.

  Listening to the sounds of morning, she lay in her bed, thinking of her dream. She would confront Stephen today and have this threatening estrangement out with him.

  Did it matter what her parents thought? Did she care? She wasn’t marrying them; once she married Stephen they’d have no more say in what she did and how she did it. Her life would go on with him. If she let it get on top of her now, she could lose him. What if they threw her out? Then she and Stephen would go off and live together, eventually to marry, and there would be little they could do about it.

  Yet in the end she knew she couldn’t do it. She wanted him so much but she wanted the love of her family too, their respect. But Stephen was the one she loved, and that mattered more than anything else. Thus she continued arguing with herself in the half-light while her parents set about a new day.

  What did it matter if her parents felt she was getting up to something? One didn’t have to sleep with one’s boyfriend to get pregnant. It could happen in any dark alley in a few minutes or so, so why should Mum gasp at her spending a night with the one she loved so long as he took care of her? The awful dream she’d had in the night with him walking away, and knowing that she had lost him, made up her mind.

  The next morning she strode over to his office. He was alone when she burst in without knocking. He looked up in surprise as she reached his desk.

  ‘We have to talk,’ she announced sharply.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked – too calmly for her liking. She hated Stephen’s calm in the face of other people’s ranting, especially hers.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking of you,’ she went on without answering his enquiry. ‘I dreamed we’d drifted apart. You walked off and I never saw you again. I tried but—’ She broke off. She was gabbling. ‘I don’t want us to drift apart,’ she resumed, trying to gain control of herself. ‘I want to be with you, for ever. I don’t care what my parents say. We’re in love; that’s all that matters. I know I�
��m only nineteen and still in their care until I’m twenty-one, but I don’t think that matters any more with so many dying on the battlefields and …’ Again, she tried to take herself in hand. This wasn’t what she wanted to say. She began again. ‘What I mean is half of those out there were just lads who did as their hearts guided, underage when they signed on whether their parents agreed or not. So I think I can go my own way without the consent of mine. I don’t want us to be parted just because they got upset by us spending a night together. I want to sleep in that bed again, Stephen!’

  What a stupid way to end her little tirade. She was out of breath. He gazed at her from his chair behind his desk. Why didn’t he say something?

  The door opened suddenly, the same time as the knock came. Before she had time to turn round, Stephen had leaped to his feet, his voice raised.

  ‘Get out! I didn’t say enter. Get out!’

  ‘Sorry, I thought you—’

  ‘Get out!’

  Connie turned but the door had already closed. Stephen was staring at her, the blaze in his blue eyes still there. He’d not made any move towards her. Now she too would be asked to leave, he returning to whatever he’d been doing before she’d burst in on him.

  Instead, he said, ‘Connie, I’m so sorry.’

  She knew it: it was the prelude to saying it was all over. ‘I best go,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I only—’

  ‘No, Connie. Look, we’ll have lunch together. There are things I need to say to you.’

  That sounded like a death knell. ‘What things?’

  ‘We need to discuss our future.’

  What could she say? She nodded, turned and walked from his office. Was it good or bad she would hear from his lips?

  The rest of the morning dragged. Several times she looked up from her filing but Stephen hadn’t once looked her way.

  Towards midday she saw him open his office door and signal to one of the junior staff, say something to the boy, then close his office door to walk off in the direction of the lift, a sheath of papers under his arm. He looked very tense.

  She too tensed as the messenger came over to her. ‘Mr Clayton said he’s so sorry, he’s suddenly been called away to a meeting upstairs.’

  ‘Didn’t he say anything else?’ she asked.

  The young man shook his head.

  All she could do was nod and watch him walk off. Why such a sudden meeting? Meetings were usually arranged days, weeks in advance. He must have known. Was he using a trumped-up meeting to get out of seeing her for lunch? If so, why even bother to make an excuse? He could have told her to her face. Unless he was trying to let her down lightly? She tried to believe that this impromptu meeting was genuine. Then why not come and tell her himself?

  He didn’t return to his office the whole afternoon. Having had lunch alone, she sat at her desk wishing she’d be sent for to go on an assignment, but the hours just toiled on until finally it was time to go home.

  That night she dreamed Stephen had signed up for military duties, and she trailing him across a deserted no-man’s-land, trying to catch up with him to tell him to go home, finally finding herself on her own on a London street.

  The dream had left her miserable all the next day. It had felt so real.

  ‘Not seeing your Stephen tonight?’ The question came from her mother as Connie sat at the parlour table reading.

  Reading a book, any book no matter how boring, helped to dispel this … this sense of betrayal, she supposed it was. Stephen had been busy all week, dashing here, dashing there, out most of the time at meetings, appointments, some she thought quite unnecessary.

  Yesterday he’d told her he had to be in Reading all day Saturday – he didn’t say why – and he wouldn’t get back until late so that they’d have to forego that evening’s plans – the first time ever. Her immediate thought was: this could probably be the thin end of the wedge.

  Her heart was sinking so low it felt as if it was about to leave her body. She tried to steel herself for the coming words: ‘I don’t think we should be seeing each other any more.’ Stupid thoughts but she couldn’t help it even as she put on a brave face and said, ‘He’s been busy. I’ll probably see him tomorrow.’

  He had said he would see her tomorrow, but it felt like a poor attempt to compensate for their missed Saturday evening together. And what would he tell her when they were alone on Sunday?

  ‘Only probably?’ Mum remarked, making her father look up from reading his evening paper.

  ‘What gorn wrong between you two, then?’ he asked, removing his pipe to puff smoke into the air before replacing it ‘’Ad a row, ’ave you?’

  ‘No, Dad, we haven’t had a row.’ She wished they wouldn’t pry so much. She heard him give a humph.

  ‘Always said he was too much a cut above us.’ He was back to reading his paper, now talking into it as if to himself. ‘Always ’ad me doubts about that one, not being in the forces like. Deaf in one ear be buggered! They take anyone these days. Sort of makes you think of your George.’

  He never referred to George as our George. It was always your George, directed at Mum, who herself used the word our all the time. Anger seethed through Connie. ‘He tried, Dad,’ she said, ‘but they wouldn’t have him.’

  ‘So ’e thought fit to not ever try again.’ It was so loaded, she wanted to leap up, confront him, but she refrained, nursing her unhappiness. But he had more to say. ‘Well, don’t suppose ’e’ll ’ave much longer to worry about it anyway,’ he sighed. ‘Says ’ere, our boys out there’ve pushed them Huns back three miles at Arras and took eleven thousand prisoners. Got their own back after the buggers torpedoed that ’ospital ship of ours, all them poor wounded blighters drowned. Thinking about it must’ve given our boys even more cause to want to show the Hun what we’re made of.

  ‘Not only that,’ he rambled on, still apparently talking to his newspaper. ‘Now the Yanks’ve ’ad three of their ships sunk by German subs, they’ll come inter the war and it’ll be all over come end of this summer, you mark my words. Then we can all go back to sleepin’ easy in our beds again – your bloke too, I don’t doubt, feelin’ himself bin let orf lightly.’

  In all this Connie had sat quietly seething. Now she shut her book with a loud bang. ‘I think I’ll go out, Mum.’

  ‘Where to, love?’

  ‘Over to Doris’s.’

  ‘She’s probably out wiv ’er mates,’ Dad muttered into his paper. ‘Chasin’ boys, free as a kite, enjoying ’erself. No bloke messing ’er about.’

  But Connie hardly heard as she left the room, seeking her warm coat, hat and scarf against a chilly evening breeze.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was Sunday afternoon. Surely all her doubts were only in her mind, Connie thought as she and Stephen strolled beside Rotten Row, along which a few brave riders trotted their horses despite the cold, overcast afternoon, the Serpentine to their right bereft of Sunday boaters.

  Yet even though they were together Stephen remained distant. Her arm threaded though his, Connie remembered last summer when, without need of a coat she’d thrilled to the touch of his free hand covering her bare arm. Today her winter coat made his touch feel distant, as he himself seemed – or was it just her overwrought imagination? If she continued feeling like this she could lose him for ever. She needed to tackle him about the worries she’d had all through last week about his odd behaviour. After all they were together now but he still seemed distant, his mind elsewhere.

  ‘Darling, is everything all right?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean between us.’

  He didn’t look at her, his attention apparently taken by a couple of riders cantering by, their horses’ hoofbeats dull on the soft ground.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’ve not seen you so much lately, you away nearly every day last week and then having to go to Reading all day yesterday. You never told me why.
’

  He was silent for a moment, then he said in a low voice, ‘I had to go to a funeral.’

  She hadn’t expected that. Nor did he seem prepared to expand on the statement. She heard herself asking a little too sharply, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ After what they had been to each other for so long, he could at least confide in her.

  He was silent for so long that she was starting to feel shut out again, just as she’d been all last week. Then finally he said in a quiet voice, ‘It was too close to my heart for me to say anything. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she burst out, fearing all sorts of climax to this.

  ‘It was the funeral of my late wife’s brother.’

  Having said that much he appeared disinclined to say much else, leaving her to feel utterly excluded, yet not daring to breach it.

  ‘He and I were very close at one time.’ His voice resuming made her jump. ‘But since … Well, we drifted apart somewhat. He was younger than my wife. But he went last week with the same thing as she had, cancer.’ He seemed to be talking more to himself than her, as if attempting to comfort himself. ‘Her mother died of it too. Who knows, it might have been hereditary, come out in any children we had and I’d have been doubly grieved.’

  Hearing him, Connie felt as if she didn’t belong here, as if she’d been intruding. She said nothing. But then he turned his head to her. ‘So you see, I couldn’t have told anyone without coming close to tears and making a fool of myself. I couldn’t have stood other people commiserating. So I said nothing to anyone, not even you, my love. I couldn’t.’

  Suddenly her world soared, yet such sadness struck her heart that she herself wanted to cry. ‘I didn’t know,’ was all she said, and felt his arm tighten against her hand.

  She loved him so much and felt a deep respect for him too. She realised quite suddenly, perhaps for the first time, how like her mum he was – on the surface a seemingly quiet, retiring person, keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself, others getting the wrong impression of him. But maybe, like her mother, quietly having his way.