London
Fall 1942
NIKI SAT ON THE EDGE of her chair, feeling uncomfortable in her new WRENS uniform. Its collar was rubbing the back of her neck bare, because she had pulled her unruly curls up and tucked them into a twist under the brim of her hat.
Everything had happened so quickly, her head was reeling. After all these months of waiting she had received an official letter to appear for indoctrination. Now here she was to receive her assignment. Excitement stirred within her. At last she could get into the action.
“You will be assigned as a teleprinter operator.”
Niki tried to contain her disappointment. Assigned to a dull office job!
The interview seemed to be at an end. Still, the officer was viewing Niki critically, her sharp gaze running up and down her as if taking her measurements. Hesitantly Niki got to her feet, wondering if she should salute, although she wasn’t sure quite how, or what to do next.
A few hours later she was on a train with other recruits, traveling on her way to WRENS headquarters, which were fifty miles from London. Upon arrival a poker-faced officer herded them from the train station up the hill to an old resort hotel requisitioned as a dormitory for servicewomen.
The next few days passed in a daze for Niki. The teleprinter was a combination of typewriter and telephone and looked ridiculously impossible to learn. At first she felt completely daunted by it, and she spent the first two days looking over other operators’ shoulders, totally confused. However, it had a standard keyboard, and since Niki was quick and bright, little: by little she soon learned the basics of using it. Within three weeks she was sitting at her own machine and, tentatively at first, able to receive and send messages.
Her roommates were a mixture of types. Elly, a small, slender blond with a pretty face and friendly manner, became Niki’s comrade. They hit it off right away, and her friendship made Niki feel a little less adrift.
Those first weeks in the WRENS were filled with getting used to everything—the rigid schedule, the institutional food, the job, and the other women. Niki had little time to herself. She was so tired at night, she fell into her bunk exhausted, and it seemed she had hardly slept when it was time to get up again and report to duty.
Gradually she became accustomed to her new way of life. It was then she faced another new and unexpected challenge.
For the first time in all the months she had been away, Niki was having bouts of homesickness. The summer in France had been too full of new sights, experiences, and adventures for her to feel any twinges. When she returned to England, she had been too excited at the prospect of joining some branch of the service to help fight the war. But now she found her thoughts often turning to Mayfield, especially to Montclair.
In the narrow bunk at night she would imagine how it was in Virginia just now. October in Virginia, maples lighting up the landscape with scarlet leaves against the dark green pines. Sun-splashed days with clouds scudding across the blue expanse of sky. She would think of her own bedroom there, and the memory would bring quick tears. Squeezing her eyes tight, she would bring it back, the dear familiarity of the room, the late-autumn golden sunlight flooding in through the windows, her desk and bookshelves, the faded flowered-chintz chair where she used to curl up on rainy days and read romantic novels. The view from her window of the barn where her horse was stabled. Did Maggie miss her? she wondered. Was Tante exercising her? No use pretending. She missed it all much more than she ever dreamed she would.
In December the weather was miserable, and Niki experienced the most dreadful bout of homesickness yet. She missed everything, and with Christmas approaching, she remembered Christmases at Montclair when she and Luc were both little. Tante would supervise the trimming of the tree Uncle Kip had cut on the land and brought in to be set up in its traditional place in the curve of the staircase. Then she and Luc would hang their crudely made decorations—the red paper Santas, the green sawtooth trees, the bells and reindeer, the popcorn strings, tissue paper bells, miniature sleighs, red felt poinsettias—and spread white cotton around the base of the tree, sprinkled with glittering dust that always came off on the rug.
In her memory, that last Christmas she was at home seemed the loveliest of all. She especially remembered Christmas dinner, when they were all gathered round the dinner table, not realizing that this would be the last Christmas they would all be together. Candlelight softened and blurred the elaborate centerpiece of pine cones, pyracantha, and holly. Tall red candles shed their glow on the table set with holly-patterned Lennox china, used only during the holidays. The candlelight sparkled on graceful crystal goblets and heavy silver service. Niki saw it pictured in her mind like a soft-edged Victorian painting of an old-fashioned family scene—sentimental, nostalgic, and unrealistic.
Two weeks before Christmas a notice appeared on the bulletin board, announcing that a committee was forming to plan a Christmas party. A sign-up sheet was attached. Niki glanced at it briefly as she and Elly came off duty one afternoon. Christmas here in this bleak building with people she hardly knew held little interest for Niki. It made her feel even more isolated. Elly, who had been in the WRENS longer and therefore had more seniority, had received a week’s leave to go home for the holidays. Niki wouldn’t be eligible for more than a three-day pass. But where would she go, what would she do with that? There wasn’t time to get down to Birchfields. Schedules being what they were nowadays, she would probably spend Christmas sitting in a crowded train most of the way, then have to turn right around and come back.
Another afternoon Elly and Niki went to play some Ping-Pong in the rec room, which was now decorated with paper chains and a Christmas tree of sorts. Even though Niki acknowledged this attempt at cheerfulness, to her it only made the room look even more bleak and was a reminder of all that she missed of Christmases past.
As they went to pick up their paddles and get balls out of the game box, Niki noticed that some of the Wrens were entertaining company. Several young men in uniform were grouped around the upright piano, where one girl was playing Christmas carols. “For Pete’s sake, do you want to have us all bawlin’?” someone shouted. This was followed by scattered laughter, and then someone went to the phonograph and put on some records. Soon the room was filled with lively dance tunes, providing a musical background to Elly and Niki’s game.
Niki was about to return one of Elly’s serves when someone caught the ball. She turned and saw a tall young man standing to her left, smiling down at her.
“Good evening, Miss. Would you care to dance?” asked a voice with the faintest suggestion of a Scottish burr. She looked up into a pair of merry blue eyes. There was a mixture of shyness and confidence in his expression that she immediately found appealing. He was in an army uniform, but she didn’t recognize his rank or insignia. He was broad-shouldered, with thick, reddish blond hair and an engaging smile.
“Care to dance?” he repeated.
“Go ahead, Niki,” Elly said, smiling, from the other end of the Ping-Pong table. Niki put down her paddle and took the hand the young solider had offered, and they started to dance.
“I’m a little out of practice,” he apologized as they moved out onto the floor. It took a few false steps to get into the rhythm, but then they managed quite well. By the second number they were dancing smoothly together. The third piece began, and it was the popular ballad “Where or When.” As they began to dance to it, he said, “You know, those words fit somehow. Now, don’t think I’m crazy, but when I first saw you, I had the strangest feeling that we’d already met somewhere….” At Niki’s lifted eyebrow he grinned. “Honest, it’s not a line. I did. By the way, I’m Fraser Montrose.”
Montrose! The name gave her a shock. But then, he was from Scotland and that’s where the family originated. It was probably as common a name as Smith or Jones was in the States. Before she had a chance to remark on it, someone came to the door of the rec room and called, “Gilbreaux, you’ve got a phone call.”
“That’s me. Excuse me,” Niki said and hurried out of the room into the hall, still puzzled by the coincidence of the tall stranger’s familiar name. When she picked up the phone and heard the voice on the other end of the line, all other thoughts vanished.
It was Luc.
She practically screamed his name. “Luc! Where are you? What are you doing?”
“I just got here a few weeks ago. Been getting what they call acclimation briefing. Like we don’t understand English.” He laughed. “It’s the English, the Brits, we don’t understand. We don’t speak the same language, I’m beginning to think.”
It was so wonderful to hear Luc’s voice with its familiar Virginia drawl, to know that her beloved foster brother was on English soil. Niki could hardly contain her joy. They talked rapidly for a few more excited minutes. Then Luc said, “Now what you’ve got to do is wrangle a pass. Plead the fact that we are long-lost sister and brother, a long way from home, who need to spend some time together during the holidays.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I can, Luc. They’re awfully strict—”
“Tell them it’s a family emergency,” he coached. “Maybe we can get down to Birchfields. I’ve talked to Aunt Garnet, and she and Bryanne want us to come. Seems Steven may get leave. But if we can’t do that, at least we can have a little Christmas celebration ourselves.”
Niki promised to try. After getting a number where she could reach him in London, she hung up and went straight to her commanding officer to obtain a pass. In her excited state, she completely forgot about the redheaded Scotsman with the strangely familiar name, awaiting her return in the rec room. All that mattered was getting to London to see Luc.
Fraser waited, his eyes glued to the rec room doorway. But Niki didn’t come back. Too bad. He would have liked to get to know her. No time. He was shipping out tomorrow to Cornwall for extensive training. He shrugged. Just one of those things. One of those wartime things.