by AJ Pearce
I paused to draw breath.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’ said Bunty.
‘No, thanks.’ I looked up at her. ‘I’m being vile, aren’t I? Bunts, I love Charles. I really, really, love him. And now I’ve just ruined his big surprise.’ I groaned. ‘I’m rubbish at this.’
Bunty frowned. ‘At what?’
‘I don’t know – romance. I had one fiancé who dumped me and now I’ve just had a scene with a lovely one who wants to get married as soon as we possibly can.’
‘The last one doesn’t count, because he was a stupid, boring fool,’ said Bunty, matter-of-factly. ‘You are right though, this one is lovely. And if you want my view, you aren’t being vile at all.’ She got up from the chair and came and sat next to me. ‘Look, you’ve only just heard that Charles is being posted. On top of that you have two jobs and you’re trying to help Anne. That’s tons on your mind.’
She smiled kindly. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Em. At least you two have now had your first lovers’ tiff. It is the first, isn’t it? Please tell me you haven’t been secretly rowing for weeks?’
She said it with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Never,’ I admitted.
‘Thank goodness for that. So, what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to marry him.’
‘And the march?’
I chewed my lip for a second. ‘I can’t let them down, Bunts. There may only be the four of them there. Betty said she’d resign if she had to, but they won’t let Anne do it alone. But I haven’t enough time.’
Bunty and I sat quietly for a moment. I knew she was thinking about Anne and the girls too.
‘Right then,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘You’re on.’
‘What do you mean?’
My best friend smiled. ‘What kind of a chief bridesmaid would let the bride go off on her own on her wedding day?’ Bunty looked resolute. ‘We both know full well that you’re going to try to get to the march, and I’m pretty sure you told them I would be with you.’
She knew me too well.
‘I did think you’d want to.’
‘Of course I do,’ spluttered Bunty. ‘I’ve no intention of letting them down either.’ She looked at me sternly. ‘I’m getting you a drink whether you like it or not. Having to organise a wedding and a round trip to the back of beyond is going to take us some time.’
Bunty got up.
‘Get your thinking cap on, Emmeline Lake,’ she said. ‘We’re going to work out how you can do both.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It Gives Me Nearly Four Hours
THE MARCH WAS to start at ten o’clock on the Saturday morning. Our wedding was at two. There was time, but it was going to be horribly close.
Bunty and I went down to the kitchen and pored over the train timetable, which in peacetime would have made perfect sense. Now though, everyone knew that it made little or none.
‘When it comes down to it,’ said Bunty, ‘it’s a gamble. Everything on the winner, no hedging your bets.’ She blew out her cheeks. ‘It’s going to be awfully tight.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I promised. Oh, Bunts, you should have seen Anne this morning. This means everything to her and I won’t let her down now. I’m going to go as a reporter. I haven’t heard back from all the magazines yet, so I may still get someone to take the story. And anyway, doing their own event was my idea.’
‘Then you have to go,’ said Bunty.
‘But what if I can’t get back?’
‘Then don’t,’ said Bunty, who was playing devil’s advocate far too well for my liking.
I grimaced.
‘This is horrible,’ I said. ‘If I don’t support the girls it goes against everything I believe in, and if I can’t get back to London in time, I’ll miss my one chance to marry the man I really do love.’
I got up and wandered around the kitchen.
‘I need to speak with Charles,’ I said. ‘We didn’t even say goodbye properly. I hate that with anyone, let alone him. In fact, I’ll send a telegram tomorrow morning. I’ll write a proper letter as well, but I can’t spend all weekend wondering about things. I’ll go mad.’
‘What will you say?’ said Bunty.
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Something like, I’m sorry I was cross, and I do want to marry you more than anything, it’s just that I wish you’d said before you’d gone ahead and sorted things without talking to me. You know, something like that.’
Bunty was counting on her fingers.
‘I don’t want to be unkind, but you do know it’s a penny a word after the first sixpence, don’t you?’ she said, smiling. ‘How about you just ask him to give you a call. Then you can talk it through properly.’
‘Bunty Tavistock,’ I said, pretending to scold, ‘my entire future is hanging by a thread and you’re telling me to watch the pennies so the pounds will look after themselves?’
Bunty shook her head.
‘No, you chump,’ she replied. ‘I’m telling you to talk to him so he can help us come up with a plan.’
POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
AM SO SORRY EM MY DARLING COULD NOT FEEL WORSE WILL CALL REV LOVELL RE TIME MAY OFFER HIM BRIBE WE WILL SORT THIS CALL YOU ASAP = ALL MY LOVE C.
POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
DARLING CHARLES I FEEL TERRIBLE WILL WRITE PROPERLY BUT WOULD LOVE TO TALK = ALL MY LOVE E PS DO YOU THINK REV LOVELL COULD BE PAID OFF
POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
DEAREST EM SO GLAD WE SPOKE DARLING THE REV HAS WORKED MIRACLE AND CAN DO 3PM IS THIS ANY GOOD? = ALL MY LOVE C XXX
POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
YOU ARE BEST BOYFRIEND IN WORLD GIVES ME 4 HOURS MUST BE ENOUGH THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING I LOVE YOU I WILL BE THERE ON SAT I PROMISE PHONE ME XXX
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mr Collins Returns
CHARLES HAD MANAGED to get us a precious hour more. It had to be enough. War on or not, Christmas was Reverend Lovell’s busiest time, he told Charles, and if the church collection box had a pound note for everyone who wanted to get married before the New Year, they would be halfway to buying a new roof.
It wasn’t so much the additional hour that meant the most to me. It was that Charles understood how I felt about my commitment to Anne.
Bunty and I worked out the finer details and we felt confident that if we went for the start of the march around the market square, took tons of pictures, and interviewed the girls outside the town hall, we could leave by eleven with double the amount of time that it took when the trains ran to plan. The Reverend’s Hour, as we had started to call it, gave us the cushion we needed.
Meanwhile, Charles would come to Guy’s flat in London by lunchtime and the two of them would make their way to the church for three o’clock.
If I had any second thoughts about trying to fit both a trip to Berkshire and a wedding in Pimlico into one day, the decision was made for me the next morning when I received a letter from Pictorial Week. They would consider a short piece about a women’s march if I could provide photographs of a decent quality and one hundred words of prose. I hastily sent a reply, and as I sat on the bus on the way to work, scrawled a postcard to Anne. She would be thrilled.
*
On the Monday before the wedding, I pushed open the double doors and made my way down the Woman’s Friend corridor, passing the familiar lines of artwork which decorated the walls. Some months ago, Mr Collins had declared that Mr Brand’s illustrations for the weekly stories were too lovely to be thrown away after the magazine went to print, so we had arranged to have our favourites framed. Now dramatic scenes were proudly displayed – an ice-skating accident and a romantic clinch, a young woman looking determined in a field, and just outside the office I shared with Kath and Hester, the most beautiful illustration of a bride being walked up the aisle by her father. She was serenity itself.
‘Let’s hope so,’ I said, under my breath.
I intended to work a long day to make up for being
out of the office at Anne’s and I was looking forward to focusing on something other than myself. Now that letters were coming in thick and fast, Mrs Mahoney and I had resumed discussing ideas for a series of helpful “Yours Cheerfully” advice leaflets on popular subjects. This morning I planned to bury myself in writing a draft of “Making Friends”, a leaflet to help readers settle in if they had to live away from home for the first time. We were getting a lot of letters about that now.
It was a dark morning, another dull day in what had been a mild and murky December so far, and a light was coming from the open door to Mr Collins’ office.
I quietly continued to my desk, took off my coat, hat and gloves and paused for a moment. In all the hoo-hah with Charles over the weekend, I hadn’t asked him if he had spoken with Guy. Clearly his brother had returned to work, but I had no idea how he might be. With the office not yet busy, it was a good time to find out.
A normal enough, ‘Come in,’ answered my gentle tap on the Editor’s door.
‘Hello, Emmy,’ said Mr Collins, putting down his pen and looking up from his desk. He had lost weight and needed a haircut even more than usual.
‘Hello,’ I said, just managing not to add, ‘You look awful,’ and instead, asking him how he was.
‘I’m fine thank you. Do I look grim?’ he answered.
‘You do a bit. A go with some scissors wouldn’t do any harm.’
It was the most British of ways to tell him I was concerned.
‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘Has everything been all right here? I hope I didn’t leave everyone in the lurch.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s been fine.’
Other than urgent calls from the owner of Launceston Press and a Government department.
‘Lord Overton called and so did Mr Clough,’ I said, lightly. ‘But we got a commendation at the Ministry meeting,’ I added, more brightly. ‘By name. No one else was mentioned at all. Mrs Edwards said, Brava, and people looked round. I do so wish you’d been there.’
It made Mr Collins smile. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘I hope you had buns?’ He seemed keen to talk about work rather than himself, which was entirely understandable, so I continued.
‘We wanted to wait until you were back. Mrs Edwards and Mr Simons were both terribly nice. They missed you. Mrs Edwards said you used to get into arguments with people when you were young.’
‘A contentious allegation,’ said Mr Collins, ‘and something I would hotly deny. Come and sit down and tell me everything that’s been happening. Between you and me, I’ve had a rough couple of weeks and hearing what you lot have been up to will be music to my ears.’
He leant back, wearily. I had never heard him admit to difficulty with anything before. Even though he was the same age as my parents, I rather wanted to put him on a train and send him to my mother so she could look after him for a bit.
‘I would offer you a tot of brandy if it wasn’t nine o’clock in the morning,’ said Mr Collins, attempting levity. ‘Don’t look alarmed, I’m joking. I never touch the stuff. That bottle I have seen you pretending not to notice for the last year is purely a souvenir.’
I glanced at the half-empty bottle on one of his bookshelves. He was right, I had sneaked the odd look.
‘I did notice the level never goes down,’ I admitted.
‘There you are. Now, start with the Ministry. Possibly with why the subject of getting into arguments came up.’
For the next half an hour I updated Mr Collins on everything that had gone on, at least in terms of work, rather than concerning his brother. He listened closely, occasionally asking a question, but mostly taking it all in.
I saved the latest about Chandlers and Mr Terry for the end.
‘What a delightful piece of work he is,’ he said, as I described our last meeting. ‘There’s no sensible reason for Terry to be so obstreperous about the idea of nursery facilities. They won’t cost him anything if Chandlers apply to the Government.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I would put money on it being something of a chest-beating performance on his part. Do you know what the women will do?’
I hesitated. ‘They’re still doing their march,’ I said.
‘Good for them. That takes some guts.’
‘And I’m going too. With Bunty. She’s going to take photographs and I’m going to interview them. One of the weekly news pictorials says they may run it if it’s good enough. They won’t use my name.’
I had wanted to say it calmly, rather than blurting it out like a guilty secret. I looked at the bookcase behind him, with sudden interest.
Mr Collins gave nothing away.
‘I don’t even know if we can make it look newsworthy,’ I said. ‘Mr Terry has had notices put up that say people will get the sack if they join in. He’s also said he has friends in the Labour Ministry. I think he’s trying to scare me.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ said Mr Collins. ‘Are we running the last piece in the factory series?’
‘As long as it passes the Censors,’ I said. ‘Which I think it will.’
‘Good. That should placate everyone. And you’re sure you think it wise that you go to the march?’
I blanched at that. ‘Yes. I think it’s right that I do,’ I said. ‘They’re aiming to make it more of a parade than anything contentious.’
‘Are you going as a friend, or as a journalist from Woman’s Friend? In the light of your discussion with this Miss Eggerton.’
‘Anne is my friend,’ I said. ‘And so are the others. And no, it probably isn’t as a journalist from Woman’s Friend, which is why I have tried to get interest from the news magazines. I know we wouldn’t print something like that.’
‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘Go on.’
‘But I think there’s a good argument that we should. Not necessarily this particular event, but I do think we should be sticking up for the readers on something like this.’
I shifted in the chair, bit at one of my fingernails, and when Mr Collins said nothing, I decided to plough on. ‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘we’ve been doing all this stuff in our Big Ministry Plan, and it’s gone down frightfully well with important people, at least, so far and we are rightly all ever so proud of it. I don’t want us to get in any trouble or undo any of that. But if you ask me, we’re not quite doing what we’ve always said we would. When the Ministry first asked all the magazines to come up with ideas, you said it was our chance to do more than do our bit.’
I quoted his own words back to him.
‘You said to think about what our readers wanted, what they deserved. And how could we help them. You said we had to look after them.’
I realised I had gone hot in the face.
‘If Anne and her friends aren’t those readers,’ I said, ‘then exactly who is?’
I shut up. I hadn’t been rude, but I had spoken from the heart. More than that, I didn’t have a clear answer to that question. I had struggled with it for weeks now and there was no point saying to not get involved. I for one couldn’t separate my job from my life.
Mr Collins nodded, thoughtfully. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘The Chandlers women deserve to be heard. Go to the march. See if you can place a piece on it. Do what you can.’
I broke into an enormous smile. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘What about Lord Overton and Mr Clough?’
‘I’ll call them,’ he said calmly. ‘There is of course, the off-chance that they may not be asking for me in order to complain about you. World spinning on its own axis and all that.’
I blushed. It was a good point. ‘There’s just one other thing,’ I said. ‘About the march.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s on the day of the wedding.’
At this, Mr Collins momentarily lost a hold of his usual composure.
‘In Berkshire,’ I added.
‘Ah.’ He raised one eyebrow slightly. ‘Emmy, do you remember about half an hour ago when I suggested that hearing what you’d been up to during my absence might cheer me up
?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you just confirm that this is still part of it?’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said brightly. ‘It’s going to be fine.’
‘Oh, good,’ he said. ‘Does Charles know?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He wasn’t entirely sure to start off,’ I said, at which point Mr Collins made a funny noise that sounded like he was beginning to choke. ‘But Bunty and I are coming up with a plan.’
‘Dear God,’ said Mr Collins.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He stood up, ran his hand through his hair and then sat down again.
‘Honestly,’ I said. ‘Speak to Charles. I know he’s been trying to get hold of you to tell you. You know, Guy,’ I added, ‘I really wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think I would be back in time.’ I had never called him Guy at work, but now I was speaking to him as a future sister-in-law, not an employee.
‘I promise I won’t mess it up for Charles.’
Mr Collins smiled.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘It sounds as if you’ve got everything covered. Crack on with that last feature, make up any hours that you’ve missed, and go to the march. In the meantime, I am going to sit here quietly and write a memo to Lord Overton telling him I am never going on leave again.’
‘Good,’ I said, springing to my feet. ‘Mrs Mahoney worries about you when you’re not here. I’ll leave you alone now. Thank you for being so nice about it.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said.
I hesitated for a moment.
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘About the rotten time you’ve had.’
As soon as I had walked into his office, I could tell by his face that his old army friend had been lost.