recent events were anything to go by, life at Ardneavie House would never be dull.
From the top of the street that ran down to the jetty, Mike Farrow saw Lucinda waiting and quickened his step.
‘Hi, honey! Sorry I’m late.’
‘You’re not. The transport was early.’
She was glad he had come. There had been times when she had expected him not to, and to see him hurrying down the hill made her suddenly happy.
‘Everything all right last night, Lucy? You didn’t get caught, or anything?’
‘No. Everything was fine. I crept up the back stairs and straight into a telling-off from Vi. But it was all right. They’d fixed the duty Wren for me.’ Lucinda laughed. ‘I’m not in the rattle, or anything. But how about you, Mike? I worried about your leg.’
He shouldn’t have walked her home to Ardneavie, but he’d insisted, choosing to ignore the three miles back.
‘Then you needn’t have. I managed just great. It was a lovely night and every so often I stopped and stood and stared a bit. Y’know, Lucy, everything was so beautiful in the half-light. My granny once stayed in Craigiebur, would you believe? She worked for a family who always packed the kids off to Craigiebur for the summer. That’s why I decided to spend a weekend here. Must remember to take a couple of snaps before I go back and send them to her.
‘Snaps? Where on earth did you get a film?’ Such things had become non-existent from almost the first day of the war. Nowadays the few available went immediately under the counter and only the lucky few ever managed to get one. ‘They’re like gold dust here.’
‘Oh, parcels from home; comforts for the troops, I guess,’ he grinned. ‘But let’s walk a way, first. It’s such a swell night.’
It seemed natural that he should take her hand, and because it felt rather nice, she entwined her fingers in his and smiled happily up at him.
‘Why don’t we walk down to the mouth of the loch, Mike? Someone told me there’s a boom net right across it, to keep the Germans out. I’d like to know how it works.’
‘I’ve seen it. As a matter of fact it’s two huge nets made of steel links and there’s a couple of tugs that drag them backward and forward when something wants to get in or out of the loch. Nothing could get through it or under it. Reckon you’re all pretty safe in there, honey.’
‘I suppose we are.’ Until now, though, she had never thought what sitting ducks those ships could have been. ‘And how do you know all this?’
‘Because I watched a submarine and a frigate go through last night, while I was waiting for Mavis,’ he laughed, his eyes teasing her. ‘C’mon, Lucy Bainbridge. Let’s go.’
Lucinda’s answering smile radiated pure joy. She felt so easy with Mike and not in the least bit guilty about having dates with a man she hardly knew, though Vi had half-implied that she should. Serve Charlie right, in fact. She had sent him her new address a week ago and this morning there really should have been a letter from him. But Nanny had written, bless her, even though it had mostly been a discourse upon the treacherous Scottish climate and the need to wear her warm knickers when the nights began to draw in – and was she remembering to take her syrup of figs every Friday night as she had promised?
‘Penny for them.’
‘I was thinking about Nanny’s letter.’
‘You had a nurse?’
‘A nanny. There’s a difference. She’s in Lincolnshire now, at Lady Mead.’
‘Looking after your brothers and sisters?’
‘No. I’m afraid I don’t have either. But when I went to boarding school she stayed on with us. She’ll look after my children, I suppose.’
‘I see. So you’re going to have kids, Lucy?’
‘Of course.’
‘And have you figured how many?’
‘Three or four, I suppose.’
‘All planned out, eh? You got a father for them in mind?’ He needed to know. For no reason at all it was suddenly important that he should.
‘A father? No.’ She was amazed how easily the lie fell from her lips. ‘But all women want babies, don’t they?’
‘Guess they do. A lot of guys want them as well. Take me, for instance. Reckon I’d like three or four, too.’ He tucked her arm in his and they took the tree-lined path to the mouth of the loch. Three or four kids? It was a new one on him but it sure would please the folks back home. It would please Granny too, especially if those kids had an English mother. ‘C’mon, honey. Let’s take a look at this boom thing.’
She smiled again and the corners of her mouth darted upward into the sudden, sunny grin that so intrigued him, and her dimples deepened into fascinating little hollows.
Lucy Bainbridge was a real doll. She was, come to think of it, exactly the mother he would choose for the children that up until two minutes ago he hadn’t realized he wanted.
Lucinda took off her hat and ran her fingers through her hair. The night was warm and balmy and the sheltering trees screened out any sights of war, and where the path ended abruptly at the meeting of loch and river there was neither ship nor submarine nor coil of rusting barbed wire within their vision. A still bright sun rested on deep purple hilltops, and below them, seabirds, clean, brilliantly white seabirds, dipped and drifted and called.
‘Isn’t it peaceful?’ Lucinda murmured. ‘It’s as if the war hasn’t found this little corner yet.’
‘Probably once the whole of Craigiebur was like this; maybe it was a swell little place and that’s why Granny remembers it. I’m glad she can’t see it now. It’s a pity that war kind of cheapens things, if you get my meaning.’
‘I do. Not cheapens, exactly, but demeans. I saw it at Lady Mead. When we left it, the old house had a pained expression. I know it sounds silly, but it looked so lost, as if it was never meant to be a billet and barrack room, and was hurting inside.’
‘You said the RAF had taken it. You’ve seen it since?’
‘Only once. But we are allowed access if we ask them first and give them plenty of notice. They left us a few rooms to store things in so we’re entitled, occasionally, to take a look at them. It’s all in a terrible jumble because Pa had to get everything out of the attics as well – war regulations, you know. No one must have things in attics now, because of the risk of fire bombs. But all in all, the Air Force has been pretty good. The lawns get cut – after a fashion – though Nanny says that the roses and clematis on the south wall have got out of hand and Pa would have a fit if he saw the rose beds. We were able to keep the kitchen garden because it’s a good way from the house and we’ve a gardener there, still, though he’s very old and can’t do a lot.’
‘And how come your nanny is still there, too? Did she sit tight and refuse to budge?’
‘Oh, no! One simply couldn’t do that, Mike.
