A House Divided: An Easterleigh Hall Novel (40 page)

Bridie roared with laughter. ‘Just tell her I'd rather be fluffing up a soufflé, if she doesn't mind
very
much.'

‘I'll leave that pleasure to your da,' Evie muttered. ‘Now, all of us in the kitchen have something for you. It's time you had a new one, for your own recipes.'

Maudie came from the scullery at that moment, with a package, beautifully wrapped in tissue paper. ‘We all chipped in, bonny lass,' she said, her hair damp from the steam rising from the sink. Mrs Moore shifted Raisin from her lap and joined them at the table.

Bridie wiped her hands, and unwrapped a new recipe bible, embossed with
Bridie Brampton
1939.
It was the kitchen's way of saying that she was an equal, that she had reached the level of her mother, and Mrs Moore.

Bridie opened the book. On the first page was a message from Monsieur Allard:
For Bridie Brampton, my star pupil. Take this as your certificate.

She could only smile at them all, because the lump in her throat prohibited all else. Maudie nudged Evie. ‘We must treasure this moment, the lass is speechless.'

They all laughed. It broke the moment and Bridie was able to say, ‘Thank you. Really, thank you. It's been a bit of a journey, and, well, I've made a pig's ear of it sometimes, and worried you all, but I think at eighteen I'm finally growing up.'

‘Very slowly,' they all shouted in unison. The normal food preparation resumed, as the clock seemed to gallop towards luncheon, but then, Bridie thought, as the chicken stock simmered, it always did. She said, ‘Don't ever think I want to be anywhere else, because I don't. We'll spread the word about the restaurant in Paris, and good luck to them, but you'd have to drag me out of here at gunpoint.'

‘Has anyone taken a coffee up to James?' Mrs Moore asked.

‘Harry called in a while ago for one,' Bridie said, feeling that she should have taken it up, but he still managed to make her feel guilty. His pain was too like hers for Tim.

She longed to be able to say, ‘Yes, I do love you, in the same way you love me.' But she couldn't, yet neither could she bear to lose her friend.

She made another coffee and took it upstairs. James had been recovering well until he received the letter from Ian, who Bridie remembered from Paris. He had accused James of being a coward for leaving them, choosing freedom to principle. ‘
We wasted our time, thinking the worst, but all the time you were back with your nobs, courtesy of a bloody
fascist, no doubt. Or was it just a Lord someone? You, a supporter of the Republicans? Don't make me laugh.'

The worst thing was that it was the truth, and that's what hurt him, far more than the leg, he had told her. He had been sitting in front of his bedroom window overlooking the garden at the rear of the Hall at the time, his leg in plaster. She had understood, and had put her arm round him, which seemed to make it worse, because he shrugged away from her. But hadn't she shrugged Tim away, too?

Afterwards, James had refused to leave his room for a whole week. Then Dr Gerber insisted, saying that his squadron needed him, and there was no time to sit about moping. After the Sudeten, where would the Germans go next?

It was enough.

Today, she poked her head around the door, to meet James' agonised face as he put his coat on, ready to hop down the stairs for his morning walk. ‘My leg itches like buggery.'

She grinned, left his coffee on the side table, then ran back downstairs and begged a knitting needle from Mrs Moore. She leapt back up the stairs again. ‘Here, you big, strong fly-boy, have a go with this.'

She handed it to him, and as he took it, he looked at her for a long moment, and then laughed. It was a real laugh, and he said, ‘Dear old Bridie, an answer for everything.'

Then his face clouded again, and the emotional pain was back. She ignored it. ‘I could have thought
about it at the start, so you see, I haven't the answers. Not to anything, really.'

She left him, and flew down the stairs again and across to the Neave Wing, the paths cleared of snow. She knocked at the half-open door of the treatment room, and said, ‘I do hope the plaster is coming off tomorrow, or I think he will grow fangs, Dr Gerber, and attack us all.'

‘We cannot have a wolf on the prowl, Fräulein Bridie. So we take it off, the plaster, not the leg, you understand.' He put his stethoscope away in a drawer and turned to her, smiling gently.

She had asked Dr Gerber within days of his arrival where he had met Tim, but he had denied doing so and told her that Tim looked like someone he once knew, in Berlin.

She waved goodbye and headed back to the kitchen, ducking her head in.

‘Chop, chop, Bridie,' her mam called.

‘Slave driver,' she muttered.

‘Aye, it comes easily to me,' her mam said.

Bridie said, ‘I have confirmation that James' plaster is coming off tomorrow. I need to tell him.'

‘Do the soup first, will you, pet?' her mam asked.

Bridie melted the butter in the pan then added the mushrooms, but as it was a normal menu on a Tuesday she left off the garlic, which would please James, as he couldn't bear the smell of it. He said it was something to do with Spain, but would not elaborate. She added salt and pepper. After a
moment, when the mushrooms had softened, she added the stock and cream, and half the dill. It was better to be busy, to concentrate on cooking, instead of worrying that perhaps you should say you loved someone, because they loved you, especially if you didn't want to lose them altogether.

Mrs Moore was standing next to her, peering into the pan. ‘A canny touch you have, bonny lass.'

Bridie looked around; her mam was in the cool pantry, out of earshot. She whispered, ‘Ought you to love someone because they love you? If you
do
love them, in a sort of a way, but not that way, and you think you might love someone else? Well, know you do.'

Mrs Moore took the wooden spoon from her. ‘Don't stir it to death, lass. Leave it to sort itself out. It is what it is, and can't be anything else.' The old lady held her hand beneath the spoon, catching the drips, as she put it onto the spare plate on the table behind them.

Bridie stared at the soup, then moved the pan onto the slow plate. Hadn't Mrs Moore heard her?

Mrs Moore was at her elbow again. ‘Think on what I've just said, pet.'

Bridie wiped the surface of the stove, and silently repeated Mrs Moore's words. The furnace was burbling. It needed more coal. Mrs Moore headed to her armchair while Mr Harvey bustled down the internal corridor to the wine store. Mrs Moore sat and settled Raisin. Bridie watched them, the sense
of the lovely woman's words finally falling into place, but she did wonder why Mrs Moore couldn't just have said, ‘Stop worrying, and no, you can't change your feelings, and that's alright.'

She smiled at Mrs Moore, who smiled back, stroking the dachshund. ‘Thank you,' Bridie said.

Mrs Moore replied, ‘If you have to work out what someone means, it makes your mind work, and you arrive at a conclusion on your own.'

‘You're a witch,' Bridie grinned.

Her mam came out of the cool pantry with the vegetables. ‘What have you been up to now, the pair of you?'

‘Nothing,' they said together.

Dr Gerber removed James' plaster cast the next day. Mrs Gerber massaged the leg and promised to do so daily. She helped him with some exercises, as she did many of those who found their way to Neave Wing. She was a trained physiotherapist, and had practised alongside her husband in Germany.

At the beginning of March, when the early thaw had cleared the snow, Bridie asked Dr and Mrs Gerber if it would be a mistake for James to walk to the beck. ‘Indeed not a mistake, I think that would be a good idea, Fräulein Bridie,' Mrs Gerber said, looking tired but deliriously happy, because she was pregnant.

Bridie and James walked to the beck together, and at first the conversation between them was stilted, but almost without realising they began
talking, first of Ian, and then Archie. This led to the RAF, and the sergeant who had screamed that he marched like a pregnant camel. They laughed, and it was like it was when she brought him the knitting needle. As they walked along, they relaxed even more, and at last, for the first time since he had been home, they chatted easily of this and that, and laughed, and teased, and only spoke a little of the world, and nothing of love.

The next week, they galloped out the staleness of winter by racing Marigold and Terry across the countryside. This time there was no talking, just the sound of the horses breathing, the sound of their hooves, the creaking of leather, and as they turned for home, the real race began. James gave a Red Indian whoop, just as he used to, throwing back his head, laughing as he took the lead, and then slowing so that together they trotted Terry and Marigold onto the track leading to the stables.

The next day, they went on a trek with the injured – or those who were ready ‘to be released into the wild', as David called it. He came too, in the double saddle, with Estrella up behind him, and Clive alongside. Young Stan, Kevin and Harry walked beside the amputees.

Finally, on 10 March, it was time James returned to base, signed off by Dr Gerber. The whole family gathered on the steps to wave. Aunt Ver hugged him, told him to be more careful from now on. She brushed an imaginary fleck from his blue uniform.
His father put his bag in the boot, and sat in the passenger seat. Uncle Jack called, ‘Brave man, Richard. Your lad drives like the devil.'

He hugged James, who threatened to punch his lights out if he besmirched his driving one more time. Uncle Jack ruffled the lad's hair. Gracie shook her head, ‘Leave the lad be, Jack.' She kissed him, then wiped her lipstick off his cheek.

He hugged Mrs Moore. He had confided to Bridie that each time he left, he feared it would be the last time he saw Mrs Moore, or Mr Harvey. Mr Harvey offered his hand, but he got a bear hug instead. Evie and Aub hugged him tight, and Harry and Annie too. Bridie felt a prickle of fear. It was as though he would never be home again.

He walked with Bridie to the car. She had a basket of macarons for him to share amongst his friends. He put the basket on the back seat. They looked at one another, and he hugged her closely, saying into her hair, ‘You take care, bonny lass. I know you don't feel as I do, but underneath it all, I still love you like I did when we were bairns. It's the core of my life, you, Tim and me, and as long as we three still live, we'll be alright. He's the best, you know. Remember that. Look beyond the obvious. I did.'

He let her go, and said again, ‘It's alright with me, Bridie, as long as we all have one another. Trust him, Bridie. He asked me to, and I do.'

They drove away.

James listened as his father back-seat drove through Easton, as he always did, feeling Bridie against him, longing for her, but knowing that what he had said was the truth. He said, aloud, ‘I need the three of us.'

His father said, ‘Watch the corner. What was that you said?'

James sighed, ‘Nothing, Dad, and yes, I know it's a corner. Do you think you should join the RAF and come up in the plane with me? I might hit a cloud.'

His father braced himself for the crossroads.

‘It's alright, Dad, I know there's a crossroads,' James muttered, before his father could.

He hoped that Bridie would listen to what he had just said.

He wondered what his mates would think of him having a knitting needle in his kit. But he wasn't about to leave it behind, and Mrs Moore could always find another. He needed to remember Bridie's kindness, and her laughter, and how they had found their way back to one another.

On 15 March Hitler invaded and began the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia in contravention of the Munich Agreement, and all those at Easterleigh Hall, and throughout the country, asked, ‘Does this mean war?'

On 31 March Britain issued a statement guaranteeing Poland's independence.

The first weekend after that, Tim took the sleeper down to London, in order to attend a dinner with Sir Anthony, Lady Margaret and Penny. The waiter was one of Potty's men. It was he who now added the powder to Sir Edgers' drinks on a regular basis, rendering him seemingly drunk. On this occasion it was his wife and Sir Anthony who had to take him to a taxi, through the foyer of one of the smartest hotels in London.

Penny was so outraged, this time, that she wrote the news to Bruno, with whom she was still infatuated, complaining about the lack of manners in old people today.

Potty warned Tim when they met in a café near his office the next day that, though he felt that should sort the situation for now, he might have to
pull the net closed, catching a shoal of wriggling fascist informers, sooner than he had anticipated. ‘Poland is guaranteed, but it is in the East, dear boy. Why on earth should Herr Hitler think we will make good our promise, rushing our troops way over there? I mean, he just has to look at our past flaccid responses.' He paused. ‘Old laddie, I assume you will remain with our merry little band, for what is to come?'

Tim looked at the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup, wishing he could read them and see the world as it would be in the months and years to come. Finally he nodded. He was learning his craft, his German was almost fluent. He was good at the work, and there weren't enough people as it was. The fact that it screwed his belly up with tension and fear was neither here nor there. The fact that he lived a lie, and his extended family were ice-cold towards him, would have to be borne. But Bridie? She was the problem who tore his heart out by the roots.

The next day Bridie was preparing the menu for the day, thinking that she would use the sole from their supplier for Sole Meunière, while her mother finished the breakfasts. As they did so, they heard someone running down the steps from the garage yard. It sounded almost like James, but not quite. There was a knock at the kitchen door. Who knocked? Everyone just came in. They both looked round.