Elizabeth Elgin - Where Bluebells Chime

‘Lady Helen seems very sentimental about the white orchids,’ Gracie said now.

‘Aye. Remind her of Sir John, young Drew’s grandfather. Killed hisself speeding on the Brighton road in his new-fangled motor. Afore the Great War, that was, when I was a lad serving my time at Pendenys. Took it terrible bad. Wore black for three years for him. They don’t wear black these days like they once did. For those three years her ladyship didn’t receive callers nor socialize ’cause her was in mourning. Folk don’t have the respect nowadays that they used to have.’

He sucked hard on his pipe, remembering the way it had been in Sir John’s time.

‘What are you thinking about, Mr Catchpole?’

‘Oh, only about the way it used to be.’

‘I wish you’d think out loud.’

‘I will. Tomorrow, happen. What I’m more concerned about now is that sack you’ve got for me at the bottom of Alice’s garden. Away over the stile and get it, there’s a good lass. And go careful. Don’t want to set the dogs barking.’

He smiled just to think of it. That hen muck was worth its weight in gold. Wouldn’t do if it fell into the wrong hands!

Edward Sutton lounged in a comfortable basket chair in the conservatory at Denniston House, gazing out over the garden to the fields beyond and the trees, yellowing now to autumnal colours. Strange, he thought, that not since he married Clemmy so many years ago, and gone to live in Clemmy’s house, had he been so contented.

It had always, come to think of it, been Clemmy’s house, built for his only child by an indulgent father; always been Clemmy’s money he lived on and their firstborn, Elliot, had been Clemmy’s alone.

Now Clemmy was dead, and Elliot, too, and now Edward himself lived at Denniston House with Elliot’s widow, Anna, and Tatiana, whom Clemmy had never forgiven for being a girl. Anna was charming and kind and Tatiana a delight of a child and he felt nothing but gratitude to the Army for commandeering Pendenys Place. They were welcome to it for as long as the fancy took them. He glanced up sharply as the door opened.

‘Uncle Edward! Did I wake you up?’

‘No, Julia. I wasn’t asleep. I was just indulging an old man’s privilege of remembering and do you know, my dear, when you get to my age you can dip into the past without any qualms of conscience or regret?’

Dear Julia. She still called him uncle, though for these two years past she had been his daughter-in-law. He offered his cheek for her kiss, smiling affectionately into her eyes.

‘I know. I do it always when I come here to Denniston. And it doesn’t trouble my conscience either, because now I am the parson’s wife and middle-aged, and the girl who was once a nurse here is long gone.’

‘Of course! You and Mrs Dwerryhouse did your training at Denniston in the last war.’

‘And now Drew is in the thick of another one, and Daisy soon to join him.’

‘Drew is a fine young man, Julia. How is he?’

‘The last time we heard he was in port – tied up alongside, he called it – having something done to his ship. He didn’t say what, though. All I know is that the Penrose is part of a flotilla that keeps the Western Approaches free from mines. But we’ll find out more when he gets leave. You know,’ Julia reached out to touch the wooden table at her side, ‘I have a good feeling about Drew. I know, somehow, that he’ll make it home safely one day. But I’ve come with an invitation. I’ll tell you both about it when Anna has finished phoning.’

‘I already know about the secret party,’ Edward chuckled. ‘Tatiana brings me all the gossip and news. But Anna is always on the phone, lately, trying to get through to London. There is such a delay on calls – if you can get through at all, that is. Poor Miss Hallam on the exchange must be having a very trying time. And the delays have got worse. They say it’s because of the bombing.’

Unable to break Fighter Command, Hitler had turned his hatred on London, swearing it would be bombed until it lay a smoking ruin. Night after night the Luftwaffe came. Poor, poor London.

‘It must be. I booked a call to Montpelier Mews yesterday evening and I got it half an hour ago. It seems that Sparrow is coping with it all. When the sirens go she says she puts her box of important things in the gas oven, then takes her pillow and blankets and sleeps under the kitchen table.’

Mrs Emily Smith: Andrew’s cockney sparrow. Once, in another life when Andrew lived in lodgings in Little Britain, Sparrow was his lady who did. Now she took care of the little mews house that once belonged to Aunt Anne Lavinia.

‘Sparrow! I sometimes forget that Anne Lavinia left you her house, Julia. Is it all right? No bomb damage?’

‘Not so far. I’ve told Sparrow she must lock it up and come to Rowangarth, but she won’t hear of it. Hitler isn’t going to drive her out of London, she says, and insists she’s safer than most. It’s the people in the East End who are taking the brunt of it, though the papers say that Buckingham Palace has been bombed. Everything’s all right at Cheyne Walk, I suppose?’

‘I suppose it is. Do you know, Julia, I’d forget all about that house if it wasn’t for the fact that Anna’s mother and brother live next door. It’s been nothing but a nuisance. I could never understand why Clemmy insisted on buying it. I suppose some good did come out of it, though. Elliot and Anna met there.’

‘Yes.’ Julia had no wish to talk about Elliot nor even think about him and was glad when Anna came into the room. ‘Did you manage to get through?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Anna and Julia touched cheeks in greeting. ‘It seems Mama’s number is unobtainable. What can it mean? Has Cheyne Walk been bombed, do you think? What am I to do?’ Anna was clearly distressed. ‘I asked Mama time and time again. “Come to me,” I said. I warned her that London would be bombed but no – the Bolsheviks drove her from her home in Russia and Hitler wasn’t going to drive her from this one, she said, poor though it was.’

‘Poor? But the Cheyne Walk house is rather a nice one,’ Julia protested.

‘I know, I know!’ Anna paced the floor in her agitation. ‘But you know my mother, Julia. Always the Countess, always in black, mourning for her old way of life. She can be very stubborn. Do you think I should go down there?’

‘No, I do not ! All around the docks and a lot of central London seems to be in a mess. I doubt you’d be able to get on a bus, let alone find a taxi. It would be madness to go there at a time like this. Your mother has Igor to look after her and –’

‘Not any longer! Igor is an air-raid warden now. Since the bombing started, he’s hardly ever at home!’

‘Anna, my dear.’ Edward Sutton rose slowly to his feet to lay a comforting arm around his daughter-in-law’s shoulders. ‘No news is good news, don’t they say? The Countess will be in touch with you before so very much longer. Perhaps it’s only a temporary thing. Leave it until morning and it’s my guess you’ll get through with no delay at all. Try not to worry. And Julia is here with an invitation for us.’

‘Aunt Helen’s party, you mean? We’ve already heard about it from Tatiana. Daisy told her.’

‘Well, I’m here with the official invitation for the fifth. And don’t forget, Anna, that it’s our party – Nathan’s and mine. And tell Tatty there’ll be dancing, so she’ll be sure to come.’

‘I’ll tell her.’ Tatiana was so secretive these days. Always slipping out or hovering round the telephone. Anna frowned. A young man, of course, but why didn’t she bring him home? ‘She’s in Harrogate this afternoon, collecting for the Red Cross. She said she would come home on the same bus as Daisy.’