Jenny's War (8 page)

‘Right, little one,’ Georgie said. ‘Time for beddibyes.’ He picked her up and Jenny wound her arms round his neck and laid her head against his shoulder.

‘Poor little scrap,’ she heard Miles murmur and felt his gentle touch on her curls as Georgie carried her out of the nursery and into the bedroom next door to it. He tucked her into bed and Jenny heard him say, ‘Charlotte and Miles are right next door and I’m just down the corridor. If you want anything, you only have to shout and we’ll come running. All right?’

‘Mm.’ She was very tired but there was one more thing she needed before she could go to sleep. ‘Bert?’

She heard them speaking to each other, asking what it was she wanted. And then Charlotte must have realized for, after a moment, she was tucking the shabby teddy bear in beside her. And then, to Jenny’s astonishment, Charlotte bent to kiss her forehead.

As the three grown-ups moved away, Jenny drifted into sleep, comforted and reassured by the night light left burning on the mantelpiece and still with the feeling of the gentle kiss on her forehead.

By the time Jenny stirred the following morning, the sunshine was streaming in through the gap in the curtains. She stretched, luxuriating in the softness of the bed. She opened her eyes and looked around the room at the pretty wallpaper and the white furniture. Her fingers touched the crisp cotton sheet and the soft blanket covering her. She sat up slowly, still staring about her. Then she remembered: she’d been evacuated with her schoolmates. Into her mind came the picture of Bobby and Sammy’s train departing without her. Her heart contracted at the loss of her friends. Now she was amongst strangers and she had no idea what to expect. Remembering the trauma of the two disgusted spinsters throwing up their hands in horror at the sight of the head lice made her shudder again. She touched her hair. It felt soft and silky and her head no longer itched.

She sat up in the bed, clutching Bert, and wondered what she ought to do. She could hear no sounds from below and didn’t know what time it was. Should she get up now or wait until someone called her?

Perhaps the maid, Kitty, would come or maybe the lady called Charlotte. Or better still, perhaps Georgie would come to wake her. But the minutes passed and no one came. Jenny grew restless and, at last, still clutching Bert, she scrambled out of the big bed and went to the window. She pulled the curtains open and looked out. The view from the bedroom window was over the flat land towards the sea and seemed, to the city child, to stretch for miles. The sky overhead was a cloudless bright blue and so vast that Jenny shrank back from the window. She’d never seen such space, such emptiness, nor experienced a place that was so quiet. Always, in the city, there seemed to be noise. Shouting, laughter, doors banging, the sounds of footsteps in the street and the rattle of wheels – even, now and then, the sound of a motor.

She padded to the door, opened it and peered out up and down the landing. Kitty was emerging from the room next door; the one Jenny had been told was where Charlotte and Miles slept.

‘Oh!’ Kitty was startled by the girl standing there completely naked and even more surprised that the child showed no embarrassment.

The maid blinked and then said kindly, ‘’Mornin’, duck. Did ya sleep all right?’

Jenny nodded. Kitty came towards her. ‘Let’s help you get dressed and then I’ll take you down for your breakfast. The other’s have all finished theirs, but Cook says you can sit in her kitchen to have yours.’

‘Where’s Georgie?’

‘Master Georgie? Oh, he’s around somewhere.’

Jenny could see Kitty’s look of disgust as she picked up the girl’s clothes. The thin cotton dress was secondhand – maybe even third-hand – and washed so many times that even by the time Jenny got it, the pattern had faded. But now the pattern was even further obscured by dirt.

‘This could do with a wash, duck,’ Kitty said, but not unkindly. ‘Have you got another frock?’

Jenny shook her head. She didn’t want Kitty, who was dressed so neatly in a clean, white apron, to see her only other dress, which was even dirtier than the one she was wearing.

‘We’ll have to put this ’un on for the minute, then. I’ll tell madam and see if we can get you summat else. Where’s your socks?’

‘Ain’t got none,’ Jenny said, pulling on her plimsolls. They seemed too tight for her and already her big toe had worn a hole in the right one.

‘Right, you’ll have to do, then.’

Kitty had not troubled the child to wash; she’d heard the commotion in the bathroom the previous night and didn’t want to spark another rumpus. Instead, she led the child down the wide staircase and through the door from the hallway that led to the kitchen.

‘Here she is,’ Kitty announced to Mrs Beddows.

The cook looked up from peeling apples and smiled a welcome. ‘Come in, lovey. I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you?’

Jenny merely nodded and climbed on to the chair at one end of the table. Kitty set a bowl of cereal in front of her and poured creamy milk over it. ‘There now, you get that down ya an’ then I’ll make you some toast.’

‘I’ll just go and find madam,’ Jenny heard Kitty murmur to Cook. ‘Tell her little ’un’s up.’

But a few moments later, not only Charlotte but Miles, too, came into the kitchen as Jenny was finishing her breakfast.

‘Hello,’ Charlotte said softly. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Jenny nodded.

‘Cat’s got her tongue, I reckon,’ Kitty laughed.

Jenny gazed up at Charlotte and Miles, her glance going from one to the other. ‘Where’s Georgie?’

‘He’s outside. Would you like to go and find him?’

Jenny glanced towards the big kitchen window and shook her head. But as she slid off the chair, she looked up at Mrs Beddows and said politely, ‘Thank you for my breakfast.’

‘You’re welcome, lovey.’

Charlotte held out her hand. ‘Let’s ask Georgie to come indoors, then, shall we?’

For the first time that morning, Jenny smiled.

Georgie played with her for the rest of the day. He showed her how to climb on the big rocking horse in the nursery and how to play several of the games stacked on the shelves; Snap, Draughts and even Happy Families, when they roped in Miles and Charlotte to play too. But the little girl’s favourite time was after she’d succumbed to another bath and hair wash and was wrapped up snugly in a brand new nightdress and dressing gown and was sitting on Georgie’s knee reading more chapters of
The Wind in the Willows
.

If she had to suffer a bath to be able to sit on Georgie’s knee each night, Jenny decided, then it was a small price to pay.

When Charlotte had come home in the afternoon loaded with parcels, Jenny’s eyes had been round with wonder as the garments spilled from the wrappings and the bags.

‘A’ they all for me?’ she whispered.

Georgie laughed. ‘Well, they’re too small for Charlotte and I’d look silly in a girl’s dress, now wouldn’t I? How about you try them on and show us how pretty you look?’

With Kitty’s help in her bedroom, Jenny had tried on everything, each time running downstairs to the morning room to show them. She stood before Charlotte, Miles and Georgie, twirling round.

‘They fit nicely,’ Charlotte smiled, ‘but you’ll have to come with me when we buy you some shoes. You’ll need to have your feet measured properly.’

Jenny stared at her. ‘Yer mean I’ll ’ave to go outside?’

‘Yes. Perhaps, Miles will take us in the motor car. Would you like that?’

Jenny didn’t answer but none of them could miss the look of fear in her eyes. Over the next three days, they found out the cause of the child’s apprehension. Used to the city back streets amidst tight-knit row upon row of houses and buildings, Jenny found the vastness of the sky and the flat, far-reaching landscape frightening.

Gently, Miles introduced her to the world outside the window as Georgie brought one of the horses from the stables on to the lawn for her to see. Then Miles took her to the front door and out on to the steps. They stood there for several minutes until she got used to the lawn stretching smoothly before them. Then, still holding her hand, he led her down the steps and on to the grass.

‘Look what I found,’ Georgie said, grinning as he returned from taking the horse back to the stable. He came towards them, bouncing a football.

By lunchtime, Jenny was happily kicking the ball backwards and forwards to Georgie on the front lawn.

Charlotte and Miles stood watching them.

‘She seems to be settling in,’ Miles said.

‘Mm. But what’s going to happen when Georgie has to go back the day after tomorrow?’

What happened was a tantrum; a proper, full-blown tantrum.

When Georgie insisted on saying goodbye to Jenny, refusing to sneak off without telling her, Charlotte had warned him there’d be trouble. And trouble there certainly was. Jenny lay on the hall floor, screaming and kicking out at anyone who tried to get near her.

‘That’s just temper, that is,’ Kitty remarked sagely. ‘There’s no tears.’ She had a younger brother who displayed the same anger occasionally. She recognized the tantrum for exactly what it was.

Georgie, Miles and even Charlotte stood helplessly by, not knowing what to do. Georgie squatted down beside her and shouted above the noise. ‘I’ve got to go now, Jen. Won’t you come and wave me off?’

But the screams only grew louder.

He stood up, shook his father’s hand and kissed Charlotte’s cheek. And then he was gone.

At last, when she could see her efforts were in vain, Jenny stopped squealing. She rolled over on the floor and drew her knees up into a tight ball, tensing herself against the smack she was sure was coming. But instead she heard Miles’s deep voice saying gently, ‘Shall we go and see if we can find Ben and help feed the chickens? It’s about time they were having their tea. Perhaps we could help feed the pigs too.’

Slowly Jenny twisted her head to look up at him. Miles was standing over her, with Charlotte just behind him. They didn’t look angry, only worried. And Miles was holding out his hand to her and smiling. Slowly, Jenny stood up and picked up Bert from the floor. Then she marched towards the front door, knowing instinctively that Miles would follow.

‘Will Ben play wiv me while Georgie’s away?’ Jenny asked as they walked towards the land and buildings closest to the manor known as Home Farm.

The Ravensfleet Estate, which Miles had bought in the mid-1920s, had three farms occupied by tenant farmers, but Home Farm had always, by tradition, been run by the man who owned the whole estate and lived in the manor. Miles, however, was no farmer and as soon as he was old enough, Ben had attended agricultural college and had then taken over the running of Home Farm, and attended to estate matters, ‘like a duck to water’, as the locals said. He loved the life and wanted no other.

‘He might,’ Miles said in answer to Jenny’s question. ‘But he works long hours on the farm.’

‘What about the other one?’

‘Philip? Oh, he’s a bit of an old sobersides.’

Jenny twisted her head to look up at him.

‘You didn’t have no girls, then?’

Miles shook his head and Jenny, child though she still was, could see the sadness in his eyes. ‘We were never – blessed with a daughter.’

‘Georgie told me his muvver died when he was born.’ She knew all about mothers dying in childbirth. It happened often where she lived. And most times the baby died too. ‘But Georgie didn’t die, did he? And mebbe Charlotte could still have a baby girl for you.’

Miles’s voice trembled a little as he said, ‘Maybe.’ But the sorrow in his voice told the young girl that he’d given up hope.

She stepped closer to him and squeezed his hand as they walked on in silence.

At first, Jenny was afraid of the animals, but Ben, the quiet one of the family, introduced her gently to the most docile of the creatures first and gradually Jenny grew more confident in the outside world of the countryside.

On her first visit to the Sunday service at church with the family, Jenny met some of the other villagers including Charlotte’s father, Osbert Crawford, a grumpy, nasty old man who looked down his nose at her. And she saw some of the other children she’d travelled here with. After the service, Billy Harrington came up to her. ‘We’ve got to go to school here. Did yer know?’

Jenny nodded. ‘Yeah. Charlotte told me yesterday.’

‘Who’s Charlotte?’

‘Mrs Thornton.’ Jenny nodded her head towards Charlotte, who was helping her father into his pony and trap.

The boy’s eyes widened. ‘You’re allowed to call ’er “Charlotte”?’

Jenny nodded. ‘Yeah. An’ I call ’im “Miles”.’

‘Cor! But he’s the squire – whatever that is. Everyone calls him Mester Thornton.’

Jenny shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t.’

‘Don’t they mind? Don’t they tell you off?’

‘They’re nice,’ Jenny murmured, realizing that this was the truth. ‘They told me to call them that.’ She turned to Billy. ‘What about the folks you’re with?’

‘Yeah, they’re all right, an’ all. The Warrens. They’re tenant farmers of your Mr Thornton. That’s them over there.’ Billy pointed and Jenny saw the man and woman who’d come to the school to pick out Billy and his friend. With them were two younger men and a young woman.

‘Who are the others talkin’ to Mr and Mrs Warren?’

‘That’s their sons. John and Jackson. John’s married. That’s his trouble and strife with her arm through his.’

‘How’s Frankie getting’ on?’

‘Great. They’re really kind to ’im. The missis gets him to collect eggs and feed the hens. He’s started helping get the pigswill ready. The mester ses he’ll let him ’ave a go at feeding ’em soon.’

Jenny didn’t know what pigswill was, but she wasn’t going to show her ignorance to Billy by asking. ‘You like it here, then?’

Billy thrust out his chest. ‘Yeah. I don’t ever want to go back home, Jen. I hope this war lasts for ever.’

Jenny said nothing. Anyone overhearing what the boy had said would think it dreadful, but she understood exactly what Billy meant. He didn’t want to go home to a father who beat him and kept him half-starved. Here he was being treated kindly and in the short time they’d been here, he already looked fitter and healthier.