The Darkest Hour (50 page)

‘He said it was because they inhabited different worlds,’ Lucy said thoughtfully, ‘which I suppose would be true, though it is sad if it came between them.’

‘I think Johnny had something to do with that,’ Dolly said after a long silence. She stood up and removed their plates, switching on the electric kettle before she sat down again. ‘Johnny resented his mother being so close to George. He didn’t like it that he had already left home when she bought this place. He was very angry when he heard George had run away from London and come here and Evie was going to let him live with her.’ She stood up again and began to make the coffee. ‘There was something very sad about Johnny. He loved his grandfather – both his grandfathers – and I think he would have loved to have been a farmer. He didn’t enjoy London. In some ways he was a lost soul.’ She sighed. ‘I liked Johnny very much. I liked them both. It broke Evie’s heart that they didn’t get on. And then there was Ralph.’

‘Ralph?’ Lucy echoed sharply.

Dolly nodded. ‘Johnny was obsessed by him, the heroic uncle who had died before he was born. He used to say Ralph haunted him. He appeared to the boy in his dreams and talked to him.’ She shivered. ‘That used to give me the heebie-jeebies. And it terrified Evie. She couldn’t bear it when Johnny told her about it. She got so angry. She forbade him to mention it.’ She was pouring Lucy’s coffee and stopped suddenly. ‘What is it? What have I said?’

Evie wore a cream suit to her wedding, altered from a dress of her mother’s, and she carried a posy of snowdrops and winter aconite interspersed with small spikes of sweet box from the farm. There were some two dozen guests at the service in St Margaret’s, where such a short time before they had attended the memorial service for her brother. Her father took her up the aisle on his arm and handed her over to Eddie before walking back to stand beside his wife, his face like carved stone. On the other side of the church sat Eddie’s parents and his two sisters.

As she repeated the age-old words of the marriage service Evie felt as if she were in a dream, but it wasn’t the dream of a blissful bride, it was a nightmare from which she would never wake up. This was all wrong. She should be standing beside Tony. Ralph should be the best man, not this stranger, smirking at her round Eddie’s shoulder, and her husband, standing at her side and placing the gold band on her finger, should be a laughing, blue-eyed pilot, not Eddie …

She managed the responses somehow, her voice husky, her excuse of a heavy cold by now a reality as she clutched her handkerchief and dabbed at streaming eyes and reddened nose. She saw Eddie look at her and for a moment thought she saw disgust in his glance, but then he grinned and gave her hand a squeeze. She did her best to smile back.

As they signed the register an air raid warning sounded in the far distance and the congregation exchanged uneasy glances as they listened to the wheezy notes of the organ, played, in the absence of the regular organist in the Navy, by the grandmother of Sally who ran the shop; Sally who had at the last moment rushed round some gardens in the village to collect several vases of honeysuckle and witch hazel, winter jasmine and hazel catkins to cheer the gloom of the grey stone church. No one could have expected Rachel to do it, not after losing her son, and Evie hadn’t been well, the whole village knew that. Sorry for the Lucases, and guessing something of their despair, Sally had determined that the church at least would look pretty. She succeeded. The sun had disappeared behind banks of cloud and raindrops were beginning to fall on the churchyard as Evie and Eddie made their way back down the aisle as husband and wife, and stood in the porch for photos, the scent of daphne from the rector’s garden filling the air around them. There were no rose petals for confetti, so two little girls from the village showered them with dried dead leaves.

Afterwards the two families and their guests went back to Box Wood Farm and ate the wedding cake, which Rachel, managing to shake off her apathy, had conjured from a recipe in one of her magazines. She smiled at her daughter as Evie and Eddie cut into it and everyone cheered. Evie, meeting her eye at last, managed to smile back. Dudley, for whom this ultimate sacrifice had been concocted, scowled once again at his new son-in-law and took himself outside to check on the cows.

The call came three weeks after the wedding. Rachel answered the phone and spoke to someone who announced themselves as ‘Tony Anderson’s friend, Jim, up in Prestwick’.

‘Eddie Marston’s mother gave me your number. I’m one of his ground crew, but Tony was a mate as well, and I know he would have wanted Eddie to know if anything happened.’

Rachel froze. ‘If anything happened?’ she echoed

‘I’m sorry. He flew out yesterday testing a Mark Two. He didn’t return.’

Rachel’s hand tightened round the receiver. She couldn’t speak.

‘Will you tell Eddie?’ the voice went on.

‘I’ll tell him,’ she whispered.

She was still sitting in the hall when Dudley came in, stamping snow off his boots in the kitchen. ‘Rachel?’ He could see her through the door and stopped in his tracks, struck by her stillness. He went to her, his face tight with anxiety. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Tony.’ She said. ‘He’s missing.’

‘Tony?’ Dudley stood, his hands in his pockets. ‘And why did they feel they had to tell us?’ He was furious suddenly. They had no business upsetting Evie again, bringing it all back, reminding her of Ralph so soon.

‘I expect they thought it was a kindness,’ she stammered. ‘Evie loved him so much.’

Dudley frowned. ‘Not enough, obviously. Anyway, Tony is in the past. Don’t even mention it to her.’

‘I have to, Dudley. How could I not?’ Rachel climbed wearily to her feet.

‘Where is she?’

‘Upstairs in the studio.’

‘And Eddie?’

‘He went out this morning early.’ She was visibly trying to pull herself together. ‘The man who rang asked me to tell Eddie, not Evie. That seems odd.’

‘Probably thought he could break it to her.’ Dudley turned and went back into the kitchen and held his chilled hands over the stove for warmth. ‘He was a nice boy,’ he conceded roughly, ‘just not for her.’

‘Why not?’ Rachel followed him in. ‘Why was everyone so against him?’

That was a question Dudley would never answer. Since the wedding Eddie had made it clear there would be no question now of ever paying back the loan. ‘Obviously she really loved Eddie, or she wouldn’t have married him,’ he said firmly.

Rachel sighed but she said nothing.

‘Don’t tell them, Rachel. The boy has gone. It will only upset Evie and that will make Eddie angry.’ Dudley moved over to the window and looked out thoughtfully. ‘He is a very possessive man. Better for Evie if she puts Tony completely out of her head. It was a passing infatuation, no more.’

Rachel moved over to the sink and picked up the teapot. ‘I think it was a little more than that,’ she murmured to herself. Dudley didn’t hear her and she didn’t repeat what she had said.

She had walked up to the village shop, her basket on her arm, her head and shoulders swathed in a thick scarf, and returned just as Eddie came in. He had moved into Box Wood Farm on his marriage and they had taken over the larger of the two spare rooms, swapping it with the land girls, who had moved another bed into Evie’s old bedroom. Dudley saw him as he headed for the staircase and beckoned him into his office.

‘We had a call from Scotland,’ he said. He eyed his son-in-law with distaste mixed with gratitude. It was an unpleasant combination of emotions to deal with. Secretly he couldn’t understand why Evie had suddenly changed her mind and accepted Eddie’s proposal of marriage. Presumably her hurt and anger at Tony leaving her without a word had rebounded and she had thrown herself at Eddie as a sop to her own wounded pride. Well, thank God she had! The marriage had taken place by special licence – another of Eddie’s fiddles, no doubt, but it was done now and all was at peace within the farm. Without Ralph, Evie would inherit everything one day and a farm needed a strong man to run it. He was under no illusion that Eddie would turn his hand to farming himself, but he had money. He could employ a manager. Dudley moved over and closed the door behind Eddie. The pair were man and wife and that was that. He waved his son-in-law to a chair. ‘Tony Anderson has been killed,’ he said. ‘They wanted me to tell you, I suspect so you can break it to Evie. It would be dreadful if she heard somewhere else.’

He was watching Eddie’s expression. The man showed not a flicker of emotion. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘Missing out at sea. Like Ralph.’ Dudley’s voice cracked. ‘This bloody war!’

‘Odd. On the west coast of Scotland,’ Eddie said thoughtfully. ‘Not exactly the front line.’

‘The Germans would be attacking Clydeside,’ Dudley retorted shortly. ‘Hardly a respite from the war. But as it happens, I gather he was testing a plane that had been repaired.’

Eddie took a deep breath and Dudley realised that he was trying to hide the gleam of triumph in his eyes. His distaste intensified. ‘Do you want to tell her, or shall I?’

‘I will,’ Eddie said quietly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll pick the right moment. You’re right. She has to know.’

As he climbed the stairs to Evie’s studio Eddie allowed himself a small smile. He pushed the door and went in. She was standing in front of the easel, a brush in her hand, wearing her usual dungarees, her hair, for once free of its scarf, tangled around her shoulders. His eyes dropped to her stomach. She had put on a little weight. He walked over to stand behind her. She was working on another study of the women of Southampton and for a moment he was caught by the intensity of the expressions on their faces, their terror half-eclipsed by their grim determination. Almost automatically he scanned the table near her hand to see how the paints were holding out. This constant palette of brown and grey was using up her supplies of burned umber and ivory black, the darker blues, the tubes squeezed and almost empty. She didn’t look at him as she squinted closer to the canvas. ‘The light is going. I’ll have to stop soon.’

‘That is a very powerful scene,’ he said. He waited as she put down her brush and reached for a rag. ‘Evie, I have some sad news.’

She turned and looked at him at last. Her expression echoed that of the women in the picture. It was almost as though she had drawn a self-portrait. ‘What?’ she asked.

‘Tony,’ he said.

She went white. For a moment he thought she was going to collapse and he held out his hand, resting it lightly on her arm. ‘Do you want to sit down?’

She shook her head. ‘What‘s happened?’

‘I gather he was flying out over the sea. He didn’t come back.’

‘Like Ralph,’ she echoed her father’s words.

He shook his head. ‘Ralph was killed in action. I gather Tony was just test flying a plane that had been repaired.’

‘Just test flying,’ she repeated.

He nodded. She had grown very frail, he realised. She staggered a few steps away from him, turning her back, her shoulders rigid. ‘Just test flying.’ She said the words again as though unable to believe them.

She turned back and he saw the tears in her eyes. She looked stricken. ‘Can you leave me alone for a bit, Eddie?’ she said, her hand on her stomach. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’

His gaze dropped again to her midriff and suddenly he knew.

The ice-cold shaft of hatred and jealousy that sliced through him took even him by surprise. ‘You’re pregnant!’ he said softly. ‘You’re carrying his baby!’ The flash of fear which crossed her face confirmed it. ‘So, that was why you were so keen to marry me. It was nothing to do with loving me. You needed a father for his bastard!’

‘Eddie –’ She moved towards him but he stepped back.

‘You cheating, lying, little trollop!’

‘Eddie, please!’

He looked her up and down again and then turned on his heel. He walked out of the studio, slamming the door behind him and she heard his footsteps as he ran down the stairs.

He went into their bedroom and sat down on the bed. He was shaking all over, his fists clenched, his eyes blazing. When she appeared some fifteen minutes later he was still sitting there. Outside it had begun to grow dark. She walked in and closed the door. The blackout wasn’t drawn and she made no attempt to turn on the light. ‘I am sorry, Eddie.’

‘So am I.’ His voice was harsh.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What can I do?’ He clenched his hands even tighter. ‘We are married. Everything that is yours is mine and that presumably includes Tony Anderson’s bastard. I presume you didn’t want your father to find out. He would have thrown you out, old-fashioned puritan that he is, and he still might, but we don’t want to risk you being disinherited, do we? After all, you will now inherit your brother’s share of this farm, which will be worth a bit when the war is over. So why don’t I just add a child to the list of assets. Your paintings, your farm and your child. I will acknowledge it as mine, but don’t expect me ever to forget that it was fathered by someone else!’

The slam of the door could be heard all over the farmhouse. Dudley glanced up from his desk and frowned but he made no move to see what had happened.

Dolly had found the extra boxes of papers and books in one of the outhouses. Sitting at the low coffee table in the cottage Lucy had piled them in the corner, ready to take them back to the vicarage. She had enjoyed her few days staying at the cottage but at the same time, she didn’t feel safe. It was too exposed. Every time she heard a car in the lane she looked up and waited, afraid it might stop, afraid it might be Charlotte. Mike had assured her that Charlotte wouldn’t be coming back, ever, that he had taken her key, that he and she were no longer an item, no longer even speaking, but still Lucy didn’t trust the long quiet evenings. She had rung Maggie that afternoon and Maggie had begged her to come back to the vicarage, at least for a night or two. She considered the offer. It was tempting but she had sworn she would not be chased away from the gallery. In the end she compromised. She said she would drive back the next day, via the gallery in Chichester, where she would look in on Robin and make sure everything was all right. Having made the decision she was surprised at just how much of a relief it was. Her very real fear was still there, close beneath the surface, she had to acknowledge the fact.