The Way to London

by Alix Rickloff

  “I can’t take your coat, miss,” she whispered, her voice soft as a sigh. “Wouldn’t be right.”

  “Of course you can. I never liked it anyway. Green makes me look bilious, and it’s so last season.” The wind chilled her bare skin, but Lucy draped the plaid wool kimono coat over the older woman’s shoulders, before tucking the mac around her as best she could. “It’s waterlogged as everything else in the blasted boat, but another few layers should help. Can’t hurt at any rate.”

  The woman’s tremors subsided as she burrowed into the soggy wool as if curling beneath an eiderdown.

  “Right, now let’s see if we can get some food in you. Can I have those biscuits? And you there, a cup of that water if you please.”

  The military wife started from her glum study of the empty horizon. “Why waste it on her? She’s half-dead and there’s no knowing how long we’ll be out here. We need it for those of us strong enough to survive. Not some sick biddy.”

  “Water,” Lucy snapped in the same tone of voice she used on waiters, taxi drivers, and the occasional bounder trying to cop a fondle. “Now.”

  The cup was reluctantly passed over.

  “Shut up and listen,” the seaman shouted, shading his eyes as he searched the sky. “Is that an airplane?”

  Everyone went silent, nerves on edge, senses straining.

  “There!” someone shouted, pointing.

  All eyes followed the track of the outstretched arm to where a plane circled and dipped its wings before heading east.

  “They’re leaving. They didn’t see us.”

  “Wait! They’re coming back.”

  “Look! It’s a ship!”

  Long and low, sprouting a single funnel amid a forest of thin spars, it steamed toward them, cutting the waves like a knife. A ragged cheer went up as the oarsmen bent their backs with new effort in hopes of narrowing the distance. The singers began a rousing if off-key rendition of Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus.

  “Hear that? We’re saved.” Lucy swallowed down a cry of relief, her gaze never straying from the ship, as if it might disappear if she looked away. She counted the minutes that passed by the steady dip and lift of the oars and her own beating heart. “You’ll be back with your girls in no time.”

  Bumping alongside, the merchant cruiser loomed over the little lifeboat, every wave smashing them against the hull. Lines were tossed to be made fast at stem and stern. The crew lowered netting, and one by one, the wet, exhausted, grateful survivors clambered their way onto the ship.

  “We’ll need some help,” Lucy suggested. “A rope perhaps. We can tie her into it and they can lift her up.”

  “The lady won’t need a rope, miss,” the seaman said sadly. “Nor any other earthly aid. She’s held in the best of hands now.”

  It was true. The woman’s body had gone limp, her lips tinged blue, her face a waxy gray. Salt rimed her hair and seawater damped her staring eyes.

  “Come along, love. You tried your best, but it weren’t to be. Now, the men are here for you. Pull yourself together. It’s war and not the first nor the last loss to be suffered.”

  She nodded dumbly, unable to pull her gaze away from the body even as the sailors helped her to wobble and wiggle her way up the side of the ship until hands reached out to take her under her shoulders and drag her like a landed carp onto the crowded deck. Her legs barely held her. Her arms felt like two noodles.

  “This is the last of the Strathleven’s boats, sir. All the rest are accounted for. Twenty-five passengers lost. Ten in the explosion. Fifteen on the water.”

  A smelly blanket was draped around her shoulders. A cup of bitter coffee was shoved into her hands.

  She couldn’t have appreciated them more—or less—if she’d been wrapped in the softest cashmere and offered a glass of Veuve Clicquot.

  “Where’s my mother?” Sadie was pushing through the crowd at the railing. She wore an enormous coat over what had once been a pretty yellow frock. “Excuse me, sir, but was my mother on that boat? I’ve asked all around and no one’s seen her.”

  Her words sliced through Lucy’s raw nerves like a straight-edge razor.

  “We were taking the air on deck when the ship was hit and somehow in the crush we were separated.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Iris and I ended up in one boat, but Mother wasn’t with us.” The younger girl huddled close against her sister, her staring silence unnerving among the chaos of the ship’s deck. Her right hand was bandaged, making thumb sucking impossible.

  Lucy’s heart turned over. She couldn’t seem to breathe.

  Sadie looked desperately from person to person. “She promised us it would be all right. She promised.”

  A head of shaggy blond hair and a pair of strapping rugby shoulders caught Lucy’s attention. Her eyes met his. For the first time, no laughter lingered in his gaze. All she saw there was pity.

  “Lass?” He started toward her, but Lucy turned away.

  If Michael McKeegan so much as touched her, she would shatter.

  Chapter 4

  President Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, a day that would live in infamy. Lucy believed the same could be said of January 7, 1942. Or really any of the days that had passed since she’d disembarked at the Liverpool docks and into a boring existence of gray weather, gray food, and gray people. Now, two weeks, four trains, three buses, and a cab ride later, she had almost made it to Nanreath Hall, the rambling sandstone and granite house perched on the Cornish cliffs north of Newquay, principal seat of the Earls of Melcombe since the last ice age, and her mother’s childhood home.

  Almost made it—but not quite.

  Pulling her collar up around her ears, Lucy stepped off the branch-line train at Melcombe village station.

  “Whoever said Cornwall was England’s Riviera ought to be sued for fraud,” she muttered, huddling beneath the platform’s overhang as cold rain poured from a leaden sky.

  A porter dressed in everything but hip waders approached with a handcart. He gripped a toothpick between rubbery lips. “Any bags, miss?”

  “Tragically, no,” she answered through chattering teeth.

  Her matched set of Louis Vuitton luggage had gone down with the Strathleven. In its place she’d been given a battered secondhand valise with a broken handle and a string bag. She didn’t even want to think about the wardrobe she’d lost to the bottom of the ocean or she’d cry. Where on earth in this war-torn country of ration books and clothing drives would she ever find a little black Chanel to replace the one currently twenty thousand leagues under?

  She tried to look on the bright side. At least she’d arrived, even if it was in a tatty blouse and ill-fitting skirt. She’d half the world behind her. Only three miles to go before this journey of unending hell would be over.

  The porter checked his watch before removing his hat to scratch his thinning hair. “You must be headed to the hospital up Nanreath Hall way.”

  “I don’t know anything about a hospital. I’ve come to stay with my aunt, Lady Boxley.”

  His eyes widened in recognition. “So you’re the niece what’s come from foreign parts.” They remained wide as he took her in from stem to stern. “Not much of a look of the family about you, is there? Must come from being half Yank.”

  “I blame my father for my olive complexion, poker-straight hair, and horrible tendency to drive on the right-hand side of the road.”

  He grunted and moved his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Ever met that William Powell chap?”

  “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

  The porter seemed surprised. “Really? He’s a Yank too.”

  “Is he? Then I can’t imagine why we haven’t bumped into each other before now.”

  Sarcasm was lost on him. He merely continued to gum his toothpick as he smiled fondly. “Now, there is a classy gent. Saw him in all them Thin Man pictures. Me and the missus love a good whodunit.”

  “Really, not that I wouldn’t love to ha
ng about and chat,” Lucy interrupted, “but my aunt is waiting for me. She said she would send a car to pick me up.”

  The porter’s answer was lost as the wind gusted needles of rain in her face and the gutter overflowed, sending a river of icy runoff down the back of her neck. She yelped as the cold slithered along her spine, nearly leaping into the porter’s arms.

  Her spasms were met by childish laughter. Three boisterous young boys disembarked from the train at the far end of the platform, shoving each other in good-natured horseplay as they hooted and guffawed. A girl holding the hand of a rather grim-faced woman followed. Then came two older girls in pigtails and much-repaired pinafores. All the children carried satchels and gas masks. All wore tags pinned to their coats.

  “Sam, keep your tongue in your mouth,” the woman scolded. “Maude, don’t scuff, and for heaven’s sake stop scratching. George, you and Gerald need to keep your hands to yourselves. Come along, Daisy. Keep up, Susan. I know you’re all tired and hungry, but we’re almost there.”

  She felt instant empathy for the sullen, bewildered children. All Lucy needed was a label to be mistaken for one of them.

  The porter cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to her own predicament. “No car from Nanreath, miss. Not that I’ve seen. But perhaps there was some muck-up and they forgot you was coming today. Wouldn’t be surprised. It’s all here, there, and back again since the government took the estate over for the war.”

  “When did that happen?”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a gentleman in a cheap suit and an ARP armband. His lips thinned as his gaze fell on the rowdy group of children, and he took an involuntary step back as if hoping to escape into the waiting room until the danger had passed.

  The woman was faster. She collared him with all the determination of a quick-witted constable. “Thank heavens you’re here. We’d arranged to billet the children in a village near Exeter, but, well . . . there were issues with overcrowding and then there was an unfortunate outbreak of measles. You were my last hope at seeing this group settled before I report back to my housing committee chairman.”

  The volunteer air raid warden took one more long gawk at the children, the boys aiming pebbles at a sign advertising Esso kerosene, the girls giggling over a dishy soldier making a call from the public phone box at the end of the platform. “Here for me wife,” the man grumbled, shoving past to greet a white-haired housewife getting off the train with a day’s town shopping to her credit.

  The couple left, sharing an enormous black umbrella, the man casting a last backward glance at the children as if afraid they might follow him home.

  Lucy’s porter drew her attention back once more with a phlegmy clearing of his throat. “Let’s see, now, when did the hospital move in?” He scratched his head again and leaned against his handcart. “Since summer ’39, it’s been. Government conscripted all sorts of places for wartime use without even so much as a by-your-leave. Just ‘Thanks very much, but we’ll take it from here.’”

  “And Lord Melcombe and my aunt?”

  “Oh, they still live there, leastways your aunt does. His Lordship’s away in Plymouth working as an ambulance driver if you can credit that of a belted earl. Your aunt tries her best, but it’s not like it used to be in the old days. Your mum would barely recognize it. People rushing about. Grounds torn up. Lorries and ambulances and cars whizzing up and down the lanes day and night. The pub full of wildness so you can’t even get a relaxing pint of bitter and a game of darts. Countryside crawling with all types from every which place. Adults”—he eyed the children warily—“and sprogs alike.”

  By now, the woman’s voice was rising as her shoulders sank. “Oh, dear. Sam, put those rocks down. George, you really must stop poking your sister. Maude, how many times have I warned you about scratching?” She dropped onto a bench, her face flushed, her grim scowl sliding toward complete surrender. She rubbed her temples as if her head hurt.

  “A wild pub full of wild men?” Lucy replied over the growing ruckus. “That sounds promising.”

  “Suppose you’re used to such goings-on. Probably used to living it up in New York City and Miami Beach. I hear it’s awful nice there this time of year.”

  “Anywhere other than here would be nice this time of year.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy watched a kindly-looking man approach the woman where she sat nursing her migraine. “You for the village hall, ma’am?”

  She straightened with a look of renewed hope. “Yes, we’re to meet someone from the local Women’s Voluntary Services. Is it far to Melcombe?”

  “Just down the hill, ma’am.”

  She eyed the storm, which drummed on the shingles and plinked in the gutters, emerging in a bubbling muddy rush from the drains. Her migraine seemed to intensify if her grayish pallor was any indication. “Oh dear.”

  “Not to worry. I’ve got the shooting brake just by the siding there. I’ll be happy to drive you and the children.”

  At this pronouncement, her earlier briskness returned. She rose with a gleam of renewed purpose and only a slightly manic expression. “That’s wonderful news. Simply wonderful. Come along, boys and girls. Gather your things.”

  “You too, miss,” he said, catching Lucy’s attention. “I’m to take you on to your aunt after I’ve dropped off the kiddies and their teacher with the billeting officer.”

  Every eye swung her direction. Maude and Susan giggled and whispered behind their hands. Gerald goggled as he wiped his nose on his sleeve. Even George and Sam left off biting one another to stare.

  Lucy felt like an exhibit at the zoo.

  “Hurry, children,” the woman caroled in a singsong voice that grated on Lucy’s fast-fraying nerves. “No dawdling.”

  They trooped like soldiers out of the station, where they were shoehorned into an already crowded shooting brake that smelled of wet dog and boiled cabbage.

  “It’s so hard to find suitable accommodations. I’ve rehoused this batch twice already,” the woman complained as she took her seat up front with the driver, Daisy on her lap, Susan wedged against the gear lever.

  Lucy was trapped in the backseat between George and Sam, who decided to thumb-wrestle over the top of her while Gerald hovered at one shoulder complaining he was carsick and Maude at the other whinged into her ear that a great bloody spanner was jammed under her bum.

  Lucy had traveled nearly twenty thousand miles since leaving Singapore.

  The last three might be the longest.

  Here is your room. It’s small, but at least we’re still in the house. Lord and Lady Astruther are reduced to residing in their old gatekeeper’s lodge now that the government has decided their estate would be better suited for German prisoners. May as well set up housekeeping in a stable if you ask me.”

  If Lucy had entertained hopes of a jolly doily-making, biscuit-baking aunt to take the place of her mother, they’d been dashed as soon as she’d been shown into Aunt Cynthia’s sitting room by a mousy village girl who bobbed up and down like a cork on the waves. Lady Boxley’s youthful beauty and dimpled softness had boiled away over the years, leaving a sharp-edged manner and a tongue like a scythe.

  “The military hospital takes up the rest of the house. They’re a loud, blundering bunch of heathens with no sense of the irreparable damage they’re doing to this once-grand lady, but I can assure you I’m noting every instance of destruction and shall ask for proper compensation when this war is over. I’m related to Lady Turnbull, whose son serves on the War Damage Commission. I shan’t hesitate to call on him if needed.”

  Lady Boxley pushed open a door to reveal a small musty wood-paneled chamber stuffed to the gills with at least two centuries’ worth of clutter. A great curtained four-poster that looked like something Good Queen Bess might have died in took up most of the space with little left over for a dressing table, an armoire, and one threadbare armchair pulled up to a writing desk. A stuffed badger glared at Lucy from th
e mantelpiece while a pair of mounted ibex and a wildebeest sneered at her with lip-curling disdain.

  Lucy assumed the fire in the grate was meant to be a cheerful addition rather than a necessity—a clanking hissing radiator belched steam in a corner—but the flames barely flickered above the minuscule heap of coal, and the shadows they cast crawled like fingers over the dark paneled walls and burned red in the eyes of the trophy animals.

  “The hospital’s staff does not appreciate the family’s interference, in fact they’re quite testy on the subject, so I would suggest you restrain yourself from visiting the wards—despite the obvious lure.” Aunt Cynthia studied Lucy as if she were a modern-day Mata Hari, making her wonder how much Amelia had passed along about her transgressions. “I was not expecting to have you thrust upon me in such a harum-scarum way, but you are family and I know my duty. In return, I expect you to behave, be mindful of the family’s dignity in all ways, and keep your own things tidy—the char we have has far too much to keep up with as it is.”

  Lucy had thought her last school dormitory was bad. This was worse. There she had friends . . . or, at the least, comrades in crime. Here she was completely on her own. At the mercy of her aunt for every scrap and crumb. An aunt who made it clear Lucy would be tolerated but never welcomed—the story of her life.

  When Lucy didn’t answer right away, Lady Boxley continued on in the same overburdened tone of voice. “My son, Hugh, has the chamber at the end of the passage, but he’s away working as an ambulance driver if you can countenance such a thing.”

  “You make it sound as if he’s serving time.”

  Lady Boxley arched one perfect brow, a simple twitch guaranteed to cut one down to a more squashable size. “My son lost a leg serving in Norway. Apparently, he feels one limb is not enough and wishes to risk the other three in some misguided attempt at patriotism.” She sniffed into her handkerchief. “Ah well, water under the bridge. And I’ve learned to keep quiet; a mother can only say so much before her opinion is ignored, her years of thankless labor dismissed.”