The Bannister Girls Read Online Free PDF

unhappy when you awake alone. I have to leave very early, and you and I found something too beautiful last night to spoil with tears and good-byes. When these anxious days are over I promise youwe will meet again. We have a special date at a certain window.
    Yours always, Jacques.’
    Angel pressed the note to her lips, feeling the tears start to her eyes. Then just as quickly, a burning anger swept through her. How dare he do this! How dare he treat her as if she were weak enough to fall apart at having to say goodbye? She was no longer a child. Women said good-bye to their men every day of the year in wartime…
    Angel realised to her shame that she had never even thought of it before. It hadn’t touched her own life until now.
    War was something that was happening in France, except for the nuisance of the air raids and the restrictions on lighting, and the forebodings of food shortages and the like … and she thought it slightly comic that even her pompous brother-in-law Stanley spoke vaguely about taking up an army commission.
    Apart from that, her mother held knitting afternoons for the soldiers and her father complained, and said grimly that it was bound to get worse before it got better, the logic of which Angel found completely incomprehensible. The war hadn’t affected Angel Bannister at all – until now.
    â€˜You bastard, Jacques de Ville!’
    She spoke aloud through her pain, partly because it helped to use the forbidden word, and partly because it relieved her anguish at the thought that he had run out on her. Was she stronger than he, after all, because she had been able to face this parting and he hadn’t?
    If such thoughts had occurred to her at all during the hours she had spent in his arms, it was only with a feeling of pride at giving her man a talisman to take to war.
    In leaving her alone, Jacques had managed to shatter all such noble ideals. Instead, she felt cheap – as cheap as Dolly Dilkes, who had undoubtedly spent the night with Reg Porter. The comparison didn’t make Angel any happier.
    Despite Jacques’ note, which hinted of a shared future, she was ashamed of just being here, in a room which would probably make her mother faint with horror.
    A sudden rapping on the door made her jump with alarm, and sent her heart racing. She snatched up the bedcover and pulled it round herself. She inched open the door to see the face of a maid outside, armed with clean sheets. The woman’s eyes seemed to see all that had gone on in the room last night, and Angel had never felt so humiliated.
    â€˜The gent from this room paid up yesterday, and I’ve got to clean the room, Miss.’
    Her voice implied that she’d seen this situation too many times to feel shock, but could still feel superior to the little tarts who went back to a serviceman’s room for a night’s pleasure and a few shillings payment. Angel’s cheeks burned.
    â€˜I’ll be leaving soon,’ she said stiffly. ‘Didn’t my – husband mention that I would be staying a little later?’
    The woman grinned, her eyes roaming past Angel’s agonised face, to the expensive clothes on the chair. She shrugged. It took all sorts, and just because a girl wore flash clothes it didn’t mean she couldn’t open her legs to a good-looking man. And that tall dark bloke with the funny little accent had been handsome enough to make all the young hotel maids look twice.
    â€˜No, your
husband
didn’t, Miss. I’ll be back in half an hour then. The room’s needed again, see?’
    â€˜I’ll be gone by then,’ Angel snapped, and slammed the door in the woman’s face.
    She stared at it tremblingly for several seconds. She was demoralised by that woman. She felt like a whore.
    She flinched from the very sound of the word in her head, dressing as fast as she could. Her hands were so clammy they refused to fasten buttons, and she couldn’t