Mr Steadman didn’t come into work for the rest of the week, and when he did arrive the following Tuesday morning, he went straight into his office and closed the door. At lunchtime Eleanor knocked gently and waited until she heard the invitation to come in.
‘Good morning, Mr Steadman.’
‘Hello, Eleanor,’ he said, not the formal address he usually used.
The office was unusually warm, the air stale since it had been locked up for days, and Steadman stood behind his desk, staring out of the unopened window, shoulders slouched.
‘Is everything alright?’ Eleanor asked.
When he turned it was the first time she had seen him without glasses, and his features were softer, eyes more vulnerable.
‘George is gone,’ he said.
It took a moment for the news to register. ‘I am so sorry…’
He attempted a smile but it was a grimace, lips tightening over his teeth.
She moved closer. ‘What happened?’
‘He was shot. It was quick—which everyone keeps telling me we have to be thankful for!’
‘They mean well…It can’t make it any easier, though.’
‘I would like to tell you that it does, but it doesn’t.’
Eleanor nodded. ‘And how is Mrs Steadman?’
George was their only child, and Mr Steadman had often regaled the office with stories of how she spoiled the boy. And George was no more than a boy, just seventeen.
‘I don’t really know—she won’t talk. She hasn’t eaten. The doctor said she’s still in shock. You know it’s hard when you can’t see them to know they’re gone…when you can’t bury them.’
Eleanor didn’t know but she thought of Jack, and of Clarence. Yesterday her parents had said that Francis was recovering well but that there was still no news of Clarence, and his fleet was part of the same Far East campaign as George’s. No one really knew what was happening over there, so her family could only offer each other optimistic clichés of support: I’m sure he’ll be fine, and, He’s a Roy: he’s made of strong fettle.
‘Anyway, let’s keep busy,’ Steadman said with forced energy. ‘Why don’t you pull up a chair and we’ll review the report together?’
‘Of course, Mr Steadman. If that’s what you want.’
She took a seat opposite him, pleased at the chance to sit down but regretting she couldn’t just leave the report on his desk as she’d intended. There was only so much discussion one could have about cream and brown paint and checked tablecloths. But it wasn’t as if she could complain: he needed her. So she told him instead how pleased she was with the way decoration in their region was progressing.
She had to take several breaks to yawn and then apologise. For reasons that she failed to understand—she was eating the same and getting as much sleep as ever—she felt so tired, lacking in energy, so that it seemed more of an effort to do her jobs.
As Steadman flicked through the report, she wrapped her arms around herself and thought about how the contrast between the work for the WAAC and the work for the Ministry could not have been greater. While she was liaising with war artists to submit works for a second set of War Pictures by British Artists, she was also talking to Supplies about arranging distemper for painting the restaurants’ public conveniences. One day she was liaising with Captain William Coldstream on his introduction for the new booklet, Soldiers, and the next she was diplomatically pointing out how one coat of paint wasn’t nearly as good as two to an apprentice painter.
‘I see from your summary that you are satisfied with the work,’ said Steadman. ‘That the results are what we hoped for.’
‘Yes, sir. In most places they have done a good job of the painting, given the limited choice of colours. You will see that there is only Apricot, Golden Brown and Celadon Green paint, and Ivory, Old Gold and Adams Green distemper to choose from…’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘And I do say that the exteriors are generally a little depressing, owing to the shortage of time and materials, but that it’s the right thing to place importance on redecorating the interiors.’
‘Quite so, Eleanor. Quite so.’
‘The restaurants all displayed the standard signage too: dark red or brown entranceways, and the simple style of lettering on all the signs.’
‘So they are all quite uniform?’
‘Mostly—a few have displayed some originality,’ she said, still cold and decidedly queasy. ‘A restaurant in Morden has been adapted from an old laundry, and they have made good use of an unpromising situation.’
She and Steadman discussed the report in detail: the church hall in Blackheath where artists had used the old gold casement cloth to transform the blackout blinds, and painted the walls and ceiling ivory with Celadon Green dado; the Woolwich restaurant that featured an attractive menu board of waxed wood with slots for daily menus, but that she noted could do with some murals; and the Manor Lane restaurant that had five good replica colour panels of Gauguin and Van Gogh.
And then there was the Stockwell Restaurant, part of Stockwell orphanage, which she decided to raise with Steadman.
‘The very large hall in Stockwell has been divided in two by a large mural. The artists used stretched hessian and have created a canvas of local interest. It suits the space really well…’ She paused to take a breath and fight the rising bile. ‘They have also covered the blackouts at the windows with pleated blue paper and artworks by the children—’
Eleanor was about to explain what a good contrast it made to the brown walls and ceiling, when dizziness took hold, and her head became so leaden that she had to put it between her knees.
Mr Steadman got to his feet and came around the desk. ‘Are you quite alright, Miss Roy? Can we get you something, some water?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. I think I’m going to be sick…’
‘Miss Sullivan, Miss Sullivan! Bring a bowl,’ Mr Steadman shouted, flustered and hurrying into the outer office. ‘Can you please come and see to Miss Roy?’
Eleanor was wondering what made her feel worse, her embarrassment at being ill in front of Steadman or her regret at eating breakfast at the Stockwell restaurant, when she realised Maura wouldn’t be there in time—and she reached for the rubbish bin.
Cecily emptied the contents of her nurse’s bag onto the table next to the sofa where Eleanor lay, head tilted backwards to rest on the arm cushion. Cecily had taken her sister’s blood pressure and temperature; she had looked in her ears and throat, and even examined her skin for a rash or spots. The thirty-ninth edition of First Aid to the Injured: The Authorised Textbook of the St John Ambulance Association lay open alongside as she worked her way through the contents.
‘If I didn’t know better I would say you are lovesick,’ she said, closing the book, ‘but I’m afraid there’s another much simpler explanation.’
‘Can’t you just give me a pill or something?’ Eleanor groaned. ‘I can’t bear this sickness any longer.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Cecily said, looking earnest as she sat on the sofa and took her hand.
‘What is it?’ Eleanor asked. She tried to sit upright.
‘I haven’t been able to help noticing…’
‘What is it, Cecily? Come on, you’re worrying me!’
Cecily had been monitoring her symptoms for a week or so. When at first Eleanor’s appetite shrank, her sister had grown worried, and guilty that she might have contaminated her with a disease from the hospital—diphtheria, measles, chicken pox—but Eleanor hadn’t lost weight, and there were no spots, pustules or coughs.
‘When was the last time you used rags?’ Cecily asked.
Eleanor stared at her sister, trying to remember. There hadn’t been any need for them last month, or the month before that—but then she had put it down to being exhausted.
Eleanor moved her hands down to her belly and cradled it, noticing that it felt more solid, not as soft as it used to be.
‘Really…’ She swallowed. ‘Do you really think that I am…?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that, Ellie—only you do. Could you be?’
Eleanor looked at her sister’s soft oval face, the pale trusting eyes that returned her questioning gaze, before they disappeared behind a wall of tears.
‘Yes, Cecily…I could be,’ she replied. ‘But we were so careful.’ The tears were springing from her eyes.
‘Oh, Eleanor, why didn’t you talk to me? I could have shown you how to be safer.’
But it was too late, and Eleanor was sobbing.
‘It’s alright, Ellie, you’re going to be alright,’ Cecily said, stroking her hair.
‘What am I going to do?’ Eleanor asked between sniffs.
‘There is only one thing to do.’
‘What?’ Eleanor said, nervous of the reply.
‘We need to find Jack and get him back here to marry you as soon as possible.’
Eleanor shook her head, her face in her hands. ‘But I don’t know where he is.’
‘Someone must,’ Cecily replied.
There hadn’t been a letter in weeks, and that had only come through the WAAC via the batch of paintings that Jack had sent. It had included a section of hand-painted canvas, the fragment of a tent that he had painted a baroque ceiling on. Far from amusing her as she guessed he had hoped it would, she could only imagine what had happened to the rest of it.
She would need to ask for Aubrey’s help and hope that the professor could use his influence through the committee to find her fiancé.
Over the balcony, the sun was burnishing the treetops, and she stared at its weakening light. In another time and another place, she would be overjoyed by the news that she was to become a mother, by the miracle of a new life.
Eleanor reached out for her sister’s hand, clutching it tightly. ‘What if I can’t find him? What will happen to me then? Father won’t want to know me.’
‘We will find him, Ellie. Don’t worry. We will find Jack.’