Church Walk was bounded by a flint wall on one side, on the other by a terrace of half a dozen houses that were home to some of the frailest and most elderly souls in Upton. There was no lane, just now, instead a brawny flood sucking at the terrace steps. I got out and met the Reverend in the middle of the water.
‘We don’t have much time,’ he said.
‘You’re right.’
Lucy could barely walk without the water overflowing into her boots. The Reverend gave her a leg-up onto the flatbed of the lorry and she began passing sandbags to him. I took each one in turn and laid them in the first doorway. Brown water swirled over the step whenever I approached, but retreated again. We worked fast, the Reverend moving the lorry steadily up the terrace. The faces of the elderly appeared in the windows, some pale and confused, others mouthing thanks and messages we couldn’t make out. ‘They’ll be awfully cold,’ I said, ‘with no power.’
‘I have paraffin stoves,’ said the Reverend, breathing hard.
Soon all six doorways were barricaded behind a wall of small, snugly brick-laid sandbags.
‘Let’s hope that’s high water,’ the Reverend said.
I shook my head. ‘We can’t be sure. There might be another bulge coming down the river.’
He held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry, we haven’t met. My name is James Acton.’
‘Ellen Parr.’
His hand was cold, and so was mine.
‘Of course. Althea Brock has mentioned you,’ he said. ‘She told me you were a miller’s wife. You would know about rivers.’
I smiled. ‘My late husband was always careful to point out that I was a miller.’
‘I – we – stand corrected.’ He was giving me a slightly perturbing stare, his eyes wide, dark blue, almost lidless.
‘Where did you get the sandbags, Reverend Acton? I thought they were like gold dust.’
‘Requisitioned from the soldiers. The camp up on the hill.’ He nodded at the lorry. ‘I’ve got contacts.’
‘That’s good of them.’
He broke into a white grin. ‘I don’t think the quartermaster is fully aware of how generous he’s been.’
I laughed, and laughed again with surprise.
‘Reminds me of a pirate, that man,’ Lucy said, as we drove to the kennels. We were taking the back way, a track up the spine of Pipehouse Wood.
‘Ha. You’re more right than you know. Those sandbags are half-inched from the Army. It shows what a poor churchgoer I’ve become, that we’ve only just met.’
‘Why don’t you come any more, Ell?’
I considered her question. Perhaps I had always drawn more comfort from the body of the church, the frost-fractured brick and lichened flint, than from the liturgy or the doctrine. And it was only now that I felt free to act accordingly.
‘Selwyn’s not there to sing.’ It seemed as good an answer as any.
Lucy cleared her throat. ‘Ellen. You know I would never think badly of Mr Parr.’
I shot her a bewildered glance. The track to the kennels was a treacherous gully in the wet. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I wouldn’t say anything bad about him.’ She began a small, tentative, twisted smile. ‘Or if I did, it would be by mistake. I wouldn’t mean it. You know, if it seemed like I suggested that somebody else …’
‘Oh, so you’ve remembered, have you?’
‘Yes. Ellen—’
‘You did indeed suggest somebody else. Someone who would have given me the full bowl of cherries. So what is the bowl of cherries, Lucy? The one I missed having because of Selwyn?’
A shocked silence followed. My voice rang in my ears, leaden and vicious. I hardly recognised it.
Eventually Lucy cleared her throat. ‘I told you, dear. I didn’t mean it—’
‘Even better. Next you’ll say it was only a joke.’
‘I shan’t talk about it any more, Ellen.’ Lucy turned to face the window. ‘I think that’s for the best, don’t you?’
‘If you say so.’
The silence descended again, dreadfully thick, and lasted until we reached the kennels, where she jumped down and hurried away without a word. I turned the vehicle, my hands unsteady on the wheel. She’d been saying sorry, and what had I done? Run her to ground like one of her hunting dogs.
Slowly the thrills of anger died away. Bewildered and shaken in equal measure, I drove to the Place.
‘I’ve got eight girls already,’ Marcy Corey said. She jerked her head towards the back of the house. ‘The staff didn’t manage to ring all the families in time, so they’ve come trailing back to school. Mrs Dennis has been directing them here. Goodness knows how many we’ll end up with.’
She and Dan had married two months before us: their wedding had been full of joy and jokes about cradle-snatching, since she had a full seven years on Dan. She’d never remarried after he was killed, though it wasn’t for lack of offers. She looked youthful still, unbowed. I was glad of that, for her sake.
‘Do you need help, Marcy?’
She grinned. ‘Those girls, it’s like they’re on manoeuvres. Bedding rolls, picnic supplies – I haven’t had to lift a finger. They’ve even swept out the back bedrooms.’
My spirits, depressed by my shameful altercation with Lucy, began to lift. ‘That’s Mrs Dennis for you.’
‘She’s a trooper.’
Through the doorway to the drawing room I saw Colonel Daventry sitting in his armchair. He saluted me wordlessly, lifting a hand, his cardigan sleeve baggy round his thin wrist. ‘Lucy and I were talking about the Colonel this morning.’
‘Come and tell him,’ Marcy said. ‘Take those great boots off and have a cup of coffee with me. I’m ready for a sit-down.’
Colonel Daventry’s once russet moustaches were wispy and grey and he spoke very high now. ‘I’ve been invaded by girls,’ he chirped. ‘It’s absolutely splendid. A detachment is coming in for a hand of whist this afternoon.’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘It’s very kind of you, Colonel. I’m sure Mrs Dennis is grateful.’
‘Nonsense. Keeps a chap on his toes.’
‘Lucy and I were talking about the war earlier today.’ I smiled. ‘Everything you did, on the day of the air raid.’
He harrumphed. ‘That’s going back a bit. We only did what we were supposed to. How is it at the mill?’
‘Snug. The Bowyers run a tight ship.’
He nodded, very satisfied. Then he said, ‘Ah. Marcy, dear, will you fetch the book?’ Marcy got to her feet and left the room, returning a few moments later with a battered brown volume. ‘I found it a few months ago in my library. I’ve been meaning to return it to you ever since. But one’s memory fails.’
Marcy handed the book to me. It was dog-eared, foxed, the spine broken. It always had been. Looking at it now, the book I’d not seen for nigh on forty years, I knew that it would never have fetched more than a handful of copper coins. The Colonel would have seen that instantly but he had taken the book from me, with a small bow, when I was fourteen years old. It was my copy of Downland Flora, which I had given to him to sell for me, to pay for my shorthand course at Spall and Benn’s.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d want it,’ the Colonel said. ‘Then I decided you should be the judge.’
He was right not to be sure. I turned the book over in my hand, looked up at him. ‘Thank you, Colonel Daventry.’
His thin shoulders lifted, his gaze widened and drifted over an inner landscape, one which seemed to sadden him. ‘You deserved more than what we gave you.’
There was a moment of silence while I searched for a reply. ‘It was a different age,’ I told him. ‘We’re living in a better one now.’
‘Here’s to that,’ Marcy said. I opened Downland Flora and she and I looked together at the brighter plants: the bird’s-foot trefoil, the mouse-ear, the early gentian. ‘They’re so delicate and pretty!’ she exclaimed, but the sight of that misty shielding paper made me feel cold, and I smelled mice as I turned the pages.