A Song At Twilight (3 page)

‘And so we have to let Ben go,’ she said. ‘And Ian, and Peter, and Alexandra. I just want to protect them, John. I want them to be back in their prams, like little Hope, where I can keep them safe. I know it’s stupid – we brought them up to be independent and strong, and we have to let them go. But it’s so hard, and it seems hardest of all with Ben. He’s our baby.’

‘Not any more. He’s a grown man now, and we can be proud of him. Try to think of it that way, my love. We can be proud of them all.’

‘I am,’ she said, and smiled at him. ‘And I’m proud of you, too.
You’re
my strength, John. And I won’t ask that question again.’

‘Ask it as often as you like,’ he said, and leaned across to kiss her.

Ben sauntered along the lane, his hands in his pockets, whistling a snatch from Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’. He glanced up through the dark, coppery leaves of the beech trees at the sky and thought about flying. It really was, as he had told his mother, a different world up there. Looking down on the countryside laid out like a colourful map far below, spotting the things you knew so well on the ground, soaring like a bird and throwing your plane around the sky in a tumble of aerobatics. It was the biggest and best game in the world and he could still hardly believe his luck at being allowed to play it. He had never, in all his life, been so happy as he was when he was in the sky.

He knew, of course, that there was a serious side to this too. The skills he had developed, the handling of an aeroplane in all conditions, even the ‘circus acts’ – the somersaulting, flips and rolls – were all part of a deadly purpose: that of engaging with an equally skilled enemy, seeking to kill and avoiding being killed. Already, Ben had seen squadrons leave the aerodrome in strict formation and return in a ragged skein, like hunted geese. He had seen pilots come into the mess, red-eyed with exhaustion, ridden with anxiety for their friends who had not come back. He’d watched them as they waited for the phone call that would tell them that someone had come down safely miles away and would be returning, or that they were injured but alive. He’d seen their shock as they received the news that some would not be coming back; he’d seen the look on the face of a pilot who had watched his own best friend spiral into the sea in a ball of flame. He’d suffered it all himself, in the past two years – the exhaustion, the shock, the grief. He knew just what it was all about.

But it was all quickly covered up; it had to be. Next day, perhaps sooner, they would be called into the air again. They could not afford either the time or the energy for grief or fear. It must all be buried while they got on with the job of fighting the war.

‘Ben!’

He came to with a start and found that he had been standing quite still, staring up through the coppery canopy at the infinity of blue. A young woman was walking towards him with a small girl trotting beside her. He grinned and waved.

‘Hello, Jeanie. How are you? And how’s my little Hope?’ He squatted down and held out his arms and the toddler broke into a lurching run and fell into them. He swung her in the air, and she squealed and laughed.

‘Do you remember me, sweetheart?’ he asked, holding her above his head. ‘Do you know your Uncle Ben?’

‘Well, she should do,’ Jean remarked. ‘You’re her godfather, after all. Anyway, it’s not that long since you saw her.’

‘It’s three months.’ He set her down gently on her feet and touched the little girl’s smooth cheek with the tip of his finger. ‘And she changes every time I see her. I can’t believe she’s the same tiny thing she was when she was a baby, all red and wrinkled.’

‘She never was!’ Jean said indignantly. ‘She was never wrinkled.’

‘Well, red, anyway.’ He turned and they began to walk back to the vicarage together. ‘And how is everything with you, Jean?’ he asked. ‘Are your mum and dad really all right now? Are they happy about Hope?’

‘I don’t know about
happy
, exactly. Having a baby without being married – well, you know what people can be like. And they always told me I’d be out of the door if I ever brought trouble to the house. But they’ve come round to the idea now, and nobody could be cross with Hope, could they?’ The little girl caught both their hands and laughed with pleasure as they swung her between them. ‘I mean, look at her. She’s the sweetest baby there ever was. And they know Terry and me were going to get married. If it hadn’t been for the war and him going off so sudden, we would have done. And if he hadn’t been killed …’ They were silent for a moment, then she went on more brightly, ‘It’s your mum and dad who saved us – having me out here and letting me stay at the vicarage and all that. I honestly don’t know what I’d have done if it hadn’t been for them.’

‘I think you’ve been just as much help to them,’ he said seriously. ‘I know they didn’t want me to join the RAF – not so soon, anyway. I could have waited for call-up. But having you around the place, and now Hope – well, it’s given them something else to think about. I suppose you’ll stay here for the rest of the war now. You won’t want to go back to Portsmouth, although the bombing does seem to have stopped.’

‘Oh, I’ll stop here as long as they’ll have me. Can’t take this little one back to Pompey, with the state it’s in.’ She touched the baby’s soft hair again, her fingers gentle and caressing, and Ben glanced at her face, remembering the pinched misery and fear that had been there when he had first met her. Now there was a tender motherliness in the curve of her cheek, and a calmness and contentment that he hadn’t noticed before.

‘I’ll still work my way, though,’ she added, glancing up and misinterpreting his expression. ‘I won’t take advantage. I’m doing all I can to help your mum, and I’m doing some war work as well. Making scrim and collecting sphagnum moss, like Judy did when she was here. I can do all that. I take Hope along with me, she’s as good as gold.’

Ben nodded. He had met Judy – Terry’s sister – when she was in Ashdown, staying at the Suttons’ farm where her young cousin Sylvie was evacuated while she recovered from the effects of bomb blast. It was through her that Jean had come to Ashdown when Terry was killed and her pregnancy was discovered.

‘Anyway, what about you?’ she asked. ‘You’re still flying Spitfires and Hurricanes all over the sky, and killing Germans for us?’

‘Well, only Spitfires,’ he said with a grin. ‘Actually, that’s why I’m home this weekend – I’m going to a new airfield in Devon. Some of the blokes I’ve been with are going too, but we’re joining a new squadron. I’ve got to be there first thing Monday morning so I’ll be off on Sunday night. Catching a train.’ He stopped. ‘I’m not sure how much I should be telling you.’

‘Go on, I’m not a spy!’ She laughed at him. ‘Still, you’d better not say too much. I know all those posters say walls have ears, but I reckon trees could have as well. And you know that song about whispering grass!’ She glanced around at the woods that lined the narrow country road. ‘I still think it’s a bit creepy out here, you know. The first time I heard an owl, I thought it was a ghost – I was scared out of my wits. And then another night I was sure someone was being murdered, but your dad told me it was just a fox. What an awful noise!’

‘You’re just a townie,’ Ben said affectionately, and they walked on together, chatting, swinging Hope between them. Now and then they passed someone they knew – a villager or an evacuee – and everyone smiled and said hello, most stopping to speak to the toddler as well. ‘You don’t get that in Portsmouth,’ Ben observed after the fourth person had done this. ‘Nobody even looks at you in a town – it’s as if everyone’s invisible.’

‘Well, there’s just too many people, aren’t there. You can’t say hello to everyone you meet. And people spoke to each other in the Blitz, all right – everyone mucked in then and helped each other. I don’t think townies and country people are any different really, not when it comes down to it.’ They reached the vicarage gate and Ben opened it for Jean to go through. She paused and looked at him. ‘It’s nice to see you back again, Ben. I’ve missed you while you’ve been away.’

Ben sat down on a garden bench and watched her go into the house. It was true that she had brought new life to the vicarage, more than repaying the kindness of his parents who had taken her in when her own parents had cast her off. But even though the baby’s birth had brought her parents round, he couldn’t help wondering what would happen to her in the future. While the war was on, she would have a home here in Ashdown, working as a maid at the vicarage, but what about afterwards? Would she want to stay in Ashdown or go back to Portsmouth? What would her life be then, as a young unmarried mother with a daughter to support?

He thought back to the first months when Jeanie had been with them, arriving a young and frightened girl, grieving over her lost fiancé and carrying his baby. Her parents had been too ashamed to let her stay at home and it had been Judy Taylor, the sister of the boy Jeanie had hoped to marry, who had suggested that she come to Ashdown. It had been here, in this very garden, that Hope had been born under the apple tree.

Jean and Ben had been friends from the start and he’d been proud to stand as Hope’s godfather. By the time the christening took place in the little grey church, Jean’s parents – now more accustomed to the situation but still uncomfortable with the fact that their daughter was an unmarried mother – had been there, and so had Terry’s family.

Ben still remembered the moment when his father, holding the baby in his arms over the old stone font, had asked the godparents to name the child. Everyone present knew that the baby was to be called Hope, but Jean had said nothing about a second name. She didn’t have to have a second name, of course, but Ben knew that if the baby had been a boy he would have been named after his father. Terry’s family too must have been thinking that as John asked his question, and then Judy Taylor, the chief godmother, took a very small step forward.

‘Hope Teresa,’ she said clearly, and there was a tiny sigh from everyone present. Ben saw Terry’s mother turn and look at her husband with brimming eyes and then John dipped a small silver cup into the water. He poured it over the baby’s thick, dark hair and made the sign of the Cross upon her forehead. ‘Hope Teresa, I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’

Hope woke with a start. She drew in a deep breath and opened her mouth wide, letting out a yell that could have been heard in Southampton. Everyone smiled, Judy giggled and Jean blushed scarlet with embarrassment and went to take the baby back, but John lifted one hand and shook his head reassuringly. Cradling the baby against him, he conducted the rest of the service against a crescendo of furious screams, and then it was over and Jean was allowed to have her baby again and calm her.

‘I’m ever so sorry, Mr Hazelwood. It was getting her head wet all of a sudden, like that.’

‘It’s all right, Jean. It’s supposed to be a good sign for the baby to cry. It shows that the Old Adam’s being driven out, or so they say.’

She gave him a doubtful look and turned to find Ben at her side. ‘Well, you’re her godfather now, Ben. I hope you’re going to do your duty by her – help me bring her up properly, and all that.’

Ben remembered how he had looked down into her eyes, seeing the sadness there and the need. Already, he could feel a rapport between him and this girl, and a bond between himself and her daughter.

‘I’ll do my best,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll do my best to help you.’

That was almost two years ago now, and he’d always sought Jeanie out when he came home on leave. Their friendship had grown and he felt a deep fondness for the little girl. Sometimes, as they strolled in the woods and fields, taking a simple picnic with them and playing with Hope, he felt almost as if they were a family.

His mother came out of the house and found him there. She sat down beside him on the bench.

‘Jeanie’s looking very happy,’ she said. ‘Has anything happened, Ben?’

He looked at her, wondering what she would say if he said ‘yes’. He knew that she liked the girl, but would she welcome her as a daughter-in-law? He didn’t know. His mother was no snob, and neither was his father – but he still didn’t know the answer.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s happened. I think she’s just happy to be here.’

The cottage that Andrew had found was one of a pair beside the road, a short distance from the top of the hill that led down into the village. Alison stood at the gate and looked at it.

‘I thought it would have a thatched roof and eyebrow windows and roses round the door.’

‘There’s not much thatch hereabouts,’ Andrew told her. ‘And I’m afraid it’s not as sheltered as the houses down in the valley – we’ll get all the winds straight across from Plymouth Sound here. But it’s got electricity and its own water supply. Most of the cottages still have to use a standpipe, and I’m not sure you’d be too keen on collecting your water in a bucket!’

Alison screwed up her face. ‘No, I don’t think I would.’ She stood in the tiny front garden and looked across the road. Beyond the cottage she could see a wide view stretching into the far south-west, with the glitter of water in between, while in the other direction she could see rolling hills and distant villages surrounded by what looked like tall chimneys.

‘Are those factories over there?’ she asked, frowning. ‘I didn’t know there was a lot of industry down here.’

‘I think it’s old mine-workings. That’s Cornwall you’re looking at, across the Tamar estuary. It’s riddled with mines – tin, mostly – though I don’t think they’re all working now. Those chimneys are part of them.’ He dumped her case on the path and pushed open the door, then turned to swing Alison into his arms. ‘Got to do it in style.’ He set her on her feet on the stone-flagged floor and turned to lift Hughie in as well. ‘What d’you think?’

‘Well, I haven’t had a chance to look yet.’ Alison brushed back her fair hair and gazed around with interest.

The door opened into a small, square hallway which in turn opened into a long room that might once have been two smaller ones but now went the depth of the cottage, with windows at each end. In the front part there was an old stone hearth with an iron basket where a pile of logs was laid ready to be lit, and in the back a smaller fireplace which didn’t appear to be in use. The ceiling was crossed with beams of oak so aged the wood was almost black.