May 8, 1945
Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the king!”
As the final words of the prime minister’s V-E Day address to the nation faded away, Kaz produced a bottle of Scotch and proceeded to splash an eye-watering ration into each of the mugs that Evelyn had set out earlier on the center table in the main office.
“To victory in Europe!”
“Hear, hear!”
“To His Majesty the king!”
“Hear, hear!”
“And to absent friends,” he finished.
“Hear, hear!”
Ruby swallowed a great mouthful of whiskey, the first she’d ever tasted, and the unexpected rush of molten lava down her throat left her eyes streaming and her lungs bursting for want of air.
“Easy, now,” Frank soothed. “Not all in one go. You’ll be falling over.”
“And now I want all of you to return home,” Kaz commanded. “The issue is in the bag, thanks to everyone’s hard work last night, and you can begin your celebrations with a clear conscience.”
Ruby didn’t need to be told twice. With one final round of hugs to her friends, and a last kiss to Kaz’s stubbly cheek, she ran out the door, her departure coinciding with the first joyous peals of the city’s church bells. It was the first time she had heard them since coming to England.
Vanessa was waiting in the front hall. “I couldn’t help myself—I rang your office, and Miss Berridge said you were on your way home. Oh, Ruby—at last, at last!” Together they danced down the hallway and around the house until they both collapsed on the sitting room sofa.
“The girls are coming,” Vanessa gasped, thoroughly out of breath. “We’ll have an early dinner, and then I thought we could see how close we can get to Buckingham Palace. Won’t that be fun?”
Vi and Bea rolled through the door well before six o’clock, and after a hurried meal of beans on toast, and heartfelt promises to Jessie to be careful, they were on their way. Vi had persuaded her mother to take the Underground, explaining that it was only two stops and there was no other means to get close to the center of things, and though Vanessa had to hold her daughter’s hand the entire journey, and was very pale by the time they stepped off the jam-packed train, she recovered her spirits as soon as they emerged from Hyde Park station and were swept up in the mass of jubilation swirling about them.
“Hold on tight,” Vi insisted. “We don’t want to be separated. And follow me!”
It took ages to make any headway in the crowd, but Vi was persistent, and after a solid forty-five minutes they were within sight of the palace. Another ten minutes took them to the edge of Green Park, but after that the crowds were too dense for them to go any farther.
By standing on her tiptoes, Ruby could just make out the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Before them, the great open space around the Victoria Memorial and along the Mall was a buoyant sea of joyful people, tens of thousands of them, their voices rising in a single, chanted demand: “We want the king! We want the king!”
“Heavens,” Vanessa said suddenly. “I almost forgot.” She pulled a spyglass from her handbag, the kind of object that Lord Nelson might have held up to his lone eye. “This was in the library, and I thought it might be useful. Bea—you’re the tallest. Tell us what you see.”
Bea extended the telescope and fitted it to her eye just as a roar surged through the crowd.
“What is it, what is it?” Vi implored.
“It’s the king! And the queen!”
“What about the princesses?” Vanessa asked.
“No, only the king and queen—oh, and they’re waving!” She looked a moment more, and then she handed it to Vi. “No telling how long they’ll be out—have a look and pass it on.”
There was just time for Ruby to catch one quick glimpse of the king, so tall and handsome in his uniform, and the smaller figure of the queen, who was dressed in a light-colored dress and hat that made her easy to spot against the stonework of the balcony.
“What now?” Bea asked, and together they decided to walk on to Trafalgar Square, since there was no rush to get home, and the lights were all on anyway.
“After all those years of blackout, it feels as bright as day now,” Vanessa observed, and she was right—to see London lighted up at night, after half a decade of gloom and darkness, was just about the most inspiring sight that Ruby could imagine.
At Trafalgar Square they wandered around for an hour or more, watching people splash around in the fountains and sing at the top of their lungs, and it was no trouble to persuade Vi to climb up and stand between the forepaws of one of the great bronzed lions, and from there to lead a sing-along of “Jerusalem,” “Rule Britannia,” and “God Save the King.”
“More! More!” people shouted, but Vi’s voice was almost gone and they were all beginning to feel tired.
Next they walked down to the Thames at Westminster, hoping the crowds would be a little thinner there, and only as they approached the Houses of Parliament did Ruby think to look east along the river. Searchlights were forming a huge V in the sky above the dome of St. Paul’s, and on the Thames itself the tugboats and fireboats were chugging back and forth, the latter sending arcs of water high into the air.
They walked all the way home, their feet aching but their spirits light, and were still chattering and laughing as they burst through the front door just shy of midnight.
“Is that the wireless?” Vanessa asked. “I don’t remember leaving it on.”
“Perhaps Jessie was having a listen before going to bed,” Ruby suggested.
“I suppose. Let me just switch it off and—Ruby!”
“What is it?”
“Just come here. And, girls—upstairs with me now. Quietly, though.”
Wondering at the fuss over a wireless left on, Ruby hurried down the hall, stopping short at the welcome sight awaiting her. Bennett was in the easy chair next to the wireless, Simon on his lap, and both were fast asleep.
She stood in the doorway and simply looked at him, letting her eyes take in every beloved feature, every detail of his appearance. He had shaved off his beard, and his hair was military short again. He wasn’t as thin as he’d been when she’d last seen him, though his uniform made it hard to be sure.
“Bennett,” she said, but he didn’t rouse. She crossed the room and knelt at his side, reaching up to brush her fingertips across his brow and down his cheek. “Bennett, my darling. You’ve come home to me.”
His eyes fluttered open. “Hello,” he said, his voice raspy from sleep. “I only meant to sit down for a minute and listen to the news.”
“When did you get back?” she asked.
“Just before nine. Did you have fun? Jessie said you went out right after supper.”
“We did. It was so much fun—we even saw the king and queen.”
“How’d you manage to get close enough?”
“We didn’t. Vanessa had an old spyglass of Nick’s. We all took turns.”
This made him smile. He stood, taking Simon with him, and gently set the cat on the floor. Then he turned to Ruby. “It has been exactly two hundred and fifty-five days since I saw you last.” There was a glint in his eye that reminded her, suddenly and wonderfully, of the night they’d spent together, and the nights he’d promised would follow once the war was done.
“I know,” she said huskily. “I was counting, too. Will you stay this time?”
“Yes,” he said, and then he kissed her until she was breathless and shaky and ready for far more than was possible in a house filled with other people. When he finally dragged his mouth from hers, it was only so he might hug her close, her head tucked just so under his chin, her ear pressed close to his heart.
“Ruby? Will you sit down for a moment?”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Shh,” he said, and as soon as she was seated on the chair he knelt before her. “I’ve been rehearsing this in my head for months. You’ll throw me off.” He fished about in the breast pocket of his uniform jacket and pulled out a little box. “I’d have been home earlier today, but I had to stop in Edenbridge for this.”
“Is this . . . ?” she asked wonderingly.
“It is.” He opened the box and took out the ring inside. “It was my mother’s, but if you don’t like it, or it doesn’t fit, we can find another.”
The ring was a trio of stones in a filigree platinum setting, the central ruby flanked by diamonds, and it all but took her breath away.
“I thought, at first, that I would preface this with some poetry. But I’ve waited nearly a year to say these words to you, and I’m not going to wait any longer. Ruby, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, pleased by how firmly she’d answered him.
He slid the ring on her finger, and it was only a little bit too big. “We’ll have it sized. Do you like it?”
“Very much. When are—”
“Is it safe to come in?” Vi called out from the hall. “We have champagne. Remember, Ruby? The bottle you brought home from France.”
“What say you?” Bennett asked. “Are you ready to share our news?”
“Yes. Mainly because I want some of that champagne. It will help to erase the memory of my first taste of Scotch this afternoon. Awful stuff.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” he whispered, and then, for the benefit of the Tremaine women, “where’s that champagne?”
They turned to face everyone, though Bennett kept his arm around her waist, and Ruby’s heart nearly cracked in two at the look of hopeful anticipation on Vanessa’s face.
“Ruby and I have some news to share. A moment ago I asked her to do me the honor of becoming my wife. And to my very great relief, she has accepted.”
Vanessa burst into tears, which set Ruby to crying, and then Vi and Bea, too. As they embraced and wept and the other women admired Ruby’s ring, Bennett set to work opening the champagne and filling their glasses.
“To king and country and glad days ahead,” he offered.
“To glad days ahead.”
The instant their glasses were empty, Vi took her mother by the arm and propelled her toward the door. “It’s about time we let Bennett and Ruby talk. You only gave them five minutes alone before you insisted on rushing in.”
As soon as they were alone again, for even Simon had vanished, Bennett steered Ruby to the narrow settee by the window. “Happy?” he asked, his hands twined in hers.
“Very. What now?”
“We plan our future. Have you given any thought to where you want to live? Where you’ll work?”
“You’d let me work?”
This earned her a suitably reproving glare, though it was rather undone by his smile. “Roberta Anne Sutton. What kind of question is that? Do you not know me at all? Of course I would.”
“I want to work. And I’ll be staying on at PW—Kaz asked me a while ago.”
“You truly wish to live here in London?”
“I do. This is where I belong. This is where my friends are, where my family is. And this is where I want to tell my stories.”
Dispatches from London
by Miss Ruby Sutton
May 8, 1945
. . . Tonight I stood with my family and friends as we said a toast to glad days ahead, and for the first time in years I can feel them around the corner. Of course the war in Japan is still to be won, and the world will yet see many hard days in the months to come. All the more reason, on this day of victory, to raise a glass to hearth and home, to freedom and liberty, to those we have lost, those who are still in peril, and to the promise of glad days ahead. May they arrive sooner than any of us dare hope. Until then, goodnight from London.