Alice's Girls Read Online Free Page A

his tracks when she told him.
    ‘But you can’t!’ he said, staring at her in astonishment. ‘It’s against everything you believe in! Everything you’ve taught me to believe in!’
    ‘I think I was wrong, Chris! And I think, until recently, I rather went along with what my family feels about the war instead of working it out for myself. But so many awful things have happened! Poor Chrissie getting killed! Andreis shooting himself because of what the Nazis are doing to the Jews! And you! Look what it’s done to you! We have to stop them, Chris! We have to!’ He began walking on, away from her, leaving her standing. After a beat she hurried after him, caught up with him and they moved on, side by side and in silence, along the mossy path.
    ‘I’d thought you might come with me to live in the woodman’s cottage,’ he said, eventually. It had been decided that, when discharged from the hospital, Christopher would spend some time working in his father’s woodlands. There had been some discussion regarding the wisdom of this. The woodman’s cottage was primitive, isolated and near derelict, but he had been determined and his father’s reservations had been overruled. ‘I’d thought we could work together and be together and …’
    ‘Just shut our eyes and ears to what is happening in this war? I can’t do that anymore, Chris!’
    ‘So you don’t want to be with me?’ he said flatly, and she couldn’t meet his eyes because she knew that what she would see there was a side of Christopher that disturbed her. She had not cared for the brash, young man she had first encountered, but when, almost unrecognisable under three weeks’ growth of beard, his hair tangled, his clothes fouled, his wrists cuffed as he was manhandled into amilitary police van, her temper had flared and she had shouted at his captors and tried to pull them away from him, when no one else had made any attempt to defend him.
    Their relationship, in those early weeks of his breakdown, had subtly shifted. While she had become strong and supportive, he had grown needy and reliant. She had, in fact, pitied him and he, much later, had recognised this and reluctantly accepted the fact that it made him unattractive to her. They had parted, remaining curiously aware of one another, encountering each other only occasionally and unsatisfactorily. It was Alice Todd who sensed that there was something significant between the two of them, and she who remained Georgina’s confidante even after the girl had left the hostel, acting as a sort of go-between, observing Christopher’s recovery and Georgina’s experiences in the ATA. She wisely avoided giving direct advice and had considered her words very carefully when she responded to what they told her of their lives and their feelings.
    Over recent months Alice had seen little of either of them but, shortly before Christmas, on the night of Margery Brewster’s party, Alice had urged Roger Bayliss to try to persuade his son to spend Christmas Day at home with him at the higher farm, rather than alone in the isolated cottage. She had insisted that they drove, on the spur of the moment and through wind and rain, up into the forest to fetch him. As they approached the cottage they had found the track blocked by a fallen tree and been surprised to discover that Christopher already had a visitor. Someone who had arrived on a motorcycle, which Alice immediately recognised as the one which Georgina often borrowed from her brother. Guessing, correctly, that Christopher and Georgina were alone together in the cottage, Alice had dissuaded Roger from interrupting his son’s evening.
    At Lower Post Stone, Rose, having crossed the yard to take several telephone calls from Georgina’s worried father, expected and received an honest account of the night’s events from Alice.
    ‘They need to work things out between them,’ she told Rose, who was flushed with excitement. ‘We must respect their privacy. I’m sure