Into the Darkest Day: An emotional and totally gripping WW2 historical novel

by Kate Hewitt

  Lily handed the cup to Matthew, his fingers brushing hers as he took it. She risked a glance upwards, and his lips gave that lovely quirk she remembered from the night at The Berkeley, sending her heart lurching—and tea slopping over the cup onto her fingers.

  “Oh….” She yanked her hand away, resisting the urge to put her burned fingers in her mouth like a child. “I’m so sorry. How clumsy of me.”

  “Not at all. It was my fault.”

  Carol gave them both a sideways glance and smiled, saying nothing.

  “Hell-o!” Sophie sang out as the front door opened. She appeared in the doorway, her hazel eyes widening as she caught sight of them all taking tea. “Sergeant Lawson, what a delightful surprise.” Her gaze scanned the room, looking for the person who wasn’t there.

  “I’m afraid I’ve come on my own. Lieutenant Reese was otherwise occupied.”

  “Oh, well, never mind,” Sophie said airily. “It’s lovely to see you, all the same.”

  Despite her bright manner, Lily could tell her sister was disappointed, although she took great pains—perhaps too many—not to show it, exclaiming over the bounty in the kitchen, and then accepting a cup of tea from their mother, before sitting on the arm of the sofa, one leg swinging jauntily, in a way Carol wouldn’t normally allow. In light of their guest, she said nothing.

  “This was jolly generous of you,” Sophie said with a nod towards the kitchen. “Did you feel badly because Lieutenant Reese ate so much of our Sunday lunch?”

  “Sophie.”

  “Well, he did,” Sophie answered with a laugh. “I suspect he’s used to life on the farm, when there’s meat and milk aplenty. How is Lieutenant Reese, Sergeant Lawson?” Her bright gaze met Matthew’s with unflinching directness. “Kicking his heels, I imagine, as the 82nd Airborne waits to be moved?”

  “They keep us busy.”

  “Not too busy, though, I’m sure.”

  “Busy enough.”

  Matthew met Sophie’s gaze without a waver, and in his unyielding stare Lily sensed a command for her sister to drop the subject. Thankfully, she did.

  “Ah, well.” Sophie rose from the sofa. “These air raids have made everything frightfully dull these days, anyway. Never mind dancing, I can’t get a wink of sleep.”

  “I imagine some don’t find them dull,” Matthew said with an intensity that felt like a reprimand, worse somehow because of how quiet he sounded.

  Sophie turned to look at him, a flush starting in her cheeks.

  “No, I don’t suppose they do,” she said after a moment, and Matthew rose from his seat.

  “I’m afraid I must go. Duty calls, as ever.”

  “Thank you again, Sergeant Lawson, you’ve been so kind—”

  Matthew waved Carol’s words aside, and she nodded towards Lily.

  “Fetch the sergeant’s coat for him, Lily—”

  Her mother seemed determined to afford them every opportunity to talk alone.

  Lily went into the hall and Matthew followed her, while Carol took the tea tray back to the kitchen, bidding Sophie help her.

  The hallway felt quiet and confined as Lily took Matthew’s coat from the stand.

  “Thank you,” she said yet again as she handed it to him and he put his arms through the sleeves. She breathed in the scent of his aftershave, something sharp and clean. Sophie had been right: American soldiers did smell heavenly.

  “I told you, it was no trouble.” He turned to face her, close enough so his arm brushed her shoulder, and at that brief, tantalizing contact, Lily felt as if her heart had leapt into her throat.

  She stood as if paralyzed, unable to utter a word, as Matthew gazed down at her, his face startlingly close, and Lily heard the clatter of dishes from the kitchen.

  “Perhaps I shall see you again,” he suggested quietly.

  “That would be…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her senses were swimming.

  “It would have to be soon, I think. We’re leaving soon.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “Not yet. They keep everything under wraps for as long as they can. Just in case…”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s wretched, this war.” His voice was so low, she strained to hear it, even though she was stood right next to him. “In so many ways.”

  She heard a throb of intensity in his voice and her hand fluttered by her side; she wanted to touch his sleeve but couldn’t quite dare. “It is,” she whispered. “For so many… I know I’m one of the lucky ones.” She didn’t know why she felt the need to say that, only that she did. “I don’t forget it.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  For a second, Lily thought he might touch her cheek, she could almost feel his fingers there, dry and cool, but then he didn’t. They remained standing close together for a moment, the only sound in the enclosed space that of their breathing. There were so many things Lily wanted to say, so many important and intimate things about war and life and hope and sadness, and yet she couldn’t manage one.

  Matthew stepped back, towards the door.

  “Until then,” he said, and then, with a gust of cold, damp air from the open door, he was gone.

  Lily pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks.

  “Well.” Sophie appeared in the hallway, hands on her hips, lips pursed. “Someone’s taken a shine to you.”

  “He was just being kind.” Lily turned around, dropping her hands from her face, and Sophie let out a laugh.

  “Look at you blush!”

  “Don’t, Sophie—” Lily felt, quite suddenly, that she could not take her sister’s light-hearted teasing right now. Not about this.

  Sophie’s expression softened. “I’m not making fun, honestly, Lil. You lucky thing, snagging a GI.”

  “I haven’t,” Lily protested. She felt ridiculously near tears; it seemed wrong, to joke about something that seemed almost sacred. She didn’t want to snag Matthew Lawson. She wasn’t looking for nylons or cigarettes or a good time on the dance floor. She didn’t care about any of that.

  “Oh, but you have,” Sophie assured her with a wink. “He’s so clearly smitten. Although, I have to say, there’s something a bit… odd about Sergeant Lawson, don’t you think? Just the tiniest bit queer?” She frowned in reflection. “It’s not that he’s awkward or anything like that, but he’s so quiet. Yet not because he doesn’t have anything to say. Did you hear how he took me to task over the remark I made about the air raids?” She gave a little shrug. “I know it was rather thoughtless, but still, he seemed so furious, in his understated way.”

  “He feels things,” Lily said, the words inadequate yet the sentiment one she meant utterly. She sensed it from him—a depth of emotion he kept hidden, reined in, just as she did, a current of feeling that ran through both of them. Or was she being fanciful, thinking they were alike in any way at all?

  “Yes, I rather think he does,” Sophie agreed seriously, before her face split into a smile and she gave Lily a friendly little push. “He certainly feels things for you.”

  “Girls.” Carol’s voice was full of good humor. “Come and set the table. Your father will be home any minute.”

  Still smiling, Sophie went, and Lily followed. Her heart felt as if it were fizzing now. Was Matthew smitten? Or not even smitten, because that was like snagging—she didn’t want or care about that sort of absurd pedantry—but did he feel something, the way she did? That would be enough for her. It would be more than enough. It would be everything.

  Chapter Nine

  Two days later, Lily was wriggling into her nightgown after a dinner of cottage pie and lovely tinned pears from Matthew’s hamper for dessert, followed by their usual cup of tea during the nine o’clock news. The Allies were bombing Berlin despite the poor weather, and in response the Nazis were giving London a remembered taste of the Blitz.

  There had been an air raid last night, and the Mathers had stayed in the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden until four
in the morning. Lily hoped there wouldn’t be another raid tonight, thanks to the blessed fog. Although it seemed both sides, in desperation, were flying anyway, no matter what the weather.

  “Sophie, what on earth are you doing?”

  While Lily had been hurrying into her nightgown, bare feet freezing on the floor, her sister was frowning into the mirror as she dabbed beetroot juice onto her lips. Her last lipstick had given out a week ago, much to her annoyance.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Sophie said as she smacked her lips together. “I’m going out.”

  “Going out?” Lily stared at her blankly. “But it’s nearly ten o’clock at night.”

  “So?”

  “But…” Lily shook her head slowly. The house was dark, her parents in bed, everything locked up and shuttered tight. How could her sister be going out? “Where are you going?” she asked finally.

  Sophie tossed a mischievous look over her shoulder, hazel eyes glinting. “To see the lovely Lieutenant Reese, of course.”

  “What? Where?”

  “We’re meeting at that pub by the Common. The Queen’s Something.”

  “The Queen’s Head? But you haven’t even talked to him—”

  “I sent him a note. He’d told me he was billeted on Broxash Road, with the Darbys. You know that family, the one with the girl with the spotty chin? She was a year below us in school, quite deadly dull.”

  “I don’t remember…”

  “I’m not surprised, she was that boring. Anyway, it was all easy enough to do.” Sophie spoke so insouciantly, as if she did this sort of thing all the time.

  “But…” Lily’s head was spinning at this unexpected news. “Did he write a note back?”

  “No.” Sophie shrugged, seeming deliberately careless. “But I didn’t think he would. There was hardly enough time, and anyway…” She paused, and Lily knew she was thinking of their mother, and her undoubted disapproval of such forward schemes. “I just asked him to meet me at the pub at ten.”

  “But it will close by half ten,” Lily protested. “If not before.” Since the bombing had started again, evening hours of any establishment had been erratic, doors sometimes shutting at teatime if the bombing was bad or the beer ran out.

  Sophie lifted one shoulder. “So?”

  “Sophie…” Lily hesitated, in awe of her sister’s sheer brazenness, as well as nervous about her edgy mood. She seemed both sharp and fragile, her careless tone and shrugs hiding a seething urgency underneath that threatened to seep out, bubble over. “Don’t you think it’s a bit… forward… of you? To invite him out like that, on your own? Mother wouldn’t—”

  “I don’t care about Mother.” Sophie’s face hardened before she turned back to her reflection. “We’ve got to make the most of every opportunity, Lily.” She reached for her compact, giving her face the lightest dusting of precious face powder. “Who knows how long any of us will be here?”

  “The war won’t go on forever.”

  “Neither will we.”

  “But…” Lily watched as Sophie changed her sensible utility-issued work shoes for a pair of impractical heels she’d had before the war, the leather well-worn but serviceable. She could hardly believe her sister was actually planning to sneak out of the house to meet a man. She’d never done such a thing before, at least not to Lily’s knowledge.

  Despite Sophie’s wildness, her air of mischief and her ability to shock, Lily had always felt a shared sense of innocence with her sister—they were two well-brought-up girls, raised by stern but loving parents, church every Sunday, bed at ten o’clock, teatime and evenings by the wireless and sedate walks in the Common. That was their life, not this.

  It was comforting, in a way, to know there were lines even Sophie would not dare to cross, and yet here she was, striding right over them, just as she had that night at The Berkeley. It was as if she was slipping into a role and deciding it was who she really was.

  “What will Lieutenant Reese think?” she wondered out loud. Would he be disapproving, or think he had reason to believe Sophie was one of those girls, the kind who melted into the shadows with a soldier, so all you could hear was their low laughter and, worse—far worse—their animal sounds of pleasure?

  Lily knew it happened. It happened all the time. War made people reckless, and desperate, and bold. But surely that kind of behavior had nothing to do with them.

  “Oh, Lily, don’t be such a child,” Sophie exclaimed as she dabbed a bit of “Evening in Paris” perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. “I’m twenty-three years old, for heaven’s sake. Most girls my age are married with a baby or three by now. All I’m doing is meeting an acquaintance at the local. It’s hardly the act of some brazen harlot.” She rolled her eyes, inviting Lily to share the absurdity of it, and she tried.

  “I know that. It’s just… you’ve never done it before.”

  “There’s always a first time, isn’t there?”

  “If Mother knew…”

  Sophie turned to her, eyes flashing. “But she won’t, will she?”

  “I’m not going to tell her,” Lily exclaimed with affront.

  Sophie gave her a quick, dazzling smile as she leaned forward to pat Lily’s cheek. “I know you wouldn’t. You’re a darling, really. Honestly, Lily, you ought to try it.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. “Sneaking out?”

  “Living a little. You’re so frightened half the time, unable to say boo to a goose, but I know there’s more to you than that. There has to be.”

  Lily tried to smile; she didn’t want Sophie to see how her words had hurt her. “Does there?”

  “One day you’ll discover just how brave you are,” Sophie said with a laugh. “I’m sure of it.” She turned away to give her reflection one last satisfied glance before her lips pursed and her eyes flashed again. “I know you think I’m being reckless, but I need to do something, Lily. I can’t wait this war out for another minute, hoping something will happen to me.”

  “But, Sophie, what do you want to happen?”

  “Something. Anything.” Sophie turned from the mirror and went to the window, the blackout curtain drawn across the night sky. She raised one hand towards the heavy, dark material, and for a tense second Lily thought she might pull it open, just because she could. “Aren’t you tired of the waiting? We’re sitting out the war at our typewriters, Lily.”

  “As are a thousand other girls,” Lily returned. “Ten thousand.” She wouldn’t be ashamed of what she did. “Besides,” she pointed out as reasonably as she could, “meeting Lieutenant Reese at the pub is hardly some sort of act of wartime bravery.”

  “It’s an act of something,” Sophie returned fiercely. “At least I’m doing something. Feeling something. I don’t care if it gets me in trouble. Right now I don’t care if it gets me killed.”

  “Sophie.”

  “I mean it.” Sophie turned to face her, a wild glitter in her eyes, her whole body seeming to vibrate with the force of her emotion. She looked strange and fierce and frighteningly beautiful. “Don’t you dare try to stop me.”

  “How could I?” Lily shook her head slowly. “But what if there’s an air raid? You’ll be caught out…”

  “Then I’ll go to one of the Tube station shelters.”

  “But Mother and Father will realize you’re not home then.”

  Sophie hesitated for a fraction of a second before she gave another shrug. “Then that’s what happens.”

  “They’ll be angry.”

  “What can they do? I’m not a child, and I won’t be treated like one.” Sophie tossed her head. “Anyway, there was already an air raid last night.”

  “You know that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I don’t care.” Despite her declarations that she was not a child, Sophie was starting to sound petulant.

  Lily sank onto her bed, knowing there was nothing she could do.

  “I just want to have fun, Lily,” Sophie insisted, her mood making one of its li
ghtning shifts as she reached out her hands to catch Lily’s own. “Is that so much to ask? Everything is so dreary, so dull. I just want to live a little.” She squeezed Lily’s hands, her eyes wide, her voice wheedling.

  “I know you do.” Lily tried to smile. Really, Sophie wasn’t getting up to much at all. It just felt like it, with the secrecy, the ferocity of her feeling, and even the dullness of their lives. “Be careful, will you?” she said as she gave her sister’s hands a squeeze back.

  “Of course I will.”

  Sophie slipped her hands from Lily’s and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. Lily strained her ears to hear the telltale creak on the stairs, but her sister was impressively quiet. Lily couldn’t even hear the front door open and shut, and she knew her parents, tucked in their beds, wouldn’t either. They wouldn’t dream of Sophie slipping out like this.

  With a sigh, Lily got into bed. Her worry for her sister was shadowed by something more revealing—a twinge of envy. Sophie had said she’d discover how brave she was one day, but it certainly hadn’t happened yet. Why couldn’t she be as daring as her sister? What if she’d sent a postcard to Matthew Lawson’s billet? Not that she knew where he was, but Sophie might. She could be the one meeting him at the pub, or going for a late-night walk in the Common. She could be having an adventure, learning to live a little, after all.

  But Lily hadn’t even thought of any of it. None of it had ever—not once—so much as crossed her mind, a delicious flicker of “what if”. It annoyed her that it hadn’t occurred to her, as much as that she hadn’t actually done it. Could she not even think of something daring to do?

  Even now that she had, Lily knew she wouldn’t be so bold. She hadn’t even asked Matthew to set a time when he’d said he hoped he saw her again, and now maybe she never would, despite what he’d suggested. Perhaps I shall see you again? Had he meant it, or had it just been a pleasantry, a way to end a conversation? She could have found out, asked him when he next had leave. She could have smiled and batted her eyes and given him a knowing look… or, heavens, just smiled. Perhaps that would have been enough.