“See, you do have a flare for the dramatic. You would have been wonderful in our little production of Pride and Prejudice.” She spared a wry glance for Olive, then turned to look out into the garden. Her fingers, so often busy turning balls of yarn into socks, were now still, a mere prop for her cigarette. Olive ran her fingers over the legs of her trousers, her thoughts in a dizzying pendulum of go-stay.
No longer able to sit still in the silence, she stood abruptly and crossed to the doors to let in some fresh air. She leaned against the doorjamb, relishing the feel of sunlight streaming across her face. It had been a long, cold winter.
“Violet Darling came off the train this morning,” she said, without turning.
“Did she indeed?” The response was appreciatively stilted, a full measure of curiosity infused into every word.
Miss Violet’s recent years may well have been shrouded in mystery, but her younger sister, Miss Rose, was a veritable open book, a particularly apt comparison given that she happened to be the village librarian. The sisters were in their thirties, only a decade or so older than Olive, but she’d used the honorific since childhood, and it was second nature now. Over the years, the story of the Darling sisters had been much discussed, altered, and exaggerated until it resembled a tale worthy of Hans Christian Andersen.
Unable or unwilling to manage the pair of them when their mother died, their father, Maverick Darling, promptly sent for his sister, their aunt Felicity. Cast as the evil stepmother of the story, she was consumed by her own maladies and comforts and was ill equipped to care for two young girls, leaving them to take refuge in books. Miss Rose turned to classic literature, while Miss Violet found immense pleasure in lurid novels and thrillers of all sorts.
Over the years, their reading material informed their behaviour. Rose grew into a quiet, intellectual young lady devoted to her books, while Violet could best be described as a rambunctious pleasure seeker who was entirely too friendly with too many boys. Hoping to head off what she imagined was the impending ruin of a well-bred young lady, Miss Husselbee (the fairy godmother of the tale, at least by her own estimation) took Violet to task. Or tried to. Violet ignored her outright and flagrantly carried on. Enter Emory Hammond, the charmingly handsome, sun-kissed stepson of Lord Murchison, whose estate bordered Miss Husselbee’s. He came to stay the summer after Olive turned twelve—Harriet’s first summer in Pipley—and made a habit of driving his snappy little motor car through the village and over the hills at dangerous speeds, the wind whipping through his hair, the sun glinting off his roguish smile. He’d wave jauntily at the poor unfortunates he left in his wake, and Olive couldn’t help but wave fiendishly back. He was not at all what he should be, or so she was told. No doubt that was precisely why she developed the most awful crush on him and was devastated when she discovered that Violet Darling had lured him away.
The two ran off together in late August of that year and had been absent from their lives ever since. It was well known that Violet had made a name for herself writing the sort of lurid novels she’d enjoyed as a girl, and the gossips were quick to surmise that her own story did not have a happily ever after. In fact, the theories of the pair’s whereabouts tended to be laced with grim tragedy: sunk on a transatlantic crossing, dismembered by a lion in Africa—or a tiger in India—fated to live a dusty, forgotten existence in Australia or the American West. The appearance of a new novel every few years did nothing to stifle the conjecture. But now, here was Violet Darling, home again. Or rather, Violet Hammond. Where Emory might be was anyone’s guess.
“Leave it to Violet Darling,” Harriet said, in quiet appreciation. Olive shifted to face her stepmother, waiting for the rest of this ambiguous statement. Harriet blinked, realising she had a rapt audience, and switched her cigarette to her left hand, then took up her pen in her right. “She’s swooped in to save us feeling sorry for ourselves. Now we’ll all feel superior instead,” she said wryly. She tapped her pen against the book, considering. “I don’t suppose I should ask her to play Kitty or Lydia—that might set us off on the wrong foot. But perhaps Elizabeth? Dare I risk the scandal?” Harriet had been tasked with the thankless job of writing a workable script and assigning the much-loved and much-loathed roles to willing participants. Olive suspected the resultant squabbles could very well outlast the war.
There was a step in the hall, and Jonathon appeared, coming through from the kitchen. But he lingered on the threshold, one last mouthful of breakfast keeping him silent as his jaw worked in earnest.
He was of medium height, the crown of his head coming to Olive’s chin. But she was tall, and judging by his lanky frame, he had a good bit of growing yet to do. His dark hair, while neat, was in need of a trim, and his eyes, a coppery brown, seemed always to be warring between darting curiosity and wary uncertainty. Barely there freckles marched straight over the bridge of his nose, and his smile, when it flashed, exposed teeth that were slightly too big. He was wearing a school blazer, a maroon jumper, and navy short trousers that exposed all manner of cuts and scrapes.
“Good morning, Jonathon,” Harriet chirped, her smile edging out the distracted arrangement of her features.
“Morning, Harriet,” came the quiet reply, and Olive watched as a tinge of pink crested the tips of his ears as he came farther into the room. Her nose twitched at the scent that clung to him, and she raised a hand, to lay it lightly against the lower part of her face, as if in quiet contemplation.
Jonathon Maddocks had been living at Blackcap Lodge for nearly four months—he’d come just after the new year. And while he had made new school chums in the village and was a natural with the pigeons, he still seemed skittish at home, as if he believed one false step would mean a second relocation on the heels of his first.
His arrival had taken all of them by surprise. With his father away in North Africa, his mother, a flighty school chum of Harriet’s, had been utterly overwhelmed and had promptly packed her twelve-year-old son off to Pipley for the duration while she retreated to a private sanatorium in the Scottish Highlands. And despite their best efforts to make him feel welcome, Jonathon clung to his quiet shyness. In a flash of inspiration, Harriet had given him responsibility over their victory garden, such as it was, and he’d taken to the task with gusto. He’d managed to charm every gardener in the village with knowledge to share, and Olive had high hopes of surplus produce and a splendid variety in the months to come.
Olive had quickly found she quite liked having Jonathon around. With Lewis gone—and now George—he was her most constant companion. “No complaints from Miss Fen or your schoolmates on the lingering effects of your morning activities?”
His brow furrowed. “I’m only stirring the compost.”
“Never mind,” she said, guessing his teacher was too polite to comment. Olive had kept away from the back corner of the garden ever since Jonathon had begun feeding the towering heap as assiduously as if it were a pet dragon. “Anything to report? Hints of an onion, maybe?”
“Not yet,” he said, a mischievous light flickering in his eyes. “But I do have a few surprises up my sleeves.” He paused, but it was clear he wanted to say more, and after a moment, it came flooding out of him in an excited rush. “Hen and I went foraging yesterday and met a Land Girl called Iris Wells, who said that she and two others are digging up the tennis lawn at Peregrine Hall to put in a whopper of a vegetable garden.” Not even wanting to stop for breath, he sucked in reserves and barrelled on. “Hen and I plan to go round to see Miss Husselbee after school to ask if we can help.” Pride and purpose shone on his face, lifted his chin, straightened his spine.
Hen had attached herself to Jonathon the moment he’d stepped off the train from London as an official evacuee. Ostensibly, she was following Guide protocol, showing him around and making him feel at home, but Hen invariably had ulterior motives. Olive recognised the intrepid look in the girl’s clear green eyes. Her own mirror had reflected a similar glint each morning, before she’d fetched George
from his father’s garage and they’d set off together on the day’s adventures. Hen may have been a year younger than Jonathon, but her wing, it seemed, was already sufficiently capacious, as he’d been quickly and efficiently hustled under it. Olive had yet to hear him complain; George hadn’t, either.
“Well, that sounds quite promising,” Harriet allowed, before adding, “However, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Miss Husselbee can be a bit . . .” She glanced to Olive for assistance.
“Prickly?” Olive supplied. Suspicious, she thought, thinking of Dr Ware. “Uncharitable?” She was warming to her theme.
“That’s plenty. Thank you.” Harriet’s cultured tones smoothed over the slightest pettiness, a quality that made her a godsend to the WI.
“She’s all right,” Jonathon said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “She gave me a cutting from a broad bean plant trailing up the wall of her kitchen garden. I’ve planted it beside the sweet peas, and it’s shooting right up.” He picked at a loose bit of skin on his thumb. “Besides, she’s already promised us some paper for our salvage collection. We need to go by and pick it up.”
Olive had a sudden thought. “If the lime gravel border is going, as well, perhaps she’d let you collect a cartful for the pigeons. They’re getting short on grit and will need it more than ever if they’re left to forage for seeds.” Olive spoke lightly, not wishing to dwell on the pigeons any more than she already had.
“And if it happens that Miss Husselbee doesn’t need you,” Harriet said cheerily, “Olive might like your help with her new endeavour.” Jonathon tilted his head curiously. “She’s to head up our pig club.”
“A pig club,” Jonathon said blankly, eyes wide. “Golly, how did you get suckered into that?”
The question was spared an answer by another sliding step in the hall. They turned as one toward the doorway, through which Mrs Battlesby shortly appeared, feather duster raised to swipe the lintels. “If you’re having breakfast, Miss Olive, you’d best get on before I do the washing-up,” she said with a wink.
The housekeeper had a mild tick, whereby her right eyelid occasionally, inadvertently, closed for a long blink, a motion indistinguishable from a wink. Rather confusingly, she also tended to make pointed comments, which she capped off with a knowing wink from the same eye. As a result, people were forever pondering the intention of that fleetingly closed eye, while Mrs B remained entirely oblivious.
Brisk and brown-eyed, her hair a tumble of frizzing brown curls fading to grey, Mrs Battlesby handled the cooking and cleaning, and various other assorted jobs that none of the rest of them took an interest in, and managed to be done in time to walk back home in the afternoon to repeat the same manner of tasks in the cottage she shared with her husband, Archie Battlesby, a veteran of the Great War, who’d never fully recovered from the tendrils of mustard gas that had seeped down into his trench. Mostly, he kept to himself, but as a member of the Home Guard, he’d lately been spending his time preparing the village and its environs for the possibility of a German invasion. Olive had always found him brusque to the point of rudeness, and he had a disconcerting habit of following a person’s movements with only his eyes—like the subject of a baleful portrait painting in a Gothic novel. She found it unsettling in the extreme.
“Coming, Mrs B,” she said, not wishing to miss her share of bacon, no matter how meagre it was sure to be. Breakfast was rather a pale shadow of its former self now that rationing limited a second helping of bacon and a truly decadent slather of butter and jam, but the limits on tea were particularly maddening. As far as Olive was concerned, the tragic situation of teatime on rations would have been reason enough to go to war if Chamberlain hadn’t already engaged them.
“When you’re ready for school,” Olive said to Jonathon, “I’ll walk with you. I’m meeting Margaret to write letters to the Friendless Serving Men, and I’ve offered to help decorate the hall for the dance.” Normally, she was gung-ho for any sort of village entertainment—it was a much-needed break from the tedium when so many other simple pleasures had been stripped away. But now things would be different. With both of them perpetually unattached, she and George had always paired up for the dances, any romantic curiosity between them having been summarily squelched by a single kiss three years ago and the resultant snorting laughter. Clearly, she was going to have to get used to going alone.
This particular dance was a tradition in the village, held every year on the first Friday in May, when wild daffodils carpeted the neighbouring woods and trailed along the hedgerows, a profusion of sunny faces popping open to welcome spring. When she was younger, she and the other girls had woven the flowers into crowns with twists of ivy and lengths of ribbon; they’d stuffed themselves with cakes and punch, then whirled until their dresses frothed around them. Exhausted, they’d trail home after their families under a star-filled heaven, the whole world heady with the scent of spring. Her mother had loved any excuse to get dressed up; she was lovely and charismatic and always the centre of attention.
“Olive?” Harriet’s voice filtered through her memories, and Olive blinked, coming back to the moment—the reality that nothing was the same as it had once been. With a wrinkle of concern now marring her brow, Harriet shifted forward. “If you’re passing the library, do stop in and tell Rose I’m very much looking forward to meeting her sister. Perhaps you could casually suggest that the Darling sisters are perfectly suited to play a pair of Bennet sisters.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief as her shoulders dropped back onto the chaise.
Olive shot her a look of exasperation. She was happy to run errands, balking only when they involved an element of cajolery on behalf of her stepmother’s schemes. “Fine, but only because I have a legitimate reason for stopping.” She pushed off the doorjamb and elaborated as she crossed the room to follow Mrs Battlesby back to the kitchen. “Monsieur Poirot unmasked the murderer in Death on the Nile last night, so it’s on to the next case.”
It had been Miss Husselbee who’d introduced Olive to Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective. The Sergeant Major had taken Peril at End House from the library and not cared a jot for the antics of “that frivolous little man,” so when Olive, fresh home from London and rather dispirited, had made a pest of herself with the toys being sorted for the jumble sale, Miss Husselbee had pushed the book into her hands and shooed her away. Olive had taken herself off to the churchyard and had read for hours in the shelter of the old yew tree. When the shadows had grown too long and even squinting hadn’t been sufficient to make out the words, she’d tucked the book into her pocket and walked home through the village, looking askance at everyone she passed, her thoughts crowded with suspicion.
Unlike Miss Husselbee, Olive found she had rather a soft spot for M. Poirot: his unflinching determination to do what must be done, tempered by his many little absurdities—those moustaches! She had quickly caught up on all his adventures to date and was now working her way through them all over again, trying to pinpoint the clues that would eventually lead to the gathering of suspects and the thrilling unmasking of the murderer. Poirot was by far her favourite of Mrs Christie’s clever sleuths, although the back-and-forth shenanigans of Frankie and Bobby in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? made Olive sentimental for past adventures with George.
Harriet was well aware of her stepdaughter’s penchant and often teased her about her little Belgian friend. Now her eyes rolled in amused exasperation as another wisp of smoke escaped her. “You hardly need a book, darling—we have our own little mystery right here.”
Olive stopped in her tracks. “What is it?”
Harriet cut her eyes around at her stepdaughter. “Where has Violet Darling been all this time? Where is her husband? And perhaps most interesting of all, why has she come back?”
“I suspect the answers are rather straightforward and won’t require an investigation or prompt a murder. So, I’ll need to live vicariously,” Olive said wryly. “Oh,” she said, turning back, “you’ll need to find a
nother Mr Darcy. Dr Ware is too busy.”
“And I was so hoping he’d agree,” Harriet said consideringly, already deep in thought, as Olive reached the doorway.
As the wireless switched to the jaunty harmonising of the Andrews Sisters, Harriet called after her, “And if you could drop the spare accumulator at Forrester’s Garage, I’d be ever so grateful. Thank you, darling.”
Olive groaned inwardly.
* * *
Olive had carted the family’s spare accumulator to Forrester’s to be recharged at least once a week since the war had started. No one—least of all her increasingly immobile stepmother—wanted the wireless to fall silent. But for once, she barely noticed the twinge in her shoulder as the battery dragged at her side; she was distracted by a new, burgeoning sense of responsibility, a fierce impatience to get on with things. It was as if, with George leaving, the clock had begun to spin faster, its ticking becoming louder and more insistent, a persistent reminder that it was high time she volunteered. Officially. Doing real work, making a solid contribution to help win the war. The trouble was, she felt tethered to Pipley like a barrage balloon.
Sighing, she took a moment to appreciate the beauty of Hertfordshire in the spring. The greys and browns of winter had, at long last, been vanquished by a downy blanket of spring green, speckled with the sunny yellow of daffodils and the luminous violet of wild bluebells. It was good to remember that life carried on—all the best parts of it—even when it seemed as if hope was gradually giving way.
The insistent buzz of an aeroplane sounded suddenly in the companionable silence, putting Olive instantly on alert. Moving closer to Jonathon, poised to take his arm, Olive braced for the possibility of an air-raid siren. It didn’t come. Instead, they stood still, watching one of their own, a Vickers Wellington, bisect the sky above them, heading west.
“Now that George has gone”—Jonathon’s already quiet voice was dampened further by the drone of the engines far above them—“are you planning on leaving, too?”
Olive Bright, Pigeoneer Page 4