The Bannister Girls (14 page)

‘You do agree with me in principle, then?' Ellen ignored the rest for the moment.

‘What I think has nothing to do with the wider implications. But since I know you'll never be satisfied with such an evasive answer, then yes, I agree with you. I think it's appalling that the poor devils have to be shipped off to a neutral country or sent to prison or risk being murdered in their own beds, but it's a risk they take. If we lived in a country at war, we'd make damn sure we got out of there pretty quickly, wouldn't we? Wouldn't
you
?'

Ellen was sullen. ‘I suppose so.'

Clemence was tired of all this discussion in which Fred seemed to be more in sympathy with Ellen than dictating to her.

‘The point is, Frederick, what's going to be done about it?' She spoke smartly.

Ellen gave her a glimmer of a smile. ‘I'm to be smacked on the hand like a naughty little girl, Mother, and made to promise never to do such a thing again. Is that it?'

‘No, it is not.' Fred's voice hardened. ‘You will find some sort of gainful employment, Ellen, to keep you out of mischief. I paid good money to educate you girls, and I expect you to do something useful with your lives. I shall see about finding you a position in some worthy organisation –'

Clemence hated this sordid mention of money. Education was their right, not their father's sacrifice.

‘Why not take her to Yorkshire with you, and set her up in
an office up there?' she said shortly, failing to notice how Fred blanched beneath his robust colouring. Having any of his girls in Yorkshire was the very last thing he wanted.

Ellen suddenly jumped to her feet, her own face blazing. She hadn't really considered her future at all, but now it was perfectly clear-cut.

‘None of you need worry in the least about finding me a position, not that I shall embarrass you again. Since you're so determined that I shall work for my living, you may as well know that I've already found employment.'

For a moment she almost enjoyed the little cries of consternation. Clemence's face was comical, clearly wondering what Ellen was getting into now. Louise's glance said much the same. Angel was merely anxious that Ellen shouldn't rush from one disaster to another, while Fred's eyes glinted.

‘Without my approval? What kind of employment, may I ask? If it's not respectable, I shall forbid it completely, Ellen.'

He felt a stab of guilt at his own pomposity. What right did he have to censure his strong-willed daughter, when he indulged in the most delightful clandestine relationship on every trip he made to Yorkshire? But he smothered the guilt and waited for Ellen's reply.

‘I assure you it's highly respectable, Daddy dear. I'm to take on the accounting and book-keeping for Mr Peter Chard.'

‘Who is this man, Ellen? I've never heard of him,' Clemence said at once, alarm and annoyance all over her face. ‘Where did you meet him?'

‘He's a farmer, Mother, and he lives quite near Meadowcroft. He's very nice – and before you ask, he's fairly young, but he can't go to war because he has a wounded leg.' Her voice grew mocking. ‘Oh – and I do believe he has all his own teeth and his own hair –'

‘That's enough, Ellen,' Fred said coldly. ‘I would like to
meet this Mr Chard before I give my approval. I can't allow my daughter to work unchaperoned without being assured that the man's not a rogue.'

‘Especially on a farm with all those uncouth animals,' Angel breathed the words to Ellen before she could stop herself, and saw her sister's mouth twitch.

‘Shall I ask him to tea on Sunday?' Ellen said. ‘I'm sure he'll wash his hands and wipe the farmyard muck off his boots if I ask him nicely.'

‘A very good idea. Yes, ask him to tea,' Fred said steadily. ‘And before then, try to prevent all that acid cutting your tongue, darling. It will rot if you don't.'

Ellen and Angel made their escape, knowing that Clemence would surely begin making objections to Peter Chard coming to tea. But if Fred had ordered it, then it would happen, and Angel wanted to know more about this farmer friend of Ellen's. In her room, she sprawled across the bed on her stomach, while Ellen flopped in the easy chair, exhausted by the unexpected scene, and still furious with Louise for splitting on her to Clemence. That was something she would have out with her older sister later.

‘
Well
?'

‘Well what?' Ellen said airily.

‘You know what! Who is this Peter Chard that you've never mentioned before? Is he one of your campaigners? Or is he your secret lover? Have you been having me on all this time, pretending you know nothing about anything?'

She was teasing, and then, when her sister didn't answer immediately, she saw to her surprise that Ellen's eyes were filling up.

‘No, he's not my secret lover. He's so nice I cringe at the very thought of Mother walking all over him at Sunday tea. I like him enormously, and I know he likes me. We're – the very best of platonic friends, and that's all.'

Angel realised that all the family fuss had undermined Ellen's usual brash self-confidence. She knew that feeling
only too well. She sat up and smiled encouragingly at her sister.

‘Well, I shall like him, anyway. If he's a friend of yours, I like him already.'

Ellen suddenly snapped at her.

‘That's the daftest thing I ever heard. How the hell do you know you'll like him when you've never met him?'

‘I was only trying to help. And you know you're not supposed to say hell.'

Ellen's mouth was mutinous. ‘Hell and damnation. Hell-fire and buckets of blood. Oh – rats and bats and creepy-crawlies –'

‘Ellen, stop it!' Angel burst out laughing. ‘Calm down a minute and tell me about Peter.'

‘Do you realise that's the first time anybody's used his Christian name?' Ellen said, still resentful. ‘Thank-you for that. At least it makes him sound like a real person instead of somebody who's out to seduce me. As a matter of fact, I don't think he even thinks of me as a woman. I'm just a good sort. It makes me sound as exciting as an old washcloth. I don't have your luck to meet a mysterious and dashing aviator and get swept off my feet in the secrecy of some little hotel!'

Angel knew that Ellen didn't mean to cheapen it all, but that was how it sounded. And it hadn't been cheap. It had been beautiful. It was just that after all this time it was becoming more dreamlike every day.

‘Are you sure you're not in love with him?' she said matter-of-factly to Ellen. She went to her dressing table to take the pins out of her luxuriant fair hair and brush it out over her shoulders, watching Ellen's reflected face. She couldn't tell if the flush the words produced was from anger or something else.

‘I'm perfectly sure that I'm not going in for all that stuff, especially in wartime. People get killed in wars, and the people left behind are those who suffer all the pain. I'm not
risking all that wasted emotion.'

Shocked, Angel twisted round on the dressing table stool, her eyes huge and dark.

‘Oh Ellen, that's a terrible thing to say!'

‘Well, it's the way I feel, and I don't want to talk about it any more. I'm going to bed.'

She departed in a huff, and Angel was left to ponder on the fact that Peter Chard wasn't going off to war anyway, so Ellen's peculiar reasoning didn't apply.

Or was it all just some strange kind of self-defence mechanism against the very idea of falling in love with someone who merely thought of her as a ‘good sort'? Whatever the reason, Angel couldn't wait to meet him on Sunday.

Before the great day, a packet of mail arrived at Meadowcroft from London. Jones, the retainer who stayed on with his wife to air and take care of the Hampstead house, had instructions to send any mail in one packet every week. Clemence always opened it ceremonially after breakfast, and she studied two items very carefully before deciding what do with them.

Fred was still at home for the weekend, but had already gone off early shooting rabbits, and she and the girls were now having breakfast together.

Clemence thought very deeply, weighing up several things in her mind. Angel had been remarkably quiet lately. She had caused no disruption in the house, her nice friend Margot was coming down shortly to brighten the household, and Angel had also shown remarkable fortitude in the several trips to Temple Meads station with her mother recently. She deserved a little treat.

‘These two are for you, Angel,' Clemence said quietly, handing over the two items.

Angel took them curiously, and then felt as though her heart would leap right out of her chest. One of them was a
letter in a very creased envelope. She recognised the handwriting on it immediately. The other was a postcard in sepia tint, showing a wan-faced young lady holding a single rose, with elaborately printed words alongside. ‘All My thoughts of Home Begin and End with You.' She turned it over quickly. Both communications had French stamps on them.

‘Will you excuse me please, Mother?' She choked out the words, hardly able to believe that Clemence had handed them over so uncomplainingly. Clemence nodded, sensing for the first time the depth of her youngest daughter's emotions.

Angel went into the garden, where the sun shone warmly in the late May morning. She walked away from the house to the small gazebo, where she could be alone with Jacques' words. She could hear his voice so clearly in her head as she read what he had written. The brief postcard first of all. Not many sentiments on it, where all could read them – and her mother had undoubtedly done so – but the words were still infinitely dear.

‘Just to tell you I am well, and that I think of you constantly. Jacques.'

No more than that, but she hugged it to her chest, remembering the richness of his voice, and the brush of his cheek against hers. She kept the letter a moment longer, savouring it, before tearing it open. It was dated a month ago.

‘My dearest love,' she read.

‘The war goes on, keeping us apart, and I have to keep reminding myself that we really met and loved, and shared our hearts. Perhaps only in wartime can a man express himself so emotionally, when all around me shells are bursting, and eternity seems never more than a heartbeat away. The countryside that was once so beautiful is desecrated and bereft, and I weep for it.

‘I do not mean to sadden you, my Angel. I write also with
hope and expectation, because I am to have a few days' leave in the last week of June, and I shall be in England.'

Angel realised anew that her heart was pounding.

‘I am desperate to see you. I have to report to my base near Calne in Wiltshire, where my aircraft is in need of repairs. Is it possible for you to get away and meet me without causing too much trouble? I know I ask too much, and yet I must ask it, for I cannot bear to think that we will never meet again.

‘Angel, my
chérie
, I shall stay at the Swan Inn on the outskirts of Calne from June 27th. Please come there if you can. My arms ache to hold you.'

Her hands were trembling as she held the thin pages of the letter and read the final sentences. Jacques didn't know that she was already away from London, near enough to Wiltshire to get there easily. And independent enough now to drive herself, which suddenly made all things possible. Her thoughts fizzed in her head, as though she were intoxicated with champagne.

From the direction of the house, she heard a voice calling her, and sobered immediately. By the time Ellen reached her, it was only her flushed face that gave her away, but Ellen knew her too well…

‘What's happened? Is it bad news? Is it your aviator?' She always said the word with regal importance.

Angel hesitated, then held out the hastily folded letter.

‘Yes, it's from Jacques. And no, it's not bad news, just the opposite. Read it, Ellen.'

‘But it's private!' She was well indoctrinated in the rules of etiquette, despite her controversial opinions.

‘I know, but I want you to read it. The way Jacques feels is the way I feel. His letter says everything – and I want you to understand. Please, Ellen.'

She looked away as her sister quickly read Jacques' words, then handed the letter back without comment. Her voice was thicker than usual when she finally spoke.

‘You'll go, of course.'

Angel looked at her with bright, luminous eyes. She gave her a quick embarrassed hug.

‘You
do
understand. I knew you would –'

Ellen spoke dryly now. ‘I'm not such a horse-box that I can't comprehend true love when I see it!'

‘Oh Ellen, I do love you!'

The other girl pulled a face.

‘I know you do, old thing, but save your emotions for your aviator, and for deciding how you're going to get to the Swan Inn without Mother's eagle eyes on you.'

It was enough to make both girls silent for a few minutes. And then…

‘
Margot
!' Angel said joyfully.

Ellen looked round, as though expecting Margot Lacey to materialise through the lattice work of the gazebo at any second.

‘Where?' she asked.

Angel began to laugh, as the hazy plan took shape.

‘Margot's coming to stay in a week or so. She doesn't know anything about Jacques yet, but she will soon. I know she has an aunt who lives in Wiltshire. She must tell Mother that she wants to visit her, and I shall naturally offer to drive her there and stay for a couple of nights.'

The blood seemed to flow faster in her veins, knowing that those few nights would be spent with Jacques. Shivers of delight, of apprehension, of joy, mingled together in her mind as she saw the doubt on Ellen's face.

‘It sounds terribly risky. You haven't thought it all out. Mother will expect a letter from this aunt of Margot's, and even then, she may well forbid you to go.'