A Wife's War Read online

  Realizing that yet again she had become lost in her thoughts, she straightened up and looked about the hallway. With Naomi gone to freshen up, she might as well make the effort to go down and see Edith and Mabel – get it over and done with.

  The decision made, she set off with a purpose but, when she reached the service corridor, she faltered, her mind still on the matter of marriage and families. She wished everything between her and Luke didn’t feel so up in the air. She wished she felt more married. For years Luke had kept pressing her to wed, and throughout those same years her response had been to shilly-shally. But then, when they had finally tied the knot, it had been with unimaginable haste – the recently declared war leaving them little choice but to get on with it. And, although it was something to which she would never admit, she had still been beleaguered by doubts as to whether she was doing the right thing even while she had been delivering her vows. In the end, she’d simply reminded herself that the chance to get out of Woodicombe was too good an opportunity to let slip.

  Now, though, her doubts long gone, the only regret she still harboured was that it had all happened in such a rush, the brevity of events leaving her struggling to recall her own wedding day. Even their wedding night – something she would have expected to recall in great detail – was difficult to bring to mind with any clarity. Through a generous and surprising gesture from Mr Lawrence – a wedding gift, he had said – she and Luke had spent their first night as husband and wife in a room at The Ship at Anchor in Westward Quay. When Luke had broken the news to her a couple of days beforehand, the prospect of such a luxury had left her giddy with excitement. But, once in that lofty room, with its sloping floor and vast four-poster bed, their time together had been overshadowed by the knowledge that, within days, they would be heading in different directions – Luke destined for a place in Wiltshire neither of them had ever heard of; herself, for the time being, back to Woodicombe House. Looking back on it now, the whole thing had been a blur, the speed with which it had been over and done with making it easy to see why she scarcely felt married at all.

  Mercifully, within days of Luke departing, Naomi had written to say that Mr Lawrence had found a house to rent. It was at number twelve, Hartland Street, in an area of London called Marylebone. Enclosed with the letter had been money for her train fare and instructions to help her find the address. Her new life in London beckoned. Finally, and despite at the last minute feeling woefully underprepared, she was on her way out of Woodicombe!

  She shook her head ruefully. Dear old Woodicombe. Having been gone these last months, the whole place now struck her as so very antiquated. She supposed it was only to be expected. Since leaving, she had become a housekeeper in her own right – in a modern home in a smart street in a vast and vibrant city. Her longed-for life of meaning and purpose had finally come about. The only thing left to wish for now was that Luke would hurry up and return from this godforsaken war and that together, they could finally get on with making a proper married life.

  Sadly, if reports from the front were to be believed, it was going to be some while yet before that particular wish was granted.

  * * *

  ‘I see London suits you, then.’

  Having finally mustered her courage, Kate had arrived in the kitchen to talk to Mabel and Edith. But being greeted by such a snide remark now put her in two minds about turning around, walking away, and forgetting the whole idea. The only thing preventing her from doing so was picturing the disappointment that would come across Naomi’s face; Naomi hated things left unresolved. Besides which, she needed to do this; she needed to clear her conscience and lay the matter to rest, once and for all.

  And so, looking at the two women sitting across the table from one another, she told herself to ignore the uncalled-for tone of Edith’s greeting and get on with it.

  ‘Aye,’ she replied, ‘I’ll own to having grown used to the place.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do for me,’ Edith was quick to respond, ‘all them folk living cheek-by-jowl. All that dirt and noise and commotion.’

  There it was again: the disparagement; the derision. Well, she would ignore it. She had come to mend fences.

  ‘’Course,’ she began, holding her voice as level as she could to disguise how rattled she felt, ‘a good deal of what goes on up there – and the ways of some of the folk – still strikes me as foreign. That said, for the most part, I’m coming to learn what’s what.’

  ‘Bought you a whole new wardrobe, I see,’ Edith remarked next, her eyes not lifting from her knitting. To Kate, it appeared she was close to completing a pair of shapeless grey bedsocks. What a spinster-like thing to be doing! Not helping the picture was that with her mousy-brown hair pulled tightly back into a knot at the nape of her neck, and a deep frown of either displeasure or concentration on her forehead, the poor woman looked well beyond two-score years, rather than still the right side of it. ‘Didn’t want you seeming too Devon in front of her London friends?’ Edith interrupted her thoughts. ‘Was that it?’

  ‘You have to understand,’ she said, brought back to the present by the scathing tone of Edith’s observation, ‘it’s different in town. In town, everyone’s smart. So, yes, since I had nothing to suit, she most generously bought me a couple of frocks for going about in. Rest of the day I’m in livery and an apron same as yourself.’

  ‘And another thing,’ Edith continued regardless, ‘what do he want with buying this place? Can’t intend any good by it, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Edith, love—’ When Mabel Bratton made to intervene, Kate looked across the table at her. ‘—for certain he means no harm by it, either.’

  ‘Be-as-t’will, you’d think he’d done enough damage for one lifetime.’

  Damage? If Naomi’s supposition was true, then for once in his life, the man had actually been trying to do some good. ‘If by he you mean Mr Russell,’ she said, keeping a tight check on her frustration with Edith’s manner, ‘then I think you’ll find he meant it as a favour to Mr Sidney.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d happen to know, love,’ Mabel apparently saw this as her chance to ask, ‘just what Mr Russell’s plans for the place are? Only, since this war’s been on, we’ve lost all of the staff. And if he was thinking to use the place again, in particular for entertaining, well, I can’t see how we would cope…’

  At least her concern was reasonable, Kate thought.

  ‘Can’t say as I’ve heard of his plans,’ she said. ‘Only this morning I asked Mrs Colborne that very thing. But she doesn’t know either. So, strikes me that for now at least, nothing has changed. Besides—’

  ‘Nothing has changed? Maybe not for you it hasn’t.’

  Her feet still itching to turn about and carry her away, Kate forced herself to draw a long breath. If Naomi was right about one thing, it was that she had to see this through – and that meant despite Edith being a cantankerous old shrew. In a way, the woman’s continued crabbiness ought to make it easier for her to be the bigger person. She might not be able to do anything about the facts of her birth, but she could make peace with them. If nothing else, she owed it to herself to lay them to rest and get on with her new life.

  ‘Anyways,’ she said to that end, forcing herself to adopt a lightness of manner she didn’t feel, ‘strikes me what’s called for here is a clearing of the air.’ Ha! That had got their attention. They hadn’t been expecting to hear that from her. Edith, for sure, had been expecting her to gloat. Reminded of Naomi’s thoughts on the matter, she went on, ‘I never did like how things got left between us and so, this would seem a good time for the extending of an olive branch.’

  Unable to bring herself to look at Edith, she instead directed her attention to Mabel. Were her eyes paler than she remembered them? For certain her hair was thinner. Somehow, she looked shorter, too. She supposed it was simply that she was growing old.

  ‘An olive branch, love?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘…an olive b
ranch.’ But, as quickly as she had started, she faltered. Where, all of a sudden, were all those words that, only moments ago, had been bursting from her head? Well, having started, she had little choice but to go on as best she could and so, to that end, she cleared her throat, looked at Mabel, and said, ‘See, that day when things about me and the… circumstances of my birth… came to light… it was you who said that despite how things had turned out, nothing need change. At the time I couldn’t see it – ’though happen I didn’t want to. Any rate, over these last few months, I’ve come to realize that you were right. You, Mabel, are still the woman who raised me. And you, Edith, are still the sister I grew up with. More than that, though, being away from here has helped me see that what the pair of you did back then, you did with the best of intentions.’ From Mabel’s direction there came a little sob but, already grappling to keep her own shakiness in check, she hurried on. ‘Edith, it must have been dreadful hard on you. Like you said to us that day, you had a daughter, and yet you didn’t. Well, I don’t need to have had a babe of my own to know just how sorely you must have wished that otherwise. On the other hand, I can quite see how it could never have been.’ Briefly, she stopped to draw a proper breath. Nearly there. ‘Nonetheless, it would be untruthful of me to let you think I could ever look upon you as anything other than my sister – for I couldn’t. What has changed, though, is that I no longer bear you malice. You were wronged – by my reckoning, twice over. Maybe even more than twice over. But, if you’re truly honest with yourself, you’ll see how, at this point in my life, I couldn’t possibly take easy to calling you Ma.’

  ‘Love—’

  At Mabel Bratton’s interjection, Kate looked across at her and, fixing her gaze, determined to keep going. ‘But you,’ she said, ‘you were my Ma – leastways, the only Ma I ever knew. No matter the circumstances of my coming into this world, from a sense of love and duty, you raised me for your own. And so, seems only right and proper that I keep referring to you as such. So, that’s how I should like us to go on – if that sits right with the pair of you.’

  When she finally paused, it was to see that both women had started to cry.

  ‘Yes, love,’ Mabel Bratton said, hurrying towards her and reaching for her hand. ‘Though I can only speak for myself, I should like that greatly. For certain it would make the seeing-out of the rest of my days that much easier to bear.’

  When Mabel then moved to put her arms around her, the familiar aroma of lily-of-the-valley soap and the feel of woollen-worsted against her cheek finally brought tears to her own eyes, too. Easing herself from Mabel’s embrace, she wiped at them with the back of her hand.

  Behind her, Edith was also now getting to her feet. ‘If you’ve made your peace with the truth,’ she said, speaking properly for the first time, ‘then I’ve no right to ask anything more of you. When all’s said and done, I’d rather we got along as sisters than not at all.’

  ‘Well, then,’ she said, giving Edith’s shoulder a quick squeeze, ‘from here on, that’s how it’ll be. And needn’t nobody ’cept the three of us be concerned with it.’

  ‘And, once you’re back up there in London,’ Mabel Bratton picked up again, dabbing at her cheeks with her handkerchief, ‘happen you’ll write to us from time to time – you know, let us know how you’re going along.’

  ‘Tell of all the sights for those of us as shall never see them with our own eyes,’ Edith joined in, her eagerness seemingly genuine. ‘For I should like most dearly to hear of Buckingham Palace and the King, should you ever see him abroad in his carriage.’

  Somehow, despite brimming with all manner of feelings, Kate managed to raise a smile. ‘I shall see if I can’t buy a postcard of the palace to send you – a tinted one, no expense spared.’ In the circumstances, it felt the least she could do for the woman she had spent her entire childhood taunting and despising, and then casting aside with little more than a perfunctory wave from the window of a departing railway carriage.

  Surprised to feel her limbs softening with the relief of being done with it, she smiled warmly. Naomi, it seemed, had been right: it really was never too late to make amends.

  * * *

  ‘Oh, good, it’s from Ned. I’ve been hoping he would write.’

  It was the following morning and, lifting the empty toast rack onto her tray, Kate nodded. Although interested in Ned’s well-being, she nevertheless tried not to get drawn into talking about him, the events of last summer still having the power to make her feel all hot and sticky with embarrassment. And worryingly sad sometimes, too.

  That being the case, she stuck, as she usually did when his name was mentioned, to giving only the most general of replies. ‘That’s nice.’

  She had been about to clear away Naomi’s breakfast things when, hearing the rattle of the letterbox, she had gone through to the porch and retrieved the single envelope that had dropped onto the doormat.

  Recognising the handwriting, Naomi had wasted no time slitting it open and extracting the single sheet of notepaper from inside.

  Watching her now scanning the length of the page, Kate pushed her hand down into the pocket of her uniform until her fingers touched the corner of the battered envelope containing Luke’s last letter to her. In the absence of anything since, she had taken to carrying it about with her, just to feel a little less abandoned. She knew its contents by heart. Even so, seeing Naomi reading news from Ned, she felt a sudden need to be comforted by it.

  Slipping out into the hallway, she pulled it from her pocket, slid out the single sheet of paper and, skipping the line that began, Dear Kate, started to read.

  Sorry I haven’t written in a while but we are miles from anywhere and real busy. Thank you for sending all your news from Marylebone. Receiving word from you keeps me going.

  My duties, driving in these bad conditions, are tiring but at least I usually only do it during the daytime and then get to sleep in a bunk in a barn at night. Some lads can’t do that, being on duty at all hours. Despite us being promised it, the food has got no better than when I last wrote but the lads I am with here are like brothers to me now.

  Although reading of it for the umpteenth time, she nevertheless felt her lips curl into a smile. It helped her to know that at least he had good company.

  When she looked back down, and his words blurred in front of her, she hastened to wipe at the corner of her eyes. Then, with an unexpected little sob, she tried to concentrate on reading all the way to the end.

  Thank you for the socks. They are just right. And thank you for the photograph. Please thank Mrs Colborne for thinking to take you to get one done for me. You look so pretty I can’t believe you are finally my wife. I look at it first thing each and every morning and again last thing every night. Rest of the day it’s tucked safe and sound inside my breast pocket.

  Feeling tears coming more quickly now, she hastily folded the letter along its original crease and slid it into its envelope. Then, withdrawing from her apron pocket a handkerchief, she blew her nose. She didn’t need to read the ending, anyway; she knew it word-perfect.

  Do not worry for me. I am as safe as I can be here. I do hope this war ends soon and I can be back with you before much longer.

  All my love,

  Luke

  Sniffing a couple of times, she crept back towards the door and peered into the dining room. Seeing Naomi still reading, she went back in.

  ‘He writes that he was in town on weekend leave and is disappointed to have missed me,’ Naomi glanced up to say.

  ‘I suppose that would be disappointing, yes.’

  ‘He goes on to say that by the time I read this—’ With that, she saw Naomi turn over the envelope and examine the franking mark on the stamp before continuing, ‘—he will have reported to Farnborough, where he is to join No. 2 Squadron and fly a BE2 – at least, I think that’s what it says – that awaits delivery to France. He says he’s hopeful of getting one of the new-type aeroplanes because they have – goodness, his handw
riting is dreadful – well, it looks as though it says wormless, no wait, wireless… sending… apparatus. Not that I’m any the wiser. He writes that he has now flown twenty solo hours and is very much looking forward to crossing the English Channel. Apparently, being able to go along at a speed of seventy miles an hour and look down upon everything from above is exhilarating. He also writes that once up there, it is freezing cold. Goodness, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that being closer to the sun would make it warmer, not colder.’

  Crossing to the table, Kate reached for the silver cruet and put it on her tray. She didn’t know what to think about it. She did know that the idea of anyone flying over the sea smacked of recklessness. With nowhere to land if things went wrong, it had to be madness. And that was without trying to imagine what a speed of seventy miles an hour might feel like. It had to be faster than even the worst of the winter gales that tore in from the Atlantic with no regard to neither man nor beast.

  Deciding not to burden Naomi with her concerns, she opted instead to say, ‘France. That’s where Luke and Mr Lawrence are.’

  ‘It is, yes.’

  ‘Perhaps Mr Edwin will see them there.’

  Judging by the depth of Naomi’s frown, she realized it was probably a daft thing to suppose; if France was as big as England, they could be hundreds of miles apart.

  ‘It’s always possible,’ Naomi nonetheless agreed. ‘Although, realistically, I should imagine the chances of that happening to be quite low. Judging by the maps one sees drawn in the Telegraph, our army appears to be spread far and wide.’