Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (44 page)

Jack had paused, knowing how much he must have shocked his colleague, allowing time for this information to sink in.

‘Are you sure about all this? I mean, the names I have in the files on my desk, some of them are influential people, many of them are. Some of them are MPs, one or two in this area, as I remember it.'

Jack looked momentarily sombre, a rare moment.

‘Oh yes, Tony, you're quite right. And I'm afraid our information is absolutely on the Gold Standard. They voice their opinions quite openly, too. They go about London, in the clubs, everywhere, deploring the war. They think it should be stopped, and we should shake hands with the
Führer, and apply the same principles to England as he has been applying to Germany. Lock up the dissidents, persecute the Jews and the gypsies, burn the books, and so on, and so on.'

Major Folkestone had been shocked to his foundations, and had he not had proof positive on his desk now he might have continued to feel the same. The idea that he might go to London and pass such blighters in the street, that he might sit down in a restaurant and they might be eating at the next table, was truly insupportable. He had allowed himself to think that while there indeed were a growing number of people sympathetic to Germany and its despotic leader, they were few and far between, a bunch of extremists, not representative, and no real threat to the security of the nation. But now that Section C had the details of not just how they thought, but what they were planning, not to mention a more than adequate indication of their actual strength and capability, he had been forced to rethink his attitudes.

The conclusion that had to be arrived at, and not fudged, was that there were English people, living and breathing in their own country, who would be happy to bring about its downfall.

This was why he felt happy the evening Kate slammed Eugene into defeat on the tennis court. He was happy because now, with an uncluttered mind and he hoped an unblinkered vision, he felt stronger and even more prepared to take the fight to those whom he knew to be treacherous. Being a soldier, he felt exhilarated at the idea of the battle ahead, particularly when he realised that he was to be among the few privileged enough to be
picked for the task. Major Anthony Folkestone was all too ready for action. Perhaps this confidence translated itself into every area of his life, for he finally found himself brave enough to ask the young woman about whom he had been nursing romantic thoughts out for a drink.

Kate, fresh from her match with Eugene, tried not to look too surprised. Poor old Folkestone asking her out for a drink – what a thing!

‘I was going out to the village with some friends, actually, Major,' she explained, looking round her as if for help. ‘We're all going for a drink at the Masons Arms, as a matter of fact, so why don't you come and join us? If you want to come out for a drink.'

‘I was actually thinking of you and me going out for a drink, Kate,' he replied. ‘There's another extremely nice pub in the next village, in Finton. I happen to know they still have plenty of supplies there. Plenty of good beer. And plenty of gin.'

He smiled at her, hoping that a plentiful supply of gin would do the trick, but since Kate hardly ever drank alcohol in any amount the suggestion fell on unreceptive ground.

‘I really have made an arrangement with Marjorie and some of the other girls from the section. Thanks all the same. Perhaps another time?'

‘Understood,' Major Folkestone replied, brushing down the ends of his neat moustache with thumb and forefinger. ‘Understood. Try again next week, shall we say? Jolly good. Really, jolly good. I – um – quite understand. Must get on, however.'

He nodded at her and marched off over-smartly, as if to take a parade, instead of which he found
himself returning to his section to stare at the walls and wonder what it was about him that failed to attract not just a pretty girl but any girl.

Kate looked after him and pulled a glum face, feeling suddenly sorry for the forlorn young man inside the crisply pressed uniform, because when all was said and done, although everyone in Section H thought of Anthony Folkestone as being about a hundred, he was probably only all of thirty years old.

‘Oh, dear,' Kate murmured out loud, and then turned away feeling miserable as she realised that she had been less than tactful.

Poor old Major Folkestone. But he had after all caught her at a quite inopportune moment, fresh from her victory against the elusive Eugene Hackett. She started to run down the corridor towards the exit, towards the courtyard and the cottage she still shared with Marjorie and Billy. If she'd had the energy, which she certainly didn't, she would have done as she had seen Billy so often do, and turned a cartwheel at the memory of her tennis match. She had after all beaten Eugene Hackett. She had exacted her revenge. What could be better than that?

Nothing it seemed could destroy her good mood until Lily bounced up to her in the pub and embraced her.

‘Kate, dear Kate – I wanted you to be the first to know. Robert and I are going to be married.'

Kate stared from Lily to Marjorie, and from them to the rest of Section H who had all been standing around enjoying themselves until that moment.

Wartime marriages were ten a penny, of course.
People were marrying after knowing each other a matter of days, perhaps hours for all Kate knew, but for Robert to fall for Lily of all people, and then propose. It didn't seem possible.

‘Does Robert know about this?' Kate joked to Lily, earning herself a huge laugh from the rest of the section, only for her eyes to catch Marjorie's and see in them a look of matching hurt despair.

The happy-go-lucky atmosphere in Section H was bound to change the moment one of them became engaged, but as soon as Lily announced her engagement to Robert Maddox it changed so quickly it was breathtaking.

It was inevitable of course that the longer the war went on, the longer they were all cloistered up in the great house together, the more the place would finally remind Lily of her boarding school, where the girls spent the whole time either hanging pathetically on to the barred windows to ogle the day boys at the neighbouring state school or writing overheated love letters to themselves in carefully disguised handwriting, which deceived no one at all.

It was that, perhaps more than anything, that had made her accept Robert's proposal, that and the fact that she feared being left at Eden Park, stuck among all the other women of varying ages, all of whom were longing for romance of some sort or another. So when Robert Maddox proposed marriage to her, even though they barely knew each other and even though Lily knew she felt nothing deeper for him than a marvellously intense physical passion, she was only too happy
to agree, since she, more than any of her colleagues, wanted to be free from the constraints of Eden Park, from the intensity of the atmosphere, from the inevitable routine of the work.

Two days later, having been warned by letter that he was coming to take her out, Lily found herself sitting on the low part of the boundary wall of the park, smoking a cigarette and dreaming of what she might soon be wearing on her finger.

‘I am so shallow,' she had told a privately appalled Kate. ‘The first thing I want to see, besides your darling brother, of course, is that ring on my finger. And I can't say I'm not hoping for a diamond, because I am.'

The longer she sat waiting, the more determined Lily became that she would persuade Robert to buy her a beautiful ring. She tried to imagine wearing it, tilting her head from one side to the other as if she could actually see it, while holding her hand out at full stretch in front of her. She also imagined the looks on the faces of the women in her section as she showed it off to them. They would be pea green with jealousy, and justifiably so.

‘Daydreaming?' Robert called out cheerily from the cockpit of his car, having silently freewheeled up to where Lily was perched.

‘As a matter of fact I was,' Lily agreed, straightening her hat after he had kissed her in greeting. ‘I was dreaming of coming down the aisle on your arm and walking out under a guard of honour with their crossed swords.'

‘You'll be lucky.' Robert laughed. ‘The amount of
weaponry we have in this country at the moment it's more likely to be crossed broom handles. Even so, I can hardly wait. Just have to introduce you to the parents, but their reaction is a foregone conclusion, because I know they will love you as much as I do.'

Lily glanced at him as they drove off. This was the first time Robert had actually professed his real feelings for her and to her embarrassment she found herself oddly disconcerted, because much as she wanted to return the compliment, somehow she found herself unable to do so.

She put her hand on his knee instead, hoping that the intimate gesture would distract from her lack of reciprocation. Robert turned and smiled at her, and picked up her hand to kiss it quickly before returning his own to the steering wheel.

‘It's all right,' he assured her. ‘You don't have to go making any soppy statements back. Just the fact that you've agreed to marry me's enough. I'm the luckiest man in the world, and I know it, don't you worry!'

All the way into Bendon she helped him change gear, Robert having placed her hand on the gear stick so that he could touch her every time he had to shift a gear. It was still warm enough to drive with the hood down, although Lily knew without asking that Robert was undoubtedly the type to drive with the hood down even in winter, always provided the sun was still shining. Not that she minded; she tied a scarf over her precious little hat so that it wouldn't blow off, and also to protect her ears. Lily couldn't bear getting her ears cold because, as she had explained to Robert, cold ears
killed romance, instantly. They were worse than cold feet.

‘Can't have that!' Robert had laughed. ‘When we're married I'd best get you some ear muffs!'

On the outskirts of Bendon they heard a siren sounding an air raid warning. Immediately scanning the skies above them and cutting the car engine, Robert and Lily listened for the tell-tale drone of incoming bombers. Shortly after they heard the dreaded sound of heavy airborne engines and at once dived out of the car and took to the nearest cover, a semi-underground water conduit running under the edge of the road. They sheltered here while they heard the thud and boom of bombs falling and exploding somewhere in their vicinity, Robert holding Lily tightly in his arms while Lily, simply to take her mind off the air raid, allowed her thoughts to stray to the all-important engagement ring.

At last the siren sounded again, this time proclaiming the All-Clear. Robert and Lily emerged and looked towards the town of Bendon. On the far side they could see plumes of smoke and dust rising from what were obviously bombed buildings.

‘I think we ought to turn back, Bobby, don't you?' Lily said, dusting down her coat and dress. ‘I think it's only sensible.'

‘No, I'll tell you what,' Robert replied after thinking for a moment. ‘They could be needing help – you never know. So why don't I drive us to the outskirts and you stay in the car while I go and see what exactly's going on?'

‘I'm sure they've got plenty of people to help. It is a town, after all.'

‘I know, Lily – but one never knows. They might need help. You'll be all right, I promise. I'll find somewhere safe for you while I just have a look to see if they need an extra pair of hands.'

Ignoring any further protests, Robert drove them quickly to the outskirts of the town. Although the side from which they were approaching hadn't suffered any hits, there was already an outbreak of panic, people running, people shouting, police blowing whistles. Parking the car well away from any buildings, Robert searched for somewhere to shelter Lily, and found a bunker a couple of hundred yards away from the MG. Then he kissed her briefly, touched her cheek, and was gone.

On an impulse Lily ran out of the doorway after him but he was soon lost to her in the rush of people and the ever-increasing clouds of dust and smoke. Retiring to the bunker, she pulled her coat round her and sat on a bench next to a shivering and shaking young woman clutching a baby.

‘Why us?' the young woman kept asking. ‘Why here? We haven't done nothing. We haven't done nothing – and there's nothing here to bomb. So why us? Why us?'

‘It's all right, duck,' a moon-faced woman in WVS uniform comforted her, bringing a tray of tea round the shelter. ‘They were probably just unloading their bombs on the way home. The way they do. We just got in the line of fire, that's all.'

‘I just hope our boys do the same to them, that's all I hope,' the woman replied, rocking her now bawling baby. ‘The swine. I hope we give 'em a taste of their own filthy tactics.'

Lily took the mug of tea offered to her, feeling
touched and grateful for such immediate help and already more than a little shaken by the raid. It wasn't like being at Eden Park at all. At Eden somehow it all seemed to happen in the distance, but here it was all too real. She even forgot to think about her engagement ring.

In the centre of the small town there were bodies everywhere. Two of the offloaded bombs had fallen directly on the market place as at least a dozen or so of the inhabitants were still running for cover, blowing them to pieces. Another bomb had hit the town hall where the staff and their visitors had been still trying to make their way down the crowded stairwells to shelter below ground.

‘We just weren't prepared for it,' one of the volunteer wardens muttered to Robert as a party was being quickly organised to search the ruins. ‘We done all our drills, but what's drills when you get a shock raid like this? You just don't take that into account, know what I mean?'

‘Inevitable,' Robert agreed. ‘But no one must blame themselves. You simply can't be prepared for this sort of thing. No one can.'