We'll Meet Again (37 page)

‘My dear, I think I ought to go to the office,’ Charles said, rising stiffly from his chair.

‘Yes, if you have to. I see nothing much has changed.’ Muriel offered her cheek to receive his kiss. He obliged with a perfunctory peck and hurried from the room. She sighed heavily. ‘I expect everything will be left to me as usual. Meg, you’re being very quiet. Have you nothing to say for yourself?’

‘Welcome home, Mother,’ Meg said, smiling.

‘I returned not a moment too soon as far as I can see.’ Muriel squared her shoulders with the air of a general about to face battle. ‘I need to see Marie and discuss menus with her. Heaven knows we’ve suffered terribly from rationing on the mainland. The meals became so boring and predictable, but I suppose we were luckier than most. Pip, go and fetch the wicker picnic hamper from the hall and take it to Marie. Mrs Barton’s cook packed a few extras for you all when we heard that food was even scarcer over here than on the mainland.’

‘Mother, you’re an angel,’ Meg cried, giving her a hug.

‘Really? What did she send?’ Bertrand’s eyes brightened and he leapt to his feet. ‘Is there any chocolate, or maybe a meat pie?’

‘How do I know, Bertrand? I expect it’s something delicious. The Bartons’ cook can perform culinary miracles with very few ingredients.’

‘We’ll go and help Marie in the kitchen,’ Maud volunteered, edging towards the doorway. ‘Come on, Bertie.’

‘Don’t let that greedy pig Pip get to the food first.’ He hurried after her, closing the door behind him.

‘I’ve returned to a madhouse.’ Muriel fanned herself with a lace handkerchief. ‘I go away for a few years and when I come back I find the whole place crumbling about my ears, and dependent relatives popping up left, right and centre.’

‘Yes, Mother. It’s very trying.’

‘But at least the house is still standing. I suppose that’s a good thing even if you have let everything go to rack and ruin, Meg. Plymouth was virtually razed to the ground, you know, not to mention the East End of London, and I believe Coventry was very badly hit. You really were most fortunate to escape the bombing.’

Meg slipped her hand through her mother’s arm. ‘Come outside, Mother. I want to show you something.’

Muriel allowed herself to be led out of the house. When she saw the sad state of the stables and outbuildings it was only a sharp intake of breath that betrayed her innermost feelings. Ruthlessly, Meg dragged her on through the vegetable garden, across the wasteland that had been the pleasure gardens
and down to the ruined summerhouse by the lake.

‘Well, Mother? Do you still think we had an easy time of it?’

Muriel looked around her and with a slight shake of her head she raised her chin, meeting Meg’s eyes with a look of pure steel. ‘There must be some form of government compensation to pay for all this. Your father must look into it at once. We’ll soon have everything back to normal. I’m here now, Meg. You’ve done your best, I’m sure, but this will take some organisation.’

Meg opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. Mother had not changed during her five years’ absence and she probably never would. She had never been able to resist a challenge and the one presented to her now was of epic proportions. Meg could only stand back and admire her mother’s single-minded determination to whip the world around her into a manageable shape. But instinctively she also knew that she was being quietly but firmly relegated to her lowly position as the youngest daughter. Mother had taken charge.

‘Come along, Meg,’ Muriel said, stepping daintily over piles of rubble. ‘This isn’t the time to mope around. There’s much to be done, starting right now.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘I must find Marie. I need to tell her that I was very sorry to hear about Eric. We’ll never find another estate manager as good as he.’

Meg had to run to keep up with her as she
marched across the cracked, sun-baked earth. ‘Wait a moment. There’s something I must tell you.’ The thought of her mother sailing into the kitchen and coming face to face with Gerald filled her with alarm.

Muriel stopped and turned her head to look Meg in the eyes. ‘I know all about Gerald masquerading as David. Charles told me in the car on the way home.’

The look in her mother’s eyes confirmed Meg’s suspicion. ‘You’ve known about him all along, haven’t you, Mother?’

Muriel replied with an expressive shrug of her shoulders. ‘Your father and I have no secrets. Marriage isn’t all about romance and passion, Meg. It’s a question of give and take and mutual understanding. I won’t pretend that it’s been easy, but we came to a compromise many years ago and it’s worked.’

‘And you don’t mind us knowing that Gerald is our brother?’

‘He’s chosen to keep the name LeFevre. I don’t think there is any need to broadcast the details of his birth certificate, and I think that eventually, when I’ve had time to train him, he will make an excellent estate manager. David has never been interested in the farm.’

‘You’ve seen David?’

‘Of course I have. You may have been marooned here for the duration, but there is life outside the island, you know.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

Muriel walked on, stopping momentarily to make tut-tutting sounds when she came to the place where once her rose garden had been her pride and joy. She carried on, talking over her shoulder as she went. ‘Did I tell you that he’s engaged to a delightful girl called Sonia? No? Well he is, and her father is something high up in the RAF. David has decided that he wants to stay in the air force and make it his career. In that event, Gerald will be very useful indeed.’

Meg hurried after her. ‘I suppose you’ve got my future planned as well?’

Muriel stopped again, this time to fling open the tack room door and poke her head inside. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Someone has been using this place as a lavatory. It will have to be thoroughly disinfected.’

‘Mother?’

‘Of course I’m not going to interfere in your life, Meg. What a silly idea. But I think it might help you get over your crush on that German if you spent a few months in Oxford with Josie.’

‘Mother!’

Muriel raised an eyebrow. ‘I know all about Rayner Weiss. Adele told me in confidence about the May Ball, and your father mentioned that he’d turned up here as well. I’m not stupid, Meg. I can work these things out for myself.’

Feeling as though she were ten years old again,
Meg stared at her mother in amazement. ‘I don’t want to go to Oxford. What would I do there?’

‘I don’t know. Study something or simply keep Josie company. She’s been very depressed since Paul ran off with the silly little ATS girl. Apparently the affair started before the war, but she was married. Then her husband got himself killed and she wept all over Paul Shelmerdine’s broad shoulder. You know how susceptible men are.’

Struggling to cope with this shocking piece of news, Meg swallowed hard. ‘I can’t believe it. Aunt Josie and Uncle Paul seemed like a perfect couple. She absolutely adored him.’

‘You have a lot to learn about men, my dear Meg. Anyway, Josie is expecting you as soon as we can book a passage. The change of air will do you good.’

The London planes were heavy with dusty summer foliage as the taxi pulled up outside Aunt Josie’s house. Meg felt as if she had travelled back in time; everything looked exactly the same as it had six years ago. She paid the driver and he carried her cases up the red brick front steps just as Josie opened the front door.

‘Meg, darling. How lovely to see you again.’ She flung her arms around Meg’s neck and kissed her cheek, enveloping her in a heady waft of Mitsouko. Tipping the cabby handsomely, despite Meg’s protests that she had already done so, Josie waited while he hefted the suitcases into the hall. She closed
the door on him, turning to Meg with a welcoming smile. ‘You’re so thin, but you look utterly gorgeous. Come into the drawing room and we’ll have a drink.’ Leading the way, Josie rang for the maid and almost instantly a large girl with thick legs and a sulky face barged into the room.

Meg suspected that she had been loitering in the hallway. Either that or she had a magic carpet secreted somewhere in the servants’ quarters.

‘Grace, will you take the suitcases up to the guest room, please?’

For a moment Meg thought that Grace was going to refuse, but she replied with a grunt and lumbered out of the room. She could be heard grumbling as she bumped the cases on each tread of the staircase.

‘You just can’t get good help nowadays,’ Josie said, sighing. ‘Girls don’t want to go into service. They earn far more in factories than we can afford to pay them.’ She went to the cocktail cabinet and poured a measure of gin into a glass. ‘I’m having a snifter, Meg. How about you?’

Meg shook her head. ‘No, it’s a bit early for me, thanks, Aunt Josie.’

Josie added a splash of water and took her drink over to the sofa. She sat down, raising her glass to Meg. ‘Here’s how, darling. Now, tell me everything. I want to hear your story from the day you left us until – well, until today.’ She curled her legs elegantly beneath her, listening quietly and sipping her drink. Meg gave her a graphic account of their
life during the occupation, but she hesitated when it came to explaining about her relationship with Gerald.

Josie put her head on one side, smiling. ‘Darling, you don’t have to be tactful. I know all about my brother’s peccadilloes.’

‘You knew about his affair with Marie?’

‘Of course I did. Don’t forget I was just a child at the time and living at home. Charles was a very naughty boy. He had an eye for a pretty face, but don’t they all? Anyway, I have to give Muriel her due; she was an absolute brick about everything. We never really got on, you know. Too different, I suppose. But I did admire her for standing by Charles as she did, and for seeing that the boy had a good education. But then, Marie was an excellent cook and maybe Muriel thought that Gerald would be useful one day.’ Josie pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry, darling. That was extremely bitchy of me. I know I wouldn’t have behaved so well in similar circumstances. Well, actually, I haven’t, if it comes to that.’ She broke off as Grace bounced into the room to announce that dinner was on the table. She left as suddenly as she had appeared, slamming the door behind her.

Josie raised her delicately pencilled eyebrows. ‘Thank goodness we don’t entertain nowadays. Grace would sound the death knell to any dinner party.’ She uncurled herself in a sinuous, catlike movement and stood up. ‘Let’s eat, shall we?’

Meg stood up and brushed the creases out of her skirt. ‘Aunt Josie, Mother told me about …’

‘About Paul and the beastly little redhead? It’s all history now. I’m completely over it. But please, Meg, don’t call me aunt. It makes me feel old and ugly.’

‘You’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met in my life and you don’t look a day older than you did six years ago.’

‘You’re very sweet, Meg dear. But I know it’s not true. Anyway, Paul’s gone and he won’t be coming back.’ Josie gave her a brittle smile and led the way to the dining room.

Grace plonked a bowl of brown Windsor soup in front of them. ‘Tureen’s broke, missis. I had a bit of an accident.’

‘Thank you, Grace. That will be all.’ Josie waited until she had gone, shaking her head. ‘I’ll have to let her go, of course. Anyway, I can’t really afford to keep her on.’

Meg tasted the soup. ‘This is good.’

Josie poured wine into Meg’s glass and filled her own, taking a mouthful and then refilling it to the brim. ‘This is the last of Paul’s wine cellar. It gives me a morbid satisfaction to think that I’m enjoying it and he isn’t.’

Meg forced her lips into a smile, but she did not believe a word of it. She could sense Josie’s pain was still raw, and worse still, she was obviously drinking far too much.

‘Don’t worry,’ Josie said, refilling her glass for the
second time. ‘I’m not drowning my sorrows in drink, but it does help a bit. I’m divorcing him, you know.’

‘I can’t say I blame you, but are you sure that’s what you want?’

‘Listen to you, poppet. You sound like the sensible adult and I’m the gauche teenager. No, of course it isn’t, but I don’t have much choice. Paul is dotty about Pamela and he’s asked me for a divorce, so what can I do? Anyway, I found out that she wasn’t his first affair. It’s amazing how people crawl out of the woodwork to tell you things you’d rather not hear when there’s the hint of a scandal. Apparently most of those nights spent working late at the office had nothing to do with his career. Sorry, darling; this is all very sordid.’

‘You could fight for him.’

‘Oh, my dear! You are so very young.’

‘Well, I would. If you really love him go out and get him back.’

‘And you’d do that, would you?’

‘I most definitely would.’

‘Maybe, but you’re thinking about that handsome young German, aren’t you? Not an unfaithful husband like mine.’

Meg felt the blood rush to her cheeks and she stared down at her empty plate. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.’ She could not bring herself to admit that Rayner was never far from her thoughts. Even now she had a letter in her pocket ready to post to the only address she had, which was his parents’
home in Dresden. She had already sent two such missives but had not yet received a reply.

Josie was silent for a moment, sipping her wine. ‘If he truly loves you, Meg, nothing will keep him away.’ Then, as if being serious was too much for her, she chuckled mischievously. ‘In the meantime, there’s nothing as good for a broken heart as keeping occupied. You could go to college and study, or you could come and work for me in my little boutique.’

‘Really? You’ve got a shop?’

‘Boutique sounds better, darling. I invested most of the money that Paul gave me to salve his delicate conscience in the lease on Madame Elizabeth’s dress shop. Do you remember it?’

‘I’m not likely to forget.’

‘Her husband was badly wounded in North Africa and she sold up so that she could stay at home and look after him. I bought the stock and used my inimitable fashion sense to build up my clientele. It also helps to have rather well-off friends with lots of clothing coupons.’