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

Rose to have a few weeks at Meadowcroft to get over her husband’s death. He was blown to bits in France. Can you imagine that? She got a cold little letter from the War Office, and that was all. As far as they’re concerned, Gunner Ronnie Morton no longer exists, and his poor widow can go hang.’
    â€˜I’m so sorry, Ellen.’ Angel didn’t know what else to say. It sounded too ghastly.
    That was what war did to people. Tore them apart, madewidows of young women on the brink of life, cut down virile young men … a frisson of gladness for last night swept through her, despite the pain of it all. She had known love. For a little while it had been perfect. And whether Jacques de Ville had been a rogue or not, she had sent him off to war happy. It was the only thing she had to cling on to now.
    Ellen sniffed. ‘Oh well, it was what I expected of the parents. They think we’re all queer, but it’s simply not true. All we want is the right to be recognised as people. We exist, Angel. Women have always played their part in history, and someday they’ll know our worth.’
    â€˜Ellen, I’m sure you’re right, but please don’t give me a political lecture right now. I want a bath, and then I have to face the music again.’ She tried desperately to get away.
    â€˜All right. But I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll stick up for your right to a bit of independence if you’ll back me in getting Rose to stay at Meadowcroft.’
    She held out her hand and Angel took it solemnly. It wouldn’t make a scrap of difference if their mother had made up her mind, and she really didn’t care whether Rose Morton stayed at Meadowcroft or not. It meant nothing to her. Except…
    The memory of Ellen’s terse words about her friend’s husband stayed in Angel’s mind while she soaped herself in a hot bath. Gunner Ronnie Morton, blown to bits in France … she never knew him, but the poignancy of those stark words wouldn’t leave her. How awful. How simply and terribly awful. It could have been Jacques de Ville…
    The words slid into her mind before she could stop them, and a sob tightened her throat. She couldn’t forget him. He had been the most important person in her life. The man to whom a woman gave herself was surely that. They were bound together by something deeper than blood, stronger than hate.
    She looked down at her own breasts, silky white with suds, and remembered Jacques’ mouth on them, and it had beenthe first time a man had touched them. She felt a tingling in them at the memory. She remembered with an almost exquisite bittersweet pain the moments when the warm secret part of her had opened up to him like a flower blossoming in the sun, and in remembering, she felt the dampness of tears on her cheeks.
    It had been so beautiful. It had been love. Angel was sure of that. And love was like eternity. Intangible, but undeniable. It never ended, even after death. Rose Morton, whoever she was, was proof of that. Angel swallowed back the tears and let the bath water run out.
    By the time she was ready to go downstairs again, she wore a sensible frock of grey-green stripes with a big floppy bow at the neck, and her hair was brushed out into a golden sheen. She was extremely nervous at seeing her parents again. Her mother’s discovery had been a terrible shock, even though she knew little of what had really happened.
    But Angel realised that a pact with Ellen might be useful. They could present a solid front if need be. And why not agree to help the poor woman whose husband had been killed? In doing so, Angel cherished a strange hope that her good deed might repay her in Jacques de Ville’s safe deliverance. She sent up a little prayer to that effect.
    Fred was finding the problem of two rebel daughters a little too much to take all at once. Clemence was not normally a nagging wife. She had had no need of it over the