by Cathy Gohlke
Chapter Eight
CLAIRE HADN’T EXPECTED her resolve to be tested so soon. The heat and mugginess of August did nothing to enhance the moods of Mrs. Creedle or Mrs. Newsome. Even Aunt Miranda, who’d taken more interest and time with the children of late, grew short-tempered when they’d trampled her prizewinning poppies to fetch a stray ball during a cricket match.
Claire determined the most helpful thing she could do was to keep the children from Mrs. Creedle’s kitchen, from Mrs. Newsome and Nancy’s realm of duty within the house, from Aunt Miranda’s library and front gardens, from Mr. Dunnagan’s kitchen gardens and henhouse . . . but where and what did that leave?
Perhaps a traipse through the local graveyard to do stone rubbings. Stone rubbing was a thing Claire could do well—a hobby she’d enjoyed while growing up not far from an old cemetery in Princeton. The project had a “Mary Poppins-ish” appeal in a morbid sort of way. They might even gather some local lore from the groundskeeper in the process.
Claire collected all the leftover butcher paper Mrs. Creedle was willing to spare and thick pieces of charcoal from Mr. Dunnagan. She never bothered to explain the outing to Aunt Miranda or Mrs. Newsome, certain those good ladies would be glad to find the house and grounds quiet for a change.
After breakfast, before the heat of the day, Claire mustered the troops and marched them down to the village church and graveyard.
“What are we doing in the Christian cemetery?” Bertram wanted to know.
“We’re going to do stone rubbings.”
“Stone rubbings?” Jeanine sounded incredulous.
“Now watch this; I’ll show you how it’s done.” Kneeling before the first stone she came to, Claire placed a portion of butcher paper over the chiseled epitaph. Leaning in with flexed muscles, she rubbed the charcoal briskly and methodically across the paper.
“Look!” Elise pointed. “You can see the writing!”
“Precisely.” Claire sat back on her heels, satisfied. “Now I want each of you to take some paper and charcoal and find the most interesting epitaph or some of the most interesting names you can. Then we’re going to make up stories about who those people were and what they did.”
“But we don’t know those people,” Jeanine objected, “and paper is precious. You want us to use it for pictures of tombstones?”
“It looks as if they’ve been dead a very long time,” Gaston observed.
“Of course they have,” Claire agreed, ignoring Jeanine’s frugality, “but we’re going to use our imaginations.”
Jeanine and Bertram exchanged worried glances, and Claire could see from Bertram’s crossed arms that he disapproved.
“What’s the matter?”
“When we visit graves, we do so out of respect for the loved ones buried there. We might bring a stone of remembrance, but we take nothing away. We do not scribble over their grave markers.”
Claire felt heat rise up her neck. “I’m showing no sign of disrespect and I’m stealing nothing. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I’m appreciating the stones and remembering the lives of people who’ve been gone for generations.”
Jeanine stepped forward, spreading her hands, clearly trying to bridge the gap between Claire and Bertram. “But we aren’t remembering them, don’t you see? We never knew these people.”
Claire heaved a sigh. “You’re missing the point entirely.”
Bertram looked away and Claire knew there was no way to reach him. It was one more thing she didn’t understand about their Jewish culture, one more reason she was not the person to teach or govern them. “Look, you don’t have to do the rubbings if you don’t want.”
“I’ll do them!” Elise stepped forward, eager to please.
“All right.” Claire forced a smile. “Those of you who want to do them, come with me. The rest of you wander through and see what you can learn from what’s written on the stones. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn about the village.”
“Whispers among the dead?” Gaston wiggled his eyebrows.
Claire tried not to grin in return, especially when Bertram pinched his younger brother’s arm.
“Not exactly. But when you find several family graves with common death dates, you know some tragic event must have taken place—a fire, a flood, maybe a raging epidemic. When you find an infant’s grave of just a few days, or less than a year, you know there was a sad and grieving mother behind that story.”
Claire wasn’t sure the children appreciated all she said, and sharing her thoughts felt like losing something sacred . . . but she continued. “When I discover a little lamb atop a tombstone, sometimes I cry. I think that lost child must have been especially sweet and dear to their parents.”
Aimee looked as if she might cry too, which was not what Claire had envisioned for any of them.
“Aimee, you might look for flowers that grow in the cemetery. I see some forget-me-nots over near the church’s nave. Pick some especially pretty ones so we can press them in a book.”
Aimee smiled, looking relieved, and trotted off toward the church. Bertram and Jeanine wandered in the opposite direction.
“Elise and Gaston, come; I’ll show you how to begin.”
“I saw.” Gaston grabbed some paper and a charcoal. “I can find my own way, mademoiselle.”
“We’ll meet at the gate when the town clock strikes eleven!” she called after him and gratefully turned back to Elise.
Claire helped Elise rub the chiseled wool of a particularly old lamb on a stone and idly wondered what Aunt Miranda might think, if she’d ever haunted cemeteries in search of stories or imaginings. Claire’s mother had always complained such fascination was morbid, but Claire didn’t see it as such.
So many of the village stones were ancient, some crumbling. Two were newer, more freshly dug graves with no grass, changing the landscape. When she and Elise stood, Claire glimpsed a tall monument near the far edge of the cemetery, flanked by similar sculptures. “Let’s see what’s over there.”
They’d not taken three steps when Aimee’s terrified scream pierced the air.
“Aimee? Aimee! Where are you?”
“Mademoiselle!” The scream came again and again. Claire, the children, a groundskeeper Claire had not seen before, and even the vicar raced toward the child’s screams.
Claire couldn’t see Aimee anywhere but ran toward the horrified faces of the vicar and groundskeeper, who stopped her short with a mighty jerk before she plunged headlong into an open grave.
“Mademoiselle!” Aimee wailed from six feet below, Gaston standing guiltily beside her.
“Aimee! Gaston! Are you all right?” Claire all but fainted from terror and embarrassment.
“Oui, mademoiselle,” Gaston affirmed, “no broken bones. The ego, however, it is damaged, and Aimee is not happy.”
The vicar raised his eyebrows. “These are yours, Mrs.—?”
Claire felt her color rise from more than the encroaching heat of the day. “Miss Stewart. I’m responsible for them, yes. They’re evacuee children, you see, from Bluebell Wood.”
“I do see.” The vicar did not smile.
“I sent them exploring and I’m afraid they must have—”
“Aimee dropped her flower into the hole, and then lamented its loss,” Gaston shouted unnecessarily from below. “She stepped too near the edge to retrieve it and—voilà! I jumped in to save her.”
“Gallant lad. And now there’s the both of you prime for planting.” The groundskeeper shook his head, but the creases near his eyes inclined to laughter—an impulse the vicar didn’t share.
“We’ve a funeral here this morning. The casket should have already arrived. I sincerely hope—”
“Never mind, Vicar.” The groundskeeper seemed to enjoy himself entirely too much. “It’s my fault, if any. I staked no rope round the opening. Reckon I wasn’t expectin’ guests. I’ll have them out in your mother’s blink.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” Claire appealed.
“I know that, Vicar, and again, I’m so very sorry.”
“It’s a mercy these children didn’t break their necks, and you can tell Lady Langford I said so.”
“Yes, Vicar.” Claire wanted to step into the open grave herself.
The vicar turned to go, then faced Claire once more. “Dr. MacDonald tells me Lady Langford has agreed to take in German children. Make certain they stay out of the cemetery as well.”
German children? Surely there must be some mistake! Claire didn’t know whether to cry or simply let the groundskeeper bury her.
Much to Miranda Langford’s relief, Dr. MacDonald settled the children’s education in September, over a stroll through Bluebell Wood’s rose garden.
“There is a Miss McCoy, a teacher from Liverpool, here with twenty evacuees from her school—all spread through the village, billeted as best they can be. Miss McCoy’s made arrangements with the schoolmaster to share the school day and premises. Local children have lessons with their own teacher at the schoolhouse in the mornings until luncheon. Evacuee children will have lessons with their Miss McCoy in the afternoons. It’s only half a day for each, but better than naught.”
“They won’t mix them and work together?” Miranda thought it rather typical English snobbery to separate the children. She plucked a rose hip in irritation.
“Too many of them, for starts, but they’ve found the children in very different levels of learning. . . . Best to keep them advancing with their own teachers.”
“I don’t see how that helps us.” Miranda had always been put off by the formalities of British education, for both the elite and the masses. She’d longed for Christopher to be educated at home or nearby in the village school, but neither the village nor her peers had thought that proper for a boy bound to fill his father’s shoes as Lord Langford. It was Eton and away for him, something she regretted even more now that he was forever gone.
“I’ve asked if she’d be willing to take your children in her classes, and she’s quite willing as long as they’re well behaved and able to keep up.”
“But those are English children she’s teaching. Will she take French children—or German children when your evacuees arrive?” Miranda hoped he took the point that these proposed newcomers were his idea and his evacuees, no matter that they would be billeted at Bluebell Wood. She was already losing her determination to avoid attachment to the French children; her heart dared risk no more.
“Aye, as long as they speak enough English to learn and obey, and not disrupt the rest of the class.”
“Well, there’s no way to know about the Germans until they’re here. Bertram and Jeanine are certainly prepared. Elise can probably just manage the English as long as Jeanine helps her. Gaston considers himself a native from birth.”
The doctor laughed. “A native tongue with hot French blood!”
Miranda sighed. “I can’t imagine getting Gaston to sit still long enough, but it will be a blessing to Mrs. Creedle to have him out of the house and off the grounds for a few hours each day.”
“It will be good for the boy. Discipline is needed in the ranks.” The doctor raised his eyebrows at Miranda, a thing she rarely appreciated and didn’t now. She chose to ignore it.
“I don’t think Aimee is quite ready.”
“Nor do I. A bit wee yet. Perhaps next term.” The doctor hesitated, opened his mouth to speak, but turned away.
“Raibeart?” Miranda didn’t welcome his interfering, but she’d known him a long time, after all, and valued his insights and advice.
“I’m concerned about your niece.”
“Please, don’t start again. She’s doing the best she can. She knows nothing of governing children, which she’s embarrassingly and abundantly proven. I know you disapprove—”
“It’s not that, Maggie. I’m concerned for her. She’s sunk since being here—something neither you nor she wants, surely.”
“She’s unhappy, but she is trying. Her young man is hurt or possibly dead, at the very least a prisoner by now. She misses her friends, her work, her hopes of writing. All of that was so bound up in her life in Paris.”
“I understand all that. I do. And there’s nothing can be done about her friend, not until we know more. But perhaps she doesn’t see what’s before her.”
“A war. For someone Claire’s age, it looks like a lifetime. As much as I need her help with the children, I understand that. I remember.”
“Has that served you well, Maggie?”
Miranda bristled, as she always did when Raibeart MacDonald pointed out her weaknesses.
“Don’t get your back up. I only want to help your niece. I’m a doctor, after all, as well as an interferin’ old friend . . . both are what I do.” He snapped the stem of an apricot rose in the blush of new bloom and handed the fragrant beauty to her, a conciliatory gift.
Miranda couldn’t help but smile. “What do you suggest?”
“Just this: that you encourage Claire to get on with her writing. She’s filled with some romantic notion that the only way to do that is to return to Paris and her American bookstore.”
“She said there’s great literary inspiration there—writers she admires. I sympathize.”
“And there is great literary inspiration here. Wordsworth and Carlyle came to the Lake District for that very purpose. And most of all, my friend, there is you.”
Miranda inhaled. Raibeart MacDonald was probably the only person alive who knew of her longing to write, a longing she’d never fulfilled beyond bits of poems that no one saw and journal entries for the Mass Observation Project—a project that he had suggested for her.
As if he could read her mind, the doctor smiled. “And how is your Mass Observation journal coming?”
Miranda twisted the rose he’d given her until she broke the stem. “Not well. Not since Christopher—” She couldn’t bring herself to say more.
Kindly, the doctor went on. “Claire is in a similar boat, Maggie. She needs to wrench the grief from her spirit. If putting it on paper would help, then perhaps that’s a project for her.”
“I imagine London has all the grief-stricken writers it can stand these days.” If she was sarcastic, even cruel, who could blame her?
“That’s just it, isn’t it? We’re a nation at war. Understanding the horrible effects on the populace—the people who must survive while everyone else is off bombing the living daylights out of one another . . . Well, perhaps that understanding could lead to fewer wars, to no wars one day.”
Miranda hadn’t wanted to write of her grief after Christopher’s death. But for Claire it might be needed to vent her soul; Miranda conceded that writing had helped her after Gilbert’s death. “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll speak with her about it.”
“Perhaps you’ll take up your pens together.”
“Now you’re being pushy.”
The doctor smiled. “So I am.” He donned his hat and lifted it again in farewell. “On that note, I’m off. I’ll stop when I’ve word of our new evacuees.”
Miranda didn’t correct his use of “our evacuees,” nor did she suggest he telephone her with the news rather than squandering his petrol ration to visit.
Claire was not at all certain she wanted to accept her aunt’s invitation to the library for afternoon tea, a formality they’d rarely indulged in since a light evening meal was served so early for the children’s sakes. At least that was what her aunt had explained, though Claire realized Aunt Miranda was not inclined to spend time not required with her. According to Dr. MacDonald she bore a strong resemblance to her cousin, Christopher. Her aunt might also find her a reminder of years of estrangement with her own sister. But could it really be because Aunt Miranda found Claire herself disagreeable, disgusting in some way? Claire didn’t know, but the price for clarity ran high.
The smile that greeted Claire when she
entered the library was brave but tentative. That’s how she thought of her aunt mostly—brave but tentative.
“Good afternoon, Aunt.” Claire infused as much cheer into her voice as she could muster.
“Good afternoon, Claire. You look lovely today.”
Claire started. It wasn’t like her aunt to compliment her. But in anticipation of the tea Claire had taken special pains with her hair, winding its thick and unruly tendrils into victory rolls. She fingered it self-consciously. “Thank you; so do you.”
Aunt Miranda looked as if she didn’t believe her, but indulged her niece’s attempt at flattery. “Will you take tea?”
“Yes, thank you. Is this a special occasion?” Claire didn’t want to be caught unawares if something more lay on the horizon.
Her aunt looked up after pouring. “No, at least it shouldn’t be.” She set the pot down. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see that. I want to right the situation, if we can.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“I won’t make excuses. I simply wasn’t prepared for . . . for you or the children.”
“We descended on you out of the blue. I never intended it to turn out this way. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about the vicar and the cemetery—and everything.”
“I know you are. And I’m sorry I didn’t welcome you. It’s just . . .” Aunt Miranda looked as if she wanted to continue but couldn’t.
“We’re a great burden, I know. Even with making things legal and ration books for the children—”
“No. Truly, that’s not the case. Everyone is doing their bit now, taking in someone or many someones for the duration. I can’t expect to be any different. I’m not even certain, now you’re all here, that I would want it to be different.”
Claire felt her mouth drop and forcibly closed her teeth. Her aunt rose from her chair and walked to the window. What she saw through the ancient paned glass Claire couldn’t be certain, but she heard Elise’s squeal of delight from somewhere out of doors.
