The Postcard (6 page)

‘I love it. Thank you . . .’ But try as she might to get it on, the ring was too small. Tears of disappointment filled her eyes. ‘It’s so sparkly, so lovely, but my
knuckles are swollen . . .’ she cried.

‘We can get it stretched. You’re my girl now, Phoebe Faye.’

‘Phoebe Boardman’s my real name. Phoebe Annie Boardman. Nothing’s real in the theatre.’

‘You are real to me whatever your given name. Now I can go back knowing you’ll be waiting for me.’

‘You didn’t need to buy a ring for me to do that. You mustn’t tell anyone yet. I can’t do the concerts at the Front if they think I have a personal connection to anyone
there. I have to do my bit. I just want to be useful.’ She drank in his drawn cheeks and his tired eyes.

‘Of course you do. We’ll keep it a secret between the two of us and then next leave we’ll get married. Look, I’ve got to get the train from Waterloo at six. You will see
me off?’

They returned to his room at the Cavendish and locked the door. How quickly those precious hours sped by until it was time to dress and make their way to the crowded station, full of troops and
anxious women amongst the bustle of steam, smoke, commuting office workers and uniforms of all hues.

Phoebe clung onto his arm, wishing the ring now on her pinkie finger was on her left hand for all to admire. She’d been foolish not to have her finger measured but that didn’t matter
now.

‘Don’t stay too long on the platform. I want to remember you smiling. Write soon and often; I don’t know how long it’ll be before my next leave . . .’Arthur looked
down at her. ‘It’s been everything I dreamed of and more. Don’t let’s ever quarrel again, my dearest Phoebe.’

‘Please stay safe for me . . . Don’t take any risks . . . I couldn’t bear to lose you now,’ she cried as they clung to each other until the whistle blew and he had to
jump into an open carriage. She followed him, waving, right to the end of the platform where she stood until the last puff of steam had vanished. It was dark and the moon shone bright in a starry
sky. She lingered, unable to tear herself away from that sacred spot.

‘Come on, miss, time to go,’ said a platform porter. ‘He’ll be back before long.’

Phoebe shivered, reluctantly picking her frozen feet off the cold stone and making her way back through crowds of weeping women to the station entrance. She paused outside, suddenly feeling that
utter loneliness of being alone in a crowd. I must keep busy, she thought, turning to see the time on the Waterloo Clock. If she took a cab she might still make the show . . .

How different the capital looks when you are in love, Phoebe thought the next morning. Everything around her seemed brighter and cheerier, much less drab. Every uniform she saw
in the street reminded her of Arthur. She wanted to shout her happiness from the rooftops, but she just hugged it around herself like a fur coat. This is my precious secret, she told herself, as
she hid the blue leather box with her ring inside at the back of her underwear drawer. She would tell everyone the good news, but not just yet. Just for the moment this secret was hers alone.

She woke from her reverie with tears streaming down her face. They had never met face to face again and after Arthur’s death she never looked at another man. It was as if
he’d been her one chance of happiness until Fate tore him from her. She’d no desire ever to be hurt like that again. Theirs was a generous, passionate love, enough to last a lifetime.
Now, all her ambition and yearnings must be channelled into Caroline’s future, no matter what.

Meeting Marthe on the station had been awkward and for a moment she thought the nursemaid might give the game away she looked so upset. Once the letter giving her notice was sent, there was no
turning back. Besides, it was time Marthe led her own life. She was far too attached to Caroline, and the girl was too old for a nursemaid. Marthe’s life was back in Belgium and Phoebe had
paid her handsomely in lieu of notice. With superb references she’d soon find a good position in another family. Thankfully she’d not made a fuss, and as a reward they would call in on
their way home. Then it would be term time and Caroline would be sent to one of the best boarding schools in the north, recommended by Kitty’s friends.

The house at Dalradnor would still be there for holidays, though Caroline must come to London for her long vacations. It would be the best way to shape her into a young lady instead of an
overgrown tomboy. In time she would learn to accept the changes without any fuss.

Dear Mrs Ibell, Tam and Cullein

I crossed the sea and wasn’t sick. We went to Paris and looked at a lot of pictures and we went up the Eiffel Tower . We have hot chocolate for breakfast and no porridge and flaky
crescents with jam. I have been to fairy castles like in picture books but now we are near Nice. It is very hot and sunny and the sea is blue like the picture. My favourite ice cream is green with
sprinkles of chocolate on the top. I hope Cullein is missing me.

Love Callie

The sea was sparkling, the scenery beautiful, with palm trees waving and bending like fans. On the hillsides, looking across the bay, were perched villas all the colours in a
sugared almond jar: pink, turquoise, gold and apricot, with red-tiled sloping roofs. Their villa had a garden with a swing and a dipping pool. Aunty Maisie brought friends to stay and took Callie
for walks and ice creams by the plage. They all took a car to the lavender fields above Grasse where the perfume was so strong it made Callie sneeze. They trawled through the open markets in
Cannes, fingering strange fruits, vegetables and bunches of herbs all the colours of the rainbow. Callie bought a lace hanky for Marthe and tubes of chocolate-dusted walnuts for Mrs Ibell.

Sometimes she felt horribly homesick for Dalradnor but she swallowed back the longing, knowing she’d return soon with such stories to tell them all. Everything was different in France: the
street smells, the houses, the food, the chatter. Girls paraded with parasols to shade their faces, children wore such pretty dresses and matching hats. She swam in the sea in a new cotton bathing
costume with polka dots on it, not the knitted navy-blue one she’d brought from home, which stretched and sagged when it got wet. Aunt Phee bought her a lace-edged fan and a straw hat, and
made her nap in the afternoons when she wanted to play out. There was a party dress with a beautiful dropped waist and sash that she had to put on when they dined in a restaurant with waiters who
treated her like a grown-up and brought her water in her own wine glass.

Uncle Billy Demaine called in with his friend Lyall, who was an actor in films, and Callie got his autograph. She rode on donkeys, and in coaches drawn by tired ponies along the Corniche. It was
all fun but she was glad when it was time to pack up and head north. She sent postcards to the twins and to Marthe in Bruges. They would be collecting her on the way back and she hoped she’d
had a good holiday too.

The train north took an age and they changed at Paris to visit a place called Albert. Nowhere could have been more different from Nice or Paris. There, emerging from the station Callie was
surprised to see, all around, broken buildings and trees, and ditches down the sides of the roads. Across the fields there were fences inside which were lined up row upon row of little white
crosses, hundreds of them. These were the graves of soldiers who fell in the Great War, Aunt Phee explained, and she felt sad that they were stuck out there so far from home, but at least not
alone.

Then, when Aunt Phee had looked awhile, they took a taxi to a tiny village where in the square Aunt Phee produced a photograph of a monument and passed it around the old men gathered there,
asking in a mixture of English and broken French if they knew the place. The old men sucked on their pipes and shook their heads, not understanding her words, so Callie helped out as best she
could. Someone pointed to the priest’s house, and luckily the priest spoke enough English to show them where to find the monument, close to a place called Ginchy, so they set out again down
the country roads.

‘Stop!’ cried Aunt Phee to the taxi driver when they had gone a short distance. ‘Look over there . . .
Arretez ici
!’ She and Callie jumped from the car to find
the path, but there wasn’t one. Undaunted, Aunt Phee marched her through a prickly stubble field in her best shoes, over the churned-up ground, to a tall stone pillar fenced around with a
chain. She stood in silence for a few minutes, looking stricken, and then paced round it. ‘This is Arthur’s place, where he fell in battle. Sir Lionel bought this bit of land so he
would always have a grave.’

‘Is he down there?’ Callie asked, curious.

‘No,’ her aunt sighed. ‘They buried him here but . . . there were guns and explosions. He was lost, but his friends told the family the exact spot. I wanted you to see this for
yourself.’

Callie stood not knowing what to do. Should she bow her head and say a prayer? But what if he wasn’t there? She read out his name: ‘Major Arthur B. Seton-Ross, MC 14 September
1916.’

‘He died a few days before our wedding day,’ said Aunt Phee, staring down at the ground. ‘If only he knew . . .’

‘Knew what?’

‘Nothing you would understand.’ Sometimes Aunt Phee went silent and shut herself off so Callie never knew quite how to be with her. She’d learned over the holiday just to turn
away and get on with something else. This was one of those times when she wasn’t wanted.

Phoebe stared up at the stone obelisk in dismay. She’d so wanted to take this detour to see the place for herself but it wasn’t what she was expecting. The monument
stood alone, a symbol of his parents’ grief, a costly, futile gesture, as if there was nothing left in the world to commemorate him. Yet here she was standing with his child, who was the very
image of her father in so many ways. This was the time to say, ‘Here is your father, who won a medal for his bravery,’ but she couldn’t break the silence she’d kept all
these years, and even had she found the courage, this dreary, muddy ploughed field was not the place.

Why did peacetime take so much more courage to live out than those heady danger-filled days of war? She thought about those concerts under bombardment, the match-lit walks in the dark under the
stars when the troops lined the path with flickering lucifers to guide the artistes into their cars after a show. Those were the best days of her life. They lived in danger and she was loved by a
brave man. This ugly stone was cold, empty, reminding her that the dead were long gone and never coming back. Arthur belonged to another, forgotten time. No one wanted reminding of it now. All that
was left was the memory of their time together.

His bones might be crushed somewhere in this farmer’s field. He was nowhere, but his child lived, and with this came the sudden sickening thought that she’d give anything to have him
back in Caroline’s place. She shuddered and turned away from the rage she was feeling.
How could
you
think such a terrible thing? But you have
.

‘Come along, we’ve seen enough crosses for one day.’

Callie followed behind her aunt as they ploughed their way back to the waiting car. If there was nothing here why had Sir Lionel put up a stone? She understood why Aunt Phee needed to come and
see it – they had delayed their journey just to do this and she could see it had made her sad – but the place didn’t look like a battlefield, just a churned-up field with stumps
of trees poking up and the lonely monument pointing to the sky.

Callie was impatient to move on. It was time to go to collect Marthe. She knew so much about her brothers, Jan and Piet, and her sister, Marie. Now she would be meeting them.

As they left the village, Aunt Phee went quiet. They drove down long lanes, straight and boring, with ruined buildings, and children stood by the road staring as if they’d never seen a
motor car before. They stopped overnight in Lille. Then they took the train east towards the coast and arrived in Bruges. It was just as she’d seen on Marthe’s postcards, with tall
buildings with stepped roofs just like Dalradnor. She knew the address was somewhere in Predikherenstraat but she couldn’t think of the number, she was so excited. They sat in the Markt
square sipping hot chocolate, looking up, waiting for the clock to chime on the tall tower.

‘We must buy lace and chocolates to take home with us,’ Aunt Phee smiled as they watched shoppers going past. ‘Then we can take a horse cab and tour round the canal and pretty
brick streets.’

‘Can we fetch Marthe first? She’ll know the best places and show us round.’

‘She’ll be at work.’

Callie was puzzled. How could she be at work when she was coming home? It was better not to say anything because Aunt Phee had been very snappy since that visit to the monument and was always in
a hurry.

They found the long street full of shops and tall houses. They asked in a little florist’s for the van Hooges and the woman pointed up the street. They knocked at the door but got no
answer so they wandered round the city admiring the cathedral and the Burg square, the quaint shops full of intricate lace tablecloths and collars, then stood on the canal bridges watching the
barges shunting down the water. They chose gifts and found a clean hotel. It was time to find somewhere to eat and Callie was tired.