Chapter 28 Ruth
Ruth
“It was just the worst kind of luck. David ought to have been safe at the Rest Centre, but somehow he wasn’t.
My sister was devastated. We all were. We’d become very fond of that boy before he returned to London, Lilias more than anyone.
But that’s war, isn’t it? So much waste and injustice. So much loss.”
“I suppose so,” Elise said. “It doesn’t make it any easier, though, does it?”
The young woman looked really affected by the news of David’s death. Probably it had been foolish to tell her of it, even though she’d been most insistent about knowing. Ruth had spent too much time alone, that was the trouble. For so very long, she’d only had to think about her own feelings.
She thought once again of that final meeting with Lilias in London when Ruth had a weekend’s leave. How she’d gone on to ask her sister whether there’d been any word about Harry’s whereabouts.
“Not that I know of, no,” Lilias had said, the pain clear in her eyes. “But would you mind awfully if we spoke of other things? How is your training going? I imagine Cousin Edith was most disappointed when you joined up.”
There had been a distance between the two of them, Ruth thought now, remembering herself rattling on about the girls she shared a dorm with and the sergeant who did her level best to make all their lives a misery.
Lilias had nodded and made all the right responses, but it had almost been like taking tea with an imposter.
As if Lilias was Lilias, but with the stuffing or the essence of herself removed. A shell of her usual self.
Ruth had stopped talking in the middle of a sentence to ask her what was wrong. “Please,” she said. “Tell me. Something’s obviously not right.”
“Dearest,” Lilias said after a moment, “I have to go away for a while.”
“Where? Back to Yorkshire?”
Lilias shook her head. “No, my time in Yorkshire is over. I’m going to be serving my country.”
“You’ve joined up?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. I can’t say more than that, I’m afraid. It’s all very hush-hush.”
Ruth’s lips began to tremble. A cold shiver ran down her spine. “Will it be dangerous?”
“Probably. Almost certainly.”
“Oh, Lily. Why you?”
Lilias lifted the delicate teacup to her mouth to drain the last dregs of her tea. “Why not me? Why not any of us? We can’t let the Germans win, can we? Aunt Sabine’s sacrifices can’t be allowed to be all for nothing. Something has to be done, and I’m in a position to do it.”
Tears slipped down Ruth’s cheeks. “Please come safely home, Lily,” she begged. “I can’t do without you, I really can’t.”
But in the end, she’d had to manage without Lilias because Lilias hadn’t come home.
“My sister also died in the war,” she told Elise.
“As a result of the bombings?”
Ruth shook her head. “No. Lilias was executed by the Nazis in France in 1943. She was working as a Special Operations Executive helping to organise resistance activities.”
“Goodness.” Elise sounded shocked. “Did you know about it, at the time?”
“I didn’t even know she’d died, not for a while.
I knew she was going to France—she telegraphed me before she left, asking me to meet her for tea in London when I had a bit of leave.
She didn’t look at all well. I was worried about her.
She told me she’d signed up to do some hush-hush work, but I had no real idea of what she was about to do, no.
That while I was entertaining my friends with jokes about Sergeant McAllister behind her back, Lilias was to be parachuted into France and would soon be stealing secret papers, blowing up bridges; the sort of thing one sees in films.”
Ruth sighed. “She thought it was her duty to go, I think. She was bilingual, you see; I am too. Our mother was French. And perhaps she thought being useful was a way for her to escape the many tragedies she suffered.”
Ruth looked at the young woman who was staring back at her so earnestly, taking in every last detail of what Ruth was saying.
Ought she to say more about the awful events that had happened to Lilias before she’d taken the decision to sign up with the SOE?
Lilias had told her in the strictest of confidence.
Ruth had never told anyone about it before.
No, the woman was, as yet, a stranger. Besides, she had suffered herself, and very recently. Perhaps, if they continued to meet, Ruth might tell her everything later, but not now. Not yet.
“How brave she was.”
“Yes. But you had to be then. Either that or completely throw in the towel. We were so worried about our French relatives during the occupation, you see. Sabine’s son died in a coal mine, worn out by being worked like a slave.
My aunt was executed for stealing a loaf of bread, something she would only ever have done because she was starving.
People were literally starving to death in the streets, while the Germans sent the best food back to Germany.
We simply can’t imagine these days, what it must have been like.
Other people knitted socks and scarves. My Lilias blew up bridges. ”
Ruth sighed. “Anyway, one of her missions resulted in the death of a high-ranking Gestapo officer. Lilias and much of the resistance group in that area were captured afterwards. All of them were executed, including Lilias. She was awarded the George Cross posthumously.”
“You must be so proud of her.”
Tears pricked Ruth’s eyes. “To be honest, I’d much rather Lilias hadn’t been so damned courageous and self-sacrificing.
That she’d been more of a coward, so I’d still had her with me.
But then, I always have been selfish. And I do understand why she felt she had to go.
Apart from the dreadful news from France, Lilias was in love with Harry, David’s father, and he’d disappeared.
She’d already lost her fiancé in the Great War.
I don’t think Lilias ever imagined she’d find love again after that, but she did.
I suppose so many losses made it easier to agree to serve her country. ”
“I’m surprised your sister’s story isn’t better known,” Elise said, and Ruth shrugged.
“The secrecy about such matters continued long after the end of the war. And for myself, I never wanted to speak of it. I worked in the theatre and later on in television for a large part of my life, and of course it would have made an excellent documentary or TV series. But I just couldn’t do it.
It was far too painful. You can see why your drawing of Lilias excited me so much, though.
” She sat up a little straighter with effort.
“I’ve a tin of photographs in my chest of drawers. Can you bring it to me, please?”
Elise pulled open the drawer and pulled out a pile of neatly folded clothes.
“Underneath. There’s a biscuit tin. That’s it. Bring it over here.”
Ruth took the tin from her, but when she attempted to take off the lid, her arthritic fingers wouldn’t work well enough to let her do it.
“Shall I open it for you?” Elise offered, and Ruth nodded.
“Yes, please.”
Elise tugged at the stiff lid until it flew off, revealing a stack of photographs. Right on the very top was a photograph of a smiling woman holding a little dog close to her face so that they were cheek to cheek.
“There’s Lilias, with her fool of a dog Compass. He was always running off, that dog. Went missing for over a year after Harry vanished, then turned up again out of the blue. Thin as anything, he was. Weak too. Didn’t think he’d pull through for a while.”
“Did you ever find out what happened to him?”
Ruth shook her head. “No. I always thought he must have jumped into some trade person’s vehicle and ended up miles from home; something like that.
And of course we couldn’t tell Lilias he was back, because I suppose by then she was in France.
Symonds and his wife took care of him for a while, and then the poor dog had to put up with me looking after him after I was discharged from the Wrens.
Mind you, we rubbed along together pretty well most of the time.
Both missed Lilias, I suppose. Until I packed up Marsh House and took him with me when I moved to London, he’d often sit outside staring down the garden path as if he was waiting for Lilias to come home, poor boy. ”
“Was he happy in London?”
“He was, actually, very much to my surprise. I suppose it was a new start for both of us. I could never find it in my heart to sell Marsh House, though—too many memories. I returned to live there after I retired. But please, do keep looking through the photographs.”
The second photograph was of an attractive Edwardian couple dressed up smartly for a picnic, a small girl in what looked like a party dress standing next to them. Ruth’s parents.
“That’s Mummy and Daddy, and Lilias as a girl.”
“Your parents look very happy together.”
Ruth smiled. “They were the perfect example of a happy relationship. But please, keep on looking. I want to show you a picture of Harry.”
Elise rummaged through the photos more quickly until Ruth told her to stop.
“That one. That’s Harry and his son David. If you look very carefully, you can just make out a bird on Harry’s shoulder. David rescued it when it fell out of its nest in a storm.”
Ruth watched as Elise studied the small black-and-white photograph.
“I drew him with that very bird,” she said.
“Have you got a picture of your drawing on that thing?”
“My tablet? Yes. But . . . well, someone scribbled on it, I’m afraid, so it’s not very clear.”
“Can I see?”
“Of course.” Elise bent her head over her tablet and held the image up for Ruth to see it.
“That’s certainly Harry,” she confirmed at last. “But not as I’ve ever seen him before. Harry was a happy man, always laughing. Those green lines look as if they’re tying him somehow. As if he’s trapped there, on the page.”
She handed the tablet back, feeling suddenly exhausted.
“I’m tiring you,” Elise said. “Perhaps I ought to go.”
“It is tiring, remembering,” Ruth said. “Though in some ways, it all feels like yesterday. I can still smell Gloria’s scent, you know. Lily of the valley, she always wore.”
It was only when Elise frowned slightly that Ruth remembered the young woman wouldn’t have a clue who Gloria was. But that was a story for another time.
“Take the tin away with you. Have a good look through.”
“Are you sure?”
Ruth nodded, closing her eyes. “Yes. Bring it back the next time you come.”
“All right, Ruth. I’ll take good care of it,” Ruth thought she heard Elise say, but she was drifting off to sleep, so she couldn’t be sure.