‘Oh, just the same as me.’
‘And Louisa, in March.’
‘Haven’t we been busy? I do call that nice, they can all be Hons together.’
‘Now, Linda, why don’t you come back with me to Alconleigh? Whatever is the sense of stopping here in all this? It can’t be good for you or the baby.’
‘I like it,’ said Linda. ‘It’s my home, and I like to be in it. And besides, somebody might turn up, just for a few hours you know, and want to see me, and he knows where to find me here.’
‘You’ll be killed,’ I said, ‘and then he won’t know where to find you.’
‘Darling Fanny, don’t be so silly. There are seven million people living in London, do you really imagine they are all killed every night? Nobody is killed in air-raids, there is a great deal of noise and a great deal of mess, but people really don’t seem to get killed much.’
‘Don’t – don’t –’ I said. ‘Touch wood. Apart from being killed or not it doesn’t suit you. You look awful, Linda.’
‘Not so bad when I’m made up. I’m so fearfully sick, that’s the trouble, but it’s nothing to do with the raids, and that part will soon be over now and I shall be quite all right again.’
‘Well, think about it,’ I said, ‘it’s very nice at Alconleigh, wonderful food –’
‘Yes, so I hear. Merlin came to see me, and his stories of caramelized carrots swimming in cream made my mouth water. He said he was preparing to throw morality to the winds and bribe this Juan to go to Merlinford, but he found out it would mean having the Bolter too and he couldn’t quite face that.’
‘I must go,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I don’t like to leave you, darling, I do wish you’d come back with me.’
‘Perhaps I will later on, we’ll see.’
I went down to the kitchen and found Mrs Hunt. I gave her some money in case of emergency, and the Alconleigh telephone number, and begged her to ring me up if she thought there was anything I could do.
‘She won’t budge,’ I said. ‘I’ve done all I can to make her, but it doesn’t seem to be any good, she’s as obstinate as a donkey.’
‘I know, ma’am. She won’t even leave the house for a breath of air, sits by that telephone day in day out playing cards with herself. It ain’t hardly right she should sleep here all alone in my opinion, either, but you can’t get her to listen to sense. Last night, ma’am, whew! it was terrible, walloping down all night, and those wretched guns never got a single one, whatever they may tell you in the papers. It’s my opinion they must have got women on those guns, and, if so, no wonder. Women!’
A week later Mrs Hunt rang me up at Alconleigh. Linda’s house had received a direct hit and they were still digging for her.
Aunt Sadie had gone on an early bus to Cheltenham to do some shopping, Uncle Matthew was nowhere to be found, so Davey and I simply took his car, full of Home Guard petrol, and drove to London, hell for leather. The little house was an absolute ruin, but Linda and her bulldog were unhurt, they had just been got out and put to bed in the house of a neighbour. Linda was flushed and excited, and couldn’t stop talking.
‘You see,’ she said. ‘What did I tell you, Fanny, about air-raids not killing people. Here we are, right as rain. My bed simply went through the floor, Plon-plon and I went on it, most comfortable.’
Presently a doctor arrived and gave her a sedative. He told us she would probably go to sleep and that when she woke up we could drive her down to Alconleigh. I telephoned to Aunt Sadie and told her to have a room ready.
The rest of the day was spent by Davey in salvaging what he could of Linda’s things. Her house and furniture, her beautiful Renoir, and everything in her bedroom was completely wrecked, but he was able to rescue a few oddments from the splintered, twisted remains of her cupboards, and in the basement he found, untouched, the two trunks full of clothes which Fabrice had sent after her from Paris. He came out looking like a miller, covered with white dust from head to foot, and Mrs Hunt took us round to her own little house and gave us some food.
‘I suppose Linda may miscarry,’ I said to Davey, ‘and I’m sure it’s to be hoped she will. It’s most dangerous for her to have this child – my doctor is horrified.’
However, she did not, in fact she said that the experience had done her a great deal of good, and had quite stopped her from feeling sick. She demurred again at leaving London, but without much conviction. I pointed out that if anybody was looking for her and found the Cheyne Walk house a total wreck they would be certain at once to get into touch with Alconleigh. She saw that this was so, and agreed to come with us.
21
Winter now set in with its usual severity on those Cotswold uplands. The air was sharp and bracing, like cold water; most agreeable if one only goes out for short brisk walks or rides, and if there is a warm house to go back to. But the central-heating apparatus at Alconleigh had never been really satisfactory and I suppose that by now the pipes, through old age, had become thoroughly furred up – in any case they were hardly more than tepid. On coming into the hall from the bitter outside air one did feel a momentary glow of warmth; this soon lessened, and gradually, as circulation died down, one’s body became pervaded by a cruel numbness. The men on the estate, the old ones that is, who were not in the army, had no
