The Chestnut Tree

by Charlotte Bingham

  Yet even though Hugh Tate had also been decorated for gallantry, the Tates were considered to be not only parvenus but also visitors rather than residents, coming down as they did for the greater part only at the weekends. The Tates were therefore not thought to be quite good enough to be included on the Meltons’ social list – something which, being the Tates, they had always accepted with wry good humour.

  Now that Walter had fallen in love with Judy, however, things must, or rather should, change. Now the very least the Tates might perhaps expect would be a few words of greeting after matins at St Mary’s Parish Church, Bexham, instead of just the formal nod that Sir Arthur had been bestowing on a fellow member of the Senior Service for the past ten years, on those many occasions when they had attended the same church service on Sundays. As for the outcome of their falling in love, Walter knew he would have to wait and see, just as he knew it most certainly was not going to be plain sailing.

  ‘Just don’t be late, Judy, there’s a good girl,’ he muttered to himself as he brushed the sleeves of his dinner jacket carefully with a camel-haired clothes brush. ‘Please, please, don’t be late, whatever else you are.’

  To his vast relief as he turned to leave his bedroom he caught sight of Judy’s car also turning, slowly and carefully, into their gateway. Breathing a silent word of thanks to the Almighty, Walter faced himself once more in his dressing mirror. His heart was now beating absurdly fast and he could feel the palms of his hands turning hot. Giving a deep sigh he did his best to pull himself together, putting his shoulders back and adopting his favourite expression of apparent nonchalance, before taking out his silver cigarette case and filling it from the open packet of Players on his chest of drawers. But although outwardly he now looked the unconcerned and debonair man about town everyone took him to be, knowing the controversy his attachment to Judy Melton was going to arouse, Walter was actually praying as hard as he could, for just about everything, but most of all for Judy and himself.

  Hearing the voices in the hall as Gwen the housemaid greeted their visitor, Loopy quickly checked her lipstick in the glass of the small silver compact Hugh had given her last Christmas. Her expression relaxed suddenly, as if she had heard some favourite bird singing in the garden beyond the French windows, and with sudden shock she realised that what she was actually hearing was the pretty light voice of a girl in the hall outside. To a mother of sons, used as she was to hearing only the baritone sounds of men’s voices around her house, it was, of a sudden, quite lovely.

  ‘I do hope I’m not late,’ Judy was saying as Gwen took her coat. ‘I had a little spot of trouble with my car on the journey down.’

  It was a nice light voice, Loopy decided as she straightened her perfectly cut jacket, not particularly patrician, not particularly anything really, just a nice, musical voice.

  ‘Do I look OK?’ she hissed at Hugh, who was busy draining his second martini fast and furiously.

  ‘You look just fine, honey child,’ Hugh returned in mock American. ‘One million and two dollars. Anyway. You know how much I like that outfit.’

  Loopy kissed her fingers to him in gratitude before giving herself one last check in the large mirror that hung over the fireplace. The glass reflected a tall, auburn-haired, slim woman, elegant in a smoking suit in white albene with short sleeves and wide, sailor-style trousers. Perfectly suited to an informal dinner at home, the whole was set off by an organza blouse printed with large flowers and a string of stylish large pink pearls at the neck.

  ‘Miss Melton,’ Loopy said by way of greeting, standing framed in the doorway of the sitting room. ‘How do you do?’

  Meeting properly for the first time the two women took to each other at once, much to their mutual surprise. Judy had been more than nervous at the thought of meeting Walter’s mother, Judy’s mother, Lady Melton, having always referred to her, most unkindly, as Mother New Money, implying that she must be brash and vulgar, whereas the woman welcoming Judy to her house was in fact the very opposite. Judy saw at once that Loopy was elegant, charming, classy and quite wonderfully easy going.

  In her turn Loopy found herself pleasantly surprised by Judy Melton, faced not with the expected diffidence of someone from a family that considered itself to be socially superior, but with an obviously shy, nervous, but impeccably mannered young woman. She was also surprised by Judy’s beauty, now that she had a chance to see it close to, rather than just glimpsing it distantly. Judy Melton was blessed with that perfect English complexion which requires little or no make-up, as well as thick dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a slim but rounded figure. She was, in fact, in appearance and manner the very opposite sort of woman to Loopy who, whatever she wore, always managed somehow to look like something straight out of Vogue and to sound like someone out of a light comedy. In contrast to Loopy’s sophisticated ensemble Judy, having not had time to go home, had chosen to stop at a friend’s house near the harbour and change into a long, printed silk dress that fell to her feet. Capped sleeves, a tie belt in the same material, and a decorous bodice caught at two points with tiny gold clasps completed the design. With one evening glove on and one held in the accepted way, she looked every inch the kind of young lady that any father would wish his son to ask to his house.

  ‘I do hope I’m not late,’ Judy pleaded again, having been introduced to her silver-haired host. ‘As I was telling your maid, my car started to misbehave on the way down, and it was all very worrying, really.’

  ‘You’re on deck before our son,’ Hugh remarked, preparing fresh cocktails with some vigour. ‘He seems to have got himself lost at sea somewhere.’

  ‘A relief to get out of London, I imagine,’ Loopy said, lighting a cigarette. ‘We’ve been down here since last weekend. I can’t say I found being in town very comfortable. All those alarms and excursions, and around Peter Jones of all places, I hear.’

  Judy quickly took up this point, describing the war rehearsal in Sloane Square and how her friend Meggie Gore-Stewart had been forced to lie back while her old piano teacher bandaged her mock wounds, all of which Hugh immediately found hilarious, saying over and over, ‘I say, what a hoot! What a hoot!’

  ‘My husband has an extremely warped sense of humour, Miss Melton,’ Loopy said, smiling, while accepting a fresh drink from Hugh. ‘Perhaps he’ll let us in on what’s just so funny.’ She winked at Judy, and blew a perfect round O with the smoke from her cigarette.

  ‘The idea of holding rehearsals for a war, that’s what is so funny. You can’t rehearse war.’

  ‘You have drills in the Navy. I really don’t see the difference.’

  ‘The difference is we sailors are drilled to perform and behave in a certain way. You can’t do that with civilians. Besides, the fact is you don’t know what’s going to hit ’em – as well as where or how.’

  ‘But you can rehearse where people are meant to go, Captain Tate, in the event of an air raid, I mean. In order to sort of minimise the panic, as it were. I mean, the drill must have been jolly useful for the ambulance people as well, not to mention the fire service.’

  ‘Well, of course you can practise. But it’s just so terribly British, wouldn’t you say? And none the worse for it, I might add.’

  Loopy smiled at Judy.

  While they all waited for Walter to come down, they pretended to discuss how best to prepare a country for war, with Judy sticking staunchly to her contention that being forewarned was to be forearmed, in spite of Hugh’s remorseless teasing.

  ‘They’re not giving you too hard a time, I hope,’ Walter remarked, casually, as he wandered into the elegant modern sitting room. ‘The Tates are inclined to gang up on single girls, I must warn you.’

  Loopy stared at her middle son as he greeted his girlfriend. Oh my! Her heart went out to him – love really was so utterly, utterly painful. She remembered how it had been when she had been taken to meet Hugh’s mother, as if it were yesterday. Old Mrs Tate had been such a stickler for convention. Loopy could still rem
ember the look in Hugh’s eyes, the transparent hope that she, Loopy, would not put a foot wrong, let alone both feet. Somehow she had got through that awful experience – she still didn’t know quite how – and had finally won the approval of her mother-in-law, against all the odds, yet even now the thought of it made the palms of her hands sweat. She would do anything in her power to prevent this young woman standing by her son’s side from suffering the way she had been made to suffer, while Hugh’s mother had forced her to jump through every conceivable hoop.

  ‘I see from the luggage in the hall that you have brought your gas mask, Judy,’ Walter noted, solemn-faced. ‘Don’t tell me war’s broken out in London and they have forgotten to tell us down here?’

  ‘I came more or less straight from this air raid rehearsal in Sloane Square. I was just telling your parents about it, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘It’s the latest thing in London, old man,’ Hugh told his son, over-seriously. ‘They’re learning to stampede in orderly fashion.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you were rehearsing dressed like that—’

  ‘Doesn’t she look smart?’ Loopy put in, quickly. ‘I just love that colour on you. Goes so well with your hair.’

  ‘Thank you. Actually I went home and changed, once the rehearsal was over. We ended up lying on the pavement pretending to be casualties, covered in fake blood from a theatrical costumier. And then I changed again when I arrived down, at a friend’s house, because it was quicker.’

  Judy smiled shyly and took a sip at her drink, taking the chance to sneak a look at the elegant but casual way Walter’s mother had chosen to decorate the sitting room. Its cool, pure colours and fashionable square-shaped but comfortable-looking furniture were very different from the traditional chintzes and faded pastels of her own home, the manor house. Yet much as she liked the modern look, she was quite sure her mother most definitely would not approve of such up-to-date style, however suitable for an informal weekend seaside home.

  ‘Would you like to see the gardens?’ Walter touched Judy gently on the arm. ‘That is, Mother – if we have time?’

  ‘Of course you do, honey. Papa will give an extra loud bang on the gong when we’re ready to eat.’

  Walter gave Judy his arm as they strolled down the long lawns that led to the sea. It was a perfect summer evening with barely a breeze. The tide was running out, and the lightly rippling waters glinted in the evening sunshine. A line of ducks swam upstream, looking as serious as ducks somehow always seem to do when in convoy, while overhead a cloud of swallows swooped to pluck invisible insects out of the air. Yachts bobbed at their moorings with their sails neatly furled while on top of their gently swaying masts large and lugubrious-looking sea gulls watched for any sign of food either in or on the water. At the far end of the estuary a couple of large yachts waited for the tide to turn, and eastwards in the harbour some of the local fishing boats were preparing to leave on the last run of the tide, for a night’s fishing in the Channel.

  ‘Odd, isn’t it?’ Walter pondered, tapping a cigarette on his silver cigarette case. ‘This is about exactly how it always is this time of day, this time of year on the river. How it’s been for centuries, I imagine. And yet – only a matter of a hundred miles or so up and over the Straits of Dover there are guns pointing in our direction. Bombers ready for takeoff. Troops ready to embark. It just doesn’t seem real somehow, more like something in a film or a play.’

  ‘Do you really think there will be an invasion, Walter?’ Judy asked, holding on to his arm with both her hands. ‘Everyone’s talking about it as if it’s just about to happen, as if it’s bound to happen.’ She paused, hope in her eyes. ‘But, I mean, some people seem to think there’s a possibility it can still be averted.’

  ‘There’s an outside chance war can be avoided, I suppose. The government definitely has not given up all hope, not entirely. But if push does come to shove and there is a war, Judy darling, I’m afraid there will be every chance of an invasion.’

  ‘It’s too horrible to think of, Nazis in Bexham. I just can’t bear to think of it.’

  ‘We have to face reality. We have to imagine the worst. To do anything else is madness.’

  ‘I’d much rather not, not just for the minute anyway,’ Judy replied, detaching herself from him to walk to the point where the gardens ended and the beach began.

  Walter watched her for a moment, silhouetted against the evening sun. He was trying not to take his own advice about eventualities, preferring to remember this moment for what it was, rather than for what it might never be again.

  Cling to it, he urged himself. Print this moment for ever on your mind so that it will become as much part of you as your own heart.

  At first neither of them heard the distant gong summoning them back to the house, at least not until it was practically an echo on the slight summer breeze.

  ‘Judy.’

  But Judy had already turned away from her prospect to come back to his side and re-link arms.

  ‘I love this place, Walter,’ she said as they began to walk back towards the house. ‘I should like to live somewhere just like this. Right on the water. Overlooking the estuary. Our house has no view of the water at all. Somewhere like that, just along the bank there, that would be an ideal spot.’ She waved vaguely at some acres of scrubland situated just before the Point. ‘The best of both worlds. A view of the sea that’s not too exposed, and the protection of the hills by the Point. Be a splendid place for a house.’

  ‘Absolutely ideal.’

  Judy stared longingly at the site she had pointed out, imagining herself married to Walter, both of them living there happily for the rest of their days.

  She dropped his arm to take hold of his hand, holding it loosely, and walked up the lawn in his wake, trailing behind him just a little, as Loopy turned from the sitting-room window.

  ‘Play some Cole Porter, Hughie,’ she urged suddenly. ‘Please. I feel like singing.’

  Hugh immediately turned from HMS Pinafore to the introduction of Anything Goes. Loopy’s lovely smoky contralto voice floated out across the lawns, summoning Walter and Judy in to dinner.

  Chapter Two

  In the older part of Bexham, the correct part as Lady Melton preferred to think of it, there was no sound of any music and precious little of any conversation at Magnolia’s, the house inhabited by Lionel and Maude Eastcott.

  In fact about the only noise to be heard around the house at dinner time that evening was the sound of Lionel Eastcott’s fork scratching the bottom of his dinner plate as he slowly raised slice after thinly sliced morsel of boiled chicken to his mustachioed mouth. When he finally cleared his plate and carefully placed his knife and fork to one side of it, he slowly wiped his mouth with an over-starched white napkin before staring with little interest down the dark oak dining table at his wife Maude, seated at the far end.

  ‘And Mathilda is?’ he asked, as he generally did every Friday night.

  ‘I told you. Mathilda has gone to the cinema with the Morrison girl,’ Maude replied irritably, giving a small shove to her Wedgwood plate, as if by pushing it away from her she could dismiss not only the tastelessness of the chicken but also this ever growing belief in an impending war, the very reason Cook had abruptly upped and departed back home to her family in Derbyshire, leaving them with only Dolly the housemaid to help out, duties which unfortunately included acting as substitute cook.

  Maude Eastcott knew everything there might be to know about flower arrangement but not one thing about composing menus, let alone the art of cooking. Like almost every other woman of her social standing she had always considered such matters to be beneath her, relying on Cook to tell her what the week’s meals should be. So now, when Dolly arrived in the morning room holding a notebook and looking not only forlorn but utterly blank, Maude had absolutely no idea of what to suggest for the coming week – other than kedgeree, or some roast meat or other, and after all even Maude knew those two dishes could hardly be eat
en at every mealtime. She had therefore taken to ordering women’s magazines to help her out with suggestions for Dolly. Nothing too difficult, just simple menus, but enough to satisfy her husband, she devoutly hoped.

  Fortunately Lionel was no gourmet, actually preferring simple food, simply cooked. So although the question of household meals continued to irk Maude, the matter was really an academic one, until this very evening when her husband chose to pass a comment.

  ‘That chicken was inexcusably dull, Maude,’ he said, after washing the taste of it away with a good draught of water. ‘One would have imagined it not to be beyond the bounds of possibility to have served some sort of sauce with it. And as for the potatoes. What does Cook think she’s doing?’

  ‘Cook, as you well know, Lionel, returned to the bosom of her family over a month ago now,’ Maude replied with a deep sigh. ‘Cook was one of the first of the deserters to leave Bexham, if you remember.’

  ‘Ridiculous. If there’s going to be a war, it’s hardly going to confine itself to the Home Counties.’

  ‘I will have another word with Dolly, but not tonight.’ Maude gave another tiny sigh, as if to indicate how hard her times now were. ‘Tonight would not be the right moment. Her sister is having a baby, and her mother apparently – as Dolly puts it – is under the doctor once more.’

  Lionel now placed his knife and fork to the other side of his plate and stared at them, assessing their new position.

  ‘Rather him than me is all I can say to that. Rather him than me. So what’s next? Plums and custard, I’ll be bound – with too much custard, no doubt.’