Homing (15 page)

“You’ll go in the morning,” said Virginia. “A pony-cart on the road after dark now is a good way to get killed.”

In the old days when the family Christmas parties were really large, they used to roll up the rugs in the drawing room and dance to the gramophone. Tonight they drank their coffee round the fire, content with conversation and the BBC light music till the nine o’clock News, which as usual told them nothing.

Roger sat on the sofa beside Anne, watching her knit, and asking rather personal questions about her life before she came to Farthingale and her plans if ever she was free to leave again. He seemed to find it extraordinary that she had no particular ambitions beyond keeping her job and possibly working her way up to a really good secretaryship, and maybe some day having a little flat of her own somewhere in London—Kensington, she thought, or Knightsbridge.

“Aren’t you going to get married?” asked Roger, amused. “A pretty girl like you?”

“Well, now, whom would I marry?” she asked sensibly.

“Not got your eye on anybody? At your age?”

“What do you mean, my age? I’m twenty-six.”

“Old enough to look round,” said Roger.

“I have looked round. And saw nothing to get excited about.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking in the right place.”

“What’s wrong with wanting to be on my own? If you’d always had to share a room with somebody else you’d understand that even the tiniest place of your own would look like heaven.”

“So you wouldn’t have a husband as a gift! What are we coming to!” said Roger, his masculine
amour propre
bristling.

“I didn’t say that,” she denied placidly, her eyes on her knitting.

“Well, I must say, it’s very discouraging,” Roger complained. “Girls were never like this in my day.”

And Nigel, watching them benevolently from Archie’s chair by the hearth, thought what an attractive pair they were to look at, secret and smiling on the sofa, and how without the war they would never have crossed each other’s paths or had a chance to find each other interesting. It’s going to level things off a bit, Nigel thought. I suppose that will be good for us, in the end. Of course it’s more than likely that she’ll never see Roger again. I wonder, Nigel asked himself with some chagrin, if that would be a good thing.

Rather early the following morning Jeff left Sylvia still asleep and descended to the dining room, where he found Oliver alone at the table eating breakfast.

“Bacon!” Oliver said, by way of greeting. “Stacks of it! Can’t
think how she does it, we never see bacon in London and it’s not even rationed yet!”

“Soon enough,” said Jeff, helping himself from the hot plates on the sideboard, and sitting down on Oliver’s left.

“Better than the last war. Rationing didn’t start till 1918 and things had got into a terrible state.”

“I wonder why we say the last war,” Jeff ruminated. “It was anything but.”

“It’s not going to be the Great War, either, much longer. This one will be far greater, once it gets going.”

“The late war,” said Jeff experimentally. “The other war. The little war. The little, old war.”

“The Kaiser’s war,” said Oliver. “And now Hitler’s war. Render unto Caesar, why not.”

“Caesar wouldn’t own either one of ’em if you gave it to him, I’m thinking.”

They ate in companionable silence for some minutes.

“Well, how does it feel?” Oliver asked then, lighting a cigarette. “And what did I tell you?”

“You told me I’d have a box seat for the next war, if I went ahead with Bracken on the newspaper,” Jeff recited obediently. “And that I’d never regret it, and wouldn’t change places with you then. And so I did, and I have, and I don’t, and I wouldn’t. But it feels pretty frightening, now that the time has come.”

“I know. You haven’t got a lot of other fellows doing the same thing at the same time, the way it is in the Army.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Jeff agreed.

“It feels frightening that way too,” said Oliver, and Jeff looked at him with surprise and disbelief.

“You mean to sit there with your record, and tell me—” he began, and his quiet voice rose a half tone.

“Record, what’s that worth!” Oliver waved away the double row of ribbons he was entitled to wear. “One is always sick with fright when the whistle blows. I can promise you one thing, though. When you’ve had your first bomb you’ll be all right.” And then, as Jeff only stared at him quizzically—“Oh, you won’t stop being scared. There’s no cure for that. But you can deal with it. You’ll be all right.”

“We’ve had some false alarms in London,” Jeff reminded him. “And every time the siren goes I—” He broke off, jabbing at a piece of toast with his fork.

“That’s because they were only false alarms. Wait till it’s happened once, Jeff, and
then
tell me you can’t take it and I’ll listen.”

“You always listen,” said Jeff humbly and gratefully. “And I always believe what you say—until now. I thought—since you must have been under fire so many times yourself—”

“You thought I might have discovered some magic formula?” Oliver shook his head. “There isn’t one. Oh, in the old days of cavalry charges, once the troop was in motion behind you, you got a sort of battle-joy from sheer excitement. To stand still under fire is harder. To be a sitting duck, as you are in an air raid, is still worse. I grant you that. But after the first one—you’ll know where you are, I’ll guarantee it.”

“Are you going to let Mother stay in Town when the raids start?”

“What choice have I got?” Oliver spread his hands. “She nursed in Belgium—she was here under the Zeppelins—she knows she’s as good a soldier as I am. Women,” said Oliver, “can be braver than men. True, some of them go to pieces, and some of them don’t even attempt to stand up to it. But by and large, if properly trained they’re as steady as any man. Girls like Evadne and Mona—they’ll show you.”

“And Sylvia?”

“I know,” Oliver said again, with sympathy. “It’s hard. But don’t quarrel with her about it. There are no non-combatants in this war. We’ll be lucky if we can keep people like Mab out of it till they’re eighteen at least.”

“Will it go on till Mab is eighteen?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Four
years?
But London will be pulverized!”

“You’d be surprised how much high explosive it takes to knock out a city.”

“Warsaw—?”

“Had no defences worth mentioning.”

“I suppose you couldn’t give me a glimmer about what’s going on at the War Office?”

“I suppose not,” said Oliver with a sweet smile.

“Are you going back to work there?”

“No. Charles will. I’m being sent round to lecture to the poor civilians.”

“What about?”

“Gas, mostly.”

“Evadne says there’s one that smells of mouse.”

“There is. As near as makes no difference.”

There was another silence. Then Jeff drew an unconscious sigh and poured out another cup of tea.

“Well, I feel better than I did,” he said. “That’s always the way, isn’t it, if I can have it out endwise with you.”

“Anybody else would have said about the same as I have,” Oliver told him, not naming any names.

“Probably. But now I’ve got it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

They grinned at each other affectionately.

“Oliver, sometimes I think I ought to say—” He hesitated.

“It’s all right, son, don’t try.”

That word, so rare between them, and only when they were alone. That word, to which Oliver had no real right, a word so carelessly used by men who were only good friends, like Stevie—when it came from Oliver, Jeff’s throat closed, as always, and he could not speak. It had seen him through some bad times before now, and he heard it again with the same involuntary lift of the spirit, recognizing as his mother had done many years ago the strength and serenity of Oliver’s soldier philosophy, which went so far beyond fatalism. You lived whatever was ahead of you and enjoyed it the best you could, in Oliver’s book of rules—whether it was leading a cavalry charge in South Africa, or lying flat on your back in bed for a whole year to give a rheumatic heart a chance as Jeff had done at fourteen, or waiting like a sitting duck for bombs over London. There was always something to be said for most of it, and the main thing was, you weren’t dead. It was a new challenge for Jeff—to be as good a sitting duck as Oliver had been a cavalryman.

“It’s a funny thing,” he was able to say at last. “My stomach turns clean over when the sirens go, but so far my heart hasn’t jumped the track once.”

“It won’t,” said Oliver.

“How do you account for it? Sylvia?”

“In a way, yes. She’s made you forget it. Oh, you thought of it with your mind sometimes, but your subconscious forgot it. That seems the wrong way round, doesn’t it.”

“It makes sense,” said Jeff. “In a goofy sort of way.”

Mab came in then, looking less tense and self-contained than she had for weeks, and was delighted to find them still at table.

“Where is everybody this morning?” she asked happily as Jeff rose to pull out a chair for her and took her plate to the sideboard.

“Catching up on sleep, I expect.” Oliver poured out her tea, passed her the toast and jam. “I meant to myself, but somehow I’ve got out of the habit of sleeping.”

“This is fun,” she said, as Jeff set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. “This feels more like Farthingale again. Has anyone listened to the News?”

“We clean forgot it,” said Jeff guiltily with a glance at the silent radio in the corner.

“They’re saying that we must expect Hitler to do something horrible just because it’s Christmas. Well—not in so many words officially—but that’s what they mean.”

“Too cold,” said Oliver. “Snow coming, I think.”

“Sh!” said Mab. “He’ll hear you! Jeff, will you have time after breakfast to look at the Williamsburg things Evadne brought me?”

“Time any time,” said Jeff, sitting down beside her.

“How nice that sounds. Aren’t you going on the Observers’ Post expedition?”

“Not if you’d rather I stayed here,” he said simply.

“And how long before you have to start back to London?”

“Tuesday morning.”

“So soon?” she sighed.

“Look, Mab, I’m lucky to be here at all!”

“Yes, I know, I’m very thankful,” she said seriously. “I’ve had nightmares you might have to go to Finland.”

“I’m afraid the war would be over before I could get there now.”

“Are they beaten?”

“Yes. They’ll go down fighting, but they’re beaten.”

“And then what?” asked Mab.

“Holland, maybe. Maybe Switzerland. Or Belgium again.”

“Before Easter?”

“Probably.”

“I was only wondering if you would be here again for Easter.”

“It will be Bracken’s turn to come away, at Easter.”

“The only time you can be sure of any more is
now
,” said Mab. “I’m going up and get the Williamsburg things this minute.” She slipped from her chair and left the room.

“She hasn’t eaten much,” Jeff said. “And her tea has got cold.” He found Oliver looking at him. “I don’t know,” he
said, to a question which had not been spoken. He rose and carried Mab’s cooling cup of tea to the sideboard and left it there, took a clean cup from a setting further down the table and put it at Mab’s place. “I don’t know,” he repeated, moving restlessly round the room. “She’s always been crazy about Williamsburg, you know—like a sort of second sight. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, maybe that’s what it is. I never encouraged her in it, honestly I didn’t—well, one time I did promise that I’d see that she got there for a visit. But now I don’t know. I’m not sure that it would be a good idea for her to go there. The veil is too thin. Oliver, I admit I don’t know quite how to handle this. If I clamp down on it suddenly, dodge talking about it, forbid her to dwell on it any more—well, maybe that’s the wrong way to come at it. But if I go along with it, as I have been doing, answer questions, confirm her ideas, and some of them are pretty uncanny—if I go on pretending there’s nothing unusual about any of it, where does it end? I—”

“Jeff. Mab is growing up.”

“I know that. I used to think maybe it was just a childish sort of game, something she might outgrow—but—”

“But now you know better.” Oliver glanced at the door and lowered his voice. “Why do we worry about a war, with
this
going on under our very noses?”

Jeff stood stock still in his tracks, staring at the carpet in front of him.

“Oh, no—” he said, like a prayer.

“Mab isn’t a child, Jeff. You must be careful.”

“I am careful,” Jeff told him unargumentatively. “I’ve been careful for years. But I can’t just start avoiding her, all of a sudden. That would be—noticeable.”

“So will it be noticeable like this, soon.”

“To you, yes, but you—”

“To anyone, Jeff. You can’t expect her to hide it, she’s not wise enough.”

“But everybody’s used to Mab and me, it’s nothing new, we’ve always—She’s only fourteen,” said Jeff.

“She’s not going to stay fourteen. And it’s not just Mab I mean, Jeff.”

“Oh, not me too, I give you my word, I—there’s nothing but Sylvia for me, ever, we fell in love when we were kids, I could never—” Jeff passed a fretful hand across his face, as
though to mask it even for a moment from the thoughtful eyes of the man at the table. “Now you’ve really got me worried,” he said.

“I think you should be.”

“Oliver, don’t for God’s sake sound as though it was my fault—I—”

Mab returned to the room, rather breathless, with her hands full of photographs and postcards.

“It’s this Jamestown thing,” she was saying, as she laid them down beside her plate. “When did they wall up the River bank with stones?”

“Before I can remember. Why?” He came slowly to sit beside her.

“Well, why on earth should they do a thing like that? The grass always went right down to the water.”

“It did?” He glanced at her quickly. “They found the land was being slowly eaten away by the current. That tree stump sticking up in the water way out from the shore shows you how the bank had already receded before the wall went in.”