III
Peter arrived at the Bear in the late afternoon of a warm May day. The courtyard was deserted. From an open window young voices chanted in obedient unison. ‘Once three is three, two threes are six, three threes are nine—’ He pushed open the door into the house. The long, shadowed corridor was empty, a beam of sunlight gleaming at its end.
He walked towards the light. ‘Hello? Hello!’
There was a flicker of movement in the shadows. ‘Hello, yes, who’s that?’ Bron’s unmistakable, sing-song voice. Then, ‘Why – Mr Peter! It’s Mr Peter!’ Bron’s brown eyes widened to saucers at sight of the familiar, dapper figure in the shabby uniform. ‘Oh, sir! How lovely to see you – we weren’t expecting – oh, my goodness!’
‘Bron, my darling!’ He had deposited his battered case upon the floor and thrown his arms about her, sweeping her from her feet before she could move, ‘And how’s my best girl, eh? Pretty as ever I see.’
‘Oh, Mr Peter!’ Blushing to the roots of her hair the girl struggled free, patting her hair and straightening her cap, ‘Really now!’ And then her smile broke free again, and the Welsh lilted in her excited voice, ‘But oh, a pleasure to see you it is, home safe and sound. And us not expecting you, mind. Doctor Will’s at the hospital – spends too much time he does there, mind, not taking care of himself – but Miss Charlotte’s somewhere around—’
‘Uncle Peter! Uncle Peter’.’ A small form hurtled from the shadows, launching herself upon him, clinging like a limpet, ‘When did you get here? Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming? How long can you stay? Look, Flippy, it’s Uncle Peter! Uncle Peter!’
He hitched the light, lanky figure up so that her face was level with his. She clung with long, twining legs and skinny arms. ‘As I live and breathe it’s Rachel!’ he said solemnly. ‘Your Daddy sent a message – he has the present you asked for. And I have a question of my own – when did you grow so beautiful?’
She laughed a little, pleased.
He swung so that she faced the light, seeing in some surprise that his light-hearted comment had been no less than the truth. The child was beautiful. Her lit eyes gleamed, blue as sapphires, her mass of black hair, curling and glossy, set off a skin pale as pearl. ‘A little princess!’ he said. ‘A gipsy princess!’
Oddly, she stiffened, and the laughter faded. With a quick wriggle she had slipped from his grasp, landing like a long-legged cat upon the floor. ‘This is Flippy,’ she said, extending a hand, without taking her suddenly unsmiling eyes from Peter’s face, to the child that hovered behind her. ‘Come on, Flip, don’t be daft. He won’t hurt you. It’s Uncle Peter.’
The other child moved shyly forward. She was solemn, a little chubby, her dark, straight hair flopping forward into eyes that stared in level question up at the stranger. Hazel eyes beneath dark, well-marked eyebrows. Sally’s eyes. Peter dropped to his haunches beside her, extending his hand. ‘Hello, Flippy. Remember me?’
The child shook her head.
Rachel moved impatiently. ‘I told you. It’s Uncle Peter. Come on,’ she grabbed the smaller child by the hand, ‘let’s tell Toby.’
‘You be careful, Miss Rachel,’ Bron scolded, ‘tearin’ around like a wild thing.’
But Rachel and her small acolyte had gone, clattering up the stairs, calling excitedly, ‘Toby! Toby! – Guess what!’
‘Bron – what on earth are those children up to?’ Charlotte had appeared at the door of the parlour, poised and slender in pale green silk, the sun a halo in her fine, spun-gold hair. She stopped, narrowing her eyes against the light. ‘Who’s that?’ And then, ‘—Peter! Oh, it’s Peter!’
He turned to her, holding out both hands. She took them, her wide, pale, laughing eyes searching his face, running over the worn and shabby uniform. ‘Oh, Peter, look at you! Handsomer than ever and looking as if you’ve been pulled through a bush backwards! Why ever didn’t you tell us you were coming?’
He followed her into the parlour. ‘I didn’t know myself until the last minute. Then I just grabbed the chance and ran so to speak. I’m not in the way?’
‘In the way?’ She turned to face him, vivacious and pretty, eyes shining with excitement, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! You’re the best thing that’s happened in absolute ages! – In the way indeed!’
‘Shall I bring some tea, ma’am?’ Bron hovered in the doorway, torn between wanting to stay to feast her eyes on the returned hero – for there was no doubt whatsoever in her mind that that was what he was – and wanting to be the first into the kitchen with the news.
‘Oh, yes please, Bron. For what it’s worth.’ She pulled a face for Peter’s benefit, ‘It will be very weak tea, I’m afraid. It’s rather hard to come by these days.’
Peter patted his pocket. ‘Weak tea will be fine. I’ve something here that will beef it up.’ He grinned a little and winked. ‘Trench milk.’
Charlotte nodded to Bron, who scurried on her errand. As she left they heard a clatter, and Bron’s voice, indulgently scolding, ‘Come on, Toby lad – slow down – no fire is there, that I can see? Nearly had me off my feet you did.’
‘Sorry, Bron.’ The voice was deep, a young man’s, with an attractive timbre, a hint of laughter. A moment later the door was darkened by a tall, slim figure in blazer and slacks, shirt open at the throat. He hesitated at the doorway.
‘Toby?’ Peter could not believe his eyes, and his voice betrayed the fact. Eighteen months ago this had been a boy, fair and pretty, smooth faced and immature. The young man who stood with eager shyness in the doorway might, despite the same fair curly hair and blue eyes have been a different person altogether. He stood easily and elegantly with no trace of the stoop that so many tall boys of his age tended to develop. He was well muscled and athletically built, his chin was firm and square and had very obviously felt the razor that morning. This was no child, but an attractive and composed young man. Peter held out his hand. ‘Toby.’
The boy came to him with long, easy strides, laid a bony hand in his with a smile. ‘Hello.’ There was a warmth in his eyes that Peter, with an affectionate amusement, could not help but recognize. One or two youngsters, in and out of uniform, had looked like that at him before; it was easy, in wartime, to make an idol of a soldier.
‘Are you home for long?’ Toby asked.
‘A week or so.’
‘You’ve come – straight from the front?’
He nodded.
‘What’s happening out there? I mean – the papers are always saying the end’s in sight?’
Peter shook his head. ‘Not that I can see.’
‘So—’ Charlotte’s voice was waspish, ‘you can rest easily tonight, Toby.’ She turned to Peter, ignoring the unfriendly look the boy shot at her, ‘He’s crazy keen to get into the army. I do believe he prays each night that it won’t all be over before he can join in the fun and games.’
Toby ignored the interruption. ‘I’m a captain in the corps at school. They say I’ll get a commission – when I leave next year.’
Peter threw himself into a chair, stretched his legs in front of him, tilted his head to look into the eager young face. ‘Yes. I should think there’s every chance you will.’ If for no other reason than that the gaping gaps in the ranks of the young officers who were mown down each time the attack whistle was blown were becoming almost impossible to fill. He did not say it.
‘Haven’t you homework to do, Toby?’ Charlotte asked coolly. ‘I’m sure Peter’s tired. There’ll be plenty of time to talk to him later.’
The boy held her eyes for a moment, his own devoid of any expression, then he nodded, threw a brief smile towards Peter and left the room.
Charlotte watched him go with eyes that could not be called friendly. ‘That was remarkably restrained,’ she said, an acid edge to her voice. ‘He’s a cocky little monkey usually – Ah, Bron – tea – thank you. Put it there, would you?’
Bron placed the tray carefully upon the table, stood smoothing her apron.
>
‘That will do, Bron. Thank you.’ Charlotte waited until the door had closed, then very gracefully she moved to the table and poured the tea, knowing his eyes were upon her. The excitement that had started to sing inside her at her first thrillingly unexpected sight of him whispered still in her veins, heightening her colour, brightening her eyes; making her, she knew, more beautiful. She had thought of him so often since that moment of strange, still communion, eighteen months ago in the chill Christmas streets. Had imagined him suffering hardship, danger, the terrors of battle – so much more romantic than Ben, stuck in that blessed hospital with his horrible, decaying stumps. She remembered every moment of that day – his valiant gaiety, the blithe way he had lifted and dominated the men in the club; the light in his eyes as he had looked at her – and now, here he was, his face a little harder, his smile just a little less ready, the air of danger that had both fascinated and repelled her rather more obvious—
‘Do you mind?’ He was holding up the same battered flask she remembered, his face charmingly rueful, ‘Gets to be a bit of a habit, I’m afraid – but if you’d rather I didn’t?’
‘Of course not.’ She held the delicate cup and saucer as he splashed whisky into it. Then, studiedly poised, she picked up her own cup and drifted gracefully to a chair by the window where she sat, straight-backed, the light gilding her hair.
Peter could not take his eyes from her. He had known her all his life, from shy, too intense child to his brother’s pretty if unexpected bride. He had never until that last Christmas leave, ever really looked at her. And even that glimpse had faded very quickly. He took a gulp of whisky-laced tea that all but choked him.
She watched him in a capricious, self-contained silence.
He lifted his head. In the distance traffic rumbled, and children’s voices called. His ears sang in the quiet.
‘What is it?’ She was studying him so minutely she had sensed rather than seen his change of expression.
He laughed a little. ‘The quiet. No guns, you see. It’s – strange. You get used to them.’
Her face changed infinitesimally; no affectation here. She shivered a little. ‘I wouldn’t. I never would. Not if they’re like the bombs those beastly airships drop.’ Her face, he noticed with quick concern, had actually paled at the thought.
‘Ben said you didn’t like them.’
She lifted her head sharply. ‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Yesterday—’ He stopped. ‘No – day before yesterday. I called in on him on the way home.’
‘He’s well?’ If her voice did not betray quite the depth of interest that the question merited, he did not appear to notice.
‘Oh, yes. Tip-top, actually. He’s done awfully well to get on the hyphenated Sir Brian’s staff, hasn’t he?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘I gather it was a special request – the old man recognized his name from some work he did before the war. Quite an honour.’
She nodded.
‘He sends his love, of course.’ He grinned. ‘And suggested that I might do him a favour by taking his lovely wife out for an evening or two, to cheer her up and take her mind off the war.’ He eyed her a little warily. ‘How does the lovely wife feel about the suggestion?’
She smiled, folding her hands composedly in her lap. ‘Oh, she thinks it’s a very nice idea. Very nice indeed.’
* * *
‘I’m not altogether sure,’ Charlotte said, chuckling delightedly two evenings later, her fingers curled about the fragile stem of a champagne glass, ‘that my not very extravagant husband would altogether approve.’
‘You aren’t enjoying yourself?’ Peter asked innocently.
On the small stage a ragtime band, not one of the players a day under forty, swung and stomped with enthusiasm; on the dance floor squealing girls and their dashing escorts, mostly but not all in uniform, danced as if their only aim in life were to wear out their shoes. A young man – not above twenty, Charlotte thought – shimmied and twirled, perfectly and gracefully balanced, his empty sleeve tucked into the pocket of his dinner suit; another, still in uniform, held his partner’s hand, bouncing as frenetically as anyone, his milky eyes blank.
‘Enjoying myself?’ Charlotte picked up her glass, twirling it in her fingers, studying it provocatively as if thinking. ‘I suppose—’ she let the words trail into mid-air, glancing at him mischievously out of the corner of her eye.
He leaned forward, tapping her arm smartly. ‘Careful. They throw you out of the Savoy if you aren’t enjoying yourself. Didn’t you know that? And there are spies everywhere.’
She giggled. ‘All right then. I’d better say yes.’
‘Well done. Stiff upper lip at all times. Playing fields of Eton and all that. That’s what wins wars.’
Rather to her disappointment he had refused point blank to wear the mudstained uniform that Bron had not, for all her loving and meticulous efforts, succeeded in cleaning completely. He was dressed in his pre-war evening clothes, which hung a little loosely on his war-tempered frame but otherwise, she had to admit, looked very well indeed on him. She herself had spent a frantic two days remodelling a shimmering pale blue silk dress, intricately beading the neckline, taking out the sleeves, shortening it once, and then again, contriving from the offcuts an elegant turban-like hat trimmed with a matching ostrich feather. Her strapped shoes, hastily dyed, were still damp upon her feet but looked, she knew, the very height of style, matching the dress exactly. The ivory pins in her hair matched the daringly wicked foot-long cigarette holder. Her mother’s diamanté glimmered at throat and ears – hardly diamonds, but surely at this time of austerity more patriotic? She had drawn more than one appreciative glance as she had followed the elderly waiter through the dancing throng to the table, and the knowledge had put colour into her cheeks and lifted her chin an attractive fraction higher.
‘What did you think of the show?’
‘It wasn’t at all bad.’ Not for a moment would she admit to the total, almost childlike delight the performance had given her. She had not been to a theatre since her marriage. Mr Tower of London, the show that had taken the capital by storm, had seemed to her a glimpse of magic; oh, to be on that stage, to glitter and gleam beneath those lights, to carry the watchers on the magic carpet of song – to be wooed and won so romantically and publicly – and then, next night, to do it all again—
‘What did you think of Gracie?’
‘She has a very pretty voice. But—’ she pouted a little, ‘not so very beautiful, I thought?’
Peter tilted his head pensively. ‘Perhaps not. But what a personality. We’ll hear more about Miss Gracie Fields. Bet your boots on it.’
She made a small, faintly dismissive gesture with her shoulders. She had noticed with some pleasure that a girl on a neighbouring table, ignoring her own middle-aged escort, was eyeing Peter with an undisguised degree of interest. She picked up her glass, very carefully sipped her champagne – nice it might be but she had no intention whatsoever of allowing herself to be anything less than in complete control of the situation. Peter, she knew, from the excellent claret at lunch through the habitual whisky with his tea that afternoon and on to the disguised rissoles but excellent wine that the Savoy had served with such aplomb at dinner, was very relaxed indeed. To her lightly probing comment on his drinking habits earlier in the evening he had replied, with a casual enough air, but it seemed to her fairly seriously, that there were no teetotal VCs. She had filed that away for further thought. She leaned to him now, smiling. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me to dance?’
He drained his glass, stood with fluent grace, extended a hand that after five days’ leave was still tough as leather and ingrained with dirt, though she knew the effort that had gone into cleaning it. ‘Will you do me the honour, my lady?’
And, happily aware of the pensive regard of the girl on the next table, she stood. ‘I’d be delighted.’
* * *
‘Mr Peter’s enjoying his
leave, then?’ Kate leaned against the mantelpiece of the schoolroom, cigarette in hand, watching Bron as she dragged the narrow beds that had been stacked against the wall for the day into lines, turning the room into a makeshift dormitory for the night. ‘And not just Mr Peter, either.’ Kate’s eyes were sly. ‘Seems Miss Charlotte’s enjoying it too?’
Bron straightened, hands on hips in exasperation. ‘Enough of that, Kate! If you must know Doctor Ben asked Mister Peter to take Miss Charlotte out.’
Kate blew smoke in a derisive stream at the ceiling. ‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes! And you can put that nasty thing out in here, if you please – the children have to sleep in here, mind! Come on – don’t just stand there – give us a hand!’
Taking her time Kate stubbed out the cigarette, sauntered to where Bron was struggling with another bed. Her hair was cut short as was her skirt – indecently so in Bron’s opinion. And she was wearing lipstick. She made no attempt to help but stood watching, her head on one side. ‘Saw them, I did,’ she said.
Bron, struggling with the bed, did not look up.
‘In the Strand. Holding hands.’ Kate saw the other girl’s momentary stillness and grinned. ‘Asked him to do that too, did he?’
‘Now look, you—!’ Bron was furious. She straightened, pointed a grimy finger, ‘You’ve got a wicked tongue, Kate Buckley! A wicked tongue and a dirty mind!’
Kate spread wide, innocent hands. ‘I was only saying—’
‘Well you can stop saying, d’you hear? There’s no one here wants to listen! Now – if you’re not going to help then get out of the road, will you? I’ve more to do than to stand here listening to your gossip – it’s Mrs Briggs’s night off and I’m to get Doctor Will’s supper – surgery’s packed mind, and him single handed – working himself into the ground, he is.’
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 42
