Jenny's War

by Dickinson, Margaret

  Jenny waited but Miles did not come out to play with her.

  In the middle of the afternoon, Kitty said, ‘I’ll take you to Buckthorn Farm.’

  ‘But Charlotte will be home soon and then we’ll have dinner.’

  ‘You go with Kitty, lovey, there’s a good girl,’ Mrs Beddows said and turned away, but not before Jenny had seen the woman’s face crumple in distress.

  Jenny glanced from one to the other. Kitty had never taken her anywhere or played with her; she was always too busy. But today she’d taken her apron off and had put on her afternoon dress, as she called it, and made Jenny wash her face and brush her hair. And now she was hustling the young girl out of the back door and towards the long pathway through the fields that led to Buckthorn Farm.

  Jenny didn’t feel like skipping alongside Kitty. Something had happened and no one was telling her.

  Was she to be sent home? Had that boy brought a message from Mr Tomkins that all the evacuees had to go home, like Bobby and the others had already done?

  She could bear it no longer. ‘Why’re we going to Buckthorn Farm? Are they cross with me? Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘No, no, lovey, nothing like that. The master, he – he just needs a bit of time alone with madam when she gets home.’

  Jenny was silent. At least, she thought, they haven’t shut me in my bedroom like Mum does when she wants me out of the way.

  Arriving at Buckthorn Farm, Kitty exchanged hurried, whispered words with Mary. The older woman’s eyes widened and then she whispered, ‘Oh no! NO!’

  Jenny saw Mary gesture towards her and then Kitty shook her head. What was going on? There was definitely something wrong. Jenny sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Grown-up stuff, she supposed. Obviously, they weren’t going to tell her.

  ‘I’ll go and find Alfie,’ she said in a loud voice. The two women, still whispering together, looked startled. They both turned to stare at her as if they’d forgotten she was there.

  ‘You do that, lovey. Tell him – tell him there’ll be a cuppa and a scone for him in a little while.’

  Jenny grinned. ‘And for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  But as Jenny went to the back door to go out into the yard, she glanced back to see the two women still talking, their faces so serious that she knew the last things on their minds were cups of tea and buttered scones.

  ‘’Lo, Alfie, can you play?’

  The boy turned and grinned at her. ‘I’ve got to feed the hens, but you can help me, if you like.’

  For the next hour, Jenny followed Alfie around the outbuildings, helping him to throw corn to the hens, watching him carry the heavy buckets of pigswill to the sties and giggling as the pigs, grunting loudly, pushed each other out of the way to be first to the trough. But her laughter soon died when Kitty came to collect her for going home. She could see the maid had been crying. The promised scones seemed to have been forgotten as she’d guessed they might be.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ Alfie whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. They’re all like it at home, but no one will tell me why.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all Alfie said, but a worried frown now wrinkled his forehead and, as he waved goodbye, she saw him hurry towards the farm office, no doubt in search of his father, Eddie.

  They arrived back at the manor at about five o’clock, Kitty leading her round to the back door and into the kitchen. As they entered, the maid asked in a low voice, ‘Is madam home yet?’

  Mrs Beddows shook her head. ‘The master will be going to fetch her from the station soon.’ She turned to Jenny. ‘You go and play in the nursery like a good girl, will you?’

  Jenny glanced from one to the other and asked again, ‘Am I in trouble? Are they sending me away?’

  ‘No, lovey. It’s got nothing at all to do with you. It’s – it’s just – ’ Mrs Beddows glanced up at Kitty helplessly as if seeking help, but the maid turned away, her shoulders shaking. Jenny knew she was crying again. The cook took a deep breath. ‘It’s just that the master and the mistress will need to talk about – about something when she gets back, but it has nothing to do with you, I promise. But just you be a good girl for us, will you?’

  Jenny nodded and left the kitchen. She glanced at the door of Miles’s study. It was firmly closed and there was no sound from inside.

  Slowly, she climbed the stairs to the playroom. She touched the toys there, but nothing interested her today. She could feel the tension and sadness permeating through the house. Without consciously making the decision, her footsteps took her up to the next floor and along to the studio she now shared with Charlotte. As she sat down at the little table, picked up her brush and began to paint, she forgot about everything else. Just so long as they weren’t going to send her home, she’d keep out of their way until they’d sorted out whatever it was that was bothering everybody.

  Some time later – she wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there – the door opened and Charlotte was standing there.

  ‘I’m painting another picture for Georgie,’ Jenny told her. ‘He’ll be home again soon. That’s samphire, that is. We picked it together – me an’ Georgie.’

  Charlotte turned away with what sounded suspiciously like a sob and went out again, closing the door quietly behind her.

  With her paintbrush suspended in mid-air, Jenny stared at the closed door and listened to the footsteps hurrying away along the landing.

  They were all subdued at dinner. Charlotte was red-eyed and Miles was quiet, but they were trying valiantly to act as if nothing was wrong.

  They’ve had a row, Jenny thought, and don’t want me to know. They’re not like Mum and her fellers. If they have a row, she thought, they don’t care if the whole street hears and especially they don’t hide it from me, shut away in my bedroom with my hands over my ears. Mind you, the girl had to admit, there hadn’t been so many quarrels since Arthur had arrived. If Dot got on her high horse, he just laughed, left by the front door, sprang into his sports car and roared off up the street with Dot waving her fist at him. It was difficult to carry on a row with someone who wasn’t there any more. Then, having given her enough time to calm down, Arthur would reappear bringing little gifts for both Dot and Jenny and everything carried on as if the fight had never happened.

  But that wasn’t what was happening at the manor. Miles was solemn and hardly eating the meal Wilkins had placed in front of him. Charlotte, too, was merely picking at her food. Only Jenny cleared her plate. Rows didn’t faze her; she was used to them. It’d soon blow over.

  But Jenny was wrong; whatever the problem was, it seemed to be affecting the whole household. Even the children and Miss Parker, who arrived at the manor the following morning for the start of the new autumn term, were subdued. It took the whole day for Miss Parker to get everyone settled back into their lessons after the long summer break. At the end of the afternoon, the children filed quietly out of the dining room, reached for their coats, headed towards the front door and ran down the steps. A few were already walking away down the drive.

  ‘Aren’t you going to play football?’ Jenny shouted after them, standing at the top of the steps with the ball in her hands.

  They turned and stared up at her, then Billy, the self-appointed spokesman, stepped forward. ‘We’re going straight home. We don’t reckon we should stay. Not today. Not after what’s happened.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Yer know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’

  The children glanced awkwardly at each other, whispering.

  Jenny ran down the steps and grasped Billy’s arm. ‘Tell me.’

  He nodded towards the house behind them. ‘They’re all upset. ’Course they are. We thought you’d be an’ all.’

  ‘How can I be when I don’t know what you’re talking about?’

  Billy looked at her and then blurted out, ‘He’s missing – their son. The fighter pilot. He’ll’ve been killed.’

&
nbsp; Jenny stared at him, the shock hitting her like a physical blow. For a moment, she was rigid with grief. She stared around at the solemn faces. Then she dropped the ball and began to run. Down the drive, across the main road and down the lane that led to the beach, sobs bursting from her as she ran. ‘Georgie, oh Georgie. No. No! NO!’

  She ran and ran until she came to the sandhills, where she fell to her knees, threw back her head and howled like an animal in pain. But there was no one to hear her. No one to comfort her. She cried and screamed aloud until there were no more tears to shed.

  At last, Jenny stood up, scrubbed the tears from her face with the back of her hand and set off towards the place in the sandhills where they’d left the box containing the pegs and the white rags. Carrying the bundle, she headed towards the place where the samphire grew. And as she went, she planted the pegs in the sand and the mud, just as Georgie had taught her. Sobs filled her throat and tears that she thought were all cried out welled again in her eyes.

  With the path marked, she reached the plants and began to pull at them savagely, grief and rage filling her heart. Never again would Georgie come with her to collect it, but she’d collect it for him. He wouldn’t ever see the new picture she’d painted for him, but she’d carry on, just as before, painting for him. She’d never forget him; she’d never stop thinking about him and if, by the sheer force of her will, she could bring him back to life, she would do so.

  His words filtered into her grief-stricken mind. ‘Remember the tide, Jenny.’ It was as if he was speaking to her; she could hear his voice, feel him standing beside her. She stood up and gazed around her, but the water was far out. She was quite safe. She squatted down again and carried on picking samphire. After several minutes, she stood up and checked again. The water was definitely nearer this time; the tide was coming in, but she was still safe for the moment.

  The third time she stood up, she saw them. Miles and Charlotte were walking towards her and behind them, their horses were tethered on the dunes. She waited, holding her breath. She’d be in real trouble for coming here on her own, without their knowledge or permission. Now they’d really send her home. To have worried them and caused them to come looking for her was unforgivable. Especially when they were grieving for Georgie just as much as she was. She steeled herself against the onslaught of anger, but all Miles said was, ‘My, you’ve collected a lot. Mrs Beddows will be pleased. But the tide’s coming in now, love. Time we were heading back. Come on. We’ve got the horses on the sea bank. You can ride in front of me.’

  As they rode home, Jenny buried her face against Miles’s chest, her tears falling once more. Georgie had taught her how to set the pegs and the white, fluttering rags, and to watch for the incoming tide. He had kept her safe even though he was no longer here with her and never would be again.

  Twenty

  By October, the games of football after lessons had to stop. Parents and the guardians of the evacuees wanted the children at home before dark. So Jenny was alone in the nursery, playing with the doll’s house tucked away in one corner.

  ‘Such a shame,’ Kitty had whispered to Jenny when she’d dusted it so that the young girl could play with it soon after she’d first arrived at the manor. ‘The master bought it when his wife – his first wife, that is – was expecting Master Georgie. They were so sure he was going to be a girl. The master’s always wanted a daughter.’ The housemaid had turned and smiled down at Jenny. ‘That’s why he’s making such a fuss of you, lovey. He’s enjoying having a little girl to spoil, even though we all know one day you’ll go back home to your mum.’

  Jenny had said nothing but gently had touched all the miniature furniture in the doll’s house and the two little porcelain dolls – a mother and baby – who lived in the house. Since that day, she’d played with the little house often, but this was the first time she’d touched it since they’d heard the news about Georgie being posted missing. On that dreadful day when Miles and Charlotte had found her at the beach and taken her home, Miles had taken her into his study and sat her on his knee. Then, very gently, he’d explained what they knew.

  ‘Georgie’s been what they call posted missing, but presumed killed. One of his friends saw his plane go down into the sea near the French coast.’

  ‘So they don’t know that he’s – he’s – ’ She hadn’t been able to finish the sentence; the thought was so awful.

  ‘No – they don’t know for certain that he’s been killed, but we have to be very brave and understand that it is possible. In fact, it’s more than likely that he has.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think he has,’ the girl said stoutly, though her voice trembled. ‘And I won’t believe it.’ She jutted out her jaw, slid off his knee and marched towards the door where she paused briefly to say, ‘I’ll carry on painting pictures for him. And he will see them. One day, he will come back and he’ll see all the pictures I’ve painted for him.’

  With that she turned, ran across the hall and stamped up the stairs, ignoring the worried eyes of Wilkins as he watched her go. Only in the solitude of the studio, did Jenny allow fresh tears to fall and blotch the picture she had been painting for Georgie so carefully.

  Since then, Jenny had painted many more pictures, all for Georgie, she told Charlotte as she piled them in a corner of the studio. ‘There they are, all ready for when he comes home.’ But today as dusk gathered and the light from the window faded, Jenny was about to turn on the light so she could carry on painting when there was a loud banging and the house seemed to shake. She pulled open the door and fled along the landing, down the stairs and into the morning room. With a flying leap she landed on the sofa beside Charlotte, snuggled up to her and put her thumb in her mouth.

  Miles hurried to the window as they heard the planes, sounding as if they were flying overhead. Jenny screamed and buried her head against Charlotte as dull thuds sounded in the distance. ‘It’s ’Itler. He’s coming.’

  Only a few days earlier, Miles had gently explained to her that London was being heavily bombed almost every night. ‘But your mum and Arthur will be all right. They’ll go to the shelters.’

  ‘And Bobby too, ’cos he’s back there now, ain’t he?’

  ‘Of course he will,’ Miles had reassured her. ‘And the rest of his family.’

  And now the enemy was dropping bombs on Lynthorpe, the town just up the coast from Ravensfleet, but it didn’t go on for very long, not like the poor Londoners were suffering in Hitler’s promised Blitz.

  A month later, however, several incendiaries fell even closer to Ravensfleet and the manor in a field belonging to one of Miles’s tenant farmers. No one was hurt but Frankie, who was still staying with the Warrens, wrote home to his parents telling them with great excitement how they’d heard and seen the bombs falling.

  When Arthur Osborne heard the news in the pub one evening, he narrowed his eyes against the smoke from the cigarette he was smoking and listened to the comments going on around him.

  ‘No safer in the country than they are here now, mate,’ the barman said.

  ‘Well, all I hope is,’ Arthur said, draining his beer glass, ‘the ol’ gel don’t get to hear about it. She might start wanting the kid to come home. And me an’ Dot are doing very nicely on our own, ta very much.’ He’d winked at the barman and changed the subject. ‘Now, about that whisky you asked me to get . . .’

  But Dot did get to hear. ‘We’re fetching her home, Arfer, so you’d better get some petrol. We’ll go termorrer. I don’t want folks thinking I don’t want me own daughter back.’ Dot knew her neighbours gossiped about her – had done for years – and the last thing she wanted was to give them any more ammunition to look down their noses at her.

  ‘But the Blitz ain’t over yet, darlin’.’ Arthur tried one last argument. ‘We’re still getting bombed nearly every night.’

  ‘Elsie’s lads’ve been home months,’ Dot argued. ‘They’re safe enough.’

  ‘Only ’cos Elsie takes them up the undergr
ound whether the planes come or not.’

  Dot’s eyes narrowed. ‘Arfer, we’re going. Now, where did I put that postcard she sent?’

  ‘I ain’t coming.’ Jenny stood in the driveway at the manor glaring at her mother and Arthur. ‘Not if he’s still there.’

  It was the only excuse she could think of and she knew she was being unfair. Arthur had been good to her and he said as much now. She felt guilty about using him, implying something to make Miles and Charlotte believe Arthur treated her badly, but it was all she could think of; she could hardly say that she didn’t want to go back with either of them, not even her own mother. Charlotte – kind and loving Charlotte – would never believe that a mother, any mother, could treat her daughter so off-handedly as Dot did. But she knew they’d believe her about Arthur. In his flash clothes and his jovial manner towards people he’d only just met, he was the exact opposite of the reserved and well-mannered Miles Thornton. Oh, they’d believe her all right. To exaggerate her tale, Jenny pretended to cower behind Miles as if she was physically frightened of the man.

  Miles tried to be polite, extending his hand in welcome, offering them tea. But the invitation was refused and Dot was adamant that they had to get back to London but that they weren’t leaving without Jenny.

  The wrangling went on, but at last Miles persuaded them to go indoors. Dot gave in grudgingly. ‘Just a cuppa while she gets her things together.’

  But Jenny had other ideas. As they began to move towards the house, she turned in the opposite direction and began to run. Although she heard them shouting, she ran on. Down the drive, across the road and down the lane. She knew just where she could hide. She’d remembered what Charlotte had told her she used to do when she didn’t want anyone to find her. They’d never find her in the hayloft at Buckthorn Farm.