Elizabeth Elgin - The Linden Walk

‘About us? No. She won’t have got my letter, though I think she’ll cable me back when she’s had time to get over the shock.’

‘You’re happy about us, Lyn?’ He tilted her chin, kissing her gently.

‘I’m happy. I’m very happy, Drew.’

‘Fine. So let’s return the sparklers, then go and see Daiz …’

It was as they walked hand in hand to Foxgloves that Drew said, ‘By the way, if we decide on a summer wedding, how about June the eighteenth? Entirely up to you, mind – will it be okay for you date-wise? The curse, I’m talking about.’

‘I – I – yes. Fine,’ she gasped, cheeks blazing, taken aback by the nonchalant reference to her periods. Drew had always been so quiet; never had a sister of his own. Not a live-in sister to talk to about such things. He’d been in the Navy, of course. There would have been talk on the mess decks, she supposed.

Yet the explanation was simple. Drew and Kitty had been lovers, would have discussed such things. They’d have had to, though Lyn was as sure as she could be that Kitty wouldn’t have cared if she got pregnant, wouldn’t have –

‘Penny for them?’ Drew smiled.

‘I – oh, nothing of importance, really. Dates, I suppose. I ring them round as soon as I start a new diary, so I’m sure the eighteenth is fine.’

The ease with which she spoke amazed her; the laugh, too.

‘That’s settled, then. Daiz will be glad about that. She’s been going on about it all week. And might I ask what you find so funny?’

‘You and me, Drew, that’s what. Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh about something so important, but think – a week ago we were friends, yet now we’re all at once – well, personal. So can we,’ she said breathlessly, ‘whilst we’re on the subject of things personal, talk about children, too?’

‘Fine by me. You want some, don’t you? I know I do.’

‘I want children, Drew, and I’d like to have them before I’m thirty, or at least have made a start. So if you don’t mind, I’d like us not to worry about – well …’

‘Being careful? A honeymoon baby?’

‘Exactly,’ she whispered, taken aback once more by his directness, knowing that almost certainly he had talked this way before.

‘Okay. Point taken. Where are we going for our honeymoon, by the way? Abroad is out, thanks to the government’s stupid restrictions. Paris would have been great. And there’s Daisy, waiting for us.’ Quickly, he kissed her cheek. ‘Impatient as ever.’

And though it was almost dark, Lyn could hear the smile in his voice and was grateful for it. And love for him washed over her and made her glad. Happy, she supposed, or as near as made no matter. If Kitty wasn’t so often there to remind her, that was.

‘Hi there, Purvis,’ she called and ran into Daisy’s welcoming arms.

‘Let’s be seeing it then,’ Daisy laughed, holding up her cheek for Drew’s kiss, shoo-ing them into the sitting room. ‘Oh, my goodness, Carmichael. What a beauty!’ She held out her hand for the ring, slipping it on, closing her eyes as she turned it three times on her finger. ‘And don’t ask me what I wished for ’cause I’m not telling.’

‘Just a minute, ladies, before you start oh-ing and ah-ing over rings and weddings and things,’ Keth laughed. ‘Would you mind telling me why the pair of you still use each other’s surname? You aren’t in the Forces, now.’

‘True, Keth. But we both did a fair stint in the war, and using surnames was the order of the day. We’re bound to revert, sometimes, to the old ways. Daisy will always be Wren Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk to me.’

‘And I was so glad to be Purvis – remember, Lyn? Dwerryhouse was such a drag of a name. The times people said, “Dwerry- what? How do you spell it?” So now you know, darling, and why don’t you two pop upstairs to the cubbyhole whilst we talk about rings and weddings and things. You said you had something you wanted to talk to Drew about. And don’t wake the baby,’ she warned as they disappeared, fugitives from wedding talk. ‘And I shouldn’t tell you what I wished for, but do you want two or three …?’

‘Three, please,’ Lyn laughed, ‘though four would be marvellous. That house is big enough for ten children. And oh, Daisy, you’re such a love. Did I ever tell you so?’

‘Often. But only because it’s completely true.’

So they laughed again and it was as if they were Leading-Wren Carmichael and Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk again and lived in a billet called Hellas House in bomb-shattered Liverpool, and worked underground in a hot, airless Communications Office. Because they knew they would never completely forget their war, nor would they want to. Good times and bad.

‘Well now. This is a lovely surprise. Do sit down, Miss Lyndis.’

‘Thanks. But could you call me just Lyndis or Lyn, Miss Clitherow? Drew said you wanted to see my ring.’

‘Well, not really. I have seen your emerald before. What I really wanted was the chance to wish you much happiness. It makes an old lady very glad to see it all coming right for Sir Andrew, you know. And could I presume to ask you to open the window a little? Can’t abide a stuffy room. Most kind …’

So this was how it was to be, Lyn thought as she unscrewed the window catch. Sir Andrew and Miss Lyndis. A far cry from the sailor on a minesweeper and she and Daisy meeting him when his boat docked.

‘How’s that? Feel a draught?’

‘That is fine, thank you. I wouldn’t have asked, but it’s my hands. A little arthritic. Fiddling catches …’

‘Miss Clitherow! If I can’t open a window without –’ She bit back her words, knowing at once it was the wrong thing to have said. Agnes Clitherow was a servant of the old order and did not ask the woman who was to be lady of the house to open windows. ‘And I’m pleased we can have this chat,’ she rushed on, ‘because you have been here so long, know so much about the Rowangarth Suttons. I’d be so glad if you would sometimes talk to me about them. My ring, for instance. You said you had seen it before. When, exactly?’

‘When Sir Gilbert Sutton gave it to his wife, Lady Mary – Sir Andrew’s great-grandmother – on their tenth wedding anniversary. I was housemaid to the Suttons, then.’

‘And you came to Rowangarth …?’

‘I came here with Lady Helen as a bride. By the time she was married I had been trained up to parlour maid. It seemed natural for me to accept when she asked me to come here to Rowangarth with her – as housekeeper, mind. Such a promotion, and me only four years older than Miss Helen. But I put my hair into a bun and tried to look severe, so no one quite knew how old – or young – I really was.’

‘But, Miss Clitherow – that means you were born in 1856 and that you are –’

‘In my ninety-second year, Miss Lyndis, and you are one of the few who knows it.’

‘Then I won’t tell. Promise.’

Come to think of it, there was a lot she would not tell, Lyn brooded, like the future Lady Sutton being illegitimate. Strange that for so long she had never known who her real mother was. Such a shock – a wonderful shock – to discover it was really the woman she had always believed to be her aunt. Blodwen, who had given her all the love she had ever known, and taken over her upbringing when as a young girl she was put in charge of the ship’s nurse at Mombasa, en route for school in England. And never, had she but known it, to return to Kenya. Myfanwy and Blodwen. Twin sisters. Chalk and cheese. Myfanwy, her name changed to Margot, looking forward at her wedding to Jack Carmichael to a lady’s life in Kenya; Blodwen, two months pregnant with Jack’s child, loving him so much, yet saying not one word about it until it was too late. And Lyndis, their indiscretion, being grudgingly taken to Kenya by Jack’s wife.