We Must Be Brave Page 20

  ‘Yes. I was his daughter.’ The past tense felt better.

  He filled our cups and set the pot down. ‘I’m so sorry. I was abroad at that time. I heard, afterwards. And now I’m repeating it back to you. How dreadful of me.’ He blinked behind his glasses, at a loss.

  ‘It’s an hotel now, of course.’ I put down my compress.

  ‘I know.’ His lips turned down. ‘They attract a rather fast crowd, I believe.’

  ‘Do they?’ I repressed a smile. Lucy had been right.

  He had long fingers. They held his cup as if it were porcelain rather than thick tea-room china. The tea was strong and brown. ‘So where did you go after the Stour House?’ he persisted. ‘Your family, I mean.’

  It had to be my youth. People thought they could ask a person under twenty-one anything they liked. ‘We came to Upton,’ I told him. ‘My brother went to sea. My mother sadly died. But I was helped a great deal by Mr and Miss Dawes, and managed to get a post at the town hall, in the typing pool. And this is where I live now, in Waltham, at the hostel at the back of the town hall. And today’s my afternoon off, which is why I was walking back from the library.’ I knew I was beginning to sound pointed, piling detail upon detail. But he seemed not to notice. He was staring in distraction, at my hair, my hands, into my eyes.

  ‘Drink your tea, Mr Parr, or it’ll go cold.’

  A smile caught his lips. ‘I’ve been awfully rude.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen. And you? Since we’re forgetting our manners?’

  He laughed, a peal of light laughter. His teeth were white and regular. ‘Thirty-nine.’

  ‘And you own the mill in Upton.’ A memory pricked me – William, speaking to me in the potting shed. ‘Old Mr Parr was your uncle, wasn’t he, and—’

  ‘That’s right.’ He picked up his cup. ‘Fine flours and animal feeds. I inherited it when my uncle died, five years ago now, and I’m at last starting to make a fist of it. In spite of my secretary, who is hopeless, even more so now she’s about to leave and get married. Every day she comes a little nearer to telling me.’

  I’m a good secretary, I nearly said.

  ‘I suspect that you’re a good secretary, Miss Calvert.’

  I laughed aloud.

  He accompanied me back to the hostel. ‘Any headache, any dizziness, alert somebody. There is someone who looks after you all? Miss Careless? Not a very propitious name. Be aware, Miss Calvert. Concussion can be dangerous.’ He handed me my books. ‘Enjoy your Trollope. And’ – raising his eyebrows – ‘Heroic Feats of Animals.’

  ‘That one’s for a friend.’ I was smiling. ‘She’s not so fond of fiction.’

  ‘Good for her.’ He glanced again at the cover. ‘I knew a horse, during the war, who would be a natural study for this book.’ As we shook hands, he cleared his throat. ‘I’m in Waltham once a fortnight or so. Perhaps I could take you to tea another time? When we’ve not been so violently struck on the head.’

  I felt a warm blush of amazement and delight all over my face and neck. ‘That would be very nice.’

  ‘May I leave a note here?’

  I nodded. ‘This door’s unlocked in daylight hours. We’ve got pigeonholes inside, with our names on. And then there’s another door – that one’s always locked.’

  ‘So I should hope.’ He was smiling back at me. ‘Goodbye, Miss Calvert. Until we meet again.’

  There was now a lump, pinkish, on his temple. Was there somebody to watch over him? ‘You must take your own advice, Mr Parr,’ I said, lifting my hand towards his face. ‘About concussion.’

  He gave a slight bow of obedience, and turned away.

  I didn’t watch the pigeonholes. I merely bought another slide for my hair. A practical one, from the chemist’s, to hold it more firmly in place. It had taken a month of walking, in Waltham, to beat its bounds, to cross the square and perch on the step of the market cross, to sit in the bus shelter when it rained; to visit Mrs Priddy in the baker’s shop, Mrs Royle in the chemist’s, Mr and Miss Barker at Barker’s Outfitters for underwear and stockings. I had to erase my former life, my grimed and lonely memories, from every yard of the streets, and put in place a new Ellen, well-fed, contented, and strong. The principal – indeed, the only – objection in my mind to seeing Selwyn Parr again was the fact that he came from Upton.

  A tall figure in the main aisle of Upton Church. I knew him now. My church visits had become so much more regular now that I was clean and respectable and visited the Hornes for lunch. Sandy hair, a carrying tenor voice: yes. He was the good singer.

  *

  ‘Yes. I do sing.’ He did so, quietly. ‘Because there is none other that fighteth for us …’

  Two ladies at the next table turned their heads and smiled at him. Their gazes travelled benevolently from him to me, and I smiled too. Uncle and niece, they probably thought. Or godfather and god-daughter. We were having tea at Bishop’s Tea Rooms, as he had promised, a fortnight later. The note had been well-sealed. One of my fellow typists, Polly, had snatched it from me but I’d foiled her with a sturdy grab of her wrist.

  ‘… but only Thou, O Lord.’ Even sotto voce the notes were floating and true.

  ‘Why aren’t you in the choir at Upton?’

  ‘Ah, but I am. Clearly you’ve never attended Evensong. I don’t sing at Matins because I take Lady Brock to church on Sunday mornings and stand with her. As much as a person like Lady Brock allows herself to be taken anywhere.’

  ‘How is Sir Michael?’

  He looked away. His eyes were almost square with sadness. ‘I don’t think he’ll leave the Hall again.’ He looked back at me. ‘It was gas, you know, during the war.’

  A memory pricked me. ‘Mr Kennet told me that you drove an ambulance.’

  He took off his spectacles and began to polish them. ‘I did.’ He held the spectacles to the light, squinted. ‘They said my sight was too poor for combat. Though good enough to fling one of those vehicles through the ruts, it seemed.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It did for my nerves, rather, and afterwards I departed for the Holy Land. But that’s another story …’ He glanced up. ‘I didn’t know you were acquainted with Mr Kennet.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Splendid chap. A copper-beater, you know, before he got his hand blown off – half of it, anyway.’

  I nodded. ‘At Dammstrasse,’ I said. ‘The Battle of Messines. I also know Mr Horne, and old Mrs Horne. Lucy Horne and Daniel Corey, Harvey Corey’s boy, were my school-friends. They’re still my friends.’

  His brow wrinkled. ‘So, do I gather … that you went to Upton School?’

  His incredulity made me smile. ‘Most of my education I got from a young lady called Miss Fane, who was my governess before my father ruined us. But then, yes, I went to Upton School.’

  An episode of rapid blinking. I’d shocked him at last. ‘Dear girl. Dear girl.’

  ‘It’s a good school. Miss Yarnold worked hard on us. And there was a huge fire, lit in October and put out in April. That was the main thing. The fire.’

  He placed his warm, dry hand over mine. ‘And where did you live, while you were at Upton School?’

  I didn’t particularly want his hand over mine, but I didn’t take my hand away. ‘Do you mind awfully if we change the subject?’

  ‘Of course. Of course. I do apologize.’ He cast around. ‘Look. Have another scone.’

  I shook my head. I was still unable to eat very much food at one time. But I dearly wanted to take that scone away in a paper bag.

  ‘I’ll ask Mrs Bishop to pack it,’ he said in a low voice.

  There. Every inch a godfather.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ he said.

  ‘No reason. Except that I’m happy.’

  I realized it was true. And so was he. I looked into his eyes for anything veiled, troubled, guarded, but there was nothing except a transported blue gaze. Not innocent, like Edward’s: these eyes were older
, and they had seen the Great War. I could tell that, by their sharpness. He was a man who, before looking at me, had looked at many dreadful things. But he was delighted now.

  We were visited by a sudden moment of delicious serenity.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve only met twice,’ I found myself saying, and just as I did so his eyes left mine, and then he rose to his feet as I heard a middle-aged female voice, slightly hoarse, cut of solid lead-crystal.

  ‘Selwyn! I thought it was you!’

  I got up out of my chair and turned to face her. She had a large, long, red mouth, and she was seemingly incapable of hiding her feelings, because it dropped open in astonishment. The long red mouth had an unusually fat and featureless top lip, which reminded me of one of those large tropical fish that graze on coral – wrasse, I thought.

  ‘Heavens, it’s Miss—’

  ‘Calvert, Ellen Calvert.’ I saved her from pronouncing the soiled name. I put out my hand. ‘How do you do.’ Feeling the new hair slide bite at my nape. So glad that it was dependable.

  ‘Althea Brock,’ she said. ‘A pleasure.’

  ‘I love Bishop’s. The scones are quite gargantuan. Look at that.’ Lady Brock held up the remaining scone between thumb and forefinger. ‘You could feed a family of four on it. You don’t mind if I pinch your plate, dear, do you?’ She took my plate and knife and slathered the remaining butter over the scone, divided each half into half again and set about dispatching the resulting four sections into her maw of a mouth. I met Selwyn’s eyes. They were keen with amused embarrassment. He lifted his shoulders in the slightest shrug.

  ‘Any tea in that pot?’ Lady Brock said through crumbs.

  Selwyn laughed. ‘At least let me get you a cup, Althea.’ He signalled to the waitress, was ignored in the crowd, rose to his feet and left the table.

  Lady Brock turned to me, chewing. ‘I’m absolutely famished. I’ve been up at the farms all day. Nothing like a silage clamp for dulling your appetite. One never wants lunch as a result, so by mid-afternoon one’s ready to boil up one’s own shoes and eat the soles with brown sauce. I’m on my way to Mrs Pettit for a fitting. She used to come to me, but last year she told me there are too many calls on her time now, if you please, so I have to get out the motor and flog into Waltham. But there we are. Everything changes, doesn’t it, Miss Calvert. You in particular, I think.’

  She had brown eyes the colour of coffee, mobile, rather liquid, rather close-set. The span of her mouth almost exceeded that of her eyes. While she was eating, they had been sliding all over my face, my hands, my clothes. Now they looked directly into mine.

  I folded my napkin, edge to edge. I’d expected constraint, anxiety, but after the initial surprise of her arrival – and of her consumption of the scone – I realized she held no fear for me. ‘I’ve had the greatest good fortune, Lady Brock. I have a job at the town hall, in the typing pool. I live in the hostel with some jolly girls. Our meals are nourishing. My room’s very warm.’

  I had kept the room with the boiler pipe. The first time Lucy came to Waltham to see me, we had spent a deal of time standing on the bed in stockinged feet, caressing the pipe in awe.

  ‘Oh, yes. Evie Norris helped train you, isn’t that right? My farm manager’s daughter. That girl is a terrific horticulturalist, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ I was confused as much by Lady Brock’s pointed tone as by the news itself.

  ‘Indeed. There was quite a traffic in slips and scions that year – the year you had your lessons, I mean. From my greenhouses to her little cloches and propagation beds. Some of the plants were really quite rare.’

  I searched her long, sardonic, deeply amused face. I was utterly bewildered, and then, a second later, bewildered no more.

  ‘Mr Kennet,’ I said slowly. ‘He paid Evie in cuttings—’

  Lady Brock held a gloved finger to her lips. ‘It’s a huge secret. William hates his good deeds to be bruited abroad.’

  ‘Surely I should know, as the recipient!’

  ‘Perhaps. Thank him in private, dear, and make it brief. He would hate fuss.’

  A waitress came with a cup and saucer and a fresh pot of tea. Selwyn followed her. He was holding a brown paper bag, folded at the top and grease-specked, which he placed without comment on the table between us.

  ‘Mr Parr and I collided in the street a fortnight ago,’ I said. ‘Now he’s giving me tea, by way of apology.’

  ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going,’ Selwyn told her.

  Lady Brock rummaged in the pocket of her mackintosh and produced a battered packet of cigarettes. She offered them to me: I shook my head. Selwyn, suddenly, was holding out a cigarette lighter with a small flame dancing on top. Lady Brock inhaled deeply.

  ‘Selwyn’s always been rather distracted.’ She emitted a blue jet of smoke. ‘Even as a child. He’d go out for a stag beetle and come back with a slow-worm.’

  ‘Simply because the slow-worm was more interesting. Not because I’d forgotten about the stag beetle.’ He was smiling broadly, fanning the smoke away from his face. ‘Althea, kindly direct your fumes elsewhere. I’ve got Compline in Barrow End tonight.’

  She ignored him. ‘He and I have known each other since he was small enough to hide among the gooseberry bushes. I was like a much larger teenage sister. Never mind. I should be on my way. Mrs Pettit will be having a seizure.’ She got up from the table, and so did Selwyn, and I. Lady Brock shook my hand. ‘A pleasure,’ she said, and then, still holding my gaze, ‘Selwyn, darling. Do look out. Do look where you’re going.’

  He nodded, smiling. ‘I will, Althea. Good afternoon.’

  We watched her stride past the window, mackintosh flapping. Selwyn handed the brown paper bag to me. ‘Another scone.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘But you might like it, later.’

  ‘No. I mean that she should have replaced it. She was the one who ate it.’

  He sighed. ‘She knows no better.’

  We walked back to the hostel, agreeing that we would meet in church at Upton on Sunday and perhaps visit Lady Brock for a cup of tea in the afternoon, after my luncheon date at the Hornes’. ‘I’d have to take the late bus, though. The last time I did that, I squeaked in a minute before curfew …’

  ‘Ellen, I have a motor car. I can drive you.’

  The street outside the hostel was empty, and there was a dusty breeze that tugged at my hat. ‘Yes, but should you?’ I blinked, my eyes suddenly gritty. ‘You heard what Lady Brock said. You should look—’

  He laughed in a forced way. ‘I’m hardly going to bump into you again, am I!’

  Could he really be so stupid? I stared up at him. There was a faint flush at the top of his cheeks. He was pretending he hadn’t grasped Lady Brock’s meaning. He and she had stood there, imagining they were speaking in code, as if in front of a child. ‘You needn’t fear on my account, Mr Parr. I’ve become quite resilient, what with one thing and another.’

  That evening I wrote a letter to William, care of Lady Brock at Upton Hall, thanking him for his great kindness in the matter of the cuttings. I shall always, always be in your debt. If in the future I can render you any service, Mr Kennet, please let me know.

  I had a reply two days later. Well-spaced small capitals, sitting solidly on lined paper. IT WAS NOTHING I ASSURE YOU ELLEN. I LIKE TO DO FAVOURS WHERE I CAN. I KNEW YOU WOULD WORK HARD AND THAT IS REPAYMENT ENOUGH. YOURS WM KENNET.

  I told Lucy about Selwyn before church, as quietly as possible, as we walked up the lane to the lychgate. She often met me at the bus stop but today she was late, so we only came in sight of each other at the head of the lane where a dozen or so people were filing through into the graveyard and the church itself. I told her what had happened and she came to a standing halt, as I knew she would. ‘Mr Parr?’ She was gaping. ‘Parson Parr of Parr’s Mill?’

  ‘Why do you call him that?’

  ‘Everyone does. ’Cause he wanted to be a vicar, but then he c
hanged his mind.’ She gave a long, throaty chortle. ‘Ellen. You are having me on. What the hell do you want with Parson Parr?’

  ‘Don’t say “hell” here, so near to the church.’

  She sucked her teeth. ‘You can see that he’s about a hundred and five.’

  ‘He’s thirty-nine.’

  ‘He’s thirty-nine.’ She mimicked my plaintive tone. ‘Oh, good God above. You’ve got it for Mr Parr. Who would have thought.’

  I glanced up at the church door, hot with irritation. ‘I knew you’d be like this. I only told you because I need to excuse myself after dinner. He’s taking me to tea at the Hall.’

  She walked a small circle, her hands on her hair. Another laugh, this one harder. ‘Tea at the Hall. Tea at the Hall. Well, I never.’

  Mr Price the verger was at the church door, his hand on the bolt. There was no one behind us. ‘Lucy. Come on.’ I started up the path.

  On the way to the church she stopped again, twice, once to say, ‘Can he see without his specs on?’ and then, ‘Make sure you don’t miss your bus, after tea at the Hall.’

  I didn’t tell her he was driving me back to Waltham. It would have finished her.

  I marked the page with the silk ribbon and closed my prayer book. If I raised my eyes I could see Selwyn with Lady Brock the scone thief, today in a startling hat, a winged sort of turban. One of the wings was lower than the other, as if the hat had flown in and just that minute settled on her head. Lady Brock cared for her good friend Selwyn, and less than nothing for me. She already knew who I was. What on earth did she have in mind, inviting me to tea?

  As they left the church they both turned their heads and smiled at me, and I couldn’t help it. I was not the person in Upton that I was in Waltham. I blushed, and blushed, and even my lips were hot, and I kept my foolish, burning eyes on the floor like a stupid schoolgirl. What was I thinking of? What was Selwyn thinking of?

  I produced the fruit tart from my bag. ‘There weren’t any treacle ones left,’ I said to old Mrs Horne. ‘This is gooseberry.’