Heart of War (80 page)

‘Look a mite peaky, milady. Hope you're not coming down with the fluenzie.'

‘Oh no, Probyn, I'm quite all right,' she said. She had been sick this morning, and her period was a week overdue. There was a strong chance that she was carrying Boy's baby. A few
days would confirm her hopes for sure, or dash them.

Probyn said confidentially, loping along beside her at a pace that somehow kept easily abreast of her long strides – ‘This is just between you and me, milady, what I'm going to say … There's a certain young woman in this village is going to come and see you soon, if she's in trouble – she don't know for sure yet, if you know what I mean.'

‘I understand,' Lady Helen said.

Probyn continued, ‘She doesn't know where to turn, 'cept you. She trusts you …'

Helen racked her brain. ‘It must be Hetty Watkins,' she said. ‘She was my maid for a year when I came back from finishing school.'

‘No names, no pack drill,' Probyn said mysteriously. ‘What I mean to say is, if she comes, you can send her to see my Woman. My Woman 'elps girls in trouble.'

‘It's against the law,' Helen said.

‘'Course it is,' Probyn said with a touch of asperity, ‘but the law is a ass. We don't have no truck with the girl's dad, but my Woman will help
her
. So tell her, if she comes.'

‘I will,' Helen said. Probyn touched his cap and turned away. ‘Give my regards to Mrs Gorse,' Helen called after him.

‘When I get home I will.'

‘Where are you going, then?'

‘Fishing.'

‘Oh dear, not on Father's water, I hope.'

‘I'd be ashamed to, with the keepers his lordship has now.' Probyn disappeared into the hedge.

Helen walked on. Hetty Watkins, pregnant. Poor Hetty.

She started. Poor Hetty, indeed! Probyn's mysterious young woman who might be in trouble was clearly herself, Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu. Had he guessed that she had fallen in love with Boy, and made love with him? Or did he
know
– by watching, perhaps? He had come into the Arms that evening after the cricket match, and left before they did. It was possible … it was probable. She felt indignant. Then she began to laugh. Hadn't that Italian princess showed her a Renaissance medallion of a satyr enjoying a nymph while Pan scattered rose petals over the two of them? Probyn was a sort of Pan, and so sacred a rite as theirs that first night really should not have taken place without a priest to bless it.

And, of course, Frances Enright had been an altar boy, deliberately keeping Carol Adams back in the Arms.

But she was not going to use Probyn's Woman's services, no, thank you. She paused in her stride. Well, perhaps she could, not to rid herself of Boy's child, but to give it birth in dignity and secrecy. Then she herself would raise it until he could come and claim them both. She set off again striding longer and whistling ‘Greensleeves' with unladylike energy, praying for the moment to come when she could feel the life moving in her womb.

Virginia Rowland and another young woman worked on their knees, on padded sandbags, with brush and pail of soapy water beside them, wet cloths in their reddened hands. In an hour the cold cement floor of the mess hall would be spotless, first swabbed down, then scrubbed by hand. Then their Deputy Administrator would come round and say, in her upper-class accent, ‘That's well done.' Then she'd take Virginia aside and say, ‘You really ought to accept the Senior Unit Administrator's offer to send you to administrative school. You are, after all, a lady.'

Virginia kept swabbing, inching forward on the sandbag. Nothing would make her agree to become an administrator, or even a Forewoman, and leave girls like June Adkinson, working here beside her, and join with those who had power over them. She'd been miserable as a girl – she could admit it to herself now – fat, no good at games, no good at work, a disappointment to her parents. Only her moments with Guy had been happy. Her stroke became slower as she thought of him, in his R.F.C. jacket, with the two medal ribbons … already! And the blue eye and the brown, both smiling at her.

She sighed and scrubbed faster. She'd never be like him, even in so far as a woman could be; and if you weren't like Guy, or Naomi, or even Stella in her own way, being upper class was just a lot of restrictions, denials and … rejections. This was the place for her. She thanked God for the war, which had given her the power to break away, and a place to go to. She whispered to herself ‘Sorry, I don't mean it – about the war.' Then she thanked Him that she was here, scrubbing floors in Aldershot, a worker of the Woman's Army Auxiliary Corps, which had taken over the duties and most of the personnel of her old unit of the Women's Legion.

Beside her, June said, ‘Tha's daydreaming, Ginnie. Look, tha's missed a bludy great patch of the cement, there!'

Virginia smiled and went back over the place June pointed out. June was from Wigan, and had worked two years in the cotton mills before the war offered her, too, an escape. For the first year of their service together she had heaped all kind of scorn on Virginia – for being a lady, for her accent, for her general lack of knowledge of anything practical … but recently she had changed completely, and appointed herself Virginia's best friend and protector.

She said now, ‘An' you're not using t'regulation broosh. Old Basin Tits'll 'ave your blud for that.'

‘I lost it,' Virginia said.

‘Sum bitch stoal it, more like. You get on with t'work an' I'll get you a broosh from t'stores. Lansbury there owes me summat.'

She got up and went out, returning five minutes later with a new, official floor brush. She smacked Virginia's behind before kneeling beside her. ‘Tha' needs a bludy keeper, Ginnie, that's t'truth.'

They worked on, steadily and efficiently, with little speech. At four o'clock the bugles blew; and at five Virginia was free for three hours. Her Deputy Administrator checked her out of the gate of the collection of tin-roofed Nissen huts, surrounded by barbed wire, and said, ‘Remember, Rowland, back before eight, sharp!'

Stanley Robinson was waiting for her outside the cinema and at once bought tickets, and they went in together. She sat, as always, on his right, so that once the house became dark, he could hold her hand. The lights dimmed, their hands met and folded, the giant images flashed on the silver screen, the pianist began to pound out ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee.' Mack Sennett and the Keystone cops raced across the screen from right to left on bicycles; there was a fight; they rushed back in a Model T Ford; a locomotive appeared, steam and smoke pouring out of every valve and joint; the car raced it to a level crossing, marked by a swinging lamp and crossed planks on a pole … They laughed till their sides ached, their hands always locked.

A newsreel followed the Mack Sennett … our Boys in France … a destroyer crew waving from the deck as the ship docked … A German Gotha aeroplane, or rather the
smashed pieces of it, on a hillside somewhere in England, soldiers staring at it … the Queen opening a bazaar … the King visiting a Convalescent Depot … Guns firing somewhere in France … The grip of his hand tightened and he muttered, ‘Those are 18 pounders, my guns.' She returned his grip, understanding what he was feeling.

Afterwards, in the street again he tucked her arm under his good elbow and she said, ‘Stanley! We're not allowed to show affection in public. Miss Charnley would give me fourteen days C.B. if she saw us.'

‘Some say good old Basin Tits,' Stanley muttered.

Virginia squeezed his arm. The unspoken second half of the saying was ‘Some say fuck old Basin Tits.' The girls of the W.A.A.C. knew all the swear words the men did, and more, and used them when no superiors were about; or, when they lost their tempers, used the words to the superiors' faces. Virginia sometimes used the words herself, but it made her feel warm that Stanley should keep his language decent in front of her.

He said now, ‘We'll pick up some fish and chips and eat them outside the Queen's Arms, with a bottle of beer, eh?'

‘That'll be lovely,' she said.

Outside the pub they sat on the grass in the fading light, eating off the stained newsprint in which fish and chips were always wrapped, licking their greasy fingers, smiling at each other. At last, ‘Half-past seven, Stanley,' she said. ‘I must go, or Miss Charnley …'

Stanley rose unwillingly, then helped her up. They disposed of the paper in a dustbin and walked slowly toward the W.A.A.C. hutments at the lower end of Aldershot. A hundred yards from the knife rest, now pulled aside, that marked the entrance, and at night was pulled across to block it, he stopped. This was the first place he had kissed her – the first place and time she had ever been kissed.

She turned up her face, waiting for the kiss. He said, ‘Will you marry me, Virginia?'

She said, ‘Yes. When?'

He said, ‘I'll remind you again I've not the education I should have. My father's a corporation dustman in Leeds, you know that. And yours is a colonel … even though you
are
speaking less la-di-da the last few months. Your mum and dad'll be proper ashamed of you.'

‘I want to speak like you and June and the others,' Virginia said.

‘And me with only one arm and all. God only knows what sort of a job I'll be able to get when the war's over.'

‘It doesn't matter. I can work.'

‘Not if you have bairns to look after … not with
my
bairns, you won't.'

‘We'll find something.'

‘You'll write to your mother, then … best, take a forty-eight and go and see her, and tell her. I'll write to your father.' She made a gesture of dissent, but he said firmly, ‘It must be done right, Virginia. If I was a toff, we might elope or something, but I'm not going to have any of your family saying “That soldier ran away with our Virginia for her money.” Besides, it's the right thing to do. They're your father and mother … Then, when it's settled and agreed to, we'll get married in church, and you'll have a guard of honour of sergeants and bombardiers of the Royal Regiment.'

She said apprehensively, ‘But what if Daddy or Mummy say no?'

‘They won't,' he said confidently.

Ruth Hoggin sat beside Miss Plummer, the elocution teacher, in the day nursery of the big house, Launcelot squirming on a high chair across the table from them. He was wearing a velveteen suit with knee breeches and white socks, and patent leather shoes with a single pearl button fastening the cross strap.

‘How now brown cow,' Miss Plummer said.

‘How now brown cow,' Launcelot repeated. Ruth beamed with pride.

‘Rainy plain.'

‘Rain…'

Ruth cut in, ‘Miss Plummer said “Rainy plain,” Launcelot.'

Launcelot yawned and looked out of the window and fidgeted on his chair.

‘Try again, Launcelot,' Miss Plummer said, ‘say “rainy.”'

‘Riney.'

‘No, Launcelot, rainy. Say that.'

‘Rainy. Look, old Sharpies, up tree.' The little boy jumped down and ran to the open window. There he peered out, on
tiptoe, waving one hand frantically at the old gardener, twenty feet up an elm tree on a long ladder.

Ruth said severely, ‘Come back, Launcelot, and sit down. You'll never learn if you don't pay attention and then what will they think of you at Eton College?'

Miss Plummer muttered in a low voice, ‘We must remember he's only two and a half, Mrs Hoggin. He is really very advanced for his age.'

Launcelot came back unwillingly and climbed up into his chair. Miss Plummer said, ‘Say the words after me, Launcelot … “High.”'

‘High.'

‘Butter.'

‘Bu'er.'

‘Butter. Sounds the Ts, Launcelot.'

‘Butt-ter.'

‘Better, but not quite right … What?' She sounded the H clearly.

‘Wot … old Sharples fall's bloody noggin!'

Again Launcelot rushed to the window. The gardener teetered momentarily on his ladder, but recovered himself. Ruth said, ‘He uses such awful language … well, you know his father didn't have any proper education and Launcelot picks it up … though, mind, Mr Hoggin speaks much better than he used to, thanks to you. But he still swears … he forgets, that's it.'

‘Quite, Mrs Hoggin. I think it would be best if I took Launcelot for a litle walk now … just the two of us,' she added pointedly as Ruth made to get up as though to accompany them. ‘He needs to concentrate on one person, one thing … not try to please his mother as well as hear what I am trying to teach him.'

Miss Plummer collected Launcelot and went out and down the stairs. Ruth followed more slowly, and, ignoring Miss Meiklejohn's startled look, walked past her desk into Bill's office. He glanced up – ‘Saw Launcelot going out just now … I'd have been torn limb from limb if I'd 'a walked out in clothes like those, when I was his age.'

‘That was different,' she said. ‘Bill, we must have my mother to live with us.'

Bill rose slowly behind his big desk, ‘Your mother! What the bleeding 'ell do you think …?'

‘She is all but crippled. Nellie's leaving to join the W.R.N.S. Ethel's going back to London, and Mother doesn't want to go there.'

‘She hates me, I'm dirt to her, the scum of the earth.'

‘Well, you used to use such awful language, and had nasty friends. Now it's different. You're an important man, and well off. And this is our house, not hers.'

‘But…' Hoggin said helplessly.

‘We've got to,' Ruth said firmly. ‘It's a daughter's duty to look after her mother and father when they can't look after themselves, and that's what I'm going to do.'

She went out, closing the door behind her. Bill stared after her, then muttered, ‘ 'Cor stone the fucking crows,' and picked up the balance sheet of another H.U.S.L. shop.