In Time of War (Part Six of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  “No possibility ... of a mistake?” Dora whispered aware that she was clutching at straws.

  Marie Greuze shook her head.

  “I’m afraid none at all. The bodies were found, correctly identified, and given a decent burial. I hope that will be of some small comfort to you.”

  “Very small,” Dora said bending her head. “Very small indeed.”

  Suddenly she felt bitter and looked defiantly, her eyes full of pain, towards her colleague, Carson and Sally. “I don’t know how I shall face the world without Jean, knowing I am never going to see him again. I suppose I will. I must.”

  She seemed to make a supreme, conscious effort to take control of herself, to disport herself as Jean, brave Jean, who gave no secrets away, would have wanted her to. “I must go quickly to tell Louise before anyone else does.” She embraced her friend whose eyes, now brimming with tears, followed her as she left the room.

  “It is always sad to bring news like this,” Marie said addressing no one in particular. “But especially sad because I became so fond of Dora and such an admirer of Jean Parterre, or ‘Gabriel’ to give him the code name by which we best knew him, though I never met him. He was a great leader. His name will never be forgotten.” She gave a wan smile and looked at the two grief-stricken people in front of her. “Some small comfort. No? It is much better to live, but with honour. And Gabriel would never have done a dishonourable thing.”

  “It is inconceivable,” Carson agreed seizing her hand. “And thank you for coming personally with the news. As well as being my cherished cousin’s husband he was my friend for many years, a man I loved – a great man who, as you say, died as he lived: with honour.”

  Chapter Ten

  May 1944

  As Deborah stood on the docks watching the body of men at work all around her. There was such an air of excited anticipation that it was impossible not to be swept away by it. Her workforce had swelled as the orders poured in from the army in preparation for the invasion of Europe which she knew was imminent. She was able to come and go freely, but some of the men were not going to be allowed to leave the site until the invasion had started.

  It was rumoured that spies were everywhere. She had been sworn not to talk about what she saw, or where she had been, or discuss it with anyone, that is except her partner, her brother-in-law Abel Yetman.

  He was somewhere on the huge artificial harbour which was being constructed and which would be towed by tugs over to France and would be large enough to service ships of up to 10,000 tons. Deborah shivered and pulled her coat tightly around her. The weather was crucial to the success of the landings and, so far, the outlook wasn’t good.

  It was late afternoon and she looked round for Abel. With only petrol enough for one car she was dependent on him for a lift back. Abel was in his element. Debarred from serving in the war, as he wished, he now found himself playing a useful, even a vital part in designing the huge reinforced concrete caissons whose assembly would constitute a truly remarkable artificial harbour, of crucial importance to the ships servicing the attacking forces.

  Abel was a cheerful, robust, hardworking man, God-fearing and upright, who had been only eight at the time of his father’s suicide. He had two younger sisters and thus grew up very quickly, becoming the man of the family, and a great support and consolation to his mother. He had left school early to be apprenticed to a builder and had started a business which had been successful until Bart Sadler became involved with it. After that, Abel found himself out on a limb and life, from being even-tenored and uneventful, had become complicated. He had flung himself into odd jobs, but wartime had made these harder to find and when his sister-in-law had sought his help in reactivating Bart’s business – with the added advantage that Bart wasn’t there – he had been only too happy to agree, despite the fact that the very last person Abel had ever expected to be in business with was Deborah. Yet she had proved herself adept at it and eager to succeed. She was clever with figures, well organised, a woman with brains and skills in what was very much a man’s world.

  Their partnership had prospered. Deborah ran the office and saw to the paperwork, Abel was the link man with the clients. He assessed the jobs and prepared estimates. He was very experienced and knew what he was talking about. Then he would oversee the supplies, the workforce and the carrying out of the work.

  Pretty soon Deborah realised that she would never have got anywhere without Abel’s knowledge and expertise which was much much greater than Sam’s.

  Against all expectations Sam had recovered enough to be recalled, as had wished, to active service, and the business was now wholly in the hands of Deborah and Abel, that is until Bart got back or Sam returned from the war, whichever happened first. Then there would be a radical reappraisal, possibly another cataclysmic change that neither liked to think about.

  Suddenly there was a hoot behind her and she turned to see Abel waving to her from the open tourer, the engine running.

  “Hop in,” he shouted, “or we’ll be shut in for the night.”

  As he threw open the door of the passenger seat Deborah ran over and climbed in only just in time as he drove off towards one of the many security barriers that blocked their way to the final exit.

  Once on the open road he stopped and lit a cigarette. His hands were grimy with oil and under his jacket he still had on a pair of greasy dungarees. He was a good-looking man with curly black hair and blue, short-sighted eyes for which he wore glasses. It was his eyesight that had let him down and made him a reject for military service.

  “Nearly ready,” he said with a deep sigh of satisfaction. “I wish I could go over with it.”

  “Might they let you?” Deborah looked surprised.

  Abel shrugged. “I think they’ll only have army engineers. But I may be in with a chance.”

  Impulsively Deborah put a hand on his arm.

  “I do wish that, if they offer you the chance, you’ll turn it down.”

  “But why?” Now it was Abel’s turn to show surprise. “Well ...” Deborah struggled to find the right words. “I should hate anything to happen to you.”

  “I see.” Abel stubbed out his cigarette, turned on the engine and drove on.

  In 1930 he had married his cousin, Deborah’s sister, Ruth Woodville. He had built them a fine house on land given to them by Carson and the happy pair had settled down in hopeful expectation of a family to cement their love. Abel saw himself as very much the family man. His roots were in Wenham and he wanted to continue the Yetman dynasty started by his great-great-grandfather Thomas, born in 1800, and a successful builder in Blandford.

  However, the family had failed to materialise. Doctors had been consulted to no avail and Abel and Ruth, while trying to come to terms with the fact that they would be childless, nevertheless started to grow apart each becoming locked in their own ways of courting forgetfulness: Abel with his building business, Ruth in excessive attention to good works.

  It had been very annoying to see Deborah, the black sheep of the family, an idler who had caused nothing but trouble, marry a wealthy man and prove herself more fruitful than her virtuous and hardworking sister, who had never in her life given her mother or anyone who cared for her a single sleepless night.

  Nevertheless it was perhaps inevitable that Abel had come to find Deborah’s cheerful, positive company preferable to her sister’s who had turned into something of a nag, always pointing out Abel’s faults to him and seeming to discover new ones every day. It was with a heavy heart that he would return to his home at night, dreading to hear the sound of that scolding voice almost before he had put his key in the door. What was more, Ruth did not pay as much attention to her looks as her sister who went at least once a week to the hairdresser and spent as much money as she could, and as coupons would allow, on clothes, and was a deft hand with make-up. Deborah, on the lookout, made the best of herself; Ruth, defeated and depressed, did not.

  Abel felt a hand on his knee and looked side
ways at Deborah.

  “Wouldn’t you miss me too?” Deborah asked. “I mean, if I went away wouldn’t you be sad?”

  Abel braked and brought the car to a halt in a lay-by off the main road. The wind had caught Deborah’s cheeks and ruffled her hair. Her blue eyes sparkled and the tip of her pink tongue peeped enticingly through her sensuous, slightly parted lips.

  As she leaned over he caught a sight of cleavage and her subtle but sensuous perfume wafted towards him.

  “Wouldn’t you be sad?” she repeated. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Abel took Deborah in his arms and crushed his lips against hers. He could feel tears on her cheeks and he licked them with his tongue like a cat grooming its kitten. His whole body cried out to merge with hers, as though they had been made for each other.

  “Of course I would miss you,” he murmured. “I adore you.”

  They embraced again. When they drew apart they each sat in silence as if contemplating the momentous nature of what had just happened. Then Abel put out his hand.

  “You don’t look very happy.”

  “I am happy,” Deborah insisted vigorously brushing the tears away from her eyes. “But I am apprehensive too. Oh Abel, what on earth is going to become of us? What are we to do?”

  She paused looking appealingly at him: the practised vamp of whom the family disapproved, of whom few had a good word to say, yet he knew he loved her ... and, unlike Ruth, he also knew her to be sexually alive and, above all, fecund.

  “We’ll find a way,” Abel said holding tightly to her hand. “I am never going to let you go.”

  September 1944

  “A boy!” Lally exclaimed clasping her hands together. “Alexander will be so thrilled.”

  Sitting up in the bed of the nursing home in Dorchester holding her baby, Minnie looked pale but pretty, her dark hair fastened back with a large bow, a touch of rouge adding colour to her cheeks.

  It was difficult to tell, at the age of a few hours, which parent the baby resembled as both were dark with brown eyes. The baby had quite a mop of thick black hair but at this early stage it was impossible to determine the colour of his eyes.

  Alexander was still somewhere in Europe where the Germans were retreating on all fronts. Paris had fallen to the victorious Allies. A massive force, in which the Free French Army had played a leading part, had landed on the south coast of France. Belgium was free and in the east the Russians were advancing towards the west, the ultimate goal being Berlin.

  Carson had driven Minnie to the nursing home when she began labour. He had waited as anxiously as any father while she gave birth, a comparatively easy affair only lasting a few hours. It was a very emotional moment when he held his first grandson in his arms, and even more emotional when, a few hours later, Sally arrived with Lally and they cooed over the latest addition to the family.

  Eliza and Dora telephoned for news. A telegraph was sent to Minnie’s parents in the Bahamas. Kate, now eleven, and at a convent boarding school in Devon was informed about the arrival of her baby brother. Perhaps she was a little jealous because she seemed in no hurry to rush home and see him.

  Everyone in the family and beyond knew except the baby’s father, now a Group Captain, but a message had been sent through the Air Ministry in London which, hopefully, would reach him.

  It seemed that at a time like this, after five weary years of war and the terrible uncertainty it had induced, a new baby, a new life, brought a surge of hope and optimism.

  However, ten days later when Carson drove Minnie home there was still no news from Alexander, and Minnie had begun to fret.

  Lally wanted her to stay in Forest House where she could keep an eye on her, but Minnie felt that if Alexander should return unexpectedly he would go to the cottage, and it was there that she insisted on taking their child. Massie was installed in the room next door to the nursery.

  For Massie it was a time of great joy to have charge of Nelly’s grandson, and she drooled over him and fussed over his mother and sat watching them while Minnie fed the baby, or tried to feed him, for she had little milk. She also appeared to get thinner and Lally began to worry that Minnie, though more robust than Alexander’s first wife, might go the way Mary had gone if he did not contact them soon.

  So the baby’s arrival was a time of mixed blessings – joy in a new life, worry about his mother, and the fear that his father might never see him.

  Minnie had a maid called Tabitha who used to come over from the big house to look after her. She had always refused to sleep in the cottage, even before the baby was born and there was room for her. Minnie had never questioned her about this but now she was curious, as it would be useful to have Tabitha on the spot and not always to have to telephone across to the house for her.

  “I don’t know why you don’t want to sleep here?” Minnie said to her one day as she was busy about the bedroom tidying and making the bed while Minnie sat at her dressing table making-up her face, trying to banish some of the pallor which she knew worried Lally. “I’m sure the attic, which is large, could be made into a bedroom for you. It’s very cosy here. Massie is very happy. Until it’s ready, you could sleep in Massie’s room, there’s space for another bed. Then you could take it in turns to get up if baby cries at night.”

  Tabitha said nothing but continued to smooth the sheets before drawing up the blankets and putting on the quilt.

  “It isn’t as though you’ve always lived in Forest House,” Minnie continued. “Would you like me to ask Mrs Martyn about the attic? It’s nice and big. Then we could all be cosy together.”

  “I’d rather stay where I am, madam,” Tabitha replied primly completing her task and turning her attention to the wardrobe, sorting through Minnie’s dresses, holding one up after the other. “What will you do with them now, madam? The ones you wore when you were expecting? Will you save them for the next?”

  Tabitha looked at her archly.

  Minnie smiled. “We shall have to see what happens, Tabitha. I must say I am anxious about the Group Captain. I can’t understand why he has not been in touch with me. It makes me very uncertain and apprehensive about the future. But look, you didn’t answer my question. I want to know why you don’t want to sleep here? Now that I have the baby it would be so much more convenient, you could help Massie out a lot until I am stronger and able to get up at night myself.”

  “I can’t say, madam.” Tabitha who was normally a sensible, uncomplicated girl of nineteen, a farmer’s daughter, hung her head.

  “Is there something wrong with the cottage? Something you know?” Minnie demanded. “If so you must tell me.”

  “I was asked not to say, madam.”

  “Not to say what? By whom?” Minnie now began to feel seriously alarmed and spots of colour, unaided by make-up, appeared on her cheeks.

  Tabitha who was usually of an open, sunny disposition continued to hang her head.

  “I insist on knowing, Tabitha,” Minnie said with a hard edge to her voice, “or else I shall go straight to Mrs Martyn and demand to know the answer.”

  “Well, madam,” Tabitha’s voice sank to a mere whisper, “they do say this cottage is haunted.”

  “Oh, what nonsense!” Minnie tossed her head back and laughed. “Is that all it is? Some silly country story I expect.”

  “Oh no, madam,” Tabitha looked indignant. “It was Mrs Heering’s first husband, Ryder Yetman, fell off the roof of this very building and was killed. They say his ghost haunts the house and there are people alive to this day who have seen it. They say it is an unlucky house and it is because of what happened to Mr Yetman when he broke his neck all those years ago.”

  That night Minnie woke in a sweat and lay in her bed her ears alert for sounds, not of the baby crying, or her heart thumping in her chest, but for the sound of ghostly footsteps: Ryder Yetman’s uneasy spirit which had not yet found rest.

  An unlucky house. That was the information that had bothered her more than the story of the ghost. They said
that women who had just given birth were prey to melancholy and flights of fantasy, but supposing Ryder’s ghost did walk there? Was it to warn her of unhappiness ahead? She knew that Eliza avoided visiting the cottage. She had seen Dora’s reluctance to enter it on the day she first visited it, and now she knew why. This was something that had been deliberately kept from her.

  She heard the sound of knocking and sat up, her heart still thumping.

  “Come in,” she cried and turned on the light. It was half past three and Massie’s comfortable figure appeared round the door.

  “What is it, Massie?” she cried. “Something wrong with the baby?”

  “No, bless you, dearie,” Massie said crossing to the bed. “It was you woke me with your screams, not him. I wondered if you was all right.”

  “Screams?” Minnie said wonderingly. “I didn’t know. I must have had a bad dream.” She felt her forehead which was hot and sticky, then realised her whole body was drenched in sweat and sank back on her bed, trembling. “Oh, Massie, what shall I do?”

  “What ails you, dear? What worries you with that dear little baby safe by your side and everyone around to love and care for you?”

  “We haven’t heard from Alexander.” Minnie took hold of Massie’s hand and held on to it tightly. “Not a word in three weeks. If he had heard about the baby surely he would have contacted us? They say that this is an unlucky house. That it’s haunted, and I have such dreadful foreboding that something awful has happened to Alexander, that he’ll never know his son and I’ll never see him again.”

  “Of course the house isn’t haunted,” Carson said robustly. “I lived here for many months and was very happy here.”

  Minnie was a little in awe of Carson. He was an impressive, almost towering figure and as he was Alexander’s father she was anxious to make a good impression on him. Now she was annoying him with her childish fears. Alexander would not have been pleased.

  They were sitting next to each other on the sofa in the sitting room of the cottage, careful to keep a sizeable gap between them.