‘Oh.’ Angel swallowed. So many things had happened at home that she didn’t know about. She remembered the Joneses’ daughter Penny, bright and perky, and now she was a young widow, like Rose Morton…
‘I’ll telephone Mrs Jones when you’re coming, Angel. She’ll air your bed for you –’
‘I shan’t stay there, Mummy. I’ll pick up my birth certificate and get the train for Dover. In fact, I really should leave tomorrow –’
‘But you’ve only just got here. I was going to invite some of my ladies round for afternoon tea tomorrow –’
‘I’m sorry. But it’s a long journey.’ And she wanted to be back in France, where her heart was. ‘Will you telephone straight away?’
Clemence looked at her daughter, seeing the new strength in her face, the character that had emerged in the last two years, and felt something that was almost a birth pang.
‘I hate to lose you. It seems I’m always losing one or other of my daughters.’
It was an unexpectedly emotional remark from Clemence, and Angel put her arms around her mother.
‘You’ll never lose us, Mummy. Our ties are too strong. We always come back, don’t we? Louise will come back someday, and bring that lovely baby with her.’
Clemence brightened, moving away from Angel’s embrace.
‘He is beautiful, isn’t he? One would expect him to be, naturally. Good breeding always shows, and I suppose Dougal’s quite good-looking, in a Scottish way, of course.’
Angel felt the laughter gurgling inside her. Nothing would change Clemence. It was suddenly a comfort. Countries may fall, and governments may tumble, but the splendid spirit of the English lady would always remain intact.
Angel left Meadowcroft early the next morning. The train to Paddington was crowded as usual, but the sense of camaraderie was still undimmed among the khaki-clad veterans returning to the Front, with swaggering tales to tell the raw recruits. It gave one a strange feeling to be a part of them, to recognise the names of battles and hospitals, and an even stranger feeling to know that experiencing this war would be told to countless children and grandchildren.
She felt buoyant as she left Paddington station and caught a tram to Hampstead. It was a very long while since she had seen her real home. Meadowcroft would always be a delight to visit, but Angel was city-born, and loved every stick and stone of their London house. She felt a great sense of thankfulness as she walked the short distance towards it after leaving the tram. The house was still intact, solid and welcoming.
She revised her ideas. Perhaps she would stay tonight. Just for one night, pretending everything was the way it had always been. She would be the schoolgirl Angel again, youngest daughter of Sir Fred and Lady Bannister, on the brink of adult life with none of its responsibilities. She would stay in her old room, with its remnants of childhood all around, and just for a little while, she would pretend there was no war, no deaths…
‘Miss Angel!’ The door was thrown open, and the plump housekeeper emerged, smiling delightedly. The next second, Angel was enveloped in her arms. ‘How well you look. And such a young lady now, though I do miss your lovely long hair. Such a beautiful golden colour! Your father knew what he was doing when he named you, my duck!’
‘Oh, Jonesey, it’s so wonderful to see you!’ Angel almost wept at the extrovert welcome, far less inhibited than her own mother. She hugged the housekeeper tightly as she went indoors. Mrs Jones was exactly the same as she remembered her. Everything here was the same, as if the family had just stepped out of it.
The house smelled of the same beeswax furniture cream and the faint odour of Cardinal polish, and Angel guessed that in her own words, Mrs Jones had treated the house to a right royal doing-over, in honour of Angel’s arrival. The thought made tears prick her eyes.
‘How are you and Jones and Penny? I was so sorry –’
‘We’re middling,’ Mrs Jones nodded. ‘Our Penny’s shown what she’s made of, and that’s the main thing. Can’t do more for King and Country, can you? ‘Cepting for brave young ladies like you and your sisters, o’ course, and we’re very proud of you, ducks.’
Angel bit her lip. The honest pride in the woman’s eyes, for her bereaved daughter, and for the daughters of this house, made her want to weep.
‘Hold on now, no tears! There ain’t much food to be had, but I’m preparing a nice bit o’ fish for your dinner tonight, and a bit o’ fresh winter cabbage Jones has grown in the shrubbery. Your dear Mama ’ould have a fit if she knew, but you and I ain’t telling her, are we?’
Angel laughed between her tears. She was the same old conspiratorial Jonesey, making a pet of the youngest girl, her favourite.
‘You’re a darling, Jonesey!’
‘And your bed’s aired, all ready. I’ll put a nice hot bottle in it before I go back tonight.’ She looked anxious. ‘You’ll be all right on your own? If you want me to stay –’
‘Of course not, Jonesey. Your family needs you. But how did you know I’d stay? Didn’t Mother tell you I’d be leaving straight away?’
Mrs Jones chuckled, her head on one side like a bright-eyed little sparrow.
‘Always knew you better than your own Mama, didn’t I? ‘Course you’d stay, once you saw the dear old place. You go and get reacquainted with everything, ducks, while I make us a nice cup of tea. The Kaiser ain’t started to blow up tea plantations yet, thank Gawd.’
Angel was still smiling as she wandered through the house, breathing in its familiar aura. This was home, and it was good to be back. More than anywhere else, the battlegrounds of Europe seemed a million miles away from here. It struck her as very strange, when this was London, and according to all the panic reports in the newspapers, she should feel an imminent sense of danger. But she didn’t. She was surrounded by too many years of love and happiness, and nothing could take away the special memories of childhood.
The adornments in her room were a mixture of those old carefree times and the post-college days, before the war had stopped most of her mother’s plans for her younger daughters. She wandered in and out of the other rooms, feeling the essence of her parents and her sisters wherever she went.
She tested the water in the new modern bathroom Fred had installed with its ornate tub. Mrs Jones had had the gas heater going, and there was blissfully hot water, and she decided to bath before her evening meal. There was plenty of time to find the birth certificate, and she would relish this time on her own.
It occurred to her that it was a rare event. The house had always been bustling with people, and in her head, the echoes of other times came and went like a half-remembered melody.
Later, she dressed in one of her old frocks that was a little dated, but suited her nostalgic mood. But there was one important thing she must do right away. In her father’s study, she opened the safe and found the precious document she needed. This was the key to her new life … she put it safely in her bag.
That was for tomorrow. For tonight, she would be gay and bright, and enjoy Jonesey’s excellent fare, cooked with all the ingenuity of a housekeeper faced with the challenge of preparing something nourishing out of nothing. The fish had some kind of sauce that tasted only faintly of cheese; the cabbage contained a filling of other vegetables, and a minute helping of potato completed the dish. It tasted wonderful, and Angel was told to leave the clearing-up for Mrs Jones to do the next day.
‘No arguments now. It’ll be like old times, fussing around after you. Now, you’re sure you’ll be all right?’
‘Quite sure. Give my love to everyone, and take care of yourself, Jonesey.’
‘No fear of that, my duck. Me and Jones’ll still be here after we’ve finished with Kaiser Bill!’
Much later, when it was growing dark, Angel went to her room and closed the door. She pulled the heavy curtains across tightly, remembering the regulations, before she turned up the gaslight to a flickering softness. She found a suitable gramophone record, put it on the turntable, and wound up the machine. The tinny sound
of bright dance music filled the air. She grabbed her pillow and held it like an imaginary partner, and danced around the furniture.
Breathless when the first tune ended, she put on less robust records, dancing with dreams in her eyes, imagining that it was Jacques that she held close, Jacques with whom this night would end…
How long she danced, she couldn’t have said. As each record ended, she put on another, wound the handle, and drifted into her dream world again, loth to lose the feeling of magic.
She couldn’t have said what made her catch her breath and feel the sudden pounding of her heart. A small sound, perhaps. This house was well back from the road and isolated from neighbours, and Angel was sure she had locked the doors. And yet there was something, she was sure of it.
She opened her door cautiously. The rest of the house was in darkness, but there were definitely small noises coming from the direction of her father’s study. She felt a rising panic. She should send for the police, but to use the telephone in the hall downstairs would surely alert the intruder.
The walls of the house were solid. The burglar wouldn’t have guessed anyone was there, since her door had been shut, and the gramophone music wouldn’t have penetrated. She was sick with fear and indecision.
And then a sort of angry calm swept through her. How dare this person violate her father’s private sanctum? Snooping around her home, prying into personal things … she looked around quickly. There was a heavy iron poker in her little fireplace. She had grown strong during her months of lifting the soldiers. She was no coward, and perhaps faced with someone in the house, the burglar would take fright and flee.
Angel crept downstairs, her fingers around the poker damp and clammy, nerves fluttering in her throat as she neared the study. Her legs shook, despite her resolve.
The door was open, the curtains still pulled back. Pale moonlight lit the room. She could see Fred’s heavy oak desk, the candlesticks and pen-and-ink stand, the silver-framed photographs and ornaments seemingly still in their places. She noted all these things in an instant. What stopped her moving forward was the searing shock of seeing the slumped figure seated at the desk, his unmistakable outline silhouetted against the light from the window.
But the shock came not so much from the sight of him as the sounds he was making. He sat with both elbows on the desk, face cupped in his large capable hands, and great wrenching sobs seemed to be torn from his soul. It was obvious that something terrible and private had happened. Angel forgot everything else.
‘Daddy!’ Angel croaked his name in a dry, fractured voice. The poker dropped to the floor with a heavy thud as Fred’s head jerked up, and within seconds she was around the other side of the desk and kneeling at his side, her arms around him.
Chapter 25
In those first few minutes, Fred’s mind was totally unable to take in that the warm and pliant body in his arms was his daughter, Angel. He had believed her to be in France, not here at their old home, where neither of them was meant to be. If Angel had had a shock at seeing him, then his own shock was none the less traumatic. Neither of them could speak for long minutes, and Fred had also to fight down his own shuddering loss of self-control, knowing to his shame that his best beloved daughter had witnessed it.
‘What are you doing here, Angel?’ The words seemed to be dragged out of him. Even to himself, he sounded like a shuffling old man, dazed and senile. It was so ludicrous, because he was feeling totally unlike the way he had expected to feel on this day. He should be dancing on tables…
‘Daddy, what’s happened? Tell me, please! I can’t bear to see you like this. I know it must be something awful!’
Angel mumbled into his shoulder. When she raised her face against his in mute sympathy, he could feel the moist warmth of her lips, and the soft melting tears on her lashes. He was reluctant to break this spell. If it was some kind of miracle that had brought her here tonight, then he never questioned the existence of miracles. It was the second miracle today.
At the thought, bile rose in his throat. He couldn’t help it. Hale and hearty though he was, good news or bad had always had the same effect on him, and it was frequently only due to his iron will that he kept it inside his gut and not spewing out of him. Right now, though, he felt in danger of losing that particular battle, and made a supreme effort. Angel felt his limbs go rigid, and mourned for whatever loss he had suffered.
‘Please tell me, Daddy,’ she whispered, still holding him. ‘Share it with me, like you always used to say to me.’
She brushed everything else aside. Old hurts didn’t matter, compared with this … to her horror, she felt him relax against her again, so swiftly that she was almost unbalanced from her kneeling position. Heavy sobs racked Fred’s body again, and furious with himself, he knew the words had to be said.
‘I’d share my dreams with you if I could, my Angel,’ the words seemed ground out of him like chips of ice. Feeling the brittleness in him, she realised she was breathing shallowly to catch every word. ‘But I lost that right when you discovered that my dreams weren’t high and mighty like you’d always imagined. You put me on a pedestal, and then I toppled –’
‘It’s not important now –’ she was more distressed than she could say. Didn’t every daughter put her father on a pedestal, believing him superior to every other man?
‘Yes it bloody well is!’ Fred’s voice was harsh with the pain of pent-up feelings. ‘It’s Harriet I love more than life, and it’s Harriet whose name I can never mention to another living soul, and I can’t possibly make you understand how that feels. How can you know the torment to a man living his life with a frigid wife? The gradual breaking down of his confidence, and his very masculinity? And then to meet a warm, caring woman who makes him feel he’s ten feet tall every time he walks through the door? You wouldn’t understand how it feels to be suddenly alive again, after years of being the so-called master of my own home, when that farce stops at the bedroom door. And I’m sorry if it shocks and offends you, my darling, and I shouldn’t be talking to you like this, but the relief of today has taken all the stuffing out of me, when it should be the other way round. I should be getting drunk and celebrating, and instead, I’m a rag doll blubbering like a baby, and God knows why –’
‘Daddy, for pity’s sake stop treating me like a child and tell me what’s happened.’ Angel’s voice was a thin thread of sound. She couldn’t bear this torrent of words. None of it shocked or offended her. To her own surprise, not even the mention of Harriet’s name did that on this particular night. She could only feel supreme sadness to see her father so disorientated when he had always been so strong.
Fred looked down at her upturned face as if seeing her for the first time. He felt a lump in his throat. She was so young and beautiful, his Angel. She was everything he had ever imagined her to be when he had named her with what Clemence called that impossible name. He had always known she would be special to him, and God knew he needed that special closeness between them now.
‘I thought Harriet was going to die,’ he was still hoarse with emotion. ‘For months we’ve lived with the fear of it. I could see her slipping away from me, and I could do nothing about it. The doctors couldn’t discover what was wrong with her. They strongly suspected consumption, yet they couldn’t be sure. She’s been in and out of hospital for test after test, and it’s been a nightmare. And then, quite suddenly, she began to put on a little weight, and her face started getting rosy again, and we finally got the verdict today that she’s in the clear. My Harriet’s going to live. She got the miracle she always wanted, and I just wish to God I had her faith so that I didn’t feel so bloody guilty for ever doubting it –’
He leaned against Angel, and supporting him, she could feel the dampness of his tears on her cheeks. She ached to find the right words, but somehow there were no words. She rocked him close as if he were the child, and compassion and love for him overcame everything else.
‘Daddy, I do understand,’ she said qui
etly, one thought illuminating everything else. ‘When I thought Jacques had died, I wanted to die too. And the memory of times we had spent together sustained me more than anything. I do understand.’
She couldn’t say more. This was her father, and propriety still prevented her from actually admitting that she and Jacques had been lovers. But perhaps he would understand too, in that peculiar bond they had always shared, and which seemed miraculously restored to them now. If nothing else, the barriers had been broken down, but Angel knew she must do one more thing to prove it to him.
‘This is a fine way to celebrate Harriet’s good health!’ She forced a more cheerful note to her voice. ‘Can’t we find some wine in the cellar and cheer ourselves up? The house is cold now, but there’s a fire in my room. Let’s take the wine in there and play some music and pretend I’ve just come home from college and you want to hear everything that’s happened!’
With one great leap she bridged the gap that had existed between them. Taking them back into the realms of a happier past, but with the shared knowledge of the present. Accepting and forgiving the flaws in each of them. Fred drew her to her feet and held her close.
‘Your place will always be in my heart, darling girl. No one could ever usurp it.’
‘I know it,’ she said simply. ‘It just took me a little time to realise how alike we are.’
They were determinedly bright for the rest of the evening, talking long into the night by the leaping flames of the fire in Angel’s room. Fred needed to talk about Harriet, and Angel let him. It no longer seemed strange or a betrayal, because it was obvious that it was a dear and special relationship her father had with Harriet, and it didn’t touch anything else. Clemence would always be Lady Bannister, and Fred’s daughters would still be his girls.
Angel had secrets too. Everyone did. And not even to Fred in that sweetly intimate atmosphere did she reveal her own plans for marrying Jacques.
Even Louise had secrets, Angel discovered, finally asking what Fred was doing in London, when they had all thought he was in Yorkshire. Mellowed with the wine, he gave a short laugh.
The Bannister Girls Page 34