The Distant Hours (34 page)

‘Oh no.’ Lucy shook her head. ‘No. It’s kind of you, Miss Saffy, but I don’t think that would be wise.’

‘Why ever not?’ said Saffy, though as she said it she knew perfectly well why not, and suffered a wave of embarrassment for not having found a smarter way to extend the invitation. Lucy was far too proper to entertain the notion of dining with her employers. With Percy, especially.

‘We’d rather not make a fuss,’ she said. ‘We’re neither of us young. There won’t be a long engagement; there’s no point in waiting, what with the war.’

‘But surely at his age Harry won’t be going—?’

‘Oh no, nothing like that. He’ll be doing his bit though, with Mr Potts’s mob. He was in the first war, you know; at Passchendaele. Alongside my brother – alongside Michael.’

There was a new expression on Lucy’s face then – a type of pride, Saffy realized, a tentative pleasure shot through with mild self-consciousness. It was the novelty, of course, the recent change in circumstance. Lucy was still becoming used to this new persona, that of a woman soon to be married, a woman who was part of a couple, who had a male counterpart through whom she might be clothed in reflected glory. Saffy warmed a little vicariously; she couldn’t think of anyone she knew who deserved happiness as much as Lucy. ‘Well, of course, that all makes very good sense,’ she said. ‘And you must certainly take a few days for yourself either side of the wedding. Perhaps I could—’

‘Actually.’ Lucy pressed her lips together and concentrated on the patch of space above Saffy’s left shoulder. ‘That’s the thing I really must talk to you about.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ Lucy smiled, but not easily and not happily, then the smile fell away leaving only a slight sigh in its place. ‘It’s rather awkward you see, but Harry would prefer . . . that is, he thinks that once we’re married it would be best if I stay at home; look after his house and do my bit for the war effort.’ Perhaps Lucy felt as keenly as Saffy that further explanation was required for she went on to say, quickly, ‘And in case we should be blessed with children.’

And then Saffy understood; it was as if a great veil had been lifted. Everything that had been blurred came into focus: Lucy wasn’t in love with Harry Rogers any more than Saffy was, she merely yearned for a baby. It was a wonder Saffy hadn’t figured it out straightaway; it was so plain now that she knew. It was, in fact, the only explanation. Harry had offered her that one last chance; what woman in Lucy’s position wouldn’t make the same decision? Saffy fingered her locket, ran a thumb over the snib, and felt a surge of kinship with Lucy, a flush of sisterly affection and understanding so strong that she was overcome with a sudden desire to tell Lucy everything, to explain that she, Saffy, knew exactly how she felt.

She opened her mouth to do just that, but found no words had come. She smiled slightly, blinked and was astonished to feel a wave of warm tears threatening to spill. Lucy, meanwhile, had turned away, was searching her pockets for something, and Saffy, recovering her composure as best she could, glanced surreptitiously towards the window, watching as a single black bird sailed an invisible current of warm air.

She blinked again and everything took on a misty veneer. But how ridiculous it was to cry! It was the war of course, the uncertainty, the wretched, hateful windows!

‘I’m going to miss you too, Miss Saffy. All of you. I’ve spent over half my life here at Milderhurst; I always assumed I’d end my days here too.’ A slight hesitation. ‘If that doesn’t sound too morbid?’

‘Terribly morbid.’ Saffy smiled through tears, pinching the locket again beneath her fingers. Lucy would be dreadfully missed, but that wasn’t the only reason Saffy wept. She didn’t open the locket any more; she didn’t need the photograph to see his face. The young man with whom she’d been in love, who’d been in love with her. The future had stretched ahead, anything had been possible, everything. Before it was all stolen from her—

But Lucy knew none of that, and if she did, if over the years she’d gathered threads here and there, connected them to form a rueful picture, she was polite enough never to mention it. Even now. ‘The wedding will be in April,’ she continued softly, handing Saffy an envelope she’d drawn from her pocket. Her letter of resignation, Saffy realized. ‘Spring. In the village church, just a small wedding. Nothing fancy. I’d be very happy to stay on until then, but I understand if . . .’ There were tears in her eyes now. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Saffy, not to give you more notice. Especially at a time like this, with help so difficult to find.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Saffy. She shivered, aware suddenly of a draught, crisp against her damp cheeks. She pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed, noticed the smudges of face powder on the cloth. ‘Oh goodness,’ she said, pulling a face of mock horror, ‘what a mess I must look.’ She smiled at Lucy. ‘Now, never mind your apologies. You’re not to give it another thought, and you’re certainly not to do any more crying. Love is a thing to be celebrated, not wept over.’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy, looking anything but a woman in love. ‘Well then.’

‘Well then.’

‘I should get on.’

‘Yes.’ Saffy didn’t smoke, she couldn’t stand the smell or the taste of tobacco, but at that moment she wished she did. Something settling to do with her hands. She swallowed, straightened a little, drew strength as she often did by pretending to be Percy . . .

Oh dear. Percy.

‘Lucy?’

The housekeeper turned from where she was collecting the empty teacups.

‘What about Percy? Does she know about Harry? That you’re leaving us?’

The housekeeper’s face paled as she shook her head.

Unease set up camp in Saffy’s stomach. ‘Perhaps I ought to—?’

‘No,’ said Lucy, with a small, brave smile. ‘No. It’s something I must do.’

Percy didn’t go home. Neither did she go on to the village hall to assist with the arrangement of corned beef tins. Saffy would later accuse her of forgetting to collect an evacuee on purpose, of never having wanted one in the first place; but although there was an element of truth in the latter accusation, Percy’s failure to show up at the hall had nothing to do with Saffy and everything to do with Mrs Potts’s gossip. Besides, as she reminded her twin, everything had worked out in the end: Juniper, unpredictable, beloved Juniper, had happened by the village hall quite by chance and Meredith had thus been plucked for the castle. Percy, meanwhile, having left the WVS meeting in something of a daze, had forgotten about her bicycle, turning to walk instead along the High Street, head held high, gait assured, looking for all the world like someone with a list in her pocket of a hundred tasks to be met by dinnertime. Giving no hint at all that she was the walking wounded, a ghostly echo of her former self. How she found herself at the hair salon she would never know, but that is precisely where her numb feet took her.

Percy’s hair had always been long and blonde, though never so long as Juniper’s nor so golden as Saffy’s. Percy didn’t mind either of these things; she’d never been the sort to pay much attention to her crowning glory. While Saffy left her hair long because she was vain and Juniper ignored hers because she wasn’t, Percy kept it that way for the simple reason that Daddy preferred it. He believed that girls should be pretty; that his daughters, especially, should have long fair hair that fell in waves down their backs.

Percy flinched as the hairdresser wetted and combed her hair until it was dishwater-dark and lank. Metal blades whispered cool against the back of her neck and the first hank dropped to the floor, where it lay still, a dead thing. She felt light.

The hairdresser had been shocked when Percy made the request, had asked her over and again if she were sure. ‘But your curls are so pretty,’ she’d said sadly; ‘do you really want them all off?’

‘All of them.’

‘But you won’t recognize yourself.’

No, Percy thought, and the notion had pleased her. When she’d sat in the chair, still in something of a dream, Percy had looked and met her own image in the mirror; caught herself in a moment of introspection. What she’d seen had disquieted her. A woman of increasing years, still wrapping her hair in rags at night to affect the girlish curls that nature had forgotten. Such fussing was all well and good for Saffy, who was a romantic, refusing even now to let go of old dreams and accept that her knight in shining armour was not coming, that her place was, and would always be, at Milderhurst; but it was laughable in Percy. Percy the pragmatist, Percy the planner, Percy the protector.

She should have cut off her hair years ago. The new style was trim and spare and although she couldn’t claim to look better, it was enough to know that she looked different. With each snip something inside her released, an old idea to which she’d been clinging without knowing it, so that finally, when the young hairdresser lay down the scissors and said, a little greenly, ‘There you are then, dear. Don’t you look neat?’ Percy had ignored the infuriating condescension to agree with some surprise that yes, she did indeed look neat.

Meredith had been waiting for hours, first standing, then sitting, now slouching on the wooden floor of Milderhurst village hall. As time stretched out, and the stream of farmers and local ladies dried completely, and the dark started to hover outside the windows, Meredith let herself wonder what dreadful fate might await her if she weren’t chosen at all, if
nobody
wanted her. Would she spend the next few weeks living here, alone, in the draughty hall? The very thought made her spectacles mist so that everything was blurred.

And it was then, at that precise moment, that
she
arrived. Swept in, like a resplendent angel, like something out of a made-up story, and rescued Meredith from the cold, hard floor. As if she knew somehow, through some sort of magic or sixth sense – something science was yet to explain – that she was needed.

Meredith didn’t see the actual entrance, she was too busy cleaning her spectacle lenses on the hem of her skirt but she did feel a crackle in the air and perceived the unnatural silence when it fell amongst the chirruping women.

‘Why, Miss Juniper,’ one of them said, as Meredith fumbled her spectacles back onto her nose and blinked towards the refreshments table. ‘What a surprise. And how may we be of assistance? Are you looking for Miss Blythe, because it’s quite a curious thing, but we haven’t seen her since midday—’

‘I’ve come for my evacuee,’ said the girl who must be Miss Juniper, cutting the woman off with a wave of her hand. ‘Don’t get up. I see her.’

And she started walking, passing the children in the front row, and Meredith blinked a few more times, looked over her shoulder and realized there was no one remaining there, then turned back just in time to find that splendid person standing directly above her. ‘Ready?’ the stranger said. Casually, lightly, as if they were old friends and the whole thing had been planned in advance.

Later, after Percy had lost hours somehow by the brook, sat cross-legged on a smooth-washed stone, built childish boats from whatever came to hand, she returned to the church hall to collect her bicycle. After such a warm day the evening had come in cool, and by the time Percy started for the castle, the falling dusk had shadowed the hills.

Despair had tangled Percy’s thoughts and she tried, as she pedalled, to straighten them. The engagement itself was devastating, but it was the duplicity that cut deepest. All this time – for there must have been a period of courtship leading to the proposal – Harry and Lucy had been sneaking behind her back, conducting their affair beneath her nose as if she were nothing to either of them, neither lover nor employer. The betrayal was like a hot iron to her chest; she wanted to scream, to tear at her own face, and his, and hers, to scratch and harm them both as they had wounded her. To bellow until her voice failed, to be beaten until she no longer felt pain, to close her eyes and never have to open them again.

But she would do none of those things. Percy Blythe did not behave in such a way.

Over the treetops, the oncoming darkness continued to bruise the distant fields and a flock of black birds took flight towards the Channel. The moon’s pale casing, as yet unlit, hung lifeless in the shadows. Percy wondered, idly, whether the bombers would come tonight.

With a short sigh she lifted one hand to press the newly exposed skin at the nape of her neck, then, as the breath of evening brushed her face, she pedalled harder. Harry and Lucy were to be married and nothing Percy did or said would change that fact. Crying would not help, neither would reproach. What was done was done. All that remained was for Percy to formulate and follow a new plan. To do what needed to be done, just as she always had.

When finally she reached the gates of Milderhurst, she swerved across the road and the rickety footbridge, and jumped off her bicycle. Although she’d done little more than sit all day, she was tired, and strangely so. Tired to the ends of her fingers. Her bones, her eyes, her arms, all airy, as if they were made up of grains. Like a rubber band that had been wound too tightly and unravelled now to find itself stretched and frayed, weak and shapeless. She fumbled with her handbag until she found a cigarette.

Percy walked the final mile, pushed the bicycle beside her as she smoked, stopping only when the castle came into view. Barely visible, a black armoury against the navy sky, not a chink of light showed. The curtains were drawn, the shutters were closed, the blackout was being followed to the letter. Good. The last thing she needed was for Hitler to set his sights on her castle.