The Distant Hours (14 page)

Not to mention the guest she had mysteriously invited to join them. Juniper was not one to gather friends – young Meredith being the single surprising exception – but Saffy had an instinct for reading between the lines and, despite Juniper’s lines being squiggly at the best of times, she’d gathered that the young man had performed some act of gallantry to earn Juniper’s good favour. The invitation, therefore, was a show of the Blythe family’s gratitude and everything must be perfect. The onion sprouts, she confirmed with a second glance, were decidedly less than perfect. Once picked they mustn’t be wasted though – such sacrilege! Lord Woolton would be horrified – Saffy would find a dish to take them, just not from tonight’s menu. Onions and their after-effects could make for rather poor society.

Sounding a disconsolate huff, then doing the same again because the sensation so pleased her, Saffy started back towards the house, glad as always that her path didn’t take her through the main gardens. She couldn’t bear it; they’d been glorious once. It was a tragedy that so many of the nation’s flower gardens had been abandoned or given over to vegetable cultivation. According to Juniper’s most recent letter, not only had the flowers by Rotten Row in Hyde Park been flattened beneath great piles of wood and iron and brick – the bones of Lord only knew how many homes – the entire southern side was given over now to allotments. A necessity, Saffy acknowledged, but no less tragic for it. Lack of potatoes left a person’s stomach growling, but absence of beauty hardened the soul.

Directly before her a late butterfly hovered, wings drawing in and out like the mirrored edges of a set of fireside bellows. That such perfection, such natural calm, should continue while mankind was bringing the world’s ceiling down around it – why, it was nothing short of miraculous. Saffy’s face lightened; she held out a finger but the butterfly ignored her, lifting then falling, darting to inspect the brown fruits of the medlar tree. Completely oblivious – what wonder! With a smile, she continued her trudge towards the castle, ducking beneath the knobbled wisteria arbour, careful not to catch her hair.

Mr Churchill would do well to remember that wars were not won by bullets alone, and to reward those who managed to sustain beauty when the world was being blasted into ugly pieces around them. The Churchill Medal for the Maintenance of Beauty in England had a lovely ring to it, Saffy thought. Percy had smirked when she’d said so at breakfast the other morning, with the inevitable smugness of one who’d spent months climbing in and out of bomb craters, earning her very own bravery medal in the process, but Saffy had refused to feel foolish. Indeed, she was working on a letter to
The Times
on the subject. The thrust of it: that beauty was important, as were art and literature and music; never more so than when civilized nations seemed intent upon goading one another into increasingly barbarous acts.

Saffy adored London, she always had. Her future plans depended upon its survival and she took each bomb dropped as a personal attack. When the raids had been in full swing and the crump of distant anti-aircraft guns, the screaming sirens, the miserable explosions had been nightly companions, she’d chewed her nails feverishly – a terrible habit and one whose blame she laid squarely at Hitler’s feet – wondering whether the lover of a city might suffer its plight all the more for being absent when disaster struck, in the same way a mother’s anxiety for a wounded son was magnified by distance. Even as a girl Saffy had glimpsed that her life’s path lay not in the miry fields or within the ancient stones of Milderhurst, but amidst the parks and cafes, the literate conversations of London. When she and Percy were small, after Mother was burned but before Juniper was born, when it was still just the three of them, Daddy had taken the twins up to London each year to live for a time at the house in Chelsea. They were young; time hadn’t yet rubbed away at them, polishing their differences and sharpening their opinions, and they were treated – indeed they behaved between themselves – as a pair of duplicates. Yet when they were in London, Saffy had felt the early stirrings of division, deep but strong, within herself. Where Percy, like Daddy, pined for the vast, green woods of home, Saffy was enlivened by the city.

An earthy rumble sounded behind her and Saffy groaned, refusing to turn and acknowledge the heavy clouds she knew were gloating over her shoulder. Of all the war’s personal privations, the loss of a regular wireless weather forecast had been a particularly cruel blow. Saffy had faced the shrinkage of quiet reading time with equanimity, agreeing that Percy should bring her one book a week from the lending library instead of the usual four. On the matter of retiring her silk dresses in favour of practical pinafores she’d been positively sanguine. The loss of staff, like so many fleas from a drowning rat, and the consequent adjustment to her new status as head cook, cleaner, laundress and gardener, she’d taken in her stride. But in Saffy’s attempts to master the vagaries of the English weather she had met her match. Despite a lifetime in Kent, she had none of the countrywoman’s instincts for weather: she had discovered, in fact, a curious antithetical knack for hanging out washing and braving the fields on the very days rain was whispering in the wings.

Saffy marched faster, almost at a canter, trying not to mind the odour of the onion leaves, which seemed to be gaining strength as she gained pace. One thing was certain: when the war ended, Saffy was giving up country life for good. Percy didn’t know it yet – the timing must be right before the news was broached – but Saffy was going up to London. There she intended to find herself a flatlet, just for one. She had no furniture of her own, but that was a small impediment: such matters Saffy entrusted to providence. One thing was certain, though, she’d be taking nothing with her from Milderhurst. Her accoutrements would all be new; it would be a fresh start, nearly two decades later than she’d initially planned, but that could not be helped. She was older now, stronger, and this time she wouldn’t be stopped no matter how overwhelming the opposition.

Though her intentions were secret, Saffy made a habit of reading the letting pages in
The Times
each Saturday so that when opportunity presented, she’d be ready. She’d considered Chelsea and Kensington but decided in favour of one of the Georgian squares in Bloomsbury, in walking distance of both the British Museum and the shops of Oxford Street. Juniper, she hoped, might also remain in London and set up in a place nearby, and Percy would, of course, come to visit. She’d stay no longer than a single night though, due to strong feelings about sleeping in her own bed and being on hand to prop up the castle, bodily if need be, should it begin to crumble.

In the privacy of her own thoughts, Saffy visited her little flatlet often, especially when Percy was stalking up and down the castle corridors, raging about the flaking paint, the sinking beams, decrying each new crack in the walls. Saffy would close her eyes and open the door to her very own home. It would be small and simple, and very clean – she’d take care of that herself – and the overriding smell would be one of beeswax polish. Saffy clenched her fist around the onion sprigs and walked even faster.

A desk beneath the window, her Olivetti typewriter at its centre and a miniature glass vase – an old but pretty bottle would do at a pinch – in the corner, with a single flower in the prime of its bloom, to be replaced daily. The wireless would be her only companion, and throughout the day she’d pause in her typing to listen to the weather reports, leaving briefly the world she was creating on the page to gaze through the window at the smokeless London sky. Sunlight would brush her arm, spilling into her tiny home and setting the beeswax on the furniture to sparkling. In the evenings, she’d read her library books, write a little more of her own work in progress, and listen to Gracie Fields on the wireless, and no one would grumble from the other armchair that it was a load of sentimental rubbish.

Saffy stopped, pressed her palms to her warm cheeks and gave a sigh of deep contentment. Dreams of London, of the future, had brought her all the way back to the rear of the castle: what was more, she’d beaten the rain.

A glance at the henhouse, and her pleasure was curdled somewhat by regret. How she’d live without her girls she didn’t know; she wondered if it would be possible to take them with her. Surely there’d be space in her building’s little garden for a small run – she would just have to add this necessity to her list.

Saffy opened the gate and held out her arms. ‘Hello, darlings. How are you this afternoon?’

Helen-Melon ruffled her feathers but didn’t shift from the roosting bench, and Madame refused even to look up from the dirt.

‘Chin up, girls. I’m not going anywhere yet. Why, there’s a whole war to win first.’

This rallying call did not have the cheering effect Saffy had hoped for and her smile staled. It was the third day in as many that Helen had been downcast, and Madame was ordinarily nothing if not vocal. The younger hens took their cue from the older two, so the mood in the coop was decidedly grey. Saffy had become accustomed to such low spirits during the raids; chickens were every bit as sensitive as humans, just as susceptible to anxiety, and the bombers had been relentless. In the end, she’d taken all eight down into the shelter with her at night. The air had suffered, it was true, but the arrangement had suited all concerned: the hens returned to laying and, with Percy out most nights, Saffy had been glad of the company.

‘Come now,’ she cooed, scooping Madame into her arms. ‘Don’t be stroppy, my lovely. It’s just a storm gathering, nothing more.’ The warm feathered body relaxed, but only briefly, before wings flapped and the hen staged a clumsy escape, back to the dirt she’d been scratching.

Saffy dusted off her hands and set them on her hips. ‘As bad as that, is it? I suppose there’s only one thing for it then.’

Dinner. The only move in her arsenal guaranteed to brighten their spirits. They were greedy, her girls, and that was no bad thing. Would that all the world’s problems were solved with a tasty dish. It was earlier than usual, but these were critical times: the parlour table was still not set, the serving spoon was missing in action, Juniper and her guest would be at the door in no time at all – with Percy’s spirits to manage, the last thing she needed was a clutch of cranky hens. There. It was a practical decision, to keep them sweet, and nothing whatever to do with Saffy being a hopelessly soft touch.

The steam of a day spent conjuring dinner from what could be found in the larder or begged from the adjoining farms had collected in the upper nooks of the kitchen and Saffy tugged at her blouse in an effort to cool down. ‘Now,’ she flustered, ‘where was I?’ She lifted the saucepan lid to satisfy herself the custard had gone nowhere in her absence, guessed by the oven huffing that the pie was still cooking, then spotted an old wooden crate that had outlived its original purpose but would suit her current one perfectly.

Saffy dragged it into the furthest corner of the larder and climbed aboard, standing on tiptoes right at its edge. She spider-walked her hand along the larder shelf until her fingers grazed the darkest patch and a small tin reached out to meet them. Wrapping her hand around it, Saffy smiled to herself and clambered back down. Months of dust had settled, grease and steam had formed a glue, and she had to wipe the top with her thumb to read the label beneath: sardines. Perfect! She grasped it tightly, relishing the thrill of the illicit.

‘Don’t worry, Daddy,’ sang Saffy, digging the tin opener from the drawer of clunky kitchen utensils, shutting it again with a bump of her hip. ‘They’re not for me.’ It had been one of her father’s ruling tenets: tinned food was a conspiracy and they were to submit themselves to willing starvation sooner than allow a spoonful to pass their lips. A conspiracy by whom and to what effect Saffy did not purport to know, but Daddy had been forceful on the matter and that had been enough. He wasn’t one to brook much opposition and for a long time she’d possessed no desire to give him any. Throughout her girlhood he had been the sun that shone for Saffy, and the moon at night; the idea that he might ever disappoint her belonged in a counter-realm of ghouls and nightmares.

Saffy mashed the sardines in a porcelain bowl, noticing the hairline crack in its side only after she’d rendered the fish utterly unrecognizable. It was of no consequence as far as the hens were concerned, but along with the wallpaper she’d discovered peeling away from the chimney in the good parlour it was the second sign of decline in as many hours. She made a mental note to check carefully the plates they’d put aside for tonight, to hide any that were similarly marred; it was just the sort of wear and tear to get Percy fuming, and although Saffy admired her twin’s commitment to Milderhurst and its maintenance, her ill mood would not be conducive to the atmosphere of convivial celebration she was hoping for.

A number of things happened then at once. The door creaked ajar, Saffy jumped, and a remnant of sardine spine dropped from the fork’s tine onto the flagstones.

‘Miss Saffy!’

‘Oh, Lucy, thank God!’ Saffy clutched the fork against her staccato heart. ‘You shaved ten years off my life!’

‘I’m sorry. I thought you were out fetching flowers for the parlour . . . I only meant . . . I came to check – ’ The housekeeper’s sentence broke into tatters as she drew closer, took in the fishy mash, the open tin and she dropped her train of thought completely when she met Saffy’s gaze. Her lovely violet eyes widened. ‘Miss Saffy!’ she said. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘Oh-no-no-no – ’ Saffy flapped a hand for silence, smiling as she lifted a finger to her lips. ‘Shh, Lucy dear. Not for
me
, certainly not. I keep them for the girls.’