The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(73)
“Here you are, missus.” He handed me the water. Perhaps I’d got him wrong. Perhaps he was just a simple child who wanted to help.
I didn’t have many options, dear sister. The money may have already gone, or been burned to ashes. This was the only possible means I had of reclaiming it. It was my only hope.
“All right then. Listen carefully.” He bent his head closer, and I explained where the money was hidden, making sure that he understood that the bomb damage may have shifted the floor or the money to another place. He was to leave no brick unturned.
“I’ll do my best,” he said with a lopsided, crooked-toothed smile, and my heart sank. What has the world come to?
And so I will keep you informed as to how it goes. He promised to return as soon as he finds it, and in the meantime I can only lie here and hope.
Edwina
CHILBURY MANOR,
CHILBURY,
KENT.
Tuesday, 6th August, 1940
Dear Angela,
You wouldn’t believe what mayhem and sadness has been going on since the bomb. I am shattered even thinking about it and try to stay in my room resting as much as I can, although I did make it to Hattie’s funeral, which was heartrending. I still can’t quite believe she’s gone. We’ve been friends since we were born, together as babies, then little girls, teenagers, and now grown women. Or rather, now just one woman—me. It’s as if a whole chunk of my past life has been obliterated.
I’m still very weak. Mrs. Tilling comes to see me every day to tut over me as she doesn’t think I’m making enough progress. Mama has been wonderful, helping me through with lots of soup and good food. I worry that she has been giving me her rations, and Kitty’s, too, probably, as I’ve had eggs every day and bacon at least three times this week. My father is furious with Mama for being so nice to me but has stayed away, for which I can only be grateful. I think he’s playing a waiting game, lurking quietly in the wings until I become well enough to deal with his wrath.
He expects me to marry someone else quickly so that I can pretend that the baby is my new husband’s—by which we all mean Henry, even though no one’s saying it. Sweep it under the rug once and for all. It never dawns on him that I might not want to marry anyone else. I just want Alastair back. I keep wondering if he’s out there somewhere, and if he is, why he’s not coming back to me. I imagine him walking through the door, putting his arms around me as if nothing happened. I know I should be loathing him right now, but I can’t. I feel that I love him even more, with every ounce of strength I can muster. It’s as if the bombs have made everything transparently clear: now all I want is him.
But it’s been five days since the bombs, and with every day the chance that he is alive gets slimmer, as where might he be otherwise? There are three things that would account for his disappearance, none of them good. The first is that he was shot in the woods, either by my father or by a member of his underworld, and now lies dead in a ditch, and the second is that he was bombed in his house, although they tell me that no remains were found in the wreckage. The third option is that he left the village that evening, after our argument, and has not returned.
I wear his St. Christopher medal every day, slipping the tiny sliver beneath the front of my dress so that no one can see. It makes me think he is out there somewhere, thinking of me, whether it’s here on earth or from some kind of heaven, looking down on me.
Meanwhile, Henry was back for Hattie’s funeral and came to see me this afternoon. I’d seen him after the funeral, of course, where we spoke about Hattie, and I must confess it was rather nice to have him there, another one of our old childhood gang. He is so gentle these days. It’s hard not to warm to him. Although he seems less keen than he was in the spring, and I wondered how much he’d been told about Alastair. Mrs. B. is such a belligerent gossip, although I’m sure she doesn’t know the intimate details of what happened between Alastair and me. Henry’s bound to disapprove of me spending time with him, but obviously he’d never show it.
Mama begged me to come downstairs to see Henry, and I leaned on her arm as she brought me into the drawing room, which seemed so light and airy and formal compared to my little room. She’d opened the door to the patio, and a fresh scent of grass cuttings wafted in with a cool breeze. The sunlight reflected in the great silver mirror above the fireplace, and shimmered around the pale walls and furnishings, and I wondered how lovely it would be to live in a past era, one where people were civil and poised, one where everything made sense. One where innocent people didn’t get killed by bombs, or vanish into thin air.
“Henry,” I said carefully, giving him my hand to shake and sitting on the taut gray sofa. I felt rather nervous for some reason, and had put on some lipstick and brushed my hair. He was looking excessively proper and respectable with his uniform so tidy, his handshake so measured.
“Hello, Venetia,” he said, smiling into my eyes. “Wonderful to see you.” He glanced around the room, selected a settee opposite me, and sat down, taking off his hat and placing it on the seat next to him. “I heard that you’re quite the hero in these parts.”
“So they say.” I laughed a little with embarrassment. “It was rather stupid actually, running into an exploding building.”
“But it was terribly brave of you. Not everyone would have risked their own life so readily. People are saying how well you did, with your wounds and so forth.”