The House of Flowers Read online

  ‘My own, my true love, my darling Kate!’ he proclaimed, by now well off the script. ‘Now that you have agreed to be mine, I have a present for you! A present to celebrate our engagement! Something you have wanted for a very long time, and I have now found for you! Billy?’

  With a grin which must have been at least as broad as the mouth of the River Liffey, Eugene gestured grandly to the wings, whence Billy came forward, leading the prettiest black pony pulling a beautiful hand-painted trap behind it. The audience gasped and fell to stunned silence, then roared its approval, cheers that in no way worried the little pony, which thanks to the perfection of its early training stood obediently on the stage with ears pricked and eyes bright while Eugene took the leading rein from Billy and handed it to a totally astonished Kate.

  ‘Now all is met!’ Billy proclaimed, back in character. ‘Now all is most happily resolved, and our tale is ended! So let us give three hearty cheers for Prince Charming and his Cinderella – and may they live happily ever after!’

  ‘Not too loud a cheer!’ Eugene cautioned with a grin. ‘We don’t want to go frightening the pony here!’

  Again, thanks to its training, the young animal stood as still as a circus horse while the audience cheered and the makeshift velvet curtains were pulled across by the stage staff. Eugene nodded to Billy to lead the pony and its trap back outside, and was about to follow him when a hand grabbing the back of his doublet stopped him.

  ‘Eugene Hackett,’ Kate said, turning him round to her. ‘You’re the very devil.’

  ‘Isn’t it just what you’ve always wanted?’ Eugene smiled, putting one hand under her pretty chin. ‘Aren’t you always longing out loud for a pony and trap to go about in? Well now you have one.’

  ‘Eugene—’

  ‘Later, my darling girl! I have to make sure he doesn’t suddenly decide to bolt round the ballroom!’

  But the pony was as good as Eugene had hoped he would be, allowing himself to be quietly led back out of doors where Eugene’s friend from the stables took charge, throwing a rug over the animal’s back before leading him back to his box.

  ‘You’d best have this, if you meant what you said,’ Eugene said as Kate and he stood in the wings after taking their curtain calls, producing a ring box from one pocket.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Kate asked crossly. ‘Meant what exactly?’

  ‘Didn’t I hear you saying that you would marry me just now?’ Eugene replied. ‘And in front of a goodly number of witnesses, too.’

  ‘Eugene . . .’ Kate tried to warn him, but, failing to keep her straight face any longer, burst into a peal of laughter and threw herself in his arms. ‘Yes of course I’ll marry you, you barmy great idiot! You don’t do things by halves, do you?’

  ‘We’re only this way once, Katie my love. So we might as well try and make it as special as we can.’

  After the audience had finally vacated their seats and the actors had taken off their make-up and costumes, Scott invited the cast up to his and Poppy’s house in the woods for a party. They had managed to get hold of a couple of crates of light ale, as well as some whisky and gin, through one of Eugene’s usual contacts, and persuaded Mrs Alderman to make a few extra sausage meat rolls as well as some of her famous stovies, rissoles made from potatoes, onions and dripping.

  They also managed to coax the reticent Miss Budge, who had accompanied the pantomime so expertly from the grand piano in the ballroom, to come and play on the little upright piano Scott had installed in the drawing room of the House of Flowers, since he loved nothing better than to sit and sing to his young wife when they were alone in the evening.

  ‘But you’re a pianist,’ Miss Budge had protested. ‘You surely don’t need me.’

  ‘We want you to come to the party anyway, Miss Budge,’ Poppy assured her. ‘And if you feel like playing that’s entirely up to you.’

  As soon as she’d had her first stiff gin, Miss Budge threw inhibition to the wind and sat down at once to play for the party, since everyone seemed anxious to get to the dancing as soon as possible.

  ‘It’s an extraordinary place this, you know,’ Eugene remarked as he danced with Kate. ‘Soon as I set foot in here I always feel like singing. Don’t ask me why.’

  ‘I hope you’re going to sing tonight, Eugene,’ Kate said. ‘I want nothing more than to hear you sing.’

  ‘And so I shall, darling girl. I shall probably sing all night, so full is my heart. Let’s see the music our Miss Budge has brought up with her.’

  Eugene wandered over to the piano and started to leaf through Miss Budge’s song sheets. When he found her shyly looking at him, he smiled, which immediately disconcerted Miss Budge so much that she reddened and began to fiddle agitatedly with the pretty locket she always wore round her neck.

  ‘That’s a very pretty locket, Budgie,’ he stated. ‘What’s in it? Someone special’s picture?’

  ‘Someone very special’s picture,’ Miss Budge muttered in reply, dropping her eyes. ‘My dog actually.’

  ‘May I see?’

  Miss Budge hesitated, her hand still on the locket.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But will you just excuse me first for a moment? I have to discover the geography.’ She smiled back at Eugene as she set off to find the bathroom, leaving him to continue sorting through the music, while Kate and Marjorie settled themselves down on the sofa nearby, Kate having just replenished their glasses.

  ‘You really had no idea at all?’ Marjorie asked Kate as she was handed her drink. ‘You honestly had no idea what Eugene was up to?’

  ‘Of course not! Why should I? You say things like that off the top of your head. But you never think for a moment someone is going to act on them.’

  ‘You actually said you wanted a pony and trap?’

  ‘It’s not so daft.’ Kate laughed. ‘Ponies don’t run on petrol and we can also use it for salvage drives. I thought I might manage to buy some broken-down old pony, so can you imagine? When I looked up and saw what Eugene had gone and got?’

  Marjorie laid her head back on her chair and sighed deeply.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘So let’s just hope you don’t get any more funny whims.’

  ‘Why, Marge?’ Billy wondered in mock innocence, sitting on the arm of Marjorie’s chair and finishing off a particularly delicious-looking stovie. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Never you mind and don’t you dare get any of that greasy food on Poppy’s lovely furniture,’ Marjorie warned him. ‘You make sure you wipe your hands before you do anything else.’

  ‘Why do you hope Kate don’t get no more funny whims then, I wonder?’ Billy persisted, stuffing the last of the fried rissole in his mouth before wiping his hands on a grey-looking handkerchief.

  ‘Because as you may recall, Billy, I’m not that hot at keeping secrets.’

  ‘You knew?’ Kate frowned. ‘How?’

  ‘I saw Eugene meet this woman,’ Marjorie said, beginning to blush. ‘I thought all sorts of things, I have to say—’

  ‘You would,’ Billy interrupted. ‘It’s all those awful books you read.’

  ‘First I thought he was seeing someone else—’

  ‘Oh, poor Marjorie!’ Kate exclaimed sympathetically.

  ‘Then when I saw Eugene passing something to this woman, I thought – well . . .’ Marjorie petered out, too ashamed to continue.

  ‘You thought he was passing information!’ Billy suddenly burst out, before realising what he had said.

  ‘You thought I was what?’ Eugene wondered idly, having strolled by in time to pick up on the last bit of the conversation. ‘Passing information, Marjorie?’

  Marjorie looked up at Eugene, blushing deeply. ‘I’m sorry, Eugene,’ she said. ‘Billy’s right. I read too much cheap literature.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Marjorie Marjoram.’ Eugene smiled. ‘I’d have thought the very same thing meself. Anyway – isn’t it what we’re all trained to do? The lot of us here? We may all be fri
ends, and some of us more than that, but we must never drop our defences. Walls – as they keep reminding us – have ears.’

  ‘So what was on the piece of paper you passed to this mysterious woman?’ Kate wondered. ‘And who is she anyway?’

  ‘You obviously didn’t get a very good look, Marjorie.’ Eugene’s smile now turned to a mischievous grin. ‘Or you’d have seen the mysterious lady is a lot older than I. The mysterious lady is my mother’s sister, my lovely Aunt Maude – a great horsewoman and breeder. It was she who both bred and broke Kate’s lovely little pony. She lives ten miles from here – married to a major-general – breeds ponies and trains ponies for the shafts, and is little short of a saint.’

  ‘And the piece of paper?’ Kate insisted on knowing.

  ‘Why, an IOU!’ Eugene laughed. ‘What else? Where would I get the money to pay for a handsome creature like that? Sure I’m stitched!’

  ‘You wanted to see the picture in my locket,’ the newly returned Miss Budge said to Eugene, bending forward and holding the now opened locket for him to see. ‘That’s Tansy. My dog.’

  ‘Ah, and isn’t he?’ Eugene nodded. ‘Isn’t he beautiful? What a beautiful boy he is to be sure.’

  ‘He’s also a very good boy,’ Miss Budge said proudly. ‘And a clever one. He knows the names of all his toys – and brings them to command.’

  ‘Look,’ Eugene said to Kate and Marjorie. ‘Budgie’s beautiful boy. Isn’t he lovely?’

  Marjorie and Kate both looked at the picture in the locket and made the right sort of approving noises.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a dog, Budgie,’ Marjorie said as Miss Budge looked longingly at the photograph herself. ‘Do you keep him at home?’

  Miss Budge glanced at her quickly and shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Because of the hours I work, I can’t. It – it wouldn’t be fair to leave him for so long.’

  ‘So who looks after him for you, Budgie?’ Eugene asked. ‘I trust he’s well cared for.’

  ‘A friend looks after him for me,’ Miss Budge replied. ‘Naturally I’m just dying for the war to be over so we can be together again.’

  She clipped her locket shut, dropped it back round her neck and cleared her throat.

  ‘Now then.’ She smiled. ‘I’m neglecting my duty. I’d say some more music is the order of the day, wouldn’t you?’

  She sat at the piano and began to play a medley of the most popular tunes of the moment, well enough to have almost everyone up on their feet in no time. Anthony danced with Marjorie, happy to see her good spirits apparently quite restored.

  ‘One thing I’ve always dreaded,’ she confessed. ‘That’s being asked to keep a secret.’

  ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t be working here, in that case,’ Anthony said, then seeing the look on her face added: ‘That was meant as a joke, Marjorie. Sorry.’

  ‘I never thought of that.’ Marjorie looked at him and suddenly laughed. ‘You know – you know, I never thought of that.’

  Everyone danced, not only that, everyone danced with everyone else, or so it seemed. In fact so it was, with one exception. Poppy made quite sure that Lily did not get to dance with Scott.

  Finally, when everyone’s feet were sore and legs were tired, people sat on the floor and sang. They sang old favourites, and new ones, starting with ‘Pennies From Heaven’ and ending with ‘You Are My Sunshine’ – at least that was meant to be the last song.

  It wasn’t, of course, for Eugene had yet to give them what he called a one-voice-only song. There were many requests, but he surprised them all by refusing to sing the Irish favourites they begged for, choosing instead to sing unaccompanied one of the best-loved songs of the year before in his lyrical tenor voice – ‘When You Wish Upon A Star’.

  When he finished, all was silence, within and without the little house high in the woods. The wood fire crackled its last and began slowly to self-extinguish, while around it everyone fell to thinking and to wishing, hoping that the new year about to dawn would bring them hope and above all peace, and outside, far to the east, a star high in the firmament shone with a sudden and peculiar intensity.

  Interim

  CHRISTMAS

  Now that America had entered the war everyone’s spirits rose. Not that people began to believe that the war was going to be over in a matter of a few months; the British had become too well versed in political bromides to believe once again the sorts of fairy tales those who remembered the outbreak of the First World War had believed in – that it would all be over before Christmas. This was the third wartime Christmas the people of the British Isles had endured since Chamberlain had declared war on Germany in September 1939, and they knew it wouldn’t be the last. Yet since the entrance of the Americans, people had begun to look ahead with hope. Britain no longer stood alone. Fighting by their side was the mightiest nation in the world, and as the military were at pains to explain to anyone who had time to listen to them, wars were inevitably and invariably finally won by the side which had the most soldiers. Even Anthony Folkestone, a man not given to pontificating, began to let it be known that it was now only a question of time before the Germans were defeated.

  ‘It’s going to cost lives, of course,’ he told Marjorie one evening as they discussed the prospect of an end to the war over a drink, Marjorie being once again happy to go out with him now that she had been relieved of the burden of carrying her secret. ‘And I’m not saying it’s going to happen tomorrow, Marjorie. But with rumours coming back that the Germans are already finding the Russian winter just as bad as Napoleon did when he decided to invade Russia . . . not a good plan, by the way.’

  ‘It’s all right, Anthony,’ Marjorie replied with a sigh. ‘It’s not something I’m planning to do. At least not in the foreseeable future.’

  ‘I’m being a bore. Sorry. Tell you what – let’s go to the cinema. Tonight in Benton they’re playing something rather good. Are you on?’

  Marjorie put a hand over Anthony’s and smiled. ‘You’re not being a bore, and yes I would love to go to the movies. It’s some film with Rex Harrison in, isn’t it?’

  They had become so close since the night of the pantomime that Marjorie did not even mind Billy teasing her, morning, noon and night, by whistling or singing ‘The Galloping Major’ under his breath whenever he saw her. As for Billy, he was concentrating all his hopes on Christmas, particularly since he had been invited to join Mrs Alderman’s small circle of conspirators, specially recruited to help prepare a surprise feast for those who were unable to leave Eden Park over the holiday.

  ‘Of course, given the fact we ’aven’t won the war quite as yet, in spite of young Billy here’s Victory Dance he keeps giving us,’ Mrs Alderman told her select body of helpers, ‘they’ll be thinking they’ll be lucky if they get sausages and mash. They’re going to get a lot more than sausages and mash, I’m a-telling you, but you’re not going to be a-telling them that. We’re going to make ’em believe, because of all these further rationing whatsits, they’ll be lucky to get a sausage and mash, let alone in the plural.’

  ‘So what you goin’ to be givin’ them then, Mrs A?’ Billy wanted to know, biting a fingernail in a mixture of anxiety and excitement. ‘I mean you’re not plannin’ on a proper Christmas feast, are you? ’Cos where we goin’ to get the stuff from?’

  Mrs Alderman nodded portentously rubbing the side of her bulbous nose. ‘Never you mind exactly where, young man. All I’m saying is they’re in for a few surprises. When folks work as hard as this lot does, and when they does work as important as this, God ’elp ’em, then if Cook can’t do a bit of rustling up, she ain’t worth her name. I’m going to have to rustle, too, ’cos I’ve given up on my points system. It’s gone totally haywire now – what with the local paper down to only one page – I don’t know what we’re allowed and what we’re not any more. Or what’s on ration and what’s not.’

  ‘’Ow many we goin’ to be catering for, Mrs A?’ Billy asked. ‘I can
’t see you doin’ enough rustling for the amount of mouths you normally has to feed.’

  ‘There’ll be thirty-six sitting down to Christmas lunch all told, I gather, young man. That’s us included and all, so we got a fair bit of rustling to do, mark my words.’

  Billy widened his eyes and sighed, trying to imagine what a Christmas dinner might taste like again. He could still remember his adoptive aunt’s Christmas feast but held out little hope of Mrs Alderman’s being able to reproduce anything like it, seeing how stringent food rationing had become. With a bit of luck there would be sausages, real butcher’s sausages too, because Mrs A had a good relationship with the local butcher and he was always keeping this and that aside for her. There’d be roast potatoes too – with gravy. He was certain of that because he had caught a brief glimpse of one of Cook’s lists, and those two items had been there as clear as anything at the top of it. He reckoned there might even be Christmas pudding, with custard, and a sprig of holly on top of it just like there had been on the very first Christmas card he could remember seeing – a big steaming plum duff covered in custard with a huge green sprig of bright red-berried holly sticking up from it, borne to the table by a jolly red-cheeked woman surrounded by her family, all with faces shiny with happiness and excitement. He could remember the scents of Christmas as well, those very special smells of crêpe paper, oranges, sugared almonds, sherry wine, new soaps and talcum powders opened as presents, spices and crackling log fires, although when it came to it Billy couldn’t actually remember any big log fires. The memory of them had to come from Christmas cards or pictures as well, yet somehow that didn’t make the pungency of a burning Yule log any less sharp in Billy’s fine imagination. Christmas, although something he had rarely celebrated as a child, was perhaps the firmest of fixtures in his young mind, owing no doubt to the fact that it was at Christmas time that he had first discovered what happiness meant, when Marjorie’s wonderful aunt had adopted him into her small but very special family of two.