The Bannister Girls

by Jean Saunders

  ‘Louise wants to sell the house, lock, stock and barrel, and you know what a fuss your mother would make about that. She still thinks fondly that Louise and Dougal will move back there after the war, near enough so that when we all return here, she can see her grandson whenever she likes.’

  ‘Poor Mother,’ Angel murmured, thinking that eventually she and Jacques would probably settle in France, and the family would be split even more.

  ‘Poor Clemence,’ Fred agreed. ‘But you girls must lead your own lives, and Louise is quite adamant that the house must be sold, so I’m seeing to the details for her. Once it’s all settled, I shall inform your mother.’

  Out of all the mass of words said between them on that emotional night, Angel remembered those particular ones. Weeks later, they were still uppermost in her mind. ‘You girls must lead your own lives.’ She remembered them as she stood beside Jacques in the cool dark interior of the tiny church in St Helene, lit only by the early spring sunlight pouring through the stained glass windows and dazzling the altar with iridescent splinters of coloured light.

  She remembered little of the brief ceremony. The man of God solemnly intoning the words that bound them together until death did them part; the two strangers asked to be witnesses, because she and Jacques wanted this marriage to be as private as possible; the vows and responses; the coolness of the gold ring sliding onto her finger; the knowledge that this was an irrevocable step, and one that she wanted to take above all else in the world. And the only real moment, Jacques’ kiss on her lips, the first kiss as man and wife.

  She hardly noticed hands shaking hers in congratulation, or the document that they signed, proof that they now belonged in the eyes of God and man. It was all unreal, a day so longed for that it seemed almost an anti-climax when it actually happened. And she was so perfectly attuned to her father’s reaction over Harriet’s good health that she was humbled by the thought.

  But if the day was a little unreal, then the night was everything that Angel had anticipated. They had one night to share together. The demands of the war denied them the pleasures of a normal honeymoon. But that night in a small hotel in the town of St Helene, a stone’s throw from the Abbey, might have been in a different world. Together in the deepest sense of the word, at last they truly belonged.

  ‘If this was the only night we had, my dearest one, it would be enough,’ Angel whispered into the bronzed bare flesh of her husband. She heard Jacques’ low rumbling laugh as he leaned over to kiss her breasts.

  ‘It would never be enough for me, chérie. If we had a lifetime, it would never be enough. So since we have only this one night, let’s not think of sleeping. I’ve waited too long to call you my wife.’

  Angel thrilled to the music of the words. This was her husband, the man she had vowed to love and cherish, and would do so until the day she died … but this was not a night to think about dying. Tonight was theirs, for love and comfort, and the end of all parting … she pushed aside the thought that the morning would be here all too soon, and theirs was a love that seemed destined for parting…

  Eventually they drifted into sleep, still entwined in each other’s arms. And when Angel awoke in the pale early light of day, it was to find Jacques studying her face as if to imprint every pore of it on his memory.

  ‘Don’t look at me so intently. I’m a sight first thing in the morning –’ she begged smilingly.

  ‘And such a beautiful sight. You have a vagueness about you before you’re properly awake that is totally enchanting, my Angel. I love that soft, sleepy look on your lovely face. It’s very sensual, chérie.’

  ‘Is it?’ She looked up at him provocatively, half-closing her lids again. ‘Perhaps I should practise it then, to tempt my husband –’

  His answer was to pull her into his arms, where the soft warmth of their skins melted together. His reply was teasingly fierce, loving every part of her. His fingers traced around her mouth and down the smooth slender throat until they met the warm swell of her breasts. Beneath the cocoon of the sheets, she felt the sharp sweet excitement begin, seeing the sudden passion in Jacques’ eyes, feeling the proof of it in his young body.

  ‘You need do nothing to tempt me, darling wife. Everything about you is a temptation, and a delight. Sweets for the tasting –’

  ‘And you have such a sweet tooth, dear husband!’

  She breathed the words, unconsciously seductive, winding her arms around him as the familiar pattern of their love-making began, each new sensation the source of a glorious and abandoned pleasure.

  Angel delayed writing home, knowing that eventually the news must be told. She had considered telephoning, but the thought of her mother’s reaction quickly prevented that idea. Clemence would be very upset, outraged and undoubtedly furious to know that Angel was married, but her father’s words still rang in her ears. ‘You girls must lead your own lives.’

  And so she had … so she had…

  She still hadn’t written home two weeks later, when Mother Superior sent for her. Angel’s face whitened.

  ‘Mother, I didn’t ask for this!’ she stammered.

  The nun looked at her with some impatience.

  ‘I understood from Sister Yard at Piersville that you were very keen to take on ambulance duties, Bannister.’

  ‘But here in France! Not in England!’ Tears of frustration studded her eyes. ‘You can’t send me back there!’

  ‘Don’t you have a family, Bannister? You have a sister, I believe, and you seem to receive plenty of letters –’

  She was tempted to say that she also had a husband, but they had decided to tell no one at Brighton Belle or the Abbey of their recent marriage. Angel wore the wedding ring on a chain around her neck, safely inside her high-necked dress.

  ‘I also have a fiancé,’ Angel said shakily instead. ‘And I want to be near him, Mother.’

  The nun put a cool hand on Angel’s tense arm.

  ‘I do understand, my dear, but you’ve been here for some while, and nurses get battle-fatigued as much as the men. There was a time when we were quite worried about you –’

  ‘You know I’m quite over that episode!’ Angel said heatedly. Then she stopped, her shoulders sagging. The nun’s face was implacable. Why were these people looked on as being so compassionate, Angel raged!

  ‘When are you sending me away?’

  ‘My dear, don’t look on it like that! It won’t be for another month yet, but I thought you would like to know.’

  Another month. It would be early May by then. A beautiful time in England when everything would be green and fragrant with blossom … but she felt so strongly now that her place was in France, with Jacques…

  ‘I don’t want to go!’ She was near to tears as she clung to Jacques, the next time they managed to snatch a few hours together.

  ‘Chérie, it cannot last much longer, and we will be together for always. Would it help if you told the nuns that you’re married to a Frenchman?’

  She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t help at all! We had a married girl at the Abbey a while ago, and she was sent straight back. They’re so strict about it, and it’s so stupid. As if a married woman can’t tie a bandage as competently as an unmarried one!’

  ‘That’s not the reason, is it –?’

  ‘No. They think the married ones will go to pieces thinking that every casualty brought in is going to be their husband! I thought they’d seen what I went through to know that it makes no difference when someone’s in love. Married or not doesn’t change the emotions one feels –’

  She stopped, biting her lips and realising the truth in Mother Superior’s words. Battle-fatigued. Was that true of her after all? She had been here so long. It was something one didn’t recognise in oneself. She knew that only too well.

  ‘I have some news as well,’ Jacques said.

  ‘They’re not sending you to England too, are they?’ She spoke with false hope, knowing it was very unlikely.

  She knew well eno
ugh that squadrons flew every day, on recce raids and bombing raids. Day and night, until the pilots were punch-drunk with flying … and it would go on until the war ended, unless Jacques applied for training instructor duties, and Angel couldn’t imagine that. Not until he could barely see to fly any more…

  ‘You’ve spoilt the surprise.’

  She looked at him in astonishment, and he grinned.

  ‘No, chérie, it’s not quite as you think. But the old plane they gave me is falling apart, and I’m to get a replacement one very soon. Now that the new command is officially called the Royal Air Force, things are changing slightly. I’m to take my old crate back to England, collect my new one and fly it back. If we can wangle it for the right time, you could be my passenger.’

  Her heart nearly stopped. She had never stepped inside an aircraft before. The thought of it was both exciting and unnerving. She didn’t know which was uppermost in her mind at that moment. But the idea had evidently caught Jacques’ imagination. He seized both her hands, caressing the palms with his fingertips.

  ‘Why not, Angel? You already share half of my life. Fly with me and share the rest of it,’ he said urgently.

  She sensed that this was somehow important to him. She felt the pressure of his fingers on hers, and knew that she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked her to.

  ‘Yes!’ she said, ignoring the hammering of her heart. ‘But how can we possibly arrange it?’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said with supreme confidence. ‘Just let me know the date you get your travel pass. You’ll have some leave when you get to England, I take it?’

  ‘Just a few days before I report to the convalescent home in Essex. I’ll be driving back and forth between there and the hospital ships at Dover.’ She stopped, because he wasn’t really listening to her last words.

  ‘I daresay I can manage a few days as well, before I return to Brighton Belle,’ he said, falsely casual. ‘That is, if you’re interested in spending them together –?’

  Her answer was in the sudden blaze of happiness in her eyes, and the widening of her smile, and it was ridiculous, but it hadn’t even occurred to Angel before. Until that moment, she had been too incensed at the blow fate was dealing her to think about anything else.

  Clemence didn’t waste time with a letter. There was a message for Angel to telephone Meadowcroft immediately. Her heart sank, knowing what to expect. Comte de Ville had sent a telegram of congratulations on the marriage, but Lady Bannister’s reaction was predictably quite different.

  ‘How could you do this to us, Angel?’ Mingled hurt and fury seemed to ooze out of Clemence. ‘Your father and I are terribly upset, and I’m very, very angry with you!’

  Angel felt her throat begin to tighten. ‘I thought Daddy would understand –’

  Clemence seethed at this. ‘Don’t think you can wind your father around your little finger this time, Miss, the way you always do! I know now why you wanted your birth certificate. Such lies and deceit! Is this all the gratitude I get? Heaven knows I’ve done my best to bring you up properly –’

  Angel held the receiver away from her ear as Clemence’s voice rose. Her heart beat sickeningly, knowing she deserved all this and more, and helpless to stop her mother’s tirade.

  ‘What on earth will people think? It’s scandalous to get married in this hole and corner fashion. I’m not sure if it’s even legal, or if it’s not possible to get it annulled –’

  ‘You can’t do that, Mother,’ Angel couldn’t let this go on. Her voice shook. ‘Jacques and I are married. It’s perfectly legal, and it would be an even bigger scandal to try to get it annulled, because of – uh – certain things that have happened between us –’

  She was overcome with the most awful attack of nerves and embarrasment, feeling the hot colour flood her face. Clemence had always been such a stickler for etiquette and proper behaviour, and everything happening in its correct order, and her outrage threatened to swamp Angel. She had flaunted everything her mother stood for, and knew it, and the guilt didn’t make this awkward conversation any easier. The small silence told her that Clemence understood exactly what she was saying.

  ‘Well, of course, that was to be expected,’ she said freezingly, implying that a young woman who showed such disregard for finer feelings, and a hot-headed continental, would naturally give in to animal lust.

  Angel tried again, her voice still trembling. She wanted to be strong, but it was the most difficult moment of her life.

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Mother, truly I didn’t! But Jacques and I needed to know that we belonged, in case – well, in case anything happened. Surely I don’t need to make it any clearer, do I?’

  ‘What does Jacques’ father have to say?’ Clemence ignored the plea.

  ‘He sent a telegram of congratulations. I’m sure he’ll be writing to you and Daddy. He understands –’

  ‘Well, I’m sure that I don’t,’ Clemence snapped. ‘But it seems to me that my feelings never counted for very much as far as you girls are concerned. Louise seems settled enough, though I’m displeased that she’s selling her London house – something else that I wasn’t told until afterwards! And Ellen’s as much of a trial as ever, not knowing what she wants to do half the time, and I suspect that as soon as the war is over, she’ll be waving banners again for the Women’s Movement!’

  Her attention was diverted for the moment from the shock of her youngest daughter’s indiscretion, and Angel seized the moment to divert it still further.

  ‘Mother, I’ve got some news to cheer you up. I’m being posted to England sometime in May, to a convalescent home in Essex. I’ll be able to see you more often, and there’s every hope that the war won’t last much longer.’

  ‘We heard that the new spot of trouble at the Somme was over,’ Clemence said, slightly less fraught. ‘And it’s a relief to know you’ll be on English soil, even though the damage has been done, and it seems there’s nothing we can do to reverse it.’

  ‘Nothing at all, Mummy!’ she said solemnly.

  The wild urge to laugh was tempered by her mother’s brief reference to more bitter fighting at the Somme during March and April. There had been heavy losses again, the British outnumbered by an estimated three to one. The Germans had advanced twenty-five miles, enough to begin panic waves, and it had taken desperate defensive measures for the British Tommies to stand firm under Field Marshall Haig’s command, despite many of their battalions being wiped out. By April 18th the battle was over, with enormous losses on both sides, the hospitals filled to overflowing, and nothing conclusive gained.

  Yes, Angel thought wryly, you could refer to it all as a spot of trouble…

  ‘Your father wants to speak to you.’ Angel heard the muffled voices at the other end of the line, and her hand gripped the cord more tightly. She needed Fred’s approval. All that had happened before was as nothing to the longing to be still his best girl.

  ‘We wish you both all the happiness in the world, my darling girl,’ Fred said. ‘Your mother’s naturally disappointed not to be planning a society wedding, but we’ll make up for all that when the war’s over. We can still celebrate once we’re all together again, and that’s the most important thing. Take care of yourself, and come home safely.’

  ‘Thank-you, Daddy.’ She was choked, aware of Clemence’s annoyance in the background, but Fred was giving his daughter his full support, and for that, Angel was eternally grateful.

  Ellen wrote an elated letter, telling her she was a clever old thing. Margot was slightly affronted at not having been told, but she and Baz wished her best luck. Louise and Dougal sent an elaborate card of congratulations, with a smudged scrawl that was supposedly young Christopher’s fingerprint.

  Following his telegram, Comte de Ville wrote at more length, welcoming Angel into the de Ville family, adding that there must be nuptial celebrations when they were all free citizens again, and that he hoped all her family would be the Comte’s guests a
t the chateau when the time came. A remark that would surely lift Clemence’s spirits…

  Angel lay gritty-eyed in her bed, exhausted and yet unable to sleep, after a late evening ward duty, assessing the reactions of all those important in her life. Alone in her room at the Abbey, above the cloisters that now housed row after row of sick beds, it all seemed totally unreal.

  The messages from her family and friends; the final acceptance from her mother that she and Jacques were married, and nothing was going to change it; the endless day-to-day routine of hospital life; the waiting for her transfer to England…

  And none of it was as important as the fact that she and Jacques were one. Joined in the sight of God and of man. And but for the piece of paper that made it legal, they might as well have been at opposite ends of the earth. Marriage was for the mutal comfort and benefit of each for the other … or words to that effect … and for each of them, those words were farcical.

  Jacques was somewhere among the myriad stars in the night sky, flying with danger, and probably over enemy lines at that very moment. While she, despite being in the midst of a hospital buzzing with noise and activity, a bride of just a few weeks, had never felt more alone and lonely.

  Chapter 26

  Angel finally left St Helene in the middle of May. Leaving the Abbey itself tugged at her heart more than she had expected. She had grown used to the nuns, to the harshness of their unwavering faith, and to their rules and demands.

  She knew the Abbey well, felt the strength of history in its cloistered walls. Strangely, she could still sense the ghosts of the legions of wounded men who had been tended there. It was a sad parting in many ways. She would have clung tearfully to several of the nuns if it had been permitted.

  Dignity prevented such a thing, and instead she had to be satisfied with solemn good-byes and a head held high as the ambulance lorry took her to the bus stop north of the town. She had asked to be set down there, saying that she intended to visit a friend before making her own way to the hospital ship bound for the south coast of England.