by Ellie Dean
‘Stan’s not a liar, neither is he a thief,’ said Ron evenly. ‘I’d stake my life on it that he’s telling the truth.’
A heavy silence fell in the room, and the men winced at the language Ethel was using as she proclaimed her innocence and accused Olive of stitching her up. Olive’s reply to this was equally laced with expletives, and Bert finally lost his patience, opened the door and barked an order to one of the constables to go and shut them up.
‘I’m sorry, Stan,’ Bert said as he returned to his chair. ‘Ethel’s been caught good and proper, and I had to charge her.’ He leant forward, his elbows on the desk. ‘And I’m going to have to search the cottage, Stan. There’s a real possibility she’s been hiding stuff there until she can pass it on. My constable found a stash of stolen goods hidden at Olive’s place.’
Stan buried his face in his hands, the tears seeping through his fingers. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he sobbed. ‘I simply can’t believe my Ethel would do such a terrible thing.’
Ron watched his old friend disintegrate before his eyes, and he put a brotherly arm about his shoulders to try and comfort him.
‘Stan has lived in this town all his life,’ he said to John White. ‘He returned from the First War where we fought together in the trenches, and took over the post of stationmaster from his father. His military record is exemplary, and he was awarded a Military Cross for bravery under fire. His reputation in Cliffehaven is of the highest standing, for he’s an upright, honest man with a strong sense of duty. He suffered a heart attack last year, and something like this could easily bring on another.’
Ron paused to let all this information sink in. ‘Stan is an innocent man and doesn’t deserve to be punished, but if this gets out, he will lose not only his home and the job he loves, but his reputation. I’m asking you – no – begging you to find a way to shield him from it.’
John White looked at Stan with something approaching pity before he turned to Bert Williams. ‘You know Mr Dawkins better than I do,’ he said. ‘What is your advice?’
Bert chewed his lip, clearly distressed by the whole distasteful business. ‘Everything Ron said is the truth,’ he said eventually. ‘And I wholeheartedly agree that Stan should not be punished for his wife’s actions. To that end, I will conduct a discreet search of the cottage without the presence of other officers, and make arrangements for both women to be transferred to another district to stand trial.’
He looked up at John White. ‘What happens to Stan will depend on how many people saw you and the constable bringing the pair of them in. This town thrives on gossip, and something like this will be common knowledge by lunchtime.
‘As far as I’m aware there were no witnesses. It was between shifts and too early for most people to be out and about. The Grayson woman lives alone in a caravan parked off Briar Lane, and because of the hour I asked the constable to refrain from ringing the bell on the police van in case it disturbed the residents – of whom there was no sight.’
John White took a deep breath. ‘I can see what a shock this all is to Mr Dawkins, and I’m sorry to have caused him such distress. But it’s my duty to stamp out theft on the estate, and I had no option but to carry out that duty when it became blatantly obvious what was going on.’
‘I hope your constables will keep this to themselves, Bert,’ said Ron.
‘You can be sure of it, Ron,’ he replied firmly. He pushed back from his desk to signal the distressing meeting was over. ‘I’ll need you and Stan to witness my search of the cottage,’ he said dolefully. ‘These things have to be done by the book, I’m afraid – and I shall also need a statement from Stan once he’s feeling more up to it.’
‘What will happen to Ethel?’ rasped Stan, his breathing ragged.
‘She and Olive will stay here until the duty solicitor arrives and then be quickly transported out to another station.’ He placed a meaty hand on Stan’s shoulder. ‘Do you wish to see her, Stan?’
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t bear facing her now I know what she’s really like.’
‘I’m sorry, old chum,’ Bert murmured. ‘It’s all a bit much to take in, isn’t it? Best you let Ron get you home. I’ll follow on with Colonel White in a few minutes so we’re not all seen together.’
A very concerned Ron guided Stan out of the back door of the police station and along a warren of narrow streets until they reached the cottage. His old friend seemed to have aged, his once sturdy figure suddenly becoming frail and unsteady as they entered the dark little cottage and Stan almost collapsed into the fireside chair.
‘How do I tell Ruby what’s happened to her mother?’ he asked, staring into the empty hearth.
‘I should let Bert tell her,’ said Ron, filling the kettle and putting it on the gas ring. ‘He’s more experienced at such things.’ He found the quarter-bottle of whisky he’d brought over a few nights before and emptied it into two mugs as he waited for the kettle to come to the boil. ‘Drink this, old pal. It’ll steady your nerves.’
Stan swallowed it down in one and rested his head back in the chair, his eyes closed. ‘Thank goodness April’s working at the telephone exchange today and Vera Gardener’s looking after little Paula. I couldn’t have borne it if she’d been here to see Bert doing his search. It’s all so shameful, and I have no idea how to tell her what Ethel’s done.’
Ron sank the whisky and made the tea. ‘She’s your niece and won’t judge you, Stan. You’re not responsible for what Ethel’s been up to.’ He glanced up at the clock. Brenda would be locking up in ten minutes, and if she hadn’t found the animals by now, they’d need letting out.
‘I’ll have to leave you for a bit, Stan,’ he said, handing him the mug of tea. ‘But I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Stan seemed to suddenly come out of his stupor, for he glanced at the clock, checked his pocket watch and got to his feet. ‘I’ve been neglecting my duties,’ he breathed. ‘Lord knows what’s been happening this morning. I’ve missed two trains already, and there are bound to have been complaints to Head Office. At this rate, I’ll lose my job without Ethel’s help.’
Ron followed him outside, slamming the door behind him and still carrying his mug of tea as they headed down the path to the gate which led straight to the platform. He was very worried that Stan would keel over with all the stress of the morning, but when he saw the little figure working in the signal box, he knew his old friend had love and support enough for him to be able to go and fetch the animals.
Ruby came flying down the steps of the signal box and flung her arms around Stan. ‘I’m so sorry, Uncle Stan. What Mum done was unforgivable.’
‘But what …? How …?’
Ruby eased him down onto the bench. ‘Bert Williams phoned through to the factory office to tell me what were going on,’ she explained. ‘I told ’im straight she could stay there and stew for what she done to you, and come straight up ’ere to see to the early trains ’cos I knew you’d be down there trying to ’elp her.’
‘But she’s your mother,’ breathed Stan. ‘Surely you should be looking after her, not me.’
Ruby gripped his hands. ‘I’ll see ’er later. It’s you what matters now. I told Mum to stop ’er thieving, and now she’s only got herself to blame for the mess she’s in. Her and that Olive ’ave been at it for months, and I don’t mind telling you, Uncle Stan, that sort of thing not only makes me sick to me stomach, but it rubs off on others what ’ave done no wrong. I can’t remember the number of times I’ve ’ad me bag and pockets searched, just because she’s my mother.’
As the train came chuffing and puffing into the station, Ron finished his tea and headed back to the Anchor without asking Stan about the letter Ethel had hidden – the poor man had enough to contend with today.
Ruby had lived at Beach View for a while after she’d escaped her brutal husband back in the East End, and he and Peggy had come to admire her courage and fortitude – and her downright good sense. Stan would be all right now she was
with him.
20
The letter from Delaney seemed to be burning a hole in Sarah’s pocket all morning, but she was kept so busy with invoices, wage packets and the paperwork involved in getting the timber delivered, that it was well into her lunch break before she finally had a chance to escape the office to read it.
She locked the door and found a quiet, secluded spot in the formal gardens near the manor house and sat down on a stone bench beneath a rose arbour. It was peaceful amongst the high, sheltering rhododendrons, the sounds of the axes and saws in the forest as distant as the booms coming from across the Channel, and although the planes were still noisy, their racket had become so familiar of late she didn’t really notice it any more.
The letter had been written, as Peggy had observed, the day before the invasion, and she fondly pictured him sitting in his officer’s billet, his forehead creased as he concentrated on what he had to write. She slit the envelope open to find four closely written pages, and settled down to enjoy them.
My darling Sarah,
My precious, sweetest English rose, I cannot express how much it meant to me to see you the other day, and as I sit here waiting for my orders, my thoughts are full of you, fearing that I may never see you again, but praying that fate will bring us together at some time in the future.
The mission I am being sent upon will probably prove to be the most dangerous and daring of this war, but of course I cannot reveal what it is – yet I’m sure that by the time you receive this you will know, and understand why it was so important to me to write to you.
This war has brought us together, and because I have no idea whether I will survive the days and weeks ahead, I want you to know that although my love for you is true and steadfast, I am guilty of having lied to you – and for that I am profoundly sorry and ashamed.
When I came to England, I decided, probably foolishly, to invent a wife and children, for I didn’t want to be distracted as so many of my fellow officers were, and lose focus on my military commitments and the part I would have to play in this war. I have never married, Sarah. There are no children. But my family do own a ranch and that is where I shall return, God willing, once the war is over and I’ve been discharged of my military duties.
I beg you to forgive me for lying to you. I have wanted to tell you so many times, but it never seemed to be the right moment, and then I’d fallen so deeply in love with you, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t have the courage to speak out. I was terrified you would end things between us, and I didn’t want to lose you.
But now there is a very real chance that I may not come back, and I didn’t want to die with such a deception on my conscience – or to have you discover after I’m gone that I was untruthful to you.
I love and admire you so much that there are no words to express it. I know you were reluctant to show your feelings for me because of Philip and the promises you made to him before you left Singapore, and I’m sorry that in my pursuit of you, I must have caused you some distress as well as a good deal of heart-searching. It was never my aim to make you choose between us, but I lived in hope that you would turn to me – and after our last meeting, I dared to believe that my love is reciprocated, and that we are meant to be together.
I so wish things were different, my sweet Sarah. Your loyalty to Philip is admirable, and I deeply regret making things difficult for you – but I will never regret loving you.
I won’t write again until you reply to this, for you’ll need time to absorb what I have done, which I hope most sincerely you find it in your heart to forgive. And should you decide not to, then despite my broken heart, I will understand.
I send a kiss and a prayer that we will meet again – if not in this life, then perhaps the next.
Ever yours,
Delaney
Sarah’s hands were trembling as she read through it again. It was a beautiful letter, written with such feeling that she could almost hear his quiet, drawling voice in every word. She could just about understand why he’d lied – even though it did seem a very silly thing to do – but it was difficult to accept that he’d kept silent for so long. Why hadn’t he said something during those precious few hours they’d spent together recently? Surely it must have been clear that she’d given him her heart?
‘Oh, Delaney, how I wish you were here,’ she murmured. ‘Of course I forgive you. How can I not when I love you so?’
She heard the distant booms and bangs from the northern shores of France, and felt an icy prickle of dread run down her spine as she looked up to watch the unceasing flow of Allied planes taking off and landing at the nearby aerodrome. Delaney was right when he’d said he would be in the middle of the fiercest, most dangerous and daring battle of the war, and her heart clenched at the thought of him leading his men from the landing craft onto those beaches and into the hell-fire of enemy guns.
The war reports being broadcast every day on the special radio frequency said there were few casualties, but she suspected that was government propaganda – a ruse to keep morale high amongst the civilians – for surely, with so many thousands of men involved, there would be untold numbers of dead and wounded?
She tenderly folded the letter back into the envelope. She would write back as soon as she returned to the office, and send the letter off with all the other post. She didn’t want him distracted and becoming careless when so much was at stake, and she couldn’t bear the thought that if she delayed in replying, he might be killed and would never know how very much she loved him.
Sarah trembled inside, her emotions a mixture of joy and dread, for surely such happiness wasn’t possible in these uncertain, deadly times. To dream of a future together was almost tempting fate – and yet there had to be hope, for without it there was nothing.
She took a deep breath and let it out on a tremulous sigh as she realised Philip and her father, if they were still alive, might be thinking exactly the same; living on hope, surviving with only one thought on their minds – to return home to the women who loved them.
What Delaney was asking of her, and what her heart yearned for, would break the promise she’d made to Philip. Could she ever be truly happy with Delaney while living with the knowledge that Philip might have defied the odds simply because he believed she was waiting for him still?
She closed her eyes, battling the demons that had been her constant companions since the moment she’d met Delaney. She’d tried so hard not to be drawn to him, holding fiercely to the promises she’d made to Philip in the belief that he’d come through – and yet as time had gone on with no word of what might have happened to the man she’d last seen at the Singapore docks, that belief had dwindled and Delaney had crept into her heart.
Her thoughts turned to those carefree days on the rubber plantation in Malaya when the future had seemed so certain, and she was a young girl in the throes of first love. The memories of that time were as ephemeral as a half-forgotten dream, difficult to capture, and as elusive as smoke, for they seemed to belong to someone else – a very different Sarah to the one sitting here in the manor house gardens.
Sarah and her younger sister Jane had led a comfortable, privileged life amongst the ex-pats until the Japanese had invaded, and they’d both had to grow up very quickly as they were torn from home and family and forced to flee to England.
How very different they were now compared to those girls who’d arrived, bewildered and uncertain they’d ever see their parents or Sarah’s fiancé again. Jane had been dependent and childlike following a riding accident, but she’d left Beach View a confident, bright young woman to take up a secret posting with the MOD, and Sarah, who’d merely played at working for her father when she found time in the heady whirl of her social life, was now happily fully employed by the Women’s Timber Corps, and feeling very much at home with her Great-Aunt Cordelia and the wonderfully motherly Peggy.
Sarah smiled. At least Peggy and Aunt Cordelia would approve of Delaney now that it turned out he wasn’t married
, but how would they feel when she told them she was planning to marry him and set up home with him in America?
She hugged that joyful thought, warmed by the hope it brought her, until the images of that long ago tropical night when Philip had proposed came to haunt her. They’d been on the veranda at the back of the house which stood on stilts and overlooked the vast rubber plantation, the darkness of the encroaching jungle behind them. Her father Jock and her heavily pregnant mother were in the airy sitting room behind the long, delicate muslin curtains which undulated gently in the warm breeze that smelt of frangipani and mimosa.
Sarah closed her eyes again, trying to capture the scene, and the emotions of that moment, but the images were faint, as if she was watching it through the muslin, the participants a blur as they stood there against the backdrop of verdant green.
She gave a little sob of anguish as she realised she could barely remember what Philip had said to her that night, for the events which had swiftly followed had been so terrifying they’d erased nearly everything that had come before. That quiet moment in which she’d accepted his ring was the last they’d shared, for within a matter of days, they were running for their lives.
Her thoughts inevitably turned to her mother, who’d gone into labour – a difficult and life-threatening labour which had kept her in Singapore as the Japanese advanced. And to her father – big, robust, capable Jock, who’d refused to leave her, but who’d been determined to see his daughters safely away on one of the evacuation ships. Unlike the night of Philip’s proposal, she could remember that last farewell all too clearly.
She and Jane had clung to one another on the deck, the enemy aircraft roaring overhead and strafing the dockside as Jock and Philip waved goodbye and ran for cover. And then had come the deadly game of hide and seek as the Japanese torpedoed some of the rescue ships, and their captain had taken the brave decision to hide between a group of small islands and then return for the women and children still stranded on the docks.