The FitzOsbornes at War (27 page)

As for Toby’s proposal . . . well, I suppose he and Julia
are
fond of each other . . . But, no, the whole thing was absolutely ridiculous!

And so my thoughts see-sawed back and forth, as I waited for the kettle to whistle, and the cat scrubbed at his face with his paw. Then I made a pot of tea, found some jam biscuits in a tin and took the tray upstairs. Toby still had his arm around Julia, and she was dabbing at her face with his handkerchief.

‘So, should I be congratulating you on your engagement?’ I asked, as I set the tray down on the table. Oh dear, I hadn’t meant to say that aloud . . .

Julia gave me a watery smile and shook her head. Then she turned to Toby. ‘No. It’s awfully kind of you to offer, Toby darling, but I can’t do that to you. Your aunt loathes me – she’d probably disinherit you. Besides, I can’t go through with . . . with this. I can’t bring a child into the world right now, not when everything’s in such chaos. Especially
this
child . . . No, actually, I don’t think that matters. I’d feel the same if it were Ant’s.’

She leaned forward and rested her face in her hands. ‘Oh God, and I don’t even know how to go about being . . . not pregnant. Apart from hurling myself down the stairs. One would think all these bombs would have
frightened
it out, but all they do is make me even sicker. I just can’t bear the thought of feeling like this, every waking moment, for months and months. If it goes on much longer, I really
will
end up throwing myself off the top landing –’

‘Julia,’ I said worriedly, ‘you mustn’t
say
things like that. Here, sit up and have some tea. Or . . . can you drink tea?’

‘I can sometimes, if it doesn’t have milk in it,’ she sighed. ‘Or sugar. But coffee always tastes like mud now, no matter what.’

She accepted the cup, took a cautious sip and gave me a grateful nod. Toby took a biscuit, and Julia glanced at it, then shuddered.

‘I know it’s against the law,’ she said, after we’d sat in silence for a while, ‘but there must be doctors who’d . . . help. I wouldn’t have a clue how to find one of them, though.’

‘Have you asked Daphne?’ said Toby. ‘She’d know about this sort of thing, wouldn’t she?’

Julia gave a croaky laugh. ‘I’m going to tell her you said that. No, she’s away on a training course, learning how to be a welder.’

‘Well, ring her up,’ said Toby. ‘Or write, or go and see her. But you can’t put it off too long, or the decision will be made for you. My offer still stands, by the way. Just so you know you
do
have options.’

‘You
are
a darling,’ she said, leaning over and kissing his cheek. She looked up at me as I poured her more tea. ‘You
both
are. I can’t thank you enough for coming over here. I was in complete and utter despair before. Now, I’m just . . . very depressed.’

‘Actually, Soph, why don’t you stay here for a while?’ said Toby, which was just what I’d been thinking. He turned back to Julia. ‘Veronica’s away, you see, and Soph’s all alone at the flat.’

‘Oh, darling, yes,
do
come and stay,’ said Julia, at once. ‘If you can bear to, that is – I’m hardly cheerful company at the moment. You too, Toby, if you’ve got an overnight pass.’

So after we finished our tea, we drove back to the flat, collected our things and returned, arriving just in time for the Warning siren. Which is why I’m writing this at Julia’s kitchen table. The light is certainly better than in our cellar, but the clatter of the Hyde Park anti-aircraft guns on top of the screaming bombs is a bit annoying. Julia is asleep on the little bed in the corner, with the cat curled up in the bend of her knees, and Toby is hunkered over a bottle of brandy at the other end of the table, bracing himself at each whistle and wincing at each subsequent thud.

‘God, this is awful,’ he says. ‘How do you
stand
it, night after night? Stuck underground, with no way of shooting back at them! When you can’t even see what’s going on outside!’ The house trembles again, the brandy bottle clinking delicately against Toby’s crystal tumbler. ‘And how on Earth is Julia managing to
sleep
through this?’

‘She’s exhausted,’ I say.

‘Poor old thing,’ he says, gazing at her. ‘This whole mess seems so unfair, doesn’t it? It must be absolutely horrible, being a girl.’

It is, sometimes. Still, being a boy during wartime must be fairly horrible, too.

24th December, 1940

I
T’S
C
HRISTMAS, AND WE’RE ALL
together at Milford. Aunt Charlotte is thrilled about it – although she became slightly less thrilled when she saw Simon climbing out of the passenger side of Toby’s car this afternoon.

‘But I thought you were going to visit that
mother
of yours, Simon,’ she said.

‘She’s on a retreat, ma’am,’ Simon said. ‘A prayer vigil for peace.’

‘A
prayer
vigil?’ said Aunt Charlotte. ‘At
this
time of year? How extraordinary. But I do wish you’d told us you were coming.’

‘I
did
tell you, darling Aunt Charlotte,’ said Toby, hugging her, ‘when I rang on Sunday. But you must have been so delighted to hear my dulcet tones that you didn’t pay any attention to the actual
words
I was saying.’

‘Well, I really don’t know how we’re supposed to fit another person inside this tiny little cottage,’ grumbled Aunt Charlotte. ‘It’s not like the old days, you know, when one lived in a proper
house
.’

‘Oh, Simon can sleep in my room,’ said Toby, turning back to the car for his bag.

‘My dear boy, there isn’t space in there for so much as a mattress on the floor!’

‘He’ll just have to share my bed, then,’ said Toby innocently.

‘Don’t be silly, Tobias,’ said Aunt Charlotte, leading the way back inside the gatehouse. ‘Now, let me think. Mr Herbert still has all those evacuees at the vicarage, doesn’t he, Barnes?’

‘Yes, Your Highness,’ said Barnes. ‘And I’m afraid the village inn has soldiers billeted there this month.’

‘There is no room at the inn, Simon,’ said Henry. ‘You’ll have to sleep in the stables.’

‘The stables!’ said Aunt Charlotte, ignoring our collective giggling fit. ‘Yes, that’s it, there’s the flat over the stables. You can have the room that the stable girls use.’

‘Are the stable girls there?’ enquired Simon.

‘No, no, of course not, they’ve both gone home for Christmas.’

‘What a pity,’ he said. ‘It does get
very
cold at night in the country . . .’

‘You can borrow Carlos to keep you warm in your manger,’ said Veronica. ‘As long as you don’t mind the odd flea.’

‘And if you ask Estella very nicely, she might agree to join you,’ said Henry. ‘But you’ll have to have all her piglets, too.’

‘You children are in a
very
silly mood,’ observed Aunt Charlotte. ‘The excitement of the holidays, I expect,’ she added indulgently.

But it wasn’t that we were eagerly anticipating our presents or longing to gorge ourselves on festive treats. After all, not even Henry bothers to hang up a Christmas stocking any more, and the combination of food rationing and a lack of kitchen staff means that this year’s Christmas dinner is likely to be meagre fare indeed, compared to past feasts. No, it was simply that we were all so happy to be here together; that we were all still
alive
.
That
was our Christmas miracle. And Aunt Charlotte felt the same, I could tell. Her usual fond regard of Toby was sharpened with a sort of anxious gratitude, and she seized upon his every remark with fervour. At one stage, as Barnes was serving tea, Toby happened to note that the angel was missing from its usual position at the top of the Christmas tree.

‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ said Aunt Charlotte at once. ‘Barnes, go and find it, will you? No point having a tree, if one doesn’t do the thing properly! Where is it?’

‘Well, Your Highness, it wasn’t possible to bring
all
the decorations down here from the house, so I thought perhaps, just the tinsel and the glass baubles would –’

‘Nonsense! Sophia, you’ve finished your tea, haven’t you? You’ll run up to the house for it, won’t you? Barnes will tell you where she packed it away.’

Which is how I found myself trudging up the long gravel driveway, shivering in the icy wind, all the way to ‘the house’ (Aunt Charlotte never refers to it as ‘the hospital’, or even acknowledges that anyone else lives there now). The façade looked much the same, except for an ambulance parked near the front doors, and a pair of nurses in red capes chatting to the driver. I sidled past, hoping they were too absorbed in their conversation to notice me, and headed for the side entrance. Technically, I was trespassing on government property, although Barnes had assured me that the doctor in charge was fairly relaxed about rules. Not
entirely
relaxed, I realised, when I found two of the side doors locked. I continued round to the back of the house, where the terrace had undergone a transformation, and not a very attractive one. The marble steps had been replaced by a concrete ramp and aluminium hand rails. One of the stone lions had lost an ear and part of his mane, and the terrace balustrade was mottled with ashy spots and the concertinaed stubs of cigarettes. The lacy wrought-iron table and chairs had vanished, too, probably sacrificed to Aunt Charlotte’s WVS metal salvage scheme. Instead, there was a long wooden trestle table, a couple of benches and a wickerwork bath chair – all unoccupied, which wasn’t very surprising, given the weather.

I nudged open one of the doors, peered around the deserted hallway, then dashed up the servants’ stairs to the third floor, where I found the golden angel inside a carefully labelled crate, exactly where Barnes had described it to be. Quietly closing the bedroom door behind me, I tip-toed off, managing to make it all the way back down to the ground floor without attracting any attention. I was just congratulating myself on this when I rounded the final corner, too fast, and almost ran into a hunched figure.

‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘I’m so sorry!’ The man was on crutches, one empty trouser leg pinned up high above where his knee should have been. Thank Heavens I hadn’t actually
collided
with him. ‘Are you all right?’ I added stupidly.

He gave a hoarse laugh and shuffled sideways, closer to the window. ‘All right?’ he repeated. I looked at him and swallowed hard. Half his face had melted away. There was a dent in place of an eye, a flattened cheekbone, a mouth wrenched down at one corner. His remaining eye, a shrewd blue, was taking in my reaction. ‘Now, what do
you
think?’ he said. ‘You think I look all right?’

‘I
meant
, I hoped I didn’t startle you,’ I said, fighting a blush.

‘Oh, no. Not at all. But I think
I
startled
you
,’ he said. He seemed to be taking a sadistic delight in my embarrassment, but why shouldn’t he? In his position, I’d be tempted to go on the attack, too – better than constantly having to defend oneself against revulsion and pity.

‘You didn’t startle me,’ I lied. ‘But I have to be going –’

‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’ I whipped the angel behind my back, but he leaned closer and chuckled. ‘Well, well. You from the village?’

‘No!’ I said indignantly (although admittedly, I
was
wearing Henry’s old duffel coat, which looked as though it’d been worn to muck out the stables).

‘Right,’ he said disbelievingly. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. I won’t mention you nicking stuff from upstairs, if you do me a favour.’