The Bannister Girls

by Jean Saunders

  Everyone was busily enjoying themselves elsewhere, and Ellen found herself almost bundled inside the church. It was cool and dim, and she was suddenly very calm, as if she had a presentiment. If it was so, then this was the sweetest moment of her life, and for once she wasn’t going to throw it all away…

  She knew Peter was slightly drunk, and perhaps if he hadn’t been, he would never have smothered his pride to do as he did. One minute they were merely facing one another. The next, she was pulled roughly into his arms, and his mouth was on hers, kissing her as though he were making up for a lifetime of wanting her, and she was kissing him back with every ounce of passion in her nature.

  When they broke apart, she expected some soft declaration of love from him, but she should have known him better. His eyes flashed almost aggressively down at her.

  ‘All right. That tells me everything I wanted to know. So when are you going to stop wearing the trousers, Ellen Bannister, and settle down to becoming a good farmer’s wife?’

  She gave a small gasp, her chin lifting in a way that reminded him briefly of her sister, Angel. Only briefly, for there was really no one else in his mind and his heart but the impossible woman in his arms.

  ‘When some good farmer asks me properly!’ she managed to blurt out, her eyes flashing back the same aggressive signals.

  He began to laugh, the sound vibrating richly in the solemn interior.

  ‘Oh, my dearest Ellen, do we really need the words that other people do?’

  ‘Yes!’ she replied with a fierce need to hear him say them. To know she was loved and desired, the same as every other woman who ever wanted a man so badly that it hurt…

  ‘Then please will you marry me, Ellen, because I love you so much I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life without you, and why we’ve gone through this farce of keeping apart all these months, I can’t think –’

  He couldn’t say any more, because she swayed into his arms, leaning her head against his chest, the breath in her throat a little sigh of pure happiness.

  ‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Peter. Yes, yes, yes! As soon as you like –’

  ‘And live here in the country, buried away from civilisation? I insist on a proper wedding, so as not to offend our country neighbours, and you’ll wear a long white dress and veil, and none of your radical thinking –’

  ‘I can think of nothing I want more.’

  Ellen spoke breathlessly, slightly awed to find that she didn’t think it in the least sloppy to know that the least-expected Bannister sister of all would be the one to have the conventional village wedding … it all depended on love, she thought. Love changed everything…

  In October, it was reported amid much confusion that the Germans had already asked for an Armistice. Their army was breaking up. There was mutiny in their navy, revolution in Berlin, and panic everywhere. The Kaiser had fled to Holland for his own safety, and on November 9th, Germany was proclaimed a Republic. Two days later, at 11 a.m., the Allied armies agreed to grant an Armistice.

  Jacques de Ville’s reconnaissance flight took him over enemy lines at the exact time that news was released to the German soldiers, and the sight he saw below was an extraordinary one. The Germans came out of their trenches, waving the red flags of the Republic, shouting and singing, still unaware of the true humiliation of their leaders, and believing the Armistice had been agreed because of revolution in their country. Grenades were tossed about, and deeper into the lines ammunition dumps were being exploded.

  ‘What d’you reckon’s happening, Cap?’ Jacques’ gunner, Chalkie White, shouted to him.

  ‘Lord knows, but they’re in danger of blowing themselves up if they don’t take more care,’ Jacques shouted back grimly. ‘We’d better get back to base and find out.’

  Reasons hardly mattered. Four terrible years of war were officially over, and if the weary British soldiers were too exhausted to show such outward joy as the Germans, that didn’t matter either. The only thing on everyone’s mind now was how soon they could go home, and home was suddenly the sweetest word in any language.

  Angel had been kissed by so many excited patients, she began to think her cheeks would be permanently bruised. She had telephoned her parents as soon as she could, though waiting for a line to be free had been agonisingly slow. Ellen had broken into the conversation, saying that she and Peter had decided to be married before Christmas, and her sister’s joy was almost tangible. Angel herself felt in a strange kind of limbo.

  There had so far been no word from Jacques for some days, and an unspoken fear gripped her. It would be the most cruel twist of fate if anything had happened to Jacques at the very end of the war, when everyone was on the brink of normality again.

  When she wanted him so much, and missed him so much, and loved him so much … reunions were happening every day. Women were arriving to take their menfolk home, lights in the cities were turned on again, and the sense of freedom was as heady as wine. And still Jacques didn’t call or write…

  She found herself wondering how the end of the war would affect her own family. She and Jacques would presumably live at his family home, but whereas before she had thought of the idea with pleasure, now she was afraid to plan anything, in case it was tempting fate.

  Louise’s future was assured, and now, astonishingly, was Ellen’s. Clemence and Fred … there was no doubt in Angel’s mind that her father’s liaison with Harriet Garth would continue, and after the scene between them at the Hampstead house, she could only feel sympathy for him.

  And it wasn’t taking anything away from Clemence. She still had her husband’s name, and his family loyalty. Clemence would continue in the same stoic way she always had, doing Good Works, being a pillar of society, and four years of war would not have ruffled her confidence one bit.

  Everyone was secure, except Angel herself…

  Three days after the Armistice, she was preparing to leave the convalescent home. Regular staff were returning, and those under war orders could be relieved of their posts as soon as convenient. And she wanted to go home. To be within the comfort of her family, at Meadowcroft or in London, to have their support in the growing dread that she felt.

  ‘There’s a telegram for you, in Matron’s office, Angel,’ one of the orderlies called out to her.

  Her heart felt sick. Her footsteps hardly touched the ground as she went to the small office. She wasn’t aware that she moved at all, until Matron thrust the little envelope under her nose. She was terrified to open it, and yet she must. She must know…

  ‘Disbanding at once. Arriving London tonight. Book a double room Hotel P. All love, Jacques.’

  Tears blinded her eyes and relief flooded through her, as searing in its way as a knife edge. He was alive. He was coming home…

  ‘Drink this, my dear.’

  She felt the coldness of a glass at her lips, and tasted the stinging bite of brandy, swallowing obediently. The mists cleared, and she saw Matron watching her uncertainly. Her lips formed a trembling smile, when she had begun to believe she would never smile again.

  ‘It’s all right! My husband’s safe. He’s coming home. I have to leave at once to be with him –’

  The scalding tears overflowed, and she felt herself rocked in the woman’s arms. When she had recovered, she was released from her duties at once, and telephoned the Hotel Portland. To her enormous relief, they had a room available. It was a dreary little hotel, but Jacques had promised that one day they would return there, to see the lights of London once more, and it was a promise they had to keep together.

  She managed to catch a train to town, and all the way her feelings were in turmoil. The train was as crowded with passengers as ever, naturally with more jubilation than before, and despite the rain that was falling when she reached Fenchurch Street, Angel was swept along in the wave of patriotism surrounding her.

  She hailed a taxi, and climbed inside it thankfully, but long before it had taken her through the mean little back streets of Soho to
the Hotel Portland, she realised just what a crush of people were filling the streets. Victory was several days ago, but here in the capital, the celebrations went on and on…

  The taxi-cab was jostled alarmingly every time it crawled to a stop. People shouting for transport rapped on the windows, shouting at her to stop being a toff and share it with them. Angel became quite frightened, and recognising a street very near to the hotel, she told the taxi driver she would get out there and walk the rest of the way.

  ‘Are yer sure, Miss? Yer might get squashed –’

  ‘I didn’t get squashed in France, so I’m not too worried about a crowd of merrymakers,’ she said with some spirit.

  Once outside in the cool November air, the drizzle still falling, she wasn’t so sure. There were people everywhere, some the worse for drink, and she began to wonder frantically if she had survived the years of war only to be crushed to death in the first days of peace. She was finding it hard to breathe…

  She had turned the corner of the street, and the lights of the Hotel Portland were ahead of her. Only a little farther. She stepped into the road to avoid a crowd of drunken revellers, and was almost immediately snatched back to the pavement again.

  ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

  The familiar voice sent waves of nostalgia rushing through her. The same words, the same voice, that she had heard a lifetime ago … she twisted round, and was clasped tightly in Jacques’ arms, the crowd pushing them even closer together. She tasted his mouth for a sweet wild moment, and then he was protecting her from harm with his embrace.

  ‘I’ve been watching out for you from the entrance. Let’s get inside quickly, Angel.’

  They raced across the road, and entered the small hotel. It might have been cheap and none too savoury, but to the two of them it seemed as though they had just reached heaven. The tired receptionist gave them their key without bothering to look up. They moved upwards in the clanking lift, hands held as if afraid to let one another go.

  ‘She probably thinks we’re here on a clandestine night out,’ Angel murmured, fighting the urge to weep all over this man who was her husband, because the joy of their being together at last was almost too much…

  ‘Like the last time?’ Jacques said softly and deliberately. He tipped up her chin until her eyes met his. She ached at the love she saw there.

  ‘Last time was a promise for the future, chérie. Tonight is forever.’

  She kept that thought in her mind as they reached their room. For one blissful moment, they leaned against the closed door and kissed and clung, and then Jacques moved towards the window, his arms still around her, and pushed the curtains aside.

  They stood with arms entwined in the darkness of the hotel room, but outside, the city was bathed in triumphant light. A tree dismally flapped its branches against the window, but not even the sadness of falling leaves could dim the revitalised splendour that was London.

  Jacques spoke with restrained emotion. ‘I promised that we’d come back here and see the city as it should be, Angel. This is for you, chérie. This, and all the love in the world.’

  She turned into his arms. Pressed close to him, she could feel the beat of his heart that was also her heart.

  ‘I need none of it but your love, Jacques,’ she whispered. ‘All I want is you. All I ever wanted was you.’

  He held her tight, love blazing between them as brightly as a flame. When he would have closed the curtains again, she stopped him, her voice tremulous, hoping he wouldn’t think her words over-dramatic. But she couldn’t quite forget all those others … not yet…

  ‘No, don’t close the curtains, Jacques. I want to see the lights shining in on us, giving us their blessing. We deserve it, don’t we?’

  ‘We all do … the survivors, and all the others who gave everything they had,’ Jacques agreed quietly, and she knew instantly that he understood everything she couldn’t find the words to say.

  Jacques lifted his wife in his arms, and lay her on the coverlet, gazing down at her for long moments before her arms reached out to him. Somewhere in the night, the joyful muted sounds of celebratory singing went on. Life went on…

  The momentary sadness drifted away from them. Thoughts of countless lovers who would never again know the ecstasy of moments like these, flitted briefly through their minds and out again, with a gentle, loving grace.

  Tonight was theirs, and surely no silent ghosts could begrudge them all their tomorrows.

  A Note on the Author

  Jean Saunders (1932–2011), née Jean Innes was born in London, but lived in the West Country for almost all of her life. She was married to Geoff Saunders, her childhood sweetheart, with whom she had three children.

  After the publication of her first novel, Jean began a career as a magazine writer and published around 600 short stories. She started to publish gothic romance novels under her married and maiden name in the 1970s. In the 1980s, she wrote historical romances under what would become her two most popular pseudonyms, Rowena Summers and Sally James. In 2004, she began to use the penname Rachel Moore.

  In 1991 Saunders’s novel, The Bannister Girls, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year award. She was elected the seventeenth Chairman (1993–1995) of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and she was Vice-Chairman of the Writers’ Summer School of Swanwick. She was also a member of Romance Writers of America, the Crime Writers’ Association and the West Country Writers’ Association.

  Discover books by Jean Saunders published by Bloomsbury Reader at

  www.bloomsbury.com/JeanSaunders

  A Different Kind of Love

  The Bannister Girls

  Velvet Dawn

  With This Ring

  For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been

  removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain

  references to missing images.

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,

  London WC1B 3DP

  First published in Great Britain 1990 by W. H. Allen

  Copyright © 1990 Jean Saunders

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

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  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The moral right of the author is asserted.

  eISBN: 9781448210497

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