The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(104)

I looked around the faces, smiling, enjoying it, and I felt her becoming more comfortable, letting her voice ring out to fill the great hall. Before I knew it, she was in the second verse, her hips swaying slightly as she sang, smiling at the audience.

Then I saw someone vaguely familiar.

He was standing at the back, slightly to the right. I couldn’t work out if it was really him at first. He looked different. His hair was shorter, his clothes less formal. Was he an apparition?

He smiled and winked at her, slow and measured, and I knew that it truly was him. That he was alive. Come to find her.

She stopped singing. Her words just petered out as she gazed over at him. I saw his mouth move, saying something silently through the air. I love you. And I love you, too, she mouthed back to him over the crowds.

Mrs. Quail had carried on playing, even though Venetia had stopped singing, and I quickly found my feet and darted across the stage to her, carrying on from where she left off. She turned and looked at me, trepidation in her eyes, and headed to the steps off the stage. I carried on singing as she made her way through the crowds, people parting to let her through, making a path for her, until she reached Mr. Slater.

There they stood, a few feet apart, looking at each other, until someone nudged her forward, and they fell into each other’s arms, kissing like people do in the movies. It was the most romantic moment I’ve ever seen. Everyone around them cheered, and soon the whole hall was alight with a roar of celebration. In this bleak world, there is at least one thing that we have left. Love.

He took her hand and led her through the crowds to the door, and they disappeared into the night together.

I carried on singing, thinking of being alone, the end of my future with Henry. How ridiculous it all seems now, that I was so smitten that I’d do something so stupid and childish.

But then I thought of all the wonderful people that I have in my life: Mama has suddenly become more herself, Venetia has become a friend, Silvie is part of our family for now, and Rose, too, and even Tom, in his small, adoring way, could be considered a new friend. And the choir, almost like a family of friends and neighbors all standing by each other. You see, I’m not alone anymore. None of us are.

The crowd roared with pleasure as the song came to a close. It took a minute for me to realize that they were clapping for me—I had quite forgotten my butterflies.

“Let’s go straight into your solo, Kitty,” Mrs. Tilling said, turning to Mrs. Quail for the introduction, and before I knew it I was smiling around the crowd waiting for the moment to come in. It was that wonderful, soaring song, “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”

After the sweeping low-high of the first notes, the audience cheered their approval, and I couldn’t help beaming a smile through the entire song, the words spilling seamlessly out of my mouth and filling the hall with a glowing, radiant hope.

At the end, the applause burst forth like thunder, with people calling and whistling. I felt my eyes fill with tears. My singing had been a success!

Soon I was surrounded by the rest of the choir, congratulating me and getting their music ready for the rest of the show. Mrs. Tilling took her baton and led us into the next tune, another jazz number, and we found ourselves swinging our hips to the rhythm, the crowds joining in. It was so much fun. Following that, we had the sing-along, finishing off with a very hearty version of “There’ll Always Be an England.”

“You were right, Kitty,” Mrs. Tilling said, as the applause continued and we took bow after bow. “There’s nothing like a good song to cheer us all up.”

“Thanks to you, Mrs. Tilling, for taking over the choir.”

The calls for “more” and “encore” continued, and Mrs. B. bustled forward and nudged Mrs. Tilling. “Shall we give them another one?”

Mrs. Tilling looked around at our eager eyes. “I don’t see why not,” she said, and raised her baton one final time. “Let’s sing ‘The World Will Sing Again.’?”

We’d only rehearsed it a few times, but it was one of the most tearful songs, thinking of the bereaved and filling them with some kind of hope. Mrs. Tilling waited for the hall to be completely hushed before holding up her baton and leading us in. We sang it plainly, letting the words speak for themselves, their intertwining mixture of despair and hope, of smashed dreams and brave smiles, of the blackest night quietly overcome with the new light of daybreak. It was a magic moment—you could have heard a pin drop, the audience was so quiet. Respectful, I’d say, of everyone there who’d lost someone, or with loved ones away, in danger.

When we finished, there was a long moment of silence, a prayer perhaps, before a slow applaud began, rippling around the crowded room like a growing tide. There were no cheers, no whistles, just the dense resonance of hundreds of people sounding their support to those who’d lost someone, to those who didn’t know how to carry on.

After it had died down, we went to see if there were any refreshments (which there weren’t) and meet people. All of Chilbury had turned up, including Henry (who Venetia and I have renamed Horrible Henry), who was talking animatedly to a uniformed woman who looked like an especially brutish bulldog.

“That’s Lady Constance Worthing, Lady Worthing’s daughter,” Mrs. Tilling whispered, a little laugh trembling her voice. “I am surprised Henry’s succumbed to Mrs. B.’s wishes.”