The Cavendon Luck

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Turning her head, Victoria smiled. “I like cottage pie. I’d never had it before I came to live with Mrs. Alice and Mr. Walter. Oh, the camera!” She looked across at Alice. “Shall I run and get it?”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea, before little Edward falls fast asleep. Otherwise you won’t be able to photograph him.”

  Once they were alone, Alice said, “She’s a lot better these days, Paloma, not so tense and shy. I did find out from the evacuee agency running Operation Pied Piper that she was not with another family as an evacuee, before she came here. She doesn’t say much about her life, or anything else for that matter. But this is a child who hasn’t had it easy in the past.”

  “She seems to have put a protective layer around herself. What I’ve also noticed is that she’s become very attached to you. Also, she’s lovely around Edward, and pays a lot of attention to him when she’s with us. She’s quite well spoken, Alice, and has good manners.”

  “That’s true. Well brought up, I’d say. But I don’t question her about anything. I was informed a while ago that family are allowed to visit their evacuated children now. But no one has requested to come to see her.” Alice stopped speaking, and turned her attention to her baby grandson as Victoria came back with her Kodak camera.

  Paloma lifted Edward up. “Now, where do you want to photograph us, Victoria? Here on the sofa? Or outside?”

  “Here. Just near the vase of flowers, so they’re in the picture, too.”

  Victoria snapped away for several minutes, then asked Alice to come and be in a photograph. Once this was accomplished, Paloma suggested Victoria should sit down holding the baby so that Paloma could photograph all of them together. By the time she finished, Paloma exclaimed, “Oh! The pie! I mustn’t burn the pie!”

  During lunch, Paloma told Alice and Victoria about her first date with Harry, and that she had wanted to make a special cottage pie for him and how it had burned to a cinder in the oven.

  They all laughed, and Alice was glad to see that her ten-year-old evacuee was enjoying herself. As for Paloma, she was being adorable. But that was how she was. Loving, warm, capable, willing, and ready to please. She had joined the WI in Little Skell, had dug and planted her own allotment in the garden outside, learned to make jam and bottle fruit, and had become one of them. And everyone had welcomed her with open arms and loving hearts. They told Alice that Harry had found a very special wife, and she knew that was true.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon Alice and Victoria took their books and went to the lower moor. It was not far away from Cavendon Hall in the shadow of the North Wing. There was a sheltered spot where Alice had read her books since she was a young girl. Now it had become a special place for Victoria.

  Alice had realized that this withdrawn little person liked being in quiet, protected areas. She wondered about that and this desire to be alone, away from crowds. And she still thought about those bruises. Alice had never mentioned them to her, having taken Lady Daphne’s advice. One day she’ll confide, tell me everything, Alice thought; unless anything untoward happened, Victoria would be with them until the end of the war, which Cecily and Miles insisted would be a long one. Then she would make sure Victoria was safe, would not come to any harm.

  Alice glanced at Victoria and noticed that she hadn’t opened her book. “Don’t you feel like reading?”

  “Oh yes. I was just wondering something. Where do we go when we die? I mean where is Lady Gwendolyn? Is she up there in the sky?” As she spoke, Victoria lifted her head, then cried, “Oh Mrs. Alice, look! Look, there’s a plane coming right for us.”

  Following her glance, Alice saw a plane heading their way and jumped up, grabbed hold of Victoria’s hand, and pulled her along, went higher up the moor. She had noticed the swastika, the Nazi insignia, on the plane, and realized it was actually moving toward the North Wing of Cavendon Hall. It was also dropping, losing height. Alice and Victoria stood watching as it sheared off two chimney pots and a large chunk of the roof. It plunged on, went beyond the house, and crashed onto the lower moor where they had been sitting a moment or two before.

  Victoria was trembling, holding on to Alice very tightly, obviously afraid. Alice was shaken up herself, but she extracted herself. “Don’t move. Stay right here. I’m just going to look at the plane.”

  Victoria nodded, stood perfectly still, wrapping her arms around herself protectively.

  Alice edged closer to the plane until she was next to the cockpit. The pilot was crunched up in his seat, but he was alive. He stared at her, trying to speak. As Alice pulled away, stepped back, he said in English, “Please … help me … please.”

  She wanted to say, “Why should I? You’re the enemy.” And then she realized how young he was, just a boy. Twenty at the most. His eyes, pinned on hers pleadingly, were very blue.

  “I’ll get help,” Alice said, and ran back to Victoria. Getting hold of her hand, she took her down the hill away from the plane. People were already coming. She spotted Miles and Lane, and behind them, the earl and Percy Swann, the head gamekeeper. And even Hanson was following on, lumbering up the hill, looking concerned.

  Miles paused, asked swiftly, urgently, “Alice, did you see what happened?”

  “Yes, I did. The plane was dropping lower and lower, falling really as if it were out of control. I suddenly realized it was heading straight for the North Wing. I was sitting with Victoria on the lower moor over there. It just missed us.”

  Suddenly Cecily arrived, out of breath and exclaiming, “Mother, whatever happened? Are you all right? How are you, Victoria?”

  “I was afraid. Mrs. Alice grabbed my hand and we ran.”

  Cecily glanced at Miles anxiously. “Will the plane burst into flames, do you think?”

  “I don’t believe so. From what your mother has said, the pilot was probably out of fuel. And perhaps lost, off his course. But he’s no doubt dead.”

  “He’s alive,” Alice said. “He needs help.”

  “I see my father is already up there with Lane and Percy,” Miles said. “I’d better go and see what I can do to help. And, Ceci, you’d better ring up Topcliffe RAF station, tell them what’s happened here, and ask them to send some officers and an ambulance for the pilot. I know they have a hospital unit there.”

  “I’ll do that immediately,” Cecily answered.

  Alice said, “Oh here comes Alf Merton with his Home Guard.”

  * * *

  Miles and Lane managed to get the Luftwaffe pilot out of the plane. As they waited for Percy and the two Home Guards to bring a stretcher from the cellar, Miles questioned the pilot, who was groggy, obviously wounded, but managed to speak fairly coherently. He told Miles he had suddenly realized he was off course and lost.

  Miles couldn’t help feeling sorry for the pilot. He was so young, couldn’t be more than twenty, like their boys up in the air, fighting a war. Just a lad, really.

  Known for his humanity and compassion, Miles knelt down on the moorland next to the pilot, touched his shoulder. “I believe you’re wounded,” he said. “Maybe something is broken?”

  The pilot simply grimaced, then said, “My back. My leg. They hurt.”

  “Don’t move, an ambulance is on its way.”

  “I did not want to crash. On land,” the pilot stammered in his stilted English. “I was looking for the sea. Out of fuel. Losing altitude. No control.”

  “You weren’t very far away from the sea, you might have even made it if you’d had only a quarter tank of fuel,” Miles said.

  The young pilot was silent, staring at Miles, his blue eyes suddenly filling with fear.

  Miles told him, “Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you, even though you’re in an enemy country. The ambulance will be here soon and your wounds will be properly treated. You will be going to a nearby RAF station, to their hospital. Some officers will come to help you, because you are now a prisoner of war.”

  Immediately the pilot appeared to be alarme
d.

  Miles continued in the same calm voice, “We treat our prisoners very well.”

  Unable to speak for a moment, the pilot simply nodded. Then he said in a choked voice, “Danke schön … thank you.”

  * * *

  It was not long before a team of Royal Air Force officers arrived from Topcliffe. There were several senior men plus a medical team with an ambulance, and military police. Once the pilot had been carried on the stretcher into the ambulance by the medical team, the two military police officers went with them. The RAF technicians stayed behind to dismantle the German plane.

  Percy and Ted were cleaning up the rubble around the North Wing when the earl arrived with Miles and Cecily. Lane had apparently hurried off to make sure the staff were calm and recovering from their fright. When the earl saw the damage he was stunned, and upset. The German plane had hit a tall chimney and had sheared off a portion of the roof. The wall below had collapsed from the force and weight of the plane pushing through the roof, and there was now a huge gaping hole. Three windows had been shattered and there was broken glass, bricks, and rubble everywhere on the back terrace.

  To the earl’s dismay he saw that some of the antique fine French furniture, which was of great value, had been smashed. “Thank God the paintings are in the vault,” Lord Mowbray said to Miles, who noticed his father’s face was deathly white, his expression grim.

  Suddenly, Hanson hove into view, walking along the back terrace carrying a tray. On it was a bottle of excellent French cognac and shot glasses. Hanson said, “I thought a drop of our best Napoleon would do us good, your lordship. We’ve all had a bit of a shock.”

  “Well done, Hanson!” Charles exclaimed. “Pour us all a shot, and call Ted and Percy over, and the team. They need a good nip. And so do you, Hanson.”

  As they all lingered on the terrace, sipping the brandy, Cecily thought of Blackie O’Neill. It suddenly occurred to her that he might be of the greatest help to them. The damage was enormous and she had noticed that Percy and Ted looked worried and alarmed as they examined the ruined end of the North Wing.

  She said to Miles, “I believe Emma Harte’s friend Blackie O’Neill will be able to help us. He has a construction company. I was with him the other day, and I’m quite sure that he would be willing to come and look at the damage. I think I could make a decent deal with him. He’ll be reasonable about the cost.”

  “Can you telephone him now?” the earl asked.

  “Yes, and he lives in Harrogate. Perhaps he’ll be able to come over later this afternoon.”

  “The sooner the better,” Miles said.

  Fifty-six

  Daphne sat on the sofa in the little parlor next to the dining room, which Cecily used as an office. Her hands were clasped tightly together because she was shaking, devastated by the damage to the North Wing, which she had just seen.

  Daphne and Charlotte had been in Harrogate that afternoon and had returned only a few moments before the RAF officers and their team left.

  Cecily was seeing them off, and after parking her car, Daphne had walked over, followed by Charlotte, had raised a brow, asked why the RAF officers had been at Cavendon.

  Cecily had explained there had been a plane crash on the moor and she had taken them to see the North Wing. Charlotte had been aghast and had hurried off to find Charles at once to commiserate with him. Daphne had simply stood there gaping at the ruined North Wing, and had then staggered toward a tree and leaned against it. Tears were rolling down her face.

  When Cecily had spoken to her, she had not answered, and Cecily, believing her to be in shock, had taken hold of her arm, shepherded her into the parlor, and closed the door behind them.

  After a moment or two, Daphne blinked several times, brushed her damp cheeks with her fingertips, and looked across at Cecily. They were still sitting there without speaking.

  “It’s funny, isn’t it,” Daphne suddenly began. “Everyone talks about the Cavendon luck and assumes it’s only ever good luck. But I have never seen it in that way. Have you?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Cecily answered. “I’ve always known this family would have bad luck as well as good.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I suppose because it’s the way things are in the world we live in. But also because of Genevra. Since I was a child she has warned me to beware of the bad luck, because it would come. She never stopped saying that Cavendon would suffer, that the family would have deaths and chaos and troubles.”

  “And you believed her? Do you believe her now?”

  “I did. I do. She has the sight, and I believe in that, too.”

  Daphne let out a long sigh, and her voice suddenly shook when she said, “But why the North Wing? All those years I put into it, making it beautiful again.”

  “I’ve phoned Blackie O’Neill. He’s coming to look at the damage later, give us an assessment. We’ll get it rebuilt.”

  Daphne simply nodded, and the tears started again, but she managed to speak. “I have a son in hospital who has had his left leg amputated, high up, above the knee, who’s waiting for the stump of his leg to heal, so he can start learning to walk again with an artificial leg. Great-Aunt Gwen, our matriarch, just died. My eldest daughter, now a Red Cross nurse, is about to rush into a dangerous war, and my twin boys will soon be soldiers fighting in the army. Besides all that, my youngest daughter is angry with me because I won’t let her study at the Royal Academy of Music because the building is right in the middle of central London. And now the North Wing, which I put my heart and soul into restoring, has been destroyed by a plane with a swastika on it. I wonder what else is going to happen to me?”

  Daphne had such a desperate look on her face, Cecily jumped up and went to sit next to her on the sofa. She put her arms around her sister-in-law and endeavored to soothe her, calm her; Daphne began to sob as if her heart were broken.

  Cecily knew that her reaction to the damage done to the North Wing was genuine. Yet she also knew Daphne was tired out, bone weary. There had been the problems with Susie Jackson, the cook, who had been unusually terse about leaving and actually quite unpleasant in the end. This attitude had really annoyed Cecily. Now the housekeeper Mrs. Weir had gone, and a maid, Brenda Caine, was leaving. Both of them were going to work in the munitions factories.

  And then there was Charlotte, who Cecily thought was showing her age. She was seventy-two, and ever since she had broken her leg last year, Charlotte hadn’t been quite the same. The leg had healed, although for some reason, she had a slight limp. Cecily believed that Charlotte might have rheumatism, or perhaps another illness. Certainly she had lost some of that enormous energy, which had carried her through many years at Cavendon, doing so much for everyone. She’s certainly served her time, Cecily thought, and so has Daphne. They both need a bit of relief. We need more staff here. If I can find a couple of people.

  Unexpectedly, Daphne suddenly sat up, taking Cecily by surprise. Reaching for her handbag, Daphne took out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  After a moment, obviously endeavoring to restore her composure, Daphne said, “How terrible I am. So selfish. Thinking only of myself. What are my problems, really, in comparison to thousands of women in England? Many have lost their husbands and their sons in this hideous war, and don’t have all the privileges we do. I’m ashamed of myself for being so weak.”

  “You don’t have a selfish bone in your body, Daphne,” Cecily exclaimed. “All you’ve ever done all your life is help others. Look, I’ve managed to find a new cook, and I’m now going to dig up a housekeeper. From somewhere.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Ceci, thank you anyway, but I can manage.”

  “We’ll see about that. Personally I think both Charlotte and you are exhausted. This is a huge place to run, with lots of children. Lane is good as head butler but not quite as good as Hanson. I think we should let Hanson help out more. He’s fed up with being retired, and I for one would welcome his smiling
face around here a bit more.”

  Daphne instantly saw the sense of it. “Yes, let’s find a few tasks he can do. By the way, where is Hugo?”

  “Oh gosh, I forgot for a moment, he’s down in the bowels of the vaults, the very bottom one. He went down to remind DeLacy to come up for tea. You see, that vault is so deep she would not have heard the plane crashing. And maybe she’s not aware of the time.”

  “They must be waiting for us in the yellow sitting room, don’t you think? It’s well after four,” Daphne said.

  Cecily nodded. “Probably. Are you ready to join them?”

  “I am indeed. And I apologize for being so upset, Ceci. I’m an Ingham. And Ingham women are supposed to stand tall and take it on the shoulder. I’ll redo the North Wing, and I’ll make it even better than it was.”

  “With Blackie O’Neill’s help,” Cecily added, happy and relieved that Daphne was calm again and as stalwart as she had always been.

  * * *

  Cecily and Miles had long made a point of spending half an hour alone together in the sitting room adjoining their bedroom. They did this every night once they were ready for bed, to talk over things that mattered to them. It had become a ritual and they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  Once they were settled on the sofa in front of the slowly dying fire, Miles said, “I don’t know how you all do it, but the women of Britain are heroines. Once the war is over I think the government should give you all a medal. Or something.”

  Cecily laughed. “Well, at least you’re one man who recognizes what we do. Some don’t, you know. They tend to look down their noses at women in the war, which we are in actuality. I ran into Joyce Bourne the other day. She was on forty-eight hours’ leave from the WAAFs, staying a few days with Evelyne. She was moaning that some of the enlisted men tend to mistrust them, treat them as imbeciles.”

  “They’ll soon learn how fantastic those WAAFs are!” Miles exclaimed. “Harry’s mentioned them to me. He couldn’t do without them on the radar. They’ve become the real experts.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Daphne a lot tonight, Miles,” Cecily said. “And I want to find a new housekeeper. She has a lot on her hands at the moment, and the plane crash today has really upset her.”