London Belles (34 page)

Already apprehensive about what she might find in Stepney Olive was now increasingly anxious at the old lady’s words, especially when she got closer to the area and saw how many people were trudging around in family groups, carrying bundles of possessions, the blank look on some of their faces giving a hint of what they might have been through.

Olive had almost reached Stepney when she had to stop because of the ARP men turning people back, and explaining that it was too dangerous for them to go into the area because of the number of bombed and collapsed buildings.

When Olive told them where she was heading, though, after consulting a street map she was told she could go ahead, and given instructions of how to get there.

It seemed that because Dulcie’s family’s home was in a street on the city side of the area, the houses were still standing, although by the time she got there Olive felt that she was almost choking on dust and smoke.

It was Dulcie’s mother who opened the door to Olive’s knock, her facial resemblance to Dulcie plain, despite her careworn appearance. However, the relief on her face when she opened the door changed to apprehension when she saw Olive standing there.

Thinking that her anxiety was on Dulcie’s account, Olive made haste to tell her, ‘It’s all right; Dulcie’s all right. I’m her landlady . . .’

But to her surprise, instead of greeting her news with relief, Mrs Simmonds simply said sharply, ‘Oh, yes, of course Dulcie would be all right, knowing her.’ She was looking past Olive now and out into the street. ‘It’s our Edith I’m worried about. She’s a singer, you know, and she’s going to be famous. She’s got a top agent looking out for her,’ she told Olive proudly, fresh apprehension colouring her voice as she added, ‘She was singing last night at a club up the West End. I just hope she’s all right.’

‘I’m sure she will be,’ Olive tried to comfort her. ‘The West End wasn’t bombed at all, according to what I’ve heard. But about Dulcie . . .’

‘What about her? She’s been causing trouble, I suppose. That’s Dulcie all over. She’s always been difficult and hard work.’

Although privately Olive might have agreed with the other woman’s comments, somehow hearing them spoken by Dulcie’s own mother made her feel unexpectedly protective of her lodger so that she said firmly, ‘I think I’d better come in.’

‘Well, if you must, but this place won’t be what you’re used to. Always singing your praises, Dulcie is, and telling us what a lovely house you have and how much at home you’ve made her; how you think so much of her and treat her like a daughter, asking her to look out for your Tilly.’ Mrs Simmonds gave a sniff of disdain. ‘Always going on about Tilly and Agnes and Sally, she is, saying what good friends to her they are and how much they think of her. Of course, she only does it to upset Edith, and why I don’t know. I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter than Edith, good from the minute she was born, Edith has been, and sing – she’s got the voice of an angel.’ Fresh anxiety showed on Mrs Simmonds’ face. ‘Worried to death about her, I am, and I shan’t have a second’s peace until I know she’s safe.’

Olive’s thoughts were whirling after Dulcie’s mother’s revelations about what Dulcie had said to her. Normally Olive would have wondered what on earth had made Dulcie create such a fabrication, but after listening to Dulcie’s mother praising her younger daughter whilst criticising her elder, Olive suspected that she knew the reason for Dulcie’s behaviour. Against her will she felt sympathetic toward Dulcie, her compassion aroused at the thought of a child – any child – being rejected by its mother in favour of a sibling. It was no wonder that Dulcie was the way she was.

Mrs Simmonds showed Olive into a small, cramped and dark back room, lifting some clothes off a chair and putting them down on the table so that Olive could sit down.

‘Them’s our Edith’s stage clothes. Course, they cost a fair bit, they did, but then like she says, she’s got to look the part if she’s to get the good jobs. Her agent reckons she’s going to be bigger than Vera Lynn. I just wish I knew she was safe.’

‘Of course you must be worrying,’ Olive agreed. ‘That’s the price we mothers have to pay for loving our children, isn’t it? I don’t like to add to your worries, but I thought you’d want to know that Dulcie had a bit of an accident last night. She ended up with a broken ankle, and they’re worried that she might have concussion.’ Olive paused, waiting for Dulcie’s mother to express alarm and concern and then, when she made no comment, continued quietly. ‘She’s in hospital – Barts – I expect she’s told you that Sally is a nurse and works there. You’ll want to go and see her, of course.’

‘Well, ordinarily I would, I suppose, but I can’t go anywhere now, not when I’m so worried about Edith. It’s a pity our Rick isn’t here. He could have gone to Barts and seen her.’

Olive stood up. She had felt sorry for Dulcie’s mother before she had met her, and in some ways she still did now that she had seen how careworn she was, but it went against all Olive’s own feelings about motherhood to hear the other woman speaking so unkindly and uncaringly about her elder daughter. It was surely a mother’s duty to love all her children, because if she did not then who would?

Despite her feelings, Olive still managed to say politely as she left, ‘I hope you have some news of Edith soon.’

‘They say there’s dozens dead in Stepney, and even more in Silvertown, and they’ve hit the Woolwich Arsenal and the Docks. Dulcie’s dad was summoned first thing this morning to go and help clear some of the buildings that got blown up. He’s a jobbing builder.’

Olive nodded her head and then turned away. There was nothing she could say that would lighten the burden of anxiety the other woman was carrying. Only the safe return of her daughter Edith could do that. Olive knew how it felt to love one’s daughter but Dulcie’s mother had two daughters, not one.

It was with some troubled thoughts in her head that Olive made her way home, glad to have them interrupted when Sergeant Dawson called out to her when she walked past the church hall. He was wearing his Home Guard uniform rather than his police uniform and he told her that he and some of the rest of their local Home Guard had gone over to the East End as soon as it had come light, to do what they could to help.

‘Some of the houses in Silvertown have come down like a pack of cards,’ he told Olive as they walked towards Article Row together, ‘There’s whole families just walking around with nothing but the clothes on their backs and nowhere to go to. And they’re the lucky ones.’

‘We just weren’t prepared,’ Olive said unhappily, ‘and these poor people have paid the price for that.’

Her ankle still ached but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been, even if the plaster cast on her leg was driving her mad already, just like Sister, who had told her that she was to stay in bed and not move, and who had said, when Dulcie had told her that she wanted her handbag because she wanted to put her lipstick on, that she was in a hospital, not a dance hall, where she’d be staying until they were satisfied that she wasn’t going to suffer from delayed concussion.

Last night, racked with pain, her emotions overwhelmed by the relief of being alive and the kindness the other girls had shown her, and despite the flood of injured bomb victims being rushed into the hospital and filling the ward, Dulcie hadn’t really been aware of what all those injured people had meant.

This morning it was different. This morning her mind was as sharp as a knife, picking up on the conversations going on all around her as the occupants of the other beds talked about what they had experienced. And the more she heard the more anxious about her own family Dulcie became.

It wasn’t until Sally, on her tea break, came into the ward to see her that she was able to ask the question uppermost in her mind.

‘How can I find out which streets have been hit?’ she asked Sally urgently. ‘Only I’ve heard people saying that Stepney got it pretty badly.’

‘I can’t help you, Dulcie; I wish I could,’ Sally was forced to admit. She’d been in the operating theatre virtually all night as patient after patient was wheeled in, all of them victims of the bombing and most of them badly injured. There had been one little baby boy they’d had to operate on. He’d been eighteen months old and his right leg had been so badly crushed that they’d had to amputate it. Sally had seen the surgeon wiping away tears as he looked at him. She had cried herself afterwards. It was impossible not to be affected by such things.

Worst of all, George had told her, were the people who came in asking if their loved ones had been brought in, hoping desperately to find them alive when George knew that they were in the morgue.

Such had been the shock of the night’s bombing that Winston Churchill himself had been in the East End this morning to reassure people and praise them for their courage, so Sally had heard from another nurse.

‘I expect we won’t know properly which streets have been hit until we get tomorrow morning’s papers. How are you feeling? How’s your ankle? Is it giving you much pain?’

‘Just a bit of a twinge, and I’d be feeling a lot better if Sister would tell me where my handbag is and let me put my lipstick on.’

Sally laughed. ‘I’ve got your bag. I took it with me when I went on duty to keep it safe. I’ve got to get back on duty now, but I’ll get it for you when I have my next break.’

‘There’s no point in us all going,’ Olive had told Tilly and Agnes. ‘They’ll only let Dulcie have one visitor, and you’ll be able to see her tomorrow, Tilly, when you’re back at work. Besides,’ she’d reminded them, ‘you’ve both got St John Ambulance this afternoon, haven’t you?’

Olive had her own reasons for wanting to see Dulcie on her own.

From her bed in the middle of the ward Dulcie was able to watch when visiting time came and the ward doors were opened to admit the surge of anxious relatives waiting to see their loved ones.

Although she pretended she wasn’t doing so, Dulcie’s gaze searched quickly amongst the visitors, looking for Tilly and Agnes’s familiar faces. Not that she expected to see them, just because last night she’d gone and made a fool of herself, saying what she had.

The stream of visitors turned to a trickle, and Dulcie told herself that she wasn’t in the least bit concerned that hers was the only bed without a relieved relative standing next to it.

And then Dulcie saw Olive coming towards her, carrying a copy of
Picture Post
, which she dropped on the bed, to lean over, take both of Dulcie’s hands in her own and say emotionally, ‘Dulcie, that was so generous and selfless of you last night to tell Tilly and Agnes to save themselves and leave you. I do thank you for that, my dear.’ As she spoke Olive squeezed Dulcie’s hands gently in her own. For a moment neither of them spoke and then, to Olive’s own shock as much as Dulcie’s, Olive leaned down and gave Dulcie a hug, telling her fiercely, ‘I’m glad they didn’t leave you, Dulcie, and I’m glad that you’re safe. Number thirteen wouldn’t be the same without you.’

‘You mean it would be a lot better,’ Dulcie couldn’t resist quipping as Olive released her to smile ruefully.

‘I might have thought that once, I admit, but I don’t think it any longer. I’m sorry about your ankle. Oh, and your mother sends her love.’

‘You’ve seen Ma? Are they all right? Everyone’s been saying that Stepney got hit badly with the bombs.’

Olive’s heart ached anew for Dulcie when she saw her genuine concern.

‘Your parents are fine and the street hasn’t been touched. Your mother is a bit anxious about your sister, though, because she was out singing somewhere last night and still hadn’t come home.’

‘Oh, yes, Ma would be worrying about her.’

There was a raw ugly animosity to Dulcie’s voice now. Instinctively Olive reached for her hand again and held it, telling her, ‘We’re all looking forward to you coming home. We can put a bed up in the front room for you until you can manage the stairs. Nancy next door has a spare single we can borrow and I’ll ask Sergeant Dawson if he’ll give her Arthur a hand moving it round.’

Home? That was what number 13 was to her now, Dulcie recognised, with a stab of shock.

‘I know that things haven’t been all that good between you and me,’ Dulcie told Olive, determined to clear the air between them, ‘but they’re going to be different now that me and the others are going to be friends.’

‘I’m very glad to hear that, Dulcie, because after what you did last night, I can’t think of anyone I’d want Tilly to have as a friend more than you.’

‘Dulcie says she’s like a second daughter to you,’ Dulcie’s mother had told her, so as she stood up when the bell rang to signal the end of visiting time, Olive leaned forward and kissed Dulcie on the cheek and then gave her another hug.

‘We’ll all be thinking about you, and Tilly will be in to see you tomorrow.’

The first thing Agnes heard about on Monday morning when she got to work was that people had tried to shelter in the underground, despite the fact that the Government had said that the underground was not to be used as a shelter.

‘Had some poor souls here from the East End,’ Smithy told her. ‘Bin walking around all day, they had, on account of their own houses being blown up and them having nowhere to go. It will be even worse tonight after last night’s bombing. I’d heard there was four hundred at least killed last night.’

Agnes shuddered and went pale. ‘We saw them on Saturday night, the bombers. We were going out for our tea and we saw them come over, then Dulcie got her heel stuck in the cobbles and broke her ankle and this German plane saw us helping her.’

‘Sounds like you had a lucky escape.’

‘We did,’ Agnes agreed in a heartfelt voice, thinking no more about what she had said as the queue built up at her ticket window and she got to work.

By the time Ted finished his shift at five o’clock that afternoon, though, the story about Agnes’s lucky escape had been passed on amongst the staff, its details embroidered with each telling so that when Ted heard it from one of the other drivers, the story was that Agnes had been badly hurt when a bomb had blown up in front of her.

The shock and despair that gripped him as he listened to the other driver was like no pain Ted had ever experienced. Agnes, his Agnes, was badly injured, and could be lying in hospital at death’s door. In that moment Ted knew that he would give up his own life willingly if only Agnes could be saved. Knuckling the tears from his eyes he made his way up the steps and out of the underground station into the smoke-tainted late afternoon air. He’d go round to where she lived, ask them, beg them, to tell him which hospital she was in and then he’d go and see her and he’d . . . Ted lifted his downbent head to blink back his tears and then came to an abrupt halt, because there, less than three yards in front of him and walking away from him was Agnes. He blinked, thinking he must have conjured her up from his own imagination, but then she dodged a group of commuters coming the other way, and he knew she was real. His heart surged and bounded with joy and relief. He ran after her, catching hold of her arm so that she turned toward him.

‘Ted!’

‘You’re safe! I thought . . . I heard that you’d been badly injured.’

‘No, Dulcie broke her ankle when we got caught up in the bombing, but I’m all right.’

All around them the tide of moving humanity ebbed and swelled but they were both oblivious to it, oblivious to everything and anything except one another.

Agnes told him disjointedly, ‘I thought, that is . . . I didn’t think you wanted to be friends with me any more.’

‘No! Agnes.’ Ted was reaching for her hand and holding it, clasping it tight in his own, his face working as emotion gripped him. ‘You mean the world to me, Agnes,’ he told her hoarsely. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. You’re the best girl a chap could ever meet.’

They stood on the pavement looking into one another’s eyes, still holding hands.

‘Then why haven’t you wanted to see me?’ Agnes asked him.

‘It was for your sake, because . . .’ Ted paused and shook his head, fighting to control his emotions, ‘. . . it was for you, Agnes, because I wanted you to be free to find someone who could give you all the things that I can’t.’

When she looked bewildered, he explained bleakly, ‘You know how we live. Mum couldn’t manage without my wages. The girls are only nine and eleven. It will be years before they are earning. I haven’t got anything to offer you, Agnes.’

‘You’ve got your love. I don’t mind waiting, Ted. Not for you.’

When he didn’t say anything she told him practically, ‘It won’t be that long before the girls are grown up, not really, and then when they’re bringing in a bit of money, you and me can marry and we can find somewhere a bit bigger, so that we can all live together.’

‘You deserve better than that, Agnes.’

‘There couldn’t be anyone better for me than you, Ted. I’ve been that upset and miserable, thinking that you didn’t want me. Last night, when that fighter plane came straight at us and Dulcie told us to run and leave her, all I could think was that I didn’t care about living if living meant being without you.’

‘Agnes.’

She raised herself up on her tiptoes and very daringly kissed him full on the mouth.

‘
Agnes!
’

The rough note of emotion in his voice made her tremble with happiness and then he was kissing her back, and telling her how much he loved her, and Agnes knew that this was the happiest day of her life.

‘Does this mean that we’re going steady now?’ she asked Ted breathlessly once he’d stopped kissing her.

‘It could be years before we can get married,’ Ted warned her.

‘I don’t care,’ Agnes told him. ‘Just as long as you love me.’

‘Of course I love you. How could I not do when you’re the best girl in the world?’ Ted told her emotionally.

* * *

Of course, Olive had to be told, Agnes’s face so alight with love and happiness as she explained what had happened.

Agnes was very young but Olive suspected that she was the kind of girl who, once her heart was given, would stay true to that first love all her life.

‘Ted wants us to get engaged. He said it will tell other lads that I’m spoken for, but he’ll have to save up for a ring first, so we thought we’d get engaged at Christmas. He’s going to tell his mum that she’s not to worry and that he’ll still be handing his wages over to her for her and the girls.’

‘I’m glad that Agnes isn’t going to marry Ted yet,’ Tilly told Olive later when they were on their own. ‘I wasn’t so sure how it was going to be when you first said about taking in lodgers, Mum, but now I’d hate it to be any different. Agnes and Dulcie and Sally – well, they’re like family now.’

Family.

Tilly was right, Olive thought. The girls she had taken in originally as lodgers as a means of earning some money had now all found and made their own special places in her heart: Agnes, who had been so vulnerable and in need of love; Sally, so practical and hard-working and yet with such a terrible sadness to bear; Dulcie, whose influence on Tilly she had feared and resented and who she had judged on Dulcie’s challenging manner, and who now, she had discovered, beneath that outer defensive attitude hungered for a mother’s love.

They were her girls now. Her London Belles, Olive thought with a surge of maternal love. The girls, her girls, reminded her of the joyous sounds of the many different bells of London’s churches, and how that sound lifted the spirits of those who heard them, just as the sound of the girls’ laughter and happy chatter lifted her spirits. Life had brought them together, and Olive prayed that life would keep them together and safe through the darkness that lay ahead, and that their hearts would always ring true.