Jenny's War (10 page)

But when Miles himself opened the front door to the ringing doorbell, Mr Tomkins was smiling. ‘They’ve agreed to a temporary trial, Mr Thornton and – if it works and their inspectors are happy with the arrangements – then they’ll allow it to carry on.’

‘Let’s go and find Jenny,’ Miles said happily, leading the way up to the nursery. ‘Come along, Mr Tomkins.’

Jenny was sitting on the floor playing a noisy game of Snap with Charlotte. As the two men entered the nursery, the girl glanced up, saw Mr Tomkins and scrambled to her feet, ready to run. But Miles held out his hands. ‘Don’t worry, Jenny. You’re not going to have to go to that school again.’ His smile widened. ‘School is coming to you. Here.’

The girl was puzzled and glanced from one to the other. Then her face cleared. ‘You mean I’m to be like a toff’s kid and have a governess?’

Miles laughed. ‘Not exactly. We hadn’t thought of that, had we, Charlotte? No, what’s going to happen is this. The school is very overcrowded because of all the children who came here at the same time as you.’ Another batch of evacuees had arrived only two days after Jenny and to accommodate all the children, both locals and the evacuees, the school had to divide the day. Some children – the younger ones – attended in the mornings, the older ones in the afternoon. ‘And because we’ve plenty of room here,’ Miles went on, ‘we’re going to hold classes here. A teacher will come and everyone will have their lunch here.’ His smile widened. ‘Mrs Beddows will be in her element cooking for so many.’

‘Will it just be us vaccies?’

‘That I can’t say,’ Mr Tomkins put in. ‘It depends how the head teacher decides to divide the children up. I’m guessing they’ll send children of a similar age, so it would be locals as well.’

Jenny grimaced and hung her head. Charlotte touched her shoulder and said softly, ‘But Miles and I will be around to see there’s no bullying or name-calling.’

‘Will they be sending one of the teachers from the school?’ Miles asked Mr Tomkins.

Mr Tomkins shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’

Jenny’s head shot up. ‘Miss Chisholm could come back.’

Now no one answered, unable to find the words to explain to the child that her teacher was needed in London. Already, there was talk of the evacuees going home because the expected bombing attacks had not started.

Miles and Charlotte threw themselves into the preparations.

‘We’ll use the dining room as their classroom and they can have their lunch served there too,’ Miles suggested.

‘I think it would be better for Mrs Beddows and Kitty if they were to eat in the kitchen. Not so much fetching and carrying.’

‘Wouldn’t they be in Mrs Beddows’s way?’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘She says not. We’ve talked about the possibility already and she plans to move the big kitchen table a little. They’ll all be able to sit around that and then she’ll have a smaller one to work on.’

‘Well, if she’s sure. It would be easier than the children having to clear away their books at lunchtime every day, I grant you.’

With Wilkins’s help, although not, it seemed from the anxious expression on his face, with his complete approval, a blackboard and easel was set up at one end of the room and places set around Charlotte’s long dining table. Books were brought from the school, but Miles went into the nearby town of Lynthorpe and bought a stack of writing paper, drawing paper, pencils and crayons. He bought storybooks and he and Wilkins moved a small bookcase from Miles’s own study into the dining room for the children to use. Jenny watched in wonderment. She’d never met a man like Miles Thornton, nor a woman like Charlotte either, if it came to that. She couldn’t believe they were going to so much trouble to help other people, strangers in their midst.

On the Sunday evening before lessons were due to start at the manor the following morning, Miles took Jenny’s hand and led her into the dining room with Charlotte following.

‘Now, I need your help, Jenny,’ he said. ‘Have we missed anything? Is there something – anything – you’ll need that we’ve forgotten?’

Jenny walked all round the table, looking at the place settings, six down each side of the table and one at the end, with the teacher’s place at the head. Exercise books and writing paper were neatly stacked and a storybook was set beside each place. Jenny ran her finger along the gleaming polished mahogany surface of the table. She looked up at Miles with worried eyes. ‘What if they scratch your table? They – they might even carve their names. Some of our lot might—’

To the young girl’s surprise, Miles was chuckling. ‘Just like I did when I was at school.’ He laughed even louder as he added, ‘But no one will get the cane here like I did. Don’t worry, Jenny. A table’s just a table. Your happiness – and those of your fellow evacuees – is far more important than any old table.’

Jenny was still running her fingers gently up and down the surface. ‘But it’s lovely. It shines so.’ She breathed in. ‘And it smells so nice.’

‘Kitty’s been giving it an extra polish.’

Jenny glanced at Charlotte. Maybe Miles didn’t mind about his table, but his wife might. But she was smiling too.

‘I’ll watch ’em,’ Jenny promised.

The next morning, twelve children arrived at the manor just before nine o’clock. Most of them were evacuees, but there were one or two locals too.

‘Hello, Alfie,’ Charlotte greeted one of the boys. She turned to Jenny. ‘Jenny, this is Alfie Norton. He lives in one of the cottages on the way to Buckthorn Farm. Do you remember me telling you that Mr and Mrs Norton and their three children lived there?’

Jenny had been to Buckthorn Farm with Charlotte once. It was where Charlotte’s father, Osbert Crawford, lived on his own with only a housekeeper and her husband to help him. And no wonder, Jenny had thought. Who’d want to live with that grumpy old man? She could hardly believe that such a horrible man was Charlotte’s father.

‘Alfie’s father,’ Charlotte was explaining, ‘manages Buckthorn Farm now.’

Alfie grinned. ‘That’s what you say, miss, but we all know it’s still you what runs things. Me dad only does what you tell him, he’d be the first to say that.’

‘Now, now, Alfie, I couldn’t manage without your father.’

‘You did for years, miss, so me grandad ses when he was your foreman.’ Alfie grinned at Jenny. ‘As good as any man at running a farm was Miss Charlotte. That’s what me grandad always ses.’

‘Who’s your grandad?’ Jenny asked.

‘Mr Warren at Purslane Farm. He’s Mester Thornton’s tenant now, but he used to live in the cottage where we live and he worked for Miss Charlotte when she ran Buckthorn Farm afore she got married.’

‘That’s where Billy is,’ Jenny smiled, ‘at Purslane Farm. And Frankie. They really like your grandad and your grandma. Is Billy coming here for lessons? Oh I do hope so . . .’

Her wish was answered immediately as she looked beyond the front door to see Billy helping Frankie down from the back of a farm cart, driven by the very man they’d been talking about – Joe Warren. He climbed down and came up the front steps, pulling his cap off his head as he did so.

‘’Morning, Miss Charlotte. Hello, Alfie lad. You coming here an’ all? We’ve brought Billy and Frankie. Teacher thought it best. Little lad gets teased because of his leg iron and then Billy sticks up for him and it ends up in a fight.’

‘We’ll watch out for them both, Joe,’ Charlotte promised. ‘Don’t you worry.’

‘Oh, I won’t. Not now they’re both here with you. I heard as how they’ll all be staying here for dinner, miss, is that right?’ When Charlotte nodded, Joe added, ‘Then I’ll fetch ’em home in the cart about four.’

‘Perfect, Joe, though I think Mr Thornton wants to play games on the lawn with them after school when it’s fine. You know, let them run some of their energy off and get a bit of fresh air too. So make it half past, would you?’

Joe’s face sobered. ‘Frankie won’t be able to play with them.’

‘No, I realize that, but I can always be on hand to do something with him. Read or play cards or board games or do a jigsaw – whatever he wants to do.’

Joe’s face cleared and he pulled on his cap, nodded to them all and went back down the steps to his horse and cart.

At first the new arrivals were nervous and subdued. Even the locals, who knew Miles and Charlotte Thornton, were in awe of being in the ‘squire’s house’. But that afternoon when the teacher, Miss Parker, ended lessons for the day, Miles was waiting in the hall with a football in his hand.

‘Now,’ he said, raising his voice as the children tumbled out of the dining room in their haste to end the school day. As they saw Miles, they stopped and huddled together, shuffling their feet. Were they in trouble? They glanced at each other, wondering what they had done wrong during the day. But Miles was smiling.

‘Now, if any of you don’t have to get home immediately – by that I mean, as long as your mothers or the people you’re staying with won’t worry where you are – how about a game of football on the front lawn?’

The hall echoed with the shouts of ‘Yes, yes,’ and twelve of the thirteen children ran out of the front door, down the steps and capered about on the lawn whilst Charlotte appeared with an armful of books and games.

‘We’ll go into the morning room, Frankie. What would you like us to do?’

The boy’s face brightened and he limped after Charlotte as Miles began to follow the children outside. But as he moved to the front door, Miles saw his manservant, Wilkins, lurking near the stairs.

‘Would you like to act as linesman, Wilkins?’

The dour, strait-laced man who’d been trained as a butler and valet looked horror-struck as if his employer had asked him to jump naked into the cold North Sea. ‘I – er – um – would rather not, sir. If you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all, Wilkins. Perhaps you could bring out some of Mrs Beddows’s home-made lemonade at half-time. We’ll play for about fifteen minutes each way. So in about a quarter of an hour . . . ?’

Wilkins, manfully hiding his disapproval, gave a little bow and murmured, ‘Very good, sir.’

But down in the kitchen Wilkins gave vent to his feelings. ‘Well, I’ve seen it all now. Scruffy little urchins sitting round the dining table and running riot through the house. And now the garden’s going to be a muddy football pitch in no time. I’ve never seen the like in all my born days, I haven’t.’

‘Now just you listen to me, Mr Wilkins.’ Mrs Beddows waved her wooden spoon at him. ‘Ever since this war started you’ve been moaning because you’re too old to volunteer. We’ve told you and told you to join the local volunteers for some sort of war work—’

‘Air raid precautions warden,’ Wilkins murmured. ‘That’s what I was thinking of doing.’

‘Yes, that, but you reckon you can’t do that because the master needs you here at his beck and call, even though he’s told you it’s fine with him for you to join. But no, you know best. But you’re still feeling guilty because you’re not “doing your bit”, aren’t you?’ Wilkins opened his mouth but Mrs Beddows was not about to let him get a word in. ‘Well, this is the way we can all do our bit. Look after these poor bairns who’ve been sent miles from their homes into the hands of strangers. They had no idea where they were going – I expect half of them still don’t know exactly where they are – and probably their parents don’t know either.’

Now Wilkins was staring at her and when at last she paused for breath, he said hesitantly, ‘So – so you think this is worthwhile war work?’

‘Of course it is, you silly man. The authorities thought it necessary to send these children to safety and if we’re that “safety”, then it’s our duty and our privilege’ – again the wooden spoon was waved in the air – ‘to look after them. They’re the next generation, Mr Wilkins. They’re the future and we’ve got to make sure it’s not under Hitler’s jackboot. And if it means a bit of mud on the floor and a scratch or two on the dining table, then it’s a small price to pay.’ Her voice dropped and she lifted the corner of her apron to her eye. ‘And if you can’t think of any other good reason, then do it for Master Georgie. Just think of him flying up there over the Channel in his plane.’

Solemnly and somewhat abashed, Wilkins murmured, ‘You’re right, Mrs Beddows. And thank you. Now,’ he went on briskly, squaring his shoulders, ‘Mr Thornton wants some of your home-made lemonade for everyone at half-time.’

Mrs Beddows beamed.

For the first few weeks of the war – indeed for the first few months – nothing much seemed to be happening. Several evacuees went home. Parents, missing their children and heartened by the lack of the expected bombing, sent for them. The numbers at the temporary school dwindled and now there were only nine children coming each day to the manor. Once more, Mr Tomkins rode up the drive on his bicycle.

‘The head says they could manage at the school now, if you’d prefer it.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ Miles said shortly. ‘Jenny is settling nicely now. We’re not getting so many tantrums and she smiles now more than she frowns.’

‘She looks a different child, Mr Thornton. You’ve done wonders. You and Mrs Thornton. When I think about the short time she was with us – when the Miss Listers sent her back—’ He shuddered. ‘My poor Mabel didn’t know how to handle her either.’

Miles said nothing, but he was thinking plenty. How could people be so hard-hearted? Could they really not see beyond the outward dirty appearance to the small, frightened little girl who obviously didn’t have much of a home life to start with? Obviously not, he thought grimly. But he smiled at Mr Tomkins.

‘Well, she’s much better now and I don’t want anything to disrupt that.’

‘You do realize that if her mother sends for her to go back home,’ Mr Tomkins explained carefully, ‘we’ll have no choice but to—’

‘We’ll worry about that when it happens. In the meantime, I want the children to carry on having their lessons here. I’ll even pay their teacher out of my own pocket, if it means—’

‘Oh, that won’t be necessary, I can assure you. The head would actually be very grateful if the arrangement could continue, but she felt it only fair to let you know that—’

‘Quite,’ Miles said tersely. ‘But please tell her we enjoy having them here. Besides, we’ve got Christmas coming up and the children are getting excited about everything we’ve got planned for the end of term.’