The Bannister Girls by Jean Saunders

country’s affairs.
    â€˜At the rate soldiers are being killed at the Front, they’ll be sending old men soon,’ Ellen muttered. ‘I wish I was a man. I’d follow in Hobbs’ footsteps!’
    â€˜I’m very thankful that you’re not,’ Clemence said sharply. ‘You’d go and get yourself killed at the very firstopportunity, thinking you could win the war single-handed!’
    â€˜Thank-you, Mother! I shall take that as a compliment, however you meant it.’ Ellen grinned. ‘Hide that newspaper before Rose and Angel come back from the village. Rose takes a morbid interest in reading the casualty columns since Hobbs enlisted. She prays for him every night. Did you know?’
    â€˜Gracious me!’ Clemence stared at her daughter. ‘You mean that your friend Rose prays for the chauffeur?’
    Her affrontery was almost comical. Ellen would dearly have loved to encourage it, but then her mother would probably take Rose gently aside, and tell her that such an association just wasn’t suitable, and Ellen couldn’t risk the thought of her friend being so embarrassed.
    â€˜There’s nothing of
l’amour
about it, Mama,’ she said airily. ‘Rose has merely added Hobbs to her list of prayers for dead and prospectively dead heroes. Ronnie first, Hobbs second, that’s all. Quaint, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Really, Ellen, you can be very objectionable at times,’ Clemence went hot at such outrageous talk.
    â€˜Why? Because I’m not afraid to talk of death? Isn’t it time it stopped being such a forbidden subject, Mother, when all about us are dropping like flies?’
    Clemence rose stiffly to her feet.
    â€˜I won’t stay in the same room with you while you’re behaving like this, Ellen. You shame me with your so-called clever talk. Accompany me and my ladies to the railway station at Temple Meads one afternoon to give the poor wounded boys tea and comfort, and see some of them who come home from the Front with limbs missing and eyes blinded, and then see how glibly you dare to talk of death.’
    She swept out of the room, and Ellen bit her lip. God knew why she had to take things out on her mother, who was definitely doing her bit, despite her own refined upbringing, but Ellen felt so abominably frustrated down here. She and Rose were out of sorts with one another, and even theirinterest in women’s rights had inevitably waned, since Mrs Pankhurst had patriotically stopped her rigid campaigning while the war lasted. But without the shared interest, both Ellen and Rose realised uneasily that they had absolutely nothing in common.
    Buried in the country and with all such activities curtailed, there were no great rallies, no heroic speeches to listen to, no sacrifices to be made. It was all so deadly dull. The others didn’t seem to find it so stifling as Ellen did, she thought irritably.
    Louise had become involved in some sort of charity work in nearby Bristol, and drove herself in and out of the city with a determined nearer-to-God expression every afternoon.
    Angel had wheedled their father into teaching her to drive, and was crashing about in the Sunbeam all over the place. Either with their mother, who held on to the seat as if it was going to be her last excursion on earth, or taking the willing Rose to explore the country which she had never seen before. Ellen felt very much adrift.
    The only way she could rid herself of the annoyance she constantly felt was to bait her mother, which was a frustration in itself, because she always felt so God-damned awful about it afterwards.
    She heard the screech of tyres outside. Angel was far from being a proficient driver, but according to their father she would get there in the end. Ellen hadn’t even sat beside her sister in the car yet to find out. Seconds later Rose and Angel came rushing into the room, obviously brimful of news. Ellen lifted a bored