Elizabeth Elgin - Where Bluebells Chime

For just a moment, panic sliced through her and she wondered if this was the time. Then she closed her eyes again, searching for his mouth, relaxing against him.

‘Tatiana …’ His voice was low and husky and he drew away from her a little as if to break the contact of the electricity that sparked and crackled between them. His eyes looked directly into hers, asking the question his lips had no need to speak.

‘I love you,’ she whispered as if it were the answer to all things, then stepped away from him, taking his hand in hers, holding it tightly because she couldn’t bear not to touch him. ‘Let’s walk to the top of the pike.’

It would be quiet up there. Just the sky and almost always a breeze, even in summer. There would be no one there except other couples, who wouldn’t care, anyway.

‘The grass’ll be damp.’ He wondered why he was whispering.

‘I don’t suppose we’ll notice it, Tim.’

All at once she felt shy of him because tonight, soon, would be the first time. And after tonight nothing could ever be the same again.

She glanced sideways so she might look at him without turning her head and he was staring ahead, because he knew it as well, didn’t he?

And then, without shifting his gaze he said, ‘I love you, Tatiana Sutton.’

Julia put down the telephone, then walked along the creaking passage to the library where her husband was most times to be found. When he wasn’t baptizing or marrying or burying in Holdenby and the two other parishes he looked after, that was. And when he wasn’t giving last rites, or comforting, or visiting the old and alone, she sighed. That he would one day inherit Pendenys Place and a half of his mother’s fortune never entered his head, she was sure of it, and she too had become quite good at not dwelling too much upon it, because not for anything would she live in that vulgar barn of a place that looked like the product of a mating between the Houses of Parliament and Creesby Town Hall.

She dismissed it from her thoughts then stood behind her husband’s chair, hands on his shoulders.

‘Are you sermonizing? I need to talk, but I can come back later.’

‘Just finished.’ He replaced the cap of his fountain pen and laid it down, swivelling in his chair to face her.

‘Giles always did that,’ she said in a half-whisper. ‘Swing round in that chair and smile, I mean. Just as you did, then.’

‘I still miss him, Julia.’

‘I know you do. You were twin cousins, sort of.’

‘He was more a brother to me than – well, Elliot,’ he said, at once regretting saying the name.

‘What I want to know is can I have the parish hall for our wedding anniversary?’ Deliberately, she made no reference to Elliot Sutton. ‘I know it will mean slinging the canteen out, but it’ll only be for one night.’

‘For Aunt Helen’s eightieth, you mean? Are you sure you want the hall? Wouldn’t a little party here be better?’

‘No. Mother would get wind of it and anyway, I want the entire village to come and I want there to be dancing. I’ve booked a band, provisionally.’

‘But if you go round asking everyone, your mother will be bound to find out.’

‘Not if I especially ask people to keep quiet about it. I think I’ll be able to get beer, and lemonade for the children, and I can muster one drink apiece, I think, for the toast. But it’ll have to be a bring-your-own-sandwiches-and-buns affair, I’m afraid.’

‘They won’t mind that, darling. Since rationing, it’s been the done thing.’

‘Yes – and a get-together and a dance can’t do anything but good; help everybody forget bloody Hitler for a few hours.’

‘There’s a parish-council meeting tonight. I’ll mention the hall then. I take it you’ve booked the band for the Saturday night and not for our actual date?’

‘For Saturday, October the fifth, if that’s all right?’

‘It’ll be fine.’ He pushed back his chair, crossing the room to stand at her side as she gazed out of the window. ‘Do you often think of Giles? I know I do.’

‘Yes. Sometimes I’m angry still about his death; other times I wonder what would have happened if he’d lived. Alice would still be Lady Sutton and she and Tom could never have married.’

‘Nor Daisy been born. I suppose his death was a part of the order of things, though sometimes I resent it.’

‘You resent God’s will, and you a man of the Church?’ She could not resist, sometimes, mocking God. There were times, still, that she blamed Him for Andrew’s death.

‘Priests can doubt. We are human, Julia – flesh and blood.’

‘Yes, thank God.’ She turned to gather him to her, kissing his mouth. ‘And if I’m not mistaken, that was Mary with the tea tray. I’m dying for a cup. And could you remember to post these on your way to the meeting?’ she smiled, picking up two envelopes. ‘Letters to Drew. And, darling – could you remember to call in on Reuben, some time soon? Alice told me it was his birthday, yesterday. His ninety-fifth, I think, but even Alice isn’t sure, so don’t mention it. Whilst you are there, tell him about the party. I’d like it if he felt up to coming – Mother would like it, too. Just spread the word, will you, once you’ve agreed we can have the hall?’

‘The old ones might not feel up to it. It’ll be quite a long walk for some of them.’

‘It will,’ Julia frowned. ‘I’ll have to see if I can get a gallon of petrol on the black market, then I could run them there in the car. I suppose you couldn’t spare a coupon, Nathan? You get more than I do.’

‘My extra petrol is for parish work, and you know it! And what do you mean – on the black market?’

‘We-e-ll, there are one or two hereabouts who seem to be able to get under-the-counter petrol, by all accounts.’

‘Then let them, though their consciences can’t be worth much if they stopped to think that seamen are being killed bringing it here.’

‘Only kidding!’ She smiled to picture the headlines in the Yorkshire Post: ‘VICAR’S WIFE IN PETROL SCANDAL’. ‘And ssh!’ she commanded, opening the conservatory door, smiling in her mother’s direction.

‘Ah, there you are!’ Helen Sutton returned the smile. ‘I think, Nathan, that you can smell a teapot a mile away. Tilda’s made us egg-and-cress sandwiches – dried egg, I suppose it is. I’ll be glad when your hens start laying, Julia. Be a dear and pour, will you?’

‘Of course.’ There were days, Julia thought gratefully, when her mother was like the Helen of old; today was one of them. And she would enjoy the party, she really would. Her mother had always loved surprises. ‘The hens should start laying very soon, Gracie says. Just a couple of weeks now and we’ll have our own fresh eggs, at least a dozen a week.’

‘Hmm. The land girl. She’s doing very well, Catchpole said. It was so beautiful and sunny this morning that I went to the kitchen garden – did I tell you? I wanted to see the orchid house, really. One of the white ones is putting up late buds for some reason. Now do hurry and pour, Julia, before the tea gets cold …’

On that sixth day of September, fighter pilots along the south coast waited. Some lolled in chairs outside a makeshift mess; others lay, hands behind heads, on the grass, trying to relax. They had all existed on catnaps, hastily swallowed sandwiches and cups of strong sweet tea for weeks, jumping suddenly alert to their feet, running in a half-daze to their waiting fighters as klaxons blared or sirens wailed.

Now they walked and talked, even laughed sometimes, like automatons, trying not to notice that Johnny who snored and Mike who chain-smoked were no longer there.

Most times they took off in haphazard fashion, grouping their fighters into arrowhead formation once they were airborne and undercarriages up, their leader talking to them over the radio, calming nerves that twanged.