‘James, you may . . . you may . . . I don’t know what you may do. I shall decide tomorrow. I’m drunk with tiredness. Night, all.’ He tottered from the room.
‘Good heavens, what did you say to him?’ Gwen asked her husband as he climbed into bed beside her.
‘I said yes, obviously! What would you have said? Haven’t you seen the way she looks at him? She’s head over heels in love with the chap.’
‘But why on earth didn’t you tell me earlier?’
‘This was the first chance. We haven’t been alone until now, that’s why I suggested coming to bed early, so we could talk. Anyway, come on. What d’you think?’
‘Oh, Oliver, they’re both so young! And he’s – well, he’s a fighter pilot. I can’t even begin to think about the awful dangers John faces, I simply can’t. But I can bring myself to say that James Blackwell might well be . . .’
‘Wounded? Killed? Taken prisoner? Wasn’t that exactly the position I was in when you agreed to marry me in 1916?’
She stared at him. Then she slowly put her hand in his.
‘Oh my dear,’ she said, ‘we’ve come full circle, haven’t we? Nothing’s changed at all, has it? Nothing. Those poor creatures. How we’ve failed them. How could we let such a terrible, terrible war happen again?’
Her husband pulled her to him. ‘I think it’s because we couldn’t face our fears,’ he said deliberately. ‘We were so horrified by memories of the last time that we’d do or say anything to convince ourselves it couldn’t happen again. Even when reality was staring us in the face.’
He tilted his head back against the headboard. ‘And now it’s our children who’ve got to clear the mess up. Let’s hope they can. Let’s just pray it’s not too late.’ He reached for her other hand. ‘And let’s allow them whatever happiness they can grab hold of, shall we? While they can?’
Gwen nodded. ‘Of course you’re right. And as for being too young . . .’ she considered for a moment. ‘Weren’t we the same age?’
‘To the year.’
34
They’d left the pair of them downstairs in the garden room. The night was warm and the French windows had been thrown open, chairs pushed to the threshold. Outside, fireflies were hovering above the lawns.
As soon as her parents had said goodnight and closed the door into the hall, Diana jumped out of her armchair and went over to sit on James’s lap, arms thrown around his neck.
‘What was all that business between you and Daddy at dinner?’ she asked, after she had been thoroughly kissed.
‘What business?’
‘Oh, come on.’ She poked his ribs. ‘The pair of you looked fit to burst! What’s going on?’
He wished he entirely knew. Always the master of his affairs, James Blackwell felt strangely off-balance tonight. Events seemed to be controlling him, rather than the reverse. This was a new sensation and, to his surprise, not necessarily an unpleasant one.
‘OK.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I had a conversation with your father, at tea, while you were upstairs.’
‘What about?’
‘You. Well, more to the point, us. He asked me what my intentions were towards you.’
Diana laughed. ‘Really? How funny! That doesn’t sound like him at all.’
James smiled. ‘To be fair, he thought it was pretty funny too, as soon as he’d said it – but anyway, he pressed the point.’
Diana’s own smile faded. ‘What did you say? Oh James, you didn’t say anything about our speeding things up, did you? You didn’t even hint at it, surely.’
‘Of course not! No, I went much further than that.’
‘What? I don’t understand.’
‘Me neither, as it happens. Well, not fully, yet. I asked your father to give me permission to do something. But let’s do this properly. Let me get up.’
She climbed off his lap and he stood up, motioning her to sit in the armchair. When she was settled, he snapped off his best salute before dropping on to one knee in front of her. Diana gave a little gasp.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I don’t have a ring to put on your finger, but I do have a question for you.’
She stared down at him, one hand pressed to her mouth.
‘Diana Arnold, would you please marry me? As soon as possible?’
She sat absolutely still for so long he began to think he had somehow paralysed her. Finally, she took her hand away from her mouth, and spoke.
‘So this is what you meant by speeding things up. I had very different ideas, I have to say.’
‘Oh yes, all that too,’ he said. ‘Most definitely. But what’s your answer, Diana? Say it’s yes.’
She slid from the chair and sank down on her knees to face him, putting her hands on his shoulders.
‘How could it possibly be anything else?’ And in an unconscious echo of her mother during another war, a quarter of a century earlier, Diana added: ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
She woke early next morning, as the sun was rising. James lay next to her, one arm flung behind his head, the other across her waist. He was deeply asleep, his chest steadily rising and falling. They were both naked, their clothes scattered across her bedroom floor.
Trying not to wake him, she shifted slightly in the single bed in which she had slept since childhood. It was impossibly narrow for two grown people but somehow they’d managed to fall asleep, afterwards.
She turned her head to look at him before carefully pushing a strand of blond fringe out of his eyes.
Her lover. Her fiancé. Her man.
She had wondered, as they fell asleep together the night before, if she would have any regrets in the morning; might wish they had waited. She considered the question again now. Surely she should be feeling guilty? She hadn’t even tried to call a halt to what was happening. She hadn’t wanted to; not at all.
Before they had come upstairs together, moving past her parents’ bedroom with the stealth and silence of seasoned burglars, James had told her about the special marriage licences introduced soon after the war started. Three days after applying for one, couples in a hurry could be legally married in a register office.
Was that why she had given herself to James? she wondered. Because she knew they would be husband and wife in a few days, so breaking the rules now didn’t really count? Diana smiled to herself. She knew a self-serving excuse when she heard one, even if it was only in her own thoughts.
She looked around her room. She had purged it of most of her childhood possessions before leaving for her first term at Girton, but it still retained a lingering atmosphere of innocence. Her dresser with its pink-framed mirror; the twin bookshelves where her old storybooks mingled with academic works she’d brought back from Cambridge; the candlewick dressing-gown hanging on the back of the door . . . how long was it since she had worn that? It must be three years, maybe four.
There might have been better places, Diana reflected ruefully, to lose one’s virginity.
Even so, she couldn’t summon up the slightest regret. She felt only deep contentment and an indisputable feeling that she had met her destiny. The act of love had overwhelmed her. More than that, it had somehow completed her. She had always known instinctively that it would.
Sexual Diana. Carnal Diana. She had always been there, hadn’t she? Patiently waiting. Perhaps that was another reason she felt no guilt: if she was honest, she had to admit she’d found the whole experience last night absolutely wonderful.
They hadn’t taken precautions. It hadn’t even occurred to her. But here again, she was without regrets. Another completion. She had no idea if there would be consequences, but her deep-seated longing for babies meant she didn’t care; rather, she found herself almost hoping she would have a child – and the sooner the better.
She lifted her head slightly from the pillow to look at her bedside alarm. Nearly half past five. Lucy would be up and about soon.
‘James.’
He mumbled something and pulled her closer to
him.
‘James.’ She tugged gently at his hair. ‘ Time for you to go back to your room, darling.’
He opened his eyes. ‘Oh. Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘We’re getting married.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ He raised his head and kissed her. ‘Thank you for saying yes.’
‘Thank you for asking.’
He stretched, luxuriously. ‘Must I go?’
‘Must is the operative word, I’m afraid. If Mummy knew you were in my bed she’d have a fit. Daddy wouldn’t be far behind her either. Come on, James, seriously. It would spoil everything.’
‘Of course.’ He rolled out of bed and stood unselfconsciously naked before her, scratching his stubble. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘On the floor behind you.’
He looked at the tangled heap unhappily. ‘My uniform’s going to look awfully crumpled. God knows what your parents will think.’
She laughed. ‘Just tell them you fell asleep in your clothes. John can lend you some of his while Lucy irons those.’
‘I suppose so.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Crikey. It looks very different in daylight. Not at all suitable for . . . you know. I’m awfully sorry, Diana. You deserved a petal-strewn boudoir, not the nursery.’
She laughed again. ‘Hardly a nursery. Anyway, there’ll be time for all that.’
He looked at her as he pulled on his uniform. ‘Diana, thank you for – you know.’
‘Thank you, my darling – it was wonderful. I’ll see you at breakfast. Is that when we should tell everyone, do you think?’
‘About the wedding, yes. About their daughter’s wanton seduction of a poor, innocent visitor to her parents’ house, perhaps best not.’
She assumed mock outrage. ‘Innocent? After last night there’s one thing I know for certain about you now, Flight Commander. You’re about as innocent as . . . as . . .’
He pressed his finger to her lips. ‘Shh. You don’t know that. For all you know, you bring out the worst in me.’
She grinned at him as he backed theatrically out of the door.
‘I certainly hope so.’
35
Oliver and Gwen took the news of the engagement with aplomb. After all, they were expecting it. Their son, on the other hand, was dumbfounded. He dropped his eggy spoon with a clatter and stared open-mouthed at the other four.
‘Did all this happen while I was asleep? Am I some sort of latter-day Rip Van Winkle? Have I been kipping for the last twenty years? Blimey, Jimmy, you’re a fast worker. So are you, Di. Bloody hell!’
Then he was on his feet and hurrying around the breakfast-table to hug and kiss his sister. He glared at her fiancé over Diana’s shoulder. ‘Make sure you damn well look after her,’ he said. ‘Any messing her about and I’ll shoot you down myself.’
Then he went over to James and pumped his hand up and down. ‘Congratulations, Jimmy. Welcome to the family. When’s the happy day?’
Diana answered for them both. ‘We’re going to get a special licence. They let you get married after only three days now. James is going out straight after breakfast to see to it, once Lucy’s pressed his uniform. Today’s Tuesday, so I suppose we’ll be tying the knot in Tunbridge Wells Register Office on Saturday morning.’
Lucy came into the room. ‘I’ve turned on the wireless for the news, sir, madam. Will you take coffee in the drawing room as usual?’
‘No, thank you, Lucy,’ said Mr Arnold. ‘Let’s open a bottle of champagne.’ He nodded to Diana and her fiancé, now holding hands on the other side of the room. ‘Those two are getting married at the weekend. Fun, isn’t it?’
36
Diana and James’s modest plans for a short honeymoon in the Cotswolds were comprehensively dashed by events in France. The day before the wedding brought news that the Germans had entered Paris. On the morning of the ceremony itself, the French were begging Hitler for an armistice. Britain stood quite alone. The Continent was lost.
Back across the Channel in Tunbridge Wells, the tiny wedding party arrived at the town’s register office just before one o’clock. Mr Arnold drove his daughter in the Humber, white ribbons fluttering from its bonnet. James and Gwen followed behind in the MG, and the best man brought up the rear of the little convoy on his motor bike.
There had been no time to issue invitations. But theirs was not the smallest wedding party that day: as the five of them walked towards the register office, a young couple emerged from its main entrance, laughing. The bride was in white, the bridegroom in the brown serge and Sam Browne belt of an Army officer’s uniform. They were quite alone, and as they came down the steps, the husband suddenly pulled a handful of confetti from his breast pocket and sprinkled it above the two of them. The Arnolds’ party burst into spontaneous applause, and the couple waved happily to them as they hurried away.
‘My goodness!’ exclaimed Mr Arnold, pulling out his handkerchief and blowing his nose to mask the treacherous tears that threatened to unman him. ‘What times are these, everyone? What times are these.’
Inside, the registrar was waiting for them. He was a short, dapper man in a dark suit. He wore his oiled hair combed back, apart from the cowlick that hung low over his forehead. A small moustache completed the unfortunate resemblance.
‘Nice of the Führer to pop over and officiate,’ John whispered to his father. ‘You’d think he had other things on his mind today.’
But the official turned out to be the soul of kindness and enthusiasm, ushering Diana and James into position in front of his polished oak desk, and beaming at the others as he gestured to them to take their seats.
‘Welcome to you all,’ he announced, brightly. ‘Yes, yes, do sit in the front row, you three, there’s plenty of room, ha ha! I must say I find these wartime weddings so romantic, don’t you? And look at the two of you! How wonderful you both look.’ He clasped his hands in an almost girlish gesture and Diana began to giggle.
James turned to look at her. She was wearing the simplest of white silk sheaths, gathered in at the waist by a narrow green satin belt. The flowers garlanded in her hair – tiny wild roses, daisies and buttercups – had been picked from the paddock that morning by Gwen. The toes of white satin shoes peeped out from the hem of Diana’s dress. The entire ensemble had been bought by mother and daughter in a hurried shopping expedition to Piccadilly the day before.
‘You look bloody sensational,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘So do you,’ she whispered back.
He fingered the cuffs of his RAF tunic. ‘Oh, this old thing . . .’
The short ceremony began. Diana was wearing her engagement ring, a modest cluster of three emeralds that James had bought in Tunbridge the morning he came in to see about the licence. When the time came for the wedding ring to be presented, John, also in service blue, came forward.
The gold band that James proceeded to slide on to Diana’s finger had belonged to Gwen’s late mother. It was old gold, pale and slightly matt. It needed re-sizing; it was a little too big, but there had been no time.
When the happy party arrived back at the Dower House for the wedding breakfast – caterers had been summoned at short notice, much to Lucy’s outrage – telegrams were waiting on the hall table.
Both pilots were summoned back to base immediately.
‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ James told his wife as they held each other beside his car in the drive of the Dower House. ‘No honeymoon, not even a wedding night. Bloody war.’
‘It could have been worse, James; we might have had to postpone the wedding. At least we’re married. It’s amazing, I can’t quite believe we’ve done it.’
‘I can’t believe you,’ he said, stepping back and holding her at arm’s length. ‘Let me look at you.’
She was still in her wedding dress; there had been no time to change.
He kissed her. ‘I’ll remember the way you look today until the day I die.’
She fell ag
ainst him and began to cry.
‘I’m sorry, James, I’m sorry. I so wanted not to cry. When will we see each other again?’
He held her tight. ‘I won’t lie to you, Diana: I have absolutely no idea. We’re in completely uncharted territory now. But I will come back to you, I swear. However long I have to be away, I will come back to you. You must believe that.’
Before she could answer they were startled by the sudden noise of her brother’s motor bike being gunned into life. He wheeled it out from the garage and stopped beside them, adjusting his goggles.
‘I’m awfully sorry about this, sis,’ he shouted above the crackle of the engine. ‘Rotten way to end your wedding day. You too, Jimmy. Bloody Nazis. We’re really going to have to do something about them, you know.’
Oliver and Gwen came out of the house, Mr Arnold smart in grey tails. But he was pale, and his wife close to tears.
Their new son-in-law stepped across to the doorway and shook Mr Arnold’s hand.
‘Well, I suppose this is it,’ he said, bending to kiss Gwen’s cheek. ‘Goodbye, Gwen. I’m sorry I can’t stay for the baked meats.’
She smiled tearfully. ‘Burnt offerings, more like. They must be the worst caterers in Kent. Goodbye, James. I’m so sorry you have to leave like this. Just come home as soon as you can.’
Home. James nodded. ‘Yes.’
Behind him, the motor bike revved and his friend yelled: ‘Come on, Jimmy. I’ll lead, you follow.’
‘Righty-ho.’ He went back to his wife. ‘Well, goodbye, Mrs Blackwell, for now.’
Diana had given up any attempt to stop her tears.
‘Come back to me, James,’ she sobbed. ‘Please.’
His heart lurched. He had never felt raw emotion like this before.
‘Goodbye, Diana.’ He kissed her quickly and swung into the driver’s seat of the open-topped car, calling, ‘All right, Johnnie, lead on!’
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