Bluebirds (79 page)

She wondered if he knew about Villiers, and Latimer and Parker-Smiley, and heaven knew how many more of those gilded youths who'd swanned about Eton on those sunlit, summer days. How many were now lying in cold, dark graves, or in no graves at all?

‘How did Kit look?'

‘Oh, jolly well, really. We were all pretty chuffed out there at getting our own back –'

‘Did he say anything about getting home soon?'

‘No, didn't mention anything like that. Careless talk, anyway, I suppose. But I expect he'll get back before too long. Is it a long time since you saw him?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘It's more than two years.'

‘Gosh, that must be awful. I mean, I should think you were pretty close – being twins.' He beamed at her. ‘You do look awfully alike.'

The train jerked forward again and this time gathered speed. She leaned back and smiled at him kindly. He'd given her news of Kit, however little. If he was getting out at the next stop, she didn't mind talking until then.

Lady Somerville met her at the station in a pony and trap. ‘It'll be a bit chilly, hope you don't mind. There's no petrol, of course, for this sort of thing, so we use old Dolly. She used to be Johnnie's years ago.'

Old Dolly was a fat skewbald who moved at her own pace, ignoring any gentle inducement with the whip. And Johnnie's mother was a surprise. Anne had pictured some frighteningly elegant woman; instead she was dressed in slacks and an old tweed hacking jacket, with a scarf tied round her head. But she was beautiful in the understated, unfading way of very aristocratic English women. And she had Johnnie's blue eyes. Or rather, he had hers.

She made more chucking noises at Dolly's broad back,
which were disregarded, and smiled sideways at Anne. ‘Thank you for coming. I told Johnnie what I'd done this morning and, of course, he was furious with me for it. I can't think why. As soon as I saw you, I knew I had done just the right thing.'

‘How is he?'

‘Better, I think. At least his face is getting better. Really not bad at all. He was very lucky about that. I say that to myself every day when I remember some of those other poor young men in that ward . . . In time I expect we'll hardly notice it, and it doesn't seem to worry him, which is the main thing. It's the hands that are the trouble. They're still giving him a lot of pain at times and he gets so frustrated that he can't go back and fly again immediately – thank goodness. They've done several operations on them and he's got more to be done before they're finished. Our GP and the district nurse are coping meanwhile.'

‘Can he use them?'

‘Oh, yes. Just not very well. And they don't look very pretty, but what does that matter so long as he still has hands? And they
will
work. He's supposed to do exercises with them but he gets bored and discouraged. You know how impatient men can be. I'm hoping that's where you'll come in – to make him persevere.'

‘Well, I'll try.'

‘Oh, I think he might listen to you,' Mary Somerville said with a small smile. ‘You might make all the difference.'

The Gloucestershire pile was very impressive. When it came into view shortly after they had passed through a large gateway, Anne's jaw almost dropped. The huge and very beautiful Georgian mansion was built of golden Cotswold stone and stood serenely in a dip in the land. She could see rows of tall windows and a porticoed entrance. The driveway leading to it swept through iron railed parkland and looked about two miles long. Dolly, scenting home, suddenly increased her pace to a smart
trot. They clattered into the stableyard round the side of the house and an elderly, gaitered groom appeared, looking like a character out of a nineteenth-century novel. He touched his cap.

‘This is Gribble,' Lady Somerville said. ‘He's been with us for years.' And as two black labradors also appeared: ‘And these are Samson and Delilah. We'll go in through the back, if you don't mind. We never use the front these days.'

The passageway was lined with a jumble of Wellington boots, and coats and hats hanging anyhow on hooks. It was glacially cold. They passed warren-like kitchen quarters that reminded Anne a little of the ones at Colston, and went past the green baize door.

Her WAAF shoes rang on the flagstone floor in the hall, as she followed Lady Somerville. She had time to take in some rather amazing pieces of antique furniture and a row of what looked like old masters, and then a magnificent staircase curving upwards. At the top stood Johnnie.

‘Don't you dare ask me what I'm doing here,' she said. His mother seemed to have disappeared.

He came down slowly towards her. ‘I know what you're doing here. You've come to cheer me up at my dear Mamma's request. I apologize that you've been dragged all the way here for such a boring task.'

‘It certainly seems like it's going to be pretty boring, if you're being difficult.' He was within a few steps of her now and the light had fallen on his face. ‘You're looking rather healthy. And the face is fine.'

In fact, it had given her a bit of a shock to see how it had marred his smooth good looks. The side that had been under the bandages was a patchwork of angry red and dead white skin. His hands, hanging at his sides, were still bandaged, but the fingers were visible – swollen and liver-coloured.

He smiled. ‘It's good of you to come, Anne. I'll try to behave and entertain you.'

‘I think I'm supposed to be entertaining
you,
aren't I?'

‘How long can you stay?'

‘I've got seven days. If I can stand it.'

‘I'm beginning to feel brighter already,' he said.

He showed her round the house, opening doors onto rooms where the furniture stood shrouded with dust sheets and the window blinds were down.

‘Pity you can't see it as it was before the war. We've shut most of it up for the duration. Nearly all the staff have gone. There's only a couple of women who come in from the village, and Gribble in the stables, and an even older gardener. My mother's learned to cook – she rather enjoys it.'

‘It's a beautiful house,' she said. ‘Have your family lived here long?'

‘Only four generations. Newcomers, really. I love the place . . . After the war, I imagine we'll try to open it all up again, but I'm not sure if it will ever be quite the same again. I've a feeling those pre-war times are gone for good. Perhaps that's not such a bad thing, in a way.'

‘The end of privilege and all that?'

‘You're quite a radical at heart, aren't you, Anne? Well, I don't think the Nazi regime is the only one that's going to find itself replaced. It's going to be quite a different sort of world, for better or worse.'

‘Better, of course.'

‘I hope you're right.'

The weather was dry but they stayed indoors on most days because the cold wind pained his hands. They sat by a logfire in the snuggery, playing snakes and ladders and draughts, gin rummy and poker.

‘Good exercise for your fingers,' she told him cheerfully. ‘Picking up and putting down.'

‘Sadist.'

He had propped his hand of cards up against his knee and, as he fumbled clumsily with them, they all toppled onto the carpet. He swore violently.

‘I might as well have a bunch of bananas. Those damned exercises don't seem to make any difference.'

‘That's because you're not giving them a chance. They will – if you do them properly.'

‘All very well for
you
to talk, Anne . . . and, by the way, I think you must be cheating. I usually win.'

But he smiled as he said it.

One afternoon, when the wind had dropped, they went for a walk across the parkland with Samson and Delilah bounding along in attendance. He kept his hands carefully in his pockets.

‘I like your mother,' she told him, striding along.

‘And she likes you. I'm sorry my father isn't here. He'd have enjoyed meeting you. But he spends a lot of time in London at the moment, doing some sort of liaison work. In his element, so far as I can tell. He flew in the Flying Corps in the Great War, you know. Camels and Gladiators. Chestful of medals. Loved every moment of it. He still flies my Moth – or did until this war started.'

‘I'd forgotten you'd got a 'plane as well as everything else. Where do you keep it?'

‘In one of the barns. I'll bring it out when the war's over and take you up.'

They had reached the top of a steep incline and turned to look at the view of the house and surrounding countryside.

‘Has your father ever come up here with you and said all this will be yours one day, my son?'

He smiled. ‘Something of the kind. It's been dinned into me from a fairly early age that I have a responsibility. There's a fair number of people to consider – tenant farms, tied cottages, and all that kind of thing. It must be a bit of a nightmare for my father having just one son – especially these days. I sometimes think it must be much worse for our parents than for us, in the thick of things – or at least as I
used
to be.'

‘And will be again. If you do your exercises.'

‘You were supposed to entertain me, not bully me. You
remind me of my dear old nanny. You haven't met her, of course, have you? I'll take you to see her. She lives in a cottage on the estate.'

She was sitting by the fireside in a room that was crowded with pictures from the past – photographs of other people's children that she undoubtedly thought of as her own. Her hair was snowy white and she had the sort of sloping, comforting bosom that must have pillowed many a small, weary head. When Johnnie bent to kiss her cheek she reached up to touch his burned face with her fingers and took his bandaged hands in her own, clucking over them like a mother hen. Anne noticed how bright and sharp her eyes were behind her spectacles and, with them turned upon her, found herself hoping that her fingernails were clean and her hair properly brushed.

She insisted that they stay for tea and went off to the small kitchen, waving away offers of help. Anne looked at a large photo of Johnnie as a small boy, dressed in a sailor suit and with angelically fair hair. It was prominently displayed.

‘I bet you were her favourite,' she whispered. ‘How sickening.'

There were other photos of him, at different ages – from the baby in a lace christening robe to the young Etonian in tails. And there was one taken with his three sisters – he at about ten years old, the girls already grown-up.

‘Rosemary, Henrietta and Sarah.' He pointed them out for her.

‘They're all beautiful, like your mother. Aren't they all married now?'

‘Lord, yes. Married with sprogs. I'm an uncle eight times over already. Rosemary lives up in Scotland – married to a landowner there. Henrietta lives in London and Sarah in Hampshire. Their husbands are army, navy and air force respectively. Thank God, they've all survived, so far. You must meet them one day.'

They drank their tea and ate up the fish paste sandwiches under an eagle eye.

‘A clean plate is a healthy plate, isn't that right, Nanny?'

‘I'm glad to see you haven't forgotten, Master John. And we must think of all the starving children in Europe.'

‘I thought she was going to ask you if you had a clean handkerchief as we were leaving,' Anne said later.

‘I wouldn't put it past her. She'd have called that after me as I was scrambling if she could, and told me to sit up straight in the cockpit and keep my elbows in. By the way, did you notice the way she was looking you over to see if you had good child-bearing hips? She's waiting to be brought out of retirement.'

‘Don't be ridiculous!'

‘I've never seen you blush before, Anne. This is something quite new.'

‘Well, it was a jolly stupid sort of joke.'

‘I wasn't joking,' he said.

‘Does anyone play that very grand grand piano?' she asked him after dinner on her last evening, when they were alone in the drawing-room by the fire, drinking brandy.

‘My mother. She plays extremely well, as a matter of fact, though she'd never admit it.'

‘I wish I'd asked before she went to bed. How about you?'

‘I used to strum.'

‘Used to?'

He raised his hands mutely.

‘Why don't you try,' she said. ‘It would –'

‘Be good exercise for them. I know. How I've suffered at
your
hands this week, Anne.' He went over to the piano, sat down and lifted the lid. Then, very slowly, he picked out the scale of C major with one finger – up and then down again. ‘There.'

She got up to join him and leaned her elbows on the top. ‘You can do better than that.'

‘How are you so sure?'

‘Because you're not even trying.'

He picked out a few more notes that became a tune.

‘I know that one.' She smiled.

‘I know you know it. You were singing it when I first saw you.'

‘When you second saw me, actually.'

‘I don't count the other time. I really don't remember it very well. According to you, I was behaving badly.'

‘You behaved pretty badly the second time – barging in to that dressing-room and acting as though I was supposed to swoon at your feet. And the next time, after that, you abducted me.'

‘The only course of action with someone like you, Anne.' He played some more notes idly with his right hand and then added chords with his left. She half-spoke, half-sang a soft accompaniment.

He stopped. ‘Sorry. I can't play any more.'

‘Are your hands hurting?'