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

by Nicola Thorne

  Guido had come up from his office on a lower floor and sat listening to Connie describing the visit of her stepson. He said nothing but smoked a cigarette, looking out of the window, waiting until she had finished.

  “Works for the Interior Ministry does he? I wonder in what capacity?” He looked across at Connie who shook her head.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Maybe he helped to get all the Jews deported from Rome. Sounds like the sort of chap who might. Well,” Guido’s expression was one of grim satisfaction, “his turn will come. Meanwhile ... we must get you out of Venice, Connie, as soon as we can. I don’t trust your stepson for a moment.”

  “Then you think I have no rights to the palazzo?”

  Guido shrugged. “I can’t say anything about that until I have seen Paolo’s will – if he left one. I suppose he did?”

  Connie shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”

  “He never discussed it with you?”

  “Never.”

  “I find that rather odd.”

  “Some people are afraid of death. Paolo didn’t want to think about it. I never thought much about the future either, I must confess. We had sufficient for everything we wanted. Lately we wanted very little. We couldn’t travel or indulge in any luxuries because of the war. We lived quite frugally. Although Paolo was seventy-five, when he died it was unexpected. If Giacomo says the estate is entailed I’m sure it is. He implied Paolo married me for my money, which I don’t believe.”

  “Neither do I.” Francesca, who had been listening intently, shook her head. “It is rubbish to suggest it.”

  “I knew nothing of his affairs,” Guido concurred, “but I always understood he was well off.”

  “Giacomo implied it was his first wife’s money.”

  “Maybe.” Guido’s expression was non-committal. “What does it matter? He is dead now and you are well off. You can do without his palazzo. I mean, I’m sure it has a sentimental value, but as long as this war continues we are helpless. When it is over I will pursue it as vigorously as I can to establish your rights.” Guido lit another cigarette and got up. “However, that is not the point. You are in danger here. If you were not before, as Paolo’s wife, you are now. His son, it seems, is in league with the Germans.”

  “We don’t know for sure.”

  “We can be pretty sure if he is still with the Ministry of the Interior. It sounds to me as though he’s very thick with them. Never mind. We shall get him after the war, along with all the others.”

  “We?” Connie looked hesitantly at him.

  “Don’t ask.” Francesca gave her a warning look. “Just do as he advises.”

  “Then where can I go?” Connie felt the fear, the emptiness returning. “Can I get out of the country?”

  “With difficulty, but it can be done. The trouble is that the Fascists are very strong in the mountains. The passes into France are too dangerous. Switzerland is a possibility, but it too has hazards because the Fascists are thick there too and they are supported by many of the Swiss. I can get you on a boat out of Venice but the seas are dangerous and Greece and Yugoslavia are enemy occupied. An aeroplane is quite out of the question.” Guido leaned thoughtfully across a table and frowned. “Frankly I’m a bit stumped. I think the best thing is to head for the mainland and put you in a safe house.”

  “A safe house!” Connie suddenly brightened. “I have a safe house.”

  “You have a safe house? Where?”

  “Alexander, Carson’s son – of whom I am very fond and who I think is fond of me – has a house on Como. It will have been closed all during the war.”

  “You know where it is?”

  “Of course I know where it is. I visited it several times. Alexander was not often there but allowed Paolo and me to go whenever we wished.”

  Guido still didn’t look happy.

  “Como is just in the area where Mussolini hangs out. It could be even more dangerous than here. The house, if it was empty, might have been requisitioned. Does Giacomo know about this house?”

  “Oh, no, he knows nothing at all. During my marriage to Paolo I only met him a few times. Father and son were not close and he was never very friendly. He did not like me.”

  “So it seems.” Guido ground out his cigarette. “Well we shall have to chance it. I will ask our people there to find out more before we send you.”

  “And will it take long?”

  “It will take as long as a bird flies. I cannot use the telephone but we have other means just as swift.” Guido smiled mysteriously.

  “But how ... ?” Connie began but Francesca leaned forward and took her hand.

  “I told you not to ask,” she said caressing Connie’s cheek gently. “The less you know the better for you. Believe me.”

  May 1944

  The tide had finally turned in favour of the Allies and from all the theatres of war the stories were of the enemy on the run. In Russia, the Red Army had fought its way through to the Crimea all the time thrusting back the Germans. American forces in the Pacific made new conquests against the Japanese. In Italy the Allies continued their slow advance towards Rome, fiercely resisted by the Germans, and throughout occupied Europe there were sporadic mutinies and bursts of rebellion and unrest led by the resistance movements.

  Alexander, on short home leave from Italy where he had been supporting Allied troops from the air, had collected Minnie and driven her down to Forest House where Lally had offered them the cottage on the estate where she could rest and, if she desired, have her baby.

  Alexander had been very reluctant to let Minnie stay in London where he had lost Mary in childbirth. In his inevitable absence having Lally and the family near meant that they would keep an eye on Minnie. He had no idea in what theatre of war he would be when the time came.

  Minnie and Alexander arrived in time for lunch and were delighted to find that Carson and Dora were also there. Sally had decided to stay behind because of a cold.

  It was a joyful reunion between Dora and Alexander who had not met since her return to England, after a dangerous aircraft journey ducking the flack of enemy fire. Carson too was delighted to see his son – an air ace, a war hero. As a military man and himself decorated in the first war, Carson was very proud of him.

  Minnie, five months pregnant, had left the WAAF which had no place for pregnant women, married or unmarried. The idea of living in the country close to Alexander’s family had at first filled her with some doubt. She liked being in London, near to her friends, where Alexander was able to slip home on short leave. She felt that in Dorset she had, understandably, to share him with the rest of his family, and to her her time with him was precious: there were too many imponderables, both as regards the war and its aftermath.

  “The cottage is a bit small ,” Lally said apprehensively as they sat in the drawing room after lunch drinking ersatz coffee. “It was meant for the servants. In those days, of course we had far more than we do now.”

  “It is a lovely cottage,” Carson said expansively blowing smoke from one of his precious, pre-war cigars into the air. He was delighted to have his family around him: his son, and his cousin to whom he had always been close. It was through him that Dora had met and subsequently married Jean Parterre. Carson turned to Lally and smiled. “What others might not know, Lally, is that I lived there for some time.”

  “You lived there Father? I didn’t know that.” Alexander looked at him in surprise.

  “After my father married Agnes.” Carson paused as if the reason was difficult to explain. “Well, she and I never got on, so I moved out of Pelham’s Oak.” He gazed fondly at his son. “It is also here that you, as a small boy, were staying with Lally and I had the first inklings that you and I were related.”

  “How did you know that, Father?”

  “Because you so resembled your mother, and then Lally produced the bombshell that you had been abandoned and left on her doorstep. Of course there was no proof, and nothing I could do a
bout it then. I used to play with you. Do you remember, Lally?”

  “I remember.” Lally drained her cup. “And I remember how fond little Alexander was of you and you of him. You seemed to have a strange bond even then.” She looked wistfully out of the window. “See, the sun has come out. Why don’t we go and take a look before it starts to rain again?”

  They all rose and trooped out of the French windows across the terrace and round the house in the direction of the thatched cottage which had been converted from stables at the time the main house was built. It was a low two-storey building set among trees with a paved courtyard where, at one time, the horses had gathered before the meet. But Lally disapproved of fox-hunting and banned it after Prosper’s death. Now the horses were for riding only and comfortably housed in new stables a short distance away.

  Minnie looked with excitement, but also with some apprehension, at the cottage which, for the foreseeable future, was to be her home. It was indeed very pretty in its attractive rural setting with rambling roses across the front walls in bud and purple clematis in full flower. One of the upstairs windows was open, and the sun, which now shone quite strongly, cast a dappled effect on the warm sandstone walls. She clutched Alexander’s hand and smiled.

  “Happy?” he whispered.

  “Ecstatically,” she whispered back. “It’s like a dream home.”

  “It is yours,” Lally said noticing their glances, “for as long as you wish.” She waved a hand airily around her. “I mean this whole place. Everything comes to Alexander when I die so, in a sense, it is yours already.”

  “But Alexander and I aren’t ...” Minnie bit her lip. There was always that uncertainty, that threat of something happening to spoil their love as the return of Irene undoubtedly would. It was like a cloud perpetually hovering over them and somehow it seemed so unworthy to hope that she might not return. So every time one thought about the future hope was tinged with guilt, expectation with remorse.

  Dora hung back, reluctant to enter the cottage. Her father had fallen from the roof while he had been thatching it and been killed. This was why her mother had not wanted to join today’s party. They both knew it was foolish. It had happened a very long time ago – nearly fifty years – and yet throughout that time they both avoided going into the cottage or anywhere near it whenever they visited Lally.

  Indeed the servants had always refused to live there. They regarded it as unhappy, a legend which had stuck, which was why it remained empty.

  Carson turned round and looked at Dora as the young couple disappeared inside, followed by Lally.

  “Come in,” he said putting out his hand.

  “You know why I don’t like going inside ...”

  “Of course I know.” He kept his hand out. “And it’s silly.If you don’t go inside the young couple will wonder why, and if you tell them it might spoil their day.”

  Dora looked at him, resolutely squared her shoulders and smiled.

  “Time to banish ghosts,” she said and, her hand tightly gripping Carson’s, she crossed the threshold into the main room where Minnie was already uttering cries of joy. Lally had completely redecorated and furnished the cottage. The furniture and curtains were new. Everywhere there were flowers, rugs on the highly polished wooden floors, and a great fire roaring up the chimney. They tramped upstairs to find the same care had been taken to plan for the comfort and happiness of the lovers. In the main bedroom Lally had added an en suite bathroom. There was a large double bed with a white cretonne bedspread, heavy thick Wilton carpet on the floor and a bowl of spring flowers on the polished table by the window, on either side of which were large easy chairs.

  “It is perfect,” Minnie cried bouncing on the bed, patting it for Alexander to come and sit beside her.

  “Perfect.” His hand closed over hers. Then, he said, looking at Lally, “You have taken an awful lot of trouble over this, Mother.”

  Lally looked pleased. “I’m so glad you like it. And next to you ...” Lally threw open a communicating door with a flourish, “is the nursery, which I have had specially converted.”

  They all trooped into the room which was decorated in a pale-yellow with oval cartoon-like paintings of ducks, kittens and rabbits decorating the walls. There were yellow curtains, a soft cream carpet, and a wicker crib covered with a cretonne hood, resting on rockers so that the baby could gently be lulled to sleep. There was a large white dresser, a table and low chairs.

  “And next door is the nanny’s room,” Lally continued with the same note of pleasurable excitement, leading the way out of the nursery and into a room which had a single bed, a chest of drawers, dressing table and the same cream carpet as the nursery.

  “It is absolutely heaven, Lally,” Alexander said, kissing her.

  “It’s really beautiful.” Minnie seemed almost close to tears. “You’ve been so good to us, Lally.”

  “And I will be here, my dear,” Lally put an arm round her waist drawing her close, “to see that you are well looked after, as well as I can until Alexander returns, and then you can have this as your own little country cottage, your very own, to come to whenever you wish.”

  For the first part of their journey back to Pelham’s Oak Carson and Dora remained silent, each locked in their own thoughts. It was not difficult to guess what they might be.

  The war was coming to an end – the Allied invasion of Europe was expected soon as activity was increasing on the south coast and certain areas had been made out of bounds to the public. Armoured carriers rumbled unceasingly through the quiet country lanes.

  Dora had not heard from Jean since she had left France and the authorities in London had had no word of his fate or that of his comrades captured on the same night. No word at all either had been heard from Irene or Bart since their disappearance. If the end of the war brought peace, what unwelcome revelations might it not also bring? Carson and Dora seemed to be sharing the same line of thought.

  “It is dreadful to hope that Irene will not come back,” Dora said at last settling back and lighting a cigarette. She looked at Carson whose expression remained grave. “But I’m afraid I do hope it. I must. Minnie and Alexander are so idyllically happy, so well suited, and there’s a baby on the way. It is very difficult not to believe that, in many ways, Alexander might not wish that too.”

  “If Irene does come back,” Carson changed gear to go up the steep hill leading to Pelham’s Oak, “and I think it most unlikely that she will – I’m afraid she has perished in a concentration camp – then she and Alexander will have to reassess the situation, as a lot of other couples will have to. Owing to the pressures of war many new relationships will have been formed. No one, certainly not Irene, can expect things to be as they were in 1939.”

  “You think then that they will divorce?”

  “I think it is inevitable. Alexander will have fathered a child by Minnie; they will have created a new family together. It is hard not to think that, after so many years, Irene will not be able to accept and understand this. But,” Carson braked as they approached the portico of the house, “ I don’t think it will happen and when Alexander does trace her, if ever he does, and discovers what happened to her, then he will be free.”

  As Carson got out of the car and went round to open the door for Dora, David the butler came solemnly down the stairs, his expression impassive as usual.

  He assisted Dora from the car, gave a bleak smile and then said, “There is someone to see you, Mrs Parterre.”

  “Oh?” Momentarily Dora’s face lit up with expectation.

  “It is a lady, madam. From London.” The butler then got into the driving seat and drove the car round to the garage and out of sight of the house.

  Carson took Dora’s arm as they mounted the steps.

  “I wonder who it can be?” Carson murmured. “I do hope they don’t want you to return to France.”

  “If they do I shall go,” Dora said and her expression turned to a smile as she saw Madame Greuze emerge f
rom the drawing room and walk slowly towards her. Behind her stood Sally, pale-faced, but that might have been because she was still suffering from a heavy cold.

  “Madame Greuze!” Dora exclaimed clasping her hand, her eyes lighting up, and breaking into French. “Marie, it is very good to see you again.” During her training she and the Frenchwoman had become firm friends.

  “And you, Dora.” Marie Greuze held on to Dora’s hand looking intently at her. Dora’s face froze. Madame Greuze led her into the drawing room while Carson and Sally remained outside.

  “You’ve something to tell me about Jean?” As they stopped Dora stared at her visitor who was still clasping her hand. Marie nodded, searching for words.

  “It is not good news?” Dora prompted her.

  “Jean, our dear ‘Gabriel’, is dead, Dora.” Marie’s eyes were stricken. “Oh, I am so sorry to give you the news. Believe me ...” She appeared on the verge of breaking down herself.

  Dora clung onto her hand aware that Carson and Sally had silently entered the room and were standing supportively behind her.

  “He died a hero, Dora, a hero of France, of the free world.”

  Dora felt Carson’s hand on her shoulder as he tried to draw her gently down onto the sofa, but she resisted him.

  “How ...” she began tremulously, “when?”

  “It was very soon after he was captured. He and the others were taken out and shot after a cruel interrogation during which they were tortured. However, none of them released any information, or gave away any secrets which is why it has taken us so long to discover their fate. They held firm, betraying no one. I wanted to come personally to tell you the terrible news.”