‘And you don’t miss much, do you?’ laughed Bruce.
‘No, I don’t,’ agreed Maisie. She smiled. ‘I try not to. I like to know what’s happening. I think it’s nice for Aunty Patience and Luke ’cause they’ve never had any children of their own. I remember when I first came here I asked if she had any boys or girls, and she got a bit upset and said no. Then afterwards she said she wished they had… P’raps she can’t have any of her own, but now they’ll have one of each, a girl and a boy.’
‘And what about Timothy? Has he settled down? Poor little boy; it must have been dreadful, losing all his family like that.’
‘Yes, he’s OK,’ said Maisie. ‘He’s been with the people he stayed with when he was an evacuee, and now he’s come to us. Me and Audrey have been looking after him, like big sisters, y’see, instead of Ivy.’
‘But you wanted to be with your own mum today, did you, and your brother and sister?’
‘Yes, of course I did,’ replied Maisie. ‘Aunty Patience says Christmas is a family time. And they’re my family really, aren’t they? My mum and Joanie and Jimmy…’
At the rectory Patience and Luke, Audrey and Timothy, and Mabel and Bill Roystone had enjoyed a similar sort of meal. Patience had invited the elderly couple for the day to help Timothy to settle into his new surroundings.
He had been in Middlebeck for about two weeks. His broken leg was still in plaster, though only up to the knee as the break had been near the ankle. He had managed the train journey with the assistance of Luke and Mr Roystone who had gone to collect him, and then he had stopped at the Roystones’ home for about ten days. He was hobbling along quite ably with the aid of crutches, and once he had recovered from the initial shock of losing his parents and his sister he had enjoyed being the centre of attention with his Aunty Mabel and Uncle Bill.
Now he had been told that his new home was to be at the rectory with Mr and Mrs Fairchild; he had gone to live there just a couple of days before Christmas.
‘I am Aunty Patience to Audrey and Maisie,’ Patience told him. ‘Would you like to call me Aunty as well? And you can call Mr Fairchild, Uncle, or just Luke, if you would rather. He doesn’t mind.’
The little boy nodded seriously, but although he started to call Patience ‘Aunty’, a little diffidently at first, he still did not call Luke by any name at all. He seemed rather in awe of the man, but Patience had every confidence that his shyness would disappear in time. She was pleased to see him smiling, and actually laughing occasionally, when he was with Audrey and Maisie.
Audrey had whispered to her on Christmas Eve, when she had gone to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight. ‘Aunty Patience…Timothy is going to be my brother, really, isn’t he? I mean…you’re going to adopt him, aren’t you, like you did with me? And then he’ll be Timothy Fairchild, like I’m…I’m Audrey Fairchild now, aren’t I?’
Patience felt her eyes grow moist; she was so relieved that the girl had accepted her new name. It had been a gradual acceptance, without any pressure from herself or Luke. They had decided that she had to come to it in her own time.
‘Yes…we are hoping to adopt Timothy,’ she replied. ‘But how did you know?’ They had not told Audrey or Maisie what they had in mind.
‘I just guessed,’ said Audrey. ‘And I think it’s lovely. I always wanted a little brother.’
Patience kissed her fondly. ‘Thank you, darling, for being so kind to Tim. You and Maisie have really looked after him since he arrived…’
Now all four bedrooms at the rectory were in use. It seemed strange to Luke and Patience because for the first ten years of their ministry three of the upstairs rooms had been unoccupied, although they had always had lots of visitors in the downstairs rooms. Now Tim was in the small room at the back of the house, next to the one where Audrey slept, with Maisie in the small front room, and Patience and Luke in the large front bedroom, the one they had always used.
‘Are you happy, my darling?’ Luke asked her as they lay close together in their double bed on Christmas night.
They had retired later than usual, as the three children had stayed up late, playing with their Christmas presents; the Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, and Chinese Chequers games; the jigsaws, yo-yos and puzzles; and Maisie and Audrey had had to be almost forced away from their latest Girls’ Crystal annuals. Archie had brought Maisie back from Tremaine House after tea, then he had offered to take Mabel and Bill back to their own home. And when the children had gone to bed Patience and Luke had sat for a while on the settee, hand in hand, enjoying a glass of sherry, a special treat to celebrate a day that, in spite of recent bereavements and traumas, had been a quietly joyous occasion.
‘Yes…very happy, Luke,’ said Patience, snuggling closer to him. She threw her arm across his body and rested her head on his chest. ‘Do you need to ask if I’m happy? It has been a lovely, lovely day.’ She laughed out loud. ‘And three children! Just what we always wanted. I know it isn’t quite the same as we planned, and Maisie, of course, is only on loan to us. But…we are doing the right thing, aren’t we, Luke?’
‘Yes…we are. I am as sure about that as I have ever been about anything.’ Luke reached out and threw off the eiderdown and blanket, a heavy weight on top of them. He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at his wife. ‘Except, of course, about loving you, my darling. That is something I have always been very, very sure of.’ Tenderly he stroked her auburn hair, now greying a little at the temples, then he leaned down and kissed her passionately. ‘I love you, Patience,’ he whispered. ‘I love you even more now than I did when I married you, and I didn’t think that was possible.’
‘I love you too, Luke,’ she answered, ‘more and more with every day that passes…’
After that there was no need for words as he gathered her into his arms and made love to her, in a way that seemed to both of them more poignant and meaningful than it had ever been before.
Timothy’s plaster was removed from his leg in due course and he was welcomed back at school by Miss Foster and his classmates, especially by Peter, his special pal, who had thought he would never see him again.
The children of Standard Four sat for their Scholarship examination during the month of February, then forgot all about it as the results would not be out until much later in the year. There were other things to occupy their minds and energies as well as school. Maisie, Audrey and Doris still attended Brownies, although at ten and eleven years of age this was starting to be regarded by them as somewhat childish. They were looking forward to joining the Guides, but that would not be until they went to the senior school.
The girls were busy, whilst the evenings were dark, making articles which would be sold in a few weeks’ time at a Spring Fair and Bring and Buy Sale in the church hall. They worked away knitting kettle holders and dish cloths, sewing lavender bags, peg dolls and needle-cases, to aid ‘our gallant soldiers, sailors and airmen’. The money raised would help to buy tanks and aeroplanes and ammunition, and adults and children alike were told that every little would help; everyone must try to ‘do their bit’. And so they collected silver paper and milk bottle tops and waste paper, and bought sixpenny savings stamps at school on a Monday morning, then stuck them into a little book to help with the National Savings scheme. The news from other parts of the country was grim, with air raids still continuing, but it was good to think they were helping in some small way.
Life in Middlebeck, however, seemed to carry on quite uneventfully. Something that Maisie enjoyed, but which Audrey and Doris were not part of, was singing in the church choir. Maisie had always enjoyed singing, both at school and at Sunday school, and she always sang out loudly and confidently. When Luke had heard her carolling away happily at home he had suggested that she should join the church choir. Audrey had been back in Leeds by that time, but when she returned to Middlebeck she said, quite definitely, that she did not want to sing in the choir. She had only a tiny voice anyway, and she would not want everyone looking at her,
she said, standing at the front of the church in the choir stalls. Doris, also, was not a member of the choir, although her father was the leading baritone singer. She laughingly said that her dad had told her she had a voice like a corncrake, whatever that was. Maisie thought that Mr Nixon was quite often rude to his daughter and said hurtful things, but Doris didn’t seem to mind.
Maisie was the youngest of the girl choristers. The other three girls were twelve and thirteen years old and were at senior school, and there were four boy choristers too. The rest were men and women of varying ages, from seventeen to over seventy, she guessed. She quite liked being made a fuss of, as the youngest member, and she loved wearing the blue cloak over her ordinary clothes and the little squarish cap with a tassel at the back.
At the moment, during the season of Lent, they were practising songs to sing at the Easter services. Mr King, the elderly organist and choir master, called them anthems. There was one called ‘This Joyous Eastertide’, and another one called the ‘Easter Hymn’, which was from an opera. It was very difficult to sing, but Maisie loved the way the music started off quiet and then went louder and louder, with the voices of the choir echoing around the empty church. There was something mystical and magical about it when the church was in semi-darkness, lit only at the end they called the chancel. She often found herself humming the melody or singing the words,
‘Rejoice for the Lord has arisen,
He has broken the gates of the prison…’
when she was at home.
She was beginning to understand the notes, the black ones and white ones and the ones with tails and how much you had to count for each one, like doing sums at school; and how they went up and down on the stave, going higher or lower; and what all the lovely Italian words meant; allegro, andante, diminuendo and crescendo, and her favourite one, rallentando.
She had a special friend in the choir and she was rather proud of this. It was Priscilla Meadows, the land girl who lived across the green in Miss Thomson’s house. She had befriended Maisie as soon as she joined the choir and Maisie liked her very much. Priscilla was small and pretty with fair curly hair and she laughed and smiled a lot. Her friend, Jennifer, was not in the choir, but Priscilla had wanted to join because she had been in the church choir in Leicester, the town where she lived. She was one of the sopranos – the ones that sang the high trilly notes, the notes that the younger members of the choir sang, too – and you could tell by watching her singing that she enjoyed it.
Priscilla confided to Maisie, one evening in early March, that she had met a young man who was really nice. ‘He’s in the army,’ she said, ‘and he’s stationed at Catterick, just up the road. Well, a few miles away, but it’s not all that far. I met him at a dance last Saturday, and I’m seeing him tonight, after we’ve finished the practice.’
Her eyes were bright and sparkling and Maisie felt happy for her. ‘What’s he called?’ she asked.
‘Jeff…Jeff Beaumont; he’s a lance-corporal. That means he has one stripe on his arm,’ Priscilla explained, ‘but I expect he’ll be a corporal before long.’
‘And…and you like him a lot, do you?’ asked Maisie, all agog.
‘Yes…I think so,’ said Priscilla, smiling and blushing a little. ‘I had a boyfriend at home, but we broke it off when he joined up and I came here. Yes, I think Jeff might be…rather special. Oh…we’d better shut up. Mr King is waiting for us.’
Maisie sat next to Priscilla at choir practices because the older members helped the younger ones to understand the music. But during the proper church services the young ones sat at the front with the grown-ups behind them. Mr King did not like them to talk too much, but there was always time for a little chat between songs.
‘Hymn number 520, please, ladies and gentlemen, if you are ready,’ he said now. ‘Love divine, all loves excelling…’ He nodded at Mrs Hollins, the pianist who played for practices, then they all started to sing again.
There were choir stalls on each side of the chancel, and in the one opposite was seated Walter Nixon, Doris’s father. Maisie could see him now, looking intently at Priscilla, and then down at his music. But his eyes were upon her most of the time, or so Maisie thought. She had seen him looking at her before, and she had seen Mr Nixon and Priscilla talking and laughing together at the end of a practice. They knew one another quite well, though, because she had been working on his farm, and on the land that belonged to Mr Tremaine, ever since she came to Middlebeck.
Everyone seemed to like Priscilla, more especially the men, because she was so pretty and lively and friendly. She would talk to anyone, and she had a way of making you feel special. That was how she had made Maisie feel, and Maisie guessed that that was how she made the older men feel as well; there were no very young men in the choir, because they were all in the forces.
Maisie had overheard one of the choir ladies whisper to her friend that Priscilla Meadows was a flirt. ‘You’d best keep yer eye on yer husband when that one’s around, I’m warning yer,’ she said. But Maisie did not think that that was true. Priscilla was just a nice agreeable young woman.
‘I’m seeing Jeff again tonight,’ she told Maisie the following week. ‘He’s getting a lift down from the camp, and I’m meeting him at the Green Man.’ That was a public house halfway down the High Street. ‘He’s bringing a pal with him, and I’m going to introduce my friend Jennifer to him. Jen’s a bit shy, you see, and… Hey up! Mr King’s ready for us.’
‘Have a good time,’ said Maisie when the practice came to an end.
‘Don’t you worry; I will,’ Priscilla laughed.
Then Maisie went to talk to Betty, one of the senior school girls who had offered to lend her a book all about the Guides. There were only Mr King and Mrs Hollins in the church when they left, sorting out the music and locking the piano.
‘Tara, Betty,’ shouted Maisie, then she set off along the path, through the church gate, and across the corner of the green to the rectory. There was a shorter way, a path through the bushes, which led to the back gate of the rectory, but it was dark and rather spooky in the blackout, so she always went the longer way round at night. Just when she reached the gate to her home she realised she had left her gloves behind. They were nice bright red ones that Patience had knitted for her and she didn’t want to lose them. She supposed they would be safe there and Luke could get them for her in the morning, but she liked to wear them for school and she didn’t want Patience to think she had been careless with them. She decided to go back.
She went round to the back door of the church, the entrance they used when they went for practices and meetings, but for proper church services they used the front door. But the door was shut and it was obvious that everyone had gone; Mr King and Mrs Hollins must have left almost immediately. Maisie turned to go back home, then she stopped dead in her tracks. She could hear voices coming from the other path, the one which led through the bushes. If it was Mr King and Mrs Hollins she could ask them to unlock the door so that she could get her gloves. She opened her mouth to shout, then she decided not to; they were both inclined to be a little short-tempered; no, it would not be a good idea. Then she froze, because the voices she could hear were not those of the organist and the pianist, but those of her friend, Priscilla and…Mr Nixon. At least, she knew it was Priscilla, and she was almost sure it was Walter Nixon.
‘Leave me alone!’ she heard Priscilla shout.
And then, ‘Aw, go on; you know you don’t mean it…’ came the man’s voice.
Maisie wondered if she dared to take a step in that direction and peep through the foliage, but then she heard Priscilla’s voice again. ‘Let me go, Walter! What d’you think you’re doing?’ So it really was Walter Nixon.
‘I’m only doing what you’ve wanted these past months. Don’t act all prim and proper wi’ me. You know you want it as much as I do…’
‘No, I don’t… Let go of me!’
Maisie held her breath and tiptoed away. She had been in trouble
for eavesdropping before, and she knew that Mr Nixon and Priscilla would not want her to hear them. She hoped Priscilla would tell him to get lost and that she was going to meet her boyfriend.
‘I’ve forgotten my gloves,’ she said to Patience when she arrived home. ‘I went back, but the door was shut.’
‘Never mind, dear,’ said Patience. ‘Luke will get them for you tomorrow.’
She decided not to say anything about what she had heard. And she was sure that Priscilla was well able to look after herself.
‘You’re very quiet, Maisie,’ Patience said to her the following morning. ‘Is there something troubling you?’
‘No,’ replied Maisie quickly. Possibly too quickly, because Patience then looked at her more closely. ‘No…honestly, there’s not.’ She picked up her piece of toast and carefully took a bite. ‘I think I’m just a bit tired, that’s all. After I’ve been to choir practice my head’s all full of tunes going round and round, and then I sometimes don’t go to sleep for ages.’ That much was true, but last night it had not been the tunes that had kept her awake, but her thoughts about Priscilla and Doris’s dad. She wondered if she should have told Luke or Patience about what she had overheard, but that would have been ‘nosy-parkering’. She just hoped that Priscilla had told Mr Nixon where to get off – the awful man! – and had gone to meet Jeff, her new boyfriend.
‘I see,’ said Patience. ‘I know what you mean. I don’t always get to sleep straight away if there is something on my mind. You do look rather tired, dear, but you’ll soon buck up when you get out into the sunshine. It’s a lovely day; it really looks as though spring had come at last.’
Above the Bright Blue Sky Page 33
