Where Bluebells Chime

Alice took three plates from the dresser, trying to listen dispassionately to the early-evening news bulletin. For once, it seemed, the truth had not been held back. The Ministry of Information was actually admitting that fighter stations at Biggin Hill and Manston were so damaged by bombing that planes could no longer take off from them, nor land there. On this last day of August, Fighter Command lost thirty-eight planes. Usually, They, the faceless ones, never said how many, not the whole truth. But even They must admit it couldn’t go on much longer because it wasn’t how many planes were lost, Alice brooded. Spitfires and Hurricanes could be replaced; they were only money and man-hours in a factory. What was irreplaceable were those who flew them: straight, decent young men, driven almost beyond enduring, some of them younger than Drew, her son – her son, and Julia’s. Nothing could replace such desperate courage. Drew had already gone to war and soon they would take Daisy.

Was her daughter to be called upon to face danger? Would Daisy, who was so beautiful, so in love, have to struggle on and on until she moved in a daze of exhaustion, fearful to ease off her shoes because if she did, even for one blessed minute, she could not put them on again because her feet were too swollen?

Would Daisy’s kit lay ready packed beneath her bed because the sound of enemy guns was getting nearer and louder? Would Daisy ever know the stench of undignified death?

‘No, no, no!’ Alice raised the plates she held high above her head, hurling them to the floor with all the anger that was in her. ‘God! How dare You let it happen again!’

Then she sank to her knees amid a litter of broken white china. She was still there, sobbing quietly, when Tom came home for his supper.

‘Lass, lass!’ He reached for her hand, drawing her to her feet. ‘Whatever happened? Are you hurt? Did you fall over? Don’t take on so – it’s only a few plates.’

‘Only plates.’ Plates could be replaced. ‘And I didn’t trip, or anything. I threw them, Tom.’ She drew in a shuddering breath, tears spent now, all anger gone.

‘And am I to know why?’ His voice was gentle and he gathered her close and stroked her hair.

‘Oh, it was the news that finally did it. All those fighters lost. The young ones, Tom, taking the brunt of it; fighting a war that our generation let happen. I think I’d been working up to it all day. I just exploded. Remind me never to go on about your temper after this, love?’

She took a brush and shovel and began to sweep. Daisy would be home, soon; she must not know about this.

‘Building up to it all day, eh? Worrying about Daisy, were you?’

‘N-no. Not this time. It was Andrew MacMalcolm on my mind. I almost phoned Julia, like I always used to …’

‘Like on his birthday, you mean?’

‘Should I ring her – let her know I haven’t forgotten?’

‘No you shouldn’t.’ He took the shovel from her hand. ‘You should put the kettle on whilst I throw this lot on the rubbish heap. Remember she’s Nathan Sutton’s wife now, and happy again. Leave the past alone, bonny lass.’

‘You’re right.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘I’m fine, now. Don’t know why you put up with me, though.’

‘Because you’re a good cook.’ He turned in the doorway to smile at her and she smiled back and whispered, ‘I love you too, Tom Dwerryhouse.’

‘Tim!’ Tatiana stepped from behind the oak tree at the crossroads then threw back her head, laughing. ‘What on earth …?’

‘Hi, henny! This beats Whitleys any day!’ He wobbled to a stop, throwing a leg over the bicycle seat, leaning over the handlebars to kiss her. ‘It only took a minute to get the hang of it again. Didn’t have a bike of my own, so I’d cadge rides from the kids who did,’ he grinned, pushing the dull olive-green cycle into the bushes beside the oak tree.

‘But where did you get it?’

‘I borrowed it – sort of. Was running late and didn’t want to keep my girl waiting. Found it propped outside the Admin block. I’ll give it back tonight.’

‘Timothy Thomson, that’s stealing!’

‘No it isn’t. All bikes at Holdenby Moor are Air Ministry property. There’s a Nissen hut full of them – personnel for the use of. It’s one heck of a walk from one end of that aerodrome to the other. First come, first served!’

‘You are quite incorrigible,’ she scolded, loving him more, were it possible, when he joked and smiled. When he smiled, something squirmed deliciously through her. ‘And I haven’t had a proper kiss yet.’

She clasped her arms around his neck, lifting her chin, closing her eyes, straining close to him and he placed his hands on her buttocks and drew her closer so she knew his need of her.

For just a moment, panic sliced through her and she wondered if this was the time. Then she closed her eyes again, searching for his mouth, relaxing against him.

‘Tatiana …’ His voice was low and husky and he drew away from her a little as if to break the contact of the electricity that sparked and crackled between them. His eyes looked directly into hers, asking the question his lips had no need to speak.

‘I love you,’ she whispered as if it were the answer to all things, then stepped away from him, taking his hand in hers, holding it tightly because she couldn’t bear not to touch him. ‘Let’s walk to the top of the pike.’

It would be quiet up there. Just the sky and almost always a breeze, even in summer. There would be no one there except other couples, who wouldn’t care, anyway.

‘The grass’ll be damp.’ He wondered why he was whispering.

‘I don’t suppose we’ll notice it, Tim.’

All at once she felt shy of him because tonight, soon, would be the first time. And after tonight nothing could ever be the same again.

She glanced sideways so she might look at him without turning her head and he was staring ahead, because he knew it as well, didn’t he?

And then, without shifting his gaze he said, ‘I love you, Tatiana Sutton.’

Julia put down the telephone, then walked along the creaking passage to the library where her husband was most times to be found. When he wasn’t baptizing or marrying or burying in Holdenby and the two other parishes he looked after, that was. And when he wasn’t giving last rites, or comforting, or visiting the old and alone, she sighed. That he would one day inherit Pendenys Place and a half of his mother’s fortune never entered his head, she was sure of it, and she too had become quite good at not dwelling too much upon it, because not for anything would she live in that vulgar barn of a place that looked like the product of a mating between the Houses of Parliament and Creesby Town Hall.

She dismissed it from her thoughts then stood behind her husband’s chair, hands on his shoulders.

‘Are you sermonizing? I need to talk, but I can come back later.’

‘Just finished.’ He replaced the cap of his fountain pen and laid it down, swivelling in his chair to face her.

‘Giles always did that,’ she said in a half-whisper. ‘Swing round in that chair and smile, I mean. Just as you did, then.’

‘I still miss him, Julia.’

‘I know you do. You were twin cousins, sort of.’

‘He was more a brother to me than – well, Elliot,’ he said, at once regretting saying the name.

‘What I want to know is can I have the parish hall for our wedding anniversary?’ Deliberately, she made no reference to Elliot Sutton. ‘I know it will mean slinging the canteen out, but it’ll only be for one night.’

‘For Aunt Helen’s eightieth, you mean? Are you sure you want the hall? Wouldn’t a little party here be better?’

‘No. Mother would get wind of it and anyway, I want the entire village to come and I want there to be dancing. I’ve booked a band, provisionally.’

‘But if you go round asking everyone, your mother will be bound to find out.’

‘Not if I especially ask people to keep quiet about it. I think I’ll be able to get beer, and lemonade for the children, and I can muster one drink apiece, I think, for the toast. But it’ll have to be a bring-your-own-sandwiches-and-buns affair, I’m afraid.’

‘They won’t mind that, darling. Since rationing, it’s been the done thing.’

‘Yes – and a get-together and a dance can’t do anything but good; help everybody forget bloody Hitler for a few hours.’

‘There’s a parish-council meeting tonight. I’ll mention the hall then. I take it you’ve booked the band for the Saturday night and not for our actual date?’

‘For Saturday, October the fifth, if that’s all right?’

‘It’ll be fine.’ He pushed back his chair, crossing the room to stand at her side as she gazed out of the window. ‘Do you often think of Giles? I know I do.’

‘Yes. Sometimes I’m angry still about his death; other times I wonder what would have happened if he’d lived. Alice would still be Lady Sutton and she and Tom could never have married.’

‘Nor Daisy been born. I suppose his death was a part of the order of things, though sometimes I resent it.’

‘You resent God’s will, and you a man of the Church?’ She could not resist, sometimes, mocking God. There were times, still, that she blamed Him for Andrew’s death.

‘Priests can doubt. We are human, Julia – flesh and blood.’

‘Yes, thank God.’ She turned to gather him to her, kissing his mouth. ‘And if I’m not mistaken, that was Mary with the tea tray. I’m dying for a cup. And could you remember to post these on your way to the meeting?’ she smiled, picking up two envelopes. ‘Letters to Drew. And, darling – could you remember to call in on Reuben, some time soon? Alice told me it was his birthday, yesterday. His ninety-fifth, I think, but even Alice isn’t sure, so don’t mention it. Whilst you are there, tell him about the party. I’d like it if he felt up to coming – Mother would like it, too. Just spread the word, will you, once you’ve agreed we can have the hall?’

‘The old ones might not feel up to it. It’ll be quite a long walk for some of them.’

‘It will,’ Julia frowned. ‘I’ll have to see if I can get a gallon of petrol on the black market, then I could run them there in the car. I suppose you couldn’t spare a coupon, Nathan? You get more than I do.’

‘My extra petrol is for parish work, and you know it! And what do you mean – on the black market?’

‘We-e-ll, there are one or two hereabouts who seem to be able to get under-the-counter petrol, by all accounts.’

‘Then let them, though their consciences can’t be worth much if they stopped to think that seamen are being killed bringing it here.’

‘Only kidding!’ She smiled to picture the headlines in the Yorkshire Post: ‘VICAR’S WIFE IN PETROL SCANDAL’. ‘And ssh!’ she commanded, opening the conservatory door, smiling in her mother’s direction.

‘Ah, there you are!’ Helen Sutton returned the smile. ‘I think, Nathan, that you can smell a teapot a mile away. Tilda’s made us egg-and-cress sandwiches – dried egg, I suppose it is. I’ll be glad when your hens start laying, Julia. Be a dear and pour, will you?’

‘Of course.’ There were days, Julia thought gratefully, when her mother was like the Helen of old; today was one of them. And she would enjoy the party, she really would. Her mother had always loved surprises. ‘The hens should start laying very soon, Gracie says. Just a couple of weeks now and we’ll have our own fresh eggs, at least a dozen a week.’

‘Hmm. The land girl. She’s doing very well, Catchpole said. It was so beautiful and sunny this morning that I went to the kitchen garden – did I tell you? I wanted to see the orchid house, really. One of the white ones is putting up late buds for some reason. Now do hurry and pour, Julia, before the tea gets cold …’

On that sixth day of September, fighter pilots along the south coast waited. Some lolled in chairs outside a makeshift mess; others lay, hands behind heads, on the grass, trying to relax. They had all existed on catnaps, hastily swallowed sandwiches and cups of strong sweet tea for weeks, jumping suddenly alert to their feet, running in a half-daze to their waiting fighters as klaxons blared or sirens wailed.

Now they walked and talked, even laughed sometimes, like automatons, trying not to notice that Johnny who snored and Mike who chain-smoked were no longer there.

Most times they took off in haphazard fashion, grouping their fighters into arrowhead formation once they were airborne and undercarriages up, their leader talking to them over the radio, calming nerves that twanged.

Sometimes a pilot they had thought killed would return, hands in pockets, his face split by an ear-to-ear grin.

‘Bailed out,’ he might say with studied nonchalance. ‘Had to ditch and thought I’d bought it. But the rescue lads got to me. Bloody cold it was, in the drink. Wet, too!’

Such understatement really meant that a pilot had been shot down, had ejected and landed in the Channel. And when he had given up hope of ever being found, an air-sea rescue launch had picked him out of the water.

The sea shall not have them, was their motto. Neither the sea nor the Krauts! A pilot saved from the sea was a pilot airborne again within a week.

But often missing pilots did not return, and scarcely trained flyers with little more than twenty solo hours behind them came to take their places. It seemed that the future of Britain, of freedom itself, was held in the hands of a few unblooded youths, who hurled their anger and despair at everlasting formations of German planes set upon bombing them out of existence.

Obliterate the first line of defence; immobilize the fighters, then the rest would be easier. Soon, thought the German High Command, the tides would be high and full and right for the invasion of the arrogant little island that stood, bomb-happy, between them and total victory.

And so pilots waited in the early-morning sun of that sixth September day; waited uneasily until ten o’clock and eleven o’clock, and noon. The NAAFI van came with tea and bacon sandwiches and cigarettes as it always did, but not the Luftwaffe. And ground crews who cared for the planes, and aircraftwomen who stood around plots, ears strained for instructions that would tell them that the bombers were coming again, waited and waited but the sky above them was high and blue and empty.

On a day when it was stretched to the limit, when one more sortie would have been a sortie too many, Fighter Command, from its Air Chief Marshal to the lowest erk, asked with disbelief where the Dorniers and Stukas and Heinkels were, and what had happened that they seemed not to be coming.

And on that day, Hitler ordered the calling off of his squadrons, not knowing that two more days under pressure – perhaps even less – would have seen Fighter Command in disarray. It was the miracle Britain had been pleading for and it seemed that at last God had begun to listen to prayers spoken in the English tongue. Had Britain been given a reprieve – until next spring, maybe?

No one knew. None dared speak of his hopes. The men only knew that on that early-autumn day, neither klaxon nor siren nor the drone of enemy bombers broke the long, waiting silence.

One by one, exhausted pilots slipped into sleep. It had been a terrible and at times despairing summer, but for the moment the fight had been won. The youths who flew Hurricanes and Spitfires had earned the right to call themselves men. The September tides that would have carried an invasion fleet to England’s shores flowed then ebbed again, and all along the French and Dutch coasts invasion barges lay unmoving.

Soon, winter seas and skies and gales would ensure that for six months at least, Britain would be safe from invaders. The battle for Great Britain, it seemed, had been won.

In a fury of frustration and rage, Hitler ordered his bombers over London and Manchester and Birmingham and Glasgow, and the war, which when it began people had said would be over in six months, entered its second year in deadly earnest.

No invasion, yet, but now it became the people’s fight, with no one safe from bombing and civilians all at once in the front line. It would be a long-drawn-out war; every man and woman and child’s war, and it would get worse before it got better. But at least, thought the man and woman in the street, we know now where we stand.

Somehow, just knowing that was a comfort.

13

‘There now, Gracie Fielding, you’ve just witnessed a little bit of tradition.’ Jack Catchpole pressed the flat of his boot against the soil around the little tree.

‘I have? Well, I know we’ve planted four rowan trees and the house is called Rowangarth – so tell me.’ Anything at all about the family who owned the lovely place she worked at fascinated her.

‘You’ll know the house was built more’n three hundred years ago, when folk believed in witches, and you’ll know that rowan trees keep witches away?’

‘I didn’t, though I suppose people believed anything once.’

‘Happen. But the Sutton that built Rowangarth must’ve believed in ’em, ’cause he planted rowan trees all round the estate at all points of the compass, so to speak. They’m bonny little trees; white flowers in summer and berries for the birds in winter, so it became the custom to plant the odd rowan from time to time, just to keep it going. My dad planted half a dozen before Sir John died – that cluster in the wild garden – and now it’s my turn to do a bit of planting, an’ all. Can’t have a house called Rowangarth, and no rowan trees about, now can us? And you never know about witches – best be sure.

‘Just a tip about when to plant trees, lass. Plant a tree around Michaelmas, the saying goes, and you can command it to thrive, but plant a tree at Candlemas and all you do for it won’t ever come to much. It’ll be a weakly thing alus.’

‘When is Candlemas, then?’

‘February, and the ground cold and unwelcoming. But those little rowans will do all right, ’cause it’ll be Michaelmas in a couple of days.’ He laid spade and fork in the wheelbarrow then shrugged on his jacket. ‘Now didn’t you say you had something for me at Keeper’s?’

‘I did, and you’re welcome to it. Remember you gave me a sack? Well, it’s half full of hen droppings now and starting to smell a bit. I don’t want Daisy’s mother to complain, so don’t you think we should move it?’

‘We’ll collect it now, while we have the barrow with us,’ he said eagerly. If it was starting to smell, then Tom Dwerryhouse might get wind of it, try to get hold of it for his own garden. ‘Then I’ll show you how to make the best liquid fertilizer known to man!

‘Have you heard about the party? All Rowangarth staff’ll be there, so that’ll include you. Supposed to be a bit of a do for the Reverend and Miss Julia’s wedding anniversary, but really it’s for her ladyship’s eightieth. They’re aiming for it to be a surprise for her. Reckon all the village’ll go and there’s to be dancing, an’ all. But not a word, mind, about it being for Lady Helen or if she gets to hear about it she might say she doesn’t want the fuss of it, and Miss Julia’s set her heart on a party.’

It was a sad fact that the mistress was growing old, though considering the tribulations she’d had she had aged gracefully, Catchpole was bound to admit. And when her time came she would be sadly missed, because real ladies were few and far between these days.

‘I thought she looked tired, t’other day, when she came to look at the plants.’

‘Tired, Mr C.? If I look as good as she does when I’m her age, I won’t complain.’

That day, Gracie recalled, Lady Helen had asked for her seat to be put in the orchid house. They kept a special green-painted folding chair in the small potting shed and Gracie had brought it for her and stayed to talk about the orchids and especially about the white one which seemed to be about to flower, when really it shouldn’t be flowering.

‘My dear John gave the original white plant to me – oh, more years ago than I care to remember, Gracie,’ Lady Helen had said, her eyes all at once gentle with remembering. ‘There are eight plants now, all taken from that first one. No one was to wear the white orchids but me, he said. They were to be mine alone, though Julia carried them at her wedding – her first wedding, that was.’ She had touched that fat orchid bud as if it were the most precious thing she owned.

‘Lady Helen seems very sentimental about the white orchids,’ Gracie said now.

‘Aye. Remind her of Sir John, young Drew’s grandfather. Killed hisself speeding on the Brighton road in his new-fangled motor. Afore the Great War, that was, when I was a lad serving my time at Pendenys. Took it terrible bad. Wore black for three years for him. They don’t wear black these days like they once did. For those three years her ladyship didn’t receive callers nor socialize ’cause her was in mourning. Folk don’t have the respect nowadays that they used to have.’

He sucked hard on his pipe, remembering the way it had been in Sir John’s time.

‘What are you thinking about, Mr Catchpole?’

‘Oh, only about the way it used to be.’

‘I wish you’d think out loud.’

‘I will. Tomorrow, happen. What I’m more concerned about now is that sack you’ve got for me at the bottom of Alice’s garden. Away over the stile and get it, there’s a good lass. And go careful. Don’t want to set the dogs barking.’

He smiled just to think of it. That hen muck was worth its weight in gold. Wouldn’t do if it fell into the wrong hands!

Edward Sutton lounged in a comfortable basket chair in the conservatory at Denniston House, gazing out over the garden to the fields beyond and the trees, yellowing now to autumnal colours. Strange, he thought, that not since he married Clemmy so many years ago, and gone to live in Clemmy’s house, had he been so contented.

It had always, come to think of it, been Clemmy’s house, built for his only child by an indulgent father; always been Clemmy’s money he lived on and their firstborn, Elliot, had been Clemmy’s alone.

Now Clemmy was dead, and Elliot, too, and now Edward himself lived at Denniston House with Elliot’s widow, Anna, and Tatiana, whom Clemmy had never forgiven for being a girl. Anna was charming and kind and Tatiana a delight of a child and he felt nothing but gratitude to the Army for commandeering Pendenys Place. They were welcome to it for as long as the fancy took them. He glanced up sharply as the door opened.

‘Uncle Edward! Did I wake you up?’

‘No, Julia. I wasn’t asleep. I was just indulging an old man’s privilege of remembering and do you know, my dear, when you get to my age you can dip into the past without any qualms of conscience or regret?’

Dear Julia. She still called him uncle, though for these two years past she had been his daughter-in-law. He offered his cheek for her kiss, smiling affectionately into her eyes.

‘I know. I do it always when I come here to Denniston. And it doesn’t trouble my conscience either, because now I am the parson’s wife and middle-aged, and the girl who was once a nurse here is long gone.’

‘Of course! You and Mrs Dwerryhouse did your training at Denniston in the last war.’

‘And now Drew is in the thick of another one, and Daisy soon to join him.’

‘Drew is a fine young man, Julia. How is he?’

‘The last time we heard he was in port – tied up alongside, he called it – having something done to his ship. He didn’t say what, though. All I know is that the Penrose is part of a flotilla that keeps the Western Approaches free from mines. But we’ll find out more when he gets leave. You know,’ Julia reached out to touch the wooden table at her side, ‘I have a good feeling about Drew. I know, somehow, that he’ll make it home safely one day. But I’ve come with an invitation. I’ll tell you both about it when Anna has finished phoning.’

‘I already know about the secret party,’ Edward chuckled. ‘Tatiana brings me all the gossip and news. But Anna is always on the phone, lately, trying to get through to London. There is such a delay on calls – if you can get through at all, that is. Poor Miss Hallam on the exchange must be having a very trying time. And the delays have got worse. They say it’s because of the bombing.’