The Way to London

by Alix Rickloff

  Seemed to Lucy that Aunt Cynthia said rather a lot, but she chose tact—for once—and kept her own mouth shut.

  “My rooms are around the corner and up the small stair. But you shouldn’t have any need to seek me out there. I will see you at meals and perhaps in the evenings for a small glass of sherry and a listen on the wireless, but other than that you are free to amuse yourself as you wish.” She made a final look round the room before offering Lucy one more skeptical glance. “I suppose it’s just as well you got out of Singapore when you did. No telling what’s going to happen now the Japs have officially entered the war.”

  “Do you suppose Amelia is safe?”

  Lady Boxley sniffed. “I shouldn’t worry. Your mother is like a cat. Always lands on her feet.”

  Lucy recalled describing herself to Yoon Hai in just those words, and an angry flush climbed her throat to heat her cheeks.

  Her aunt didn’t seem to notice as she adjusted her suit jacket and straightened her cuffs. “I’m headed into Newquay for a meeting. I won’t be back for dinner, but there’s some leftover haddock in the icebox and I believe Mr. Deevers at the Home Farm has brought us a cabbage and potato pie.”

  “My favorite.”

  Aunt Cynthia shot her a stern glance. “I agree it’s not Escoffier, but we make do. You’ll learn to do the same.” With a final once-over of Lucy that clearly transmitted her complete disappointment and irritation, she departed in a rapid clicking of heels down the corridor, her jaunty fox stole smirking back at Lucy with one beady glass eye.

  Alone, she paced out the perimeter of her cell. Rain rattled against the tall windows. In the muddy yard below, two mechanics wrestled a lorry into a shed out of the weather. A trio of nurses stood in a doorway sharing a cigarette. A leather-clad goggled messenger arrived in a cloud of smoke, his motorbike spraying gravel as he skidded to a stop, his great bag slung over his shoulder.

  Beyond the house, brown fields stretched away to a belt of leafless trees. The sea was hidden by a veil of rain and cloud, but she could hear it like a deep rolling bass note and feel it vibrating up through her feet like a second heartbeat.

  One of the mechanics spotted her at the window. He whispered something to his mate and the two of them looked up at her, the nurses giggling.

  Lucy drew the curtains closed, shutting out the ugly yard, the sodden landscape, the sneering soldiers. The radiator gave a great belch of steam. A mouse scrabbled in the wall. One of the ibex leered at her.

  “Welcome bloody home.”

  She promised us it would be all right. She promised.

  Lucy came awake on a terrified gasp. The meager fire had gone out, throwing the room into deep and chilly shadow, and for a heart-crashing moment she was back among the Strathleven’s survivors. A steadying breath. Then another. Her pulse slowed. Her grief subsided. She was left merely groggy and stiff.

  And very hungry.

  Her watch had run down and the clock on the bedside table only possessed one hand—hardly instructive. It must be late. The house was quiet, no grind of ambulance gears or shouts from lorry drivers. No babble of conversation and slamming doors. Just the sea’s low purr infiltrating through the heavy folds of the dusty blackout curtains and now and again the call from some lonely bird.

  “What do you think? Should I search out something to eat or ring for room service?”

  The two ibex maintained expressions of complete imbecility, the badger sneered, while the wildebeest merely offered her a reproachful look but no advice.

  “Right. Maid’s day off. We’ll find the kitchen on our own.”

  Throwing a cardigan over her rumpled clothes, she followed the carpeted corridor until it opened onto an enormous oak-paneled gallery. In the shaded light of a table lamp, she saw walls full of men in Restoration curls and Georgian periwigs, women in elaborate hoops and high-waisted muslin. Normal families might have an album with a few grainy photos. Leave it to hers to have an entire room dedicated to every ancestor dating back to Adam and Eve.

  As she passed through the gallery, shadows moved along the far wall. A breeze curled past her legs. A whispered word echoed from among the clusters of comfortable furniture. Shades of Nanreath’s exalted past passing judgment on the new arrival? Or . . .

  She peered over a camel-backed sofa upholstered in rather careworn cream silk. “Is that for medicinal or recreational use?”

  Two young men froze crouched in the space between a Chinese cabinet and a set of tall chintz-covered armchairs. They both wore robes over their army-issued pajamas. One had his arm in a sling.

  “Bugger all, miss. You took five years off our lives. We thought you was Nanny Goebbels.”

  “Who?”

  “Sister Murphy. She’s worse than a bloody prison warden. Treats us lads like we’re still in nappies. Lights out at ten. Eat all your veg if you want your pud. No fraternizing with the nurses—”

  “And no liquor on the wards,” they repeated in unison.

  “So you came up here to do your tippling?” Lucy asked, making herself comfortable.

  “It was the safest place we could think of.”

  “You won’t turn us in, will you, miss?”

  A matching pair of young soldiers with a bottle of Barclay’s lager was far more interesting than cabbage and potato pie and a plate of haddock. She eyed the bottle expectantly. “Well . . . I don’t know . . .”

  The chap with the sling passed it over. Lucy took a hearty swig. The beer fell into her empty stomach with a thud, but the buzzy warmth that followed banished the last of her ghosts. “What alcohol?”

  They grinned.

  “This here’s Nate,” said the one with the sling, who seemed to be the bolder of the two. “He’s recovering from pneumonia. I’m Tom. Busted the arm in a bailout over the Channel.”

  “If you ain’t a VAD nurse or one of the sisters, what are you doing here?” Nate asked, taking his turn with the bottle.

  “I’m Lord Melcombe’s cousin.”

  Tom’s brows lifted in pleased surprise. “You’re the bird from Singapore. The one who . . .” He stammered to a halt. “That is . . . we heard you were expected.”

  “My reputation precedes me. Just as well. Makes everything that much easier.”

  “Did you really—”

  Tom jabbed Nate in the ribs and shot him a warning look. “Good thing you sailed when you did. Looks like there isn’t much stopping the Japs now that they’ve sunk our battleships and trapped most of our lads between jungle and sea. I’d not be one of those poor bastards for all the tea in China.”

  Lucy followed the bottle around until it came back to her. “Poor bloody bastards is right,” she murmured, ignoring the tremble in her hand and the wash of fear across her shoulders. This time the beer didn’t come anywhere near warming the cold place in the pit of her stomach.

  “There you two are!” Light shattered their dark little corner as someone snapped on a switch and four chandeliers blazed into blinding life. “I should have known I’d find you up here.”

  Nate scrambled to his feet while Tom fumbled to hide the bottle behind his back.

  Lucy grabbed it before it slipped through his clumsy fingers.

  A sour-faced nurse wearing the scarlet-edged cape and crisp veil of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service bore down on them with purpose in her long mannish stride. The acrid hospital odors of disinfectant and bleach followed in her wake like a noxious cloud. “Peasham, Lisk—you both know the regulations.”

  Sister Murphy, Lucy presumed.

  “They’re not to blame.” Instinctively, she stepped in front of the young men, though she had no idea what she might do to defend them. The QA sister looked more than capable of snapping Lucy like a twig. “The beer’s mine. They were just explaining the hospital’s rules on alcohol consumption. Very proper rules they are, too.”

  Sister Murphy sized Lucy up with a long look from her beady little eyes and snorted her disbelief. “You must be Her Ladyship’s
niece. We were warned about you.” She pointed a finger at the young men. “You two—back to the wards.” They shuffled off, slump shouldered and chastened, leaving Lucy alone to face the sister’s full wrath.

  “And you, Miss Stanhope—you’ll keep away if you know what’s best. We don’t need your type disrupting the men.”

  Lucy supposed most people would have been quaking in their boots, but this was hardly the first time she’d been raked over the coals for breaking the rules. “What type would that be?” she asked with a casual quirk of an eyebrow and an evocative half smile. “Cousin to His Lordship, you mean?”

  Sister Murphy’s face purpled as she chewed and swallowed whatever threats she’d been tempted to issue. “I’ll say no more, but you’ll heed me if you know what’s what. You’re not the pampered young miss anymore. Those days are done.”

  She turned on her heel and departed the gallery in a flap of skirts like a great gray storm crow.

  With the departure of Sister Murphy, the dusty scents of rose petals and sandalwood settled once more like leaves after a whirlwind. The sudden silence roared in Lucy’s ears like the incessant pound of the sea. She matched it breath for breath until the hollow ache against her ribs eased, though her cheeks still burned as if she’d been slapped.

  With a harsh bark of angry laughter, she polished off the last of the Barclay’s, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before staring around her at generations of pedigreed breeding and aristocratic arrogance. “Some help you lot were.”

  Chapter 5

  Lucy might not possess many attributes her aunt would find valuable in a proper young lady, but what she lacked in modesty and kindness, she made up in adaptability and resourcefulness. It didn’t take long for her to learn the house’s routine and take full advantage of any official lapses, much to the patients’ delight and the staff’s annoyance. It became her greatest game to irritate Sister Murphy to the point the nurse’s face purpled with rage and she sputtered and spat like a teakettle on the boil.

  As Singapore fell and the Japanese island-hopped across the Far East unchecked by either the British or their new American allies, Lucy was caught sharing dirty magazines with a lieutenant in the RASC recovering from a bad case of influenza.

  As Malta in the west and Leningrad in the east both withstood deadly sieges by the Germans, Lucy was caught canoodling with a dispatch rider in the back of a Bedford lorry.

  And as U-boats picked off merchant ships in the Atlantic like punters in a shooting gallery, Lucy was caught being pulled through a downstairs window after a late drunken night with a corporal from St. Eval airfield.

  These adventures generally led to a trip down the hall and up the stairs to her aunt’s boudoir, nearly the only interaction she had with Aunt Cynthia, who led a nonstop life of volunteer work in the time not devoted to the running of the estate in her son’s absence.

  Lucy almost began to look forward to these little family tête-à-têtes. Other than her occasional wander through the Nanreath gallery, it was the only time she was reminded she actually had family.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Aunt Cynthia sat at her dressing table applying a fresh coat of powder, her unyielding expression no less powerful in reflection. “I’ve had complaints from Sister Murphy about your behavior—again. She says she found you dancing in the salon in an overly provocative fashion, much to the men’s lascivious delight.”

  “It’s called the jive, Aunt Cynthia. Everyone’s doing it.” Under her breath, she added, “Everyone who isn’t an old boring fogy, that is.”

  Her aunt barreled on, undisturbed. “And twice she’s caught you drinking with patients behind the petrol sheds.”

  “Amelia taught me it was impolite to refuse a gentleman’s offer of a drink.”

  Aunt Cynthia turned to eye Lucy down her long straight aristocratic nose. “Your mother never refused a gentleman anything, which is why she’s already on husband number three.”

  Lucy didn’t even try to argue with that.

  Rummaging through her jewelry box, Aunt Cynthia clipped on a pair of pearl earrings and fastened a slender choker around her neck. “You’re not a child, Lucy. There are consequences to your actions. You can’t continue to behave in this unbridled manner.”

  “I was boosting morale. Isn’t that what Churchill wants us to do? Keep our boys’ spirits up?”

  “Those boys’ spirits will have to survive without your assistance.” Aunt Cynthia gave her hair a final pat and rose from her chair. Lucy would have loved to ask her how she managed to make the green-and-red uniform of the WVS look like something put together by the finest Parisian couturier, rather than Father Christmas run amok, but even her boldness had limits. “Now, I’m due at the village hall in ten minutes. Can you try and behave yourself until I get back? And refrain from further upsetting Sister Murphy? The last thing I need is for you to goad the woman into an aneurysm. As spiteful as she is, she’s liable to haunt us, and, heaven forfend, we’d never be rid of her.”

  Her deadpan delivery made it impossible for Lucy to determine whether Aunt Cynthia was joking, but the thin-lipped glare caused her to swallow back an unexpected bubble of laughter. “I could always take a flat in London. That would solve everyone’s problems.”

  “Out of the question. I’ll not have my niece swanning about town on her own. Aside from the obvious dangers, it’s not seemly. The place is awash in soldiers, and not just solid dependable British officers, but these rowdy swaggering Americans”—eying Lucy, she positively sneered the word—“with the savage manners of Billy the Kid.”

  Lucy suspected Aunt Cynthia still held a grudge against the United States over that whole revolution thing and regarded the arriving American troops more like an invading army than a welcome ally. “It’s not the Middle Ages. Plenty of single women are living and working in the city. I met all sorts of wealthy businessmen through Fortescue. I’m sure one of them would give me a job.”

  Her aunt eyed her warily. “Yes, but doing what exactly?”

  Lucy almost had the grace to blush—almost.

  “Though I do think an occupation of some kind is a good idea—something besides your one-woman ENSA crusade. The WVS are always looking for volunteers. Or what about the MTC? You certainly seem to know how to spark an engine.” She placed a lipstick, three fresh handkerchiefs, her compact, and a tin of licorice allsorts in her purse. “Or is it the backseat you prefer?”

  Once again, Lucy was struck by the brilliance of Aunt Cynthia’s poker face. The woman could deliver the most scathing insult in the same dignified tones one might use to address the queen. Amelia had never been so proper or so precise.

  “Now, I really have to run. If I’m not at the meeting on time, Loretta Stanley will volunteer me to head up the new children’s home.” She grimaced with distaste. “My life would be consumed by unending head lice and bed-wetting. I’d rather face Hitler’s worst than that.”

  On that final complaint, she ushered Lucy out as she headed to her meeting with a ruthlessly efficient gleam in her eye. Poor Loretta Stanley didn’t stand a chance.

  Neither did Lucy. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be spending this war mucking pig shite in the WLA or serving endless cups of tea with the NAAFI.

  Making for the back stairs that would take her down to the west terrace entrance, she grabbed an old raincoat off a peg and stuffed her feet into a pair of battered rubber boots. A few orderlies stood about in the yard by the side terrace doors. Two Red Cross VAD nurses chatted with a sentry. Sister Murphy pushed a young man in a wheelchair toward a waiting ambulance.

  “Where are you hurrying off to, Miss Stanhope?” she asked, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

  “Nowhere in particular.”

  Sister Murphy’s mouth curled in what passed for a smile. “It must be pleasant to be exempted from conscription and do nothing but laze about. Enjoy your afternoon for the rest of us, won’t you?”

  The soldier in the chair winked,
and Lucy flashed him a wicked grin before addressing the sister with a straight face. “Why don’t you come with me? I’m off to meet with black marketeers for silk stockings and whiskey, then over to Neville’s farm to make mad passionate love to their dairyman in return for a glass of real milk. I’m sure his brother would love to meet you. He has a thing for women in uniform . . . and out of them.”

  The soldier nearly choked. Sister Murphy’s face blanched the color of cold porridge, and Lucy passed on with a private smile of triumph.

  Take that, Nanny Goebbels.

  Her satisfaction barely survived the time it took to leave the graveled path beside the motor pool and shove her way through the scrubby privet hedge separating the old kitchen garden from the park. By the time she’d walked off her frustration, she was miles from the house and regretting her impulsive words. Sister Murphy would waste no time tattling to Matron, who would go to Aunt Cynthia, and Lucy would be up to her neck in it all over again.

  What made it worse was that Lucy knew she was behaving like a pampered, self-centered bitch and yet couldn’t seem to stop. It was as if she needed to push everyone away before they pushed her away. Well, she’d certainly accomplished that. She was officially persona non grata with everyone at Nanreath Hall and probably in a ten-square-mile radius. Nicely done, Lucy, old bean.

  She shoved through the narrow path’s thick underbrush, sinking up to her ankles in a muddy puddle.

  “Damn godforsaken island!” she cried, pulling her boots out of the slimy muck with a slurping squelch.

  The whole place could go to hell for all she cared. It was too damn cold and the damp drilled right into her bones. The three months she’d been here may as well have been three years. A gray unending existence marked only by moments of irresistible spitefulness she immediately regretted.

  Still cursing, she emerged from the stunted, wind-bent trees of the spinney and onto the moor stretching up to the western cliffs where the remnants of an ancient stone watchtower stood sentinel and the sea frothed with the chop of whitecaps. Empty bottles and old newspaper littered the ground around the tumbled stones and graffiti blemished the crumbling ruins, but she didn’t care. She’d found this place on her very first ramble. Yes, that was what she’d been reduced to for entertainment—long walks. The irony was not lost on her.