Goodnight Sweetheart

by Charlotte Bingham

  Trixie followed her into the drawing room, and because she was half impressed that Miss O’Brien had taken it for granted that Trixie Smith wore camiknickers – which frankly she could never have afforded – her indignation did start to subside.

  And yet, as she was guided through the double doors into a very large drawing room, she found she was not impressed by the décor. After all, she had been brought up at Chevrons which was full of fine things; beautiful objects were familiar to her.

  Nevertheless, as she looked around, it dawned on her that the décor at The Place was of a very different nature from that of Chevrons. There were no family portraits, and no heavy velvet curtains that had been hung perhaps even a hundred years before. Neither were there old vases holding spills for the fire, nor worn Persian rugs. Here was much gold, and paintings that were roguish in content, and fabrics that were new and bright, more like something in a magazine, although not like that either.

  ‘You were brought up at Chevrons, weren’t you? With Miss Caro?’

  Edwina and Trixie were now seated opposite each other.

  ‘My father was chauffeur to Mr and Mrs Garland, and now helps out on the estate. My grandfather was coachman to Mr Garland that was. And I have been a maid there, personal maid, finally, to Mrs Garland, and only left to help with the war effort, doing factory work because I could get nothing else.’

  Edwina nodded. She had been both amused and impressed by Trixie’s display of indignation when she saw the sumptuous buffet laid out in the dining room.

  ‘If you want to come here you will be working for Colonel Atkins, but you will still be working for me here, even though you’re really working for Colonel Atkins, if you understand me?’

  Edwina put her head on one side, satisfied that she had explained herself very succinctly.

  There was a slight pause, and then Trixie, having recovered from her burst of indignation, finally gave Edwina a calm look.

  ‘You’re really very Irish, aren’t you?’

  ‘So why wouldn’t I be? I was born in Ireland. Naturally I’m Irish. Now we must get down to business. You will pose as my maid, but you will also be my maid. You will have to double as parlour maid too, with Mr Fleming as butler.’

  Edwina had agreed with Colonel Atkins that no good could possibly come from Trixie knowing that Mrs Cherry and Mr Fleming also worked for Colonel Atkins. The rule at Baker Street and Dolphin Square was that the less people knew about each other, the better.

  ‘I used to look after Mrs Garland, in the old days, before the war, when Miss Berenger, her Belgian maid, had her weekend off, and such like.’ A nostalgic look came into Trixie’s large eyes. ‘It was wonderful looking after Mrs Garland. Her clothes were quite beautiful – clothes like you never see now.’ She sighed deeply. ‘But then women could be women before the war, couldn’t they, Miss O’Brien? Not like now; now we’re all in boiler suits, or slacks, or uniforms.’

  Edwina sensed the rivalry in these casual observations, and her natural competitiveness rose to the bait.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, looking after Mrs Garland must have been a joy. Let me take you through to see my wardrobe, provided for me, by the colonel, bless his sacred socks.’

  Of course there was mischief behind what Edwina was saying, and a part of her could not help hoping that Trixie would again be indignant by the sight of her sumptuous clothes.

  When the colonel had shown her what she was being asked to wear, Edwina had not asked the source of such beautiful clothing. She realised that it was, as it were, camouflage, as much as anything that a soldier would wear. It was also intended to be used as propaganda. If the Queen of England’s couture outfits were a source of inspiration and delight to the bombed-out poor of the East End, if her Majesty’s beauty and charm were considered a brilliant propaganda tool against the enemy, then Edwina knew that Colonel Atkins was thinking along the very same lines.

  If Edwina was to set up a salon that would attract the right kind of sympathisers from other countries, who, looking round London’s bombed-out buildings, its nightly battering by Hitler’s Luftwaffe, must be convinced that England was finished, it was vital that the beautiful Edwina O’Brien should look groomed within an inch of her life, and as beautifully dressed as it was possible to be. By being so she would be telling both England’s enemies and her friends, ‘Don’t you believe what you see around you. Don’t believe old England is done. How can she be when I’m looking like something dropped from heaven?’

  Edwina now found herself staring at the contents of her new wardrobes, because although she had been through them many times, the truth was she still couldn’t believe what they contained.

  ‘The colonel acquired all these dresses and coats and skirts for me. Chosen for me by himself, I believe,’ Edwina added swiftly, before Trixie could jump to any unlikely conclusions.

  ‘The colonel must certainly know his stuff if he bought all this for you,’ Trixie remarked, and her large brown eyes once more widened as she tried to take in row upon row of beautiful dresses and coats, and the contents of the multitude of mahogany drawers that Edwina was opening and shutting to demonstrate where the more personal garments were stored.

  ‘Oh, the colonel has taste up to his elbows, believe me. Why else would he be choosing thee and me to work for him, do you think, Miss Smith?’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Please call me Trixie, Miss O’Brien. Everyone else does.’

  Edwina shook her head. ‘No, Trixie, I will not call you any such thing. I will call you “Smith”, and that is, I am afraid, an unbreakable rule. A lady’s maid in a London household is always called by her surname. Of course, when we are alone, if there is definitely no one else around, I expect I will call you “Smith, dotey” or “TS” or anything else that comes into my head, but when we are, if you will excuse the expression, professionally occupied, we will call each other Miss O’Brien and Smith, and we mustn’t forget that.’

  Trixie nodded in agreement. She didn’t really care what Miss O’Brien called her, she just wanted her to get on with showing her everything that was so beautifully, and selectively, hanging on cushioned hangers and polished dark wooden hangers, inside those hand-carved mahogany wardrobes.

  But for some reason Miss O’Brien seemed disinclined to do this yet. Instead she walked around the room pointing out where she kept her shoes and handbags, her gloves, and her lace-edged handkerchiefs, and all the other items that were so indispensable to a lady. Her makeup was in a leather case, stored neatly, and her silver hairbrushes and combs were on the dressing table, together with the largest scent bottles that Trixie had ever seen.

  ‘So that is that,’ Edwina finished. ‘There are the clothes, and there are the things that go with the clothes.’

  ‘From my experience with Mrs Garland,’ Trixie announced, ‘it is always necessary to show the personal maid the dress that will be worn that evening. And all the underpinnings, as well as the other –’ Trixie paused – ‘as well as the jewellery, and such like,’ she finished, looking around pointedly for a jewellery box.

  Edwina was silent. She knew that this Trixie person was someone that Caro Garland had recommended, someone whom Caro had known all her life, but in war nothing was certain, and she had no idea whether or not she should show Trixie Smith where the jewellery was kept. Perhaps if it had been her own jewellery, it might be different, but it belonged, as it were, to the colonel, and he had only muttered in his gentlemanly way, ‘Might be a better thing to wait to show the maid where the beads are kept, but I’ll let you make up your own mind about that.’

  ‘Let me show you some of my dresses that the colonel has picked out for me from some private pre-war collections – nothing that would contravene the expected ration regulations, all second-hand, some unworn, some worn once.’

  She reached up into the wardrobe and took down a dress.

  ‘I was thinking of wearing this tonight, for my dinner party for sixteen. Look at the embroidery on it, du
vetyn stitching, and all this travertine lace – I think that is travertine – on the edging, quite a good thing in the V of a dress, I suppose.’

  Edwina smiled slyly. She could see that Trixie was enthralled, that by showing her this wardrobe full of carefully selected dresses and coats and skirts, of short furs, and long rabbit-lined coats, of every kind of sophisticated wear, she had awakened the dormant personal maid in Smith, formerly known as Trixie.

  The simmering indignation displayed in the dining room had completely disappeared, to be replaced by reverence, and she was already, with a look of great piety, laying out a dress that she had obviously singled out for Edwina to wear that evening. It was black and full-skirted, its many petticoats shot through with a cerise silk, the silk echoed in the bodice, and the sleeves. It was very beautiful.

  ‘I would suggest this one for tonight, Miss O’Brien.’

  Trixie looked up expectantly at Edwina. It was a challenging moment, and they both knew it.

  ‘Just what I would have chosen for myself, Smith,’ Edwina said in a smooth voice. ‘Exactly right for the kind of gathering we can expect.’

  Happily it really was what Edwina herself would have chosen, because if it hadn’t been there might well have been what Edwina had heard Caro nowadays sometimes call ‘a teeny momento’.

  ‘Mrs Garland always said that red hair and red or pink were a beautiful combination. She had it from Mr de Laszlo, the Mr de Laszlo. Mr Philip de Laszlo. He designed the dress for Mrs Garland to wear in her portrait. It was, is, a most beautiful dress, and the portrait, is, was, a great success in every way. It was the last thing I dressed her in before the annual ball given by the Lord Lieutenant, which she always attended. This particular year she had sacrificed her dress allowance to Miss Katherine’s needs, so that she could have a fashionable wardrobe, but then that was Mrs Garland all over. She would rather have starved than not share what she had with someone who might be in need. Not that Miss Katherine was in need, but she was due to come out the following spring, and she had to get used to wearing beautiful things, and – as Mrs Garland always said – no good throwing Miss Katherine into the arena like some unschooled horse. She must not just learn elegance, she must experience it.’

  Edwina smiled, despite actually wanting to scream. Obviously the sainted Mrs Garland, mother of Caro, was someone with whom she would have to get used to living.

  ‘Mrs Garland was obviously a lovely lady …’ Her voice tailed off, ending on a deliberately vague and bored note.

  ‘She was a beautiful lady,’ Trixie affirmed. ‘She will always be missed. If we all live to be a hundred, we will always miss her, everyone that knew her.’

  Edwina sighed inwardly. Just her luck to inherit a personal maid who was used to working for a saint.

  ‘I am awfully afraid that I shall prove to be a trying sort of disappointment to you, Smith, after Mrs Garland,’ she said, adopting a sad tone. ‘I am more sinner than saint, but I do love to laugh, as you doubtless will notice. Laughter is the safety valve of a nation, and we need all of that at this time, I think you will agree.’

  But Trixie was not listening. She was busy searching for suitable shoes and stockings to go with the cerise and black dress. Whatever her feelings about Miss O’Brien, after the din and the gloom of the factory, the contents of the wardrobes, the scent and feel of all that sophistication was intoxicating.

  That night the London bombing raids were so ferocious that Trixie was not even able to return home to collect her things. Miss O’Brien forbade it, saying, ‘Now you’re here we must try to keep you whole. I will lend you whatever you need.’

  However, the planned party went ahead. No matter that the noise outside was horrendous, what with the sirens and then the bombs, it seemed that everyone had become used to it. Either that or their hunger was stronger than their fear.

  It was not just Trixie’s first evening as a personal maid, it was also her first evening helping in the dining room. She dressed in her new black dress – perfect fit, how did they know? – and then placed the starched cap on her head and looked at herself in the mirror.

  ‘You were meant to be getting on with your life, Beatrice Smith,’ she told her image, ‘not going back into service.’ But then she smiled at herself, because she couldn’t help realising that she looked really rather perky.

  Mind you, she’d have to watch her rear end with the gentlemen, but that was only to be expected when you were dressed as a maid. Why there were any frustrated spinsters left in the world had always been a source of amazement to Trixie. After all, when all was said and done they would only have to put on a maid’s uniform, and there’d be a queue of men waiting for them halfway down the road.

  The sirens started up as Trixie entered the kitchen. It was a sound she had heard many times, but in London, because the buildings were so close together, it seemed to be a great deal more sinister.

  Mr Fleming turned to her. ‘Don’t show fear in front of the guests, will you?’

  ‘No, Mr Fleming, of course not.’

  ‘If the building shakes it is permissible to retreat under the dining table, or if the building might seem to be about to be hit, to a cupboard under the stairs in the downstairs hall. Otherwise we just carry on.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Fleming.’

  Trixie picked up her tray of hors d’oeuvres. How would they know if the building was ‘about to be hit’?

  Still, life back at the factory was hardly less noisy, and at least here at The Place, the work was more varied. She straightened her black dress and parlour maid’s cap, and proceeded out of the green baize door. She would do as the others did. She would carry on as if nothing was happening, no matter that her insides had turned to water, no matter that she had a job keeping the tray in her hands steady. There were a great many foreigners present, all talking at once, but if they were prepared to carry on, so was she.

  Days later, having been given a room in the basement of the building, which was to serve her as a bedroom for the rest of the war, Trixie began to realise that, since the Blitz, and the devastation of the unprecedented bombing that had been unleashed on London, the number-one rule of life in the capital was to enjoy yourself whenever you could. Hours spent driving ambulances, or taking food and drink to firemen, whose endurance was such that sometimes their hands froze to their hoses, were swiftly compensated by as many hours spent dining and dancing. The pace of life was ferocious. Yet while she learned to admire it, Trixie had no intention of following suit. She would rather be down in the basement with her books and her knitting, or under the kitchen table with Mrs Cherry, than out dancing with someone new.

  ‘I couldn’t go dancing knowing that young men were dying,’ she murmured piously.

  Despite the fact that they were spending their umpteenth night under the basement stairs, Mrs Cherry managed to give her an old-fashioned look.

  ‘That’s exactly why they do go dancing, Smith, to amuse the young men, take their minds off what’s going to happen tomorrow. That is the whole point, don’t you see?’

  Trixie did see, but dancing was still not for her. Besides, she had to look after Miss O’Brien, whose social life was becoming something to behold. She only hoped that good would come of it, or else it would be a proper waste of everyone’s efforts, not to mention a crying scandal when you saw all the people who came to the apartment disporting themselves, eating and drinking in such a fashion you would have thought it was their last meal.

  Walter was up and about early. He had spent the night fire watching yet again, standing in for his neighbour, and then snatched a couple of hours’ sleep, shaved and dressed, and was now making his way along the endlessly empty roads that would take him to the place where his next subject would already be at work.

  The previous evening he had been down the Underground, sketching the crowds, the turmoil, the people, the bunks, the sleeping bags, but avoiding some of the less savoury sights. He saw it as his duty to ignore the squalor, to concentrate instead on
the relentless courage of the people, singing and picnicking, reading to their children, joking and laughing, playing cards, pretending, as they all must, that tomorrow was going to be just another day – if only they could hang on, stick it out, make sure that there was another day to which to look forward.

  An hour or so after leaving London, showing his identity card what seemed like the hundredth time, he was at last coming to grips with the subject of his painting, the gun turret.

  As he saw the magnitude of the task ahead – the crew’s not his – he became fearful, and at the same time excited.

  The crew were in rehearsal, but the way they were setting about their business with the gun turret, which weighed near enough a ton, they would seem to be doing the exercise for real.

  Of course, since they were only practising, the men were not wearing ‘flash’ gear but wearing training uniform. Sooner than Walter expected the breech was shut, and almost immediately the machinery appeared to him to be a monstrous creature weaving around the crew. The atmosphere, claustrophobic, increasingly fetid, became heavy with sweat and human effort, shiny with dripping moisture, but Walter sketched on, his own sweat starting to impede his efforts, his life seeming to become one with that of the perspiring crew. He knew, as they knew, that they were learning a grim ballet that had to be foot-and arm-perfect. They would never know until the moment arrived whether they would be a success because that demon of the unknown was waiting for them, thousands of miles of its great dark body, the unknown devil that could be charmer or slayer – the sea.

  ‘I will be back tomorrow,’ Walter murmured finally to the gunnery officer, who regarded him with passive disinterest.

  The fact that Walter was from some Artists’ Rifles brigade, or whatnot, that he had arrived not in uniform but in a painter’s smock and white shirt, in drill trousers and light shoes, and was now leaving, wrung out with sweat, wearing precisely the same clothes, did not mean that the officer was going to let him off producing his identity card.