This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Ryan
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
crownpublishing.com
CROWN is a registered trademark and the CROWN colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 9781101906750
Ebook ISBN 9781101906767
International Edition ISBN 9781524759971
Map by Meredith Hamilton
Cover design by Alison Forner
Cover illustration by Mick Wiggins
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Silvie’s Diary
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Flt. Lt. Henry Brampton-Boyd to Venetia Winthrop
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Colonel Mallard to His Sister, Mrs. Maud Green, in Oxford
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Flt. Lt. Henry Brampton-Boyd to Venetia Winthrop
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Note from Miss Edwina Paltry to Brigadier Winthrop
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Silvie’s Diary
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Lt. Carrington to Mrs. Tilling
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Silvie’s Diary
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Elsie Cocker to Flt. Lt. Henry Brampton-Boyd
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Letter from Flt. Lt. Henry Brampton-Boyd to Elsie Cocker
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Letter from Miss Edwina Paltry to Her Sister, Clara
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Letter from Colonel Mallard to His Sister, Mrs. Maud Green, in Oxford
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Letter from Venetia Winthrop to Angela Quail
Silvie’s Diary
Mrs. Tilling’s Journal
Kitty Winthrop’s Diary
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To my grandmother, Mrs. Eileen Beckley, and the women of the home front
Detail left
Detail right
Tuesday, 26th March, 1940
First funeral of the war, and our little village choir simply couldn’t sing in tune. “Holy, holy, holy” limped out as if we were a crump of warbling sparrows. But it wasn’t because of the war, or the young scoundrel Edmund Winthrop torpedoed in his submarine, or even the Vicar’s abysmal conducting. No, it was because this was the final performance of the Chilbury Choir. Our swan song.
“I don’t see why we have to be closed down,” Mrs. B. snapped afterward as we congregated in the foggy graveyard. “It’s not as if we’re a threat to national security.”
“All the men have gone,” I whispered back, aware of our voices carrying uncomfortably through the funeral crowd. “The Vicar says we can’t have a choir without men.”
“Just because the men have gone to war, why do we have to close the choir? And precisely at a time when we need it most! I mean, what’ll he disband next? His beloved bell ringers? Church on Sundays? Christmas? I expect not!” She folded her arms in annoyance. “First they whisk our men away to fight, then they force us women into work, then they ration food, and now they’re closing our choir. By the time the Nazis get here there’ll be nothing left except a bunch of drab women ready to surrender.”
“But there’s a war on,” I said, trying to placate her loud complaining. “We women have to take on extra work, help the cause. I don’t mind doing hospital nurse duties, although it’s busy keeping up the village clinic, too.”
“The choir has been part of the Chilbury way since time began. There’s something bolstering about singing together.” She puffed her chest out, her large, square frame like an abundant Field Marshall.
The funeral party began to head to Chilbury Manor for the obligatory glass of sherry and cucumber sandwich. “Edmund Winthrop,” I sighed. “Only twenty and blown up in the North Sea.”
“He was a vicious bully, and well you know it,” Mrs. B. barked. “Remember how he tried to drown your David in the village pond?”
“Yes, but that was years ago,” I whispered. “In any case, Edmund was bound to be unstable with his father forever thrashing him. I’m sure Brigadier Winthrop must be feeling more than a trace of regret now that Edmund’s dead.”
Or clearly not, I thought as we looked over to him, thwacking his cane against his military boot, the veins on his neck and forehead livid with rage.
“He’s furious because he’s lost his heir,” Mrs. B. snipped. “The Winthrops need a male to inherit, so the family estate is lost. He doesn’t care a jot about the daughters—” We glanced over at young Kitty and the beautiful Venetia. “Status is everything. At least Mrs. Winthrop’s pregnant again. Let’s hope it’s a boy this time round.”
Mrs. Winthrop was cowering like a crushed sparrow under the weight of Edmund’s loss. It could be me next, I thought, as my David came over, all grown up i
n his new army uniform. His shoulders are broader since training, but his smile and softness are just the same. I knew he’d sign up when he turned eighteen, but why did it happen so fast? He’s being sent to France next month, and I can’t help worrying how I’ll survive if anything happens to him. He’s all I have since Harold passed away. Edmund and David often played as boys, soldiers or pirates, some kind of battle that Edmund was sure to win. I can only pray that David’s fight doesn’t end the same way.
The war has been ominously quiet so far, Hitler busy taking the rest of Europe. But I know they’re coming, and soon we’ll be surrounded by death. It’ll be like the last war, when a whole generation of men was wiped out, my own father included. I remember the day the telegram came. We were sitting down for luncheon, the sun spilling into the dining room as the gramophone played Vivaldi. I heard the front door open, then the slump of my mother’s body as she hit the floor, the sunshine streaming in, unaware.
Now our lives are going into turmoil all over again: more deaths, more work, more making do. And our lovely choir gone, too. I’ve half a mind to write to the Vicar in protest. But then again, I probably won’t. I’ve never been one to make a fuss. My mother told me that women do better when they smile and agree. Yet sometimes I feel so frustrated with everything. I just want to shout it out.
I suppose that’s why I started a journal, so that I can express the things I don’t want to say out loud. A program on the wireless said that keeping a journal can help you feel better if you have loved ones away, so I popped out yesterday and bought one. I’m sure it’ll be filled up soon, especially once David leaves and I’m on my own, thoughts surging through my head with nowhere to be let out. I’ve always dreamed of being a writer, and I suppose this is the closest I’ll get.
Taking David’s arm and following the crowd to Chilbury Manor, I looked back at the crumbling old church. “I’ll miss the choir.”
To which Mrs. B. roundly retorted, “I haven’t seen you instructing the Vicar to reverse his decision.”
“But, Mrs. B.,” David said with a smirk. “We always leave it up to you to make a stink about everything. You usually do.”
I had to hide my smile behind my hand, waiting for Mrs. B.’s wrath. But at that moment, the Vicar himself flew past us, trotting at speed after the Brigadier, who was striding up to the Manor.
Mrs. B. took one look, seized her umbrella with grim determination, and began stomping after him, calling, “I’ll have a word with you, Vicar,” her usual forthright battle cry.
The Vicar turned and, seeing her gaining pace, sprinted for all he was worth.
3 CHURCH ROW,
CHILBURY,
KENT.
Tuesday, 26th March, 1940
Brace yourself, Clara, for we are about to be rich! I’ve been offered the most unscrupulous deal you’ll ever believe! I knew this ruddy war would turn up some gems—whoever would have thought that midwifery could be so lucrative! But I couldn’t have imagined such a grubby nugget of a deal coming from snooty Brigadier Winthrop, the upper-class tyrant who thinks he owns this prissy little village. I know you’ll say it’s immoral, even by my standards, but I need to get away from being a cooped-up, put-down midwife. I need to get back to the old house where I can live my own life and be free.
Don’t you see, Clara? Soon I can pay back the money I owe, like I promised, and you’ll finally realize how clever I am, how I can make up for mistakes of the past. We can put everything behind us, and never mention what happened with Bill (although I always say I saved you from him). Then I’ll buy back our childhood house in Birnham Wood, all fields and cliffs beside the sea, and we can live safe and happy just like before Mum died. I’ll be finished with births and babies and nasty rashes in people’s nether regions, people bossing me about and laughing behind my back. I’ll be back to being my own person, no one watching over me.
But let me tell you about the deal from the beginning, as I know how you are about details. It was the funeral of Edmund Winthrop, the Brigadier’s despicable son who was blown up in a submarine last week. Only twenty he was—one minute a repulsive reptile, the next a feast for the fishes.
The morning of the funeral was cold and wet as a slap round the face with a fresh-caught cod. We might have been in the North Sea ourselves for the ferocious winds and grisly clouds, a monstrous hawk circling above us looking for a victim. “Rather fitting,” I heard someone murmur as we plunged headlong with our umbrellas through the bedraggled graveyard and into the dim, musty church.
Packed to the rafters, the place was buzzing with gossipy onlookers. At the front, the Winthrops and their aristocrat friends were sitting all plumed and groomed like a row of black swans. A splatter of khaki and gray-blue uniforms appeared as per usual, uniformed men thinking they’re special when they’re just plain stupid. More like uninformed, I always say.
The rest of us locals (mostly wool-coated women these days) had to crowd around behind them, listening to the thin excuse of a choir, a few off-key voices hazarding “Holy, holy, holy.” The posh women of the village are upset at the choir’s closing, but after a performance like that I’d rather hear a cats’ chorus.
Throughout the dreary service, the dead soldier’s mother sniveled into her hands, quaking under her black suit. She’s pregnant again, late in life—although she’s still in her late thirties. They say her nasty father forced her to marry the Brigadier when she was barely sixteen, and she’s been terrorized by him ever since.
She was the only tearful one, though. The rest of us weren’t so blind to Edmund’s brutish, arrogant ways—just like his father. I’m sure there were even a few present who felt a justified retribution at his early demise.
Hardly attempting to look sad, the two sisters, now eighteen and thirteen, sat dutifully beside their grieving mother. The older one, Venetia, with her golden hair and coquettish ways, was more interested in batting her eyelashes at that handsome new artist than in the funeral. Young Kitty, gangly as a growing fawn, glanced around like she’d seen a ghost, her pointed face like a pixie’s in the purple-blue glow of the stained-glass window towering over the altar. Beside her, that foreign evacuee girl looked petrified, like she’d seen death before and a lot more besides.
The Brigadier glared on like a domineering vulture, the burnished medals and his upper-class prestige ranking him above everyone else in the church. He was rhythmically thwacking his silver-tipped horsewhip against his boot. His violent temper is legendary, and no one was going to cross him today. You see, not only had he lost his only son, he’d also lost the family fortune. The Chilbury Manor estate must go to a male heir, and Edmund’s death has plunged the family into turmoil. The Brigadier would be branded a fool if the family fortune was lost under his watch. But I know his type. He won’t take this lying down.
After the grueling service, we grabbed our gas mask boxes and traipsed gloomily through horizontal daggers of icy rain up to Chilbury Manor, a Georgian monstrosity that some past Winthrop brutally erected.
I puffed up the steps to the big door, hoping for a glass of something and a big comfy sofa, but the place was already crammed with damp-smelling mourners and wet umbrellas. It was noisy as King’s Cross, what with the marbled galleried hallway echoing with ladies’ heels and noisy chatter. The Winthrops are an old, wealthy family, and the locals are scavenging toads, all hanging around in case they can get their grubby hands on some of the spoils.
And me? I already have my hand in their pocket, and that makes it my business to keep track of events around here. You see, the Brigadier has already been paying me to keep my mouth shut about his affairs, including that unwanted pregnancy last year, and his nasty son spreading disease around this village faster than you can say “the clap.” This war means opportunity for me. Any midwife worth her salt must realize the potential such a situation can bring, especially with the likes of these smutty gentry who think they’re beyond reproach. They’re easy prey for extortion—twenty here, forty there. It all
adds up.
As I entered, my eyes caught a pretty twist of a maid, standing on the stairs to avoid the rush, a tray of sherry glasses balanced on one hand, her long neck elegant but her mouth sour as curd. She came to me with gonorrhea she’d got from Cmdr. Edmund last year, just like half the bleeding village. She told me he’d promised to marry her, promised her money, freedom, love, and then he’d vanished into the Navy as soon as war broke out. I felt sorry for her, so I told her about his other women—the previous maid, the gardener’s wife, the Vicar’s daughter—all with the same condition. I treated them all, and Edmund, too, the disgusting beast. Elsie was the maid’s name. I think she was a bit unsettled that I told her everyone’s secrets, worried about her own, no doubt. But I told her it was because we were friends, her and I.
I smiled at her in a conspiratorial way, and took a glass of sherry from her tray. You never know when these people could come in handy.
I joined the condolence line behind gloomy Mrs. Tilling, nurse, choir member, and deplorable do-gooder. “He will always be remembered a hero,” she was saying with immense feeling. She is so excruciatingly well-meaning it makes me want to plunge her long face into a barrel of ale to perk her up.
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir Page 1
