The Brooklands Girls Read online

  Margaret Dickinson

  The Brooklands Girls

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Read the first chapter of The Poppy Girls

  For all my family and friends for their love, encouragement and help through many years.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As always, this is a work of fiction; the characters and plot line are all created from my imagination and any resemblance to real people is coincidental.

  Once again, I am very grateful to James and Claire Birch, of Doddington Hall near Lincoln, for allowing me to use their beautiful home as the setting and inspiration for this story, and also to the members of their team, who have been so helpful with my research.

  My love and thanks to my nephew, Charles, his wife, Hilary, and my great-nephews, Alex and Matthew, for taking us to Brooklands Museum and for all their help with research there.

  My sincere thanks also to Mike Hodgson, of Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre at Tattershall Thorpe, Lincolnshire, who acted as a guide on one of our coach trips to Belgium. He has so generously shared his knowledge and expertise in answering all my questions, then and since.

  Thank you, too, to my ‘first readers’: my brother, David, my niece, Helen, and my friend, Pauline.

  I wish to give special thanks to my wonderful agent, Darley Anderson, and all his team, to my brilliant editor, Trisha Jackson, and to everyone at Pan Macmillan.

  A great many sources have been used in the research for this novel, most notably We Danced All Night by Barbara Cartland (Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1971); Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson (Viking, 2007); The Great Silence by Juliet Nicolson (John Murray, 2009); Brooklands: The Official Centenary History by David Venables (Haynes, 2007); and Brooklands: Cradle of British Motor Racing and Aviation by Nicholas H. Lancaster (Shire Publications, 2009).

  The Maitland Family

  The Dawson Family

  One

  Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire, July 1919

  ‘I’m bored out of my tiny mind.’

  Robert Maitland watched his sister pace up and down the long drawing room. She was tall and slim and vibrant with auburn hair and bright green eyes. She was strong and determined, if a little wilful at times, but he loved her dearly and wouldn’t change her for the world. Almost three years earlier during the battle of the Somme, her daring had rescued him from no-man’s-land and, though he had lost his right arm, she had undoubtedly saved his life.

  ‘The trouble is, Pips,’ he murmured with a fond smile, ‘you have anything but a tiny mind. Of course you’re bored. There’s nothing for you to do. Not now,’ he added in a whisper.

  The war, in which they had both played such an active part, had been over for seven months and yet only during the last few days had it been formally declared at an end with the signing of the Treaty of Peace at Versailles on 28 June.

  ‘You know, I’m not entirely happy with the terms of this agreement,’ Robert murmured, jabbing his finger at the newspaper lying on the table in front of him.

  ‘Then why don’t you write to Lloyd George and tell him so? I’m sure he’ll listen to you.’

  ‘Less of your sarcasm, sister dear.’ He smiled and then added more seriously, ‘No, I’m concerned at the conditions they’re imposing on Germany. President Wilson had the right idea, but other countries concerned seem to want to exact revenge. And a punitive revenge at that.’

  ‘Understandable, I suppose, when you remember how poor Belgium and France suffered under their occupation. And they are going to be dealing with the aftermath for years to come.’ Pips paused in front of one of the windows overlooking the grounds at the rear of the hall, where the Maitland family lived in the small village of Doddington. ‘Oh Robert, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? If only I’d been allowed to train as a doctor like you, I’d’ve had something to come back to.’

  Robert grimaced. ‘Fat lot of good that did me.’ He touched the stump of his right arm. His brown eyes were dark with regret and his strong chin hardened as he thought – as he did so often – of what might have been; what should have been.

  ‘You could still practise, you know,’ Pips insisted. ‘I really don’t know why you don’t.’

  He sighed. ‘Pips, we’ve been over and over this so many times. I can’t face the pity in people’s eyes – and their doubt that I can do a good job.’

  ‘You don’t have to be a “hands on” doctor.’

  Robert laughed wryly. ‘Impossible, wouldn’t you say? But a GP has to be able to examine his patients.’

  ‘You’ve still got your left hand. You’ve learned to do all sorts with it. Why not that?’

  ‘I’d be afraid of missing something. We’re not talking about my rather untidy left-handed writing, Pips. People’s lives depend on a thorough examination and I wouldn’t be able to do some examinations thoroughly.’

  Pips was thoughtful for a moment, then she nodded. ‘Fair enough, but Father could do any you couldn’t. He’s not ready to retire yet. So much of a doctor’s work is listening to people, diagnosing them or sending them to a specialist. It isn’t all about physical examinations.’

  Robert’s career had been carved out for him; to qualify as a doctor and then to join his father’s general practice in Doddington and the surrounding district. But shortly after he’d qualified, war had been declared and together with a friend from medical school, Giles Kendall, Robert had volunteered to join an independent flying ambulance corps, organized by one of his father’s old friends, Dr John Hazelwood. It was an ambitious and daring plan to go right to the front to treat casualties as quickly as possible. Anxious not to be left behind, Pips had volunteered to go with them, taking her lady’s maid, Alice Dawson, and Alice’s brother William along too. Always near to the fighting, they had all been in constant danger, but only Robert had sustained a permanent injury when risking his own life to save others. The war had put an end to his promising career – or so Robert believed.

  ‘You could go back to nursing,’ he said now, trying to divert the attention from himself back to his sister. ‘Get properly qualified.’

  Now it was Pips who pulled a face. ‘It’d be so tame after – well, you know.’

  He chuckled. ‘So, you want another war, do you?’<
br />
  ‘Of course not. How can you even suggest such a thing?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, at once contrite.

  They exchanged an understanding glance. They had always adored one another and, in recent years, they had been through so much together – seen and dealt with such terrible sights – that now they were even closer, if that were possible. But there had always been an undercurrent of rivalry between them, at least on Pips’s side. She had envied the things her brother had been allowed to do that she had not, just because she had been born to a strait-laced mother, who still held on to her Victorian ideals.

  ‘The war changed Mother’s outlook a lot,’ Pips murmured, smiling gently. ‘I still find it hard to believe that she let me go to the front, but even so I’m sure she wouldn’t approve of me becoming a nurse in peace time. I think – now it’s all over – she expects me to slot back into my place of being a dutiful daughter and find myself a respectable husband.’

  ‘Beautiful though you are, Pips, that is not going to be easy. Most of the “suitable husbands” of your generation are lying in Flanders fields.’

  ‘I know,’ Pips whispered huskily.

  There was a pause between them before Robert said, more briskly, ‘So, what are you going to do, because you need to have something to occupy you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  ‘It’s the silence, Pips, that gets me. I’d thought I’d relish the peace and quiet after the constant sound of gunfire, but I don’t. I feel as if it’s just a lull between the shelling and it’s all going to start again. But it doesn’t.’

  ‘The whole country’s silent – grieving, I suppose. There’s hardly a family in the nation that hasn’t been touched by the loss or injury of loved ones.’

  ‘I expect there’ll be memorials going up all over the country. People will need a focal point for their grief when they couldn’t have a proper funeral. They’ve no sense of closure.’

  ‘And even for those who do have proper graves out there, a lot of their relatives will never be able to visit and, of course, those who were never found – blown to bits or lost in the mud – well, there’s nothing to commemorate them, is there?’

  ‘There should be.’

  Pips watched her brother as he sat gazing out of the window. She wondered if he were seeing the flat Lincolnshire farmland before him or the mud-filled trenches, littered with bodies, the barbed wire and the stretch of land between him and the enemy; no-man’s-land. He was still as handsome as ever with a broad forehead and strong chin, brown hair and eyes. But those eyes that had once sparkled with ready laughter were now dull. Pips longed to be able to help him but, right now, she didn’t know how any more than she knew what to do with her own life. For both of them, after being so needed, a chasm of uselessness lay before them.

  There was silence between them until they heard a scuffling outside the door and a piping voice shouting, ‘Pips? Pips?’

  Pips’s face lit up and her boredom disappeared in a trice.

  ‘I’m here, darling. I’m coming.’ She ran down the length of the room and opened the door to sweep the eighteen-month-old little girl into her arms and swing her round. The child squealed with delight. Then, still carrying her, Pips waltzed back down the room to where Robert was sitting near a window.

  ‘And here’s Papa too.’

  Alice followed her daughter into the room and came towards the three of them, smiling.

  Lady’s maid to Henrietta Maitland and Pips, Alice had accompanied her young mistress to the front to nurse the wounded. Secretly, she had loved her young master for years, but it had only been in the horror of the trenches and after his injury that Robert had come to rely on her totally and had realized that he had fallen in love with her. He could not, he’d declared, face the rest of his life without her. War had swept away the conventions of Victorian and Edwardian society and, although shocked at first, Henrietta had come to love her daughter-in-law. Alice, with her sweet nature, had trodden the rocky path between her former work colleagues and being a member of the family with tact and diplomacy. Now, she was loved by the family and servants alike, and there was no denying that Alice and Pips were the only ones who could handle Robert’s dark moods. Even his father, Dr Edwin Maitland, didn’t know how to reach out to him when the horrific memories of the war clouded Robert’s mind. Strangely, it was the Dawson family – Len Dawson in particular – who still had difficulty accepting that his daughter had married ‘out of her class’, as he put it.

  ‘It’s Aunty Pips, Daisy,’ Alice admonished gently now, but Pips only laughed.

  ‘I don’t care what she calls me,’ Pips said.

  ‘She has the pair of you twisted round her little finger.’ Alice gave a mock sigh. ‘So it’s left to me to administer discipline.’

  ‘Discipline? She doesn’t need any,’ Pips laughed. ‘She’s perfect.’

  Alice pulled a face. ‘Except when her cousin Luke comes to play with her. And Peggy’s bringing him this morning.’

  ‘Yes, he does try to boss her about a bit,’ Pips agreed. ‘I suppose, because he’s two years older, he thinks he’s in charge. But then she retaliates and stands up for herself, even though she’s only little. I’ll watch them, Alice, don’t worry. I’ve nothing else to do.’

  ‘What about me?’ Robert pretended to sulk. ‘What am I going to do?’

  But Alice forestalled him. ‘Your mother wants you downstairs in the parlour. She wants to go over the estate’s accounts with you.’

  Robert grimaced as he pulled himself up. ‘Not my favourite pastime, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. Like Pips, I can’t pretend I’ve anything else to do.’

  Brother and sister exchanged a glance. They were back to the start of their earlier conversation.

  Two

  Doddington lay approximately five miles west of Lincoln. It had one main street and lanes running from it into the surrounding countryside. The hall was a magnificent Elizabethan mansion with an estate of gardens, park and farmland, which provided employment for many of the villagers. Completed in 1600, the house was a symmetrical building, topped by three turrets with leaded cupolas. Its large front windows overlooked the long drive towards St Peter’s church, where the whole village worshipped, were baptized, married and buried.

  ‘Now, you play nicely with Daisy, Luke, and don’t give Miss Pips any trouble,’ Peggy Cooper instructed her son when she brought him to the small room that had been set aside as Daisy’s playroom. Luke grinned up at Pips, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

  Peggy Cooper had given birth to her son when the boy’s father, Harold Dawson, Alice’s brother, had been unable to come home from the front to marry her before he’d been killed on the Somme, leaving the young girl to bring up her child alone. But she was not entirely alone. Although disappointed at first, her family had stood by her and the Dawsons too had supported her. Peggy’s mother, Bess, was a formidable woman, recognized by all as the village gossip, yet beneath her ample bosom beat a heart of gold. Although she had not lost a close family member in the war, her daughter’s unexpected pregnancy had, for a while, become the subject of village gossip. Eventually, though, her friends and neighbours had rallied round and supported the girl, following the example set by Henrietta Maitland.

  ‘Peggy’s not the first nor, sadly, will she be the last to bear an illegitimate child before this dreadful war is over,’ Henrietta Maitland had remarked prophetically at the time and now the girl worked at the hall as a part-time housemaid. Peggy was small in stature, with a sweet face and fair hair, but her blue eyes were always sad. Even when she smiled, the sorrow never quite left them.

  ‘My word, Peggy, that cheeky grin is just like his dad’s,’ Pips said now as she ruffled the boy’s curly brown hair. ‘Right, what are we going to play today? It’s fine enough for us to be outside, if you like.’

  ‘Robin Hood,’ Luke answered promptly. ‘I’m Robin Hood and Daisy’s Little John.’

  ‘And
who am I, then?’

  Luke gave the matter consideration before his grin widened even further as he said, ‘Friar Tuck.’

  Pips roared with laughter and patted her flat stomach. ‘Not quite the right shape, but never mind. We’ll pretend.’ Then she held out a hand to each child. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go and find Sherwood Forest.’

  ‘That’s your orchard, Pips.’

  ‘Miss Pips, Luke,’ Peggy said.

  ‘Right, then,’ Pips said, ‘you’d better show me where we live. Where’s the Sheriff of Nottingham’s castle?’

  ‘The gate house.’

  ‘My word, you have got it all worked out.’

  ‘It’s their favourite game, miss. Luke’s even persuaded Sam to make him a bow and some arrows and a little one for Daisy – though she’s not quite big enough to use it properly yet.’

  ‘Right, off we go. We’ll see you in the kitchen for lunch, Peggy.’

  For all of them now, it was little Daisy who brightened the Maitlands’ lives and who made them all hope and plan for the future, just as Luke carried the ambitions of the Dawson family. Losing three of his four sons to the war, Len Dawson now looked upon Luke as heir to his modest business as village carpenter, wheelwright and blacksmith. The fourth Dawson brother, William, was considered by Len as the black sheep, who had brought shame and disgrace to the family when he’d refused to enlist at the start of the war. Even now, Len would not have his name mentioned in the home. But William had gone with Alice, Pips and Robert to the front to act as a stretcher bearer, thought by many to be just as dangerous an occupation as being a soldier.

  ‘I want to save lives, not take them,’ William had persisted stubbornly. Serving with the flying ambulance corps for the duration of the war, William had fallen in love with a Belgian nurse and had made her country his home. Both Alice and Pips wrote to him regularly and received letters in return. Secretly, they would let William’s mother, Norah, and his grandmother, always known as ‘Ma’, read the letters. But never a word was said to Len.

  Later that afternoon, Pips walked down the lanes from the hall towards the Dawsons’ home, with Daisy in the old wicker baby carriage that had carried both Robert and Pips as infants. Luke skipped along beside her. As they neared the cottage, they could see Ma Dawson sitting outside the front door, smoking her clay pipe and watching the world go by. Even in winter she would spend some time of each day out of doors. Only rain or snow could keep Ma housebound. Somewhere in her mid-eighties, Ma Dawson was considered the matriarch of the village.