The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

by Jennifer Ryan

  Daddy’s eyes narrowed on Venetia, who was busy with Mr. Slater, all witty replies and feigned boredom. Even though Daddy will have words with her later, he can’t control Venetia at all. Every time he tells her to leave Slater alone, she simply shrugs and smiles and says she’s “Daddy’s little poppet,” and then carries on as usual. It makes me sick.

  Henry was standing close behind Venetia’s shoulder protectively, trying to get into the conversation. He didn’t have to try hard as Mr. Slater seemed pleased to include him, speaking to him directly, making jokes as they both laughed. It was as if he was avoiding Venetia’s attention. Henry put his hand on Venetia’s arm, and I saw his eyes glance at her face, her throat, her cleavage beneath the low-cut dress. She shook off his hand, but he stayed close, and I wondered why he let her play games with him. But then I remembered how clever he is—he must be playing some kind of game himself.

  Then I realized I wasn’t the only one watching Venetia. David Tilling was gazing over at her from the window, leaning against the wall, engulfed by her presence. He’s been in love with Venetia since he was in breeches. I never thought it was so serious, but his eyes were like those of a big gulping fish, drinking her up. Venetia needs to watch herself there. David’s become a lot more forthright since army training.

  “Let’s get the piano out,” Mrs. Tilling called. “Can I dare Kitty with a song or two?” Mrs. Quail (whose color is a cheery orange) plumped her very ample behind on the piano stool, while Mrs. B. grasped my elbow and marched me up beside her. Everyone knows I plan to be a singer when I grow up, so I’m always the first one called for a song or two. Prim gave me a special smile from the crowd, and I felt determined to make a good impression.

  “Come on, Kitty,” everyone cheered, and I must confess I was touched and took the score. Mrs. Quail had given me “Greensleeves,” that beautiful song that was supposedly written by King Henry VIII, although I bet he asked someone to help him as you can’t be king and write lovely music at the same time. Especially if you’re busy beheading wives.

  Mrs. Quail began the opening, and I entered with the wonderful tune. It was perfect for showing off my top notes. When I finished, Prim gave me a little nod, as if to say Well done, and I felt a surge of delight. At long last my skills have been noticed!

  I glanced over and caught Henry’s eyes, and it was as if the world slowed down as our gaze met across the crowded room. He smiled, his whole face lit with joy and love, until Venetia nudged him with some remark or other. Trust her to interfere.

  In the next song, Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,” Mrs. Quail started playing faster to trip me up on purpose. It was hilarious.

  “You should be on stage as a comedian, not a singer, Kitty,” Hattie joked. Her color is lilac, pretty and uplifting, and I have no idea why she’s such good friends with vile Venetia and awful Angela Quail. Perhaps she’s trying to rescue them from utter loathsomeness.

  The pregnancy is making her tired—I could tell from her big brown eyes sagging with the weight of the evening—and yet she’s always so lively, perking us up with her jokes and smiles. It must be difficult for her with Victor stuck on a ship in the Atlantic. I still can’t get used to them being married. They were friends for years and then, as if someone turned on a giant light, war was about to break out and they fell in love and got married within the week. It’s happening everywhere, apparently. Obviously, it’s all about death. How strange that love and death suddenly become so tightly knit in a time of war.

  Why everyone’s getting married in a hurry

  If you’re in love, why wait for a tomorrow that never comes?

  People are being moved around, so if you want to stay with someone, you’d better marry them

  Do you want to have children before it’s all too late?

  Do you want to be notified when your someone special is killed?

  Do you want to get some money if they’re killed in action?

  Do you want someone special to pray for, live for? Who will be left at the end, after all?

  As we left, I gave David a peck on the cheek. “Don’t let Venetia get you down,” I whispered, feeling the need to give him a word or two of support. “You need to forget about her, find someone who’ll treat you right.”

  He frowned at me. “What are you saying, Kitty?” he said, a cocky smirk coming over his mouth. “Just because you’re laboring after a lost cause, don’t think we all are.”

  I was shocked. The old David—the David before training—would never have said something like that. I wasn’t entirely sure I understood what he meant. Who exactly is the lost cause around here?

  Henry was leaving, so I had to forget about all that and rush off to steal a last moment with him. He was in the hall fetching his jacket—the special bomber pilot’s one with leather and fur lining.

  “When will I see you again?” I asked, standing in front of him on my toes, my eyes level with his lips, soft and beckoning beneath his neat mustache.

  “You’ll see me, young lady, when we’ve fought off those Nazis,” he said, taking my chin between his fingers. I tilted my face upward, closing my eyes, waiting for our lips to meet—

  But then Mama came through and said we had to go, so we were forced apart. There was a smile on his face as I pushed my arms through the sleeves of my coat and followed Mama and Silvie out into the cold blackness outside. But as I turned to take one last look at him, he gave me a wink, and my heart exploded with joy, knowing only one truth. He loves me, and soon we will be together.

  Wednesday, 24th April, 1940

  Today my son left for war, and I have adopted a brittle façade, a limp smile that wavers in and out like a broken tune on a worn-out wireless. I keep trembling as I remember the last war, all those soldiers who never returned, the neighbor’s lad gone only a month before the telegram arrived.

  They say this war is different, but a horror overcomes me if I dare to think of David out there, trying to stay sane through the gore. They say we have bombers and tanks and there won’t be trenches like last time. But when I close my eyes, all I hear is the unbearable yells of men in pain, crushed by the colossal theater of war.

  You see, I saw them come home after the last war, the cripples, the amputees, the ones so disturbed they’d never sleep soundly again, haunted by their dead friends, guilt stricken that they were somehow allowed to live. They were never the same again.

  This morning was filled with much running up and down the stairs, the fresh scents of shampoo, hair cream, and clean laundry cutting the fraught air. I watched out the hall window for the van, as slow, gray clouds mottled the outside world. Ralph Gibbs from the shop was leaving, too, and Mrs. Gibbs was driving them both to Litchfield in her grocery van.

  “Look at you,” I said as David came downstairs for the last time. He was wearing his uniform and looking all tidy and grown up. I straightened his already straight collar; I just wanted to touch him, to feel his mass under my fingertips. He looked down at me and grinned in his cheery way.

  “Well, best be off then, Mum,” he said. “Or I’ll be in trouble before I’ve even started.” He laughed a little, and I clenched my mouth into a tight smile so that I didn’t cry.

  As he opened the front door, the clouds broke apart, and the sun came out, making the wet trees and grass glisten silently for a brief moment. Then a fine rain began, sprinkling the air with a dewy sparkle that made it feel almost unreal, like a slip in time.

  We said good-bye at the gate in the ethereal drizzle. With a glance back at the house, his home for all these years, he put his arms around me.

  I gripped him tight.

  “You know you don’t have to go,” I whimpered, praying for one insane moment that he’d change his mind.

  He smiled and wiped away a tear. “Chin up, Mum! Someone’s got to teach those Jerries a lesson, eh?”

  Pulling away, he ambled off to the van, and I studied his broad back, his lazy lilting walk, his state o
f being that would no longer be mine to watch, mine to grasp. A vision came back to me of him as a boy, scampering down this very path, late for school, turning and grinning, lopsided by his heavy satchel.

  And just as I remembered, he turned back to me then with that same look, as if the world were a great adventure for him to behold and relish, and I felt the rain washing the tears down my face for all our precious years together.

  He got into the van and opened the window to wave, and then, as it revved up and pulled away, his lips touched the palm of his hand and he blew me a kiss, something he hasn’t done since he was a child. It was as if on the edge of manhood he, too, remembered everything we had shared, that he was the man who was still, in his heart, my little boy, late for school.

  And then he was gone.

  I went into the house and moped around the kitchen, my head throbbing as it does so readily these days. I looked out the window into the rain that still fell, the grass that still grew, the birds that still sang.

  But now I was alone.

  After a few dreadful minutes, I got up, unable to help creeping into his small, sparse room, still warm from his presence. Running my hand down his soft blue bedcover, I remembered how many times I’d pulled it over his small frame at bedtime, and kneeling down next to the bed, I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with his essence, that unmistakable smell he’s had since he was a baby. I’d recognize it anywhere, all salt and warm honey.

  That evening, when I’d stopped crying, I realized that this was a feeling I was going to have to get used to. Keeping busy, stopping my head from thinking the most abysmal things, never knowing where he is or whether he’s still alive.

  David is all that I have. I know he must go and do his duty, even though I wish with every ounce of me that he might have been given a desk job or kept home to refuel planes. I can only pray that God is watching over him. I suppose I am just one of the millions of mothers around the world standing by a door, watching our children walk down the road away from us, kit bag on backs, unsure if they’ll ever return. We have prayer enough to light up the whole universe, like a thousand stars breathing life into our deepest fears.

  I had to pull myself together for tonight’s choir practice, at once looking forward to expelling some pent-up feelings into the air, and also fearful that I’d collapse, breaking our silent vows to keep it tucked inside, keep spirits up.

  I went to the church early, wandering up to the altar and thinking about the finality of death. Then a hand on my arm made me turn around, and there was Prim nodding her understanding. As if she knew, she saw straight inside me at the emptiness and fear.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Loneliness seems to follow me,” I said with a sad smile.

  “It’s never the end,” she said softly. “Love is always there. You just need to embrace it.”

  “But—” I wasn’t sure what she meant. Where is the love when my family have gone?

  “You need to cherish your memories of people. You can’t ask anything more from them now.”

  The door squeaked open and Kitty and Silvie dashed in, breaking up our talk with their chatter.

  “Did David leave today?” Kitty asked, breathless from running.

  “Yes,” I replied. “He left this morning.”

  “Did he remember everything?”

  “I suppose so,” I replied stiffly, not wanting to talk about it.

  Silvie’s little hand tucked into mine, and when I looked down, I saw her eyes large and fraught. The poor child’s seen far too much of this war. I can only pray it never comes here.

  Soon the choir stalls were packed, people clamoring to hear news of the war from anyone who knew anything. A few of us remained quiet, listening in a half-tuned-in way as our thoughts were drawn away. Some of the women who also had loved ones away came to give me their sympathy, their scared eyes welcoming me into their haunted world.

  Prim turned to the choir, requesting that we sing “Love Divine” for Sunday. Gathering up the sleeves of her dramatic damask cloak, she held her baton high in readiness, and we plunged into it, bathing in the glow of song. At the end, Mrs. Quail tottered to the front and had a word with Prim, to which she nodded and directed Mrs. Quail back to the organ.

  “By special request, we’ll have a good old sing of ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd.’ ” We gathered up our song sheets and looked toward her to begin. I knew Mrs. Quail had done it for me. She knew it was one of my favorite hymns. I caught her eye to say thank you, and as the slow, methodical introduction began, I felt the blood pumping faster through my veins.

  The most beautiful sound, the choir in full voice was singing softly, hesitantly to begin with, and then opening our voices straight from our very hearts.

  The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want;

  He makes me down to lie

  In pastures green; He leadeth me

  The quiet waters by.

  The volume swelled with passion and deliberation as we poured our emotions into every darkened corner of the church. Every dusty cloister and crevice reverberated, reaching a crescendo in the final chorus, a vocal unison of thirteen villagers that cold, still night, pouring out our longings, our anxieties, our deepest fears.

  AIR BASE 9463, DAWS HILL,

  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

  Thursday, 25th April, 1940

  My darling Venetia,

  I have felt little except the wild beats of my heart since we parted last Tuesday. The way you looked, the way you moved in that dress, I feel mesmerized, put under an enchanted spell by your elegance and beauty. When you told me that you would consider my offer of marriage, I could only rejoice in the knowledge that you might one day be mine. I only hope that I may survive this war long enough to know you properly as my wife.

  I am not due back to Chilbury until July, and when I arrive, I hope you might have had time to consider my proposal. I have plenty to offer, after all, my darling. Brampton Hall will be yours, as will our illustrious family name, and my everlasting passion and devotion. Timely weddings are usual these days, and I am anxious to be wed as soon as you give the word. They give the newly wedded an extra few days’ leave. I have a good notion of the perfect place for our honeymoon, where we shall get to know each other in a wonderfully whole way. I truly cannot wait!

  Wishing you all my love, my darling, and hoping that while I am away you remain mine, in the same way that I will remain completely and undeniably yours,

  Henry

  CHILBURY MANOR,

  CHILBURY,

  KENT.

  Friday, 26th April, 1940

  Dear Angela,

  So much to tell! First of all, you missed David Tilling’s spectacular leaving party on Tuesday evening. Well, maybe more predictably pleasant than spectacular. You know how these Chilbury events are. Everyone was there, including Hattie and Mama, who are both taking pregnancy in such different ways, Hattie all excitement and joy, and Mama with a weepy hope that she’ll get a boy for Daddy.

  Mr. Slater stubbornly refuses to be tempted by me. He skillfully redirects any questions and provokingly ignores any flirtation. Your idea of showing him some suitable landscapes might hold some opportunities. I am formulating a plan that cannot fail.

  Henry asked me to marry him again. Obviously I was vague. I can’t bear to let the poor man down every six months. When will he get the message? Meanwhile, Kitty pathetically hangs on his every word. He politely fobs her off, which is rather cruel, don’t you think?

  Hattie is preparing the schoolchildren for her departure when the baby arrives. In typical Hattie fashion, she’s enormously guilty about the whole thing, and feels that it’s frightfully selfish to be having a baby.

  “Don’t be silly, Hattie. You’re a born mother. You can’t pass that up just to teach a few schoolchildren,” I tell her.

  But she only says, “You don’t know how much they depend on me, Venetia. You don’t understand.”

  Clearly I don’t.

  The new
choirmistress, Prim, made an extraordinary announcement at choir practice on Wednesday, and everyone’s up in arms once again. She surged in with her usual melodrama, but instead of handing out music scores, she quickly climbed the pulpit, and we knew something special was afoot.

  “I have entered the Chilbury Ladies’ Choir into a public choir competition in Litchfield three weeks from Saturday.”

  “What in Heaven’s name are you thinking?” Mrs. B. stood up and strode over with the determination of a tank. “We’re not parading any nonsensical women’s choir in a public competition. We’d be a laughingstock!”

  “The competition is in aid of weapon production and is considered a tremendous boost for Home Front morale,” Prim said, jubilantly. “It’ll be in all the papers, cheering spirits across the country. I can’t imagine anyone will be thinking badly of us.”

  “All over the country?” Mrs. B. thundered, the stained-glass windows jittering. “Our respectable, historic village will be dragged into the national press?” She took out her ticking-off finger and began wagging it fiercely. “Are we to find ourselves shut out of polite society?”

  “Now, don’t be a spoilsport, Mrs. B.” I stepped forward, smiling sweetly. “Everyone will think us wonderfully modern.”

  “And it would be so much fun to perform on a stage, wouldn’t it?” Kitty added.

  “What complete and utter tosh,” Mrs. B. snapped. “We’ll look absurd. A bunch of women muddling along without any men! Where’s your sense of pride?”

  Then a strange thing happened. Hattie came forward.

  “I know you want everything to stay the same, Mrs. B., but there’s a war on and we’re trying to get on as best as we can. There are no rules about singing without men. In fact, there are no rules about anything anymore. So let’s be among the first to herald this new opportunity. It’s part of the home-front effort to keep spirits up, after all,” she went on. “So we’re doing our bit for the war simply by entering.”