Elizabeth Elgin - All the Sweet Promises

She could have found shelter, of course. Hotels and restaurants and clubs always opened their doors to anyone caught above ground when the bombing started. But if she was going to be killed, she had tearfully decided, it would be at her home in Mayfair. No one, but no one, would dig Kitty Bainbridge out of a communal shelter in Soho. For Soho was where she had been last evening, wondering what to do and where to go to fill the time; there, in Shaftesbury Avenue, she had seen Lucinda and the airmen. And it was then she had decided that war work or not, her daughter’s excursions with convalescent wounded must stop at once. She had felt quite peculiar and quite, quite shocked; how Lucinda could bring herself to do it was a complete mystery.

So she had made her fear-filled way home to spend another night in the cellar, her moods alternating between terror and self-pity, until the high, sweet sound of the all clear brought relief and anger. When Donnington got home in that ridiculous Home Guard uniform of his and her daughter had torn herself away from those men, then all hell would break loose. The Countess guaranteed it.

Lighting the last of her cigarettes, she inhaled deeply. The world had gone mad, with every capital city in Europe occupied by strutting Nazis. How soon before they were in London, too?

‘At last!’ She espied her daughter rounding the corner from Berkeley Square. Running quickly downstairs, she was waiting in the black and white tiled entrance hall long before the doorbell rang.

‘Sorry about this.’ Lucinda was pale and dust-stained, her eyes dark-ringed. ‘Are you all right, Mama?’

‘No, I am not all right!’ Pent-up emotions broke loose. ‘I have been alone all night! And might I ask where you have been until now?’

‘I’m sorry, truly I am, but I had to look after the boys. They’re still a bit wobbly, you know, and when the bombing got rough I thought I’d better find us all somewhere to go. We were fine in the tube, but it –’

‘Lucinda! Listen to me! I saw you last night, though you chose not to see me, and I cannot understand your casual attitude to life. You imagine this war gives you the excuse to disobey me and do exactly as you wish. You stay out all night. You think more of those creatures, it seems, than your fiancé. You –’

‘ Creatures , Mama?’

‘Well, what else is one to call them? I was ashamed last night, deeply ashamed that my daughter should be seen in such company, such –’

‘Such what ?’ Lucinda’s eyes flew wide with disbelief. ‘Sorry, but I don’t understand you.’

‘Well, they’re such a terrible sight, aren’t they? Their faces, I mean; so – so grotesque . You’d think they wouldn’t want to be seen in public; but no, there they are, living it up, and my own daughter aiding and abetting them as if she were doing something clever. That tall one, the one with his hands all over you –’

‘Mama, you don’t know what you’re saying.’ Bright red spots flushed Lucinda’s cheeks. ‘I’m not hearing this; I’m not !’

‘Stop playing the innocent with me, child. Sufficient to say I was deeply embarrassed, and the time has come to put an end to this absurdity. You will give up this so-called nursing immediately and you will give me a date for your wedding –’

‘Be quiet, Mama! Shut up and just for once listen to me !’

‘I – I …’ The older woman’s mouth sagged open and remained open. Lucinda, who had always been so obedient, speaking to her mother as if good manners had gone out of fashion?

‘You are without doubt, Mama, the most unreasonable, the most selfish woman I have ever met, and I am not in the least ashamed to be seen with those boys. I’m proud of them, in fact. Yes, they are a terrible sight. They were all fighter pilots and they got hit, you see. Oh, they managed to bale out, but not before their faces and hands had burned. No eyelashes, no eyebrows, no hair, no features any more. That was their reward for trying to keep the bombers away from London, away from people like you, Mama!’ She shook with outrage, her voice thick with unshed tears. ‘The tall one, mind, the one with his hands all over me – on my shoulders , actually, so I could lead him – well, he’s a bit luckier. He’ll never have to see himself day after day in a mirror and wonder if it was worth it because he’s blind, you see. His eyes burned, too!’

She was weeping now. Tears of anger and pity and pride ran down her face, making rivulets in the grime.

‘So don’t moan to me about your unhappy lot, Mama. You think this war was started just to inconvenience you. You whine and whinge and think of no one but yourself. You are a bitch, Mama; a selfish, bad-minded bitch, and it is I who am ashamed of you ! I’m going out before I say something I’m sorry for.’

‘Lucinda! Come back and apologize at once . You can’t speak to me like that. I can’t believe my own ears!’

‘Then you’d better, because I meant every word of it.’

The front door slammed shut and the Countess collapsed on to the bottom step of the staircase, her legs useless. Her daughter had taken leave of her senses and her husband was never at home when he was needed. The world had gone completely mad.

Hubert James Bainbridge, tenth earl of Donnington, called out to his daughter as she passed him on the opposite side of the street, but she did not hear him. He’d have sworn she was crying, poor child. It was a terrible world for the young ones to grow up in. Not a lot for them to look forward to.

He watched her disappear round the corner of the street then, shrugging his shoulders, walked on, thinking again of that incredible whispered conversation at company HQ.

Such news, and so completely unbelievable. He would have to telephone around and see if anyone else had any titbits to add to the mystery. Better not tell Kitty, though. Kitty was totally preoccupied with the threatened invasion, and to tell her this would be asking for trouble. And the rumour might not be true, though it had come from Freddie Elton, who didn’t often get it wrong. But Hess , flying here in a Messerschmitt. Hitler’s deputy, no less, baling out over Scotland then surrendering amiably to a farmer and demanding to be taken to the Duke of Hamilton. It was a real kettle of fish and no mistake. The man must be a raving bloody lunatic even to think of coming to this bomb-happy island. Rudolf Hess, eh? Who next but the whole German army?

Carefully he opened the front door of his house, quietly he crossed the hall to the library and closed the door behind him. Then taking off his tunic and loosening his tie, he picked up the telephone.

The elderly admiral sighed and penned his name to yet another scrap of printed paper. It was all he did, these days; signing chits was all he seemed good for. Too old to be in uniform, really, so he supposed he should be grateful for the desk job in a small dark room at Admiralty House. He rose to his feet, genuinely pleased to see the pretty girl who smiled at him from the doorway.

‘Goddy, darling!’ Her kiss was warm. ‘It’s good of you to see me.’

‘Good of you to come, Lucinda.’ He held her at arm’s length. ‘But what on earth have you been up to, eh?’

Her face was tear-stained, her clothes creased and her pale blonde curls dull with dust.

‘It was the air raid, I suppose. Spent last night in the tube and it was, oh, awful getting here.’

‘What’s it like out there? Afraid I didn’t get home last night. Slept here, in the basement. Is it as bad as they say?’

‘It’s unbelievable, Goddy. Everything is at a standstill and so many people in the underground, just sitting there with nowhere to go. I walked here from Bruton Street and it was like a nightmare.’