Chapter Eighteen

After going around the manor house twice, Doris stood once more staring up at the front. Shaking her head, she asked the ever-patient Mary, “Explain to me again what ‘neoclassical’ means? It’s nothing to do with classical music, is it?”

Mary waved her arms vaguely around, pointing, so far as Doris could tell, at random points of the front of the house, admitting, “To be honest, it’s what my father always describes the place as. As far as I’m concerned, home is home, and I never really gave what it looked like any thought.”

“So,” Doris said, looking quite smug, “you don’t know either.”

Mary shrugged. “Not really. All I know is from what I’ve read. You see the columns either side of the main doors? They’re meant to be in the Roman style, and the lack of embellishment on the walls is also supposed to be an indicator of that style.”

“Hmm,” Doris replied and turned back to stare around at the front. “Can I just say I love it?”

Mary drew her friend in for a hug before gripping her shoulder at arm’s length. “You may.”

“And I’m sure Walter will too. If the offer’s still open, we’ll take it!”

“Of course it’s still open. You know you’ll be under the same rules as we are today, I’d imagine.”

Doris shooed away her friend’s concerns. “Psh, I’m sure we won’t be in the way. Certainly, we’ll be eating down at the pub in the village, so I doubt if we’ll see much of anyone here.”

“Well, that’s that,” Mary said after a moment. She linked her arm through Doris’s and led her back up the steps and into the entrance hall.

Stopping off at the tiny reception office, Mary recalled it had been the room where the family changed from their outside footwear. How the military had managed to shoehorn a desk in there, she had no idea. Either way, the perennial Captain Wood stood up, nearly banging his head on the ceiling in the process.

“Mary, Doris,” he greeted them. “May I ask how things went?”

“You may,” Doris imitated what sounded like a private school accent. “If you’d be so kind as to inform your CO, my future husband and I shall be staying for our honeymoon.”

“And when, may I ask, are you getting married?” Wood asked.

“The fourteenth,” Doris proudly informed him.

His eyebrows rose before he held out a hand. “Valentine’s Day! How very romantic. My heartiest congratulations!”

Doris shook his hand, and then the two started to back out of the office, there being not really enough room to comfortably turn around, stopping as he said, “You’ve about thirty minutes until your transport’s due. Would you like some tea? To pass the time.”

“No, thank you,” Mary replied. “I’m going to show Doris my old room, and then we’ll grab our bags and be down in time.”

He leant over his desk, shouting as they left the office, “I can give you an escort, if you like.”

Before either girl could reply, a doctor came rushing toward them, his white coat flapping around his ankles and a very annoyed expression upon his face. Ignoring the two ATA girls, he put a finger to his lips. “Will you shut the hell up, Captain! The colonel’s on his rounds, and you know he likes quiet!” As he turned back, he seemed to notice the girls for the first time, his demeanor changing to one of a fawning lackey, something both girls noticed. “And what can I do for the Wrens?”

That he misidentified what they were only further annoyed the two. Mary took the lead, mustering all her unused lady-of-the-manor mannerisms. “Firstly, old boy,”—both happily noted him bristle at being addressed thusly—“we are pilots in the Air Transport Auxiliary and not, I repeat, not Wrens. Secondly, I happen to be Mary Whitworth-Baines, the daughter of the owner of this place.”

“And we do not require anything from you, thank you very much,” Doris ended firmly. The two promptly re-linked arms and headed up the stairs.

As they took the stairs at a steady pace, they were met by a chap in scrubs coming down the other way. Before they passed, he leant in and said, “Nicely done. Pickering’s only a major, but the way he behaves, you’d think he owns the place.”

Doris stopped and glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see the major hurrying back the way he’d come. “Glad to be of service. Meet the lady who does own this place, Mary.” She did the introductions. “I’m Doris.”

“Pleased to meet you both. Lieutenant Oxford,” he said, with a nod of his head, then saying, “What’s up with Wood? He seems to be watching what you’re doing.”

“It’s my father who owns the manor,” Mary supplied as she too glanced over her shoulder. “I’ve no idea,” she said as the man in question noticed he was being watched in turn, and ducked back into his office. “He’s a strange man. Or he acted very strangely when I told him I was going to show my friend where I used to live before we left.”

Oxford shook his head. “Well, I agree he’s a strange one. You’d think after six months he’d be used to the way things are.”

Mary and Doris’s heads immediately turned to face each other before Doris voiced what both were thinking. “Months? He told us he’d only been here a couple of weeks!”

“Well, can’t help you with that,” Oxford replied. “Got to be getting on. Nice to meet you both.”

Left alone, the two shrugged their shoulders and carried on up the stairs, past their quarters, and to the same door Doris had gone through in the wee hours of that morning.

“Any idea what that was all about?” Doris asked, standing behind Mary as her friend opened the door.

“Not a clue,” she replied, as she climbed the steps. Pushing open the door at the top of the steps, Mary waited so Doris could come through and then reached up to flick on a light switch, mostly hidden, toward the top of the door frame.

“Now that I could have done with knowing last night,” Doris told her.

“Why, what did you use last night?”

“Flashlight,” Doris answered.

“Come on,” Mary told her friend. “My room’s down the other end.”

“I know,” Doris replied. “I found it last night, exactly where I saw the light.”

Stopping before her door, Mary turned her head to ask, “You didn’t go inside, did you?”

Doris laid a hand upon her friend’s shoulder. “No. I’d never have gone inside without your permission.”

With her friend’s hand still upon her shoulder, Mary took a key out of her pocket. “You wouldn’t have been able to get in anyway,” she said, as with a decided creak, the wooden door swung open.

“You sneaky woman,” Doris declared, slapping her friend lightly on the behind. “You knew it was locked, and you’d kept the key!”

“And I’d kept the key.” Mary nodded over her shoulder and then stepped aside so Doris could step past and into the room. “Welcome to my little space.”

“Wow!” Doris uttered as she stood beside Mary. “I guess, next to this whole castle…”

“Manor house,” Mary corrected her with a smile.

“Castle,” Doris insisted, “this is a little space, but for an attic, it’s huge! I think my Central Park apartment would fit inside this whole room!” She stepped a little forward and looked to her left. “I could swear there are more doors in the hall, but there’s none here.”

“They’re fakes,” Mary told her. “Both sides of the house used to have staff quarters, but when I moved in up here, my father moved the remaining ones around to the back so they were all in one place.”

“Weren’t they a bit crowded?” Doris asked, going to the windows and flicking open the curtains, then coughing in the cloud of dust which enveloped her.

Laughing, Mary shook her head. “No, there weren’t that many. So then, he boarded up along the wall and left the doors where they were, though this room doesn’t take up the whole side of the attic.”

Brushing herself down, Doris nodded. “I saw. Nothing much left in any of them.”

“We didn’t see much point in leaving anything in them. This room,” she swept an arm out, “isn’t as big as it looks.”

Doris raised an eyebrow. “You keep telling yourself that. Mind if I have a nose around?”

“Help yourself,” Mary replied, making her way toward the far end of the room and a row of shelves, upon which were lined up soft toys, especially teddy bears, of all shapes and sizes.

Being a little more careful, Doris opened the curtains at the other three sets of windows, flinging open the last ones she came to and letting out a whistle. “Now that,” she exclaimed, “is one hell of a view!”

Seeing where her friend was, Mary came and stood beside her. “It’s one of my favorite views. Anyone who wants to come here has to come up that drive. Plus, if anyone came I didn’t want to see, it gave me plenty of time to hide.”

“Sneaky,” Doris said, wrapping her arm around Mary’s waist. Turning them both around, she let out another whistle. “Honey, I can see why you loved this place. You’re alone, but if you want company, you’ve only got to go downstairs.”

When Doris didn’t add to these words, Mary turned her head and saw what could only be described as a melancholy expression upon her friend’s face. “Penny for them?”

“Huh?” Doris grunted.

“Your thoughts. What are you thinking?”

Doris sniffed before saying, “I’m being silly.”

Mary squeezed her friend encouragingly. “No such thing between friends.” When Doris didn’t reply straight away, Mary led her toward the single bed and sat her down, again in a puff of dust. “Now, come on, what’s on your mind?”

Not answering right away, Doris stared around, taking in the room, flooded now with light. Green-patterned wallpaper that stopped three-quarters of the way from the ceiling helped, together with the white painted ceiling, to make the space appear larger than it was. A small writing desk was under the second window, the longest, so when she sat at the desk, Mary would have been able to look out down the drive. Two cupboards were either side of an expensive-looking chest of drawers.

Nodding toward the furniture, Doris asked, “Are those still full of your clothes?” Mary nodded. “Anything you’d like to bring back down?”

Getting up, Mary walked to the nearest wardrobe and opened the doors wide.

“Holy cow!” Doris uttered, stepping to her side. “There’s enough gowns here to throw a party at the Ritz!”

Reaching out a hand, Mary idly flicked a few aside, running her fingers along the neckline of a red satin one. “You’re probably not wrong.”

“I guess I miss my family,” Doris blurted out of nowhere.

Mary studied her friend closely. “I thought so. Is it this place? Does it remind you of home?”

“Oh, no.” Doris shook her head. “Not at all. My family may be rich, but they live in the heart of New York. My parents have a…I think you Brits would call it a six-bedroom town house. So it’s big, but nowhere like this place. I don’t know what made me say that,” she then added after a minute. “Despite this being a hospital now, it’s clear to see it will be a very fine family home again after the war. Ignore me. I can’t wait for Walter to see it! He’s going to love it.”

Mary gripped her friend’s hand. “I’m glad, and don’t apologize. We’re all missing people.”

“Even you?”

Mary thought for a few moments before replying, “Yes, even me. I may not have got on that well with them, but now…now, yes, I think it would be good to see my parents.”

“Then why don’t you?” Doris asked the obvious question.

“Too busy,” Mary replied.

“We all make time,” Doris told her.

“Perhaps,” was all that Mary answered.

As if she’d let out too much of her thoughts, Doris got to her feet and went to study her friend’s soft toy collection. “This is quite a sight!”

Joining her, Mary seemed to relax as she looked at them with pride in her eyes. “My parents were never very imaginative when it came to presents,” she said, looking up and down the shelves. A frown came to her face. “That’s funny.”

“What?” Doris asked, following her friend’s gaze.

“Mr. Bunson’s missing.”

Doris arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Bunson?”

“My first bear,” Mary said. “He’s a Steiff.”

“A Steiff?” Doris asked, not understanding what her friend meant.

As she continued to search the shelves, Mary explained, “They’re a German make, top quality, and Mr. Bunson…well, Mr. Bunson gave the best cuddles.”

“You old softy,” Doris told her. “And he’s not here?”

Mary pointed at the center of the middle shelf. “When he wasn’t in bed with me, that’s where he stayed, pride of place.”

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but why didn’t you take him with you?”

Mary shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a part of me always knew I’d be back.”

“Was that why you wanted to come up here today? To collect him?”

“Now I think of it, probably.”

A sharp, brief scraping noise made them both turn their heads, searching for its origin. Before either could begin a proper search, they heard a sharp rap on the door, which opened immediately, not giving either girl a chance to speak. Poking his head around the door was Captain Wood.

“Sorry to disturb you, ladies,” he said, once he’d caught his breath. “Your transport’s here.”

Mary looked at her watch with a frown. “It’s not due for another fifteen minutes.”

Now with the door wide open, Wood tilted his head. “What can I say? The army’s never on time. I’d take it, though, as there won’t be anything else, I’m afraid.”

The words may have been apologetic, but his demeanor wasn’t, something which both girls noticed, yet didn’t wish to comment on in his presence.

“Ah, well,” Doris said. Only Mary was aware of the false cheeriness in her voice. “Better get our bags, then.”

“Has anyone been in here?” Mary couldn’t prevent herself from asking, as she went to lock the door.

“I doubt it,” Wood said. “No one’s been able to find the key,” he added, looking down at the one in Mary’s hand.

“Bit of a pity, that,” Mary told him, pocketing the key.