The party in the church hall was only a qualified success. The village children all turned up, seduced by the promise of roast chestnuts and jammy buns. Marjorie Bellinger produced the buns and Avril raided her stock of home-made blackberry jam to go inside. The evacuees were brought along by their host families and the two groups stood on either side of the hall eyeing each other up.
‘It’s like when we were youngsters going to the village dance,’ Janet Tewson said to Sally Prynne. ‘Remember how we used to be one side of the hall, watching the lads on the other?’
Sally laughed. ‘I remember you trying to catch the eye of your Frank,’ she said.
Janet laughed too. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘caught more than his eye, didn’t I?’ She beckoned her twins over. ‘Dick, Chris, you look after our Polly, she’s your little sister now, remember.’
Dick pulled a face, but Chris went across to Polly who was hiding among the other children from St Michael’s. He grabbed her by the hand and said, ‘Mum says you’re to come with us.’ Polly started to cry and he said angrily, ‘What you making that din for? I was going to get you a hot chestnut and a bun.’
‘Don’t like hot chestnuts,’ wailed Polly, who had never had one.
‘Bet you like jammy buns though,’ persisted Chris. ‘Come on, Polly-dolly. Mum says come over and have a bun.’
Gradually, the two groups began to mix. Dr Masters was doing a roaring trade with his hot chestnuts and once the London children had tasted them they were back for more.
‘I thought you had hot-chestnut men in the streets of London,’ Nancy said to Caroline.
‘Used to and probably will again,’ answered Caroline, ‘but just now the streets of London are not what they used to be. The older kids might remember, but some of these are only five or six.’
Caroline was watching Charlotte quite carefully. She had decided to stay another night before returning to London and not simply because her old friend, Henry Masters, had asked her round for supper, but because she was genuinely worried about Charlotte and her placement. Avril had been accosted before the morning meeting by Edith Everard, demanding to know why she hadn’t been told that her charge was a German.
Avril, a little thrown by the vehemence of her question, said, ‘We’re not sure she is. But does it really matter?’ She was about to say, ‘She’s a child that needs a loving home, isn’t that what you were offering?’ when Miss Everard interrupted.
‘It matters to me,’ she said. ‘We’re at war with the Germans... for the second time in twenty years!’
‘I’m well aware of that, Miss Everard, but we aren’t at war with Charlotte Smith.’
At that moment Caroline looked across the room and seeing the expression on Miss Everard’s face realised that Avril was having problems, so she walked over to join the two women.
‘Everything all right, Avril?’ she asked cheerfully.
‘I’m afraid we shall have to move Charlotte. Miss Everard doesn’t want her and—’
‘I didn’t say I didn’t want her,’ snapped Miss Everard. ‘I simply said it would have been a courtesy to tell me in advance that the child was German. I’m perfectly happy to give her a home, but I think you should have warned me.’
‘I apologise if you think I misled you, Miss Everard,’ said Avril, keeping a tight rein on her temper, ‘it was entirely unintentional; but now we have to be sure that she’s in a home where she’s welcome.’
‘Well, she is,’ insisted Miss Everard, ‘and I want her to stay.’ Perversely, she found it was indeed so. She had come to complain about the situation, but as soon as the vicar’s wife said she was removing Charlotte from her care, Miss Edie discovered she wanted her to stay. ‘I’m happy to have the girl,’ she said, now furiously back-pedalling, ‘it’s the lack of courtesy, the lack of communication, that I was complaining about.’
‘Very well, if you’re sure,’ Avril agreed, biting her tongue to remain civil, ‘but if you change your mind at any time, or if things ever become difficult, please tell me at once and I shall move her in with us at the vicarage.’
‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ Miss Everard said stiffly, adding, ‘Is there anything else I ought to know about her?’
‘She doesn’t like small spaces, doesn’t like being shut in. She will go into a shelter if she has to, provided she feels she can get out in a hurry, so we usually sit her near the door.’
Miss Everard nodded. ‘I’ll remember,’ she said, and turning, stalked away.
‘I hope we’ve made the right decision,’ Avril said to her sister. ‘It’s not going to be easy for the child.’
‘She’s tougher than you think,’ Caroline assured her. ‘Don’t know what her past is, but it’s clear it hasn’t been easy and she’s come through it all.’
‘What was all that about?’ Nancy Bright had seen the confrontation and had wandered over to discover what was going on.
‘It’s just that we think Charlotte Smith is probably half German, or possibly a German refugee, and Miss Everard is up in arms because we didn’t tell her so.’
‘You’ve fostered a German girl with Edith Everard?’ Nancy stared at Avril in disbelief.
‘Well, why not?’ Avril was disconcerted by Nancy’s incredulity.
‘She lost her fiancé at the very end of the Great War and it turned her peculiar. She’s never forgiven the Germans for killing him. She’s lived alone since her parents died and quite frankly I think she’s a bit potty.’
‘Good gracious,’ cried Avril, ‘why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
‘Well, I’m not one to gossip,’ Nancy replied, perfectly straight-faced, ‘but I’d have assumed you knew. Anyway, I didn’t know that Edie had offered to take in a vaccie and I didn’t know the child was German.’
‘We don’t know she is,’ cried Avril in frustration. ‘We don’t know who she is and nor does she, poor kid. God, I wish we’d just made room for her at the vicarage.’
‘Leave her for now,’ Caro advised. ‘She’s been moved from pillar to post enough; but keep a strict eye on her.’
After the meeting Edith and Charlotte had left together and later, both had come back for the party. As soon as she got there, Charlotte sought out Clare who had already devoured one bun and was licking every last speck of jam from her fingers.
‘Hey, Charlotte, you should have one of these. They’re ever so good.’
Charlotte and Clare discussed the homes where they had been billeted. Clare, now living with Mr and Mrs Prynne and their daughter, Sandra, was fairly philosophical.
‘Could be worse,’ she said. ‘We listened to the wireless last night. Sandra’s not coming to school with us yet. She’s not eleven till the spring.’
‘At least you got a proper family to live with. I only got Miss Edie,’ Charlotte said.
‘Is that what you call her?’ asked Clare, intrigued. ‘Miss Edie? Bit of a mouthful, ain’t it?’
‘What do you call yours?’ Charlotte asked.
‘She said to call her Ma, like Sandra and Mr Prynne both do. Easy that.’
‘What d’you think this school will be like?’ wondered Charlotte. ‘We got to go on the bus and have our dinner there.’
‘Be all right,’ Clare said. ‘I like school.’
Suddenly there was the sound of a bell and Mr Hampton moved into the middle of the room.
‘Right, you lot,’ he said. ‘We’re going to play some games now. Miss Mason’s going to play the piano and you can all play musical bumps.’
Miss Mason settled herself at the piano and began to play. The older children looked on with disdain as the younger ones rushed into the middle to join in. Charlotte and Clare watched. They wouldn’t have minded joining in, especially when the winner was given a twist of liquorice, but by then it was too late.
It was cold outside, but it didn’t stop them going out to run races across the village green. Mr Hampton, Dr Masters and the vicar put them all into teams, being careful not only to mix up the St Michael’s children with the Wynsdown ones, but to mix girls with boys. They had laid out a track, marked with bean bags, and for half an hour the noise on the green was raucous as the children screamed their team-mates home in relay races, three-legged races and lastly, a sack race.
Charlotte found herself in a team with Teddy Baker and little Valerie Dawson from St Michael’s. Another older boy from the village was chosen as the team leader. His name was Billy Shepherd. He was tall and muscular with fair, curly hair and deep-set blue eyes. He looked round his team and, seeing little Val standing to one side, went across and bending down to her said, ‘Hallo. Who are you?’ Val cowered away from him and Charlotte said, ‘That’s Val. She’s only five. She doesn’t know who you are.’
‘I’m Billy Shepherd and I live at Charing Farm on the hill. Who are you?’
For the first time since she had left the hospital Charlotte did not say she didn’t know. Looking up into Billy’s wide friendly face she answered, ‘Charlotte Smith. I come from St Michael’s.’
‘I know that,’ he said. ‘I been watching you.’
Charlotte looked startled. ‘Have you? Why do you watch me?’
‘Don’t know,’ Billy replied, scratching his head. ‘Liked the look of you, I suppose.’
Somehow an unacknowledged link had been forged. Billy organised his team carefully, making sure everyone was included. When little Valerie Dawson was running in the relay race, he encouraged her with raucous cheers, and when Charlotte was tied to a local girl, Emmy Gripton, to run three-legged, he led the applause when they won.
However, when the races were over and the last of the liquorice awarded, the children quickly returned to their two groups, locals on one side of the hall and evacuees on the other; each group eyeing the other with suspicion.
‘They’ll soon sort themselves out,’ Michael Hampton assured Caroline Morrison when she commented on this. ‘Children are very tribal, you know, but they’ll soon shake down together. See that child over there?’ He pointed to a small red-haired boy standing with the village children. ‘That’s Sidney Morgan. He and his twin, Stephen, came with the first batch of evacuees, but, as you can see, he regards himself as a local now.’
As the evening drew in and the chill of the November day slipped towards freezing, the villagers gathered up their families and new charges and hurried home to the warmth of their own firesides.
Miss Edie set the usual brisk pace as she and Charlotte left the village green and it wasn’t long before they were back at Blackdown House with Miss Edie again attacking the recalcitrant stove.
‘I’ll put the pie in the oven,’ Miss Edie said. ‘I pulled some leeks earlier, why don’t you clean and chop those?’
‘Please, Miss Edie, what’s leeks?’
Miss Edie seemed about to snap out an answer, when she thought better of it and said, ‘Here, I’ll show you.’ She reached into a bucket at the back door and pulled out a bundle of leeks, mud clinging to their roots. She banged them against the side of the bucket to get the worst off and then put them on the draining board.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘watch.’ With the sweep of a sharp knife she cut one lengthways and showed Charlotte how to clean out any mud from inside, rinsing the leek clean in the sink before chopping it into rings. She passed the knife over and returned her attention to the cottage pie. Charlotte picked up a leek and was soon chopping and cleaning as if she’d done it all her life. When she’d finished Miss Edie handed her some carrots. Charlotte didn’t need lessons in peeling carrots, she simply picked up the knife and began to pare away the skin.
‘Well,’ said Miss Edie, ‘you’ve obviously done that before. Perhaps you used to help your mother in the kitchen.’
Charlotte was about to say ‘I don’t know,’ but Miss Edie interrupted her. ‘I know you don’t think you know, but it’s snippets like these that will help you remember. You’ve made your bed, you’ve washed the dishes, you’ve helped lay the table. Clearly you’ve done this at home.’
‘Yes,’ Charlotte agreed slowly, ‘yes, you must be right.’
Supper was a much easier meal than the night before. Now she had got over her shock about Charlotte’s probable nationality, Miss Edie found that she was intrigued by the girl. Clearly she didn’t remember anything about her family, but she did certain things as a matter of course. Certainly she was intelligent; she spoke two languages. And she was courageous, too, confronting her, Miss Edie, this morning, taking the initiative and threatening to leave when she realised that she was unwanted. It was probably this show of courage and determination that had changed Miss Edie’s mind; she had indeed been going to demand that Avril Swanson take the girl back, but on the point of losing her, she suddenly realised that she wanted her to stay.
Monday morning saw the older children waiting on the village green for the school bus. Charlotte stood with Clare and the four other St Michael’s children, a separate group from the locals. Charlotte recognised some of the children who had been in her team at the party, but none of them seemed to notice her. When the bus rumbled round the corner it already carried a few children. The Wynsdown children clambered aboard, the locals loudly confident, St Michael’s almost silent and apprehensive.
The journey was noisy, with children from another village added to the load and when they arrived at school the children poured out of the bus and into the school yard, leaving the newcomers standing outside.
‘Come on,’ said Malcolm Flint, taking charge, ‘we’d better go in.’
It wasn’t easy, but once they’d been allocated to classes and the actual school day started, they began to find their feet. Charlotte, Clare and Molly were in the same class, so at least they had each other, staying together when they went out at break times and at dinner time. Their class teacher, Miss Davis, spoke to each one, taking down her name and address to pass on to the school secretary. When she came to Charlotte, Charlotte simply said, ‘Charlotte Smith, Blackdown House, Wynsdown.’
The trouble began the next morning, waiting outside the Magpie. As the bus drew to a halt, one of the village boys, Tommy Gurney, shoved Fred Moore aside as he tried to get on to the bus and said, ‘Vaccies go last.’ Fred, in the same class as Tommy, had been taunted with ‘Vaccie’ all the previous day and now he’d had enough. He smashed his fist into Tommy’s face and Tommy found himself on the ground, blood streaming from his nose. Immediately, Tommy’s mates turned on Fred and there was a free-for-all. Sam, the bus driver, clambered out of his cab and came round to try and sort it out, but by this time fists were flying in all directions, the village boys being cheered on by their sisters. Jack Barrett, landlord of the Magpie, saw what was happening and he and his wife, Mabel, stormed out of the pub and into the fray. Mabel, a large woman whose strong arms were used to hefting barrels, grabbed hold of the girls who were standing, watching in horror, and pushed them on to the bus.
‘You kids get on the bus and stay there,’ she ordered before turning back to grasp two of the younger boys.
Once Jack had managed to pull Fred off Tommy and hold them apart and Sam had collared Malcolm, who’d immediately gone to Fred’s aid, the fight fizzled out.
‘On the bus, sharpish!’ roared Sam, still holding Malcolm in a vice-like grip. The other boys, encouraged by cuffs from Mabel, scrambled on to the bus and only then did the two men release the three boys. Tommy’s nose was still bleeding and Mabel stuffed her handkerchief into his hand.
‘Here,’ she said gruffly, ‘mop yourself up.’
‘You,’ Sam said to Malcom, ‘you sit on the seat behind me.’ He turned to Tommy. ‘You go to the back, and you, troublemaker,’ he pointed an accusing finger at Fred, ‘get in there, next to her,’ and he pushed Fred into the spare seat next to Molly. Then he got back into the driving seat. ‘I don’t want to hear a sound from you lot,’ he bellowed down the bus, ‘or swelpme God, I’ll put you out in the road.’
‘It was the vaccie what started it,’ said a girl’s voice from somewhere near the back of the bus.
Sam glared in her direction and said, ‘One more word...’ before he let in the clutch and the bus moved off.
News of the Wynsdown fight spread like wildfire round the school. All those concerned were called into the headmaster’s office and all returned, chastened, to their classrooms. Notes were sent home to the parents of the three main protagonists, and they were dealt with there as well.
Peter Bellinger listened to Fred and Malcolm’s side of the story before he gave them both a severe warning about the beating they would get if they started any more fights. He and Marjorie had a sneaking sympathy for the boys, whom, they realised, had been ganged up on, but they were determined to nip such behaviour in the bud before it got out of hand. Fred and Malcolm accepted their warning without a word. They both knew that they had a very good billet at the manor and neither of them wanted to risk losing it.
Tommy Gurney’s dad, Bert, a labourer at Charing Farm, said, ‘Well, you got a bloody nose for it and serve you right. Make sure you win next time, boy. Don’t want them vaccies to get too big for their boots, do we?’
For the next few days there was a stand-off outside the pub as they waited for the bus to arrive, but there were no further scuffles. As the weeks went by, Malcolm was discovered to be a first-class footballer and the Wynsdown children were very proud of him when he made the school team. Fred, who was no mean footballer either, lived in his reflected glory. A sort of wary truce existed between the vaccies and the local children. They met about the village at weekends and the boys joined the scouts. Sid Slater, a bachelor farmer who lived with his mother on a smallholding just outside the village fence, was the scout master, and every Thursday evening they met in the church hall. Once the evacuee boys had been integrated into the troop and worked together on various projects round the village, the antagonism between the groups almost disappeared. The odd shout of ‘Vaccie!’ was sometimes heard across the village green, but all the children gradually shook down together. If there was any rivalry with the kids from another village, there was no doubt that the Wynsdown children were united in the defence of their own.
Charlotte got used to living with Miss Edie. There was little warmth between them, but neither was there any further animosity. On the days when Miss Edie was working down in Cheddar, Charlotte often went home after school with Clare, to the Prynnes. She liked going there and playing in the kitchen with Sandra and Clare. Ma Prynne was very easygoing and though housework wasn’t high on her list of priorities she kept a warm and comfortable home. Compared with the chilly, immaculately tidy Blackdown House, it had a welcoming warmth. When Miss Edie came home on the evening bus, she knocked on the Prynnes’ door and Charlotte joined her for the dark walk home.
In the evenings they sat together in the kitchen, Charlotte doing her homework at the kitchen table, Miss Edie reading gardening books, doing the mending or altering clothes.
‘We should make some for you,’ she said, one Saturday afternoon when Charlotte had finished her homework and was sewing a button back on to her winter coat. ‘I think there’s a box of my mother’s in the attic. There might be things in that which we could adapt for you. Let’s go and see.’
They both put down their sewing and trooped upstairs to the third bedroom. Miss Edie unlocked the door and together they went in.
Charlotte looked round her with interest. She’d never been in here and had always wondered why it had to be kept locked. As far as she could see there was nothing of value in the room, simply a bed, and a few other sticks of furniture, nothing worth locking the door for. In one corner she noticed a small triangular door tucked into the slope of the eaves. Miss Edie crossed the room and bent to open it. The door was stiff and it took several sharp jerks to pull it open. She knelt down and shone her torch inside.
‘This is the attic,’ she said, over her shoulder. ‘All my parents’ things are in here.’ She crawled through the door and disappeared. Charlotte, approaching the door, put her head through. Beyond was the roof space, about five foot high on one side, sloping sharply to the eaves on the other. Stacked against a central wall were suitcases and boxes. Some of these had labels stuck to their sides and by the light of Miss Edie’s torch, Charlotte could see a box labelled, Mother’s Shoes and another marked Winter Clothes and yet another Father’s Suit.
Miss Edie grasped the handle of the one labelled Winter Clothes and said, ‘This one looks hopeful. Come and help me pull it out and we can take it downstairs into the warm.’
For a moment Charlotte hesitated, then taking a deep breath as she’d learned to do going into St Michael’s air raid shelter, she crawled through the little door and into the attic space beyond. There was no room to stand up and she stayed on her hands and knees, breathing deeply.
‘Here we are,’ called Miss Edie from behind a pile of boxes. ‘Just come over here and get hold of this handle with me. It seems to have got caught on something.’ Together they manoeuvred boxes to release the suitcase, but it wasn’t the case that came free, it was the boxes, crashing down around Charlotte, knocking her sideways and trapping her under the eaves. Miss Edie’s torch was knocked from her hand and clattering to the floor, went out.
Miss Edie swore under her breath but Charlotte began to sob.
‘Are you all right, Charlotte?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Let me out! Let me out!’ Charlotte cried, her voice rising in panic. ‘I can’t get out. Let me out!’ Miss Edie struggled to extricate herself from the pile of boxes and then began to pull them away, pushing them out through the attic door into the bedroom. The faded light of the winter’s afternoon coming through the bedroom window was enough to see by and she managed to clamber out herself, pulling more boxes and the suitcase out behind her. She crawled back in, now able to get to the boxes that were trapping Charlotte into the space under the eaves and pull them away. Needing more light, Miss Edie felt round for the fallen torch, but when she did find it, it refused to light and she shook it in frustration.
She could hear the girl sobbing and she called out to her, ‘It’s all right, Charlotte, it’s all right, I’m coming. Don’t panic, I’m coming to get you out. You’re all right.’
Was the child hurt in some way? she wondered as she wrestled her way through the accumulated junk to reach her. The attic space was larger than she remembered, running the length of the house. Where had all this stuff come from? When her parents had died, she had simply boxed everything up and shoved it in, stacking it against the chimney breast. Where had the rest come from?
At last she managed to clear a space and could see through to where Charlotte was stuck. With only the light through the open door to aid her, she could see little more than the girl’s face, but she continued to move things out of the way and at last managed to clear a pathway. She lay down on her stomach and reached her hand through.
‘You’re all right, you’re all right,’ she soothed. ‘I’m here now and you can get out. Take my hand.’ At first Charlotte seemed not to hear, then suddenly Miss Edie found her hand gripped so tightly that her fingers were crushed.
‘Well done, good girl, see if you can turn round a bit and slide out backwards. Easy does it. Good girl, nearly there.’ As she continued to encourage the child, she felt her shifting under the sloping roof, her head almost touching the rafters. The further she squirmed back the higher the roof was over her head, the more room she had to move.
‘Come towards the light, Charlotte,’ Miss Edie said, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘That’s the way, good girl, I’ve got you.’ She backed out through the door into the bedroom, almost dragging Charlotte behind her. Once they were both safely back in the bedroom she flopped on to the floor, gathering the girl into her arms and hugging her close. For a moment Charlotte remained rigid and then she seemed to relax, her body soft against Miss Edie’s rather angular one, and for a long moment they rested on the bedroom floor in silence. Then Charlotte pulled away, rubbing her tear-streaked face with her hand.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, ashamed of her panic.
‘It doesn’t matter. Go in the bathroom and wash your face,’ suggested Miss Edie, gently, ‘and then we’ll go back downstairs and have some tea.’
When Charlotte got to her feet and went into the bathroom, Miss Edie continued to sit on the floor. She longed for Charlotte to be back beside her, to feel the warmth of her body against her own. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged anyone at all, certainly not her parents, they weren’t the hugging sort. Herbert, then. She hadn’t held anyone in her arms since Herbert had held her in his and kissed her goodbye. They had stood on the platform at Temple Meads station in a world of their own as they waited for the train. Others were also saying goodbye, but Edie, with the engagement ring newly on her finger, was entirely unaware of them. Herbert was returning to France and every moment spent with him was precious. People might have frowned at them, kissing in public, but they didn’t care, and they held each other tight until the train steamed into the station. Dearest Herbert, it was all so long ago.
She heard the lavatory flush and got stiffly to her feet. All round her were the boxes and cases she’d dragged from the attic in her efforts to release Charlotte. The whole room was a mess and for the first time, Miss Edie, who had a place for everything and everything in its place, didn’t care. She picked up the case marked Winter Clothes and closed the door.