Remembrance Page 2

  The main street of the village was quiet. Most people were at home having their evening meal. She waved across to Mrs Brunowski, the Polish lady who kept the ladies’ outfitters on the opposite side of the street, then she leaned into the window and drew down their own dark blue blind. As she did so she caught sight of two figures sauntering arm in arm towards their shop. Her lip tightened. Miss High-and-Mighty from the big house, and who was that with her? It must be the dreamy brother, freshly returned from University and full of new ideas, she’d heard, to tell others what to do, that had enough to do. And as for herself, Miss Charlotte, cycling up and down to the little cottage hospital every other day, playing at being a nurse. Well, she, Maggie, knew fine well what she was up to, calling in at the shop as often as she could for some trifling message. Making big calf eyes at her brother, and him so gullible he was lapping it up, like a cat at a saucerful of warm milk.

  By the time she reached the shop door and began to close over the first half, Maggie had worked herself into a thoroughly bad mood.

  ‘Are we too late?’ enquired a pleasant voice at her elbow.

  Maggie stopped struggling with the bolt and looked up into the handsome face of Charlotte’s brother Francis.

  ‘We only wish to purchase a newspaper,’ he added with a charming smile.

  ‘That’s all right, I suppose,’ Maggie replied grudgingly. She knew that it wouldn’t do to offend them. Stratharden House always had a large weekly order delivered, besides which, some of the members of her family might actually welcome their company. She nodded and led the way into the shop.

  ‘Sorry to delay you,’ Francis said apologetically to Maggie’s dad. ‘I just wondered if you had a copy of the evening newspaper?’

  ‘No bother, no bother at all,’ said Mr Dundas quickly. ‘I’ve the Chronicle here.’ He handed Francis the newspaper. ‘You’ll be wanting to read the war news, I suppose?’

  ‘Not wanting to exactly,’ said Francis, ‘but I suppose one should be aware of what is happening.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Mr Dundas, ‘we need to keep up with the news. Now that your University days are over you’ll want to be part of it. John Malcolm can’t wait for his eighteenth birthday so that he can go off and do his bit.’

  Francis said nothing in reply. His sister had wandered across to the opposite counter and was intently examining the display case which held hair ribbons and lace handkerchiefs.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  John Malcolm appeared at her side. She gazed at him with clear grey eyes which were on a level with his own.

  ‘I don’t know …’ Charlotte hesitated. ‘My mother’s birthday is quite soon. It is so difficult to choose a gift for an older person, don’t you think?’

  John Malcolm nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Had Charlotte said that the moon was made of green cheese her brother would have agreed, Maggie thought sourly. She was suddenly conscious of her plain brown dress covered with her shop apron, and her hair not quite in place after a day’s work. ‘I’ll help the lady, John Malcolm.’ She spoke briskly. ‘After all, you are busy pricing the butter, aren’t you?’ she added sweetly.

  ‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll come another day,’ said Charlotte. ‘You are almost closed and my brother has his newspaper now.’ She smiled and managed to meet eyes once again with John Malcolm, before she rejoined her brother. Mr Dundas covered the awkward pause in their conversation.

  ‘Are you still interested in drawing?’ He nodded to the sketch-pad under Francis’s arm. ‘I remember you as a wee lad, you always had a pencil in your fist.’

  ‘I haven’t had much time over the last months, but I’m hoping to take it up again more seriously.’

  John Malcolm had taken off his apron. ‘Let me take our order for tomorrow’s milk up to the farm, Dad,’ he volunteered.

  ‘Right, son, fine. The slip is on my desk,’ said his father, taken aback by this sudden volunteering by one of his children to run an errand.

  Francis and Charlotte left the shop. Maggie watched them go from the doorway. A few moments later her brother made to leave.

  ‘Don’t break your neck trying to catch them up,’ said Maggie as he went past her. ‘And I’m serving dinner in twenty minutes, with or without you.’

  Her brother turned and walked away from her backwards grimacing and pulling the most dreadful faces until she eventually had to laugh.

  Maggie shook her head. Her emotions were confused. Why should her brother not speak to Miss Charlotte Armstrong-Barnes? Over the last few months he had become quite taken up with this young lady. Was she so possessive of her twin that she did not want him to be fond of anyone else? Or was it this particular person she resented, and why? Had it anything to do with the girl’s wealth and position? If she, Maggie, protested equality for her sex, then it should be equality in everything, and both ways, up and down the social scale, shouldn’t it?

  ‘Any spoiled goods, miss?’ pleaded a small voice beside her.

  The ragamuffin child had detached himself from the side of the wall next to the shop and was standing before her.

  ‘Go inside,’ said Maggie kindly, ‘my dad may have something for you.’

  It was hard to tell what age he was, with spindly arms and legs sticking out of outgrown clothes, his thin peaked face still pasty-white despite the long hot summer days. Maggie watched him run away up the street with his box clutched tightly before him. Where was his equality? she wondered.

  Chapter 3

  JOHN MALCOLM CAUGHT up with Charlotte and Francis on the bridge at the edge of the village.

  ‘Look at the water,’ said Francis, leaning out over the bridge. ‘How pure and clear it is.’

  ‘And the sound it makes,’ said Charlotte, ‘so pretty. It seems to be beckoning you. Don’t you think so?’ She turned to John Malcolm.

  ‘Beckoning you to do what?’ he asked.

  ‘Why, to let it run through your fingers, or paddle in the water as we used to do when we were children. Remember the summers when I was little?’ she asked her brother. ‘We used to walk into the hills with a picnic basket and find a stream to dam and then sail paper boats.’

  Francis had opened up his sketch-pad and was making deft strokes with his pencil.

  ‘Why don’t we do it again?’ cried Charlotte. ‘I have a wonderful idea. We could all go on a picnic on the next Bank Holiday.’

  ‘I don’t know if I am up to tramping for miles and miles,’ said Francis, laughing.

  ‘You could ask Mother if we may take the car out and drive to one of the little lochs, and John Malcolm and his sister could come, and his younger brother too. I’m sure he would like that.’

  John Malcolm could imagine only too well how much Alex would like that. Driving around the country in a real motor carriage. ‘I’ll have to square that away with my father first,’ he said. ‘The shop has been very busy lately, and we always have lots of work to catch up with on holiday weekends.’

  ‘And you will have to speak to Mother,’ said Francis. ‘I’m not sure that she will approve of you gallivanting about the countryside.’

  Charlotte pulled a face. ‘At the moment Mother does not approve of anything I do.’

  ‘That is probably because your head is like my sister’s and full of these new ideas of women’s place in society,’ said John Malcolm.

  They had left the bridge and were starting up the country road.

  ‘I’ll sit here for a bit,’ Francis called after them. He waved his sketch-book in the air. ‘I want to see if I can catch the light on the water. Tell Mother I won’t be late for dinner.’

  ‘And what if I did think that women should be the same as men?’ demanded Charlotte. ‘Exactly what is wrong with that?’

  ‘Do I have to remind you of all the ways that men are superior to women?’ said John Malcolm, his eyes teasing.

  ‘Hah!’ cried Charlotte. ‘That proves that you miss the point. You should not talk of superiority, but of equalit
y.’

  She had taken off her hat and was swinging it back and forth in one hand, which left, as John Malcolm was quick to notice, the hand closest to his free. In all the previous weeks when they had spoken to each other they had never once been alone together. They turned the bend into the stretch of road which took them out of sight of the village but not yet in view of Charlotte’s house. He moved closer, chewed his lip. ‘Would you mind if I took your hand?’

  For a horrible moment she didn’t say anything at all. Then still remaining silent she held out her hand. They walked in silence for a minute or two, he hardly closing his fingers around the hand that rested lightly in his. Now he couldn’t think of a thing to say to her. Usually words went flying off his tongue.

  She spoke first. ‘You were about to tell me,’ she said, ‘exactly how you were superior to me.’

  He looked into her calm grey eyes, and was lost for ever.

  ‘I may have changed my mind,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Actually,’ said Charlotte, ‘I do remember an occasion when you were superior. It was one day in the village school. You were in some class above, and much too grand to be bothered with the likes of me. But my ball went on the school roof and I was standing by the railings crying, and you climbed all the way up and threw it down to me. I thought you were wonderful.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘I suppose I must have been pretty wonderful to climb up on the roof at that age.’ He gave her a sidelong look. ‘Do you still think I’m wonderful?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t think you were wonderful for more than two minutes,’ she replied. ‘You asked me my name, and when I told you, you said, “Well that’s a mouthful, I think I’ll just call you Charlie,” and you did.’

  ‘“Charlie”,’ repeated John Malcolm. ‘You must have thought me a terribly rude little boy.’

  ‘Secretly I rather liked it,’ said Charlotte.

  John Malcolm looked at her. ‘In one way it sort of suits you. Would you be offended if I called you Charlie now?’

  ‘As long as you promise never to say it in front of Mother. She might faint away completely if she heard it.’

  ‘Charlie,’ said John Malcolm softly. He drew nearer to her as they walked on. ‘That will be my special name for you.’

  ‘You will let me know about the picnic?’ asked Charlotte as he took his leave of her at the end of her drive.

  ‘I’ll give a note to Archie, the delivery boy, with your weekly order on Friday,’ said John Malcolm.

  ‘And you’ll ask your sister? I would so enjoy her company,’ Charlotte added anxiously. ‘It’s just that … I’m afraid if she doesn’t accompany us then I will be unable to go.’

  ‘Oh Maggie will come all right,’ said John Malcolm confidently as he waved Charlotte goodbye.

  But as he returned home he had misgivings which proved to be correct.

  ‘I don’t have time to go on motoring trips,’ his sister said crossly.

  ‘Maggie, please,’ he begged her again.

  Maggie was standing at the sink in the scullery crashing the dinner plates together in annoyance. ‘No,’ she repeated, reaching past him for the potato pot. ‘I have far too much to do.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ he said desperately. He lifted the pan scourer, and grasping the pot began to scrub it furiously.

  Maggie regarded him, hands on hip. ‘There’s a first for everything.’

  ‘Dad said we could have the day off, and you could do with a rest,’ said John Malcolm.

  ‘All the beds need changed, and Ma is not up to it,’ said Maggie firmly.

  ‘You would enjoy it,’ said her brother, ‘and Charlotte particularly asked for you to come.’

  ‘She doesn’t want my company,’ his sister snapped back. ‘She wants your company, and you’re such a gull that you don’t see it.’

  Her brother did not answer for a moment. Then he said:

  ‘Perhaps I do see it, Maggie. Perhaps I want to spend some time with her. Her mother is very indulgent of her, but she might not be allowed to go unless there is another lady in the party.’ He slumped sadly against the wall. ‘I really like her an awful lot, Maggie.’

  Maggie looked at her brother’s crestfallen face and her good nature won through.

  ‘All right then,’ she said, and was grabbed and kissed all over the top of her head before she had the words out of her mouth.

  Chapter 4

  THIS MIGHT BE the best day of the whole summer, Charlotte thought, as she awoke on the last Monday of August. She had left her window open the previous evening and as she lay in bed now she could smell and hear the world coming awake. She stretched her arms right up over her head. She was alive, she was nearly sixteen years old, and this was the morning of her picnic. Just for today, she would try to forget there was a war on.

  Charlotte quickly got out of bed and looked at the clothes she intended to wear today. Last night the cream dress with the box-pleated skirt had seemed to her simple, yet classically elegant. Matched with a wide-brimmed hat she had thought to be plainly but strikingly dressed. This morning the outfit appeared to her eyes as too ornate and fussy. A little girl playing at dressing up. What would Margaret Dundas wear, she wondered, to suit her dark eyes and hair gleaming with copper highlights? Charlotte thought herself pale and insipid beside her. The older girl was half a head shorter as well, Charlotte remembered, making Charlotte feel tall and ungainly. She decided to wear what she had selected but replaced the heeled shoes with a flatter pair.

  Helen, the maid, brought her a cup of tea as she was doing her hair. ‘It’s a beautiful day for your outing, miss. Here, let me help you with that.’ She set the cup and saucer down and fixed some pins in Charlotte’s hair.

  ‘What do you think of my dress, Helen?’ Charlotte asked her.

  ‘It’s lovely. Just perfect for a summer picnic.’

  ‘Not too fussy?’ persisted Charlotte.

  ‘Not at all, miss,’ said Helen. ‘I’d wear that dress to go walking out with my young man any day.’

  ‘And how is Ian?’

  ‘He’s just grand, and expects to get leave before he goes off to France. I’m hoping for a winter engagement and a spring wedding.’

  Charlotte gasped. ‘How can you say that? What makes you think that he’ll ask you to marry him?’

  Helen laughed. ‘Och, there’s ways of getting around men. You just make up to them with big eyes and act as though you thought they were the most important creature on earth. Then take a huff but don’t tell them what for and they’ll start bringing you pretty gifts and try to coax you out of it. And soon you’ve got them so that they don’t know if they’re coming or going. I can’t believe that you don’t know how to play that game. You’ve got Master Francis wound round your little finger. How else would you have got him to take you on this outing?’

  Charlotte laughed right out loud at this. It was true of course. Francis had smoothed away her mother’s doubts.

  ‘I don’t know …’ Charlotte’s mother had sighed only last night. ‘This Dundas family … shopkeepers, aren’t they? Do you think that they are entirely suitable company, Francis?’

  ‘The Dundas family are very respectable,’ Francis told his mother firmly. ‘And there are not the same strict boundaries here as you might find elsewhere.’

  ‘Living in the country makes everything different,’ his mother agreed. ‘I might have sent you elsewhere to be educated, but your father always insisted that the village school was as good as any other for elementary education.’

  ‘And indeed it was, Mother,’ said Francis. ‘Anyway you couldn’t have borne us to be away from you when we were little. Look how upset you were even when I was older and went off to school and University.’

  ‘That is certainly true,’ she agreed, ‘and you were always your father’s pet, Charlotte, so he would not part with you. It was he who decided that it would be the village school and private tutoring later.’

  Charlotte could hardly remember her fat
her. He had died when she was quite young, but he had been well liked and respected in the area. Francis had told her that their father had held quite radical views about society which their mother did not altogether share.

  Her mother still demurred. ‘I don’t know … Charlotte is almost of marriageable age. It is important that she meets the right type of persons.’

  ‘Father would have said that honesty makes the man,’ said Francis seriously. ‘And Mr and Mrs Dundas are well known for being upright and generous to those less fortunate. Charlotte will be with me and she will be perfectly safe.’ He paused. ‘Why don’t you come along with us if you are so anxious?’

  Charlotte gave her brother a look of alarm. He winked at her. She held her breath and did not dare meet her mother’s gaze.

  ‘Mmmmm … no. I don’t think so, dear. It would be too tiring for me in the heat of the day.’

  ‘Then we will say goodnight, as we want an early start tomorrow,’ said Francis, and he ushered Charlotte from the room.

  Now she dressed quickly and went downstairs and found him calmly eating bacon and eggs. She picked up a piece of toast. ‘Are you going to eat all of that?’ she asked him. ‘You will be ages and we mustn’t be late.’

  ‘We won’t be late,’ said her brother. ‘You help Annie with the picnic basket, and I’ll bring the car round.’

  Charlotte fixed her hat firmly on her head as they set off down the road towards Stratharden. ‘Will you let me drive a little today?’ she asked. Sometimes when they were out of sight of the house Francis would show her how the gears worked and let her take the wheel.

  ‘You can put your hands on the wheel for two minutes,’ he said, ‘until we reach the bridge.’

  They drew a great deal of interest as they came to a stop in front of the Dundas store. Mrs Brunowski, her children clutching at her skirts, walked over from her shop on the other side of the street to admire the car. Then the Dundas family appeared, including Mrs Dundas who rarely ventured out of doors. A crowd of small boys, among them Willie, the barefoot urchin, stood staring. The men began technical talk, of tyres and treads, and engine horsepower.