Andy grinned at her. ‘Trouble is my middle name, apparently,’ he said. He turned to Ashley. ‘Look, old chap, I’m just a family friend. Why not come down off your high horse and shake hands?’
Ashley muttered something.
‘What was that?’ Andy asked. ‘If you’re imputing something awful from the fact that I put my arm round Tess to keep us together as we walked down the lane . . .’
‘Ashley,’ Tess said. ‘Go home. You’ve got your car outside no doubt? Then get into it and . . . and go home. Otherwise I shan’t be answerable for the consequences.’
Ashley, unfortunately, chose to sneer at this, though Tess could see that the sneer had a distinct wobble to it.
‘Oh, yes? I suppose you’ll never speak to me again? I suppose you’ll quite happily forget our past relationship?’
He made it sound . . . well, he made it sound a good deal fonder than it had been. Tess took a deep breath.
‘Go home,’ she repeated. ‘Tomorrow’s another day. Say good-night to everyone and go home.’
‘Right,’ Ashley said defiantly. ‘See you in the morning, then?’
‘No. I’ve a previous engagement.’ Tess swung the back door wide, then shut it again as cold air flooded in and Ashley made no move to go. She turned to her stepmother. ‘Marianne, would you tell Ashley, please?’
‘Ashley, Andy’s known Tess for many years; they were childhood – childhood friends,’ Marianne said calmingly. ‘I really do think you’d better go.’
‘But my leave ends tonight,’ Ashley said. He suddenly sounded very young and very miserable. ‘I can’t come back tomorrow, even if . . . if Tess would see me. I can’t go, just like that.’
‘Yes, you can, Ash,’ Tess said. ‘Good-night.’
Slowly and dramatically, Ashley turned to the back door, pulled it open and went through it. Everyone was beginning to breathe again when he turned back.
‘Tess? Come and see me off? Let me explain?’
Tess would have said no, but Andy gave her a shove.
‘Go on, or you’ll still be here at midnight,’ he muttered. ‘You won’t be long, it’s freezing out there. I’ll put the kettle on.’
So out into the darkness stomped Tess, in a terrible mood, longing to tell Ashley a thing or two. In silence they made their way to Ashley’s sports car, then Ashley swung the handle and hastily got behind the wheel.
‘Tess,’ he shouted above the roar of the engine. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’
‘I know you say you do,’ Tess said coldly.
‘What?’
‘
I know you say you do
,’ Tess bellowed.
‘Oh . . . well, I want to marry you.’
It was now Tess’s turn.
‘What?’
‘I want to marry you.’
Evilly, Tess cupped a hand round her ear.
‘What? Didn’t quite catch . . .’
‘I WANT TO BLOODY MARRY YOU!’ Ashley bawled. Even in the semi-dark, Tess could see his face flushing with effort.
‘That’s very nice of you, Ash, but I’m afraid I don’t want to marry anyone, not just yet. There’s a war on, remember?’
‘Nice? And what’s the war got to do with it? If you mean I’m nice, why don’t you just say “yes”?’
Tess was jolly sure that Ashley had heard every word, was simply using the roar of the engine as an excuse to mess her around. So she leaned into car until her mouth was only inches from Ashley’s ear.
‘NO! The answer’s NO,’ she shrieked. ‘Good-night, Ash.’
And leaving him pinioned behind the wheel of the car, with the engine roaring, she hurried back to the house, slammed the kitchen door and locked it. Then she stood, head bent, listening. She heard the sound of the engine gradually lessening as Ashley drove up. Deeping Lane, she even heard the gear-change as he turned out on to the major road. Then silence came back, just the sounds of the night – the wind in the trees, the sleepy chirp of a nesting bird – came softly to her ears.
Tess turned back into the kitchen. Cherie, Marianne and Andy were all looking at her; Cherie and Marianne with respect, Andy with interest.
Tess took a deep breath, gulped, and burst into tears.
Andy was the first to reach her.
‘Too much emotion all at once,’ he said, taking her hand and shaking it gently, and not attempting to put his arms round her, though Tess half hoped he would. ‘I’m awfully sorry I seem to have sparked off such a row, but I’m sure you’ve calmed things down with – er – Ashley.’ He turned to Marianne. ‘Now, Mrs Delamere, Tess asked me back for a meal but I’m sure it would be best if I made myself scarce. I’ll be here early tomorrow morning since Tess and I have an appointment in the city later.’
‘Nonsense, Andy, you will stay and have supper with us,’ Marianne said briskly, very much in her old manner. ‘Tess, go up to your room, dear, and tidy yourself up a little – your face could do with a wash and your hair needs a comb. Cherie, you must have finished your homework by now, so you can lay the table. Now, Andy, do you like roast rabbit and onions?’
Andy was telling Marianne how very much he liked roast rabbit and onions as Tess trailed miserably out of the room. What an idiot she had made of herself, bursting into tears like that! It wasn’t as if she regretted the scene with Ashley – well, she regretted that there has been a scene, but she did not regret the fact that Ashley had been told where he got off. The cheek of him, the assumption that she was, in some way, his property, his girl! He had been riding for a fall for many months – years – it was about time he learned the truth.
But what had Andy really thought? Did he believe that Ashley was an important part of her life? That they would marry, one day? The trouble was, Andy really was sophisticated, though he didn’t appear so. He knew how to hide his feelings. Never once, in the entire encounter, had he seemed ruffled, either by the physical danger posed by Ashley’s wild attempts to hit him nor the subtler danger of being reminded that he was neither as tall nor as handsome as Ashley himself.
Does he like me? Tess found herself wondering as she washed, changed and combed her hair. Or did he come down here for old times’ sake and nothing more? If he likes me, is it just friendship? Or could it possibly be something warmer?
It wasn’t until she was half-way down the stairs, looking as cool, calm and collected as she urgently desired to feel, that it occurred to her to question her own feelings. Did she want Andy to like her very much? Ashley said he loved her – did she love Andy? How could she love a boy she had last seen nine years ago, when he was a stripling of thirteen? How, for that matter, could he possibly love her?
Bloody Ashley, Tess thought, crossing the hall. He messes everything up! If he hadn’t come bursting in making stupid remarks then Andy and I would simply be two old friends who’d met after a long time and enjoyed one another’s company. What I’d better try to do – what I’d better jolly well succeed in doing – is pretend the Ashley scene never happened and pick up where Andy and I were when we got off the bus.
If that were possible, that was.
Thirteen
Spring 1943
‘
WELL, TESS DELAMERE,
you’re a one and no mistake! I know tha’s a year or two since we’re met – I’m that sorry about your dad’s death, by the way, which go to show how long it is – but Mr Collins from the post office were tellin’ me that you’re Land Army now – as I can see! He say you’d worked up at that there Castle Museum all through the Blitz and the moment that eased off, you went and worked in the country! Whass it like, being a Land Army girl, then? I’ve often thought of doin’ it myself, tell the truth. More fun than the bleedin’ munitions factory, I dessay.’
Tess looked up, startled by the flow of words, then moved over; she was sitting on the Number 5 bus and Ruby Southern, Janet’s one-time crony, was lowering herself into the seat beside her, talking as she did so. Now, she settled in and then turned to Tess once more, her loud, laughing voice overriding Tess’s attempts to answer her first question.
‘Cor, I caught the bleedin’ bus by the skin of my teeth, that I did! Nothin’s simple any more, gal Tess – hev you noticed? I bin to city hall ’cos all our stuff, ration books, the lot, was in the house when it come down, last Sunday mornin’, early. Good thing I din’t come down an’ all, but I were stayin’ wi’ me cousin Suzie at the time, an’ George, of course, weren’t around.’ Ruby peered curiously at her companion from under a rather long fringe. ‘Come to think of it, what are you doin’ on this bus? Mr Collins, he say you’d been posted away.’
Tess laughed, though she sighed inwardly. She used bus journeys pleasantly as a rule, to think about her latest outing with Ashley or to wonder about Andy; where he was, what he was doing. But small chance there was of quiet reflection with Ruby beside her. As for being posted away, it was true that she had worked for the past two years at a farm no more than six or seven miles from the Old House, but it wasn’t exactly foreign parts, the way Ruby had made it sound. Today she and her employer, Jim Sugden, had attended the cattle market in the city. They’d sold six fatteners and bought two in-calf cows and then Mr Sugden had said that if she wanted an hour or two in the city and didn’t mind coming home by bus . . .
Tess had jumped at the chance, because she wasn’t on duty again until early morning, which meant she could spend the night at the Old House. But first she’d gone up to the museum to see all her friends on the staff there, then she’d done a bit of window shopping – not that there was much to buy, mind you – and finally she had caught the bus home, and no sooner had she settled herself into a window seat than Ruby had plumped down beside her. She had lost touch with most of the village girls once they moved away or wed, but she did know that Ruby had married a worker in the shoe industry and moved into the city . . . oh, years ago.
Now, Ruby grinned at Tess and settled herself more comfortably in her seat, pushing her laden basket down on to the floor between them and then unbuttoning her coat and taking a deep breath which she expelled in a long, low whistle.
‘Phew! Aren’t I glad I don’t live at home no more! D’you live at home? Naw, course you can’t, not since bein’ posted. I bin livin’ in St Gregory’s Alley till we was hit, last week, but the place was destroyed completely so since there’s only me now George’s abroad, I’ve moved back in wi’ my parents.’ She sniffed. ‘You oughter hear ’em! Do this, do that, don’t answer back, pick up them dirty socks . . . you’d think I were five, not nigh on twenty-five, wi’ my own hubby an’ my own home. Or at least, my own bomb-site,’ she added with grim humour.
‘Oh Ruby, you don’t change – well, not in some ways,’ Tess said, turning to laugh at the older girl. She remembered Ruby as a plumpish fifteen-year-old who wore too much make-up, curled her dark hair into a frizz and never stopped talking. Now Ruby was quite slim, with her hair cut short and no make-up at all – but she still never used one word if fifteen would do. ‘How many questions is that and in what order do you want them answered? I stayed at the museum until it was fairly clear I wasn’t all that necessary, then I applied for the Land Army and said I’d like to work for Mr Rope because he was near home. I thought I’d be able to live in Barton and keep my eye on my stepmother and Cherie, but in fact they sent me to Catfield, to the Sugden’s place, Willow Tree Farm, and since they’ve got a bed for me, and we start early and finish late, I live in. But I go home whenever I’ve got time off, of course,’ she added.
‘Oh aye? Get on better with your stepma, do you? I ’member some spats when you was a kid.’
Tess chuckled. ‘She’s not so bad now. She quite likes me – and I’m awfully useful in my own quiet way. I can do the tax and explain things about Daddy’s pension and manage points and coupons and so on. And I work hard in the garden, catch fish in the Broad in summer, look after the hens . . .’
‘Got a feller?’ Ruby asked, clearly bored by so much perfection, Tess thought ruefully. ‘My George’s in the bleedin’ Army, he’s in Burma . . . abroad, anyway. But I’ve got ever such a nice friend – he’s a Yank, ever so generous. Only my mum think that ain’t right, so we’re havin’ to meet on the sly, like.’
‘I don’t really have a fellow, just good friends,’ Tess said rather guardedly. She had heard rumours about Ruby and Yanks and now she knew they were true; poor George! ‘I’m friendly with Ashley Knox still – do you remember him? And with Andy Anderson, Lady Salter’s nephew.’
‘Ashley? Oh aye, I ’member
him.
Everyone were in love with him,’ Ruby said. ‘Ever so nice lookin’, was Ashley. In the Air Force, in’t he? Oh aye, I ’member Ashley right well.’
‘Yes, he’s RAF,’ Tess said, nodding. ‘He’s doing rather well, he’ll probably be a squadron leader one day, but he’s a flight louie now . . . lieutenant, that is. He’s up in Lincolnshire, flying fighters. We spend a good deal of time together when we’ve got leave. And Andy is Herbert Anderson, Lady Salter’s nephew. He was around all one summer when we were young. Surely you remember him, Ruby? He was a skinny, dark-haired boy with specs, rather serious.’
‘I remember him, too,’ Ruby said, nodding. ‘Sin him a coupla times a coupla years back, as I recall. Must ha’ bin after he come back from Dunkirk. Weren’t too good, from what I heered. Where’s he now, then, eh?’
‘Oh, in London, somewhere,’ Tess said vaguely. ‘I see him from time to time . . . but his job takes him away a lot.’
She saw Andy when he came home on leave, but the distance between them was growing, partly because of something Andy had said on one of his leaves as he and she, crouched over a wood fire in the living-room at the Old House, had been trying to roast chestnuts in the glowing embers.
‘When the war’s over I think I’ll live in Greece,’ Andy had said, trying to shield his face from the flames whilst fishing a dropped nut out of the ashes in the grate. ‘It’s a marvellous country and the people are fine. I love England, of course, but no one could deny that it’s pretty cold and wet nine months out of the twelve. How do you fancy Greece?’
‘Dunno; never been there,’ Tess had said. ‘I don’t speak the language, though. I expect I’d be homesick.’
‘I talk Greek well enough for both of us,’ Andy said lazily, and squatted back on his haunches to peel the rescued nut. ‘Don’t tell me you want to hang around here, after the war? Athens . . . all that history . . . the wine-dark sea . . . you’d love it.’