Winter Roses (22 page)

‘He’ll be a good flyer. I remember thinking that when I took him up at Dover.’

Caroline grimaced. ‘Tell that to my parents. They’re quite convinced he’ll be shot down the first time he goes up.’

He grinned. ‘I’m not dead yet.’

She realised with horror what she’d unthinkingly said:
‘I’m so sorry, Tim. It was just a figure of speech.’

‘It’s a fact, unfortunately.’

‘I keep pointing out to them you’re safe and you’ve been in the force since before the war.’

‘Yes, but I’m not on the western front. Yet.’

‘Do you think you’ll have to go?’

‘We’re caught both ways. If the Zeps and LVGs start their fun and games again soon, we’ll be needed here, and since they all seem to like Dover, there’ll be plenty of action. If not, we’ll be sent to the front. Dover’s enough of a front for me. I’m no hero.’

‘When will they come again, do you think?’ Caroline shivered. In the bad winter weather, they had at least been spared the horrors of the Zeppelins, although a few nights ago an aircraft had attacked shipping off the coast of Deal.

‘Soon,’ Tim replied soberly. ‘Everything tends to start in March. Pray God, for the last time.’

‘George will have his “wings” by then.’

‘Yes. Ah well, gather ye rosebuds while ye may, is my motto,’ Tim replied cheerfully. ‘Except that Philip’s pinched the girl I fancied.’

‘There’s always me,’ Caroline laughed.

‘So there is,’ Tim said politely. ‘I’ll ask for your hand in twenty years, if that’s acceptable.’

It was a joke, but she could have done without it. Caroline decided she’d retreat to the kitchen for ten minutes. Perhaps Mrs Dibble’s familiar presence would cheer her up. When she got there, however, Mrs Dibble was absent, and Percy was humming an old music-hall song. Caroline identified it with little difficulty:

‘Why am I always the bridesmaid, never the blushing bride …?’

‘Oh,
thank
you,’ she muttered, retreating hastily.

Margaret placed the warm scones carefully above the chafing dishes in the dining room, and was so intent on her work it wasn’t till she was about to leave that she realised she was not alone. Lady Buckford was seated at the table, whether waiting for scones or escaping the wedding party was not clear.

‘Anything wrong, your ladyship?’ Margaret managed to sound polite.

‘I wished to see you, Mrs Dibble.’

Margaret prepared for battle, hackles rising all over her.

‘I’ve heard from the Board of Agriculture,’ Lady Buckford continued. ‘They want the courses to begin on Monday 26th March and they will be held in the Great Hall opposite, so I gather, the railway station. You can discuss with them the timing of the lectures, publicity, and everything else involved.’

Margaret thought she’d heard wrong. ‘Me, madam? You mean Miss Lewis.’

‘I mean you, Mrs Dibble. On further reflection I decided I could not spare Miss Lewis and that, in any case, you were the more suitable candidate. One must consider the war effort, before all else. I informed the Board of Agriculture of my decision.’

Margaret felt dizzy, a rush of blood to the head, her mother would have diagnosed. ‘Very well, your ladyship.’ Her voice came out deadpan, but inside her there was a
war dance of triumph, churning her up. ‘Thank you, your ladyship.’

‘Please do not thank me, Mrs Dibble. The subject is now, in that distressing modern slang,
na
-
poo’d
.’

‘Thank you, your ladyship,’ Margaret repeated clearly and loudly. She was in such a daze she almost forgot what she’d been meaning to say to Miss Caroline.

On her way back from the kitchen after her fruitless attempt at escape, Caroline met Mrs Dibble, who stopped her in a very determined manner. ‘I’ve been meaning to say, but it’s not my place, Miss Caroline.’

Muddled, Caroline asked, ‘What isn’t?’ Whatever it was she was delighted. ‘I’ll come into the kitchen and you can tell me.’

‘Speaking this way,’ Mrs Dibble explained, once there. ‘I’m worried about Mrs Isabel.’

‘
Isabel?
I thought she was nicely settled at the cinema.’ On the other hand it suddenly struck her that Isabel had been rather quiet this weekend, and far from her usual bouncy self. ‘I expect she’s worried about Mr Robert, Mrs Dibble. He’ll be going overseas very soon.’

‘It’s my belief,’ announced Mrs Dibble cryptically, ‘that’s only part of it. Mind you, it’s not my place.’ And she bustled back out of the kitchen with a plate of vegetable patties and the air of a job well done.

Highly puzzled, Caroline watched Isabel carefully when she rejoined the party. She had to admit that like everyone in the family, she had been so relieved that Isabel had found something to occupy herself, that she had all but
dismissed her from her mind. Mrs Dibble was right. There
was
something odd: Isabel was helping hand round plates. The old Isabel would have sat down, expecting it all to be brought to her. No time like the present. As she could speak to her on her own, she would get to the bottom of it.

‘You make rather a good waitress.’

She’d put her foot in it, Caroline realised when Isabel flared up immediately.

‘That’s you all over, Caroline. You imagine you’re the only one of us who can manage to lift a finger.’

‘No, I – Isabel, what
is
wrong? Are you worried about Robert?’

Isabel dropped her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she maintained defiantly. ‘He’s getting near the end of his balloon training at Roehampton and that means he’ll be sent overseas for observation duties over the western front. He’ll be up in one of those terribly dangerous Dragon things.’

‘Drachen,’ Caroline corrected.

‘Oh yes, you know all about the war too, don’t you? Well, let me tell you—’

‘Isabel!’ Caroline interrupted, pained, and Isabel apologised after a fashion.

‘Anyway, he’ll be floating over the front, it’s ten times more dangerous than George going up in an aeroplane. Mother and Father are perpetually worried about him, but no one worries about Robert other than me.’

‘Oh Isabel.’ Caroline put her arm round her. ‘I’ve been very blind. I’m so sorry.’

‘I feel completely on my own here,’ Isabel went on. ‘I don’t even feel the Rectory’s home any more, all Mother
and Father can do is talk about how Felicia, George, Phoebe and you have gone away.’

‘But that means they value you even more.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Isabel replied quietly. ‘But I’m going to show them they’re wrong.’

‘You’re doing splendidly at the cinema – didn’t I see you’d got
The Light That Failed
and
Captain Scott of the Antarctic
in the programme?
And
that film on the
Ark Royal
so that Mrs Grendel could see the ship her son’s on. That was kind of you.’

‘Yes, but that’s work. It’s here I want to be loved.’

Isabel glared at her, and the contrast of her expression with her sentiments made it hard not to giggle. Somehow Caroline managed it, for Isabel was Isabel, and always would be, bless her. Daniel then came up to talk to her sister, and, greatly relieved since Isabel had immediately cheered up, Caroline slipped away. It wasn’t for some time that she herself got a chance to talk to him, and then only because he sought her out. An odd kind of loyalty to Luke had made the idea of chatting on her old familiar terms with Daniel awkward to contemplate.

‘How did Philip manage to slip through your clutches?’ was Daniel’s opening gambit, which promptly restored her to her old terms with him.

‘He had a very narrow escape,’ she agreed. ‘I was proposing to gobble him up next Christmas. How’s the job going, Daniel?’

‘That’s what I came to tell you. I suppose we can’t very well retire up to the priest-hole – it might be misconstrued. But I can talk to you, the only one save Father, seeing we’re
all in the same business. Have you heard the news from our department?’

‘No. Do tell. Let’s go into the morning room. We’ll be on our own there.’

He led the way, and immediately the door was closed, burst out: ‘We’ve had a coup at last, and it looks as if it may bring the USA into the war. Have you heard of a fellow called Zimmermann?’

‘Of course. He’s the German Foreign Minister.’

‘He was unwise enough to suggest in a coded telegram to their ambassador in Mexico that if Mexico threw in its lot with Germany, and the new unrestricted submarine “sink everything” policy brought America into the war, Germany would give it a nice blank cheque to annex Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.’

‘What? But that’s—’

‘Rash to say the least. I thought you might have heard about it, since it was your lot got the code for us.’

‘What? I had no idea.’ So that was what the flap she had sensed in the New Year had been about.

‘It was the French and Belgian sections, actually. They set up a scheme to pinch the German diplomatic code from the rue de la Loi in Brussels. It’s worked, and when we sent a decrypt through to the US government it had a fairly explosive effect. That, coupled with the Kaiser’s brilliant idea “let’s sink everything” including any US cargo ships, plus another decrypt by us of a telegram from Bernsdorff, asking Berlin for cash to bribe some members of Congress, has probably silenced the “Keep America Neutral” faction over there. It can’t
be long now, they’ve broken off diplomatic relations.’

‘Daniel, that’s a wonderful achievement.’

‘Pretty good, wasn’t it?’ Daniel looked relaxed, and proud. ‘I’m going out to GHQ France next week,’ he continued. ‘Not quite the great travel I intended, but something at any rate. Maybe I’ll try for Mesopotamia next.’

‘Will you see Felicia?’ Caroline just couldn’t keep the question back.

‘No, Madam Interrogator, I shall not.’

‘“Shall” sounds as though it’s been a hard decision.’

‘You wouldn’t expect it to be easy, would you?’

‘I don’t know, Daniel. I don’t know what’s wrong between you. All I know is that I’m sure Felicia still loves you, and yet you’re letting Luke push in front of you.’

‘He’s a good bloke,’ Daniel began, edging towards the door.

‘So are you.’

‘You mean well, Caroline,’ he replied lightly, ‘but sometimes you are as dim as darling Isabel. Now, shall we go to toast the happy couple?’

She had asked for the rebuff she received, but she still smarted at it. It was all such a waste. With war raging on, people should take happiness when it was offered. ‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup …’ The quotation from
Omar Khayyám
reminded her of Yves, and as though she had yelped aloud with pain, Daniel asked casually as he limped across the hall: ‘Seen any more of that Belgian fellow, Henri’s friend?’

‘No. Not recently.’

‘He came in to see the pater while I was with him a week or two ago. Nice chap, if a little poker-faced.’

Yves had been in London, not La Panne, and he couldn’t even be bothered to come down to Folkestone to see her.

Folkestone seemed bleaker than ever as Caroline arrived at the town railway station, looked round in vain for a cab, decided the chances of a bus at this time on a Sunday night were non-existent, picked up her suitcase and began to walk back home, wishing she had timed her journey earlier to arrive in the daylight. As it was, she had to grope her way through complete darkness, and the thought of her landlady’s supper awaiting her compared with the wonders Mrs Dibble produced on a wartime diet depressed her even further. She considered going to one of the Belgian clubs, but couldn’t face it. Suppose Yves were there? The embarrassment and hurt would be terrible. She would have to put up with her fellow lodgers and be jovial at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. It was almost worth going to bed hungry. As she replaced her key in her handbag in the hallway, she could hear the usual crowd gathering in the small parlour. She was back. There was someone else too – a guest was sometimes permitted under very special circumstances. Then … who
was
that? Someone in a uniform—

Surely it couldn’t be. It
was
.

‘Phoebe!’ she cried in delight, dropping her suitcase and rushing in to shock her fellow lodgers with a display of sisterly emotion as she threw her arms round her. ‘Oh, if only you knew how glad I am to see you. And uniform too. How posh.’

‘That’s good,’ Phoebe laughed. ‘I’m here for a month or so to drill.’

‘Drill? Where? What with? Where are you staying?’

‘Nothing but the best. They’ve cleared the Hotel Metropole for us. We’re an early draft for the new Women’s Army.’

Talk about peas rattling round in a pod. That was the Rectory nowadays. Margaret Dibble put aside two of the knives for Percy to tighten up the handles. It was that Myrtle’s fault. She would keep leaving them soaking in hot water, and goodness knows whether Mabel Thorn still stocked resin and sulphur in the ironmongers to repair them with. Mrs T had let the shop slide what with both Jamie and Len away in the forces, although Len wouldn’t be marching home with a medal, Margaret was quite sure about that. You couldn’t afford to let things slide, she decided, or you’d find yourself on so greasy a slope you’d never get up it again. There was nothing like cooking for taking your mind off things. The best physicians were Dr Diet, Dr Quiet and Dr Merryman. She couldn’t do much about the last, with Mr George away, and Dr Quiet was here unbidden, but she could cosset Dr Diet.

Lady Gwendolen, the Rector’s sister-in-law, had come up for a visit from Wiltshire, where she had moved to escape the Dover bombs, but no sooner had she arrived in Sussex than the Germans started their antics again. It wasn’t a Zep, it was a floatplane but the bombs it dropped on Broadstairs must have felt the same. Then on 16th March, the Zeps had another go at Dover and Ashford, though this time they were driven off. That had decided it. Lady Gwendolen had scuttled back to Wiltshire.

Here in the Rectory life went on, Zeps or no Zeps, but it wasn’t the same. Nor was Ashden, with those soldiers at The Towers. They were all officers, but that didn’t stop them eyeing up the village girls. Not that some of them needed eyeing up; they stood around on Bankside in their Sunday best, waiting for them to come strolling down Station Road, and Ruth Horner had given up flashing her torch at the back row of the picture palace. The village lads when home on leave were more careful, being known here, but those Towers lot were out for a lark.

‘Don’t tell Father,’ Mrs Isabel had said, alarmed, when Margaret mentioned it.

She wouldn’t. Poor Rector had enough on his mind, and the Rectory was a gloomier place this New Year with Miss Phoebe and Master George gone, and probably both going overseas. She didn’t know whether she wanted it to be all quiet out there on the front, so Fred and Joe would keep safe, or whether she wanted another offensive to cut this war short and drive the Germans back to Germany. Ah well, it wasn’t her decision, thanks be.

She had to laugh as she thought of what Fred had said
when he came home on leave just before he went overseas; there wasn’t much to laugh about, and so she had told Percy afterwards to give him a good chuckle. ‘Drive the Germans back?’ Fred had repeated, puzzled. ‘Why don’t we make ’em walk?’

She hadn’t heard a word from or about him, save what Joe had told her. Of course he couldn’t write much more than his name, but you’d think
someone
would have dropped a line. Rector had said at least that was good news; if he was ill or wounded, she would have heard. So there it was: her two sons over there and Master George, Miss Felicia and soon Miss Phoebe. If it wasn’t for Lizzie and the baby she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She hardly ever saw Muriel for now she too was busy working, taking in clothes for mending; once a month she’d bring the children over. Lizzie was turning out grand, though, and they were getting on ever so well. Not that she approved of the way she was bringing that baby up, off the breast already, but she managed to button her mouth up most of the time.

Two days later the Rectory had another visitor. Master George came home unexpectedly, full of the joys of spring – if there were any joys this cold spring; he was going overseas; he’d got his wings.

‘I’m flying off, Mrs D,’ he’d shouted, seeing her in the garden. ‘I’m an angel.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ she retorted.

All that business in January over Miss Burrows seemed to have been forgotten, and the Rector and Mrs Lilley were overjoyed to see him. She cooked his favourite rabbit
fricassee, for all they were nearly out of onions and eggs were like gold dust.

The next morning he swept into the kitchen, growling, arms outstretched, dipping and rising. ‘Watch me, Mrs Dibble. I’m an SE5. Look out, von Richthofen, here I come.’

She’d laughed. It was just like when he was a child, and he wasn’t much more in fact. Eighteen wasn’t grown-up to her mind, though plenty younger were at the front. The papers were full of the marvellous things these aeroplanes could do nowadays, but she couldn’t help noticing there were a lot of RFC officers in the Roll of Honour.

‘I’m going to 56 Squadron, Mrs Dibble, what do you think of that? Guess who’s in it – Alfred Ball.’

‘Who?’

‘You must have read about him. He’s shot down at least thirty German planes to that von Richthofen’s twenty; he’s got
three
DSOs and an MC. He’s commander of 56’s A Flight. I hope he takes me. I’m joining them next week, and the squadron’s due to fly out to France in April. I hope it’s not all over by then. That’s
weeks
away.’

He zoomed round the kitchen again, managing to sweep the carrots and potatoes off the table in the process.

‘Just you take care of yourself, Master George,’ Margaret said sharply as he scrabbled to pick them up again. ‘None of your pranks up in the air – you’re there to keep the Germans away, not show off. And you mind you find all those spuds – there’s a shortage, you know.’

‘Yes, Mrs Dibble.’

‘Will you be anywhere near Fred? My Joe said he was on the Somme, and I can’t help being worried.’ This was
understating the case. She hadn’t slept a wink the night after she read that.

‘There’s no shortage of spuds out there, Mrs D. He’ll still be busy on those, don’t you worry. Someone has to peel them.’

‘Yes.’ She wasn’t convinced. Weren’t they recruiting girls like Miss Phoebe now for canteen work?

Master George stayed two days and then went back to join his new squadron. Everything became quiet again in the Rectory, and she tried to be extra cheerful herself for Mrs Lilley’s sake.

‘I’ve got a nice piece of lamb for family dinner, Mrs Lilley. Wally Bertram put it aside specially,’ she announced when she went into the morning room for her daily ‘orders’. Not that she was given (or accepted) orders nowadays; it was more a discussion of what was available.

‘Now it’s just the three of us again, and Lady Buckford, of course,’ Mrs Lilley said practically, ‘there’s little point in your cooking two separate meals, one for us and one for yourselves. It’s much more economical of time and food to cook just the one dish. And just the two courses.’

‘But what about the Rector’s cheese?’ Margaret was appalled. ‘He can’t do without that.’

Mrs Lilley didn’t reply. She had been opening her post, was staring at one letter, something official, it looked like.

‘It’s this new Women’s Land Army they’re recruiting for. They want the WWAC to establish hostels and training facilities in East Grinstead. Oh, I wish Caroline were here. And they want to know how many we can absorb.’

‘Here in the Rectory, madam?’ Margaret tried not to
sound horrified. She thought of the war effort; then she thought of her Tunbridge Wells training school beginning in a few days, and kept her fingers crossed the answer was no. It wouldn’t do to put such an unchristian thought up to the Lord.

‘No, but I have a feeling,’ Mrs Lilley said gloomily, ‘that the farmers aren’t going to like this. They’ve accepted the idea of the village women being paid for helping out, but female foreigners coming in, as they’ll call them, could be a different matter.’

‘What about soldiers?’

‘The new Food Production Department at the Board of Agriculture is in charge of organising their labour. The lack of skilled ploughmen amongst them is the problem, so they’re opening ploughing schools for them, but by the time they’re trained it will be too late for us. We could apply for prisoners of war, of course, but—’

‘Germans? Working on
our
food?’ Margaret was outraged. Yorkshire was one thing, but not Germans. They might poison the livestock or crops.

‘It works very well, I understand,’ Mrs Lilley said placatingly. ‘In fact, um … um – that’s to say, our area has applied for a batch. If we’re accepted, we get seventy-five prisoners and about half that number of guards for them.’

‘We’re billeting them all in the Rectory, are we?’ Margaret asked grimly.

‘There’d be a specially built camp in the forest.’

‘Oh, the
forest
.’ There were enough soldiers already in Ashden Forest to make sure none of the Germans was set loose on decent village girls.

‘That will take some time to set up, so it’s a question of how many Land Army girls we need in the meantime.’

‘And where will they be living?’

‘We must take a couple. I’ll have to speak to my husband.’

‘What about The Towers, Mrs Lilley?’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘The Army has only just moved in. They’ll need to get the land cultivated, but they won’t want a group of young women billeted with them. Or rather,’ she corrected herself, ‘they may
want
them, but it isn’t perhaps advisable.’

‘I’ll ask my Lizzie if she’s any ideas.’

Tunbridge Wells was creeping up in Margaret’s list of worries. The first lecture was next Monday, and after all the fuss she couldn’t confess that she wanted to back out. She’d been over to the Great Hall which was nice and handy for the railway station, but it hadn’t been as straightforward as she had expected. She had to make decisions on equipment, stores and special ingredients. It wasn’t going to be a question of popping down to Mrs Lettice’s provisions shop, but of ordering from the unknown. Worst of all, they’d informed her at the hall they’d installed one of those newfangled electric stoves. They looked like gas, and she didn’t like to admit she’d never used an electric one, so she nodded wisely instead. Then she’d tackled the shops. John Brown’s bakeries were very helpful, and so was the dear old Maypole. The butcher was not.

‘Of course,’ she’d said to him, ‘I do understand. Mind you, it’s a pity. I was going to put on the posters that
you supplied the food, and ask you to do a talk on meat shortages. ‘I’ll ask that new provisions store with the good butchery department in Mount Pleasant. Sainsbury’s, it’s called.’

The butcher had rapidly changed his mind, but she went to Sainsbury’s anyway. Butchers were only men, and men were like children. You had to let them know where authority lay.

On Monday morning Percy took her up to the station in Dr Marden’s trap. She clutched her small bag containing her favourite kitchen knife and one or two other things she couldn’t do without, and hummed fiercely to tell the Lord He was her shepherd. Lady Buckford, to her surprise, had said she couldn’t manage the journey, and so Lord Banning was coming to introduce the talk. What would a man know about housekeeping? It would get her off to a good start, however. She had wondered, ever since that Christmas they’d spent here together, if Miss Tilly – when she came home – would marry him. He needed a good woman about the house, though she doubted whether Miss Tilly quite fitted this description. She had been more interested in hunger strikes than in organising good meals for a man. Still, now that women over thirty looked likely to get the vote, there would be no more of this suffragette nonsense.

Women over thirty … for the first time Margaret realised this included her.
She
would have the vote. So would Percy for the first time, since he hadn’t been able to have his say in the country’s running before, not being a houseowner. She began to feel proud. Miss Tilly had been
fighting for
her
, and women who had the vote need not be scared about cooking demonstrations in Tunbridge Wells.

Her voice was never going to carry. Her tiny squawk in this vast hall? Now it was filled with 700 expectant faces, its enormous size terrified her.

‘I can personally vouch,’ she heard Lord Banning concluding, ‘for the delicious results of anything cooked by Mrs Dibble’s hands – or, rather, her cooker.’

She’d been eyeing this brightly polished stove, trying to get its measure. A Tricity it was called, with a radiant coil boiling plate. That she could manage, and the oven looked all right. It had a temperature button arrangement, which she’d never used before. She took a deep breath.

‘We all know there’s a butter shortage, so I’m going to show you what you can do with cocoa butter as a tasty substitute …’

She never thought she’d see the day when that nasty cocoa butter had to be mixed with cottonseed oil just to bake a few cakes or make a pie. Nevertheless, she popped the scones on the top shelf in the oven, just as though she’d been cooking electric all her life, and a reassuring blast of warm air hit her.

‘And while they’re baking, here’s an idea for something to spread on your bread.’ It wasn’t at all bad in Margaret’s view; even the Rector had approved this mixture of cocoa butter, cornflour, syrup and mashed potato, and in this cold weather it kept for a week if you were lucky.

‘Next week,’ she glared at her audience for they seemed
to be getting restless after a while, ‘we’ll be doing scraps and saving on eggs. It beats me how the hens know about the Kaiser, but—’

The smell!
She’d been so intent on melting and mixing the blessed butter, she’d forgotten the cakes – no, she hadn’t. They weren’t due to be ready for another five minutes. She rushed to the oven all the same and a column of blue smoke shot up as she opened the door. Inside was a tray of little black circles.
At her very first lecture!
Centuries of iron Sussex discipline came to her aid, sending the panic back where it came from.

Margaret turned round, strode to the front of the platform where they had all gathered for the demonstration and flourished the tin so they could all see. ‘Nothing wrong with burnt cakes,’ she informed them severely. ‘Look at King Alfred. He burnt cakes and he still did a good job for England’s war effort.’

The sniggers turned into a roar of laughter.

‘All the same,’ Margaret grinned, ‘don’t you try to do it like that. It’s not everyone can manage it.’