by Maggie Holt
However, there was one good thing about the girl: she took Albert with her to Belhampton on Sunday to attend a poky little Roman Catholic chapel, which spared Alice the embarrassment of Albert in his ill-fitting suit and hobnailed boots, clumping into the parish church and sitting with them in the family pew.
Mabel was already there when Harry arrived straight from Wandsworth in the uniform he detested but which gave him anonymity. London was full of New Army men, enlisted in the last three months and waiting to be sent to take part in the massive onslaught on the German line. There was new hope in the air, new expectation of an earlier end to the war.
She let him in at the front door into a dim passage where a stale smell of cooking lingered, and up two flights of stairs. They neither spoke nor touched until they reached the second landing and she turned the key in Maud’s door. He followed her in and she relocked it. Then she turned to face him.
‘Here we are, then, Harry. It’s just gone two o’clock. I’ve got till four.’
‘Mabel –!’ He held out his arms to her. ‘Yeah – yes, I can stay till then.’
Mabel did not move. ‘Maud says there’s tea an’ milk in –’
‘No, no, we’ve only got two hours, Mabel. I – I only want you.’
They were speaking in whispers and Mabel was rigid with nerves. The room was not large and much of the space was taken up by the three-quarter-size bed with its blue woven counterpane: it had a brass-topped rail at the head and foot. A sash window gave a nondescript view of the back of Old South Lambeth Road, all drainpipes and blank windows, and Mabel wondered whether she should draw the curtains. There were two small cane-bottomed chairs and a curtained alcove with a wooden stand on which a water jug and washing bowl stood. There was also a gas ring with a box of matches beside it. The fire grate was empty, and the air struck chill and unwelcoming: they felt like intruders without Maud’s cheerful presence, though a faint whiff of her scent hung on the air. Bed’s made up wiv clean sheets, gal. They were alone. And yet Mabel stood rooted to the spot, unable to move.
Harry came and folded her in his arms. ‘Oh, Mabel, Mabel, my dear,’ he said, no longer whispering. ‘Don’t let’s waste precious time. Take off yer hat an’ coat.’
He removed his peaked cap and uniform jacket, hanging them on one of the chairs. She put her hat, bag and gloves on the other chair, and they sat down on the edge of the bed. Harry pulled her towards him.
‘Kiss me, Mabel.’ His arms went round her and she tried not to stiffen. Her lips felt dry.
‘Kiss me, Mabel, my love. My own dear girl.’
She obediently raised her face and put her arms round his neck. They kissed gently and he stroked her cheek.
‘Mabel, Mabel – I feel as if I can’t ever let yer go.’ His lips were on her forehead and he slowly kissed her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, her chin; she raised her head and he kissed her throat, nuzzling into the warmth of her neck, half covered by the frilled collar of her blouse.
‘Sweet – oh, ye’re so sweet, my love.’
She gave a long sigh and felt her body gradually softening in his arms. There was not a sound to be heard in the house. Down in the street there was the clop-clop of a horse drawing a cart and a man’s voice briefly shouting an order. A dog barked, people passed by, far away from this room which now began to fill up with their presence, becoming less strange as they breathed the air and made it their own. Mabel tried not to think of anything but the present moment, here and now.
‘Take off yer shoes, Mabel.’
With shaking fingers she untied the laces of her stout black walking shoes and eased them off her feet. He removed his boots and then his socks, tucking each into a boot. Mabel’s stockings were held up by the suspenders attached to her corset and she felt unable to draw her navy skirt up that high. She rubbed her feet together and he lifted them up on to the bed.
‘Here, my love, lay down here with me.’
She let herself lie full-length on top of the bed, encircled by his left arm. With his right hand he stroked her hair and drew her face towards his again. Their kiss was longer and deeper this time, and she could feel the thud-thud-thud of his heartbeat beneath his shirt, the tremor that ran through his whole frame. When at last they had to draw apart to take a breath she was conscious of her own heart racing, and she gasped as his hand covered the curve of her breasts beneath the buttoned blouse. He spoke in a whisper again, but an urgent whisper, imploring, almost demanding to be obeyed.
‘Open yer collar for me, Mabel – let me kiss yer shoulder – yer lovely warm skin.’
She fumbled with the top button of her blouse, and then the one below it. His hand was over hers as she undid each button down to the waist, revealing a cotton liberty bodice.
‘Can yer take that off, Mabel?’
She sat up to pull the bodice over her head. And then his hands were upon her breasts, cupping them, stroking, gazing and exclaiming in wonder.
‘I’ve never seen anythin’ so beautiful, never. Never.’
His skin no longer cold but flushed with the heat of his desire for her, his fingers no longer bone-thin but firm and strong upon her flesh, he now worshipped her with eyes and hands and lips. ‘How beautiful, how utterly beautiful,’ he said again, the Salvation Army officer who had become a corporal in the British army. ‘Such happiness, Mabel. I’m in heaven – sheer heaven.’
She sighed and murmured, her heart swelling with love and pride because of his delight in her. And was she also happy? Was she too in heaven on this April afternoon in Maud’s Lambeth lodgings? Not quite, because however hard she tried to live the present moment to the full, the future still intruded. She could not forget the parting they would soon have to face, the agony of farewell again. And the fearful uncertainty that would follow.
‘Sweet – oh, so sweet, Mabel, every inch o’ yer,’ he breathed, revelling in the feel of her soft flesh, holding her, touching her as never before. She too felt her body’s response, the throbbing, the moistening of her woman’s part, getting ready to receive him as an honoured guest. And she knew by the hardness beneath the rough material that he was just as ready to enter her: only four small buttons kept his erection out of sight.
‘Yes, Harry, yes.’ She answered the question he had not asked in words. And so the buttons were undone and she held in her hand the proof of his passion for her, proud and firm.
‘Ah, this is too much for me, Mabel,’ he muttered under his breath as she took his member in her hands, stroking it between her fingers. She lowered her head to touch it with her lips.
‘Ah, Mabel – ah – I’m afraid o’ makin’ a mess –’
She told him it didn’t matter, she had a handkerchief.
‘But I’ll make a mess – I’m going to – ah!’
He groaned, cried out and gushed forth his stream on to her white petticoat. She hadn’t realised that her skirt was up above her knees. The top of her corset was digging into her uncomfortably, its row of hooks and eyes still securely fastened. Her drawers were on and her suspenders gripped the tops of her stockings. He had not come close to her and they had only done what lots of couples did, as she knew from the secret whispers between nurses at the Infirmary. Girls had to face the age-old problem of avoiding the disgrace of pregnancy, with all the agony that must follow: banishment to a mother and baby home and the heartbreak of parting with the child: or the danger of abortion, the risk of poison, damage, even death. Mabel knew all about it from what she had seen at first hand of other women’s lives.
But Harry Drover had not been that close to her, though he now lay gasping out the last shudderings of the climax he had reached between her hands. Mabel found that she was extraordinarily moved by the stream of life that had flowed out from him. She leaned over and breathed in the scent of it on her petticoat, kissed the dewy dampness of what should have been hers; she knew she would not want to wash it away.
His breathing slowed to normal and he nestled his head against her breasts; she knew h
e was smiling, though his face was hidden. After a while she became aware of his weight upon her, for he had gained two stones since his convalescence began. She hadn’t the heart to ask him to move, but closed her eyes and waited. She needed to empty her bladder, but that too could wait until he stirred. She had given him what he had asked of her, the memory he needed to carry away to the war with him, and in so doing had found a deep satisfaction herself.
And it had all happened so quickly: they still had an hour and a half. After using the chamber-pot, Mabel shyly suggested that they both remove their outer clothes – and she thankfully divested herself of corsets and stockings – and got properly into the bed, between the sheets. With her back to him, she lay closely curled in the convexity of his body, his knees behind hers, her head tucked beneath his chin – ‘like a small letter “c” inside a big “C”,’ she said. With his arms around her they talked a little, dozed a little and pressed themselves ever closer together while the minutes ticked away towards four o’clock and the time when they must go their different ways.
‘I love yer, Mabel. Whatever happens, I’ll love yer for ever.’
And there was no need for regret, no asking for forgiveness, because there was nothing to forgive. Only thanks and gratefulness, a deeper bond of intimacy and understanding – and a memory for Mabel, too, to sustain her during the coming separation.
The call came two days later, and by the end of the week Corporal Drover had left with his platoon for Victoria Station and the train that would take them to Dover, from where they would be silently spirited across the Channel by night, with lights dimmed because of the U-boats. Once in France they were to be taken to a region of sloping hills and woodlands, of high ridges overlooking a green valley where the River Somme meandered through Picardy on its winding way to the Channel.
‘There’s goin’ to be a massive bombardment o’ the German trenches, Mabel,’ Harry had told her, ‘followed up by a tremendous forward thrust o’ men, British north o’ the river, French south of it, to drive ’em back to the Rhine, what’s left of ’em, after all that night ’n’ day shellin’. It’ll wipe the poor devils out.’
The look of revulsion in his eyes and the set of his mouth showed how he felt at the prospect of such carnage, and Mabel remembered what Ada Hodges had said: Anything to get the hateful business over.
She said, ‘But if this big push, this Somme offensive, as yer call it, brings the war to an end, Harry, well then – won’t it be for the best?’
His expression was curiously blank and he closed his eyes. ‘This hideous war, Mabel, my love. Whatever’s it doin’ to our lives?’
‘Now, now, this won’t do, Norah, I won’t let you spend all your time at Pinehurst,’ declared Aunt Nell. ‘Albert must take you out for some sunshine and fresh air. Besides, Daisy says that you’re never here when she comes home from school. I shall speak to Kate about it.’
Albert was only too pleased to have Norah all to himself and on the Thursday the couple spent a day in Belhampton, dining at the old Wheatsheaf Hotel, formerly a coaching inn on the London-to-Portsmouth road. They wandered round the cattle market, the ancient church and adjacent almshouses, they gazed up at the fine eighteenth-century mansions with their well-kept gardens. Norah was enchanted by everything she saw in Albert’s company.
And there were dress shops and a milliner’s where he told her to choose anything that took her fancy.
‘I never ’ad a chance to bring yer a present, Norah, so let’s make up for it now,’ he said with the traditional open hand of a sailor in port. ‘See that one over there wiv the lace on – the green one? It’d suit yer dahn to the grahnd – er, the ground,’ he corrected himself.
Down to the ground this particular model was not, being in the newer, shorter style that came up to a lady’s knees; but while Norah hesitated, Albert asked for the dress to be wrapped up for her, along with a more conventional gown in dark-blue with puffed leg-o’-mutton sleeves.
‘D’ye want a hat to go wiv ’em? There’s some big, flowery ones in the shop across the road. C’mon, let’s get a couple o’ them an’ all.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Albert, whatever will yer aunts say, spendin’ all yer money on me!’ she remonstrated, but that wasn’t all. In a little dark jeweller’s shop off the main square, Albert asked to see rings and the man brought out a tray of glittering precious stones.
‘Choose yer engagement ring, Norah. What abaht an emerald, to match that green dress?’
Norah flushed in embarrassment, horrified by the prices.
‘Sure an’ a little plain one’d do me fine, Albert,’ she protested, and in the end settled for a single pearl in a pretty gold setting. Albert had to agree that it looked right on her and remembered a saying he’d once heard, ’as pure as a pearl’. When it was put on the third finger of her right hand it fitted perfectly, so the matter was settled.
‘Now I feel as if we’re prop’ly engaged, Norah,’ he said with an odd mixture of pride and shyness. ‘I’ll fink o’ yer wearin’ it, an’ – an’ that’ll keep me goin’, like, when I’m back at sea.’
Seaman Court had had little practice in the language of love, but his devotion was as true as any poet’s, and Norah thought him the wisest and wittiest speaker she had ever heard.
They walked back slowly along the Beversley Road between green hedgerows bursting with an abundance of new growth. On the banks cool yellow primroses gleamed and shyly peeping dog-violets. Albert was carrying the packages, but set them down at a spot where the road passed over a stream. Standing on the little bridge he took his Irish rose in a gentle embrace.
‘This is the happiest I’ve ever been in me ’ole life, Norah,’ he told her gruffly. ‘I don’t deserve yer, but ye’ve made all the difference to me.’
She trembled in his arms like a fluttering bird. ‘Yer sister knows the difference ye’ve made to me, Albert,’ she answered softly. ‘I belong to somebody at last, y’see.’
‘Yeah, I know, she told me. An’ you belong to me, darlin’ Norah, for ever an’ ever.’
His kiss upon her mouth was as light as the touch of a butterfly’s wing. He would have loved to take her in his arms and kiss her as a pretty girl should be kissed, but there was something about Norah’s trusting innocence that put an unfamiliar constraint upon him; she was like a being set apart, to be adored but treated with the greatest care.
‘Ye’re that precious to me, Norah – me own sweet little darlin’ –’
He took her right hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing first the back of it and then turning it over to kiss the palm, pressing his mouth hard against it with all the passion he dared not show in a more intimate way.
‘Yer know I got to go back to sea soon, Norah,’ he whispered. ‘I’d marry yer tomorrer if I could, only I got to get through this war an’ learn to be more worvy o’ yer.’
‘But Albert, ye’re dearer to me than all the world.’
And so he was, this man who had been saved from the sea by her prayers. Norah McLoughlin’s heart soared with love and thankfulness, and she considered herself the happiest, luckiest girl in the world. With his hand still holding hers she offered him her rosy mouth again, all smiles and shy invitation, impossible to resist.
‘Oh, my Gawd, Norah, I’m in ’eaven,’ he gasped when at last they drew apart to take breath.
On his return from Belhampton Seaman Court was ordered to report to the SS Galway Castle, one of the Union Castle fleet patrolling the eastern Mediterranean and carrying men and supplies to the Eastern Front. Norah was dismayed, having hoped that he would remain in home waters, keeping guard over the Channel ports and the North Sea, though he assured her that no place was safer than any other in wartime.
In the Rising Sun on the corner of York Road he ran into an old friend and fellow striker from railway days, Sam Mackintosh, now a train driver and married, the father of a baby girl. Caught by the Military Service Act, Sam downed a few glasses and put a brave face on being drafted
into the 13th London Rifles.
‘Won’t be so much as a bloody rat left alive in them Jerry trenches after the poundin’ we’re gonna give ’em!’ he boasted.
Arthur Hodges, newly drafted into the same platoon, tried to be equally sanguine, but could not forget the sound of his wife’s hysterical screams, imploring him not to leave her and the children. Her parents had sent for Dr Knowles who prescribed tincture of laudanum and told her gravely that his own son had already returned to the Front with the RAMC. He did not add that Stephen was preparing to take charge of a casualty clearing station behind the lines in preparation for the ‘big push’. Arthur felt wretchedly guilty at leaving his wife in her condition, and the frightened faces of little Arthur and Jenny haunted his dreams.
On a sunny afternoon in May Mabel and Norah stood at a window on Men’s II and waved to a battalion of marching men in the street below. There were cheers and shouts of ‘Come home soon!’ from the onlookers, and the soldiers grinned as they hoisted their rifles and sang:
‘Pack up yer troubles in yer old kitbag and smile, smile, smile!
While ye’ve a lucifer to light your fag – smile, boys, that’s the style!
What’s the use of worrying? It never was worth while –
So – pack up yer troubles in yer old kitbag and smile, smile, smile!’
Later – much later – Mabel was to marvel that men had actually sung those words on their way to the Somme – the bloodiest episode in the history of the British Army.
Chapter Eleven
YOUNG DAISY SOMERTON was feeling distinctly aggrieved. Everybody seemed to be taken up with important matters to do with the war in one way or another and nobody was interested in her, not even her very best friend Lucy Drummond. Her twelfth birthday had come and gone without making any difference to her life, and certainly no improvement. If she walked over to Pinehurst she was told she was too young to be of any use to the men who were recovering from war injuries there, and if she played at the edge of the pond down by the green, scooping up frogspawn in a jar, she was scolded for dirtying her clothes like a child. Once it had been fun to keep frogspawn and watch the little black dots turn into commas that would one day be new frogs if they survived, but now it seemed pointless. Even her dear little kitten had grown into a cat and had kittens of her own. Uncle Thomas said that if she had any more they’d have to be drowned, otherwise Pear Tree Cottage would be overrun with the creatures, and when Daisy cried, Aunt Nell had told her not to be silly when there was so much worse trouble in the world.