‘Thanks, Ash,’ Tess said, and turned her head and smiled, because what she really wanted from him was to be left alone, but she couldn’t say that. If Ashley had been in her shoes of course he would have blurted it straight out, but she wasn’t capable of that sort of cruelty, and had turned away to smile in case he realised what she was thinking.
‘Anything at all,’ Ashley continued, oblivious. ‘Because life goes on, you know. It has to. I’ve seen dozens of good fellows buy it, and – and life goes on. D’you know what I mean? Only one day, sweetie, you’ll need someone and . . . d’you know what I mean, dearest Tess?’
‘Well, I do. But Mal’s only missing, Ash. I have such odd dreams, but he – he’s often in them. So I won’t stop believing he’s alive until – well, until there’s no hope left, I suppose.’
‘Oh! Right,’ Ashley said. So far as he was concerned, his tone said, missing meant presumed dead and that was the end of it. He began to unload the plums on to the new tray, talking over his shoulder as he did so. ‘I know you shouldn’t give up hope and all that, but you must be practical. Don’t just stop coming out with me because you feel you’re being disloyal to whatsisname! Let me go on taking you around a bit, come to the flicks with me, to the village hop . . . you can’t just stop living life because of a – a dream!’
‘It’s nice of you, Ash, but if I do that you know how it will be.’
‘No, I don’t. Besides, what’s the harm of a bit of a kiss and a cuddle now and then? You might easily find you feel just like I do, underneath. Believe me, sweetheart, if you’d only give me a chance you’d find you loved me just as much as you think you love . . .’
Tess, half-way up the tree again, picked the nearest plum and hurled it viciously at Ashley. It caught him just behind the ear and burst, messily. Ashley swore, laughed, stood up and grabbed her ankle before she could get out of reach.
‘You vixen! Who’s to say that Aussie would want to marry you, if he knew what a hell-cat you can be?’ He pulled on her ankle and Tess kicked out, landing a good wallop on his shoulder. ‘Now now, no violence! My ear’s fairly humming; come down and kiss it better!’
Tess reached for a higher branch, missed, overbalanced and crashed out of the tree, landing heavily on Ashley. Their mingled cries sent the thieving birds shooting skywards and brought a faint shriek from the direction of the house.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ Ashley said. He extricated himself from beneath Tess and then grabbed her and began kissing any bit he could reach. ‘That’s Mum,’ he mumbled against her neck. ‘She’ll think we’re killing each other . . . oh, oh, oh,
how
I love you, Tess!’
Tess struggled crossly away from him, then ostentatiously wiped her hands round her neck and the sides of her face where his kisses had landed. Ashley was outrageous, she thought, totally unable to keep his hands – or his kisses – to himself. And then she looked at his face and saw the raw pain that her gesture had caused, and for a moment she hated herself. She turned and gave him her hands, pulling him to his feet, then allowing him to retain her fingers in his.
‘Ash, why do you behave this way?’ she said despairingly. ‘I’m awfully fond of you and I love staying with your parents at weekends, especially now that I’ve not got a home of my own to go to. But when you’re home, I’m beginning to think twice about coming over. You keep nagging and nagging . . .’
‘I know I do; but I’m nagging for my life,’ Ashley said in a low voice, his eyes still full of pain. ‘You expect me to understand how you feel, Tess – well, how about you understanding how I feel for a change? I can’t imagine life without you, and that’s the dreary truth. Can you imagine what that’s like? To wake with an ache inside you because the girl you love thinks she’s in love with someone else? To see you in my home, with
Don’t touch, I’m spoken for
written all over you? I say I love you, but it’s more than that. I know you’ll say I’m exaggerating and being unfair, but I’m damned if I know how I’ll ever manage to live without you!’
Tess stared up at him, appalled by his words. For once there was no sneer, no sarcastic grin, nothing but an Ashley she scarcely knew staring down at her, gripping her hands so hard that it hurt.
Then he released her and turned away to start picking up the fruit which they had knocked over as they fell.
‘Well, now you know,’ he said lightly. ‘It’s the cross I have to bear, as they say. Come on, give me a hand with these plums or Mum will think we’re on strike.’
Mrs Knox was very understanding when Tess told her, with real regret, she thought she had better not spend any more weekends in Blofield.
‘I’m so sorry, dear, I’ll miss you more than I can say,’ Mrs Knox said. The two women were in the kitchen and Mrs Knox was making a meat and potato pie – potato and onion predominating – and continued to work as she spoke. ‘I do wish you and Ashley could have made a go of it, because I’m so fond of you, but Ashley’s not easy, I’m the first one to admit that. He can be so sarky and strange, but underneath he’s very loving. I had him all to myself once, when he’d been suffering from mumps and I took him away to recuperate. He must have missed his friends and his home, but he amused himself, and helped in the house, and never grumbled. In other words, he was sweet and thoughtful. However, that isn’t the point. Tell me about this young Australian, because if you’re sure . . .’
‘I am,’ Tess said miserably. ‘The awful thing is that I’m truly fond of Ashley, but I’m not at all in love with him. He’s been like a brother to me, and the truth is no one can fall in love just because they want to. For me, it has to be Mal. I can’t explain why, because he isn’t nearly as handsome as Ash, but . . .’
‘You don’t have to explain, Tess. Love, true love, really isn’t logical or even sensible, I know that. Why, when I first met Arthur I was engaged to someone else, and in those days . . . but I mustn’t run on. This young Australian, didn’t Ashley tell me he was . . . was missing? Wasn’t his aircraft shot down over Germany?’
‘Yes, he’s missing. But not dead; not even
presumed
dead,’ Tess said wildly. ‘He’s alive, Mrs Knox, I know he is. Ash won’t believe it, but he is!’
‘Ash probably can’t let himself believe it,’ Mrs Knox said sadly. ‘Oh, what a tangle it all is! If only . . . if only things were different.’
She did not have to say how different; it was in the wistful glance she cast at Tess, in the way she immediately began to attack her pastry.
‘I know,’ Tess said. ‘But what I can’t tell Ash, without hurting him dreadfully, is that even – even if the worst happened, I wouldn’t – couldn’t turn to him. Because I know, now, what it’s like to be in love. There’s nothing like it, is there, Mrs Knox? And I couldn’t accept second-best, not even for Ash’s sake.’
‘Especially not for Ashley’s sake,’ his mother said gently. ‘Because to marry one man while your heart belongs to another, whatever the circumstances, is a wrong and foolish thing to do. All right, my dear, I’ll do my best to explain to Ashley. That’s what you’d like me to do, isn’t it?’
‘If you could,’ Tess said apologetically. ‘I can’t. I’ve tried, but I don’t seem able to get it across.’
‘No. Because . . . but you know all that, of course. And now, Tess, if you’ll just hand me that milk-jug, I’ll glaze the pastry and put this fellow into the oven. You’ll stay for luncheon?’
Tess shoved her bicycle into the Throwers’ old shed and cooeed, heard an answering hail from the garden, and padded off down the path towards the sound. In the flower-beds as she passed dahlias nodded their heavy heads and when she brushed against them, the rich scent of chrysanthemum beds, just bursting into bloom, met her nostrils.
The Throwers’ garden was always fruitful, but as September got into its stride it seemed to make its maximum effort. Now, runner beans swarmed up their poles and along the strings, the blossoms long gone, the beans hanging in splendid bunches, whilst on a lower level sprout plants were beginning to form their first nobbles and winter cabbage, swedes and turnips were bushing out nicely.
Tess found Mrs Thrower and Cherie in the potato patch. Mrs Thrower was digging up the big, dark-green plants and Cherie, on hands and knees, was grubbing for the potatoes lying in the rich soil, every size from whales to sprats, as Mrs Thrower used to say.
Tess was seized with a sharp sense of
déjà vu
; how often, as a child, she had done just what Cherie was doing now, rejoicing over every potato found, rooting anxiously through the crumbly soil, heedless of black hands, split fingernails, or cold, wet knees! How they had enjoyed themselves, she and Janet, competing to find the biggest spud in the world, then sharing it when November 5th came round and the Throwers lit the bonfire they had been preparing all summer long and baked their home-grown potatoes in the embers.
They couldn’t light bonfires now, of course. You didn’t light fires after dark in wartime, not unless you wanted to face a jolly great fine and run the risk of bringing the enemy bombers homing in on you. But regardless of bonfires, you only had to look at Cherie’s face to see that she was blissfully happy.
Cherie had stayed with her uncle and aunt until Marianne had been well enough to manage with a couple of visits a week, and then one morning Mrs Thrower had visited Marianne in hospital and had a long and confidential chat. As a result of that chat she had caught another bus and come surging confidently into the house in Unthank Road. She had had a private word with Uncle Phil and had then come into the living-room, where Tess was doing the crossword and Cherie was knitting khaki squares, and told the child that she was needed at Staithe Cottage.
‘Our Jan scarce ever git back now she’s in Scotland,’ she explained. ‘And there’s a deal of work to be done gettin’ the Old House half-way decent, an’ there’s the two gardens, my jobs . . . well, tha’s more’n I can cope with, tell the truth. So I thought if you’d like to move in alonga us, Cherie, why not? You’d catch the same school bus, an’ you could hev the little back bedroom with all your truck in it – you’d be snug as a bug in a rug, I reckon.’
Tess had been visiting her sister at the time and had known nothing of the plans Mrs Thrower was hatching, though she had been uneasily aware, for several seeks, that Cherie must be a fish out of water in her uncle’s town house with its small garden so close to the city. Uncle Phil and Auntie May had never really liked Marianne, and though they were sincerely sorry for her now, they had never had a close relationship with Marianne’s daughter. Tess had racked her brains for a compromise, but Mrs Sugden simply didn’t have the room to give Cherie a permanent bed and the Old House was still open to the winds of heaven – and the rains, as well. It had seemed, to Tess, that poor Cherie had no choice but to remain with her aunt and uncle until her circumstances changed.
But sitting beside Cherie on the sofa and remembering the tiny back bedroom at the cottage and the well-water, the tin bath before the fire, the smoky oil lamps, Tess waited for a polite refusal from her sister. It did not come. Cherie cast down her knitting and stared across at Mrs Thrower, whilst colour stole into her cheeks and a trembling smile curved her lips.
‘Oh,
could
I?’ she said simply. ‘I would like that so much, Mrs Thrower. But the back bedroom’s Dickie’s and Podge’s, isn’t it? Wouldn’t they mind?’
‘Nah, they’ll move into the bigger room. And they’ll be tickled pink to have someone else do the washin’ up,’ Mrs Thrower assured her. ‘Why, you could come right here an’ now, if you want.’
It had not previously occurred to Tess that Cherie was actively unhappy with her aunt and uncle, but now she acknowledged it was so. Cherie was a polite young girl but like most young girls she had a life of her own to live, and she had been cut off, in one stroke, from her friends, her family and her own home. Her tentative interest in boys had died as her anxiety for her mother grew, and Tess realised now that she herself had not given much time to her sister. She had been desperately busy with the Old House, applying to the authorities for building materials to get at least a semblance of order back in her home, working extra hours at Willow Tree Farm so that she might come into the city to hospital visit, and Mal’s loss had gnawed at her ceaselessly. No wonder the poor kid was staring at Mrs Thrower as though she had suddenly grown wings and a halo!
‘Oh,
could
I?’ Cherie said again, looking, this time, at Tess. ‘Would it be awfully rude, Tess? Uncle Phil and Auntie May are very kind, but . . .’
‘There’s a litter o’ kittens at the Ropes’, I’ve always fancied havin’ a kitten,’ Mrs Thrower mused. ‘Wi’ two of us to give an eye to it, I reckon we could manage. Why, my woman, if you come wi’ me now you could have the choosin’ of it. There’s a ginger one, prettiest thing you ever did see, an’ a grey – tha’s pretty an’ all – an’ a couple o’ tabbies.’
‘I don’t think it would be rude at all, poppet,’ Tess said, watching Cherie’s suddenly bright face. ‘Poor love, I’ve been so busy that I hadn’t thought how dull you must be finding it.’
‘Not dull,’ Cherie said quickly. ‘Only a bit lonely, at times. Would you come to see me at weekends, Tess? When you’re off work, I mean?’
‘She’ll come to stay, weekends,’ Mrs Thrower said heartily. ‘There’s allus room for Tess in Staithe Cottage, do she hev to sleep on the floor! Now pop an’ put a few things in a bag, Cherie, whiles I hev a word wi’ your aunt. I’ve already talked to Mr Delamere, an’ he thinks it’s for the best, like.’
It had been settled as quickly as that, with Tess dividing her time, when she was off duty, between Marianne, the Knoxes and Staithe Cottage. And true to her promise, Mrs Thrower always managed to find her a bed, when she was able to stay over for a night or two.
‘Hey, it’s
Tess
!’ Cherie exclaimed now, squatting back on her heels and rubbing a dirty hand across her pink and shining face. ‘We’re lifting the main crop – I’ve found millions, I’m having the biggest for tea tonight, baked, with a tiny bit of butter!’
‘I bags the next biggest, then,’ Tess said, entering into the spirit of the thing and bending down to rescue a marble-sized spud which energetic forking had sent tumbling several feet away. She turned to Mrs Thrower. ‘All right if I stay over, Mrs T? Only I’m off all day tomorrow.’