She asked, ‘In France?’
He nodded. ‘On the Bay of Biscay, not far from St Nazaire. We generally land at Le Touquet and collect the party and have lunch, and fly on from there. It’s quite an easy trip, and the week-end’s a lot of fun.’
‘I’ll have to think it over,’ she said. ‘I’m not very experienced yet.’
We went to our table for lunch. Between courses she sat staring out over the aerodrome, immersed in her thoughts. Presently I asked, ‘Happy?’
She turned to me. ‘Terribly,’ she said. ‘So happy, it just can’t be true.’
‘It’s fun having something new,’ I said. ‘A new car’s just the same.’
She nodded. ‘It’s not only that. It’ll be terribly exciting having the Moth, but it’s – it’s going to places. You see,’ she said, ‘I’ve never been anywhere, hardly. And now, to go to France for the first time, and fly there by myself in my own aeroplane – it’s incredible. I don’t know that I’ll ever have the courage to do it, and I know that I’ll regret it all my life if I don’t.’
‘You know some French?’ I asked.
‘I did French at school,’ she said, ‘fifteen years ago. I’ve forgotten most of it, and anyway they never taught us what to say to French ground engineers upon an aerodrome.’
I smiled. ‘You’ll have to start looking for a passenger who knows the ropes. Lots of the club members would jump at the chance of going to La Baule.’
‘Maybe.’ She sat thoughtful for a time, and then she said, ‘What were the registration letters, again?’
I told her. ‘G-EMLF.’
‘MLF,’ she said. ‘Morgan le Fay. That’s what I’m going to call her.’
‘Who was Morgan le Fay?’
‘An enchantress – King Arthur’s sister. She’s enchanted me already.’
‘Morgan le Fay,’ I repeated. ‘It’s not a bad name for an aeroplane. Would you like to have it painted on the nose, just underneath the engine? Quite small red letters, on the white paint?’
Her eyes danced. ‘That would be lovely. Could we have that done?’
‘Of course. We’ll go back to the office and add it to the order, before we take off.’
We did that after lunch, and then we got back into the club Moth and she flew me back to Duffington. She was getting much better at cross-country work by that time, because as we passed Bedford she said down the voice pipe, ‘Captain Pascoe.’
‘Yes?’
‘I put on five degrees drift for wind 280, but that train down there seems to show the wind from the east. Ought I to change the drift?’
I glanced down. ‘That’s right. It’s not very strong. I’d put on about two degrees to your basic course. You’re over to the west a bit, and that’s another sign.’
‘It’s horrid of the wind to change like that.’
When we landed back at Duffington in the late afternoon there was nobody there, of course, because the club was closed on Mondays. She taxied up to the closed hangar door, and we got out and unlocked the hangar, and pushed the big doors open, and pushed the Moth inside. When that was done she turned to me. ‘I’m so grateful to you for giving up your day off for me,’ she said. ‘It’s been a lovely day for me, but I’m afraid it’s been at your expense.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t doing anything particular – only a bit of shopping. I can do that any time.’
‘Had you got anything fixed up for this evening?’
‘No.’
She said a little diffidently, ‘Would you care to come and have dinner at the Manor? It’s not very exciting, I’m afraid – it’ll be just Mother and me.’
I said, ‘That’s very kind of you. I’d love to come. What time?’
‘Seven o’clock? We usually have dinner about seven-thirty.’
I nodded. ‘That’s fine. I’ll write up the log books and go back and change, and I’ll be with you about seven.’
I walked up to the Manor that evening newly shaved and in my best grey suit. I had never been to the house before, though I had seen it every day from the air. It was an old house, part of it Elizabethan. On the ground that night the drive seemed longer, more impressive, the house larger. A maid in a white starched apron opened the door to me and showed me into the drawing room. Mrs Marshall and her mother got up to welcome me and I was introduced to the mother, Mrs Duclos.
I knew her by sight, though we had never spoken. I found her to be a somewhat formidable old woman, very direct and straight-spoken. They offered me a drink and I chose sherry, and while my pupil was getting sherry and glasses for us all the old lady engaged me in conversation.
‘Brenda tells me that she bought an aeroplane,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘She did.’ And then I asked, ‘Do you approve?’
She gave a sort of snort. ‘It wouldn’t make much odds if I approved or not. But – yes, I approve. So long as she doesn’t go and kill herself in it. You won’t let her do that?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘Well, stand back and let me take a look at you.’
I stood back for inspection, and I suppose I passed, because the next thing she said was, ‘She tells me that you shot down eleven Germans in the war.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I did.’
‘What have you got to be afraid of?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Only it doesn’t seem now quite such a good thing to have done as it did then.’
‘You’re turning pacifist, are you? What’s your name, anyway? I can’t keep calling you Captain Pascoe.’
I laughed. ‘My name’s John. My friends call me Johnnie. I don’t think I’m pacifist. I suppose I’d do it again if there was another war. One sort of goes nuts.’
‘Everybody goes a bit mental in a war,’ she said. ‘But we don’t talk of things like that in this house, Johnnie.’
I nodded. ‘I understand that.’
My pupil came back with the drinks, and we talked about the new aeroplane, and the club members, and the Chief Constable; who had just gone solo. Presently we went in to dinner, very well served with silver gleaming on a polished oak table, the maid who had opened the door waiting on us. After dinner we went back to the drawing room for coffee, and presently I said, ‘They tell me you’re a fine pianist, Mrs Marshall. Would you play something for me?’
She laughed a little awkwardly. ‘I’m not as good as that.’
‘I’d like it if you would.’
‘Would you?’
I nodded.
Mrs Duclos got up from her chair. ‘If Brenda’s going to play I’m going to write some letters.’ I got up. ‘If I don’t see you again, Johnnie, I’ll say good-night. Come again and cheer us up. It’s not very exciting here, two women living alone.’
‘I’d like to do that,’ I said.
I opened the door for her, and Brenda crossed over to the piano and opened it. ‘Make yourself comfortable by the fire,’ she said. ‘What sort of music do you like?’
‘Not too classical,’ I said, ‘and not too lowbrow. Something about ten per cent better than tea-room music.’ She laughed. ‘But you play what you want to.’
She sat down at the piano and began to play a cheerful little melody that she told me was a Hungarian dance by Brahms, and she went on to bits of Chopin and Tchaikowsky. She played beautifully, and she was catholic in her selection, mixing in things like ‘Tip-toe through the Tulips’ with old English airs like ‘Greensleeves’. I sat smoking by the fire, enjoying every minute of it. In the life I led, flying all day and living at the village inn, I very seldom had the chance to sit and listen to music; I could have sat and listened to her all night.
She went on for over an hour, and finished with a spirited and brilliant rendering of ‘Sur le pont d’Avignon’. Then she got up from the piano and came over to the fire.
‘That was perfectly delightful,’ I said. ‘That’s made my day.’
‘Has it? I’m so glad, because you’ve made mine. Let me
get you a drink.’
‘Are you having one?’
‘If you are. Whisky?’
‘I’d like a whisky. Let me get it.’
‘No, you stay there.’ She went out and presently came back with the decanter and the siphon and the glasses on a silver tray. She poured me out a drink and gave it to me, and then gave herself one. She sat down with me by the fire.
Presently she said, ‘I want to tell you about my husband.’
‘Don’t if it’s upsetting,’ I replied. ‘I know a certain amount already.’
She nodded. ‘I suppose you must. I suppose everybody in the village knows all about it. He’s in The Haven, you know.’
‘I know. I’m very sorry.’
She nodded. ‘It’s an illness, just like any other illness, really. Only he has to stay in hospital, whether he’s well or ill. I go and see him twice a week. That’s why I go on living here.’
‘They tell me it’s a very good place.’
‘The best in the country for this sort of thing. Dr Baddeley – he’s awfully good. People come to him from all over the world.’
‘He’s been there for some time, hasn’t he?’
She nodded. ‘He’s been certified for nearly three years now.’
‘Bad luck,’ I said.
‘Yes. But it’s the sort of thing that happens, and you’ve just got to make the best of it.’
I asked, ‘Is he happy?’
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘He’s perfectly all right for weeks on end, you know, and while he’s like that he knows it’s better for him to be there. He loves his golf, and they’ve got a nine-hole golf course in the grounds. Then he gets another fit, and then it’s – well, it’s difficult. But when he’s well, I think he’s quite happy, though it’s a very restricted life. He plays a good deal of bridge.’
‘Is there any chance of a cure?’
She took up the poker and scraped a little ash from the surround of the glowing fire. ‘I don’t know. None of the ordinary things seem to be much good. There’s an American doctor in Cincinnati who’s got good results with some kind of spinal injection, and he’s coming here in about six months’ time. Dr Baddeley thinks we should try that.’ She raised her head. ‘Of course, we’ll try anything.’
‘He’s quite co-operative, is he?’
‘Derek? Oh yes – when he’s well. At other times – it’s difficult.’ She paused. ‘It’s not very easy to be optimistic,’ she said. ‘We’ve had so many disappointments. Before he was certified we’d try something new and it would seem marvellous, and he’d be wonderfully well for months, but the relapse always came. Dr Baddeley says now that he’d want to keep him certified and in The Haven for two years after any new treatment, to make sure. You see, when he was out before there was – well, trouble.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘I know you do,’ she replied. ‘All these months while I’ve been learning to fly you’ve never said a word to make me feel awkward. I knew that you must know a good deal about Derek, and so I wanted you to know the whole thing.’
I nodded. ‘How do you feel about it all, yourself?’ I asked. ‘Could you get a divorce, if you wanted to?’
She shook her head. ‘There’s no grounds for a divorce. A member of Parliament is working on a new divorce bill – A. P. Herbert, who writes in Punch. He wants to make incurable insanity grounds for divorce, but that won’t come for years and years – if ever.’ She was silent for a moment, and then she said, ‘Even if that was possible, I don’t know that I’d ever want to do it. When you marry somebody you marry them for good, for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. I’d hate myself if I ran out on Derek while he’s sick. That’s the time a wife ought to stand by and help him all she can. And after all, I’ve had the “richer” part.’ She glanced around the room. ‘This is all his money – the piano, and my new Moth – everything.’
‘Does he know you bought a Moth?’ I asked.
‘I told him I was going to, the day before yesterday, when I went to see him. I tell him everything. I think it helps, because then he doesn’t get fussed that things are going on behind his back.’
‘How does he like the thought of you flying?’
‘Oh, he’s all for it. He’s very well just now. He gets worried that I’m having a dull life, you see. He thought it was a great idea that I should join the club and learn to fly.’ She added softly, ‘He’s very sweet – when he’s well.’
We sat in silence for a time. At last I said, ‘It’s a bad-luck story, all right. I suppose it’s going on for ever?’
She nodded. ‘I think so. One gets accustomed to things, though. People can adjust themselves, you know. Take up new interests. Like flying.’
I nodded. ‘If I may say so, you’re looking a lot better than you were in January.’
‘Everybody says that,’ she replied. ‘I am a lot better – sleeping better, eating better, feeling younger. I think flying must be good for people.’
I laughed. ‘It’s terribly good for you to get scared stiff now and then. Stimulates the flow of adrenalin, or something.’
She laughed with me. ‘Let me give you another whisky.’
‘Just a small one,’ I said. ‘Then I must be going. Flying tomorrow.’
She refilled my glass, and I got up and took it from her. ‘What are you going to do about collecting your Moth from Heston?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to fly it up yourself?’
‘Do you think I’m fit?’
‘I think so,’ I said slowly, ‘if it’s a nice fine day. I wouldn’t like to see you try it in bad weather, not just yet. The only thing is – it’s just out of the shops. You might get a forced landing for some silly little thing. Why don’t you get them to deliver it up here for you?’
‘Would they do that? Fly it up here for me?’
‘Oh, yes. It might cost you a tenner. It wouldn’t be more than that. I think that might be best, and then you can get to know it flying round the aerodrome before you take it across country.’
‘You’re a very safe person,’ she said quietly. ‘The safest person that I’ve ever met. You think of everything to make things easy for me. Yes, let’s ask them if they can deliver it up here.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll give them a ring in the morning.’
I finished my whisky and put down my glass, because it was time for me to go back to the inn. She was too attractive, and I was too lonely. ‘I must go,’ I said. ‘Thank you for a perfectly delightful evening.’
‘Thank you for a perfectly delightful day,’ she said. ‘I shan’t sleep tonight, for thinking of my Moth.’
She came with me to the door, and I walked down the drive and out on to the moonlit road that led a few hundred yards into the village. I didn’t sleep that night, for thinking about her.
She flew most days that week upon the club machines, and then came the great day when her Moth arrived. I got a telephone call to say that it had taken off from Heston and I rang her at the Manor, and she came hurrying to the aerodrome in the Alvis. It was a bright, sunny day and she was excited, looking about eighteen years old and terribly attractive. She was an hour early, and we stood on the tarmac looking at the sky toward the south, scanning the clouds. Then we saw it as a speck coming towards us, and presently we heard the engine. It grew larger, dropping off height as it approached, and presently it flew over the aerodrome. The pilot saw us on the tarmac and showed the machine off to us, doing a few right and left hand turns at a couple of hundred feet. It was a very pretty little aeroplane, white and crimson, gleaming in the sun.
‘Take a good look at it,’ I said to her. ‘It’s probably the last time you’ll be able to.’
She stared at me. ‘The last time?’
‘You’ll always be in it,’ I remarked. ‘Unless you lend it to somebody you’ll never see it flying again.’
‘Oh …’ She stood with her eyes glued upon it. ‘Doesn’t it look lovely?’
&nb
sp; The pilot landed it and brought it to us on the tarmac, stopped the engine and got out. They had made a very good job of it, and it looked like a new aircraft. She signed a delivery note, and then drove him to the station in the Alvis; while she was away I had Morgan le Fay refuelled and made a bit of an inspection myself with the ground engineer. When she came back in haste from Leacaster it was all ready for her to fly.
She hurried to change into her clean white overall, and when she came to the machine she asked me to go with her on her first flight. ‘Not much,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t got any dual in the front cockpit. When you pile it up I’d perish miserably. No, you take your own machine alone for the first time. It’s just the same as the club Moths.’
She laughed. ‘I’m not going to pile it up.’
‘Of course you’re not. I was just joking.’
‘Don’t joke about serious subjects,’ she said. ‘If I pile it up I’m going to cut my throat.’
‘Try it on a gliding turn or two before you come in to land,’ I said. ‘They’re all just a little bit different on the glide, according to the rigging.’
She smiled at me, and got into the cockpit. When she was comfortable I swung the prop for her and she ran it up, waved the chocks away, and taxied out. I went into the office and stood watching from the window as she took off, a little depressed. This was the end of two months that had meant a lot to me; from now onwards she would be flying as a pilot in her own machine. She had no need of further dual from me.
She flew it for some time, came in for a quick lunch of a sandwich and a cup of tea in the club, and flew it again. Then in the late afternoon she taxied in and we pushed it into the hangar and put it away for the night. She brought the three log books into the office and I showed her how to write them up.
She turned the pages of the journey log book. ‘She’s been everywhere,’ she said. ‘Just look at this.’
We bent together over the book, her head close to mine. ‘Paris, Dijon, Cannes,’ she breathed. ‘And look – here’s Avignon, where the pont is. She’s been there. Milano, Venezia – she’s been to Venice.’ She turned the pages. ‘Le Touquet, Dinard, La Baule …’