For her part, Aurelia found Guy much changed. It was not just that he still had that strange pallor that even a few weeks locked up in jug was traditionally meant to give you, it was not just that his face was thinner, his figure much depleted, so that his immaculately cut suit seemed to have been cut for someone else, it was the expression in his eyes. It was as if he was struggling all the time not to give way to bitterness, to keep believing in human nature, and yet she had the feeling that despite the brave fight that he was putting up, he was losing, minute by minute, and of course the war could not have helped.
‘Miss Jones, might I call you Aurelia?’
‘Yes, of course, Mr Athlone.’
‘Good.’
He had not indicated in return that she might call him ‘Guy’ which she appreciated. He, after all, was still, no matter what, ‘Guy Athlone’, and Aurelia was well aware, indeed appreciated, that they could never, ever be considered to be on the same level.
‘As you know, Miss – as you know, Aurelia – I have been in prison, and am to a great degree, outside of the theatrical world, of course, disgraced. It was entirely my fault, and I know it; not, I hasten to add, that I overstepped the mark by making a mistake with my petrol rationing, but because I trusted a woman with whom I was once in love, and who once loved me – but a woman scorned is a very dangerous creature.’ He paused, tapping his cigarette on the side of the ashtray in front of him. ‘Love is a dangerous game, as you will doubtless discover, although it need not be. But in my case, love, fame and success have almost led to my downfall. I say almost, because I am not one to accept defeat, and my public have remained with me, as the receipts at the box office will show – and so have those few friends whom I love, and who love me.’
Aurelia was aware that Guy’s speech was making it clear to her that he was not just a changed man, but a very changed man, which his frail appearance underlined, and that just as his long-time love affair with Gloria Martine was over, so, too, was his ability to love, except in friendship.
‘I hope I may be considered to be a friend and admirer,’ Aurelia ventured.
Guy smiled.
‘You may, Aurelia. Young as you are, you may. For you have not only proved yourself a friend, sending me such an amusing letter while I was in prison, but you have proved yourself a loyal supporter of a certain organisation, for which, as you know, I have worked for a long time, many years, even before the war.’
‘Yes, yes, of course—’
‘Now they are looking around for someone to take my place, because obviously, since I went to jug, I am now a marked man. I suggested Clive, but he too is a marked man, having stayed loyal to me, silly fellow, so he has taken on a desk job at the Foreign Office, and is keeping his eyes and ears open, as we all must. But I wondered if you knew of anyone who might be interested in becoming part of this particular set-up?’
Aurelia frowned. She could think of no one.
‘No name occurs to me, I am sorry to say.’
‘Never mind. You yourself are, of course, very busy?’
‘Yes.’ Aurelia stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Yes, pretty much so, too. And likely to be busier.’ She had again volunteered to be dropped into France.
Guy stared across the desk at her.
‘You were determined to be brave, weren’t you, Aurelia?’ he stated, quietly. ‘I find so many people of a nervous disposition so often are.’ He smiled. ‘Your parents continue well?’ he asked, after a slight pause.
Aurelia coloured. She knew just how much Guy loathed people such as her parents.
‘Yes, they are well, which they perhaps do not deserve to be.’
Guy stood up.
‘Yes, quite. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?’ he demanded, all of a sudden. ‘People like that, the architects of our present hell, sitting in comfortable circumstances, while people like you jump into battle on their behalf!’ He stopped, because his voice had become too emotional. ‘Now, look,’ he went on, in a calmer tone. ‘It’s Christmas in a few days, you won’t want to spend it with them, I am sure, and you won’t be busy-busy, until after the festivities, I don’t suppose.’
His way of saying ‘busy-busy’ at once conveyed to Aurelia that he knew that she had volunteered to be dropped into France. She wasn’t surprised. Guy knew everyone, he might even know too many people, which was perhaps why he had been thrown into prison on trumped-up charges. ‘You’ll come and spend Christmas with me. I know you will. Clive is coming, and one or two others. It will be fun. A touch theatrical, of course, but you won’t mind that, will you?’
Aurelia smiled. She would love to spend Christmas being a touch theatrical.
Guy looked at Aurelia. He knew that Clive would be thrilled. He also knew, absolutely, that Aurelia’s crush on him, Guy, had passed, and about time, too. He could not tell poor Clive, in case it raised his hopes. Poor Clive did not hold just a single torch for Miss Jones, but a whole set of them.
Daisy received Aunt Maude’s letter a few days before Christmas.
‘I hope you have forgiven me, dear child?’ she had written. ‘Forgiven a stupid old woman.’
Daisy smiled. Aunt Maude wasn’t that old.
‘Do come and join us for the festivities if you can. Can’t promise much of a Christmas luncheon, but there will be enough to go round, be sure of that. Your loving Aunt Maude.’
Daisy folded the letter and slipped it into her shoulder bag. She would be flying two and three times a day right up until Christmas Eve, and then, whatever happened, she would get back to the Hall. She might be so tired she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, let alone hop into a car and drive down to Twistleton, but drive down she would.
As she eased through the country roads back to her old home for the first time for – for how long was it? Daisy frowned. Must be a clutch of years at least. She wondered at the fact that it was easier and faster to deliver a plane than it was to get around English roads. It was bad enough driving in the blackout, or coming back on trains that took as much, or sometimes more than, a day, standing all the way – but driving in thick fog, even in daylight with no lights, was hell on wheels.
To take her mind off the beastly conditions, she imagined the welcome she would get once she drew near to the Hall, imagined that once she was through the security checks surrounding the village, had shown her identity card, and was on up the drive to the great old wooden doors, she would find the fire burning in the old hall grate – using wood from the fields. She imagined Aunt Maude standing on the steps to welcome her. So many images came to her, and of course her imaginings made her drive faster.
After many, many hours she arrived outside Twistleton, and all was as she had thought it would be. The security checks, the grim sight of the village already half-tumbled-down from army manoeuvres, the Court looking like it surely could not have done since the Black Death – windows broken, iron gates missing, the long drive a mess of mud and weeds, flattened by army use. And yet the excitement of coming home at last would not leave her.
Soon she would be bumping across the old broken road that led up to the gates of the Hall. Soon, very soon, she would be looking at the old facade, so beautifully set amongst its own gardens, its little park. She duly passed slowly through the wrought-iron gates, guarded on each side by stone pillars, atop of which sat the lead hunting dogs of which Aunt Maude was so fond. It was strange and marvellous that they had not been torn off their plinths and taken by the army by now, but no, they were still standing, seeming from their proud looks to be silently rejoicing in the knowledge that somehow they were still there.
But as Daisy drew near the house, as the bend in the now grassed-over drive gave way to a new vista, she instinctively knew that the place was quite deserted, that something was terribly wrong. She stepped out of the car, stiff as a piece of ice after so many hours of driving, and only too thankful for her already quite aged flying jacket. Whatever happened, at least she was home. She stretched back into the car for her should
er bag, before walking slowly up the front steps to the double doors.
She pushed open the right-hand hall door, and walked in. There was no fire burning in the grate, as she had hoped, and no Aunt Maude waiting smilingly to greet her. She walked to the foot of the great old wooden staircase with its carved newels of ancient wood, and its polished shallow steps. She called up the stairs, and hearing no answer she started to walk up to the first floor, calling, and calling.
There was no answer. She stopped half-way up, knowing suddenly that she was calling to no one, and walked slowly down again, this time descending to the kitchens, still calling. But the kitchen was empty, even of the dogs.
She went out into the stable yard, calling, still calling. No one answered. She stood still, looking around. Freddie had written to her that they were all now housed in the stables, but it couldn’t be true, because calling into all the flats, pushing open their doors and calling ‘cooee!’ – such a stupid sound when all was said and done – she received no answer.
She didn’t know what to say, or do. To say that she felt lost was to say the least. Her heart was beating hard, and she knew now, without any doubt, that something must be terribly wrong.
Then she heard it. The single sharp bark of a dog, and it was coming from the house. She ran back to the house, glad that she had a small revolver at the bottom of her handbag, although it was, unhappily, not loaded.
Still no one in the kitchens, and yet above her in the library she thought she heard the sound of feet moving. She took out her stupid little pearl-handled revolver and crept up the stairs. Whoever it was, whoever they were, the sight of a woman with a gun always struck fear into the hearts of the opposite sex.
She flung open the library door and stepped boldly in, her expression at its most defiant.
What she saw inside was something she would never forget.
Aurelia was trying not to laugh, but it was very difficult. The game they were all playing was that they had to mime a phrase or saying. She had just been handed a slip of paper with her phrase or saying on it, and it was distinctly naughty.
‘Very well.’ She held up one hand and showed five fingers to indicate how many words there were, and then she paused, and finally, after some serious thought, made another gesture, which evoked a chorus from her small audience.
‘Sounds like!’
She nodded, and started to mime watched by Guy, Clive and the other guests.
She was, of course, particularly watched by Clive, who was then watched by Guy, whose heart went out to his old friend, for if ever a chap was in love – it was Clive.
Mind you, watching Aurelia miming away so prettily, and with such touching enthusiasm, would have made most men in the room love her, if not fall in love with her.
‘Very prettily done,’ Guy said, applauding hard, not least because Aurelia was on his side. ‘Very prettily done.’
Aurelia sank down beside Clive, her face flushed. If she had not been to France, if she had not worked in SOE – oh, a thousand ifs of one kind or another – she would never, ever in a million years have dared to play charades, and word-games, and heaven only knew what, in such illustrious theatrical company. She would have gone and hidden in her bedroom, and stayed there until it was time to go home.
Clive looked at her, trying his best to keep his expression affectionate, rather than loving.
‘I expect now that you have won your turn, you feel you could climb Mount Everest?’ he murmured.
Aurelia nodded, still staring ahead, not really paying much attention to the continuing game. She did feel she could conquer anything now. She thought of her parents, under guard in their barren lodgings, she thought of Laura, somewhere in France – she hoped – and then she thought of Daisy, and she hoped that she was safe back at the Hall, all forgiven. She hoped that so much. Daisy was not just her friend, she was her heroine. Daisy flying planes, who knew how, who knew what – apparently there was never any time to be told how to manage some new design that had been rushed out of the factory – flying not just by the seat of her skirt, as she so often joked, but with a heart of oak, a courage made of steel. It was people like Daisy, young women like Daisy—
‘Your turn!’ Clive said, in a gently teasing voice.
‘What, again?’
‘Aurelia – you were asleep!’
Aurelia stared up at Clive, and then around her. The room was empty, and she could hear laughter and talk from the cottage dining room, and the piano being played by Guy.
‘Oh good gracious, how terrible!’
Clive pulled her to her feet.
‘Not terrible at all. But we none of us felt inclined to wake you.’ He smiled. Seeing her fall into a well-deserved slumber, the other guests had crept out, leaving Clive to watch over her. ‘Come and dance. There’s dancing next door!’
Aurelia looked up at him. Perhaps because she was still sleepy Clive seemed to have changed. He looked not just very ‘Clive’ but startlingly handsome.
‘What are you staring at?’
Aurelia shook out her hair.
‘I never realised before that you were so handsome, that’s all,’ she said, laughingly, as she smoothed her evening skirt down. ‘Guy gave me this, you know,’ she went on. ‘It was left over from a production of The Marriage Mart. Gloria Martine, playing Lola Margritte, refused to wear it. He said it’s usually hats with actresses, so it was in that sense an unusual refusal, but I daresay you know all that?’
Clive took her hand.
‘No,’ he said, in a firm tone. ‘The only thing I know at this minute is that I want to dance with you before Christmas Day is over.’
‘Are we about to melt into each other’s arms, do you think?’ Aurelia asked, as he pulled her out of the sitting room and into the dining room, where the rest of the party had pushed the furniture against the wall, and were waltzing happily, blackout curtains drawn, candles lit.
‘Not only shall we melt into each other’s arms, we have a very good chance of staying there,’ Clive told her.
‘Surprise!’
Daisy stared around her at all the familiar and unfamiliar faces. She stood stock still, not moving, and as she did so she imagined running up to each person in the room and hugging every single one of them – Mr and Mrs Budgeon, the Lindsay boys, Freddie and Branscombe, Dan Short – flinging her arms around all of them. But of course she couldn’t, but only because she knew it would have embarrassed Aunt Maude. Instead she went up to her only living relative and kissed her briefly on the cheek, and that was before turning back to the others. As she did so, a wave of almost overwhelming grief washed over her, leaving her speechless, as she realised in one single awful moment just how many Twistleton friends were missing.
Jessica and Blossom, Jean, Laura – not Aurelia of course, she was spending Christmas with Guy Athlone – Joe Huggett, he was gone, and two from The Cottages who had been in bomb disposal. She thought of Jessica at the Court, and what the Court looked like now, and then she shook her head – now was not the time to remember – and smiled and laughed instead, and, bending down, greeted the mad assortment of dogs that had accumulated in her long absence.
‘Bless you! You have given me the shock of my life!’
‘We wanted to surprise you,’ Maude said, with quiet satisfaction.
‘And you certainly succeeded!’
It had been Maude’s idea to give her a party. She knew she would have to do something to help them both get over the embarrassment of their reunion, but didn’t know quite how to do it. Then Freddie, perhaps guessing that there would surely be an awkwardness, suggested putting on a surprise party, which, as it turned out, had been ideal.
‘I’ll have to run and change!’ Daisy looked down at her uniform.
‘No, don’t, you look wonderful—’ Freddie exclaimed, putting a hand on Daisy’s arm.
‘I must change,’ she insisted.
‘Very well, shake a leg, but be back in five seconds,’ Freddie commanded.
Back once again, Daisy looked as beautiful as ever, but a great deal more the thing, her long blonde hair caught up into a topknot of velvet ribbon. Her slender figure was admirably suited to the pre-war long silk dress that Maude had donated to her, long ago.
Freddie, too, looked admirable, despite having to carry Ted around on her hip, because he couldn’t be left in his playpen very long without putting up a fuss.
‘I’ll take him,’ Daisy said, hands reaching out.
‘I thought you didn’t like babies?’
‘As a matter of fact, this is the first one I’ve tried!’
Daisy took Ted, gleaming with health and Christmas clothes made by Freddie and Maude from heaven only knew what – and heaven only did know – all found, as always, in the attic. His bottom half was made out of an old dressing gown, his top half out of an old nightdress, but he looked as smart as new paint.
Daisy, tired from driving and, well, the war, put Ted down after a few minutes, and as Maude started to play the piano, instead of carrying him she began to dance up and down with the toddler, as they all sang ‘Away in a Manger’ to Aunt Maude’s playing.
‘This little baby has a crib for his bed,’ Daisy told him. ‘This little baby is a very lucky Ted, isn’t he?’
She looked round at the variety of people singing, and thought how much jollier it was that they were all there under one roof, all singing hymns to Aunt Maude’s playing, no one feeling awkward, all the coldness of the old house quite gone.
Freddie, too, looked round, and with justifiable pride. The three Lindsay boys were grouped around Aunt Maude’s piano, all singing lustily, and nearly in tune. Their once-wan faces had changed so much in the passing months, and that despite all the shortages. The fresh country air had given them the colour of autumn apples, and their dark heads of hair neatly cut by Freddie into nice shapes – no pudding-basin cuts for them – showed up their newly handsome looks. White shirts, and home-made bow ties, old-fashioned Edwardian jackets – once belonging to Aunt Maude’s brothers, but now altered to fit the Lindsays – showed off their strengthening physiques. Looking at them, Freddie thought with sudden pride that if the Lindsays had been three young horses that they had all brought on, she could not have been more proud.
The Daisy Club Page 29