Darkest Before Dawn (31 page)

Seraphina followed him. She decided that being married to Roger was even more wonderful than she had dreamed it would be. He was so careful, so considerate, so eager for her happiness and peace of mind. How foolish she had been to wish – just for a moment – that she had married Toby instead of her wonderful, wonderful Roger. Together, they began the difficult descent.

It was November and Evie and her mother were in the kitchen, waiting for Angie and Seraphina to return home after their day's work. Evie was sitting at the table, finishing off her homework, and had just put her pencil down when Martha gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I've run out of pepper! How ridiculous, and just when I'm trying to do that French cabbage Seraphina raved about when she came home from North Wales. Could you run down and ask Mr Wilmslow to let you have some, do you think? Black pepper, not white, mind . . . I've plenty of white.'

Evie twisted round in her chair, pulling a dubious face. ‘I could, but the shop's shut and Mr Wilmslow hates it when you bang on the door and he has to come through from his living room,' she observed. ‘And if I go to the back door, then he'll moan about having to go through to the shop. If you've got plenty of white pepper, can't you use that instead?'

Martha sighed. ‘Well, I could, but I've used a hefty lump of margarine already so I don't want to spoil the cabbage by using the wrong pepper,' she said, rather reproachfully. ‘Seraphina said her landlady told her to grate a drumhead cabbage and fry it in a big knob of margarine, then add salt and black pepper to taste. She never said a word about white pepper.'

Evie got to her feet. ‘All right; I'll go to the back door, and then if there's a drum of black pepper in his kitchen perhaps he'll let me borrow it for a few shakes,' she said, giggling at her own pun. She looked across at her mother, busily stirring the grated cabbage with a large wooden spoon. ‘Mam, what's wrong with Seraphina? Ever since she got back from her honeymoon, she's been . . . oh, different. And now she says she's going to join the WAAF, and she was dead set against doing that before she married because she said they'd be sure to send her miles away from Roger.'

Martha continued to stir the cabbage. You could trust Evie to be sensitive to the slightest change of atmosphere, she thought ruefully. She herself had noticed that Seraphina seemed to have something on her mind, but she had hoped that her daughter was simply missing Roger and would settle down again once she had been to visit him. She still hoped that there was nothing wrong, but now that Evie had mentioned it she wondered whether she ought to have a word with her eldest daughter. The trouble was, there was nothing you could put your finger on; in fact, if Evie had said nothing, the little niggling worry in the back of Martha's mind might simply have disappeared, because she did not think Seraphina was unhappy, exactly. Perhaps she and Roger had had some little disagreement which they had not managed to resolve during the course of their week away. She knew that Roger had said he would like to live in the mountains after the war and she supposed that Seraphina might have been dismayed at such a prospect. After all, her daughter was a trained teacher and she did not speak Welsh, and Martha supposed that a teaching job in Snowdonia for a non-Welsh speaker would be difficult to find.

‘Mam? Did you hear what I said?'

Martha smiled at her small daughter and nodded. ‘Yes, I heard. I'm sorry, love, I went off into a bit of a dream. Marriage changes people, and since Roger has been posted to Lincolnshire, I think she's realised that they're going to be apart no matter what, so she might as well join the WAAF and feel she's doing her bit for her country.'

‘Oh,' Evie said rather doubtfully. ‘Then you think everything's all right between her and Roger, Mam? Only when I asked her if she was going over to Lincoln next time her shifts means she gets three days off on the run, she said she'd think about it. And then she said she might go and see Toby.'

‘Well, Toby's an old friend, and in his last letter he said he'd got embarkation leave, which means he's going abroad,' Martha explained. ‘The trouble is, if Roger is flying, Fee won't be able to see him anyway, so it would be a waste of her leave as well as all the expense of a cross-country journey.'

Evie nodded wisely. ‘I know.
Is your journey really necessary?
' she quoted. ‘But Seraphina was horrid to Toby for ages and ages, yet now she writes to him almost every week – more than she does to Roger, in fact.'

Martha laughed and pulled the cabbage away from the heat. ‘Your sister telephones her husband whenever she gets the chance, and I'm very sure she writes to him almost every day, only she does so during the breaks at work,' she said. ‘Don't you go imagining things, young Evie! And having wasted five minutes of my precious time, you can jolly well go and fetch that black pepper or I'll give you a clack with this wooden spoon.'

Evie laughed but set off, clattering down the metal stairs, and Martha returned to her task of making the meal. She had not been worried, nor even particularly surprised, when Seraphina had announced her intention of joining the WAAF; she had simply thought that her daughter had realised she was unlikely to see a great deal of her husband whilst she was in Liverpool and he was in Lincoln, and she had always been keen to join one of the services. But that she might go to visit Toby had been news to Martha; Seraphina had never even hinted at such a thing to her mother, and now that she had heard it from Evie's lips Martha felt extremely uneasy. Seraphina and Toby had always been close, but when Roger had appeared on the scene it had been clear to Martha that the relationship between Toby and Seraphina had been more like that of brother and sister than that of young lovers. In fact, Seraphina had said as much, yet now, when she was a newly married woman, she was talking of spending her precious leave with Toby Duffy instead of with her husband.

Martha examined the cabbage and decided that it was cooked. She pushed it to the back of the stove and pulled the large kettle over the heat, deciding as she did so that she would have a word with Seraphina. After all, her daughter's decision to join the WAAF would affect the whole family and she could use that as an excuse for a private chat. At the same time, she could mention that Evie had told her of Seraphina's intention to visit Toby and see what sort of a response she got. She supposed, uneasily, that Seraphina might have realised she had made a dreadful mistake in marrying Roger, but if that were so, the worst thing she could do would be to try to rekindle her friendship with Toby. It would not be fair either to Roger or to Toby himself and besides, Seraphina had been brought up to regard marriage as a commitment for life. Harry had always made it plain that so far as he was concerned, divorce was seldom, if ever, acceptable. A couple married in church, exchanged vows, made promises. Harry had taught his daughters that holy matrimony was a lifelong bond and divorce was a secular business, never acknowledged in the eyes of God.

The sound of footsteps on the metal stairs brought Martha back to the present with a jolt. How idiotic she was being! Seraphina had talked about Roger with real affection, had admired his ability both as a walker and as a climber, for he had scaled a couple of peaks, just to show her how it was done. For all I know, Martha told herself, she could have decided to join the WAAF to be nearer Roger; there were a great many airfields on the eastern side of the country and the chances were that Seraphina would be sent to one of them. What was more, Seraphina was not above teasing her youngest sister. The older girl knew that Evie had had a crush on Toby for years, might even have been saying she meant to visit him simply to get a rise out of her sister. For Evie had asked Martha, when Toby's last letter arrived, whether her mother would accompany her to the Duffys' crowded little house so that they could wish Toby luck and work out a secret code which would enable him to tell them precisely where he was posted without the censor's chopping out any word which might give the enemy a clue as to where British troops were stationed.

Martha had been doubtful, because now that the work in the shop was complicated by rationing she had very little spare time, but Evie had set her lips in a way which Martha knew well, so she had suggested Evie ask one of her sisters to accompany her instead. Evie had pulled a face but agreed that she would do so, and there the matter had rested.

The back door burst open and Evie shot into the room, a pepper pot in her hand. ‘He's in a good mood,' she said breathlessly. ‘He said you could have three shakes free, the next three for a penny a shake and the final three for tuppence each. And he said he fancied a taste of that cabbage 'cos you was a grand cook.'

Martha laughed, took the pepper pot and shook it over the cabbage, then gave the mixture a brisk stir before spooning a helping into a pottery mug and handing it, and the pepper pot, to her daughter. ‘You might as well take it back straight away and tell the old miser that the cabbage is payment for the extra shakes,' she said. ‘But don't be all night . . . ah, I can hear the girls on the stairs. Best wait till they're indoors before you go back down; there's no room to pass if you meet them halfway.'

The two older girls came into the kitchen and Martha looked searchingly at Seraphina. She was laughing at something Angie had said and appeared to be in a good mood. As soon as the older girls were in the kitchen, Evie hurried out, and Angie announced that she would have to shoot straight through to the lavatory since she had had no chance to go before leaving work. As Seraphina moved past her mother to hang up her hat and coat, Martha put out a hand to check her. Seraphina looked enquiring. ‘What is it, Ma? And where was Evie off to in such a hurry?'

‘I borrowed some pepper from Mr Wilmslow and she's returning the pepper pot,' Martha said briefly. ‘Fee, my love, is everything all right between you and Roger? Only Evie mentioned that you were thinking of visiting Toby while he's on embarkation leave.'

Seraphina stared at Martha. ‘Wrong? Whatever should be wrong?' she said, in a brittle voice. ‘We had a wonderful honeymoon and of course I'm missing him dreadfully. As for visiting Toby . . . well, Evie suggested I might take her over to the Duffys' place, and – and I thought, if she really wanted to go, we might put up at the local pub for a couple of nights and make a bit of a holiday of it.'

Martha raised her eyebrows. ‘Why didn't you tell her that?' she said bluntly. ‘According to Evie, you simply said you'd thought of visiting him instead of going over to see Roger. And I know you're talking about joining the WAAF yet you were dead against it before your marriage because you thought you might be posted to Scotland, or Cornwall – somewhere where you wouldn't be able to visit Roger regularly, at any rate.'

She was watching Seraphina as she spoke and saw the colour rise in her cheeks, but her daughter answered readily enough. ‘I've already applied to join the WAAF and I'm pretty sure they'll accept me. I'll hear by post in the next week or so. That's why I didn't actually tell Evie that I meant to take her with me to see Toby – because I could get my posting any day now and that would put a stop to a trip to Micklethwaite. The same applies to Roger, of course; I can't arrange to spend time with him and then discover the WAAF want me at one of their training centres just when I'd planned to visit him. See?'

‘I see,' Martha said slowly, telling herself that she should be reassured but not really believing in the somewhat glib explanation her daughter had given. Seraphina had always been able to think on her feet and Martha had a shrewd suspicion that her daughter had been doing just that. ‘Well, I think you'd better tell Evie when she comes back that you won't be going to see Toby at all. I know she's only twelve but she does worry about you, as indeed I do myself.'

‘Well, I worry about you,' Seraphina said. ‘When the war started, you talked about getting war work, something with a decent wage, yet here you are still slaving away for that horrible old miser downstairs and never complaining when he expects you to work all the hours God sends. So you can just stop worrying about me and Roger and start worrying about yourself. I dare say you think I've not noticed that old Wilmslow is growing attached to you, but I have, and I don't like it one bit. Pa would tell you . . .'

‘That's quite enough of that,' Martha said swiftly, but with heightened colour. ‘You know very well we can only keep the flat whilst I continue to work in the shop, and as for Mr Wilmslow's
attachment
, that is pure – or rather impure – imagination, Fee. He has grown very much easier to work with because he needs me so much – he and I are the only ones who truly understand coupons and points, allocations and prices, and all the forms we have to fill in now. And though I know he's a stingy old blighter, he doesn't have an easy life. Mrs Wilmslow nags him constantly. She offers to help count coupons but always seems to lose interest halfway and she will keep talking to him when he's trying to do the books. As for what your pa would say, I think I knew him rather better than you did. If you think he would object because I do my best to see that the Wilmslows –
both
of them, Fee – have a hot meal once a day and someone to keep them company of an evening now and then, then you're wrong.'

Seraphina sniffed. ‘All right, Ma; I'd forgotten that the flat went with the job, so to speak, but if you're going to criticise what I do, now I'm a married woman myself, then I don't see why I shouldn't criticise you.'

Martha felt anger surge up within her but banished it, carefully counting to ten before she replied. ‘I was not criticising you, I was just asking if everything was all right,' she said quietly. ‘You are quite at liberty to criticise my behaviour if you think I deserve it, but—'