Turn Left at the Daffodils. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ you’d get a naval allowance and nobody could make you leave home if you were a married woman. Why all this soul searching? What’s brought it on, will you tell me?’

      ‘You wouldn’t believe me, if I did.’ She turned abruptly to stare out of the window.

      ‘Try me, dear. And please don’t turn your back when you speak to me.’

      ‘Sorry – and all right, if you must know…’ She went to sit beside her mother, then stared at the empty hearth. ‘What has brought it on? Seeing everything so beautiful, I suppose. Hutton in the spring and this lovely little village and – and the invasion. Because there’s going to be one, and I don’t want us to be invaded. All this is worth fighting for, mother.’

      ‘And Jeffrey has gone to fight for it. All the young men in the village, too. Nether Hutton is well represented.’

      ‘Y-yes…’ Her mother was right – except that there were only two young men of conscription age in the village. And herself, of course. ‘And it’s going to be better represented,’ she blurted, red-cheeked to the brass fender. ‘Because I’m going, as well. I’m going to join up.’

      ‘ Join up! I have never in all my life heard such nonsense! Have you forgotten your duty to me, Caroline?’

      ‘No. But I really am going. Into the Army.’

      ‘But you are all I have!’ Janet Tiptree jumped to her feet and began to pace the room. ‘Haven’t I suffered enough from war? Didn’t I lose your father to the Great War, and must I lose my only child to this one? Your father came home a sick man; came home to die of his war wounds and -’

      ‘And Todd’s father was killed, trying to get him out of No Man’s Land.’

      ‘Todd Coverdale? Why bring him into it after all these years?’

      Her mother’s red cheeks and trembling mouth warned Carrie to have care, but still she said,

      ‘All these years? It’s not all that long since he left.’

      ‘And did you expect me to keep him out of a sense of duty?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘I couldn’t help it if his mother died. Your father, out of gratitude, told Marie Coverdale that she and her son would have a home here as long as she lived.’

      ‘Yes, and out of gratitude she worked in this house like a servant, almost, and – and -’

      ‘And Todd wanted for nothing. Even after your father died, I saw to it that nothing changed. They continued to live here and Todd went to Grammar School!’

      ‘He got a scholarship! Todd was like a brother to me, yet you sent him away, when his mother died.’

      ‘To his aunt, who was willing to have him. But why all this raking up of the past? You said nothing about his going, at the time. And we are talking about now, and you leaving home! What is to become of me, when you go – if you go.’

      ‘No ifs,’ Caroline said softly, gently. ‘If I pass the medical, I’m going. And it isn’t a question of duty, either to you or to this country. I’m joining up because I want to; because something is telling me I must. Can’t you understand? Can’t you, for once, think of something other than yourself?’

      ‘Well, now I know you have taken leave of your senses! Me – selfish.’ The tears left Janet Tiptree’s eyes, her jaw hardened. ‘Me, who has been father and mother to you, thinks only of myself? Shame on you Caroline. Don’t make me more upset than I already am! I suggest you go to bed, and wake up tomorrow in a better frame of mind. And apologise for the things you have said!’

      ‘No thank you. I am well past the age of being sent early to bed. But I am sorry if I have hurt you, if I seem ungrateful for all you have done for me. And I am sorry for your loneliness over the years, but please stop treating me like a child?’

      ‘Then stop behaving like one and remember where your duty lies. And I have nothing more to say. I shall go to bed. I have a migraine coming on. Will it be too much to ask that you bring me up a hot drink, and an aspirin?’

      She opened the staircase door and without a goodnight, walked sighing to her room…

      ‘Oh, lordy!’ Carrie whispered when she heard the banging of the bedroom door.

      It had been exactly as she thought: the pleading, tears and recriminations. It always was, when her mother wanted her own way. Sometimes her mother had a hard heart, inside that sweet exterior. It was sad she was a widow, but the Great War had left behind many widows – Todd’s mother for one, whose husband had crawled into the void between the trenches. Todd’s father had been shot by a sniper as he dragged his wounded officer to safety.

      Mind, her father had been grateful; given his word that widow and son should be cared for. And her mother accepted it, because she always took the least line of resistance – and because it suited her to have unpaid help in the house.

      Carrie looked at herself in the wall mirror; gazed unblinking so her resolve should not weaken, because there was something else her mother wouldn’t like, if ever she found out.

      Fix a date for the wedding? Not yet. Because Jeffrey had shocked her, shown a side to his nature she had not known to exist, and she had not liked it. She recalled his mouth, sensuously pouted, his eyes narrowed so he need not look at her and his mouth, wet on hers.

      ‘I’m going to the war, Carrie,’ he had said, ‘and if you loved me, you’d let me. We’re engaged, after all. Where’s the harm in it? And anyway, you can’t get pregnant the first time.’

      So she had let him; had lain there unresisting, eyes fixed on the ceiling whilst he pushed and grunted and shoved.

      ‘Told you it’d be all right, didn’t I?’ He had nuzzled her neck when it was over, then slid off the bed and pulled on his trousers. ‘And it’ll be better, next time.’

      Next time, thank heaven, was at least three months away, and by next time she could well be out of reach. And she didn’t want there to be a next time. Not yet. Not until she could talk to Jeffrey about her fears, her feelings, because if that was what doing it was like, then she had got it all wrong.

      She shrugged and walked to the window, arms folded tightly around her, mouth stubborn, gazing as twilight touched the garden, muting colours, softening outlines.

      The wood pigeon that nested in the tree in the lane outside flew past her line of vision, alighting atop the wall, cooing and burbling. It waddled, pecking, then flapped up to its nest. Poor silly, fortunate bird. It didn’t even know there was a war on.

      But there was a war on and she was going to join it, and not all her mother’s tears would stop her. Soon, she would have to register for war service so why not choose, as Jeffrey had done, what she would do and in which arm of the Forces. Army, Air Force, Navy – did it matter? Could anything be worse than remaining in Nether Hutton, a dutiful daughter, waiting for Jeffrey to come home on leave from the Navy and marry her, just because that was what everyone expected them to do?

      She wished she could talk to her mother about what happened that night she had gone out to play whist and left them alone together. Yet she knew she could not, must not.

      She slid home the door bolts and turned the key in the СКАЧАТЬ