The Caxley Chronicles (33 page)

'We used to belong to the same sports club years ago,' continued Angela, 'before Bill went into the army. Heavens, what a lot of news we've got to exchange!'

'Mine's pretty dull,' said Billy with a smile. He began to talk to Edward, as the daughter of the house moved across to replenish their glasses. He had been in the town now for about a month, it transpired, and was in charge of stores at his camp.

'Any chance of going overseas?' asked Edward.

'Not very likely,' replied Billy, 'I'm getting a bit long in the tooth, and my next move will be either up north or west, as far as I can gather.'

Edward watched him with interest, as they sipped amidst the din. He was probably nearing forty, squarely built, with a large rather heavy face, and plenty of sleek black hair. He spoke with a pleasing Yorkshire accent, and gave the impression of being a sound business man, which was indeed the case. He did not appear to be the sort of man who would flutter female hearts, but Angela's blue eyes were fixed upon him in
such a challenging manner, that Edward wondered what lay hidden from him in the past. Probably nothing more serious than a schoolgirl's crush on the star tennis player at the club, he decided. Or, even more likely, yet another gambit to annoy an unwanted husband. He was getting weary of such pinpricks, he had to admit.

Nevertheless, he liked the fellow. He liked his air of unpretentious solidity, the fact that his deep voice could be heard clearly amidst the clamour around them, and the way in which he seemed oblivious of Angela's advances.

After some time, Edward saw one of his friends across the room. He was newly-married and his young shy wife was looking well out of her depth.

'Let's go and have a word with Tommy,' said Edward to Angela.

'You go,' she responded. 'I'll stay with Bill.'

And stay she did, much to the interest of the company, for the rest of the evening.

Edward saw very little of Billy Sylvester after that. Occasionally, they came across each other in the town, and on one bitterly cold morning they collided in the doorway of 'The Goat and Compasses'. Angela, Edward knew, had seen something of him, but he had no idea how often they met. Angela spoke less and less, but she had let out that Billy had parted from his wife before the war, and that he had two boys away at boarding school.

Air attacks in support of the allied forces were being intensified and Edward was glad to have so much to occupy him. He
had been promoted again, and was beginning to wonder if he would stay in the Air Force after the war. In some ways he wanted to. On the other hand the restrictions of service life, which he had endured cheerfully enough in war-time, he knew would prove irksome, and certainly Angela would be against the idea. He was beginning to long for roots, a home, a family, something to see growing. In his more sanguine moments he saw Angela in the Caxley flat, refurbishing it with him, starting life afresh. Or perhaps buying a cottage near the town, on the hilly slopes towards Beech Green, say, or in the pleasant southern outskirts of Caxley near the village of Bent? And then the cold truth would press in upon him. In his heart of hearts he knew that there could never be a future with Angela. She had already left him. The outlook was desolate. Meanwhile, one must live from day to day, and let the future take care of itself.

He returned home one wet February afternoon to find the flat empty. This did not perturb him, as Angela was often out. He threw himself into an armchair and began to read the newspaper. Suddenly he was conscious of something unusual. There was no companionable ticking from Angela's little clock on the mantelpiece. It had vanished. No doubt it had gone to be repaired, thought Edward, turning a page. He looked at his watch. It had stopped. Throwing down the paper, he went into the bedroom to see the time by the bedside alarm clock. The door of the clothes cupboard stood open and there were gaps where Angela's frocks and coats had hung.

Propped against the table lamp was a letter. Edward felt suddenly sick. It had come at last. His hands trembled as he tore it open.

'Dear Edward,

Billy and I have gone away together. Don't try to follow us. Nothing you can do or say will ever bring me back. I don't suppose you'll miss me anyway.

Angela'

At least, thought Edward irrelevantly, she was honest enough not to add 'Love'. What was to be done? He thrust the letter into his pocket and paced up and down the bedroom. He must go after her, despite her message. She was his wife. She must be made to return.

He stopped short and gazed out into the dripping garden. The tree trunks glistened with rain. Drops pattered on the speckled leaves of a laurel bush, and a thrush shook its feathers below.

Why must she be made to return? He was thinking as Sep might think, he suddenly realised. Angela was not a chattel. She spoke the plain truth in her letter. She would never return. And what sort of life could they hope to live if he insisted on it? It was best to face it. It was the end.

The thrush pounced suddenly and pulled out a worm from the soil. It struggled gamely, stretched into a taut pink rubbery line. The thrush tugged resolutely. Poor devil, thought Edward, watching the drama with heightened sensibilities. He knew how the worm felt—caught, and about to be finished. The bird gave a final heave. The worm thrashed for a moment on the surface and was systematically jabbed to death by the ruthless beak above. Just so, thought Edward, have I been wounded, and just so, watching the thrush gobble down its meal, have I been wiped out. He watched the thrush running
delicately across the wet grass, its head cocked sideways, searching for another victim.

He threw himself upon the bed and buried his face in the coverlet. There was a faint scent of the perfume which Angela used and his stomach was twisted with sudden pain. One's body, it seemed, lagged behind one's mind when it came to parting. This was the betrayer—one's weak flesh. A drink was what he needed, but he felt unable to move, drained of all strength, a frail shell shaken with nausea.

Suddenly, as though he had been hit on the back of the head, he fell asleep. When he awoke, hours later, it was dark, and he was shivering with the cold. His head was curiously heavy, as though he were suffering from a hangover, but he knew, the moment that he awoke, what had caused this collapse. Angela had gone.

The world would never be quite as warm and fair, ever again.

Meanwhile, in Caxley, Joan was receiving instruction from the local Roman Catholic priest, much to her own satisfaction and to her grandfather's secret sorrow.

The wedding was planned for the end of April, when Michael expected leave, and would take place in the small shabby Catholic church at the northern end of Caxley.

Old Mrs North made no secret of her disappointment.

'I've always hoped for a family wedding at St Peter's,' she said regretfully to Joan. 'Your dear mother would have made a lovely bride. I so often planned it. The nave is particularly suitable for a wedding. I hoped Winnie would have a train.
Nothing more dignified—in good lace, of course. And the flowers! They always look so beautiful at the entrance to the chancel. Lady Hurley's daughter looked a picture flanked by arum lilies and yellow roses! D'you remember, Winnie dear? It must have been in 1929. I suppose there's no hope of you changing your mind, dear, and having the wedding at dear old St Peter's?'

'None at all,' smiled Joan. 'Of course, if I'd met Michael four or five hundred years ago we should have been married in St Peter's. But thanks to Henry the Eighth I must make do with the present arrangements.'

'Now, that's a funny thing,' confessed her grandmother. 'It never occurred to me that St Peter's was once Roman Catholic! It really gives one quite a turn, doesn't it?'

Preparations went on steadily. Joan got together a sizeable quantity of linen and household goods. Kind friends and relatives parted with precious clothing coupons and she was able to buy a modest trousseau. Sep made the most elegant wedding cake consistent with war-time restrictions and embellished it, touchingly, with the decorations from his own wedding cake which Edna had treasured.

He had given Joan a generous dowry.

'You will want a house of your own one day,' he told her. 'This will be a start. I hope it won't be far from Caxley, my dear, but I suppose it depends on Michael. But I hope it won't be in Ireland. Too far for an old man like me to visit you.'

Joan could not say. Somehow she thought that Ireland would be her home in the future. As Sep said, it all depended on Michael.

One thing grieved her, in the midst of her hopeful preparations. Sep would be present at the reception, but he could not face the ceremony in the Catholic church. His staunch chapel principles would not allow him to put a foot over the threshold.

In the midst of the bustle came Edward's catastrophic news. Joan, herself so happy, was shocked and bewildered. The bond between Edward and herself was a strong one, doubly so perhaps, because they had been brought up without a father. She had never shared her mother's and grandmother's misgivings about Angela, for somehow she had felt sure that anyone must be happy with Edward, so cheerful, so dependable as he was. This blow made her suddenly unsure of her judgment. Loyalty to her brother made her put the blame squarely on Angela's shoulders. On the other hand, a small doubting voice reminded her of the old saw that it takes two to make a marriage.

Had Edward been at fault? Or was this tragedy just another side-effect of war? She prayed that she and Michael would be more fortunate.

Her mother took the news soberly and philosophically. She had known from the first that Angela would never do. Much as she grieved for Edward, it was better that they should part now, and she thanked Heaven that no children were involved in the parting.

It was old Mrs North, strangely enough, who seemed most upset. Normally, her tart good sense strengthened the family in times of crisis. This time she seemed suddenly old—unable to bear any more blows. The truth was that the ancient wound caused by Winnie's unhappy marriage to Leslie Howard, was opened again. With the controversial marriage of Joan imminent, the old lady's spirits drooped at this fresh assault.
Edward was very dear to her. He could do no wrong. In her eyes, Angela was a thoroughly wicked woman, and Edward was well rid of her. But would any of her family find married happiness? Would poor Joan? Sometimes she began to doubt it, and looked back upon her own long years with Bender as something rare and strange.

Edward was at the wedding to give the bride away. He looked thinner and older, and to Joan's way of thinking, handsomer than ever. He refused to speak of his own affairs, and set himself out to make Joan's wedding day the happiest one of her life.

With the exception of Sep and Robert the rest of Joan's relations were there with Kathy's auburn-haired daughter as bridesmaid, and Bertie and Kathy's small son as an inattentive page. Michael's mother was too ill to travel and his father too was absent, but a sister and brother, with the same devastating Irish good looks as the bridegroom, were present, and impressed old Mrs North very much by their piety in church.

'I must say,' she said to Winnie, in tones far too audible for her daughter's comfort, 'the Catholics do know how to behave in church. Not afraid to bend the knee when called for!'

Winnie was glad that something pleased the old lady, for she knew that she found the small church woefully lacking in amenities compared with Caxley's noble parish church built and made beautiful with the proceeds of the wool trade, so many centuries earlier.

There were few Roman Catholics in Caxley. One or two families from the marsh, descended from Irish labourers who had built the local railway line, attended the church. Two ancient landed families came in each Sunday from the countryside south of the town, but there was little money to make the church beautiful. To old Mrs North the depressing green paint, the dingy pews and, above all, the crucified figure of Christ stretched bleeding high above the nave, was wholly distasteful. A church, she thought, should be a dignified and beautiful place, a true house of God, and a proper setting for the three great dramas of one's life, one's christening, one's marriage and one's funeral. This poor substitute was just not good enough, she decided firmly, as they waited for the bride.

Her eyes rested meditatively upon the bridegroom and his brother, and her heart, old but still susceptible, warmed suddenly. No doubt about it, they were a fine-looking family. One could quite see the attraction.

There was a flurry at the end of the church and the bride came slowly down the aisle on her brother's arm. Old Mrs North struggled to her feet, and looking at her granddaughter's radiant face, forgot her fears. If she knew anything about anything, this was one marriage in the Howard family which would turn out well!

T
HE HONEYMOON
was spent at Burford and the sun shone for them. The old town had never looked lovelier, Joan thought, for she had visited it often before the war. This was Michael's first glimpse of the Cotswolds. He could not have seen Burford at a better time. The trees lining the steep High Street were in young leaf. The cottage gardens nodded with daffodils, and aubretia and arabis hung their bright carpets over the grey stone walls.

As May broke, they returned to Caxley and to neglected news of the world of war. Much had happened. A photograph of the ghastly end of Mussolini and his mistress, Signorina Petacci, shocked them as it had shocked the world. And now, the suicide of Hitler was announced. On the last day of April, as Joan and Michael had wandered along the river bank at Burford, Hitler and his newly-married wife, Eva Braun had done themselves to death, with pistol and poison.

A week later came the unconditional surrender of the enemy. By that time, Michael was back with his regiment, and Joan watched the celebrations of victory with her family in the market square.

The cross of St George fluttered on the flagpole of St Peter's, close by the flapping Union Jack at the Town Hall. The Corn Exchange was draped with bunting and some irreverent reveller had propped a flag in Queen Victoria's hand. The
public houses were busy, sounds of singing were abroad and everywhere people stopped to congratulate each other and share their relief.