In Time of War (Part Six of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  His three children, the older ones, were in riding kit and smiled politely when introduced. Lally still kept a stable as Alexander liked to ride and after lunch there was to be an excursion. They were rather restlessly waiting for lunch to begin, but Lally had drinks served on the terrace beforehand so that everyone could get to know Minnie.

  Toby and Leonard were both rather grave boys, almost young men, sixteen and fifteen. Perhaps their attitude had been conditioned by the war and the fact that their mother was still in Italy. Netta, fourteen, was on her way to being a beauty. Tall and grave, like her brothers, she had her father’s colouring – blue eyes, ash-blonde hair which was parted in the middle and swept back into a single plait so that it would fit neatly and tidily under her riding hat.

  “Jean is still in France,” Carson explained pointing out Louise. “He refused to come with Dora and Louise when they left last year.”

  “He wouldn’t leave his vines.” Dora, who was sitting near, overheard them.

  “Are you able to be in contact?” Minnie asked.

  “Only in a roundabout way.”

  “Perhaps I can help.”

  “Oh?” Dora looked at her with interest. “How?”

  “I can’t be too specific,” Minnie said, “but I know people who know people.”

  “I’d be awfully glad if you could help.” Dora moved closer to her. “I would also like to get back into France again.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Minnie smiled mysteriously. “I don’t want to hold out false promises.”

  “I don’t want Dora to go back to France,” Eliza said in alarm.

  “But Mother, I should be with my husband. I want to be with him.”

  “What will happen to Louise?”

  Dora smiled and looked around. “With a family like this do you think she’d be lonely?”

  After lunch Minnie’s practise with the croquet mallet paid off and she and Alexander beat Carson and Sally. The three older children went riding while the younger ones played under the supervision of Kate’s nurse, the beloved Massie. Dora sat chatting to Sam and Deborah, who had now undertaken the management of Bart’s business, or what was left of it.

  Sam had been listening to the conversation between Minnie and Dora and later, over tea, which was served on the lawn after the croquet match, he made his way over to Minnie limping heavily, even with the aid of his sticks.

  “I’m Sam, the prodigal son,” he said. “I didn’t really get the chance to talk to you over lunch.”

  “I know who you are.” Minnie flashed him her brilliant smile. “Alexander told me you were a hero at Dunkirk.”

  “No.” Sam shook his head vigorously. “The heroes at Dunkirk as far as I was concerned were Carson and Jack Sprogett. They saved my life.”

  “But you got a medal, I hear.”

  “They should have got medals too. I tried, but the War Office said there were so many heroes at Dunkirk among the civilians who helped to rescue the soldiers that to single anyone out would be unfair. I was in the army so I got the medal and that was unfair.”

  Sam paused and looked searchingly at Minnie. His pale good looks, his tormented air, both intrigued and aroused her sympathy and she felt drawn to him.

  “It’s about what you were saying to Dora. I know you can’t talk about the work you do and I’m sure you’ve done all you can to help find Irene, but you know that my father disappeared too when he was supposed to be looking for her?”

  “Yes, I know.” Minnie nodded. “And, please understand, I am not engaged in any secret war work. I work for the RAF in the central operations room. We follow and track our bombers and fighters when they are on missions.”

  “Oh!” Sam looked disappointed. “It’s what you said about knowing people ...”

  “I do know people. People of all kinds such as one meets in the course of a busy life. I was not able to help Alexander and I’m quite sure the same, unfortunately, will apply in the case of your father. We haven’t any idea, or very little, about what is going on inside Germany. I’m sorry.”

  Instinctively she put out a hand and pressed his. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I know how much you’ve been through, but you see there’s so little I can do.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  But he sounded sad and weary like someone who was near the end of his tether.

  Eliza said to Dora in the car on the way home, “That’s an awfully sweet girl Alexander brought with him.”

  “You know she’s a widow?”

  “Oh yes, so sad. I think they’re very well suited, though, don’t you?”

  “Mother, there is Irene.”

  “I know and Alexander knows. We all know. But if the worst should come to the worst, and we shan’t know that until after the war, well ... wait and see, shall we?”

  “Yes Mother, wait and see.”

  Later, after putting Louise to bed and listening to the news, mother and daughter sat on the lawn at Riversmead watching the sun go down.

  “I think the war news is a little better, don’t you, darling?”

  “Except for Russia.”

  “Well, now Russia has been invaded she will have to come in on our side. Alexander thinks Hitler has made a big mistake attacking his ally, even if it is an unnatural one. Dora ...” Eliza looked anxiously across at her daughter, “I do hope you weren’t serious about joining Jean in France?” When Dora didn’t answer she went on, “Were you, darling?”

  “Yes I was, if possible. I mean, would you mind looking after Louise? Of course I wouldn’t take her.”

  “Of course I don’t mind, but I think it would be extremely foolish, and dangerous, for you even to consider going back. After all, an Englishwoman in occupied France? I’m sure Jean would be furious if he thought you would even contemplate it.”

  Dora who was naturally a restless person looked wearily at her mother. “Mother, I do want to do something, you know, to help with the war effort. I know I’m no longer young but there is something I could do. I had a word with Minnie and she knows someone to do with secret operations overseas and she’s going to contact them on my behalf. I speak perfect French you know.”

  Lieutenant-Colonel Baker had been at school with Dougie which was how Minnie knew him. For the first few moments of their meeting he and Dora discussed Dougie and the tragedy of his death and the sustaining and comforting presence of Alexander in her life.

  “He’s got a wife,” Dora said shortly.

  “Oh I know. I mean as a friend.”

  “That’s all they are,” Dora said firmly. “Good friends.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest anything else,” the Colonel said stiffly, clearing his throat and drawing a file towards him. Inside was a single sheet of paper which he appeared to study carefully.

  “I see you’re completely bilingual, Mrs Parterre?”

  “Completely. I’ve lived in France since my marriage.”

  “Which was ...” the Colonel glanced again at the file, “twenty years ago?”

  “Almost.”

  “And you have a daughter?”

  “Who is over here and will remain with my mother, if I go abroad, that is.”

  The Lieutenant-Colonel closed the file and studied Dora carefully.

  “I must tell you, Mrs Parterre, your age is against you. We very seldom employ people over fifty.”

  “Isn’t it better to employ older people than younger ones?” Dora challenged him. “They have more life in front of them.”

  The Lieutenant-Colonel laughed. “They are also more agile. They can run faster.”

  “But not think faster, necessarily. I’m sure there is some way I can help you. Some tiny little way I can be of assistance.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Colonel Baker rose and held out his hand. “Goodbye for the present, Mrs Parterre, and thanks for coming to see me.”

  Dora left not expecting to hear from him again.

  Eliza was overjoyed that Dora appeared to have been turned down
for secret work in France. Her daughter had served in the first war and she saw no reason why she should sacrifice herself in the second. But she knew that Dora was unhappy and restless and when, a week later, Dora was called to the phone and asked to go up to London again, this time to see someone else at a different address, she felt a mixture of emotions: satisfaction on Dora’s behalf, fear on her own.

  This time Dora saw a Frenchwoman called Madame Greuze and they spoke in French, which made Dora wonder if her knowledge of languages was being tested. She had no fears about this as she knew her French was fluent, her accent good.

  Madame Greuze was a woman perhaps in her forties. She wore a white blouse and a black skirt and had her hair tied back in a bun. Her face was completely devoid of make-up but she had fine twinkly brown eyes and her expression was not unsympathetic. She wore a wedding ring but vouchsafed no personal information about herself. She smoked strong French cigarettes all the way through their interview.

  Madame Greuze questioned Dora carefully about her knowledge of the Champagne area of France, about internal communications, her reason for coming to England and what she had done since she’d been here.

  Dora told her she had been looking after her daughter but missed her husband and now wanted to go back to him, but didn’t know how. That was when it had occurred to her that she might be of some help in the war effort.

  “But you are an Englishwoman.”

  “That’s what my mother said.”

  “You’d be immediately arrested and you and your husband’s life put in danger.”

  Dora bit a lip. “You think so?”

  “For sure.” Madame Greuze lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the previous one. Then she solemnly looked at Dora. “And you don’t know anything about what your husband is doing now?”

  Dora smiled. “I know he will be very anxious about the vendange. After our daughter he loves the vines best and then me.”

  Madame Greuze once again considered the file which had grown bulkier since Dora had last seen it on Lieutenant Colonel Baker’s desk. She then leaned over her desk in the stark ministry room where they were sitting and lowered her voice as if, even in those conditions, it was dangerous to speak too loudly.

  “Mrs Parterre, I must tell you something and insist that you tell no one, not even your mother.”

  Dora’s heart missed a beat and suddenly she felt overcome with fear. Her mouth dried up and she swallowed hard. “Something to do with Jean?” she whispered.

  Madame Greuze nodded.

  “He’s been hurt ... he’s ...” Dora swallowed again, “dead?”

  Now Madame Greuze permitted herself a fleeting smile and shook her head.

  “No, no, nothing like that, Mrs Parterre. Your husband is one of the leaders of the Resistance in the area you describe, one of our most valued and valuable contacts.”

  “Then he is safe and well?” Dora’s eyes filled with tears. “For over a year I have heard nothing, knew nothing.”

  “He is safe and well ... for the present and yes, guarding his vines.” She smiled again, almost as if she knew Jean. “In short we are trying to find a way for you to join him, Mrs Parterre, and serve our cause as well.” Then she paused and her expression became very grave. “It will be dangerous and you may not come back...”

  “Tell me what I must do,” Dora said leaning eagerly forward.

  Chapter Seven

  June 1942

  Agnes had not spoken for days but lay propped up in her bed seeming to stare out of the window, but perhaps seeing nothing. It was hard to tell. It was also hard to believe that Agnes, who had always had so much to say, sometimes in a very cruel way, might never speak again.

  She had been alone in the house when she had the stroke, only discovered by her maid late in the evening when she returned from her day off.

  It seemed awful to think of Agnes so alert, at one time so energetic, now helpless. One hoped that, as had been said of the late King, her life was moving peacefully towards its close. Certainly she didn’t appear to be suffering.

  Agnes was a considerable figurehead in the Woodville family, a woman with a past who had reluctantly come home to roost in the small provincial town in which she had been born and which she had spent so much of her life despising.

  She was the sister of Ryder Yetman, Eliza’s first husband, who had been killed in a tragic accident in 1895. Agnes had been an ambitious young woman yet, it had seemed, destined to be permanently discontented, to live a life largely unfulfilled.

  She had had a clandestine affair with Guy Woodville, borne a daughter Elizabeth and then abandoned her. She had disappeared for twenty years to return, ostensibly a rich woman and thus had trapped Guy, then a widower, into marriage.

  After Guy’s death she managed to fall out with Carson, marry a man who was as much a liar as she was, who ran off with her jewellery and left her destitute.

  The family had rallied round Agnes, faults and all, as families did. Her half-sister Connie had given her a home and an allowance; various members contributed, kept in touch, came to call. But Agnes had been lonely, even bitter, and now the daughter she had mistreated wouldn’t visit her on her deathbed. Her grandchildren seldom called on her either.

  ‘It’s just us,’ Sophie thought, screwing up her eyes to study her knitting pattern lying on Agnes’s counterpane. ‘The few loyal ones; the people who always put up with Agnes and forgave her whatever she did: Eliza, Carson and myself.’

  Carson came every day, Eliza most days. It was impossible to tell Connie marooned in enemy territory.

  Alexander was overseas, stationed in North Africa to support the attempts of the Eighth Army to contain General Rommel and his panzers in the Western Desert.

  ‘No, just a few of us,’ Sophie thought beginning to cast off stitches from the balaclava she was making for Mrs Churchill’s war effort in aid of Russian soldiers. ‘Only a few left, really.’

  She sighed deeply as the door behind her opened and Agnes’s maid, Grace, came into the room carrying a tea tray.

  “Mrs Sadler is here, madam,” she announced. “She’s just taking off her coat.”

  “Oh, good,” Sophie said noticing the two cups. “It will be nice to have some company. You may leave us to pour for ourselves, Grace.”

  Grace gave a little bob and turned as Deborah came quietly into the room and sat down beside her mother, her eyes on the figure in the bed.

  “Any change?”

  Sophie shook her head. “Doctor said it could be hours, days, even weeks.”

  “Poor Granny.” Deborah rose from her chair and, going over to Agnes, gently stroked her brow before planting a light kiss on it.

  Agnes was Deborah’s step-grandmother. When they were young Deborah and her sister Ruth had adored their visits to step-grandmama who was full of so many tales about the exotic life she’d lived abroad. She had been in America for many many years; and then there were her jaunts on the Continent, first with their grandfather, and then with the self-styled Sir Owen Wentworth. They’d stayed at grand hotels and gambled in the casinos at Deauville and Monte Carlo.

  Agnes had been considered a bad influence on the girls, which seemed to be confirmed when Deborah eloped with a labourer employed on rebuilding the church tower and disappeared for months, before returning pregnant.

  “How’s Sam?” Sophie asked as Deborah brought her mother a cup of tea and held towards her a plate of dainty cakes. Sophie shook her head, laid down her knitting and sipped her tea.

  Sam was in hospital again. A plate that had been put in his leg had apparently made it septic causing him considerable pain.

  “Pretty fed up.” Deborah sat back munching a cake. “You can’t blame him. He’s had a really tough time, but they’re discharging him quite soon.” Deborah looked cheerfully at her mother. “There is one bit of good news.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve got a contract to build some huts for the army. That should keep us going.”

  S
ophie looked with grudging admiration at her daughter. It was hard not to admire someone who, after a largely self-centred and wasted life, had thrown herself into rescuing a once successful but now almost bankrupt business without any experience whatever.

  Bart had had his finger in so many pies, it was hard to know which ones. His import-export business had virtually ceased as war engulfed the Continent. The trouble was that Bart had been a one-man band. He had been secretive and had kept few records. It was hard not to suspect that he had been dishonest too, and had made money out of the war by selling arms to the enemy. But Sophie didn’t know this. All she knew was that her daughter had had a hard time but appeared, against all expectations, to be making good.

  “A contract with the army! That must be worth something.”

  “Well, at the moment, no; but if we do a good job, and in time ...” Deborah looked at her mother and smiled. “I’m making progress.”

  Sophie smiled back, a little wanly. Progress had also been made in their difficult, tortuous relationship. It had been made much easier since Deborah and Bart had divorced, even better now he had disappeared altogether from the scene.

  “Oh, by the way,” Deborah said as if reading her thoughts, “quite by chance we’ve found a contact with someone who knew Bart, who worked with him abroad. Bart kept few documents but this letter turned up from a man based in Switzerland.

  “Apparently he’s still there and Sam says when he’s better he’s going to try and see him. A man called Anton Lippe.”

  A strange noise from the bed prevented further revelations and mother and daughter simultaneously looked towards it, hurriedly put down their cups and rushed one to each side of Agnes whose eyes, although still seeming to stare out of the window, appeared now definitely to be sightless.

  Sophie put a finger on the pulse at Agnes’s neck, left it there for some time and then shook her head.

  “I think she’s gone,” she said with a sigh and slowly she drew first one eyelid and then the other gently over Agnes’s eyes, kissed her brow and stood up.