We'll Meet Again (12 page)

‘This isn’t a pleasure trip, Muriel. Eric is going to collect Marie and Simone on the way to the harbour. There won’t be room for all of us in the car.’

If the situation had not been so tense Meg might have laughed at her mother’s horrified expression. No doubt the thought of sharing the family limousine with their cook and her daughter was only a little less upsetting than having her home overrun by Germans. ‘I hope you have a smooth crossing, Mother.’

Muriel sank back against the leather squabs and turned her head away.

‘Better not waste any more time,’ Charles said, nodding to Eric. ‘Make sure they get on board safely before you leave the dock.’

Eric touched the brim of his peaked cap and climbed into the driver’s seat.

‘Are you sure this is what you want, Meg?’ Charles said urgently as Eric started the engine. ‘You could still go with your mother.’

Meg shook her head. ‘I’m not leaving you, Pa. You’d starve if you were left on your own. I’ll bet you don’t even know where the kitchen is, let alone how to make a meal.’

He raised his hand in an automatic response to a vague flapping of Muriel’s gloved hand as the Bentley glided smoothly towards the road. ‘I’m an old soldier. You’d be surprised what I can do if needs must, but now you mention it I am a bit peckish.’

‘I’ll see what I can do about breakfast then,’ Meg said, squaring her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, Pa. We’ll be fine, you and I.’

In the kitchen, Meg stared at the expanse of scrubbed pine table that seemed to disappear into infinity. The huge black range glowered at one end of the rectangular room, spilling grey ash onto the red quarry tiles like a hungry monster waiting to be fed its daily ration of anthracite. It was Eric’s job to bank it up last thing in the evening and then Marie would riddle the ashes and stoke it when she arrived early in the morning to begin preparations for breakfast.

Breakfast. It had been an idle boast that she knew how to cook, but surely it couldn’t be that difficult? Meg looked helplessly around at the china-laden oak dressers and the blank-faced cupboards that lined the walls. If it had been the stables, then she would have known exactly to the last oat where the feed was kept, but the kitchen was no-man’s land, a strange uncharted territory, and she was hungry. She opened a few cupboards and came face to face with baking tins, mixing bowls and measuring jugs, but no food. She was beginning to lose patience when the door leading to the scullery opened and Marie bustled into the room.

‘Marie! I thought you’d gone on one of the boats.’

‘Me?’ Marie rolled up her sleeves and whisked her white pinafore off its hook. ‘Not me, Miss Meg. Eric wanted us to go but Simone and I said not likely. She’s just started her nursing training at the hospital and we
don’t have any family in England. We’d be stuck in some billet with people we didn’t know and no means of supporting ourselves. Anyway, I’ve no intention of leaving my little house and all my precious bits and pieces for bloody foreigners to smash up or steal. It’d take more than a pack of Germans to frighten me out of my home and that’s for sure.’

Meg had never heard Marie say so much all at once. Wielding a brush and poker Marie mastered the range with the ease of long practice and coaxed it back to life. At once the room felt warmer, and the black kettle that lived permanently on the hot plate began to simmer. ‘You go up to the dining room, Miss Meg. I’ll have breakfast ready in two ticks.’

Meg could see that her presence would be more of a hindrance than a help and she was only too pleased to do what Marie asked. She joined her father in the dining room, and it gave her a warm feeling to see him in his customary place at the head of the table, hidden behind yesterday’s copy of
The Times
.

‘Marie is still here, Pa. She and Simone decided to stay.’

Charles lowered his newspaper. ‘I’m pleased for our sakes, but she should have left with the rest of the women. And so should you if it comes to that, Meg. It was wrong of me to let you stay.’

She hurried to his side and gave him a hug. ‘You didn’t have any choice, Pa. There’s no way I’m leaving you, and that’s that.’

He smiled, brushing her cheek with his fingertips.
‘You’re a good girl. I just hope you’ve made the right decision.’

Meg smiled confidently, but beneath her outward show of bravado she was extremely apprehensive. She took her seat at the table, gazing out of the window. It was a lovely morning with the promise of a fine day ahead. It was almost impossible to believe that all this could suddenly come to an end. She unfolded her table napkin and laid it across her lap, but when she realised that she was repeatedly folding the starched linen into pleats she made an effort to still her twitchy fingers. It would all come right in the end, she told herself as she glanced at Pa, whose calm seemed unruffled. All this fuss would blow over. Mother would return from the mainland and everything would be as it was before the rumours of invasion began.

She sniffed appreciatively as Marie entered the room carrying a tray laden with bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. Charles folded his paper and laid it neatly by the side of his plate. He gave Marie a beaming smile as she put the toast rack in front of him. ‘I’m delighted you stayed for my own selfish sake, Marie. But I hope you won’t regret it later.’

‘I’m sure I won’t, sir,’ Marie replied calmly. ‘Eric says it will all be over by Christmas, so it didn’t seem worth the upheaval.’

‘Let’s hope that he’s right,’ Charles said as Marie left the room. ‘Things aren’t going to be easy from now on, Meg.’

‘With most of the women evacuated we’re going to be short-staffed when it comes to tomato picking, Pa. We’ve already lost the younger men to the armed forces. It’s going to be difficult to run the farm with just Eric, Billy and Joe.’

‘I think we’ll have to take each day as it comes,’ he said vaguely. ‘Pass the coffee pot, please, Meg.’

It was not the answer she wanted, but she managed to bite back a sharp response. Pa was a wonderful man, a brilliant advocate and a good lawyer, but she knew that he had little interest in agriculture, relying instead on Eric’s keen business sense to manage the farm and keep the accounts. She made up her mind to speak to him as soon as he returned from the harbour. She ate quickly, deciding that her first task of the day would be to groom Conker and muck out the stables. Her father barely seemed to notice when she excused herself from the table, but as she left the dining room she was startled by a loud hammering on the doorknocker. ‘All right,’ she shouted, ‘I’m coming. Don’t break the door down.’ She hurried to open the door.

‘Meg, how are you, my dear?’ Her father’s younger brother, Bertrand, was standing on the doorstep, beaming at her. Despite the warm weather, he appeared to be wearing his entire wardrobe and he clutched a large suitcase in each hand. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and trickled down his nose to drip onto his badly tied cravat. Standing behind him, red-faced and
perspiring in her ancient musquash coat, was his wife, Aunt Maud.

‘Uncle Bertie. Aunt Maud. This is a surprise.’

He put one foot over the threshold. ‘I hope this is not an inconvenient time to call?’

‘No, of course not,’ Meg said, making an effort to sound welcoming. ‘Come in, please. My goodness, you both look so hot. Why don’t you take off your coats and hang them on the hallstand?’ She glanced over her shoulder as she heard her father’s quick footsteps on the marble tiles. ‘We’ve got visitors, Pa.’

Charles stared pointedly at the suitcases. ‘It looks as though you’re planning on a long visit, Bertie.’

‘So good of you to take us in, Charles,’ Maud said, launching herself at him and enveloping him in a fond embrace. ‘Bertrand was sure that you wouldn’t mind, under the circumstances.’

‘Circumstances? I’m not sure I understand.’ Charles looked from one to the other with a puzzled frown.

‘Germans, dear boy,’ Bertrand murmured, looking furtively over his shoulder as if he expected to see a whole Panzer division in the garden. ‘I’m surprised to find young Meg still here. Shouldn’t she have gone on the boats today?’

‘I didn’t want to, Uncle Bertie,’ Meg said, helping him as he struggled to take off his overcoat. ‘It was my decision to stay with Pa. But I could ask you the same question.’

Bertrand peeled off his scarf. ‘Maud wouldn’t go
without me, and our little house is in a very vulnerable position. If the Germans invade, or start dropping bombs on the town, we thought we’d be safer here. I expect you’ve got one of those new-fangled air-raid shelters, haven’t you, Charlie?’

‘We’re so far from town that I didn’t consider it necessary. Do you really intend to stay here?’

‘If you’ll have us, dear Charles.’ Maud flopped down on a hall chair, fanning herself with her fur hat. ‘We’re too old to cope on our own in a situation like this.’

‘I see.’ He turned to Meg. ‘In that case I suppose you’d better ask Marie to make up one of the spare rooms for Bertie and Maud.’

‘Too kind, Charles,’ Maud said with an arch smile. ‘You were always the perfect gentleman. We’ll try not to get in your way.’

He mumbled something unintelligible as he picked up the post and strode off towards his study.

Meg had a sudden vision of her mother’s shocked expression when she discovered that her home had been invaded by the in-laws she so heartily disliked. ‘Leave your cases, Uncle Bertie. I’ll get Eric to take them upstairs.’

‘I should lock the family silver away if I were you.’ Maud jerked her head towards the dining room where the sideboard was clearly visible through the open door. ‘Unless you want to see it all shipped straight back to Berlin.’

‘Yes, I believe the German soldiers steal
everything in their path,’ Bertrand said, mopping his brow with a red paisley handkerchief. ‘We’ve buried our valuables in the back garden.’

‘And Muriel’s collection of porcelain figures will be the first to go,’ Maud said earnestly. ‘They’re German, you know, Meissen and Dresden. They’ll have those as mementoes before you can blink an eye. You should pack them up and hide them in the attics or down the old well, Meg.’

‘I’ll see to it directly,’ Meg said, edging away towards the kitchen. ‘If you’d like to wait in the drawing room, I’ll go and find Eric and Marie.’

‘You’d best ask her to make up three rooms, dear,’ Maud said, coughing delicately. ‘Jane will be bringing Pip along later. I told her you wouldn’t want them to stay alone in that tiny cottage near the harbour.’

Meg opened her mouth and closed it again. She had always disliked Maud’s daughter Jane and her dreadful son. The ‘unspeakable Pip’, as David called him, was too awful for words. Meg raced off to pass the bad news on to Marie, who took it in her usual unflappable way. With a sigh of relief, Meg left everything in her capable hands and she slipped out of the back door, making her escape to the stables.

Conker whinnied and pawed the ground as she approached his stall. ‘Hold on, old boy. I’m coming.’ She picked up a yard broom. ‘I’ll start with you today and when you’ve got a nice clean stable we’ll go for a canter—’

She broke off with a cry of fright as a man leapt from the shadows and grabbed her wrist.

‘Meg, it’s me, Gerald.’

She stopped struggling but her heart was thudding noisily against her ribcage and the blood was pounding in her ears like the surf on the Grand Rocques. ‘You stupid fool. You scared me half to death.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t want anyone else to know I’m here.’

‘Why are you here? I thought you were in the army.’

He sank down on a bale of hay and fumbled in his pocket, producing a packet of Woodbines. ‘I am. We were stationed on the south coast and we had orders to ship out somewhere, we didn’t know where, but I just couldn’t go into active service without seeing you and making things right between us.’

She stared at him aghast. ‘Gerald, you fool. You haven’t gone absent without leave, have you?’

‘No, of course not. I made up a tale about needing urgent compassionate leave. I’ve got to get back to the barracks tomorrow. I’ll get one of the first boats out in the morning.’

‘You’re crazy. They’ve just started evacuating women and children.’

He lit a cigarette and tossed the spent match out onto the cobbled yard. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Meg. And the stupid row we had at your sister’s engagement party has played on my mind ever
since. I had to see you again, if only to say I’m sorry.’

She was silent for a moment, not knowing what to say, but as Gerald sat with his head bowed and the cigarette burning away to ash between his fingers, she felt a sudden rush of pity. She could hardly believe that he had risked everything just to see her again. ‘I’m sorry too. I was hateful to you that night.’

‘Really?’ Gerald’s dark eyes shone with hope. ‘Do you mean it?’

She smiled, holding out her hand. ‘I do. I put you in an impossible situation because I didn’t stop to think things through. If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m really sorry.’

Flicking the butt of his cigarette out into the yard, Gerald leapt to his feet. ‘I love you, Meg,’ he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her on the lips. ‘Do you think you could ever love me?’

She pushed him away gently. Everything was total confusion. When he kissed her it was exciting and left her wanting more, but was that love? She had nothing to compare it with other than the emotions that Rayner had aroused in her, and sometimes she wondered if that had been simply a glorious dream. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Gerald. I really don’t know.’

‘I think that means you do have some feeling for me. It was worth coming here just to hear you say that.’

‘To hear her say what?’ Eric’s stern voice from the doorway made them move guiltily apart.

Meg felt a blush rising from her throat to suffuse her face. ‘Eric, it’s not what you think.’

‘I don’t know what to think.’ He gazed at Gerald with a mixture of pleasure and puzzlement. ‘I hope you’ve got an explanation for this, son.’

Meg moved away tactfully and went to saddle Conker. What passed between father and son was really none of her business and at this moment she wanted to be on her own.