The Postcard (5 page)

Times had changed for the former Gaiety Girl. She was still young but there were prettier girls on display now in the new fashion style, and she was too curvy to model. Her heyday was over, but
she found a niche playing character parts: northern maids and matrons with broad accents. She got laughs for her Yorkshire plain speaking, and there were some film parts coming. She now had an
agent who kept her name to the fore. It was not what Phoebe Faye might have dreamed of, but the musical comedy theatre was long gone. Her new acting roles paid the rent and bills, and kept her in
smart outfits and work when so many were jobless and hungry. It was all a far cry from her humble beginnings in Leeds. Her looks, voice and stage personality had shone from an early age, bringing
her to the attention of the great impresario George Edwardes. She’d lost her broad accent by the time she’d arrived at King’s Cross Station, but now she was using it to secure
film parts.

If she found herself ‘resting’ she helped Maisie Gibbons with acting and singing classes in the stage school, mostly stage expression and lyrical interpretation. She was glad
Caroline had not shown one iota of interest in the theatre. It was all dogs, ponies, scuffed knees and country pursuits. Caroline was destined for better things, and giving her this taste of
continental cuisine and customs was the first step in her further education.

Phoebe smiled, thinking how at eleven she’d been living in a back-to-back house in Hunslet, carrying her dancing pump bag and music to auditions, earning shillings for each performance,
unaware of the privileged world her own daughter was now growing up in.

Let no one say she wasn’t giving her the best of everything in life. ‘Deeds not words,’ she sighed, thinking of Emily Davison flinging herself at the King’s horse in
front of her, and Arthur in his grey topper, chewing game pie on Derby day. At least his daughter would never face hunger and hardship in a world war that blighted so many lives. There were no
spare men left for Kitty or Maisie and their friends to marry once the war was over. ‘Oh, Arthur,’ she sighed, unable to sleep in the heat of the night. Why must all the decisions be
left to me? Why did you have to leave me? She lay back, and for the first time in years let herself relive every moment of that precious weekend together in 1916.

1916

Phoebe was finding it a strain waiting in the wings for her entrance, knowing Arthur was watching the show. Once the curtain calls had been taken and the applause had died
down, she made a dash for the dressing room to change into her prettiest outfit and her rose velvet cloak with the swan’s-down trimmings. She must look perfect: not too theatrical, not
recognizable as one of the Gaiety postcard girls, just a girl out on the town with her soldier boy.

He was waiting at the stage door in uniform.

‘Let’s walk, get some fresh air,’ she suggested. It was starlit frosty night and her breath was like smoke. They strolled to Trafalgar Square and down Piccadilly towards St
James’s, and then he guided her down into Jermyn Street where he’d booked a late supper in the Cavendish Hotel.

Phoebe had been here before as a guest of the proprietor, Miss Rosa Lewis, who was once a confidante of the old king and famed for her delicious cuisine. Mr Edwardes, the Guvnor, introduced the
girls from his theatre and some of them were given supper and a chance to cheer up officers on leave. Nothing inappropriate, of course, but they did lend sparkle and glamour to the dining room.

‘I’ve got a billet here. My father’s a friend of Miss Lewis and she always looks after us when we’re in town.’ Arthur smiled. ‘It’s much more private
here than in the other restaurants. I want us not to feel we have to join another crowd.’

They were guided to a quiet table behind a screen of jardinières in the long panelled dining room. It was busy but there was no one in she knew. Phoebe felt herself relaxing and suddenly
ravenous.

‘The food is exquisite here. Miss Rosa supervises everything herself. Upstairs are about a hundred rooms, and some have permanent guests. She’s so kind to chaps who are hard up and
on leave. I heard she finds ways for the rich old men to pay extra on their bills so she doesn’t have to charge serving soldiers a bean . . . I always feel at home here. But enough about
me.’ He grasped her hand. ‘I thought you were magnificent tonight. It’s a really good revue and that Leslie Henson is a hoot . . . How are you? You look tons better than when I
last saw you in France. You’d lost so much weight.’

‘We seem to dash from one hospital show to another, from one camp to the next. You know what it’s like, too tired sometimes to eat. When we met in Calais I thought you looked as if
you’ve come from hellfire corner.’ She didn’t mean to bring up the war but he still looked strained.

‘I’m afraid a week with my parents is never restful. Mama can be very demanding. Wouldn’t let me out of sight, kept pressing these silly girls to sit next to me at the dining
table.’

‘She means well, wanting you to have pretty company,’ was the best Phoebe could offer, feeling sick at the thought of this matchmaking. ‘And your sister . . .?’

‘Verity came up for a day, grilled me for information, kept talking about poor chaps from Eton who’ve gone west . . . Poor girl, there aren’t going to be many of her sort left
if this goes on much longer. It’s a slaughterhouse out there, and now there’s the gas attacks . . .’ He paused, then visibly rallied. ‘No more war talk – I just want
to look in your face and forget all that stuff. I can’t believe how fate brought us together again. I never did understand why we stopped seeing each other.’

Phoebe sipped her wine. ‘It seemed the right thing to do when your mother—’

‘Mother spoke to you? When?’ He leaned forward, clasping her hand even tighter.

‘On Derby Day, when we met them for lunch. She said if we got serious, you’d have to resign from the Guards.’

Arthur banged down his glass. ‘How dare she interfere? Why didn’t you tell me then?’

‘I couldn’t, and then there was that terrible accident with Miss Davison and the racehorse. I couldn’t think of anything else after that.’

‘I’m sorry. All the time we’ve wasted, all the letters I might have had from you . . . It would have been better if I had resigned and joined another regiment. There are hardly
any Guards officers left after Mons and the Marne.’ Arthur shook his head. ‘My mother lives in another world and it’s one that will never return. This bloody war is stripping all
the old hierarchy away. We’ve lost so many heirs and titles and school chums, good soldiers in all ranks. You’ve seen where they end up: in some moribund tent coughing their guts up or
in a surgical ward praying for a quick release from pain. Phoebe, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve tried to find other girls to fill your place but it was always you at the back of my mind
when we were . . .’

Phoebe found herself crying. She didn’t want to make a scene. ‘I think I’m going to faint,’ she whispered. ‘It’s very warm in here.’

‘Don’t worry, we can go to my suite and dine there, if you don’t mind.’

She nodded and he guided her up the stairs and along a creaking corridor to his room on the second floor. There was a brief point of hesitation when she knew it would be wiser to decline and ask
for a taxi, but she waved away caution. What would be would be. They needed time alone together. There was an urgency to this night that must not be denied.

He opened the door into a pretty sitting room lined with sporting prints and chintzy curtains. There was a dining alcove and a bed room, where Phoebe put her cloak. The bedroom was strewn with
Arthur’s clothes and it smelled of pipe tobacco and Penhaligon’s Hamman Bouquet, a favourite scent of the stage door johnnies. Arthur had taken as much care in his toilette as she had
done.

They sat together as supper was set out for them. Phoebe sipped her champagne, not tasting anything but the bubbles up her nostrils, aware of a tension growing between them so that when the door
was shut, she just fell into his arms and sobbed. ‘I’m sorry, I thought it was the best for you to let you go.’

He touched her lips with his little finger and she felt the cool gold of his signet ring on her cheek. ‘You are here now and that’s all that matters. This is the best moment of my
leave. You’ve no idea how I’ve longed for this. I used to walk past the theatre hoping I’d see you. I wrote but you never replied. Let’s not waste time over what
could’ve been. We have now and we have this time alone.’

She kissed him slowly, tentatively at first, and then the flood-gates of longing just overwhelmed them both. It was as if a rushing wave engulfed them with an urgency to get closer, to feel
through the layers to raw skin, to act out for real all those false clinches that Phoebe knew so well onstage. The supper lay cold on their plates as they clung together, tearing off shirts and
dress layers, loosening stays, so they lay almost naked on the bed, exploring each other, smiling into the huge gold mirror adorning the wall so every movement was heightened by the sight of each
other’s responses. There was a tenderness and then a roar of passion that could have only one ending. She clasped him as he entered her, wincing at first, but riding his powerful thrusts with
excitement as the feelings inside her body erupted into a burst of sensations.

They lay sated with lovemaking, tired but satisfied in the strangest of physical ways. Phoebe looked at her lover in the lamplight. This was what it was all about, this coming together, this
physical loving, and it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing with him. Why had she denied herself all this pleasure? Why had she denied what she had sensed from their very first
encounter at Miss Lily Elsie’s wedding all those years ago? But no matter. Now they were one. This beautiful man would be in her life from now on. She’d not be parted from him again. He
was sleeping and she covered him with the fallen counterpane, crept in beside him and curled into his shape. No going back now.

Later, they lay together in the bath, soaking and soaping each other, laughing as if they had all the time in the world to enjoy discovering new ways to please their bodies. When breakfast came,
she noted there was enough for two people. Wrapped in his dressing gown, she sat brazenly in the open, waiting to be served: eggs, ham, toast, fruit and freshly baked rolls, coffee in a tall silver
jug, a feast for hungry lovers.

‘So what are we going to do today?’ Arthur smiled. ‘I think we’ll go and buy a ring, don’t you?’

‘Perhaps I ought to go to rehearsal and change out of my evening clothes first?’

‘You will come back later? It’s my last day.’

‘I know, I know, I’ll do my best.’ She was thinking on her feet. What could she skip to be with him? If she went back to the flat in Little Portland Street there’d be
questions and more questions. Perhaps she could purchase a few items and find a special chemist she’d heard about, who sold douches and such stuff. She mustn’t take any chances.

It was a different woman who walked out of the Cavendish than had walked in. They were a couple now. No one could change that. She knew she wasn’t going to spoil his last day. She was
going to do something she’d never done before: she’d call in sick and miss a performance – surely they owed her this one break – yet it went against all her principles.

As they strolled along the street she realized that Arthur now came before her career. If she did marry him, he’d be in the foreground of her life, not the backdrop. It was a strange and
sudden turnaround in her thinking. Perhaps it was seeing the scar on his shoulder where a bullet had grazed him. He’d been saved by his leather jerkin, he said. She could’ve been
visiting him in hospital, or worse. He’d been lucky. The man beside him had got a bullet in his eye, piercing his brain.

Phoebe made the phone call from a public telephone, crying off with a stomach upset that might hazard her performance. She sent one of her postcards to her flat, telling the girls she was going
to visit Arthur’s family at last. They walked through St James’s Park, seeing much of it was made into allotments or used as training ground. Feeling the chilly air on their faces, they
made for Bond Street and Fenwick, where he bought her a warm coat with matching fur Cossack-style hat and muff. They strolled around the shops and turned towards the Burlington Arcade, where they
lingered at the windows of the jewellers’ shops. Arthur found the exact shop he was seeking and marched in.

‘We want an engagement ring,’ he announced.

‘Arthur!’ Phoebe held back. ‘You haven’t asked me yet,’ she said blushing.

‘But you will, won’t you?’ he pleaded.

The startled assistant hovered over the table, waiting for her reply.

‘Please wait.’ Phoebe tried to get her thoughts in order. ‘You have to do this properly . . . your parents, my family . . . I don’t want you to rush into anything you may
later regret . . . Please.’

‘I can’t wait. Come on, sit down and choose something pretty.’

Phoebe didn’t know where to put herself. ‘Can we please discuss this in private?’ she asked, making for the door.

‘Are you refusing me?’

‘No, of course not.’ She smiled. ‘But a surprise would be nice. It must be your choice.’

‘Right then, you go outside like a good girl and I’ll find something I think you’ll like. By rights you ought have something from the family, but we haven’t time for
that.’

Phoebe edged backwards out of the door, feeling foolish, wondering how this had all come about. Within minutes he was out carrying a package. ‘If it’s the wrong size, that’s
your fault. So let’s find a place to celebrate. The Ritz . . . on this occasion.’

So, by luncheon, Phoebe found herself sitting in the ornate gold dining room with its icing sugar plastered ceiling, surrounded by other diners as Arthur brought out his choice and handed it to
her.

‘There, your surprise.’

She opened the blue leather box lined with ice-blue velvet on which sat a beautiful hoop of large diamonds and sapphires set in gold.

‘Blue to match your eyes, and diamonds for our love to last forever. You like it?’