‘I’d get a bed at the YWCA. Or why shouldn’t I stay with Rob’s mother? Who’s to say she won’t put me up?’
‘I still think you shouldn’t go alone,’ Vi insisted. ‘Glasgow has been bombed the same as Liverpool has. I know what it’ll be like. There could be whole streets without a soul in them. You’d be scared rotten on your own after dark.’
‘Why should I be? And it’s light until ten o’clock, now.’ What harm could come to her? Hadn’t Rob lived there, tenements, bomb damage and all. What then could be so wrong with it? ‘Please don’t spoil it,’ she pleaded. ‘Please be glad for me.’
‘We are glad for you, queen; all of us. We’re all real chuffed. But promise you’ll be careful. And don’t expect too much,’ Vi begged. What could she say? How was she to tell her that the news could be bad, that all Rob’s mother might be able to tell her could be exactly what Jane didn’t want to hear. ‘Promise you’ll not build your hopes too high.’
Mother of God, don’t let her be hurt any more. She’s so excited, so happy. Don’t take it away from her.
‘Of course I’ll take care.’ Jane jumped to her feet. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I’m just not hungry. See you all later, uh?’
‘Oh, dear.’ Lilith shook her head. ‘What’s it going to do to her if she hears something that isn’t good? What if she finds he’s not just missing but dead? It would destroy her.’
‘D’you suppose I haven’t been thinking that?’ Vi retorted. ‘But I’ll bet you anything you like she won’t get a pass, and then what’ll we do? There’ll be no living with her if that happens.’
‘Then we’ll have to find another way,’ Fenny said quietly. ‘We’ve got to help her. It’d be too cruel if we didn’t.’
‘And I agree.’ Lucinda spoke up clearly. ‘Jane could do it without a pass. Once she was off duty she could catch the late-afternoon ferry and be in Glasgow before it got too dark. Surely between us we could cover for her.’
‘And what about when she’s adrift in the morning, when she doesn’t turn up for her watch?’
‘Then she’ll have to fix it first with her opposite number. If nothing went wrong she could be back here in time to go on late duty.’
Lilith frowned. ‘If nothing went wrong.’
‘Well, I say we leave it,’ Fenny insisted. ‘After all, we don’t need to worry until Ma’am says no to the pass. We don’t have to think of anything till then, do we?’
They agreed, all of them, that they did not. Only when Jane’s request was refused need they puzzle over ways and means, they said. And after all, there was a chance that Miss St John just might give Jane a pass.
‘Do you think it would do any good to set up the table?’ Lilith asked.
‘I don’t think so.’ Vi remembered that not so very long ago the glass had given Jane the answer she had least wanted to hear. ‘The way things have turned out, it might be best to leave well alone.’
‘You could be right. The state she’s in at the moment wouldn’t help any. She’s so charged up, the glass would take off like a rocket. I’ve never seen anyone so excited. The change in her is amazing. Kendal’s a different girl.’
And let’s all hope, Vi brooded, that nothing happens to spoil that sudden singing happiness, though one thing above all was certain. If recent events were anything to go by, life at Ardneavie House would never be dull.
From the top of the street that ran down to the jetty, Mike Farrow saw Lucinda waiting and quickened his step.
‘Hi, honey! Sorry I’m late.’
‘You’re not. The transport was early.’
She was glad he had come. There had been times when she had expected him not to, and to see him hurrying down the hill made her suddenly happy.
‘Everything all right last night, Lucy? You didn’t get caught, or anything?’
‘No. Everything was fine. I crept up the back stairs and straight into a telling-off from Vi. But it was all right. They’d fixed the duty Wren for me.’ Lucinda laughed. ‘I’m not in the rattle, or anything. But how about you, Mike? I worried about your leg.’
He shouldn’t have walked her home to Ardneavie, but he’d insisted, choosing to ignore the three miles back.
‘Then you needn’t have. I managed just great. It was a lovely night and every so often I stopped and stood and stared a bit. Y’know, Lucy, everything was so beautiful in the half-light. My granny once stayed in Craigiebur, would you believe? She worked for a family who always packed the kids off to Craigiebur for the summer. That’s why I decided to spend a weekend here. Must remember to take a couple of snaps before I go back and send them to her.
‘Snaps? Where on earth did you get a film?’ Such things had become non-existent from almost the first day of the war. Nowadays the few available went immediately under the counter and only the lucky few ever managed to get one. ‘They’re like gold dust here.’
‘Oh, parcels from home; comforts for the troops, I guess,’ he grinned. ‘But let’s walk a way, first. It’s such a swell night.’
It seemed natural that he should take her hand, and because it felt rather nice, she entwined her fingers in his and smiled happily up at him.
‘Why don’t we walk down to the mouth of the loch, Mike? Someone told me there’s a boom net right across it, to keep the Germans out. I’d like to know how it works.’
‘I’ve seen it. As a matter of fact it’s two huge nets made of steel links and there’s a couple of tugs that drag them backward and forward when something wants to get in or out of the loch. Nothing could get through it or under it. Reckon you’re all pretty safe in there, honey.’
‘I suppose we are.’ Until now, though, she had never thought what sitting ducks those ships could have been. ‘And how do you know all this?’
‘Because I watched a submarine and a frigate go through last night, while I was waiting for Mavis,’ he laughed, his eyes teasing her. ‘C’mon, Lucy Bainbridge. Let’s go.’
Lucinda’s answering smile radiated pure joy. She felt so easy with Mike and not in the least bit guilty about having dates with a man she hardly knew, though Vi had half-implied that she should. Serve Charlie right, in fact. She had sent him her new address a week ago and this morning there really should have been a letter from him. But Nanny had written, bless her, even though it had mostly been a discourse upon the treacherous Scottish climate and the need to wear her warm knickers when the nights began to draw in – and was she remembering to take her syrup of figs every Friday night as she had promised?
‘Penny for them.’
‘I was thinking about Nanny’s letter.’
‘You had a nurse?’
‘A nanny. There’s a difference. She’s in Lincolnshire now, at Lady Mead.’
‘Looking after your brothers and sisters?’
‘No. I’m afraid I don’t have either. But when I went to boarding school she stayed on with us. She’ll look after my children, I suppose.’
‘I see. So you’re going to have kids, Lucy?’
‘Of course.’
‘And have you figured how many?’
‘Three or four, I suppose.’
‘All planned out, eh? You got a father for them in