Alice's Girls

by Julia Stoneham

  Christopher, Edward John and Lionel, in his role as best man, turned to watch Georgina as she moved down the aisle towards them. The heavy, ivory silk of her pencil-slim, full-length skirt and long-sleeved, fitted jacket, which accentuated her narrow waist, had been recovered from the wedding dress which her mother had worn twenty-two years previously. The brim of her pale, wide-brimmed hat was pinned back with a single silk rose.

  Alice, watching from the front pew of the groom’s side of the aisle, with Roger Bayliss beside her, caught the expressions on the faces of the group watching Georgina’s approach to the alter. The benign vicar was the most composed. Edward John was staring with undisguised amazement at this bride, the first he had encountered and the most beautiful, he was certain, in the entire world. Colour rushed into his cheeks when, precisely on cue, he stepped forward to take Georgina’s small bouquet from her. Lionel, too, seemed lost in contemplation of the sight of his sister, almost as though she was a beautiful stranger, to whom he was, to his astonishment, related, while Christopher stood transfixed, his eyes on Georgina and his face illuminated by the soft light falling on him through a stained glass representation of the Archangel Gabriel. Then, spontaneously, he stepped forward and kissed her. A ripple of laughter went through the congregation and the vicar wagged a finger in mock disapproval.

  ‘Not yet, young man,’ he said quietly. ‘Not quite yet, if you please!’

  Although the upshot of Roger’s revelation to Alice concerning his traumatic experience in the First World War trenches had convinced her that this was what lay at the root of his failed relationship with Christopher, he had refused to be persuaded to broach the subject with his son. Despite the fact that he had not sworn her to secrecy, either to Christopher himself or to Georgina, Alice knew that he was assuming her discretion and that to breach his confidence could have only negative results for all of them.

  With the number of land girls at Lower Post Stone now reduced, it was possible for Alice to invite her friend Ruth to visit her at the farmhouse, where several of the small, spartan bedrooms were now unoccupied. Ruth, used to the sophistication of her London apartment, smiled patronisingly and bent her head under the low, oak lintel of the door. A cheap dressing table stood between the narrow twin beds and there was a small wardrobe which listed slightly on the uneven floorboards. Ruth stooped and peered out through the tiny window at the view over the farmyard towards the barns and then glanced nervously round the limited space which was to house her for the next two nights.

  ‘No mice, I hope, Allie? Or creepy-crawlies?’ she enquired.

  ‘No. But don’t expect to be able to use the bathroom in the morning until the girls have left for work!’

  ‘Oh …’ Ruth looked slightly put out. ‘And what time will that be?’

  ‘About six-thirty,’ Alice told her.

  ‘Good grief! I won’t even be conscious at six-thirty!’

  ‘I think you will be,’ Alice sighed, ‘with my lot thundering about the place!’ It was after supper on Ruth’s first evening at Lower Post Stone that the conversation between the two women, as they strolled along a footpath which ran through the water meadow, centred on Alice’s concern regarding Roger’s history and the effect its secrecy was having on the newly-weds.

  ‘I honestly don’t think Christopher would have chosen to emigrate if his father hadn’t made him feel such a failure.’

  ‘Well, you can’t be sure of that, Allie. And one has to recognise the appeal of emigration to those two young things. Just imagine – sailing off together into the sunset! What a honeymoon! Crossing the world! “Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores”! Those P&O boats are the most tremendous fun!’ Ruth paused, catching in Alice’s face a concern which, she guessed, was related more to Roger Bayliss’s loss of his son and heir than to the adventures of the newly married couple. ‘But I do see what you mean, Allie. It’s a miserable business.’ They walked on in silence for a while, the long grasses flicking past their legs, the midges drifting above their heads. ‘So … when you tried to persuade Roger to tell Christopher about what happened in … when was it?’

  ‘Nineteen sixteen,’ Alice murmured. ‘He wouldn’t commit himself to telling Chris about it and he obviously hasn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Georgina would have told me!’

  ‘Yes … unless …’

  ‘Unless the son is as secretive as the father, d’you mean? Oh! Heaven forfend, Ruth! No. I’m sure he hasn’t spoken to Chris about it, and I have a horrible feeling he won’t.’

  ‘So he didn’t promise to?’

  ‘No. He didn’t promise to.’ There was another pause in their conversation in which, because the light was fading, Alice suggested that they began making their way back towards the farmhouse. Bats were flickering through the dusk and a three-quarter moon was becoming brighter by the minute as the sky darkened.

  ‘The man must be insane!’ Ruth sighed. She had listened carefully when Alice had given her an outline of the facts of Roger Bayliss’s First World War disaster, and had then asked a succession of pertinent questions. They walked for a while in silence, then she said, ‘He’s not only ruining his relationship with the boy, but with you, Allie! You are fond of him, aren’t you? Come on, admit it.’

  ‘Yes. I am fond,’ Alice said, miserably, twisting a stem of meadowsweet in her fingers.

  ‘Are you lovers?’ Ruth enquired almost casually and without turning her head in Alice’s direction.

  ‘We have been lovers,’ Alice said. ‘Once.’

  ‘Only once? Wasn’t it …?’

  ‘Yes it was. Very,’ Alice said.

  ‘Then why only once, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Because the whole thing has become so complicated! I couldn’t tell Christopher about his father. I couldn’t tell Georgina. And then, at the wedding, there I was, Ruth, sitting beside Roger in the pew watching Georgie and Chris make their vows, and at the reception, smiling and sipping hock. I have never felt so useless! I had begged Roger, practically on my knees, not to let Chris leave for New Zealand without telling him. What more could I do?’ They walked in silence for a while and then Ruth brought up the subject of Alice’s prospects as a consultant for Woodrow Bradshaws and Associates.

  When Alice Todd had first arrived at the farmhouse the kitchen had been a shambles. With often as many as ten hungry mouths to feed, it was largely in the interests of self-preservation that she had persuaded Roger Bayliss to allow her to make alterations to it. She studied her requirements, drew up scaled plans, and with her employer’s permission and on a tight budget, transformed the space and facilities available to her. The effect on her workload was huge and she soon regained the energy that had been draining from her. Rose became better tempered, the girls’ evening meal was always on time, and Alice was even able to improve on a menu constrained by food rationing. It was when word got around the neighbourhood and Alice’s design skills had been sought and implemented in the kitchens of several other hostels and small establishments in the area, that it occurred to her that her future, which since the collapse of her marriage had seemed, to say the least, precarious, might be less so than she had feared. An introduction to a London architectural conglomerate resulted in the distinct possibility of a career with them as a culinary design consultant, an idea which pleased and increasingly interested her.

  ‘It’s time to make the decision, Allie. Charles Maitland won’t wait for ever for you to make up your mind. We were discussing it the other day and he needs you in London for at least a week, in which he will introduce you to his colleagues and the Woodrow Bradshaws clients and sort out the details of your contract. With the hostel running at half strength it should be possible for you to take some time off, shouldn’t it? You’ll stay with me, of course, and most importantly you’ll be away from here and more able to get things into perspective with this wretched Roger!’

  ‘He’s not wretched!’ Alice protested. ‘Well, I suppo
se he is a bit … But then so am I!’

  Ruth returned to London but continued to mastermind what she saw as Alice’s deliverance from the depths of Devonshire and the gloom of her relationship with Roger Bayliss. Her voice, slightly strident, on the telephone a few days later informed Alice that everything was arranged. She had simply to get herself to London on the following Monday and be prepared for a stay of approximately ten days. Rose arranged for Albertine Yeo to deputise for her at the tea room and it was suggested that Edward John could remain at his boarding school for the one weekend his mother would be in London.

  ‘But why can’t I come home as usual?’ he protested, referring, as he always did now, to Lower Post Stone Farm as ‘home’.

  ‘Because you can’t stay here with the girls, if I’m away,’ Alice explained.

  ‘But Rose will be here,’ he argued, sulkily.

  ‘No,’ Alice told him, ‘Rose will be across the yard in her cottage. You would be alone, here, with the girls and that would be …’ she hesitated, ‘inappropriate.’ Her son stared uncomprehendingly at her but could see from her expression that she was not to be persuaded.

  ‘Well, couldn’t I stay with Mr Bayliss at Higher Post Stone, then? Jack always collects me from Ledburton on Friday evenings and Mr Bayliss often takes me to the bus on Sunday nights, and he’s promised to show me how he keeps the farm records of the crop yields and the livestock and the milk gallonage and everything, so we could do that while you’re away.’

  Alice approached Roger regarding the leave she needed. They had barely spoken since the wedding. The date of the departure of Georgina and Christopher was approaching but she saw no point in raising the subject of Christopher’s continuing ignorance of facts which, Alice was certain, would radically change his view of his father.

  ‘This trip to London is in connection with your consultancy career, I take it?’ he asked her. She nodded.

  ‘My work here is almost done, Roger. We both know that. I have to think of the future. Mine and Edward John’s.’

  ‘Will he like London, do you think?’ Roger asked. Alice, unwilling to debate that subject, did not reply and after a moment he continued, quietly, ‘As to the future, you have one here, if you want it, Alice. With me. As my wife. You know that. I am, perhaps, not quite the man you would like me to be but I am, I promise you, absolutely devoted to you and to a certain extent to Edward John. Not only because he is your son, which is an advantage, of course, both to him and to me, but because he is such an exceptionally nice child. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because you are so adorable!’

  ‘And yet you cannot accept me! I know why, of course. It is because you feel that a relationship that has failed so catastrophically as the one between me and my son bodes badly for one between me and you and your son. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  Alice was too honest to deny it. She took his hand in hers and they sat in silence for a while.

  ‘Let’s not discuss it anymore now,’ she suggested at last. ‘I owe it to Ruth to explore my prospects in London. Chris and Georgie don’t sail for another month or so. There’s still time. I don’t mean time to stop them going, I think it’s too late for that now, but …’ She paused. ‘You know what I mean, my dear.’ She patted his hand and then withdrew hers, which subtly changed the mood of their conversation. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘I have a request. Not my own, actually, but Edward John’s.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He would very much like to spend the weekend I’m in London, with you. I promised I’d ask you but you mustn’t feel in any way pressured or obliged …’

  Roger’s pleasure was obvious, and to Edward John’s delight, arrangements were put in place, and on the following Friday, three days after his mother’s departure on the London train, Jack, who had, as usual, met the Exeter bus in Ledburton, dropped the land girls off at Lower Post Stone before delivering Edward John to the higher farm, where Eileen produced her best chocolate pudding for his supper, saying that having a hungry boy in the house reminded her of the old days when Master Christopher had been a growing lad.

  ‘I have something I need to deliver,’ Roger announced over breakfast on the Sunday morning. ‘D’you fancy a trip up into the forest?’

  ‘In the truck?’ Edward John asked. ‘Can I drive it?’

  ‘No! You most certainly cannot!’

  Edward John watched Roger carry a mahogany box out to the truck and stow it carefully in the cab. The box was approximately eighteen inches wide and a foot deep. The initials T.G.M.B. were engraved on a brass plate which was set into its lid.

  ‘Who is T.G.M.B.?’ Edward John wanted to know.

  ‘My father,’ Roger told him. ‘Theophilus Glover Martin Bayliss.’

  ‘Wow! What’s it got in it? Is it a wedding present for Christopher?’ For a moment Roger seemed fazed by the question. Then his face relaxed into something close to a smile.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose, in a way, it is.’

  ‘Can I see?’ Edward John tried and failed to lift the lid of the box.

  ‘No,’ Roger said. ‘You can’t. It’s for Christopher.’

  ‘Is it a surprise?’ Edward John wanted to know. Roger had forgotten how inquisitive children were. Then, as quickly as the boy’s attention had been captured by the box and its contents, it turned to the more interesting prospects of the journey in the truck.

  ‘Well, if I can’t drive the truck, can I change gear?’ he asked, climbing up into the cab, catching Roger’s eye and smiling beguilingly.

  Roger had already shown Edward John the basic principles of gear changing, and after they had turned off the lane and begun to climb the track that wound uphill through the trees, he reminded him of the various positions of the gear lever and, with his own hand poised to resume control should Edward John lose it, allowed the boy to grasp the knob. Biting his lip with concentration, he waited until Roger gave the word and then neatly moved the lever, grinning triumphantly as he felt the engine respond.

  ‘Excellent!’ Roger said. ‘Very well done indeed! Now we are in second gear. Up ahead, where the track levels off, we’ll change up, into top. If you listen to the engine it will tell you when we need to do this, but don’t do anything until we both agree that the time is right. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Edward John agreed.

  Georgina and Christopher had heard the approach of the truck. They were sorting through Christopher’s books, preparing to put them into the tea chests which stood ready to receive them, when Edward John came bounding into the cottage, followed more slowly by Roger, the mahogany box in his arms.

  ‘It’s a surprise!’ Edward John announced to Christopher. ‘Can he open it, Pa?’

  ‘Pa?’ Georgina echoed in surprise. ‘Mr Bayliss isn’t your Pa!’

  ‘I know that!’ Edward John laughed. ‘He’s Christopher’s Pa. Well? Can he open the box?’

  ‘Not now,’ Roger said, dropping a key, which was attached to a brass chain, into Christopher’s palm. ‘It is the sort of surprise that needs to be opened in private.’

  ‘A private surprise?’ Edward John said, mystified.

  ‘I’ve got some of Eileen’s currant buns somewhere,’ Georgina announced, locating a cake tin and neatly diverting Edward John’s attention. ‘D’you want one?’

  Edward John helped himself to a bun and Roger heard Georgina asking him where his mother was and him telling her she was in London visiting his Aunt Ruth.

  ‘Only she’s not my aunt,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘She’s my godmother. She won’t be back ’til Friday. My mother, I mean, not Aunt Ruth. She wants my mother and me to go and live in London.’

  ‘And would you like that?’ Christopher asked, conversationally, easing a pile of his books onto the table.

  ‘No!’ Edward John said. ‘I’d hate it! I want us to stay at Lower Post Stone for ever!’ His words and the passion with which he delivered them created a silence in which the three adults watched him polish off his bun. ‘What?’
he enquired, looking from one face to another. ‘What?’ he repeated, puzzled by their reaction.

  ‘I think I’ll leave you to it,’ Georgina announced after Roger and Edward John had left for home. ‘Mama wants me to have lunch with her and some neighbours who were a bit miffed at not being asked to the wedding! Such a fuss! I’ll be back by teatime. What about taking the bike over the moor this evening? To sort of say goodbye to it. Hmm?’ Christopher took her in his arms and searched her face.

  ‘Does that sound a bit … well … regretful, Georgie?’

  ‘No! Not regretful at all!’ she corrected herself quickly.

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘It’s just that I love it up there when the light starts to go and I want to fix it in my mind’s eye.’

  Christopher let the sound of the Brough’s noisy engine dissolve into silence before sliding the key into the lock of the mahogany box.

  Inside was a sheaf of documents, a large, buff envelope with the words ‘If undelivered return to H.M. Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, London,’ stamped across it. On top of this was a tightly rolled school photograph. Christopher unrolled it and weighted each end. He knew his father had been a pupil at St James’s College, a minor public school in Dorset. The long narrow photograph was dated July 1915 and showed the two hundred and fifty-odd pupils and, centre front, the gowned staff, grouped round a venerable headmaster. Christopher searched in vain for his father but could not identify him among the rows of boys all wearing identical uniforms and with similar haircuts and respectful expressions. On the reverse of the photograph someone, whose handwriting he did not recognise, had written in pencil ‘Rob and Roger. Third row’. Given this clue one face emerged. ‘Pa!’ Christopher breathed, scanning the features that had become, suddenly, unmistakably familiar. He looked at the two boys, one on the left, the other on the right of his father, and wondered which of them was the ‘Rob’ referred to. After a while he removed the weights and the photograph reverted to the tight cylindrical shape it had held since being placed in the box.