Their voices died and even Annie’s laughter was muted for a moment. Above the lacework of fresh leaves the sunlit white clouds raced across a watercolour sky. The grass was soft and lush and a little damp; in the near distance a sea of gentlest blue lapped to the roots of the ancient trees; bluebells, thousands of them, scenting the air and easing dust-filled eyes with their colour.
“It’s lovely! Oh, it’s lovely,” Nancy said very softly.
“Right, everyone,” Harry said briskly, “Let’s get ourselves sorted. Come on, Moll, down you come. Hand the basket out, Mam—”
In no time they had established themselves beneath the wide-spreading branches of an oak tree, the blankets laid out, cushions scattered, the baskets hidden on the shady side of the tree. Sarah set herself comfortably, her back to the tree, and reached for her knitting.
“That’s me settled. You youngsters do what you like – back here to eat at one.”
“Cricket!” Edward swung his bat around his head, to the imminent peril of anyone near him, “Come on, our Jack, you promised. Bill, too—”
“Let’s all play.” It was Annie, her pretty face alight with mischief. “There’s plenty of room.” She looked at Charley, who had opened his mouth to speak. “We can go for a walk later, Charley,” she said equably, reading his mind like a printed page. “After lunch. The kid wants to play cricket.”
They played cricket, or rather their own particular version of the game, for nearly two hours. Except for Joe, who was out first bowl and declined to bat again, the male members of the party could not resist showing their prowess and the ball flew skittering through leaves and branches, bouncing off trees, losing itself wilfully in brambles and nettle patches. The girls, refusing with one voice to have a partner run for them, lifted hobbling skirts and ran like hares between the makeshift stumps. Edward, in his element, made up the rules as he went along, was out three times before he finally and with reluctance relinquished the bat. Their voices echoed through the woodland like children’s, and Sarah, watching them, smiled.
At last, still laughing and dishevelled, they threw themselves down beneath the tree where Sarah had laid the picnic and tucked into cold meat and cheese, pickles and hunks of buttered bread as if they had not eaten for a week – which, in Molly’s case, thanks to the now-abandoned boater, was not far from the truth. They washed down the feast with cider and lemonade and then, the edge taken from their appetites, nibbled at cakes and fruit, enjoying the dappled sunshine as it glittered down through the canopy of branches above them.
“Why does food always taste so much better out of doors?” Nancy leaned against a log, her eyes closed. On the other side of the tablecloth Bill, Jack and Charley were engaged in their own conversation.
Annie plucked at a blade of grass. “Because you don’t have to do the washing up afterwards,” she said absently, one ear tuned to the men’s conversation, the beginnings of a frown on her expressive face. “What’re you nattering about over there?”
They did not hear her.
“—and the only way to prevent that—” said Bill, smacking a huge fist into his open hand, “—is to organize. Charley’s right there, you know, Jack. If it wasn’t for the dock unions you wouldn’t have—”
“What!” Annie was on her feet in a trice and marching with a flash of petticoat on the three reclining forms. “What’s that? Unions? I should think so!” She buried a none-too-gentle hand in Charley’s mass of hair and pulled. “You wanted a walk? We’ll go for a walk. Now.” Charley scrambled painfully to his feet, willy-nilly. She poked him in the chest with a long bony finger. “Unions indeed? On a day like this? Let me tell you, Charley Benton, that if you take me on there’ll be less of this Union lark!”
Bill smothered an explosion of laughter. Charley kicked him.
“Come on,” Annie said, smiling like an angel, and took his arm, laughing into his reddened face, “let’s see if the trees look the same on the other side of that path—”
As the others, smiling, watched their retreating backs through the trees Joe Taylor cleared his throat awkwardly. “I thought,” he said formally to Sarah, “that, if you wouldn’t mind, Nancy and I might also—?” he looked to the spot where Annie and Charley had disappeared; Annie’s laughter still drifted back to them through the dim reaches of the woodland.
“Of course, lad. Off you go.” Sarah reached comfortably for her knitting.
As he and Nancy left Jack stirred.
“Coming to find that bird’s nest, our kid?” Edward, cake in hand, scrambled to his feet. Jack’s eyes moved to Molly. “Would you like to come with us?”
Molly was caught. “I—” she stammered, not looking at Harry, “I – think perhaps—” in the silence the birds sang very loud, “—perhaps I ought to stay and help your mother clear away the picnic—?”
“Rubbish.” A strong hand caught hers, lifted her to her feet. Harry’s eyes gleamed in sunlight. “I thought you said you wanted to pick some bluebells?”
“I—” she hadn’t mentioned the bluebells. “Yes, I did, but—” Her heart was pounding.
“Well, come on, then. Mam won’t mind, will you Mam?”
Sarah, smiling, shook her head.
Hairy bent and picked up the discarded boater. “You’ll have to put this on, though. You can’t go buying a hat like this and not wear it.” He settled it on her head, laughed as it bounced on her massed, coal-black curls. “The prettiest hat for the prettiest girl.” He was warm and vital as the afternoon itself, his hand in hers was the happiest thing she had ever known. “If we aren’t back in three days,” he said solemnly to his mother, “send for Sergeant McIntosh.”
“You behave yourself.”
“I always do. Don’t I?” He drew Molly towards the path that ran into the woods in the opposite direction from that taken by the others. “Well, almost always.”
If Molly could have stopped the world she would have done it at the moment when the voices of their companions died behind them and the forest sounds – the birdsong, the rustle of their slow footsteps in last year’s leaves were the only things to be heard. She had not dared to hope, had almost forcibly stopped herself from thinking about the possibility of such a situation: herself and Harry wandering alone through the sweet-smelling early summer’s afternoon.
He bent his head to look at her.
“You’re very quiet. You aren’t mad with me, are you?”
“Mad?” The thought had not crossed her mind.
“For telling fibs about the bluebells. For making you come with me—?”
“Oh, no.” She did not care how eager she sounded, could not anyway prevent it. “I wanted to. I just didn’t want—” she stopped.
“—to go bird’s nesting with Jack.” In the shadows beneath the trees his skin stood very dark against the white of his shirt, the blue of his eyes.
She ducked her head, flushing. “That’s right. ’Tis awful of me I suppose.” As always in times of stress the Irish in her voice sang louder than usual.
“Awful?” He laid an arm across her shoulders, pulled her to him as they walked; her curly head did not reach his chin. “I don’t think so—”
They strolled in silence down the forest paths, each extraordinarily aware of the other, of the still beauty of the woodlands, pierced by the shafting gold of sunlight.
“’Tis a miracle,” said Molly at last, her quiet voice a shout in the still air, “that such a place should exist so very close to London—” she turned and tilted her head to look at him, almost unaware that they had stopped walking.
He did not answer; his eyes, very serious, were on her pale, upturned face; with the slightest pressure of his arm he turned her to face him. As he bent to her mouth she reached eagerly upon tiptoe to him. His lips were as she had imagined them: hard and warm and sharply demanding.
Then as suddenly as they had come together they stepped apart, Harry still holding her hands. Above them in the branches a bird sang, piercingly sweet; someone, far in the distance, c
alled.
“Molly,” he said and smiled, white teeth against brown, smooth skin. “Dear little Irish Molly—” There was excitement in his eyes, painful urgency in his hands. She moved to him again, metal to a magnet.
Unnoticed the small straw hat fell into the bluebells, the bright cherries winking in the sun.
When, with the dipping sun painting the laced treetops with fire, they returned some time later to the picnic spot, they were guided by challenging voices. Everyone was there, and to Molly’s relief too absorbed in a heated discussion to throw more than a cursory glance in the newcomers’ direction as they joined the group, though it seemed to Molly that Jack’s piercing gaze seemed for a moment longer than most to rest upon her wild hair and heightened colour, the grass-stained boater she carried in her hand, before he returned to the fray.
“Do you really believe, then, that these Boers could defeat the British Army?” The question was more interested than outraged. “With no properly organized army of their own? The newspapers call them a rabble—”
“The newspapers are wrong.” Joe Taylor’s well-modulated voice was calm. “The Boers might be bull-headed but they aren’t stupid and they aren’t cowards. They are convinced they have been wronged, and they believe that God fights beside them.”
Charley, lying on a blanket with his head in Annie’s lap and a tall stalk of grass between his lips, laughed. “Seems to me I’ve heard that before. Fat lot of good it’ll do them when the bullets start to whistle.”
Joe took no notice of the interruption. “And if they are forced to fight,” he continued earnestly, “they’ll be fighting for their homes, their families, their land, their survival as a nation – at least that’s what they believe. And they’re probably right. That’ll mean a sight more than cannons and fancy uniforms.”
Nancy reached up a hand and drew Molly down beside her; Harry squatted on his heels behind them, his face suddenly intent and frowning.
“Joe’s brother’s just come back from South Africa,” Nancy whispered. “He’s a missionary there. He thinks there’s going to be a war—”
Bill rolled onto his stomach, plucking at the tufts of grass. “Hellfire, you’re surely not serious? There isn’t an army in the world could beat the British at the moment. Look at India—”
“—the Sudan—” Jack put in.
“—Aldershot—” Charley said, grinning, and was rewarded by a sharp clip with a bluebell from Annie.
“They aren’t an army.” Joe’s voice held the patience of a man talking to children. “They don’t pretend to be an army. They are just men, like you and me; husbands, fathers, brothers, who have been pushed too far, men who have a tradition of self-reliance, self-defence. They are hard men, they have to be for the life they lead; their commandos won’t be easily defeated. They have pride and courage.”
“And we don’t?” Harry’s sudden voice was raw with anger, jarring amongst the reasonable tones of the others. Nancy and Molly turned with one movement to look at him. Colour burned on his cheekbones. He was looking at Joe Taylor with anger sparking every line of his face. “Is that what you’re trying to say? Well, let’s wait and see about that. I’ll tell you this for nothing. If those bloody Dutch farmers attack the British settlers they’ll regret it. They won’t know what’s hit them.” There was an awkward silence. Joe, whatever his opinions, was a family guest; Harry’s angry tone had verged on the insulting.
Joe said deprecatingly, “I’m not saying they’re braver. I’m saying that they know the country, that it is, after all, their home, they will be fighting literally on their own doorsteps.”
Jack nodded. “That’d make a difference, I grant you. But they’re on their own, Joe, aren’t they? They’ve no one to call on for any kind of help. They wouldn’t stand a chance, surely? Don’t they know that? When you think of our manpower—”
“Joe obviously thinks,” said Harry, his voice hard, “that the British Army won’t be able to deal with a few ragged-arsed Dutch farm boys. Does the government know this, Joe? P’raps you should offer them your services?”
The tone was too much for Nancy. “Perhaps you should, since you know so much about it,” she flashed angrily.
He eyed her stonily. “And perhaps I will.”
“What do I have to do,” asked Annie mildly, “to break up this bun-fight? Throw a fit?” She moved her legs and tipped Charley onto the grass. “If you must argue about something why don’t you argue about something sensible, like who gets the last of the cider?”
“No argument,” said Bill, the jug in his hand, “I do.”
Charley, still rolling, grabbed his legs. “That’s what you think.” As Bill tried to kick Charley off, Annie leaned forward and grabbed the jug neatly, sat hugging it and laughing as the other two rolled over and over in the grass.
Molly looked at Harry. He pulled a self-conscious and apologetic face and lifted his shoulders in a shrug, his quick temper dying; but the light of battle was still in his eyes. Molly sighed.
Nancy said, anger still in her, “What makes you so damn patriotic all at once?”
“That’ll do, Nance.” Jack’s voice was easy. “It’s not worth fighting about.”
Charley and Bill were still wrestling, only half-laughing; a flailing bundle of arms and legs, they rolled back and forth across the clearing, a danger to anyone or anything within yards of them.
“Right.” Still holding the cider jug Annie unfolded her long body and stood up. “That’ll do, I think.” And marching up to the wrestlers she poured the dregs of the cider indiscriminately over both of them. The ensuing pandemonium restored everyone’s good temper and by the time, in the dying evening light, they had packed up and climbed once more aboard the cart, the high words and talk of war had apparently been forgotten.
They were quiet on the journey home, their high spirits muted by tiredness. Edward rode in the wagon this time, his head in Sarah’s lap, asleep almost before they were out of the forest. Annie leaned into Charley’s shoulder, humming, her eyes soft on the child’s sleeping face. Nancy and Joe sat in quiet conversation, they might have been alone together. Molly sat close by Harry, the nearness and warmth of his body lighting her senses. She did not need to look at him. Everything about him was printed indelibly within her; she knew every line of his body, every expression on his face. As they settled for the journey he pulled her to him, drew her head to his shoulder. She caught Nancy’s smiling eyes and grinned back. As full darkness overtook them she felt his firm, stroking fingers on her neck, ached to turn her head and kiss him.
The trip was too short by hours; she could have stayed all night just so, ignoring the hard bench and the jolting of the cart, aware only of the man beside her. They went home by way of Upton Park; Jack directed Bill to Linsey Grove and they rolled to a gentle halt outside number twenty-six. Stiffly Molly sat up, careful not to disturb small Edward; soft goodnights and thank yous were spoken. Harry swung himself down from the cart and lifted her lightly after him. They stood by the gate for a moment, acutely aware of the others’ watching eyes.
“Goodnight, little Molly.”
She smiled, aching. Wasn’t he going to kiss her?
“I’ll see you next week.”
She nodded. In the downstairs window of the house a curtain twitched. With a swift movement he bent and dropped a light kiss on her cheek before turning and vaulting back onto the wagon.
“Off we go, Bill.”
She watched them move off into the darkness. As she turned at last and walked up the path, the street door opened.
“Did you have a nice day?” She could not see Sam’s face in the darkness. His voice was quiet.
“Lovely, thank you.” Her cheeks burned from the sun, her shoulders and back ached agonizingly from the jolting of the cart, her mouth felt bruised.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
Oh Sam, Sam, you and your tea…! “No, thank you. I’m very tired.” Next Sunday seemed a full month away. But it would come
.
With echoes of the day still singing in her bones she wearily climbed the stairs to her bed.
Chapter Twelve
That was a summer not to be forgotten. As May became June and June, July there were other outings, usually with some or all of the family, occasionally – and these were the highlights of Molly’s life – alone with Harry. They went to Southend and ate cockles in the rain, took the train to Brighton where red-headed Annie got sunburned to a cinder. They often took the steamferry across the river at Woolwich and spent the day wandering the Kentish lanes, arriving home tired and famished and feeling as if their feet were worn down to their ankles. Bill and his cart took them to Epping again, though for Molly no other trip to the forest ever quite came up to that first one. Charley and Annie were with them on almost every trip. Nancy and Joe occasionally joined them, as did Jack, Edward and Sarah. It had been tacitly accepted in the family since that day in the forest that Molly and Harry were ‘walking out’, though no one – including Harry – ever put it into so many words. As for Molly, there were times when her growing infatuation for Harry almost frightened her: it was the lodestone of her life. When they quarrelled, which they did – not frequently but with sometimes quite destructive passion – her misery infected every aspect of life; when they were happy together nothing could disgruntle her; the world was a rainbow. By the middle of the summer she was going to the Bentons’ straight from work on Saturday, returning to Linsey Grove on Sunday evening. Ellen Alden’s insistence upon doors locked at ten was too much of a stricture when there were music halls and circuses to visit, parks to walk in, hung with shadows on a warm summer’s night. At last Molly’s lovely silk saw the light of day; how had she guessed that the shimmering material would be just the colour of Harry’s eyes? Sometimes their Saturday evenings would be spent at home with Sarah and Jack playing cribbage for ha’pennies and with a glass of port to enliven the proceedings; though these were evenings in which Nancy and Joe never took part, for Joe, it was apparent, strongly disapproved of such activities as unbecoming to a Christian family, and more and more Nancy was being drawn into his world: a world of good works and relentless rectitude, ruled by a strict if commendable code of behaviour that seemed to Molly to take no account at all of human failing. Nancy’s relationship with her undoubtedly worthy young man intrigued Molly but she could not for her life discover the common bond that held these two together. They hardly ever touched, never held hands, nor looked at each other as Molly considered that lovers should. That Nancy truly loved this oddly cold, sparely handsome young man was in no doubt; the efforts she made to please him spoke volumes in proof of that. Yet they never laughed, as Molly did with Harry, as Charley did with his Annie, never bought silly, affectionate gifts nor shared a private joke. And sometimes Molly thought that she caught a look in Nancy’s eyes that did not become a twenty-year-old girl in love; an odd, haunted, unhappy look which verged sometimes on desperation.
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