by Erica James
‘I have no idea why any woman with any sense would find him in the least bit attractive.’
‘My word,’ said Hope with a smile, ‘he’s really rattled you, hasn’t he?’
Romily drained her glass of whisky and soda. ‘Not in the slightest,’ she said tersely.
The concert in the cathedral, which had attracted a large crowd, began with a frantically fast-paced rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ played by a trio of tuba players who had everyone smiling and applauding enthusiastically when they took their bow.
Next up was a cellist bravely taking on the first movement of Elgar’s cello concerto. He also received an enthusiastic round of applause and took his bow with an enormous look of relief, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he did so. When he’d carried his cello away, Tony appeared and sat at the piano. After a bit of fidgeting on the stool, he placed his hands above the keys, then began with the opening bars of a Chopin nocturne. He played well. Better than well. He had a sure but sensitive touch.
Romily responded to his playing by closing her eyes and letting the music wash over her. It was like a soothing balm, a warm blanket of comfort that made her realise how tense she had been, and how, quite out of character, she had allowed a few words from a stranger to upset her equilibrium. Motionless, she sat spellbound, her head lowered as if in prayer, giving herself up to the exquisite melody as it wrapped itself around her.
She stayed that way right until the very last notes died away. But when she did look up to join in with the applause, she found herself fighting off tears. She blinked hard, but the tears spilled over, and as she dashed them away with a hand, yet more flowed. To her very great consternation, she could do nothing to stop them. It was as if a tap had been turned on and there was no way to turn it off. She tried to swallow back the painful lump that had unaccountably formed in her throat, but that wouldn’t work either. More than anything she wanted to flee, to be alone outside to compose herself.
No, that was a lie! She wanted to be back at Island House with Jack. She wanted her life to be how it was before she’d gone to Europe, before Jack had had his stroke. She wanted to wake up in the morning lying beside her darling husband, knowing the day would be full of fun and laughter, and above all, full of their love for each other.
‘Are you all right?’ whispered Hope beside her.
Unable to speak, she nodded and dug about clumsily in her handbag for a handkerchief. Was this some kind of delayed grief? she thought. Had Tony’s beautiful playing unearthed a further layer of grief she had hitherto suppressed?
She dabbed her eyes and caught him looking at her with concern while taking another well-deserved bow as the audience continued to applaud him. With a frown on his face, he resumed his seat at the piano and was joined by Guy Lance, who, with a showy flourish, tucked his violin under his chin before throwing himself into a spirited rendition of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5, with Tony accompanying him. He played far from perfectly, but it was easy to see why he had chosen this crowd-pleasing piece of music; it was showy and full of energy, a lot like Guy himself, Romily thought wryly.
The change of tempo helped her to pull herself together, and with her tears now checked, she slipped the screwed-up handkerchief back into her bag. Guy Lance was, she was forced to admit, the type of man to whom, in another life, she had once been attracted. But that other life now seemed as though it had been lived by someone else. Loving Jack had changed her forever. And for the better.
At the end of the concert, after a rousing and patriotic refrain of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, which had everybody on their feet and singing along, refreshments were served. While Hope went over to join the queue for the fruit punch, Tony appeared at Romily’s side.
‘Now why,’ she said, hoping he wouldn’t ask about her earlier display of tears, ‘did you never let on to us that you were such a talented pianist?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m hardly that.’
‘I beg to differ. You must have studied extremely hard to be that good.’
‘Let’s just say I had an encouraging teacher. But I have to say, you seemed upset by my playing. Or was it the music? Did the piece remind you of something, of … of your husband perhaps?’
‘Sort of,’ she said evasively, touched at his perceptiveness.
When she didn’t expand, he said, ‘What did you think of Guy?’ He tilted his head towards the refreshment queue, where a couple of pretty WAAFs were hanging on the man’s every word.
She smiled. ‘I think you probably know what I thought.’
He smiled too. ‘Beneath all the show, he’s not a bad chap. He has a knack for raising morale within the squadron, and there’s no better pilot. Hope was telling me that her brother now has his pilot’s licence and is due home from Canada very soon. I’d like to meet him; it might be that I can help oil the wheels of getting him properly trained up now.’
‘In that case,’ said Romily, ‘if you’re free, you must come and join in with celebrating his return.’
‘Excellent. I look forward to it.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
Crammed into his bunk, Kit lay on his back listening to the snoring men around him, each one of them seemingly oblivious to the roiling sea they were crossing. What a way to spend his birthday, he thought wryly.
The Arcadia had departed Halifax harbour five days ago as part of a convoy sailing across the Atlantic. The nearer they got to Britain, the worse the weather became and the slower the ship’s progress. Kit did not make for a good sailor and had been sick more times than he cared to remember. Give him an aircraft any day! He’d be only too glad to have this treacherous voyage over with and to be able to stand on terra firma at Liverpool docks.
The weather wasn’t their only problem, of course. The real threat they faced was being hunted down by a U-boat, or being blown up by a mine. God forgive him, but yesterday when he’d vomited for hour after hour, he’d felt so ill, a direct hit by a torpedo would have been a merciful release.
His outward journey had been nothing like this; the crossing then had been as smooth as sailing across the surface of the lily pond at Island House. But whatever hardship he was experiencing now was worth it, for he was returning home with his pilot’s licence. It was the first thing he had achieved for which he felt genuine pride. He sincerely hoped his days of being a reservist might be over, that he’d now be accepted for immediate training.
As the ship heaved and gave the impression of tipping over to one side, he clung onto the sides of his bunk, and prayed fervently that he wouldn’t be sick again. He tried to distract his thoughts to something other than being trapped inside the bowels of this enormous ship with sinister killers lurking beneath the waves. He thought of Island House, and of seeing Evelyn again.
Canada had been fun and he’d enjoyed every minute of his stay, especially when he’d been up in the air. Oh, those endless blue skies, just like being in heaven! He had tried to put his experiences into words in a journal, but his efforts had been less than impressive. He hoped his letters to Evelyn hadn’t bored her too much.
He hadn’t exactly been counting the days before leaving Winnipeg, but uppermost in his thoughts these last few days had been the prospect of seeing Evelyn again. Her letters had given him hope that she might have missed him and would be glad to see him.
When he’d received the news from Hope of his cousin’s death, he’d been stunned. His father’s death had shocked him less, perhaps because of his age and the hostility between them, but Allegra’s passing just seemed unfathomable and damned wrong. And now there was a child left behind. He felt oddly curious about this new member of the family – this child who would continue the Devereux line. All he knew from Hope was that the baby was a girl, and once his shock at Allegra’s death had subsided, he had tried to figure out what his relationship towards the baby was; was he an uncle, or a second cousin?
He preferred to think of himself in the role of avuncular uncle, and at once warmed to the idea of playing a part in the child’s life. A life he hoped would know more love and stability than poor Allegra had ever had. But how that would happen, he couldn’t surmise. Who was going to look after the poor little mite? Would Elijah? Would he really want to take on the responsibility of a child that wasn’t his? It would take a special kind of man to do that.
He closed his eyes, and at last tiredness overwhelmed him and he slept. He dreamt of Island House, not when he’d been a boy, but as his adult self; of lying on the lawn beside Evelyn – something he had never actually done – of leaning over and kissing her, of tasting the sweetness of her soft warm lips and—
The fantasy was rudely shattered by the loudest noise he’d ever heard. An explosion! Another explosion followed, and the ship rocked with such force Kit was catapulted out of his bunk. He landed with a thud on the floor, and after a few seconds of terrifying disorientation, he realised he was lying in water, freezing-cold water that was rushing in from somewhere. Pandemonium was now breaking out. Men were sloshing around in the water, grabbing life vests and shouting that the ship had been torpedoed.
In the ghostly pale-blue emergency lights, Kit strapped on his life vest with fumbling hands, and followed behind the men already heading up the narrow metal staircase. He was halfway up the stairs when there was another explosion and the ship shuddered and lurched. Water gushed down from above him, and he was thrown back down the way he’d just come, banging his head as he fell.
Panic filled him as his breath was sucked from his lungs and he was forced under the icy blackness of the water. Down he went, deeper and deeper, tumbling over and over as if he were in the ocean itself. No longer knowing which way was up, he kicked his legs and clawed with his hands in the hope he would rise to the surface. Somehow he did, and he grabbed hold of a rail and banged his head again, seeing stars.
His chest heaving for air, he gasped and spluttered, registering he was just inches from the ceiling of where he’d been sleeping. With more water flooding in, he knew he had to get out, and quick. Adrenalin pumping through him, he swam with all his strength against the powerful tide and made it up to the next deck, where he staggered to his feet in water that swirled menacingly around his knees, threatening to drag him back the way he’d come. The instinct to survive propelled him through the chaos of twisted metal and bodies strewn like driftwood. He knew that there was no time to lose if he were to escape with his life, but he couldn’t ignore the men who lay injured around him, so he heaved the one nearest to him over his shoulder, staggering beneath the dead weight.
During the course of the voyage, there had been several calm and orderly lifeboat drills, but nothing had prepared him for the real thing, or of the sheer terror of knowing that with the precipitous angle at which the ship was leaning, it would only be minutes before the vessel would go down.
Breathless and shivering, the man over his shoulder groaning, Kit had made it to the lifeboat deck when a volley of shouts rang out.
‘Get back! Get back!’
A massive explosion erupted, sending a fireball shooting high into the air just yards from where he was standing. Thrown off his feet once more, he felt a searing white-hot pain cover him from head to toe. It was inside him too, scorching his lungs. To his horror, he realised he was engulfed in flames. He started to scream, his skin blistering, his hair alight, his nostrils filled with the sickening stench of burning flesh. Writhing in agony, and still screaming, he accepted that this was it: he was going to die on his twenty-fourth birthday in the ocean, never to see his sister, or Evelyn, again.
Chapter Sixty-Three
It was a lovely sun-warmed spring day and Florence was taking the children in her care for a late-afternoon walk before tea.
At one end of the pram Annelise sat happily humming to herself and pointing out things to Isabella, not caring that the baby was fast asleep and not paying the slightest bit of attention. Bobby was with them, and every now and then the dog would scamper off into the thickening fresh green hedgerows, sending birds flying with startled squawks into the air.
It was the kind of day when everything seemed perfect, when it simply didn’t make sense that anyone would want to fight a war. Billy hadn’t written for some time now, and Mrs Partridge reckoned that was because things were getting serious. Florence didn’t want to dwell too much on what it might mean; she just wanted Billy home so they could begin married life properly. Miss Romily had said that maybe she and Billy could move into Winter Cottage when the war was over; that was if Elijah didn’t mind them renting it from him, now that he was the new owner of Allegra’s little house.
The interviews to find a new maid had not gone well yesterday – one girl hadn’t bothered to turn up, and the two that did were not to Miss Romily’s liking. ‘Providence will provide,’ Mrs Partridge had taken to saying, and Florence certainly hoped that was true.
‘Goosie, goosie!’ cried Annelise excitedly, bouncing the pram up and down. ‘Goosie!’
She was pointing towards Nut Tree Cottage, where Miss Treadmill, red-faced and muttering to herself, was digging in the front garden. Either side of her, and watching on with interest, were the two well-fed geese. Like many others in the village, the two women had dug up their flower beds and replaced them with productive vegetable plots.
On hearing Annelise’s squeals of delight at the sight of the geese, Miss Treadmill stopped what she was doing. Dressed in brown corduroy breeches with patches at the knees and a leather jerkin over a baggy plaid shirt, she took off her cap and gave a cheery wave with it. There were some in the village who said less than generous things about Miss Treadmill, but Florence didn’t care; so what if the woman dressed like a man? She brought the pram to a stop by the wooden gate. ‘Is it all right if Annelise says hello to the geese?’ she asked.
‘Course it is!’ Miss Treadmill said with a hearty bark, leaving a dirty mark across her forehead as she pushed a filthy hand through her head of greying curly hair. ‘Lift her down from the pram and let her have a proper gander. So to speak,’ she added with another laugh.
At first Annelise held back with a sudden bout of shyness as Miss Treadmill opened the gate, but when the two geese waddled over to take a look at their visitors, she forgot about being shy and went up to them, wobbling her head from side to side as if communicating with them in some way. Considering that the birds were taller than she was, Florence thought how fearless the little girl was. They bent their necks to take a closer look at her, and one of them, the one wearing a buttercup-yellow neckerchief, pecked at a button on the child’s coat. Annelise giggled, and Miss Treadmill smiled. Then, turning to peer over the gate at the pram, she said, ‘How’s the littl’un doing?’
‘She’s the perfect baby,’ said Florence. ‘She sleeps well and takes her bottle from anyone who’ll give it to her. She’s not choosy at all.’
‘Damned shame about the poor little beggar’s mother. I can’t claim to have known Allegra well, but she deserved better, and when you think of some folk who really have no right to have good fortune shine on them, it makes you wonder what this world is about, doesn’t it?’
Before Florence could reply, Miss Treadmill hitched up her breeches, saying: ‘I’m thinking of that Lady Fogg in particular. Ruddy cheek of the woman, lording it over the rest of us and all the time hoarding what wasn’t hers to have. Makes my blood boil, people like that. I hope they throw her in clink and chuck the key away. But I’ll wager that husband of hers will pull a string or two and she’ll get off with no more than a warning. And we all know the likes of us wouldn’t be so lucky.’
‘Hello, dearie,’ called a softer, bird-like voice. Miss Gant, carrying a glass of what looked like lemonade, came down the overgrown path in her slippers and handed the drink to Miss Treadmill.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Gant,’ said Florence. ‘We just
stopped by so Annelise could say hello to the geese; she seems to have formed quite a liking for them. How’s Alfie, your pig?’
Miss Treadmill snorted, not unlike a pig herself. ‘He’s the damnedest laziest thing you ever set eyes on, lies in the sun all day waiting to be fed and have his back scratched – just like a man if you ask me!’
‘He’s very well, thank you,’ said Miss Gant, clearly more kindly disposed to the pig, ‘and Annelise is welcome to come and see him and the geese any time she wants. Would you like a glass of lemonade?’
‘No thank you, Miss Gant. We’ll be on our way soon. I didn’t mean to disturb or impose.’
After taking a long swig of her drink, draining it in one, Miss Treadmill wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and passed the glass back to Miss Gant. ‘What’s the latest news then, Cissy?’ she asked. She winked at Florence. ‘Cissy here listens to the wireless more than she does to me. Glued to it she is, night and day.’
‘How else are we to know what’s going on?’ Miss Gant said. ‘I want to know if the German army is heading towards Melstead St Mary.’
Miss Treadmill smiled. ‘Why, so you can be ready to talk them into submission?’
Miss Gant blushed. ‘You shouldn’t make fun of me for taking an interest, Philly dear,’ she said with a flutter of hands. ‘Rather you should spare a thought for the poor men on board that ship that’s been torpedoed by a U-boat in the Atlantic. Another few hours and they would have arrived safely in Liverpool. To think of those poor souls from Canada now lying at the bottom of the sea, it’s just too awful.’
Florence pricked up her ears and hardly daring to ask, said, ‘Do you know what the ship’s name was?’
‘Oh yes, it was the reason I listened so attentively. We used to have a goose with the same name, you see. She was such a beauty. You remember her, don’t you, Philly dear? She was utterly devoted to me, would scarcely leave my side given half a chance. Like a shadow, she was. Do you remember, Philly?’