Annie Groves - Hettie of Hope Street

‘There, Hettie, I can see how glum you are looking. You are a good girl and I don’t want to see you upset. Let me have a little think and see if there isn’t some way we can make things a bit better for you. It is a pleasure to have the company of such a pretty, biddable girl, and I dare say you know how to make a man appreciate your beauty to its full, my dear. But no saying anything to Mrs Buchanan, mind, she will chastise me if she thinks that I am being over generous to you.’ Smiling genially at her, Mr Buchanan slid his hand down her back to her bottom and very determinedly squeezed one cheek, causing Hettie to cry out in protest and jump away from him.

‘Now, Hettie, that wasn’t very appreciative of you,’ he chided her sharply. ‘I had looked for a more grateful response to my generosity. We will say no more about it on this occasion but I hope you will remember in future that if I am to be generous to you, then you will have to be correspondingly generous to me. Ah, poor child, I can see that I have upset you. Come here and let me make you feel better.’

To Hettie’s horror, he had grabbed hold of her before she could escape, forcing her back against the piano with the weight of his body. She could feel his moist, panting breath against her neck, and as she tried to push past his restraining arm he put his free hand on her breast, and squeezed it.

No man had ever attempted such an intimacy with her and nor had she ever imagined that they might do so. Ellie had been a loving and very protective mother, anxious, although Hettie did not realise it, to safeguard her children from the unhappiness and danger she herself had experienced as a young girl, vulnerable and alone after her mother’s death.

Hettie felt close to fainting. The sensation of Mr Buchanan’s slack wet mouth pressing against her skin made her feel sick with loathing.

‘I knew you would be a hot-blooded little thing. I’ve heard how you orientals know a thing or two about pleasing a man.’ Mr Buchanan was panting. ‘Come, my dear, and give me your hand and let me find pleasure in your hold…’

Mr Buchanan’s voice had gone thick and both it and he were shaking with excitement as he pressed his body into hers, Hettie recognised in trembling fear. He was plucking, no tearing at the fabric of her blouse, and her breast hurt from his rough handling of it.

‘Mr Buchanan. No…Please, let me go,’ she begged him frantically, but instead of obeying her he simply grunted and pushed himself harder against her.

Her head had begun to swim with panic, a horrible cold, weakening feeling taking her strength, and Hettie was mortally afraid that she might actually faint and be left to his mercy. But then to her relief someone started to turn the door handle of the practice room and, with a speed that astonished her, Mr Buchanan not only released her but stepped away from her, smoothing the black strands of hair over his forehead and keeping his back to the door as he intoned, ‘Yes. As I was saying, Hettie, about adding another song…’

When he broke off, feigning surprise at the entrance of the housekeeper, Hettie took advantage of her opportunity to escape, hurrying out of the room, not caring that her housekeeper might think her behaviour odd.

She was still trembling several minutes later when she had left the hotel and was standing on Lime Street, longing for the comfort of Ellie’s arms around her and her soothing voice assuring her that what had happened would never happen to her again.

Mr Buchanan had mentioned her red dress, though, and she hadn’t forgotten how angry John had been when he had seen her wearing it. Was it somehow her own fault that Mr Buchanan had behaved the way he had? He had certainly given her to understand that it was.

Her head ached and she felt sick. If she couldn’t go home to Ellie then at least she could telephone her. There was a public telephone box in the station and she hurried over to it, pulling open the heavy door and stepping inside.

When the telephonist asked her what number she required, she was trembling so much she could hardly speak, but at last she managed to say the number. Gripping the receiver with one hand and her money ready in the other, Hettie waited for someone to answer.

When at last they did it wasn’t, as she had hoped, Ellie’s voice she heard but instead that of Mrs Jennings, her cook-come-housekeeper.

‘Oh what a shame, Hettie, yer ma and pa have gorn up to the Lakes,’ she told Hettie.

Tears filled Hettie’s eyes. She replaced the receiver and walked back to Lime Street, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life.

John re-read the letter he had just written, and then got up to go and stand at the cottage door and look across the airfield. At the far end where the flying machine hangar had once stood, there was now a pile of twisted metal and charred rubble, all that remained of his hopes and dreams.

He had attended the funerals of each of the young men who had lost their lives, and suffered the accusatory looks of their families at every one. He could have defended himself from them by pointing out that the person responsible for their deaths was not him but one of their own friends, but what was the point now with them dead and their families already burdened with the pain of their grief? He had no wish to add to it by telling them that they had brought the deaths on themselves by breaking the rules.

Far worse, though, had been Jim’s funeral. He and Jim had been friends for almost half of John’s life. It had been Jim who had tolerated his questions and curiosity when, as a young boy, he had hung around him and the other men with their flying machines, coaxing Jim to tell him everything he knew about them. Jim had been the best of men and the best of friends, and John knew he would never forgive himself for what had happened to him.

As soon as Gideon and Ellie returned from the Lakes, John intended to tell them he was leaving the area. He knew Gideon and Ellie understood why he had insisted Hettie was not to be told about what had happened, and that he had not wanted to spoil her debut with his own dreadful news. She had probably not even missed him anyway, he decided bitterly, not with all the admirers she no doubt had now, paying her compliments and wanting to walk out with her. Hettie was young. She wanted fun and laughter, and they were the last things he felt like right now.

In fact, he felt as though he had the cares of the world on his shoulders. Even if he had had the money to do so, at this moment he had neither the heart nor the stomach for starting again and building another flying school here.

He couldn’t stay here because if he did there would never be a day when he didn’t look across to the charred ruin and know that, if he hadn’t selfishly agreed to go and listen to Hettie singing, because he had been so desperate to see her, four foolish young men and his best friend would still be alive.

The blame wasn’t Hettie’s – how could it be? – but it was his for putting his desire to see her before his duty.

The letter he had just finished writing was a request to Alfred asking if the job he had mentioned to him was still open. The sooner he was away from this place and its painful memories the better.

‘Gawd, ’Ettie, yer look like you’ve been bawling yer eyes out, what’s up?’

Hettie had hoped that she would have the attic room to herself as she returned to the boarding house, but she had forgotten that Mavis had had a fall-out with the producer and was currently understudying, which meant she was refusing to go to the theatre for rehearsals.

‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbled.

‘Nothing? Give over, come on, what’s to do? Old man Buchanan hasn’t been trying it on wiv yer, has he?’