The Wartime Singers

by Lesley Eames

  Out shopping one morning – the queues at the food shops growing ever longer – Lizzie winced as the winter chill pinched her fingers. The weather felt mean and spiteful, with spring seeming far away and the jollity of Christmas fading into the past. Christmas had made the dark, chilly days and nights more bearable with festive decorations, pupils chattering about Father Christmas, carols around the piano…

  An idea struck Lizzie suddenly. It took shape in her mind as she walked towards home. On impulse, she turned and hastened in the opposite direction.

  12

  ‘I know you aren’t expecting me so if this isn’t a convenient time…’ Lizzie began.

  ‘I have half an hour before I need to go out,’ Cordelia assured her. ‘What is it, Lizzie? You look excited.’

  ‘Please say if you think this is a bad idea.’ Lizzie took a deep breath, told Cordelia of her plan and was glad to see a smile grow on her friend’s face.

  ‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ Cordelia said.

  ‘Really? Then my next challenge will be to persuade Margaret.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be only too glad to do something more suited to her talents than knitting or nursing. Let’s face it, Lizzie. Margaret’s creations are suitable only for dog beds. As for her nursing… It’s lucky you were a healthy child.’

  Lizzie smiled, knowing it was true.

  ‘You’ll give Margaret my regards?’ Cordelia asked, because for all the gentle mockery she held Margaret in high regard.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And do let me know if I can be of any help in your venture.’

  Encouraged, Lizzie headed home to find Margaret playing the piano. How beautiful it sounded.

  ‘Exquisite,’ Lizzie said as Margaret finished.

  ‘I was a little stiff.’

  ‘No one would have noticed.’ Lizzie drew a chair near to her godmother and sat down. ‘I think we should offer music as our war effort.’

  Margaret looked puzzled.

  ‘Concerts for sick and injured servicemen,’ Lizzie explained. ‘Music might lift their spirits a little.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting a music hall style of entertainment?’ Margaret’s distasteful expression showed her opinion of music halls.

  ‘Nothing like that.’ Though Lizzie wouldn’t mind any style of musical entertainment if it gave the audience pleasure. ‘I thought you might play a solo or two, and then we could play some duets together. I can also sing if you’ll accompany me.’

  ‘Are you sure we’ll be wanted?’

  ‘I think the servicemen will want us. Whether the hospitals and convalescent homes will allow us to give concerts on their premises remains to be seen. I’ll ask them. Cordelia will know the best people to contact as she’s so well connected.’

  ‘They’ll need to make a piano available.’

  Lizzie smiled, pleased that Margaret was going along with the idea. ‘You’re right. We can hardly make our way through London pushing your piano, though it might make for an interesting spectacle. I’ll talk to Cordelia and see what she suggests.’

  Lizzie returned to Cordelia’s the following morning. ‘We’ve agreed we want to offer concerts but we’re not sure how to set about making arrangements.’

  ‘You can leave that to me. I suspect a lot of buildings and even private homes are going to be used to accommodate the sick and wounded before this war is over. There’ll be no shortage of places for you to perform.’

  ‘Thank you, Cordelia. Perhaps we should commit to only one small concert for the moment. Just so we can be sure it’s the sort of thing servicemen want.’

  ‘I understand. We have a women’s group meeting on Wednesday. Hopefully, I’ll have news for you then.’

  Cordelia did have news. She had a date for a concert at a small convalescent home in Hampstead, if they wanted it. ‘You’ll have three weeks to prepare and you’ll perform to about twenty patients. How does that sound?’

  Lizzie looked at Margaret who turned slightly pale but raised no objection. ‘It sounds perfect,’ Lizzie said, though her stomach felt unsteady too.

  It was one thing to imagine performing to an audience. Now it was becoming a reality, stage fright was stirring.

  Fortunately, the performance would be short. ‘The men are injured and exhausted,’ Cordelia explained. ‘They won’t be able to concentrate for long, but even a short event should cheer them.’

  It would also take place late on a Sunday afternoon when neither Lizzie nor Margaret were due to teach so no lessons – and no income – would be missed.

  They settled on a programme and practised it often over the weeks that followed. Was it the right programme for their audience, though? Lizzie hoped they hadn’t chosen badly.

  13

  The convalescent home was a red brick building that had probably started life as a handsome family house early in Queen Victoria’s time. Three storeys high, it had stone steps leading to a central porch built around a sturdy black door. Lizzie used the brass knocker gently, hoping she wasn’t disturbing any of the sicker patients.

  A porter answered and showed them to a large room which might have hosted dancing in its heyday. A piano stood at one end and several rows of chairs had been placed to face it. ‘I’ll fetch Matron,’ he said.

  Margaret walked towards the piano. ‘I suppose we’d better prepare ourselves.’

  She lifted the lid and ran her fingers along some keys.

  ‘I hope it’s satisfactory,’ someone said.

  Lizzie turned to see the matron.

  ‘It needs tuning,’ Margaret told her, doubtless stating a simple fact rather than criticising, but the bluntness still made the matron blink.

  Lizzie swooped in with a peace-making smile to make introductions. ‘I hope your patients will enjoy what we offer,’ she said then. ‘This will be our first performance.’

  ‘The patients who are well enough to attend are looking forward to it. The staff too. I’m afraid I must leave you now, but I hope to catch at least some of your performance. Thank you so much for coming.’

  Margaret settled down to familiarise herself with the piano. Lizzie attempted to sing scales but her throat was hoarse with tension. She begged glasses of water from the porter which helped her voice but did nothing to stop her stage fright.

  Soon the audience began to arrive. Some men were walking wounded with bandages identifying lost arms, head wounds or injuries to chests and abdomens. Others hobbled in on crutches, while three men needed wheelchairs, one poor soul having lost both legs above the knee. There were several nurses among them.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ Lizzie asked Margaret.

  ‘We’re doing our duty,’ her godmother answered, affronted. ‘Nerves would be self-indulgent.’

  Lizzie only smiled, knowing the sharpness arose from the very thing Margaret was denying. Nervousness.

  Eventually it appeared that all of the audience members had arrived and were sitting waiting. Oh, heavens. Should Lizzie say a few words of introduction or simply begin the programme?

  She was relieved when the matron returned to address the audience. ‘I’m delighted to welcome Miss Penrose and Miss Kellaway to Upton House,’ she began. ‘Together they form…?

  She looked at Lizzie, an eyebrow raised in enquiry. Were they supposed to have a special name? Panicked, Lizzie glanced at Margaret who simply studied her music. ‘The Penrose… Players,’ Lizzie said.

  The matron turned back to the audience. ‘Please join me in giving an Upton House welcome to the Penrose Players.’

  The audience clapped politely.

  Swallowing, Lizzie joined Margaret at the piano, though she had nothing to do for this opening piece except to turn the pages of her godmother’s music.

  Margaret began with Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonta’. She was too proficient a pianist to let nerves affect her beyond a certain stiffness but Lizzie could have cheered when the stiffness melted away because what followed was lovely.

  The mu
sic ended. Lizzie turned to gauge how the audience had received it – and was appalled to see a wheelchair patient in tears. Oh, no! The music had been too mournful. Far from raising his spirits, it had brought them low.

  But then the audience broke into applause and the wheelchair patient wiped his eyes to smile. The music hadn’t brought him low. It had simply moved him— beauty in the face of the horror he must have experienced at the front.

  Margaret acknowledged the applause with the merest nod but her cheeks were pink. After another solo and a duet, it was time for Lizzie to sing. Standing in front of the expectant patients, she felt her confidence drain away, but she couldn’t turn tail and run. She closed her eyes to steady herself, swallowed hard and began, her voice gradually loosening as she sang the old folk song, ‘Where are you going? To Scarborough Fair…’

  Eager applause broke out as she finished. ‘More!’ someone shouted.

  Relieved, and beginning to relish the performance, Lizzie obliged and the rest of the concert passed amazingly quickly.

  ‘Well,’ the matron said, inviting the audience to thank the Penrose Players at the end. ‘Wasn’t that a treat?’

  ‘A corker of a show!’ one patient called.

  ‘Come back soon!’ yelled another.

  More patients sent grins and approving nods.

  ‘I think we can call that a successful afternoon,’ Lizzie said to Margaret, as they made their way outside.

  ‘Music soothes the soul.’

  It certainly did.

  The women’s group met at Cordelia’s house the following week. Cordelia had champagne and glasses ready. ‘To toast the Penrose Players,’ she explained. ‘I heard how popular you were.’

  ‘Just doing our duty,’ Margaret snapped, but her cheeks were pink again.

  Cordelia exchanged smiles with Lizzie, then said, ‘Oh, of course, Margaret! I imagine your sense of duty means you’re willing to perform for more sick and injured servicemen now.’

  ‘Certainly. If they want us.’

  ‘I’ve drawn up a list of hospitals and convalescent homes you might approach. Shall I pass it over to you to make arrangements, Lizzie?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, who wants more champagne?’

  Lizzie wrote to all of the places on Cordelia’s list. It was time-consuming to put together a timetable without a telephone, but over the weeks that followed a schedule of performances took shape. ‘I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep to Sunday afternoons,’ Lizzie had warned Margaret when requests came in for weekday concerts.

  ‘We’ll rearrange our lessons as best we can, even if it meets teaching at less convenient times. We all have to make sacrifices in times of war. Besides, with prices going up, some families may not be able to afford to pay for lessons anyway.’

  That was true. Lizzie’s household budget was already being squeezed. Some foods such as sugar, butter and meat were difficult and sometimes impossible to come by, and the queues at the shops remained long. Prices were continuing to rise too. Eggs that had once cost one penny each had already risen to three pennies and bacon that had once cost ten pence now cost double that amount.

  ‘I should tell you that Brian Herbert’s mother informed me she couldn’t afford to continue paying,’ Margaret continued. ‘Her husband was killed at Ypres, if you remember? I said we’d teach Brian for free. We shouldn’t let a talent like his go to waste.’

  Lizzie had overheard the conversation with Mrs Herbert. In a rare moment of tact, Margaret had pretended the offer of free lessons was a regular scholarship. Lizzie couldn’t have been prouder of her. Margaret’s heart was tender even if her manner could be flinty.

  May brought the first Zeppelin raid on London and three pupils left in the hope of finding safety in the countryside with their grandparents. Lizzie bought long strips of paper and pasted them to the windows in criss-cross fashion to stop glass from flying about in the event a bomb fell nearby.

  She also made sure the curtains were closed tightly each night as the Defence of the Realm Act – DORA as it was known – made it unlawful to show light outside in case it guided Zeppelin crews to built-up areas.

  Despite the anxiety and sadness of the war, Lizzie took pleasure in the concerts, especially when the audiences let it be known how cheered they felt. The concerts also gave Lizzie plenty to say in her letters to Polly.

  One of the men asked if we took requests for songs and asked for ‘When Father Papered the Parlour’, she wrote one day.

  I had to tell him we didn’t have the music for that song or for ‘Boiled Beef and Carrots’ which he requested next. As a tease I offered him ‘The Girls Know as Much as You’ then we settled on ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’ though I changed girl to boy.

  Other men began to request songs too, and many wanted lively tunes. I was worried that Margaret might not like the direction the concerts were taking but she agreed I should buy the sort of music the men seem to want. ‘We’re performing for their benefit, after all,’ she told me.

  Margaret was adjusting, not only to the lively music, but also to the lively atmosphere. An older soldier – a Sergeant Major – called Margaret his darling today, Lizzie wrote another time. She looked shocked at first, and I thought she might take offence, but she only rolled her eyes and told him to stop talking nonsense.

  Mindful that Davie would soon be going off to fight, Lizzie took care never to write about the terrible injuries she saw at the concerts – missing limbs, disfigurements, burns, and also blindness caused by the enemy’s new weapon: poisonous gas.

  Neither did she mention the poor young man who collapsed in a fit brought on by a head injury, or the man with a shattered jaw who sobbed during one of Margaret’s heart-stirring piano solos and had to be helped from the room.

  Instead she wrote about lighter incidents – the men who flirted or sent her cheeky winks, the doctor who forgot himself during one of Margaret’s piano pieces and began to accompany her on an imaginary violin, and the piano with a broken key that made every piece sound like a comedy act. You know how much Margaret loathes music hall vulgarity, but she took it well and even gave a little bow when the audience applauded her.

  Polly was devastated when Davie was finally ordered to France. But I know I mustn’t be feeble about it, she wrote. After all, Davie’s the one who’s in danger while I’m safe in Witherton. I’ve wanted this war to be over from the day it started but it feels different now. Having a fiancé involved in the fighting gives me more of a stake in the war and I’m desperate for peace.

  Even Lizzie felt more closely connected to the war now someone she’d once known was involved in the fighting, especially as she had a dear friend whose happiness depended on his survival.

  Keep sending me letters, Lizzie, Polly urged. I’m depending on you to help me stay cheerful.

  Lizzie was happy to oblige and Polly never failed to write back about life in Witherton.

  Occasionally she mentioned Lizzie’s family, enclosing funny sketches of the new Mrs Maudsley with her nose in the air. I never knew a person could have so many hats and furs. She shows them off all over Witherton but people dislike her for it. I’ve heard that she’s persuaded your father to buy a motor car so she can show off even more.

  When he paid for all these luxuries, did Edward Maudsley ever spare a thought for the daughter he’d left to be brought up at someone else’s expense? Not that Lizzie wanted money from him these days, as she preferred to earn her own. But a thought now and then… At least Lizzie was sure her mother would be proud of her, and she had friends who loved her too.

  Your sketches made me laugh, she wrote to Polly.

  A few days later she wrote again. A man came up to us after today’s concert and said, ‘That were grand, lasses,’ in a broad Yorkshire accent. I know you’re in Cheshire rather than Yorkshire, Poll, but it was good to hear a northern voice. I miss your voice, and hope it won’t be too long before we meet again.

  Polly
replied with, We’ll meet again when you’re bridesmaid at my wedding. I hope that won’t be too far away though I don’t know when my Davie will be home again…

  But the summer wore on and, as the war approached its second year, there was still no sign of peace. So much for all that boasting about how soon we’d stampede to victory, Polly wrote. Let’s not wait any longer before we meet. Let’s meet this summer when some of your pupils take a break and you’re not so busy.

  Lizzie was thrilled by the idea. Yes, let’s! she wrote back.

  14

  They met in Birmingham, which was roughly mid-way between Witherton and London. Lizzie’s train arrived first, but she soon noticed a fair-haired girl looking around uncertainly. ‘Poll!’

  Polly saw her, smiled and waved back.

  They hugged when they reached each other. ‘You’re so pretty!’ Lizzie cried, at the same time as Polly cried, ‘You’re so pretty!’

  They laughed. ‘It’s true,’ Lizzie said, and Polly said, ‘I mean it.’

  With her silvery hair, blue eyes and slender figure, Polly was a dainty fairy. Lizzie was slender too, but not as slight as her friend, and far less fairy-like with her dark eyes and heavy, glossy hair.

  ‘Good journey?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘I’ve only been on a train once before, when Davie and I went to Southport for the day, so I was nervous travelling alone,’ Polly admitted. ‘I expect you think I’m silly, but I’ve never been brave like you, Lizzie.’

  ‘Next time you’ll be more confident. Shall we find somewhere to eat lunch and settle down for a long chat?’

  ‘Sounds perfect.’

  They looked in shop windows as they walked, admiring hats and dresses and shoes, though neither of them bought anything because money was tight. They saw several places where they could buy lunch, but finally chose a small tea shop in a side street because the menu displayed in the window looked both appealing and cheap.

  ‘How’s Davie?’ Lizzie asked, once they’d ordered soup and bread.

  ‘He doesn’t say much about the war itself, but he likes the men in his platoon. I hope that means they look out for each other.’ Polly’s expression faltered a little.