The Bannister Girls by Jean Saunders Read Free Book Online Page A

discuss it, Angel,’ Fred spoke in a troubled voice. Clemence rounded on him.
    â€˜Don’t be weak about this, Frederick. I know Angel can do no wrong in your eyes, but this time she’s gone too far. She’s out of control, and she must be punished for it.’
    â€˜Mother! I’m eighteen years old!’ Angel said, incensed. ‘I’m not a schoolgirl. Girls of my age are married withbabies, or doing honest war work.’
    â€˜Well, if you think you’re going to work in one of those dreadful munition factories, you can think again,’ Clemence said. ‘I’m not having one of my daughters called a canary because her skin’s stained yellow with that ghastly stuff they put into the shells.’
    â€˜TNT,’ Fred said mildly. ‘I never thought to hear you being so unpatriotic, my dear –’
    â€˜I don’t care what the stuffs called, and you know very well I do whatever I can for the war effort, Fred!’ Clemence’s face was brilliant now. ‘My knitting circles are gaining support every week, and I’m going to join the groups who dispense tea and soup at the railway stations for the wounded soldiers. Angel can help me in those things from now on.’
    â€˜There are plenty of other ways I can be useful,’ she said quickly, thankful that for the moment at least, her mother’s attention seemed to have wandered from the disgrace of last night. ‘I could be a nurse, or learn to drive an ambulance. I don’t really think your knitting ladies would want me around them, Mother –’
    And she could think of nothing more absolutely boring…
    â€˜But the returning soldiers undoubtedly would,’ Fred put in, trying to ease the tension with a quick smile. ‘It would brighten their day to see a pretty girl pouring tea for them –’
    â€˜We’ll think about that later,’ Clemence said coldly. ‘But you can forget any nonsense about becoming a nurse, Angel. Go and have that bath. Your father and I have got to talk.’
    Angel and Fred exchanged brief sympathetic glances before she slipped thankfully out of the room, and went upstairs. On the landing above, Ellen’s astonished face was watching her, and clearly she had heard every word. Ellen was blotchy with tears, but her admiration for Angel was evident.
    â€˜I say, did you really stay at an hotel last night, old girl? What a lark!’
    Angel bit her lip. They were the very words she had used to Jacques, and it seemed like centuries ago.
    â€˜Yes, I did. But I don’t want to talk about it, thank-you very much.’ She went to push past her sister, but Ellen caught at her arm, her voice lowered into a conspiratorial whisper.
    â€˜Oh Angel, don’t go all huffy on me. What was he like?’
    Angel stared at her. They didn’t always get on together, and she had never thought Ellen particularly perceptive. And she had no intention of sharing her secret with Ellen or anyone else.
    â€˜Don’t be stupid. If you were listening, then you heard what I said. The tram broke down and I got scared, that’s all. It seemed safer to stay in town.’
    â€˜It’s such a long way, of course!’ Ellen didn’t believe her for a second. ‘Anyway, never mind all that. Did you mean what you said, about joining something?’
    Angel pushed past her on the landing. ‘If you mean, am I going to join your lot, then forget it. Some of those strident women make me sick.’
    â€˜They’re not all like that. You haven’t met Rose –’ To Angel’s horror, Ellen’s square face suddenly crumpled. The vague suspicion of something ‘not quite nice’ about some of those women flared into her mind. Oh no, not Ellen…
    Her sister’s next words were a relief, quickly squashed as she heard the tearful story.
    â€˜You missed out on my big scene with the parents, Angel. All I want is for