Elizabeth Elgin - Where Bluebells Chime

So it had come. Alice gazed at the manila envelope. The WRNS had not forgotten her daughter nor lost the application she filled in in a fit of pique almost seven weeks ago.

She swallowed hard and noisily, then placed the envelopes on the mantelpiece between the clock and the tea caddy. Oh, damn this war and damn Hitler! She gazed about her helplessly, then hurried into the passage to pick up the telephone.

‘Hullo, Winnie,’ she said to the operator. ‘Give me Rowangarth, will you?’ She stood, eyes closed, breathing deeply to fight the panic inside her. ‘It’s arrived, I think,’ she said without preamble when her call was answered. ‘An OHMS letter for Daisy. It’ll be about her medical …’

‘Put the kettle on,’ said Julia Sutton. ‘I’m coming over!’

‘Where have you been, dear?’ Helen Sutton laid aside the glove she was knitting in navy-blue wool.

‘Popped over to Keeper’s. Daisy’s heard from the Wrens about her medical, Alice thinks. She and Tom were hoping they’d forgotten her.’

‘I don’t know why she had to volunteer. It’s bad enough Drew having to go.’

‘Dearest, don’t worry. She might not pass the medical.’

‘Of course she will!’

‘Yes, she will. But they mightn’t send for her for ages. And we’ve got to face it, women will all have to do war work before so very much longer and the young ones could well be sent into the Forces.’

‘But they couldn’t do that! Not to young girls. Is nothing sacred?’

‘The way things are going, Mother, it seems not. I sometimes think I should be doing more.’

‘But you and Alice go nights to the church canteen and you helped with the evacuees.’

‘The evacuees have all gone home and serving cups of tea to soldiers and airmen isn’t doing a lot for the war effort.’

‘You’re the vicar’s wife, Julia. Surely that’s work of national importance?’

‘Well I’m not so sure a vicar’s wife would be exempt from war work. If push comes to shove – and it will, before so very much longer – they could have me emptying middens if they thought it would help with the war!’

‘You can’t mean it!’ Helen picked up her needles and began knitting furiously.

‘Of course not.’ How could she be so stupid and her mother getting more frail and more afraid as each day passed? They were all afraid, but that was no excuse for upsetting her mother, who worried all the time about Drew. ‘And if they did direct women into the Forces, it would only be as clerks and typists, or cooks. They wouldn’t be in any danger, truly they wouldn’t.’

‘So when Daisy goes we shouldn’t worry too much …?’

‘Daisy will be fine, and she hasn’t gone yet.’ Her mother adored Daisy; looked on her as an extension of Drew, which in reality she was. ‘Now stop your worrying, dearest. I haven’t seen the paper yet. Anything in it worth reading?’

‘Nothing! They’ve shelled Dover – from across the Channel, Julia. Those poor people! And they’ve been bombing fighter stations on the south coast.’

‘Don’t believe all you read in the papers.’ Julia wished she hadn’t asked. ‘Tune in to the BBC. They aren’t scaremongers.’

‘I did, and their news was just as bad, so it must be true. Our fighters were waiting for the German bombers, though. They were in the air before the Luftwaffe crossed our coastline. I wonder how we know they are coming, Julia?’

‘Beats me. Probably we’ve got spies on the French coast – or something …’

Julia turned to gaze through the window, her thoughts not to be given voice, for what she had feared all along was happening. We were being softened up for that September invasion. It made sense to knock out the fighter stations first. Hitler had to get here if he was to be complete master of Europe and the daily bombings signalled the start of it. The fight for Britain was on, it would seem.

‘I shouldn’t wonder if there isn’t a letter from Drew soon, telling us he’s got a ship. I’ve written a couple of letters but I’m not posting them until we get his new address. He’ll be safer at sea, Mother, to my way of thinking. Plymouth has taken more than its fair share of the air raids.’

‘You could be right.’ Helen brightened visibly. ‘I think I’ll write to him, too.’

‘You do that, dearest. Tell him all the nice things. He likes hearing about Rowangarth.’ Home Farm starting the corn harvest, Jack Catchpole’s anger at the newly-appeared molehills on the front lawn; Tilda bottling Victoria plums to store for winter puddings, Tom’s bitch having a fine litter of puppies. ‘I wouldn’t mention the letter that came for Daisy this morning, though. She’ll want to tell Drew about that herself.’

‘Mm. And it mightn’t be about her medical, you know. Maybe it’s to tell her they’ve got enough Wrens for the time being.’

‘You could well be right.’

Julia felt unease as she watched her mother walk away; not so straight, now, her steps slow and unsteady sometimes.

Dearest lovely Mother. Once you were so beautiful, so sure and brave. War took your sons from you yet you never wavered; you cared for the entire village, were always there to comfort when the death telegrams came.

We all leaned on you, drew strength from you. You were like a safe haven. You saw to it that the old always had logs to burn in winter and that no one went entirely hungry.

Yet now you are old yourself and have been called on to face another war and what I’ll do when you leave us, what Rowangarth and the whole of Holdenby will do, I don’t dare think.

And, Mother, Daisy will have to go, sooner or later. We’ve got a long, terrible time ahead of us. We are on our own now, and women are going to have to help fight the war, whether we like it or not …

Daisy said, ‘Hi, each!’ looked up at the mantelpiece as she always did, faltered for just a second, then said, ‘Well, what d’ya know? A letter from His Majesty.’

‘Open it, love.’ Alice could wait no longer. It had lain there all day, tormenting her so much that she had thought – only for a moment, mind – of taking the kettle to it and steaming it open.

‘Albion Street, Leeds,’ Daisy studied the stereotyped form. ‘That’s where I’m to go. On the twenty-ninth of August, at half-past three.’

‘Two weeks away,’ Alice frowned.

‘So it is. If the date isn’t convenient I’m to let them know at once, reusing the envelope and the enclosed label,’ she grinned. ‘There’s economy for you!’

‘It isn’t funny,’ Alice snapped, more than ever agitated now she knew that what she had feared all day was fact. ‘And what do they mean – if it isn’t convenient?’

‘My period, I suppose. But I’ll be all right.’

‘Daisy!’ Such talk, in front of her father!

‘What’s the matter, Mam – doesn’t Dada know about the birds and the bees?’

‘That’ll do, lass.’ Impudent young miss! Tom fought to keep the smile from his lips. ‘What’s Keth got to say for himself, then?’

‘Don’t ask.’ Daisy took a knife from the table, carefully opening the envelope. ‘That’s between me and him – oooh, Mam, he’s looking at rings! What do I want, he says.’

‘Rings! I’d have thought he’d have better things to do with his money than send a ring that’ll likely end up torpedoed at the bottom of the Atlantic!’

‘Well, since he’s asking, I think I’d like a sapphire. It would go with my brooch.’

Would match the daisy-shaped brooch Aunt Julia had given her the day she was christened; petals of sapphires with a pearl at its centre. So valuable that she still had to ask Mam’s permission to wear it.

‘Your brooch, Daisy Dwerryhouse, would keep me in housekeeping for five years! Now where is Keth to find the money to match sapphires like those, will you tell me?’