She had half agreed to see Dan. With the trouble that was brewing in the docks they had not had much chance to see each other lately. ‘No,’ she said faintly. ‘I haven’t.’
‘Then you’ll come?’
‘I—’
‘Please.’
‘Yes, I’ll come.’
* * *
Why had she agreed? She stood the next morning staring nonplussed at her image in the mirror. Why? A day in the country with Philippe van Damme, cousin to Charlotte and Ralph Bedford, respectable son of a respectable family? What a harebrained notion! No possible good could come of it.
But – he had asked her, and so pleasantly. And – she had never been in a motor car before, never seen the green fields of Kent. The woman who had used to live downstairs in the tenement had gone every year into the country to pick hops. For six or eight weeks each autumn she would pick up her household – children, cooking utensils, bedclothes and all – and take them on the ‘Hopper’s Special’ off to Kent. To hear her speak the place was paradise; though Sally, of course, had always listened with the cynical ear of the town dweller. She leaned forward anxiously, fiddling with her hair that was freshly washed and absolutely refused to behave sensibly. She’d never keep her hat on. Except – she had seen Charlotte with her wide-brimmed hats fastened by a scarf – perhaps that was it? Hastily she rummaged about the room, came up at last with a long, crumpled scarf that she had borrowed some time ago from Hannah and never got around to giving back. She perched her hat upon the soft and ridiculously springy mass of her hair and tied the scarf about it, fastening it under her chin. She smiled a little. There. That really looked quite presentable. She smoothed down the folds of her green and white dress – it was the same she had worn to watch the Coronation procession, but there was nothing she could do about that since it was the only walking-out dress she had – and stepped back from the mirror. Once again her stomach churned. Why had he asked her? Why? And – stranger still – why had she accepted? What would she say to him? What would people think of her, spending all day alone in his company?
The thought brought her up short. What kind of nonsense was that? Sally Smith had never been in a motor car, had never seen this Kent that was supposed to be so special. Now here was her chance. And she was going to take it, the world and her own good sense notwithstanding.
With a final glance in the mirror she straightened the scarf and her shoulders, turned quickly and almost ran from the room before she could change her mind.
* * *
The green fields and orchards of the Garden of England lay tranquil and tinged with gold beneath the summer sun. Huge trees – chestnut, elm, oak, – cast shade across the greens of the picturesque villages or gave shelter in the pastures to the plump, contented livestock. In the shade of the apple, plum and cherry orchards the grass was particularly lush, the shadows deep and cool. The day was radiant with sunshine.
Sally could hardly believe the evidence of her eyes.
She sat beside Philippe enthralled. She had never believed the world could possibly be so beautiful. As they chugged along the narrow lanes between hedges gay with wild flowers and alive with birdsong she drank in greedily every detail of the lovely countryside: grand houses nestling in rolling, ancient parkland; tiny cottages, thatched or tiled, their gardens a riot of summer colour; the orchards with their precise, military rows of trees; the occasional glimpse of a river gleaming between green banks, sparkling in dappled shade and sunshine.
‘It’s very beautiful,’ Philippe had said some few minutes before, and she had nodded, unable to speak. There simply were not the words to describe it. A scant few miles and an entire world divided this lush, rolling, utterly peaceful countryside from the swarming, dirty, squalid streets that Sally had always called home. It had never occurred to her that anything could be so enchanting. She sat like a delighted child, dazed with the beauty of it.
The car chugged neatly to a halt.
Surprised, she turned to look at Philippe.
‘I have a confession to make,’ he said, his face as serious as it seemed possible for him to make it, his dark eyes dancing with laughter.
‘Oh?’ She was a little wary.
‘I told—’ he spread his hands engagingly, ‘—an untruth.’
‘Who to?’
‘To Ben.’ He wrinkled his nose like a small boy. ‘And to you.’
She waited, trying to keep her face severe.
He pulled a funny, rueful face. ‘There is no friend of my father. No business to transact. I made it up.’
Her mouth twitched.
‘I made it up because I wanted to take you in the car to a beautiful place.’
‘But, Philippe,’ absurdly it was the first time she had used his name, and she savoured it, ‘—that’s wicked!’
He eyed her uncertainly. ‘Yes, I know. Very wicked.’
She stifled laughter. ‘What will you tell them? What will you say when they ask you?’
He shrugged Gallicly, waved his hands, ‘I shall say – we got lost. Look at your English lanes! How does anyone ever find their way?’
‘And the business?’
‘I shall say – I send a letter.’
She could contain her laughter no longer. More relieved than he was ready to admit he watched her, smiling broadly, until her infectious giggles started him off too. Together they laughed themselves almost to tears. ‘Oh, honestly,’ she spluttered at last, ‘it really was wicked of you.’
‘Yes, I know. But you forgive me?’
She turned to look at him, the laughter dying a little. ‘Oh yes, I forgive you.’ They looked at each other for a long, warmly happy moment. ‘So tell me,’ she said at last, ‘what diabolical plans have you laid for the day?’
‘None,’ he said promptly. ‘Except that I have a picnic in the boot, and we shall find a field by a river and eat it.’
She nodded. ‘I couldn’t have come up with anything better myself.’
She watched him as he drove, listened to the fluent, laughing words, savouring the perilous joy of the moment. That the day and its joyousness were utter madness she could not doubt; but neither could she ever remember being so easy in a man’s company. No one had ever offered her such warmth and laughter, such carefree happiness. Certainly not poor Dan, with his quiet, slow ways and sober attitudes. Singing as they went, they clattered through the quiet lanes until, with the sun high in the sky they came, as if by magic, to the spot for which Philippe insisted he had been looking. A wide, slow-moving river swirled beneath an ancient stone bridge. Beside the bridge a stile led into a green pasture dappled by the shade of the great trees that grew by the river bank.
‘There—’ he waved his hand. ‘Perfect, no?’
Town-bred Sally was not so sure. ‘Are we allowed? I mean – isn’t that someone’s land?’
‘But yes. Of course.’
‘Then—’
He laughed, pointing. ‘There is a footpath. Where there is a footpath one may walk. Where one may walk one may certainly sit. And where one sits—’ he turned his palms outward in comical parody of the gesture he made so often, ‘—one eats!’ Gracefully he vaulted from the car and came to hand her down to the road. His hand was warm and strong and held hers firmly. From the boot he produced a basket. Then, as naturally as if they had been children, he took her hand again and led her to the stile.
Sally eyed it, laughingly doubtful. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you had better look the other way.’
Smiling he looked down at her. Shook his head, his eyes full of laughter, and of something else, something that lifted her heart and her spirits to a height from which the world and its opinions were so distanced that they might not have existed at all. With a gurgle of laughter she lifted her skirts and clambered with his help over the rickety wooden structure, showing a quite disgraceful length of leg as she did so. As he lifted her down into the field the other side he held her for a moment, and she let him. His long, bony body was light aga
inst hers, his shirt crisp and clean and sweet-smelling against her cheek. Her skirts swirled in the lush grass that was golden with buttercups. She tilted her head, grinned provocatively. ‘When do we eat? I’m starving.’
They picnicked on the river bank in the green filtered light of the sunshine beneath a great stand of trees. On the bank opposite plump cattle grazed, cropping the moist grass, munching placidly. Sleepy birds called in the high heat of the day. No breath of air disturbed the stillness, and the dark and secret waters of the river slid by in silky silence. Over pork pie and cider he told her of Bruges, of its canals and its flowers, its steeples and its bells. He told her of the great Procession of the Holy Blood that took place on each Ascension Day, of the flower market and the fish market, of the windmills that turned upon the fields and dykes of Flanders. He told her of his family, of his English mother and his kindly Flemish father, of his sister Annette, her husband, her child. He told her of the orphanage on the Groenerei. She listened, smiling, and said little. She did not tell him of the seduction of a country parson’s daughter, of her death in the back streets of London, of the child who had been left to fend for herself in brutal squalor. She did not tell him how she came to be with the Pattens, nor why her affinity with the deprived children that they rescued was so great. His soft voice, his dark, ardent eyes were for the moment a barrier between her and such things. The time to face them again would come tomorrow. Meanwhile she sat in dappled sunshine by the moving waters and let herself believe that the moment could last for ever.
He stretched out, long legs crossed, arms behind his head. She had picked a bunch of daisies and was making a chain, as he had shown her. Silence fell easily between them, broken only by the murmuring sounds of the sleepy countryside. She glanced at him. His eyes were closed and he was breathing evenly. Her busy fingers stilled. The dark hair was soft above a high brow, his lashes curled against the sun-browned skin. His mouth was wide and mobile, and even in repose seemed about to smile. The column of his throat was long and strong. She could have sat so, simply looking at him, for ever.
The lashes fluttered. His eyes opened, looking straight into hers: she knew with certainty that he had been aware all along of her intense regard. She did not look away. Neither of them spoke. He reached a hand to her. She took it, allowed him to pull her gently towards him. She leaned above him, watching him. His face was as still and as serious as she had ever seen it, his eyes intent. Slowly she bent to him, gentle as the brush of wings she kissed him. He lay quite still, his mouth opening a little beneath hers. She drew back slightly, their faces bare inches apart. Neither had closed their eyes.
‘Loosen your hair,’ he said.
She sat up, lifted her arms, unpinning her hair, perfectly aware of the provocative, lifting curve of her breasts beneath the fine, light cotton of her gown, revelling in his eyes upon her, in the quick movement of his chest as his breath quickened. She shook her head a little and the soft waves of her brown hair drifted about her shoulders. She leaned to him again, brushed her mouth upon his and then, suddenly and with a small, wordless sound she kissed him, softly but with a kind of savage tenderness, a wild, gentle longing that could not have startled him more than it did her. She felt his reaction beneath her, was ready for the hand that dragged her to him, crushing her mouth upon his. For the slightness of his build he was remarkably strong. She let him, as he kissed her, lift her and lay her upon the grass beside him, his weight heavy upon her. It was long, long moments before he lifted his head. She looked up at him. His face was flushed, his intense dark eyes gleamed in the dappled sunshine. His hand was upon her breast, and not gentle. He kissed her again, small, sharp, biting kisses, ran the tip of his tongue down her throat. Her nipples throbbed; she felt their hardening.
And then he stilled.
She felt the change in him. He lay for a moment absolutely unmoving, his face buried in her throat, his long hand cupped about her breast. Then he sat up. His face was flaming. ‘I’m sorry.’
Sorry? She looked at him in disbelief.
‘It must seem—’ he stopped. ‘Please. Believe me – I didn’t mean this to happen. I did not—’ In abject confusion he stopped.
In sudden, loving understanding she smiled. She reached a finger to his face, ran it down his cheek. ‘You didn’t lie to Ben – and to me—’ she said softly, ‘—in order to bring me into your field by a river and seduce me.’
‘No! I did not!’
‘I know.’ She saw his trembling, felt the intensity with which he wanted her. ‘I know.’
He turned from her, sat hunched, his arms about his knees. His face was beaded lightly with perspiration, his hair ruffled. She came to her knees beside him, smiling, loving his need and the intensity with which he restrained it. ‘It was I who kissed you,’ she said softly and simply.
He turned, slanted a look at her.
She smiled.
And with a small sound, of laughter and of pure happiness, he threw his arms about her, hugging her, burying his face in her hair, kissing her eyes, her nose, her lips.
Laughing like a child she returned his embrace, her hands upon his face, his shoulders, his long, slim back, playing with his ears, her fingers tracing the line of his lips. He caught her finger between his teeth and bit it, sharply enough to make her catch her breath, to make her throw her head back in laughing provocation, narrow cat’s eyes gleaming.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.
That did make her laugh. ‘Me? Never!’
‘There is a saying, is there not?’ he paused, the laughter gone. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’
She looked at him for a long, suddenly sober moment. Blinked. ‘Philippe – is there any of that lovely cider left? I’m dry as a bone.’
They did not touch each other again, nor, oddly, did the interlude obviously intrude upon their easy companionship. As Philippe packed up the remnants of the picnic, Sally deftly recoiled her hair and pinned her hat upon it. Then, easily, hand in hand, they made their way back to the car, pored over the primitive map with which Ben had provided them.
But inevitably the relationship was changed. Like the river beside which they had picnicked the surface was calm, but beneath it deep currents surged. The touch of a hand, the catching of an eye, could charge the air between them. Excitement hovered, an edge of tension sang between them. They drove through the summer’s afternoon past cherry orchards where the pickers called and sang towards the clouded walls of London in virtual silence.
And that night, after whispered laughter at the lies Philippe had so easily told, after thanks and half-promises, after a swift and oddly awkward kiss, Sally went to bed. And in her bed, briefly, she cried.
II
At the beginning of August, ironically at the very time when the miners in Wales had been finally starved back to work the expected storm that had been simmering for so many weeks over London’s docklands broke, and an all-out strike was called. Others around the country followed, and London’s carmen too came out. The capital, still in the grip of a sultry heatwave, ground almost to a halt. Troops were used for essential services, resentment seethed. In the North Sea the German Fleet steamed within striking distance of the British coast, the two nations at daggers drawn over the dreams and the rewards of Empire.
No one asked the inhabitants of the little but strategic port of Agadir how they felt at being the bone of contention between two mighty powers.
Talk of open hostilities between Britain and Germany was the only thing Sally saw bring a real, grim shadow to Philippe’s face.
‘God forbid. If Britain and Germany go to war – if France should be involved – where would poor little Belgium be?’ He rubbed his hands together graphically. ‘A nut within the crackers.’
‘But Belgium is neutral, isn’t it?’ Hannah asked. ‘Everyone has guaranteed that, haven’t they?’
The long face was unwontedly cynical. ‘You think that will count for anything when the day comes? No. Pray for my count
ry’s sake if not for your own that it is never put to the test.’
He had put off time and time again his return home. Since their day in the country he and Sally had been aloneonly two or three times; a stroll through one of London’s parks, a trip to the Embankment to watch the busy river. But even these innocent outings had aroused overt antagonism on two fronts. Dan Dickson, having possessed heart and soul in patience for three years, was not about to stand by and watch his advantage taken effortlessly from him. He was, Sally knew, under great strain. He was out on strike and a member of the Strike Committee. But then life had not been too easy on her lately either. The intense heat made the Bear like a cauldron, the dock strike had left them short of food and other essentials. Toby was playing her up as only Toby could. She tried to hold her tongue and her temper over Dan’s resentment at the time she spent with Philippe – which to her seemed little enough, God knew – but after a particularly peevish outbreak when he accused her of ‘gallivanting about with a Frenchy’ whilst he, Dan, undertook a man’s job in organizing the strike, her fury broke loose.
‘He’s not a “Frenchy”! And he has a name – as you well know! I’m ashamed of you, Dan Dickson. You hear me? Ashamed! Do you think you own me or something? What’s it to you who I see or who I don’t? My God! To think I was actually considering marrying you!’
‘Sally—’
She turned on her heel, old habits dying hard. ‘Sod off,’ she said crisply and with feeling, and left.
Toby was another kettle of fish.
He was happy with Ralph, charming with Hannah, his manners when Philippe was around were flawless. He deferred to Doctor Ben, kept his nature and his charm within bounds when Charlotte was about. He kept Bron enslaved and the children in duly adoring order.
Sally he ignored.
It took a day or so for her to see it. Since he had taken his place at the new school, understandably he had changed. The first year had been tough, though he had never said a word. She had seen it, and her heart had bled for him, but she had known not to interfere. Had he come to her, had he asked for help, she would have been there, defending him like a tigress her young. But he did not, and fret as she might yet still she had loved the valiant courage of the child. He had obdurately refused to explain the bruise on his cheek, the odd black eye, the grazed knuckles that to someone of Sally’s experience spoke louder than any words. His laughter, his graceless charm had for a while been replaced by a grim and defensive quiet. He had worked harder than she had ever seen anyone work, harder even than he had worked in those days when he had been studying for the all-important scholarship. The pale light of his small lamp in the little room he now had to himself had burned to the early hours of the morning day after day, and still she had not interfered. She knew him too well. He never came to her with his troubles, whatever they might have been. She gleaned what little she could, and guessed the rest. No one had ever thought it would be easy for him.
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