THE BOMBING CONTINUED through the night. Great whumps that made the earth tremble paired with the bangs of the Royal Air Force fighting the bombers in the sky and the bone-rattling boom of the massive anti-aircraft guns distributed throughout London. The all-clear did not come until five the next morning.
Several people managed to sleep, their snores evident in the quiet breaks from explosions and gunfire, but Emma and Margaret did not sleep a wink, emerging from the shelter gritty-eyed and heavy with exhaustion.
Still, they were the lucky ones.
The East End had been struck again, the poor souls. For hours, bombers had been emptying the bellies of their planes onto the already battered section of London.
If hundreds had died before, many hundreds more had surely followed.
Back at the boardinghouse, Emma helped twist Margaret’s half-curled hair into a simple chignon and Margaret artfully applied cosmetics to Emma’s face, so she didn’t look as thoroughly knackered as she felt. After finishing a bracing cup of tea—as bracing as one could have on the ration—the two of them entered the Booklover’s Library looking presentable.
Mostly presentable, at least.
The manageress greeted them with her mouth set in a hard line. “In light of the recent bombings, it has been determined London is not safe for you at present.” She pulled an envelope from behind the counter. “Here are your train tickets for your return to...” Her eyes flicked toward the tickets. “Nottingham.”
They didn’t have to be told twice. After packing their suitcases, they arrived at a very busy train station with what appeared to be most of London trying to flee the beleaguered city.
“The last time I saw a station this crowded was at Christmas when Olivia was at Aunt Bess’s.” Emma cast an anxious glance at Margaret.
They waited and waited, grabbing some tea and some nearly inedible margarine sandwiches before they could finally board the train. As they chugged out of the station, the now familiar note of caution from the air raid siren wailed after them. Margaret’s face was cast in a strange pallor by the blue blackout lights of the interior, but Emma could still read the panic written plainly there.
The train wound its way from the city, following the immensely visible tracks cut into the English landscape. An ideal target for a well-timed bomb.
However, exhaustion and the lulling sway of the train won out over their fear, and both women woke with a start sometime later, realizing they were back in Nottingham.
Emma was disappointed upon her midnight arrival home to find there were no letters from Olivia. Granted, only a little more than a week had passed since her daughter went to Chester, and the post was dreadfully slow.
The rest of the mail forgotten, Emma leaned back on the counter. How had that bombing in Nottingham only been a week ago?
The tranquility of the flat, the wonderful comfort of having Olivia at her side—how had it all been within her grasp so recently?
At work the following day, Margaret showed up, looking her usual lovely self. Healthy, bright-eyed, and slim, exactly as her Bile Beans promised.
Irene greeted them both with grave concern. “You were in London during the bombing. Were you actually near the area that was hit?”
Emma and Margaret shared a look.
“You were, weren’t you? Oh!” Irene clapped a hand over her chest. “Were you terribly frightened?”
“Terribly terrified,” Margaret amended.
“Those poor people in the East End.” Emma shuddered. “We are grateful to be home.”
“It wasn’t only the East End last night.” Margaret pulled a newspaper from where it lay on the counter. “Apparently two hospitals were targeted as well.”
Miss Crane approached. “You need to be working,” she hissed.
“These two nearly died in London,” Irene protested, her drawn-on brows lifting.
“And yet here they stand in good repair.” Miss Crane jerked her head. “Off with the lot of you.”
“She’s in a mood,” Margaret muttered as the other woman strode off.
“I found a misshelved book when you were gone.” Irene winced. “It wasn’t me as I’d only just come in that day, meaning it could only have been Miss Crane. She’s been in a state ever since.”
Margaret caught Emma’s eye and smirked.
“Hopefully I’m absolved of some culpability now at least,” Emma said, and Margaret gave an indelicate snort of laughter before returning to work.
Though being back at the Nottingham location was a relief, fatigue dragged at Emma through her shift and the whole way home until she wanted nothing more than to teeter into bed to sleep for an eternity.
But upon her arrival, Mrs. Pickering stopped her, an envelope in her hand. “I have a very special letter for you from Olivia. I tried to telephone you at the boardinghouse in London this morning, but they said you’d already left. Heavens, what the attacks must have been like.” She caught Emma in a rose-scented hug and handed her the envelope. “Enjoy the letter and have a good rest, eh?”
Emma thanked her and headed up the stairs with renewed vigor. When the door closed behind her, she sank into a chair at the dining room table and slid the envelope open.
A pained exhale eased from her as she read.
Olivia was not happy.
No matter how much she pretended to be Anne at Green Gables, she found her grandparents to be “like two hard Marillas who never soften.” Emma sighed. She’d found them to be precisely the same way. Any hope she had that they might be warmer to Olivia fluttered away, like moths rising from an old chest.
At least with this letter, Emma noted fewer grammatical and spelling errors. Olivia’s grasp of vocabulary was stronger, with once unknown words now used correctly as she articulated the depth of her feelings.
Emma did smile at that, at the influence of books on her daughter.
But the request to return home could not be granted. Not after what Emma witnessed in London, not when such horrors could just as easily befall Nottingham.
Painful though it was, Emma responded back to Olivia explaining she must remain with her grandparents until England was safe again.
But when might that ever be?
The days slid by in the blurred way they did when Olivia was not there. Time passed in an endless whirl of trains carrying soldiers by the canteen at Victoria Station and with the influx of patrons visiting the Booklover’s Library, now that people were scared into their homes at night.
Emma entered the Bespoke Room to find Irene bent over a box of books, her shoulders trembling. These days, everyone needed a moment to themselves from time to time.
Emma stepped back, intending to let her friend grieve in private, when she accidentally knocked into a shelf. A precariously resting book toppled, landing with an audible smack.
Irene snapped upright and spun around. “Emma?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” Emma hesitated, unsure if she ought to leave or stay and offer comfort. “Are you all right?”
Of course Irene wasn’t all right. She wouldn’t be crying if she was. Why was that question the usual knee-jerk reaction when someone was clearly upset?
“It’s just...all those children...” Irene wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief with the initials TU embroidered on it.
Emma froze. “Those...children...?”
“The SS City of Benares, have you heard? All those children being sent to Canada to be safe?” Irene sniffed and swiped under her lashes to clear her tears and spare her cosmetics. “My cousin said she almost put her daughter on that ship, but decided against it at the last minute, thank heavens...”
Emma had heard of the SS City of Benares. Didn’t every mother read about the ships carting kids to Canada and wish for just a moment that their children could be sent to the far off country—where they would be entirely safe from Hitler’s grasp? After all, he couldn’t take over the entire world.
Could he?
“What happened to the ship?” Emma asked.
“It was attacked by a U-boat.” Irene’s eyes were wide, her lashes spiked with tears. “Almost all the children were killed.”
Emma’s thoughts reeled, imagining the parents. They had made the sacrifice to send their children to another continent, knowing months—possibly years—would pass until they would see their babies again. And they’d done it to keep them safe.
Only to have them murdered en route by a German U-boat.
Emma pressed her palm over her chest, as if the pressure could quell the pain radiating there for those poor parents.
“I know.” Irene rested her hand against the front of her green overalls. “It hurts me every time I think of it.”
The door creaked open and Margaret swept into the room. She looked first to Irene, then Emma. “Good heavens. What’s happened?”
Before they could reply, the door opened once more and Miss Crane shoved into the room. “Was there a meeting I was not aware of?”
Irene shrank back slightly, indicating how well Miss Crane’s attempt at friendship was going.
“We were just having a chat is all,” Margaret answered smoothly.
But her charm only made Miss Crane glower. “Do you not have any integrity? Holing up in here like a knitting circle rather than being out on the floor to aid our patrons in their book selections?”
Her tyranny had gone on long enough.
Emma took a step toward Miss Crane. “We have plenty of integrity. And while I appreciate the lending library is of grave concern to you, there is so much more going on in the world than just this little corner of our existence.”
Miss Crane drew back as if she’d been slapped. “You would think that. You have your daughter distracting you. You have the canteen to draw you from your work. You have so many moving pieces in your life.” She glared around at them. “You all do. Families and children and friends and volunteer work.”
“You could volunteer with us,” Irene offered cautiously.
“Return to your duties or I’ll have Miss Bainbridge in here.” With that, Miss Crane shoved out the door, leaving a resonating silence in her wake.
It wasn’t until Miss Crane’s tirade that the missing pieces of figuring the other woman out finally fell into place. Miss Crane was not simply being mean. She was jealous.
Dreadfully so.
And that was a far, far more complicated emotion to handle.