Two weeks after Easter, important news began to arrive from Europe. The war had finally got underway and it wasn’t going well for the Allies.
Hitler invaded Norway. In May his troops swarmed into Belgium and Holland. Allied troops fled to Dunkirk and were rescued by a heroic flotilla of little boats. France lay open to the enemy, her borders inadequately defended. In the end they were easily breached. On 22 June 1940, France surrendered to the enemy.
Delphine’s anguish was terrible. Her letters to Beatrice became long, distracted scrawls, betraying anxiety for her family, distress at the lack of news. Beatrice, too, was troubled, thinking not only of Rafe, wherever he might be, but of the vulnerable elderly couple, her grandparents, in their isolated Normandy farmhouse. Pappi was known to be excitable and, as her mother wrote, quite capable of resorting to his rifle if upset. He wouldn’t have a chance against German soldiers. At least his sons, Delphine’s brothers, were nearby.
Exams loomed. Somehow, Beatrice mustered some spirit and got through. Two and a half weeks to the summer holidays. Still she did not know what she was going to do with herself. Her parents expected her to return home to St Florian for the holidays, but to what? Their suffocating lives, locked into the roles of invalid and nurse? The knowledge that up the road lay Carlyon Manor with all its memories and dashed hopes? Going home meant going backwards. A whole summer of this, then back to Larchmont for the final year. For what, when the future was so bleak, uncertain? She badly wanted to do something useful now, not least something that would occupy her thoughts.
It was two weeks before they broke up that news came, in a letter from Angelina. Beatrice took it outside and sat in the sun on the sloped roof of the air-raid shelter to read it, but was unable at first to take in what it said.
I thought you’d want to know at once, Angelina had written. Rafe is missing.
At once she was plunged into further misery. No one knew if Rafe was alive or dead. In the confusion after the Fall of France it was difficult to gauge what had happened to many stranded troops. There was nothing anyone could do except wait for more news.
Waiting. As Germany sealed off Europe to the Allies, and Italian troops surged into Northern Africa, Britain was isolated. Fear of invasion clouded everyone’s thoughts. As for Beatrice, what could a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl possibly do about anything?
It was Hilary Vickers, the earl’s grand-daughter, who saved her, telling her about the horses.
‘My cousin’s working there. They take horses and ponies that have been brought in for Army use, dozens of them, and train them to pull wagons or carriages for ceremonial duties, then most are sent abroad. Some are fine animals – it’s awful to think of, actually. All Daddy’s lovely hunters are gone. It was the first thing he did after war was declared. “I’m too old to fight Hitler,” he told us, “but by God my horses will do it instead”.’
The place in question was a remount depot in Leicestershire. Beatrice wrote to them before she could have second thoughts, outlining her experience at Carlyon’s stables and asking if they’d have her. A week passed without any word. Then came a letter from a Captain Browning, a contact of Hilary’s cousin.
You are required to present yourself at the Superintendent’s Office at 0800 hours on 7th July. Since there is no accommodation for females on site, I have arranged for you to lodge with a Miss Catherine Warrender, The Poplars, George Street. She expects you the evening before.
Bea read this with a mixture of excitement and dismay. What had she done? She wrote at once to her parents, and the letter resulted in a summons to the Headmistress’s study.
Miss Pettifer, a tall, thin woman with an imperious air, folded her hands in her lap and regarded Beatrice thoughtfully.
‘I received a telephone call from your mother this morning,’ she said. ‘She was in a state of some agitation, and when she read me out the letter you’d sent her, I understood her disquiet. You’re only seventeen, Beatrice. I was imagining that we would have the pleasure of your company at Larchmont for another year, and that you’d take your Higher Certificate, but it appears that you have other plans.’
‘Yes, Miss Pettifer, I’m sorry.’
‘Do explain yourself. It appears that you, an educated young woman, wish to work with, er, horses?’
‘Yes.’ Her gaze slipped past the Headmistress, to the tranquil country garden outside. Somewhere nearby, the comforting sounds of a tennis game could be heard.
‘I want to be useful,’ she told Miss Pettifer. ‘I can’t stay here. I just can’t.’ She couldn’t find the words to explain that she felt enclosed, trapped by boarding school, but that nor did she want to go home. In all honesty she didn’t see where her future lay. All she knew was that she wanted to get out, to go somewhere and do something.