Chapter 37
‘Are you sure you’re all right to come with me?
’ Charlie asked for the hundredth time as he and Bobby stood on a platform at Skipton railway station two days later.
Reg and Mary had come to see them off, and were watching them proudly.
In fact, Reg had been so proud when his brother had told him he was to be awarded no less a gong than the DFC that Bobby had thought he might pop every button on his waistcoat.
She shook her head impatiently. ‘I told you I was. I don’t want to miss this, Charlie.’
‘Bob, you look all in. It isn’t too late for us to go home with Reggie and Mary. I’d rather keep you healthy than meet any number of kings.’
‘I’m only tired, that’s all. After losing Ernie and… and everything.’
Topsy had sent a note the day after Bobby had said her final farewell to the other man who loved her, letting her know that Ernie hadn’t survived the night.
Bobby had been glad, for her friend’s sake, that he hadn’t lingered on in pain.
Yes, she had been glad. And then she had cried and cried until she thought she might burst.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Ernie King, strong and brave and kind and alive, so, so alive, dying in a bed far from home with the whisper of a Dales springtime on his poor burnt fingertips.
Ernie King, who had never again got to see the country he loved and the family he’d left behind.
Just one more life extinguished by a war that had killed so many, but a life Bobby had prayed for every night.
Perhaps it was an indulgence, when so many had died, to grieve so deeply for one person.
But grieve she must, all the same. She could have been Ernie’s wife, under other circumstances.
If he hadn’t stepped aside for Charlie with that nobility and selflessness typical of the man, she might even now be wearing his ring.
And he had loved her, all this time. Had never stopped loving her. Yet it had only been on his deathbed that Bobby had realised how deep and unchanging his feelings had been. She wished she had known, before. She wished there was time for one final conversation.
But… see you later. Ernie’s last words came back to her as she blinked on a tear. Yes, she would see him later. One day, hopefully a long time in the future, she would see him again. And then… yes, then there would be time for conversation.
She hadn’t forgotten his other words either.
Live for me. Ernie had lost his life, but she had hers.
Currently she was the custodian of two lives: her own and the one growing inside her.
The baby would be Ernie’s godchild, even if that relationship had never had the chance to be solemnised.
That was why she was determined to go with Charlie to London, and make sure neither of them missed an opportunity that came along once in a lifetime.
Their train was due in five minutes. Mary stepped forward to say goodbye, giving Charlie a hug first.
‘Now be sure your uniform’s brushed before you go to the palace,’ she warned him.
‘I’ll not have it said any boy of mine was looking shabby for the king.
And take a clean handkerchief, and don’t forget to stand up straight when they take your photograph.
Oh, and the girls told me to remind you that you promised them some of the spice they like back from London. ’
Charlie smiled. ‘All right, Mam, I won’t forget.’
‘And this is for you, Bobby,’ Mary said, handing her a box tied with string. ‘I made it special out of a bit of material I had off one of the WVS girls.’
‘What is it?’ Bobby asked.
Mary smiled. ‘Open it and see.’
Bobby did so, and blinked at what was inside.
It was a dress – a dress for someone just her current size.
But it wasn’t one of the ugly, shapeless maternity dresses that were all the shops felt women in the later stages of pregnancy ought to shroud themselves in.
This was silk – parachute silk, she supposed – dyed royal blue and trimmed with ribbon.
It was huge, and it was fit for a ballroom.
‘Mary, it’s beautiful,’ she breathed.
‘Well, you want to look nice for the palace, don’t you? A girl likes to look her best no matter what size she is. Now, now, don’t make a fuss,’ Mary said with a smile as Bobby fell on her neck. ‘Just be sure to bring me and Reg a healthy grandchild next month. Then I’ll call myself repaid in full.’
Reg stepped forward to shake his brother’s hand.
‘I’m right proud of you, lad. Right proud of you,’ he said, with no sign of wanting to give over his firm pumping of Charlie’s hand. ‘So would our old man be.’
‘Thanks, Reggie. That means a lot.’
‘Now then. Before you go to this fancy do at the palace I’d better give you the benefit of my years as a newspaperman, writing about the nobs and their swank,’ Reg told him with authority.
‘You don’t want them laughing in their toff sleeves when you start quaffing from the finger bowl like some country oik. ’
Charlie smiled. ‘Go on.’
‘If you meet an archbishop, it’s “Your Grace”. If you meet a prince or princess, it’s “Your Highness”. If you meet a king or queen – and I’m pretty sure you will – it’s “Your Majesty”. And if you meet the Duke of Devonshire, tell him he still owes me that five bob.’
‘I think I can remember that,’ Charlie said, laughing. ‘Anything else?’
‘Aye. If there’s food, you start from the outside and work your way in with the cutlery. And if it’s real silver, stick it in your sock right quick before the butler gets his greasy kid gloves on it.’
‘It pays to be related to socialites, doesn’t it?’ Bobby said with a smile.
Reg approached her now to say goodbye. ‘Look after yourself, lass. Take good care of that baby while you’re down south. They’re proper heathens down there, tha knows.’
‘I will. Thanks, Reg.’
He looked a bit awkward. ‘You know, young Florrie showed me your bit in her comic. Good, that was.’
‘You mean “Lindy Gulls the Hun”?’
‘Aye. Nice little tale for the bairns. Florrie was about bursting showing it off to all her pals.’ He paused. ‘Good fee, I suppose?’
‘Um, yes,’ Bobby said. ‘Girl’s Own pay eight pounds a story. They’ve given me a contract for five, and I hope more to follow.’
‘A lot more than I could ever afford to pay. Shame, that.’
Bobby frowned. ‘Reg, are you saying… do you mean you’d have liked me to write for The Tyke again?’
‘Aye, well, maybe I were a bit hasty,’ Reg said, blushing fit for anything.
‘I mean, you’re a canny lass, head screwed on and that.
You’ve dealt with a lot this past few month, and you in the family way an’ all.
I reckon it’s not for an old dinosaur like me to say what you can do and what you can’t.
I reckon you know well enough for yoursen. ’
‘So you’re saying… what are you saying?’
‘It’s left me in the lurch, young Scott going for a soldier like that.
Costing me a fortune in freelance writers to keep the mag running.
So if you wanted to do a bit of writing, four or five articles a number at ten bob a week, just when you can fit it in around the babby…
’ He rubbed his neck. ‘I know it’s not much, now you’re getting big cheques from the real papers.
But we do miss you at The Tyke, and if nothing I can say is going to stop you writing, well, I’d rather you were doing a bit of that writing for me. ’
‘Reg, really?’
‘Aye, keep it in the family, like. I mean, it’ll go to you and Charlie one day, the mag. Happen it’ll even make you money, when this ruddy war’s over. Best to keep your hand in, if you’ll be in the editor’s chair one of these days.’
Bobby beamed at him. ‘Reg, I’d love to. I’d really love to.’
To Bobby’s enormous relief, the train that took them from Leeds to London was a corridor train with a lavatory at the end of each carriage. She made sure to claim a seat near it, so she would be able to make a dash there if there was an urgent call of nature.
Marmaduke was incredibly wriggly at the moment. Bobby supposed he was reacting to her excitement about the trip to the capital. It was rather uncomfortable, though, like the cramps she used to get with her monthlies. She hoped he would settle in time for the ceremony tomorrow morning.
‘May I see the invitation again?’ she asked Charlie, who was reading a book beside her.
‘If you like.’ He fished it from one of his pockets.
The letterhead stated that it had come from the Central Chancery of the Order of Knighthood at St James’s Palace, and it was marked confidential. Bobby experienced a thrill of pleasure as she read it.
Sir,
The King will hold an investiture in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on Friday 23rd April 1943 at which your presence is requested.
It is requested that you be at the palace no later than 9:30 a.m. Please attend in either service dress, morning dress, civil defence uniform or dark lounge suit, as appropriate.
I am desired to inform you that you may be accompanied by up to two relatives or friends to witness the investiture from the spectators’ area. Please retain this letter as your card of admission.
Your obedient servant,
Flying Officer P. Fredericks, DFC, RAF
It truly felt real when she read the invitation in all its formal language. They were really going to the palace, where Charlie would be decorated by the king. Her Charlie! No wonder Marmaduke was dancing a jig, when he had such a father to be proud of.
It was Bobby’s first visit to London. She wasn’t able to see much of it when they arrived that evening, deep in the blackout.
She peered curiously from the window of the cab as it took them to the palace next morning, however, looking for all those famous buildings she had seen so many times in photographs: the Palace of Westminster, Nelson’s Column, the dome of St Paul’s.
‘Oh my word,’ she murmured as the car sped through the streets.