Kitty’s War

I didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter; Bel was happy to chatter for both of us. She quickly ascertained that Mr Beresford was hoping to find accommodation under the roof of Mrs Adams, of whom he had heard such warm things. ‘I’m more than happy to pay my way,’ he said earnestly. ‘It’d just be for a night or two, then I go back to France.’

‘Wonderful!’ Bel clapped her hands together. ‘There’s a spare room at the back of the house; it’s where Mr Adams used to keep all his wet-weather clothing. It has a bed too. Only a camp bed, but—’

‘That sounds perfect,’ Mr Beresford said. ‘I’m arranging for funds to be sent through to the bank, and I expect Mrs Adams would be glad of some extra money in a couple of days when it comes through. Besides, I don’t eat much.’ He patted his flat stomach and grinned. ‘Have to stay fighting fit, after all.’

‘Are you home on leave?’ I asked, looking for his bags.

‘Yes. I’m afraid I met with some regrettable thuggery on my journey though, and practically all my belongings were stolen.’

‘Oh!’ Belinda’s face fell. ‘That’s terrible.’

‘All they left me with was that bottle of wine I’d just bought, and what I carried in my pockets. I hope you understand now why I paid for your advice in wine rather than money?’

‘Of course, why didn’t you say so before?’

He shrugged, and smiled quite charmingly. ‘Embarrassed, I suppose. A pretty girl smiles, all dressed for work and clearly as capable as they come, and it’s hard to admit one has been overcome and unable to defend one’s own property.’

‘I’m sure Mrs Adams will be glad to put you up for a night or two,’ I ventured, ‘given your sad circumstances.’

‘Best if you ask her, Kitty,’ Bel said. ‘She has such a soft spot for you. You can tell her he’s perfectly all right, and she’ll trust your judgement.’

I looked at Mr Beresford again, hoping I could trust hers. ‘I don’t know…’

She put her head on one side, a sign I recognised, and one that made me grimace. ‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘you know how she’s changed since you came to live here. She used to be so strict.’

‘She still is!’ But I surrendered, as we’d both known I would. ‘Oh, all right. I’ll go in and talk to her.’

Reluctantly I stepped out into the dark, but halfway across the yard I hesitated and almost turned back, my stomach suddenly churning as I realised I’d left her alone in there with a strange man…but Belinda was a grown woman, and a supremely confident one. I sighed. I had to stop trying to wrap the rest of the world in my own fears.

I found Mrs Adams in the creamery, a low light in the corner glowing while she shaped and patted butter into blocks.

‘All done?’ She looked beyond me. ‘Where’s Belinda?’

‘We’ve almost finished, Mrs Adams,’ I lied, hoping she wouldn’t come out to the barn to check. I explained briefly about Mr Beresford’s bad fortune, and his request for paid accommodation until it was time for him to return to his unit.

Mrs Adams pursed her lips. ‘He’s a friend of Belinda’s, you say?’

‘It seems so.’ There didn’t seem any point mentioning that Bel had only met him once; he was friendly, he’d be here two nights at the most, and then he’d move on. ‘Maybe he can help out with one or two things around the place,’ I added.

‘Well, it’ll mean Will can stop looking around as if he feels he should be doing them,’ Mrs Adams said grimly. ‘Poor boy’d do himself a mischief if we took our eye off him for five minutes.’

‘So shall I bring Mr Beresford in to meet you? Then you can make up your own mind.’

‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘Show him into the sitting room. I’ll be out in a few minutes. Oh, before you go back?’

‘Yes?’

‘When are you going to start calling me Frances? Evie and Will do.’

‘They’re guests,’ I said. ‘I work here.’

Mrs Adams looked sad rather than exasperated. ‘You live here, my girl. You’re my daughter now, to all intents and purposes.’

‘I do have a mother,’ I reminded her, as gently as the words allowed. She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. She didn’t have to.

About two weeks after I’d returned from giving evidence at Oliver’s trial a letter had arrived, routed through Elise at Number Twenty-Two, the ambulance station to which Evie had moved after our own little cottage had been shelled. I’d opened it with trembling fingers, recognising the handwriting immediately, but any hope that my ordeal had touched my mother’s heart was dashed as soon as I began to read.

Katherine,

News has now reached us of the events surrounding your brother’s arrest and court martial. I wish that word had come from your hand, but of course we had to hear it by way of gossip and newspapers. To learn that you are responsible for Oliver’s downfall does not lessen our shame in his actions, it merely serves to throw some understanding upon it.

Likewise I can understand how a girl like you would be flattered by the attentions of an officer, but even if you did not make it clear to him that you had come to your senses, you are, after all, a sturdy girl and cannot have been so incapacitated that you could not protect yourself. I’m sure if you think back you will realise the truth of this. Such a man would never force himself upon a wholly unwilling partner.

Word of your ruin is already spreading among those upon whom we depend for the continuation of the family’s successful business, and those whose good opinion we value. I can only hope you are able to redeem yourself in their eyes, in the course of your chosen war duties—Oliver has no further opportunity to cover himself in glory, but you, at least, have the chance to expunge the shame you and your brother have brought on your family.

I’d lowered the letter, my face burning, my heart smashing against my ribs and making me feel hot and dizzy. Her words were stark enough, but the meaning I read behind them stole my breath; did she hope for me to be wounded in action? Perhaps I was imagining it. Surely I was? I lifted the letter and continued reading, and the words blurred in front of my eyes.

Your father and I both feel that any leave you take for the foreseeable future would be better spent away from Ecclesley, perhaps with the families of your new set of friends. This would give us the chance to ease your path back into society after the war, if you have not already muddied it too thoroughly. (Should this be the case I am certain you will see the wisdom of making a new life, better suited to your rather rebellious nature, and of finding a husband to whom purity and good name are secondary considerations.)

I felt sick now, remembering that letter and how devastated I had been to read it. Mrs Adams knew of it, but not what it said. I’d showed it to no-one; the shame had burned too brightly. For days I had wrestled with the guilt of lying, of letting them believe I was still in Belgium. I had taken up a pen countless times between then and now, poised to write the letter that would tell them the truth and cut my last hopeful tie with them, but as long as I returned home a plucky war heroine, with any luck even wounded in the service of others, my future as an Ecclesley Maitland would be assured. When I eventually wrote back, sending the letter to Elise so she could post it again from Dixmude, I found my pen had written words I couldn’t bear to hear in my own head: that I understood, and hoped that one day Mother and Father would learn to forgive me. By then I’d known there was nothing to forgive. Those who truly loved me had helped me believe that, but I felt that as long as I begged, pleaded and generally sounded like the old Kitty, Mother and Father might remember their little girl, and realise how dreadful their pronouncement had been.

Standing in the creamery at Dark River Farm I thought of my parents in their large, comfortable house in Ecclesley, and I felt an odd lightening sensation, an almost dizzying change of view. From nothing more than habit, and a fear of change, I’d been longing for a forgiveness that would never come, hoping, with a child’s yearning heart, for acceptance. It dawned on me now that I’d found that acceptance, just not in the arms of the parents who had raised me. I was wanted here, as soiled and broken as I was. I looked around, taking in the familiar warmth, the sweet smells, and the overall sense of peace that pervaded every corner of this draughty old farmhouse, and then I looked at Mrs Adams.

‘I’ll show him into in the sitting room. Frances.’

She nodded, and turned wordlessly back to her work, but her smile stayed with me all the way across the yard.

‘You won’t have cause to regret it, Mrs Adams,’ Mr Beresford said, his own smile wide with relief and gratitude. Now I could see him properly I couldn’t help being taken by the warmth of his hazel eyes, and the way he looked so earnestly at whoever he was talking to, whether it was the pretty and vivacious Belinda, the stern, inquisitive Frances, or even me.

‘I’m sure I won’t,’ Frances said. ‘Now, I’m told you don’t have anything to unpack, but maybe we can find something for you to change into amongst my Harry’s old things. He was a lot taller than you, but we have scissors, and Sally’s a decent enough hand with a needle.’

‘You’re too kind,’ Mr Beresford said, and as Frances took him off upstairs to search for something that might fit well enough, he glanced back and winked. Not at Belinda, at me. I pretended not to notice, and Bel didn’t say anything, but I thought I saw her eyes narrow anyway, and tried to think of a way to revive the companionship of our dance in the barn. But before I could, the sitting room door opened and Evie came in.

Driving the city’s ambulances between docks and hospital had given her some purpose, but it was not the same as it had been in Belgium, and I could still see the yearning in her eyes every time someone mentioned life at the Front. She would go back as soon as Will was recovered, I was sure of it. As would he. For now though, while he fought to regain his strength, and Frances kept her beady eye on him all the while, Evie worked hard doing the thing she was best at: driving.

Evie looked around her now, as she came in, her blonde hair grown back to its pre-war curls, her face tired but smiling. ‘Good evening, girls. Where is he, then?’

‘Upstairs with Mrs Adams,’ Bel said.

Evie blinked. ‘What’s he doing up there?’

‘She means Will, you idiot,’ I said to Bel. ‘He’s finishing some odd jobs in the bathroom, Evie. He won’t be long.’

‘I wish he wouldn’t try to do so much,’ Evie said, trying to sound merely exasperated, but I could hear the worry in her voice. She sat down in the chair by the window. ‘Who did you think I was talking about?’ she asked Belinda.

‘We have a house guest, just for one or two nights. A rather dashing young man called Mr Beresford.’

Evie grinned. ‘Typical. I expect you managed to charm him into thinking he needed a room.’