Down an English Lane (30 page)

‘When is it anything other than a flying visit with you?’ replied Rebecca in answer to her son’s announcement that he and Christine would not be able to stay very long. They had arrived early on the Saturday evening and were now enjoying the coffee and sandwiches that Rebecca had prepared in readiness for them; but they would have to leave on Sunday evening as Bruce was due back at camp on the Monday morning.

‘At least we are not dependent on the trains any more, Mother,’ he told her, ‘now that we have the car. And Christine is learning to drive as well,’ he added, smiling proudly at his wife.

‘That’s nice, dear,’ said Rebecca, turning to look at her, but it sounded to Christine as though the words were choking her. It was she, Christine, who was being blamed for their short stay, she was sure.

‘So – how are you settling down in your married quarters then?’ Archie asked her. She always found him to be the much more friendly of the two. ‘Don’t you find it rather lonely with Bruce away a lot of the time? I believe it’s a rather isolated spot, from what Bruce has told us.’

‘That’s why I’m learning to drive, Archie,’ she replied. He had insisted she should call him by his first name and she did so quite easily; everyone called him Archie. But Rebecca had not suggested she should make free with her name, and Christine could not imagine ever doing so. ‘I have felt rather cut off from civilisation, to be quite honest,
although I get on reasonably well with some of the other wives.’ In truth, she did not do so, finding them insular and unable to talk about anything but the airforce and their precious husbands.

‘Actually, we’re thinking of moving soon, aren’t we, darling?’ She smiled at Bruce. ‘There’s a house for sale in the nearby village, and we’ve got our eye on it, haven’t we, Bruce?’ Her husband frowned at her a little, but he nodded his agreement.

‘Yes, that’s right…’ Perhaps he had thought he should be the one to tell them, but she was only trying to be friendly and chatty, the way she thought he wanted her to be.

‘It’s a lovely honey-coloured limestone house,’ she went on. ‘They all are, of course, in the villages around Lincoln. It’s very pretty…’ But apart from the picturesque villages she found the landscape quite flat and featureless and, to her surprise, she had found herself missing the hills and vales of her native Yorkshire. She had not been aware of it quite so much whilst she had been in the WAAF, but now she had much more time on her hands. But it was the flatness of the land that made it ideal territory for airfields, and the one in particular where she had met Bruce.

‘Yes, it’s a lovely part of the country,’ agreed Bruce. ‘Very different from Yorkshire, though, but I’ve got used to it now. You must come and stay with us, Mother – both of you, of course – when we are settled in our new home. I intend to
make an offer for it next week.’

‘Yes…thank you, we will look forward to that,’ said his mother. She did not sound too enthusiastic, although she smiled fondly at her son. Christine was not granted the same loving glance and smile.

Archie, however, winked at Christine as he said, ‘Aye, we’d like that, Becky and me. Let us know when you’ve got settled in your new place and we’ll come and see you afore long. We’ve got to keep in touch, that’s the main thing. Families have to stick together.’

Christine was gratified by his kind words. If it had not been for Archie with his ready chat and sense of humour, the day they had spent at Tremaine House would have seemed endless.

She waved cheerily to the pair of them, standing in the doorway, as Bruce started up the car and drove away early on the Sunday evening. She even blew a kiss to Archie, whom she had decided she liked very much.

‘There, that wasn’t too bad, was it?’ said Bruce as they drove along the lane which led to the High Street. ‘My father seems to have taken quite a liking to you.’

‘And I like him as well,’ replied Christine. ‘He’s a good sort; a bit set in his ways, mind you, but that’s what comes of living in Middlebeck. I don’t suppose he’s ever travelled very far from here, has he?’

‘Only during the war,’ said Bruce, ‘the first one, I mean. He served at the Front then as a first lieutenant, and fortunately came back more or less
unscathed. He was so relieved to be safely back home again that he has never had any desire to wander far afield since then. But don’t underestimate him; he’s not the stick-in-the-mud that you seem to imagine.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Christine. ‘I thought he was all for selling the Nixons’ farm and becoming a gentleman of leisure.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ replied Bruce. ‘The sale of the farm is going through, so he told me, but he certainly doesn’t intend to sit around on his backside…er, excuse me, darling,’ he laughed. ‘No; he was telling me on the QT that he has become very interested in politics. In fact – and there is only my mother who has been told about this so far – he has been invited to stand as a candidate at the next election.’

‘General Election, do you mean? To be an MP? But there has only just been an election, last year.’

‘They make plans well in advance though.’

‘Well, fancy that! You do surprise me. But it’s a safe Tory seat, isn’t it, round here? They’ve already got a Conservative MP, so they won’t need another one, unless the present one is thinking of retiring.’

‘Oh no, no… My father would be standing against him, for the other side.’

‘What? You mean… Labour?’

Bruce laughed. ‘Yes; don’t sound so amazed, darling. My old man is something of a Radical. I’ve known that for quite a while.’

‘But I thought…with him being the squire and all that…’

‘A title he has never really liked. He has never believed in inherited privilege. I know he sent me to boarding school, and my sisters as well; but he’s always done everything he could for his workers.’

‘Well, well, well; curiouser and curiouser,’ said Christine. ‘And what does your mother think about it?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say, and I haven’t asked her. She will go along with him though, I’m sure, as a good and loyal wife. Anyway, it’s all a long way in the future.’

Christine nodded. ‘Yes, I expect she will… We didn’t get a telling-off about the wedding, did we? I thought she might have had quite a lot to say.’

‘So did I, but probably my father told her to leave well alone.’

‘I saw her looking at me, though; you know, sort of…curiously. She’s probably still wondering if I’m pregnant.’

‘Well, you’re not, are you? Not any more…’

‘No… I’m not. But we have the rest of our lives, darling.’

‘Yes, as you say; the rest of our lives…’ he repeated thoughtfully. He took his hand off the steering wheel to squeeze her hand briefly, then he fixed his eyes on the road ahead, which led into the valley and then out of Middlebeck.

Chapter Seventeen

T
he wedding of Lily Jackson and Arthur Rawcliffe, which took place on the first Saturday in March, was a quietly joyful occasion. The Reverend Luke Fairchild, to their surprise, had offered to marry them at St Bartholomew’s church. Second marriages – of divorcees – were very rarely performed in the Church of England, but occasionally, in special circumstances, they could be allowed to take place at the discretion of the parish priest and his bishop. Luke had considered this to be a very special circumstance, Lily being the totally innocent party in what had been a disastrous marriage.

At Lily’s request, though, it was a very simple service, without a choir or a peal of bells, and with two of her family’s favourite hymns rather than the traditional ‘O Perfect Love’. ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ was not really a wedding hymn, and was
not one of Lily’s particular favourites, but as Joanie and Jimmy had suggested it she had decided to humour them. This was to be a real family occasion. The two children already looked upon Arthur as a favourite uncle and she knew he would be a loving stepfather to them, giving them the care and affection that their real father had never done, whilst Maisie, who said very little, seemed happy for her mother and had gone along agreeably with all the wedding plans, even to wearing the pink dress she had shunned since the night of the concert. This had been shortened, and the cut off material fashioned into a bolero to wear over her bare shoulders. She was the only attendant to her mother, who was elegant in a cream-coloured knee-length dress of silken crepe and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The small posy of flowers which Lily carried matched exactly the colour of her daughter’s dress.

Maisie joined in with the final hymn, ‘Lead us Heavenly Father, Lead us’, feeling a tear come into her eye as they sang the final words,

and then listened to Luke giving the blessing. Her mother deserved some peace now, and happiness, with Arthur after all she had endured in the past. As for her, Maisie, she was surprised that she was
wearing the once hated pink dress without it evoking unpleasant memories. She had heard nothing more of Bruce since the startling news of his marriage and, because she knew he must, he had faded to the far recesses of her mind.

Although it had been a quiet, rather understated, sort of ceremony, no one had been able to stop the very many folk of Middlebeck from attending. They half-filled the church, then stood on the forecourt outside, showering the couple with confetti, and shaking their hands and wishing them well.

The wedding meal was just a simple affair at the couple’s home, prepared beforehand by Lily herself and her soon to be sister-in-law, Flo, with only a few friends and family members attending. The renovations to the upstairs rooms of the draper’s shop and the bakery had been completed in good time for the wedding, and Lily was thrilled with her more spacious accommodation and especially with her modern kitchen.

Maisie had been offered a newly decorated bedroom on the lower floor, but she still preferred her attic room with its superb view over the rooftops of Middlebeck and across the valley to the distant hills. After the excitement of the wedding – for although it had been only a quiet affair the preparations had engendered a good deal of enthusiasm and pleasurable anticipation amongst
all the family members – she felt that life in general seemed to have fallen flat. Everyone around her appeared so contented and sure of themselves and of what they were doing.

Her mother was very happy, singing and humming as she went about her work, and, as was only to be expected, making a good deal of fuss of her new husband. Maisie felt a little bit excluded, although she knew that that was not Lily’s intention. The two of them though, mother and daughter, had grown very close since Lily had brought the family back together, and now Maisie was having to share her mother. Joanie and Jimmy were delighted with their new bedrooms – one each, instead of sharing – and neither of them seemed to have a care in the world, which was as it should be for eight- and nine-year-olds.

As for her two best friends, Audrey and Doris, their future lives appeared to be clear-cut, already mapped out for them. Audrey was still determined on her career as an Infant teacher and was looking forward with great enthusiasm to going to college, even though that was two years hence. And in the meantime she had her boyfriend, Brian. Whether he would still be around in two years’ time remained to be seen, but it didn’t seem to worry her.

As for Doris, who was now turned sixteen, as was Audrey, she and the Polish farm worker, Ivan, were most definitely ‘courting’, which was what the older folk called going out together. Maisie guessed
that they would be married in a year or two, possibly still living at the Nixons’ farm, or maybe even with a farm of their own, and then a couple of children as well…

But as for Maisie, she found herself viewing the years that lay ahead with uncertainty, as she wondered what the future might hold for her, not with any sense of dread but more of bewilderment. She had never had any wish to go to college or university, although she knew she was capable of doing so. Her teachers at school were taking it for granted that she would, but she certainly did not want to be a teacher…or a doctor, or solicitor, or barrister, professions which were being undertaken more and more by women. She did not want to sit at a typewriter all day, or work in an office or a shop. She enjoyed her little job in her mother’s shop and in the bakery next door from time to time, but those were only temporary occupations. At the moment there was nothing that appealed to her, but she did not like admitting to this if anyone asked her, as they so often did, ‘What are you going to do when you leave school, Maisie?’ And even when she had been so madly in love with Bruce, her thoughts had never really gone so far as to contemplate marriage.

Nor did she think about that possibility with Ted Nixon. Things had cooled off between them, although she was still ‘going out’ with him, as far as she and everyone else were concerned. She had
seen, though, what might lie ahead if she had allowed the friendship to develop, as it seemed to have been doing at Christmastime. Ted would become more and more serious about her, they would ‘go further’, and she might – God forbid! – even become pregnant, or else he would want an engagement or an early marriage. That was what often happened to couples in a little town like Middlebeck. But such things were not for Maisie, at least not for a very long time.

And so she had told Ted that she was studying very hard – which was true – and could not see him quite so frequently; and Ted, surprisingly, had accepted what she had said without arguing.

‘Well, thank goodness that lot’s over!’ said Audrey to Maisie, one afternoon towards the end of June. It was the final day of their School Certificate exams and they had just completed their eight subjects with the History paper that afternoon. They were travelling home together on the bus as Brian, Audrey’s boyfriend with whom she sometimes cycled home, was away on a field trip with other members of the upper sixth, after completing their Higher School Certificate exams. ‘I can’t believe it’s come to an end, can you? Freedom at last, glorious freedom… What did you think of the History paper then? I expect you thought it was a doddle, didn’t you?’

‘No, did I heck as like!’ retorted Maisie, although History, in fact, was one of her favourite subjects. ‘I haven’t thought that about any of the papers. It all depends on whether you have swotted up the right subjects, doesn’t it? I’m glad there was a question about the French Revolution – Miss Green said there most likely would be, didn’t she? – because I felt I knew that inside out. Especially with us having to read
A Tale of Two Cities
for the English Lit course.’

‘Yes, I chose that one as well,’ replied Audrey. ‘The French Revolution; the Unification of Austria; and the policies of Pitt the Younger… How boring it is, though. How can that be of any relevance to us, all those ancient prime ministers?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Clement Attlee’ll be history in a hundred years’ time, won’t he? Some poor fifth formers’ll be learning all about him and Winston Churchill…’

‘Oh give over, Maisie! That is so-oo depressing… Let’s think about something nice. Actually, we’ve got a surprise for you, Mum and Dad and me; that’s why Mum’s asked you to come to tea today.’

‘Have you?’ Maisie turned to her eagerly. ‘That sounds exciting. What is it?’

‘It will be exciting,’ said Audrey mysteriously, ‘but I’ll let Mum tell you about it; it was her idea.’

The surprise turned out to be a holiday in London for all the Fairchild family – Luke and Patience, Audrey and Timothy, and little Johnny who would be five in September – and on which Maisie was invited to accompany them. The very idea of leaving Maisie out of such an exciting event would have been unthinkable, Patience told her.

Maisie was so thrilled when she heard the news that she was rendered speechless for at least a minute, especially as Luke had added that he would be footing the bill for all of them, including Maisie, and that they would be staying at a big hotel, the Regent Palace, which was situated in the very centre of London, right next to Piccadilly Circus.

‘An’ we’re going to see the soldiers, an’ the horses, an’ the big palace where the King lives, aren’t we, Daddy?’ said Johnny, jumping up and down on his seat with excitement.

‘And Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral,’ Timothy informed her, rather more studiously. ‘And Dad says we’ll be able to travel on the Tube, Maisie. There are trains, you see, that run under the ground, even under the river, and it’s called the Underground, but most people refer to it as the Tube.’

‘That’s right, Tim,’ said Luke, smiling a little at the precise way in which the boy expressed himself, but feeling very proud of his adopted son and the way he was shaping up towards manhood; he was
thirteen now and showed signs of early maturity and academic prowess. ‘You’ve been reading up all about London, haven’t you? And we shall expect you to be our own personal guide. If we rely on your mum and me we are quite likely to get lost.’