Stella’s steps were a little unsure. Philip supported her with a firm arm the short distance along the street. Back in the house, they braced themselves for a silent passage up the narrow stairs, determined Mrs Elliot – surely awake and listening out for the slightest sign of trouble – would be thwarted. In their stark little room they found the blackout had been drawn, and the vicious lilac walls were muted by the low-watt light.
Stella was grateful for Prue’s advice. The gin had done much to improve the setting for her seduction. She sat on the bed and longed for music, candles, dancing. But, thanks to the gin, the hideous carpet and curtains and the designed meanness of the room could not really touch her. These were merely another cause for laughter, should they dare laugh …
Philip left the room carrying a sponge bag and dressing-gown. Stella took advantage of his absence to undress quickly and put on her dressing-gown. In her slightly inebriated state the regular nightly duties of brushing teeth and hair did not occur to her. She climbed into the small hard bed with its scant blankets and firm pillows, and waited.
After what seemed a very long time, Philip returned. He slapped his jowls, a watery sound in the quiet.
‘Thought I’d better shave,’ he said. He hung his uniform neatly in the upturned coffin of a cupboard, and placed his shoes by the door in a strict to-attention pose, as if his feet were in them for the national anthem. Then he flung himself on the bed, smelling of toothpaste, aftershave and whisky. They drew quickly towards each other, wool dressing-gowns pulled open by the roughness of the blankets.
‘Remember,’ said Philip, ‘no noise, no cries, no laughing. We’ll have to save all that for the rest of our lives.’
Stella, in her eagerness to get on with the event in hand, would have sworn eternal silence.
‘Think we’d better put out the light,’ she whispered smudgily. ‘If I see you, I might cry out in wonder.’
In the absolute dark, they giggled nervously. As their hands hesitated over each other’s bodies, and their lips met and parted, met and parted, Stella was aware that the quality of their desire had shifted since the night in her old nursery. It was as if a premature familiarity, an unwanted sign of how it would be for untold future years, had emerged unbidden. A little afraid, but wanting more (more what? she kept asking herself), she lay wide-legged in the blackness, waiting for the moment in her life she had been taught was so important and must not be given lightly. She was glad Philip could not see her, glad she could not see him. The confusion in her mind was between the imaginings of how it might have been and how it actually was.
This
.
Here he was, very sudden, unexpectedly heavy. There was a moment’s pain. A burning in the depths of her. Then there was nothing. Just the emptiness of darkness.
It was over. She knew this because Philip rolled off her, panting. Now, not even their hands touched.
‘The first time, always …’ Philip murmured eventually.
‘I know.’
‘I didn’t hurt you?’
‘No.’
‘She won’t have heard a thing, bloody woman.’
Stella, puzzled by the extent of Philip’s concern about their landlady, heard him turn away, shift himself comfortably. He slept very quickly. She herself remained on her back. There was much she would have to ask Prue, she thought. There was also much she would have to keep from Prue, for fear of her laughter.
They were woken by a tapping at their door next morning: Mrs Elliot called out that breakfast was on the table.
‘Silly old cow,’ murmured Philip. ‘Her only pleasure in life must be spoiling others’ fun.’
Stella studied his sleepy face, less familiar than the photograph she looked at every morning. He drew her towards him, kissed her on the forehead.
‘Don’t let’s give her any satisfaction,’ he said. ‘Let’s get up.’ Ten minutes later they faced a scant breakfast. Philip seemed in much better spirits than the day before. He dabbed a knife in the minuscule ration of marmalade.
‘There are some economies not worth making,’ he said, ‘and this place is one of them. I’ve decided: we’re
moving
. We’re going to book in to your glamorous hotel. My godmother sent me ten pounds for my birthday. We’re going to spend every penny …’
‘The two nights we agreed, they’ll have to be paid for.’ Mrs Elliot, who had been listening behind the door, strode over to the table and picked up the empty metal toast rack with a vicious flick of her wrist. ‘I’ll not be replenishing the toast,’ she said, ‘neither.’
Philip produced a crumpled ten-shilling note from his pocket and slammed it on the table.
‘Keep the change,’ he said.
Mrs Elliot could not help gasping. ‘I dare say I could do another slice if you want one,’ she said.
Her offer was firmly declined.
They sat in the sun lounge of the Grand Hotel in wicker chairs, a tray with coffee laid on a wicker table between them. Outside, destroyers lay motionless on a sun-petalled sea: the cry of gulls was dulled by the domed glass roof, the palm trees in pots, the condensed warmth of the place. No one else was there. The hotel was so short of visitors that when Philip had asked for a double room and bath, the receptionist offered a suite for the same price.
In the lobby, Stella had found her chandeliers, her ruby
carpet
and swirling staircase. There was a wireless in their sitting-room, a vase of dried honesty, comfortable chairs, and a view of the harbour. Stella took so long to examine every detail of her dream that Philip had to urge her to hurry if she wanted coffee before lunch.
In the sun lounge, he asked her to marry him again.
‘But I said yes yesterday. Did you doubt me? What makes you think I might have changed my mind?’
‘I just want to be absolutely sure.’
‘You can be.’
Philip frowned, but still seemed to be in high spirits. ‘Then I have a confession to make.’ He was silent for a while. Stella waited, curious. ‘Those girls I mentioned when we first met – those girls in the past …’
‘Not that many of them, as far as I remember.’
‘Two. Two especially. The thing being … I may have exaggerated. Whatever I may have indicated, I was boasting. I didn’t actually … with either of them.’
‘Well?’
‘So … last night was the first time for me, too.’ He looked down.
‘Does that matter?’
‘I thought it might. I hadn’t the courage to tell you. I rather fancied the idea of your thinking of me as an experienced hand … I was ashamed of being such an amateur. I mean, I’m twenty-three. Most men, by then …’
Stella’s love, which had waned a little in the darkness of her lonely night, returned – a small poignant gust in her chest. She reached for his hand.
‘You don’t mind?’ Philip asked.
‘Of course not. I’m rather pleased.’
‘Rather?’
‘Very.’
‘It’ll get better. It probably wasn’t any good for you. It’ll get better and better, I promise. And also, I love you. I love the way you don’t mind about that awful café yesterday, the dreadful guest house. I don’t know why we didn’t come straight here. Mustn’t give into her dream too soon, I thought. Silly confused thoughts, something to do with showing who’s boss.’
Stella smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have minded where we’d gone, what we’d done. Though I confess this place is … the sort of thing I was rather hoping for.’
‘Good. Let’s give that bored waiter something to do. Let’s have sandwiches in our room for lunch. Let’s turn on that wireless—’
‘– and dance,’ said Stella.
‘Don’t imagine there’ll be much time for dancing.’ Philip grinned.
They spent the afternoon in the large double bed, a bright winter sun lighting their bodies, hours flying in the concentration of each other. They bathed together in the deep cast-iron bath, revelling in six inches of very hot water and Stella’s lavender soap. They dined, along with only two other couples, in the silent cavernous dining-room crowded with ghost tables of white napery. The underemployed waiters made much of trundling the meat trolleys to their table, pulling back the silver-domed lids with a grand flourish, and serving two minuscule cutlets with the kind of solemnity that must have applied to vast joints of pre-war beef. With a pudding of jelly, given status by a frill of imitation cream, they drank half a bottle of champagne. Stella made Philip laugh with stories of Hallows Farm.
Aware of the shortness of time left to them, they climbed back up the red stairs at nine thirty. Blackout in their rooms was concealed behind thick curtains: pink lamps had been lit, the bed turned down. They heard on the news that the Allied Armies had invaded French North Africa. But their concern was the few hours left: their last chance for God knows how many months. They hurried back into the bed, leaving on the lights. They spent the kind of night that would have shaken Mrs Elliot and her prim Guest House to their foundations.
‘I knew very early on,’ said Philip the following afternoon, at the station, ‘that I loved you – or at least that I
thought
I loved you: you were the sort of girl I’d always had in mind. But – I don’t know how to put this: I don’t think I
felt
the kind of love you’re meant to feel when you ask a girl to marry you. I think what I felt was the urgency of war, the need for firm plans.’
‘I expect a lot of couples feel the same: such an unreal, unsure time.’
They sat on a bench on an empty platform. The train was due in two minutes.
‘I have to admit I’m not really sure I loved you properly even when I first proposed, the day before yesterday.’ Philip spoke rapidly, wanting to say so much before the departure. ‘But now I
do
. I do. Believe me?’
Stella nodded.
‘Since the nights, I suppose. That’s why I proposed twice: once, semi-sure, once absolutely sure.’
Stella smiled. Philip glanced at his watch.
‘Hope I’ve not spoiled anything, confessing. It was just terribly important you should know the truth. Will you tell me just once more? Will you tell me you’ll marry me as convincingly as you can?’
‘I will, yes.’
‘Whatever happens?’
‘Whatever happens.’
‘Thank God for that. That means the weeks apart, however long, don’t matter so much. I mean, being sure.’
‘No.’
‘I love you, I love you.’
‘I love you, too.’
They kissed. They hugged, tears in their eyes. Then the train, horribly punctual, came roaring up to stop their shorthand promises, and remind them it was now time to brace themselves, as Churchill had urged, to their duties.
* * *
Stella slept on the journey. She had never known such tiredness. She wondered how she would manage to stay awake through supper, fend off Prue’s curiosity. She dreaded the dawn rising tomorrow, milking the cows in the freezing darkness. Sleepily, it occurred to her that, for all her stories of Hallows Farm, she had not told Philip the place was beginning to feel like a second home.
At the station she found light snow. A few flakes were falling from the dark sky, but they quickly melted on the windscreen of the Wolseley.
It was very cold in the car. Mr Lawrence had brought a scarf and thick jacket for Stella to put over her coat. She was touched by his thoughtfulness.
‘All went well, I hope,’ he said, after a few miles of silence.
‘Philip asked me to marry him. I said yes.’
She could hear Mr Lawrence grinding his teeth.
‘Good,’ he said eventually. ‘If he’s the right one, you won’t regret it.’
A
few weeks after Stella had returned from Plymouth, Mrs Lawrence fell ill. She struggled for a couple of days with a bad cough and a temperature. Then Mr Lawrence announced one morning at breakfast he had insisted she spend the day in bed.
‘It’ll be the first time for twenty years she’s done any such thing,’ he said, ‘but I told her if she didn’t I’d call the doctor – an even worse threat, in her eyes. One of you will have to take over from her today. Which shall it be?’
Prue’s reluctance was instant. She had an assignation with Barry. She busied herself spreading plum jam on a second piece of bread to avoid meeting her employer’s eye.
Stella, since her official commitment to Philip, had discovered that she had become less indifferent to any duty that was required of her on the farm. Being engaged, it seemed, had altered the frizzy nature of love. Now, knowing she was secure, her thoughts were not, curiously, permanently with Philip. There was no longer a glazing of indifference between herself and whatever the matter in hand. She found herself better able to concentrate on the animals, the fields, and actively enjoy them. Secretly, she was missing Philip less than she imagined possible. Instead, what she now craved was music – a piano, a concert on the wireless. She wondered if there was a need for some kind of craving, at all times, in human nature, and spent many hours contemplating the subject of solace. If the thing you most want is missing, where do you turn for comfort? A line from Keats, vaguely remembered from school, came to her in answer. ‘Glut thy heart on a morning rose …’ Well, she thought, in her job as a land girl she was brutally exposed to Nature: she would try. She began to observe more accurately, find strange pleasures in the smell of earth newly turned by the hoe, the gilt-edged clouds of winter skies, the feeling of awe within a wood. She confessed these new sentiments to Ag, who had understood at once.
‘I’ll have to get you reading Wordsworth,’ Ag said. ‘No one better on the partnership between Man and Nature. He’s pretty well convinced me of the compensations of the earth. Hope he’s right, because if Desmond doesn’t come about it’ll be all I’m left with.’
She had sounded so solemn, envisaging a spinster life with Nature her only lover, Stella wanted to laugh.
‘I’d be happy to do whatever’s needed, Mr Lawrence,’ Stella now offered, ‘though I’m not much of a cook.’