The Daisy Club (34 page)

Alec had heard enough babies arriving in his time not to be impressed by the idea. As the eldest of four boys, all born at home, he knew all about kettles being boiled (although he still had no idea what they did with the hot water), and the local midwife arriving, and when he was old enough he had rounded up the others and taken them out, to the park if it was daytime, or to play outside The Duck and Horse if it was evening. Playing in the road, in the dirt, was better for them, he had always reckoned, than watching their father boil kettles, and listening to their mother yelling her head off.

‘Ow, ow, ow! Oh my God, why did no one tell me? Why did no one warn me what would happen, ow!'

Alec was way up the hill, but because of the cold still air he could hear the sound, and it reminded him of when Tom and Johnny – oh God – it was Mrs Huggett! She was two fields away, but he could hear her sharp as anything, hear her cries. Maybe old Goldie had kicked her in the baby? In the front!

He started to run, but he was too fast, and he fell, he fell flat, and he cut his face and hands because the ground was so hard it might as well have been made of concrete, or granite. It really was that hard. Might as well have been a Peckham pavement that he had fallen on, really it might. He picked himself up, and stumbled on again, groaning a little as he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes, where he had cut his forehead. The blood dripped down over his hands, which made him suddenly realise what a good idea it might have been to take Branscombe's advice, and pack a handkerchief into his back pocket.

If his father hadn't always leathered them for swearing, Alec would have said every swear word he had ever heard, but he respected himself too much nowadays to swear.

That was what Miss Maude always said to him: ‘You respect yourself too much to use bad words, don't you, Alec?' And she was right. He did. He told himself this as he staggered up through the fields to where he could see the black of Miss Jean's farm coat, and hear her cries.

‘You been kicked by Goldie, then, Miss Jean?'

Jean looked up at him.

‘Oh, Alec, you're here. Good boy! No, no, I haven't been kicked. I fell and I think it's brought the – I think I have started. Can you go for help?'

‘Shouldn't I go and bring the cows in first, Miss Jean? They're that full of milk they'll burst.'

‘No, no, Alec. No, I tell you what, pull me up.' She sat up. ‘I don't think I have broken my ankle, just twisted it, but the suddenness of the fall, it has—'

Alec nodded. He knew a bit about childbirth, knew what to expect. He looked away discreetly as he pulled Miss Jean to her feet.

‘You got nuffin to fear, Miss Jean,' he told her quietly. ‘Nuffin at all. Truly.' He remembered old Nana Stanton saying that to his mother when Tommy was being born, so now he repeated it. ‘You just lean on me, now.' He bent down a little because he was considerably taller than Jean, and carefully placed one of her arms across his shoulders. ‘There now, we can go along like this, and we'll be back at the Hall before we can say knife, or butter, for that matter.'

Poor Alec could not help casting a glance at the immense udders on the cows that they were passing, wondering if he would ever be able to get back to them before it was dark. Wondering if any of them could be got in before night-time came and the blackout came into force.

‘We should never have let them out, not in this weather, but with everything as it is, and the top fields clearing under the sun this morning, I thought it would continue fine. It was only at midday that the weather turned, didn't it, Alec?'

Jean stopped to gasp as another pain hit her.

‘Yup. It was only at midday. This morning, it were cold, but it were sunny, and you could see the grass all right,' Alec agreed. ‘It's that kind of winter, though, in't it, Miss Jean? Difficult to tell whevver it will be anything but hard ground and no fodder, or we keep them in and find ourselves running out of winter feed. That's the kind of winter it's gonna be, I reckon.'

‘Ouch!'

‘Lambing will be late, I should have thought, very late this spring,' he went on conversationally. ‘And then there'll be the crops to sow. There was a good harvest this year despite everything, though, weren't there, now?'

Jean stopped suddenly, and started to laugh instead, which was a great relief to both of them.

‘To hear you talk, Alec, you would honestly think that you had lived in the country all your young life. You sound so country it makes me think that you've been here since you were born!'

Alec smiled his shy smile. He was only really repeating what he heard Branscombe and the rest saying so often when they were in the kitchen and he came in for his tea. And Miss Maude, of course, she always did like to hear what was happening on the farm, so he always did have a mind to go and tell her whatever was happening.

‘Thought you might like to hear me going on, take your mind off of it,' he told Jean in a calm and gentle voice. ‘I know our mum used to like to hear talk when she was as you are now.'

Jean stared at him, suddenly realising what he meant. Of course! Alec had brothers, he came from the East End, he would know all about babies and such like, it was natural to him. No going off to hospital for the likes of his mother, it would be a bed in the front room and kettles boiling every ten minutes, and, just like in Twistleton, doubtless a bevy of women hovering on the doorstep waiting to know the size of the baby, and what ‘make' – as her father used to say, never tiring of his joke.

‘Thank the Lord, it's not a girl,' Alec remembered the women on the doorstep always murmuring as each of the boys arrived in turn. ‘Can't bring trouble home. A boy brings money in, a girl will bring another mouth to feed long before she's old enough to read.'

All this came back to Alec as they, eventually, far too eventually, he thought, reached the Hall. Jean limping, both of them stopping when Jean gasped as another pain hit her, Alec praying all the time that the baby would not arrive before they reached the comforting sight of the old grey stone house.

‘Nearly there, Miss Jean, nearly there,' he kept saying, and finally they
were
there, and his hand was reaching out to the back door that led to the kitchen, and the door was opening, and he could feel a little warmth from the mix of kitchen fires and old ranges, not much mind, but enough to boil kettles, he was sure. He was about to call out, quickly and urgently, when he realised it was useless, because from the inside was coming an unfamiliar sound of a girl sobbing.

‘You lean against that wall, Miss Jean, and I'll just spy out the land, and then go for a doctor, or a nurse, or a—' He didn't complete his words, but walked hurriedly ahead of Jean into the boot room, and from there through the drying room, until he eventually reached the kitchens.

He pushed the kitchen door gently open and stared in. Branscombe was standing by the large old kettle, which he had placed on the range, as if he had known all along that Alec was going to come in with Miss Jean, and that she would already be in labour. His face was very grave. At the kitchen table, which looked vast, since there was only one person seated at it, was Miss Freddie. She had her head in her hands and was sobbing her heart out.

Alec stood and stared at her. He had never seen a woman crying before. He had
heard
them crying, all right. When his father came home drunk and took his belt off to his mother, and of course when the cat was run over by the brewery van. Mum hadn't been too good about that, but he had never ever seen a member of the opposite sex crying, not in real life. With no sisters, he wouldn't, would he?

‘Best if you make yourself scarce, young Alec,' Branscombe told him in a low voice. ‘Bad news, very bad news, I'm afraid.'

Alec went to say something, but since he didn't move, Branscombe pushed him a little.

‘You heard what I said! Best if you make yourself scarce. We have bad news, indeed.'

Alec still held back, so Branscombe continued to push the young man's seemingly immovable body out of the kitchen, and closed the door behind them both.

‘Miss Freddie, she's in a bad way. Not surprising.' He paused, clearing his throat a little. ‘Factory where Miss Jessica and Miss Blossom worked, it took a direct hit. Nothing left. Bombed to extinction. They're targeting the factories all the time now. No. There's nothing left of anything or anyone,' Branscombe repeated. ‘Nothing.'

Alec didn't know what to say. Why would he? Shy at the best of times, he found he was wordless now.

‘I, er – I, er—' He pointed helplessly at the scullery door. ‘I got Miss Jean in there, Mr Branscombe, and she's in a bad way.'

Branscombe stared at him.

‘Have you been in a fight?' he asked, as the light caught Alec's blood-streaked face.

‘No, Mr Branscombe, I fell. Nothing to it. No, it's Miss Jean, she's hurt herself. Fell in the field – ground so hard, all of a sudden. Cows shouldn't have gone out. They're still out. And I heard her, and ran, and I fell. No fight, no fight, but the baby – it's coming out, I think.'

Branscombe brushed past him impatiently.

‘The baby is coming out?'

Alec nodded.

‘We'll need hot water, and—'

Branscombe took one look at Jean and saw that she was clutching at the lower part of her body. They were going to need more than hot water. Beyond them, beneath the outside archway, through the half-glassed door, the older man could see something. Alec carefully draped Jean's arm around his shoulders and they started to walk very, very slowly towards the kitchen and the still-insistent sound of Freddie sobbing. Branscombe, walking ahead, inevitably was the first to see just what none of them wanted to see at that moment – snow.

As the torchlight hit Aurelia's face, she was sure that every inch of colour that might have been there had now fled, which was hardly surprising since she was well aware that she must now have had it. Someone must have blown her cover, someone must have known that there was to be a drop at that very place that night, or else why the welcoming party?

She put her hand up to her eyes, and said in French, and in as calm a voice as possible, ‘Good evening, sirs, may I be of any help? Or will you be of help to me?'

A hand descended on her shoulder, a heavy hand. It smelt slightly of oil and petrol. Aurelia frowned up into the face that held the torch.

‘Welcome to France, Mademoiselle Charbonne,' the voice said, and as Aurelia stared up into that round, friendly, reddened face, she knew that somehow, or other, heaven only knew how, considering the awful landing she had made, she had managed to fall into a friendly field. ‘Come to the farm. We must switch off our torches now we have found you. There are others, too, but you are the first!'

The hand turned her round, and the stout, short farmer walked ahead of her, while two others, their torches also extinguished, walked behind.

The farmhouse was unlit, until you went inside, and then there were discreetly placed candles. There was only one other woman there, and she was silent, placing some wine on the table for Aurelia, and nodding to her to drink it, while carving her a piece of baguette, which she pushed towards Aurelia together with some cheese.

The men sat down, and they too drank some red wine, but, perhaps because they had eaten earlier, they did not share the bread and cheese, or perhaps they were holding back out of good manners? Aurelia indicated the food, silently offering to share it with them, but they smiled and shook their heads, watching her all the time.

Eventually the man whose house, Aurelia imagined, they were sitting in spoke to her in a measured way.

‘You are better than the others, Mademoiselle,' he told her. ‘Truly much better. The others they sent to us—' He shrugged. ‘They did not even know how to eat, how to drink. They were soon—' He drew a finger across his throat, and then shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have better hope for you.'

Aurelia nodded, her expression serious. She had papers she had to pass on. She had to get them into the right hands. She knew she could trust these people. She looked from one goodly farmer's face to another. She knew she could trust them, she said aloud, slowly, looking from one face to another. She did not add that she knew she
had
to trust them, because there was nothing else she could do. As far as she was aware, it had not been the plan for her to be picked up only minutes after she landed, so her insides were still trembling from fear that her cover might be blown before she had accomplished her mission. Perhaps her feelings showed in her eyes, because her host leaned forward and started to talk.

There had been reprisals the night before, many dead. All plans cancelled, a double agent. They knew who he was. They would wait for him. They had been told to wait for him. He was done for, as far as they were concerned. An Englishman, they said, with some relish, but by the time they had finished with him he wouldn't know what he was. His wife had been shot, some time ago, but he had escaped, alas! Never mind. They knew where he was. He thought they didn't know where he was, but they did. He was good, though, you had to give him credit: spoke perfect French, perfect German. Strange to think that an Englishman should be betraying his own like that. In Normandy such a man would not be tolerated. In Paris perhaps he would, in Paris they had heard that many had turned out to welcome the invaders, but not in Normandy.

This was not getting Aurelia very far, but she was too well-versed in French country ways to try to hurry things along, and she continued to listen, while all the while wondering, over and over again, if she would ever make contact with the relevant agent, and whether he would recognise her, given the chaos that was obviously rife beyond the farmhouse building. All of a sudden England did not seem far away, it seemed a world away, and she a very small figure in a lonely place. Until she heard Miss Valentyne's voice, from what seemed like another century, but was actually only a few years before, saying, ‘If you're ever in a tight spot, always remember two things. Charm is not just an aid, but a tool to helping you. And you can never thank enough. Those two assets will help you out of any tight corner. That, and appreciating the flowers. “
Aren't the flowers lovely?
” always goes down well.'