The Bannister Girls (20 page)

Ellen half-heartedly pushed away the strong arms holding her, feeling the rich low laughter vibrating in the male chest so close to her own body, and sending the oddest sensations through every vein, every pore.

It was dark and pungent in the hayloft, and she had come in here at Peter Chard's request, climbing the rickety ladder carefully, her skirts held above her ankles, to take stock of the bales of straw for winter feeding for the animals.

And there, waiting for her, was the handsome Cornish-man, and now here they were, tumbling in the musty hay like two wanton village lovers, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or scream or shout…

He saved her the trouble of deciding by covering her mouth with his own, in a long open-mouthed kiss that was nothing like Ellen had ever been kissed before. His body was a weight she found heavy and sensual on her own, the sound of his breathing suddenly rasping and hoarse, and hot on her cheek. He raked his hands through her hair that had somehow come unpinned and fell about her shoulders.

‘God, but you're the most devilishly handsome woman I've ever met, little Ellen,' Andrew muttered into her neck, where the pressure of his lips made her shudder delightfully.

‘Handsome? Is that good?' She felt so strange and elated at this unexpected encounter with him, and the fact that no one in their right minds could call her little passed completely unnoticed. Nor did she think of it as a bit of patronising male seduction patter – then.

Andrew's low laugh throbbed against her breasts again. She felt the deep rumble of it against her, and then the caress of the small firm breasts that had never known the feel of a man's hand before. Shivers ran deep and strong inside her. She should protest. She should thrust him away from her. God knew she was probably strong enough to cope with this. But somehow she didn't feel strong and capable any longer. She wasn't the Ellen who had marched with the Women's Movement in London, carrying banners, shouting slogans, receiving insults as to her suspect gender, and hurling them back in language no lady should even know, let alone use…

She felt … as Andrew wanted her to feel. Little and protected and wanted … and a woman…

‘Handsome is very good, sweetheart,' he whispered against the skin at her throat that had somehow become exposed as his experienced fingers undid the fabric of her high-necked blouse. The fingers stroked gently, knowing
that if he went too fast she would fly like a frightened bird, yet the ache for her was becoming unbearable. He had to know more of her. He had to possess her…

Ellen felt the hand slide down the length of her body while his mouth still covered hers with kisses, interspersed with sweet whispering against her lips. And oh, it was so tempting to just let it happen, this thing that was reputedly more stupendous than a flight to the stars. This was love, and she yearned to know its mysteries…

The dimness of the hayloft was split by a wide shaft of light as the barn door below was unceremoniously thrown open. Motes of dust danced in the thin February sunlight. The two people above had been too absorbed in their own pleasures to be aware of the rumpus outside, but now both sat up with a shock as the screaming began.

Andrew cursed loudly, while Ellen re-arranged her clothes quickly, and simply wanted to die as she looked down into the good-looking, disbelieving face of Peter Chard, glimpsing the agony in his eyes.

She didn't register it for more than a second, because her attention and that of Andrew Pender's was totally taken up by the young woman yelling furiously at him in an accent similar to his own.

‘So I've tracked you down at last, you bastard! I'll have the law on you for tricking me, though mebbe I'm in time to save your latest floosie from the mess you've got me into! Married me, so-say, and left me with a babby, Miss, saying he was going off to enlist, only I had me doubts about that, knowing him for the snivelling coward that he is. All his guts are in his trousers, and that fizzles out soon enough. There ain't nothing of the real Conchie about this one. The truth is he's too yellow to fight for King and country! And he's already got a proper wife and kids down Penzance way, and I'll have him up before the Magistrate on a charge of bigamy if ‘tis the last thing I do!'

She began to wail in a fury, while Ellen sat rigid with shock. It couldn't be true! But one look at Andrew's grey face, and she knew that it was. All his vitality had died, and he looked hunted and pathetic, and she felt sick at the sight of him. And even worse at the name the Cornish girl had called her.

His latest floosie … she was swallowed up by shame. What an idiotic, gullible fool she was to have fallen for his line. In a rage, she suddenly leaned over and wrenched at his long dark hair, nearly pulling it out by the roots, dimly aware of the girl below screeching at her to grab him where it hurt most, and put the bastard in queer street for a while.

Peter was up the ladder in seconds, pulling her away from the cowering man. Ellen knew she acted like a street-woman, and she didn't care … she didn't care … she felt the stinging slap on the side of her face, and it was Peter's way of showing that he did care.

‘Remember who you are,' he snapped at her. ‘There are better ways of dealing with this. Tidy yourself up before you go into the house and telephone for the constables. We'll get this fellow taken in custody and arrange for the young woman to be sent home on the train. There are legal matters here that others can sort out. It's nothing to do with us.'

He spoke with harsh authority, and Ellen nodded dumbly. He would despise her now, and she didn't blame him. He had always thought her so strong, and now he knew how weak she was. She couldn't look at him, nor at the other swine who had so nearly seduced her. Love died as quickly as it had flamed, and beneath all the humiliation she suffered, it was a thought that could still astound her. What use was love, after all, if it was so fleeting an emotion? She should be thankful to the Cornish girl, but she couldn't look at her either. She pinned her hair as best she could with shaking hands, climbed down the ladder with legs that felt as though they
didn't belong to her, and ran towards the farmhouse.

She made two telephone calls. One was to the constables to come to Chard Farm at once. The other was to Rose Morton in London, begging her to let her come and stay at the old shared house for a while, since she needed to sort herself out. Ellen had never begged for anything, but if she ever needed sanctuary, it was now, and Rose gladly forgave her everything and welcomed her back to the fold.

She was gone before the constables arrived, and before she had to face any of the three people in the barn again.

‘I suppose life is a little easier now,' Clemence admitted to her only chosen confidante among her knitting circle ladies. Mrs Fitzwarren was ‘county', and therefore a suitable companion and helpmeet on the circle afternoons at Meadowcroft. Mrs Fitzwarren usually arrived long before the lesser ladies, to take up their clacking needles and chatter in their country accents in the fine drawing room with its chintz furnishings and deep carpets, waited on by the Bannister maids with afternoon tea and buttered scones.

‘But for all your girls to have left at the same time must have been a wrench for you, Lady Bannister,' commented Mrs Fitzwarren. Not for them the easy first-name terms of village folk. Etiquette was still to be observed in the best houses, and was all the more precious because so many people seemed to be throwing aside the old values.

‘Well, of course, Ellen was always very self-willed, and her roots are very much in London and her business affairs. I doubted that a farming life would suit her for long.'

Mrs Fitzwarren nodded sympathetically at the controlled voice of her hostess, learning nothing from the careful words. Clemence had seethed to the point of apoplexy at Ellen's sudden departure with only a note to say she was desperate for her old life, and not to think too badly of her for going back to London. But no one would ever guess it.

‘And the others –'

‘Dear Louise simply had to get away, of course. It was understandable, and Angel is such a dear to accompany her. The Highlands of Scotland will be very beneficial to Louise after the shock of poor Stanley's death. Such a blessing that dear Mr Mackie could accompany them for protection.' She neatly twisted the truth of it to her own satisfaction. She had repeated the phrase so many times, she began to believe it herself.

‘Will you have some more tea before the ladies arrive, Mrs Fitzwarren? Cook has made some splendid seed cake, and we might indulge in a slice, if you wish.'

Knowing the lady's sweet tooth, Clemence deftly moved the conversation away from her girls. They had all behaved so badly that she didn't even want to think of them any more, let alone discuss them. She smiled blandly, and Mrs Fitzwarren privately assumed that the few tales going around about the upsets at Meadowcroft must be wrong after all. Either that, or dear Lady Bannister should have been on the stage for the fine performance she was giving!

Already, the raging battles at Verdun were becoming no more than fading newspaper reports in the minds of folk who weren't actively involved or who had loved ones at the Front. It was frightening, Angel ruminated, but it was even possible to get used to reading of enormous casualties, of mud and still more mud, of privations and barbed wire and yet more mud, where the soldiers trampled over one another to go ‘over the top' of the trenches, and slither back down with bullets shattering their faces. How easy it was to become complacent when every day reported the same thing, the same horrors, the same mounting lists of the dead, with only the names differing.

She shivered to think of Margot's young brother Edward caught up in such horrors. He was such a boy, always ready for a lark. Little more than a year ago, she remembered his birthday party at Margot's elegant home, and the way the
so-correct public schoolboys had been allowed to let their hair down in games of charades and find-the-thimble and other harmless pursuits. And now he was a soldier, hard and tough as soldiers must become, and how could he possibly change so overnight?

A year ago … her heart jolted as she drove steadily through the changing countryside, with Louise and Dougal in the rear seats of the Sunbeam. They conversed quietly, and she was left with her own thoughts. This time last year she had been caught in a miserable downpour of rain, and looked into the eyes of a handsome Frenchman who was to change her life.

Jacques … the longing for him swept over her in a surge of pain. How long before she saw him again? Would she ever see him again? Or was the Kaiser's lust for power going to destroy something more beautiful than she had ever imagined?

To her wild relief there had been a short note from Jacques before they left for Scotland.

‘My heart aches for the lovely memories of Verdun,' he had written. ‘My family spent some time there when I was a boy, and to think of it so desecrated now is to feel they are tearing at the very soul of France. Forgive my eloquence,
chérie
. Only to you can I say the words that are in my heart. Remember that I think of you always.'

Such a short, poignant letter. She had wept over it, sensing all the things he didn't say. So many other women must receive such letters, hiding the fear from their loved ones, the hopelessness of a war that seemed to be going nowhere. She had squared her shoulders, and got on with the business of packing her clothes for the journey north. This much she could do for Louise, and whatever Clemence's thoughts on it, she intended driving the couple to Edinburgh.

As it happened there was no need for her to go so far. Dougal's father had business in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and would meet them there and take Dougal and Louise the rest
of the way. It was a long enough journey for Angel, despite stopping at a wayside inn overnight, and she was thankful when they arrived at the plush hotel in Newcastle.

Dougal's father was clearly a prosperous man. Angel hid her slight surprise, feeling guiltily that like Clemence, she had assumed that everyone who spoke without proper King's English diction, must be less well-connected. She couldn't have been more wrong. The older Mr Mackie was a director of a Scottish newspaper, and it was clear that he and his wife welcomed the bereaved friend of their son, and would make her comfortable in their estate just outside the city of Edinburgh for as long as she cared to stay.

It was all said in the natural way that moneyed people spoke, and Angel knew that Louise would be in good hands. It was too soon to think beyond the friendship between her and Dougal, but privately Angel thought they were well-matched.

She hugged her sister when they parted after a night spent at the Newcastle hotel, waving her off in the smart Bentley motor with Mr Mackie at the wheel. Angel's eyes were misty. Dougal's war was over. However embittered he might feel, his family would be thankful to have him back safely with only a stiffened arm to remind them. And together, he and Louise might well find solace as well as love.

Her restless thoughts roamed on as she began the long drive home again. There was no hurry, and the crisp panorama of the northern countryside in its mantle of frost and lingering snow was enchanting. Where the snow melted in the thin sunlight, evidence of an early spring made itself felt in the lacy network of tiny buds on trees and hedgerows. It was so hard to think of the war raging in France, yet so impossible not to think of it, and to compare it with the lovely peacefulness here.

They had all made an early start, and it was mid-morning when Angel reached the Yorkshire town with the familiar name. Bannister Textile Works was situated here. She had
never seen the place. On an impulse, she asked directions and drove towards the imposing red brick building.

What fun it would be to call unexpectedly on her father. How delighted and surprised he would be! Clemence had declared that she had no intention of telling him of Angel's decision to drive her sister north, washing her hands of the whole foolhardy scheme.