The Brooklands Girls

by Margaret Dickinson

  There was a long silence before George said, ‘Pips, there’s something I have to tell you.’

  She turned to face him, but he was staring straight ahead watching the cars still thundering round the track. She could tell by the tone of his voice that it was something serious. ‘Go on,’ she said gently.

  ‘My wife took her own life last November on Armistice Day.’

  Pips gasped. ‘Oh George, I’m so very sorry. I thought she’d be so much better when you got home.’

  ‘She seemed to be – for a while. Rebecca and I tried everything. We took her to every doctor we could find. And whilst they were good – very sympathetic and understanding – nothing seemed to help. She was given so many pills that, evidently, she just stored them up – unbeknown to us, of course – and took an overdose.’

  ‘How – how is Rebecca?’

  ‘Very bitter. I think she blames me.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘For being away for so long.’

  ‘The war was hardly your fault. And you were a regular soldier. You had to go. Besides, weren’t you in the army from a young age? You were already a soldier when you married, weren’t you?’

  George nodded. ‘Yes. If I think about it rationally, I know I’m not to blame, but it saddens me that Rebecca feels that way. There – there was some instability in Alison’s family. Her mother was in an institution for several years. She died in there. I didn’t want the same to happen to Alison. That’s why we cared for her at home.’

  ‘Doesn’t Rebecca understand that?’

  ‘Maybe she will in time, but just now . . .’

  He said no more, but his meaning was obvious.

  Pips didn’t quite know what to say. ‘George, I . . .’

  ‘Don’t, Pips, please don’t say anything. I haven’t come here to embarrass you, I promise. I still feel the same about you – that will never change – but I know there can never be anything between us. There’s such a big age difference and besides . . .’ he smiled wryly, ‘I am sure by now you have a long line of young men queuing up. Unless, of course, there’s already someone you’re serious about . . .’ Even the former army officer could not keep the hope from his tone. She could tell that he longed to hear her say the words: No, there is no one.

  Despite the seriousness of their conversation, she sought to lighten it. She turned to watch his face as she said, ‘There is someone very special . . .’ She saw the hope in his eyes die and was sorry that she had thought to tease him. ‘A little girl called Daisy. She’s my niece and she’s three years old. But no, there’s no man, I promise you.’

  ‘Are you – still in love with Dr Kendall?’

  George had been there when she had found out that Giles had deceived her. He had been the one to comfort her and take care of her.

  ‘Good Heavens, no! He’s not worth a second thought,’ she said spiritedly and then added more thoughtfully, ‘but I suppose the experience made me more wary. I tend to take what flirtatious young men say to me with the proverbial pinch of salt now.’

  ‘So, how did you get into the racing world?’

  Pips laughed. ‘I don’t think you ever met Milly Fortesque, did you? She came out to join the ambulance corps quite late on in the war just before Arras and Passchendaele.’

  George shook his head. ‘It would have been after I left that area, then.’

  ‘She dragged me to London to stay with her, though I have to admit I didn’t take much persuading. Through her I met up with Mitch Hammond, whom I’d met in the war too. He goes racing and flying – anything to do with speed, you could say – rather like me.’

  George smiled, watching her face become animated just talking about it.

  ‘There’s a whole group of them – including women – and, well, it was just what I needed.’

  ‘I can see that,’ he said softly. ‘Does it help you to forget?’

  Pips sighed deeply. ‘Not for long, if I’m honest, but we seem to be able to push it away for a few hours.’

  ‘I was so sorry to hear about your brother’s injury. Dr Hazelwood told me.’

  ‘Yes, he said he’d seen you. He visited us in Lincolnshire soon after the war ended and he still keeps in touch with Father.’

  ‘How is he now? Your brother, I mean?’

  Pips grimaced. ‘Physically, fine. The wound healed well after the operation. He was lucky not to get an infection, but it’s his mental state that worries me. He’s very depressed. My father says that in the old days it would be referred to as melancholia.’

  George nodded and said softly, ‘That was the diagnosis given to my wife, but Robert’s case is surely very different. Not only has he suffered a catastrophic injury that has altered the course of his life – because I presume it has – but he also has the same dreadful memories that we all have to deal with.’

  Pips sighed. ‘He could still do some kind of medical work. We’re all trying to get him to study the condition that’s now coming to be known as shell shock. We had several patients at the hall with it and he did make a start on writing up notes about each of them, but he seems to have lost the impetus to do even that now, although’ – she smiled impishly – ‘I did give him a good talking to when I was last home and he has started to get in touch with sufferers through Lincoln Hospital, so Alice tells me. And perhaps you don’t know either – unless Dr Hazelwood told you that too – that Robert married Alice.’

  ‘Yes, he did tell me. I’m very glad for them both.’ He was silent for a time before shaking his head slowly. ‘I’ve been an army man all my working life. It’s all I’ve ever known – all I ever wanted to do – yet going through that war, I began to doubt the rightness of being a soldier. It should never have happened and all those fine young men slaughtered – for what?’

  ‘The world is a very different place now, but I don’t think it’s necessarily for the better,’ Pips said. ‘Country borders have changed and people have been uprooted from their homes. And the unrest that seems to be building in this country is frightening. I don’t know where it will end,’ Pips said. ‘And to see former soldiers begging on the city streets is just appalling.’

  ‘The authorities didn’t get the lads home quickly enough after hostilities ended. And, in a lot of cases, there was no work for them to come back to. I suppose one has to have some sympathy for the Russian revolution, yet I’m not sure that the new regime is going to be any better. Different, certainly. But better? Only time will tell.’

  ‘Oh George, it is so good to have someone to have a serious conversation with. I miss that when I’m away from home. Milly is an absolute darling and I’m extremely fond of her, but her conversation centres around the next party or dance. And as for Mitch and Paul – and the rest of their set – their waking hours are wholly centred around cars and flying.’

  George laughed. ‘You seem to be pretty smitten yourself. With the cars and the flying, I mean.’

  Pips had the grace to laugh. ‘Guilty as charged, sir.’

  They sat together a while longer until George said reluctantly, ‘I must go. I’ve a train to catch back into London. I’m taking Rebecca out for dinner this evening.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t take you myself, but let me see if I can find someone to give you a lift back to the station.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s not far.’ He smiled. ‘For a former soldier, used to route marches, it’s no distance.’

  Pips grinned. ‘That’s why it’s so perfectly positioned within walking distance from the station. It brings a lot of people from London. Where are you staying?’

  ‘We have a small, two-bedroomed apartment in Clapham.’

  ‘You’re living down here? In London?’

  ‘I still have a house near York, but it seemed ridiculous to stay up there on my own. I’ve rented it out for the time being.’

  ‘Rebecca’s with you, then?’

  ‘Sort of. She’s at the London Hospital and although she stays there when she’s on duty, she can
get home on her days off.’

  ‘Is she enjoying nursing?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very much.’ He paused and seemed suddenly ill at ease. ‘I’d very much like you to meet her. Would you – would you be able to have dinner with us one evening?’

  ‘I’d like that. Here, I’ll give you Milly’s address. Just drop me a note. I won’t be going back home to Lincolnshire for a couple of weeks. I’m needed at Hazelwood House.’ She went on to tell him about her work there.

  ‘Perhaps that’s something I could do too,’ George murmured as he carefully tucked the piece of paper on which Pips had scribbled Milly’s address into his inside pocket. He smiled. ‘I’ll see you again, then.’

  Nineteen

  ‘Are you the reason my mother killed herself?’

  Pips had received George’s invitation to join him and his daughter Rebecca at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand for dinner. She had arrived to be warmly greeted by George, but coldly so by the stony-faced young woman at his side. Rebecca was slim with her long brown hair plaited and wound around her head. Her features were even, though the rather sulky mouth spoiled what could have been a pretty face. She had shaken Pips’s proffered hand limply before turning away to march ahead to the reserved table. Conversation over the meal had been stilted and awkward and now Pips understood why. Whilst her father had gone to settle the bill, Rebecca had dropped her bombshell question.

  Shocked, Pips stared at Rebecca. ‘Good Heavens, no. How could I be? She never knew me.’

  Rebecca frowned. ‘But she might have known about you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to know, except that I met your father out in Belgium during the war.’

  ‘He’s in love with you. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you. It’s – it’s how he used to look at my mother.’

  For a moment, Pips’s composure was shaken, but then she lifted her chin and met Rebecca’s gaze. ‘There’s nothing between us, Rebecca. There never was.’

  ‘Maybe not yet, but he’d like there to be.’

  ‘Has he told you that?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘Then you can’t possibly know. I’m desperately sorry to hear about your mother’s death, but don’t blame your father for it. She was a very poorly lady.’

  ‘She was all right when I was at home looking after her.’

  Pips put her head on one side and asked gently, ‘Was she? Was she – really?’

  Rebecca bit her lip. ‘She was missing my father then.’

  ‘And was she better when he came home for good?’

  Rebecca glared at her, as if Pips was making her face truths she’d rather not face. ‘I left home then. Father insisted that I build my own life and so I came to London to train to be a nurse. So, then I was the one who was missing.’

  ‘You think she wanted you both at home? With her?’

  ‘Yes, of course she did.’

  ‘So why didn’t you? Stay at home, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, so now you’re trying to turn the tables and say it was my fault.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ Pips said sharply. ‘Your mother was a sick woman and I don’t think anything – or anyone – could have prevented her from doing what she did.’

  Rebecca glanced over Pips’s shoulder to the far side of the room. ‘I think he’s coming back. Please don’t tell him what I said. He’d be so angry.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. But I promise you, Rebecca, there was never anything romantic between us. He was kind to me at a very difficult point in my life, that’s all. Your father was – and is – a true gentleman and a good and faithful husband.’

  Rebecca glared at her and Pips could see in her eyes that the young woman did not believe her. But there was nothing else she could say. If she persisted, it would perhaps seem like ‘the lady doth protest too much’.

  At last Rebecca blurted out, ‘I don’t want you to see him again.’

  Pips was mystified. Whatever was the matter with the girl? She was behaving like a jealous wife, not a grown-up daughter who was forging her own life and career. Now Pips was angry. ‘I rather think that’s for your father to decide, don’t you?’ she said stiffly.

  ‘No, I don’t. He’s vulnerable since Mummy’s death and I’ve seen how he looks at you and I know about women like you.’

  ‘Women like me?’

  ‘Yes, women who went to the front who weren’t proper nurses yet thought they could bring “comfort to the troops”.’

  Pips was appalled at Rebecca’s insinuation, but she managed to keep her temper in check. ‘I admit I was not a fully trained nurse. Although I took an intensive first-aid course before I went, my main job was driving ambulances to ferry the wounded from the front back to the first-aid posts. If you ask him, your father would verify that. There was no “comforting the troops”, as you’re suggesting.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of talking to him about you or even mentioning your name after today. I shall do my best to prevent him seeing you again.’ Rebecca rose as George neared the table. She held out her hand to Pips, who also stood up and took it.

  ‘It’s been very nice to meet you, Miss Maitland, but we must go now. I have to be back at the hospital. I’m on duty at six.’

  As he joined them, Rebecca tucked her hand possessively through her father’s. ‘Come along, Daddy. I have to get back.’

  For a moment George looked nonplussed – a little lost, Pips thought. So with an impish smile, she moved towards him and kissed his cheek. ‘It’s been lovely to see you again, George. Take care of yourself.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said. ‘I wanted to show you around this place. It has a history as a meeting place for chess players and for holding tournaments. I thought it would interest you. Never mind. Another time, perhaps.’

  Pips stepped back, nodded but said no more. As she watched them leave the restaurant, her eyes narrowed. Rebecca had certainly underestimated her. What the young woman couldn’t possibly know on such a short acquaintance was that the more Pips was told not to do something, the more she was likely to do it.

  Not many days had passed before Pips received another note from George asking her to have lunch with him on any day that suited her.

  Rebecca has a week of night duty, he wrote, so I’m rattling around this flat on my own. Any day will suit me.

  They arranged to meet at the same restaurant as before on a Wednesday. This time he was able to take her on a tour of the restaurant and show her the original chess set on display in the Bishop’s Room.

  ‘During the last century it was the venue for chess players and tournaments,’ George explained. ‘Matches were played against other coffee houses and runners carried the moves between them.’

  Pips laughed. ‘It must have slowed the games down.’

  ‘It hosted several world matches and even the first women’s world tournament. But, before you ask,’ he teased her, ‘during the last few years the popularity for holding chess tournaments here has declined, though I think they still hold one now and again.’

  Pips chuckled. ‘What a shame. I was thinking of putting my name down.’

  A waiter approached them and said that their table was ready.

  ‘I’m going up to Lincolnshire on Friday for the weekend. Mother is holding a twenty-first birthday party for Jake on Sunday in the grounds, if it’s fine,’ Pips said, as they sat down. She went on to tell him all about Jake and ended, ‘Would you like to come with me?’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be an imposition on your mother?’

  Pips shook her head. ‘Not at all. She always keeps a spare room ready for unexpected visitors and I’m sure Robert – and Alice – would like to see you again. And I would love you to meet Daisy.’

  He regarded her solemnly. ‘Are you sure? About Robert, I mean? Wouldn’t it revive memories he’s striving so hard to forget?’

  ‘Robert must learn to face his demons – as we all must. Perhaps you could help us a little by telling him how valuable you think his work is. That�
��s if you do.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ George said swiftly. ‘And I’d be more than happy to talk about it, if he wants to.’

  ‘You must make him,’ Pips said bluntly.

  George was made most welcome at the hall and on the Saturday evening, Major Basil Fieldsend and his wife, Rosemary, were guests too. Pips had forewarned her family of the manner of George’s wife’s death and how his daughter was now very possessive of him, so that they were all careful in the questions they asked. Henrietta – as always – seemed to be calculating whether or not he would make a suitable husband for Pips.

  ‘There’s a big age difference between you, Pips,’ she remarked as the four women retired to the Brown Parlour after dinner leaving the men to talk and drink port around the dining table for a little while longer.

  ‘Mother dearest, George was extremely kind to me at the time Giles jilted me. We are good friends, that is all.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Alice said softly. ‘Not on his side anyway.’

  ‘Oh Alice, don’t you start matchmaking too,’ Pips laughed.

  Alice shrugged. ‘I could see it before – out there – but, of course, his wife was still alive and I’m sure he was too much of a gentleman ever to say anything then, but now . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished, but the implication in her words was obvious.

  ‘Mrs Fieldsend, do come to my rescue – please,’ Pips said. ‘They’re joining forces against me.’

  Rosemary Fieldsend chuckled. ‘My dear Pips, it is your mother’s dearest wish to see you happily settled. You can hardly blame her for that.’

  ‘What does he do now that he has left the army?’ Henrietta persisted.

  ‘As far as I know, nothing.’

  ‘Does he get any sort of army pension or has he private means, do you know?’

  ‘Mother – really!’

  Henrietta shrugged. ‘I just want to know what you might be getting yourself into, that’s all, if what Alice says is true.’

  Pips opened her mouth to retort, but at that moment they heard the menfolk leaving the Great Hall and coming into the parlour.

  For the moment, the subject nearest to Henrietta’s heart was closed.