I found Tubby in the hangar and I think it was then that I first really admired him. He was quietly working away, truing up a bearing assembly that had been giving trouble. He stopped me before I could say anything. ‘Bill sent you to talk to me, didn’t he?’
I nodded.,
He put the bearing down. ‘Tell him that I understand.’ And then, more to himself than to me: ‘It’s not his fault. It’s something Diana wants that he’s got. It was there inside her before she ever came here — a restlessness, an urge for a change. I thought by bringing her up here-’ He moved his hand in a helpless gesture. ‘It’ll work itself out. She ought to have had a child, but-’ He sighed. ‘Tell Bill it’s all right. I won’t blame him so long as he gives me no cause. It’ll work itself out,’ he repeated. And then added quietly: ‘In time.’
Saeton left next morning on the old motor bike which was their sole form of transport. And it was only after he’d gone that I realised how much the whole tempo of the place depended on him. Without the driving enthusiasm of his personality it all seemed flat. Tubby worked with the concentration of a man trying hard to lose himself in what he was making. But it was a negative drive. For myself I found the rime hang slowly on the hands of my watch and I determined to go down to the farm that evening and make it up with Else. Somehow I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind. I think it was her presence in the hangar with Saeton that first night that I’d arrived at Membury that intrigued me. The obvious explanation I had proved to be wrong. Now, suddenly, I was filled with an urgent desire to get at the truth. Also I was lonely. I suppose any girl would have done — then. But she was the only one available and as soon as Tubby and I knocked off I went down to the Manor.
The kitchen curtains were drawn and when I knocked at the door it wasn’t Else who opened it. A small, grey-haired woman stood framed against the light, a swish of silk at her feet and the scent of jasmine clinging on the air. ‘I was looking for Else Langen,’ I explained awkwardly.
She smiled. ‘Else is upstairs dressing. Are you from the aerodrome? Then you must be Mr Eraser. Won’t you come in? I am Mrs Ellwood.’ She closed the door behind me. ‘You must find it very cold up at the airfield now. I really think Mr Saeton should get some proper heating put in. I’ve told him, any time he or his friends want a little home comfort to come over and see us.
But he’s always so busy.’ We were in the kitchen now and she went over to the Aga cooker and stirred vigorously at the contents of a saucepan, holding her dressing-gown close around the silk of her dress. ‘Have you had dinner, Mr Fraser?’
‘No. We have it later-’
‘Then why not stay and have some food with us? It’s only stew, but-’ She hesitated. ‘I’m cook tonight. You see, we’re going to the Red Cross dance at Marlborough. It’s for Else, really. Poor child, she’s hardly been anywhere since she came to us. Of course, she’s what they call a D.P. and she’s here as a domestic servant — why do they call them D.P.s? — it’s so depressing. But whether she’s a servant or not, I don’t think it right to keep a young thing shut away here without any life. You people at the aerodrome are no help. We never see anything of you. And it is lonely up here. What do you think of Else? Don’t you think she’s pretty, Mr Fraser?’
‘I think she’s very pretty,’ I murmured.
She cocked an eye at me. She was like a little grey-haired sparrow and I had a feeling that she missed nothing. ‘Are you doing anything tonight, Mr Fraser?’
‘No, I was just going to-’
‘Then will you do something for me? Will you come to this dance with us? It would be a great kindness. You see, I had arranged for my son, who works with the railways at Swindon, to come over, but this afternoon he rang up to say he had to go to London. I wouldn’t mind if it were an English girl. But you know what country places are. And after all’ — she lowered her voice — ‘she is German. It would be a kindness.’
‘But I’ve no clothes,’ I murmured.
‘Oh!’ She waved the spoon at me like a little fairy godmother changing me into evening clothes on the spot. ‘That’s all right, I’m certain. You’re just about my son’s size. Come along and we’ll see.’
And of course the clothes fitted. It was that sort of a night. By the time I had changed the three of them were assembled in the big lounge hall. Colonel Ellwood was pouring drinks from a decanter that sparkled in the firelight. He was a tall, very erect man with grey hair and a long, serious face. His wife fluttered about with a rustle of silk. And Else sat in a big winged chair staring into the fire. She was dressed in very deep blue and her face and shoulders were like marble. She looked lonely and a little frightened. She didn’t look up as I came in. She seemed remote, shut away in a world of her own. Only when Mrs Ellwood called to her did she turn her head. ‘I think you know Mr Eraser.’ She saw me then and her eyes widened. For an awful moment I thought she was going to run from the room, but then she said, ‘Good evening,’ in a cold, distant voice and turned back to the fire.
She hardly said a word all through dinner and when we were together in the back of the car she drew away from me and sat huddled in her corner, her face a white blur in the reflected light of the headlights. Not until we were dancing together in the warmth of the ballroom did she break that frigid silence and then I think it was only her sense of loneliness in that alien gathering that made her say, ‘Why did you come?’
‘I was lonely,’ I said.
‘Lonely?’ She looked up at me then. ‘You have your — friends.’
‘I happen to work there — that’s all,’ I said.
‘But they are your friends.’
‘Three weeks ago I had never met any of them.’
She stared at me. ‘But you are a partner. You put up money.’ She hesitated. ‘Why do you come here if you do not know them?’
‘It’s a long story,’ I answered and holding her close in the swing of the music I suddenly found myself wanting to tell her. But instead I said, ‘Else. 1 want to apologise for the other night. I thought-’ I didn’t know how to put it, so I said, That first night I came to Membury — why were you in the hangar with Saeton?’
Her grey eyes lifted to my face and then to the cut on my forehead. ‘That also is a long story,’ she said slowly. And then in a more friendly tone: ‘You are a strange person.’
“Why did Saeton think I was a friend of yours that night?’ I asked. ‘Why did he call to me in German?’
She didn’t answer for a moment and I thought she was going to ignore the question. But at length she said, ‘Perhaps I tell you some day.’ We danced in silence for a time. I have said that she was a big girl, but she was incredibly light on her feet. She was like thistledown in my arms and yet I could feel the warm strength of her under my hand. The warmth and the music were going to my head, banishing loneliness and the tension of the past weeks. ‘Why did you come to the farm tonight?’ she asked suddenly.
‘To see you,’ I answered.
‘To apologise?’ She was smiling for the first time., ‘You did not have to.’
‘I told you — I was lonely.’
‘Lonely!’ Her face seemed to harden. ‘You do not know what that word means. Please, I would like a drink.’ The music had stopped and I took her over to the bar. ‘Well, here is to the success of those engines!’ Her tone was light, but as she drank her eyes were watching me and they did not smile. ‘Why do you not drink? You are not so crazy about those engines as Mr Saeton, eh?’ She used the word crazy in its real sense.