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Chapter Sixteen

Olive glanced anxiously at Tilly. Her daughter had been very subdued all day. At first Olive had put this down to the excitement of going to the Palais combined with her late night, but as the day had worn on and Tilly had showed no signs of reverting to her normal cheerful self, Olive’s anxiety had grown.

Tilly had always loved Christmas so much, wanting to be involved in all the preparations for it, but today, when Olive had been busy baking and cooking, it had been Agnes who had done the most to help her, her excitement in sharp contrast to Tilly’s withdrawal.

Now Olive, Tilly and Agnes were sitting in the church hall, watching the dancers enjoying themselves to music provided by the vicar’s loaned radiogram. Several times Olive had urged Agnes and Tilly to get up and dance, but Agnes had protested that she wasn’t a good dancer, and Tilly had simply shaken her head and said that she didn’t feel like dancing.

Tilly saw her mother looking at her and bit her lip. If she wasn’t careful her mother was going to guess that something was wrong and then she would start asking questions and then . . . The last thing Tilly wanted was for her mother to know how silly she had been. Seeing her mother’s face creased with anxiety made Tilly feel very guilty. There was no point in her continuing to make herself miserable over Rick, she told herself. He certainly wouldn’t be sitting somewhere thinking about her and feeling miserable because she wasn’t there, would he?

Just as she was thinking that, Mrs Windle came over, leading a young man wearing a St John Ambulance uniform.

‘Tilly, Christopher is new to our congregation. He and his parents have just moved into number forty-nine Article Row, next to Mr Whittaker,’ she announced. ‘He doesn’t know many people yet, so it would help him to make friends if you’d be kind enough to dance with him.’

He wouldn’t get to know many people living next to Mr Whittaker, a veteran of the last war who was something of a recluse. Tilly’s grandmother had always said that it was the disappearance of his wife and the gossip that had caused that had led to Mr Whittaker retreating into himself. The talk had been that she had run off with another man she had got involved with whilst Len Whittaker had been in France fighting for his country.

Now, with the vicar’s wife smiling at her, Tilly got to her feet. She didn’t want to dance but she was far too polite to refuse. The newcomer – Christopher – was pleasant enough looking, with his thick heavy fairish hair, and hazel eyes, but he was very quiet, and Tilly thought that he must be shy.

Trying to put him at his ease, she smiled and said, ‘Are your parents here this evening?’

‘No, my father isn’t very well. He has a bad chest. The last war. He did have a job but he’s retired now.’

Tilly was immediately sympathetic. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ She paused, then told him, ‘My own father died because of that war. I can’t remember him because he died when I was very young.’

They’d reached the dance floor and Tilly turned to him but he stood back from her, his face going bright red as he told her fiercely, ‘Before you dance with me there’s something I have to tell you, and then if you don’t want to dance with me you don’t have to.’

‘If you’re going to tell me that you’ve got two left feet,’ Tilly began to joke, brought out of her own misery by his obvious awkwardness and her own desire to help others.

‘No.’ He looked at her and then blurted out, ‘I’m a conscientious objector – to the war you know. I won’t fight. I don’t believe in it.’

Tilly stared at him, and then said uncertainly, ‘But you’re in uniform.’

‘Only to help those who need help. People call me a coward, and I suppose you’ll think the same. But I don’t care. I’ve seen what war can do.’

Tilly didn’t know what to think. The music started up – a barn dance; she couldn’t just walk away and leave him.

‘I don’t think you’re a coward,’ she told him truthfully. ‘In fact I think you must have to be fearfully brave to refuse to fight.’ She reached for his hand, pulling him into the dance, a protective feeling similar to the one she felt for Agnes filling her.

‘Sergeant Dawson.’ Olive gave the sergeant a warm smile when she saw him approaching her, his helmet under his arm.

‘I’ve just come off duty and since I had to pass by on my way home I thought I’d call in and make sure that there wasn’t any trouble. Sometimes young lads get a bit too full of themselves at this time of year.’

A bit too full of drink, the sergeant meant, Olive knew, but he was too discreet to say that.

‘I’m surprised to see you sitting out instead of dancing,’ he added.

‘Oh, my dancing days are over. I’ve only come tonight because of Tilly and Agnes.’

Although she was smiling, Olive suddenly and unexpectedly felt a small pang of sadness. She used to love dancing; Jim had always said that she was as light as a feather on her feet.

‘Me and Mrs Dawson used to really enjoy going dancing,’ Sergeant Dawson told her, ‘but that was before we had our boy, of course.’

Christmas must be a very sad and lonely time for the Dawsons, Olive thought, her sympathy for them driving away her own momentary sense of loss.

Sergeant Dawson was standing up, announcing, ‘I’d better get on.’

‘Oh, yes. You won’t want Mrs Dawson worrying.’

‘She’ll have gone to bed. She doesn’t sleep well and she says my snoring keeps her awake if she doesn’t get off first. She prefers it when I’m working nights.’ He was holding out his hand to her so Olive extended hers so that he could shake it, her hand almost engulfed by his, the feel of his skin against her own warm and roughly male. How long had it been since she had felt the touch of a male hand against her flesh in a caress of intimacy and love?

Quickly Olive snatched her hand free, guilt and confusion staining her face with hot colour. What on earth had got her thinking like that? She’d been a widow for sixteen years and never once during that time had she so much as thought of another man. She hadn’t had the time or the inclination. And she didn’t now, Olive assured herself, as she made herself focus on the dancers.

It was getting dressed up in her new frock that had done it, Olive decided. She knew she shouldn’t have given in to Tilly’s pleas to have something ‘nice’ made from the velvet she and Agnes had bought her.

On the dance floor Tilly tried to draw Christopher out of his shyness. Concentrating on him was far less painful than thinking about last night and the way Rick hadn’t so much as looked at her after their dance, never mind asked her to stand up with him again. It must be as Dulcie had told her on their way home: Rick preferred older girls who knew what was what and that he’d only danced with her because Dulcie had asked him to do so.

In the papers conscientious objectors were often vilified and labelled as cowards. But Tilly felt more sorry for Christopher than contemptuous of him for not joining up.

‘What made you become a conscientious objector?’ she asked him curiously as they stood together in the queue for the buffet table.

‘I don’t agree with wars and fighting, and killing people. Not after what the last war did to my father.’ His gaze burned with intensity as he spoke.

‘But the country has to be defended from Hitler,’ Tilly told him.

He didn’t make any response, turning away from her.

‘Mrs Windle said that your family had only recently moved here, but most people are moving out of London, not into it,’ Tilly persisted, trying to engage him in conversation.

‘We used to live with my grandmother, but she died six months ago, and with me being in the civil service Mum said it made sense for us to move over here.’

Tilly nodded. There were a lot of Government offices in the Holborn area, including Somerset House.

‘Mr Ryder from number eighteen, who’s retired, used to work at Somerset House,’ she informed Christopher, ‘and Mr King, who owns six of the houses lower down the Row, used to have several tenants who worked in the civil service. Most of them have moved out now because of the war.’

When Christopher made no response Tilly suppressed a small sigh. She was a sociable girl who enjoyed the company of others and meeting new people, but trying to get him to talk was like drawing teeth, she decided ruefully. But good manners meant that she had to keep trying.

They’d almost reached the buffet table so she changed the subject and told him proudly, ‘You must have one of the mince pies, and a sausage roll. My mother made them.’

He nodded and then blurted out, ‘I’d prefer it if you call me Kit, not Christopher, and thanks . . . for dancing with me. I don’t think the vicar really approves of me being a conscientious objector, only, being a man of God, he can’t really say so.’

‘You’re still doing your bit,’ Tilly told him stoutly, indicating his St John Ambulance uniform.

The dance finished early, in time for the midnight carol service. As Tilly told her mother, linking arms with both her and Agnes as they set off for number 13 afterwards, there was something special about singing carols on Christmas Eve.

At St Barts, Sally shared Tilly’s feelings, her eyes stinging slightly with emotion when she left the chapel where one of the chaplains had just finished conducting the Christmas Eve midnight service.

‘We never did get to manage that meal out together,’ George Laidlaw told her, catching up with her as she walked down the corridor.

She’d seen the young doctor only briefly since his return from his posting with their evacuated colleagues, their only exchange brief nods of recognition, and sometimes a few words as they went about their duties.

‘The theatre lists have been busy,’ she told him. ‘With most of the staff evacuated and a reduced number of operating theatres, there’s been more pressure on those that there are, especially with all the blackout accidents that have been coming in.’

‘If you haven’t already got a partner for the hospital’s New Year’s Ball, and you aren’t on duty, perhaps you’d consider letting me take you to that?’

Automatically Sally opened her mouth to refuse and then closed it again. What was the point in looking backwards to what might have been?

‘I’m not on duty, and yes, I’d like that,’ she answered.

‘You will?’ George looked delighted.

Ten minutes later as she stepped out into the cold night air, her cloak wrapped warmly round her, Sally discovered that she was still smiling at George’s obvious pleasure in her acceptance.