Page 126 of Coming Home to Island House
Edith Lawton and Ivy Swann abruptly lowered their teacups and turned away from the window of the Cobbles Tea Room, through which they had been observing the driver of the red sports car stride at a hurried but elegant pace into the newsagent’s shop. The two women looked quizzically at Elspeth Grainger, each convinced they must have misheard her.
‘I admire her,’ said Elspeth boldly, putting down the mince pie she was eating. ‘What she’s doing shows she has backbone. Real backbone.’
Her comments were met with shocked disbelief.
‘Backbone is all very well,’ said Edith stiffly, ‘but as I’ve said before, what about her responsibility to the children?’
‘Yes,’ joined in Ivy, ‘what’s to become of them while she’s playing at being a pilot? It’s shameful, that’s what it is. It’s the men I feel sorry for. Women like her are stealing their jobs. Jobs that would be better done by a man, a man who—’
‘I hear the children are very well cared for,’ interrupted Elspeth. ‘And heaven only knows, with the nightly bombing raids on London, the RAF needs every bit of help it can get. If that means women are needed to ferry aircraft about the country while our brave boys in blue can get on with the business of combat, I for one am all for it.’
‘Well,’ said Ivy with a scandalised shake of her head, ‘I never thought I’d hear you take that woman’s side. Are you feeling all right, Elspeth? Are you running a temperature? Was it all too much for you over Christmas?’
‘I’ve never felt better, thank you very much,’ said Elspeth. ‘And I’ll tell this for nothing. That Mrs Devereux-Temple’s a darned sight more patriotic than some people I can think of round here. What’s more, if I were her age, I’d be doing a lot more than knitting and digging for victory. I’d be … I’d be driving an ambulance or manning a canteen at the very least!’
A stunned silence fell on the table, and not knowing what else to say, the three women turned to look out of the window again. The object of their discussion was emerging from the newsagent’s with a newspaper tucked under her arm. Her stylish long fur coat, worn over her ATA uniform, accentuated the swift grace of her step as she approached the open-topped car and slipped nimbly behind the steering wheel.
Still without speaking, the three women watched her secure a silk scarf around her head and pull on a pair of cream fur-trimmed gloves. She then started up the engine and pulled away from the kerb. She drove round the square, and as she passed the tea room, she seemed deliberately to slow her speed before waving at the three women. Elspeth Grainger waved back with pride and respect, earning herself a wide smile from the driver and a cheery toot-toot of the car horn.
Then with a throaty roar of engine, Romily Devereux-Temple was gone.
