The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘You are really quite a remarkable person, Mr Astley,’ Meggie said, taking his hand. ‘And now – you know what I am going to do with this key you have just given me?’

  ‘I do not have even the vaguest of ideas, madam.’

  ‘I am going to get up,’ Meggie said, after which she did just that. ‘And I am going to go to the front door, and I am going to lock the door from the inside and hide the key so you will not be able to leave until I say so.’

  ‘And now I shall tell you something, Miss Gore-Stewart,’ Waldo replied. ‘That little idea of yours just suits me fine.’

  But as far as parties proper rather than improper went the party voted best of all by all and sundry was the all day open house Waldo and Meggie threw the following day at Cucklington House. It seemed that at one point or other of the day every person who lived in Bexham arrived for a drink and a good wish. Some stayed for hours, others just dropped in with a small present, or a card, or just to present the compliments of the season. The drink flowed, tray after tray of Rusty’s homemade mince pies were consumed, and Waldo sang at the piano while people danced in the drawing room until the bell atop the old Saxon church chimed midnight and the revellers finally staggered home, all except Rusty and Richards who stayed at their own insistence to help clear up the house.

  When the Sykeses had finally retired and Richards had ambled back to the Three Tuns, Meggie damped down the fire and locked up the rest of the house while Waldo, now recovered from what he called post-host exhaustion, sat at his piano playing a favourite piece of Schumann.

  ‘I haven’t really thanked you for your present, Waldo,’ Meggie called to him, over the closing bars of Träumerei. ‘But I think that’s because I didn’t know how to.’

  ‘I know how you can thank me,’ Waldo said. ‘By staying just as you are …’

  At which he at once began to play ‘Stay As Sweet As You Are’, his rich sonorous baritone filling the lovely drawing room and floating up to the ceiling where, it seemed to Meggie, it stayed, floating around the room like the cloud of happiness on which she found she was now sitting.

  Mattie gazed at herself in the mirror in her newly made home sewn winter dress. It was a three-quarter length shirtwaist style frock, remodelled from one of Lady Melton’s pre-war winter gowns, and as she turned herself every which way to examine it Mattie saw it to be very flattering and that it showed her off to her best. But pretty though she undoubtedly looked she felt the very opposite. She had never felt less self-assured in all her life, just at the moment when she needed all her poise and self-belief most. For at long last the formal invitation to dine with the Tates had arrived and tonight was the appointed night.

  And now it was here, now the time she had longed so much for had finally come, she felt gauche, unattractive and timid, as if the occasion was going to prove to be far beyond her social capabilities, as if in fact she was making the most terrible mistake in thinking that John’s parents were going to ratify their association. What could she have been thinking? she wondered miserably as she sank onto her dressing table stool to stare glumly at herself in her looking glass, with her chin propped up on her fists. She should have known that the Tates could never accept her. Enough people had told her so, heavens above. Accept somebody not only with her past but with an illegitimate child? It really was completely absurd to think that they might. It was worse than absurd, it was extremely embarrassing.

  At that moment Mattie felt like chucking the whole thing in – like tearing her newly fashioned dress off, throwing it in the waste basket and climbing into her bed where she would remain until all this stupidity had blown over and calamity had been avoided. Because sure as eggs, she thought, that is what it is going to be – calamitous. It didn’t matter any more how much John loved her and she him, nor the way he had accepted so completely what had happened to her in the war without question or criticism, just as she had understood and accepted what had happened to John, when believing his brother to be dead he had found himself falling in love with the woman he thought was now Walter’s widow. It mattered not that both she and John were perfectly content to accept each other for what they were because if John’s parents were not, then they had no future as a couple, at least not as a respectable couple. They could perhaps run away somewhere and either live together or get married in some register office or other, but in her heart of hearts Mattie knew that this was not what John would want. John Tate came from a very close and loving family, and what he would want was for the parents who loved him to love the woman that he now loved.

  So, much as Mattie wanted to see the evening through, even if it ended in defeat, and not to let John down, suddenly it seemed that all her courage had evaporated. Indeed, the normally optimistic and resolute Mattie now felt so utterly without hope that instead of getting on with preparing herself for what she had so foolishly hoped would be her big night, all she felt like was taking her clothes back off and clambering into her bed.

  If it had not been for the sudden knock on her door, Mattie might well have done just that, but hearing her father’s cheerful voice outside asking if he could come in there was little she could do but go to the door and speak to him.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, allowing just her face to appear in the narrow opening. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘On the contrary, I thought something must be the matter with you,’ Lionel reported. ‘I know you women take the best part of a year and a day to get ready, but you can’t afford to be late. The Tates are not people to be kept waiting.’

  ‘I’m not going,’ Mattie said feebly, doing her best to close the door.

  ‘Of course you are – don’t be so damn’ stupid.’ Lionel pushed the door open and gained an easy admittance, so surprised was his daughter by his resolution, let alone his language. ‘I thought you might be fuffing about,’ her father continued. ‘But believe you me, there’s no need to. You can save all this sort of behaviour for your wedding day.’

  ‘Who said anything about wedding days?’ Mattie asked, nervously fiddling with her hair, which was already done beautifully.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Lionel groaned. ‘What on earth do you think this is all about, Mattie? They’re not asking you to dinner with their eldest boy just to talk about the weather.’

  ‘They could be asking me up to tell me I’m not suitable, Daddy.’

  ‘Not suitable? Not suitable? You?’ Lionel threw back his head and roared with laughter in a most un-Lionel Eastcott-like way. ‘Why’ – he beamed, putting both his hands on her shoulders – ‘I’ve never seen anything more suitable! Let alone anything quite as lovely. So come along now, Mathilda. I’ve got the car out for you. I’d drive you myself, but then there’d be no-one here to look after young Max. Off you go, now. And don’t you dare come back here without a ring on your finger.’

  Kissing her a fond farewell, Lionel watched Mattie walk off down the garden path before closing the front door and leaning his back against it.

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ he said out loud. ‘Fingers crossed the old letter’s done the trick.’

  Twice on the short drive from her home to the Tates’ Mattie stopped the car and thought about turning back for home, the second time seriously considering the option. She could easily plead illness, have her father telephone the house and say she had suddenly been laid low with some bug or other, and then – and then what? For a start her father would never agree to making any such excuse for her, and even if he did, she would only be delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later she would have to face the Tates and come to terms with the objections she just knew they were going to put in her and John’s way – her past – her child – her social unsuitability – so really she might just as well bite on the famous bullet and have done with it now. Putting the car back into gear she drove on through the village and headed up the lane to Shelborne. As she proceeded to her delight and surprise she found her confidence flooding back. She had realised that even to think of ducking out on thi
s evening would mean that she was ashamed of herself and, more important, ashamed of her beloved little boy, Max.

  So in spite of having to ring the bell three times to gain admittance, by the time Gwen finally opened the front door Mattie was her old self.

  ‘Sorry, miss.’ The maid sighed. ‘It’s the captain. He’s banging away at the old joanna, as you can hear – and when he’s banging away that loud it’s as much as I can do to hear me own thoughts.’

  To the sound of her host singing and playing loudly at his grand piano, Gwen took Mattie’s coat, put it over her arm and pushed the door to the drawing room open with her free hand.

  ‘Miss Eastcott,’ she announced. The group around the piano took no notice whatsoever. ‘I said! Miss Eastcott!’ Gwen bellowed.

  At last Loopy heard. She had her back to the door, and was busy mixing cocktails at the same time as joining in the general sing-song, but somehow over the general noise and cacophony she managed to hear Gwen’s announcement and turned to see Mattie standing in the doorway. At once she waved to her newly arrived guest as if greeting someone who had just boarded a yacht from ashore, beckoning her to come over at once, which Mattie did, noting and envying her hostess’s elegance, dressed as she was in a silk patterned evening skirt and white silk shirt over which she had thrown a silk cardigan. Hugh Tate also looked relaxed and elegant in his plum velvet smoking jacket and white silk cravat. Seeing the new arrival, he at once stopped playing and rose to his feet.

  ‘Most dreadfully sorry, Miss Eastcott,’ he said, coming round from the piano. ‘We’ll really have to get Gwen a loudhailer, I’d say.’

  Mattie shook hands with the Tates, who both seemed genuinely pleased to see her, while John hovered, smiling too much.

  ‘Bang on time, too,’ he said too loudly. ‘I said you were an ace timekeeper.’

  ‘My military training, I’m afraid,’ Mattie explained. ‘Left its indelible mark.’

  ‘Army, John tells me,’ Hugh said. ‘Staff driver, weren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely. Staff driver, that was me.’

  ‘Drive anyone interesting?’

  Mattie felt John’s glance but didn’t return it. ‘Some five star generals,’ she said evenly. ‘In fact I was attached to one in particular.’

  ‘One of ours or one of theirs?’

  ‘An American.’

  ‘Anyone we’d know?’

  ‘General Michael Rafferty.’

  ‘Rafferty? Oh, quite a fellow, Rafferty. One of the D-Day boys. You had a big cheese in the back of your car. Quite the war hero.’

  ‘He was a very nice man. He was a pleasure to drive. Very nice manners,’ she added inconsequentially.

  ‘Guests, Hugh?’ said Loopy, prompted by Gwen struggling with an armful of fresh coats while kicking the drawing room door open backwards with one foot.

  A very jolly older couple were introduced to Mattie, Major John and Caroline Haskett-Smith, friends apparently of the Tates’ from Bexham Yacht Club and the sort of people Mattie’s father always described as the backbone of England. In spite of a bad war wound that necessitated the use of a heavy walking stick, Major Haskett-Smith was as spry as could be, while his tall and slender wife, her handsome face weather-beaten from her sailing days, was as wry as her husband was nimble. Having survived the worst of wars, it seemed they were determined to enjoy the rest of their lives to the full.

  Soon the room was full of laughter as everyone regaled everyone else with the latest in local gossip, their tongues quickly loosened by Loopy’s absolutely perfectly made dry Martinis. Far from feeling estranged, Mattie felt oddly at ease, as if the moment she had walked into the drawing room she had been accepted. From the continued riotous behaviour at dinner in the yellow painted dining room there was no reason to suppose that the mood might suddenly alter, and that Hugh Tate would bring an end to the happy proceedings by banging on the table for silence before announcing that in both his and his wife’s opinion it would be by far the best thing if Miss Mathilda Eastcott removed herself from their eldest son’s affections and returned to her modest little home immediately. Mattie smiled inwardly when she thought of this, amused, because such a ludicrous scene was exactly the sort of fancy that had run through her mind as she was getting ready for the evening.

  But now instead she found herself laughing and talking freely to the people who she had been convinced were about to shun her. Here she sat at ease in elegant surroundings, eating dinner off fine china and drinking wine from cut glass without one disparaging remark being passed about her. She would give anything to be accepted by this elegant and sophisticated family. Now it would seem that she was about to be just that, and yet Mattie’s inner fears were not quite allayed. Having lived through the war she knew all too well about false dawns, about the weeks of quiet when one hoped the bombing was at an end, only to have such hopes dashed by the arrival of the Doodlebug or the V2, or some other dreadful weapon of mass destruction. So she knew better than to count her chickens, even though so far all the portents had been more than favourable.

  In fact it was almost too idyllic to be true. It was too much to hope for, too much to want, and the seed of doubt had been sown when Hugh Tate had asked her whom she had driven? Remembering certain rumours about John’s father and his possible involvement with government intelligence, all at once Mattie got the feeling that perhaps Hugh Tate knew – and that was the reason not only for the brief but what had now become in Mattie’s mind pointed conversation before dinner but for her very invitation here. Perhaps any moment now, when everyone had finished their dinner, John’s father was indeed going to bang the table for silence, but instead of merely sending her home and banishing her from his son’s life, first he was going to reveal not just her secret, but the identity of the father of her child.

  For the rest of the meal Mattie found she could hardly eat a thing.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk, shall we?’ John said to her, more as an order than an idea, after dinner had been finished without any terrible revelations on the part of Mattie’s host. Everyone had gathered again around the piano to be entertained by Hugh and Loopy, who was singing some Noel Coward song in a light but sweet soprano, so it was an ideal opportunity for the young couple to take themselves off into the garden.

  Which was where Mattie very soon found herself, before she had time to utter a word.

  ‘What on earth got into you over dinner?’ John asked with a laugh that did not altogether conceal his concern. ‘One minute you’re the life and soul, and the next you look as though you’d just received a tragic telegram.’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Mattie protested. ‘It was just that everyone else was being so awfully entertaining. Major Haskett-Smith’s story about escaping from prison camp and meeting up with those American airmen, Hank and Buddy, dressed as women, was hilarious.’

  ‘Made all the funnier by the fact that they were in such danger.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly compete with that.’

  ‘It wasn’t your sudden silence,’ John said. ‘It was the look you got on your face. Come on.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mattie protested. ‘I just suddenly – I don’t know. I got tongue-tied.’

  ‘You?’ John laughed again. ‘Dearest darling Mattie, the day you get tongue-tied is the day I start painting my nails.’

  ‘I think it’s because – it’s because it was such a wonderful evening,’ Mattie blurted out as John, with her hand in his, led her down the lawns.

  ‘And that turned you into Ophelia?’

  ‘I didn’t want it ever to end.’

  ‘And it won’t,’ John said quietly, turning her to him. ‘Why should it?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it? It’s just an evening.’

  ‘It won’t end because there’ll be lots more evenings like this,’ John said. ‘Hundreds of them.’

  ‘And?’ Mattie shrugged, feeling certain that she would never be a part of them.

  ‘And you’re going to be enjoying them—’


  ‘I am?’

  ‘Because we’re going to get married.’

  ‘We are?’ Mattie said, now totally wrong-footed. ‘I mean are we?’

  ‘Sorry,’ John said, pulling a mock sorry face. ‘I didn’t phrase that very well. Let’s try again, shall we?’ He dropped to one knee and took her hand. ‘Mattie – my darling –’

  ‘Don’t fool about, John,’ Mattie warned. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘I am not fooling about, Mattie.’

  ‘Have you asked your parents?’

  ‘Of course I have asked my parents! Not that I have to ask my parents, being over twenty-one—’

  ‘You know what I mean, John. What I meant was have you told your parents?’

  ‘I have told them, Mattie, I have asked them, Mattie, I have declared it to them, stated it to them, I have consulted them, debated it with them—’

  ‘John – be serious.’

  ‘I am being serious, Mattie! I am being serious!’

  ‘And?’ Mattie asked cautiously, expecting the spell to break at any moment – suspecting that this must be the most dreadful tease, and that as soon as she said yes, everyone would pour out of the drawing room into the garden, holding their sides with laughter.

  ‘And we have their blessing!’

  ‘We what?’ Mattie asked, quite sure her ears had deceived her.

  ‘We have their blessing.’

  ‘And … and Max?’

  ‘And and and Max too!’ John laughed. ‘Why shouldn’t Max have their blessing as well? My parents can’t wait for him to join the family. They said so, only last night. Dad – having brought up three sons – he can’t wait to help bring up another. Teach Max sailing, and cricket, and golf – he’ll be playing trains and table tennis, and charades at Christmas. He can’t wait! Between his two grandfathers poor young Max won’t be given a moment’s peace, at least that’s what Mother says.’