Annie Groves - My Sweet Valentine

Initially Tilly had respected Olive’s wishes about not getting too involved with Drew, but since Christmas something had changed, and every day – or so it seemed to Olive, watching Tilly so anxiously – Tilly was making it plainer that she considered Drew and herself to be a courting couple. Olive only had to look at her now, openly holding Drew’s hand in the street, where she knew that Olive would see her, to know that.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t see that Tilly thought herself in love. It was just that she wanted to protect her from the pain that that love could bring if it was lost to her, and war brought the prospect of that kind of loss so much closer.

Now that mother and daughter had found one another in the crowd, Olive’s pretty face, so like her daughter’s, was creased with anxiety.

‘I don’t think we should have come,’ she told Tilly. ‘It’s so dangerous out here with all these buildings still burning and unsafe.’

‘We had to, Mum. We couldn’t not do,’ Tilly protested. ‘We all want to see for ourselves that St Paul’s is really still standing. We all said the same thing, even you.’

‘That was before I realised just how dangerous it was going to be,’ Olive Robbins replied.

Tilly’s ‘all’ referred to the three girls who lodged at Olive’s house in Holborn, and Olive’s friend Audrey, whose husband was the vicar at the church they attended.

‘And at least they didn’t get St Paul’s.’ Tilly looked towards the cathedral, her heart filled with a rush of pride and love. There was something so special, even mystical, about the sight of Wren’s masterpiece rising above the pall of smoke that must surely touch every Londoner’s heart. It was a wonder that the cathedral had been spared whilst so much had been destroyed and damaged around it. Fire crews had fought all night to save it, and Londoners had come out in their thousands to pay their own often silent tributes to its endurance and the bravery of their fellow citizens.

There was no need to say anything to her mother about what had happened earlier, of course, Tilly reflected. She worried so much about her as it was.

Hearing the note of determined cheerfulness in Tilly’s voice, Drew tucked her gloved hand into the pocket of his raincoat and held it firmly in his own, giving it a small private squeeze. In return Tilly looked at him with eyes luminous with emotion. Witnessing their small exchange Olive’s heart sank even further.

Drew was a good man; he would listen to maternal reason, she felt sure, but Tilly was a different matter. Olive was normally proud of her daughter’s spirited independence. She knew from her own experience of life that a woman sometimes needed to be independent, but Tilly could be very strong-willed and fearless. She had the courage that came from never having had to face the really bitter cruelties of life. Olive wanted her to keep that courage. She wanted to protect her from the pain of life’s cruelties. Marriage at eighteen in the middle of a world war would do the opposite of protecting her. Not that Tilly had said anything to her directly about marrying Drew, but Olive suspected that it was only a matter of time before she did. And when she did Olive knew that she was going to have to stand firm and refuse her permission.

Marriage … a child … widowhood – Olive knew for herself all about the pain and loneliness that brought.

Loneliness? She hadn’t been lonely in her widowhood. She had had her mother-in-law and father-in-law to live with and then later to care for. She had had Tilly to love and cherish. She had had a busy life and one that now, with the war and her WVS work, was even busier. Indeed, it was thanks to the WVS that she had made what was turning out to be such a good growing friendship with Audrey Windle, the vicar’s wife.

It was a life without the kind of love that came from having a husband, though; a man to turn to, to share things with, to laugh with, to love …

Olive could feel her face starting to burn at the dangerous direction of her private thoughts.

Mother and daughter looked at one another, Tilly’s chin lifting with determination – which to Olive looked like defiance – before she deliberately moved closer to Drew and nestled into his side.

Once, not so very long ago, it would have been her side that her daughter would have run to, Olive reflected.

Standing with Drew, Tilly surveyed the scene. Whilst the Germans hadn’t managed to destroy St Paul’s, the fires resulting from the bombing raid had damaged much of the heart of the city. Those streets with their ancient religious names – Paternoster Row and Curie Street – the solid guildhalls built by its rich merchants, its learned seats of justice, all had suffered damage.

Initially it had been the photograph in the Daily Mail of St Paul’s seeming to float above the smoke of the fires that had drawn Olive and Tilly, along with so many other Londoners, to come to see for themselves that the cathedral was indeed still standing and not just a mirage.

In the dull light of the grey day Tilly could still see the fairer tips of Drew’s mid-brown hair, a legacy of the outdoor life at American summer camps during his growing-up years, Drew had told her. They had lived such different lives; grown up in such different circumstances. She was an only child; Drew had four sisters. She had only her mother; Drew had both his parents. But the differences between them didn’t matter. What mattered was how they felt about one another. Their love was still new enough for Tilly to feel almost giddy with a mixture of joy that they had met and horror at the unimaginable awfulness of them never having met at all.

‘At least Article Row has escaped being bombed,’ Drew offered comfortingly now.

‘Yes, thank heavens,’ Tilly agreed. She didn’t know by what good fortune her own home at number 13, and in fact the whole of Article Row, had been spared the conflagration. She was just glad that they had.

Prior to the start of the war Article Row had been an immaculately neat-looking and well-cared-for row of houses that wound its way between closely interweaving streets. Chancery Lane lay to the west of the Row, Farringdon Road to the east, Fleet Street to the south and High Holborn and Holborn Viaduct to the north.

The residents of Article Row still did their best to keep it looking as it should, of course, especially Nancy Black, Tilly’s mother’s next-door neighbour, and the sharp-tongued busybody of the Row, but Hitler’s bombs had destroyed so much of the city that even those buildings that weren’t damaged had been afflicted by brick dust and greasy smuts, making everywhere look careworn and down at heel.

Article Row comprised only fifty houses, built by the grateful eighteenth-century client of a firm of lawyers in the nearby Inns of Court, whose fortune had been saved by the prompt action of a young clerk articled to those lawyers. The three-storey houses curved down one side of the Row facing the rear of the ivy-clad windowless walls of the business premises that backed onto Article Row, making it something of a quietly genteel backwater, its status much prized by those residents, such as Mrs Black, to whom such things were important.

It wouldn’t have taken much for the flames of nearby burning buildings to be driven towards Article Row, and to consume the buildings there as they had done so much else, Tilly reflected. She gave a small shiver at the thought of suffering the loss of her home. She knew how much number 13 meant to her mother. There was something special about Article Row and the small close-knit community who lived there. Tilly felt even more fond of it now, with Drew living there as well, lodging as he did with one of the neighbours, Ian Simpson. Ian’s wife and their children had evacuated to the country at the start of the war. Ian was a print setter, working for the Daily Express on nearby Fleet Street, which was how he had originally come to meet Drew.