Wartime Sweethearts

by Lizzie Lane

  Mary didn’t believe her. ‘On account?’

  Mrs Darwin-Kemp shook her head. ‘No. I’ll pay for it now. I no longer have either the staff or the time to deal with such things. Servants joining the Women’s Land Army and driving buses and whatever! Leaving me to do my own cooking.’

  Mary felt like cheering the servants who had dared to leave Mrs Darwin-Kemp’s employ. No doubt they were better paid and better treated even if they were working long hours.

  She had heard rumours previously that Mrs Darwin-Kemp had trouble keeping servants. It must be even more difficult now, she concluded, that better wages were being offered for doing war work than domestic work.

  Mrs Darwin-Kemp paused at the shop door before opening it, looking up and down the High Street before venturing out. Satisfied there was nobody she knew around, she pulled up the thick collar of her coat and tugged the stiff net of her hat down over her face. Suitably disguised, she stuck her nose out, again looking this way and that before finally dashing to her car which – horror of horrors – she was having to drive herself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Frances was not best pleased about having to borrow Charlie’s old bicycle and cycle over to the big house with Mrs Darwin-Kemp’s order. For a start the bicycle was too big for her and even though Charlie had adjusted the saddle height before leaving, her toes only just about reached the pedals.

  The big house where the Darwin-Kemps lived was called Swainswick, but nobody local called it that. It remained the ‘big house’, uttered in unflattering tones by the villagers as though it were another country, which to some extent to them it was. To them it was the place where ‘the gentry’ lived, people with lots of money who spoke with cut-glass accents. Besides having live-in servants, they employed people from the village but rarely mixed with them except to open the village fete or act as a judge in the annual horticultural show. Even then they relied on their head gardener, Archie Singer, for an opinion.

  Tradesmen were directed by a sign at the main gate that they should make their way to the single gate at the rear of the property. Frances followed the instructions and eventually found herself faced with a smaller notice instructing her to press the bell and wait for admittance.

  Frances stabbed at the white ivory bell which was embedded in a brass surround. She waited while standing on one leg, the bicycle leaning against one hip.

  Nobody came.

  Frances huffed and puffed impatiently and seeing as she hadn’t as yet eaten the alluring high tea Mary had promised her, she was impatient to get going. She pressed again. In an effort to hear better, she cocked her head. No sound of footsteps. No response whatsoever.

  Really impatient to get back to her tea and the cosy front room fire, she pressed for a third time, keeping her finger on the buzzer while she counted ten – very slowly!

  Ten was always a good number and things usually happened if you really wanted them, simply by counting to ten. It was like the magic words from ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’. Ali Baba had uttered ‘Open Sesame’, and hey presto, the door to rich treasures sprang open.

  It had to be easy to open a garden gate if magic words could open the entrance to a treasure trove, or at least have somebody arrive that would open it.

  She was just about to press for a fourth and final time, when an elderly barrel-chested man with rigid shoulders and an oiled hairstyle with a centre parting came ambling into view on bandy legs, his arms swinging at his sides.

  ‘It’s open,’ he shouted at her.

  So why didn’t it open when I shoved it, thought Frances?

  ‘Oh. I read the sign and thought it wasn’t.’

  Although she hadn’t exactly met him socially, Frances knew she was face to face with Colonel Darwin-Kemp.

  He was smartly dressed and looked very glad to see her. ‘You’ve certainly helped us out of a fix, Rosie. Got the sliced bread with you?’

  Frances said that, yes, she did have the sliced bread with her. ‘But my name’s not Rosie.’

  The colonel had turned his back and didn’t appear to have heard her. She presumed he was deaf. A lot of older people were deaf though sometimes it was only pretending because they just didn’t want to hear what she was talking about. Too busy. Always too busy.

  The kitchen was big and modern without a single crumb in sight. A pat of butter plus a plate of sliced cucumber was laid out on a large pine table, plus three serving platters with patterned edges.

  ‘I expect you’re tremendously capable of making cucumber sandwiches,’ he said to her. ‘I believe the bread you’ve brought us is already sliced. The memsahib, my wife, insisted that the baker should do so. I told my wife I didn’t think the bakery usually sliced bread on demand, but she nearly bit my head off when I said that. It’s been hard for her, you see, Rosie, what with servants charging off to war without a by your leave and us having to cook and clean and whatever for ourselves. You know, she’s even serving the tea and everything herself this afternoon because our maid Lily, who we were counting on, has gone off to the station to say goodbye to her young man. I believe he’s joined the Wiltshire Yeomanry. The memsahib’s never done it before in her life. Brought up in India, you see. House full of servants. Not had to lift a finger, but there you are, every man – and woman – to the pumps, eh what?’

  His gaze drifted around the kitchen giving her the impression that he’d forgotten she was there. He had a funny way about him and a funny way of speaking that was quite intriguing so she didn’t get round to repeating that her name was not Rosie, and that she knew everything that went on at the bakery because she lived there.

  ‘You can make cucumber sandwiches?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Of course I can,’ Frances replied hotly. ‘Anybody can make sandwiches. I mean, if they’re used to it,’ she added, unwilling to upset the memsahib, as the colonel had called Mrs Darwin-Kemp.

  The colonel beamed at her. ‘I should have known. You look very capable, Rosie, very capable indeed.’

  ‘I’d better get on with it.’

  Frances placed the bread on the table. Mary had placed the loaves in brown paper bags and tied the ends together with string to stop the slices falling out.

  ‘Good start,’ declared the colonel. ‘Topping good start.’ He leaned closer as though about to confide a very big secret. ‘To tell you the truth, the memsahib nearly had a fit when I told her we were expecting very important guests. They have very particular tastes, so I hope the bread is very thinly sliced.’

  Again Frances considered correcting the colonel’s mistake about her name seeing as he continued to call her Rosie even when she’d informed him it was Frances. He just hadn’t heard her.

  So who was Rosie? The only Rosie she knew was Rose Syms, who was known to take casual jobs as cook or waitress, though only on a very basic level. Goodness knows where she’d got to, but things and people were very unpredictable at the moment.

  She was about to own up and tell him her name again when the colonel informed her that she might very well be here washing up until seven o’clock, and he hoped her family wouldn’t be worried. That was when it occurred to her that they deserved to be worried. They were sending her away, everything arranged without even bothering to ask her. This, she decided, was an opportunity to get back at them, though she felt a momentary pang for the tea she was missing.

  Even though she was attracted to the Forest of Dean by Uncle Stan’s forest folklore and having been reassured she would still receive school dinners, she couldn’t help harbouring a deep resentment that everything had been arranged without asking her first. Uncle Stan had not considered how much she would miss everyone, so she would show them beyond doubt how much they would miss her. She wouldn’t go home until late! Very late!

  The time went quickly. As fast as she set things out, Mrs Darwin-Kemp whisked them off the table to serve to her guests, though not without Frances’s assurance that they were of the very best quality, and also not without scrutinising the thic
kness of the cucumber slices and also of the bread.

  ‘We have very important guests,’ Mrs Darwin-Kemp declared imperiously for the third time that evening. ‘They are used to eating the very best in the finest establishments.’

  ‘Sweet’s Bakery is the best for miles around. Everyone knows that Mary and Ruby are excellent bakers, and not just of bread,’ Frances said defensively. ‘They’re very good at recipes too and have entered some for the Best of British Baking competition in Bristol. Ruby won a place there with an apple loaf.’

  Mrs Darwin-Kemp looked suitably impressed. ‘Really?’

  Frances allowed herself a smug smile. Even though she was annoyed with her family she still loved them and would defend them against all comers.

  After the food came the dishes. By the time she’d washed what was already in the sink Mrs Darwin-Kemp came out with the dishes from the tea tray in the drawing room. She also gave Frances a ten-shilling note.

  ‘My guests were very impressed, so impressed in fact that they noted the name and address of the bakery. You did say Mary and Ruby, didn’t you, and that they are also devising recipes for some competition?’

  Frances said that she had, but wasn’t really interested in anything else that was said. She had earned ten shillings and intended not telling her family about it. Instead she would take it with her to the Forest of Dean – if she really had to go. Wisdom told her she might need it there, perhaps to escape and make a life of her own. Ten shillings should be enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was gone seven o’clock and Mary was frantic. Tea was on the table, Ruby and her father were back, but there was no sign of Frances. She’d explained to her father that the woman up at the big house had demanded delivery and that she’d sent Frances along on Charlie’s bicycle.

  Stan Sweet had been in the process of taking off his coat and settling down for the evening, not that he’d be able to settle much. Seeing Charlie off had aged him, though he’d controlled his feelings, putting on a brave front so that Charlie would go off happy. He knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight. There was just too much on his mind.

  ‘I’ll go and look for her,’ he said, reaching for his hat.

  Ruby had seen through his facade of joviality. She threw a look at her sister. ‘I’ll go. It’s best you stay here, Dad. Our Mary wants to know all about the send-off. Be fair, she’s run the shop all day by herself. It’s a wonder she’s sold a thing, worrying about our Charlie.’

  Mary agreed with the suggestion. ‘She’s probably met up with the village boys and is in the orchard climbing trees, everything else totally forgotten.’

  They all knew their cousin’s love of the orchard – she’d been known to lose all sense of time in her favourite playground, and besides it wasn’t that dark just yet.

  It was now early October. The nights were beginning to close in and it would soon be time for the clocks to fall back. Ruby wondered if it would happen this year as usual. Probably. The farmers and growers would be clamouring for longer hours of light so they could get in the crops.

  Out of sight of everyone Ruby opened a kitchen drawer and grabbed a rolling pin. What few street lamps there were in the village were blacked out. The countryside was blacker than ever with not even a sliver of light coming out from a window. The blackout had made her nervous, or at least cautious.

  ‘I’ll go. I won’t be long,’ she shouted as she reached for the door latch.

  Once outside, Ruby took three deep breaths. It had been difficult not to cry in front of Charlie, though she had dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. She needed this time alone to think about her own future. Charlie was off to sea, off to defy a vicious enemy, to crew on a merchant ship carrying food to England, now a beleaguered country. If she could, she would do something more worthwhile too, certainly something more important than baking bread and serving in the shop.

  Her eyes ached and so did her feet. It had been a long day and she had been looking forward to putting her feet up, listening to the wireless or reading a magazine. Frances had put paid to all that. By the time she got back all she’d want to do was flop into bed with a cup of hot cocoa.

  ‘If that little madam is out larking about with her mates, she’ll get the sharp edge of my tongue,’ Ruby murmured as she marched off towards the steep hill that led down to Swainswick House.

  Frances was thinking how pleased the twins would be to hear that Mrs Darwin-Kemp’s guests had praised their baking when the front tyre of Charlie’s bicycle hissed into flatness. She had a puncture.

  Cursing naughty words that a grown-up might use, words she would never use in front of her family, she swung her leg off her bike. Curses and bad words were only for when she was out with the Martin boys and the village girls that didn’t mind climbing trees and getting their dresses torn.

  The hill leading up towards the old toll house and the village beyond was steep and pushing a bicycle with a puncture was never easy. By the time she got to the top of the hill she was breathless, tired and very hungry. She wanted to get home quickly so rather than continuing along the main road that passed the front of big houses and opposite the tiny little railway station, she opted to head down Pool Lane.

  The lane ran alongside the orchard where she spent many happy hours. It was where the wall was the lowest and the old five-bar gate falling to bits. It was the gate she and her friends usually climbed over depending on the amount of nettles growing there, too many and they vaulted over the broken wall. Along a bit further was a stile, a more favoured entrance than either the gate or the wall. For some reason nettles didn’t grow there.

  The lane was narrow and wound away to her left, its hedges throwing dark shadows even in daylight. Dusk had come and gone and tonight the lane seemed to wind away like a long tunnel of blackness. No light shone from the windows of the few cottages bordering the narrow lane, their inner glow denied escape by the recent addition of hastily made blackout curtains.

  Charlie had told her that an enemy bomber could detect the smallest glimmer of light from a great height.

  ‘Even from the burning tobacco in the bowl of your uncle Stan’s pipe,’ he’d said to her.

  Wide-eyed, she’d hung on to his every word, believing him as she always did until he’d burst into laughter and winked at her.

  ‘Caught you there, mutt.’

  Charlie wouldn’t be there when she got home and it saddened her. She wondered where he was now and what he was doing. He was probably still on the train taking him to Winchester. Travelling anywhere was taking longer than usual, so her uncle had told her.

  ‘The trains will be packed with lots of brave young men going off to war. Young men like our Charlie.’

  Yes, she decided as she marched into the lane. Charlie was brave and if he could go off to fight nasty Nazis, then she shouldn’t be afraid of darkness. The sun had gone to bed. That was all that had happened.

  The familiar sights of day were totally immersed in darkness. The sounds of night were different too: the call of a fox, the hoot of an owl piercing and unseen.

  The flat tyre made a wheezing sound as she pushed the bike along, reminding her of an old man in the village who made the same noise and coughed and spluttered before he could say a word.

  Tree branches creaked with age as the wind began to rise, tugging at her skirt and sending black clouds racing across the sky.

  In a moonlit moment, she spied the tall chimneys of the Apple Tree pub, black and solid against the rolling clouds.

  The moment didn’t last, clouds hiding the moon and returning the world to blackness. However, the end of the lane was in sight. A few more steps …

  ‘Come to see me then, my darling?’

  There was suddenly a voice and the glow of a burning cigarette, the smell of strong tobacco.

  Gareth Stead! His figure was black against the turmoil of sky, just like the chimneys of the pub he ran.

  Frances stopped. It was no longer so easy telling herself to be brave just a
s Charlie was being brave.

  ‘No,’ she said, making herself sound as much like Ruby as possible because Ruby always sounded defiant even when she wasn’t.

  ‘Where you been then?’

  His words were slurred. The air around him smelled much like the empty barrels left for the draymen at the back of the pub. As her Uncle Stan had said, a pub landlord should not indulge too freely in his own spirits and beers. She knew he’d meant that Mr Stead drank too much.

  She gathered up all her courage. ‘It’s none of your bloody business. And you’ve been indulging,’ she retorted tartly, not caring about using a bad word when speaking to him. She didn’t like him. She remembered that he’d tried to put his hand up her skirt, though nobody had believed her. Perhaps she should have mentioned it to Uncle Stan or Charlie rather than Ruby, but she hadn’t because what he’d done had confused her. It was dirty and when she’d protested, Mr Stead had said she was just a tease and had egged him on. Ruby had made her swear not to repeat what she’d said. ‘Little liars get their tongues pulled out with pliers.’

  Terrified at the thought of having her tongue pulled out with pliers, Frances didn’t insist that she was telling the truth. What if nobody believed you even though you were telling the truth? Would that still mean your tongue would be pulled out?

  Gareth Stead did not like being sworn at. If she had seen his expression, she would have let the bike fall to the ground and run away. But it was now almost dark and she didn’t see. Besides, she had to put on a brave front, just like Charlie, just like the country as a whole.

  ‘You’ve got a sharp tongue and you’re a tease. Do you know that?’

  ‘And you’re a drunk.’

  Gareth Stead had been drinking since lunchtime, partly because he was celebrating buying knocked-off booze straight from the docks, stuff that hadn’t so much fallen off a lorry as a ship. There was also the fact that the pub had been half empty and when there was nobody to serve, he served himself. No wonder the profits were down.