Live the Dream

by Claire Lorrimer

  She stood up and crossed the sitting room to take the sleeping baby upstairs for her afternoon rest, after which she would go to the kitchen and check on lunch for the three of them. James returned to his surgery pleased he and Una had managed to persuade Dilys to see the situation from her parents’ point of view and leaving Una wrapping the last of the Christmas presents. He himself had no wish to quarrel with the twins’ parents, who might well have chosen not to allow their daughter to marry a country vet, albeit it had been to legitimize the baby. Out in the kitchen it crossed Dilys’ mind – as it had done so many times before – that her debt to James for marrying her and giving her and Tina a home was so vast that she feared there was no adequate way she could ever thank him. At least she had agreed to his wish for her to be present at the traditional family Christmas lunch, putting aside her resentment that her adored little girl was being ostracized.

  Dilys’ heart now swelled with love for her baby daughter, which she tried very hard never to think of as also being Kristoffer’s child. Her marriage to James was working out far better than she had imagined. During the past seven months since she had moved in with him, he was always kind, caring, attentive and never intrusive. On occasions he had put his arm around her or kissed her cheek, but always as if she was his sister. His affection was comforting but what really made her happy was his obvious adoration of Tina. As the months had passed since her birth on 11 May, Tina had learned to sit unsupported and was even now trying to crawl and would soon be a toddler. She loved to be bounced by James on his knee and would cuddle up and hug him when he kissed her goodnight.

  It was now almost the end of the year and she realized that, during the past months, her gratitude now included a very real affection. She found herself dreading the day when he would be going away to join the army; she hated the thought that he might be sent abroad where she might not see him for a long time.

  So many dreadful things had happened these past months, she reflected. Although in September the success of the pilots in the aerial battles against the far more numerous German planes had halted the threat of invasion, thousands of German planes had started dropping bombs, including the horrific incendiaries, on London. Too many to be shot down by the depleted British squadrons, they were pulverizing London and other cities like Coventry and Bristol. German submarines were sinking the convoys bringing desperately needed supplies of food and materials for the factories which were working day and night to keep the forces supplied with wartime necessities. Women were now replacing the workforce in the factories in order to release the men to replace the huge loss of soldiers and sailors.

  The whole of Europe was now in German hands and James had tuned in the wireless so she and Una could listen with him to Winston Churchill’s broadcast. It was a stirring speech about the perilous state of Britain, which was now standing alone against the enemy. There was no doubt that Germany intended to include Great Britain in its list of occupied territories and he said that the nation would resist the invaders by whatever means.

  It was after such a rallying broadcast that James had decided to join up as soon as he had transferred his practice to the neighbouring vet.

  Meanwhile, Una had managed to find out from the father of one of her old school friends who worked in the Foreign Office what was happening in Norway. Vidkun Quisling was now working alongside the German Reichskommissar Josef Terboven, who Germany had put in charge of the country when it had finally surrendered last April. Her friend’s father had also told her that most of the population were resisting the invaders in any way they could, and the resistant groups were continuing the fight and hiding in the forests.

  Dilys had thought it highly likely that Kristoffer would have joined such a group, having so often spoken proudly of his devotion to his country. She tried not to think of the danger he might be in, although she had long ago accepted that even if he had never tried to find her, or had never loved her as she’d loved him, she still needed to know that he was alive.

  Neither Dilys nor Una had ever shown the least interest in politics. The subject had not been on their school curriculum and they had always found their father’s political diatribes exceedingly boring when he launched into current topical issues at mealtimes.

  Their mother, like many other middle-aged women who did not need financially to work, chose to do something for the war effort and had become a member of the WVS, the Women’s Voluntary Service. The women were on call to help in any emergency, manning canteens, arranging refuge, clothing and food for the survivors of the bombing raids whose homes had been destroyed. They had been responsible for the hurried evacuation to the country of children from London, and were available wherever voluntary help was needed. For the first time in her life, Lady Singleby felt she was of some real value to the country, and was surprisingly efficient at what she was required to organize or to do.

  The dreadful bombing of the capital had not curtailed her social activities completely, and the theatres, opera, cinemas, tea dances and nightclubs still carried on despite the frightening air raids. These places of entertainment were filled by both civilians and uniformed men and women despite the frequent need to hurry down to the underground shelters when the air-raid warning sirens sounded.

  The past year had changed Lady Singleby. Her frequent proximity to death and suffering, particularly of the poorer classes, had brought about a far less rigid attitude to the stringent class distinctions and moral ethics of her pre-war existence. Set against the magnitude of the suffering she saw on a daily basis, and not least the selfless devotion of mothers to their children, her feelings towards her wayward daughter had mollified.

  On Christmas morning, when Dilys arrived with James and Una, she surprised her daughter by giving her not only her customary kiss on both cheeks but a hug, and exclaimed: ‘Darlings, it’s lovely to see you all. When I spoke to Una on the phone she said she wasn’t sure whether you would be able to leave the baby. I do wish it had not been necessary but now I’m down here for the Christmas break I shall come and see her. The aunts aren’t here yet so I can have you to myself for a little while.’ She nodded at James and, wishing him a happy Christmas, she linked her arms through those of Dilys and Una and led them into the drawing room where a log fire was blazing.

  Turning to Dilys, she said, ‘How well you look, darling! With all this horrid food rationing I was afraid you might have lost weight. Perhaps your grateful customers bring you little thank-you presents, James – eggs and suchlike? Do you shoot? My husband manages to shoot a few pheasants or a partridge when he can take time from his work in London and get home. Our butcher is very good, letting us have the odd few sausages or a piece of liver, so we eat quite well here at Hannington Hall.’

  She stopped talking momentarily to dispense glasses of sherry. James was amused to see how smart and fashionably she was dressed for a family lunch party. Lady Singleby was wearing one of her pre-war purchases, a maroon jersey silk dress with tiny jet buttons and a belt with a jet buckle fastened tight around her small waist. Her hair was immaculately waved and her face was lightly powdered and rouged.

  Handing James a glass of sherry, she glanced briefly at his well-worn tweed suit and just managed to hide her disapproval. She forced a charming smile as she said, ‘My husband is in the dining room carefully decanting the port which he insists is appropriate to complete Christmas lunch. Do say if you don’t care for it, James. Una, dear, pop into the kitchen and see if Cook has everything under control. She gets in a bit of a flap these days but I suppose cooking a proper Christmas lunch for seven is a trifle difficult these days. She was complaining this morning that the fat and sugar ration is only a fraction of what she needs for what she called a “proper Christmas lunch”.’

  Dilys now handed her mother the box she was holding. ‘One of James’ grateful clients gave him these eggs, Mother,’ she told her. ‘We thought Cook might want to use that Isinglass stuff she puts in a bucket to preserve them if you don’t need them immedi
ately.’

  Lady Singleby’s carefully plucked eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘I’d no idea you can preserve eggs. Cook spent the whole of last summer, when your Father and I were in London, bottling fruit and making jam and chutney, but she never mentioned eggs. Thank you, dear, and you, James. Thank goodness Cook is too old to be called up! Which reminds me, Una, have you heard yet when you will be joining the WAAF?’

  She linked her arm through Una’s again as she walked with her across the hall and down the passage towards the kitchen. ‘I know you were disappointed to hear you couldn’t be a pilot, but these “special duties” you said the officer had earmarked for you do sound quite exciting. Your father can’t believe you have to sign the Official Secrets Act before you will be told what you will be doing! He says that, as you are still underage, he should be informed.’

  Una smiled. ‘I’m hoping I might be trained to be a spy!’ she said. ‘After all, Dil and I speak fluent French, and more importantly German, which could be jolly useful for spying!’

  Lady Singleby looked shocked. ‘I do hope you are not serious, Una. In fact, I’m sure your father wouldn’t allow it. You are far too young for something dangerous like that. In the last war there was a Dutch woman dancer, Mata Hari, who was a spy. She was caught by the French and executed by firing squad just before the end of the war.’

  ‘Well, she was silly to get caught, wasn’t she!’ Una replied. ‘Anyway, I won’t know what I’ll be doing until they choose to tell me, and even then I can’t tell you or Father.’

  Seeing her mother’s expression, Una quickly took the precious box of eggs from her and darted into the kitchen with it. When she rejoined her mother, she carefully changed the subject of her future war work. ‘I’m so glad you are going to see Tina, Mother. She’s such a beautiful, happy little thing, and she is you granddaughter!’

  Lady Singleby paused, her expression embarrassed. ‘Well, it’s been a little difficult. Your father … Well, you know how concerned he always is about the family good name and that sort of thing, and if his constituents got to know Dilys and James had only been married a few days before—’ She broke off, looking even more embarrassed. After a moment’s silence, when neither spoke, she said, ‘I think I can go over to Fenbury now your father is spending so much more time in London. He isn’t using the car down here so I can use his petrol coupons. You and Dilys can expect me on Wednesday.’ She took a deep breath, as if to be pleased to end the subject. ‘This rationing is such a bore,’ she announced more cheerfully. ‘But I suppose it’s necessary.’

  Leaving her mother to speak with Cook, Una made her way back to the dining room to find her father. When Lady Singleby rejoined Dilys in the sitting room she sat down beside her on the sofa, patted her daughter’s hand in an unfamiliar, intimate gesture and said, ‘Any time you don’t use your clothing coupons, my darling, I can always do with them! If the war and rationing go on like this I shall have to copy my friend’s recommendation and buy my dresses from a titled woman she knows who sells her unwanted model gowns from her flat somewhere in Knightsbridge.’

  Seeing the look of surprise on Dilys’ face, no doubt at the mere thought of her mother buying second-hand clothes, she smiled. ‘Nobody knows the woman’s name but she has this big flat and I’m told one goes to it where her maid shows you all the dresses for sale laid out on the bed with their sale prices on them. One can try them on and pay the maid whatever amount is on the ticket. She then packs them up and off one goes with nobody the wiser. The clothes are quite gorgeous, I gather. Evelyn says they come from designers in Paris or New York, but Milady won’t be seen in the same dress twice so selling them is the perfect solution for people like us now we have this horrid rationing. The woman is all right as she has a walk-in wardrobe with enough clothes to last a lifetime.’

  She stopped talking as they were joined by Una and Sir Godfrey. He went over to the window where James was quietly watching a beautiful cock pheasant strutting boldly across the lawn, and somewhat to the twins’ surprise he seemed almost at once to get along extremely well with James. After discovering that James’ father had been one of his friends at prep school, he decided that perhaps Dilys’ shocking behaviour had really not turned out to be the total disaster he’d feared and that James had proved to be a really decent chap, making an honest woman of his errant daughter.

  To his further relief, when the aunts arrived and his wife introduced James as Dilys’ husband, he saw they were quite excited by news of the whirlwind marriage and only critical of the fact that they had not been invited to, or advised of, the wedding.

  ‘It was because of the war!’ Daphne told her sisters smoothly. ‘Godfrey and I hadn’t agreed the couple should even get engaged, Dilys being so young, but when Dilys told us that James would soon be joining up and would almost certainly be posted off abroad somewhere, we decided to let them get married. It was just a quick registry office affair in case James had to leave at short notice. However, because he hadn’t yet found anyone to take over his veterinary practice, the authorities agreed to delay his call up. You go in two weeks’ time, don’t you, James?’

  Now mollified, Aunt Rose said, ‘Well, congratulations to you both, but I do wish you had let us know, Daphne. At the very least, Ivy and I could have sent a telegram to wish them well.’

  ‘And a wedding present,’ Aunt Ivy added. ‘Dear me, you must let us know what you would like, Dilys, dear child. What a surprise! Do you remember, Rose, in the last war how we stood at the drawing-room window and watched all those poor young boys marching down the street on the way to France and those dreadful trenches?’

  Aunt Rose nodded. ‘We had been presented just before the war started, and nearly all the eligible boys we’d met at our coming-out dance went off to France.’ She sighed, adding sadly: ‘And most of them were killed.’ She turned to look at Dilys. ‘Your Aunt Ivy and I had both met young men we had hoped to marry who, sadly, never came home. There were over two million casualties, you know. Looking back, I suppose that we, too, should have married before they went away.’

  ‘Come now!’ Sir Godfrey interrupted. ‘We don’t want this sort of talk today. Ah, there’s the gong, so let’s go in to lunch!’

  Despite the absence of her baby girl, Dilys realized she was quite enjoying the family party. Somehow James was keeping them all laughing at his stories about some of his patients: the turkey who’d been brought to him in the summer with a broken leg and had become the farmer’s family pet so he never got eaten at Christmas. Then there was the runt of a litter of piglets which an elderly lady had adopted when she heard the farmer was about to knock it on the head and eat it. She hadn’t realized that a tiny, nine-inch-long piglet would grow into a huge sixteen-stone sow and had asked James to find it a good home.

  ‘So what happened to it?’ Aunt Rose asked anxiously.

  James smiled. ‘Well, by this time it had decimated their croquet lawn as well as the vegetable garden, so her husband said, not for the first time, ‘We’ll eat it!’

  Sir Godfrey laughed but Aunt Rose looked horrified.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ James reassured her. ‘I told her I would find a good home for “Tinkerbell”, so named after the fairy in that successful Peter Pan play because of the noise its tiny trotters had made on her flagstone floor. Well, you can imagine how inappropriate that name had become now it was a big fat sow.’

  They all laughed, but Aunt Rose persisted. ‘I do hope you did find a home for it, Mr Sherwin?’

  ‘I gave it to a farmer I knew who said he could breed from it,’ James told her, smiling. ‘He was delighted to acquire a young healthy animal for free and he agreed never to send it to the market. So all ended happily.’

  They were still smiling when the maid came in with the Christmas pudding, a sprig of holly on top and the brandy Cook had poured over it at the last minute flaming merrily.

  ‘This is the last of the batch Cook made three years ago,’ Lady Singleby said. ‘Cook always keeps them to ma
ture. Just as well now rationing prohibits the dried fruit and all those other ingredients. Goodness knows what we’ll have next Christmas, so make the most of this one.’

  In due course the crackers were pulled and the delicious box of crystallized fruits and the bowl of nuts were passed around. Both aunts were quite voluble after two glasses of Sir Godfrey’s white wine and were even tempted to sip a glass of his excellent port.

  At the far end of the table, Una was questioning her mother about the entertainments still being enjoyed in London despite the dreadful bombing raids, while Sir Godfrey was questioning James about the respective merits of Labradors or spaniels as shooting dogs. Sitting silently beside James, Dilys silently surveyed the now-untidy Christmas table, absorbing the relaxed, congenial atmosphere of this family gathering. It was surprisingly nice, she thought, to be here at home again. Not that she was unhappy with James at Brook House, but it was good to be reconciled with her parents; nice, too, that James was so at ease with them and so obviously approved of by the aunts. Most of all, she was happy that her parents were pleased with her marriage and that her mother had acknowledged Tina and promised that, when her actual age was less guessable, she could be introduced as a family member.

  It was when Una came round the table to pull the last cracker with her and a child’s bracelet fell out into her lap that Dilys’ thoughts winged once more to Kristoffer. Automatically, she reached up to touch the ring she still wore round her neck and a wave of sadness and anxiety swept through her. Where was he this Christmas of 1940? What was he doing? Was he alive? And if so, was it possible he could at this very moment be thinking of her?

  As Una looked at her twin’s stricken face, she said anxiously in a whisper, ‘Cheer up, Dil, darling! Everything has worked out really, really well.’

  ‘I know! I know!’ Dilys whispered back, reminding herself of the unfortunate girls at The Willows who would be childless this Christmas and the huge debt she owed James. She had no right to be thinking of Kristoffer and wishing he were there beside her. It was time she faced the fact that she would never see him again; and, more importantly, that she was deluded in imagining he had never loved her as she had loved him.