The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Good – well, that settles it then,’ Kate said briskly. ‘Billy’s quite right, Poppy. You have to wear it because you will look smashin’ in it. As he says, really smashin’. And what more could anyone want on their wedding day?’

  As he drove down from London to Eden Park that day Scott was in such a state of excitement about his forthcoming marriage that he could hardly think straight, which could well explain his forgetfulness. He had never thought about marriage until he had met Poppy, but her heady mixture of reserve and devil-may-care humour, her ability to let him be himself, and her lack of vanity combined with a ready sense of the ridiculous, had quite bowled him over. And now that this was the day they were finally to be married, every other thought went clean from his happy head.

  For Scott was as sure of Poppy’s love for him as he was of his love for her, even though they loved each other in quite different ways. Scott loved to adore and spoil Poppy while she preferred to keep just a little bit of distance, as if to make him wonder if he was coming quite up to the mark. Scott loved this. He knew it was a sort of game – some kind of tease – but he found it a brilliant and exciting one, which was the very reason he was so anxious to marry her: so that he could keep trying to please her. The fact that at the last minute Jack Ward had suddenly summoned him to a meeting that had, as far as Scott was concerned, gone on far too long, leaving him only just enough time to make it back to Eden Park, now did not seem to matter in the least, because he was on his way. He was on his way to get married to Poppy, and that was all that mattered. He didn’t know how long a honeymoon they would have, nor did he care. That was the nature of the life they all now lived; from one moment to the next. Some people had two hours together before being separated once more, but as far as he knew they would have more than that. They had a whole day and a night at the very least, and perhaps even longer – and what they were granted they would embrace knowing as they did that even an hour together, in war, was a lifetime.

  Scott was on his way to marry the beautiful and divine Poppy, and in spite of the snow flurries and the bitter cold he was so happy he sang out loud and very loudly too – but just after he started singing, his car ran out of petrol.

  ‘What can I have been thinking of?’ he wondered as he pointlessly tapped and then knocked the empty petrol gauge with one gloved fist. ‘Why didn’t I check on the petrol!’

  He got out of the car and stared bleakly at the equally desolate countryside.

  ‘And today of all days! What can I have been thinking!’

  To everyone’s amazement, particularly that of Kate who had found herself largely in sole charge of the wedding arrangements, somehow or other Mrs Alderman had even managed to make a wedding cake for the happy couple.

  ‘Mrs Alderman,’ Kate sighed when she saw the large, three-tiered cake sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. ‘Given the circumstances that has to be the most amazing cake I have ever seen!’

  Mrs Alderman nodded, an expression of justifiable pride on her face. It was. It was truly beautiful. It even had the statutory bride and groom on top of the topmost tier.

  ‘The best I could do in the circumstances, Miss Maddox.’

  ‘The best, Mrs Alderman? You are some sort of genius! How did you manage? Where did you get the ingredients?’

  Kate now stood by the table, frowning at the huge white iced cake, at Cook’s masterpiece, unable to believe that with the stringency of food rationing she had been able to make and bake such a marvel.

  ‘I couldn’t get the ingredients, dear,’ Mrs Alderman confessed. ‘It’s not all cake at all. It’s a fake. Here – look. The top lifts off, see?’

  In demonstration she lifted up the top of the cake, revealing a small dark brown chocolate cake underneath. ‘There’s the real cake underneath, see? Proper chocolate cake, using proper chocolate for the icing that is, which isn’t breaking the law, I do assure you, Miss Maddox. C Section and H Section, and all the rest of them, they all helped out, donating sugar and stuff so as at least I could manage to bake something, but we could never have done this for real. Not in a month of Sundays. Still, it’s not bad for what it is, even though I do say it meself. The clever thing about it is – the real beauty of it is – seeing that chocolate isn’t a bridal colour – the beauty of it is the false top. Something young Billy come up with.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Kate smiled. ‘That’s Billy. That’s Billy all over. And never a word about it.’

  ‘He’s quite a lad, young Billy, and a bit of a perfectionist, too, so he is. Wasn’t happy till we got the colour right for the icing, and he worked all hours to get the sheen on it – scrounged something from the chemist in the village which he rubbed over the paint to make it look just so – and a dashed fine job he made of it, too, even though I say it meself. It looks just the job, until you get right up close, that is.’

  ‘Put the top back on, Mrs A., before I’m tempted.’ Kate laughed. ‘I was up so early I’m starving. I’ve still got a thousand things to do, so I’d better run anyway – got to collect some butterfly cakes for the wedding feast from the estate bakery and then some lettuces from the vicar’s wife. Everybody’s been quite wonderful. You should see what everyone has donated. Even people who can’t come to the wedding have given us things – it’s absolutely marvellous.’

  The end result, when it was laid out on the large table in the entrance of the Dunne Arms, was certainly marvellous in as much as it was the strangest collection of foodstuffs anyone was likely to see. Plates of sandwiches made from dried eggs, bottles of children’s orange juice to go with dusty half-bottles of gin, marble-stoppered flagons of home-made ginger beer, obscure pudding wines, tins of custard, bottles of jam, even priceless boxes of chocolates had been taken out of cupboards and hidey-holes and brought reverently to the reception hall to be placed on the antique lace tablecloth.

  ‘Scott’s been held up,’ a breathless Miss Budge reported as she hurried downstairs from her office to break the news to the wedding party that was beginning to congregate in the main hall of the house. ‘He’s only just managed to get to a telephone that’s working, and it seems he’s run out of petrol.’

  ‘He what?’ Marjorie echoed in disbelief. ‘He’s run out of petrol on his wedding day?’

  ‘It’s a borrowed car, apparently,’ Miss Budge continued. ‘From the Ministry pool, and the one thing he forgot to check – thinking there’d be a full tank – was the petrol.’

  ‘So where is he now?’ Kate wondered, realising Poppy would have to be informed.

  ‘Somewhere the other side of Framlington.’

  ‘But that’s over thirty miles away!’ Marjorie cried. ‘How’s he going to get here in time?’

  ‘He’s not,’ Kate sighed. ‘I’d better go and tell Poppy.’

  The sky was fast becoming overcast, the weak winter sun disappearing behind a bank of clouds laden with snow.

  Wandering disconsolately along what seemed to be a totally deserted road, Scott was just about to give up hope when he heard the backfire of a car in the near distance. Moments later a dark green Ford 8 chugged slowly round the bend and into sight, to be immediately flagged down by Scott.

  ‘Got a problem, chum?’ the driver asked out of his half-opened window.

  Scott resisted the temptation to reply that actually he only flagged down cars for fun and explained that he had run out of petrol.

  ‘Not a clever thing to do,’ the driver replied, with a sage-like shake of his grey head. ‘Not seeing what old Mother Nature has in store for us.’ He nodded up at the darkening sky, then leaned across to open the passenger door. ‘Hop in, chum. I can take you as far as Shamley if that’s any good to you.’

  Scott hesitated, looking back the way he had come. ‘What about my car?’

  ‘If there’s no petrol in it, no need to worry. Gallon of juice is more valuable than a car nowadays.’

  Scott climbed in beside the driver. The man was quite right. There was no point in worrying about the car beca
use it wasn’t any use to anyone without petrol. And it was now beginning to snow quite heavily. Staying with your sinking ship was one thing, but Scott considered that staying with a War Office motor car in freezing conditions was quite another.

  ‘Sorry I can’t take you any further than Shamley,’ the driver said as they drove slowly off. ‘How far are you going?’

  ‘Eden Park,’ Scott replied. ‘Other side of Benton.’

  ‘Bit of a hike, eh? Maybe you’ll get lucky in Shamley. Never know – maybe you’ll get lucky twice.’

  Scott got lucky three times, particularly when the two ladies who gave him his last lift found out he was getting married and squandered the last of their month’s petrol allowance driving Scott all the way to the Park.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ he said to the two women as he disembarked.

  ‘Nonsense! It was a pleasure!’ the one driving barked. ‘Now hurry along with you! She won’t wait for ever!’

  By now twilight had fallen, as well as a good three inches of snow that had made the last part of the journey slow going. Scott had invited the two intrepid ladies who had given him his last lift to come to the wedding, but they were determined to reach their own destination, which was only a couple of miles back, before they got completely snowed in, so he made his own way as quickly as he could along the snow-covered path that led to the heavily studded oak door of the little church that lay to the east of the main house, fully expecting to find that the wedding party had long since gone home. Instead the door was opened to him by Anthony Folkestone, who was waiting to greet him with the kind of calm smile for which the British military are justifiably famed.

  ‘Well done, Scott,’ he said. ‘Jolly good show. Given the weather I’d say you’ve got a jolly lucky thumb.’

  ‘You haven’t been waiting in here all the time, I hope?’ Scott said cautiously, looking round the little candlelit nave.

  ‘Not a bit of it.’ Anthony laughed. ‘Chap who gave you your lift to East Wisley telephoned the pub to say you were only an hour away, so we went on to standby immediately. Very decent of him. Seems weddings bring out the romantic in us all. Billy? You’d better go and tell the bride her groom has finally made it.’

  ‘Yes sir!’ Billy said in great delight, giving a smart salute in return. ‘I’m on my way!’

  Five minutes later Poppy duly arrived up the aisle to the strains of the Wedding March played on the church harmonium, wearing a long fur coat over Kate’s grandmother’s tennis dress, and holding a posy made up of a bunch of paper flowers and a sprig of holly, which had been Mrs Alderman’s idea, and one she was almost as proud of as she was of her wedding cake.

  The wedding service was followed by the best reception everyone thought they had ever attended. It was certainly the most original, thanks to the inventiveness and generosity of the guests, and the wonderful music supplied by the local brass band and a string quartet from the local music school. The celebration was well fuelled by a seemingly endless supply of assorted liquor that kept materialising from everywhere all evening. It mattered not that the egg sandwiches were made from dried eggs, that what should have been ham was Spam, and that the wedding cake was a fake. All that mattered was what always mattered at happy weddings – that two people so obviously in love were getting happily married surrounded by people they loved who obviously loved them too.

  Finally, there being no confetti available, the newly-weds were showered with little white pieces of paper that the ever inventive Billy had collected from the hole-punchers in the Park offices. Everyone cheered the happy couple, wishing them every happiness, not to mention love and joy, all of which was certainly theirs for the first night of their honeymoon – a bliss that lasted until a dawn telephone call informed the bridegroom that he was to leave that morning on his new mission.

  ‘A little peremptory, wouldn’t you say?’ Poppy wondered as she followed Scott into the kitchen, doing up her dressing gown. ‘They could have given you a little longer, surely.’

  ‘There’s a war on, Pop,’ Scott said with a sigh, making them both some tea. ‘We’ve got to think ourselves lucky we at least had last night together.’

  ‘I shall never forget last night, Scott,’ Poppy admitted quietly, putting her arms round him from behind. ‘Not ever.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Scott replied, turning round to face his young wife. ‘And because of that I shall love you for ever too.’

  ‘Do you really have to go?’ Poppy sighed. ‘I mean right now?’

  Her arms were round his neck and the scent of her hair was wonderful, the feel of her skin so soft that for a second he felt dizzy.

  ‘Don’t do this to me. You know I have to go. Right now, too.’

  ‘Not five minutes.’

  ‘Not even two, Pop. You know how it is. Orders are orders.’

  He smiled at her, kissed her once, then, firmly removing her arms from round his neck, moved one step away from her.

  ‘It only makes it even harder,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing’s harder than the fact you’re going to be away,’ Poppy replied. ‘Somewhere in Europe, where the women will all be beautiful and all the handsome men away fighting.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Pop. There is no one more beautiful than you. Not anywhere.’

  ‘Then hurry back to me.’

  ‘I’m on my way back already.’

  He took her in his arms and kissed her passionately, then left.

  Even after his initial briefing, Scott had no idea with whom he was being sent to France. All he had been told so far was that he was being dropped in for what they called a quickie – a short but important mission followed hopefully by a quick and equally efficient departure, the purpose of which was to set up a number of locations to be fitted out with radio communication equipment through which could be broadcast information about enemy fortifications along the French sea coast and all relevant troop movements. As he made his way to the car that he had been told would be waiting for him at the foot of the long drive – now clear of snow thanks to the rain that had fallen overnight – all Scott hoped was that the agent with whom he was being dropped into France was up to snuff.

  He saw the familiar figure of Jack Ward in the front of the large black Austin, pipe in mouth as usual, gloved hands drumming patiently on the steering wheel as he waited for Scott. There was someone sitting up front beside him, someone whose face he could not as yet make out in the early morning gloom.

  ‘You’re Monsieur Doncourt, young man,’ Jack said to him as he climbed into the back. ‘Here are your papers, and allow me to introduce you to your wife, Madame Doncourt.’

  ‘Bonjour, Hervé,’ the woman in the passenger seat said in perfect French. ‘Ça va?’

  Scott stared at his new ‘wife’, into the pretty face that was smiling back at him over one shoulder.

  ‘I’m looking forward to this trip,’ she continued. ‘I hear there are absolutely no food shortages in France – so here’s to la bonne cuisine et le bon vin. N’est-ce pas, cheri?’

  Scott just smiled politely and sat back with a sinking heart as the car moved off. Of all the people to be dropped into France with it couldn’t be anyone else. It had to be the flirt of the Park. It had to be Lily blasted Ormerod.

  Late one afternoon, the sort of fine March day when Kate could almost feel the buds on the trees getting ready to burst into new life, she took herself off for a brisk walk as soon as she finished her shift, and soon found herself headed for Poppy and Scott’s little house in the woods. Poppy had told her that whenever she wanted time to herself, to think or just to relax, she could take herself off there and stay as long as she needed, even if Poppy herself wasn’t there.

  ‘I don’t know what it is about the place,’ Poppy had said. ‘But I’ve found that whenever I get sort of edgy or anxious it takes it all away. It’s such a special place – it’s quite extraordinary. There’s something in the atmosphere there that just seems to unwind one. Takes all one’s cares away. It’s
probably because it’s absurdly peaceful, I don’t know. It’s so quiet there it’s like being in a little bit of heaven.’

  Kate hadn’t really intended to call on Poppy, yet she now found herself being irretrievably drawn to visiting the house. She had no idea whether or not she would find Poppy there; nor was she even certain that it was Poppy she wished to see. Part of her hoped in fact that the house would be empty and she would be able to take a closer look at the enchanting little place. So when there was no answer to her knock, she carefully eased the unlocked front door open and called Poppy’s name, in case she might have missed hearing her.

  There being no reply from anywhere within the house, Kate stepped into the hall where she stood for a long moment in silence, not looking round her, but just experiencing the sense of extraordinary calm that seemed to prevail. Strangely there was not a sound to be heard anywhere, within or without. Even the birds it seemed had fallen to silence. Inevitably she felt as if she had stepped into an entirely different world, a world that was at peace; where love and goodness reigned instead of murder and mayhem.

  After letting the stillness settle around her Kate wandered into the little sitting room. Wherever Poppy was – and whatever the reason for her absence – the place was as immaculate as always, a fire for the evening already set in the hearth, piles of books ready on a table by the sofa, and a vase of freshly picked wild daffodils on top of the upright piano. Even though the fire was as yet unlit, the house was as warm as it might be on a late spring day, rather than a bright and windy March one. With a feeling of sudden contentment, Kate sat on the old but still comfortable sofa that stood to one side of the fireplace, kicked her shoes off and tucking her legs up under her sat staring out of the window opposite.

  She knew she must have been asleep because the light had changed. As she last remembered it the sun had been shining straight into the south-facing room. But now it was shining from the southwest, slanting its rays across the floor and leaving Kate in shadow. Yet she had no recollection of even feeling drowsy, let alone falling asleep. She must have dropped off quite suddenly.