The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir

Silvie’s Diary

Saturday, 20th April, 1940

Kitty told me to write a diary. It is good for my English. I have to write about our house. It is big and grand. Mrs Winthrop is quiet. Nanny Godwin is old. Kitty is nice but a bit bossy. Venetia is my friend. Brigadier Winthrop is very angry. There is a grumpy maid and a strange butler who has a hump. The new baby is nearly here. I hope they will still want me then.

There is a new choir and I am a soprano. Singing is good. Kitty helps me with the words. I like the horses too. Amadeus is my favourite. I fell off at Bullsend Brook last week. Mr Slater helped me walk home. He is the man Venetia likes. He spoke a little Czech. It was terrible. My English is much better.

Kitty Winthrop’s Diary

Tuesday, 23rd April, 1940

David Tilling’s leaving party

Tonight Mrs Tilling was throwing a party for David. He’s back from training and heading to the front in France tomorrow.

But I was much more focused on Henry, who was on forty-eight-hour leave from his aerodrome. One has to take advantage of these moments if one has eternal happiness in mind. I spent the afternoon perfecting my appearance. Floating around in Venetia’s lilac chiffon dress, I knew I would be the focus of everyone’s attention. People would say, ‘Is that Kitty? Who would have known she’d be so beautiful’, and, ‘She puts Venetia quite in the shade.’ Henry would watch from afar, unable to tear his eyes away. Then, when the music started, he would take me in his arms and express the endless depths of his love.

Maybe it wouldn’t happen exactly like that. There might not be dancing, after all. But I was determined that this was the night that would secure our future together.

‘The dress is too big,’ Silvie muttered when I asked her how I looked.

I’d already padded myself up a little on top, but decided to throw an extra stocking down each one, just to be on the safe side.

‘That’s better,’ I said, smoothing down the dress in front of the mirror. ‘He won’t be able to resist me, don’t you think?’

Silvie sighed. ‘I think he likes Venetia.’

I laughed. Silvie’s definitely coming out of her shell a bit more, but I don’t know where she gets some of her ideas. I’m far more interested in hearing about her secret, and badger her to tell me all the time. But she just goes quiet and runs off.

Venetia wanted to make a late entrance so she stayed behind, as did Daddy, who was tied up with work. Norway is going horribly wrong, he says. The Nazis are walking all over us, and it looks like we might have to back out fast. Everyone’s worried they’ll invade Belgium and France next, although apparently we have all routes covered, so we should be fine.

So it was only Mama, Silvie, and I who plunged into the cool evening air. We beamed our torches around because it’s scary walking down the lane next to Peasepotter Wood. Just as we were saying that you never know who might be lurking in there, there was a crunch of bracken and who should appear but Proggett. He shook himself off, bid us good evening, and headed back to the house. How very odd.

We pressed on. As Mama is incredibly pregnant now, Silvie and I had to take an arm on each side to help her along, which made it rather jolly.

The sky was curdled with dimples of darkening dusk, and apart from the odd hoot of a barn owl, it was silent, like we were treading into an enchanted land. Tiny threads of pollen dusted the air, the sweetly scented yellow specks plunging me into a reminder of last summer, before this beastly war, when everything was just right – as it should be.

The Tillings’ home, Ivy House, is one of my favourite places in the village. Not as imposing as Chilbury Manor, nor as ornate as Brampton Hall, it has a quiet serenity about it, a flavour of Mrs Tilling’s thoughtfulness lacing itself through the fairy-tale gardens, the tiny rosebuds growing over a series of pagodas, and a birdbath and feeder, as Mrs Tilling loves all living creatures. She now has six hens for eggs, and a healthy vegetable patch to help the war effort. Ivy House used to be the vet’s office before Dr Tilling died ten years ago, and there is still an air of purpose around the place, as if, at its very heart, it remains a haven for lost or harmed creatures.

As we opened the front door, a lively throng surged out into the garden, and we hurried in to avoid blackout fines. (Mrs B dishes them out like a strict school ma’am – even if only a smidgen of light is let out for a split second she’ll slap a fine in your hand and bellow, ‘We don’t want the Jerries to see us, do we?’)

Inside, the house was merry with flickering candles and jaunty music, which sat oddly with the dreadful fear that David might not come back. Red, white, and blue bunting was draped across the walls, probably borrowed from Mrs B after the extravaganza she threw for Henry. The crowd of chattering villagers stood around gossiping, each clutching a rationed-out glass of sherry.

Venetia made her grand entrance not long after we’d arrived, bringing the room to a standstill by loudly proclaiming, ‘I hope I’m not late!’ Standing out from the rest of us, she was wearing a dress of glistening green and gold, twirling it this way and that so that the sequins caught the light, trailing around her legs with a tempting fluidity. Within an instant, there was a crowd of men surrounding her, mostly friends of David’s on their way to war. She rewarded each with her special flirty attention, all pouty lips whispering little secrets into their ears. I wondered if I could craftily trip her up.

Before long Mrs Tilling hushed us, sending a wave of shushes around the room, and went to fetch David down from his room. We cheered as he came in, dressed in full, pressed khaki uniform, looking terribly grown up. But as I watched, I realised with a flash of both relief and worry that he was still the same David – relief that a uniform doesn’t change a person, then worry that the clumsy lad was going to the front line. He was still the same foolish nine-year-old who’d got stuck up the cherry tree on the green, the same lanky twelve-year-old who I’d punched for pulling my pigtails, the same idiot fourteen-year-old who’d crashed the Dawkinses’ tractor into a perfectly innocent hedge. His colour is yellow, although not for cowardice, but rather a kind of blindness to reality, and I couldn’t help but worry for him. Even now, the eager and dazed look in his eyes showed the way he embraced every challenge in life, with a tireless naivety, like a fox gambolling into the hunt, half expecting to be caught, not thinking about how it all might end.

‘Wow!’ he gasped as he came into the glistening sitting room. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much effort.’ He put his arm around Mrs Tilling in his chaotically warm way. ‘Thank you for coming, everyone!’ He stepped forward to us. ‘Lovely to see you, Mrs B, I thought you’d be far too busy giving someone what for. Have you persuaded Mr Churchill to come and give the Chilbury WVS a speech yet? Bet he doesn’t know he has his top fan club here!’

Everyone laughed, and someone called, ‘He will do soon enough!’

David then turned to Venetia, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘And the beautiful Venetia, a last sight of you to cherish on my journey.’ His eyes remained on her as his smile lurched wetly.

Venetia was all modesty, looking up at him with fluttering eyelashes and glossy red lips. ‘David, you’ll come back my hero,’ she said in a voice breaking with tears. I wanted to laugh, until I met Mrs Tilling’s sour look from across the room. We all know Venetia doesn’t care a farthing for David. I have no idea why she insists on playing stupid games with him.

Mrs Tilling asked me to offer around a plate of rather chewy cheese straws (with so many rations no one ever knows what people put into recipes these days). So I mingled around, watching Henry, who was talking to a very pregnant Hattie. He was looking terrifically handsome with his sandy hair cropped and his pristine RAF uniform. His new moustache is devilishly dashing, like all the best fighter pilots. It makes his nose look a little less beaky, I think. And he looks older too, even though he’s already nineteen – a real man, someone who’ll know how to take care of me. He didn’t seem to notice me watching, until Hattie drew me over to join them.

‘What a gorgeous dress, Kitty,’ she said, fingering the fabric. ‘Don’t you think so, Henry?’

‘Yes indeed. You look lovely, Kitty,’ he said, grinning, and I found myself dissolving into his eyes. But then he added, ‘You’ll follow in your sister’s footsteps soon and become quite the beauty.’ His eyes swept over to Venetia, who was holding forth in a crowd of men beside the piano. Why does she feel she has to get the attention of every man in the room, including Henry, when she’s not even interested in any of them?

‘I don’t want to look like her,’ I said, annoyed, making him look back to me. ‘I want to be a beauty in my own right.’ I felt Hattie let out a sigh, I have no idea why.

‘Of course you’re a beauty in your own right, Kitty!’ Henry declared jovially, putting his hand warmly on my upper arm and giving me a special smile. I felt a surge of heat where he touched me, like a flame lighting up my body. I waited for him to take me in his arms—

But suddenly I felt his attention melt away – Venetia was approaching. Her dress fluttered as she twirled from one man to the next, like a dazzling dragonfly soaring around in search of prey. Her blonde hair hung low over her pearly white shoulders, while a stream of pungent perfume oozed from her soft, white neck. Henry’s hand lost contact with my arm, which suddenly felt cold and lost, and when I looked up at him, he had turned to face her.

‘Come and sit down with me, Henry darling, and tell me all about your bombing raids,’ she chanted loudly, scrolling her fingertips under his chin and softly directing his mouth towards her carefully painted lips. ‘I hear you’ve been fighting over Norway.’

‘I thought you were busy with the other men,’ he said under his breath.

‘They don’t mean a thing to me,’ she said, pouting. Then she leant her head to one side, her thick blonde hair forming a shimmering curtain to conceal her from the rest of the room, and she whispered something into his ear, her long red fingernails barely touching the other side of his neck.

He responded by whispering something back, his hand moving her hair back as his lips hovered closely to her ear.

A man’s voice called her from the other side of the room, and she pulled away.

‘I’ll have to think it over,’ she said, a menacing gleam in her eyes, and spun off into the throng. Henry followed briskly, calling her name. ‘Venetia!’

And me? I was abandoned, alone, in the middle of the room, mutely holding the plate of cheese straws in my hand. How could she do this to me? And why did he follow her? Doesn’t he know that she’s using him, that she says he’s boring and his nose is like a giant wart? Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care a toss about anyone except herself, lining up the men to prove she’s top? But worst of all, knowing how I love him, she revels in keeping him away from me, another of her little tricks at keeping everyone else beneath her, preening over us like she’s some kind of vicious queen. It’s not fair.

She snaked her way through the throng to Mr Slater, who was looking as impeccable as ever, his dark hair smoothed, a detached manliness about him making David and his friends look like halfwit schoolboys. Venetia’s been fanatical trying to get his attention, but he seems immune to her charms – possibly the first man ever. She’s stepping up her game, or else she’ll lose her bet with Angela. And Venetia always has to win. She calls herself the empress of this little place, and she is determined to keep it that way.

I wandered over to Daddy, who had dragged himself away from his office and was looking ferociously at Venetia, with Mrs B prattling away beside him. He wants Venetia to marry Henry and inherit Brampton Hall, which is just plain ridiculous. I simply can’t imagine them together, and even more horrible is the thought of Henry being my brother-in-law. Whenever we’d see each other, the tension would be insurmountable. But we would never give way to our secret passions, holding them inside like tragic lovers. Perhaps there’d be the occasional moment when we’d meet on the veranda. ‘Oh, Kitty,’ he’d say, surprised to see me. ‘Henry, I didn’t think you’d be here—’ I’d reply, looking at the ground, then back towards the open French door, a white drape spilling out in the soft summer breeze. ‘Nor I. I just have to say—’ ‘No, don’t, Henry. Don’t make things harder.’ ‘But Kitty, darling …’ and so forth, until one of us dies.

Daddy was muttering about Mr Slater again. ‘That Slater’s a worthless coward for sitting out the war.’

‘Mr Slater is exempt from fighting as he is flat-footed,’ Mrs B told him pointedly. She’s taken a fancy to Mr Slater, imagining him a great artist ready for her to discover. Trying to prove herself frightfully cultured, she’s attempting to take him under her wing, Heaven help him. Although I have no idea whether he’s any good. I don’t think Mrs B has the ability to discern a masterpiece from a school art project.

‘Slater’s a down-and-out skiver shirking his responsibilities.’ Daddy gulped down his sherry. ‘Cowardly laziness, that’s what it’s all about. He doesn’t realise that it’s fighting that makes a real man.’

I thought of Edmund blown to bits in the North Sea, and poor David on the brink of a bullet in France, and couldn’t help wondering if it had less to do with courage and more to do with common sense. Sending people off to their deaths seems completely ludicrous. I’ve begun imagining what it’s like being blown up in a submarine, the radar blipping warning signals of one’s approaching death, everyone saluting and singing the national anthem, ‘God save our gracious King’. Then boom. Nothing. Only gnawed pieces of fingers and ears washing up on unsuspecting beaches.

As I watched Mr Slater, I couldn’t help thinking that he can’t be all bad. He helped Silvie home last week when she came off Amadeus. She should never have tried to clear Bullsend Brook. It was lucky he was there. Although I wonder what he was doing at Bullsend Brook. It’s the other side of Peasepotter Wood – the middle of the countryside.

Daddy’s eyes narrowed on Venetia, who was busy with Mr Slater, all witty replies and feigned boredom. Even though Daddy will have words with her later, he can’t control Venetia at all. Every time he tells her to leave Slater alone, she simply shrugs and smiles and says she’s ‘Daddy’s little poppet’, and then carries on as usual. It makes me sick.

Henry was standing behind Venetia’s shoulder protectively, trying to get into the conversation. He didn’t have to try hard as Mr Slater seemed pleased to include him, speaking to him directly, making jokes as they both laughed. It was as if he was avoiding Venetia’s attention. Henry put his hand on Venetia’s arm, and I saw his eyes glance at her face, her throat, her cleavage beneath the low-cut dress. She shook off his hand, but he stayed close, and I wondered why he let her play games with him. But then I remembered how clever he is – he must be playing some kind of game himself.

Then I realised I wasn’t the only one watching Venetia. David Tilling was gazing over at her from the window, leaning against the wall, engulfed by her presence. He’s been in love with Venetia since he was in breeches. I never thought it was so serious, but his eyes were like those of a big gulping fish, drinking her up. Venetia needs to watch herself there. David’s become a lot more forthright since army training.