The Girl With No Name

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘Nor does anyone!’ exclaimed Clare.

  ‘But she thinks I am one.’

  ‘But that’s stupid!’ cried Clare. ‘You ain’t!’

  ‘Think I might be,’ Charlotte said. ‘That’s the trouble.’

  ‘Well, even if you was, you ain’t one of those Germans, are you? Stands to reason. If you was one of them you’d be in Germany, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Anyway, I think she’s going to say she won’t have me, an’ if she does I’m going to ask Miss Morrison to take me back to London. I don’t like the country. There’s no houses, just fields and sheep an’ that.’

  At that moment Avril Swanson moved to the front of the hall and clapping her hands, asked everyone to sit down so she could start the meeting.

  ‘First of all I’d like to ask my sister, Caroline Morrison, to say a few words about the children she’s brought down here and her reason for doing so. After that I’ll explain how we plan to make these children welcome in our village and to integrate them into village life.

  ‘What’s “integrate”?’ Charlotte murmured to Clare, who shrugged and said, ‘Have to wait and see.’

  Caroline Morrison got to her feet and, looking at the expectant faces before her, treated them to her most charming smile.

  ‘First of all I’d like to thank you all, all the people of Wynsdown, for making the children from St Michael’s home in Streatham so welcome. St Michael’s is a home for children who, due to the war, have been left with no other home and often with no family to care for them. We at St Michael’s take these children in and look after them until we can find them somewhere, better, safer to live. Sometimes they are able to return to their families when they have been rehoused, others may move on to another home, perhaps more suitable to their age, and yet others may be evacuated to villages like yours, which are, we hope, too small to interest the bombers. The trouble with St Michael’s is that it is close to Croydon airport and thus in a target area for the bombers. Many of the houses round our home have been completely destroyed or at the least made uninhabitable. There have been casualties, sadly some fatalities, and so I have been allowed to bring these children here, to you, knowing that it may be this that saves their lives. You, taking in these children, are doing more than offering them a home. You’re offering them a future, a future they might otherwise not have. So we all thank you and will do our best to make sure that you never regret your generosity.’ Miss Morrison treated them all to another smile and, to a round of applause, sat down beside her sister.

  Avril, applauding too, stood up again. ‘Now, this afternoon we’re going to have a party here in the church hall so that we can all get to know one another. All the children in the village are invited, as are those of you who are looking after them. The sooner we get to know everyone the better it will be. However, in the meantime, we need to sort out schools. Now, children, if I call your name please stand up so we can see who you are and I’ll tell you what you’ll be doing after the weekend. Fred Moore, please stand.’ Flushing a furious red, Fred stood up, followed by Malcom Flint, Molly Hart, Charlotte Smith and Clare Pitt, as their names were called.

  ‘Now, all of you will be going down to Cheddar on the school bus with the other children who attend Cheddar Secondary School. You must be on the village green, outside the Magpie, by a quarter past eight. The bus won’t wait for you if you’re late, so please do be there in plenty of time. Right, children, you can sit down again now.’ Clare and Charlotte subsided on to the seats, pleased that at least they’d be going to school together. ‘That’s if I stay,’ muttered Charlotte. She had seen Miss Edie speaking to Mrs Vicar before the meeting began and she was wondering what had been said about her.

  ‘Course you’ll be staying,’ replied Clare softly. ‘Not going to send you back to all them bombs now, are they?’

  As they had been whispering together, the rest of the children had been called to stand and be recognised. When they’d all answered their names they were told to sit down again and Mr Hampton stepped forward to introduce both himself and Miss Mason, who would be teaching this group.

  ‘No need to be frightened,’ he assured them with a grin. ‘Miss Mason and I are both very nice and we don’t bite. Just come to school a little bit early on Monday morning and we’ll get you settled in before the other children arrive.’

  The meeting broke up, but before it did Avril reminded everyone they were asked to the party that afternoon. ‘And there’ll be roast chestnuts for us all. Dr Masters has collected loads from the tree in his garden and he’ll be roasting them here this afternoon.’

  As soon as she could, Charlotte edged her way through the crowd to where Miss Morrison stood.

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ she said without preamble. ‘I want to come back to London with you.’

  ‘Charlotte, my dear,’ Miss Morrison replied, ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. We’ve managed to get you all safely away from the bombing and I’m afraid you won’t be able to come back until the war’s over.’

  ‘But that may not be for years,’ wailed Charlotte.

  ‘I know, but it’s for your own safety. Charlotte, dear, we don’t even know, yet, where you belong. When we do we want to be able to hand you back to your family, safe and sound.’

  ‘What happens if I remember?’ Charlotte demanded. ‘If I remember who I am? What happens then?’

  ‘If you remember, write to me at St Michael’s and tell me. Then I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, you have to stay here.’

  ‘That Miss Edie, the one what I’m staying with, don’t want me,’ she said.

  ‘Actually you’re wrong there, Charlotte. I was talking to her earlier and she told me and my sister that she did want you. She wants you to stay.’

  ‘She doesn’t like me because I’m German,’ said Charlotte flatly.

  ‘That’s not quite true, but I will tell you something if you promise not to mention it to Miss Everard.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She is still very sad because the man she was going to marry was killed at the end of the last war. He was in the trenches and was killed. You have to understand it’s very difficult to get over something like that,’ Caroline said, thinking as she said it that Edith Everard ought to make an effort and not wallow in self-pity for twenty years.

  Charlotte remembered the photo she’d seen in Miss Edie’s bedroom that morning of a soldier in uniform. A young man, much younger than Miss Edie, she had thought, but of course not much younger than Miss Edie would have been in 1918.

  ‘Give it a few days, Charlotte, and see how you get on. If things are too difficult, tell my sister and I promise you she’ll move you.’

  At the end of the morning the two of them walked home to Blackdown House. Miss Edie heated some more of her special soup, saying as she did so, ‘I managed to get some mince at the butcher in Cheddar yesterday, so I thought I’d make a cottage pie for this evening. Do you like cottage pie?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte said cautiously.

  Miss Edie gave her a smile and said, ‘Well, we’ll find out tonight, won’t we?’

  18

  The party in the church hall was only a qualified success. The village children all turned up, seduced by the promise of roast chestnuts and jammy buns. Marjorie Bellinger produced the buns and Avril raided her stock of home-made blackberry jam to go inside. The evacuees were brought along by their host families and the two groups stood on either side of the hall eyeing each other up.

  ‘It’s like when we were youngsters going to the village dance,’ Janet Tewson said to Sally Prynne. ‘Remember how we used to be one side of the hall, watching the lads on the other?’

  Sally laughed. ‘I remember you trying to catch the eye of your Frank,’ she said.

  Janet laughed too. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘caught more than his eye, didn’t I?’ She beckoned her twins over. ‘Dick, Chris, you look after our Polly, she’s your little sister now, remember.’

  Dick pulle
d a face, but Chris went across to Polly who was hiding among the other children from St Michael’s. He grabbed her by the hand and said, ‘Mum says you’re to come with us.’ Polly started to cry and he said angrily, ‘What you making that din for? I was going to get you a hot chestnut and a bun.’

  ‘Don’t like hot chestnuts,’ wailed Polly, who had never had one.

  ‘Bet you like jammy buns though,’ persisted Chris. ‘Come on, Polly-dolly. Mum says come over and have a bun.’

  Gradually, the two groups began to mix. Dr Masters was doing a roaring trade with his hot chestnuts and once the London children had tasted them they were back for more.

  ‘I thought you had hot-chestnut men in the streets of London,’ Nancy said to Caroline.

  ‘Used to and probably will again,’ answered Caroline, ‘but just now the streets of London are not what they used to be. The older kids might remember, but some of these are only five or six.’

  Caroline was watching Charlotte quite carefully. She had decided to stay another night before returning to London and not simply because her old friend, Henry Masters, had asked her round for supper, but because she was genuinely worried about Charlotte and her placement. Avril had been accosted before the morning meeting by Edith Everard, demanding to know why she hadn’t been told that her charge was a German.

  Avril, a little thrown by the vehemence of her question, said, ‘We’re not sure she is. But does it really matter?’ She was about to say, ‘She’s a child that needs a loving home, isn’t that what you were offering?’ when Miss Everard interrupted.

  ‘It matters to me,’ she said. ‘We’re at war with the Germans... for the second time in twenty years!’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, Miss Everard, but we aren’t at war with Charlotte Smith.’

  At that moment Caroline looked across the room and seeing the expression on Miss Everard’s face realised that Avril was having problems, so she walked over to join the two women.

  ‘Everything all right, Avril?’ she asked cheerfully.

  ‘I’m afraid we shall have to move Charlotte. Miss Everard doesn’t want her and—’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want her,’ snapped Miss Everard. ‘I simply said it would have been a courtesy to tell me in advance that the child was German. I’m perfectly happy to give her a home, but I think you should have warned me.’

  ‘I apologise if you think I misled you, Miss Everard,’ said Avril, keeping a tight rein on her temper, ‘it was entirely unintentional; but now we have to be sure that she’s in a home where she’s welcome.’

  ‘Well, she is,’ insisted Miss Everard, ‘and I want her to stay.’ Perversely, she found it was indeed so. She had come to complain about the situation, but as soon as the vicar’s wife said she was removing Charlotte from her care, Miss Edie discovered she wanted her to stay. ‘I’m happy to have the girl,’ she said, now furiously back-pedalling, ‘it’s the lack of courtesy, the lack of communication, that I was complaining about.’

  ‘Very well, if you’re sure,’ Avril agreed, biting her tongue to remain civil, ‘but if you change your mind at any time, or if things ever become difficult, please tell me at once and I shall move her in with us at the vicarage.’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ Miss Everard said stiffly, adding, ‘Is there anything else I ought to know about her?’

  ‘She doesn’t like small spaces, doesn’t like being shut in. She will go into a shelter if she has to, provided she feels she can get out in a hurry, so we usually sit her near the door.’

  Miss Everard nodded. ‘I’ll remember,’ she said, and turning, stalked away.

  ‘I hope we’ve made the right decision,’ Avril said to her sister. ‘It’s not going to be easy for the child.’

  ‘She’s tougher than you think,’ Caroline assured her. ‘Don’t know what her past is, but it’s clear it hasn’t been easy and she’s come through it all.’

  ‘What was all that about?’ Nancy Bright had seen the confrontation and had wandered over to discover what was going on.

  ‘It’s just that we think Charlotte Smith is probably half German, or possibly a German refugee, and Miss Everard is up in arms because we didn’t tell her so.’

  ‘You’ve fostered a German girl with Edith Everard?’ Nancy stared at Avril in disbelief.

  ‘Well, why not?’ Avril was disconcerted by Nancy’s incredulity.

  ‘She lost her fiancé at the very end of the Great War and it turned her peculiar. She’s never forgiven the Germans for killing him. She’s lived alone since her parents died and quite frankly I think she’s a bit potty.’

  ‘Good gracious,’ cried Avril, ‘why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Well, I’m not one to gossip,’ Nancy replied, perfectly straight-faced, ‘but I’d have assumed you knew. Anyway, I didn’t know that Edie had offered to take in a vaccie and I didn’t know the child was German.’

  ‘We don’t know she is,’ cried Avril in frustration. ‘We don’t know who she is and nor does she, poor kid. God, I wish we’d just made room for her at the vicarage.’

  ‘Leave her for now,’ Caro advised. ‘She’s been moved from pillar to post enough; but keep a strict eye on her.’

  After the meeting Edith and Charlotte had left together and later, both had come back for the party. As soon as she got there, Charlotte sought out Clare who had already devoured one bun and was licking every last speck of jam from her fingers.

  ‘Hey, Charlotte, you should have one of these. They’re ever so good.’

  Charlotte and Clare discussed the homes where they had been billeted. Clare, now living with Mr and Mrs Prynne and their daughter, Sandra, was fairly philosophical.

  ‘Could be worse,’ she said. ‘We listened to the wireless last night. Sandra’s not coming to school with us yet. She’s not eleven till the spring.’

  ‘At least you got a proper family to live with. I only got Miss Edie,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Is that what you call her?’ asked Clare, intrigued. ‘Miss Edie? Bit of a mouthful, ain’t it?’

  ‘What do you call yours?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘She said to call her Ma, like Sandra and Mr Prynne both do. Easy that.’

  ‘What d’you think this school will be like?’ wondered Charlotte. ‘We got to go on the bus and have our dinner there.’

  ‘Be all right,’ Clare said. ‘I like school.’

  Suddenly there was the sound of a bell and Mr Hampton moved into the middle of the room.

  ‘Right, you lot,’ he said. ‘We’re going to play some games now. Miss Mason’s going to play the piano and you can all play musical bumps.’

  Miss Mason settled herself at the piano and began to play. The older children looked on with disdain as the younger ones rushed into the middle to join in. Charlotte and Clare watched. They wouldn’t have minded joining in, especially when the winner was given a twist of liquorice, but by then it was too late.

  It was cold outside, but it didn’t stop them going out to run races across the village green. Mr Hampton, Dr Masters and the vicar put them all into teams, being careful not only to mix up the St Michael’s children with the Wynsdown ones, but to mix girls with boys. They had laid out a track, marked with bean bags, and for half an hour the noise on the green was raucous as the children screamed their team-mates home in relay races, three-legged races and lastly, a sack race.

  Charlotte found herself in a team with Teddy Baker and little Valerie Dawson from St Michael’s. Another older boy from the village was chosen as the team leader. His name was Billy Shepherd. He was tall and muscular with fair, curly hair and deep-set blue eyes. He looked round his team and, seeing little Val standing to one side, went across and bending down to her said, ‘Hallo. Who are you?’ Val cowered away from him and Charlotte said, ‘That’s Val. She’s only five. She doesn’t know who you are.’

  ‘I’m Billy Shepherd and I live at Charing Farm on the hill. Who are you?’

  For the first time sin
ce she had left the hospital Charlotte did not say she didn’t know. Looking up into Billy’s wide friendly face she answered, ‘Charlotte Smith. I come from St Michael’s.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘I been watching you.’

  Charlotte looked startled. ‘Have you? Why do you watch me?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Billy replied, scratching his head. ‘Liked the look of you, I suppose.’

  Somehow an unacknowledged link had been forged. Billy organised his team carefully, making sure everyone was included. When little Valerie Dawson was running in the relay race, he encouraged her with raucous cheers, and when Charlotte was tied to a local girl, Emmy Gripton, to run three-legged, he led the applause when they won.

  However, when the races were over and the last of the liquorice awarded, the children quickly returned to their two groups, locals on one side of the hall and evacuees on the other; each group eyeing the other with suspicion.

  ‘They’ll soon sort themselves out,’ Michael Hampton assured Caroline Morrison when she commented on this. ‘Children are very tribal, you know, but they’ll soon shake down together. See that child over there?’ He pointed to a small red-haired boy standing with the village children. ‘That’s Sidney Morgan. He and his twin, Stephen, came with the first batch of evacuees, but, as you can see, he regards himself as a local now.’

  As the evening drew in and the chill of the November day slipped towards freezing, the villagers gathered up their families and new charges and hurried home to the warmth of their own firesides.

  Miss Edie set the usual brisk pace as she and Charlotte left the village green and it wasn’t long before they were back at Blackdown House with Miss Edie again attacking the recalcitrant stove.

  ‘I’ll put the pie in the oven,’ Miss Edie said. ‘I pulled some leeks earlier, why don’t you clean and chop those?’

  ‘Please, Miss Edie, what’s leeks?’

  Miss Edie seemed about to snap out an answer, when she thought better of it and said, ‘Here, I’ll show you.’ She reached into a bucket at the back door and pulled out a bundle of leeks, mud clinging to their roots. She banged them against the side of the bucket to get the worst off and then put them on the draining board.