The Daisy Club (19 page)

‘Might not take you, ducky, because of not having passed your matriculation. Being schooled here won't really count, I'm afraid, and being bright won't be enough. You must have a piece of paper to say that you
are
bright.'

Freddie looked resigned.

‘I can't see myself passing exams at this time,' she said, busily running a pencil down a list of names of children to be picked up at the station. ‘You know how I have always been, Aunt Jessica: all right on my feet talking the hind legs off the nearest donkey, but sit me at a desk and put a piece of paper in front of me, and I become as frozen as an Eskimo.'

Jessica stood up.

‘In that case best to stay where you are, and do what you can in the VAD. After all, you have a motor car, which should be excellently useful for both your and their purposes, always providing we don't run out of petrol, for rationing is just about to hit us. Now, off you go to the station. I will follow in the old Vauxhall, and Branscombe in the pony cart. What a thing that so many are coming to us! I think the authorities must think we're the size of Texas, which we most certainly are not. Poor old Twistleton: no central marketplace, no town hall, and yet it looks as if we are being sent over fifty evacuees.'

Jessica knew she must have summed up the numbers about right, as the train drew into the station, and Budgie's eyes seemed to bulge to match his nicely rounded stomach.

‘Well, I never did! Have you ever seen anything like it?'

Jessica had not seen anything like it, certainly never seen anything like
them
, and nor, it would seem, had Twistleton.

For some reason, among all those skinny children with their name labels attached to their coats, and their hats held down by tense little hands, their grey socks anchored somewhere around their knees with elastic garters, there were only a clutch of mothers. Jessica did not know whether to be pleased or appalled, although it certainly meant there would be fewer places to find with Twistleton families. She turned as Jean hurried up to her.

‘I will be able to take two in my cottage, and Dan Short will take one, which is good of him, really. Oh, and I just passed Mrs Huggett of Holly House – she is waiting outside the station in a pony and trap. She says she will be taking three, but doesn't seem too enthusiastic, even though it still leaves her another five bedrooms for her own use . . .' Jean's voice tailed off as her eyes searched for a couple of the smallest children, for given the size of her cottage she had to be careful not to choose anyone too tall, or they would be leaving their brains among the lathe and plaster before you could say Adolf Hitler.

She glanced sideways at Jessica, who she knew must know of her association with Joe, gossip in the village being what it was, but Jessica's expression was impassive. The truth was that those with the largest and most elegant houses had proved to be the least willing to take in any of the children.

‘Afraid for their silk covers, I daresay,' Branscombe had opined, when Jessica discussed the matter with him.

‘Well, it's very short-sighted, for in a few weeks' time we may none of us have anything to put covers on, Branscombe.'

Branscombe looked resolutely unimpressed.

‘You can't blame them really, Miss Jessica, not really.'

‘No, I can't blame them,' Jessica agreed. ‘On the other hand, I can't sympathise with them either, I'm afraid. By taking in these children we are saving the future of our country, and that really is the truth.'

Jessica sympathised even less when she realised just what a miserly intake of evacuees was going into the bigger houses, and saw how generous was the welcome from The Cottages, with everyone there doing their best to welcome as many as possible of the dazed and forlorn little scraps standing about the station platform.

‘I'll take three, Miss Valentyne,' Budgie announced suddenly, as the crowd of those taking them up dwindled to nothing, and three small rejects were left on the platform huddled close to Jessica, while a wind blew the last remaining petals in the arrangements at the station window-boxes in a flurry around their feet.

‘Does your wife know about this, Mr Budgeon?'

Budgie nodded, turning away, but Jessica stepped in front of him in an attempt to make him see reason.

‘Your wife may prove to be a little shocked by your generosity, Mr Budgeon, if she hasn't been expecting to take anyone in.'

‘Got to do it, Miss Valentyne, Lord bless us, most of them look half-starved. Got to get them into a hot bath and give them a nice plate of Mrs Budgeon's steak pie.'

Jessica mentally shrugged her shoulders, not wishing to tell the dear man that Mrs Budgeon's cooking might not be to East End kids' tastes.

‘Off we go,' she said, realising with a sinking feeling that she was sounding all over-bright. ‘One, two, three, four, climb in, won't you?'

Three children dutifully followed Budgie out of the station platform and from there down the road to The Cottages, while the four brothers destined for the Court followed Jessica. Once at the car, as the others climbed in, all thrown together hugger-mugger, the youngest started to cry.

‘I ain't gettin' in that thing!'

Jessica picked him up, and despite realising that he was not the sweetest-smelling of little personages, she hugged him to her.

‘Come on, Johnny,' she cajoled. ‘Your brothers are all sitting in the car, and they're not frightened. Tell him, Alec,' she called to the tallest of the Lindsay brothers, above the sound of the wailing. ‘Tell Johnny that going in a motor car is going to be great fun, will you?'

‘Shut yer cake hole, Johnny,' Alec, the eldest, called across to Johnny. ‘Or I'll knock yer block off.'

This idea, rather than the idea of a motor car ride being fun, seemed to make great sense to little Johnny, because he immediately stopped crying, and climbed into the front passenger seat without fuss.

The Lindsays were all to be put into a big bedroom together on the second floor. Freddie and Jessica had gone to great trouble to make it look as bright and welcoming as possible, with patchwork quilts and colourful blankets and teddy bears on each pillow, but despite all this, the four Lindsay boys stood in the doorway, looking at the room with suspicion, refusing to move any further. Finally Alec turned to Branscombe who had shown them up.

‘Yer going to lock us in 'ere?' he asked, a stubborn look in his eyes as the other three stared at the floor, feeling only too grateful that they had an elder brother who could act as spokesman for them.

Branscombe, whose childhood had been far from sumptuous, understanding immediately what the problem might be, turned to the bedroom door.

‘See here,' he told Alec, swinging the door. ‘No lock, no key, just a handle to turn.'

‘Yeh, but s'posin' you take the handle off of it?'

‘Then the door won't work, see, the door just won't work, and besides,' it was his turn to point, ‘you have a rope ladder there, fire precautions, see? You can just throw it out of the window, and it will stretch down to the ground. And you can go where you like after that, always providing you can see your way around the grounds, of course.'

Alec stared around him, beginning to trust his surroundings a little more, but then not wanting to let go of his discontent, he finally pointed at the beds.

‘I'm too old for toys,' he told Branscombe, accusingly. ‘I dun have no teddy bears, and that.'

Branscombe walked up to the first of the beds, and picked up the teddy in question.

‘Very well,' he said in a dignified voice. ‘Since this is my personal teddy bear, Master Alec, and I was quite prepared to lend him to you, you will forgive me if I take him back to my room, where he will be more appreciated.'

Alec stared at Branscombe, realising that he was talking to someone with authority who was neither a policeman, nor a doctor, nor a teacher, nor a school bully.

‘I'm fourteen, see?' he said, by way of a sudden explanation. ‘If it got back to Dad I was in bed with a teddy, he'd knock my block off.'

Branscombe sighed.

‘There seem to be an awful lot of blocks being knocked off where you come from, Master Alec, but enough of that. Time to take off all our clothes and have a nice bath. If you follow me to the basement there is a tub all hot and soapy, ready and waiting for you lot there.'

Branscombe was so tired after all the scuttling about that the day had brought that he could have willingly climbed into the tub himself, and never mind the evacuees, but Johnny obviously didn't feel the same. He let out a sudden, vigorous, and fresh howl.

‘I ain't havin' no bath, I don't have no baths, baths make you weak, my nan says!'

Branscombe turned away, half-closing his eyes, and his hand went out to the now really rather controversial handle on the door. He had tried to warn Miss Jessica just what they would be in for, taking in London children, but as always she had become instantly deaf when confronted with something she did not want to hear. Besides which, she was the area officer in charge of evacuees, which meant, she maintained, that it was imperative that she set a good example.

‘Just stay here, until further notice, if you don't mind,' he said, raising his voice above yet more wailing, and yet more threats of blocks being knocked off. ‘And I will be back with a change of plan.'

As he went slowly down to the ground floor, he came across Freddie in the act of descending to the basement with an armful of bath towels fresh from the linen cupboard.

‘No point in bothering with those for the moment, Miss Freddie,' he announced. ‘No point at all. Apparently the Lindsay brothers will not take a bath for fear of weakening themselves.'

‘Oh, I expect we can overcome their prejudices, unless they are based on some kind of religious principles, in which case we will have to call in the vicar!' Freddie joked, continuing on to the basement, followed by Branscombe.

‘Never mind their prejudices against bathing, Miss Freddie, it's my prejudices against nits that we're going to have to deal with just now.'

Freddie turned slowly.

‘Nits?'

‘Yes, Miss Freddie, nits. Never mind the bathing, we have an army of the little blighters to cope with up there, so it's out with the coal tar, and the paraffin, Miss Freddie, and believe me, that is just the beginning, because nits breed like Catholics, and some of them are up at Holly House, which won't make Mrs Huggett too happy, because, as I understand it, she hates Papists worse than nits!'

They both laughed, and Freddie followed Branscombe dutifully to the storeroom, for despite their jokes, her heart was beginning to sink. The idea of taking in evacuees had seemed so romantic. She had imagined herself running about the park with them, gathering flowers, teaching them to ride a bicycle, that kind of thing, not having to cope with paraffin and coal-tar shampoos.

‘All good training for the VAD, Freddie,' Jessica told her crisply, when Freddie moaned at the smell of the stuff they had to mix.

And that was before they attacked the poor boys' toenails, which were, as Branscombe put it, pithily, ‘More like devils' toenails than anything human.'

Freddie agreed, little realising that coping with the Lindsays was actually going to be as nothing compared with what she would soon have to face.

Maude turned as one of the maids came in with a paint pot and brush.

‘Surely we have finished dealing with the blackout by now, Pattern?'

The maid shook her head, more than a little hopelessly. Complying with the blackout was a slow job at the best of times, but when you were faced with as many windows as there were at the Hall, it was impossible.

‘No more materials not anywhere, nowhere at all, not in Bramsfield, not Cudlington, nowhere. Can't get any more black paint for the pantry, neither. We have run out of material, only green velvet left at Mr Hartley's, and none left of black paper, and now no more paint, neither.'

Maude sighed. She had been warned by the wretched Chittlethorpe, before he went off to sign up, that she would be in for a hefty fine if she had so much as a small chink of light showing anywhere.

‘Just carry on, then, as you were, and if we run out we run out. I shall only be using a couple of rooms for these next few days, making do with daylight and candles, so I doubt if we will ever be in trouble with the authorities.'

The maid hurried off, and Maude stared out of the window. She had agreed to allow the place to be turned into a hospital for wounded officers, but then had been informed that the Hall should be made available for wounded soldiers, not necessarily just officers – soldiers of all ranks, which had not happened before. When she was in London for the Season, a friend of her mother's, who had nursed all ranks, had told them that the language of the ordinary soldier was appalling, but that if they were with you long enough, you could stop them using bad language just by creating the kind of conditions where it was simply not necessary any more. Maude could only hope and pray that this was right.

She had put away her photograph albums for good, now, and with Daisy's dismissal from the house, she no longer went for jolly drives wearing motoring scarves. She went to bed as the light faded, which, in the grip of a bitter winter, as they were now, was really not much later than teatime. Once in a bed smothered with blankets, she read by the light of a torch. She wanted to see no one, and she was quite sure that no one wanted to see her.

She had her faith, of course, not a very strong one any more, not since the horrors of the Great War, when the clergy blessed the guns, but it did give her a little comfort, as much as it gave her anything.