So he drew away from her and got to his feet. He stooped to switch off the lamp, and then went to the window and she heard him draw back the silken curtains, and deal with the black-out. Beyond the glass of the window-pane, the winter morning was lightless, but the rain had stopped and the wind dropped.
‘That's perfect.’
‘I must go.’
‘Goodbye, Jeremy.’
‘Goodbye.’
It was too dark to see, but she heard him move, open the door, and gently close it behind him. He was gone. She lay back on the pillows, and was almost instantly asleep.
It was ten o'clock before she woke again, so, after all, she never witnessed the dawn lighten the sky. Instead, the day was upon her; cloudy but with rags of pale-blue sky. She thought of Jeremy, in some train, thundering north, to Liverpool or Invergordon or Rosyth. She thought of last night, and lay smiling to herself, remembering his love-making, which had been both infinitely tender, and at the same time competent, so that her own pleasure had matched his ardour, and together they had mounted to a climax of physical passion. An interlude of magic unexpectedness, and even joy.
Jeremy Wells. Everything was changed now. Before, they had never corresponded. But he had promised that, sooner or later, he would write. Which meant something special to look forward to.
Meantime, she was alone again. Lying in bed, considering her state, she realised that she was recovered. The cold, 'flu, infection, whatever it had been, was gone, taking with it all symptoms of headache, lassitude, and depression. Though how much of this was due to Jeremy Wells, rather than his professional medications and a good night's sleep, it was impossible to say. Whatever, it made no difference. She was herself again, and filled with her usual energy.
But how to spend it? She didn't have to report back to Quarters until evening, but the prospect of an empty, solitary day in London on a wartime Sunday, with neither church bells nor company to enliven her leisure, was not particularly enticing. As well, at the back of her mind, there lurked the possibility of a letter from Singapore. The more she thought about this, the more certain she became that one would be there, in the Regulating Office, in the mail box labelled with the letter ‘D’. In her mind's eye, she saw it waiting for her, and all at once it became important to return to Portsmouth without delay. She flung back the covers and sprang out of bed, then into the bathroom, to turn the taps full on, and drew another scalding bath.
Bathed, dressed, and packed, she accomplished a little instant housework. Stripped the bed, folded sheets, went downstairs, emptied the fridge and switched it off. Jeremy, seamanlike, had left the kitchen shining and shipshape. Judith scribbled a note for Mrs Hickson, weighted it down with a couple of half-crowns, picked up her bag and left, slamming the front door shut behind her. She took the tube to Waterloo, caught the first train to Portsmouth, and there picked up a taxi alongside the ruins of the bombed Guildhall. By two o'clock, she was back at the Wrens' Quarters. She paid off the taxi and went through the main door, and so into the Regulating Office, where the Leading Wren on duty, a sour-faced girl with a disastrous complexion, was sitting behind the desk chewing her nails with boredom.
She said, ‘You're a bit early, aren't you?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Thought you had a short weekend.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, I don't know.’ The Leading Wren gave her a fishy stare, as though Judith was up to no good. ‘It's all right for some, I suppose.’
Which didn't seem to call for any sort of response, so Judith made none. Just signed herself in, and then went to the wooden grid of the mailboxes. Under ‘D’ there was a thin pile of letters. She took them out and leafed them through. Wren Durbridge. Petty Officer Joan Daly. Then, at the bottom, the thin blue airmail envelope and her mother's writing. The envelope was dog-eared and grubby, as though it had suffered untold vicissitudes and had already been around the world twice. Judith put the other letters back and stood and looked at it. Her instinct was to rip it open and read it there and then, but the unfriendly eye of the Regulating Wren was still upon her, and she didn't want any person watching, so she picked up her bag and went up the cement staircase to the top flat and the tiny, frigid cabin that she shared with Sue. Because it was Sunday, there was nobody around. Sue, probably, was on watch. She pulled off her hat and sat on the bottom bunk, still bundled in her greatcoat, and slit the envelope and took out the tissue sheets of airmail paper, folded into a wad and covered with her mother's handwriting. She unfolded them and began to read.
Orchard Road
Singapore
16th January.
Dearest Judith,
I haven't much time, so this will be rather short. Tomorrow Jess and I sail on The Rajah of Sarawak for Australia. Kuala Lumpur fell to the Japanese four days ago, and they are advancing like a tide towards Singapore Island. As long ago as New Year, word went around that the Governor was recommending the evacuation of all bouches inutiles. This means women and children, and I suppose saying it in French doesn't sound so insulting as ‘useless mouths’. But since Kuala Lumpur your father, along with just about everybody else, has spent most of his days at the shipping offices, trying to get a passage for Jess and myself. As well, all the refugees are pouring in, and everything is in turmoil. However, at this moment (11 A.M.) he has appeared to say that he has got two berths for us (bribery?) and we sail tomorrow morning. We are only allowed one small suitcase each, as the boat is grossly overcrowded. No space for baggage. Dad has to stay here. He cannot come with us, as he is responsible for the Company office and the staff. I am terrified for his safety and dread the separation. If it wasn't for Jess, I would stay and take my chance, but as always, my loyalties are torn in two. Abandoning the servants and the house and garden is almost as bad, like being pulled up by the roots. What can I do?
Jess is very upset at the thought of leaving Orchard Road and Ah Lin and Amah and the gardener. All of them, her friends. But I have said we are going on a boat, and it will be an adventure, and she and Amah are packing her suitcase now. I am filled with apprehension, but keep telling myself that we are lucky to be going away. When we get to Australia, I shall send you a cable to let you know that we have arrived, and where we are so that you can write to me. Please tell Biddy, as I haven't time to write to her.
The letter had been started in Molly Dunbar's normal, neat, schoolgirlish script. But as the pages progressed, it had deteriorated, and by now was no more than a frantic, ink-blotted scribble.
It is very strange, but all my life, from time to time, I have found myself asking unanswerable questions. Who am I? And what am I doing here? And where am I going? Now, it all seems to be coming terribly true, and it feels a bit like a haunting dream that I have lived through many times before. I wish I could say goodbye to you properly, but just now a letter is the only way. If anything should happen to Dad and me, you will look after Jess, won't you? I love you so much. I think about you all the time. I will write to you from Australia.
Darling Judith.
Mummy
It was the last letter from her mother. Three weeks later, on Sunday, February 15, Singapore was surrendered to the Japanese.
After that, nothing.
HMS Sutherland
C/o GPO
London.
21st February, 1942.
Darling Judith,
I said I would write sooner or later, and it seems to be later, because it's just about a month since I said goodbye to you. I could have written a quick note, but that wouldn't have been very satisfactory, and I knew that, if there was a delay, you would understand.
My address is deliberately deceiving. My ship is not crouched in a GPO pigeon-hole, but having a refit in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. (Every British sailor's dream.) For the Royal Navy, New York is Open House…I have never experienced such hospitality, and the parties started the moment we were safely in dry dock, and work had commenced. The First Lieutenant (Jock Curtin, an Australian) and
myself were wheeled off to a cocktail party in a swanky apartment on the East Side of Central Park, treated like the heroes that we aren't, and made much of. At this particular do (and there have been too many for any person's liver), we met this delightful couple called Eliza and Dave Barmann, who instantly invited us to ‘weekend’ with them in their house on Long Island. They duly scooped us up at the dockside in their Cadillac, and drove us here, down the Long Island Expressway, to their weekend ‘home’. This is a large old clapboard house in a village called Leesport, on the South Shore of Long Island. It took about two hours to get here, not a beautiful drive, all billboards and diners and used-car lots, but the village is off the beaten track and very charming. Green grass, picket fences, shady trees, wide streets, a drug-store, a fire station, and a wooden church with a tall steeple. Just the way I had always imagined America, like those old films we used to see, when the girl wore a gingham dress and ended up marrying the boy next door.
The house is on the water's edge, with green lawns going down to the shore. It's not the ocean, because the Great South Bay is a sort of lagoon, enclosed by the dunes of Fire Island. On the far side of Fire Island is the Atlantic. There is a little marina, with the Stars and Stripes snapping in the breeze, and a lot of enviable yachts and sailing boats at anchor.
So, I've set the scene. Outside, it's cold, but crisp and dry. A beautiful morning. Indoors, where I now sit at a desk looking out over the summer deck and the swimming pool, it is wonderfully warm, with central heating oozing from decorative grids. Because of this, the house is furnished for summer, the floors uncarpeted and polished, white cotton curtains, and everything very light and fresh. It all smells of cedar, with overtones of beeswax and sun-tan oil. Upstairs, Jock and I each have a bedroom to ourselves, with a bathroom en suite. So, you will gather, we are living in the lap of luxury.
As I said, the kindness and hospitality we have been offered is unbelievable, and even embarrassing, as there is little we can do to return it. It seems to be an integral part of the American character, and my theory is that it stems from the old days of the first pioneers. A settler, spying the distant cloud of dust, and knowing that a passing stranger was on his way, would call to his wife to put another couple of potatoes in the stew. At the same time, he would reach for his gun, which is the flip side of the American coin.
Now, I shan't talk any more about myself, but about you. I think about you every day, and wonder if you have had any news of your family. The fall of Singapore was a disaster, probably the worst defeat ever suffered in the history of the British Empire, and the defence of the city seems to have been thoroughly mishandled and ill thought out. Which is no comfort to you if you have still had no news. But, remember that the war will end, and though it may take a bit of time, I am sure the day will come when you will all be reunited. The worst is that the Red Cross are not able to communicate…prisoners in Germany at least have the benefit of the organisation in Switzerland. Whatever, I never cease to hope for you all. And Gus Callender, too. Poor chap. I think of my present circumstances and what he must be enduring, and feel dreadfully guilty. But personal guilt has always been a pretty useless exercise.
Here, Jeremy laid down his pen, his eye deflected by the sight of a small ferry boat chugging out across the still, silvery waters of the Sound, headed for Fire Island. He had already covered pages of writing-paper, and still had not come to the point of his letter to Judith. It occurred to him that, subconsciously, he was putting it off, because it was so personal, and so important, that he feared that he would not be able to find the words with which to frame the sentences. He had started the letter with such confidence, but now, come to the crunch, he was not so sure of himself. He watched the progress of the ferry boat until it disappeared from view, lost behind a thicket of bushes. Then he picked up his pen again, and went on writing.
Meeting you in London, finding you at Diana's house, was one of the best and most unexpected of bonuses. And I am so grateful that I was there when you were feeling unwell and so miserably worried. Being with you that night, and letting me share, and I hope comfort, in the most basic of ways, has become, in retrospect, a bit like a small miracle, and I shall never forget your sweetness.
The truth is that I love you very much. I suppose always have done. But I didn't realise it until that day you came back to Nancherrow, and I heard ‘Jesu Joy’ coming from your bedroom, and knew that you were home again. I think you were writing a letter to your mother. I know that in that moment, I finally understood how important you were to me.
Like that personal guilt, falling in love in wartime, making commitments, is a pretty useless exercise, and I am fairly sure that you feel the same way. You loved Edward, and he was killed, and this is not an experience any person would want to go through for a second time. But one day the war will end, and with a bit of luck well all come through it, and we'll all go back to Cornwall and pick up the threads of our lives again. When that happens, I would like, more than anything else in the world, for us to be together again, because at the moment I cannot contemplate a future without you.
Here, he stopped once more, laid down his pen, took up the pages and read them through. He wondered if the last paragraph seemed dreadfully stilted. He knew he was not a man able to lay out his deepest feelings on paper. Some, like Robert Burns or Browning, were able to convey passion in just a few well-turned lines, but writing poetry was a gift with which Jeremy Wells had not been blessed. What he had set down would have to suffice, and yet he found himself assailed by self-doubt, and the cold feet of second thoughts.
At the end of the day, he wanted, more than anything, to marry Judith, but was it fair on her even to suggest such a thing? So much older than she, he wasn't, it had to be admitted, much of a catch, with a future no more exciting than the life of a country GP, and one, to boot, short on worldly goods. While Judith, thanks to her late aunt, was a girl of both wealth and property. Would she imagine, would people say, that he was after her for her money? The life that he offered her was that of a rural doctor's wife, and he knew from experience that this was necessarily ruled by endless telephone calls, broken nights, cancelled holidays, and meals that were no more than movable feasts. Perhaps she deserved more than that. A man who would give her what she had never known — a strong and secure family life — as well as an income that matched her own. She had grown so lovely, so desirable…just to think of her made his heart turn over…that it was only too obvious that men were going to fall in love with her, like apples falling from a tree. Was it being desperately selfish, at this particular moment in time, to ask her to marry him?
He simply didn't know, but he had got so far that he might as well finish. Torn by uncertainty, he reached for his pen once more and ploughed on.
I am saying all this without having any idea how you feel about me. We have always been friends, or so I like to think, and I would like it to stay that way, so I don't want to write or say anything that might spoil our good relationship for ever. So, for the meantime, this declaration of my love for you will have to do. But, please write to me as soon as you can, and let me know your feelings, and whether in the fullness of time, you might consider our spending the rest of our lives together.
I love you so deeply. I hope this hasn't upset or distressed you. Just remember, I am prepared to wait until you're ready for commitment. But please write as soon as you possibly can, and set my mind at rest.
Always, my darling Judith,
Jeremy
Finished. He threw down his pen for the last time, ran his fingers through his hair, and then sat gazing despondently at the pages which had taken him all morning to compose. Perhaps he shouldn't have wasted his time. Perhaps he should tear them up, forget it all, write another letter, this time asking nothing of her. On the other hand, if he did this…
‘Jeremy.’
His hostess, come in search of him, and he was grateful for the interruption.
‘Jeremy.’
‘I'm here.’
Swiftly he gathered up the pages of his letter, blocked them off, and slipped them under the top cover of the writing-pad. ‘In the living-room.’
He turned in his chair. She appeared through the open door, tall and tanned and with her silver-gold hair bouffant and shining, as though it had just emerged from the hands of an expert hairdresser. She wore a light wool suit and a striped shirt, crisply collared, the cuffs fastened with heavy gold links, and high-heeled pumps emphasised the elegance of her long American legs. Eliza Barmann, and a pleasure to behold.
She said, ‘We're taking you to the club for lunch. Leaving in about fifteen minutes. Will you be ready?’
‘Of course.’ He gathered up his belongings and got to his feet. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't realise it was so late.’
‘Did you get your letter finished?’
‘Just about.’
‘Do you want to mail it?’
‘No…no, I might want to add something. Later. I'll mail it when I get back to the ship.’
‘Well, if you're sure…’
‘I'll just go and tidy myself up…’
‘Nothing formal. Just a necktie. Dave wondered if, after lunch, you'd like a round of golf?’
‘I've no clubs.’
She smiled. ‘That's no problem. We can borrow from the Pro. And don't hurry yourself. There's no rush. Except it would be nice to have a martini before we go in to eat.’
At the end of April, at the end of a long day, Judith finished typing the last letter for Lieutenant Commander Crombie (with copies for the Captain, HMS Excellent, and the Director of Naval Ordnance) and ripped the pages out of her typewriter.