Chapter 20: Pastoral

“WHERE are we exactly?” Mary asked when we stopped. She looked a little worried. We were outside a corner shop in a smart suburban avenue filled with a mixture of large detached and semi-detached villas, built only ten years earlier.

“My sister Hettie’s house is just down the street.” I said as we got out and started to walk, “I didn’t want to leave the car right outside their door, so we have a two minute walk with a couple of twists and turns before we get there. Hettie’s husband Jack Morgan is a motor showroom owner with garage workshops behind and a tearoom next door. It is a mile or so away from here on the busy main London to Exeter road. They have done quite well for themselves and have a nice house, but their two children were evacuated to the Sussex countryside last year, so the house is pretty empty. I stayed here in their spare bedroom when I was bombed out three times last year, and also for the last Christmas holiday, when we felt we needed to be close together.”

I didn’t need to say anymore, I had already told her about the recent deaths of my two eldest sisters.

As soon as we started walking, she tucked her arm in mine, and by the time I stopped talking we were standing outside Hettie’s house. In the starlight, Mary still looked nervous, or maybe she was breathless. It was a cold clear night and our breath came out as white vapour.

Jack answered the door by the light of a hooded torch that he held in one hand. It crossed my mind that it would double up as a weapon if needed, if the door-knockers happened to be unfriendly.

“Hi, Ed,” he said as he recognised me, “come on in. Het’ll be more than pleased to see you.”

I hadn’t seen my sister since Christmas, six weeks earlier.

“I was hoping you could put us both up for a couple of nights, Jack.”

“Yes, of course, no problem, Ed; have either of you eaten this evening?”

I could see he noticed someone next to me but without hesitation he ushered us in as soon as he recognised me.

“This is Mary ... a ... er —” I started to say by way of introductions.

Mary pulled on my arm and interjected with a smile, “I’m Mary Jones, Mr Morgan, a good friend of Edgar’s.”

I assume by her words that she was back to using her Middlesex English voice.

“Call me Jack, please Mary, come on in both of you, it’s really cold out there. Close the door behind you, Ed, before I open up the sitting room and let the light out.”

I waved Mary through ahead of me and closed the door behind us. It was pitch black behind the blackout curtains blanketing the front door once it was closed.

West London and North East Surrey was on the turning route back to Germany after the bombers had paid attention to Woolwich and the East London docks, so the total blackout was vital to maintain.

Jack opened the door into the sitting room and Mary could hear my sister say, “Who is it, Jack?” and his reply, “It’s Ed, Hon, and...” now his voice probably dropped to a whisper, “he’s brought a young lady with him. They want to stay for a few days.”

I didn’t find out what was said until later, of course, when Hettie told me. At that moment, though, Mary did turn her face to me and, by the light from the sitting room, I could see she was smiling and relaxed. “Edgar! Honey!” Hettie cried, already halfway out of her armchair by the fireplace, and throwing her arms around me.

Henrietta is my youngest sister, seven years younger than me, so in her mid-thirties. She’s a tall, slim and attractive brunette; my parents long ago conceded that she was the cutest and smartest of their litter, and I always agreed. As an accountant and bookkeeper, she married her boss, Jack, after using her accounting skills to keep his garage business afloat during the financial crash a decade and more ago, and expanded the business into the next door tea rooms once the boom times returned. Jack was ten years her senior and was too busy during his youth building up his business to ever consider including romance in his life, but working closely with Hettie, helping him work through the troubled financial storms, he naturally fell for her in a big way. Luckily, Hettie was already in love with Jack.

“What’s wrong with your ear, sweetheart?” she asked, noticing the plug of cotton wool when she squeezed me to her and kissed me on both cheeks. The huge bandage that the doctor had furnished me with yesterday, had been reduced to a simple small ear plug held in place with a plaster.

“I have a perforated eardrum, Het, and as you know I can’t hear much out of my right ear anyway, so I am relying on lip-reading, or Mary here repeating what I have missed.”

Henrietta turned to smile at Mary. “Oh, Mary, I’m Hettie, dear, Edgar’s sister. He’s hopelessly lacking in social skills, so we would have had to wait all evening through before he introduced us. I couldn’t help noticing your wedding ring, so I’m wondering... ?”

Mary stepped in front of me on my right hand side, to embrace Hettie and they kissed each other on the cheek, Mary correctly assuming the previous exchange was the normal greeting in our family. She said something to Hettie, but I only picked up odd snippets, like “recently widowed ... assistant ... some men ... so dense ... I’ll let Edgar explain.”

Hettie refused to expand on that conversation when I asked her about it later.

Mary turned to face me with a quizzical smile on her face. Hettie and Mary were stood together, arm tucked in arm.

“I don’t like the way you’re ganging up on me, you two. I might need reinforcements, Jack,” I said. I looked around for him.

He was leaning on the door jamb, saying, “I’m putting the kettle on”, when what he really meant was, ‘with these two, you’re bloomin’ well on your own, mate!’

“Well?” asked Hettie.

Just then both ladies moved their eyes sideways for just an instant, before looking directly at me.

Mary mouthed, “There’s another knock at the door, Jack’s seeing to it. I think it’s for me, anyhoo. My maid Milly bringing my essentials.”

Before I could say anything, Jack ushered in the said maid Milly, who was carrying a valise and a thick foolscap envelope clutched in one hand, and automatically curtsied to us all.

Behind her, Jack held up another suitcase, asking “where should we put these, dear? They are clothes, for ... Miss la Mare here.” He grinned uncertainly, then he directed a wink at me.

“Miss la Mare, Miss Marcia la Mare?” Hettie looked straight at Mary, “but you don’t look old enough, dear.”

“She is an excellent, actress, Hettie, dear,” I said, putting a hand on my sister’s shoulder, “we didn’t mean to confuse you, sweetheart, but we do need somewhere to stay for a couple of nights as Mary cannot remain at her hotel, or be recognised anywhere in public at the moment.”

Mary said, “And I really am plain old Mary Jones, Hettie, at least to my dear friends, and the family of dear friends. Marcia la Mare is not the real me at all.”

“I can see that, dear,” Hettie embraced her again, “You can stay here as long as you like, Mary, sweetheart. You are the first girl that Edgar has ever brought home, and this will always be his home. And do accept our condolences for your recent loss.”

Again, I couldn’t “hear” any of this this because of the embrace, but Hettie instructed Jack and Milly to take the clothes “to Edgar’s room,” and then she turned to me and said directly to me, “you’re sleeping in the office, Ed, the couch folds out to a makeshift bed. Sit down by the fire for now, sweetheart, we’ve got this covered.”

I nodded my acceptance of whatever was going to happen in her house. Hettie was always bossy, particularly in matters where she was the queen bee, in charge of domestic, finance and errant sibling in this case, and they all swept out the door, leaving me with the silence.

I couldn’t even hear the ticking of the clock or the crackle from the coal fire. I sat, waiting. At least I was getting warm. I wasn’t aware until later, that the cabbie who had brought Milly was paid off by Jack and dismissed. Hettie told Mary that a proper lady needed her maid with her, so Milly had no choice, she was staying.

When Mary said she was more a rancher than a lady, Hettie insisted that she’s practically Hollywood royalty and that Milly could sleep in the eldest girl’s room, the child’s bed being large enough for her.

Jack returned first, with a large tray of tea, cups, milk jug and plate of biscuits, which he placed on the table. Jack is a tall, well built man, in his early fifties, a good head of sandy hair, greying at the temples. He is always quick to smile, enjoys risqué jokes with male friends, yet completely charmingly attentive with ladies of any age.

“Sorry, Ed, that’s the last of the milk, so just a splash each,” he said to me after placing the tray and turning to face me so I could read his lips. “So, Marcia la Mare, eh? You’ve put the cat among the pigeons there, old chap, Hettie loves going to the pictures, especially that one last year when Marcia played the nurse...”

“I’ve never seen any of her films, Jack.”

“Well, she seems as sweet and lovely as she is on the silver screen, and even more beautiful in the flesh.” Again, I nodded in agreement and looked at the floor.

He remained standing there, and I felt he must’ve said something. I looked up. “Sorry, Jack, I can’t hear a thing, what were you saying?”

“Suicide, wasn’t it? Her husband Bradford Gold’s death? It was said on the radio news that he must’ve jumped off a bridge while suffering from remorse after losing his crew.”

“No, Jack, it was no suicide, her husband was kidnapped for ransom and then murdered.”

“Really?” he raised his eyebrows, “Why? He was the fatted calf to a kidnapper, wasn’t he?”

“We don’t know why or even who, yet,” I admitted. “A ransom was paid by the family, and he was kept alive presumably for more money, but things are more complicated than simple kidnapping. It certainly seems that military intelligence and the criminal underworld are among the murder suspects. There are possibilities that some of the police at the Yard are implicated and even Blackshirts or Axis sympathisers may be mixed up in this thing too. It is a mess and there is no-one in authority that we can trust without question.”

“How do you know what you know?” Just then he tossed his head back, indicating what the other house occupants were doing. “Hettie’s getting your few clothing items moved down to the office, Miss la Mare —”