A Gathering Storm

by Rachel Hore

  Downstairs, the telephone was ringing again and somebody answered it.

  Tired beyond measure, Beatrice stumbled downstairs to see the doctor out.

  ‘And where is the man of the house tonight?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Beatrice replied. She was too loyal to say that in her experience he was rarely home.

  The doctor frowned. ‘You’ll be staying here then, I trust? They need someone reliable.’

  Beatrice bit her lip, her exhausted thoughts going round and round. It was their last night together – hers and Guy’s – but Angie needed her. Either way, if she wasn’t at the hostel in the morning there would be a row. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she told the doctor. ‘I’m on duty in the morning.’

  ‘You won’t be, you know. Telephone first thing and tell them. You’ve been through a terrible experience and we can’t have you collapsing at your post. That won’t do anyone any good. Besides, as I say, you’re needed here. In fact, I insist. Shall I write you one of my notes?’

  ‘That would be marvellous,’ she said. She took him into the drawing room where there was a writing desk. There they found Gerald and Guy, still waiting patiently.

  ‘That was Mr Wincanton on the telephone,’ Gerald said. ‘He’d heard about tonight’s blast and wanted to know whether his daughter was home safely. How is Miss Wincanton?’ he asked the doctor anxiously.

  ‘Nothing that a few days’ rest won’t solve,’ the doctor said as he wrote. ‘But she won’t be going back to the Wrens for a while.’

  ‘I should think not. Now, I ought to be getting back to barracks, Miss Marlow,’ Gerald told her, ‘if there’s nothing more I can do here. Mr Wincanton left me with the distinct impression that he’d be home as soon as he could find a cab. That might be a while, so I’m glad that you’re staying.’

  ‘What about Angie’s brother – Peter, I mean?’ Beatrice asked. ‘Isn’t he here?’

  ‘I don’t think he lives at home at the moment,’ Gerald replied. ‘Angie told me there had been some difference of opinion.’

  ‘Oh,’ Beatrice said. She wasn’t that surprised.

  ‘I can give you a lift if I’m going your way,’ the doctor said to Gerald. ‘My next port of call is Oxford Street.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Gerald replied. ‘If you could drop me at Marble Arch.’

  Beatrice and Guy exchanged glances. ‘Guy,’ she said, ‘I think I must stay here tonight. I’m sorry.’ She knew at heart she shouldn’t leave Angie; not when Oenone was under sedation.

  He nodded. ‘Of course you must.’ She thought he looked as exhausted as she felt. A great bruise was blooming across his cheekbone and his eyes were rimmed red. Whenever he moved, his uniform shed puffs of dust.

  ‘Perhaps I can prevail upon you for a lift, too, sir,’ Guy said to the doctor. ‘I’m staying with a friend north of Oxford Street.’

  ‘The more the merrier,’ the doctor said. While Peggy the maid fetched their coats, Gerald went upstairs to say goodbye.

  ‘Bea, what’s the number here?’ Guy said. ‘I’ll be leaving Perry’s early, but I’ll telephone you first.’ She wrote it down for him.

  ‘Thank you, Guy, for everything.’ He took her hand, and once again she felt the pressure of the blue-stone ring. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I wish we could be together tonight.’

  After the men had gone, and while Peggy was making up the bed in the room she had slept in last Christmas, Bea wandered wearily along the corridor to see how Angie was. The bedside lamp cast a warm ring of light, by which she saw the girl was dozing. Her breathing was steady, though once she mumbled and frowned as though in pain. Beatrice watched her for a while, arms folded, her thoughts chasing round and round her head. Despite the doctor’s calmness, she was worried about Angelina. The girl had clearly been hit hard by the bomb-blast and the vomiting was not a good sign.

  And mixed in with the concern for Angie was something less worthy – suspicion. Maybe going dancing with Gerald was innocent enough, but something about the intensity of Gerald’s concern told a different story. Gerald was in love with Angelina. The more she thought about it, the surer she was. And Angie? Who knew what her feelings were. Angie loved to make people love her. It made up for something, that’s what Peter had said. But it could be terrible for the people concerned. Bea’s heart ached for Rafe, far away, a prisoner undergoing who knew what suffering, living on hope of home and the girl he’d left behind.

  It was nearly two and Beatrice was getting ready for bed when she heard Angie’s father return. She threw on a lady’s dressing-gown someone had left hanging behind the door and went downstairs. Michael Wincanton was in the drawing room pouring himself some brandy. He came over to her at once.

  ‘Beatrice! Bloody awful time I had getting home. I’m so sorry. How is she?’

  ‘Angie has slight concussion. And the doctor’s given Mrs Wincanton a sedative.’

  ‘Good God, Oenone wasn’t in it too, was she?’

  ‘No, no.’ She explained briefly

  ‘Such a relief that Angie’s safe. I went down to Leicester Square as soon as the news broke. A bad business. Blood and jewels all over the place. Saw several chaps I knew. One was looking for his daughter. And found her, unfortunately.’

  Beatrice sank down on the sofa, very weary now and close to tears. Michael came to sit next to her. He smelt of brandy and expensive cigars. She pulled the dressing-gown tighter around her.

  ‘There were some other friends of mine in there,’ she managed to get out. ‘I can’t bear to remember . . . Dead, both of them.’

  ‘My dear girl,’ he said. He laid his hand on her knee in what might conceivably have been a gesture of comfort. ‘I’m so very sorry. Here, have some of this to steady yourself.’ He handed her his brandy and she took a couple of sips. It tasted awful but after a moment she relaxed into its warmth. He began to stroke her knee very gently. She fought a temptation to lean against him and thought about Guy.

  The hand moved up her thigh.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, and twisted away. ‘Angie’s asleep now. And I’m in the spare room, I hope that’s all right. I’ll hear her if she needs me.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said. He was still very close to her, a powerful, disturbing presence. ‘I must thank you, Beatrice. You’ve been a brick tonight.’ His voice was low, caressing, but there was something else there, too. Sincerity. She was surprised.

  Michael Wincanton had never paid her much attention as an individual before. She knew that the way he was looking at her now was the way he looked at most women, as though assessing what they might be like without their clothes. And she wasn’t surprised to know that women responded. Her body was all too aware of his attractions, but she would never give in to him.

  ‘You know, you’ve changed a lot, Beatrice, if I might say so. Come out of yourself. You were always such a shy little thing. I couldn’t tell what my wife saw in you, frankly. That’s the one good thing about this bloody war. It brings out the best in people.’

  ‘The best and the worst,’ she said, somewhat surprised by his honesty. ‘You know there were men going among the bodies tonight, stealing dead people’s valuables. How could anyone do such a thing?’

  ‘Desperation, perhaps? Some of those men have nothing, not even a roof over their heads. But you’re right. There are always the few who’ll capitalize on someone else’s misery. That was a filthy job tonight. Eighty killed, someone told me. I can’t think how you all made it out alive. This chap she was with, Rafe’s brother. What d’you know about him?’

  ‘Not very much. Had you not met him before?’ Perhaps he and Angie weren’t so close after all.

  ‘He’s been to the house once or twice to take her out. He seems all right, but I thought it was Rafe she was keen on, poor chap. She’s been very cut up about what’s happened to him. I’ve made enquiries, of course, but there’s no particular news of him.’

  ‘Yes, poor Rafe.’ She couldn’t look at Michael
Wincanton in case he should read what was in her heart.

  Angie’s father was studying her carefully now. ‘What is it you’re doing at present?’ he asked. ‘With the FANY, I mean.’

  She told him about the mobile canteen and the little ambulance she drove for the First Aid Post.

  ‘You’ve some French, haven’t you?’ he said.

  ‘I was born in France, so yes,’ she replied.

  ‘Of course, I think I knew that.’ He drank down the rest of his brandy, not taking his eyes off her. She expected him to explain his question, but he didn’t. So she surprised him with one instead.

  ‘How is Peter?’

  ‘Peter? As far as I know he’s all right. He’s taken a room in a friend’s house, I gather. We don’t see much of him, but he turns up sometimes when he’s hungry.’

  She remembered what Dougie’s friends had said about the ‘hush hush’ work, but something closed about Michael Wincanton’s expression warned her off asking.

  When she finally got to bed that night, she took care to lock her door again.

  The next morning, Angie’s condition had improved. She seemed herself again, and had some colour in her face, while complaining that her head still ached. Oenone, on the other hand, was very pale, with pouches under her eyes that powder couldn’t conceal. Still, she seemed well enough to take charge of her daughter’s care and personally took her breakfast up and sat with her as she ate. Beatrice too was eating when Guy telephoned.

  ‘How are you?’ he said. Then: ‘Listen carefully. Can you meet me at Waterloo station? I have to be on the ten o’clock train to Portsmouth.’

  She arrived at ten to, and pushed her way through the crowds onto the platform. For a while she couldn’t see him through the hundreds of people and started to panic.

  ‘Bea,’ he said behind her, and she turned and found herself in his arms, and then they were kissing, stopping only to gaze at one another, as though to drink in every memory.

  She’d vowed to herself to be strong for him, but she could hardly bear it. ‘Take care of yourself, darling,’ she begged him. ‘Don’t do anything reckless, will you? I need you back here safe.’

  She helped him onto the train with his kit, and he kissed her one last time, and then the guard’s whistle sounded and the train started to move. She watched, waving, until the train was a blob in the smoky distance, and then her tears erased the blob.

  She walked back to Bloomsbury, every bombed-out building now serving to remind her that others were suffering worse than herself in this war, back to the hostel where Judy’s possessions had already been packed up, her bed stripped, and where she found Mary, once nearly Deb of the Year, weeping for her lost friend.

  Chapter 18

  Over the next fortnight Beatrice became a frequent visitor to the house in Queen’s Gate. Angie’s recovery was slow, and with her mother in such a fragile, nervous state, they needed her there. There was some talk of bringing Nanny up from Devon, but that meant Hetty would have to come, too, and Mr Wincanton declared that to be a bad idea whilst the bombing continued. Poor Hetty. Beatrice privately thought the girl, who must now be twelve, received little attention from her parents, but no one else in the household seemed to make anything of it. She was in a place of relative safety with her aunt – Oenone’s brother’s wife – and her cousins; Nanny was with her, and all her material and emotional needs were deemed to be supplied. What more could she ask of them? No, there was nothing Beatrice could usefully do about Hetty.

  After spending the first two days in bed, Angie was judged well enough to be brought down to the drawing room, where she reclined in a nest of pillows on the sofa and complained to anyone who would listen. Reading tired her and made her head ache. Friends who telephoned or called to the house apparently tired her, too, and since they all wanted to talk about what she referred to as ‘The Event’, going over and over the names of those killed or injured in the blast and whose funeral had been most lavish, which depressed her, she told Peggy to turn them away.

  Paradoxically, she welcomed Beatrice’s company. Because she had gone through the tragedy with her, Angie said that she understood. Beatrice learned not to refer to ‘The Event’ except obliquely, and instead they chatted about more cheerful things such as Beatrice’s engagement. Angie approved of Guy, whilst appreciating that she might not have seen him looking his best on the night of ‘The Event’. She got it into her head that he was right for Beatrice. ‘Very steady and clearly fond of you.’

  ‘Goodness, that does make him sound stodgy,’ Beatrice said, a little crossly, and couldn’t help thinking of Rafe, who Angie clearly had thought more interesting.

  Rafe was another subject off-limits, she discovered. No one had heard from him or about him, and despite Michael Wincanton’s enquiries, no one learned any more. What Beatrice saw quite clearly, even if Angie didn’t, was that the girl was definitely transferring her affections to Rafe’s brother.

  Gerald came often. Her first impressions of him were borne out in subsequent meetings. Taller and broader than his younger brother, he had none of Rafe’s quick energy, being rather more serious and cautious. He had a natural air of authority about him, and Beatrice wasn’t in the least surprised to hear that he was in line for promotion to Major. He seemed to be working on something that necessitated him remaining in the country, for there was never any talk of him leaving. The cautiousness was related to a stubborn streak, too. She saw it first several days after ‘The Event’, in a conversation with him about whether Angie was well enough to go outside.

  Beatrice said that she was. ‘The doctor thinks a walk in the fresh air would do her good.’

  ‘I don’t know, it seems a bit soon to me. That was quite a blow to the head that she got. How do they know there’s no lasting damage?’ Beatrice sensed his care of Angie, but was also well aware that Angie played up to this. She might be chattering away to Beatrice one moment, asking about Guy’s family and what they did, then, hearing Gerald arrive, would sink back on the pillows and assume a wan expression.

  Gerald would draw up a chair, sit and gaze at her tenderly. ‘How are we today?’ he’d ask, stroking her hand.

  ‘Oh, a little better, I think,’ Angie would whisper. ‘I managed a bit of soup at lunchtime and I’m sure it’s done me good.’

  Beatrice would grimace at Angie over Gerald’s shoulder, but it had no effect. Angie knew how to play her advantage all too well, and Beatrice would have smiled if she hadn’t been fed up.

  What she was upset about, of course, was the thought of Rafe, a prisoner in a foreign land, probably holding some ethereal vision of Angie in his mind to keep him going. Gerald must know that Angie had an understanding with his brother, even though there had been nothing officially announced. Beatrice wasn’t sure what Angie now felt about Rafe. Sometimes she almost hated Angie, believing her to be fickle and playing with people’s feelings. Whether she was just toying with Gerald because Rafe wasn’t there, she didn’t know. That would be the worst thing of all. As for her own feelings, she’d found Guy now and it was much easier than she’d once thought it ever would be, to put away her own memories about Rafe. She cared desperately about what happened to him and prayed for his safety, but at eighteen, with all she’d been through, she was a vastly different person from that shy, devoted young girl who had been so convinced that Rafe belonged to her and her alone. Still, it was horrible to think that Rafe might only be keeping himself going by thoughts of Angie, when Angie was making love to his brother.

  A week passed before Beatrice felt Angie was strong enough to be confronted on the matter.

  ‘You do lead the poor man on. It isn’t really fair, you know.’

  Angie was playing Patience, for which she was ill-suited. She laid down a jack and said, ‘Gerald? Oh don’t worry, Bea. So what if I do? He likes it.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t play with people’s feelings.’

  Angie was silent for a moment, then said, ‘But perhaps I’m not. Though frankly
, I don’t think it’s any of your business. Damn, no more aces. This stupid game never works out.’ She slammed down the remaining cards on the table.

  Beatrice was so hurt by this rudeness she couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment. Angie went on, ‘I hope you’re not going to be a dull old matron now you’re due to be married. Don’t go getting stout, will you?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Beatrice snapped. Through the window, she saw a little family passing, an exhausted woman trundling a pram full of possessions, the baby carried by one of the two skinny children who were trailing behind. It was awful how one was becoming inured to such sights. At least they were still alive. Someone, somewhere would probably look after them.

  And now I’ve made you cross, Bea,’ Angie said. ‘I’m so sorry I’m such a wretch. Do come and sit down and I promise I’ll be nice.’

  ‘I ought to be going,’ Beatrice said, which was true. She was on duty in Mile End later in the morning, and she had some errands to do on the way.

  ‘But you’ll come again soon?’

  Angie looked so pleading that Beatrice gave in. ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘I do,’ Angie said gravely. ‘You’re the only one I can really talk to.’

  ‘There’s Gerald,’ Beatrice was unable to resist saying.

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean.’

  ‘When does the doctor think you can go back?’

  ‘To the Wrens? Next week maybe.’ She made a face, then said, ‘It is very boring being an invalid. It’ll be more fun back in Dover.’

  It was the last week of March 1941 that Sandra Williams, Beatrice’s Commanding Officer, looked up with a smile as Beatrice arrived at the First Aid Post.