L'Aimant - Chapter 17
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.
Chapter 17: Sam and Foyle settle back into 31 Steep Lane the day after the wedding. Some fretting over parents, followed by a lovely surprise for Sam—and then an unwelcome one.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Notes:
Arthur Whitehall, novelist, 'tortured soul', and long-standing friend of Christopher Foyle, belongs to dancesabove. He appears in her story The Crash.
Thanks also to dances for betaing this chapter with her usual impeccable care.
…
Noël Coward was born in 1899, and Bing Crosby in 1903. Though there was little age-difference between these two competing talents, they were poles apart in almost every other way.
Coward owned a house in London as well as one in Port Maria, Jamaica, but during the war, he was resident at The Savoy Hotel, after being bombed out of his London home.
…
Wendy Hiller was a serenely beautiful (in my view), versatile British stage actress, already famous by the 1940s, for film roles such as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, and the title role in Major Barbara.
Known for her no-nonsense on-screen presence, her most famous film was arguably I Know Where I'm Going, released in 1945, which tells of an independent-minded, headstrong young woman who travels to Scotland to marry an older, wealthy industrialist—and falls for a laird instead. Although the timeline of my story predates this particular film, Wendy Hiller was already well-known for projecting just such a personality in her screen roles.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
Five more minutes passed in heavy silence, until a knock came at the door.
Iain rose to answer it. "That will be your, er, ginger, I suppose, Dear."
He found a rosy-faced middle-aged woman in black uniform, white frilly apron and frilly cap standing in the corridor, bearing a nicely laid tray with a small bowl of powdered ginger, some cubed sugar, a carafe of iced water and a glass.
"Good morning, Sir!" she greeted him pleasantly. "Here's madam's ginger, as requested."
Iain blinked at her and reached to take the tray, puzzled, as he was fairly sure he had not mentioned that the ginger was for his wife. "Thank you so much," he said. "I'm surprised you were able to find this for us so quickly. Such an unusual request at this hour, after all!" He managed a small, apologetic laugh.
"Oooh, not at all, Sir! You'd be surprised. We get it all the time at this hour—Ladies waking up and suffering from morning sickness. Always got some ginger at the ready! Good morning to you, Sir. I hope your wife feels better soon." Without further ado, she bobbed a semi-curtsey and was off down the corridor, leaving Iain, jaw hanging loose, staring across the corridor into space that seemed to stretch into oblivion.
Geraldine, having finally clawed her way back to an upright position, was just emerging from the bathroom as Iain dropped the tray.
Chapter 17
Sunday Evening, 17th December 1944
Sam surveyed the living room of 31 Steep Lane in its new light as her marital home. "What a nice, cosy house." She patted the settee contentedly. "Why didn't we just come straight here last night?"
"You deserved some luxury on your wedding night. Plus," Christopher reminded her, "the hotel bed appeared to please you well enough—frankly, it was a fair old struggle to turf you out of it."
Indeed, it had been difficult for Sam to rise and shine that morning. Dozing lazily in Christopher's arms had been a lovely interlude, until the telephone rang to wake them properly...
"Up you get then, Mrs Foyle." Christopher's voice hummed in her ear, murmuring gentle encouragement to face the day.
"Meuuuh. Leave me alone, I'm comfortable." Sam turned into his chest from her nest inside his arms and tried to snuggle into him.
"Your parents are expecting us downstairs at ten," he coaxed, tucking in his chin to get a proper view of her.
"That's hours yet. Hours and hours." Her arms slid under his pyjama jacket.
Christopher was having none of it. "Oh no, you don't." He swivelled on the mattress, dropping his legs to the floor, and rose resolutely, lifting Samantha with him. "It's half-past eight. Time for the bride to have her bath."
Sam's arms found their way around his neck. "Groom too, then," she wheedled, twisting the grey-flecked chestnut curls at his nape. "We could run a nice deep one and share…" The anticipated pleasure of watching him shave afterwards sent her mind rushing ahead to Christopher, dressed in his crisp shirt and Sunday best, her fingers running over his smooth jawline.
"Behave," he said.
"Or what?"
"Mmmight let you pick your own punishment."
Sam nibbled at her little fingernail as she ran through the events of Sunday morning in her mind. "Christopher, do you think my parents seemed unhappy over breakfast? Mummy hardly touched a thing—that's the second morning running. And Daddy looked quite drawn and anxious."
"Didn't sleep well in a strange bed, perhaps? And it's a busy time for Iain, with Christmas coming up." Christopher had actually felt the same uneasy atmosphere as Sam—Iain's behaviour in particular had been in direct contrast to their easy-going evening the night before the wedding—but he hadn't thought it was his place to pry. Privately he was of the opinion that Sam's parents had argued before breakfast.
"But Daddy didn't even stop to bend the vicar's ear as we came out of morning worship. Sunday services elsewhere are normally such a pleasure for him—he's been known to spend at least half an hour discussing the sermon with the minister. And what with Christ Church having suffered in the raids, you'd think they would have had an awful lot to talk about—not to mention St Leonard's and St John the Evangelist being bombed out of action over the past year. I just think it's strange. He looked to be in a daze."
"If you're worried, telephone them now. They should have arrived back in Lyminster hours ago."
"You know, I think I will…"
Sam was no less worried when she returned several minutes later. She stood in front of the fire, fiddling with a candlestick on the mantelpiece. "Uncle Aubrey answered. Mummy was resting upstairs, so I said not to disturb her; but apparently," Sam sent Christopher an uneasy look over her shoulder, "Daddy's beetled off to church all on his own. It's nine o'clock. And after such a long day… Christopher, why would he feel he had to go?"
Foyle strove to reassure her. "Sam, how often does your father leave his church in someone else's charge on a Sunday, hmm?"
"Not terribly often, admittedly."
"Well, this morning—picture this—he sat through a service in a bomb-damaged church, in a town where many of the churches have been bombed to oblivion in the raids. Now, don't you think, in those circumstances, he'd want to check that everything's intact in Lyminster?"
Sam was relieved to latch on to the idea. "We were all crammed inside the Lady Chapel, weren't we? What with the rest of Christ Church cordoned off. So… you think he was just going over to church to stroke his building?"
"Precisely. Try not to worry, Sweetheart," Foyle told her kindly. "We'll be with them for Christmas next weekend, after all."
"I know. It's just that… everything seems so perfect just now, I suppose I'm inventing things to fret about because I can hardly believe how lucky I am." She smiled again over her shoulder at her husband.
Christopher approached her from behind. "I can hardly believe my luck." He wrapped his arms around Sam's middle and rested his chin on her shoulder. "An instant family, acquired in just six weeks. And so conveniently packaged."
Sam pouted. "If I took you even remotely seriously, you'd be in trouble for that remark." Her tone was almost stern, but Foyle could see through the mirror over the fireplace that her lips were turned up in a smile.
"Speaking of packages, there's one here for you." Foyle moved back to the side of the settee and bent down, pulling out a heavy box, a little over twelve inches square and ten inches deep. This had been the second package delivered to Steep Lane the morning of the wedding—obligingly dealt with by Iain while Foyle was dressing.
"Here. Quite heavy; mustn't drop it." Foyle thought better then of handing it to Sam. "Actually, let me put it on the table for you."
He deposited the package and stood back, arms folded, shooting his wife a mischievous glance out of the corner of his eye. "What can it be, I wonder?"
Sam approached the table and set about undoing parcel tape and string. Once the top of the box was open, she delved inside, removing corrugated paper packaging and cardboard stiffening. Her face broke into a beam. "Christopher, is this… are these gramophone records?"
Foyle peered innocently into the box. "Looks like it, doesn't it? Yup."
Sam dug deeper and found her way down to the first record. "It's Bing!"—and then to the second, and third— "More Bing! And even more!"
Foyle might have been affecting nonchalance, but a flush of pleasure at Sam's delighted reaction crept into his cheeks and betrayed him. "Well, y'know," he shrugged, "one needs a change from Chopin and 'The Holy City'. Otherwise one's music collection might be disparaged as—um—'stuffed shirt'. By some individuals." The corner of his mouth twitched at the memory of Sam's dismissal of his tastes.
"Oh, I say! Rath-er!" Sam was too engrossed in unpacking her parcel to register the full force of the jibe.
Foyle leant forwards, hands in pockets, and parked his lips next to Samantha's ear. "Bo-bo-bo-boh!" he offered playfully—and utterly tunelessly.
Disappointingly, his little Bing-icism was lost on Sam, so focussed was she on inspecting the records. "Honestly! But this is more Bing than I've ever seen in one place! How did you manage to get hold of so many?"
Aha! Finally Foyle had her attention, and he prepared to exploit it to full advantage. "I, um, have a novelist friend—Arthur Whitehall—with connections in the music business. He knows, ah, Noël Coward." He rocked a little on his heels, satisfied that he'd impressed her now.
Sam's jaw dropped. "Arthur Whitehall? Author of Kind Words?" She had read the book and found it wonderfully sensitive. This man knew Christopher? "… And a friend of Noël Coward's, too? Gosh! What a stroke of luck!"
"Mmm. Yes." He revelled quietly in Sam's amazement. "In fact, you might just find a note inside there, somewhere…" He lifted his chin towards the box in anticipation.
Sam took the cue. Her tongue poked up over her lip as she fished down the side of the packaging, feeling for a letter. "Here! Here it is!" Triumphantly, she withdrew a white envelope and handed it to Christopher. The envelope was quality, heavy bond stationery and bore, in one corner, an embossed black circular logo comprising a capital "S" cross-printed with a lower-case "h" in red and white art-deco letters. The envelope was addressed, clearly in haste, and in a cursive hand, quite simply:
Christopher
Foyle slit open the envelope and perused the letter. Grinning, he handed it back to Sam. Samantha seized it with both hands, poring over it eagerly.
Savoy Hotel
Strand
London
Monday, 11th December, 1944
Dear Christopher (if I may),
I am on hiatus from my recent tour of Asia and am in receipt of dear Arthur's urgent note on your behalf.
It is my pleasure to enclose a selection of gramophone records from my personal collection of this young man's music. To part with them is little sacrifice, as they are either duplicates of ones already stored in Port Maria, or else easily obtained from a dear young friend at Decca. In recognition of your need for these in haste, I am sending you my own copies.
I have taken the precaution of autographing every sleeve, lest your charming bride forget, in her enjoyment of this banquet of mellifluous crooning, the devastating wit and talent of her benefactor, who is,
Sincerely yours (and hers),
Noël Coward
"He's very conceited, isn't he?" remarked Samantha, blinking. "But very kind."
"Totally agree. And of course, he's barely older than the young man, Bing."
"He's certainly signed them too." Samantha pointed to the buff-coloured paper sleeve of the first record, which bore the inscription:
A little light American fluff for the fair Mrs Foyle,
Ex discis
Noël Coward
"Ex discis? That would be?" Sam wrinkled her nose.
"'From the record library of…'" supplied Foyle. "Like ex libris."
"How does he know I'm fair?"
"I imagine that's because I told Arthur he should try to imagine you as a Wendy Hiller type, except with long blonde curls."
Sam blushed. "You think I look like Wendy Hiller?"
"Look like; think like; behave like. And easily outshine. Now pick a record and we'll wear a hole in this old carpet."
Moments later, Sam was laughing in Christopher's arms, dancing animatedly to the instrumental section of 'The Very Thought of You'.
"This is an old one," giggled Sam. "I was still at school when it came out."
"I'm an old one," Christopher replied in mock offense. "It suits me very well."
"You said you didn't like Bing," frowned Samantha.
"I said I had no use for his seductive songs. Which was perfectly true—until now." Foyle pivoted deftly on his toes and bent at the waist, draping Sam backwards over his knee. She squealed delightedly at the sudden loss of control, until he set her back on her feet.
"What's next in the pile?" he spun Sam towards the table-top.
Samantha craned her neck over the stack of records, Christopher still trailing from her fingers. "Um. 'Moonlight Becomes You'," she announced.
"That'll do nicely. Wholly endorse the sentiments in that one. Just don't expect me to sing along."
Sam reclaimed her hand and set the record carefully down on the turntable, lowering the needle. Christopher pulled her back against his chest, gently situating his cheek against hers. "This is a slow one, if I remember. Kinder on the carpet."
"I suspect you know more Bing than you've been letting on," accused Samantha.
"I keep my ears open. And let's just say, I'm starting to appreciate his slant on things. You tell me he—um—fishes?"
"According to Britannia & Eve, he does."
"Good man."
Monday, 18th December 1944
Sam hunted round the bedroom, fruitlessly, then called out: "Christopher, have you seen my dressing gown? I thought I left it in Andrew's room with my other things, but it's not there…"
"Wear mine. We'll find it later." Christopher's voice reached her from the bathroom.
"All right, Darling. Thank you." Samantha wrapped the warming garment round her and did up the tasselled cord that served as a belt.
She made her way downstairs to sort out a leisurely breakfast, since they had both taken a day's leave from work and would not be going in to the station until tomorrow.
As usual, it was chilly downstairs, and Sam made a detour into the living room to stoke the fire, plunging her hands into the woollen pockets against the cold. In doing so, her fingers slid around some folded sheets of paper and what was obviously an envelope. Out of curiosity, she pulled out the pages and examined them.
The envelope was addressed to Christopher. In Andrew's handwriting! Sam was taken aback. Christopher had made no mention of the letter, and she could tell from the postmark that it had been posted within the last week.
Heat crept around the back of her ears in an uneasy premonition. She pushed the envelope back into her pocket and glanced down at the writing on the top sheet. A few words and phrases sprang out at her, in no particular order: "delusional", "dotage", "nursemaid", "impressionable", "ashamed", "advantage", "your own age", "more sense"…
Sam's face caught fire. She took a hitching breath and made for the settee, where she sat down hard, staring at the letter, which, by now, was out of focus from the tears of anger welling in her eyes.
How very dare he! Samantha raised a hand to wipe her eyes, now staring furiously at the sheets of paper in her hand, her lips pouting in a moue which would have spelt fearsome retribution for the writer of the letter, had he been within reach. She turned the sheaf of pages over to read the valediction.
"… in view of which, it's something of a blessing that I shan't be at the wedding to see you make a perfect ass of yourself.
Andrew"
The sound of feet pounding downstairs broke through her fury, and she glanced up to find Christopher, wide-eyed with alarm, standing in the doorway of the living room.
"Sam—I…" His stopped then, taking in the scene—his worst suspicion confirmed. Shaving in the bathroom, he had remembered too late Andrew's letter, hastily shoved into his dressing gown pocket the morning of the wedding.
"You kept this from me? This?!" Sam raised tearful eyes to meet his own.
Christopher tucked his lips between his teeth and grimaced, staring up at the ceiling. He squeezed his eyes shut, then tentatively opened one to look at her again. "I—um—wouldn't have had you read that for the world. I'm so, so sorry Sam."
"Well actually, I haven't read it all," she sniffed, "but I've jolly well seen enough to know what it's saying."
"I don't want you to read it all, then. Give me the letter." Christopher held out his hand.
"NO. I'm going to read every word." Sam folded the letter and stubbornly held onto it with both hands.
"Sam, it's not addressed to you…" Foyle tried hesitantly, but he didn't move from the spot.
"O-HO! Don't give me that." The fire in her eyes warned him not to push things.
"As you wish." Foyle turned quietly and set about encouraging the fire to life. "We need some heat in here. You'll freeze."
A few short minutes later, he heard another hefty sniff from Sam. "Well. That's that, then! Andrew needs to learn his manners, and I'll be glad to teach them to him."
Foyle turned to face her from his position squatting in front of the hearth. "I still wish you hadn't read it and upset yourself. I can deal with Andrew."
"You think I'm angry for myself? If he imagines he can hurt you in this way and get away with it, he's got another think coming. Who does he think he is?"
"Well, um, he thinks he's my son. And, by extension, in the way of these things, my—um—judge? Also, in some measure he imagines he's being your… protector."
Sam spat the words: "Then he's deranged, if he believes I need protecting from you. Too many hours at high altitude have addled his brain."
"Sam… don't. He risks his life… It's just… he doesn't understand… us. Yet." Christopher's eyes pleaded with her.
Sam heard and felt the pain behind the words. She took a deep breath and shook her head in angry disbelief. "I can't bear that he's trying to punish you for this. I shall write him such a letter, it will melt his eyeballs…"
"No, you won't, Samantha," Foyle said softly. "I shall deal with it. Please give me the letter now." From his stooped position, he held out his hand, and fixed Samantha with his piercing blue eyes. They said: Don't cross me in this.
Sam blinked slowly and let out her breath, hearing a faint whistling sound in her ears as the temper left her. Mutely, she handed over the folded sheets of paper, glancing with furrowed brow to one side, upset.
Foyle tilted his head, acknowledging the concession. "Thank you," he said quietly. Then he added, "And thank you for being my protector."
Still balanced on his toes, Foyle swivelled round and tossed the letter on the fire.
"Breakfast now, I think."
"Not really hungry, now." Her tone was hurt.
"You'll eat. I'll eat. Life goes on." He moved to sit beside her on the settee. "Sam, cheer up. We know what we are. This won't be the first time I've had to teach Andrew a life-lesson…" he sighed. "And it probably won't be the last."
Sam fidgeted. "He doesn't even know that I'm expecting. What on earth's he going to make of that?"
Foyle was suddenly indignant. "It's absolutely none of his bloody business. I don't pry into his intimate affairs. If he's any good at arithmetic, he can have a second pop at me when the baby's born. I'll even fetch a soap box for him to stand on while he's doing it."
Sam sniggered in spite of herself.
"Sam, he's my son. I wiped his bottom when he was small, for God's sake. I'm not about to let him tell me how to lead my life. Rest easy, now. Let me worry about Andrew."
Sam looked hopeful. "You wiped his bottom? Didn't Rosalind do that?"
Foyle squirmed a little. "Well, um. I wiped it a few times. If we were out. At the, um, Gents'…"
Sam raised her eyes to heaven.
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
The Very Thought of You
Music and lyrics by Ray Noble. Bing recorded this in 1934.
The very thought of you and I forget to do
The little ordinary things that everyone ought to do
I'm living in a kind of daydream
I'm happy as a king
And foolish though it may seem
To me that's everything
The mere idea of you, the longing here for you
You'll never know how slow the moments go till I'm near to you
I see your face in every flower
Your eyes in stars above
It's just the thought of you
The very thought of you, my love
Moonlight becomes you
Music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke. Bing sang this in The Road to Morocco in 1942
Moonlight becomes you, it goes with your hair
You certainly know the right thing to wear
Moonlight becomes you, I'm thrilled at the sight
And I could get so romantic tonight
You're all dressed up to go dreaming
Now don't tell me I'm wrong
And what a night to go dreaming
Mind if I tag along?
If I say I love you
I want you to know
It's not just because there's moonlight
Although, moonlight becomes you so
You'll find both on YouTube—no trouble.
More soon.
GiuC