Greenway, late
In the night, a child woke and howled. Bridey stumbled out of bed, bleary, not sure where she was, thinking the cry was Evangeline—
Her arms and back were sore, and the bed across, empty. It all came back to her. She had agreed to a war nursery scheme, of all things, and they were highly outnumbered, even with the Arbuthnots’ help. Down the corridor, two children cried. Perhaps Gigi had already gone to see.
But Gigi wasn’t in with the children. After Bridey had changed and rocked both infants and then got one of the little girls to the lav and back in bed, she checked that all the children were in their beds and padded back to the room she shared with Gigi. No one was there.
Bridey crept down the stairs and along the dark corridor with no light under the door to guide her this time, the kitchen dark. She went as quietly as she could into the front of the house, feeling her way. Past the staircase that led to the family quarters and the forbidden sector of the house, a light burned through a wide, arched doorway. Within, a rustle of paper.
Inside, Gigi sat at a writing desk, pen in her fist.
“Can’t you—”
“Bloody hell!” Gigi shouted.
“Sorry,” Bridey said. “Sorry. My word. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“What did you mean to do?” Gigi said.
“Find where you’d gone.” They were in a comfortable room, a library, perhaps. There were cases across the lower portion of the walls, all stuffed with books. Bridey felt like a child in her bare feet and nightgown when she realized Gigi was still fully dressed, blouse and skirt. She had let her hair down, though, long and black. “Are you going somewhere?”
“No.”
“Only you’re dressed for going out.”
“I’m dressed for changing into my sleeping clothes. In a moment.”
Bridey looked around. “I think this might be one of the rooms we’re not allowed.”
“Every room of this house is a room we’re not allowed. Didn’t you hear?”
“It was never going to be a holiday, was it?” Bridey said. “Are you writing home already?”
Gigi set down the pen and folded the piece of paper in front of her. “Letting them know where I’ve turned up.”
Bridey wished she had listened better to them talking of possible destinations. “Did Mrs. Arbuthnot ever say where precisely? Greenway. What is that? Where are we?”
“The front door of the Nazi invasion.”
Bridey felt the rush of memory, dust from the site of their house in her throat. “They’d never take us somewhere truly unsafe.”
“They have. They’ve brought us an arm’s throw to the Channel.”
“How do you know that?”
“Weren’t you listening? ‘This close to the coast,’ he said. ‘A view of Dartmouth.’”
“I don’t know my geography,” Bridey said. “I’ve never been far from . . . home.”
Gigi watched her. “Who’s keeping you so close to home, then? Tom, was it?”
“How do you—oh. No one.”
“Not your fella?”
“No,” Bridey said. “He comes around a bit.”
“That sounds like he’s your man.”
“He’s—”
“What?”
Bridey shrugged. “It’s awful to say and he’s handsome in his uniform but . . .”
“Doesn’t set off the sirens? In your knickers?”
“Gigi!”
“Is he at the front?”
“He’s in an office somewhere—always stopped by and told the most tedious stories. His kind of war maneuvers. Nearly missed correspondence, lost files . . .”
“The misadventure of bad penmanship?” Gigi said.
“That’s it,” Bridey said, smiling. “All rather dire, in terms of romance.”
“An office in London? He might be at the heart of it. Is he in Westminster?”
“Tom?” She stifled a wide yawn.
“Gad, does that clock say two in the morning?” Gigi stood, tucking the letter into her blouse sleeve. Bridey had never seen that before. What else could one secret away, literally up a sleeve? A handkerchief for little noses. “We should get to bed,” Gigi said. “Do you not sleep well?”
“One of the children woke me. We’ll have to take turns.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. They do require some attention, don’t they?”
Bridey stared at her. “Have you never been around children?”
“Not properly. Not . . . this young. Not at all, if I’m honest. What do we—well, what do we do with them, exactly?”
“Do?”
“I meant tomorrow’s schedule. Have you given it a thought?”
“Well,” Bridey said. “First we’ll get them in and out of the lav, then dressed and brushed and fed.” This part came easily, but she’d rather been hoping the other nurse would take on some of the management. What was expected? How quickly might they scrape the bottom of her training? “We should do a check for nits first thing or we might all suffer for it later. We might find a tape measure and do some measurements, if Mrs. Arbuthnot needs to report progress. We’ll need to perform gas mask drills regularly—”
“Mercy,” Gigi said. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“—but then beyond that, I suppose we’ll have to entertain them.”
“Entertain them?” Gigi said. “We’re expected to amuse them?”
“It’s a job, isn’t it? Away from red skies and nightly raids?” She hoped.
“Do you mean . . . teach them? Their letters and that?”
“They’re too young. We’ll only need to keep them from trouble and harm. And then, if there’s harm, that’s where your nursing comes in. Our nursing, I mean.”
“I see.”
“Didn’t Mrs. Arbuthnot tell you it was young children we were caring for?” Bridey said.
“She must have done. Perhaps I didn’t listen well enough.” Gigi smiled down at the desk.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was rather a rotten child,” she said. “I can’t help thinking this is a joke played on me.”
Bridey didn’t see what was funny. “My feet are cold. I’m going back to bed, and so should you before one of the children starts calling for us again. Or the Scaldwells or this mistress we’ve heard so much about finds you where you don’t belong.”
Gigi snapped off the light at the desk. In the dark, she moved across the room. “She’s interesting.”
“She didn’t see you?” Bridey said. The first night, and they’d broken the rules. She would never get Mrs. Arbuthnot’s good favor.
“All this mistress this and that,” Gigi said. She passed close by Bridey, stirring up a draft that gave Bridey a chill. Someone stepping on a grave, that’s what her mam would have said. “Mrs. M. But it’s the strangest thing . . .”
“What?”
Gigi stopped at the foot of the stairs reserved for the family. There was just enough light to see Gigi’s head cocked back at the library. “Didn’t you see all the books in that room?”
“What about them? Some like books.”
“I like books, in fact. But every one of those books is about murder.”