Poppy's War (35 page)

‘Yes, you do,’ Jean said eagerly. ‘Your father was his uncle’s batman, you said so, and he was in the London Rifle Brigade. So that’s where you’d find Harry Beecham.’

‘I’m not sure I want to meet him. It might be an awful disappointment to both of us, and if he didn’t want anything to do with me, that would be even worse.’

Jean slid off her bed to give Poppy a hug. ‘Darling, he’d love you. You’re a poppet.’

‘A real honey,’ Mavis added, smiling.

‘Oh shucks!’ Edie drawled. ‘You don’t have to talk the lingo, Mavis. We all know you’re stepping out with Yankee Doodle Dandy.’

Mavis lobbed a pillow at Edie’s head. ‘Shut up. Don’t make fun of Lester, he’s lovely.’

‘You’re just jealous, Edie, because Farmer Giles doesn’t give you nylons and chocolate.’ Jean heaved herself back onto her bed, stretching out her long legs. ‘You’re nearest the stove, Edie. Is there any cocoa left in the saucepan?’

‘Get up and see for yourself,’ Edie retorted crossly. ‘And for your information, Mavis, Howard is very generous, and he treats me like a lady.’

‘He’s got it wrong there then,’ Mavis giggled, dodging the pillow that Edie tossed back at her. ‘Anyway, this doesn’t solve Poppy’s problem. What are you going to do, love?’

Poppy scrambled to her feet. ‘Right now I’m going back to the house to check on Mrs Carroll and see if she’s ready for bed.’

‘Can’t Mrs P do that?’ Jean protested. ‘It’s her mother who’s sick after all, not yours.’

‘I know, but Pamela will want to spend her last evening with Hector before he returns to London, and Mrs Carroll doesn’t play me up. She doesn’t dare because I won’t let her bully me, and Pamela gives in to her all the time.’

‘The tables are turned,’ Jean said with a wise nod.

‘Serves the old bitch right if you ask me.’ Edie stubbed her cigarette out in a saucer. ‘I’m going to make some more cocoa. At least milk isn’t in short supply if you happen to do the milking. There have to be some perks to the job to make up for the fact that we live like pigs and work like donkeys.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Mavis said, picking up a hairbrush and shaking her long sun-streaked brown hair free from its snood. ‘Goodnight, Poppy. Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this, though. We’ll find your dad for you if we have to go to Monty himself.’

‘Night, night, girls.’ Leaving them to their precious rest time, Poppy climbed down the ladder into the tack room. She let herself out into the cool May evening, inhaling the familiar smells of the stable yard mixed with the scent of May blossom and the purple lilac tree just beyond the brick wall. It was dusk and the clear sky was a luminous shade of duck-egg blue tinged with palest orange at the
horizon
. Bats fluttered erratically overhead and a cool breeze fanned her hot cheeks.

‘Poppy.’

She turned with a start at the sound of Guy’s voice. He emerged from Goliath’s stable with a rueful grin. ‘Sorry if I scared you. I was just saying goodbye to the old chap.’

She was suddenly breathless, as though she had been running. ‘When are you leaving?’ Her voice shook despite her attempt to sound casual. No matter how much she might pretend that he was returning to a safe desk job, she knew in her heart that this could very well be the last time she saw him.

‘Jackson’s driving Algy and me to the station first thing.’

‘What time do you want breakfast? I’m always up early.’

‘You don’t have to wait on me, Poppy.’

‘But you and Algy will have a long journey ahead of you. You won’t be able to get anything on the train.’

‘You’re always looking after other people, aren’t you? And I know I’ve taken advantage of your good nature, but I’ve asked Pam to make sure you’re paid a decent salary.’

His rueful smile made her heart ache. She knew how much he had loved his father even though there had never been any outward display of affection between them. She sensed his deep distress now and she longed to give him a hug, just as she might have
done
to Rupert when he was unhappy. She laid her hand on his sleeve. ‘It’s all right, Guy. You’re not imposing on me; I want to stay here and help. There is a war on, you know,’ she added with an attempt at a grin. If she stopped smiling she knew she would cry.

The air around them was silent and still and his face was in shadow, but she felt the muscles in his lower arm tense. ‘Poppy, I …’ He broke off, moving his arm gently from her grasp. ‘Never mind.’ He leaned over and brushed her cheek with a whisper of a kiss. ‘Take care of yourself, Poppy.’

‘You too, Guy.’ She knew now what girls in the films meant when they said, ‘I’ll never wash that cheek again.’ It was corny and trite but that brief, sexless caress, such as might have been bestowed upon a much-loved child, meant more to her than all Dennis’s passionate kisses. She wanted to fling her arms around him and feel his lips on hers, but she knew she was blushing like a schoolgirl. Scarlett O’Hara would have known what to do. She would have turned the situation to her own advantage, but this was life and they were not actors in a movie. ‘I’ll say goodnight then, Guy. See you in the morning.’

She was about to walk away but he caught her by the hand. ‘Don’t get up early on my account, Poppy. I hate goodbyes; it just makes leaving home all the more painful.’ He closed the stable door. ‘You’ll look after Goliath for me, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will.’ She started off towards the
house
. She wanted him to follow her but she hoped that he would not. The sound of his footsteps hastening over the cobblestones was pleasure and at the same time pain.

He caught up with her. ‘Will you write to me, Poppy? I mean, I’d like to know how Mother is, of course, and you could keep me up to date with the gossip in Barton Lacey.’

She shot him a surprised glance. ‘You want me to pass on tittle-tattle?’

‘Of course. I’m not such a stuffed shirt that I don’t enjoy a bit of scandal. It’ll keep me up to date so that when I do return to Squire’s Knapp I won’t feel such an outsider.’

‘You’re coming back here to live? What about your studies? I thought you were going to be a doctor.’

‘I think my future has been decided for me. I wasn’t expecting Father to die, but someone has to take over the estate, and I suppose I always knew it would fall to me one day. It’s just happened sooner rather than later.’

‘What would Amy think about that?’

Guy hesitated, pausing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the house. ‘No one else knows this, Poppy, not even Algy. Amy broke off our engagement before she went to Singapore. She said we both needed time to think about the future.’

Shocked, Poppy could only shake her head. ‘I–I’m sorry.’

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, staring
abstractedly
up at the darkening sky. ‘I could have prevented her from leaving. If I’d promised to bring our wedding forward she would have stayed, but I think I knew deep down we were both making a big mistake. Childhood sweethearts grow up and change. Experiences alter us and shape who we are. I’m very fond of Amy, but she wasn’t my life. I realise that now.’

‘I don’t think you ought to be telling me all this,’ Poppy murmured, shivering. ‘Maybe you’ll feel different when she comes home after the war.’

‘You’re cold. I shouldn’t have kept you out here selfishly unburdening myself to you.’ Guy took her arm and led her up the steps. ‘Go indoors and get warm. I’ll stay out here for a while and smoke the last of Father’s cigars while I make my peace with Squire’s Knapp for deserting it in time of war.’

She paused on the top step. ‘You talk about the place as though it were a real person.’

He smiled. ‘If you love something it becomes real. Goodnight, Poppy. I won’t say goodbye because I intend to come home eventually.’ He turned on his heel and walked towards the lake.

‘Come home to me,’ Poppy whispered as she watched him stop to light the cigar. The tip glowed and then disappeared as he walked into the darkness.

It was late by the time she had helped Pamela put her mother to bed in a small sitting room at the back
of
the house that had been hastily converted into a bedroom after Marina’s stroke. When Poppy finally went upstairs to the night nursery, she was relieved to find that Rupert was sound asleep in the single bed that had replaced his cot. His tumbled blond curls spread out on the pillow and in sleep he resembled a Botticelli angel. She smiled to herself thinking that this cherubic look would vanish the moment he opened his eyes. Master Rupert was growing up to be quite a handful. Poppy drew the quilt up to his chin and dropped a kiss on his forehead. She went into the bathroom and had a quick wash in cold water before undressing and putting on her pyjamas.

She climbed into bed, exhausted both mentally and physically, but her mind was racing. Guy’s revelations had shocked her to the core. She had thought him to be deeply in love with Amy and she with him, but now it seemed that theirs had been a shallow relationship based on an outgrown childhood romance. She was distressed and at the same time pleased, although she was ashamed to admit it even to herself, but she was also scared. When she had thought Guy was with Amy he was safe from the attractions of other women, but now he was free to fall in love with someone else. There must be any number of attractive unattached young women with whom he was in daily contact at the aerodrome. He lived in a different world now, filled with educated girls from good families whose jobs gave them an
understanding
of the risks he took daily. There might be young widows of comrades he had lost who needed a shoulder to cry on. Poppy’s imagination ran riot over the possibilities until she drifted into a troubled sleep.

She was awakened by Rupert jumping on the end of her bed. Sunlight was streaming through the window and she snapped into a sitting position, reaching for the watch that Dennis had given her last Christmas. It was seven thirty. She almost fell out of bed, much to Rupert’s amusement who seemed to think it was some sort of game. He chased her across the room as she went to the window to look out. There was no sign of the Bentley and she knew that she was too late. The first train to London left at six thirty each morning. Guy and Algy would have left over an hour ago.

Rupert tugged at her pyjama top and she was about to turn away from the window when she realised that there was someone standing outside the front entrance. She could only see a shadow but it was definitely male. Perhaps Guy had missed his train or had decided to take a longer leave. ‘Stay here and don’t move,’ she told Rupert sternly. ‘I won’t be long.’ Grabbing her flimsy cotton dressing gown, Poppy raced from the room, hurtling down three flights of stairs barefoot and struggling into her wrap. She wrenched the door open.

Chapter Eighteen

‘HELLO, POPPY.’

‘Dennis!’ She stared at him in disbelief. The shock of seeing him again temporarily robbed her of the ability to move. ‘What are you doing here? Is something wrong? Has anything happened to Joe?’

‘Hold on, girl. Don’t panic. Joe is fine. He’s still down in Kent somewhere and Mabel is okay too. She gave me a letter for you.’ He reached inside his jacket and extracted a crumpled envelope from his breast pocket.

She took it from him with trembling fingers. ‘Did you come all the way here just to bring me a letter?’

‘No, ducks. I came because Joe and Mabel are worried about you. They think that the toffs are taking advantage of your good nature.’

‘That’s not true,’ Poppy said angrily. ‘I came because I wanted to.’

‘That’s as maybe, but you can’t blame Joe for being concerned. He feels responsible for you and so does Mabel.’

‘But why send you all the way down here?’

‘I offered to come. I needed to see you again.’ His
eyes
darkened. ‘You walked out on me, but I can’t believe that it’s over between us.’

‘Dennis, this is ridiculous. I didn’t walk out on you. I left because Mrs Pallister needed me. You were the one who made a fuss.’

‘I thought we had something special.’

Exasperated and not knowing quite how to handle him, Poppy shook her head. ‘You know how I feel. I like you as a friend, and that’s all.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t turn off my feelings. It doesn’t work that way.’

‘I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have come. I thought we’d sorted all this out before I left.’

His face was pale beneath his weathered tan and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He seemed to shrink before her eyes, but all she felt for him was pity. It was not enough. She moderated her tone. ‘How did you get here so early, Dennis?’

‘I came on the mail train. Sat up all night in the guard’s van with a couple of Yanks returning to their base, but what do you care?’ He eyed her moodily. ‘Do you want me to push off? If you do just say so.’

She had thought she could deal with Dennis in any of his mercurial moods, but she had never seen him tired and dispirited. She held the door open. ‘You’d better come in for a while and rest, but that doesn’t mean we’re back together.’

He stepped over the threshold. ‘You always kept part of yourself locked away from me, Poppy. I knew that all along.’

‘Come through and please don’t make a noise. Mrs Carroll is a light sleeper.’ She led the way to the baize door and opened it, but Dennis was dawdling along, looking about him in awe.

‘This is some place you’ve got here. No wonder you didn’t think much of the house in Ilford.’

‘I never thought about it like that, but it was Mabel’s home, not mine.’ Allowing the door to swing on its hinges, she left him to his own devices and hurried downstairs to the kitchen, praying that Mrs Toon had not yet risen from her bed. She was angry with Dennis for putting her in such an impossible position, but she could not simply turn him away and he knew it, which only added to her feeling of resentment. She went to the Aga and raked the embers until flames licked round the coal. She moved the kettle onto the hob, turning her head as she heard his footsteps on the flagstones behind her. ‘I’ll make you some breakfast, Dennis, but then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’