Thrilling with enthusiasm, she said, “Oh yes, just what the village needs, a war hero to shake it out of its lethargy.”
Algernon tried for the second time that day to protest the word hero, but Diana easily talked over him. “I know exactly what to do,” she said brightly, flicking a glance at Phil that clearly said and you do not. “The ladies of the knitting circle will make nothing but socks for the poor soldiers, and every farmer will double his egg production so we can send more to the starving Londoners.”
“They aren’t exactly starving,” Phil began. Honestly, she makes us sound like beggars and guttersnipes. “What we really need is people for the Home Guard. And rifles, or any other kind of weapon.”
“Yes, yes,” Diana said dismissively. “I’ll arrange all that.”
“We’ve spoken with practically everyone in the village,” Phil said. “No one is interested.”
Diana looked at Algernon with burning devotion, seeing him coming back to life. “I’ll make them be interested!” she swore.
She did it, too. Phil wasn’t sure exactly how—whether it was simply that they were more willing to listen to a local than an outsider, or perhaps that Diana knew their secrets and hidden fears, the better to bribe and bully them. But by afternoon she’d recruited some dozen men and the red-haired woman for paramilitary training and had almost everyone else reluctantly agreeing to save scrap. It was easy to find volunteer fire wardens once she hit on the idea of letting them work in pairs. Several teenage couples relished the idea of being allowed out all night, ostensibly to watch for incendiaries.
Even steely-eyed Diana might not have had such luck, if the war hadn’t happened to hit close to home for the first time since its declaration.
Bittersweet had run out of tea.
Phil had never seen anything like it. An Englishwoman deprived of her cuppa is a fearsome creature. After the poor little grocer had to deny the first housewife her weekly supply, word got around, and soon every able-bodied woman was crowding inside the store, demanding her soothing and stimulating leaf at once.
Now there, thought Phil, as she watched them rant and storm in their house dresses and aprons, is my army of volunteers. She’d rarely seen such passion, even in the London Women’s Voluntary Service.
After scurrying to safety to place a few frantic calls, the grocer stood trembling before the seething, bekerchiefed masses and explained that he could not get a shipment for at least another week.
This was terrible news, but they were a cooperative community and, after some mumbling and grumbling, agreed to divvy up their stores until things returned to normal.
Then, quaking, the grocer admitted the worst: when at last supplies did arrive, the quantity would be so severely limited that there would scarcely be enough for each person to have a scant spoonful of tea each day.
“But I need tea for breakfast, and elevenses, and lunch,” Mrs. Enery said. “And an afternoon pick-me-up, not to mention teatime proper, and like as not a cup around the fireplace before bed. One spoonful of tea won’t even tinge the water!”
“It’s Hitler’s fault!” Phil shouted, absorbed in the mob.
Since the crowd was evidently primed to tear someone limb from limb, the grocer was only too happy to turn their aggressions elsewhere and echoed this resoundingly. “Oh yes, it’s because of the war, and submarines torpedoing tea ships from Ceylon, and...and...Hitler hates tea!”
Angry people are always willing to seize upon an object for their spite, and as soon as Diana stepped in and redirected their energies, nearly everyone agreed to do whatever she could to defeat the horrible tea-hating Hun.
Chapter 8
Luckily, Phil knew that Weasel Rue had plenty of tea (and Mrs. Pippin didn’t know about the shortage yet), so she told the Home Guard volunteers that the first meeting would be that very afternoon over an outdoor tea. She rushed ahead to make the preparations, with the dozen recruits to follow in an hour.
“Fee! Tea!” she ordered as she ran into the farmhouse. She had hoped to have Algie’s help, but Diana had snatched him away. Then, with what Phil could have sworn was a malicious gleam in her eye, she’d told all the volunteers in her resounding sergeant’s voice to bring their broomsticks to stand in for rifles and spades for knives, for they’d be starting military practice straight away.
Phil had no idea what to do, but she wasn’t about to disappoint them. Men could be lured with food and the promise of looking at a pretty girl, but they could be held only by either duty or excitement. Their sense of duty was so tenuous that she had no faith in it.
“Fee!” she cried again, checking outside. She needed her sister for her opinion but mostly to play hostess. Phil had to be the man of the family, so Fee had better be prepared to pour tea and be the woman. “Where the devil are you? Fooling about in the hay with the bantams?”
Fee was in the hay, all right, but her companion was hardly a bantam. Phil stifled a giggle with her fist.
Thomas—what Phil could see of him—lay stretched out on his back while Fee kneeled over him, her abundant red-blond hair making a misty tent over them both. She kissed the side of his neck, the hollow at the base of his throat, and then, tossing her tresses back out of the way, fell upon his lips in her fervent, practiced manner.
“Ahem,” Phil said.
“Mmm,” Fee replied, looking up, and in that instant of sisterly telepathy, Phil’s eyes widened in alarm. She was used to her sister’s many amours, which came and went faster than a Thames tide. Fee played at love, enthusiastically and heartlessly, practicing, she always told her sister, for the real thing. She gave her affections—which, physically speaking, never went beyond kisses and admittedly rather daring caresses—lightly and took them merrily back when the game was done. She left broken hearts in her wake, but spared less pity for them than she did for a desiccated worm on the sidewalk (which always made her weep and try her hand at worm nursing), for she never made any promises, never let them think they had a chance at owning her heart.
There was no laughter in Fee’s face now, though, only a determined, serious sort of bliss. It was the same look of concentration she had when she was mastering a new vanishing trick, her against the world and all the laws of nature, determined to make her illusion work. Invariably, she succeeded. Fee might be soft and yielding in many ways, but she had steel at her core.
“No,” Phil said.
Fee sighed. “Yes, I’m afraid.”
She didn’t look afraid. But Phil was, for Thomas and for Fee. It would end in heartbreak, sure as the sun sets. And Thomas, well, he was like a newborn lamb, gazing at the world in fresh-eyed innocence. Fee surely must know what it would do to this young man to let him love her.
For Phil could see at a glance that if such a thing as love existed, this foolish pair were gripped firmly in its teeth. And she very much feared it was a death grip, unbreakable.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Phil said, forcing her voice to be harsh. “Go back to Stour where you belong.”
“I had to come,” Thomas said, sitting up and managing a half-bow from his perch on the hay. “I was lured to her as to a siren on the rocks.”
“Yes, and you know what happened to those stupid sailors. You’ll be in hot water with the Headmaster if you’re found here. Go!”
“He came to ask about the war,” Fee said. “And since you were the one who said that every one of those magicians should be fighting at the front lines, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I told him a bit more about it.”
“Fee, kitchen. Now!” Phil stomped off, wondering why it was just her luck to have a family crisis when she desperately needed to be on her game. In her mind’s eye, she could clearly see all of England falling simply because she did not get her recruits organized quite in time. Why, one fortification, one alert signalman spotting a paratrooper, could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
“What in the world are you up to, Fee?” she asked. “Wait, get the tea things togethe
r while you’re telling me. Twelve or thirteen are coming, and most of them men, so don’t bother cutting the bread thin. Oh, butter! Thank goodness we’re in the country. I’d never sway them with marge. Sardines, do you think? Get rid of your magician first, though.”
Fee made a pretty pout. “But we have so much to talk about. I feel like I’ve known him all my life.”
“Ha! You got that out of a book.”
“Maybe, but it’s true. I look at him, and all I want to do is be with him.”
“And kiss him, and—”
“Well, yes, of course, but it’s so much more than that. This is it.”
“It?” Phil asked, knowing, dreading.
“I’m in love. Real love.”
“Codswallop! You met the boy under interesting circumstances, he’s clueless enough to make you feel like a woman of the world, and because he hasn’t seen a female since he left his dam’s teat, he thinks you’re the bee’s knees. You’re flattered, it’s fun, but you know that being involved with one of those magicians is downright foolish. It’s not love, Fee. It can’t be, not so soon. You’ve spent, what, two hours in each other’s company? I’ve known Hector for years, and I still don’t know if I love him.”
“You know,” Fee said. “You might marry Hector and be happy, but you don’t love him. I might marry Thomas and be miserable, but I’d love him. That matters more than anything.”
“Then love’s a damned stupid thing!” Phil said, slamming down a stack of sturdy saucers. “Be sensible, Fee. You might as well say you love a priest, or a monk. He lives for that Essence nonsense, and he will his whole life. Members of the College of Drycraeft can’t have sweethearts.”
“He says he wants to leave the order.”
Phil grabbed her sister by the shoulders and pulled her into their forehead-to-forehead embrace. Usually it was a position of solace and affection. This time, though, Phil stared at Fee until her eyes merged into a single Cyclops orbit, and she tried with all her silent influence to force her sister not to be an idiot.
Fee stroked her sister’s hair, slowly, rhythmically, as she might to calm a riled cat. At last, Phil pulled away and said angrily, “Fine! You win!” At this, Fee’s smile grew infuriatingly smug. “You’re the only person in the world who actually falls in love at first sight. You’re a perfect romantic novel. But don’t you see? You’re going to get hurt.”
“The magicians can’t hurt either of us.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Isn’t it? Thomas doesn’t just want to sneak out to visit me. He wants to leave the order, for good.”
“They’ll never let him. They’ll find him, like they found Stan. Like the German magicians tracked down Stan’s mother. Do you know that they’ve arranged for the entire country to ignore Bittersweet, and manipulated everyone in the village so they don’t care about England or the war? Just to keep attention away from Stour. They’ll do anything to keep their order secret. Why, they’ll probably kill Thomas if he runs away, drain his Essence and—”
“No!” Fee gasped, blanching deathly pale. “They wouldn’t!”
“They’re fools and cowards and sticklers for their own arcane laws. But most likely they’ll discover he’s sneaked out today and lock him in the dungeon until we go.”
“I’ll never leave him.”
“One bit of triteness after another.”
“It’s only trite when it isn’t real,” Fee said stubbornly. “Just wait until you’re in love. You’ll see.”
“I’d like to see the day love makes me such a confounded fool. Damn! They’ll be here any minute. Biscuits, you think, or just the bread? I hope Mrs. Pippin doesn’t flay me for pillaging her food. She will when she finds out there’s no more tea.”
“She won’t care. She only takes rose hips and hyssop. May I go back to Thomas now?” Fee folded her hands in schoolgirl primness.
“Why not? Just make sure your handkerchiefs are clean. You’ll need them for all the tears that will come tomorrow.”
“I’m ready for tears,” Fee reassured her. “After all, tears are a natural part of love.”
Phil gathered her volunteers in a little fallow field within sight of the house. In canvas overalls and leather aprons, in grease-stained trousers and, in one case, a polka-dotted pinafore, they clustered around her. They were skeptical, naturally enough, that a seventeen-year-old girl could teach them anything about warcraft, and assumed they’d receive little more than a lecture about not talking to strangers with German accents, or be told to buy war bonds. They still largely felt that the war was none of their business, but life did get boring sometimes, and hiking out to Weasel Rue to see what the Londoner had to say was as good a distraction as any.
Plus, there was food.
Phil faced them as she would a hostile audience on those nights when the first five rows of the Hall of Delusion were filled with tipsy university students. When met with hecklers, she stared them down and amazed them into silence and, later, applause. She fully intended to do the same with her Home Guard volunteers.
Only, she had no idea what to do.
Oh, she could rant about their ostrichlike, head-in-the-sand ways, or tell them horrific tales about the first night of bombing. But the former would only make them resentful right now, though in time she knew she could rouse their guilt. And the latter, while sensational enough to be stirring, was, after all, only words. She had to do something spectacular, something to make them feel, intimately and personally, that they were in real danger.
Boxing, maybe? No, not dramatic enough.
“Wait right here,” she suddenly said, and whirled and ran back to the farmhouse. When she returned, she carried a clanking satchel.
“Volunteer, please,” she said. “Thank you so much, Mr. Dooley. Now if you’ll clamp these on me.” She handed him a set of handcuffs and put her hands behind her back. “Tighter. Now, when the Germans come—”
“Who’s to say they’ll come?” asked Mrs. Enery.
“Hitler says they’ll come,” Phil said. “He’s got practically all of Europe, and we’re next. Now say the Germans get as far as Bittersweet—”
“No German will ever set foot on English soil,” the baker said with absolute certainty.
“You bloody fool! They already have! The Channel Islands have been invaded and occupied! D’you think that’s not English soil?”
Thirteen pairs of eyes showed their whites, to cries of “No!” “Never!” and “Blimy!”
“You mean, you hadn’t heard? It happened last June.”
Heads shook and had the decency to look a bit embarrassed. “We don’t have much truck with the rest of the world out here.”
“The Germans have been bombing London every night, and what can it be if not preparations for a land invasion? They will strike the beaches and fight through from shore to shore. No place will be safe—and every place, even the tiniest village, might prove the decisive battleground that keeps invasion from turning into occupation.”
“We could never fight an army,” the baker said.
“But we can slow it down. We can sabotage tanks and keep the enemy from getting food and supplies. We can mislead him. Who knows what the course of war might bring? If our troops were massing for a counterattack, but couldn’t muster for another day, don’t you think blocking a panzer line for a few hours in Bittersweet might make all the difference? There are a thousand things any one of us can do, that might mean nothing but might mean everything. Together you and I are going to learn everything we can to prepare for the worst day. First, today, I’ll teach you something that will come in handy if you’re ever captured—the art of escape.
“Now, supposing you were German soldiers come to interrogate me. Why, as soon as you were distracted, quick as anything, I’d . . .” She undulated her shoulders, gave her body a little twist, and within two seconds the nickel-plated handcuffs clanked to the turf.
“Impossible,” they cried, and “How’d you do
that?” “Oughtn’t to be allowed,” said a man she later learned was a part-time constable.
“Show me how to do that,” said Mrs. Enery keenly. “Show me right now, missie!”
So she did. Breaking them into groups and dividing her three sets of handcuffs among them, she showed them how to pick the locks with a bent piece of wire, how to shim them open by sliding a bobby pin along the ratchet teeth. She taught them how to bend their wrists to keep the handcuffs from tightening all the way, and convinced them that, if the situation were dire enough, they could curl their hands into a narrow tube shape and pull until enough joints dislocated that they could slip free.
“My own dad had to do that once, when he was learning the trade.”
“What’s his trade, then, and yours, come to mention it?” asked the sometime constable. “Burglary?”
Phil laughed. “Don’t you people gossip? My family are magicians.”
She had them now, and they hung on her every word as she told them about life on the stage, about crowned heads she’d entertained (and on one memorable occasion, threatened to cut off, an act that was surely becoming her forte). Then, smoothly, she segued into the first night of the Blitz.
“I never knew,” the baker said in wonder as he practiced shimming his cuffs. “What was this, only a week ago?”
“Not even. You didn’t hear it on the wireless?”
“Only the postmistress and your Mrs. Pippin have a set. Neither of them ever said anything.”
“And no one takes the paper?”
They looked at each other, shaking their heads.
“We all knew there was a war, Miss Albion,” Dooley said. “It’s just...we thought it was far away.”
There was no use in blaming them, Phil decided. The only thing to do was start from scratch.
“Next time we meet, I’ll teach you how to get out of ropes, and we’ll start civil defense lessons proper. Thank you so much for coming.” On cue, Fee burst from the farmhouse with the first tea tray. Thomas drifted in her wake with a cutting board of toast and big lumps of farm butter.
Delusion Page 10
