Jenny's War (14 page)

‘Is her mother here, then?’

Mary pursed her lips and shook her head.

‘So, I haven’t got a dad and Charlotte hasn’t got a mum.’

Mary Morgan didn’t answer but concentrated on beating margarine and sugar together until it was a thick, smooth cream.

Jenny watched for a moment and then asked, ‘What happened to her mum? Did she die?’

‘I – you’d better ask Miss Charlotte about that, love.’

‘Don’t you know?’ The candid blue eyes stared at Mary.

‘Well – er – yes, but it’s not my place to be gossiping.’

‘Oh!’ There was a pause and then, ‘Why do you call her
Miss
Charlotte?’ Jenny had noticed that a lot of people called her that instead of the expected ‘Mrs Thornton’.

Mary laughed with relief as the child’s attention turned to an easier question. ‘I’ve always called her that and old habits die hard.’

At that moment, Charlotte appeared back in the kitchen. ‘Better in health than temper, as usual,’ she laughed, sharing the joke with Mary. Then she held out her hand to Jenny. ‘Let’s go outside and see if Alfie’s around. Maybe he’ll play with you while I have a talk to Eddie.’ As Jenny scrambled down from her chair and took Charlotte’s hand, she said politely, ‘Thank you for the scones, Mrs Morgan. They were lovely.’

‘You’re welcome. Come and see us again soon, won’t you?’

Outside, they turned towards the outbuilding that had been converted years earlier into a farm office. As they entered, the man sitting behind the desk looked up and smiled. ‘Miss Charlotte, just the person I need to speak to. Can you spare a few minutes?’ His glance flickered to Jenny. ‘Hello, there, Jenny. Alfie’s cleaning out the hen house, if you want to go and find him.’ He glanced at Charlotte. ‘Alfie helps out now and again.’

Charlotte raised her eyebrows. ‘You mean he
works
here? On Buckthorn Farm?’

‘Yes. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘Of course I don’t mind, Eddie. But I haven’t seen his name on the wages’ sheets.’

Eddie Norton laughed. ‘Oh, I don’t pay him.’

Quite seriously, Charlotte said, ‘Then you should. Or rather, we should.’

Eddie smiled. ‘Well, if you’re sure. He’s a big lad now and he is very useful about the place.’

‘Then all the more reason for him to have a wage.’

‘But your father—’

‘Never mind my father. What the eye doesn’t see . . .’ The words were lost on the young girl, but Charlotte and Eddie exchanged a look of understanding, of conspiracy almost. ‘Does he want to go into farming when he leaves school?’

‘I think he’d like to do what Master Ben did. Go to agricultural college.’ Eddie grinned ruefully. ‘He’s the clever one of the family.’ His voice was only a whisper as he added. ‘Must tek after his dad.’

‘Now, now, Eddie,’ Charlotte said quietly and, again, another look of a shared secret passed between them.

Eddie shuffled the papers on his desk and stood up. ‘Off you go, then, young ’un. Alfie’ll show you around Miss Charlotte’s farm.’

Jenny twisted her head to look up at Charlotte. ‘Is this
your
farm? I thought it was your dad’s.’

Before Charlotte could answer, Eddie said, ‘Miss Charlotte’s been running Buckthorn Farm since she was not much older than you.’

Jenny’s mouth dropped open as Charlotte began to laugh. ‘There you go, exaggerating again, Eddie. I was a bit older than ten.’

‘Eleven,’ Jenny put in. ‘I was eleven last week.’

Charlotte stared down at her. ‘It was your birthday? Last week?’

Jenny nodded.

‘Oh Jen, why didn’t you say? We would have had a party.’

The girl blinked. ‘A party? For – for me?’

‘Of course. A birthday party. Miles is going to be so upset we didn’t know. And Mrs Beddows too. She’d have made you a cake.’

‘Mum always gets cross if I remind her that my birthday’s coming up,’ Jenny said in a small voice. ‘She says it looks as if I’m asking for presents.’

‘We’d never think that of you.’ Charlotte squeezed her hand. ‘Tell you what, we’ll still have that party and you can invite all your friends.’

‘Right,’ Eddie said with a broad wink at Jenny. ‘A quick look around the farm and then I’ll find you some eggs and butter to take back to Mrs Beddows if she’s going to be busy baking a birthday cake.’

As they walked home, Jenny asked tentatively, ‘Charlotte, you know I’ve got a mum but I haven’t got a dad. Not a real dad.’ Charlotte waited, wondering what was coming. ‘Well, you’ve got a dad, but – but you haven’t got a mum, have you?’

There was a short silence until Charlotte said softly, ‘I have. She lives in Lincoln. I go there sometimes to see her.’

‘Oh, is that where you go when you’re away for a whole day and Miles fetches you home from the station just before dinner?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why don’t your mum and dad live together? Did they fall out.’

For a moment Charlotte’s face was bleak. ‘Yes. A long time ago. I was only small. I think my father blamed my mother because I wasn’t the son he wanted and he was unkind to her. So she – she went away.’

Jenny was thoughtful for a moment before she said, with a child’s frankness, ‘You can’t blame her then, can you?’ With her curiosity satisfied, she skipped ahead to tell Miles about the promised belated birthday party, leaving Charlotte staring after her and murmuring, ‘No, I don’t suppose you can.’

As Charlotte had predicted, Miles was mortified when he heard that they’d missed Jenny’s birthday. ‘And not a card or a letter from her mother –
again
,’ he muttered angrily.

‘We’ll make up for it,’ Charlotte tried to placate him. ‘We’ll give her the best birthday party she’s ever had.’

But Miles was not to be comforted. ‘From what she says, it’ll be the
only
party she’s ever had.’

‘Well, maybe it’s the first, but as long as she’s with us,’ Charlotte said, ‘it’ll not be the last.’

It wasn’t quite the right thing to say for the bleak look on Miles’s face told her that her words had reminded him that Jenny wasn’t theirs and that one day she would have to go back home.

‘Will Georgie be able to come home for my party?’ Jenny asked, and then, as if afraid she might offend them if they were not included, added, ‘And Philip and Ben too?’

‘I don’t think Philip and Ben will be able to come home; they’ve only just gone. But I’ll telephone Georgie’s camp and see if I can speak to him.’

Jenny’s eyes widened. ‘’Ave you got a telephone?’

Miles smiled. ‘Yes, it’s in my study. Why, is there anyone you’d like to telephone?’

Jenny was thoughtful and Miles waited, fully expecting that she would say she’d like to speak to her mother, but instead she said, ‘Could we telephone Mr Tomkins and see if he’s heard where Bobby is yet?’

‘Of course we can.’

But Mr Tomkins still had no idea where the other children had gone. ‘But I’ll keep trying,’ he promised Miles.

Two days later, the day before the party, Mr Tomkins rode up the drive on his bicycle.

‘I’ve found out at last that they went further north. Somewhere in north Lincolnshire, but I understand that they’ve gone home – back to London. I think they went back before Christmas. As you know, the expected bombing never happened.’

Miles held his breath. He was sure now that Jenny would say, ‘Then I want to go home too.’ But instead, she just looked anxious and her voice trembled as she looked up at him and asked, ‘Have I got to go back too?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ he reassured her swiftly, relief flooding through him that she didn’t seem to want to go. ‘You can stay with us as long as you want to, but I’m sorry we can’t invite your friends to your party.’ The girl shrugged no longer too upset now that she’d been told she could stay at the manor.

The party was a huge success; the table was loaded with all the food that children love. Mary Morgan had contributed and she and her husband, Edward, who was Mr Crawford’s manservant at Buckthorn Farm, came to help. Mary was welcomed into the kitchen by a flustered Mrs Beddows and Wilkins looked as if he was about to hug Edward Morgan. ‘Am I glad to see you! Having them here for lessons is bad enough, but they’re going to go wild at a party.’

But Wilkins’s doleful predictions were unfounded. True, there was a lot of noise, shouting and laughter as they played the various party games and, outside on the lawn, they ran riot. But sitting around the dining table, instead of the kitchen table, they were all remarkably well behaved.

As Miles, Charlotte and Jenny stood on the steps to wave them goodbye, Jenny sighed with happiness. ‘Thank you for my lovely party,’ she murmured. ‘I just wish Georgie could have been here too.’ But when she felt Charlotte squeeze her hand and Miles touch her shoulder, though neither of them said a word, the child knew they were both feeling exactly the same.

There was something wrong; Jenny could feel it.

Charlotte had been away all day in Lincoln. ‘That’s a big city about forty miles away,’ Kitty told her. ‘She’s gone on the train.’

‘She’ll have gone to see her mum.’ Jenny nodded wisely. Kitty’s eyes widened but she said nothing.

Jenny was playing in the garden, kicking the football and waiting for Miles to join her as he had promised when she saw a boy in a kind of uniform ride up the drive to the front door. He jumped off the bicycle and leaned it against the pillar at the foot of the front steps. Absently, Jenny nudged the ball with her foot, but her gaze was on the boy as he climbed to the front door and rang the bell. When Wilkins opened the door, she saw, from where she stood, the boy hand him what looked like a letter. The door closed and the boy ran back down the steps, mounted his bike and pedalled away, much faster than he had arrived.

Jenny waited but Miles did not come out to play with her.

In the middle of the afternoon, Kitty said, ‘I’ll take you to Buckthorn Farm.’

‘But Charlotte will be home soon and then we’ll have dinner.’

‘You go with Kitty, lovey, there’s a good girl,’ Mrs Beddows said and turned away, but not before Jenny had seen the woman’s face crumple in distress.

Jenny glanced from one to the other. Kitty had never taken her anywhere or played with her; she was always too busy. But today she’d taken her apron off and had put on her afternoon dress, as she called it, and made Jenny wash her face and brush her hair. And now she was hustling the young girl out of the back door and towards the long pathway through the fields that led to Buckthorn Farm.

Jenny didn’t feel like skipping alongside Kitty. Something had happened and no one was telling her.

Was she to be sent home? Had that boy brought a message from Mr Tomkins that all the evacuees had to go home, like Bobby and the others had already done?

She could bear it no longer. ‘Why’re we going to Buckthorn Farm? Are they cross with me? Have I done something wrong?’

‘No, no, lovey, nothing like that. The master, he – he just needs a bit of time alone with madam when she gets home.’

Jenny was silent. At least, she thought, they haven’t shut me in my bedroom like Mum does when she wants me out of the way.

Arriving at Buckthorn Farm, Kitty exchanged hurried, whispered words with Mary. The older woman’s eyes widened and then she whispered, ‘Oh no! NO!’

Jenny saw Mary gesture towards her and then Kitty shook her head. What was going on? There was definitely something wrong. Jenny sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Grown-up stuff, she supposed. Obviously, they weren’t going to tell her.

‘I’ll go and find Alfie,’ she said in a loud voice. The two women, still whispering together, looked startled. They both turned to stare at her as if they’d forgotten she was there.

‘You do that, lovey. Tell him – tell him there’ll be a cuppa and a scone for him in a little while.’

Jenny grinned. ‘And for me?’

‘Of course.’

But as Jenny went to the back door to go out into the yard, she glanced back to see the two women still talking, their faces so serious that she knew the last things on their minds were cups of tea and buttered scones.

‘’Lo, Alfie, can you play?’

The boy turned and grinned at her. ‘I’ve got to feed the hens, but you can help me, if you like.’

For the next hour, Jenny followed Alfie around the outbuildings, helping him to throw corn to the hens, watching him carry the heavy buckets of pigswill to the sties and giggling as the pigs, grunting loudly, pushed each other out of the way to be first to the trough. But her laughter soon died when Kitty came to collect her for going home. She could see the maid had been crying. The promised scones seemed to have been forgotten as she’d guessed they might be.

‘What’s up with her?’ Alfie whispered.

‘I don’t know. They’re all like it at home, but no one will tell me why.’

‘Oh,’ was all Alfie said, but a worried frown now wrinkled his forehead and, as he waved goodbye, she saw him hurry towards the farm office, no doubt in search of his father, Eddie.

They arrived back at the manor at about five o’clock, Kitty leading her round to the back door and into the kitchen. As they entered, the maid asked in a low voice, ‘Is madam home yet?’

Mrs Beddows shook her head. ‘The master will be going to fetch her from the station soon.’ She turned to Jenny. ‘You go and play in the nursery like a good girl, will you?’

Jenny glanced from one to the other and asked again, ‘Am I in trouble? Are they sending me away?’

‘No, lovey. It’s got nothing at all to do with you. It’s – it’s just – ’ Mrs Beddows glanced up at Kitty helplessly as if seeking help, but the maid turned away, her shoulders shaking. Jenny knew she was crying again. The cook took a deep breath. ‘It’s just that the master and the mistress will need to talk about – about something when she gets back, but it has nothing to do with you, I promise. But just you be a good girl for us, will you?’

Jenny nodded and left the kitchen. She glanced at the door of Miles’s study. It was firmly closed and there was no sound from inside.

Slowly, she climbed the stairs to the playroom. She touched the toys there, but nothing interested her today. She could feel the tension and sadness permeating through the house. Without consciously making the decision, her footsteps took her up to the next floor and along to the studio she now shared with Charlotte. As she sat down at the little table, picked up her brush and began to paint, she forgot about everything else. Just so long as they weren’t going to send her home, she’d keep out of their way until they’d sorted out whatever it was that was bothering everybody.