Live the Dream Read online

  Her father interrupted angrily, ‘You don’t know what you are talking about! And I don’t intend to take time now to begin enlightening you as to the current political situation. I have reserved seats for us on the one o’clock train. I shall settle up with the professor while you finish your packing. You will please both be ready to leave here with your luggage at midday.’

  Neither girl spoke as they got up from the table and left the room. When the door of the breakfast room closed behind him, Una said crossly, ‘He might have warned us … and he didn’t even kiss us when he arrived. He’s being absolutely horrid!’ There were now angry tears in her eyes as she added, ‘It’s so jolly boring at home, and we’ll miss the skiing at Christmas!’

  Dilys’ eyes were stinging with unshed tears of utter desolation. There was not even enough time left for her to say a last goodbye to Kristoffer. Nor did she have a telephone number by which she could tell him she was going home. When he called for her after lunch, she would not be there, and neither of them would know when they would meet again.

  With a sigh of relief, Kristoffer left his uncle and aunt at their hotel after a long-drawn-out lunch. Quickly catching the next tram, he got off at the stop nearest to Professor Von Zwehl’s pension. The maid opened the front door and regarded the good-looking young man who had called so frequently to see fräulein Dilys with concern.

  ‘Very sorry, Herr Holberg,’ she said. ‘But the fräuleins is not here. They left this morning with a man, their father. Fräulein Dilys is crying!’ she added.

  Kristoffer’s face was white with shock. ‘You mean they’ve gone back to England?’ he said, his voice choked with shock and dismay.

  The maid nodded but, putting her hand in her apron pocket, pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper which looked as if it might have lined a dressing-table drawer. ‘Fräulein Dilys ask me to give you this,’ she said.

  Eagerly, Kristoffer took it from her. He did not unfold it then but thanked the maid and hurried back out on to the street. The pavement was dusty, warmed by the sun which glinted off the windows of the big houses lining the street. His heart beating hurriedly, Kristoffer made his way to the small square of grass and trees at the crossroad where the trams stopped and sat down on the bench. Only then did he unfold the ragged sheet of paper with hands that were trembling, and started to read in scribbled pencil:

  Dearest, darling Kristoffer,

  It is too dreadful … father has come to take us home … I asked him if we could go on a later train so I could say goodbye to you but he wouldn’t even listen to me. I can’t bear it. I love you. Please, dearest, darling Kristoffer, find a way to come to England as I know I won’t be allowed to come and see you if you went back to Norway. Please write to me. It’s so awful not even being able to kiss you goodbye and tell you I love you and always will. Please don’t stop loving me. Don’t forget me.

  Your truly loving Dilys

  The bottom of the paper was covered in crosses – childish kisses which brought a lump to Kristoffer’s throat. He thought wildly that he would catch the next train to England. Then, as common sense returned, he decided that the best way he could deal with the situation was to return to Norway with his aunt and uncle when they left next day, explain to his parents his need to go to England, find Dilys and somehow persuade her parents to allow her to become engaged to him.

  His thoughts went to the previous afternoon when they had taken that vital last step and he had made her his own. Last night he had lain awake thinking how wrong and irresponsible it had been of him to let it happen when he’d had no way of protecting her. He had consoled himself with the fact that it had only happened once and that he would not let it happen again, whatever the temptation. He loved her too much, too deeply, to put her at risk. Somehow he must persuade her parents to agree to an engagement and an early marriage, young though they both were.

  At the age of twenty-three, there had been other girls in Kristoffer’s life – casual flirtations and one ongoing relationship with Gerda, the daughter of his mother’s best friend who lived on the same road as he did. They had played together as children and experimented with each other as teenagers with their first kisses and tentative embraces. Gerda was as tall as Kristoffer, with long, fair hair and eyes as blue as his. Physically a strong, healthy girl, she was every bit as good a skier as Kristoffer and, although quite heavily built, her features were pretty and her nature happy and outgoing. She was a good companion, easy-going and devoted to Kristoffer, her childhood friend. Their two families expected they would ultimately marry.

  Kristoffer’s father had determined that his only son would eventually take over the export side of his large timber company and, when his son left school, arranged for him to undertake a year’s study, first in England, then France and then Germany in order to become fluent in each foreign language and familiar with their businesses and methods of management. Having also completed his year’s compulsory army training, he was now in his third year of studies abroad before going home to start work in the family business.

  Due to these years abroad, Kristoffer had only met up with Gerda on his occasional holidays at home. By then, he had enjoyed many flirtations with girls he’d met and had a brief, instructional, physical relationship with a Frenchwoman in her early thirties. Consequently he had matured in a way Gerda had not. Although still fond of her, he had not felt able to return the undisguised adoration she had for him. Using his long months abroad as a reason for not wishing their relationship to become serious, he’d been able to keep her at a metaphorical arm’s length without hurting her feelings – something he’d hate to do.

  Now, deeply and seriously in love with Dilys, he knew that when he went home he must make it clear to Gerda that there could never be anything more than a loving friendship between them. He had no doubt that she would soon find a husband among the other young unattached boys in Bergen.

  At last, comforted by the thought that it might not be more than a few weeks before he held Dilys in his arms again, Kristoffer looked once more at her hastily written letter before folding it away. It was only then, with a horrible sinking feeling, that he realized that in her haste Dilys had forgotten to give him her home address and that he did not have the slightest idea where in England she and her sister lived.

  TWO

  Although England had been at war with Germany for the past four months, the customary Christmas routine remained unchanged at Hannington Hall and the twins woke to the familiar sight of stockings on the end of their white iron bedsteads. They sat up, smiling sleepily at one another.

  ‘How much longer are our parents going to treat us like children?’ Una exclaimed as she reached for her stocking.

  ‘Well, I suppose technically we are still children seeing that we don’t come of age for another three years!’ Dilys replied. She pulled her pink dressing gown round her shoulders and handed the identical one to her sister. Sitting opposite one another on the side of their beds, they unwrapped their parcels: identical small ivory manicure sets, diaries for the coming year, a flannel wrapped around a bar of lavender soap and the traditional solitary tangerine, a walnut and a ‘lucky’ piece of coal.

  Later in the morning, after returning from church, the family would gather in the drawing room close to the Christmas tree where they would exchange presents. There were also the customary ten shilling notes inside Christmas cards from their Uncle George, and the never varying small square box containing lace-edged hankies from their twin spinster aunts who arrived without fail in time for lunch in their chauffeur-driven Daimler from their house in the Dorset village of Compton Abbas.

  Since Una and Dilys were first old enough to be allowed down from the nursery, where they’d usually had their meals, for Christmas lunch with the grown-ups, they could not recall a Christmas when their aunts had not been there, and the twins had always been a little frightened of them. Their aunts always wore sombre black high-necked dresses and resembled the widowed Queen Victoria. Somewhat inappr
opriately named Ivy and Rose, they monitored their nieces’ behaviour with critical eyes and otherwise ignored them.

  This cold Christmas morning, both Dilys and Una were shivering in their large unheated bedroom, such luxuries as a fire not deemed necessary for children. Una stood up and padded across the room to draw back the curtains. Sally, the maid, would be up presently with a jug of hot water for washing, as the only bathroom installed recently in Hannington Hall was being used almost exclusively by their parents, although twice a week the twins were allowed to have a bath – always provided the noisy, highly temperamental gas geezer had not decided to go on strike, when its supply of water was so tepid it was a matter of getting in and out of the bath as quickly as was humanly possible.

  ‘Better hurry up, Dil,’ she said as she removed her nightdress, fastened her brassiere and pulled on her Chilproof vest. ‘You know what Father’s like if we’re late!’

  Dilys did know. Both she and Una were still slightly in awe of Sir Godfrey Singleby, an upright, brusque Victorian man in his late fifties. He had married late in life and, as was customary for his generation, had rarely had any contact with his twin daughters when they were babies. He saw them only at mealtimes when they were old enough to be allowed to eat with their parents. Their upbringing was left entirely to their mother: to nannies or governesses, and only rarely was Sir Godfrey called upon when it had been necessary to tell them off for a serious lapse of discipline.

  A self-important, proud man, he was the unchallenged Member of Parliament for his constituency and was frequently to be heard pontificating from the backbenches. He was the sole heir to Hannington Hall, the large family estate which was managed profitably by his steward. A dedicated Conservative, Sir Godfrey was an ambitious man who, having survived the last war, was hoping to be given a post in the Cabinet where he could play a more important role in running the country. Meanwhile, he attended Parliament whenever there was something of importance to be discussed, and in order to be able to do so, owned a service flat in Victoria.

  His wife, Daphne, often as not accompanied him to London for lunch with friends or to go to her dressmaker or the theatre. She was quite content to leave the care of her daughters to a nanny or governess until they were old enough to be despatched to a private girls’ boarding school on the Sussex coast. During the holidays, if she was not in London, having discussed meals with Cook and household affairs with the housekeeper after breakfast, she would be content to work on the beautiful, intricate tapestries she embroidered or to have tea with neighbouring wives of a similar background to her own.

  Now in her fifties, she had been over thirty and more or less resigned to spinsterhood when Sir Godfrey had returned unscathed from four years fighting in France and asked her to marry him. Although he was far from being the handsome young husband of her girlish dreams, she had almost given up hope of marriage, so after a brief hesitation she had accepted his proposal. On the whole, they saw very little of one another and their marriage was very seldom intimate. Having produced two daughters, there was an unspoken agreement that there was no necessity to produce a son or further daughters. Absorbed in his political ambitions, Sir Godfrey was as content as his wife with their emotionless, distant but amicable status quo, and his observance of his marital rights was now as rare as to be almost non-existent.

  Following their usual Christmas routine, the family always attended the village church whatever the weather, together with all the household staff, excluding Cook, who would be preparing lunch. When the meal was over and cleared away, the servants would be invited to assemble in the drawing room to receive their presents, which had been bought and wrapped by Lady Singleby. Following this small ceremony, the staff were then required to lay a cold light evening meal under covers in the dining room, after which they were given the rest of the day off.

  On this first Christmas of the new war when the British Expeditionary Force was away fighting the invading German armies in Europe, life at Hannington Hall remained unchanged. Una’s thoughts were concentrated on the New Year’s Eve dance their neighbours were giving as she finished dressing for breakfast. She fastened her suspender belt round her waist and pulled up her silk stockings. She and Dilys had purchased these in Germany to replace the thick lisle stockings that had been obligatory at school. Their school liberty bodices had also been discarded and they now wore the new Kestos brassieres. They had crisscross straps which went over their shoulders and supported their brusts, as their breasts were called in German.

  Dilys also started to get dressed, her thoughts turning to the fact that it was nearly four months since her father had escorted her and Una home so peremptorily. There was still no reply from Kristoffer to the letter she had hurriedly written to him and left with Anna – the maid at the Von Zwehls’ pension, to give to him when he called for her after lunch – before their unexpected, hurried departure. Although she had recalled with dismay that she had forgotten to give him her home address, she knew he could have asked the professor to give it to him.

  Una had pointed out that with Britain declaring war with Germany only a week after they had come home, the postal services from Germany to England had almost certainly ceased to exist. She had suggested gently that perhaps Kristoffer had decided not to continue their relationship now they could no longer see each other every day and that it might be better for Dilys to forget him. She was, of course, unaware of how much further Dilys and Kristoffer had taken their relationship. She did, however, accept that it was still possible he would write when he returned home to Norway, where there would still be an active postal service.

  Dilys fingered the precious ring round her neck and refused to give up hope. Twice a day without fail she hurried to stand at the window in her bedroom overlooking the drive, watching for the post boy to deliver the mail to Hannington Hall. There were nearly always letters for her father, a weekly letter for her mother from the aunts and once or twice a seasonal invitation to the twins to a party at one of the big houses in the neighbourhood. Since their return from Germany, Una insisted upon a reluctant Dilys attending such events in the hope that her twin would meet another young admirer and forget all about the Norwegian student she had been so keen on.

  It was going to be difficult to celebrate Christmas in the usual way, Una thought. Their father would almost certainly be called back to London during the holiday, where contingency plans for the war were hastily being instigated. There were pictures in the newspapers of large numbers of London-based children with labels identifying them round their necks being sent on trains to unknown destinations in parts of the country away from the dangers of the bombing raids expected in the City. According to Sir Godfrey, the war was going badly at sea, the German submarines sinking so many Allied ships, resulting in a tragic loss of life and goods. Everyone now carried a gas mask and a buff-coloured identity card. Blackout curtains were obligatory at night, covering people’s windows so no lights would show to help any German planes overhead.

  ‘I can’t believe this war is going to last for long whatever Father says,’ Una remarked when they heard the gong summoning them down to breakfast – there was always a telling-off from their father if they were only a few minutes late. ‘It all seems so silly! I’m absolutely sure Heinz and Wolfgang don’t want to fight us.’ She gave a mischievous giggle, adding: ‘Johann wanted to make love to me! And Heinz was such fun. Wolfgang was a bit boring, talking all the time about the aeroplane he was going to fly round the world when he got his wings. I just can’t believe all our German friends are now our enemies. It’s all so silly!’ she repeated.

  As far as Dilys was concerned, the outbreak of war was not just silly, it was proving to be a personal disaster. She had no idea where Kristoffer lived in Norway, only that it was on the outskirts of a southern port called Bergen. Even if she did know, her father would never permit her to travel there to see him. She did not even know if he had returned home for Christmas.

  Surely he had not, as Una had sugges
ted, decided the distance between them was now too great to make their romance feasible? Or had he perhaps already found some other girl – prettier, more exciting, more grown-up than she was? Could he have forgotten that special last afternoon together when she had given herself to him believing they would love each other for ever?

  As usual, their parents were already seated at the breakfast table when they went into the dining room. The sideboard was laden with dishes: porridge in a covered silver bowl; entrée dishes containing their father’s favourite kedgeree; scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages. In silver pots were tea, coffee and milk which Sally, the maid, carried round the table, filling their breakfast cups. There were also bowls of stewed fruit grown in the garden, which the previous summer had been stored or bottled for the winter.

  Ignoring the porridge, Una helped herself to scrambled eggs and sausages while Dilys stood staring white-faced at the dishes. She had come downstairs feeling extremely hungry and eager for her breakfast, but now, without warning, she knew she was going to be sick.

  Hurriedly excusing herself, she ran out of the room and across the hall to the downstairs cloakroom. She arrived only just in time to retch into the toilet bowl. When the sickness passed, she stood up and wiped her mouth with her handkerchief, wondering as she did so what she could have eaten the night before to upset her. To her surprise, she was now feeling perfectly well again. When Una, who had been sent to see if she was all right, arrived at the cloakroom door, Dilys was able to smile at her reassuringly and shrug off the episode.

  ‘Mother thought you might be sickening for influenza, there being so much about,’ Una said. Linking her arm through Dilys’ as they returned to the breakfast room, she added: ‘Father said the Russians are fighting in Finland in blizzards and soldiers are dying of frostbite. Serves them right. He heard on the wireless this morning that the BBC forecast says England is to have the worst snowstorm for years. He said we must all listen to the king’s message this afternoon after lunch. Father’s going to return to the flat tomorrow in case we get snowed in here.’