Picture the scene now, that autumn morning in 1940, as the train which carries Marjorie and Chloe approaches Ulden. Grace is waiting at the station with her father who is uncrowned king of the village, a princess dressed like a prince, in trousers and sweater, contrary to her mother’s spoken request, but in accordance with her mother’s deepest wishes. Her mother wanted a boy.
Chug-chug, puff-puff, across the flat fields. It’s like a scene from Toy Town. The day is hot, and calm, and blue. There’s panic in London, but not here. War clouds may be lowering somewhere over to the South East, but here they’re nicely silver-lined with protected farm prices and agricultural subsidies. Full employment in the area at last, laying run-ways for Spitfires on Ulden Common. And out of that cloud, clear into the sunshine, comes the train with two coaches. Its white smoke drifts prettily over the fields, where they’re taking out the daffodil bulbs and laying down potatoes.
Inside the Toy Town train, the picture is not so pretty. The coaches (all that could be spared) are crowded with terrified, weeping, rioting, vomiting and excreting children. There are no WCs. The floors are aswill. These are the evacuees from London. They have been briskly labelled and sent off for their own safety, out of the way of Hitler’s bombs. Many haven’t been able to say good-bye to their parents, most don’t know what’s happening to them. Quite a few would certainly rather be dead than here.
Little Chloe, of course, sits well-behaved and upright amidst the uproar, with her hand firmly in her mother Gwyneth’s. Mothers are clearly a precious commodity on this particular train. And as for Gwyneth, she is feeling quite faint with distress. She is surrounded by misery and filth and deprived of her usual tools for coping – water, soap, bucket, and cloth.
Moreover, being on this train by accident, having mistaken Platform 7 for Platform 8, Gwyneth has been separated from two trunks in which are all her worldly possessions, neatly packed, folded, and interlarded with tissue. What now most preoccupies her is that in the elasticated silk pocket of the smaller trunk, along with the birth certificate and the careful roll of her husband’s tiny landscapes, is his medical record card. This she stole from the hospital where he died, and this she is always fearful will be discovered by someone in authority and used as evidence of her crime. All the same, she has not been able to bring herself to destroy it. Now she wishes she had. Supposing the trunk is searched, the card found, and herself sent to prison? What will happen to Chloe?
What will happen to Chloe? It has been the theme song of Gwyneth’s life for the past ten years.
Gwyneth resolves to destroy the card the minute the trunk reaches the Rose and Crown. She is starting a new life as barmaid and general domestic help, in return for board and lodging for herself and Chloe, and five shillings a week pocket money.
It is as well Gwyneth is so fond of cleaning, for being a widow with a child, this is the direction in which her future clearly lies.