Octavia's War (26 page)

It was too late for Lizzie to be discreet so she told them – how they met, how handsome he was, how his uncle was the foreman at the wood-yard – ‘the one who was so nice to us' – how he was in the tank corps and was going back to Salisbury Plain to start manoeuvres.

‘You are a dark horse,' Poppy said admiringly. ‘I never even knew you were going out with anyone. Did you, Mary?'

‘Nobody knew,' Lizzie told them. ‘I mean, nobody does, except you, so please don't go spreading it about. Smithie told me to be discreet.'

Poppy's eyes were a study in surprise. ‘She knows about it?'

It was rather warming to be able to say yes.

‘Heavens!' Poppy said. ‘That woman never ceases to amaze me. Do you mean she actually knows and she didn't tell you not to or anything?'

‘She said I was to be discreet, that's all. Oh, and that Juliet wasn't fourteen when she met Romeo.'

Poppy was still coping with surprise. ‘Good Lord!' she said.

Mary was more practical. ‘So when are you going to get married?' she said, getting into bed.

‘When I leave school I expect.'

‘I thought you were going to Oxford.'

‘I might not be able to. Not if I get married. I mean, I don't think they take married students.'

‘Oh Lizzie,' Poppy said, ‘you can't not go to Oxford. I mean, it's the best university in the world. You can't not. You simply can't.'

‘What did Smithie say about it?' Mary asked.

‘She doesn't know,' Lizzie confessed. ‘I haven't seen her yet. My appointment's not till tomorrow.'

‘Well, rather you than me,' Mary said, ominously. ‘If you turn down a place at St Hilda's, she'll be furious. You mark my words.'

‘No she won't,' Poppy said, defending her heroine. ‘She's not like that.'

Mary pulled the covers up under her chin. ‘This is Oxford we're talking about,' she said. ‘She will. You mark my words.'

Her words kept Lizzie awake for most of the night. What on earth was she going to say? She would have to tell her. It wasn't something she could keep to herself. Anyway, Smithie would know – she always did, God knows how, she always knew everything – and once it was out in the open, she was bound to be cross, because getting a Roehampton girl to Oxford was a matter of prestige.
Crème de la crème
and all that sort of thing. It was all hideously difficult and it got worse as the hours toiled past.

Octavia had had a trying weekend too. For a start it had been a weekend for visitors and Tommy wasn't one of them, which was rather a disappointment. He'd rung to say that Molotov was flying to London and that there was to be a reception in his honour on Saturday night. All the top brass in the Foreign Office had been told that their attendance was required,
‘although what good that will do I can't possibly imagine. He's only coming here to bully us into opening the Second Front. It's all he ever talks about.'

‘I shall miss you,' she said.

‘I'm glad to hear it,' he told her and she could hear him grinning. ‘Let me know how you get on with my Lizzie.'

So it was just family members who arrived that Saturday, first Dora, bearing a home-made meat pie, with David beside her, looking very tall and grown up, and then, to Emmeline's surprise, Johnnie, sagging with fatigue and in one of his disgruntled moods. The sight of him sent Emmeline into alarm at once.

‘My dear boy,' she said. ‘What is the matter? You look all in.'

‘Nothing,' Johnnie said. ‘Don't fuss.' He'd just been turned down flat by a rather pretty girl but he certainly wasn't going to tell her that. ‘I'm tired, that's all.'

‘Come and have a slice of my nice meat pie,' Dora said to him. ‘That'll cheer you up.'

But of course it won't, Octavia thought, watching him as he sighed to the table, because whatever it is, it's well beyond the comfort of a pie. And food won't comfort Edith much today either because she's missing Arthur and wishing he were here with us. There's sadness all over her face. I wish we could get this dammed war over and done with. We're into the third year of it now and it's beginning to drag us all down. Em's getting thinner by the day, Edie's lonely, Johnnie's hiding his misery, I haven't given Tommy his answer. And as she took her first forkful of the pie, she was glad to think that on Monday morning she would have her nice easy interview with Lizzie.

It was a quiet, misty morning and the girls were sleepy. Lizzie was stifling a yawn as she walked into Smithie's study and didn't seem her usual cheerful self at all.

‘I'm sorry it's so cold in here,' Octavia said, when they'd both settled into their chairs beside the limited warmth of the fire. ‘That fire will take presently. It's just being a bit slow this morning.'

Lizzie looked at it and didn't say anything.

‘Well now,' Octavia said. ‘It's St Hilda's for you, isn't it?' She expected to be answered with a smile and an agreement and was alerted when Lizzie winced. ‘What is it, my dear?' she asked. ‘Is there a problem?'

There's nothing for it, Lizzie thought. I shall have to tell her. ‘I don't think I shall be able to go,' she said.

Octavia was instantly on full alert. This has something to do with her love affair, she thought. I must handle it carefully. ‘Why is that?' she asked. ‘Are you having second thoughts about the course?'

‘No, no,' Lizzie said. ‘It's nothing like that.' Then she stopped and tried to gather her courage. ‘I just don't think I shall be able to go to university after all.'

‘Because?' Octavia prompted.

‘Because Ben wants us to get married. Oh, I know I'm young and I know Pa won't approve because he's set his heart on me going to St Hilda's but that's how things are. It won't be long before he gets sent to Africa. I mean, there's no secret about it. They all know it. He reckons it'll be early summer, June or July probably, so his next long leave will be embarkation leave and he'd like us to get married before he goes. That's only right when you think what he's got ahead of him. I mean, he could be wounded or killed. There's no knowing what will happen once he's out there.' The thought brought tears to her
eyes and she had to swallow hard before she could go on. ‘I can't put my education before that, now, can I? It wouldn't be right.'

Octavia didn't argue with her. It wasn't the right moment. ‘No, my dear, when you put it like that, it wouldn't be. Have you talked it over with him?'

Lizzie had to admit she hadn't. ‘But there's nothing to say really, is there? If he's going out to join the Eighth Army and he wants us to get married, that's all there is to it.'

Not if I have my way, Octavia thought, and she rolled up imaginary sleeves and prepared to make as good a case as she could. ‘Do I take it that you don't have any objection to St Hilda's
per se
?'

‘Oh no,' Lizzie said at once. ‘I mean it's a wonderful place. It would be a privilege to go there. I know that. No, I'm not against it at all. If I could marry Ben
and
go there, I'd go like a shot. But I couldn't, could I? I mean, they don't have married students at Oxford, do they?'

So far so good, Octavia thought. ‘I have to admit I've never heard of any,' she said. ‘But that is not to say it's impossible. I see no reason why they shouldn't. It's just that no one has asked the question before. You're a pioneer and St Hilda's is a pioneering college. I can remember how they welcomed speakers from the WSPU.'

Lizzie smiled at that, for the first time since she'd entered the room. She liked the idea of being a pioneer. It made solutions seem possible.

Octavia pressed home her advantage. ‘If you will take my advice,' she said, ‘you won't do anything precipitous. Things change all the time during a war, habits, opinions, lifestyles, even in the most entrenched sectors of the establishment. What was thought to be totally out of the question in peacetime
becomes an imperative when we're at war. You've only got to look at the suffragette movement to see that. We campaigned for women's suffrage for years and years but it wasn't until we were needed for war work that we finally got the vote. I would say press on with your application, visit St Hilda's and see what it has to offer you, attend your interview, sit your Higher Schools and make up your mind to get the highest grades you can and then bide your time. Make your decision as late as you can. There's no rush.'

‘Well…' Lizzie said, thinking about it. It sounded sensible, just so long as Smithie understood that there was no question about whether she would marry Ben or not. ‘I shall marry him sooner or later,' she warned. ‘That's a given.'

‘Of course,' Octavia said, ‘and good will come of it. We need young women like you to show that it is possible to marry and have a career. Change doesn't usually come of its own accord. We need someone or something to give it a push.'

So it was settled. Lizzie would go ahead with her application, sit her examinations, do everything according to her original plan, but not lose sight of the possibility that she might marry at any time. When she finally said, ‘Thank you, Miss Smith' and left, Octavia was exhausted. She stayed where she was beside the fire and lit a cigarette to give herself a chance to recover before she had to take her next study period. As she drew in her first calming lungful of smoke she began to make plans. She wouldn't tell Tommy what had been said. It would only upset him and then there would be ructions and that wouldn't do at all. She wanted Lizzie's life to be as calm as possible in the weeks ahead. But thinking of Tommy and remembering what she'd been saying here in this room only a few minutes ago made her feel ashamed.
‘We need young women like you to show that it is possible to marry and have
 
a career.'
What a hypocrite she was being. I must make my mind up and set a date and tell him, she thought. I can't put it off any longer. I will do it as soon as I get home.

But she got home to two letters that took her mind away from weddings and dates for the rest of the evening. The first one was a happy note from Janet announcing the birth of her baby.

‘There you are,' Emmeline said. ‘Didn't I say it would be January? What did she have?'

‘A boy,' Octavia told her, handing her the letter. ‘A canny lad, so she says. They're going to call him Norman. She's staying with her mother because her husband's at sea and she can't get the pram up and down the stairs on her own.'

Emmeline said that was very wise. ‘She was always sensible even if she did get herself into trouble, if you know what I mean.'

That made Octavia smile because she knew so exactly what her cousin meant. But the smile was frozen as soon as she opened her second letter because this one was from Mr Mannheim and the news it contained was so grim as to be almost unbelievable.

My dear friend,
he wrote,

I hope you will forgive me for unburdening myself to you again but I feel I must pass on this news to everyone who might be able to help. It is necessary that these terrible things be revealed. To conceal them would be to condone them as I am sure you would agree and these are horrors that should never, never be condoned.

To put the matter briefly, there is news coming out of Germany that what they are now openly calling ‘the Jewish solution' has become a full scale programme of mass extermination. It is terrible to write such words, hard to believe that there are human
beings who would do such inhuman things, but there are such men. One is the man in charge of the programme. His name is Rienhard Heydrich. He is second in command to Himmler of the Gestapo. According to my informant, who I must tell you is usually reliable, he has plans to kill all the Jews now under German rule in Europe, which is to say over eleven million men, women and children for they do not spare the young. There are now several concentration camps built and in action with gas chambers equipped for the killing and crematoria to dispose of the bodies. It is hard for us to comprehend such ruthless enormity but I fear that news of what they plan is true. Do please send this letter on, I beg you dear friend, and forgive me for bringing such distressing things to your attention. There are days when I am half mad with the terror of the things I hear. We live in evil times.

Octavia lit a cigarette and smoked as she tried to digest the horror on the page. Her senses were roaring at her that this simply couldn't be true, that no man could be so totally inhuman. But her reason was telling a different story. Mr Mannheim was a truthful man. He didn't exaggerate. He was careful to check his facts. If he said this was so, it was only too horribly likely that it was true. I'll show it to Tommy, she decided, and see what he says. If Mr Mannheim has heard it, he might have had wind of it, too.

‘News from America?' Emmeline asked, sending a warning glance in the direction of her granddaughters.

Octavia handed the letter across. ‘We'll talk about it after dinner,' she said, speaking lightly so as not to alert the children. Barbara was already looking up with a question on her face. ‘Do you need a hand in the kitchen?'

‘No, that's fine,' Edith said. ‘We've done most of it. Can I see it after you, Mum?'

They talked about it until late into the night, anguishing that such a monstrous thing could be planned, let alone put into action. ‘What makes them so cruel?' Emmeline said. ‘They can't be born that way. I mean, to be planning to kill eleven million people, it's obscene.'

‘What I can't understand,' Edith said, ‘is why we don't invade France and push the Germans out and free the prisoners and have all this awful business over and done with. What are we waiting for? We should stop all this messing about in Africa and invade France, that's what we should do.'