A Family's Duty (24 page)

Rebecca got up and paced around the room, clasping and unclasping her hands in agitation. ‘But I didn’t love him
then
, Mother – it was a release to me, as you know.’

‘But you’re four years older now, and a lot has happened since. The war has changed us all.’

‘I simply don’t know what to say, Mother. It would be wrong to invite him to call on us, even if only for a day, if I was not – was not—’

‘Not as eager as he is to renew an acquaintance that could – and probably would – lead on to marriage, Becky. Let’s speak plainly – you owe it to him to give an honest answer.
Would
you like to see him again, knowing what it would imply?’

‘I don’t know, Mother, I don’t
know
!’ Rebecca was on the verge of tears, and Isabel gave her time to continue, but she only repeated, ‘I don’t know,’ shaking her head in real distress. A long silence followed, and then Isabel spoke again.

‘My dear Rebecca, you know and I know that there has been idle gossip in North Camp about you and the Italian prisoners of war – and one in particular, Stefano Ghiberti.’

Rebecca sat down and burst into tears. Isabel looked on, without rising to comfort her.

‘You realise, dear, that Stefano will go back to his home in Milan, where he tells us he was doing well in the car industry. If he took you with him, to spend the rest of your life in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language, your children would be Italian by birth.’

Rebecca continued to weep, but managed to sob out, ‘I know.’

‘You’re twenty-seven, dear, and able to make up your own mind, so I will not advise you about your choice of husband. I’ll just remind you that marriage to a politician, perhaps a Member of Parliament and in comfortable circumstances, would be an easier option, and not too far from us at Hassett Manor. Daddy and I could see our grandchildren, but don’t let that influence you; it’s not important when weighed against your happiness.’

‘I know, Mother, I know.’

‘I’ll give you three days to think it over, Becky, and if you haven’t given me a firm answer after the weekend, I’ll write to Geoffrey and say that we feel a meeting would not be advisable. It will hurt him, of course, but it would be a much greater hurt to allow him to call on us and be disappointed. So, Becky dear, I’ll leave it there. Let me know by Monday.’

She rose and went over to her daughter, putting her arms around her. Rebecca gradually calmed, surprised at her mother’s perception.

When the excitement over D-Day and the progress of the liberation of Western Europe had settled into a daily eagerness for news and a confident expectation that the end of the war was in sight, there came ‘a bombshell from Hitler’, as many called it – a new terror to Britain, just ten days after D-Day.

‘They call it his “miracle weapon”, and he’s unleashed it on us in retaliation for D-Day!’ said Mrs Pearson in dismay. ‘A horrible aeroplane with no pilot – it just comes over and explodes wherever it lands!’

‘One of them’s already destroyed a church and a hospital in south London,’ Miss Temple told Philip when he and Doreen came in at teatime. ‘It was on the wireless at five
o’clock, and heaven knows how many more of these pilotless planes will be coming over.’

The pilotless plane, which Hitler called his V1, soon became known as the ‘buzz-bomb’, and then the ‘doodlebug’.

‘It comes over with a throbbing engine noise, and when it’s used up all its fuel it cuts out and down it comes,’ said the barman of the Tradesmen’s Arms. ‘It looks just like a plane with an orange flame coming out of its tail. You can see it at night.’

‘He just wants to frighten us now that he’s being invaded,’ said Tom Munday. ‘He knows the game’s up, and it’s his last throw.’

‘It’s easy to say that, but if he calls it his V1, there must be a V2 and a V3 coming up, and God knows how many more,’ said the dairyman who had dropped in for a pint on his way home. ‘They say they’ve landed in Bromley and Kingston, even as far as Southampton, and the ground shook as if it was an earthquake. It’s like another Blitz, with doodlebugs coming down on shopping centres in broad daylight. Don’t underestimate ’em’.

‘If you see one of ’em buzzing overhead, you take cover and pray that it’ll pass on to some other poor buggers,’ said Eddie. ‘I heard on the wireless that the RAF’s bombing the launching sites of the doodlebugs in France and Holland.’

On the twenty-fifth of August came the wonderful news that Paris had been liberated amid scenes of wild rejoicing, though collaborators were dragged through the streets and beaten.

Rebecca echoed her grandfather’s belief that the doodlebugs were not so much a miracle weapon as a parting shot from Hitler at the approaching end of Nazi tyranny,
and, in a brief exchange with Stefano, they had speculated on how long it would be before the swastika was hauled down and burnt in every capital city, and what the future of Europe might be; no words passed between them regarding their own future, but their thoughts were in their faces, their hope of a time when he would no longer be a prisoner. Lady Neville had written to Geoffrey Bannister saying that much as she and Sir Cedric would welcome him at Hassett Manor, such a visit would be best left until after the war. She knew, as did Rebecca, that he would read between the lines, and be disappointed; but she had added that the end of the war seemed not so far off, thus giving him a tiny glimmer of a hope …

And then, a week into September, Hitler’s second miracle weapon was unleashed on London and southern England, a deadly, silent, long-range rocket, the V2, able to drop vertically from a great height without warning. The first one landed on Chiswick with an explosion that brought death and destruction, and more quickly followed.

‘See, the old bugger hasn’t given up yet,’ remarked Eddie Cooper in the public bar.

‘It doesn’t seem right to celebrate the Allies’ marching to victory after victory over there while these bloody things are coming over here and nobody knows where they’ll land, or what time.’

His listeners could hardly disagree, and shook their heads.

Sir Cedric Neville was tired. His duties as a JP took up ever more time, and running the Hassett Manor estate with a greatly diminished staff meant that he often had to don working clothes, roll up his sleeves, and get down to basic
farming. He had to share his historic eighteenth-century home with Lily and Jimmy, now better behaved but noisy and demanding. Thank heaven for Sally Tanner, he sighed – she looked after them while Isabel was sorting out problems in the WVS while constantly worrying over her son Paul and nephew David Munday in the thick of the invasion and liberation of Europe. And now there were these damned doodlebugs and rockets, random killers that lowered Britain’s morale just as victory seemed nearer.

‘You looked whacked, my love,’ said Isabel as they sat at supper.

‘So do you, dear. Have you had a busy day?’

It was a routine question, but it got an unexpected answer.

‘Well, yes, there’s a problem that I can’t do anything about,’ she said.

‘Why, what’s up? What do you mean, Isabel?’ he asked, instantly alerted.

‘There’s been an influx of wounded at Everham General, and my sister Grace has been sent home. Enid Temple tells me that she’s much better, and seems to be in her rightful mind, thanks to Alan Kennard’s visits.’

‘But that’s excellent!’ cried Cedric. ‘It means that Doreen will be able to return, doesn’t it?’

‘But Doreen doesn’t want to return, so Enid said. Everybody says how happy she’s looking. She’s grown very attached to Enid and Nick – and Philip.’

‘And the sooner
that
stops, the better,’ said Cedric firmly. ‘I’m surprised at Saville, letting a girl like Doreen get too fond of him, a man more than twice her age. Miss Temple should pack her off home as soon as possible.’

‘You’re probably right, dear, but there’s nothing that
I
can
do about it in the circumstances, seeing how much Grace resents me.’ Isabel sighed wearily.

‘I can see there’s
one
thing you’ll be called upon to do, my dear, and that’s to talk some sense into Saville when he comes prowling round here again.’

Isabel looked up in surprise. ‘But you’ve never minded that, have you, Cedric?’

‘No, dear, I haven’t said anything,’ he replied, thinking how Saville had got on his nerves with his ridiculous adoration of Isabel. It was almost as bad as the business of Rebecca and the Italian prisoner of war; Ghiberti had said he was planning a future in cars, which could mean anything from owning a chain of garages to scratching a living as a used car salesman – not that there’d be many cars to sell in post-war Italy.

From the moment she set foot over the threshold of 47 Rectory Road, Grace Nuttall asked to see Doreen; she now felt able to deal lovingly and sensibly with her daughter, longed to put her arms around her, setting the past aside, and to be all that a mother should be. Jack came over from the RAF base to see her, and she now treated him as an adult who had suffered serious injuries but had overcome the emotional effects of them, just as she had overcome a mental breakdown.

‘The Reverend Alan Kennard did me so much good, Rob,’ she said. ‘
He
didn’t blame me for anything, he just asked me to tell him all about myself, and then left it to me to face up to my mistakes, see how selfish I’d been – and now I want to make amends to
all
of you – you, Dad and dear Jack and Doreen.’

‘That’s right, Grace,’ said her husband, ‘it’s all over now,
water under the bridge. Our Doreen’ll be here just as soon as you’ve got yourself settled. We’ll be a family again, and no looking back, eh?’ He kissed her, and she responded eagerly. ‘It’s like old times!’

Doreen cried bitterly on hearing that she was to return home.

‘Please,
please
, Enid, let me stay! I’m so happy here with you and Philip and Nick! I don’t want to go back there.’

Enid Temple saw that she would have to be firm. She knew the real reason for Doreen’s reluctance to return to her parents; it had been such a pleasure to see the girl’s shining eyes and listen to her happy chatter when Philip was nearby, and he had not discouraged her – on the contrary they had gone on walks together, and he had remarked on how much better she was looking; the unfortunate business over the birth and adoption of her baby daughter no longer seemed to trouble her. Even so, Enid reproached herself for allowing Doreen to become so involved with a man old enough to be her father, yet wondered if in fact they might be right for each other.

‘Doreen will be going home on Friday, Philip,’ she told her nephew, watching for his reaction. ‘She’s not very happy about it, but it’s probably for the best.’

He nodded, and decided to be frank with his aunt. ‘It’s true that she and I have enjoyed each other’s company, Aunt Enid,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I have felt rather like a father to her, and because she’s so sweet and childlike, the thought
has
occurred to me that one day – er, I might offer her—’

‘I’ve wondered the same, Philip, but the best way of finding out is to let her go back to her family and see where her best interests lie. You’ll have to stand back and wait.’

He promised to follow her advice, but neither of them anticipated Doreen’s near-hysterical behaviour on the day her father came to collect her.

‘Let me say goodbye to Philip!’ she cried. ‘Where is he, Miss Temple? Why isn’t he here to say goodbye to me?’

Enid could not hide her embarrassment when Philip suddenly appeared, against her considered advice, and Doreen clung to him as if she were drowning. Only when he quietly promised to visit her soon did she relax her grip on his arm. Rob Nuttall glared at him, and quickly led Doreen out to the pony-trap he had brought for her and her belongings.

‘Now, Doreen my dear, you’re not to upset your mother and make her ill again,’ he warned. ‘She wants you at home with her, and you’re to be the good girl you used to be.’

Doreen let her mother kiss and hug her, and kissed her grandfather. Rob had heard Saville’s whispered promise to visit Doreen, and prepared himself for it. On a morning two days later, when Doreen and her mother had gone shopping, there was a ring at the doorbell. Rob caught Tom Munday’s eye, and went to answer it. Philip found himself faced by Munday and Nuttall who stood at the doorway, and did not invite him in.

‘Oh, good morning, Mr Nuttall – Mr Munday,’ he said with determined good humour. ‘If you have no objection, I’d like to see Miss Nuttall for a few minutes.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ replied Rob very definitely. ‘I’m not having my daughter pestered by a man more than twice her age, taking advantage of her – her
vulnerability
.’ He had been practising the word, which came out correctly and full of disapproval.

‘I can assure you, Mr Nuttall, I have no intention of
taking advantage of Miss Nuttall in any way,’ said Philip, reddening.

‘And we have no intention of taking that risk,’ said Tom Munday sternly. ‘We don’t want you coming round here again, d’you understand?’

‘I – I’m sorry, believe me, I have every respect for her,’ stammered Philip, dismayed by their united anger.

‘Yes, stay away from this house, Saville,’ said Rob Nuttall, coldly contemptuous. ‘Go back and make an ass of yourself with Lady Neville!’

The door was slammed in his face, and Philip winced at the insult. Was this how North Camp regarded him – a fool infatuated by Lady Neville? He had no choice but to retrace his steps, burning with a shame he had not felt until this encounter with the men in Doreen Nuttall’s blameless life.

At the rectory there was sudden consternation. Joan Kennard was getting the children ready for church when there came the sound of voices overhead, coming from the Allinghams’ parlour. Alan was ready to leave for Morning Service, and wondered if he should venture upstairs. Lester was shouting, and Mrs Allingham was crying, though few words could be distinguished. While Alan hesitated, the rector came halfway down the stairs.

‘Kennard, are you there? Look, we’ve got a bit of trouble, I’m afraid. I shan’t be able to attend this morning, so you’ll have to go ahead and take the service without me.’

‘Very well, Mr Allingham.’ The two families had never got round to using Christian names. ‘Can I be of any help?’

‘Only to take Divine Service, nothing else. No need to make a great fuss about it,’ said the older man, as if his curate
was being deliberately irritating. ‘And keep the children away.’

Alan did not reply, seeing that the four children were always kept away from the Allinghams. He nodded and turned back, wondering if Lester had made a confession to his parents.

‘I shall have to make some sort of excuse to the congregation,’ he said to Joan. ‘No doubt we shall hear all in due course.’

There was a certain amount of murmuring in church when Alan explained that the rector was unable to conduct the service, and as he stood at the church door while the people filed out, he was pleased to greet the Nuttalls; Grace and Doreen were holding hands, and Grace smiled up at him.

‘I’m so happy to have her home again, Mr Kennard,’ she said.

‘It’s a joy to see you both,’ he replied, noting that she looked warily towards the Nevilles, as if hoping for a reconciliation there soon. He also noticed Doreen’s eyes looking round for the organist, but knew that Philip had hastily escaped by a small, ancient door behind the organ. Philip had not confided in him, but he guessed there must be a connection with Doreen Nuttall. Miss Temple’s polite ‘Good morning, Mr Kennard’ gave nothing away.

Later in the day Alan was told by the rector that Lester had gone back to the RAF.

‘He missed the activity of service life, Kennard,’ he said. ‘Not much going on in North Camp for a young man of his nature. It has upset Mrs Allingham, naturally, but we’ve had to let him go.’

No details were given of the furious row that had erupted between Lester and his parents, and the verbal shaft he had
hurled at them – that if he had to spend one more day in bloody North Camp, he’d go nuts – nor that he had referred to Alan Kennard as a pompous Holy Joe who got on his nerves.

The events taking place across the Channel continued to bring hope and fear: every family with a son, husband, brother or any relative or friend involved in the liberation of Europe dreaded the news as much as they eagerly awaited it. One morning Valerie Pearson received a letter from Mr Richardson of Thomas and Gibson’s, informing her that his son had been sent home with a bullet in his left shoulder, and that he had been transferred to Everham General from a military hospital in Aldershot. Mr Richardson asked her – almost begged her – to visit John whose morale was very low, his father said. Valerie was of course sorry to hear this, and although she was disinclined to revive a relationship with John, she felt that a bedside chat with a man in a hospital bed could hardly be thought of as compromising, and only involved a short walk from The Limes.

‘Hello, John.’

‘Valerie! Oh, Valerie, how good of you to come! It’s wonderful to see you – sit down, sit down, tell me how you are – and your mother. It seems such ages since—’

‘Your father told me you were in here, John,’ she said, careful to show that she had come as a friend rather than a girlfriend. He looked tired, and had lost weight. His left shoulder was swathed in a bandage that went around his chest and upper arm, and he wore a sling.

‘I’ve brought you some flowers from the garden,’ she said, putting down a bunch of chrysanthemums. ‘I’ll go and find a vase to put them in.’

‘I shall look at them and think of you and your kindness, Valerie,’ he said with a break in his voice. ‘It’s been a hard slog all day and every day in France, and then I got this’ – he indicated his bandaged shoulder – ‘and now I’m washed up here, missing all the fun!’ He grimaced, and she realised he spoke ironically.

‘Your father’s very thankful to know that you’re out of the danger zone, John,’ she said, taking hold of his outstretched left hand. ‘And so am I.’

‘You’re so sweet, Valerie,’ he muttered hoarsely, ‘and I haven’t appreciated you as I should – as I do now.’

‘All right, John, all right,’ she said gently, and passed him a handkerchief from her handbag. ‘You’ve just got to be patient, and give yourself time to recover.’

After a short silence he asked her how she was, and she gave him a lively description of The Limes and her young charges there.

John Richardson decided that if he wanted to keep her visiting him, he would have to assume an interest in the children who had obviously become central to her life. Fair enough – he could happily listen. It was better after all than having to hear about some new Romeo on the scene. She needed no encouragement, and he joined in her chuckles over the little daily dramas at The Limes, and the comical sayings of the children.

‘You’ve done me so much good, Valerie, I can’t thank you enough,’ he told her when she got up to leave. ‘You will come again, won’t you?’

And unable to think of a reason why she shouldn’t, she smiled and assured him that she would.

The news of the death of old Mrs Yeomans at Yeomans’ Farm caused far more reaction in North Camp than her son had expected; he forgot that she had lived longer than most of her neighbours, and many of them remembered her as a busy farmhouse wife and mother, a countrywoman through and through. Mary Goddard was genuinely upset that she had not visited the old lady since leaving the farm, unwilling to confront Billy or Pam; she and her father attended the funeral at St Peter’s, and were amazed to find the church packed to capacity. Billy hoped that they would not all expect to come back to the farmhouse afterwards to scoff the thick bacon sandwiches and economy fruit cake that Pam had grudgingly prepared; when he saw Eddie Cooper and Mary enter, he wondered if this might be a good time to approach Mary and offer her a generous wage in return for some help in the house, but on catching Eddie’s unfriendly look he decided that it would not.

The funeral service was conducted by the Reverend Alan Kennard who asked Sir Cedric Neville to read the eulogy he had written, as Billy was unwilling to do so; Philip Saville played the organ to accompany the two hymns, and most of the congregation followed the coffin to the graveside where the earthly remains of the old lady were lowered to lie close to those of her husband. Billy Yeomans dabbed at his eyes, and Pam stared down at the ground to hide her satisfaction at the removal of a burden. At the conclusion of the burial, many bystanders came forward to shake Billy’s hand and offer condolences, and Mary Goddard alone shed real tears at this farewell to the old lady she had looked after until Sidney’s death freed her to return to her father’s house.

No sooner had North Camp mourned the death of Billy’s
elderly mother than another source of gossip spread from house to house.

‘The old lady left ’em a nine-day wonder,’ declared Eddie Cooper to the patrons of the Tradesmen’s Arms, chuckling quietly at their astonished faces.

‘Yeah, she got old Mr Jamieson the solicitor to come and see her when Billy and Pam were out of the way,’ he said. ‘My Mary was there, but they didn’t want her in the bedroom, and now we can see why! Jamieson brought along a clerk and a secretary from his office to witness the new Will, and wouldn’t I have liked to see Billy and Pam’s faces when they went to his office in Everham yesterday and heard it! Hah! What a slap in the eye, eh?’

There were gasps and jaw-droppings as he told his story.

‘Go on, go on, what did they hear, Eddie?’ they chorused.

‘They got the shock o’ their lives – his mother had left the farmhouse and the farm to her grandsons – to the young nippers, Samuel and Derek – with a couple of thousand for Billy to work the farm until they come of age and can make a decision whether to keep it or sell it.’

‘Strewth! I bet that shook ’im!’ marvelled the barman.

‘Ah, but that isn’t all,’ said Eddie, putting down his glass. Tom Munday, sitting beside him, nodded and prompted him. ‘Go on, Eddie, you’ll have to tell ’em.’

‘She left the capital –
thousands
of pounds in war bonds and investments – to her granddaughter,’ said Eddie. ‘Her granddaughter and mine, young Dora Goddard!’

The older men among his listeners began to nod and understand, remembering Mary’s hasty wedding to Sidney, following the news that the elder Yeomans boy, Dick, had been killed at the battle of the Somme. Sidney Goddard
had not been called up because of his short sight, and had been persuaded to marry Mary Cooper and call her baby his own. Billy had been a late arrival in the family, born to Mrs Yeomans when she was forty, and Dick had been her firstborn, some twenty years earlier.

‘Sidney was a kind husband to Mary, but he could never stand up to a tyrant like Billy, and after Billy married, it was even worse,’ went on Eddie grimly. ‘Sidney was worked to death on that bloody farm, and my Mary did all the housework and cooking, and then had the old lady to look after. Hah! Little did they
all
know what the old girl was planning for ’em!’