by Cathy Gohlke
A moment later David Campbell pushed open the door with his foot, balancing a tray laden with tea and sandwiches. The doctor sighed, at once appreciative and regretful. He set his bag on the table.
“The children?” Maggie whispered.
“Asleep at last.”
“And Aimee?”
“Sedated. The wee bairn was mightily upset.”
“That’s why I telephoned. I didn’t—none of us could calm her.”
He nodded. “Aye. She should sleep through the day. A little supper and a great deal of loving is what I prescribe. Stay with her until she falls asleep again. I’m concerned she might be coming down with something more. I don’t think it’s influenza, though there’ve been some new cases in the village. I’m trying to contain it, but it’s too early to know.”
Claire opened her eyes, blinking against the light. “Oh, I hope it’s not that again.”
“We’ll do our best.” Maggie smiled, though she looked very tired to the doctor, unnaturally tired. “Do you have time to sit with us, Raibeart?” Her invitation eased the taut muscles in his neck and he sank into the chair nearest her.
David set the tray on the table. “Doctor, have a sandwich and a cuppa.”
Raibeart glanced at David as he accepted both, annoyed to like the younger man. Even at this late hour, he, a near stranger, was up and helping in the best way he could. It was the second time that long night the doctor had received a steaming cup of tea at the man’s hands.
Maggie pushed the hair from her eyes. “They were all so terrified, especially when the Home Guard pretended to arrest them. Their fear worries me more than that the wardens saw their candles burning.”
“I hope you’ll feel that way when they fine you, Aunt Miranda,” Claire chided, pouring tea for the rest.
Dr. MacDonald knew Claire meant to be amusing, but he didn’t find it funny.
“We’re giving them a home—a place to live—but I feel like we’re failing with them.” Maggie spread her hands. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“They’re missing their families and everything they’ve known. I don’t see how we can help that.” Claire’s honest assessment eased the doctor’s annoyance, but only a little.
He set his nearly drained cup in its saucer. “Though it goes against my grain, I’ll have to agree with the Campbell.” He’d never expected to be on the same side as his clan’s sworn enemy. But the child’s hysterics were more than enough to know that something must be done, and David’s suggestion had seemed a good one.
“What do you mean?”
The doctor looked to David and nodded.
“We can’t do anything about what they endured before they came here, but I think you’re right that they’re missing their families,” David began. “I think tonight was about trying to hold on to a remnant.”
“Of their families?” Claire asked.
“Of their families, but also of their identities, and their memories.” David paused. “They’re Jewish, and I think most if not all of them come from practicing families. Their years are defined by religious festivals, even more than our years are defined by holidays.”
“Are you saying we’ve taken their Jewish identity away from them? We don’t insist they attend church, and this is wartime, after all.”
“Maggie, be honest with yourself. They don’t attend church because you don’t attend church, something that wouldn’t harm either of you women. If you expected it of them, they’d go to please you.”
Maggie bristled, but Raibeart wasn’t sorry he’d said it. She’d sealed herself off from the world too long, and from the church ever since Christopher had died. Perhaps having David Campbell to help plead the children’s case would move Maggie in a way he’d failed to do.
“I’m just saying they need the stability of their heritage and the faith they’ve been raised in.” David spoke with more authority now.
“But I don’t see how—”
“I know the rabbi in Penrith,” the doctor cut in. “A patient of mine before he moved out that way. Regular services are held there.”
“Penrith must be thirty miles or more! However would we take them all that far? Petrol is rationed, and we don’t—”
“Let me talk with him. If you’re willing, perhaps he’ll come here . . . or he may know someone closer to teach the children on occasion. If I don’t miss my guess, those older boys have either been bar mitzvahed or are missing it, losing out on their Hebrew lessons, or whatever it is they do. Not a thing to be overlooked in their faith, not even in their culture.”
“The stepping into manhood.” David nodded. “Peter said he celebrated bar mitzvah in Germany—even brought his grandfather’s prayer shawl with him. But I think Bertram may be ready or even just past the appointed age.”
Maggie sighed. “We don’t even know what they’re missing.”
“No, we don’t,” David agreed, “but we can learn. I’ll help in any way I can, any way you wish.”
“While you’re here,” Claire stated flatly, then crimsoned. “I mean, you’re planning to leave once the factory’s village is built, right?”
“Well, I don’t—”
“I’m just saying that whatever we start is something those of us who are here must be able to carry on. If you’re not staying and the doctor can’t be expected to help, well then, it’s just Aunt Miranda and me.”
“And would it hurt you to welcome a stranger into this house to help those children?”
“Raibeart,” Maggie soothed, “Claire is just being practical. They’re not ours to raise. They’re only here temporarily.”
“Temporarily? There’s a war on, Maggie, and no end in sight. They’re apt to spend their childhoods here.”
“Or be gone tomorrow.”
“Aye, but we all know that’s not likely. And if they were gone tomorrow, would you not want them to go back to Germany, or to France, with a stronger faith? Won’t they be needing that faith in a world that may well have ripped their families from them forever?”
Raibeart knew Maggie understood and had always embraced the importance, the deep necessity of faith. Grief still weighed her down, had made her blind. There was no shortchanging that journey, but how he wished he could shake the darkness out of her, for her own sake and for the sake of the weeping children he’d just quieted. Had he made a mistake in bringing more youngsters to Maggie? He hoped not.
He glanced at David, his ally in seeing things as they stood, and shook his head. Wartime made the strangest comrades, and the oddest foes.
Chapter Sixteen
1941 DAWNED. As mysteriously as the ornaments on the tree in the secret garden appeared, Claire found they had disappeared by late January.
Dr. MacDonald was as good as his word and brought the rabbi from Penrith to Bluebell Wood himself. Rabbi Meir patiently explained to Mrs. Newsome the importance to Jewish people of keeping a kosher kitchen, and his understanding that such a thing might prove impossible for Bluebell Wood in wartime. Significantly, he instituted the keeping of Shabbat and tutored Aunt Miranda and the children in their duties for the weeks he would not be able to preside—duties their parents had assumed in bygone days.
The first evening the family observed the Shabbat meal under the direction of the rabbi, tears coursed down Jeanine’s cheeks and Peter’s eyes filled. Aimee’s eyes glowed like the candles they burned, and each head, German and French, reverently bowed in prayer. Claire realized, once again, that David had understood and reached out to the children in ways she had not—that she had not even realized their deep need.
How does he know? How does he see these things? Why don’t I?
Valentine’s Day had long been painful for Mrs. Newsome. Not so much for herself—it had been many years since her husband had died in the Great War, and she’d learned to live and love her life. But seeing her ladyship grieve through February for the past two decades had been hard. And now her American niece took up the moping vigil. It was nearly more tha
n Mrs. Newsome could stand to see the two mooning over past loves, imagined loves, and neglecting the cheeks and eyes that needed brightening around the breakfast table.
She ladled porridge from the tureen on the sideboard and handed bowls to the children, one by one. “I noticed that Valentine’s Day is just round the bend.”
Lady Langford blinked, her mouth a straight line, but did not reply.
“I was thinking that our fine young artists might like to engage in a particular project.”
“Mrs. Newsome, whatever are you talking about?”
“Why, about making valentines to give, and perhaps to send to the district hospital, for recovering soldiers. They might bring a bit of cheer for the lads.”
“May we?” Jeanine enthused. “Do you think they’d want them—homemade ones?”
“Mr. David thinks so. He thinks it a splendid idea.”
“I don’t know . . .” Lady Langford hesitated.
“Please, madame!” Gaston clasped his hands together as if praying.
Mrs. Newsome barely suppressed her smile. The lad, knowing or not, had picked up that habit from Miss Claire. “It’s a war effort project, my lady. It will show the men that we care about them and appreciate all they’ve sacrificed. I hear that some of the wounded men have lost their sweethearts, if you can imagine it—girls turning their backs on men because they’ve lost a leg or an eye. How could they at such a time?” Mrs. Newsome knew Lady Langford would agree. Perhaps it had been unfair to bait her in front of the children, who immediately took up the cry, but they all needed cheering, and if a bit of lace and ribbon and colored paper with a sentimental line or two could do that and help the poor fighting lads at the same time, well, who was she to mind the wheedling?
“You’re in charge of this project, Mrs. Newsome. You may go ahead or nip it in the bud, as you wish.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
The breakfast table sent up a cheer, all except Aimee, who seemed even more withdrawn than usual. Mrs. Newsome made a mental note to remind Aimee that she needn’t know how to write; she could simply draw a picture to send. She hoped that was all that ailed the child.
During the next week every meal was served à la carte in either the drawing room or library, for the dining room table became a veritable assembly line of plain and colored paper, ribbon, lace, pen, and ink.
Mrs. Newsome had expected industry and creativity but was more than a little astonished by the romantic and amusing verses penned by the roomful of laughing youngsters, particularly Peter, who kept his last valentine to himself, no matter how much the others cajoled him to show it. Ingrid proved to have a fine hand with calligraphy. Mr. David offered to collect the colorful missives to deliver to the hospital staff, who’d promised to distribute them according to perceived need.
But Aimee held one valentine behind her back.
“Don’t you want to send it to the wounded men, Aimee? It will mean so very much to them to receive a pretty valentine from a sweet young girl,” Mrs. Newsome encouraged the child. Aimee had made very few, and each one had taken her a long time—each one that much more precious in the housekeeper’s mind.
But Aimee firmly shook her head. “This is for someone.”
“For whom, dear?”
Aimee flushed and looked toward Claire. “For mademoiselle.” She brought it from behind her back and ran toward Claire at the far end of the table. Aimee stopped suddenly, as if uncertain how to proceed.
Mrs. Newsome wanted to pinch Claire. Take it! Don’t you see what it means to the child?
But Claire sat, stilted, and as uncertain as Aimee. Finally, she said, “Thank you, Aimee,” and took the valentine, but as if afraid it might set her fingers on fire. She set it on the table and pushed it closer to Aimee. “That’s very nice, and thank you, but I think it would be best to give it to the wounded soldiers. They need it most.”
Aimee did not blink, did not move, did not retrieve the precious gift. Her face faded from tentative to flat, as though someone had washed a slate clean.
Mrs. Newsome couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a heave in the child’s chest before she turned and ran from the room, tiny fists clenched.
Josef had pleaded, even begged Peter not to go. Sneaking out and meeting the pretty Fräulein beside the lake at night could bring nothing but trouble. “Can you not give her your valentine tomorrow—hand it to her before our school session and after hers?”
“Mine must be the first she receives. Besides, she may not come. She did not promise. If she does not appear, I will return the way I came. I am not a Dummkopf, Josef. I know enough not to get caught.”
All the same, Josef tossed and worried all the while Peter was gone late that night.
Josef’s eyes were barely open when Peter finally pulled aside the blackout curtain and slipped back into the room. His older brother was not humming under his breath as he’d done before going out. Josef could tell by the slump in his shoulders that the meeting had not gone as planned. Rather than ask, Josef turned over, closed his eyes, and gave his brother the privacy he surely needed.
The breakfast gong had just sounded when the pounding on the front door came. Mrs. Newsome sent Nancy to answer. “Who could it be at this hour, and in such a state?”
She hadn’t long to wonder. Two booming male voices echoed up and down the foyer.
“I told you they’re nothing but scum! Children, my eye! Arrest the bloomin’ Hun, Foley! Be quick about it.”
Mrs. Newsome reached the hallway at the same time Claire raced down the stairs, trailed by the children and nearly bumping into David.
Lady Miranda, still in her dressing gown, her face the color of watered-down milk, placed a trembling hand on the banister at the top of the stairs. “What is it, Mr. Firthman? What is the trouble that’s brought you to my door?”
“It’s them bloomin’ foreigners you’re harborin’ here! Nazi informants! Caught red-handed! And if you don’t have him arrested you’re in it for treason . . . my lady!”
“Whatever are you going on about, Douglas Firthman?” Mrs. Newsome had had quite enough of the man, and she didn’t want Lady Miranda standing in the chill. Her lady had never quite come down with the influenza as had some of the staff and children, but she’d not looked well—as if fighting something off—for some time.
“Mrs. Johnson saw that tall blond one signaling across the lake last night, caught him leaving German messages for the invaders.”
“Peter?” Claire sounded incredulous.
“The very!”
“There must be some mistake, some misunderstanding—” David broke in.
“Show him!”
Sergeant Foley pulled a smudged and dog-eared paper from his pocket, the very paper the children had used to print valentine messages. “It’s German writing, all right. Mrs. Johnson lives just by the road. Said she saw him signaling with a torch, bright as can be, then stuff this into the rock wall a block or so from the schoolhouse. Figured him to be signaling an accomplice.”
“And did you see this accomplice?” David all but sneered.
“No need to be high-handed with me, Campbell. I’m doin’ my duty for king and country, not to be deterred by anyone, even the likes of you.”
“What about the likes of me?” Dr. MacDonald thundered behind him. “What are you on about now, Douglas Firthman?”
“Espionage! Traitors! Treason! That’s what it is.”
“Please, my lady, come and lie down.” Mrs. Newsome took the stairs as quickly as she could and placed a supportive hand under Lady Miranda’s arm. “They’ll sort this out. It’s surely a lot of thunderblus. You know what Douglas Firthman is.” She whispered the last. Her ladyship, though weak and trembling, did not budge.
Peter appeared on the stairs, his face flushing at the sight of Mr. Firthman.
“You! There he is! Arrest him, Foley.”
“A wee bit of sanity, if you please, Sergeant Foley.” Dr. MacDonald pushed into the midst of the gro
up. “May I see the paper you found?”
“Well, Doc, it’s a bit of evidence. Don’t know that I should.”
But the doctor snatched it from Foley’s hand and opened it. He read it slowly, then read it again, the hint of a smile reaching the corners of his eyes, which he appeared to suppress. “And just who, young Peter, were you planning to translate this for, to woo? Not the Nazi paratroopers, I suspect.”
Peter turned scarlet.
“What’s that you’re sayin’?” demanded Firthman.
The doctor handed the paper back to Foley. “Would you send a love poem to the high command?”
“A love poem?”
“Aye. My German’s a mite rusty, but I know enough to see that’s what it is. Why don’t you have the boy translate?”
“He’d lie!” Firthman blustered.
“Then one of the others, or Lady Langford. I’m sure she knows enough of the German tongue to tell. Or one of you. Firthman? Sergeant Foley? Didn’t you learn a smidgen in school? Or didn’t you bother to read it before you came stormin’ in here?”
Firthman colored and snatched the paper in return. “Lady Langford, I ask you to translate.”
“Must she?” Peter looked miserable.
“Aye, I’m afraid so, son,” the doctor commiserated. “To clear your name of these vile suspicions.”
Foley grabbed the paper from Firthman and squinted. “I can make out a word here, there, a line or two. Perhaps it’s as you say, but I want to know who you intended this for. Speak up, lad!”
Peter looked as if he’d bite bullets first.
“Who were the torch signals for?” asked Foley. “That’s something I must know. It’s already in my report, lad. We don’t take infringement of the blackout lightly.”
“They were for the girl!” Josef stepped forward.
“Be quiet!” Peter jabbed his brother in the ribs. “It’s none of your affair.”
“It is if he arrests you! What’s the honor of your lady if she’s betrayed you? If she didn’t even take up for you with—with him? Tell him, or I will.”
