The Camberwell Raid Read online

  ‘Shall I come with you?’ asked Rosie, who had slipped so easily into the atmosphere of home.

  ‘If I need help,’ smiled Boots, ‘I’ll call for all of you.’ Out into the hall he went to come face to face with the visitor, a man as tall as himself, with strong handsome features, intelligent eyes and a distinguished appearance. And Major Armitage, hat in his hand, saw a man of obvious self-assurance with an expression that seemed as whimsical as it was enquiring.

  ‘Mr Adams?’

  ‘I’m Adams, yes,’ said Boots, and shook hands. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’d be obliged if I could talk to you for five minutes or so,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘Come into the study,’ said Boots.

  A study, thought Major Armitage, and the large house itself with its handsome hall. Some sergeants do rise in the world, but not many.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Adams,’ he said, and they entered Mr Finch’s study, often used by Boots.

  ‘Take a seat, Major.’

  ‘I’m on reserve, Mr Adams.’

  So am I, as a lieutenant, thought Boots, but he didn’t say so. They both sat down, and he said, ‘Fire away, Major Armitage.’

  ‘Difficult,’ said Major Armitage with a faint smile.

  ‘Why?’ asked Boots.

  ‘To begin with, it concerns a certain occasion in August, 1914,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘This can’t concern me, surely,’ said Boots.

  ‘It did, subsequently, Mr Adams,’ said Major Armitage, and recounted details of his brief time with a girl called Milly Tooley and its consequences. The recounting had the effect of making Boots tighten his jaw. So here he was at last, the man who had fathered Rosie, the man he had often suspected to be very different from her graceless mother. Rosie had a natural air of definite grace, and all the charm and composure of the well-born. She was undoubtedly her father’s daughter and had never related to her mother in any way. Boots listened in silence to further details, those concerning a visit to Rosie’s grandfather, Mr Tooley of Deptford, which were followed by Major Armitage saying, ‘You’ll understand, Mr Adams, that having discovered I had a daughter, and that you and your wife had adopted her, my immediate wish was to meet you and have you introduce her to me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s understandable,’ said Boots.

  ‘Is it true she’s an undergraduate at Somerville, Mr Adams?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true,’ said Boots.

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘Why remarkable?’ asked Boots, thinking deeply.

  ‘The circumstances of her birth.’

  ‘And the background of her mother? But I daresay not all mothers of undergraduates come out of a top drawer.’

  ‘And I daresay you’re right, Mr Adams. Your son informed me you served in the war. What regiment, may I ask?’

  ‘7th West Kents,’ said Boots.

  ‘Present at the first battle of the Somme,’ said Major Armitage, ‘and distinguished itself in the fierce fight for Trones Wood. May I meet my daughter?’

  ‘And after you’ve met her?’ enquired Boots.

  ‘I’ll be frank, Mr Adams. My hope is that she’ll accept a new life with my wife and me.’ Mrs Armitage, in an unusually sober moment, had promised to quarrel with her bottles of brandy if Rosie came to live with them. Major Armitage did not know if she’d keep that promise, but yes or no, it would make no difference to his own feelings concerning Rosie. ‘Can you understand that too?’

  ‘Easily,’ said Boots, ‘and I suppose you’ll understand the idea won’t have this family’s blessing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t suppose otherwise, Mr Adams, but I hope you’ll allow me to put the proposition to my daughter.’

  Damn the man and his constant references to his daughter, thought Boots. He did not dislike him, he was civilized, and although distinctively military in his looks and bearing, there was no suggestion of arrogance or upper-class superiority. There was, however, the quiet confidence of a man who felt the blood relationship would win the day. He had nothing with which to reproach himself, for he simply hadn’t known about Rosie until now. And the discovery had made him act immediately.

  How would Rosie herself react when introduced to her natural father? What kind of feelings would she have for him? She had never disguised her feelings for her adoptive family, she had always shown uninhibited affection. She cared for all of them. But her natural father, what would meeting him do to her?

  ‘You’re entitled to meet her, Major Armitage, and as for talking to her in the way you want to, I wouldn’t dream of trying to prevent you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Adams.’ Major Armitage smiled. ‘You’re not quite my idea of—’ He checked himself.

  ‘Of a sergeant?’ said Boots. ‘Well, I began life very plainly, but grammar school and the war changed me a little. Now excuse me a moment while I fetch Rosie.’

  ‘Mr Adams, as I’m happy to wait, may I suggest you first tell her who I am and why I’m here.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want her to be unprepared,’ said Boots, and left the study, closing the door behind him. Tim appeared.

  ‘You’ll do, Tim. Would you tell Rosie to come and see me?’

  ‘You’re asking just in time, Dad,’ said Tim. ‘Rosie’s been sitting on the edge of her chair for ages.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Boots, serious of expression for once. Rarely did shocks or surprises do a destructive job on his facade of good-humoured self-assurance, but the arrival of Rosie’s natural father had created a crack or two. ‘Why, Tim?’

  ‘Why?’ said Tim. ‘But you know what Rosie is, Dad. If you’ve got problems, they’re hers as much as yours.’

  ‘Who said I’ve got problems?’ asked Boots.

  ‘Rosie said she’s got a feeling you have. Of course, girls are like that, they’ve got feelings I’ve never heard of. I’ll tell her you want to see her.’

  Rosie came out into the hall a few moments later. Boots was sitting on the stairs.

  ‘Look here, old thing, why are you sitting there, and what’s happening?’ she asked.

  ‘Well might you ask,’ said Boots. ‘Come and join me for a minute or so.’ Rosie, seating herself next to him, saw a strangely rueful look on his face. It immediately worried her. Deeply attached to her adoptive father, and quite sure no-one would ever mean as much to her as he did, she had come to know him as well as she knew herself. She knew that something was disturbing him as much as his expression was disturbing her. Not that he looked stricken or shocked, just strangely rueful, but that was enough for her.

  ‘Daddy?’ These days, because she felt so adult, so grown up, and so close to him, she always wanted to call him Boots, but the old familial word slipped out on a warm and vibrant note. ‘Tell me, what happened between you and your visitor?’

  He gave her a smile. That had its rueful edge too.

  ‘Rosie, brace yourself for a dramatic surprise,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, as long as it’s dramatic and not dreadful, I’m sure I’ll survive,’ she said, and slipped her arm through his.

  ‘Rosie,’ he said gently, ‘the visitor, Major Armitage, is your natural father.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Rosie, stiffening.

  ‘Too much for you all at once, poppet?’ said Boots.

  It took her a little while to answer. Then she said, ‘Give me another moment to recover.’

  ‘It’s knocked you for six?’ said Boots. ‘Yes, I daresay it has, Rosie, but let me point out the staggering coincidence. Only a short time ago I discovered a daughter I fathered during the war, and a few days ago Major Armitage made the same discovery about you. Life, Rosie, always has something up its sleeve just in case we take the status quo too much for granted.’

  Rosie took a deep breath and then said quite calmly, ‘How does Major Armitage know he fathered me?’

  Boots told her the facts of the matter, the facts as detailed by Major Armitage, and finished by saying, ‘I don’t think we can dispute it, Ro
sie love.’

  ‘So, Grandfather Tooley confirmed it?’ said Rosie.

  ‘It seems he confirmed your mother had a child, and it seems he gave Major Armitage your name and address. He felt, I suppose, that Major Armitage was entitled to know something about you.’

  ‘I’m surprised he didn’t phone us,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Yes, I’d have expected him to,’ said Boots, ‘but you’re taking it all very calmly, Rosie.’

  ‘I’m a little dizzy, but otherwise recovered, thank you, ducky,’ said Rosie. ‘Is Major Armitage still here?’

  ‘Yes, in the study, waiting patiently to meet you.’

  ‘Then I must let him, of course,’ said Rosie. ‘But first, you still care for me as your own, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s something you never need to ask,’ said Boots. He could never help his feelings, nor forget the long-ago effect she had had on him when, his blindness cured, he saw for the first time the little girl who had sat on his doorstep with him and been such a shyly eager companion to him during the last months of his disability. Rosie had an unbreakable hold on his affections. ‘But Major Armitage is your natural father.’

  ‘Daddy old love, no-one will ever take your place with me, don’t you know that?’ said Rosie. ‘No-one would ever mean the same to me as you do. Tell me, what is Major Armitage like, and what’s your opinion of him?’

  ‘He’s a very civilized man, Rosie, and I found nothing to dislike about him.’

  ‘Spoken like a diplomat,’ said Rosie. ‘Or a gent, shall we say?’ she added, smiling. ‘What matters most is the simple fact that I was born, that I’m glad I was, and that I came to belong to you and your family. That’s all that’s important, isn’t it? You understand, don’t you, what all these years have meant to me?’

  ‘They’ve meant a great deal, Rosie, to all of us.’

  ‘Well, now I’ll go and meet Major Armitage, this civilized man with nothing to dislike about him.’

  ‘I’ll wait out here,’ said Boots.

  ‘You won’t,’ said Rosie, ‘you’ll come with me. We must stand together. We always have, and we always will. So come on.’

  They walked to the study and entered. Major Armitage might have been pacing about, but wasn’t. He was still seated, but came to his feet at once. He brushed his moustache, his first indication that he wasn’t as calm as he had appeared to be, and then he and Rosie were face to face. Momentarily, he was mesmerized. Rosie was hardly less than a striking young woman in a royal blue dress of simple cut. Frills and flounces had no appeal for her. She dressed in a way that was faultless. He noted that, and the fact that she was quite lovely. God, yes, she was like his sister Beatrice, the beauty of the family.

  Rosie saw a man of handsome and distinguished appearance, with a thick moustache and a military air. She judged him to be over forty, some years older than Boots, who was thirty-eight. She felt no great surge of emotion. He had fathered her, yes, but it was Boots who had given her a home, a family and years of treasured happiness.

  ‘Major Armitage,’ said Boots, ‘this is Rosie, the young lady you wish to meet.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Adams, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to say hello to her,’ said Major Armitage, thinking her superb, and thinking too that she had the same kind of self-assurance as her adoptive father, a man who might have been awkward or hostile, but had been neither. ‘Shall we shake hands, Rosie?’

  ‘Yes, I think we should,’ said Rosie, entirely composed, and he took her hand and lightly pressed it. ‘So you are the gentleman in question,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Well, I’m the man who was deprived by circumstances of knowing you existed,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘Oh, it’s happened to other men,’ said Rosie, thinking of Boots and his brief time with a young French war widow.

  ‘I don’t, of course, excuse myself for my conduct,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘You mean for making love to my mother?’ said Rosie, and it occurred to Boots then that it had been many years since she had mentioned her mother. She had always seemed to regard her as non-existent.

  ‘Yes, I don’t excuse myself for that, or for my irresponsibility,’ said Major Armitage, ‘but you must believe me when I tell you I had no idea of the consequences. I regret very much that I’ve not known about you until now.’

  ‘Please don’t reproach yourself, Major Armitage,’ said Rosie, ‘I’ve no regrets myself, not a single one, about how life developed for me. I’ve been remarkably happy.’

  ‘And you’ve also done remarkably well, Rosie, to have arrived at university,’ said Major Armitage. ‘That gives me great pleasure. You’re very much like my sister Beatrice in looks, do you know that?’

  ‘How could I know?’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve never met her.’

  ‘I should like you to, and I should like to get to know you. Would you care to spend a week at my home while you’re on Easter vacation?’

  ‘How kind,’ said Rosie, ‘but all my time is taken up with my family.’

  ‘Your adoptive family,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘My family,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Well, do think about sparing some time for me,’ he said. ‘You’re an Armitage, you know.’

  Rosie’s smile was polite.

  ‘I’m an Adams,’ she said.

  ‘By adoption, yes, but—’

  ‘By feelings,’ said Rosie.

  ‘But not by blood, Rosie.’ Major Armitage was still as civilized as a man could be under the circumstances.

  ‘Is one more conscious of blood than feelings?’ asked Boots.

  ‘The blood line can’t be set aside, Mr Adams.’

  ‘Neither can feelings,’ said Rosie, ‘nor the sense of knowing where one belongs. I was born to belong to the Adams family, and to me nothing could have been more natural.’

  ‘Well, at least give me the chance to get to know you a little better than I do now,’ said Major Armitage. ‘Come down to Godalming, to my home, even if only for a day to begin with.’

  ‘But what purpose would it serve for you to get to know me a little better?’ asked Rosie, feeling that Boots was right, that there was nothing one could dislike about this man.

  ‘I have a hope that you’ll come to accept you have two families,’ said Major Armitage, ‘your Adams family and mine.’

  ‘Is that feasible?’ asked Boots.

  ‘Do you have sons and daughters of your own, Mr Adams?’

  ‘I’ve a son and another daughter,’ said Boots.

  ‘Another daughter?’ said Major Armitage, with a slight lift of an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, I’ve Eloise as well as Rosie,’ said Boots.

  Major Armitage smiled.

  ‘Yes, I see how you feel,’ he said. ‘However, I’ve no children myself, and you’ll understand how much I’d like to have Rosie under my roof for some of the time during her vacations. Can you spare me a day, Rosie, to begin with? I’ll collect you and also drive you back.’

  ‘What is your home like?’ asked Rosie.

  ‘A large house and a large estate near Godalming.’

  ‘Estate?’ said Rosie. ‘My word, that does sound grand. Is there a farm?’

  ‘Indeed there is.’

  ‘Cows, chickens, horses and so on?’ smiled Rosie.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s famous,’ said Rosie, ‘so yes, I’ll come for a day, as long as I’m allowed to bring my brother and sister with me.’

  ‘Your brother and sister, yes, I see,’ said Major Armitage. ‘It’s a condition that they come with you?’

  ‘It’s an acceptable one, isn’t it?’ said Rosie, and he thought he could not have asked for any child of his to be more impressive of manner, speech and composure.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Mr Adams has my card. Perhaps you’ll phone me to let me know which day suits you.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll give you reasonable notice,’ said Rosie, then spoke to Boots. ‘Shall we offer Major Armitage some refreshments no
w?’

  ‘Thank you, but I won’t stay longer,’ said Major Armitage, ‘I’ve a drive to Godalming in front of me. Let me just say again how delighted I am to have met you, Rosie. Mr Adams?’ He offered his hand. Boots shook it. ‘You’ve been very civilized.’

  Rosie smiled at that, and let Major Armitage shake her own hand, his grip warm and friendly. He made no attempt to kiss her. He said goodbye, and Rosie and Boots both saw him to the front door. Outside in the darkness was a parked car. He put himself into it, switched on the lights, started the engine and drove away.

  Rosie closed the door.

  Chapter Six

  ‘WELL?’ SAID ROSIE.

  ‘All very civilized, would you say?’ said Boots with a smile.

  ‘Well, that seems to be the word of the moment, doesn’t it?’ said Rosie.

  ‘How d’you feel now?’ asked Boots.

  ‘Like a whisky and soda?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Boots.

  ‘May I?’ asked Rosie.

  ‘Has Somerville taught you to drink?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Rosie, ‘you can start me off.’

  ‘With a whisky and soda?’ said Boots.

  ‘Good idea, sweetie,’ said Rosie. ‘I know your company commander, Major Harris, started you off on whisky when you were nineteen and in the trenches. You’ve said so. I’m nineteen myself, nearly twenty. I promise not to get addicted, I’d simply like a pick-up after all that civilized stuff. Come on, old sport, there’s some in the study – Grandpa’s – and we know he won’t mind.’

  Boots led the way back to the study, saying, ‘I’m not sure you’ll like it.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll hold my nose while I drink it,’ said Rosie. She watched while he took a bottle of whisky and two glasses from the study cabinet, then a soda syphon. He seemed quiet and introspective. He chose to have neat whisky himself, but added a good splash of soda to hers. He handed her the glass. ‘Bless you, old sport,’ she said, and took her first ever mouthful of whisky and soda. Her nose wrinkled. ‘Blimey,’ she said, taking off her Uncle Tommy, ‘what’s it made of, any old iron?’

  Boots laughed, and that made her smile.

  ‘Told you,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’ll fight it to a finish,’ she said, and drank more. ‘If it’s good for you, and it always is, it must be good for me. Listen, Boots lovey—’