She sounded so passionately indignant, but looked so enchantingly pretty, that Drew immediately wanted to kiss her. He loved her so much, his brave strong-hearted Tilly.
Happily the musicians had struck up for a slow waltz and they were still waiting for their ‘romantic pudding’ so he was able to suggest that they get up to dance.
It was wonderful being held tightly in Drew’s arms whilst they swayed slowly together, the top of her head resting against Drew’s jaw, Tilly thought dreamily as the lights dimmed and the warmth of Drew’s hand on her back brought her even closer to him so that they could steal a lingering kiss, after which Tilly decided that a visit to the ladies’ room to repair her lipstick might be a good idea before she returned to the full light of their table.
When she pushed open the door to the powder room, another girl was already seated at one of the satin-covered stools, in front of the individual dressing tables, looking into the mirror in front of her, only it wasn’t her lipstick she was gazing at, but the very pretty diamond ring sparkling on her ring finger.
Seeing Tilly looking at it, she told her in obvious excitement, ‘My boy has just given it to me. I’m so thrilled. He’s in the RAF and I had wondered … well, I’d hoped, but he hadn’t said so much as a word, other than to promise me that he wanted to make tonight very special for both of us.’
The powder room was empty apart from the two of them, with no cloakroom staff in attendance to overhear them. But even so, Tilly was surprised when the other girl – a pretty strawberry blonde wearing a deep pink satin dress – confided, her cheeks flushing almost the same colour as her frock, ‘I’m just so glad now that I agreed to spend the night here in London … with him, so that we can really be together. My parents think I’m staying at an all-girls’ hostel, but Rory has booked us a room here.’
When Tilly’s eyes rounded the other girl asked fiercely, ‘You don’t approve?’
‘It isn’t that,’ Tilly assured her. ‘I was just thinking how brave you are.’
‘Rory is the one who is brave,’ the other girl told her softly. ‘He’s flown fifty missions now. Every time he flies I wonder if this will be the night he doesn’t come back. Now, if that should happen, then at least I will have had tonight. It’s the least we can do for them, isn’t it?’ She paused, reapplying her lipstick carefully. ‘Give them what we can of ourselves to cherish and to fight and live for, don’t you think?’
She was standing up before Tilly could do anything more than nod, and then watch her enviously as she left the powder room.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Drew commented several minutes after she had rejoined him.
Tilly quickly told him about the girl in the powder room.
‘I wish so much that was us, Drew,’ she told him passionately.
‘What? You wish that I was a fly boy?’ Drew teased her, deliberately choosing to misunderstand her. Tilly, though, knew him far too well to fall for his ploy.
‘You know I don’t mean that. And you know too what I do mean.’ She broke off when they were served with what looked like a very small pink heart-shaped blancmange with a fanfare that it didn’t really deserve.
‘Yes, I do know what you mean,’ Drew agreed once their waiter had withdrawn from earshot. ‘I understand too why you’re saying it.’ He reached for her hand as he had done earlier in the evening, holding it firmly within his own. ‘I feel privileged and honoured to have your love, Tilly, and to know that you’d do that for me.’
‘For us,’ Tilly insisted fiercely. ‘For both of us, Drew. I want—’
A small shake of his head, accompanied by a gentle squeeze of her hand, had her pausing for breath and allowing him to say into that silence, ‘There is nothing I want more than for us to be together properly, Tilly, but I have a responsibility to you, and I have given an assurance to your mother. I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye if I dishonoured that responsibility and that assurance. I don’t want …’ Drew paused, his conscience stabbing him as he told her truthfully, ‘I don’t want our love to be blighted or sullied by lies and deceit. It and you are worthy of better than that.’ It was the truth, Drew assured himself, even if for now there were other deceits that he couldn’t own up to. For Tilly’s own sake. He would have willingly told her everything if he didn’t know that doing so would threaten their love. One day he would tell her, of course. One day, but not yet.
‘Oh, Drew …’ Oblivious to what Drew was thinking, Tilly was overwhelmed by a flood of pride and love for him. He was so honest and decent, so trustworthy.
‘Come on,’ Drew coaxed her. ‘We’d better eat this so-called romantic pudding. They’ll be playing the last waltz of the evening soon, and we don’t want to miss it.’
It was nearly two o’clock when their taxi pulled up outside number 13. Tilly had had a delightful ride back, snuggled up in the back of the cab in Drew’s arms. Not that he had done anything more than simply hold her, but being held safely in Drew’s arms was a perfect way to end what had been a very special evening, Tilly acknowledged, as Drew paid off the taxi and they hurried to the front door.
In number 13’s kitchen, Olive heard Tilly’s key in the front door and stood up. Agnes had gone up to bed nearly an hour ago, but Olive hadn’t felt able to follow her up to her own bed. Not with the weight of so much anxiety hanging over her.
‘Mum, you shouldn’t have waited up for us,’ Tilly protested when she opened the kitchen door and saw Olive seated at the kitchen table.
‘I’m sorry if we kept you up late, Mrs Robbins,’ Drew apologised, adding, ‘I won’t stay and keep you up even longer.’
‘Oh, Drew, we were going to have a cup of cocoa together,’ Tilly reminded him.
But Drew shook his head, telling her gently, ‘I think it’s late enough,’ before adding a polite, ‘good night, Mrs Robbins.’
‘Good night, Drew,’ Olive said politely back.
Whatever doubts she might have about Tilly’s behaviour, she couldn’t fault Drew’s good manners – or his trustworthiness. A young man as deeply in love as Drew so obviously was with Tilly might find that his desire to be trustworthy could be all too easily overwhelmed by her passionate rebelliousness. Olive felt the now-familiar ache of anxiety and despair tighten around her heart.
Of course Tilly had to see Drew to the door and of course once there it was several minutes before she came back, her lipstick having rather obviously been quickly reapplied in the hallway before she re-entered the kitchen.
‘Poor Drew. I promised him a cup of cocoa and now—’
‘Tilly, before we go to bed there’s something I need to talk to you about,’ Olive interrupted her.
It couldn’t be put off any longer. She’d had all evening to think about what she must say, and a very long evening it had been as well, sitting here in the kitchen, on her own for the last hour, wondering about the true nature of that stolen hour Tilly had spent at the Simpsons’ with Drew and what it might have led to.
Tilly stifled a yawn. ‘If it’s the fire-watching here on Article Row—’ she began
‘No it isn’t,’ Olive stopped her. ‘It’s about you going back to the Simpsons’ tonight with Drew and the pair of you staying alone there for over an hour.’
Olive watched with a sinking heart as the colour came and went in Tilly’s face before guilt gave way to a very definite look of defiance. Only now could she admit how much she had been hoping against hope that her daughter would be able to tell her that Nancy had been mistaken. Instead, Tilly was confirming all Olive’s own secret fears and doubts by demanding