Legacy of Greyladies (2 page)

‘Oh, darling, how wonderful!’

‘I’ll arrive sometime in the middle of the afternoon on the day before Christmas Eve.’

She hung the telephone’s earpiece on its hook and watched it swing gently to and fro till it came to rest. That was still a week away, but she was so excited at the thought of it she couldn’t settle to anything.

She hadn’t seen Corin for over a month and since their marriage in June, she’d spent exactly eight days with him. It was a good thing she had plenty to keep her busy at Greyladies, with her charity work for the trust she managed.

She didn’t feel like going back to her mending, so decided to walk into the village and call in at the shop where Mrs Pocock would no doubt have some gossip to share.

As she strolled along, Phoebe found herself humming ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’. One of the soldiers guarding the internees at Greyladies had a good voice and he’d taught everyone the latest songs, but that one was his favourite. Everywhere she went in the house, someone was bound to be singing, humming or whistling, most often about Tipperary – herself included. Even the German internees knew the words now.

As she strolled across the back garden, a quiet voice said, ‘
Guten Tag
, Phoebe.’

She turned to greet Herr Stein in his own language, which she spoke slightly. Once, he and his wife had been her employers in a shop making curtains; now they were interned at Greyladies because they were originally from Austria. They’d moved to England years ago because of anti-Jewish feeling in Austria but many people didn’t see
any difference between foreigners who’d moved their whole lives and loyalty to Britain, and those who were potential spies.

For the time being, the Steins were safer here at Greyladies than out among people. She’d seen for herself their shop reduced to ruin by a mindless mob.

Most of the internees had had similar experiences, but these people had skills and knowledge that were useful in the ongoing struggle against Germany, so they hadn’t been sent to the Isle of Man, where most internees were lodged.

At Greyladies they formed a group the War Office could turn to for help. As Corin had said when he was commandant there, wars weren’t only won by battles and killing.

‘Where’s Mrs Stein?’ she asked.

‘Upstairs, remaking some of your curtains.’

‘We’re so grateful for her help.’

‘Ach! It’s I who am grateful to you, Phoebe, for letting her do this. My Trudi misses our shop and enjoys having something useful to do. I fear that after the war we’ll be too old to open another shop – even if people will allow us to live freely in this country once again.’

‘In that case we’ll find you a house to rent near here and you can come to tea every week.’ Phoebe patted his arm, knowing he was right about the future. His wife was very vigorous still, but he had a frail look to him these days that worried her. ‘At least you’ve managed to save some of your money for afterwards.’

‘
You
saved a lot of our money, my dear, brave girl.’ He pulled out his pocket watch and consulted it. ‘I have a class to give soon and I see from your basket that you’re going shopping in the village.’

At her farewell nod, he gave one of his courtly little bows and went back into the house. He had shown a gift for teaching, and was at present running a German language class for selected officers from a special army unit, men who already had some knowledge of the language. No one ever mentioned why they were doing this, but it wasn’t hard to guess.

Phoebe turned at the gate to study the roof of her home and check that the previous day’s storm hadn’t dislodged any tiles. There was such a large expanse of roof, with several steep gables, and it took her several minutes to look at every part she could see from the front. As current chatelaine of Greyladies, she tried to keep an eye on things, even though the government had requisitioned the newer part of the house at the beginning of the war, and that wasn’t considered her responsibility now.

Newer part
, she thought with a smile. That meant the front half of the house, built in the early eighteenth century and connected to the rear half by a huge oak door. The really old part dated from the sixteenth century, and for some reason the officers inspecting the premises at the beginning of the war had decided it wouldn’t be suitable for the government’s needs, so had allowed the previous chatelaine, Harriet Latimer, together with her husband Joseph and their two sons, to stay there.

Then one by one, Joseph’s three brothers had been killed in the war and he’d inherited the family estate, something he’d never expected to happen. Harriet had reluctantly given up her position here and handed over the care of the house to Phoebe.

Greyladies was always passed down the female line,
though not necessarily to direct descendants, and was only held in trust, not owned, so it could never be sold. The chatelaine always
knew
instinctively when it was time to leave and who would look after the old house next. The ghost of its founder always appeared briefly when the next chatelaine arrived, as if to demonstrate her approval.

Those who didn’t believe in ghosts said it was merely a trick of the light, but Phoebe herself had seen Anne Latimer when she first arrived. The transparent figure in Elizabethan costume wasn’t at all frightening and had a lovely smile.

Any husbands of those who inherited took the Latimer name, as Corin had done when he married Phoebe. At the same time he’d even given up his plans to take over his family home and estate near Manchester after the war, something she felt guilty about because he was an only son and loved his home.

Maybe all wasn’t lost for him. Some chatelaines spent their whole lives caring for Greyladies; others only a few years. She had a feeling she was one of the latter. She didn’t know whether to hope so, for Corin’s sake, or to feel sad at the prospect of leaving the home she loved.

It was the house and its legacy which mattered, she always reminded herself, not her own wishes. There was a trust fund and the money was used both to run the house and to help women in distress – any woman who needed it, with no conditions set.

Recently there had been an increase in the numbers of women bearing children out of wedlock, because of their love for men going to the front. If the fathers were killed before they could marry and the women’s families didn’t
help them, that could make things very hard for the young mother and her baby.

Phoebe found her hand going to her own stomach. She had exciting news for Corin and couldn’t wait to see him again.

On the Monday afternoon, soon after Olivia got back from the shop, an ambulance drew up outside the house. Donald was rolled down a ramp in a wheelchair and brought in by two orderlies. His leg wasn’t in plaster, but it was heavily bandaged and when the man pushing the chair bumped it against the door frame, the patient winced visibly.

Cecily would have run forward and bumped him again, but Olivia grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards the sitting room. ‘Let Donald get into the house. It’s hurting him to be moved and you don’t want to jar him.’

‘She’s right, old girl. Hey! Careful, you!’

The orderly moved even more slowly, looking tight-lipped, as if he was finding this patient difficult.

Once the invalid was settled on the sitting room sofa, the orderly put two crutches next to Donald and the other man wheeled the empty chair out. Cecily didn’t even attempt to show them to the door because she was holding her husband’s hand and gazing adoringly at him.

Olivia did the honours instead. ‘Thank you for looking after my cousin.’

‘Always glad to do our duty, ma’am.’

Even though it was quite chilly, she stood at the door watching them drive away. She didn’t go inside again for a few moments, to give the lovebirds time together.

The sound of the car engine faded quickly. How convenient motor cars were! She missed theirs. At weekends Charles used to drive her out for little picnics in the country or visits to friends.

She chewed on her thumb as an idea occurred to her, not for the first time. Dare she learn to drive? She’d never tried to do it when her husband was alive, but it couldn’t be all that difficult because since the war had started other women drove cars and even omnibuses.

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to dispose of their vehicle, which was standing useless in the big shed in her back garden in Swindon. Such a waste! She shivered and realised she was still standing at the door staring down the street, so went back inside.

In the hall she paused to look at herself in the mirror and said firmly, ‘I’ll do it.’

In the sitting room, Donald was patting his wife on the shoulder, looking at her fondly. Cecily moved her foot carelessly as she leant forward to kiss his cheek and he sucked in a painful breath.

‘Oh, I’m sorry! Did I hurt you, my darling?’

‘Just a little. You must try not to bump my leg, old thing. It’s still rather tender. They had to put nearly fifty stitches in it.’

Her face turned white. ‘You aren’t … going to lose it, are you?’

‘Of course not. But it’ll take time to heal and I mustn’t put any weight on it yet. Our kind Dr Pelham will have to come and
check it every day or two until the stitches can be taken out.’

Donald seemed to realise suddenly that they were no longer alone and looked across to his cousin. ‘Nice to see you again, Olivia, old girl. How good it is that you’re here to help Cecily look after me.’

She decided to start as she meant to go on, because it’d take a while to get through his stubbornness. ‘For the moment. But as I told you before, I’m going back to Swindon after Christmas. There’s nothing like your own home, is there? And I’m missing mine.’

He frowned at her. ‘And as
I
told you, you can’t possibly leave yet. We don’t want you catching scarlet fever, and anyway, I’ll be back at the front in a couple of months, so Cecily will need you just as much as ever.’

Olivia shuddered at the mere idea. The war might go on for years yet. Even a few weeks with Cecily had been hard to endure.

‘Will you be able to get up and down the stairs to bed?’ she asked Donald.

‘’Fraid not. In fact, they forbade me even to try for a couple of weeks.’

‘Then we’ll bring a bed down for you. We can put it in the dining room if we push the table right back. Cecily, I can dismantle that single bed frame, but you’ll have to help me carry the parts downstairs.’

Donald stared at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head. ‘Cecily can’t help you carry such heavy pieces! And
you
can’t dismantle a bed, either. It requires the use of tools.’

‘As it happens, I’ve done it several times already. I had to when I took in the Belgian refugees.’

‘You know I never approved of that,’ he said, as he did every time she mentioned them.

She was fed up of going over the same ground again and again. Did he ever listen to her? ‘I’ve found them very pleasant and grateful for my help, and anyway, they have nowhere else to live.’

‘And so they should be grateful. You always did like to help lame dogs. But even if you did somehow manage to dismantle the bed base, you can’t carry it down on your own.’

‘I’ll go and ask the neighbour’s help, then.’

When she came back with the news that the neighbour would be round in a few minutes, Donald was looking angry.

‘Sit down a moment, Olivia, if you please. I want a word with you.’

What on earth was the matter now? she wondered.

‘Cecily has just told me about you working in the village shop.’

‘Yes. I’m helping Mrs Cummins. With her husband in the army, she can’t manage alone and her new helper can’t start till after Christmas.’

‘Then she should find a village woman. I’m not having
my
cousin doing menial work like that and waiting on the local hoi polloi.’

‘There’s a war on. Besides, I enjoy the work.’

‘But
we
have to live here permanently and it won’t look good you working in the shop. You must stop immediately.’

‘In that case, I’ll return home and your wife can manage your convalescence without my help.’

There was a pregnant silence, then he said, ‘We’ll talk about it again later.’

She knew what that meant. He’d work out a sneaky way to stop her. But he wasn’t going to succeed this time. ‘I’ll just go and dismantle that bed.’

‘If the neighbour’s coming in, he can—’

She left the room because it was the only way to manage without an explosive row. It hadn’t taken long for the two of them to start bickering, but their disagreements were getting worse. He had been an annoying child, but he was an utterly infuriating adult.

Half an hour later, she and the neighbour carried the single bed frame down from the smallest bedroom and set it up in the dining room, then he brought down the mattress while she carried the feather overlay.

The neighbour, a pleasant middle-aged man, started teasing her about how strong she was for a woman. When he caught sight of Donald’s glowering expression, he winked at her and took his leave.

Olivia saw him to the door, grabbed her hat and coat and called, ‘Cecily, I’ll leave you to make up the bed. I forgot to buy something from the shop and it can’t wait. We have a man’s appetite to cater for now.’

She was out of the house before either of her cousins could stop her.

During a lull between customers, she explained to Mrs Cummins quite frankly that Captain Ballam would probably try to stop her working there. ‘And I’d go mad stuck inside the house all day with D— um, stuck indoors. So don’t listen to him.’

Mrs Cummins, who had lost all fear of upsetting a lady like Olivia within an hour of her starting work, said comfortably, ‘As long as I know what
you
want, dear.’

‘I’d like to work here till after Christmas, as planned.’ She laughed. ‘Though if my cousin throws me out of his house, I may have to come and camp in the shop.’

‘I’ve got a spare bedroom, but I’m sure it won’t come to
that. The captain needs you to look after Mrs Ballam. We all know what she’s like. My niece used to work for her.’

She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to.

That evening Donald scowled round as he followed his wife and cousin slowly into the kitchen for his dinner. ‘Only in wartime would I put up with eating in here. Are you sure you can’t find a proper maid, someone who’ll cook our meals and set the table properly, Cecily?’

‘I’ve advertised several times with no luck. They’re all working at the railway works or on the trams in Swindon, and they get paid so much more than I’m offering that no one even applies.’

‘Shocking! What are things coming to when the gentry can’t get proper service?’ He stared at the food again. ‘What sort of dinner do you call this?’

‘We call it tea, not dinner,’ Olivia said. ‘I didn’t have time to cook anything today, so it’s cold meat and pickles with nice fresh bread.’ If he complained, she’d tip the contents of the plate over his head, she decided. Well, she wouldn’t really, but even imagining doing it cheered her up.

He opened his mouth to protest, caught her eye and said instead, ‘You always were a hoyden. No sense of your position in the world. No feminine skills. Only a rough diamond like Harbury would have put up with you.’

She slammed her knife and fork down and stood up, covering her plate with another one and putting them in the pantry as the other two gaped at her. ‘I’ll finish this later, when I can eat my food in peace without someone insulting my husband,
who gave his life in the service of this country
, I will remind you.’ She stormed out.

Donald called to her to come back but she didn’t. It wasn’t dark yet and a short stroll would be just the thing to walk off her annoyance.

She didn’t give in to the tears that threatened, but when he talked so slightingly about Charles, she wanted to thump him good and hard.

It was bad enough when Donald started nagging and criticising
her
, but she wouldn’t tolerate him or anyone else insulting her husband.

She should have had more sense than to come here.

In Challerton Mrs Pocock was on her own in the shop, for once, and greeted her with the news that a new family had moved into the village. Phoebe had already heard that, but she didn’t know anything about them yet.

‘No one knows much about them because they don’t mix,’ Mrs Pocock confided. ‘The husband’s lost a leg and been invalided out of the army. Hatterson, they’re called. He’s poor Bill’s nephew and inherited the house.
Young
Hatterson
suffers from severe headaches, someone told me, but Thad Diggan who lives next door says he’s just plain bad-tempered and his poor wife is worn down with running round after him. She’s very civil when she comes shopping, though, I have to give her that.’

She hesitated, then added, ‘And I think you ought to know, Mrs Latimer, what this Hatterson is saying about the people interned at Greyladies. It’s shameful, that’s what it is. Those old men and women aren’t our enemies, as everyone here knows. Some people don’t have the sense of a day-old turnip, whatever airs they give themselves!’

‘What exactly is he saying?’

‘That we shouldn’t allow Huns to stay in our village. That we should chase them out of Challerton,
burn
them out of Greyladies, if necessary.’

Phoebe stared at her in shock. ‘If I hadn’t seen for myself a mob destroying the Steins’ shop, I’d find it hard to believe that an Englishman could make such vile threats.’ She shivered at the memory of the mindless anger on the faces that dreadful day. ‘Did Hatterson actually say this in public?’

‘Not in public, no. He was talking to someone at the rear of his house. Mr Diggan overheard him. He said Hatterson got very vehement and
sounded
as if he actually meant to do it. It’s a bit of a worry.’

‘Dear heaven, what are we to do about him? I wish Corin were here.’

‘If anyone tries to attack you, Mrs Latimer, I’ll be running up to Greyladies with my rolling pin, and I won’t be the only one to come to your aid.’

‘Thank you. I’ll have to try to meet this man, see what he’s like.’

‘Well, all I know is, he might be a Hatterson by name, but he’s not like our Bill, who was a decent old soul. This one has never been to Challerton before. And if he hadn’t lost a leg in the service of his country, I’d tell him he’s not welcome in my shop if he goes on saying such things, I would indeed.’

‘We’ll be all right, with four soldiers stationed at Greyladies. And a doctor, orderly, nurses and two cooks. Hatterson won’t be able to do much against so many.’

‘Cowards never act alone. I wouldn’t put it past him to find others. Wait till you meet him, you’ll see what he’s like from the sour expression on his face. A nasty creature, he is, snapping at you for no reason.
I
think he’s blaming every German or
Austrian for the loss of his leg, which is just plain stupid.’

Phoebe was surprised at this tirade. Mrs Pocock was usually placid and good-natured, finding something to like in everyone who came into her shop.

‘I told him straight:
our
foreign gentlemen and their wives at Greyladies have been in England for long enough to learn civilised ways, I said.’

She was so indignant. ‘Mr Hatterson must have been very rude to you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so angry,’ Phoebe said.

‘Yes, he was. He came into my shop once and listened to me talking to someone, then interrupted and told me I was easily fooled. When I told him to mind his manners and said I’d not have talk of violence in my shop, he said people who didn’t get rid of Huns were damned traitors.’

‘I can’t believe he said that.’

‘That’s what he said, “damned traitors”. My husband came out of the back room then and told him to keep a civil tongue in his head or get out of our shop. But did he apologise? No, he did not. He just shrugged and said, “I’ll have half a pound of cheese as well, please.” I was so shocked, I’d started to serve him before I knew it.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t forget the look on his face when he said those things, Mrs Latimer. Mark my words, he meant it about burning the internees out. He seems to blame them for losing his leg. You should tell the commandant to watch the house at night.’

Someone else came into the shop then, so she whisked out her handkerchief, blew her nose and took a deep breath. ‘Now, what can I get for you today, my dear Mrs Latimer?’

‘Just some jam, please. We’re running rather short.’ And
she had quite a craving for toast with jam these days. ‘We didn’t manage to make enough jam last year.’