Page 56 of The Stranger in Room Six

Mabel

Somehow Aunt Clarissa endured the stares from the village folk.

She brazenly went to church as usual. She held her head high.

And slowly, Mabel heard whispers that maybe her aunt had not been involved after all.

That she had been taken in by the Colonel, as indeed had they all.

And no wonder! He had seemed so warm, so generous, so affable.

‘I’m not fooled,’ Frannie said one day when she and Mabel were foraging for mushrooms in the woods. After her cold words about the Colonel, they had managed to make up, though it wasn’t the easy relationship it had been before. ‘I still think your aunt knows more than she’s letting on.’

‘I don’t,’ said Mabel defensively. ‘My aunt might not be an easy woman but she’s not a traitor.’

‘So speaks a girl who’s fallen for an Italian prisoner of war,’ retorted Frannie in a disapproving tone. ‘I’ve seen you chatting to him.’

‘I haven’t “fallen for him”,’ protested Mabel, conscious that she was blushing.

Yet it was true she had spent some very pleasant hours with Antonio in the meadow, helping him bundle up straw under the watchful eye of the groom or mending the church roof.

For a man who had intended to train as a doctor, he was very practical.

‘My grandfather taught me,’ he explained to her.

‘He lived with us when my grandmother died and we were very close.’

Mabel had never had a male friend before. But it was so easy to talk to Antonio! They shared more than she could possibly have imagined, yet the most important link was that neither knew if their father was alive.

Then one morning, just as she and her aunt returned from church, they saw the telegram boy cycling up the lane. ‘Dear God,’ said her aunt crossing herself in a manner that was quite unlike her.

Mabel felt her knees buckle. A telegram in wartime meant only one thing. Missing or dead.

‘I’ll open it,’ said her aunt, putting her arm around Mabel. Her tone was gentler than usual too.

‘Your father is in a prisoner-of-war camp! The Red Cross has traced him. He is in good spirits.’

Mabel burst into tears of joy. Her aunt’s eyes glistened too.

Cook came running out, no doubt at the noise. She began to do a little jig. ‘Yes!’ she whooped and for a minute, the three of them found themselves in an embrace.

Then Aunt Clarissa moved away, smoothing down her hair. ‘We must remember all those who are not so fortunate,’ she said in her usual stern voice. ‘Now let us get on with our jobs for the day.’

‘I will write to Papa first through the Red Cross,’ said Mabel.

‘Only when you have completed knitting your blanket squares for the Mothers’ Union,’ said Aunt Clarissa.

‘But –’

‘There are no buts. We have had our rejoicing. Now we must all do our bit for the war effort.’

‘That woman has a heart of steel,’ muttered Cook as Aunt Clarissa swept off.

However, Mabel knew better. Her aunt was kinder underneath than she seemed. That sharp tongue was part of her armour and she had to respect that. The most important thing was that Papa was still alive! When this war ended, they would be together again. Of that, she had no doubt.

As soon as she finished knitting the squares – after dropping a few stitches in her excitement – Mabel wrote her letter, then headed down to the private beach.

As she approached, her heart lightened. Antonio was there!

Then again, she’d often told him that this was her favourite place.

Could he be looking for her? Her heart sang with the possibility.

‘I did a little detour on my way back to the camp to see if you were here. But I can see from your face that you have had good news!’ he said. ‘It is about your father?’

She nodded. How was it that Antonio could read her mind?

‘I am so glad for you,’ he exclaimed, taking her hand.

‘Thank you. He is a prisoner of war. I know this doesn’t mean he will definitely come home, but I believe he will. Besides, for now, he is safe.’ Then she stopped, conscious she’d just been talking about herself. ‘But what about your father?’

His face flattened. ‘No news yet. My mother and little brothers and sisters are safe, however.’

‘I feel bad for celebrating when you don’t know. Uncertainty is so awful.’

‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘It is. But I am glad for you. Verily I am, as your Shakespeare might say.’

Then somehow – she hardly knew how – Mabel found herself in Antonio’s arms, his warm lips meeting hers. It felt as if she had come home. It felt so natural. So wonderful. So exciting. So right when it should have felt wrong.

‘What have we done?’ she asked, breaking away.

‘Oh, Mabel. Nothing that is not natural. If it was not for this war, I would have declared my love for you much earlier.’

‘Love?’

‘I felt something between us from the minute I saw you.’

‘So did I,’ she confessed.

He was smiling down at her. His warmth lit up sunrays inside her that she didn’t know she still possessed. ‘Then that is good, is it not?’

‘But you’re the enemy.’

‘Mabel, amore mio. You do not believe that. Nor do I. When this war is over, may I hope that we can be more than this?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, hardly daring to hear her own words. ‘Yes, you may.’