The Bannister Girls (40 page)

‘Why, her femininity, of course!' Clemence looked in amazement at her middle daughter, as if uncomprehending that Ellen could ever have doubted her meaning. Although, of course, Ellen was never as feminine as her other girls … her thoughts stopped abruptly, as Ellen's laughter would not be checked.

‘Oh, Mother, I promise you that when you're holding a dying soldier's hand and helping him into eternity, the last thing he worries about is whether a woman's lost her femininity or not. Or any other bits and pieces! All he wants is comfort and to feel that somebody cares.'

Clemence spoke distantly. ‘You seem to forget that I spent hours at the railway station, doing what I could for the poor boys, but I didn't feel it necessary to look like a hoyden.'

Ellen was weary of this discussion. She pushed a stray lock of hair into its tortoiseshell comb, from where it immediately fell out again. She ached all over. It hurt to laugh, and she didn't particularly feel like laughing any more.

‘Mother, I've asked a friend to dinner on Sunday. I hope it's all right. Her name's Charlotte Prole and I'm sure you'll like her. Her family owns a big estate near Deal in Kent.'

Clemence's interest was caught at once.

‘I believe I've heard of the Proles. How nice! And where did you meet Charlotte? I know you young people don't seem to care about proper introductions –'

‘It hardly seemed necessary to be introduced when we were both mucking out a pig sty at the same time,' Ellen grinned. ‘You'd be amazed at the proper young ladies who do menial jobs these days, Mother. So it's all right for Sunday, is it?'

‘Of course,' Clemence was cool, but Ellen knew she wouldn't be able to resist meeting Charlotte Prole and gleaning her family connections. Poor Mother, she thought. Neither war nor famine would move her. She was British to the core, and would uphold every patriotic tradition until the day she died.

To her own surprise, Ellen felt an enormous rush of affection for her mother, who couldn't change, any more than Ellen herself could, in certain directions.

It was no longer possible to ignore the fact that she was bound to bump into Peter Chard sooner or later. She hadn't quite decided yet how she was going to deal with it. Their last meeting had been so appallingly stilted, and she could still feel like weeping when she remembered it.

She realised suddenly how alike she and her sisters were, after all. Louise, despite her insipid marriage to Stanley, had blossomed into her own woman once she had met Dougal;
Angel, whose love for Jacques de Ville had never wavered from the first moment; Ellen herself, with her once and only love, whatever the outcome…

‘I've asked you twice if you'd ring for dessert, Ellen,' Clemence said crossly. ‘Really, you seem to be living in a dream world. No one talks to me properly these days. Your father is always eager to be gone again when he makes one of his rare visits home, and I do wish Angel would tell us more about her young man. He's very well-connected, of course –'

‘Oh, he is, Mother,' Ellen said, poker-faced. ‘Angel will be a countess one day – have you thought of that?'

She was perfectly sure her mother would have thought of it. It was the one bright spot in an otherwise rather dreary life for her. Ellen knew very well how different life at Meadowcroft must be for Clemence, so used to the busy London season and the round of pleasures of the theatre and the opera and the little afternoon charity teas.

‘We should throw a party,' she said suddenly.

‘Are you mad? There's no food to spare for parties these days, my dear –' Clemence was half-amused, half-annoyed.

‘Then why not ask people to bring their own? Everyone must bring a contribution, and Meadowcroft will provide the wine and we'll be the hosts. It would be such a lark, wouldn't it? We'll leave it until you're feeling better, naturally, and until we can be sure Dad will be here. Perhaps at Hallowe'en, then we can deck the gardens up with Chinese lanterns and pumpkins and be real country folk. What do you say?'

‘We'll see,' Clemence said noncommittally, but already Ellen could tell that her busy mind was organising just how the invitations could be worded so that people wouldn't think it too demeaning to bring their own food!

Pedalling home from Peartree Farm some weeks later, aching less now than on the first days, Ellen congratulated herself. The idea of a party had been inspired, and her
mother had been far more cheerful ever since she'd decided to organise it. In fact, the whole atmosphere in Meadowcroft had been considerably less tense of late.

It helped that Clemence and Charlotte Prole had taken to one another like the proverbial ducks to water. Clemence had spent some time poring over old books to try and trace the background of the Proles of Deal, and had been even more triumphant to find that her own maternal grandmother was a very distant cousin of Charlotte's. Clemence was therefore delighted that Ellen and dear Charlotte should be having such fun working on the farm … a comment that had the two girls doubled up with laughter, and wincing in the middle of it with all the aches and pains that came from ‘having such fun'…

Ellen was still smiling at the memory. The invitations were being prepared, and the Hallowe'en party would at least cheer everybody up from the gloom of the war. There had been shorter letters than usual from Angel lately, the most telling ones being sent to her sister, and not for her parents' eyes.

‘We really thought the assault at the Somme was going to end it all, and I don't have to tell you how that ended. Rumours are rife now about the stupidity of the officers letting our boys march slowly to their deaths instead of ordering them to charge at the Germans,' Angel wrote.

‘We can't dispute the strength of the German lines, however much the newspaper cartoons try to ridicule it. It's simply terrible, Ellen. The fighting is raging again at Ypres and at Passchendaele, and the wounded must surely outnumber the Allied armies. I sometimes wonder how we can go on.

‘The hospitals are stretched to the limits, and I couldn't begin to describe the conditions now. Beds in corridors, the dead taken out almost before they've stopped breathing to make way for the next casualty, and everyone hardened to
the dreadful sights while still trying to be as humane as possible.

‘I hear so little from Jacques, although we try to make at least one telephone call a week, to reassure each other. I'm so fearful for him, Ellen. I'm sorry to sound such a misery. I hope all goes well at home. Don't let Mother know how depressed I am. She'd be campaigning for my release too, and I mean to stick it out until the end. I have to, as long as Jacques is here.

‘My best love, Angel.'

The letter disturbed Ellen more than anything. Angel had always been the brightest one, strong and brave, and now she sounded almost defeated. Ellen cycled along the autumn lanes, head down as she neared Meadowcroft, worrying about Angel.

‘I kept telling myself it must be you that I kept seeing, and not a mirage,' a voice that she knew said lazily from a field alongside her.

Ellen almost fell off her bicycle. She had tried very hard and with great success to avoid seeing anything of Peter. And now here he was, just like that other time, startling her, and making her heart leap uncontrollably in her chest at the sight of him.

He leaned on the gate, dark and rugged and thoughtful. She had always considered him to be an intelligent, thinking man, which was one of the things she'd admired most about him.

‘Are you always going to make me jump like that?' she snapped.

‘If it's the only way I can get you to talk to me, then I suppose I am,' his country drawl, smooth as cream, was more pronounced as he looked her up and down in her Land Army clothes, her boots caked in something unspeakable, smudges of dirt on her face and hands. She felt hot and unkempt and was annoyed with herself for caring.

‘What do you want to talk to me about?' she said pointedly, poised like a bird for flight.

Peter leapt the field gate in one easy movement. His slight limp didn't prevent him from being as agile as any man when he chose to be. Nor as handsome and desirable and as damnably dear to her, she thought, with a catch in her throat.

‘I met your mother in the village today,' he said calmly.

Oh no … even as she heard the words, Ellen guessed what was coming. Her mother didn't know of the rift between her daughter and the young farmer, nor the reason for it, and had presumably just assumed that Ellen had moved on to other pursuits with her usual impatience.

‘I've been invited to a party,' Peter went on relentlessly.

‘You'll refuse, of course.'

‘Why should I?'

She looked at him helplessly.

‘Peter, you know why! I should be embarrassed every time I looked at you –'

‘You're not embarrassed now, are you?'

She bit her lip. His hand, strong and tanned, was on the handlebar of her bicycle. If she wrenched it away from him, he'd probably lose his balance and go sprawling.

‘You know I am,' she said in a low voice.

‘I fail to see why. I'm not embarrassed.' He was deliberately blocking out all that had gone before. But she couldn't do that. It was too painful a memory. Ellen had never been afraid to look the truth in the face before, and she despised herself for doing it now. She was also furious with Peter for forcing the words out of her.

‘I can't forget that you know what a fool I made of myself, that's why. You know my shame, and that's something I'm not willing to share with anyone. I've got too much pride, Peter, and I'd be glad if you'd let me go, please!'

This time she did wrench the bicycle away from him, straddling it with shaking legs, her long skirt threatening to
catch in the wheels where she had neglected to hitch it up properly. Her eyes stung blindly as she pedalled furiously. His voice followed her.

‘I'll see you at the party, Ellen.'

He couldn't be such a cad as to be there after all that, she thought! Had he guessed at her feelings for him from her strangled words? She couldn't bear it if he had. He was playing with her, like a cat with a mouse, and if it was a way of punishing her for being lower than the pedestal he had put her on, then he was succeeding very well.

She marched into the house, seeking out her mother. There was a new intake of four billeted soldiers that day, and Clemence was busily organising their sleeping quarters with the housekeeper. As soon as she could get her alone, Ellen stormed into her.

‘Mother, how could you invite Peter Chard to the Hallowe'en party without asking me?'

‘My dear girl, what an extraordinary question,' Clemence said mildly. ‘I thought Mr Chard was a friend of yours. We're inviting everyone from the surrounding farms, so we could hardly leave him out! Besides, he's been most generous with his offers of fruit and cream for the day. It will have to be a buffet table, of course, we couldn't have anything grander, but I'm sure everyone will be delighted with the result. I thought we might raffle a few things as well, and send the money we raise to the Soldiers' Comfort Fund. What do you think?'

Ellen was speechless. Clemence was right back on form with her organising abilities, dismissing the question of whether Ellen wanted Peter Chard at the party or not as one of minuscule importance. It was just that to her, of course. It was only to Ellen herself that the humiliation of seeing Peter here at Meadowcroft again was beginning to assume gigantic proportions.

She knew how foolish she was being. She should be able to brush aside all memory of the episode with Andrew Pender.
With a start, she realised she could hardly remember his face. It wasn't the shame of being so gullible that haunted her. It was the fact that Peter knew. Peter had witnessed it, and it was Peter that she loved, and she wanted his respect above all things.

How conventional she was after all! And how little one knew about oneself until faced with unexpected situations. Who ever would have thought Louise would defy Clemence, when she had been so much under her mother's thumb? Who would have expected Angel to become so excellent a nurse and ambulance driver, and journey across France to find the man she loved?

‘I wish I could be at the Hallowe'en party,' Angel wrote when she heard about it. ‘It sounds such fun, Ellen, and just like the old days. I shall be thinking of you all, and envying you. Mother sounds so much better, and I know we have you to thank for that. She never says it in so many words, naturally, Mother being Mother, but her letters are full of how helpful Ellen is, and how hard Ellen works at Peartree Farm, and how she met Farmer Green's wife in the village and heard how much they think of Ellen – and all the other girls, she adds, as an afterthought! But it's clear that Ellen is quite the little heroine, darling!'

Ellen smiled ruefully. To hear her and Clemence wrangling sometimes, no one would think Clemence was glad to have her at home. But yes, her mother
was
better. She had less time to think about herself with the party to arrange, and the day was almost on them. They prayed for fine weather, but if rain was threatened, there was the old marquee to erect.

It was decided to put it up anyway, just in case, and the billeted soldiers assisted cheerfully. And long before the party began, Ellen resolutely decided that as far as she was concerned, Peter Chard was just another guest at her mother's party. This was Clemence's day, and even Fred,
who came down from Yorkshire especially, was loud in his praise at all the hard work his wife had put into it.

The party was to be held in the afternoon. There couldn't be lighted lanterns and fireworks in the evening, which may alert enemy aircraft, however distant and sleepy the Somerset countryside seemed. Clemence was cross that the Germans should ruin their party in this way, but it hardly mattered. The atmosphere was one of gaiety, almost like pre-war days, except for those in uniform sprinkled among the guests.