The Bannister Girls Read online

  The desperately bright tomorrow-we-die atmosphere among the servicemen and the painted girls at the club; the unaccustomed taste of beer in that thick, smoke-filled room; the charisma of the man with her now, so different from the rest … all of it turning her into a totally different person from the Angel Bannister who revelled in a lark with her chums, but who had never done anything like this before.

  Some of her friends had spoken daringly of losing their virginity even before they left college, but to Angel, it had always seemed the most precious part of oneself, and not to be given away lightly.

  Jacques took her in his arms. His eyes were understanding, as he looked into hers, seeing them wide and dark with sudden fright. He touched his mouth to hers without urgency or passion.

  ‘Don’t be afraid of me, Angel. Whatever happens will be because you want it to happen. You’re so – so vulnerable – and innocent –’

  She gave a tremulous smile.

  ‘That’s because I am innocent.’ She blushed as she said the words, hoping he would understand. How absurd to blush when admitting that she wasn’t a woman of the world, but as virginal as the first winter snow.

  She was eighteen years old, barely out of college, and compared with Dolly Dilkes, as naïve as a newborn babe.

  ‘Do you think I imagined anything different?’ Jacques said. ‘I felt that you were the woman of my heart from the moment I met you. I would give you the earth if I could. But for now, I can only give you myself – if you want me.’

  His words were caring, his meaning crystal clear. He could be a rogue, or a man bowled over by his emotions. She had no way of knowing which. But her heart leapt at the sensuality in his voice, and the blood seemed to flow faster in her body at his nearness. She had known a few lacklustre suitors, but none had ever spoken to her in this way. None had ever aroused a matching desire in her…

  The arch young men of her acquaintance were stilted in their English compliments. They didn’t touch all her senses the way this man did. But now that the moment was here, did she want him, in the way he meant? Did she, in Biblical terms, want carnal knowledge of him?

  The rigid words of her college religious instruction classes swam through her mind. Outdated, unrealistic, and some said ridiculous in these harsh days of 1915, and yet … and yet…

  Angel swallowed at the importance of the decision. Jacques took her hand and led her to the window. Before they reached it, he turned out the gaslight so that they were in darkness. He pulled back the curtains and moonlight bathed the room. Beyond the window, the outlines of buildings and spires were softly grey against the rich navy blue of the sky. The branches of a lone tree sighed and whispered in the wind.

  ‘When this war is over, Angel, you and I will come back to this very room and look out on the lights of London. That much I promise.’

  When they arrived, she had seen his kit bag on the floor. There was little else scattered about. It was as if he had packed everything away in that small bag for his last night. It had promised to be a sterile night. But now they had each other…

  The war seemed very far away from that snug little bedroom at the Hotel Portland. They didn’t put on the light again. They undressed by moonlight, to gaze at one another and wonder at the beauty God had given them.

  The preliminaries were sensually sweet as they lay together between the cold sheets, but it was more than the crisp cotton fabric that made Angel shiver.

  She was a romantic, and these were moments that should be heralded with trumpet sounds and church bells … and then all the vague euphoric notions of her tender years evaporated as she felt the hard warmth of Jacques’ body invade her own.

  The first small sharp pain was followed by a glorious acceptance. This was what her body had been made for, what all her emotions had been awaiting. This was love.

  ‘My beautiful Angel,’ Jacques breathed her name against her skin. ‘You are truly my perfect woman. In case I should forget to tell you in the next hundred years we shall spend together, remember that I told you tonight.’

  His face on her own was damp with passion as he moved against her. His words exalted and humbled her.

  ‘You expect us to spend a hundred years together, then?’ she asked tremulously, wanting to hear him say that this was truly forever.

  ‘No. I should have said eternity,’ he whispered in her ear, his lips tugging gently at her ear lobe.

  Angel was overwhelmed by him. If this was continental charm, then Jacques had an abundance of it. If it was false, she didn’t want to be told. She never even considered it in those precious stolen hours before the dawn of another grey March morning.

  Angel awoke slowly. She was cold. It seemed only minutes before that she had been so warm, so safe. She had been wrapped in someone’s arms, and had gone to sleep cocooned against his body. She had become a woman in every sense of the word. She knew now what fulfilment meant…

  Her eyes flew open, and in an instant she knew that she didn’t want to turn her head in that icy little bedroom. Nor to reach out her hand to encounter nothing but the cold pillow beside her. For a fraction of a moment more, she refused to believe what her mind told her, that Jacques had already gone…

  But she had to believe it. She turned so quickly, her neck cricked. The bed was empty except for herself. She lay as if frozen, then forced herself to look around the room. There was no kit bag, no few personal belongings on the dressing table, nothing to say that Jacques de Ville had ever been there, or ever existed. Angel felt a sob tear at her throat. It was unbelievable. It was a cruel nightmare…

  She slid out of bed, and felt a swift shame at seeing her own naked body. She reached for her clothes with shaking hands, and then she saw the note placed carefully on top of them. She ripped it open.

  ‘My Angel, I know you’ll be unhappy when you awake alone. I have to leave very early, and you and I found something too beautiful last night to spoil with tears and good-byes. When these anxious days are over I promise you we will meet again. We have a special date at a certain window.

  Yours always, Jacques.’

  Angel pressed the note to her lips, feeling the tears start to her eyes. Then just as quickly, a burning anger swept through her. How dare he do this! How dare he treat her as if she were weak enough to fall apart at having to say goodbye? She was no longer a child. Women said good-bye to their men every day of the year in wartime…

  Angel realised to her shame that she had never even thought of it before. It hadn’t touched her own life until now.

  War was something that was happening in France, except for the nuisance of the air raids and the restrictions on lighting, and the forebodings of food shortages and the like … and she thought it slightly comic that even her pompous brother-in-law Stanley spoke vaguely about taking up an army commission.

  Apart from that, her mother held knitting afternoons for the soldiers and her father complained, and said grimly that it was bound to get worse before it got better, the logic of which Angel found completely incomprehensible. The war hadn’t affected Angel Bannister at all – until now.

  ‘You bastard, Jacques de Ville!’

  She spoke aloud through her pain, partly because it helped to use the forbidden word, and partly because it relieved her anguish at the thought that he had run out on her. Was she stronger than he, after all, because she had been able to face this parting and he hadn’t?

  If such thoughts had occurred to her at all during the hours she had spent in his arms, it was only with a feeling of pride at giving her man a talisman to take to war.

  In leaving her alone, Jacques had managed to shatter all such noble ideals. Instead, she felt cheap – as cheap as Dolly Dilkes, who had undoubtedly spent the night with Reg Porter. The comparison didn’t make Angel any happier.

  Despite Jacques’ note, which hinted of a shared future, she was ashamed of just being here, in a room which would probably make her mother faint with horror.

  A sudden rapping on the door made her
jump with alarm, and sent her heart racing. She snatched up the bedcover and pulled it round herself. She inched open the door to see the face of a maid outside, armed with clean sheets. The woman’s eyes seemed to see all that had gone on in the room last night, and Angel had never felt so humiliated.

  ‘The gent from this room paid up yesterday, and I’ve got to clean the room, Miss.’

  Her voice implied that she’d seen this situation too many times to feel shock, but could still feel superior to the little tarts who went back to a serviceman’s room for a night’s pleasure and a few shillings payment. Angel’s cheeks burned.

  ‘I’ll be leaving soon,’ she said stiffly. ‘Didn’t my – husband mention that I would be staying a little later?’

  The woman grinned, her eyes roaming past Angel’s agonised face, to the expensive clothes on the chair. She shrugged. It took all sorts, and just because a girl wore flash clothes it didn’t mean she couldn’t open her legs to a good-looking man. And that tall dark bloke with the funny little accent had been handsome enough to make all the young hotel maids look twice.

  ‘No, your husband didn’t, Miss. I’ll be back in half an hour then. The room’s needed again, see?’

  ‘I’ll be gone by then,’ Angel snapped, and slammed the door in the woman’s face.

  She stared at it tremblingly for several seconds. She was demoralised by that woman. She felt like a whore.

  She flinched from the very sound of the word in her head, dressing as fast as she could. Her hands were so clammy they refused to fasten buttons, and she couldn’t think properly.

  Yesterday seemed decades away. She had grown up more in a single night than in the past eighteen years. She had lain with a man and seen the derision in a hotel maid’s eyes. Without intending to, she had deceived her parents. She had fully intended going straight home early last evening. Instead…

  Angel’s throat felt suddenly thick. It was all spoiled. All the tender loving feelings between her and Jacques had evaporated, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get them back. She wanted desperately to recapture every moment, to remember every word he had said … and failed. Perhaps this too, was a part of growing up, Angel thought bitterly. Nothing stayed as lovely as you thought it would. Everything faded.

  She left the small hotel without a second glance, uncomfortably aware of the nudges between the receptionist and the maid as she went. Her knuckles were taut as she gripped the handle of her overnight bag. She felt stifled by their looks, and yet part of her could identify with them completely. Yesterday, she too would have thought a girl who went to bed with a stranger was no less than a shameless hussy.

  Outside, the air was crisp and cold, but Angel welcomed its clean sharp touch on her skin. Her wool coat had a fur collar, and she pulled it up around her face, burying her chin in its softness. She was suddenly disorientated. Not by her muddled emotions now, or even her surroundings, but by the time of day.

  It was too early in the morning to go home. Her mother would be suspicious if she supposedly arrived home from Margot Lacey’s home so early. She must wait until at least mid-morning before making her appearance at the Bannister house.

  At the end of the narrow street, she saw a small café, and went inside it to order tea and breakfast. She didn’t feel like eating, but it helped to pass the time, even though the fare was meagre, the surroundings none too clean.

  She saw a taxi-cab as soon as she left the café, and began to run for it, waving her hand. A lady never runs for anything, the tutors at college had instructed sternly. A lady remains cool and dignified at all times … a swift vision of herself and Jacques de Ville surged through her mind. Locked together in an abandonment of pleasure … hearts beating together, bodies pulsing in ecstasy…

  ‘Do you want this cab or not, Miss?’ A voice said irritably. ‘I ain’t got all day to wait while you’re dreaming.’

  Angel jumped. She hardly remembered reaching the vehicle, nor standing beside it with her hand on the door handle. Her eyes misted for a moment, remembering the clasp of another hand over hers, on another taxi-cab … she shook herself angrily, feeling that she must be in the grip of some madness to be behaving like a lovesick shopgirl.

  ‘Can you take me to Hampstead?’ she said jerkily.

  The cabbie’s eyes narrowed. This one looked as though she could pay for the journey, but she’d just come from a narrow back street, and it never hurt to be certain.

  ‘Can you afford it, Miss? Hampstead’s a good way off –’

  ‘Naturally,’ Angel snapped. ‘Will you take me or won’t you? I can easily call another cab.’

  The man leaned over at that and opened the door. He wasn’t losing this easy ticket.

  ‘What’s the address?’ he asked, as Angel slid inside.

  His practised eyes assessed her through his mirror. What a corker, he thought. Eyes like emeralds, and hair in that rich blonde colour that wasn’t fake. And probably a shapely figure beneath the fancy grey coat. She had held it up out of the rain puddles as she’d run to his cab, and he’d glimpsed a pair of neat ankles encased in expensive looking boots. Yes, he’d get his money all right.

  She gave the address quickly. It would be a relief to get home now. She was cold and miserable, and the thought of getting into a hot bath was becoming more attractive every minute. She must make up some tale as to why she hadn’t had a bath before leaving Margot’s house…

  Angel bit her lip. Fairy tales to offset some girlish prank was one thing, but the necessary lies were increasing by the minute. How could one illicit night become so complicated! She wondered fleetingly how anyone could be bothered to make a habit of it. She remembered Jacques’ seductive voice, warm against her skin, and knew only too well.

  He had asked for her address so that he could find her again, and the request had made her feel so alive, so very wanted … Now, she felt cold and betrayed, doubting that she would ever hear from him again … and heaven help her if her parents ever found out where she had really been last night.

  Chapter 3

  Sir Fred Bannister had inherited his title from his father, and the fact had always been a source of irritation to him. Not that he despised any of the advantages that wealth and position gave him. But Sir Fred was a rarity in his circle. He believed in the personal pride of the self-made man, and since his family business had been handed to him on a platter, that personal striving had been denied him.

  Of course, he could simply have turned his back on the textile business and gone into something new and adventurous, but marriage to the daughter of an old Etonian had stopped any such Socialist ideas. Clemence was staunchly Establishment-bred, and since Fred had so badly wanted to marry her in the sweet heyday of his youth, he had simply succumbed and allowed her to rule his life as well as his heart.

  Only with his workers in his thriving mill in Yorkshire, did he really assert himself in the way he felt that a man should. Thus, he had the reputation of being dictatorial, a façade which his employees would have been astonished to see disappear as soon as he entered his own front door.

  The plain truth was that Fred was completely dictated to by his household of women, except on the rare occasions when the lot of them went too far. At those times, he would roar like a British bulldog, and insist on getting his own way. The women knew when to recognise those times. Apart from that, it just wasn’t worth the worry of dealing with three independent daughters who were more than any man could decently control, and the most harmonious way was to leave it all to Clemence.

  She was a dear old thing, of course. She was all that a wife should be, especially in Clemence’s own eyes. She presided at his table and gave dinner parties that had been the toast of the town until the new posters to save food for the war effort had put an end to half of them. Clemence had also taken to organising knitting parties with some of the old biddies Sir Fred privately loathed. He referred to them secretly as the pearls and lorgnette brigade.

  Clemence was now heavily
into Good Works. She had dutifully produced three daughters and decided long ago that that was enough, and had put aside that part of their married life. There was no likelihood of a son now to carry on the business. There was no hanky-panky after lights out, either. And if Fred didn’t have a nice little lady friend tucked away in a Yorkshire village, which made his frequent visits North extremely convenient, he was sure he would have gone mad or blind long ago.

  He was driving back to Hampstead in his comfortable Daimler motor that March morning, after an especially satisfying night with Harriet. She made his life worthwhile, he thought with pleasure. Harriet … and his three girls … his thoughts were on them as he hummed a little ditty, twirling his moustache in the little habit he had when he was pleased with life, as he drove back to town and thought about his daughters.

  Louise … she was her mother’s girl, if ever he saw one. Louise was handsome and clever, and would presumably give him a grandson or two in time. Ellen had brains too, although Fred wished that she would utilise them in some other way than by joining these radical women who tied themselves to railings and made damn nuisances of themselves.

  Thank God she hadn’t joined these damned suffragettes until long after the appalling stupidity of the one who had thrown herself under the King’s horse at the races. What earthly good had that done for any of them, except to make them seem utterly irresponsible?

  Fred could still sympathise with Ellen’s inclinations even if Clemence could not. Why should she be content with the trappings of her upper class background if she didn’t want to be? What was the point of having money if you didn’t have the freedom to do what you liked with it?

  Then there was Angel … Fred’s mouth broke into a smile. Angel was the darling of his heart. He had named her himself, to Clemence’s intense irritation, when she’d promised him that the third child would be a son, and said recklessly that he could give him any name he chose.