We'll Meet Again by Mary Nichols Page A

psalm and the service ended with the singing of ‘Abide with Me’, after which they followed the coffin to the newly dug grave for the interment.
    It was over and yet it was far from over. No one would ever forget what had happened; tongues would continue to wag. Edith would go on grieving for a long time and she would continue to vilify the Earl. Prue prayed that her mother would come to understand why her husband had behaved in the way he had and be reconciled with him. All three walked back to the Hall in silence.
    After luncheon Prue decided to go for a ride. It was often the first thing she did on arriving home, but this time she had not felt like leaving her mother. But Copper needed some exercise and so did she before returning to Bletchley and the sedentary job of translating German communications in smoky Hut Three.
    It was when she went to the stables that it hit her. Stevens was not there to saddle her mare. The stables were deserted and the three horses whose home it was were looking over their stalls as if questioning why no one was busy around them. Even the stable boy was nowhere to be seen. She stroked the three noses, one by one. ‘I know you are sad, we all are.’ Hearing a sound, she climbed the stairs above the stable which had, many years before, been the living quarters of the head groom, and there she found sixteen-year-old Terry, sitting on a rickety chair crying heartbrokenly. He scrambled to his feet when he saw her. ‘My lady.’
    ‘Terry, I know it is a very miserable day, but the horses don’t know that, do they? They still need looking after and it’s up to you to see to them now.’
    He wiped his face on his sleeve. ‘Yes, my lady.’
    ‘Off you go then.’
    He preceded her downstairs. ‘Shall I saddle Copper for you, my lady?’ His voice was watery but he was no longer crying.
    ‘No, I’ll do it myself. You look after the others.’
    She saddled up, mounted and set off for the heath, but todaythere was no joy in her ride. The war had come to Longfordham with a vengeance and her cosy life was changing irrevocably.
     
    Sheila missed Prue. Without her friend’s leavening influence, life at Victoria Villa was miserable. Aunt Constance never left off grumbling and scoffing at her. What had she to be so superior about? She had a nice house and didn’t seem short of money, but money and a house did not bring happiness, not as there had been with Pa and Ma in West Ham. Sometimes the sadness rose to the surface and on those days she wanted to hide herself away and be miserable in private. But Victoria Villa wasn’t an easy place to be private in. Her aunt had no patience with displays of emotion, maintaining they were a sign of weakness. Prue said she understood how she felt, but how could she? No one who had not been through the same tragedy could understand. She spent her off-duty time in her unheated bedroom, sitting on the bed with the eiderdown round her to keep warm and wrote her journal and letters to the Bennetts, to Janet and to Chris.
    ‘Dear Chris,’ she wrote. ‘I went to the pictures with my friend Prue last week. We saw
The Wizard of Oz.
It is really for children but I enjoyed the singing and it took my mind off the war for a little while. We went to a dance too, to celebrate Prue’s twenty-first birthday. She has lots of friends and some of them danced with me, but I would rather be dancing with you.’ Unable to talk about her work, she went on to write about the town and the countryside in autumn. Running out of things to say, she concluded, ‘I hope you are well and able to keep warm. Write to me soon, Love from Sheila.’
    After that she turned to the notebook she used to write her journal letters to her parents. She imagined them at home, eagerly waiting to hear from her and so she let her mind and pencilrun away with her. It was all there: her homesickness, her first impressions of her aunt, her job as a post girl, her friendship with Prue which made it all