I was snapped out of my miseries by the Vicar announcing, “The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir will now sing for us.”
We stood, and I took a few deep breaths before walking to the front, feeling unnerved and unable to go through with my task of leading, such a new endeavor to be making at this awful moment, at once stepping into a dead woman’s shoes—and Prim’s, no less, with her magical presence gone—for the sake of poor Hattie.
And then, a sudden anger shot through me: What vicious brutes did this to them? And a new emotion overcame me: integrity, and a feeling of pride for everything we stand for. Pride in Hattie for striving on with Victor so far away in danger at sea. Pride in Prim for having the faith to take our choir to new heights. And pride in us, the Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, for carrying through with our duty: to rejoice in their lives, to be strong and resilient enough to hold off our enemies, and to make sure their deaths are not in vain.
The organ’s introduction of “Amazing Grace” filtered through the empty church, sweeping through us like a clean, crisp wind, and I took up my baton and prepared the choir to give the finest performance of our short, eventful existence. And a tragic awe overwhelmed me as the clear, crystalline voices pierced the air with all the beauty that a woman’s voice can attain, a soaring white dove in the everlasting tumult of war.
When we had finished, the Vicar announced that the children of the school wanted to sing for their dear teacher. And my heart broke as I watched the children, most of them eight or nine, wondering what had happened to wonderful Mrs. Lovell.
It was the most tragic scene I’d ever encountered. The children covering their faces with their small hands afterward to avoid looking at the coffin, in shock by the raw reality of death: how it could totally destroy something so warm and alive.
—
At the burial, our sorry group stood silently as Hattie’s coffin was lowered into the sodden ground beside her parents, before we made our way back to Ivy House for tea and sandwiches. I walked home with the Colonel, who had slipped the sleeping Rose into her pram—a black one that had been lent to me by a nurse friend in Litchfield, as Hattie’s blue one had been crushed in the bombing. She’d been so proud of it. I remembered when she brought it round to show me, pleased as punch, the first of many such memories to haunt me.
I began pondering about Hattie and Prim and their lives, and thinking of my own insignificant time left on this planet, and how it might be shortened by bombs or invasion, or who knows what. And later that day, after our desolate assembly had left with tears and embraces, I found myself talking about it to the Colonel.
“That could have been my funeral,” I said quietly, sitting at the kitchen table, drawing my fingernail down a crevice in the wood. “That bomb could have come a hundred yards in this direction and hit us.”
“Yes, but let’s not think about that until it happens, eh?” the Colonel replied, and drew up a chair. It was early evening and the gloomy gray of the day was dimming into a stormy-looking night.
“But if we don’t think of our death until we die, how can we decide how we want to live?” I looked at my hands, thin and wrinkled and bony, their freshness lost. “If it had been my funeral, it would have been a sorry affair.”
“You’re tired,” the Colonel said, getting up. “Let me make you a cup of tea.” He went and filled the kettle.
“I’ve just been thinking about Hattie and Prim, wondering why I’ve spent my life working away to make other people happy. Why didn’t I make my own life more fun and happy, and more purposeful?”
He sat back down. “Now look here,” he said in a very authoritative way. “You have a great life. You have a lovely home, brought up David—”
I broke him off to say, “Who is at war and may not come back alive.”
“You have a son,” he went on. “And you are an incredible help and support to everyone around you.” He put his hands on the table emphatically. “Can’t you see how much this village needs you? They’d be lost without you!”
I put my head down, feeling self-conscious, and then I suddenly got up and snatched my dishcloth brusquely. “Enough of this self-indulgence,” I muttered. “I need to get on with dinner. I’m afraid I’m a little behind today.”
He came up beside me, guiding me back to the table with his firm, big hands on my shoulders.
“You just sit back down,” he said gently. “I can make dinner tonight.” And he went over to the larder and took stock of the contents. “Excellent news! We have some eggs, and eggs are my specialty.” He took the box out and promptly started looking for a pan. “Scrambled or boiled?” he asked, as he opened the cupboard and began banging around.
“Scrambled,” I replied, smiling. I can’t remember the last time someone cooked me dinner, even if it was only eggs.