Act of Will

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘Well,’ he said slowly, his voice sinking, ‘I just don’t know…’

  Audra sat up straighter and gave him one of her penetrating stares. ‘There can be no hesitation on our parts, Vincent, none whatsoever, do you hear! We must strive towards this goal, whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice. Christina must have that chance. And I, for one, am going to make sure she gets it!’

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘I don’t know what to do about Audra any more, Mike, I don’t really. I’m at the end of my tether,’ Vincent said in a shaky voice.

  He jumped up, and strode over to the window, where he stood looking out, narrowing his eyes against the bright April sunlight.

  Mike said, ‘Yes, I’m aware how worried you’ve been—and for quite a while.’ The young doctor frowned, conscious of his friend’s anxiety, his frustration at being jobless. Vincent’s emotions were close to the surface these days, and the set of his shoulders indicated to Mike just how tense and distressed he was this morning.

  ‘What can I do to help—’ Mike began, but broke off as the sitting room door swung open.

  Laurette backed herself into the room, carrying a tray. She turned and marched over to the fireplace. ‘Sorry I took so long with the tea,’ she said brightly, ‘but I had to check on the Sunday joint and the roast potatoes first. I brought myself a cup…’ Laurette paused in mid-sentence, suddenly noticing Mike’s troubled face, Vincent’s rigid stance near the window.

  ‘Oh,’ she said quickly, ‘am I interrupting something? Were you having a private talk? I’d better take my tea back to the kitchen and leave you both in peace.’

  ‘No, don’t be ridiculous,’ Vincent said, spinning around on his heels, coming back to the fireplace. ‘It’s not anything you can’t hear.’ Lowering himself into a chair, he took out his cigarettes, lit one.

  Laurette passed around the cups, then sat down, looking at Vincent expectantly, waiting for him to continue. For a moment or two Laurette observed her brother.

  Vincent sat staring into the fire morosely, his face brooding as he smoked his cigarette.

  Finally, hoping to draw him out, she asked, ‘Where did you say Audra and Christina have gone today?’

  To Fountains Abbey,’ he said without looking up. ‘Another painting lesson in the country, a field trip as Audra calls it.’ At last he turned his face to Laurette, and added, ‘But you know she always takes Christie out to paint on her Sundays off from the hospital.’

  ‘Yes, and I think it’s admirable the way she’s teaching her everything she knows, schooling her in art, showing her paintings in the big houses like Temple Newsam and Harewood. Audra’s giving Christie a good grounding, Vincent, and she’ll be well prepared for art school.’

  Vincent nodded, but made no comment.

  Mike remarked, ‘You said you didn’t know what to do about Audra any more. Let’s talk about it… it does help to get it off your chest, and that’s really why you came to see us this morning, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, Mike.’ Vincent cleared his throat. ‘It’s Audra’s health that I’m worried about. She’s pushing herself harder than ever these days, stretching her strength to the limit. You both know what her schedule’s like… she’s working damned hard at the hospital and taking on additional duty, whenever she gets the chance, for the extra money. Then when she comes home she’s looking after us, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing. And she’s tutoring Christie in art. And when she’s not doing that, she’s toiling at that bloody sewing machine Mrs Bell gave her, doing alterations and making clothes for people. The work aside, she scrimps and scrapes, does without herself, in order to save every penny she can for Christina’s education.’

  They both looked at him attentively, saying nothing, their faces sympathetic.

  Vincent shook his head slowly. ‘It’s this relentless pursuit of money that troubles me, and I’m powerless to stop it. Helpless, really.’ Unexpectedly, Vincent’s voice shook again. ‘I daren’t interfere, daren’t say a word… when I have in the past she’s bitten my head off… I was hoping you’d talk to her, Mike, you know, as a doctor. She’d listen to you.’

  ‘I doubt that, Vince,’ Mike answered, his tone gloomy. ‘Of course I’d be willing to try, but I’d be wasting my breath. And so would Laurette, as close as she is to Audra. No one, nothing, is going to stop Audra. She’s single-minded, and she’s stubborn. Implacable.’

  ‘Aye, I know that only too well,’ Vincent muttered. ‘All this started years ago when Christina was first born. I told Audra at the time that she was propelled by a terrible driving force within herself, and I was right.’ He ran his hand over his weary face. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, wanting the best for a child, I realize that. But what Audra’s been doing these past few years—well, it’s bloody abnormal if you ask me.’

  Laurette said, ‘I’m not sure if abnormal is quite the right word, Vincent—’ She hesitated, searching for the correct expression to convey the sudden thought that had struck her. Then she said, slowly, carefully, ‘What we’re witnessing is an act of will, and one so selfless, so powerfully motivated it’s… well, it’s just awesome to watch.’

  ‘Bloody frightening, you mean,’ Vincent said harshly. He took a deep breath, tried to soften his voice. ‘Look, Laurette, I want the best for our Christie, I really do. But there’s a limit to what people in our circumstances can do. Audra’s reaching too high, reaching for too much for the lass. I love Audra…’ He paused, cleared his throat. ‘I don’t want her to collapse, to get sick. I’m only trying to protect her.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll pay any attention to any of us, as I said, but I will have a talk to her tomorrow, Vince,’ Mike promised. ‘I’ll be up at the hospital to see patients and I’ll find an opportunity to say something to her. I’ll insist she has a general check-up, just as a matter of routine. At least that might ease your mind.’

  ‘Oh it will, Mike, it will. Thanks ever so much.’

  Laurette smiled at her brother, patted his arm. ‘Try and relax a bit, love, it’ll be all right.’

  Vincent nodded, put another cigarette in his mouth, struck a match.

  ‘Will you stay for Sunday lunch?’ Laurette asked. ‘It’s roast lamb, new potatoes and spring cabbage—all the things you like.’

  ‘No, thanks though. I said I’d meet our Bill and Jack for a drink at the Traveller’s Rest at Hill-Top, then I’ll probably walk back to our mam’s with them, have a spot of lunch there.’ Vincent eyed his sister, said in a careful tone, ‘I don’t want you to say anything to Mam, but our Bill is thinking of joining up, going into the Merchant Navy.’

  Laurette stared at him, her eyes widening. ‘She’s not going to like that! Not with our Frank already in the army.’

  ‘I know she won’t.’ Vincent turned to his brother-in-law. ‘There’s going to be a war, Mike. The writing’s on the wall, what with Hitler on the march, invading parts of Czechoslovakia in March and now, just last week, the man was making impossible demands on Poland—’

  ‘I was reading about that in the Sunday Express before you came in,’ Mike interrupted. ‘The man’s a maniac, getting greedier than ever, demanding that the Free City of Danzig be ceded to Germany. It seems we’ve pledged to support Poland in this new crisis; so has France.’

  Their troubled eyes locked.

  ‘It’s an uneasy peace we have at the moment, Mike, and it won’t last long… we’ll be at war with Germany before the end of the year, mark my words.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Laurette exclaimed, looking from her brother to her husband. Her voice quavered slightly as she asked, ‘Will you… will you both have to go if there’s a war?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mike said, very quietly.

  CHAPTER 29

  ‘What a lovely morning it is,’ Audra said, walking to the open door of the cottage in Pot Lane, standing on the doorstep, looking out.

  ‘Yes, it is a bonny day,’ Vincent agreed, joining her in the doorway. He followed
her gaze. It was directed to the bottom of the small garden where Christina sat sketching, and he smiled with pleasure at the sight of his child. ‘And much too nice to stay inside… I think I’ll come with you this afternoon, if you’ll have me, that is.’

  Audra looked at him in astonishment. ‘But you always go to the White Horse on Sunday lunchtimes—’ She broke off as the laughter bubbled up inside her and her eyes grew bright with happiness. ‘But we’d love it if you came with us. We’re not going far, only to Temple Newsam. I want Christie to study some of the paintings there, in particular the Old Masters.’

  Vincent put his arm around her, squeezed her shoulder, stared down into her face. He saw the tiredness behind the sudden radiance filling her face at this moment, and his heart tightened. She was still pushing herself too hard, despite Mike’s friendly lecture in the spring, and she worried him a lot. But she would not listen to him; his words seemed to make no impression on her. She continued to toil as she always had.

  Vincent said, in a rush, ‘Listen, love, I’ve got an idea, a wonderful idea. Let’s get ready and go to Temple Newsam now. Well, in about half an hour or so. You know, make a day of it, Audra. We could take a picnic with us… that’d save you struggling over a hot stove, cooking Sunday lunch before we go. Come on, what do you say?’

  Audra nodded her head, smiling. It was not often that he ventured out with them on these Sunday art excursions, when they went to the country or the seaside, or to visit stately homes, and she was delighted. She looked over her shoulder at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s ten past eleven already… but oh yes, why not!’ Swinging to face the garden, shading her eyes against the sunlight, she called, ‘Christie, Christie, come inside, please.’

  The girl looked up. ‘In a minute, Mam, I’m trying to get this tree exactly right.’

  ‘Very well, but don’t be too long. Your daddy’s coming with us to Temple Newsam, and we’re going to leave this morning instead of this afternoon. We’re taking a picnic lunch with us and I need you to help me.’

  ‘Oh!’ Christina cried and leapt to her feet, excited that her father was going too. ‘I’m coming in now, Mam.’

  A split-second later she was hurrying into the parlour-kitchen carrying her folding stool and sketching things. After putting them away, she asked, ‘What do you want me to do, Mam?’

  ‘Let’s start making the sandwiches first, and once we have the lunch packed, we’ll get ready,’ Audra said, bustling over to the pantry.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’ Vincent asked.

  ‘Not really, but you might put the wireless on, it would be nice to have a bit of music this morning.’

  ‘Done,’ he said, striding to the set, twiddling the knob. ‘Ah, here’s a nice bit of music… why it’s the Blue Danube, Audra. Fancy that—the first dance we had together at the Parish Hall, all those years ago, when I asked you to have the last waltz with me. Do you remember?’

  ‘Of course I remember,’ she said, turning her head, giving him the sweetest of smiles, then she frowned as the music stopped abruptly, was cut off in mid-stream. ‘Oh dear, don’t tell me that the wireless is broken again. Vincent, we’ll just have to buy a—’

  ‘We interrupt this programme to bring you an important message from the Prime Minister,’ a BBC announcer was saying.

  Vincent and Audra stared at each other, neither of them moving as the voice of Neville Chamberlain flowed out of the set, told them and the rest of the country that England was now at war with Germany. He spoke of the Polish situation, and explained that the British Government had done everything possible to establish peace and had a clear conscience.

  ‘Now may God bless you all and may He defend the right.’ The Prime Minister’s voice, so grave and sombre, then faded away with these words, was replaced by the national anthem, and the familiar strains of God Save The King reverberated around the kitchen.

  ‘It’s September the third today,’ Vincent muttered, glancing at Audra through troubled eyes. ‘I’ve been expecting a war, but it came sooner than I thought it would.’

  ‘Yes.’ Audra put the knife she was holding down on the set-pot and lowered herself into the nearest chair, feeling strangely weak in the legs as the implications of the Prime Minister’s message sank in.

  Christina looked from her mother to her father, her eyes puzzled. ‘What does it mean? What’s going to happen, Dad?’

  ‘We’re going to be fighting the Germans, but don’t you worry, pet, everything’s going to turn out all right in the end.’

  ‘What shall we do about Temple Newsam?’ Audra suddenly said, ‘perhaps we’d better not go today, after all.’

  ‘Oh Mam, don’t say that,’ Christina cried. ‘Not when Daddy said he’d come with us.’

  Christina’s face was so crestfallen and she sounded so let down, Vincent could not help exclaiming, ‘Oh what the hell, let’s go, Audra. It’ll probably be the last chance we get to do something together like this for a long time.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Audra hesitated.

  Eagerly, Christina asked, ‘Can we go then, Mam?’

  Audra half smiled at her. ‘Yes—run upstairs and change your frock. Your daddy will help me to finish preparing the picnic.’

  ‘Shall I wear my yellow cotton frock with the primrose pattern?’

  ‘If you like, dear.’

  When they were alone, Vincent said, ‘I don’t know when the recruiting offices will open, tomorrow or Tuesday, I expect.’ He paused. ‘But I’m going to volunteer as soon as they are open for business.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, I knew you would, if war came. As much as you’ve ranted and raved about the Government and the Depression, you’re very patriotic at heart.’

  ‘Aye, I am that, lass, like every Englishman worth his salt. Besides, the Government’s not the country. And anyway, if we don’t do the fighting, who is going to do it? Who’s going to defend what we believe in? Oh yes, I must go and fight for my King and country, Audra. God knows, I don’t wish war on any of us, it’s going to be hell on earth, but maybe I can now stand up and be a man.’

  She stared at him in amazement. ‘You’ve always been a man to me, Vincent.’

  ***

  Vincent Crowther joined the Royal Navy on Tuesday, and by the end of the week he had been sent to the big naval barracks at Harwich to start his basic training.

  The cottage in Pot Lane seemed quiet and empty without him. It was the first time they had been separated since their marriage and Audra soon began to realize just how much she missed him.

  They had an odd marriage in some ways, she was the first to admit that, but in spite of their quarrels and differences, they loved each other. They had this glittering prize who was their daughter Christina, and it was she who bound them together irrevocably.

  And so as she went about her work at the hospital and at home, Audra thought about Vincent and worried about him and wondered how he was getting on in the Royal Navy.

  Soon his letters started to come on a regular weekly basis and she and Christina sat and pored over them and re-read them and talked about him lovingly; they could not wait for his first leave.

  Because of his absence, Christina had to look after herself during the day when Audra was working at St Mary’s. ‘I don’t mind, Mam, I can manage, honestly I can,’ the girl kept telling her, and this was the truth. Christina was exceptionally grown up for an eight-year-old, mostly because of her own intelligence and the practical domestic training she had been given by her mother; but also because she had been surrounded by adults all of her life.

  In particular, she was close to her Auntie Laurette, and when Audra was on night duty Christina now began to sleep at her aunt’s house. Mike Lesley had enlisted in the Medical Corps, and since she was alone Laurette was happy to have her niece for company. With Mike’s departure, Laurette had gone back to work. Wanting to do her bit for the war effort, she had taken a job with an engineering firm in Armley which was now making bombs; she was
secretary to the managing director.

  Every day, when her mother was at work, Christina went to her grandmother’s for lunch, as she had done since she was a baby and had been taken there by her father in her pram. Eliza’s cheerful kitchen with its plethora of roses had always rung with laughter and the jollity of her boisterous family. But now it was deathly quiet.

  Bill had joined the Merchant Navy, Jack had gone into the army, and Maggie had enlisted in the ATS—the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She had first gone to a training centre near Reading for a month’s basic army training, then on to a huge camp in Shropshire where she was learning to use anti-aircraft instruments. Hal, Olive’s husband, was in the Royal Air Force, and only Alfred and Danny, who was just sixteen, remained at home.

  The Crowthers were suddenly a family of women, except of course for Alf and his youngest son, whom they all knew would go when he was old enough, and they drew closer as England mobilized for war.

  Barrage balloons and searchlights, air-raid sirens and the ‘All Clear’ signal, blackout curtains at every window, identity cards, air-raid shelters and gas masks—all became quite commonplace. So did food rationing, clothing coupons, petrol rationing and shortages of every kind. And air-raid drill. This was conducted by members of the Civil Defence, and Mr Trotter, the local air-raid warden for Pot Lane, became a familiar and friendly face to Audra and Christina.

  As trying and as difficult as these times were, Audra kept to her regular routine of years standing, and she insisted that Christina do the same. Aside from her school work, the tutoring in art continued and Christina was expected to work at it with dedication every day.

  But they had their little pleasures too, and in particular they loved going to the pictures to see the latest films from America, as well as those made at home. They were also rabid fans of the radio, and listened to everything from the news to comedy and musical programmes. It was the cinema that always won out, though, and they went once a week, sometimes twice, usually accompanied by Laurette.