Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

“You really miss him, don’t you?”’ said Ursula.

“Yes, I do. And his family. They’ve been incredibly good to me.”

Kendrick was now officially released from the Ministry of Food, since farming-which he was believed to be about to do-was regarded as work of national importance, and went north to Cumberland, but could not be relied upon for practical arrangements. He was in a state of profound exaltation but slightly apprehensive. The Facts of Life had been told to Kendrick not by his mother, who had better things to do, or even by a kindly nursemaid, as is so often the case with the English upper classes-the maids engaged by Mrs Frobisher were seldom kindly-but by a boy called Preston Minor at his prep school.

Although the horrific information conveyed by this unpleasant child had been modified later by the reading of Great Literature, there was still a considerable gap between Kendrick’s conception of Ellen as the Primavera or Rembrandt’s Saskia crowned with flowers, and what was supposed to happen in his father’s four-poster bed after the nuptials were complete.

The wedding was planned for the eighteenth of December, and now the submarine menace came to the rescue of the bridegroom and the bride. Patricia Frobisher was unable to secure a place on any of the convoys sailing from Africa and would not be able to attend.

Ellen, navigating with meticulous concentration the route to the day which would make her so happy and so fortunate, saw in this the hand of Providence. Her plans for Crowthorpe could now go ahead without battles: the proper housing of the evacuees, the installation of land girls (a move opposed by Patricia) and the removal of the green lines which Mrs Frobisher, glorying in the restrictions of wartime, had painted round the bath to show the limits of hot water which might be used.

Both the recent bereavement in the Frobisher family and the bride’s own inclinations made a small wedding desirable. In addition to the immediate families, they invited only a few university friends, those of the Hallendorf children who could get away, Margaret Sinclair-and Bennet, whose kindness to her after her return from Prague Ellen had never forgotten. Since it was unlikely that Bennet would get leave, Ellen had hoped to be spared Tamara, but fate decreed otherwise.

On a visit to Carlisle not long before the wedding, Ellen saw a sight which no one could have beheld unmoved. Two women were plodding wearily along the rain-washed pavement. Both carried string bags of heavy groceries, both wore raincoats and unbecoming sou’westers, both had noses reddened by the cold. One was considerably older than the other, but their resemblance was marked: mother and daughter, clearly bored with each other’s company, on the weekly and wearisome shopping trip.

It was only when the younger woman stopped and greeted her that Ellen realised she was in the presence of the Russian ballerina who had been Diaghilev’s inspiration and the confidante of Toussia Alexandrovna, now returned for wartime safekeeping to her mother, and demoted most pitiably to Mrs Smith’s daughter Beryl.

“Ellen-how lovely to see you!”

Tamara’s pleasure in the meeting was unfeigned. Her mother’s colliery village on the bleak coastal plain was only thirty miles from Crowthorpe; she knew of the Frobishers’ importance and Crowthorpe’s size. She wanted an invitation to the wedding, and she got it. Appalled by the reduction of the sinewy sun worshipper and maker of icon corners to Mrs Smith’s Beryl, Ellen invited her not only to the wedding but-since there were no buses from Tamara’s village-to the house party on the night before.

On a morning in late November a number of men were pulled out of the routine roll call in the camp and told to report to the commandant. From Sunnydene, an elderly lawyer named Koblitzer who walked with a stick, and a journalist named Klaus Fischer; from Resthaven, Herr Rosenheimer and his son Leon; and from Mon Repos (from which the defenestrated Unterhausen had been taken to Brixton Jail), Marcus von Altenburg.

Wondering what they had done, they made their way down the grey rain-washed streets towards the hotel by the gates which housed Captain Henley’s office.

“We’ll need a chair for Koblitzer,” said Marek when they were assembled, and a chair was brought.

In spite of this request, an air of cheerfulness prevailed. The commandant had shown himself a good friend to the inmates; conditions in the camp had improved considerably in the last two months. Even the disagreeable lieutenant looked relaxed.

“I have good news for you,” said the commandant. “The order has come through for your release. You’re to collect your belongings and be ready for the transport at seven in the morning. The ferry for Liverpool sails at ten, and tickets will be issued for your chosen destination.”

The men looked at each other, hardly taking it in at first.

“On what grounds, as a matter of curiosity?”’ asked Leon’s father. “To whom do we owe our freedom?”’

Captain Henley looked down at his papers. “You, Rosenheimer, on the grounds that you are employing nearly five hundred British workers in your business, and your son on the grounds that he is under age. Klaus Fischer has been spoken for by the Society of Authors, who say he’s been writing anti-Nazi books since 1933, and Koblitzer on grounds of ill health.”

Not one of them pointed out that all this information was available at the time they were arrested. Yet their joy was not unalloyed; they had made friendships of great intensity, had started enterprises which must be left undone. Fischer ran a poetry class, Rosenheimer had started a business school-and all of them sang in Marek’s choir.

One by one the men stepped forward, signed a paper to say they had not been ill-treated, were given their documents. Then it was Marek’s turn.

“You’ve been requested by the commander of the Royal Air Force Depot, Cosford. The Czechs have formed a squadron there to fly with the RAF.” Henley looked at Marek with a certain reproach. “You could have told us you flew with the Poles and the French.”

Marek, who had in fact explained this several times to the interrogators at Dover and elsewhere, only smiled-and then produced his bombshell.

“I shall be very happy to be released,” he said, “but not before the end of next week.”

“What?”’ The second lieutenant couldn’t believe his ears.

“We’re performing the B Minor Mass on Sunday week. The men have been rehearsing for months; there’s absolutely no question of my walking out on them at this stage. They’ll understand at Cosford.”

The commandant was an easy-going man, but this was mutiny. “Men in this camp are released as and when the orders come through. I’m not running a holiday camp.”

Nobody made the obvious comment. They were all staring at Marek.

“If you want me to go before the concert you’ll have to take me by force. I shall resist and Klaus here can make a scandal when he gets to London; he’s an excellent journalist. “Czech Pilot Manhandled by Brutal Soldiery”-that kind of thing. I’m entirely serious about this.”

No one knew what to say. They thought of the work of the last weeks, the slow growth of confidence, the obstacles overcome-and then the excitement as the sublime music grew under Marek’s tutelage. No one who had sung Dona Nobis Pacem in this miserable place would ever forget it.

“They’re coming from the other camps,” Marek reminded him.

The commandant did not need to be told this. He himself had authorised a hundred men to come and had borrowed spare copies of the score from the cathedral choir in Douglas; news of the performance had attracted interest all over the island. If morale had improved, if there had been no suicides, no serious breakdowns in his camp, the Mass in B Minor had played a part.