‘Scotland? How can I go there? McNair’s living in Cromlech, or had you forgotten?’
McNair, the elderly gillie who had agreed to live as caretaker in the Earl’s shooting lodge. Lady Kitty had been furious, declaring that the man was arrogant enough without giving him licence to sleep in his employer’s bed and sit upon his lavatory.
‘It’s either the McNairs or a dozen bombed-outs from Clydeside, m’dear. Take your pick,’ came the bland retort. The Countess had settled for McNair.
‘Then how about Lady Mead? We’ve still got the Dower House, and Lincolnshire is lovely in May.’ So very lovely, Lucinda remembered.
‘My dear good girl, the Dower House is bursting at the seams with furniture, not to mention Nanny. Besides, there’s no petrol left till the next coupons are due, and I won’t go by train.’
‘Then mightn’t it help keep your mind off things if you took up war work? The WVS ladies are in the tube every night making tea when the sirens go. Or you could drive an ambulance.’
The Countess could not drive an ambulance. For one thing, she couldn’t see a thing in the blackout without her glasses; and for another, the uniform wasn’t half attractive enough. War work? Oh dear, no. It was enough with Donnington’s preoccupation with his Home Guarding and a daughter who thought more of wounded soldiers than she did of family duty.
‘No thank you! No need for us all to go in at the deep end.’
‘Oh, Mama, don’t make it more difficult than it already is. Do please try.’
But Mama would never budge. She had been completely against the war, right from the start. She was, dare her daughter think it, extremely selfish.
‘Look, darling, I got a hunting-pink lipstick yesterday and some rose-geranium soap. I’d hidden them away for your birthday.’ Not strictly true. She had intended using them herself. ‘But if you like you can have them now.’
‘Can I? Oh, Lucinda, what a poppet you are!’
Lucinda sighed. Poppet? Oh, no. She was a fool, that’s what. But at least for a little while Mama would be happy, and keeping Mama happy had become a way of life, almost.
‘I’ll run upstairs and get them,’ she smiled.
Last night too she had waited. She had waited at the beech tree until the sky began to darken and the sudden, distant roar of aircraft engines told her that soon the bombers would be flying again.
She had hugged herself tightly then against the nausea she always felt when Rob was flying and begun her desperate bargaining with God.
It’s Jane, God – Jane Kendal. Rob’s on ops again, so please take care of him and S-Sugar. Don’t let anything happen. Let him come back, oh, please let him come back!
Cold with fear, she had waited for take-off, willing it not to happen, knowing it would.
Take off. To leave the ground. Birds did it all the time with ease and grace, but for the crews of the bombers that flew from Fenton Bishop aerodrome she knew that to take off meant dry-mouthed apprehension and an ice-cold hand that twisted your guts and made you want to throw up the supper you had neither tasted nor enjoyed. In those fearful few moments hands clutched good-luck charms and lips moved in unashamed prayer, until the clunk of the undercarriage as it folded into the belly of the aircraft told them they had made it. Then to each of the heavily loaded bombers that roared over her head Jane had whispered, ‘Good luck. Come back safely,’ and when they were all specks in the distant twilight and the savage pandemonium of their leaving no more than a muted throbbing, she had sent her love high and wide so it would find her lover in that vast, uncaring sky.
‘Take care, Rob. Please take care …’
Eleven bombers had taken off from Fenton Bishop last night, and in the early hours of the morning eleven had come home. Rob was safe. Tonight he would be with her.
The trees were green now with the tender leaves of May, yet when first she knew Rob those trees had been silvered by February frosts. They had met just three months ago, yet now it seemed that the whole of her life had been crammed into those few fleeting weeks; as if her living had had no meaning before they met and her future would have no substance if ever he left her.
Now she stood at the gate of Ten-acre Pasture, staring across the hedgetops to the control tower that jutted into the gentle landscape with angular obscenity, begging silently that when she turned the corner he would be there.
The early evening sun was warm on her face and the sky so clear and calm that it seemed impossible so beautiful a world could be at war; that small, beautiful world that was Yeoman’s Lane, and Tingle’s Wood, through which it ran. The beech tree was a part of it too, and the stile beneath it where they always met, at seven.
She sucked in a steadying gulp of air, letting it go with little huffing sounds before she walked on and turned into the lane.
Rob wasn’t there. It was seven o’clock, and he hadn’t come. Her suddenly cold hands clenched tightly as she walked on, past the stile and the beech tree, into the green cool of the wood. The path was narrow and rough with tussocky grass and she trod carefully, eyes straining ahead to where the path ended abruptly at the outer limits of the aerodrome, blocked by a high steel-mesh fence – a cruel fence to keep lovers apart – and no one else had discovered the break in it through which Rob always came.
She saw him then, running swiftly towards her, and she pulled aside the fence, squeezing through the gap. He had come! For another night at least, he was safe.
She didn’t run to meet him but stood there loving him, stretching out the seconds. Then he held out his arms and she went into them, laughing, wiping out the days they had been apart in that one eager meeting.
‘Rob, oh Rob.’ She spoke his name softly, her lips gentling his cheek. Then, pulling a little way from him, she closed her eyes, lifting her lips to his.
But he did not kiss her. Instead he took her face in his hands, forcing her eyes to his.
‘Jenny, I can’t stay.’
‘Darling, no! Why not?’
‘They’ve just told us we’re on standby.’
‘Which means you’ll be flying,’ she whispered dully.
She traced the outline of his face with her eyes, loving the dear, untidy hair, the mouth that smiled widely and often, the eyes that were old in a young man’s face.
She reached out for him again, and his arms felt lean and hard through the sleeves of his tunic. He was too thin. Flying was feeding off him, draining him, leaving him taut as an overwound spring.
‘You’ll be flying,’ she whispered again. ‘That’ll be three nights out of five. It’s madness.’
She disliked herself for what she was saying, for she knew the risk he had taken to be with her. When the bombers at Fenton Bishop were under orders, a blanket of security covered the aerodrome and to breach that security was the most serious thing. If there should be a call to briefing and Rob wasn’t there …
‘Have you been briefed yet?’
‘No, but there’s a call out for pilots and navigators in –’ He glanced at his watch. ‘In fifteen minutes.’
‘That makes it pretty certain then, doesn’t it? And if anyone finds you here, you’ll be in terrible trouble. I love you for coming, darling,’ she whispered, ‘but you mustn’t stay.’
‘I’m all right for a couple of minutes.’ He shook two cigarettes from a paper packet, lit them, and placed one gently between her lips.
She pressed closer. Last night, perhaps, the bombs that fell from Rob’s plane had killed women and children and old, helpless men, but for all that he was a tender