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Dear Clara,
A large pile of crisp hundred-pound notes is now hidden in a secret hole under my floorboards, wrapped in an old envelope and done up neatly with a piece of string knotted twice. In less than a month, the deed will be done, the money will be double, and we can away, you and I, to our new life in Birnham Wood.
Yesterday I met the Brigadier for the exchange, the bundle of money gripped firmly in his sinewy fingers, the tight old git. To say he was reluctant to hand it over would be putting it mild. But I finally wrenched it away and fled, the money safe in my hands.
That was the easy part.
Now I have to deliver the boy.
You see, much to my infuriation, Mrs Dawkins from the farm gave birth last Friday. I wanted to push its scrawny head back in, but then I saw that it was a girl, so it wouldn’t have been any good anyway.
Now my hopes are pinned on goody-two-shoes Hattie. She’s due a week after Mrs Winthrop, so at least I won’t have any issues with early births. Problem is the Tilling woman’s hovering around like a bleeding fairy godmother. Now she’s gone and promised to be midwife at the birth, even though I tried to talk Hattie out of it. I mean, who would take a misery like Mrs Tilling instead of an experienced, well equipped professional like myself? But she was adamant, whining that Mrs Tilling was the closest to family that she has in a pathetically sentimental way. God damn the girl!
Unspeakable as it was, I decided to befriend the nauseating Tilling woman. I had to persuade her out of it, or find out when she’d be out of town. If all else fails, I could give her a major injury, push her down some stairs or collide into her with my bicycle. I hadn’t wanted to go that route frankly. There’s a fine line between a broken arm and manslaughter, after all.
As a first effort, I joined the new choir to cosy up next to her, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I walked in and spotted a place right beside her.
‘I’m surprised to see you here, Miss Paltry,’ she said snootily, shuffling over. ‘It’s not often we see you in church.’
‘I always come on Sundays,’ I smiled warmly, although I bet she’s the type to count and see who’s absent.
There was a lot of kerfuffle about starting a women’s choir, which was patently ridiculous. Of course women can sing without men. I do it every week in the bath.
Then we sang some rather dreary hymns, and after practice was over, I saw my chance.
‘I feel it my duty, Mrs Tilling, to lighten your load and take over Hattie’s birth,’ I began. ‘I live next door to her, after all, and you’re so incredibly busy these days. I have all the equipment and medicines at my house should anything happen. I even have a mechanical ventilator,’ I lied.
‘What? In your own home?’ Mrs Tilling frowned with disbelief. ‘Did the hospital lend it to you?’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ I said quick as a fox, hoping she wouldn’t check. ‘You’d be surprised how often I need it to get the baby breathing proper. First-time pregnancies can be hazardous, you know.’
‘But you’re busy too, and Hattie’s made her mind up to have me there.’
‘I may be busy, but duty first!’ I bounced back. ‘I feel a responsibility, deep down inside.’ I thrust a fist up against my heart at this point, looking all patriotic. ‘And if anything should happen, I’d feel tormented for the rest of my days.’ I tried to push out a few tears at this point, but there’s only so much you can do.
‘Quite,’ Mrs Tilling said, stepping back, a look of distaste on her lips. I sensed that she smelt something fishy. I must have overdone the theatrics. So I quickly changed tack.
‘But you do so much for our little community, what with the WVS always helping people out – all this on top of your own nursing duties.’
‘Yes, the WVS is a great force. You should join. There’s a meeting in Litchfield a fortnight from today, distributing the Bundles for Britain from America. Why don’t you come along and see how it works.’
I smiled a gleeful smile, as that was precisely what I was looking for! A date when the Tilling woman would be out of town. And perfect timing too – a day before Mrs Winthrop’s due date, and a week before Hattie’s. ‘Is it an all-day event?’
‘Yes, all day Friday the third of May.’
She looked slightly bemused at my enthusiasm. So I stopped smiling and added with my usual despondency, ‘I’ll have to check my dates, but I’ll try to come.’
Fortunately, Kitty descended on her with ludicrous cheers for the new choir, so I scooped up my bag and fled, dashing home before my elation exploded.
What a stroke of luck! Now all I have to do is check that she keeps her WVS meeting and hone my plan for the births.
I have become quite the professional, you see, Clara. My herbal potion brings babies out with impressive speed. Now, to give the potion to Mrs Winthrop, who is a timid, compliant sort of woman, will be no problem. This is her fourth baby, so I expect the baby to pop out within the hour. After calling out that it’s a boy, I’ll pretend the baby’s not breathing proper, that I need to whisk it to my house for resuscitation with the mechanical ventilator. (Who’s to know I haven’t got one?)
Hattie, however, will be a more difficult matter. Not only will it be gruelling to get her to take the potion as she is so nauseatingly proper, but then it’ll take four or five hours to get the baby out, it being her first child. Meanwhile, I’ll need someone to watch the Winthrop child.
That’s why I decided to enlist the Winthrops’ maid, Elsie. Not only could she lend a sense of propriety by coming with me when I whisk off the Winthrops’ baby, but she could also help look after the mite while I’m busy with Hattie. So when I spotted her in the shop yesterday, I invited her for tea and mentioned that I may be in need of her assistance at the birth.
‘What you’re saying is you want me to help with Mrs Winthrop’s birth, and then come to your house if you have to take the baby away for emergency help?’ She screwed her eyes up with distaste, suspecting it was down-and-dirty business. But she didn’t ask questions, came from a background like that, see – ask no questions, take the money, leg it.
‘That’s right, love,’ I said, offering her another biscuit. ‘I’d just need someone to help me look after the baby for a short while.’
She took two biscuits, and I could see her thinking it through, her beautiful face pondering like a deer listening for danger. ‘I could do it,’ she said at last. ‘But how much will you give me?’
‘I’d give you ten bob for your trouble, provided you kept quiet.’
‘Ten bob?’ she uttered. ‘More like ten quid, I’d say.’
‘Five quid then,’ I said. What a pain this girl was being!
‘Oh, all right then,’ she said, getting up. ‘I’d love to get me own back on that cheating bastard, even if it’s just his family.’
‘You’re worth a thousand of him, Elsie,’ I said, leading her to the door. ‘You need to find yourself a proper gentleman.’
‘Yeah, p’rhaps I will.’ She poked her head out the door and looked up into the puffy grey clouds. ‘You just wait, I’ll find someone far better than that scoundrel.’
Then she darted out, her long slim form gracefully flitting through droplets of rain, and I settled back to my plan with relish.
This will work, sister! I wish you’d stop pestering me with your doubts. I have no time to think about whether it’s right or wrong, and who cares anyway? How can I think of all that morality nonsense when we’ve got a chance to get back to where we belong, safe and free? I shall let you know when the deed is done. Keep hush, as usual.
Edwina
Silvie’s Diary (#ulink_8a2931ea-7c9f-5ee4-8b61-6ed6ed386ca2)
Saturday, 20th April, 1940
Kitty told me to write a diary. It is good for my English. I have to write about our house. It is big and grand. Mrs Winthrop is quiet. Nanny Godwin is old. Kitty is nice but a bit bossy. Venetia is my friend. Brigadier Winthrop is very angry. There is a grumpy maid and a strange butler who has a hump. The new baby is nearly here. I hope they will still want me then.
There is a new choir and I am a soprano. Singing is good. Kitty helps me with the words. I like the horses too. Amadeus is my favourite. I fell off at Bullsend Brook last week. Mr Slater helped me walk home. He is the man Venetia likes. He spoke a little Czech. It was terrible. My English is much better.
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary (#ulink_8e8f07c6-36bb-5011-a34f-2bea0c213d51)
Tuesday, 23rd April, 1940
David Tilling’s leaving party
Tonight Mrs Tilling was throwing a party for David. He’s back from training and heading to the front in France tomorrow.
But I was much more focused on Henry, who was on forty-eight-hour leave from his aerodrome. One has to take advantage of these moments if one has eternal happiness in mind. I spent the afternoon perfecting my appearance. Floating around in Venetia’s lilac chiffon dress, I knew I would be the focus of everyone’s attention. People would say, ‘Is that Kitty? Who would have known she’d be so beautiful’, and, ‘She puts Venetia quite in the shade.’ Henry would watch from afar, unable to tear his eyes away. Then, when the music started, he would take me in his arms and express the endless depths of his love.
Maybe it wouldn’t happen exactly like that. There might not be dancing, after all. But I was determined that this was the night that would secure our future together.
‘The dress is too big,’ Silvie muttered when I asked her how I looked.
I’d already padded myself up a little on top, but decided to throw an extra stocking down each one, just to be on the safe side.
‘That’s better,’ I said, smoothing down the dress in front of the mirror. ‘He won’t be able to resist me, don’t you think?’
Silvie sighed. ‘I think he likes Venetia.’
I laughed. Silvie’s definitely coming out of her shell a bit more, but I don’t know where she gets some of her ideas. I’m far more interested in hearing about her secret, and badger her to tell me all the time. But she just goes quiet and runs off.
Venetia wanted to make a late entrance so she stayed behind, as did Daddy, who was tied up with work. Norway is going horribly wrong, he says. The Nazis are walking all over us, and it looks like we might have to back out fast. Everyone’s worried they’ll invade Belgium and France next, although apparently we have all routes covered, so we should be fine.
So it was only Mama, Silvie, and I who plunged into the cool evening air. We beamed our torches around because it’s scary walking down the lane next to Peasepotter Wood. Just as we were saying that you never know who might be lurking in there, there was a crunch of bracken and who should appear but Proggett. He shook himself off, bid us good evening, and headed back to the house. How very odd.
We pressed on. As Mama is incredibly pregnant now, Silvie and I had to take an arm on each side to help her along, which made it rather jolly.
The sky was curdled with dimples of darkening dusk, and apart from the odd hoot of a barn owl, it was silent, like we were treading into an enchanted land. Tiny threads of pollen dusted the air, the sweetly scented yellow specks plunging me into a reminder of last summer, before this beastly war, when everything was just right – as it should be.
The Tillings’ home, Ivy House, is one of my favourite places in the village. Not as imposing as Chilbury Manor, nor as ornate as Brampton Hall, it has a quiet serenity about it, a flavour of Mrs Tilling’s thoughtfulness lacing itself through the fairy-tale gardens, the tiny rosebuds growing over a series of pagodas, and a birdbath and feeder, as Mrs Tilling loves all living creatures. She now has six hens for eggs, and a healthy vegetable patch to help the war effort. Ivy House used to be the vet’s office before Dr Tilling died ten years ago, and there is still an air of purpose around the place, as if, at its very heart, it remains a haven for lost or harmed creatures.
As we opened the front door, a lively throng surged out into the garden, and we hurried in to avoid blackout fines. (Mrs B dishes them out like a strict school ma’am – even if only a smidgen of light is let out for a split second she’ll slap a fine in your hand and bellow, ‘We don’t want the Jerries to see us, do we?’)
Inside, the house was merry with flickering candles and jaunty music, which sat oddly with the dreadful fear that David might not come back. Red, white, and blue bunting was draped across the walls, probably borrowed from Mrs B after the extravaganza she threw for Henry. The crowd of chattering villagers stood around gossiping, each clutching a rationed-out glass of sherry.
Venetia made her grand entrance not long after we’d arrived, bringing the room to a standstill by loudly proclaiming, ‘I hope I’m not late!’ Standing out from the rest of us, she was wearing a dress of glistening green and gold, twirling it this way and that so that the sequins caught the light, trailing around her legs with a tempting fluidity. Within an instant, there was a crowd of men surrounding her, mostly friends of David’s on their way to war. She rewarded each with her special flirty attention, all pouty lips whispering little secrets into their ears. I wondered if I could craftily trip her up.
Before long Mrs Tilling hushed us, sending a wave of shushes around the room, and went to fetch David down from his room. We cheered as he came in, dressed in full, pressed khaki uniform, looking terribly grown up. But as I watched, I realised with a flash of both relief and worry that he was still the same David – relief that a uniform doesn’t change a person, then worry that the clumsy lad was going to the front line. He was still the same foolish nine-year-old who’d got stuck up the cherry tree on the green, the same lanky twelve-year-old who I’d punched for pulling my pigtails, the same idiot fourteen-year-old who’d crashed the Dawkinses’ tractor into a perfectly innocent hedge. His colour is yellow, although not for cowardice, but rather a kind of blindness to reality, and I couldn’t help but worry for him. Even now, the eager and dazed look in his eyes showed the way he embraced every challenge in life, with a tireless naivety, like a fox gambolling into the hunt, half expecting to be caught, not thinking about how it all might end.
‘Wow!’ he gasped as he came into the glistening sitting room. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much effort.’ He put his arm around Mrs Tilling in his chaotically warm way. ‘Thank you for coming, everyone!’ He stepped forward to us. ‘Lovely to see you, Mrs B, I thought you’d be far too busy giving someone what for. Have you persuaded Mr Churchill to come and give the Chilbury WVS a speech yet? Bet he doesn’t know he has his top fan club here!’
Everyone laughed, and someone called, ‘He will do soon enough!’
David then turned to Venetia, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘And the beautiful Venetia, a last sight of you to cherish on my journey.’ His eyes remained on her as his smile lurched wetly.
Venetia was all modesty, looking up at him with fluttering eyelashes and glossy red lips. ‘David, you’ll come back my hero,’ she said in a voice breaking with tears. I wanted to laugh, until I met Mrs Tilling’s sour look from across the room. We all know Venetia doesn’t care a farthing for David. I have no idea why she insists on playing stupid games with him.
Mrs Tilling asked me to offer around a plate of rather chewy cheese straws (with so many rations no one ever knows what people put into recipes these days). So I mingled around, watching Henry, who was talking to a very pregnant Hattie. He was looking terrifically handsome with his sandy hair cropped and his pristine RAF uniform. His new moustache is devilishly dashing, like all the best fighter pilots. It makes his nose look a little less beaky, I think. And he looks older too, even though he’s already nineteen – a real man, someone who’ll know how to take care of me. He didn’t seem to notice me watching, until Hattie drew me over to join them.
‘What a gorgeous dress, Kitty,’ she said, fingering the fabric. ‘Don’t you think so, Henry?’
‘Yes indeed. You look lovely, Kitty,’ he said, grinning, and I found myself dissolving into his eyes. But then he added, ‘You’ll follow in your sister’s footsteps soon and become quite the beauty.’ His eyes swept over to Venetia, who was holding forth in a crowd of men beside the piano. Why does she feel she has to get the attention of every man in the room, including Henry, when she’s not even interested in any of them?
‘I don’t want to look like her,’ I said, annoyed, making him look back to me. ‘I want to be a beauty in my own right.’ I felt Hattie let out a sigh, I have no idea why.
‘Of course you’re a beauty in your own right, Kitty!’ Henry declared jovially, putting his hand warmly on my upper arm and giving me a special smile. I felt a surge of heat where he touched me, like a flame lighting up my body. I waited for him to take me in his arms—
But suddenly I felt his attention melt away – Venetia was approaching. Her dress fluttered as she twirled from one man to the next, like a dazzling dragonfly soaring around in search of prey. Her blonde hair hung low over her pearly white shoulders, while a stream of pungent perfume oozed from her soft, white neck. Henry’s hand lost contact with my arm, which suddenly felt cold and lost, and when I looked up at him, he had turned to face her.
‘Come and sit down with me, Henry darling, and tell me all about your bombing raids,’ she chanted loudly, scrolling her fingertips under his chin and softly directing his mouth towards her carefully painted lips. ‘I hear you’ve been fighting over Norway.’
‘I thought you were busy with the other men,’ he said under his breath.
‘They don’t mean a thing to me,’ she said, pouting. Then she leant her head to one side, her thick blonde hair forming a shimmering curtain to conceal her from the rest of the room, and she whispered something into his ear, her long red fingernails barely touching the other side of his neck.
He responded by whispering something back, his hand moving her hair back as his lips hovered closely to her ear.
A man’s voice called her from the other side of the room, and she pulled away.
‘I’ll have to think it over,’ she said, a menacing gleam in her eyes, and spun off into the throng. Henry followed briskly, calling her name. ‘Venetia!’
And me? I was abandoned, alone, in the middle of the room, mutely holding the plate of cheese straws in my hand. How could she do this to me? And why did he follow her? Doesn’t he know that she’s using him, that she says he’s boring and his nose is like a giant wart? Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care a toss about anyone except herself, lining up the men to prove she’s top? But worst of all, knowing how I love him, she revels in keeping him away from me, another of her little tricks at keeping everyone else beneath her, preening over us like she’s some kind of vicious queen. It’s not fair.
She snaked her way through the throng to Mr Slater, who was looking as impeccable as ever, his dark hair smoothed, a detached manliness about him making David and his friends look like halfwit schoolboys. Venetia’s been fanatical trying to get his attention, but he seems immune to her charms – possibly the first man ever. She’s stepping up her game, or else she’ll lose her bet with Angela. And Venetia always has to win. She calls herself the empress of this little place, and she is determined to keep it that way.
I wandered over to Daddy, who had dragged himself away from his office and was looking ferociously at Venetia, with Mrs B prattling away beside him. He wants Venetia to marry Henry and inherit Brampton Hall, which is just plain ridiculous. I simply can’t imagine them together, and even more horrible is the thought of Henry being my brother-in-law. Whenever we’d see each other, the tension would be insurmountable. But we would never give way to our secret passions, holding them inside like tragic lovers. Perhaps there’d be the occasional moment when we’d meet on the veranda. ‘Oh, Kitty,’ he’d say, surprised to see me. ‘Henry, I didn’t think you’d be here—’ I’d reply, looking at the ground, then back towards the open French door, a white drape spilling out in the soft summer breeze. ‘Nor I. I just have to say—’ ‘No, don’t, Henry. Don’t make things harder.’ ‘But Kitty, darling …’ and so forth, until one of us dies.
Daddy was muttering about Mr Slater again. ‘That Slater’s a worthless coward for sitting out the war.’
‘Mr Slater is exempt from fighting as he is flat-footed,’ Mrs B told him pointedly. She’s taken a fancy to Mr Slater, imagining him a great artist ready for her to discover. Trying to prove herself frightfully cultured, she’s attempting to take him under her wing, Heaven help him. Although I have no idea whether he’s any good. I don’t think Mrs B has the ability to discern a masterpiece from a school art project.
‘Slater’s a down-and-out skiver shirking his responsibilities.’ Daddy gulped down his sherry. ‘Cowardly laziness, that’s what it’s all about. He doesn’t realise that it’s fighting that makes a real man.’
I thought of Edmund blown to bits in the North Sea, and poor David on the brink of a bullet in France, and couldn’t help wondering if it had less to do with courage and more to do with common sense. Sending people off to their deaths seems completely ludicrous. I’ve begun imagining what it’s like being blown up in a submarine, the radar blipping warning signals of one’s approaching death, everyone saluting and singing the national anthem, ‘God save our gracious King’. Then boom. Nothing. Only gnawed pieces of fingers and ears washing up on unsuspecting beaches.
As I watched Mr Slater, I couldn’t help thinking that he can’t be all bad. He helped Silvie home last week when she came off Amadeus. She should never have tried to clear Bullsend Brook. It was lucky he was there. Although I wonder what he was doing at Bullsend Brook. It’s the other side of Peasepotter Wood – the middle of the countryside.
Daddy’s eyes narrowed on Venetia, who was busy with Mr Slater, all witty replies and feigned boredom. Even though Daddy will have words with her later, he can’t control Venetia at all. Every time he tells her to leave Slater alone, she simply shrugs and smiles and says she’s ‘Daddy’s little poppet’, and then carries on as usual. It makes me sick.
Henry was standing behind Venetia’s shoulder protectively, trying to get into the conversation. He didn’t have to try hard as Mr Slater seemed pleased to include him, speaking to him directly, making jokes as they both laughed. It was as if he was avoiding Venetia’s attention. Henry put his hand on Venetia’s arm, and I saw his eyes glance at her face, her throat, her cleavage beneath the low-cut dress. She shook off his hand, but he stayed close, and I wondered why he let her play games with him. But then I remembered how clever he is – he must be playing some kind of game himself.
Then I realised I wasn’t the only one watching Venetia. David Tilling was gazing over at her from the window, leaning against the wall, engulfed by her presence. He’s been in love with Venetia since he was in breeches. I never thought it was so serious, but his eyes were like those of a big gulping fish, drinking her up. Venetia needs to watch herself there. David’s become a lot more forthright since army training.
‘Let’s get the piano out,’ Mrs Tilling called. ‘Can I dare Kitty with a song or two?’ Mrs Quail (whose colour is a cheery orange) plumped her very ample behind on the piano stool, while Mrs B grasped my elbow and marched me up beside her. Everyone knows I plan to be a singer when I grow up, so I’m always the first one called for a song or two. Prim gave me a special smile from the crowd, and I felt determined to make a good impression.
‘Come on, Kitty,’ everyone cheered, and I must confess I was touched and took the score. Mrs Quail had given me ‘Greensleeves’, that beautiful song that was supposedly written by King Henry VIII, although I bet he asked someone to help him as you can’t be king and write lovely music at the same time. Especially if you’re busy beheading wives.
Mrs Quail began the opening, and I entered with the wonderful tune. It was perfect for showing off my top notes. When I finished, Prim gave me a little nod, as if to say Well done, and I felt a surge of delight. At long last my skills have been noticed!
I glanced over and caught Henry’s eyes, and it was as if the world slowed down as our gaze met across the crowded room. He smiled, his whole face lit with joy and love, until Venetia nudged him with some remark or other. Trust her to interfere.
In the next song, Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General’, Mrs Quail started playing faster to trip me up on purpose. It was hilarious.
‘You should be on stage as a comedian, not a singer, Kitty,’ Hattie joked. Her colour is lilac, pretty and uplifting, and I have no idea why she’s such good friends with vile Venetia and awful Angela Quail. Perhaps she’s trying to rescue them from utter loathsomeness.
The pregnancy is making her tired – I could tell from her big brown eyes sagging with the weight of the evening – and yet she’s always so lively, perking us up with her jokes and smiles. It must be difficult for her with Victor stuck on a ship in the Atlantic. I still can’t get used to them being married. They were friends for years and then, as if someone turned on a giant light, war was about to break out and they fell in love and got married within the week. It’s happening everywhere, apparently. Obviously, it’s all about death. How strange that love and death suddenly become so tightly knit in a time of war.
Why everyone’s getting married in a hurry
