Alec laughed. ‘I take it you’ve got used to them now.’
‘Yes. Uncle William’s got a lot. He milks them twice a day. He gets gallons and gallons of milk from them. And it goes off in big churns to the dairy.’
‘He’s got pigs, too,’ Lenny put in. ‘And he grows things. We helped lift the spuds and got paid for it.’
‘That’s good. So, you are happy here?’
‘It’s all right,’ Donny admitted. ‘Not like home though.’
‘Home is gone, lads. Flattened.’ He had gone there first after his ship docked. It hadn’t been much of a house; two up and two down with a privy in the back yard. In the early years of his marriage, he had been ambitious, wanting to better himself and improve the lives of his family. ‘We’ll save to find somewhere better,’ he had told Doreen. ‘I can’t spend much at sea, and I’m not a drinker, so I’ll send you all the money I can spare and you can put it into savings. We’ll build up a nice little nest egg for when I leave the service.’ It hadn’t worked like that. She hadn’t saved a penny and complained he never sent enough, that the boys grew out of their clothes faster than she could replace them. He might have accepted that if she had made an effort, but the boys were poorly clad in someone else’s cast-offs and she had a wardrobe full of clothes for herself. Well-meaning neighbours had told him she was out every night, leaving the boys on their own, and though she said she was with girl friends, she had been seen more than once with a man. When he taxed her with it, it had caused a row and she accused him of believing gossips before her. If it had not been for the twins he would not have come home at all. Now she was gone, he really could not be sorry, except, of course, she was the boys’ mother.
‘So Mum really is dead?’ Lenny queried.
‘Yes. I’m sorry, boys.’
‘What’s going to happen to us, Dad? We won’t have to go into one o’ them orphanages, will we?’
‘No, of course not. Has Mrs Wainright said you will?’
‘No, she said we could stay with her, but I don’t think she meant for ever.’
‘I expect she meant until the war ended and I came home for good.’
‘But you’re in the Navy.’
‘I’ll have to come out of it, won’t I? We’ll find another house. Don’t worry.’
‘Mrs Wainright’s nice,’ Lenny said. ‘She don’t ever beat us. She gets cross sometimes, though.’
He smiled. ‘I expect you deserve it.’
‘Yes, I ’spec’ so.’ This was said with a huge sigh. Donny gave him a nudge with his elbow and he fell silent.
Alec noted it but did not comment. ‘What about the others?’
‘They’re all right,’ Donny conceded.
‘I like Aunty Daphne the best,’ Lenny said. ‘She don’ grumble at us and she ’elped us clear up our bedroom when—’
‘Shut up, Lenny,’ Donny said. ‘Dad don’ want to know about that.’
‘Ah, but supposing I do?’
‘It weren’t nuffin. We made it untidy, tha’s all. And there’s Miss Wainright.’ Donny attempted to change the subject. ‘She teaches the infants. Sometimes she ’elps us wiv our ’omework, ’cos we’re going to sit the scholarship. If we pass we’ll go to the grammar school in Attlesham next September.’
‘Then you must work hard and pass it. A grammar school education will make all the difference when you grow up.’
They walked on. ‘Tha’s where Lady Barstairs lives,’ Lenny said, pointing to the drive of the Hall. ‘Miss Wainright said she’s Aunty Kathy’s cousin. It’s enormous, as big as a palace, but there ain’t no princesses there. She’s got a big garden too, big as a park, with a lake an’ a summer house an’ all.’ Another dig in the ribs from his brother and he stopped.
‘We collected pans and things for a Spitfire,’ Donny said. ‘They said whoever collected the most would get to name it. We was goin’ to call it “Doreen”, but we didn’t win.’
‘Never mind. I’m sure Mummy would have appreciated the effort.’
‘Do you think she c’n see us?’ Lenny asked, with a worried frown. ‘Can she look down and see what we’re doin’?’
‘I don’t know. Do you think she can?’
‘’Course she can’t,’ Donny said dismissively. ‘Tha’s poppycock.’
They turned in at the farm gate just as Daphne was coming across the yard, rolling a churn of milk towards the gate. Alec hurried to help her with it, then they all trooped in for tea.
That evening, after the boys had gone to bed, Daphne and Alec strolled down to the pub. They sat in the bar chatting, mostly about the boys. ‘I’m so glad you came and you’re going to stay a little while,’ she said. ‘They’ve been so homesick.’
‘What’s this about the big house? Lenny wanted to talk about it, but Donny stopped him. And they said something about making their room a mess and you helping to clear it up.’
Daphne told him about their reaction on being told of their mother’s death without mentioning the small hoard of booty they had stored in their wardrobe. ‘Don’t tell the boys I told you,’ she ended.
‘Poor little devils. It isn’t as if their home life was anything to shout about. I hate to say it, but Doreen wasn’t the best mother in the world.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Tell me about yourself? How did you come to be a land girl?’
They moved on to easier subjects and on the way home she told him about the dance in Attlesham that Saturday. Alec said he’d like to take her, and Daphne said yes.
They went out walking with the boys several times in the week that followed and when the time came for him to go back to his ship he asked her to write to him. ‘You could give me all the news and tell me what the boys are up to,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to write to them more often. I feel guilty that I haven’t done so before but I thought their mother was writing and visiting, and when you’re at sea—’
‘Of course I will,’ she said. She liked Alec Carter and she really wouldn’t mind if what looked liked the beginning of a friendship developed into something more.
Helen heard the drone of an aeroplane just as dawn was breaking. Everyone in Beckbridge heard it. It was flying low, circling round and round. She wondered if it was in trouble and peered out of her bedroom curtains to look. It seemed right overhead. She could see the cross on its fuselage. There had been no alert, so this one must be lost. She wished it would go away. And then she saw the bomb, saw it as clear as day, and it seemed to be coming straight for her, screeching like a banshee. She flung herself under the bed as the explosion rocked the house to its solid foundations. The noise was followed by the sound of breaking glass and debris falling to earth. Something big landed on the roof; she heard it sliding down and then crashing to the ground. And then there was an eerie silence. She waited. Nothing. She waited a little longer, hardly daring to breathe.
‘My lady, are you all right?’ It was Mrs Ward outside her bedroom.
Feeling foolish, she scrambled out of her hiding place and went to open the door. Mrs Ward was standing in a dressing gown, her long grey hair hanging down in plaits. She was carrying a candle in a metal candlestick and her face, in its glow, was as white as the winceyette nightdress she wore. ‘Yes, I’m fine Mrs Ward. What about you and Mr Ward?’
‘We’re right as rain but the electricity’s gone off. I’m going to stir up the embers and put the kettle on the range. Shall I bring you a cup of tea?’
‘No, I’ll come down and have it in the kitchen. Then I’ll have to inspect the damage.’
‘I think it’s mostly broken windows and tiles off the roof. John’s gone out to look.’
‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
The housekeeper went downstairs, the guttering candle casting her shadow on the wall as she went. Helen went to the window. There was no glass in it and the frame was twisted. She dare not touch it. Over two hundred years the house had stood, defying wind and weather and the ravages of man, but now it, too, was a casualty of
war. The aeroplane had gone. She could see where the bomb had dropped because there was a gap in the trees that ringed the park and there was the flicker of flames, like a large bonfire. She dressed in trousers and jumper and went downstairs.
Mrs Ward was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea. She poured one for Helen and offered her the biscuit barrel. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, my lady, I should ha’ put them on a plate. I wasn’t thinking.’
Helen smiled. ‘As if that mattered at a time like this.’ She dipped her hand in, brought out a digestive and bit into it.
Mr Ward came in the back door dressed in trousers and dressing gown. ‘There’s hardly a complete window in the front of the house and a lot of tiles off the roof, and a chimney’s come down. If I could get my hands on that there Hitler, I’d string him up myself.’
Helen smiled suddenly, thinking of her father. He would have been angry, not afraid, and she was angry too, railing against the injustice. How could she ask Anne and Laura to come and live in a place with no windows and half the roof open to the sky? Anne had had her operation three weeks before and appeared to be getting over it, though she was still in hospital. Cambridge was no more than forty miles away and Helen had been to visit her and had seen Laura several times. Laura was always friendly but there was a wariness about her, as if she could not quite believe the story her mother had told her. On the other hand, she had never hinted that she did not. Anne might say she wasn’t a very good liar, so perhaps she had not quite explained away the sudden affluence to Laura’s satisfaction. Helen wondered if Anne was simply sticking her head in the sand. And, strangely, Helen herself was beginning to wonder how badly she wanted Laura to know the truth. All the years of wishing and longing and feeling angry had suddenly dissipated. Wouldn’t it be better simply to be a friend of the family, someone who could be relied on to help when help was needed, perhaps a confidante? Wouldn’t that be easier than all the upset telling the truth would surely bring about?
‘I’m just going to see what’s happened,’ she said, pulling on Wellington boots and tucking her trousers into them.
She knew where to go, the gap in the trees had told her plainly enough. Walking across the damp grass, she was reminded of the last time she had been there. It was when she had discovered that hoard of contraband. She had been so full of her meeting with Anne she had forgotten all about ringing Constable Harris, and he had not come to see her, so she supposed Mrs Harris had forgotten to pass on her message. It had gone clear out of her head since then, which wasn’t surprising considering she had been occupied with arranging Anne’s operation and going to visit her, musing on her relationship with Laura and wondering if it would be in order to remember her birthday.
The explosion, which had uprooted a tree and set fire to its dry branches, had burnt itself out. The charred remains of the summer house were hanging over the edge of a huge hole. The cricket bats and croquet hoops were broken and scattered. Broken glass crunched beneath her boots. The bench had been wrenched apart and the contents had tumbled out into the bottom of the hole. She peered into it. In among the earth and rubble were broken boxes of chocolate, dented tins, smashed bottles. The smell of whisky and cheap perfume wafted up to her. She sank onto the ground and laughed aloud. It was so bizarre.
‘It fell in the grounds of the Hall,’ Joyce said, bringing the mail up to the farm and the local gossip with it. William and the boys were still sitting over their breakfast, talking about the explosion; Kathy was standing at the table, teapot in hand. She had heard Joyce’s bicycle bell and was already pouring a cup of tea for her. ‘There’s hardly a winder left and half the roof’s gone.’
‘What about Lady Helen?’ William asked. ‘And the Wards?’
‘I just saw Charlie Harris on his way up there to find out. I reckon they’ll be shaken up even if they’re not injured.’
‘Did it land on the house itself?’
‘Dunno, don’t think so. I saw a bit of a fire in the grounds, down towards the lake. Can’t think what there is down there that would burn.’
Everyone was too busy listening to her to notice Lenny’s gasp of shock and Donny’s vicious kicking of his shins.
‘The summer house and an old boathouse,’ Kathy said, remembering. They had had fun there when they were young, playing croquet and cricket and swimming in the lake. They’d take the boat out and tip each other overboard and laugh a lot, she and Helen and the young men they entertained, all properly chaperoned, of course. Another age, another lifetime ago. Another war, too. That had changed everything. Her cousin Brandon had been killed and Uncle Henry seemed to want to fill the void with other young men. Richard among them. He had come to the Hall and spent a whole leave there. Uncle Henry had given him the freedom of the stables and, as riding was one of Kathy’s favourite pastimes, they frequently found themselves riding together. He was so handsome, so gentlemanly; she had fallen hopelessly in love with him. She was devastated when Helen said she was going to marry him. She wouldn’t have minded, she told herself, if Helen had been truly in love with him, but Helen had seemed very cool about it. And, of course, she had to endure being a bridesmaid. She had cried buckets of tears that night.
‘Get yourself another young man,’ her mother had advised her, having little sympathy. She didn’t want another young man, not then, although there were several about. William, for a start. She had known him since childhood; his family had been regular churchgoers, part of her father’s congregation, and she had gone out with him several times. She had turned to him in her unhappiness and they had been married towards the end of 1916. But Helen marrying Richard was not the cause of the rift with her, not altogether; it was the discovery of her cousin’s perfidy. Helen was married to a man fighting for King and country and yet she met Oliver secretly in the summer house. Kathy had seen them there and what they had been doing was unspeakable. She had taxed Helen with betraying Richard, called her a common tart and other dreadful names which couldn’t be unsaid. Accusations of spying were hurled in retaliation.
‘I’d better go up there and see if there is anything I can do to help,’ William said, after Joyce had gone. ‘If the place is badly damaged, I’ll ask her to come and stay, shall I?’ He paused, noticing Kathy’s hesitation. ‘Whatever happened between you and Helen was a long time ago and it’s not like you to bear a grudge.’
‘Go on,’ her mother put in. ‘She is your cousin after all. She can have my room. I can manage in one of the attic rooms.’
Alice had always deplored the estrangement of the two families who had once been so close. Her sister, Louise, had married the Earl of Hardingham and gone to live at Beckbridge Hall, which elevated her above the normal run of the villagers, while Alice herself had married Daniel Broomfield, a curate at a parish on the other side of Attlesham, until he took over from the retiring vicar at St Andrew’s in Beckbridge, bringing her back to her roots. She and Louise had remained close and their daughters had grown up together, until their lives were ripped apart by the Great War. She didn’t entirely blame Helen for what happened, though Kathy had. Poor Kathy! It was just as well she hadn’t married Richard, considering he hadn’t survived. She was better off with William. Salt of the earth was William, even if he was a bit of a plodder.
Unable to explain how she felt, Kathy gave in, telling herself, as she had done hundreds of times before, that if Richard had been serious about her, he would not have married someone else and she had entirely misread the signs. She could not blame Helen for that, even if she did deplore her relationship with Oliver. It was water under the bridge now. ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she told her mother. ‘If she wants to come, she can have Steve’s room, at least while he’s away.’
She watched William put on his boots and reach for his cap; sturdy, dependable William, the best of husbands. She turned and sent the twins off to school.
Helen was walking back across the grass when William approached her. ‘Seems you’ve had a bad to-do,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m glad it didn’t land on the house, though there’s no end of windows broken and a chimney pot came down and brought a lot of tiles with it. There’s no electricity either.’ She nodded over her shoulder. ‘The summer house has gone, there’s nothing there but a heap of wood and a huge hole. And something else. Come and see.’
He followed her, wondering how she could be so cheerful. ‘Look down there.’ She pointed down into the hole.
‘Good Lord! What is it?’
‘I think it’s black market stuff. It was hidden in the summer house.’
He scrambled down and picked some of it up. Very little of it was usable. ‘Someone is going to be a touch mad when he sees what’s happened to his precious hoard.’
‘Yes.’ She held out her hand to haul him out again. ‘I hope no one thinks I knew anything about it.’
He laughed. ‘I shouldn’t think so for a minute.’
‘I was on my way to find a phone to report it to Constable Harris. Our line is down.’
‘I’ll do it, if you like.’
‘Thank you.’
He walked beside her to the Hall and stood outside peering up at the roof. ‘We’d better get some tarpaulin over that before it rains. ‘I’ll ring the builders for you, shall I?’ She followed as he walked all round the house, counting windows. ‘Sixty-five,’ he said. ‘I never knew you had so many.’
She laughed. ‘I never counted them before.’
‘Well, it’s clear you’ll have to move out until the house is made habitable.’
‘It is habitable, certainly no worse than the houses some poor Londoners are living in.’
‘They have no choice. You have. Come and stay with us.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, thanks all the same. Kathy—’
‘It was Kathy’s idea.’
She didn’t believe him but pretended she did. ‘That was kind of her, but it isn’t necessary.’
‘At least come down and have lunch with us while I sort out the builders for you.’
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