The twins had on rare occasions gone up to London in the school holidays with their mother for a night or two – to buy school uniforms from Gorringes and shop for other clothes and shoes they needed from the Army & Navy Stores nearby or Harrods, and such outings always included a theatre, or cinema or even the ballet.
‘Perhaps you should not go to church this morning, Dilys!’ Lady Singleby said as her daughter sat down again at the table. ‘If you have caught a chill, the cold in those draughty pews would just exacerbate it.’
‘Really, I’m fine now, thank you, Mother!’ Dilys said truthfully. ‘I assure you I’m really well enough to go.’
Sir Godfrey looked at his wife, frowning. ‘Don’t fuss, dear,’ he said reprovingly. ‘The girls aren’t babies any more and it won’t hurt them to toughen up a bit. There’s a war on, you know, and we are none of us going to be able to mollycoddle ourselves. Una and Dilys may have to become VADs like you were in the last war.’
‘You mean we may be conscripted?’ Una asked, her eyes shining. Then she frowned. ‘But I don’t want to be a nurse. I want to do something more exciting – like driving an ambulance, maybe. Can we have driving lessons now we are home, Father? We are allowed to drive now we’re seventeen.’
Sir Godfrey pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. ‘I don’t see why not!’ he said indulgently. He was secretly quite proud of the way his two daughters had blossomed into attractive young women. He had received many complimentary remarks from several of his fellow Members of Parliament when he’d taken them to lunch in the Members’ dining room in the House of Commons. They were proving to be a talking point in his favour.
Una was in the best of spirits as an hour later she and Dilys walked behind their parents the short distance to Hannington village church. She whispered happily to her twin as they took their usual places in one of the front pews reserved for the family. ‘Did you see James Sherwin, that vet from Fenbury?’ she asked. ‘He was staring at us as we passed him. He’s really quite good looking with those big brown eyes and broad shoulders. Pity he’s so old or I might have been keen on him.’
‘He’s not all that old!’ Dilys whispered back. ‘Sally’s mother cooks for him so Sally knows all about him. She said although he is a widower he isn’t yet forty. When his wife died Sally said he was heartbroken.’ She broke off when a sudden wave of nausea engulfed her once more. Almost at the same moment, the service began.
Desperately trying to control the need to throw up, she whispered to Una that she was feeling ill and, pushing past her sister, hurried down the aisle as quickly as she could and only just managed to reach the deserted churchyard before she was throwing up the breakfast she had eaten after recovering from the last attack.
Una appeared by her side, saying anxiously, ‘Mother sent me to see if you are all right. What’s wrong, Dil? You must have eaten something I didn’t have? You look ghastly.’ She stopped as Dilys retched once again. Searching for a handkerchief in her overcoat pocket, at that moment a tall man appeared beside her.
‘I saw your sister hurrying out of church looking quite ill,’ he said. ‘I wondered if I could be of any help?’
Una looked up at the would-be Samaritan. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ she exclaimed as she recognized him and then quickly apologised. ‘It’s Mr Sherwin, isn’t it?’ She glanced quickly at Dilys and saw that she was about to be sick again. ‘I think my sister is suffering from some sort of food poisoning. She wasn’t well earlier this morning but she insisted on coming to church.’
‘What bad luck on Christmas Day,’ he said, his voice friendly as well as sympathetic. He smiled. ‘I thought I recognized you both. The Singlebys’ daughters, aren’t you? You may not remember but we were introduced the summer before last at the village fête. May I ask which of the two I am speaking to?’
Una blushed. ‘I’m Una,’ she said, ‘and my sister is Dilys. You’re the vet, aren’t you? Mr Sherwin? Dil and I recognized you in the church just now.’
He smiled once more, his thin, somewhat austere face lighting up, transforming his appearance to that of a much younger man. He drew a large white handkerchief from his coat pocket and, crossing the path to Dilys’ side, handed it to her. She stared up at him, white-faced.
‘If I may say so, young lady,’ he said paternally, ‘I don’t think you should return to the church. If you don’t have any transport perhaps I could run you home in my car?’
‘Oh, we can walk home,’ Una said, adding, ‘but thanks all the same for the offer.’
He glanced once more at Dilys’ white face, shook his head and said firmly, ‘I’m sure you would prefer to be driven, would you not?’
For the first time since she had left the church, Dilys felt able to speak. She was no longer feeling sick but was shivering uncontrollably. Nodding her agreement, she turned to look at Una.
‘Mother will be worrying by now. So if I go home with Mr Sherwin you can go back and tell her I am all right!’ She turned back to her Samaritan. ‘Father is reading the lesson and he wouldn’t like it if Mother came out to see what was wrong and wasn’t there to hear him.’
Ten minutes later, James Sherwin drove his elderly Morris estate car up to the front door of Hannington Hall and went round to open the door for Dilys.
The colour had returned to her cheeks and she looked up at him apologetically. ‘I really feel like an awful fraud!’ she said shyly. ‘I’m perfectly all right now and I could have walked home. It was very kind of you to come to my rescue the way you did.’
Explaining that all the servants were in church so the front door would not be opened, Dilys took him round to the garden door which had been left unlocked. James smiled as he opened it for her but declined her offer to follow her indoors for a glass of sherry.
‘Perhaps I can come another time,’ he said. ‘Please do remind your father that he and I are acquainted as he may be concerned at you driving off with a stranger! He brought one of his gun dogs to my surgery. Give him my regards and best wishes for the coming year!’ he added with his charming smile.
When their parents returned from church Sir Godfrey recalled the vet when Una told him who had gone to Dilys’ assistance. ‘Nice chap! Decent fellow!’ he commented. ‘Good vet, too. Did wonders with poor old Jason’s broken leg.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Maybe not quite one of us, but went to a good school, I seem to recall. We must invite him over for lunch next time I’m home for a few days. Quiet chap but I suppose that’s to be expected, his losing his wife and child only a year or so after they were married. Didn’t marry again, as far as I know. Now off you go, girls, and get tidied up before lunch. You are excused, Dilys, if you feel ill again. One o’clock sharp, and that doesn’t mean five past.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Glass of sherry, my dear? I think there’s just time.’
Una and Dilys disappeared upstairs. Una was agog with questions about James Sherwin and what he had talked about on the short drive home.
‘Pity he isn’t ten years younger!’ she said as they brushed their hair. ‘I bet he was really good looking before he got old.’
Dilys smiled. ‘I’m sure Sally said he was only thirty-something. That’s not really old.’
‘Well, middle-aged then,’ Una replied as, laughing, they went downstairs to greet the aunts who had just arrived.
Ten miles away, James Sherwin sat down in his empty dining room to eat the Christmas lunch his housekeeper, Sally’s mother Mrs White had prepared the day before and left in the larder for him to heat up on Christmas Day. He, too, was considering his age and wishing he were young enough to be considered a suitable friend for the two pretty Singleby girls. It was now five years since he had been so prematurely widowed and he was indescribably lonely. It was not that he didn’t see other people – his surgery was, if anything, too full of customers. It was the lack of someone, a person, to love and who loved him like the young wife he had so cruelly lost.
In the New Year, he now decided, he would start looking for an older vet to t
ake on his practice, freeing him to volunteer for the army. Now the war seemed likely to continue, older, able-bodied men like himself would be needed, and it would be good for him to get away from so many sad memories.
His appetite had vanished, he realized and, pushing back his chair, he stood and picked up his half-eaten plate of food and carried it out to the kennel where he was boarding two Labradors recovering from distemper.
‘Here you are, you two!’ he said. ‘It won’t hurt you to have a bit of Christmas lunch for a change!’
Having watched them devouring his uneaten meal, he took them for a short walk before going to his armchair by the fire. Turning on the wireless set he had treated himself to last Christmas, he settled back to listen to the king’s broadcast. His thoughts went back to 1936 to the king’s brother, the uncrowned King Edward, who had landed his shy younger brother with the enormous responsibility of reigning over not just Great Britain but the vast British Empire as well. Edward had given up the crown, he’d said in his abdication speech, for the love of a woman, an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson who could not have been less suitable to be his wife and queen.
The fellow must love her very much indeed, James reflected, at the same time wondering whether he might, one day, find a woman he loved as much as the wife he’d so tragically lost.
THREE
Kristoffer walked to the end of the street and sat down on the seat by the tram stop where he read Dilys’ letter a second time. As he reached the end, he realized how stupid he had been not to ask the maid when the professor was expected home. He, of course, would be able to give him Dilys’ home address. He hurried back to the pension.
That evening he was due to collect his aunt and uncle and take them to the Bahnhof to see them on to the train home, but if he missed his tutorial he would have time to call back and obtain the precious information he wanted.
To his dismay the information was not forthcoming. Unbeknown to Kristoffer, Sir Godfrey had questioned Herr Von Zwehl about his daughters’ progress and been informed that Dilys had made less progress than Una in both her speech and translation tutorials, due, he suspected, to her involvement with the young Norwegian student. He and his wife had not thought it necessary to inform her parents, as she was always obedient where mealtimes or the nightly eleven-thirty curfew was concerned. As a result of this information, Sir Godfrey concluded it was just as well his daughter would no longer be able to pursue the association which he deemed totally unsuitable for a young girl of Dilys’ age.
The professor, therefore, steeled himself not to feel sorry for the anxious young man and, only weakening slightly, told Kristoffer he could address his letter to Dilys care of her father at the British House of Commons in London.
It was at least a lifeline, Kristoffer told himself as he hurried to his uncle and aunt’s hotel where he was to meet them.
‘Are you not feeling well, Kristoffer?’ his uncle asked two hours later as he put down his empty coffee cup and stared anxiously at his nephew’s white face.
Kristoffer had been making an unsuccessful effort to pay attention to what his uncle was saying about the possible threat to Norway in the future if Germany invaded Poland as seemed likely. ‘I apologise,’ Kristoffer said. ‘I’m afraid Dilys’ sudden departure has been a bit of a shock. I do apologise,’ he repeated.
His Aunt Ingeborg reached across the table in the hotel lounge where they were having a cup of coffee before leaving that evening to catch the train home, and patted his hand, exclaiming: ‘What it is to be young and in love! You know, Kristoffer, your uncle and I always thought that you and your neighbours’ child, Gerda, would marry eventually. Your English girl must be very special!’
Kristoffer smiled. ‘She is, Tante Inge. We would have liked to become engaged but Dilys is still only seventeen and her parents would not permit it.’
His uncle raised his eyebrows and smiled at Kristoffer, saying, ‘Never mind, m’boy. A good-looking youngster like you won’t be without a girlfriend for long!’ Unaware of Kristoffer’s reaction, he added cheerfully: ‘It is not as if your girlfriend has left you deliberately. In my opinion, her father is quite right to have made certain she and her sister go home. The situation is very serious, although granted the atmosphere here in Munich is undoubtedly a joyous one. At home we are genuinely worried. Not only did Herr Hitler take possession of Czechoslovakia, but he is now turning his attention to Poland. Next could be Holland who, incidentally, have mobilized their army. Some people are saying this is a madman whose ambition is to add all these countries to his growing empire. So ominous was the news when I spoke to my business partner on the telephone yesterday, he advised me not on any account to delay our return home, which your aunt and I had considered doing. I think you, too, should consider going home. You may be needed back in the army.’
For several minutes, Kristoffer was silent while he tried to estimate how soon he might expect a letter from Dilys once he’d written to her.
Having seen his uncle and aunt safely on to the train, and watching its lights chugging away into the darkening distance, Kristoffer stood silently, thinking with despair of the train that took Dilys and her father and sister at lunchtime from this same station. With an effort, he put his feelings of utter depression to one side as he consoled himself with the knowledge that he and Dilys could write to each other. He had her letter tucked safely in his breast pocket and he would go back to his pension now and write to her. Tomorrow morning, when the post office opened, he would buy suitable stamps for England.
Back in his room, he poured out his love and despair that they had not even had time to say goodbye. Somehow, he assured her, he would go to England to see her, and she must write back to him at once and give him her home address. After a tender reference to his treasured memory of their last afternoon together when they had sealed their relationship, he concluded with a vow to remain faithful to her for the rest of his life and had written his home address in Norway where she could write.
Sealing the envelope, he addressed it to her care of The Rt Hon. Sir Godfrey Singleby, House of Commons, Westminster, London, and put it on his bedside table ready to post first thing in the morning. With luck, he thought, Dilys would receive it within a week at the very most, provided, of course, that her father did not delay in giving or forwarding it to her at their home.
For the next few days Kristoffer managed to pass the time catching up on the German thesis he was supposed to be writing. In the evenings he met up with friends but without enjoyment. At night he found it difficult to sleep as he relived the times he had spent with Dilys. A week after her departure he stopped leaving his pension every morning and afternoon, waiting instead until the postman had delivered the mail, praying that there would be a reply to his letter to her.
On 3 September, Hitler’s troops had marched into Poland. His landlady had tuned into the wireless and they heard the English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s broadcast announcing that Great Britain was at war with Germany. Kristoffer realized then that whether or not Dilys had written to him there would no longer be a postal service between the two countries and he was not going to get a letter from her. He packed up all his belongings, paid his pension bills, bought a railway ticket and by teatime was on his way home.
Back in England, Dilys, too, had watched for the postman’s arrival as diligently as Kristoffer. She was blissfully unaware that his reply was now sitting in the in tray on the desk of her father’s private secretary. Seeing the German stamp, she decided it should be seen first by Sir Godfrey before she forwarded it to his daughter.
Although it was addressed to his daughter, when he saw the German stamp Sir Godfrey, too, decided it was his duty to censor it. He had only to read the first adoring lines for him to shred it immediately, shocked as he was by the fellow’s reference to their last day together when they had lain in each other’s arms in the sun and declared their love for one another. That his young daughter could have allowed a man to lie with her
in the open air where anyone could see them brought a rush of angry colour to his cheeks. Only one thing could be said to Dilys’ credit: feeling guilty at her misbehaviour, she had had the good sense not to give the fellow her home address. Watching the shreds of paper falling into the waste-paper basket, he recovered his composure, knowing that he had put an end to the disgraceful relationship.
As he sat down once more at his desk, he pondered whether or not to reprove his daughter about her behaviour. Recoiling at the thought, he decided to leave it to his wife to do so but realized at once that doing so would be equally uncomfortable if he had to discuss sex with Daphne. By unspoken mutual consent, sex, passion and physical attraction were subjects they both avoided. Although they shared the same bedroom, he had his own adjoining dressing room so they were not obliged to appear naked in front of one another. Raised by strict Victorian parents, on the few occasions when he approached Daphne for his marital intimacies, as he called sex, it was carried out in the dark and not referred to the next day.
Down in the country at Hannington Hall with Una and her mother, Dilys’ confidence slowly waned and she started to doubt that Kristoffer had ever truly fallen in love with her. He might already have relegated her to the past and found another girl to replace her after all.
Back home in Norway, Kristoffer had lost all hope of remaining in touch with Dilys. There were times when he began to doubt whether her loving declarations had been momentary: that, young and innocent as she was, she had mistaken her discovery of physical attraction for real love. He was forced to admit to himself that it was he, not Dilys, who had introduced the idea of a secret engagement and eventual marriage. She had been so sweet, so accepting of his passion, of his need to make love to her. Was she now regretting it? Was it possible, he asked himself, that she had just wanted to find out what lovemaking was all about? That now he was no longer with her she had decided to forget him? Or even worse, that she had already found someone else to love?
Live the Dream Page 3