If You Were the Only Girl, page 27
Lucy’s mouth dropped agape and Clodagh went on, ‘I’m leaving in the New Year and working in a factory in Aston, making bullet cases. Hazel is doing the same and I am lodging with her parents.’ And then she grasped hold of Lucy’s hands and urged, ‘Why don’t you come in with us? It will be a gas if we are all together, and we will be earning two pounds a week.’
‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘Good luck to the pair of you, and I don’t blame you at all, but one thing this time at the Cottage Hospital has taught me is that nursing is what I want to do, and if there is a war, nurses will be needed.’
‘They will without doubt,’ Dr Gilbert said. ‘Aeroplanes will feature highly, and that means everyone will be in the front line.’
‘Like Guernica?’ Clodagh said.
‘Yes, exactly like that,’ Dr Gilbert said.
His answer sent a chill running all through Lucy because she remembered Clive explaining to her exactly what that had been like, and she desperately hoped that the doctor was wrong.
However, before anyone was able to say anything, the telephone rang and Dr Gilbert was called out to a person with stomach pains, which he said was probably overindulgence, and Gwen seemed to remember that it was Christmas Day.
‘There is to be no more talk of war today,’ she said. ‘No past wars or those to come, because today is a day when there is peace wished for all mankind and we should respect that, and if we all pull together we will produce a sumptuous meal worthy of such an occasion.’
As it was cooking they exchanged presents. Clodagh had a selection of cards from people at the Hall for Lucy, and a lovely letter and beautiful leather gloves from Clara. She even had a short note from Cook, wishing her all the best, and a Christmas cake with her compliments, which Gwen said was kind of her. She wasn’t the only kind one, though, Lucy thought. To show her appreciation, Lucy had drawn on her savings to buy Gwen a pair of fur-lined sheepskin slippers because she said her feet often felt like blocks of ice standing on the cold slabs of the kitchen. She also had a box of cigars for the doctor. Lucy, in turn, was flabbergasted when Gwen presented her with two pairs of warm winceyette pyjamas.
‘You already do so much for me,’ she said. ‘You really shouldn’t have bought presents as well.’
‘I enjoyed it,’ Gwen said. ‘And as for you owing me, I value your company and will miss you when you move into the nurses’ home.’
‘Only if I pass my exams.’
‘Oh, you’ll pass all right,’ Gwen said. ‘Chris said you have a good head on your shoulders and you are keen, and he is seldom wrong.’
Lucy wished that Gwen hadn’t said that because she would feel even more stupid now if she failed. But she didn’t say anything, as she began to clear away the debris and lay the table for Christmas dinner, because she knew Gwen was just trying to be reassuring.
Having soothed the patient who had just eaten and drunk far too lavishly for his innards to cope with, Dr Gilbert was back in time for the dinner. They all did justice to the food, which was delicious, pulled crackers, shared the silly jokes and donned the even sillier hats. Then, when they were almost too full to move, Dr Gilbert suggested a hike around the recreation grounds, which was just the other side of East View Road. Though the girls groaned they agreed reluctantly because they knew it would do them good.
The day was bleak and raw, and they returned with cheeks aglow and throbbing fingers and toes, and relished the hot chocolate and mince pies that Gwen had ready for them.
‘I like your doctor,’ Clodagh said that night as they prepared for bed.
‘So do I,’ Lucy agreed. ‘But he is hardly mine.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, and I haven’t seen him on such good form,’ Lucy said.
‘And he’s a lot younger than he looks, isn’t he?’
‘Mmm,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s the beard, I think. Gwen told me that he chose to grow one when he came out of medical school because no one thought he looked old enough to be a real doctor. I thought as much the first time I saw him, which was when Lord Heatherington asked him to call and see his mother when she first moved into the Hall.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Clodagh said. ‘Lot of water under the bridge since then.’
‘Just a bit,’ Lucy agreed. ‘I was surprised he didn’t know about you and Hazel leaving.’
‘He hasn’t been to the house lately, because there hasn’t been any need,’ Clodagh said. ‘Anyway, we didn’t give them the month’s notice that we should have given them. Once upon a time, you couldn’t do that because you needed a reference to get another job, but when Hazel’s sister, Mavis, tipped her the wink that there were jobs going at her place, we both went down to see the boss and he don’t care about anything apart from whether we are prepared to learn how to make bullet cases. Then, as soon as I’d sorted my lodgings out, we went and told them and so we’ll work till New Year and then we’re off.’
‘How will the Heatheringtons manage?’
Clodagh shrugged. ‘Search me. It isn’t our problem, is it?’
‘No, but …’
‘And it’s set to get worse,’ Clodagh said. ‘Phoebe said she isn’t prepared to be left with everything to do and Emily’s the same. You can’t blame them. They’ll be off first chance they get, I reckon, and if this war actually starts, then Jerry will be called up.’
‘Of course,’ Lucy said with a grin. ‘The army would come as a shock to him.’
‘Yeah, he will have to work for once.’
The two girls laughed together and then Lucy said, ‘If you have just told the Master and Mistress then that would explain why Clive knew nothing.’
‘Master Clive knows nothing because he’s never there,’ Clodagh said. ‘Lady Heatherington is always giving out about it.’ And then Clodagh’s eyes narrowed as she said, ‘Hang on a minute. How did you know that Master Clive knew nothing, anyway?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘You may as well know. It will all be public knowledge soon enough. A lot of the time when Clive wasn’t home he would have been with me.’
‘Tell me you are joking?’
‘I assure you I’m not.’
‘Lucy, what’s the matter with you?’ Clodagh cried. ‘You know what these people are like. They use you and then toss you aside when they are done. They’ve been doing it for generations.’
‘They only use you if you allow yourself to be used,’ Lucy said angrily. ‘Don’t you think I have a mind of my own?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Anyway, Clive’s not like that.’
‘All men are like that, given half the chance.’
Lucy remembered with a little embarrassment the kiss in the car, and what a kiss like that might lead to, and the strange yearning it had sent through her whole body, and she was silent. Clodagh seized on that, and the slight flush to her cheeks, to say, ‘See, you are having second thoughts.’
‘No, I am not,’ Lucy cried. ‘And neither is Clive.’ She pulled the leather box from her bedside cabinet and opened it. Clodagh had seen the pendant before, but she was held spellbound by the sparkling ring. ‘He gave me that for Christmas.’
Clodagh chose her words with care. ‘It is a beautiful ring, Lucy. But it is just a present. It’s him trifling with your feelings I care more about.’
‘We’re in love, Clodagh,’ Lucy said. ‘Both of us.’
‘I knew you were sweet on him,’
‘Yes, but he feels the same way.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I knew you’d do this,’ Lucy said. ‘I fought against loving Clive at first. I told him it would never work, and I didn’t think it would either because we were like chalk and cheese. I was so unhappy. Tried to buck myself up when I met you. Then I suddenly thought, what the hell, we could be dead tomorrow, or next month or year. If war comes, what future can any of us guarantee? Well, I suddenly decided that I was going to grab a little happiness while I still could. And you know what, Clodagh, I’m damned glad I did.’
Clodagh didn’t say anything more. She could see that Lucy’s mind was made up. She hoped she wasn’t just tilting at windmills because in her experience men like Clive Heatherington did not marry girls like Lucy Cassidy. Only time would tell, but she was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding.
NINETEEN
Lucy saw Clive the day after Boxing Day, when she was able to thank him for the ring, and then she wouldn’t see him again until after the New Year because he was visiting the homes of his friends who had been killed. He told her this as they walked home that night.
‘I have written to them all,’ he said, ‘but it isn’t the same as a visit. They need to know the type of soldier their son was, and the brave way in which he died, and try to make sense of the fact that I, who stood beside them all, am alive when their sons are not.’
Lucy saw at once that this was something that Clive had to do. ‘You’ll probably find it very distressing.’
‘Quite possibly,’ he said, ‘though not half as distressing as it will be for them, I should say, and at least I will be able to talk about them, and with someone who loved them as much as I did. Odd, I suppose, to say I loved them,’ he mused, ‘but we had been together since the age of eight, taught in the same classes, played in the same playground and housed in the same dormitories. They were like my brothers and sometimes even now I can’t believe they are gone. If I try to talk about them to either of my parents they shut me up very quickly.’ Clive ran his hands through his hair in a manner Lucy had learnt he did when he was agitated. ‘I suppose they think I’ll start weeping and wailing again but I think I am over that now, and not talking about them makes it feel like they never existed.’
‘You can talk to me, if you like,’ Lucy said.
‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘How could I possibly mind?’ she said. ‘When Daddy died, for a while I held my hurt and pain inside me tight, afraid almost to let go of it. It was Mammy who said we should talk about him, and, yes, we did cry, but it did us all good because it was like he was still with us in a way. So when Mammy met Declan it was like she was replacing him, but of course you can never do that.’ She smiled. ‘The first time I saw Declan, I was home for my Sunday off and he was there in my house sitting in my father’s chair. I was so angry because the day my father was taken to the sanatorium, my mother put the chair in her bedroom. Daddy used to sit in it, before the fire, for hours, the sicker he got, and Mammy said she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else sitting in it. But time passed and Declan came to the house, and she took out the chair for him to sit on. I was totally irrational.’
‘Is that why you didn’t go with them to America?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lucy said. ‘But if I’m honest then it probably had something to do with it. All I’m saying is that I understand grief and how it makes you feel inside, and I don’t mind you talking about your friends or anything else that upsets you. I don’t mind either if you cry, but seeing your friends’ parents might bring you a measure of peace.’
‘You are one very special lady, Lucy,’ Clive said. ‘There is no one quite like you.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Lucy replied with spirit.
However, when Clive returned in January, Lucy saw by his haunted eyes that the experience had upset him greatly.
‘It stripped everything away,’ he said. ‘This façade that I wear for fear of upsetting people so they think that I am all right and that I am over the obscene things I witnessed. That is what my parents want to believe. Feelings are never discussed. It’s not a topic of polite conversation around the dining table. It is only with you, my lovely Lucy, that I can be natural, that I can confess that the manner of my friends’ deaths almost consumes me at times. When I saw the anguish of their parents, I felt, and still feel, guilty that I didn’t grieve for them enough and now there is an ache in my heart and a big hole in my life, and it is only being with you that makes these things bearable.’
Lucy held Clive tenderly and said, ‘Listen, Clive, when a person dies, particularly when that person is a loved one, it’s natural to feel guilty. There is always something you wished you’d said or done, and because death is so very final what was unsaid will be left unsaid and what was undone will be left undone. You have to deal with that and go on knowing that if the person had been alive that’s what they would have wanted you to do.’
‘You see, you are so good for me,’ Clive said. ‘You are prepared to talk about things that matter and things that make sense. You see, the very opulence of my home offends me. Half of the house is closed up now because Clara has been unable to find staff to fill the places of those who have left, and my mother is constantly bemoaning the fact. But she still has Norah to look after her and in a very small household we have a housekeeper, a cook, a couple of girls, a footman and a butler, who, now Rory has left, has assumed what he has always considered to be his natural role of caring for my father and, if I am honest, me too when I allow it. We do not need all these people bowing and scraping and kowtowing to us as they do jobs that we could very well do on our own.’
‘Yes, but what would these people do if they didn’t work there?’ Lucy asked. ‘I know now jobs are more plentiful for everyone, but for years they weren’t, and homelessness and starvation are not routes I would like to travel. Yet often that was the alternative to work in service. Clara, for instance, thinks of your place as her saviour, that it prevented her going over the top altogether.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t you know what happened to her?’ Lucy asked in surprise. ‘Don’t you know anything about the lives of the people you employ?’
‘No,’ Clive said. ‘Not as a general rule. But in this case, and in my defence, she arrived when I was just a child and I went way to school not long afterwards. So now I am curious. Tell me about Clara.’
So Lucy told him of the double tragedy in Clara’s life, her flight to Birmingham to try to ease the painful memories, and her need to find a place to live and a job of work. ‘She always said Maxted Hall fitted the bill,’ Lucy said. ‘And the hard work kept her busy and gave her less time to think and brood.’
‘Do you think that’s what I am doing – brooding?’
‘Maybe a little.’
‘The point is, I feel I am living at artificial life,’ Clive said. ‘I say only the things people want to hear and I smile at people I might easily despise and make inane meaningless small talk with people who bore the pants off me.’
Lucy laughed. ‘Oh, what a Mr Grump you are.’
‘It’s true, though,’ Clive said, though he was laughing too. ‘I went to Father’s club on his insistence and there are loads of old duffers there like that.’
‘There are people like that everywhere,’ Lucy said. ‘It isn’t a prerogative of the upper classes. You have to just get on with them. You must have met people that annoyed you when you were fighting in Spain?’
‘I suppose I did,’ Clive conceded. ‘But it didn’t seem to matter so much, I suppose, because I felt I was doing something useful even though it turned out so badly afterwards.’
‘That wasn’t your fault,’ Lucy said. ‘You hit the nail on the head when you said you felt that you were doing something useful. You must find something to fill your days now.’
‘I know,’ Clive said. ‘When I cannot see you, I ride one of my father’s hunters till we are both worn out, walk for miles or drive around aimlessly. It’s making my mother wild.’
‘I bet,’ Lucy said, and she sighed. Given Clive’s nervous and remorseful state, and the strained relationship between him and his mother, now was not an ideal time for him to tell her about their feelings for one another. Yet she hated hiding away from people all the time and knew that if Clive didn’t tell her soon she would find out some other way.
January gave way to February and, by halfway through the month, Lady Heatherington was worried enough about Clive to appeal to her husband.
‘Charles, I do wish you would speak to Clive.’
‘What would you like me to speak to him about, my dear?’
‘You know what about, Charles,’ Lady Heatherington said. ‘Don’t be so provoking. Haven’t I enough trouble coping with such few staff without you being so deliberately obtuse? The boy is never here.’
‘Well, what is there here for him?’ Charles said rather testily. ‘Remember, the years that should have been carefree were spent fighting in Spain.’
‘And whose fault was that?’
‘It doesn’t help to apportion blame,’ Lord Heatherington said. ‘But during that same conflict, he lost his three best friends. That takes some getting over, I can tell you, and I speak from experience.’
‘Well, it makes life pretty dashed awkward when Lady Ponsomby comes with Jessica. Twice they have been this week and both times there was no sign of Clive. It’s too bad. Diana and I always planned that we would announce their betrothal at Clive’s twenty-first birthday bash at the end of April. We thought him lost to us all but when he returned we decided that it should go ahead as planned.’
Lord Heatherington was astounded. ‘This is the first I have heard of such a plan.’
‘That could be because you don’t listen.’
‘Poppycock! I have never been consulted.’
‘Please, don’t shout, Charles,’ Lady Heatherington admonished. ‘You are not on the parade ground now.’
Charles forgot himself enough to exclaim, ‘God dammit, woman, you are enough to make anyone shout. Now tell me what you are on about?’
‘Charles, we have planned this since they were children.’
‘Amelia, you can’t plan other people’s lives.’
‘They are not other people, they are our children,’ Lady Heatherington said. ‘And they are young still, and wouldn’t have a clue what they need to be looking for in a life partner. It is far better to be guided by parents. They have more experience in such matters.’
‘Have either of you thought to consult the two people concerned?’ Lord Heatherington said. ‘If you haven’t, then I suggest you do so without delay, and certainly before you go any further with this ridiculous notion. You may well find they have definite views on running their own lives, and that includes making their own mistakes. Clive is nowhere near ready to settle down yet. He maybe needs to sow a few wild oats.’
