Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (20 page)

‘They want to recommend Kate for this place. This place wherever it is that is advertising for girls of singular – singular aptitude. In typing and shorthand. And related skills.'

‘What other skills relate to typewriting or shorthand, I wonder? Scribbling and scratching perhaps? Lifting a telephone receiver? Answering to a summons from the
boss
.'

It was at this point that Kate felt a familiar feeling of panic. It was as if she was being personally stifled by her father's sarcasm, a pillow of facetiousness weighing down on her to the point that, had she not felt so protective of her mother, she could have screamed.

‘I thought, since you were so keen for Kate here to start working, you'd be pleased to hear about this, Harold.' Helen's voice was becoming more not less firm, despite the verbal onslaught. ‘They're so impressed with Kate that they have given her a three star recommendation. To this place I've just mentioned.'

‘And what's the top rating?' Harold wondered mock idly, pointedly keeping his place in the paper with one fingertip while he bestowed a fleeting glance on his wife. ‘Fifty stars perhaps?' He returned to his reading.

‘It will mean Kate having to live away from here of course,' Helen continued. ‘But since you have been so anxious about towns like ours that might be bombed, it may be a good idea.'

Now her husband looked up at her altogether differently.

‘How far away?' he asked. ‘What is this place anyway?'

‘It's somewhere called Eden Park,' Helen replied. ‘I thought you might have heard of it. It's been taken over by some government department or other. And they're very short staffed – short of the right sort of staff I should say. They want girls of exceptional ability. I mean aptitude.'

Harold, teacup still in hand, looked slowly from wife to daughter then back again to his wife, for once interested in something one of them had said to him.

‘Where is this place?'

‘Eden Park, but the location is secret.'

‘Eden Park.' Harold frowned momentarily. ‘Doesn't ring any bells. Eden Park, you say?'

‘All the details are there – in the letter.'

‘I'll read it in a minute. But it sounds like a very good idea. If they want girls like Kate, let 'em have them, I say. And the sooner the better. No, really' – Helen stared at him – ‘let her go. A nice dull job, countryside and so on, sounds just the thing for her.'

He once more returned to his reading, while Kate looked across the room questioningly at her mother, who indicated with a tilt of her head that Kate should follow her out of the room.

‘What's all this about, Mum?' Kate whispered, joining her in the hall with some of the dirty crockery.

‘You want to go away, don't you? So here's your opportunity.'

‘Yes, I know. But I don't want to leave you all alone. If I go away, now that Robert's left for the Navy, you'll be on your own.'

‘You should have thought of that when you
decided to be so clever.' Her mother smiled at her, opening the kitchen door with her back and reversing in with her tray full of crocks. ‘I'll be fine. And from what I gather the work they do at this place, at Eden Park, is pretty important stuff. It's quite near the coast, I think. So it could be interesting.'

‘You sure you'll be all right?'

Helen faced her daughter with a bright, brave look.

‘I'll be better knowing that you're all right. You can't stay here. Your father will have you working for some crummy solicitor. He thinks education is wasted on women – and this from a man as well educated as he is meant to be.'

‘Maybe that's what education does for men, Mother, educates them to despise women,' Kate joked, with a nod towards the dining room.

Helen smiled, and began to offload the dirty crockery into the sink. Kate automatically rolled up her sleeves ready to wash up, but this morning her mother was having none of it.

‘No, off you go and get yourself sorted out,' she said. ‘They want you to start immediately. Now your dad's more or less said yes.'

‘Immediately?'

‘They suggest you take the train there as soon as possible. So off you go and pack. There's nothing more to be said.'

‘Can I see the letter?' Kate wondered, seeing that her mother had rescued it from her father and brought it out to the kitchen with her on the tray.

‘No!' Helen said quickly, trying to snatch the letter back.

It was too late. Kate was already reading it. When she had finished she handed it to her mother with a look of amazement.

‘Supposing Father had read it?' she asked.

‘He wouldn't,' her mother replied quietly. ‘He never takes any notice of anything I say, let alone do. So I thought it was almost a certainty that he would never actually read the letter through. He might have opened it – and if he had he would have seen it was from the secretarial school and left it at that.'

‘But you don't think he would have seen it was about something altogether different?' Kate continued to wonder in amazement. ‘About the fact they might have to relocate because of the threat of war? Nothing to do with Eden or any other park!'

‘It's worth the risk, Kate dear. I'd do anything for you. To let you have your wings.'

Kate shook her head and, after a second or two, hugged her.

‘Wait a minute,' she said, holding Helen back at arm's length. ‘Where did you get all that about this government place? Wanting especially able secretaries et cetera? You didn't make that up, did you?'

‘As a matter of fact, no. That's what started the whole thing off. Someone I know – an old friend, that's all I can tell you – told me about Eden Park, and how they were staffing it up. How they were particularly looking for a certain type of young woman who would be the right sort for the work that goes on there. I can't tell you any more than that. He knows quite a lot about you, although you
don't know him at all. But he's someone who can be absolutely trusted, I promise you.'

She stopped and looked at the door as though they might be being spied on. Wiping her hands on the front of her apron, she went silently over to check. There was no one there.

‘You're never to tell,' she warned her daughter. ‘You're never to say a word to anyone.'

‘But—'

‘No buts either. Now off you go. I said –
off you go
. In case you didn't hear the first time.'

Kate shook her head and hurried away to start packing. The rest of the world was going to war, she thought as she ran up the stairs two at a time, and now, at last, so was she.

Downstairs Helen Maddox opened the kitchen door once more and went back into the dining room. Harold was still reading the newspaper with all the assiduous attention of a man who was going to be needed by the government at any minute.

She looked across at him with a sinking heart. No longer would she have Kate and Robert as fellow refugees from his sarcasm. There would be no one now with whom she could put her feet up and listen to some comedy show on the radio while Harold was off on one of his lecture tours. She glanced down at the newspaper. She might not be able to bring herself to leave Harold, but she could at least help to give Adolf Hitler a bloody nose.

‘Harold.'

‘What now, Helen?'

The weary glance, the tired, bored look to the
eyes, worst of all the vast superiority of manner was once more focused on Helen.

‘Nothing, Harold.'

At that point the telephone in the hall started to ring.

‘Answer the damn thing, would you, Helen? It's sure to be some nonsense for you.'

Helen left the dining room, quietly shutting the door behind her.

‘Hallo,' said a cold female voice. ‘Is that Miss Appleby?'

Helen's heart missed a beat.

‘Yes.'

‘I have a call for you.'

There was a pause, and then a man's voice spoke.

‘Be outside the cinema at eight o'clock tonight. I will be waiting for you.'

At seven thirty Helen, wearing a stylish coat and skirt, her hair brushed up into a pre-war fashionable hat, walked down the road to meet the owner of the voice.

Chapter Eight

Everything had at last been arranged. Marjorie looked at Billy critically, finally leaning forward to straighten his cap despite the fact that it did not need it.

‘There's no need to look so down in the mouth, Billy,' she scolded him. ‘The place we're going to—'

‘I know,' Billy sighed, with an impatient click of his tongue. ‘You told me. It's this place where this friend of Aunt Hester's has people who will look after us, this Mr Ward.'

‘That's right. And it's lovely. You'll really like it. It's called—'

‘I know. Paradise Park. You told me.'

‘Eden
Park,' Marjorie corrected him. ‘The house is pretty big – huge in fact – and old as well. It's set in this great big park, miles from anywhere.'

‘I still don't really understand why we're goin' there, Marge,' Billy complained, moving himself out of range of Marjorie's fussing hands. ‘Other than because we can't go on livin' ‘ere.'

‘Course we can't – not now it's been sold,' Marjorie chided him. ‘So I'd be a bit grateful, if I were you, that we've got somewhere to live at all. Somewhere nice, particularly. I told you – the man
who came to Aunt Hester's funeral tea – he asked me to see it, and I have, and it's really, really nice. Gardens and water, and statues and things, and a nice cottage for you and me.'

‘I know,' Billy sighed. ‘It was this mysterious bloke. The one who said he'd ‘elp you – as if you needed 'elping, bossy-boots.'

‘Stop dropping your aitches, Billy,' Marjorie said, moving in on him to try to straighten his tie. ‘It's become an affectation of yours. You can speak perfectly properly when you want to.'

‘I can dress meself perfectly proper too, thank you,' Billy said, keeping on the move. ‘I don't need forever tidying up. All right?'

‘I'm sure we're going to like it,' Marjorie assured him. ‘They're letting us have this cottage because of you more than anything – and there's a good school in the village.'

‘I won't have any friends.'

‘You'll soon make friends. There are masses of boys like you who are having to go and live somewhere different, who are being evacuated, and they won't know anyone either. So it's not as if you're going to be the only fish in that sea.'

‘And what are you going to do? You're going to work for this bloke, are you? This mystery man?'

‘Not directly, no.' Marjorie picked up her coat and her bag, ready now to leave her aunt's house for the last time. ‘I'm going to be working for someone called Major Folkestone. At least, he's the man in charge of operations.'

‘You make it sound as if you're going to work in an 'ospital, Marge. Operations?'

‘It's what they call the sort of work they do,'
Marjorie said with a dismissive shrug. ‘Now if we're sure we have everything—'

‘I don't want to leave here. I really don't, Marge. I mean it,' Billy said, taking a good look around him.

‘We have to, Billy. You know we have to. Come on – or we'll miss the bus.'

Marjorie went to the front door and opened it, waiting for Billy.

‘Billy?' she called. ‘Billy?'

He was sitting on the sofa when she went back into the living room, with a fixed look in his eyes.

‘What's the matter, Billy?' Marjorie wondered. ‘We really do have to go, you know.'

‘You're not spivvin' me, are you?' Billy said quietly, looking at her with a ferocity she had not seen before. ‘If you're spivvin' me about this, I won't forgive you, Marge, I'm warning you.'

‘I don't know what you mean by spivving, Billy.'

‘If you're tryin' to kid me into doin' somethin'. If you're tellin' me one thing but meaning somethin' altogether different—'

‘Such as?'

‘Such as spivvin' me this yarn about this great house and everythin', when all the time what you're really doin' is sending me back to the Dump.'

Marjorie was so entirely amazed she nearly burst out laughing. Seeing this only angered Billy, and he was on his feet in a second, standing in front of her with tightly clenched fists, eyes narrowed.

‘Well, you'd better not be, Marge,' he warned her. ‘You'd better be telling me the truth. ‘'Cos if you ain't, I'm tellin' you somethin', right? That the
only way you'd get me to go back to that stinkin' dump is dead. You'd 'ave to kill me. I mean it.'

‘Billy.' Marjorie put a hand out to him, but he just shrank away from her. ‘Billy, do you really think I'd do something like that to you? After all we've been through together? You really think I'd lie to you and send you back to that terrible place? What sort of person do you think I am?'

‘Your mum left you at the Dump, my dad left me. Maybe my time's up – the time when you and I can be together – so all you can do is send me back there.'

‘I'm not sending you anywhere, Billy Hendry. I wouldn't desert you ever. No matter what.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Yeah – yes. Look at you, you've got me at it now.'

Marjorie could see that Billy was on the verge of tears, and knew at once that she must be careful or he might just take off, run away, leave, in the firm belief that he was about to be returned to the Dump.

‘Billy,' she said. ‘You and I are friends, as well as being practically related, aren't we? And people like that are not going to let each other down, are they? I promise you, cross my heart, that you and I are going to this place called Eden Park, and we're going to live there together in the cottage just as I've described. I'd never lie to you, Billy. Never.'