Elizabeth Elgin - Where Bluebells Chime

‘What’s a milk run?’ Tatiana asked when the first dance was over.

‘It’s an easy op. hen – easy as delivering milk. We didn’t carry a bomb-load last night. Our lot did a diversionary run to draw their fighters away from the Dutch coast. That way, our main bomber force had a better chance of making it to the target – somewhere in the Ruhr, I think they went. You try to attract the German fighters, then climb like mad, out of their way …’

‘Hmm. And 109s can’t climb all that high, can they, and they can’t stay airborne for very long; not like our Spits and Hurries.’

‘So how come you know so much about Messerschmitts then?’ He tweaked her nose playfully.

‘Because I take a magazine called the Spotter. It’s all about planes, gives silhouettes, too – both ours and theirs so you can recognize them in the air. I’m getting quite good at it.’

‘There’s more to you, lassie, than meets the eye!’ He rose as a waltz was announced. He liked waltzing with her. The steps were slower, so he needed to hold her closer.

‘Tim?’ Tatiana moved her head so her lips were close to his ear. ‘When we met tonight, you said you weren’t so mean that you couldn’t pay for your girl to go into the dance.’

‘Aye, well – some Sassenachs think us Scots are mean.’

‘I didn’t mean that. You called me your girl. Am I your girl, Tim?’

Her eyes met his. Such big, brown, beseeching eyes.

‘If you want to be.’

‘That isn’t what I asked.’

‘Okay.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Since you ask, Tatiana, you bowled me right over the minute I saw you. I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since – so what have you to say to that?’

She smiled, her eyes not leaving his. They were moving more slowly now; dancing on a sixpenny piece, she supposed. And all at once they were the only people in the world.

‘Remember the night we met, Tim?’

‘Every bit of it. Which particular minute are we talking about?’

‘The one when I spoke to you in Russian.’

‘I mind fine. You said you thought I was a good dancer, didn’t you?’

‘No, darling. What I really said was, “I think I am falling in love with you.”’

‘I see. So that makes two of us.’ He said it very matter-of-factly. ‘What are we going to do about it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t have much of a choice. I’m only eighteen, remember.’

‘No chance of marrying me, then?’

‘Not without Mother’s permission and she’d never give it.’ Her eyes pricked with tears.

‘Then it’s a pity you aren’t Scottish. You’d be considered to have sense enough to marry at eighteen there.’

‘I would? Is your law different, then?’ Her heart began to thump uncomfortably.

‘That part of it is.’

‘But I’m English.’

‘Then you’d need to live in Scotland for three weeks – become domiciled. You’d qualify then.’

The music stopped and the floor cleared, leaving just the two of them standing there, though it didn’t matter because weren’t they the only two people in the world, anyway, and in love?

‘Then when you’ve flown your thirty raids, will you ask me to marry you, Tim?’

‘I will, sweetheart.’

‘And I shall say yes …’

They smiled into each other’s eyes, then he took her hand and led her from the floor.

‘Well!’ Daisy gasped. ‘Did you see Tim and Tatty? Standing there in the middle of the floor just the two of them, gazing into each other’s eyes and not caring who sees them? She’s supposed not to be here, you know.’

‘I don’t think she cares,’ Gracie laughed. ‘Nor him. Those two are smitten, if you ask me.’

‘Lordy, I hope not,’ Drew let out his breath in a slow whistle. ‘But if they are, let’s hope Aunt Anna doesn’t find out about it. She’d hit the deck-head!’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about her mother if I were Tatty,’ Daisy said softly. ‘But her grandmother is something else entirely. Grandma Petrovska would eat Tim Thomson alive.’

‘Yes, and spit him out in very small pieces.’ Drew was all at once uneasy. ‘What are we going to do about it, Daiz?’

‘Nothing,’ said Daisy, who knew all about falling in love. ‘Absolutely nothing. And the best of luck to them!’

‘Well! Did you hear the six o’clock news?’ Alice demanded hotly the minute Tom stepped through the kitchen door. ‘Think they can do anything they want, just ’cause there’s a war on!’

‘They can do anything they want!’ Tom kissed his wife’s cheek. ‘And I didn’t hear the news, so you’d better tell me.’

‘Income tax, that’s what! It’s going up to eight and sixpence in the pound in the New Year. That’s more’n a third of what folk earn – and it’s to be taken out of folks’ pay packets every week. No more paying it twice a year!’

‘Sort of pay it as you earn it,’ Tom nodded. ‘Seems fair enough to me. Mind, most folk don’t pay anything at all but let’s face it, somebody’s got to pick up the bill for this war.’

‘Well, I still don’t think it’s right! Legalized thieving, that’s what it amounts to. It wouldn’t surprise me, Tom, if both you and Daisy don’t have to start paying tax come the New Year. And there’s nothing funny about it, so you can wipe that smirk off your face!’

Alice tossed her head defiantly because to her way of thinking, taking tax out of folks’ pay packets every week was thieving!

‘Lass, lass! Daisy won’t pay tax on the pound a week she earns.’ He was careful not to mention how it would be for his daughter once she came into all that money. ‘And as for me – well, it’ll be heaven help a lot if I start paying income tax. Lady Helen and Mr Edward’ll have to worry before I will.

‘And talking about Mr Edward, I was having a word with Pendenys’ head keeper this afternoon. They haven’t told him to go yet, but he’s expecting to hear any day that the military want him off the estate. All the house staff have had to go to the Labour Exchange. They’re expecting to be put on munitions, so talk has it.’

‘Talk is cheap, Tom. What I’d like to know is what’s going on at Pendenys.’

‘And so would I! They’ve wasted no time if what I hear is true. Guard posts set up and sentries patrolling already. Barbed wire all over the place, an’ all, and Mr Edward’s only been gone five days.’

‘It’s for the King and Queen and the Princesses to come to, that’s my belief,’ Alice nodded, income tax forgotten. ‘Just wait till they start really bombing London – and start they will before so very much longer! The government’ll have the royal family out of Buckingham Palace quicker than you can say knife!’

‘The royal family, Alice? Never! What have they ever done to deserve Pendenys? If I was the military I’d make it into a prison and lock up black marketeers in it!’

‘We’ll find out if we wait long enough.’ Alice stuck the sharp point of a knife into a potato. ‘Nearly ready. Away with you and take off your boots and leggings. Daisy’ll be in soon. She’ll want her supper smartish tonight. Off to spend the evening with Drew, seeing he’s only got two more days left. Lady Helen asked especially for her to go over. Poor soul. Her ladyship’s failing if you ask me, and no one to blame for it but Hitler! Oh, but I’d like just five minutes alone with that man!’ Alice fumed because she would never, as long as she lived, forgive him for starting another war.

‘You and a million other women! Now don’t get yourself upset, love. Fretting and fratching will do you no good at all. And don’t they say that nothing is ever as bad as we think it’s going to be?’