Heart of War (104 page)

There was old Mr Kirby, wearing a heavy black overcoat that must have been made for him in Savile Row about 1860, and his low John Bull topper, his hunting hat, a thick white wool scarf hiding his dog collar. There was Miss Hightower, always to be found as close to the rector as she could get on such occasions … old Commander Quigley, trying to look like a seadog facing down an arctic gale, but appearing as a dear old man with a rheumy drop on the end of his nose … Alice exclaimed – ‘There are John and Louise, at the back! I never thought they'd …'

Cate said, ‘I asked them to go carolling … told them how pleased Mr Kirby would be if they did … sort of proof that they'd forgiven the Germans for killing Boy … though I don't think the rector has, himself.'

Harry said, ‘And Louise never will.'

Betty said, ‘In time, perhaps … but Uncle John has. Boy killed a lot of their fathers' sons, too.'

Harry said, ‘Nice of Richard and Susan to come, with the children. They're singing their heads off – I can see from here.'

‘They came into Hedlington yesterday, to wish us a Merry Christmas,' Alice said.

‘… and give us Christmas presents,' Harry added. He chuckled contentedly – ‘Do you know what those young scamps gave me? Sally gave me tweezers to pull the whiskers out of my nose, and Tim a moustache cup … must think I strain my soup through my moustache.'

‘Ha ha!' Alice laughed dutifully: her father did occasionally do exactly that. Her missing leg throbbed sometimes; but she no longer craved morphine or any other drug. The pain grew infinitesimally less every day; and her mobility with the artificial leg grew steadily more. Most of the time, when she was concentrating on the accounting manuals, she forgot it altogether – which proved that all she needed was something to do – especially for her mind, rather than her hands, or of course her legs. Once she actually started work at the Aircraft Company, she would soon forget even that she had an artificial leg. And then she'd have to make up her mind over Daisy Cowell's proposal … her amazing suggestion of a ménage à trois. Oh dear, why was the path of love always so complicated and …
messy?

She glanced at Betty Merritt. The girl's young face was drawn and pale, and she sat very close to Christopher, looking at him from time to time. They shared the tension and pain of waiting for news of Mrs Kramer … Christopher had obviously become fond of her. You could see he was quite distraught.

The waits finished another carol and Christopher, through the window, made a ritual pantomime of lifting a glass to his lips, eyebrows raised interrogatively. Mr Kirby put up his hands in mock horror, and shook his head, smiling. Then the waits trooped away into the darkness and out of sight.

Harry Rowland cleared his throat – ‘What did the Governor of North Carolina say to the Governor of South Carolina?'

Alice looked at her father in shocked surprise – but of
course he didn't know that Mrs Kramer had become a close friend – or more – of Christopher's.

Harry said, ‘It's a long time between drinks! … Heard that in the House last week.'

Christopher got up, went to the corner cupboard and poured sherry, none for himself. ‘Not for me, thank you, Uncle,' Betty said. Christopher handed full glasses to Harry and Alice.

Alice said gently, ‘We can drink to peace, Christopher …'

‘And victory!' her father added.

‘Let us pray to God that they're all safe and sound,' Cate burst out – ‘All of them! … Laurence, Quentin, Isabel, Guy, Naomi, Virginia, Johnny – all those boys and girls, men and women, who have gone out from their homes, and not yet returned.'

He remembered, two years ago, that his main worry at Christmas was a plan of Probyn Gorse's to poach a lot of pheasants from Lord Swanwick. He remembered the shock of hearing the guns from France, and feeling them shake the Kentish earth under his feet on Christmas dawn. The guns were shouting even louder now, over there, but now everyone in England heard them in their soul, even when they could not hear them in their actual rage.

The telephone rang in the hall, and Alice saw Christopher look quickly at Betty, his face falling and seeming suddenly collapsed and old. Betty was on her feet, going out of the room, closing the door behind her. The peal of bells continued from the tower of the Saxon church, the fire crackled in the grate.

They heard a cry from the passage and Christopher sank into a chair, his whole body trembling. Betty burst into the room, shrieking, ‘She's safe, Uncle … picked up by a ship … two days in a lifeboat … frostbitten toes … hospital in Liverpool …'

‘Liverpool!' Christopher exclaimed.

‘Yes, the ship was coming from Halifax with wheat … Uncle Virgil telephoned the Admiralty this morning for news …. there wasn't any news, then … half an hour ago, it came in!'

Christopher was up, pouring himself a glass of sherry. He downed it in a single gulp, and poured another. ‘Oh my God,' he cried. ‘Oh my God!' and burst into tears.

Lieutenant Billy Bidford, D.S.C., Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, stretched out his hand to pour her champagne but the attentive waiter reached the ice bucket first and, carefully swathing the bottle with his white napkin, refilled Florinda's glass, then retired.

Florinda drank, put down the glass and said, ‘We ought to be washing those kids' feet with this, instead of drinking it.'

‘What kids? … Oh, the children begging in the Strand as we came in.'

‘Barefoot, in rags, on Christmas Eve!' she said. ‘Oh well, I've gone barefoot. It's not so bad.'

Bidford eyed her cautiously. She was in one of her moods … not that he had ever had much opportunity to study them, being on duty with his Motor Torpedo Boat in the Dover Patrol; and that would become a good deal more exciting when Admiral Keys replaced Admiral Bacon next week … patrols at all hours, trailing their coats miles up Channel, while fast cruisers lurked in the mists, ready to pounce if German destroyers tried to cut them off … practising with depth charge patterns … precious few U-boats made safe passage through the Straits even now, either going out or returning.

She was wearing her favourite long emerald-green gown of silk, plunging décolleté revealing much of the curve of her breasts, one ring, one bracelet, arms bare to the shoulder, an emerald and diamond tiara in her hair. She said, ‘I'm fed up. I think I'll join the F.A.N.Y. and go to France. Or do you think they wouldn't have me? I hear they're a proper lot of snobs, and they'd know who I am … was.'

Billy said, ‘I don't think that would upset them … but they do want ladies with a knowledge of cars … how to drive and repair them.'

‘Which I don't know one bloody thing about,' she said. ‘And I'm not going to scrub floors, or peel potatoes, or type letters for the W.A.A.C.s, even if I could get to France with them … no time to learn nursing … Hey, isn't there a women's service with the R.F.C.?'

‘I really don't know,' Bidford said.

Florinda drank moodily. She put down the glass – ‘I suppose I'll just have to go on taking concert parties wherever they'll let me … and get leered at by fat old generals who think they know who
I
am … and me hardly able to sing for looking at the poor men, watching me … They clap till their hands
must hurt, and sometimes the shows are awful.'

‘They're grateful you've taken the trouble to come. They know you don't have to.'

‘I don't want gratitude. I want recognition,' she snapped. ‘And that I won't get – because I don't deserve it.'

The maitre d'hotel of the Grill passed, smiling. ‘Everything satisfactory, my lady, Mr Bidford?'

‘Quite, thank you, Mr Schneider,' Billy said, and Florinda flashed him a dazzling smile. Schneider passed on with a small bow of acknowledgement. Florinda said, ‘My mother thinks I'm a whore.'

Billy held his tongue. Florinda needed to talk; he'd listen. She continued – ‘My dad's simple, but he's gone off and joined the Army, so Mum's not getting enough money in … there are other kids … She went to the barracks to get Dad out, but they said he'd got two legs and knew what he was doing, and they wouldn't let him go … I've been down to Hedlington, trying to give her money … bribing people to offer her jobs, that I'd pay for. She won't touch any of it.'

‘Why?' Billy asked gently.

‘Because she thinks I earned my money with my cunt. Because my next sister – Violet, she's thirteen now – had a baby last year from a sixty-year-old man, for money – a bob a time … and now she doesn't look after the baby, and has gone back to whoring with anyone who'll pay her, Mum says. Mum doesn't come right out and say it's my fault, but … she loves me, but she isn't going to take any help from me, in case it sends the other girls the same way, I suppose. And that's final.'

Billy waited a long time; and when she did not speak, but stared at the wall over his head, her face troubled, he said quietly, ‘Shall we go to bed, Florinda?'

She shook her head without speaking, her heavy auburn hair waving, settling, glowing.

He covered her hand with his – ‘If you think it more proper, shall we get married?'

She shook her head again, and he slid off his chair, and knelt beside her in his uniform, his hands clasped before his chest in supplication – ‘My dear Lady Jarrow, I humbly solicit the honour of your hand in matrimony. Messrs Coutts and Company of 440 Strand can vouch for my financial soundness. My heart is not so …'

She leaned down, suddenly laughing, caught his hands
and pulled him to his feet. Everyone within earshot had stopped eating, forks halfway to their mouths, listening in awed silence, for Billy Bidford and Florinda, Marchioness of Jarrow, were as well known to the gossip and society columns as Lord Derby, Churchill and Lloyd George were to the political pages. Schneider, sensing the silence, and alert to every nuance of what was going on in his domain, stopped and glanced back; then, seeing what was afoot, turned back with a half smile and continued his majestic pacing.

‘You meant that, Billy?' Florinda said.

‘Yes. I've been thinking about it for six months. I wouldn't be much of a stay-at-home husband even in peace time … racing cars here, motor boats there, flying, polo, skiing in winter, but you'd be with me. We'd do it all together.'

‘Me, drive racing cars?' she said wryly.

‘I meant, you'd come with me … watch, sort of.'

She shook her head, ‘Might as well marry a bank clerk, really – watch, wait, clap hands …'

‘Anyone else?' he asked cautiously.

‘Sort of. But he doesn't own me … He frightens me, too. He kills people – very well. And likes it.' She gazed into Bidford's anxious eyes. She said, ‘I won't marry you, Billy, but I'll be your official mistress.'

‘For ever?'

‘For as long as I want to.'

‘My offer remains open.'

‘Thanks.'

Quentin Rowland sat in his dugout eating Christmas cake. His nephew, Laurence Cate, sat opposite, sharing the cake and the red wine which his uncle's batman had ‘won' when they were out of the line a week ago. Now they were back, and
it was Christmas Day. The dugout was damp and battered. The trenches were barely more than linked shell holes.

‘You've done all right, Laurence,' Quentin said. ‘But sometimes you don't seem to be with us. You can't afford to be thinking about birds that are or aren't here, when the Germans are attacking.'

‘Yes, sir,' Laurence said. He wished he could make his uncle and Sergeant Fagioletti understand that when the war came too close, in its actual terrible shape, he could not prevent his mind fleeing to shelter in what he loved – birds, trees, nature … of course there wasn't any here, or not much – no live trees, no grass anywhere near the front line, few birds … so he wasn't here at all in those bad times, but on Beighton Down, or walking Scarrow bank.