Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (92 page)

But she wanted Lady Beckenham there, for apart from Venetia she had been more help to her than anyone, with her lack of fuss, her slightly brusque sympathy; she said she would be delighted to come and asked if she would like her to invite the organist to play: ‘Not hymns or anything of course, just something to lift things a bit.’

Adele would not have thought of that and the music was greatly comforting, easing a silence which could have been bleak.

They sat in the front pew and said the Lord’s Prayer and Adele said the prayer of St Ignatius; she had been afraid of feeling foolish, or worse breaking down, but as she said the lovely words ‘to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds’, she heard her own voice growing stronger, almost happy. The children brought flowers and lit candles, and Venetia made a little speech about Luc, about what a lovely man he had been and how brave, about how he had died saving a little girl’s life and they must always remember him and be proud of him. Lady Beckenham said a few words too, about how courage was never wasted as long as it was remembered, and that fighting evil was the most important single thing anyone could do.

Adele had felt it was important for Noni and Lucas to have Luc’s passing marked, however simply; while he had been alive, or certainly while she had thought he was alive, she had continued to talk about him, to remind them of their lives together, to reassure them that he was busy and happy and working in Paris and that when the war was over, they would hopefully all be together again. Lucas could hardly remember his father, but little Noni could, and she certainly remembered loving him very much, and knew there was a loss in her small life.

Adele had told them he had died, that they would not be seeing him again, had sat and held them and answered their questions; Lucas had listened politely and then asked if he could go and ride his trike, but Noni had sat with her for a long time, thinking and shedding a few tears which Adele imagined to be at least in part dutiful. And after a while she said, ‘I know we haven’t got him any more. But if we remember him, he won’t quite go away, will he?’

‘No,’ said Adele, smiling at her, ‘no, my darling, he won’t.’

That was when she thought of having the ceremony. And afterwards, although it hurt no less, she felt eased, some order had been created in a small way out of her chaos, and while not hopeful she felt at least no longer hopeless: and able at last to look to the future just a little.

As time went by, as she learned of the worst and most dreadful excesses in the concentration camps, she was increasingly able to be thankful that Luc had died as he had.

‘Imagine knowing that, knowing someone had endured that. Someone you loved. How could you bear that, how could you not go mad?’

And Venetia, as shocked and disturbed as Adele herself by the reports of three million Jews—women and children as well as men—starved, beaten, tortured and finally sent to their deaths in the gas chambers, simply by virtue of their race, agreed that you could not.

Only one thing remained now for Adele to do; and she knew it must wait for a while. To go to Paris, with the children, and to find not only Bernard Touvier, but also Mme André, and to thank them for all that they had done, and to let them know that while Luc might have died, he still lived on in his small, brave,
très chère famille
.

CHAPTER 44

‘It’s a girl, Mrs Miller. A beautiful little girl.’

Well they would say that, wouldn’t they, Barty thought, collapsing feebly back on to the bed, they were hardly likely to say she was an ugly little girl. She was mildly surprised at herself for having such a rational thought, after the long, exhausting, painful hours; thirty-six of them altogether, twenty-four in the nursing home, six strapped up in some dreadful sort of stirrup arrangement. And that had been with the best possible attention, kindly nurses and midwives, an excellent doctor. She thought of her mother, enduring the same experience—what was it, ten times?—In a tiny basement room with only the local midwife, usually unqualified, to see to her. How had she borne that? How had she borne any of it?

‘Let me see her,’ she said, and they handed the baby to her, wrapped in a blanket, this tiny new person, with hazy-blue eyes and a fluff of red-gold hair.

She looked down at her, at her daughter, and thought how entirely wonderful and astonishing and extraordinary it was, that two people should make love, no more than that, and then that nine months later those moments of pleasure should become flesh and blood, a human creature, with a brain, a will—formidable in this case, no doubt—and the capacity to laugh, to cry, to hate and to love. And in that moment, thinking that, Barty knew, as of course she had known before, but without fully understanding it, that her life was changed for ever now, indeed it was no longer her life but their life, hers and her daughter’s, to share, and to make of it what they chose.

Something else came in that moment, something she had feared might not, a great sweep of love, not love as she had known it before, with herself at its centre, but a new emotion altogether, fierce, protective, and absolutely exclusive. Whatever she did now, wherever she went, she would have this child with her and even if she was not with her, then the concern and the love would be. The universe had shifted, upturned even, and all her certainties, all her wishes and hopes had changed, refocused on this minute and absolutely important being which lay in her arms, tentatively moving and stretching itself and giving an impression at least of staring at her through her father’s brilliant eyes.

‘What are you going to call her?’ asked the nurse, and ‘Jeanette,’ said Barty firmly. ‘After her grandmother.’

‘That’s a pretty name.’

‘To be absolutely truthful,’ said Barty, stroking the baby’s small face, ‘I don’t terribly like it. But I know that’s what her father would have wanted, more than anything in the world.’

The nurse clucked with sympathy.

‘It’s so very sad,’ she said, ‘to think he’ll never see her. It happens all the time at the moment, we have so many of you young women here.’

‘Well,’ said Barty, ‘it’s a lot better for me than not having either of them.’

‘That’s true. Sad but true. Now you give me little Jeanette, I think you need a good rest. Don’t look like that, she won’t be far away. If you want me or her, just press this bell.’ She walked to the door, then turned, ‘Here’s an idea for you,’ she said. ‘I had a cousin called Jeanette. But she was known in the family as Jenna. Maybe you could call her that.’

‘Oh,’ said Barty, smiling at her, suddenly sleepy. ‘Oh, yes, I like that. Thank you.’

And Jenna the baby became, from that moment on.

She was of course so much more than a baby. She was all that Barty now had of Laurence; a reminder, a demonstration of love, a continuation of his line. She was a cure for loneliness and an easing of grief, she was sense, order, a promise of happiness.

Her greatest regret was not that Laurence had never seen her, but that he had not even known of her existence; the memory of his voice telling her that more than anything in the world he wanted her to have his babies, had helped her immeasurably through a bad pregnancy, a difficult labour. If only, if only he had known. But they had never spoken again, never written even, after that last day; he had been killed three days later in an ambush on the approach to Cherbourg.

She had been given that news by her CO: oddly gentle.

‘Apparently he left careful instructions that you should be informed as soon as possible. I’m so sorry.’

And Barty, staring at her, dry-eyed, too shocked to feel anything at all, said only, ‘Thank you very much,’ and went straight back on duty.

They said she could have some leave, but she refused; she felt oddly safe there. It was as if the pain was kept away, barred from her by the appalling noise, the undoubted danger. The Germans had a deadly new weapon, unleashed shortly after D-Day, the V1, known as the doodlebug, a flying bomb carried in a pilotless plane; in a country euphoric after the success of D-Day this was the revenge weapon, bringing with it a dreadful effect on morale.

They came over in their hundreds, the doodlebugs, with their very distinct noise, a stuttering, deep-throated growl; it was well known that if the noise stopped and the engine cut out, that was it, you could count fifteen and then it exploded. And they flew over exactly where Barty was, over Doodlebug Alley, as it was now known, on their way to London. The damage there was appalling, the Blitz all over again, five thousand civilians killed in June alone.

But somehow Barty was grateful: not for the bombs, but for the challenge they presented her with, the challenge of concentration, of fighting exhaustion, of keeping calm, of not giving in. And by the time the worst was over, she knew she was pregnant, and with that the worst of her grief ended too.

Many years later, in the serenity of her old age, she was to say that there could have been no happy outcome for her and Laurence together; that his ferocious selfishness, his obsessive demands, a personality so quixotic it verged on instability, could have created nothing but distress for both of them. But at the time, so possessed by him and by her love for him, it was almost unbearable.

She raged, she wept, she occasionally even screamed with grief; Parfitt, proving herself the very best of friends, bore the brunt of it, listening to her hour after hour, walking with her round the camp, even occasionally shouting back at her, asking her who she thought she was, that she was not the only one who had lost their man, there were three more in the camp alone. And then taking care of her when she began to be sick, covering up for her when she fainted, and finally, against all Barty’s wishes, reporting her pregnancy to the CO and having her removed from the front line.

‘I’m sorry, Miller,’ she said, as Barty shouted at her, her face contorted with rage, ‘but you’re nothing but a liability, and we got a war to win. This ain’t no place for you.’

Later that day, Barty apologised to her; it was a lovely day, they had the afternoon off and they were lying in the field looking up at the great ceiling of barrage balloons above the cherry trees in their orchard.

‘I’m sorry,’ Barty said, reaching out, taking Parfitt’s hand, ‘so sorry. Of course you’re right. And you’ve been such a good friend. Forgive?’

‘Yeah, all right,’ said Parfitt cheerfully, ‘long as you give me me hand back, people’ll think we’re bloody lezzies.’

She had gone back to her house in London; there was nowhere else apart from Ashingham, and she couldn’t face that. Not yet anyway.

Walking in the door, the sense of Laurence hit her like a physical blow; she felt faint, staggered, had to sit down. There was a letter on the table propped against a last gift from him, an exquisite French carriage clock with decorative panels: ‘This is to mark our lifetime together,’ he wrote. ‘I know we have said it many times but just in case you were in any doubt, I do love you to a quite extraordinary degree. Look after yourself, won’t you? I need you. Laurence.’

And she sat there, holding the letter in one hand, the clock in the other, crying and wondering. How was it possible to hurt so much without failing to function altogether? And then she was reminded quite forcibly of the need to carry on: for as she sat there, she felt the most extraordinary sensation. A creeping, a fluttering, like a tiny, captive bird; which became still and then after a moment, began again; and she realised suddenly what it was, it was her baby, Laurence’s baby, alive, moving, exploring her, exploring its boundaries, and she sat there, staring down at her still-flat stomach in a shock and a delight which was the first pleasure she had known for four months. And from then on things were never so bad again.

She had to tell the family of course. Celia was, as she had known she would be, calmly supportive. She made no enquiries as to who the father might be, simply said that if Barty began to feel lonely or vulnerable, she would be very welcome at either Cheyne Walk or Ashingham, and then said that if she would like to do a little proofreading it would be extremely welcome. Of all the help offered to Barty over the following few months, that was without doubt the greatest. She found work the most marvellous antidote, both to grief and her sickness, which never eased; as she said, when Jenna was finally born, not many women were still suffering from morning sickness in the final stages of labour.

In the final two months, she did move down to Ashingham; she began to feel vulnerable on her own, and the thought of giving birth in the middle of an air raid as Venetia had done—did not appeal to her.

She moved into the Dovecot, and had the baby at the nursing home where LM had had Jay; ‘I wish she had been here,’ Celia said, visiting her the day after Jenna was born, ‘she would have so liked the thing of history repeating itself, right down to living in the Dovecot, that’s where she was before Jay was born, you know.’

‘I do know. And I know what you did for her that day, too,’ said Barty, who had been told the story by Adele.

Adele had come to her very remorseful, shortly after Barty left the ATS, and asked her to forgive her for her outburst after the funeral.

‘I’m so sorry. It was unforgivable. I really don’t have any excuse.’

‘I think you do,’ said Barty, smiling at her, ‘every word was true, I was behaving very badly.’

‘It must be fun to behave badly,’ said Adele, slightly wistfully, ‘I’ve forgotten what it’s like. I’d quite like to do it myself. In theory. Only in practice there’s absolutely no one who appeals.’

‘That’s because you loved Luc so much,’ said Barty. ‘I’m sure no one will ever appeal to me again, either.’

She was very clear, however, on what did appeal to her: and it was not a life lived out in the nursery. Even after Jenna was born, and she was swept up into this new, demanding life and love, she did not change her mind. She was as determined as Celia had been to continue with her career; it was as intrinsic to her as breathing.

Celia told her that her job at Lyttons was waiting for her as soon as she wanted to resume it; ‘several jobs, as a matter of fact, we are woefully understaffed. More so than in the last war, so many young women have gone this time, Lyttons is beginning to look like a home for old gentlemen.’

It would not have occurred to her to include herself among the more elderly of the staff.

Barty planned to return to London in the early summer. The war was virtually over, it would be safe, what appeared to have been the last bomb had fallen in March; there was an easing of blackout regulations, the shelters were being closed, the barrage balloons brought down, the firefighting services were being cut. And ‘At last, thank God,’ said Celia, visiting Ashingham one weekend, ‘people are beginning to dress decently at the theatre again.’

Adele winked at Barty across the table.

‘Thank God indeed,’ she said.

In any case, Barty wanted to leave Ashingham. Life there was not entirely happy. Lady Beckenham’s fears about the behaviour of the new Earl had proved well-founded. He was arrogant, pompous and charmless, worried the tenants, upset the staff and complained so much about the small boys that even the mild-mannered Mr Dawkins told him he would not be sorry to return to the school’s old premises for the summer term.

And he had several run-ins with Billy Miller, culminating in Billy’s refusal to saddle up one of the horses for a ride one morning.

‘I’m sorry, your lordship, but it would be wrong. The horse is lame and you are quite heavy.’

‘You bloody well do what you’re told,’ said Beckenham, ‘and saddle that horse up. And don’t make personal observations.’

‘I can’t saddle her, I’m sorry,’ said Billy, ‘my decisions about the horses have never been questioned, and if you don’t believe me, ask her ladyship.’

‘Her ladyship, as you call her, is no longer my mother, but my wife. And my wife would certainly agree with me that it was not your place to query my decisions. You’re a damn sight too full of yourself, Miller, and this is not the first time I’ve noticed it. Now, do what I say.’

Fortunately for both Billy and the horse, Lady Beckenham had been in one of the stalls herself and heard this exchange.

‘James,’ she said icily, ‘a word please. Billy, go up to the house and fetch my crop, would you?’ She watched him walking heavily out of the yard, then turned to her son. ‘How dare you speak to Bill like that. For the very first time today I feel glad that your father is no longer alive. The grief and embarrassment that exhibition would have caused him is almost unimaginable. Not to mention the complete lack of concern for your horse.’

‘He’s paid to do what he’s told,’ said James.

‘Not at all. He’s paid to do his job. Which is look after the horses. You seem to be under the misapprehension that the servants are in some way inferior to you. An extremely vulgar point of view and one you would be well to rid yourself of, if you are to run this place with any success.’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Mama. I would have thought you were the last person to have subscribed to this newfangled “we’re all the same under the skin” rubbish. Miller has a very strange manner. Something to do with being Barty Miller’s brother, I imagine, and what’s more, with that handicap of his, I’m not sure he should be running the stables. Not sure he’s all that able.’