Inside, the house was merry with flickering candles and jaunty music, which sat oddly with the dreadful fear that David might not come back. Red, white, and blue bunting was draped across the walls, probably borrowed from Mrs. B. after the extravaganza she threw for Henry. The crowd of chattering villagers stood around gossiping, each clutching a rationed-out glass of sherry.
Venetia made her grand entrance not long after we’d arrived, bringing the room to a standstill by loudly proclaiming, “I hope I’m not late!” Standing out from the rest of us, she was wearing a dress of glistening green and gold, twirling it this way and that so that the sequins caught the light, trailing around her legs with a tempting fluidity. Within an instant, there was a crowd of men surrounding her, mostly friends of David’s on their way to war. She rewarded each with her special flirty attention, all pouty lips whispering little secrets into their ears. I wondered if I could craftily trip her up.
Before long Mrs. Tilling hushed us, sending a wave of shushes around the room, and went to fetch David down from his room. We cheered as he came in, dressed in full, pressed khaki uniform, looking terribly grown up. But as I watched, I realized with a flash of both relief and worry that he was still the same David—relief that a uniform doesn’t change a person, then worry that the clumsy lad was going to the front line. He was still the same foolish nine-year-old who’d got stuck up the cherry tree on the green, the same lanky twelve-year-old who I’d punched for pulling my pigtails, the same idiot fourteen-year-old who’d crashed the Dawkinses’ tractor into a perfectly innocent hedge. His color is yellow, although not for cowardice, but rather a kind of blindness to reality, and I couldn’t help but worry for him. Even now, the eager and dazed look in his eyes showed the way he embraced every challenge in life, with a tireless na?veté, like a fox gamboling into the hunt, half expecting to be caught, not thinking about how it all might end.
“Wow!” he gasped as he came into the glistening sitting room. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much effort.” He put his arm around Mrs. Tilling in his chaotically warm way. “Thank you for coming, everyone!” He stepped forward to us. “Lovely to see you, Mrs. B., I thought you’d be far too busy giving someone what for. Have you persuaded Mr. Churchill to come and give the Chilbury WVS a speech yet? Bet he doesn’t know he has his top fan club here!”
Everyone laughed, and someone called, “He will do soon enough!”
David then turned to Venetia, taking her hand and kissing it. “And the beautiful Venetia, a last sight of you to cherish on my journey.” His eyes remained on her as his smile lurched wetly.
Venetia was all modesty, looking up at him with fluttering eyelashes and glossy red lips. “David, you’ll come back my hero,” she said in a voice breaking with tears. I wanted to laugh, until I met Mrs. Tilling’s sour look from across the room. We all know Venetia doesn’t care a farthing for David. I have no idea why she insists on playing stupid games with him.
Mrs. Tilling asked me to offer around a plate of rather chewy cheese straws (with so many rations no one ever knows what people put into recipes these days). So I mingled around, watching Henry, who was talking to a very pregnant Hattie. He was looking terrifically handsome with his sandy hair cropped and his pristine RAF uniform. His new mustache is devilishly dashing, like all the best fighter pilots. It makes his nose look a little less beaky, I think. And he looks older, too, even though he’s already nineteen—a real man, someone who’ll know how to take care of me. He didn’t seem to notice me watching, until Hattie drew me over to join them.
“What a gorgeous dress, Kitty,” she said, fingering the fabric. “Don’t you think so, Henry?”
“Yes indeed. You look lovely, Kitty,” he said, grinning, and I found myself dissolving into his eyes. But then he added, “You’ll follow in your sister’s footsteps soon and become quite the beauty.” His eyes swept over to Venetia, who was holding forth in a crowd of men beside the piano. Why does she feel she has to get the attention of every man in the room, including Henry, when she’s not even interested in any of them?
“I don’t want to look like her,” I said, annoyed, making him look back to me. “I want to be a beauty in my own right.” I felt Hattie let out a sigh, I have no idea why.
“Of course you’re a beauty in your own right, Kitty!” Henry declared jovially, putting his hand warmly on my upper arm and giving me a special smile. I felt a surge of heat where he touched me, like a flame lighting up my body. I waited for him to take me in his arms—