a long walk through the gardens and into the pastures behind the house where a small herd of cows now grazed contentedly, swatting their tails lazily at flies. If she closed her eyes and breathed in, Lily could almost imagine she was in the fields at home with the familiar scents of the earth and cattle around her. She felt a pang of homesickness.
Back at the house, all was mayhem. Sybil’s voice could be heard wailing about her hair and how someone had run off with her perfume.
‘There was only a little bit left, and I was saving it for today!’ she roared. ‘How could this happen to me?’
Lily and Maisie dressed quickly, and each fixed the other’s hair.
‘Yours is so glossy,’ Maisie said, standing back to admire Lily’s rippling chestnut curls that she’d pinned up at the sides with two tortoiseshell combs. ‘Did you rinse it in beer or something?’
‘Not beer,’ grinned Lily. ‘Perfume!’
‘You’re fibbing?’ giggled Maisie.
‘Yes.’
‘It would serve the horrible little monster right. I don’t know how Diana sticks her,’ Maisie said.
‘Oh, she’s not that bad,’ Lily pointed out. ‘She’s just spoilt and hasn’t seen very much. If she was living with us for a while, we’d rub the corners off her. A few days as an aide in the hospital would bring her down to earth.’
‘Thought you hated her.’
Lily shook her head. ‘No, I was letting the chip on my shoulder bump into the chip on hers, that’s all. I should know better. She’s just a kid, really.’
‘You are a wise old bird,’ Maisie said. ‘Let’s give Miss Uppity Knickers a chance, then.’
‘Mrs Uppity Knickers after four o’ clock,’ Lily added, laughing.
The chapel was indeed tiny and simple, with an almost puritanical stone altar and stone pews softened only by elderly velvet kneelers in old gold. Lily felt a gentle shiver of anxiety at just being there: Catholics weren’t supposed to celebrate in other churches, she knew, but still, it was for a wedding, she reasoned. That must be all right, surely? She’d mention it at confession and be vague in her letter to her mother.
By four o’clock, there were some forty guests assembled, including the vicar and a white-haired old lady seated at the organ to the right. Unlike pre-war weddings, Diana had said, most of the family’s friends would be unable to attend, and the few who could were simply rushing in for a few hours and then leaving again. With this in mind, Sybil was not allowed to be late, so it was only ten minutes after four when the bride appeared on her proud father’s arm and the congregation let out a collective gasp. Not for her a wedding dress of parachute silk: Sybil’s gown was Brussels lace, made over from a court dress of her mother’s. She didn’t have her elder sister’s fair colouring or symmetrical features, or Diana’s true loveliness, which came from within, even so, Sybil looked lovely on her wedding day.
The groom clearly thought so; his face softened as he turned to look at her. For the first time, Lily saw the face of his best man, a fellow naval officer. He was taller than Philip and, for a moment, his eyes met Lily’s across the little chapel. Lucent grey eyes locked with Lily’s startling blue ones, and she felt as if a little dart of fire had just lit inside her. Then, his gaze was gone, and Lily was able to study him and catch her breath a little.
The ceremony was short and simple, totally unlike the Catholic marriage services that Lily was used to. When it was over, Sybil and her husband walked down the aisle, Sybil looking triumphant now that she’d got her man.
‘I always cry at weddings,’ said Maisie, patting her eyes with a little lace-edged hanky as they made their way out of the chapel. ‘Don’t know why. My mum always said I was daft for crying. Wish my old mum could see me now.’ For a moment, Maisie’s eternal optimism appeared to desert her and her eyes shone suspiciously brightly.
‘Mine too,’ said Lily, putting her arm round her little friend. She was lying. Her mother would be a bag of nerves to see her daughter hobnobbing with the aristocracy. ‘Your mum would be proud as punch to see you here,’ Lily whispered. ‘What’s that thing she always said: Bless my…what was it?’
‘Bless my sainted aunt,’ laughed Maisie. ‘Poor Mum never cursed, not like me. She’d have said, “Bless my sainted aunt, Maisie, look at you drinking Gin and It with the nobs.”’
‘May I refresh your glass, miss?’ Wilson, still as stiff as a man with a poker firmly holding him upright, appeared beside them.
Lily felt the weight of his disapproval. Everyone else was lovely to Diana’s fellow nurses; even Sir Archie was charming in that vague way of his. Only Wilson behaved as if they were two beggars who’d wheedled their way into the throne room to run off with the family silver.
‘Why not?’ Maisie drained the last of her drink. Straight gin and a full measure of Italian vermouth: Gin and It, her favourite cocktail. ‘Thanks, love.’ She beamed at Wilson, her pretty face utterly unaffected by his stern demeanour. Lily envied her. How wonderful it would be not to care about the Wilsons of this world; blissfully free from that sense of not belonging. Maisie was comfortable wherever she was, the same as Diana. Both of them had an inbuilt sense of security that meant they never looked at anyone else and wondered what they were thinking. Lily never stopped.
Somehow Lady Belton had managed better than the two pounds of boiled ham that was allowed on ration cards for a wedding. Even though Sir Archie was very strict, even he had only muttered a little when Evangeline had got her hands on pork cutlets and some real bantam eggs for the wedding feast. She’d saved several weeks’ worth of her own hens’ eggs.
She kept four hens in the kitchen garden and looked after them herself. ‘I can’t imagine Mummy looking after chickens before the war,’ Diana had said. ‘She’s very resilient, you know. She can turn her hands to anything.’
The eggs had made delicate egg and watercress sandwiches, while the bantams’ eggs had been hard-boiled and were served with lettuces from the kitchen garden. There was no hope of having a traditional wedding cake so there were lots of little jellies with flowers for decoration and a tiny single-tier sponge cake. It all looked absolutely beautiful and, for once, even Sybil couldn’t complain.
Lily watched her losing her rigidity as she drank some of Sir Archie’s precious champagne. It was a lovely day and people wandered out on to the terrace, sitting on the chairs to enjoy the mid-May sunshine.
Sybil and Philip had danced to a couple of waltzes first for the benefit of the older members of the party, then Philip’s jazz records went on.
‘I love this music,’ Sybil said dreamily, as she whirled round in her new husband’s arms.
Suddenly, their happiness got to Lily. Tamarin had been in her mind and her heart all day and she felt a huge pang of loneliness. What was she doing here? She took her glass and wandered out to the terrace.
When the war was over, she would go home. Whatever she’d been searching for wasn’t here. At least at home she’d be among her own people and if she felt out of step with them…well, she’d discovered that she felt out of step everywhere.
‘Hello,’ said a voice.
She
