The Chestnut Tree

by Charlotte Bingham

  And what was more and what was better, no bombs had dropped either on the church or in the harbour. No bad news affecting the village had yet filtered through from London or elsewhere, but what was affecting was that Walter was there, and alive and well, and not dead at the bottom of the sea. Indeed at that moment, as Walter turned at the altar to see his lovely young bride with her bouquet of red flowers, his face was so filled with joy, it seemed to Loopy, that there was not a person in the church who, if they observed it, could remain unaffected.

  We are gathered here today . . .

  The words of the wedding service never failed to affect Loopy. Perhaps the longer she was married, the more years Hugh and she knew each other, the more she realised just how fortunate she was to have met and married someone with whom she had remained so very much in love. The fact of loving someone, no matter what, was just such a miracle, and for the marriage to last was an even grander miracle than the miracle of meeting and falling in love in the first place. Loopy bowed her head in prayer, for, to her mind, if God was a mystery, so too was love, but if God was love, then there was no mystery at all.

  ‘I thought the flowers were beautiful, simply lovely, didn’t you?’

  Not only the woman who had just voiced her appreciation of the floral displays, but all the guests at the reception back at the Melton house were agreed upon this point. They must be, because they had all said so to Loopy, over and over again, as if weddings were all about flowers, not people.

  To Loopy the flowers, although very pretty, were completely outshone by the radiance on the young people’s faces. That was what she would remember for the rest of her life when she stared at the photographs of Walter and Judy on their wedding day – their radiant happiness at finding each other and sharing their mutual love – not the flowers.

  Meggie, who had acted as lone bridesmaid to Judy, had found the wedding almost more difficult than Madame Gran’s funeral. Both she and Judy knew that neither Madame Gran nor Meggie herself approved of wartime marriages, and yet a part of both of them, a large part, could not help wondering whether, if Meggie had married Davey when he had asked her, that afternoon in London when they shut out the war and life, when they had loved each other so passionately, if she had done as Davey had asked and married him, he would not be dead. They might have been on honeymoon, they might have set up house together, he might have abstained from joining the flotilla that went out so quickly, so bravely, to Dunkirk to rescue the stranded British army.

  ‘You’re practically bilingual in French and German, aren’t you, Meggie?’ Hugh was suddenly at Meggie’s shoulder, refilling her glass with gin, and wearing his most innocent expression, which if Loopy had been by his side she could have warned Meggie meant that whatever was coming next would be, to say the least, unexpected. But since she was not, Hugh merely went on, ‘I think I remember Mrs Gore-Stewart telling me that, shortly before she died. Yes – I think I do remember that’s what she said, that you were brought up to be not bilingual, I mean, but trilingual.’

  Meggie nodded. She still found it impossible to believe that Madame Gran had gone, let alone Davey, and yet at the mention of either of their names it was as if she had been stabbed through the heart. It was ridiculous, but she still went in and out of Cuckers expecting to see the busy figure of Madame Gran, hear her distinctive tones, listen to her mischievous conversation, watch Richards following her about, his usual adoring expression in his eyes, but his eyebrows always about to be raised in potential disapproval at whatever new scheme she was proposing. And then again, looking out, daily, towards the harbour, or walking by the Three Tuns, she still expected to come upon Davey, his sailing togs rolled up to the knees, canvas shoes on slim, brown feet, his eyes on seeing Meggie lighting up as if he had just won a yachting race in the Light Heart.

  Hugh Tate must have been about halfway through his little pep talk about how useful Meggie could be – if she really wanted – when Meggie looked up at him and said the single word he really wanted to hear.

  ‘Yes, Hugh. Of course. Just tell me where to be and I will be there.’

  Hugh stopped talking, suddenly aware that his personal recruitment drive had worked. ‘Really, are you sure?’

  ‘Quite, quite sure. I’ve finally realised I have to leave Bexham. Too many memories, Hugh. You must understand that.’

  Meggie gave him one of her piercingly honest looks, and Hugh dropped his eyes. He had to confess that the thought had occurred to him that Meggie might well want to put a great many miles between Bexham and herself.

  ‘Yes, I must say, I thought you might.’

  If Hugh had been anything less than honest at that moment, then Meggie might have changed her mind, but since he was not, the die was cast.

  There was an old shoe, but no rice could be wasted, and although the wedding cake had tasted a trifle strange, and there was more gin and sherry than champagne – and those bottles that there were had been donated by Richards and Meggie as a present from Madame Gran’s cellar – nothing much mattered to Judy. For, as Walter carried her over the threshold of Owl Cottage, all she could think of was the wonder of the fact that she was alone with Walter, and he was home for another twelve hours. A whole twelve hours to make love and more love. A whole twelve hours to kiss and talk, and kiss again, and talk some more. It was perfection, although not the honeymoon of which Judy had dreamed when in exile in Scotland with her mother.

  That honeymoon was to be spent abroad, in a Europe at peace. She would have worn a beautiful coat and skirt by Molyneux. Walter would have hired a private carriage on the luxury train to Paris, where they would have started their honeymoon in a palatial suite in an old grand hotel on the Île St Louis. From there a chauffeured car would have taken them to the South of France, where, once more followed by little page boys carrying her endless luggage, Judy would have made herself at home in yet another luxurious hotel. Their suite would have a double set of French windows which opened on to a brilliant view of the sea, and there would be a yacht to take them out for picnics to remote beaches where they would swim and laze until it was time to return for dinner. Every night she would change into gowns so stunning that Walter would hardly be able to look at the menu, let alone the wine list. After dinner they would dance until the early hours to a ten-piece orchestra before retiring to make love in a vast, gold embossed bed made up with silk sheets.

  Of course they had both seen Owl Cottage before, individually, but now they were actually married obviously it looked more beautiful than ever. Because it, like them, was now a fact, a big, beautiful fact. The blue covers, the pink cushions, the kitchen like a new pin, cupboards painted pale blue, walls white, every spoon and fork that could be spared, and saucepans too, were admired by Walter and Judy.

  But admiration is a dull word when it comes to the wonder of a first home, where the gleam of the first tin opener or corkscrew, the shine of a saucepan lid, or the colour of a plant by the back door, assumes an importance that is remembered by the owners for the rest of their lives. How much more so, therefore, if war has put a time limit on those moments. How much more for a young man to take in, knowing that in such a short time he would be gone, perhaps for ever. To have found each other in peacetime would have been joy enough, but to do so in war brought an intensity of beauty and colour into each second. So much so that it seemed to Judy, for the heartbreakingly short time they spent together, that such was the passion of the love that consumed them, their hearts might stop, and they might be extinguished, long before Walter was once more in uniform, his officer’s cap under his arm, his eyes bright with a courage that he could not have been feeling.

  After he had left her, Judy, refusing to risk bad luck by waving goodbye – while at the same time instructing him not to turn to look back at her – shut the front door, and went upstairs to lie on the bed they had left only an hour before.

  There were tears now that Walter had gone; but although there was no one else there to comfort Judy, she was comforted.


  She would have a baby. She would have Walter’s baby. Whatever else happened she was going to have Walter’s baby, something of Walter for her to love, some child that would remind her of him, for ever. And that being so, nothing that might be going to happen to them now would matter quite so much. She placed her hands on her stomach. She would have Walter’s baby.

  Yelling Mattie’s name again in anguish, Michael stumbled over to where the bodies lay, only to discover that they were not human beings, but dummies from a nearby department store window.

  Turning round in helpless circles where he stood, he looked in vain for any other sign of life, but could see none.

  ‘Mattie!’ he yelled once more. ‘Mattie – can you hear me! Mattie!’

  ‘Michael?’

  He could see her now, beginning to try to scramble to her feet from where she had been thrown to the ground. Hurrying to her side, he steadied her, urging her to stay where she was until they could find out whether or not she was hurt. There was blood on her face, running from her nose, and there was blood in her hair, matted with debris and dirt.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Mattie took hold of Michael’s arm with both her hands. ‘I think I can move everything. Yes, I can – I think everything’s still working.’ She pulled herself slowly to her feet. ‘Are you all right?’ She pushed back a tangled knot of hair from her face. ‘I thought you had to be dead.’

  ‘I thought you had to be.’

  Michael put his arm round her back, at the same time looking round to see if there was anywhere safe to shelter, but hardly had he done so when there was another crash as another lump of masonry fell to the ground. Quickly deciding against the idea he turned Mattie away from the target area and led her into the semi-darkness behind the flaring gas main and the smaller fires that were breaking out around it.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling, Private Eastcott, that suffering claustrophobia down the subways might have been a great deal less uncomfortable, but let it pass.’

  ‘Sorry, General. I must have been mad.’

  ‘Mad-der. Any idea where the nearest hospital is?’

  Mattie shook her head, wincing with the sudden pain.

  ‘I don’t need a hospital. Honestly. I just have a few scratches and bruises, that’s all. What about you?’

  ‘I just need a new pair of pants. Lost my hat as well into the bargain.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have listened to me, really you shouldn’t.’

  ‘And miss all the fun? Listen, kid – it’s not everyone who gets blitzed and lives to tell the tale.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have had anything to do with me.’

  ‘I knew that the moment I met you, sweetheart.’

  They picked their slow way across the rubble lying in the street. As soon as they seemed to be well clear of all apparent danger, Michael stopped and looked back west along the line where the bombs had been dropping. The all-clear was sounding now, and rather than the sound of droning aircraft and the thud of exploding bombs the night was filled with the sound of rescue vehicles, the fire engines and ambulances already rushing towards the scenes of carnage. Raised voices were carried on the wind, shouting instructions and directions, and now there were screams as well, faint cries for help from beneath the rubble, louder shouts from those lucky enough not to be buried but unlucky enough still to be injured. Hand in hand Mattie and Michael threaded their way back through the chaos of the bomb sites, avoiding the side streets that were still plunged in darkness, preferring to stick to the long, wide route that was Oxford Street. As they crossed the Circus a member of the WVS, catching sight of the blood on Mattie’s face by the light of her torch, offered her first aid. From somewhere appeared two mugs of steaming tea, borne by a diminutive grey-haired woman in carpet slippers and a thick tartan dressing gown, tea which they gratefully consumed.

  Continuing on their way to Michael’s flat they passed the emergency services busy removing a line of bodies from a smouldering building nearby, taking them to await identification in a makeshift morgue just around the corner in the church hall.

  To Michael’s surprise Mattie stopped to watch, before hurrying on. When they eventually reached the flat, she said, ‘I feel oddly selfish. The way I’ve been thinking, carrying on. Does it take bombs to make me realise that you and I don’t really matter any more?’

  ‘Oh, we matter, we matter very much, but not the way we perhaps think we do.’ Michael paused. ‘Actually I’ve been putting off telling you – I have to go, Mattie. I am being moved on.’

  Mattie nodded as if she already knew this to be the case. ‘Yes, but when? When do you have to go?’

  Of course Mattie had always known this must happen some time, but, rather like her determination to walk home in the middle of an air raid, she had put the reality of their situation aside, preferring to carry on living in the belief that things were going to continue indefinitely in a strange sort of wartime status quo, with Michael based in London and her continuing to act as his driver.

  ‘Can’t say when, or where, just soon, but I do have one idea. You still have two days’ leave left, isn’t that so?’ As Mattie said nothing, he went on, ‘Happily enough I actually have a couple of days’ leave due as well. Thought we might take a little trip together. I thought you might drive me to this famous Bexham of yours that I’m always hearing so much about. I’d really like to see where you come from. Where you live. I want to see you there, for real, before I go, so I can picture you back there when I’m gone.’

  ‘You do?’

  Mattie tried to look enthusiastic, but the prospect of trying to hide how she felt about Michael from her parents, her mother especially, was not one to which she could look forward.

  ‘Sure.’ Michael, perhaps sensing a certain reluctance, went on enthusiastically. ‘It would mean a lot to me to see the part of England where you were raised. We could stay somewhere. A little inn maybe. That’s something else I’ve always wanted to do, stay in an old-fashioned English inn, with an old-fashioned English girl.’

  ‘You want a guided tour?’

  ‘You bet. And I get to sleep with the guide.’

  Mattie knew she couldn’t take Michael home. There was simply no possibility of her arriving back at her parents’ house with a four star United States general in tow, the man whom they knew Mattie was driving. Even if the subject of his marital status was not brought up, Mattie knew that in Bexham, anyway, assumptions would be made, instantly.

  Besides, Mattie had no wish to share the precious few hours she and Michael had left to spend together with her father and mother. Nor could they stay in the Three Tuns. It was much too local and Mattie was far too familiar a face with the regulars. Instead she recommended to Michael that they stay some way from Bexham, and perhaps only visit it if it could be arranged to be part of his official itinerary. Naturally this would mean staying in uniform, but if Michael really wanted to see Bexham, it was the best way.

  ‘I just love this place,’ Michael exclaimed after he had started to explore Mattie’s choice, which providentially was not just a safe forty minutes’ driving time from Bexham, but also happened to be one of the oldest inns in Sussex. A place so famous for the famous having stayed there that perhaps only the arrival of William Shakespeare ordering a pint of mead in the bar would cause a mild stir. ‘Quite apart from anything else, it creaks everywhere. And everything is crooked, and just breathes history. How old is it anyway?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Old enough. Judging from all the old panelling and what have you, I don’t know – Tudor certainly, probably much earlier.’

  ‘Steeped in history, I bet. Feels as if you’re tumbling backwards in time, somersaulting, even.’

  Mattie smiled, thinking that whatever might have gone before in the ancient coaching inn, nothing that she had planned for that night would surprise any ghosts or spirits that might still be lingering in its rooms.

  Everything about her new training felt unreal to Meggie. Despite being deter
mined on it, completely committed to it, even at her final briefing she kept thinking that any minute now Hugh Tate would turn round from the map of France to which he was pointing and laughingly say, ‘Ha, ha, just a tease, Meggie. You don’t have to go. It was just a joke really.’

  It was then that it came to Meggie that becoming an agent, volunteering to be dropped into France, turning up at Baker Street and various other places, being kitted up with everything that would be needed – and some things, like her own personal cyanide pill, that she hoped would not be needed – must be very like having a baby. The idea was fine, volunteering for the experience not that difficult, and the conception even quite enjoyable, but actually having to face up to the reality – blooming terrifying.

  Although she did not know it, in her grief for her loved ones Meggie looked more beautiful than she had ever done. If mourning had any reward it was in the luminous quality it had given to her large, sad eyes, and in the pallor that showed up the dark lines under her eyes since her childhood inability to sleep had returned. Of course she was not aware of this as she stared at herself in the mirror; she was only aware of the change in how she looked as it affected her chances of being passed off as a Frenchwoman. It was not only because she had already adopted a French style of dressing – very smart – or that her blond hair was drawn back underneath her navy blue hat in a new, slick, Gallic kind of style. It was not that her make-up was more evident than it would be normally; it was because she herself, as she stared into the mirror, saw how afraid she was. She would have to be a fool not to be afraid, she told herself, even as she heard David’s voice in her head begging her to marry him, as the sirens sang and people pounded past his Chelsea house, their feet pitter-pattering on the pavement, the sound somehow seeming to echo their heartbeats.