Isobel's Story

by Jennie Walters

  ‘Then she’ll have an easy job, won’t she?’ Gran said. ‘Eat up, girls, and we can sing Happy Birthday to Isobel.’

  It felt strange, not having Mum and the boys there - as though I had become part of another family. Which in a way was what had happened, I thought to myself, looking around the table. I couldn’t go home now, not when everything was beginning to seem so familiar. I didn’t even mind doing chores; Gran was teaching me how to cook and it was fun pretending to be a house-parlourmaid, like a dressing-up game. The thought of going back to grimy old London and swotting for School Cert made my heart sink.

  When the party was over and Gran had gone upstairs for a rest, I opened Mum’s birthday card. She’d sent a ten-shilling postal order, along with two home-made cards from Stan and Alfie and a note: Have a lovely day, darling - I’m so sorry we’re not together. I think perhaps it’s time you came home now, don’t you? I’ll write to Gran and we can make arrangements.

  So that was that, I thought, staring out of the window; my Swallowcliffe adventure would be coming to an end whether I liked it or not. Then I noticed Andreas walking back across the front drive to collect his bicycle and hurried outside to catch him before he left.

  ‘How did it go? Did you have a good chat?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, jerking up the handlebars to turn the bike around. ‘We had a very good chat, all about painting.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘And I will come to his studio again, perhaps, on Sunday when the shop is closed. And we will make some big picture together. The mural, or what he calls it.’

  ‘Well, that’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ He might have looked a bit jollier.

  ‘Painting is not important,’ he said, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Why do we talk about pictures at this time?’

  ‘So you asked him about a job for your mother.’ My heart sank.

  ‘Of course!’ Andreas glared at me. ‘If it is your mother, will you not do the same? This big house, so many people can be safe here. But he is not interested. Nobody is interested.’ With a sudden movement, he threw down the bicycle and turned to me with his eyes burning. ‘That book you read, about the school in Austria?’

  ‘The Chalet School, you mean? Oh, I’m not really reading that, it’s far too young for me, I just - ’

  ‘Do you know what happens in Austria?’ he interrupted. ‘It is German now. Hitler’s soldiers come and say now this country is ours, you sing Nazi songs and say Heil Hitler and hate Jews like we do. Does your book tell you these things?’

  I didn’t know what to say. Of course there wasn’t anything in The New Chalet School about Hitler and the Nazis; it wasn’t that sort of book.

  ‘I will tell you about my grandmother,’ Andreas went on. ‘She lived in a special house for old people, old Jewish people. One night the soldiers come and burn the synagogues everywhere in Germany, and break windows and take away the men. Kristallnacht, it is known - the night of broken glass. Have you heard of it? On this night, they come in the place where she lives and take outside the old people. The men they pull by their beards. They burn the prayer books in a big fire and say, now clear up the ashes and clean the ground with brushes. Be quick! At first everyone is laughing at the old people, and then they beat them. A man kicks my grandmother so she falls and hits her head on the road, and she dies. Many people die that day.’

  It took a few seconds for what he was telling me to sink in. ‘I’m sorry.’ The words were so inadequate. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Well, now you do,’ he said, picking up the bicycle without looking at me.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked, knowing well enough how feeble the question sounded. ‘Anything that doesn’t cost lots of money?’

  He paused for a moment. ‘You can talk with people. Say there are children who need somewhere in England to live. Your government lets the children come, but they must come on their own.’

  ‘Without their parents? Surely no one would agree to that.’

  ‘You don’t understand! People will do anything to keep safe their children.’ Now he was getting cross again. ‘There are such bad things happening to Jews every day, awful things, more bad than I can tell you. Men are taken away or killed in the streets. Our neighbour, he shot his wife and himself before the Gestapo could come for them. Everyone is frightened. It is better for the children to go away alone than to stay in Germany.’

  ‘Surely the Nazis can’t just go round killing Jewish people! It must be against the law.’

  ‘There are no laws for Jews now,’ he said bitterly. ‘We must leave our apartment in Berlin because our neighbour says her sister wants it. Everything inside, all our furniture and dishes and clothes, she took them too. We can do nothing because she has papers marked with a swastika and a Nazi policeman there.’

  He put one foot on the bicycle pedal. ‘Please to think about what I say. It is all true. And when the war comes, it will be too late for Jews in my country. We must do something now.’

  Trying to sort out my feelings, I watched him cycle away. What he’d told me was terrible, almost beyond imagining, but what could I do about it, just me on my own? Who could I talk to? The Vyes? Eunice? No one would listen to me. Of course I felt sorry for Andreas, dreadfully sorry, but now he’d made me feel guilty and mean when I’d only been trying to help. I knew exactly what Gran would have said: that I should have minded my own business and not interfered in the first place. Maybe she was right.

  Six

  Yes, when the Jewish blood splashes from the knives, things will go twice as well.

  From a Hitler Youth Movement song

  ‘Today’s collection is in aid of the Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees.’ Reverend Murdoch sounded faintly bored, as usual. He had come to the end of a sermon about … Actually, what had it been about? I’d been too busy looking at jewels of light scattered across the floor through the stained glass windows and thinking my own thoughts to listen. Lord Vye sat in front of us with Nancy and Julia next to him and Sissy at the end to keep an eye on them; Lady Vye still wasn’t back from London. Mr Huggins, Gran and I took up the pew behind, while people from the village filled the rest of the church. Mr Prior, the butcher, was a church warden so he was always there on Sundays, and I could see Mrs Olds who ran the dairy, and Mr Williams from the garage where we took the wireless batteries to be recharged once a week. Miss Hartcup who taught at the village school was right behind us, warbling through the hymns in a reedy voice that made me want to laugh. And sitting directly opposite across the nave were Mr Tarver and Andreas, who looked sulky.

  ‘We should not forget those unfortunate souls,’ Reverend Murdoch went on, ‘for whom the evil threatening this country is far closer to home. We must overcome our prejudice to stretch out the hand of Christian charity, as some in this congregation, I am happy to say, have already done.’ His eyes had been fixed on the round window at the back of the church but now he dropped them to look directly at Andreas and Mr Tarver, who gave him a satisfied smile in return. Smug as Mrs Jeakes when she’s caught a mouse, I thought, before a sharp dig in the ribs from Gran made me sit back in the pew and stop staring.

  ‘There are leaflets about the Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees at the back of the church,’ said Reverend Murdoch. ‘Do pick one up and learn more about this worthy organisation. And now we shall sing hymn number sixty-five, “Jesus shall reign, where e’er the sun”.’

  Gran had given me a threepenny bit for the collection, but I’d cashed Mum’s postal order at the post office in Edenvale the day before and there were four shiny half crowns in my purse. I’d spent two of them on a pair of court shoes to go with my new clothes (which had been distracting me during the sermon), but when Mr Prior brought the collection bag to our row during the hymn, I dropped in the other two. Very quickly, so there wasn’t time to change my mind.

  Despite feeling cross with Andreas, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. Was everyone else apart from me aware of
what was going on in Germany? Why weren’t we all talking about it? It was shameful to be so ignorant. We took the News Chronicle at home but the only newspaper at the Hall was Lord Vye’s copy of the Times, and that always looked so dull. All I knew about Jews was that some people in England didn’t much like them, especially Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts. They’d rampage through the East End, looking for Jews to beat up, and the policemen would march down our street hiding truncheons under their capes when Mosley was speaking on Clapham Common. I had no idea what Jews actually believed - except that surely the Bible didn’t play a big part, and neither did the idea of Jesus reigning everywhere. What could Andreas be making of the service?

  I wasn’t looking to bump into him when it was over, not after our last conversation, but he disappeared straight away while Mr Tarver and the vicar were chatting so there was no chance of us meeting anyway. Rather a waste, as I was wearing the green skirt with a jumper that brought out the colour of my eyes and the new shoes - but of course, he would have more important things on his mind. Besides, I didn’t care what he thought of me or my shoes.

  ‘I hope we’ll see you at this week’s class, Isobel.’ Miss Murdoch was hurrying over. ‘We shall be tackling shrapnel wounds. Now, where are the girls? I want to talk to His Lordship about the matter of their attending Sunday School.’

  Luckily Mr Oakes was already holding open the car door for Nancy and Julia to climb in with Sissy behind their father, so they escaped this ordeal. Poor Mr Huggins didn’t get off so lightly: he was waylaid by Mr Tarver, who wanted to know whether a practice air raid drill had been organised up at the Hall yet. ‘We shall be holding one in the village on Wednesday at six o’clock,’ he said. ‘You should come along as an observer. There’ll be no time for dummy runs when the bombs start dropping.’

  ‘What a thing to say to Mr Huggins, of all people!’ Gran muttered as we started walking back through the village together. ‘Mr Tarver never did a thing in the war, anyway. Flat feet, that was the excuse, but he’s got no right to start lecturing people who did their bit last time round.’

  The sun had come out while we’d been in church but there was a biting wind which made you want to hurry. ‘Why are people so hard on the Jews, Gran?’ I asked. ‘Why does Hitler want to drive them out?’

  She huddled deeper into her coat. ‘That’s a difficult one. Some people go round looking for a target to pick on, I suppose, and Jews stand out because they’re different. They’re good at making money and getting the upper hand, and no one takes kindly to that.’

  ‘They haven’t got the upper hand now, though, have they? Andreas told me his grandmother was killed in the street for being Jewish.’

  Gran stopped and stared at me. ‘ No! That’s terrible.’ She shook her head. ‘All the same, Izzie,’ she added a moment later, ‘you should take everything he says with a pinch of salt. I’m sure things aren’t very pleasant for him at the moment, but I’ll bet he’s worked out what a softhearted thing you are. I saw half your birthday money going in the collection. Don’t get too pally with him, will you? We don’t know the lad from Adam. And like they say, there’s no smoke without fire.’

  I didn’t think that was very fair, but there was no point arguing with Gran so I kept my mouth shut. We were quiet for a while and then she said, ‘You know your mother thinks it’s time for you to go home?’

  ‘Can’t I stay a bit longer?’ I pleaded. ‘If Mum sends me my schoolbooks, I could study here. Please! If I go back after Easter I’ll still have the summer term before School Cert.’

  Gran laughed. ‘Got it all worked out, haven’t you? There’s no denying I’ll be sad to see you go, but I don’t know whether Grace will agree to let you stay. She’s right, Isobel - your life’s in London, not here. You must be missing your friends.’

  I shrugged. ‘Not really.’ The thing was, being ill had made me different. It had been so lonely and quiet in the sanatorium that I’d forgotten how to giggle and lark about. Mary and Vi had visited once after I’d come home, but we couldn’t seem to talk like we used to and they hadn’t stayed long. No, I was perfectly happy at Swallowcliffe and I knew Gran had come to rely on me. She’d find it hard to manage now without an extra pair of hands to help with the cooking and washing-up. Sometimes visitors came to look at the Hall, too, and I’d show them around and tell them some of the stories Gran had told me about the Vye family.

  ‘When are you going to stop working?’ I asked her. ‘Don’t you want to take things easy for a while?’

  ‘No, I do not! Better to wear out than rust out, that’s what my mother always said. Besides, where would I go? And what would happen to the Hall without me? Nobody else could manage the place, for all Her Ladyship’s fancy ideas.’

  I let the matter drop. Gran would have been devastated if she’d known what Lady Vye had in mind and there was no sense worrying her for nothing. Yet what if I went home and then she were dismissed, all on her own with no one there to help? Mum had to let me stay at the Hall a little longer.

  In the end, we decided that Gran would write to Mum and put my case. And then a couple of days later, something happened which made me even more determined not to leave. I was on the way to my room to fetch a cardigan when I heard an unexpected noise coming from the night nursery where Julia and Nancy slept, with a bed in the curtained-off alcove for Sissy. Somebody was crying. I opened the door a crack and looked in, to find Nancy sitting on a high-backed chair with her head in her hands.

  ‘Nancy? What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?’

  ‘Miss Murdoch says I c-can’t sit with Julia any more,’ she sobbed, looking up at me through swollen eyes. ‘She says Julia helps me too much and I’m not trying.’

  Poor little thing! When she took her hands away, I saw a big red letter ‘D’ on a piece of cardboard hanging around her neck. ‘What’s this for?’ I asked her, picking it up.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘But I have to wear it until I can read this book by myself.’ Reading Without Tears was lying face down underneath her chair.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll look at it together.’ I picked up the book and started smoothing out its pages, which were creased and spotted with dirty fingermarks.

  ‘I should like Miss Nancy to make some effort on her own, if you don’t mind,’ came a voice from the doorway. Miss Murdoch was staring at me coldly through her wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘She relies far too heavily on other people as it is.’

  ‘Please stay, Izzie,’ Nancy whispered, tugging at my hand, but how could I with Miss Murdoch standing there? There was nothing for it but to hand Nancy the book and leave her to unravel its mysteries by herself. I just hoped she wouldn’t find out too soon what that D stood for.

  Sissy was down in the kitchen, preparing the twins’ luncheon tray. ‘Those girls need a firm hand,’ she said, when I reported what was going on upstairs, ‘especially Miss Nancy. She’s too used to relying on her sister.’

  Nancy was only six, though, and Miss Murdoch was making her feel stupid when she wasn’t. I couldn’t see how putting a dunce’s badge round her neck was going to help her learn anything.

  Eunice had come in for her own dinner. ‘Elsie says Miss Murdoch thinks Miss Nancy’s a bit … you know.’ She tapped the side of her head and mouthed, ‘Backward.’

  Now I had to speak up; this was too unfair. ‘I’m sure she isn’t! You should listen to the stories she and Miss Julia make up together. You’ve heard them, haven’t you, Sissy?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t pay any attention to all their goings-on,’ she said, picking up the tray. ‘Is that everything, Mrs S?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Gran said. ‘Fetch me some strawberry jam from the larder, Izzie, so the girls can have a spoonful on their semolina for a treat. And I think we’ve heard quite enough from you on the subject of the girls and Miss Murdoch. She knows a great deal more about teaching little children than you do.’

  I was about to say that might not
have been the case, because I’d helped Alfie learn to read, but the look on Gran’s face told me it would be better to keep quiet. I was worried about what would happen to the twins, though, if I wasn’t there to help them. Who would take Nancy’s side?

  The next afternoon, I took Nancy and Julia down to the village, to cheer them up after their morning’s ordeal with Miss Murdoch. You’d have thought they’d be desperate for some fresh air and freedom but they walked along with hardly a word, their eyes fixed on the ground, their faces set and serious.

  ‘Look!’ I pointed into the field beside the drive where a couple of wobbly black-tailed lambs huddled close to their mothers. ‘Aren’t they sweet? That means winter’s nearly over. Tristan will be home for the holidays before long and then it’ll be Easter.’ If only I could stay until then! Swallowcliffe must look beautiful with all the trees bursting into blossom and flowers everywhere.

  ‘We may not last until Easter,’ Julia said, watching one of the lambs begin to feed. ‘Our lives are too horrible.’

  ‘Miss Murdoch is sucking all the happiness out of us,’ Nancy added. ‘She’s mean and cruel and she looks like a rabbit. Mixed up with a donkey.’

  ‘Nancy! Don’t be rude.’ All the same, I could see exactly what she meant and it was hard not to laugh. Miss Murdoch had lank grey-brown hair and a long, droopy face, as though someone had taken hold of her scalp in one hand and her chin in the other and pulled hard in opposite directions.

  ‘Do you know what she did this morning?’ Julia asked.

  ‘She put the cover on Punchy’s cage and shut him in Tristan’s bedroom!’ Nancy continued. ‘She said he was looking at her in an evil way.’