A Summer Promise (28 page)

Maddy sighed and continued to read, for now her friend had got into her stride and was talking about a fascinating man, a Spitfire pilot, who had asked her out . . .

. . . of course I told him I was already practically engaged to Tom, who has gone before his commissioning board and no doubt will, in future, be Lieutenant Thomas Browning, but he refused to be put off, which is fortunate, considering what apparently happened at that rest place outside Cairo
 . . . the letter went on.

Maddy’s heart gave an enormous leap. What had happened at a rest place outside Cairo? She had received only one letter from Tom since his return to what she supposed was called the Italian Campaign, and she was sure it hadn’t mentioned Cairo; oh, what had she missed? She was gripping Marigold’s letter so hard that her knuckles were white. Oh, God, don’t say Tom found himself a woman whilst I was stuck on a gun site in the middle of nowhere, she prayed. She thought back frantically. Had there been the slightest hint . . .? But conjecture was useless; she must finish reading the letter and hope that light would presently dawn.

Marigold’s missive, however, simply rambled on, and Maddy realised, not for the first time, that her friend not only suffered from verbal diarrhoea but did not always read the letters her friends penned so carefully. But surely, she thought, whilst Tom had what army friends rudely called ‘the hots’ for Marigold he was unlikely to go finding himself another woman. And when he came home and Marigold let him down by producing a Spitfire pilot or some high-ranking officer as her latest conquest, she, Maddy, would be on hand to prove to him that
her
friendship was real and, what was more, everlasting. Like those horrid flowers which have petals like paper and no scent, Maddy thought now, grimacing . . . and turned to Marigold’s missive once more.

But whatever had happened in Cairo was not mentioned again until it was broadly hinted at on the last page.
I knew Alice was a sly one right from the start
, Marigold had written rather unkindly.
It looks as though she will be the first of us to get married – bags I be her bridesmaid – though I don’t know whether Tom’s actually popped the question yet. Did you think I was head over heels in love with him, like you? Because if so . . .

Damn her eyes, Maddy thought furiously. How dare she insinuate I was ever in love with Tom Browning, or anyone else for that matter! Oh, how typical of Marigold to assume that everyone else feels just as she does. I could wring her neck! She screwed the letter up into a ball and guessed she was probably red in the face from sheer indignation, for half the occupants of the cookhouse were staring at her and the other half regarding her screwed-up letter with more than usual interest. She told herself not to be an idiot and carefully unravelled the crumpled pages, quickly scanning the rest of the unread sheet. Nothing of interest here, except that Marigold asked if Maddy knew that Tom’s nickname was Gravy (because of gravy browning, of course), and said she just hoped that his wife wouldn’t mind being called Mint Sauce because she was such a lamb!

Maddy shoved the letter into her pocket, got up, and walked over to the large tub which stood by the cookhouse door. She waggled her irons vaguely in the rather greasy water, which had once been hot but was now cooling rapidly, and left the cookhouse. When she reached her hut she remembered that today was kit inspection and groaned, but a glance at her watch showed her that another twenty minutes would elapse before drill, which they suffered every morning even now, when they no longer had to rush to the bulletin board to see where their ack-ack team would be operating tonight.

But kit inspection, like the poor, is always with us, she reminded herself as she began to make her bed and lay out her uniform in the prescribed fashion. She had just arranged her stockings so that the hole in the toe of the left one was hidden when she remembered, with a guilty start, that she had not even begun to read the rest of her mail. Curse Marigold, she thought, for worrying me. Was it possible, though, that Alice would really marry Tom, as Marigold insinuated? It seemed unlikely, but unlikelier things had happened in war. Hastily, Maddy delved into her gas mask case and withdrew the contents. She sat down on her bed, being careful not to upset her kit, and forced herself to begin reading the letters whose envelopes she had not so much as opened.

Gran’s came first.

Dear Madeleine,

Mr Sutherland killed our pig for us, so next time you come home there may be bacon. Ivy Sutherland is marrying Willy Jones next time he comes on leave. Not before time, judging by the bulge. Mr and Mrs O’Halloran have planted King Edwards because they are my favourites. I cooked a spotted dick last Sunday. Mrs O made custard. You are a good girl. I’m sorry for what I did.

At this point, Maddy remembered Gran’s black walking cane and had to stifle a little giggle. It was just like Gran to bury an apology in the midst of quite ordinary bits of news, though why she was harking back, literally years, to the time when she had had to dodge Gran’s cane Maddy could not imagine. She was still smiling when she realised the letter ended rather abruptly.
You’ve not had leave for a long while
, her grandmother had written.
Write soon, your loving grandmother.

Maddy stared at the letter for several moments, then shrugged and dropped it back into her gas mask case. Though Gran was a crotchety old thing she seemed to have understood that because Maddy had almost always been on gun sites in the south of the country she had been unable to return home for any of her leaves. I’ll write to her this evening, Maddy told herself, beginning to open Alice’s envelopes. She extracted the letters, which were numbered, and arranged the sheets so that she could read them in the order they had been written.

Dear Maddy,

Lovely to hear from you. My friend Susan and I had four days off recently, which was great. Can’t tell you where, or when, or why – if I did the censor would snip it out – but we met an old friend (no names, no pack drill) which made my leave perfect. I can’t remember whether I told you that we’d met up a couple of times before, and each time it was better. Oh dear, there’s so much I’m longing to tell you, but of course it’s not allowed. Oh, hell, I’ve got to go; continue in my next.

Frowning, Maddy re-read the short letter. A shared leave? But with whom? They – she and Alice – had a good many friends in common, but . . . Maddy turned to the next letter, aware of a sinking sensation in her stomach and trying to ignore it. She began to read.

Dear Maddy,

Sorry for the scrappy letter, but I suppose we’re all in the same boat, getting caught up in events and having to put our own lives on hold. I can’t remember exactly what I said in my last but suffice to say that when this wretched war is over it looks as though I shall be changing my name from Thwaite to Browning! I’d ask you to be a bridesmaid only I hope we may tie the knot before we get back to Blighty; we’ve wasted enough time as it is, so why waste more? Take care of yourself, Maddy, and one day you’ll be as happy as I am now. From your loving friend, Alice.

Maddy was struck dumb, and for a moment could only stare at the page in her hand, whilst the words disappeared in a blur of tears. She remembered vaguely that Alice had mentioned in one of her letters – a couple of years ago, surely – that she had met Tom by chance in an Egyptian hospital and spent some of her leave with him. Could that have been at the ‘rest place outside Cairo’ Marigold had alluded to? And I wasn’t even upset or jealous, Maddy thought now. I always thought Tom had a ‘thing’ for Marigold. Oh, I can’t believe it, I simply
won’t
believe it; Tom and Alice, Alice and Tom! How could they do this to me? Well, at least they haven’t actually tied the knot, so I suppose I can still hope. But then she realised that it would be downright wicked to hope that her two best friends might not marry. It was tantamount to saying that she would be pleased if a bomb fell on Alice, whereas what was much likelier was that Tom would be killed – she shuddered all over at the thought – and if that happened she would blame herself as long as she lived.

Still blinded by tears, she pushed both letters back into her gas mask case and pulled out the remaining two envelopes. She opened Tom’s, aware that she was hoping for a denial, yet knowing this was impossible . . . it would be too much of a coincidence to get a letter from Alice proclaiming her joy in the marriage to come at the same time as another from Tom saying that the wedding was off. And indeed, Tom’s letter did not mention marriage, or weddings, or anything very much. He talked wistfully of the time when peace would be a fact, when he would be discharged from the army and could begin to build a new life, which he meant to spend out of doors if possible, for he had discovered in himself a keen interest in the land.

I’ve talked it over with other chaps in my unit, and having spent five years of war mainly out of doors, most of us would like to work on the land. Did you know Alice’s uncle John had died? He was a grand chap and I’m truly sorry, but it may mean that Windhover Hall will come on the market and if it does several chaps, including me, might try to form a syndicate to run the place as a business venture. I understand something similar, if a good deal smaller, is going on at Larkspur, but you’ll know all about that.

Maddy gave a rather watery smile. She thought you could scarcely call the O’Hallorans and Gran a syndicate, but she knew what Tom meant, or supposed she did. She skimmed through the rest of his letter, but it was all about farming, which once would have interested her deeply but now seemed to have no bearing on the future to which she had once looked forward.

From outside she heard the clatter of shoes on concrete and realised that the girls were assembling for drill. Hastily she pushed the letters, including the mystery one, back into her gas mask case and hurried towards the door, which swung open to admit most of the members of her battery. ‘Hi, Hebditch. Drill first, then kit inspection,’ Maddy’s friend Evie shouted boisterously. ‘Cassidy told me you’d had some letters . . .’ she must have suddenly realised that Maddy was looking less than happy and stopped in her tracks. ‘What’s up? Not bad news!’

‘No, not bad news . . . in fact very good news,’ Maddy said with determined gaiety. ‘I’ve just heard that my two best friends are getting married. It was a bit of a shock, because the feller used to be head over heels in love with another of my friends, but it’s good news, honestly it is, Evie.’

‘Oh; well that’s nice,’ Evie said uneasily. ‘But you can’t sit in here whilst we drill; sarge is bound to notice you’re missing.’ She raised her voice to a shout. ‘Come along, girls, sarge is waiting!’

It was not until very much later that day, when Maddy was getting ready for bed, that she remembered the ‘mystery letter’, still unopened, and pulled it out from under her gas mask case. She frowned at the envelope for a moment, not recognising the handwriting yet feeling that she should know it, before tearing it open and extracting the two sheets it contained. She flicked over to the second page and saw that it was signed
from your good friend Herb
.

Maddy stared for a moment, then smiled. Of course! Gran’s evacuees. Herb had been the oldest, the most responsible of the trio and also, she thought, the one who had made it plain how much he loved Larkspur. But that did not explain why he was writing to her; he had certainly never done so before.

‘Maddy, got a letter from your sweet’eart?’ a voice suddenly interrupted. ‘Or ’ave you won the sweepstake? It’d be just like you to draw the winnin’ number and not tell a soul. G’on, what does luvverboy say?’

‘M.y.o.b.,’ Maddy said automatically. But the other girl, Daphne Swift, was large and aggressive and though Maddy now held the rank of corporal she had no intention of making an enemy of her, so she went on, ‘But I’ve not won the sweepstake – didn’t know there was one – and this letter, alas, is from a young man who can’t be more than ten or eleven. One of the evacuees, in fact, who’s been billeted with my gran.’

‘Oh,’ Swift said, losing interest. ‘Come along, girls, get into your pits, though it’s been a while since Moaning Minnie made us scamper for the shelters. Lights out in ten minutes. Last one in’s a sissy!’

Everyone began to strip and get into their issue pyjamas, and Maddy remembered, with a touch of nostalgia, how she and her fellow Ats on the batteries had looked upon Moaning Minnie not as a sign to make for the shelters, but to head for the gun sites and begin the always hard, and often muddy, work of training the guns on the enemy and making sure, before a shot was fired, of the identity of the planes overhead!

As soon as she was in her pyjamas, Maddy began to read the letter from Herbert, first detailing the girl nearest the door to turn the light off once everyone was in bed.

Dear Maddy,

Maybe its a cheek for me to write to you but I thort I should. Your grans been in a rare taking and theres folk here on Larkspur as mebbe shouldnt be. Its been a long while since you was here last, and me and the fellers doesnt think that you know whats goin on. I asked Gran when Mrs O were out of the way and she bit me head off – Gran not Mrs O. Me and the fellers talked it over and you mite say I drew the short straw, so I’m writin to ask you to come home. I know your on the ack-ack, wes real proud of you, Gran an all, but I’m no hand at letter writin so if you can come home that would be best. I know me spellin aint perfict, but I done me best. Please come, from your good friend Herb.

Maddy was still frowning over the letter when the light went off and the last girl climbed beneath her blanket. She guessed that Herbert would only have written to her if he was truly worried, and knew that she should make every effort to get home. But at present she and her fellow gunners were on a site just outside Southampton, which meant she was a long, long way from Larkspur. Despite the fact that everyone thought the war would soon be over, leave was not easy to obtain, but she rather thought that her commanding officer, if she read the letter, would grant her corporal at least a week to go home and find out what was wrong. She would jolly well ask for leave the very next day, and considered she was unlikely to be refused. She had worked continuously for the past two years and the letter, it seemed, was urgent. Sure that she had made the right decision, Maddy turned on her side and slept.