Darkest Before Dawn (24 page)

She had seen big houses before, of course, but had never visited one, and as she climbed out of the car she felt the first glimmerings of fear. She had guessed that Roger's house would be large, possibly even imposing, but this was more like a stately home. It was shaped like an E with the central stroke missing, and just one quick glance at the perfection of the gravelled driveway, the riot of late roses in the beds which surrounded the huge curved lawn, and the view of distant parkland, dotted with ancient trees, made her realise the differences between the Trueloves and the Todds. She had always believed that her bright intelligence and pretty looks put her on an equal footing with anyone, but now, for the first time, she began to doubt this. Her parents had brought her up to be polite, truthful and self-confident, but as Roger took her arm and steered her up the curve of the stone steps towards that mighty front door, her self-confidence began to ooze away. For a moment, a picture of Toby rose, unbidden, in her mind's eye. She saw his rough hair, his kind brown eyes, his lopsided smile. In the past, she had rather despised his parents, but now Mrs Duffy seemed simply a kindly soul who admired Seraphina's looks and gasped over her cleverness. Even Mr Duffy, with his loud and raucous laugh, his broad Yorkshire accent and his habit of gripping an empty pipe between his teeth and talking round it, seemed comfortingly familiar rather than common and crude.

They reached the top of the steps and Roger rang a bell set into the stonework by the door. Seraphina blinked. Even in Liverpool, the girls never had to ring a bell to gain admittance to the flat; they either pulled the key through the letterbox on its dangling string, or simply walked straight in. But presently she heard hurrying feet and the door was flung open by an elderly man in a dark suit. He had a fine head of white hair, a large and rather beaky nose, pink-tipped and shiny, and small, very bright eyes. Seraphina was rather surprised that Roger's father should not immediately smile and welcome her, but she held out her hand, beginning to say how nice it was to meet him, when something stopped her in mid-sentence.

‘Evening, Edwards; will you see that someone takes Miss Todd's case up to her room,' Roger said briskly, stepping into the hall and handing over the suitcase which he had been carrying. ‘Where are my parents – and Kay, of course?'

Mr Edwards took the proffered case and suddenly smiled at Seraphina, though she noticed he did not do so until Roger began to move across the hallway. It made her feel better, though she realised it probably meant he was amused by the mistake she had almost made, and smiled back.

‘Your parents are in the drawing room, Mr Roger,' the man said, indicating the white-painted door nearest them. ‘Your mama told Cook to serve dinner at eight since you and Miss would be late.'

‘Righty-ho, Edwards. Oh, by the way, Seraphina, this is Mr Edwards; he's been in our employ all my life so he's a very old friend. Edwards, this is Miss Seraphina Todd.'

Seraphina's hand itched to offer itself, but the butler – she supposed he was the butler – merely gave her a little nod and a tiny half-smile, so she followed suit and, almost immediately, was ushered into the drawing room. It was a large and very beautiful room, with full-length windows, a wood fire burning in the grate and a wonderful cream-coloured carpet, covered with pink roses, upon the floor. There were three people in the room: a woman in her late forties, in a beautiful dark dress, with what looked like a diamond necklace round her neck, and a man, who appeared to be in his sixties, sitting opposite her, who got stiffly to his feet at their entrance. There was also a girl, very tall, very thin, with hair as fair as Angela's. She was smoking a cigarette in a long, amber holder, and the glance that she flicked at Seraphina seemed to be both critical and curious. But the old man was coming forward, a hand held out. ‘How do you do, Miss Todd?' he said in a deep and cultured voice. ‘Let me introduce you to my wife, Mrs Truelove, and my daughter, Kay.'

Both women murmured some sort of greeting and stepped forward to shake hands, and Seraphina smiled and murmured back. Presently, Kay was instructed to take Miss Todd to her room, make sure that she had everything she wanted, and then go to her own room to change for dinner.

‘You'd better collect her when you are both ready,' Mrs Truelove suggested, and actually gave Seraphina what in anyone less imposing might have been called a conspiratorial glance. ‘This is a big, old-fashioned house and we don't want our guest getting lost and wandering around the passages until she dies of hunger.'

Kay laughed and actually tucked her hand into Seraphina's arm. ‘No, and you might meet our family ghost, trotting along the corridor with his head under one arm and a monkey on his shoulder,' she said. ‘But you may rely on me, Miss Todd. I'll be back to escort you to the dining room, never fear.'

At noon on Sunday, Mr Chamberlain announced that Britain was now at war with Germany and, suddenly, everything changed.

The Truelove family had assembled in the living room to hear Mr Chamberlain's speech on their wireless set, and Seraphina sat on the long, comfortable couch with Kay on one side of her and Roger on the other. By this time, Seraphina had become quite friendly with Kay, who was only a couple of years older than she, but still felt rather in awe of Roger's parents. When Mr Chamberlain had finished speaking, Mr Truelove got up and switched off the set. ‘I suppose it was what we all expected,' he said heavily. ‘But it's a nasty moment, nevertheless. However, even Chamberlain has got to live with himself, and how could he do so if we reneged on our promises to defend Poland?' He turned to Roger. ‘You'll join up, of course. You've talked about the air force; well, it has to be your choice, but as an army man I'd have thought you would have kept to the family tradition.'

Roger smiled rather bleakly. ‘Times change, Father,' he said. ‘Most of my friends have put in for the air force.' He stood up and turned to Seraphina, taking her hands and helping her to her feet, though he continued to address his father. ‘This is going to be a very different war from the last one, you know. There's bound to be fighting on the ground, of course, but look at the Spanish Civil War and the way that was fought. The outcome might have been very different without air power and the sort of bombing which destroyed Madrid and broke the spirit of the Republicans.'

‘I expect you're right, my boy,' Mr Truelove said, sounding suddenly weary. ‘You must do as you think best, of course.' He turned to his wife. ‘They will have been listening to the wireless in the kitchen as well, but no doubt lunch will be served in an hour, as usual?'

His wife had begun to reply that she would just check with Cook when Kay spoke. ‘I mean to join one of the services, Father,' she said quietly. ‘We've all been talking about what we would do when war came and I'd really like to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, but of course that would be bound to mean living away from home; perhaps even going abroad. I'm told if I join the Land Army I could probably work on a farm within cycling distance of Dussendale . . . would you prefer that I did that?'

Mr Truelove looked undecided but his wife, whose face had been clouded with anxiety, was clearly relieved. ‘Oh, Kay, my dear, that would be much better,' she said gratefully. She turned to Seraphina. ‘Roger has told us that you are entering teacher training college in a week or so, to complete the course you started before your father died. Will this wretched war mean a change in your plans, too?'

Seraphina shrugged rather helplessly. ‘I truly don't know,' she said. ‘But I'll get in touch with the college tomorrow morning and find out what will be going on.'

Mrs Truelove left the living room to go down to the kitchen and Roger took Seraphina out to the stables to introduce her to his hunter, a tall, rangy chestnut, with a white blaze on his forehead. ‘Tell you something funny,' Roger said, producing sugar lumps from his pocket and handing a couple to Seraphina so that she might feed the horse. ‘I found my father down here, a couple of weeks back, and he said he was taking a last look at the horses, since when war came they were bound to be commandeered for the cavalry regiments, as they were in 1914. I didn't say anything, but this isn't going to be a war like the last; no charge of the Light Brigade for the cavalry of thirty-nine. No cavalry, for that matter.'

Seraphina laughed dutifully, though she did not, in fact, think it particularly funny, and when the gong sounded for luncheon she went indoors, meaning to buttonhole Kay and ask the older girl what she should do about her training course. The opportunity did not arise, however, since Roger, clearly restless and uneasy, took her to one side as soon as the meal was over. ‘I'm sorry to cut your weekend short – and mine, of course – but I want to get back to the city as soon as possible,' he told her. ‘I'm going to return by car – it's a small sports model, a two-seater – which means I can drop you off at your door, if that's all right?'

Seraphina said, rather numbly, that it would be fine. She was still in a state bordering on shock and found that she longed to get home so that she could discuss events with her mother.

Martha was not surprised when Seraphina came into the kitchen early on Sunday afternoon, but she was surprised to see her daughter's companion. He was a tall, blond young man, with a ready smile, dressed in sports jacket and flannels, with a striped scarf tucked into the neck of his white shirt. Seraphina introduced him, for Martha had not been present on the one occasion when Roger had called for her daughter at home. Angela had answered her mother's eager questions in her usual calm and temperate fashion. ‘He's charming, good-looking and wears very nice clothes,' she had said. ‘But Ma, he's . . . not one of us, if you see what I mean. Pa would have said he's out of the top drawer, and we really aren't, are we?'

‘No, we aren't,' Martha had said, laughing. ‘But it won't matter a jot, dearest Angie, if they are really fond of one another. I know you think kitchen maids only marry princes in story books, but it can happen in real life, I assure you.'

Angie had looked doubtful. ‘But we all thought she was fond of Toby until she said that he was all wrong for her because he was just a railway porter and she was going to be a teacher,' she had pointed out.

Martha had assured her that if Fee had loved Toby, truly loved him, the difference in their social standing would not matter, but now, shaking hands with Roger and welcoming him to her home, she realised that she had not fully understood what Angela had been getting at. This young man was not simply rich, not simply from a good family; he was what, in the old days, would have been called Quality with a capital Q. Hiding her consternation, she bustled over to the stove and put the kettle on, saying as she did so: ‘We've heard so much about you, Mr Truelove, that I feel I already know you. How sad that we should meet for the first time on the day that war is declared. I dare say you'll join up, in which case we shan't be seeing much of you, I fear.'

‘Well you will, Ma,' Seraphina said, her tone over-bright, over-confident. ‘Because Roger is going to join the air force so he's asked me to be his wife. We're getting engaged tomorrow, when the shops are open and he can buy me a ring, though it may be a while before we can actually tie the knot.'

Martha, getting cups and saucers down from the dresser, actually staggered slightly, then recovered herself. ‘Isn't – isn't this rather – rather sudden?' she faltered. ‘After all, this is a time of great uncertainty. Why, Mr Truelove might be ordered abroad immediately. And Fee, my love, you're only just nineteen. If it hadn't been for the war, I'm sure neither of you would have dreamed of taking such – such an important step.'

Seraphina scowled at her mother, but Roger answered her with his most winning smile. ‘You're right, of course, Mrs Todd; if war had not been declared, we could have taken our time . . . that's what you mean, isn't it? But Seraphina and I have known one another for four whole months and, for my own part, I was convinced from day one that she was the only girl for me. I've never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve, but I don't mind telling you that I adore Seraphina and will take the greatest care of her.'

Martha murmured that she had no reason to doubt him and began to pour tea into three cups, whilst Seraphina, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, hurried across to the pantry and got out a large fruit cake and a tin of biscuits. ‘Don't fret yourself, Ma,' she said, giving her mother's hand a warning squeeze. ‘We both know what we're doing. Roger drove me back from the country in his little sports car and we talked all the way about what was best to do. I know you think nineteen is too young, but you were only twenty when you married Pa.' She seized her mother's hands impulsively, shaking them as she did so. ‘Wish us happy and give us your blessing, Ma,' she said pleadingly. ‘We're in love and about to be separated. Make it easier for us.'

Martha sighed, knowing full well that if she forbade the engagement it would simply drive Seraphina into underhand behaviour, and might even make her do something she would later bitterly regret. ‘Of course I wish you happy,' she said rather huskily. ‘Will you slice and butter some bread, Seraphina? Your sisters will be in from their walk shortly and I'd like to get the meal over and done with by the time the six o'clock news comes on the wireless.'

It was the Saturday before Christmas. Evie and Percy had spent the previous day in the country, cutting holly, all of which they had sold, and they now intended to buy Christmas presents because although, as they were constantly told, ‘there's a war on', it did not seem to Evie that it had made much difference. To be sure, Angela had left Bunney's and gone to make uniforms in a big factory, along with her friend Annabel. They got much more money than they had been paid in the shop and though Angela said the work was pretty boring, she enjoyed the company of the other girls and had recently made a couple of shy references to some sort of manager named Bob. He was elderly, a widower with two grown-up daughters, and had taken Angie to the theatre on one occasion and on another to an exhibition at one of the museums. Evie did not think there was anything romantic in such a friendship but her sister had been taking more interest in her appearance for some time and Evie thought this was a good thing.