So she went, in her prettiest dress and her least-worn coat, with her most respectable hat on her head and the most troubled misgivings in her heart.
Tommy took the Silver Cloud to meet her at Wimbledon station and he’d dressed for the occasion too, as Octavia was quick to notice.
‘Spot on time,’ he said, as he strode forward to take her hands and kiss her. A respectable kiss this time but a minor pleasure, brief though it was.
‘This is a lovely car,’ she said, relaxing into the passenger seat. ‘I do like a bit of luxury.’
He grinned at her. ‘Me too.’
‘You’re lucky to get the petrol for it. I’ve had to give up driving and take to a bicycle.’
‘Perks of the job,’ he said lightly. ‘Ready for the off?’
It was a ridiculous play but sitting beside him in the stalls she enjoyed every silly word of it. Afterwards he took her to supper, which to her ration-restricted palate was almost too rich.
‘How the other half live,’ she said, as a rum baba was put before her.
‘You can join the other half whenever you like,’ he offered.
‘I most certainly could not,’ she told him. ‘I have a socialist soul.’
He grinned at that. ‘That’s what I was afraid you’d say. So I suppose you’ll refuse to eat your sweet.’
She took the first spoonful at once. ‘That would be stupid,’ she said. ‘I can’t let good food go to waste.’
‘That’s what I love about you, Tikki-Tavy,’ he said. ‘Socialist principles and aristocratic tastes.’
Oh, it was a good meal. But they took so long over it that she was afraid she’d miss the last train.
‘You’ve missed it already,’ he said, stirring his coffee. ‘That’s all catered for.’
She could hardly misunderstand him. But then she didn’t want to misunderstand him. ‘You’ve had this all planned from the beginning, haven’t you?’
‘Tools of my trade, old thing,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘Diplomacy is eighty per cent planning.’
‘I would have said it was eighty per cent artfulness.’
‘There’s that too.’
‘So where are we going now?’
‘Home,’ he said.
* * *
He drove her to Parkside Avenue and, while she was rummaging through her bag for the key and thinking what a long time it had been since she’d last used it, he took a hamper from the boot.
She laughed. ‘Not more food, surely?’
‘This is breakfast,’ he said, carrying it into the kitchen. ‘Mrs Dunnaway made it up for me.’ And when she made a face at him, ‘It’s all right. She thinks I’m staying with friends.’
She put her hands flat on the kitchen table and took a preparatory breath. It was time to make their position clear. They had to be sensible. ‘Now look,’ she said. ‘It’s no good thinking we can just pick up where we left off. We’ve got to be sensible about this. We can’t just… We have positions to think of…’
He put his hand under her chin, lifted her head and kissed her long and passionately. ‘My dear, darling, ridiculous Tavy,’ he said. ‘Come to bed.’
Chapter Fifteen
Octavia stayed in Wimbledon until five o’clock that Sunday afternoon and she only went back to Woking then because she didn’t want to upset Emmeline by being late for dinner.
Tommy couldn’t see that there was a problem. ‘Phone her,’ he said. ‘Tell her you’re staying here and I’m going to feed you. There’s no need for you to rush off. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’
‘She would,’ Octavia told him. ‘She’d mind very much. I’d never hear the end of it. It’s the most important meal of the week. Our one and only roast. And she’s cooking it all herself tonight because Janet’s gone to see her family. Don’t make that face. It’s all very well for you. You can eat roast meat whenever you like. You only have to book a table at one of your restaurants. We have to exist on our rations.’
‘All right,’ he said easily. ‘Point taken. I think you’re making more of it than she would but if that’s the way you feel…’
The two of them were strolling in the garden arm in arm. It was peaceful there and, although it was woefully overgrown, there were still fish in the pond and flowers among the weeds and the rose arch was heavy with blossom. ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she said. ‘You know that. But I must play fair.’
‘You and your passion for justice,’ he teased. ‘So when am I going to see you again?’
‘Soon,’ she said vaguely, stopping to weave a trailing shoot into the arch.
He took her hands away from the roses and held them, turning her so that they were face to face. ‘This is important, Tavy.’
She felt chastened. ‘I know it is,’ she said. ‘But it’s complicated. You’ve got a high-powered job to do. I’ve got a school to run. We can’t just take off whenever we feel like it.’
His face was stubborn. ‘Yes we can.’
‘Be reasonable, Tommy,’ she said. ‘We’ve got responsibilities.’
He gave her imprisoned hands an exasperated shake. ‘Now look,’ he said. ‘We’ve been given a second chance, which is a damned sight more than we deserved, and I’m damned if I’m going to let it go. We’re not young any more and there’s a war on and nobody knows what will happen next. OK, we’re not going to be invaded. We’ve escaped that. But everything else is uncertain. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I don’t want to waste a minute of it. When you’re offered a second chance you grab it with both hands. Or you do if you’ve got any sense. I thought you felt the same way.’
Did she? She wasn’t sure. Last night in the privacy of her bedroom in her empty house, she would have said yes without even stopping to think about it. But that was last night. It was wonderful to be back with him, wonderful to be loved by him, but here, in the garden, in the clear light of day, she had to face the fact that she wasn’t a free agent. The school had to be run. There were people depending on her.
‘Don’t you?’ he insisted. ‘I seem to remember you saying you loved me.’
‘I do love you,’ she said honestly. ‘I’ve always loved you. Right from the very beginning. You know that.’
‘Very well then,’ he said, lifting her hand and kissing her fingers. ‘Prove it. Tell me I can come down and see you on Wednesday.’
‘Yes, of course you can.’
‘And stay the night?’
She frowned and pulled her hand away from him. ‘That’s the problem,’ she said, continuing her walk.
‘Only if we allow it to be,’ he said walking beside her.
She slipped her hand through his elbow and turned to look at him as they walked, her face an entreaty. ‘We must be sensible, Tommy. If Em were to find out we were lovers she’d be mortified. She’s a very conventional woman.’
‘Then we must show her how stupid the conventions are.’
It was time to talk about the one thing neither of them had mentioned. ‘It’s only six months since Elizabeth was killed,’ she said. ‘I think most people would be shocked to know you’d started a love affair so soon. There are some proprieties.’
They’d reached the garden seat which looked decidedly grubby. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and dusted it down, quickly and with irritable determination.
‘For a start it’s nearly seven months,’ he said, as they sat down, ‘but we’ll let that pass. What’s important for you to understand is that our marriage wasn’t a love affair in the accepted sense.’
‘Oh, come now,’ Octavia said. ‘I’ve seen you together too many times to let you get away with that. It was a very good marriage. You’re surely not going to deny her that, poor woman. That’s shabby.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he said. ‘It was a very good marriage. You’re right. She was a wonderful wife, superb at parties, ran the house like clockwork, looked after the children – and me too, sometimes – a good companion. There’s no denying any of that. I was ve
ry fond of her and she of me, but it wasn’t a love affair. Not the way it was with you. The way it can be again if you want it to be.’
‘That sounds like emotional blackmail to me,’ she said in her direct way. ‘Am I supposed to be pleased to hear you say such things?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s not why I’m telling you.’ It wasn’t entirely true. He had hoped to please her. In fact he’d expected to please her. ‘I just wanted you to know how things really were. You always said we had to be honest with one another.’
‘True,’ she said, ‘but not to the detriment of someone else’s character. It’s no good, Tommy. You can say what you like but it won’t make a ha’p’orth of difference. If we make our affair public the people who know us will be upset. They’re bound to be. We must take our time over this and be discreet.’
‘How long for?’
‘Another eight months, at least. Possibly more.’
‘That’s the trouble with you,’ he said. ‘You’re always so bloody direct.’
She laughed at that. ‘And you want to spend the rest of your life with me?’
‘Yes. I do. God help me!’
‘And marry me?’
‘That too. Naturally. I thought I’d made that clear years ago.’
Her smile was rueful, for all this was true and couldn’t be denied. ‘I wouldn’t be the sort of wife you want.’
‘I don’t want a sort of wife,’ he said. ‘I want you. Always have.’
It was such a perfect answer it made her want to cry. She controlled herself by turning her sympathy to someone else. It was an old well-tried trick. ‘But you married Elizabeth.’
‘It seemed the right thing to do at the time,’ he told her, and he was rueful too. ‘She was there, she was suitable, she loved me. I thought we could make a go of it. And we did in our own way. Everyone thought we were the perfect pair. And it was terrible when she was killed. Terrible.’ He turned his head away from her, irritated by the turn their conversation had taken. ‘Look, do we have to talk about all this?’
She felt so sorry for him and cross with herself for having pushed him into a memory that hurt him so much. ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ she said.
‘Well, I don’t. I want to talk about us. About when we’re going to see one another again.’
‘Wednesday,’ she said. ‘You can sleep in the dressing room. I’ll get Em to make you up a bed there. It’ll only be a camp bed and it’ll be very uncomfortable but you won’t have to stay in it. Not for long anyway. It’ll only be a token. Just to keep up the proprieties. You can come in and join me when the house is quiet.’
‘Now that’s more like it,’ he said. ‘I thought you were going to hold me at arm’s length.’
‘Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you thought.’
‘Obviously not,’ he said, putting his arms round her. ‘I’m glad to say.’
Lizzie was rather surprised to get a letter from her father to say that he was coming down to see her in the middle of the week.
‘Unheard of,’ she said to Poppy. ‘I mean, when have you ever known him to come down on a Wednesday?’
Poppy was sitting in the window seat angling her compact mirror to catch the light as she applied a necessary coating of Max Factor to her face. They were off to the pictures in half an hour and she did so want to cover up her spots. They looked perfectly frightful that evening. ‘Maybe he’s lonely,’ she said. ‘I mean, after your mother and everything.’
That was a novel idea to Lizzie Meriton. It had never occurred to her that her father could suffer from anything as mundane as loneliness. ‘I can’t see why he should be,’ she said. ‘He’s got heaps of friends. Our house was always full of them, drinking cocktails and going haw-haw-haw all the time and telling me how I’d grown.’ Even the memory of it made her shudder.
‘It was only a thought,’ Poppy said and gave her friend an apologetic grin.
‘No, no,’ Lizzie said, accepting the apology and shamed into being a bit more gracious. ‘You could be right. I just wish it wasn’t Wednesday, that’s all. I shall have to miss choir practice. Still if he’s lonely, poor old thing…’
‘Wednesday?’ Emmeline said. ‘This Wednesday do you mean?’
‘That’s what he says,’ Octavia told her, as calmly as she could. ‘He’s coming to see Lizzie and he’d like to stay over and take us all to dinner.’
‘But he was only here last Saturday,’ Emmeline said. ‘I thought he saw her then? What’s up with the man?’
‘I expect he’s lonely, Ma,’ Edith said. ‘All on his own in that great house. Where’s he going to take us, Aunt? Does he say?’ The thought of having a meal in a restaurant was making her mouth water. If there was one thing Tommy Meriton really did know about, it was food. ‘Don’t make that face, Ma. Think of the fun we’ll have and all the lovely things we’ll eat.’
Thank God for Edie, Octavia thought, smiling at her.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Emmeline grumbled on. ‘Where’s he going to sleep? Have you thought of that? I can’t keep putting him on the sofa.’
‘We could bring one of the camp beds down and put it in the dressing room,’ Octavia said, trying to sound as though she’d just thought of it. ‘It wouldn’t be wonderful, I’ll grant you that, but at least it would be more private than the drawing room.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Emmeline said again. ‘I’ll think about it.’
It was a successful evening, despite Octavia’s misgivings. Tommy was an excellent host, and wined and dined them so well that Edie said she hadn’t eaten so much for weeks and even Emmeline admitted that it was a very good meal. ‘The steak pie was just right,’ she said. ‘Done to a turn. Just the way I like it.’
What a difference a bit of luxury makes, Octavia thought, and gave Tommy a grin when no one was looking.
When the house was quiet he tiptoed into her bedroom and stretched himself out in her bed with a sigh of relief. ‘Bloody camp bed,’ he said. ‘It’s like being on the rack.’
‘Whisper,’ she whispered to him, and quoted the latest slogan. ‘Walls have ears.’
‘I must love you to put up with this sort of caper,’ he whispered. ‘I hope you appreciate it.’
‘You are nobility itself,’ she teased him.
‘Can you be noble and carnal at the same time?’
‘Let’s see,’ she said. Oh, it was so good to be together again.
It wasn’t quite so good the next morning when she woke up feeling distinctly jaded. Tommy was already in the bathroom, singing tunelessly. Where does he get his energy from? But she lay where she was for another fifteen minutes, wishing she could stay in bed all day, and when she finally bestirred herself and sat at the dressing table to brush the tangles from her hair, she was appalled by the weary face that stared back at her from the mirror. This is going to take a bit of getting used to, she thought. I hope it’s a quiet day at school on Monday.
It wasn’t. Naturally. But it began with a happy announcement. She’d only just walked into her study at Downview when Helen Staples arrived, breathless and rosy, to say she had some rather good news.
‘Have you got time?’ she asked hopefully. ‘I’ll come back later if it’s difficult.’
‘Come in,’ Octavia said. ‘I’ve always got time for good news.’
‘Well, I say rather good news,’ Helen said, blushing. ‘Actually it’s very good news, only I suppose that depends on the way you look at it. Very good for me I ought to say. Anyway I’ve come straight to tell you because I thought you ought to be the first to hear it. I’m engaged to be married.’
Octavia knew what it was without being told. One look at Helen’s glowing face and the splendid sheen of her hair would have been enough, even if she hadn’t caught the flash of a diamond on her finger. ‘My dear,’ she said. ‘That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you. When will the wedding be?’
‘Soon,’ Helen said. ‘Well, very soon actually. He’s off back to sea in a week or
two and he wants it to be on his next leave.’
‘So I suppose this means you’ll be handing in your notice.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Helen said. ‘That’s the one sad thing about it.’ But she was so happy she was beaming and didn’t look sad at all.
‘And where will you be living?’
‘Portsmouth.’
‘A sailor’s wife,’ Octavia said.
‘A second lieutenant’s wife,’ Helen said, with obvious pride.
‘You must look after him,’ Octavia told her. ‘Our sailors are valuable.’
‘Oh, I shall.’
There was a knock at the door and Maggie Henry arrived. ‘Sorry to trouble you, Miss Smith,’ she said, ‘but we’ve got a problem. I’ll call back, shall I?’
‘No,’ Octavia said. ‘I think we’ve finished for the moment, haven’t we, Helen. We can talk again later.’
The problem was two cases of chicken pox and would necessitate the creation of an isolation ward so that the invalids could have some peace from the rush of the dormitories and the other girls could be protected from taking the infection. It took the best part of the morning to arrange it and by the time the doctor called and the change-over was prepared for, they had a third case and a girl whom Maggie said ‘looked suspicious’.
‘There’s never a dull moment in this place,’ Octavia said, when she and Maggie finally sat down in Maggie’s room to eat their midday meal. The cook had kept it warm for them and warned them that they’d got to eat it to keep their strength up. ‘We can’t have you going down with something too.’
Octavia laughed at that. ‘I’ve had every childhood disease you could mention,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you need have any fears on my account.’
‘Well, I hope you’ll eat it all up just the same,’ the cook said. ‘We’ve got to look after you.’
By the time Octavia cycled home that afternoon, the isolation ward was organised, their fourth invalid had been diagnosed beyond doubt and she was feeling so tired her back was aching.
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