A Family's Duty

by Maggie Bennett

  When he returned, he brought better news. Dr Stringer the senior partner had said that there were a few empty beds at Everham General Hospital, and Grace need go no further than there for the time being for rest and observation. Tom advised Rob not to tell Jack or Doreen as yet, as it would only worry them and there was nothing they could do.

  There was trouble at Yeomans’ Farm where Billy and Pam were having daily rows, realising more and more how much they missed Mary Goddard. Pam said she couldn’t be expected to look after their two young boys and cook for farmworkers and land girls, as well as looking after the ‘old girl upstairs’. It was when Billy went up to see his mother one evening, and found that she had been forgotten all day, with no food or assistance with going to the lavatory, that he had realised how urgently they needed extra help. Nobody who knew Billy and Pam wanted to work for them, and it was Miss Neville as Regional Officer for the Women’s Land Army who made an arrangement, strictly hush-hush, that one of the land girls would help out in the farmhouse for three days a week, for which of course she had to be paid a fair wage. Rebecca also suggested that old Mrs Yeomans be brought downstairs, and the farmhouse parlour, seldom used, made into a bedroom for her. A threatening letter from the Inland Revenue revealed that the farm accounts were in a hopeless mess, and Billy had to admit that he needed an accountant. Munday and Pascoe at Everham were recommended by a neighbouring farmer, but they too had to be paid. The events in Europe and Southeast Asia made little impression on Billy Yeomans’ fury.

  At the Rectory Lester Allingham had come home, white-faced and irritable. His mother told Joan Kennard that he was having to attend a special clinic at Aldershot each week, and needed rest and ‘building up’. On the first occasion that Lester came face-to-face with Alan Kennard he muttered angrily, ‘I made a mistake in confiding in you, Kennard. I suppose you’ll be threatening me that you’ll tell what you know.’

  ‘Which shows how little you know about ordained clergy in the Church of England or any other Christian church,’ replied Alan. ‘It’s up to you whether you tell your father or not.’

  The incident led to another question of confidentiality for Alan, when Joan told him that Grace Nuttall was in Everham General ‘for rest and observation’. Rumours had abounded that she had gone completely insane and tried to kill herself and her husband.

  ‘Will you visit her, Alan? She’s obviously very troubled.’

  ‘Only if Rob agrees,’ he replied cautiously. ‘And then she might refuse to see me. At present I can only pray for her and all of them.’

  Rob Nuttall and Tom Munday instantly agreed that he should visit, so the next day he called at Everham General and was led by the ward sister to where Grace lay in a single room. He sat down beside the bed and smiled.

  ‘I must first ask you if you’re feeling better, Grace.’

  ‘They must have sent you to question me.’

  ‘Not at all. I’ve come as your parish priest to see if I can be of any help to you, Grace. You haven’t been well for a long time, have you?’

  She sighed. ‘No, I haven’t. I wish I was dead.’

  ‘Why? You can tell me anything, my dear. It will never go any further, I promise you. I don’t even tell my wife what people confide in me.’

  She sat up and stared at him. ‘Well, you must know what’s happened to me – everybody else does. My daughter Rebecca was taken from me as a baby and brought up by my sister. My son’s face is burnt beyond recognition, and he doesn’t want me near him – he’s gone back to the RAF and never comes to see me. My daughter Doreen is simple, and got herself pregnant by an American soldier, and had the baby adopted. I just can’t face having her at home, not with all the scandal.’

  Alan smiled and shook his head slightly. ‘Yes, Grace, I know all the facts you’ve just told me, but I want to hear your feelings about them. It isn’t what happens to us, it’s the way we face up to our problems that counts. And I know you have been greatly tried.’

  ‘Yes, and you’re the first person who’s admitted that, Mr Kennard. I have been tried, tried beyond endurance, and it’s driven me crazy.’

  ‘And so have Rob and your father been tried, haven’t they?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose they’d say they had.’

  ‘And in addition to all the trials you’ve mentioned, they’ve been worried about you.’

  She shrugged. ‘Now for the lecture. You might as well get on with it.’

  ‘No, I’ve stayed quite long enough for today.’ He stood up and held out his hand.

  ‘I’ll visit you again soon, Grace. We’ve got a lot more talking to do. Think about what you’ve told me, and I’ll be praying for you.’ He took her hand. ‘God bless you, dear.’

  As he left the room, she stared after him, and realised that she wanted him to visit again soon. He seemed to be her only friend.

  After two months of rumour and speculation as to when the invasion of Europe would take place, the news came suddenly on Tuesday the sixth of June that a seaborne force of thousands of British and American troops under the joint command of Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery had landed at several points along the Normandy coast, where German batteries had already been pounded by RAF bombers. It was D-Day! The long awaited liberation of Europe had begun. Wireless broadcasts updated the progress from day to day, and families again waited with hope and fear for their menfolk; Paul Storey and John Richardson were known to be somewhere among the invading forces.

  ‘Rebecca dear, I’ve had a letter.’

  ‘Something important, then, or you wouldn’t look so solemn.’ Rebecca grinned at her mother.

  ‘Yes, it is important, or could be. Just sit down for a minute.’

  ‘What is it? Who’s it from?’ Rebecca was intrigued.

  ‘It’s from Shaftesbury – from Geoffrey Bannister.’

  Rebecca gasped. ‘Oh, my God, is it really? It’s been so long since—’ She broke off and bit her lip. ‘How is he? I’ve long had a guilty conscience about him.’

  ‘He sounds fine, walking around with his artificial leg, and assisting his father with constituency business. He’s sent a photo of himself and his parents outside the Conservative party headquarters in Shaftesbury – look, here it is.’ She handed a snapshot to Rebecca, who was clearly somewhat shaken.

  ‘He certainly looks well, and, er, happy. But what does he say? Why has he written after – what, four years since Dunkirk? Oh, let me see, do!’

  She held out her hand and her mother passed her the short, friendly note which Rebecca took with hands that trembled slightly. She read it, and put a hand to her mouth.

  ‘He wants to visit us, Mother? After this long silence? After the way I – oh, Mother, poor Geoffrey! It seems like a distant memory – ages ago, another life.’

  ‘Actually, Becky, he’s kept in touch with Paul, so perhaps it doesn’t seem as long ago to him as it does to us. Anyway, he says he would like to visit us – just a call, a couple of hours, as you see. Daddy and I agree that he would be most welcome here as Paul’s friend, but we also agree that the decision must rest with you. You’re the one he obviously wants to see again, and it’s not hard to guess why. He’s restored to health, proved by that photo, which also shows his interest in following his father into politics, maybe even becoming an MP himself in due course. So, Becky, you must tell us how to answer him.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, what can I say? It was he who broke off our unofficial engagement.’

  ‘Yes, and for the best of reasons, to set you free from the helpless cripple as he then saw himself; it was a truly noble action.’

  Rebecca got up and paced around the room, clasping and unclasping her hands in agitation. ‘But I didn’t love him then, Mother – it was a release to me, as you know.’

  ‘But you’re four years older now, and a lot has happened since. The war has changed us all.’

  ‘I simply don’t know what to say, Mother. It would be wrong to invite him to call on us, even if only for a day, if I was not – wa
s not—’

  ‘Not as eager as he is to renew an acquaintance that could – and probably would – lead on to marriage, Becky. Let’s speak plainly – you owe it to him to give an honest answer. Would you like to see him again, knowing what it would imply?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mother, I don’t know!’ Rebecca was on the verge of tears, and Isabel gave her time to continue, but she only repeated, ‘I don’t know,’ shaking her head in real distress. A long silence followed, and then Isabel spoke again.

  ‘My dear Rebecca, you know and I know that there has been idle gossip in North Camp about you and the Italian prisoners of war – and one in particular, Stefano Ghiberti.’

  Rebecca sat down and burst into tears. Isabel looked on, without rising to comfort her.

  ‘You realise, dear, that Stefano will go back to his home in Milan, where he tells us he was doing well in the car industry. If he took you with him, to spend the rest of your life in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language, your children would be Italian by birth.’

  Rebecca continued to weep, but managed to sob out, ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re twenty-seven, dear, and able to make up your own mind, so I will not advise you about your choice of husband. I’ll just remind you that marriage to a politician, perhaps a Member of Parliament and in comfortable circumstances, would be an easier option, and not too far from us at Hassett Manor. Daddy and I could see our grandchildren, but don’t let that influence you; it’s not important when weighed against your happiness.’

  ‘I know, Mother, I know.’

  ‘I’ll give you three days to think it over, Becky, and if you haven’t given me a firm answer after the weekend, I’ll write to Geoffrey and say that we feel a meeting would not be advisable. It will hurt him, of course, but it would be a much greater hurt to allow him to call on us and be disappointed. So, Becky dear, I’ll leave it there. Let me know by Monday.’

  She rose and went over to her daughter, putting her arms around her. Rebecca gradually calmed, surprised at her mother’s perception.

  When the excitement over D-Day and the progress of the liberation of Western Europe had settled into a daily eagerness for news and a confident expectation that the end of the war was in sight, there came ‘a bombshell from Hitler’, as many called it – a new terror to Britain, just ten days after D-Day.

  ‘They call it his “miracle weapon”, and he’s unleashed it on us in retaliation for D-Day!’ said Mrs Pearson in dismay. ‘A horrible aeroplane with no pilot – it just comes over and explodes wherever it lands!’

  ‘One of them’s already destroyed a church and a hospital in south London,’ Miss Temple told Philip when he and Doreen came in at teatime. ‘It was on the wireless at five o’clock, and heaven knows how many more of these pilotless planes will be coming over.’

  The pilotless plane, which Hitler called his V1, soon became known as the ‘buzz-bomb’, and then the ‘doodlebug’.

  ‘It comes over with a throbbing engine noise, and when it’s used up all its fuel it cuts out and down it comes,’ said the barman of the Tradesmen’s Arms. ‘It looks just like a plane with an orange flame coming out of its tail. You can see it at night.’

  ‘He just wants to frighten us now that he’s being invaded,’ said Tom Munday. ‘He knows the game’s up, and it’s his last throw.’

  ‘It’s easy to say that, but if he calls it his V1, there must be a V2 and a V3 coming up, and God knows how many more,’ said the dairyman who had dropped in for a pint on his way home. ‘They say they’ve landed in Bromley and Kingston, even as far as Southampton, and the ground shook as if it was an earthquake. It’s like another Blitz, with doodlebugs coming down on shopping centres in broad daylight. Don’t underestimate ’em’.

  ‘If you see one of ’em buzzing overhead, you take cover and pray that it’ll pass on to some other poor buggers,’ said Eddie. ‘I heard on the wireless that the RAF’s bombing the launching sites of the doodlebugs in France and Holland.’

  On the twenty-fifth of August came the wonderful news that Paris had been liberated amid scenes of wild rejoicing, though collaborators were dragged through the streets and beaten.

  Rebecca echoed her grandfather’s belief that the doodlebugs were not so much a miracle weapon as a parting shot from Hitler at the approaching end of Nazi tyranny, and, in a brief exchange with Stefano, they had speculated on how long it would be before the swastika was hauled down and burnt in every capital city, and what the future of Europe might be; no words passed between them regarding their own future, but their thoughts were in their faces, their hope of a time when he would no longer be a prisoner. Lady Neville had written to Geoffrey Bannister saying that much as she and Sir Cedric would welcome him at Hassett Manor, such a visit would be best left until after the war. She knew, as did Rebecca, that he would read between the lines, and be disappointed; but she had added that the end of the war seemed not so far off, thus giving him a tiny glimmer of a hope …

  And then, a week into September, Hitler’s second miracle weapon was unleashed on London and southern England, a deadly, silent, long-range rocket, the V2, able to drop vertically from a great height without warning. The first one landed on Chiswick with an explosion that brought death and destruction, and more quickly followed.

  ‘See, the old bugger hasn’t given up yet,’ remarked Eddie Cooper in the public bar.

  ‘It doesn’t seem right to celebrate the Allies’ marching to victory after victory over there while these bloody things are coming over here and nobody knows where they’ll land, or what time.’

  His listeners could hardly disagree, and shook their heads.

  Sir Cedric Neville was tired. His duties as a JP took up ever more time, and running the Hassett Manor estate with a greatly diminished staff meant that he often had to don working clothes, roll up his sleeves, and get down to basic farming. He had to share his historic eighteenth-century home with Lily and Jimmy, now better behaved but noisy and demanding. Thank heaven for Sally Tanner, he sighed – she looked after them while Isabel was sorting out problems in the WVS while constantly worrying over her son Paul and nephew David Munday in the thick of the invasion and liberation of Europe. And now there were these damned doodlebugs and rockets, random killers that lowered Britain’s morale just as victory seemed nearer.

  ‘You looked whacked, my love,’ said Isabel as they sat at supper.

  ‘So do you, dear. Have you had a busy day?’

  It was a routine question, but it got an unexpected answer.

  ‘Well, yes, there’s a problem that I can’t do anything about,’ she said.

  ‘Why, what’s up? What do you mean, Isabel?’ he asked, instantly alerted.

  ‘There’s been an influx of wounded at Everham General, and my sister Grace has been sent home. Enid Temple tells me that she’s much better, and seems to be in her rightful mind, thanks to Alan Kennard’s visits.’

  ‘But that’s excellent!’ cried Cedric. ‘It means that Doreen will be able to return, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But Doreen doesn’t want to return, so Enid said. Everybody says how happy she’s looking. She’s grown very attached to Enid and Nick – and Philip.’

  ‘And the sooner that stops, the better,’ said Cedric firmly. ‘I’m surprised at Saville, letting a girl like Doreen get too fond of him, a man more than twice her age. Miss Temple should pack her off home as soon as possible.’

  ‘You’re probably right, dear, but there’s nothing that I can do about it in the circumstances, seeing how much Grace resents me.’ Isabel sighed wearily.

  ‘I can see there’s one thing you’ll be called upon to do, my dear, and that’s to talk some sense into Saville when he comes prowling round here again.’

  Isabel looked up in surprise. ‘But you’ve never minded that, have you, Cedric?’

  ‘No, dear, I haven’t said anything,’ he replied, thinking how Saville had got on his nerves with his ridiculous adoration of Isabel. It was almost as bad as the business of
Rebecca and the Italian prisoner of war; Ghiberti had said he was planning a future in cars, which could mean anything from owning a chain of garages to scratching a living as a used car salesman – not that there’d be many cars to sell in post-war Italy.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1944

  From the moment she set foot over the threshold of 47 Rectory Road, Grace Nuttall asked to see Doreen; she now felt able to deal lovingly and sensibly with her daughter, longed to put her arms around her, setting the past aside, and to be all that a mother should be. Jack came over from the RAF base to see her, and she now treated him as an adult who had suffered serious injuries but had overcome the emotional effects of them, just as she had overcome a mental breakdown.

  ‘The Reverend Alan Kennard did me so much good, Rob,’ she said. ‘He didn’t blame me for anything, he just asked me to tell him all about myself, and then left it to me to face up to my mistakes, see how selfish I’d been – and now I want to make amends to all of you – you, Dad and dear Jack and Doreen.’

  ‘That’s right, Grace,’ said her husband, ‘it’s all over now, water under the bridge. Our Doreen’ll be here just as soon as you’ve got yourself settled. We’ll be a family again, and no looking back, eh?’ He kissed her, and she responded eagerly. ‘It’s like old times!’

  Doreen cried bitterly on hearing that she was to return home.

  ‘Please, please, Enid, let me stay! I’m so happy here with you and Philip and Nick! I don’t want to go back there.’