Above the Bright Blue Sky

by Margaret Thornton

  ‘Now then, let’s sort out your things, shall we, and put them away in the wardrobe.’ She opened the door of the single wardrobe in the corner. ‘There are shelves at the side, see, for your underwear and your bits and pieces.’

  ‘I haven’t got very much,’ said Maisie. ‘Me mum can’t afford to buy me many new clothes, what with Joanie and Jimmy and everything. She got me that jumper and skirt at a jumble sale, and these things what I’ve got on I wear for school. Me gymslip’s a bit short, but me mam said it ’ud have to do for a while.’ She spoke matter-of-factly, not in any complaining way. She was obviously used to their situation of near-poverty.

  It was true that she did not have many possessions, not with her at least, and it was doubtful that there would be much more at home in Leeds. The items of underwear – knickers, vests, liberty bodice and a nightdress – were clean enough, though a trifle grey and dingy looking, and the two pairs of grey socks were darned quite neatly. Apart from that the only clothing was a blue jumper and a grey skirt; the garments from the jumble sale, no doubt. The skirt looked as though it would be too long, in contrast to the gymslip that the child was wearing which came to way above her knees. Then there were a few ragged handkerchieves, a toothbrush and a comb, a pair of wellingtons which appeared to have done much service, and a pair of plimsolls which were equally worn. And, at the bottom of the bag, a few copies of Enid Blyton’s ‘Sunny Stories’.

  ‘Very good,’ said Patience, although, in truth, it was not good at all. It was sad to see the little girl’s meagre selection of worldly goods laid out on the bed. ‘Now, you put them where you want to, on the shelves, and I’ve got a nice padded coat hanger to hang your gaberdine mack on.’ The coat smelled a little of grease or chip fat, and Patience guessed it had spent most of its time hanging on a peg in the hall – if there was one – or on the kitchen door.

  ‘Shall I leave you for a few minutes, Maisie, while you get used to your new room?’ asked Patience.

  Maisie nodded. ‘Mmm…I think so.’

  ‘Very well, dear. Come downstairs when you are ready, and I’ll show you the back garden and everything, and then in a little while we’ll have our tea.’

  ‘All right,’ said Maisie. She smiled, a little pensively. ‘I’ll…I’ll come down in a minute or two.’

  It was clear that the child was overwhelmed by all the happenings of the day and needed a little breathing space to sort herself out. Poor little lass! Patience tried to put herself in the same position and realised it was just too awful to contemplate, being snatched away from all that was familiar and brought to live amongst strangers. She and Luke would have to try very hard to make her feel welcome and wanted.

  Maisie took a deep breath. She could feel tears pricking at her eyelids again, as they had done a little while ago when Mrs Fairchild had mentioned her dad. It had made the thought of Sid – and Percy – come into her mind, and she had been trying to blot them out altogether. She blinked hard, then walked over to the window, framed by the pretty blue and yellow curtains. The small room she was in was situated over the front door, and it looked out over the front garden and village green, across to the school.

  ‘Oh…how lovely!’ She gave an involuntary gasp of delight as she stood and drank in the view, her depressing thoughts, for the moment, fading into nothingness. It all looked so beautiful from up here; so quiet and green and peaceful. Mrs Fairchild had told her that the stretch of grass in front of the house was the village green. They still called it that although Middlebeck was now more of a small town than a village. She had not mentioned the stone cross that stood in the middle, but Maisie knew it was a war memorial and that it was there to remember all the men who had been killed in the war, just over twenty years ago. She could see their names carved into the plinth in black letters.

  The school looked cosy and friendly, she thought, surrounded by a little wall and low iron railings; nowhere near as big as the one she attended at home. She wondered how the teachers would find room for all the evacuees that had arrived, but that was their problem. The children had been told they had a few days extra holiday whilst they sorted it all out. There was a little greystone house across the school yard, but in the same grounds, and she guessed that the Headmaster – or Headmistress? – might live there; she knew they sometimes lived at the schoolhouse in country places. She hoped he – or she – would be nice and kind. Mr Ormerod at the school in Armley had been a rather a frightening sort of person and Maisie had kept out of his way as much as possible. Not that he knew her name, or any of the others, apart from the boys who were always in trouble. He was a disciplinarian who had ruled the roost from his little room upstairs.

  Next door to the school was the big house where Audrey had gone to live. Maisie looked hard at the windows, but she could see no sign of her friend. There was another storey above the first floor. A little pointed attic window peeped out from under the roof, but that, too, reflected back nothing but blackness. The garden was neat and trim and precise, just like Miss Thomson herself, bounded by an immaculate privet hedge. The black front door with a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head looked grim and forbidding. Maisie could not imagine herself going and knocking there to ask if she could see Audrey. But she was sure Mrs Fairchild would find out for her how her friend was faring. It was strange; she had hardly known Audrey Dennison, even yesterday, and now she was her best friend. What was more, she could feel that they were going to be best friends for always.

  Her eyes wandered to the top side of the green where, behind a low stone wall, was the church. It was built of grey stones, as were all the buildings, and it looked as though it was very old. The tower was crenellated, like a castle, and there was a Union Jack flying from the top. There were flags on all sorts of buildings at the moment, all fluttering bravely, ‘to show old Hitler we are not afraid of him’, Maisie had heard her mother say. There were gravestones in the chuchyard, ancient stone ones, mostly, with green moss growing on them and leaning at odd angles towards one another, although here and there she could see larger marble ones in the shape of a cross and one with a praying angel. This was the church that Mrs Fairchild’s husband was in charge of. She had called him the Rector, but Maisie supposed that that was just another name for a vicar; that was what they called the one at home… But she hadn’t been to Sunday School for ages, not since Joanie and Jimmy arrived.

  Behind the church tower, in the distance, she could see a range of hills, dark against the blue of the sky. On top of one of the hills she could see what she thought were the ruins of a castle, or it might be an abbey. She remembered visiting Kirkstall Abbey, near Leeds, a long time ago, and she knew there were lots of other ruined abbeys and castles to be seen in Yorkshire. Who could tell what wonders were to be found in that unseen countryside which lay behind the church. It was all so lovely, and it would be hers to explore in the next few days and weeks, with Audrey, she hoped.

  She gave a sigh, partly of wonder at the beauty of the scene she was viewing through the window, but also partly of – what? Homesickness, anxiety about her future and Audrey’s and of those she had left behind? Maisie could not sort out in her mind exactly how she was feeling, but she knew she just had to get on with it. She went downstairs to find Mrs Fairchild.

  ‘I think you could call me Aunty Patience, don’t you?’ said Patience whilst they were eating their early evening meal. ‘Mrs Fairchild sounds so formal. That is…if you would like to? Or just Aunty, perhaps?’

  ‘Ooh yes, please,’ said Maisie, swallowing the meat and potato that was in her mouth before answering. Obviously she had been taught some table manners. ‘I’d like that. I haven’t got any real aunties. Me mum hasn’t got any sisters, or brothers neither. And I don’t think me dad had any. I call the lady next door Aunty; she’s Aunty Kate, but me mum hasn’t got any other proper friends. Yes…I’d like to call you Aunty. I say, this cottage pie’s dead good…Aunty Patience.’ She grinned. ‘Is that what you call it, cottage pie? Me mum makes it so
metimes…but it’s not as good as this,’ she added after a slight pause.

  Well, I’m sure the woman does her best, thought Patience. ‘I call it shepherd’s pie,’ she replied. ‘It’s made with lamb instead of beef, but it’s more or less the same. I’m glad you like it, dear. I thought you would be hungry after such a busy day.’ She had prepared the meat and onions before leaving home that morning, topping it with potato and cooking it to a satisfying crispness when they returned.

  ‘And there’s apple pie to follow – apples from our own back garden – and custard. Do you think you can manage some?’

  ‘’Course I can!’ said Maisie. She was thoughtful for a moment, then she said, ‘Aunty Patience, do you think Audrey will be having a nice tea like this?’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ said Patience, convincingly, she hoped. ‘I’ve told you, Maisie, your friend will be fine. You mustn’t worry about her. I’ll make sure you see her tomorrow.’

  ‘All right then…’ Maisie tucked into the apple pie with gusto, pausing only to say, ‘What about your husband then, Aunty Patience? What shall I call him?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t really know.’ Patience deliberated. ‘Uncle Luke is rather a tongue-twister, isn’t it? Most people call him Rector…but he’d rather be called just Luke. We’ll ask him when he comes home, but it will probably be tomorrow before you see him.’

  She knew that Luke intended to call and see a friend of his after he had concluded his meeting with the Bishop, a fellow he had been at college with who was now a vicar in the town of Richmond, not too far distant. He would arrive back later that evening, but Patience guessed that the little girl would be in bed by that time. Already the strains of the day were beginning to show in her tired face and one or two barely supressed yawns.

  ‘Is a rector a sort of vicar?’ asked Maisie. ‘That’s what we call him at home… But we don’t go to church no more,’ she added with her engaging honesty.

  ‘Yes, sort of,’ replied Patience. ‘Vicars in the country parishes are usually called rectors.’ The explanation would suffice. In times long ago the tithes paid by the parishioners all used to go to the incumbent of the parish, as part of his stipend, and the ones who were paid in that way were known as rectors. So it had been at St Bartholomew’s, but those days were long gone.

  ‘Now, I’m going to leave the washing-up, Maisie, so that you and I can have a little chat. You can tell me all about yourself and that little brother and sister of yours. And we have that important postcard to write to your mother, haven’t we?’ Each evacuee had been given a postcard, ready stamped and addressed, with instructions to send it home as soon as possible with details of their present address and the name of the person who was now in charge of them.

  ‘You can write this on your own, can’t you, dear?’ asked Patience as they sat by the fire in the sitting room. ‘I’ll write the address if you like, and you can tell your mum that you are being looked after by the Reverend – just put Rev for short – and Mrs Luke Fairchild.’ She glanced at the front of the card. ‘I see your mother is called Mrs…Bragg. Is that right?’

  The girl nodded, and Patience noticed that once again the light had gone out of her eyes. ‘That’s his name. And the little ’uns an’ all, Joanie and Jimmy, they’re called Bragg. ’Cos they’re his kids, y’see. But it’s not my name, though. I’m Maisie Jackson.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Of course you are. So this man…he’s your step-father?’

  ‘S’pose so.’ She shrugged. ‘He’s called Sid, Sidney Bragg. I don’t call him Dad or anything…I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘That’s all right, dear. We won’t talk about him. You just write and tell your mum whatever you want. That you have arrived safely…just a nice chatty little note. She’ll feel a lot better when she has heard from you.’

  Despite her assertion that she did not want to talk about her step-father, Maisie went on to say, ‘He’s got a son an’ all, called Percy. He lives with us.’

  ‘Your step-brother?’ said Patience gently.

  The child nodded. ‘S’pose so,’ she said. Then, just as quickly, she shook her head vehemently. ‘No, no he’s not! He’s not me brother, not any sort of brother, and Sid’s not me dad. I hate them! I don’t want to talk about them, Aunty Patience…’

  ‘It’s all right, my dear.’ Patience went over to sit on the settee next to the little girl and put an arm round her. ‘We won’t talk about anybody or anything, not until you want to. OK? But when you feel you want to tell me about…anything, anything at all, then I’ll be here, Maisie.’ Instinctively she kissed the girl’s cheek, and felt her give a start of surprise.

  ‘I’ll just finish this card to me mum,’ she said, recoiling a little as though embarrassed by the display of affection. Patience smiled and patted her arm.

  ‘And I’ll go and make you a drink of cocoa. That will be lovely and soothing before you go to bed.’

  Maisie wrote, ‘Dear Mum, I am staying with a nice lady in a big house. She says I can call her Aunty Patience. Her husband is the vicar, but I haven’t seen him yet. I hope you are alright and Joanie and Jimmy. With love from Maisie. This is my address.’

  And at the bottom Patience added, Rev and Mrs Luke Fairchild, 1, Church Square, The High Street, Middlebeck, North Yorkshire.

  ‘She’s a dear little girl,’ said Patience to her husband, later that evening. ‘Well, not so little really. She’s nine, going on for ten, but more like twenty in her head from some of the things she says. I can tell she’s had a pretty rough time of it, although she’s not very forthcoming at the moment.’

  ‘Give her a chance,’ replied Luke. ‘It must be so bewildering for all of them. Everything went off according to plan, did it?’

  ‘Yes, it all ran pretty smoothly…’ She told him about her day, and Luke told her that he had had a long and candid talk with the Bishop. He was honest with her, too, telling her what she had suspected all along; that he had told the Bishop that it had been in his mind to join up and serve in the army again.

  He had done so in the previous war, serving as a second lieutenant in the Shropshire Light Infantry. He had not been in the thick of it all on the battlefields of the Somme, having served instead in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the brutality, the horrific sights he had seen, even so far away from the main conflict; and, above all, the futility and the sheer waste of that unneccesary war had affected him deeply. He had been unable to settle down to his former employment as a bank clerk in his home town of Shrewsbury. He knew that the God he had always believed in was calling him to serve Him more fully. He had been accepted for training at a theological college in 1920; then it was during his first appointment, as a curate in a Birmingham parish, that he had met Patience. The couple had fallen in love almost at once. They had married in 1929 and then moved immediately to the town of Middlebeck where he was to take up the living as priest in charge of St Bartholomew’s.

  They had been almost ideally happy in the little north Yorkshire town, such a contrast to the grime and clamour of a large city. The only thing to mar their happiness slightly was their disappointment that no child, as yet, had been born to them. Luke felt the frustration just as much as did Patience, but it had not been allowed to spoil their deep love for one another nor the way they worked together as a team.

  ‘And what was the Bishop’s answer,’ Patience asked him now, ‘about serving in the army again?’ She held her breath waiting for his reply. To her relief he grinned at her and shook his head.

  ‘An unconditional no,’ he said. ‘That was his answer. He says my place is here; right here in my own parish.’

  ‘What a sensible man!’ said Patience. ‘Of course you must stay here. You have already served in one world war, Luke, and that is enough in any man’s lifetime.’

  ‘So it is,’ replied Luke. ‘The Bishop said that as well, that I have done my share of service to my King and Country. But there will be many thousands, my dear, who will be joining up for the secon
d time. The words on many people’s lips are that the last war was supposed to be the war to end all wars…and look at us now, on the brink of another one.’ He looked regretful for a moment, before going on. ‘I have no doubt, if I were to enlist again, that my place here would be easily filled. There are any amount of retired clergymen who would be willing to take up the reins again. And I would be able to act as a padre this time, to the soldiers…’

  ‘I thought you had made up your mind to stay here,’ said Patience fearfully.

  ‘So I have; really I have. But I can’t sit around on my…er, backside…excuse the expression, darling.’

  Patience laughed out loud. ‘Do you ever?’

  ‘No…no, I don’t. But what I mean is, I could join something here. You know; fire fighting, or there is sure to be some sort of local civil defence scheme for the men to join, like you have joined the WVS. I want to be seen to be doing my bit.’

  ‘You will do that by keeping up the morale of your parishioners,’ said Patience. ‘The young men will be joining up, and there will be wives and mothers, and girlfriends, who are feeling sad and worried. And don’t forget we have this influx of evacuees… To be honest, Luke, I am wondering if I should have taken more than one child. Maisie’s little friend, Audrey, was taken by Miss Thomson across the road.’

  ‘Heaven help her then!’ said Luke, smiling a little. ‘The child, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, quite… They didn’t want to be separated, and I would have had them both, but Amelia Thomson was persistent.’