Isobel's Story

by Jennie Walters

  ‘I hope so.’ Who knew what would be happening by then? The war was bound to have broken out and we’d probably be stuck in London, spending the nights in a dingy air raid shelter on the corner of Huntington Street. Worse than that, I’d be going back without having done a single thing to help Andreas get his mother, his cousin or anyone else out of Germany. All right, I’d talked to Miss Hartcup one day after first aid class, but she had no money or jobs up her sleeve and wasn’t very keen on sharing her home with a young Jewish refugee. I suppose she had enough of children during the day. What else could I have done? There had to be something.

  ‘Izzie! At last.’ Mum gathered me up in a hug. I breathed in the familiar smell of Pond’s cold cream and Bronnley lemon soap and realised how much I’d missed her. She drew back to smile at me. ‘Well, look at the roses in your cheeks. You’ve turned into a proper country girl.’

  Oh, it was good to see her - and my brothers, too. I’d been waiting at the gate lodge for what seemed hours until the bus from Hardingbridge drew up and the three of them tumbled off. Stan stared around suspiciously. ‘So where’s the house? Looks like we’ve been dumped in the middle of nowhere.’

  All the little kids in our street love Stan because he looks tough, with his bristly dark hair, but underneath he’s a softie who’ll play with them for hours. Going away anywhere usually makes him nervous until he knows what’s what. Alfie has blond curls and a lisp, but he’s much more of a tearaway. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile, that’s what Mum says.

  ‘Why’s it so quiet?’ Alfie asked. ‘Where is everyone? And what are those sheep doing in that field?’

  ‘Being sheep, I suppose.’ I’d become so familiar with everything at Swallowcliffe that it was funny to see the bewilderment on their faces. I picked up Mum’s carpet bag. ‘Come on, Gran’s made Chelsea buns for tea.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ Mum was peering into the windows of the gate lodge. ‘I was brought up in this house. Let me have a quick look, at least.’

  Mr Oakes and his wife lived there now, though, and Mrs Oakes was a battleaxe so I thought it safer to hurry Mum away. We walked up the drive, the boys kicking a football back and forth across the grass between them. As soon as we rounded the corner and they saw the Hall, the football dribbled to a standstill by itself. ‘Crikey,’ breathed Stan. ‘Are we really going to stay in that?’

  ‘It’s not so grand close up,’ I told them. ‘Especially not our part of the house.’ The boys would be sleeping on mattresses in my room, and we’d made up a bed for Mum in a spare room at the end of our corridor, next to Tristan’s.

  ‘All the same, you’d better behave yourselves,’ Mum said. ‘There’s to be no shouting and running around, and you can put that football away right now for a start. Don’t let me down, boys.’ She straightened her shoulders and tucked a curl under the brim of her hat - a fedora I hadn’t seen before, trimmed with a feather and perched at an angle on her fair hair. She has lovely hair, thick and wavy, which she usually wears caught up with combs at either side. ‘Right, on we go. I’m gasping for a cup of tea after that mucky train.’

  Stan and Alfie didn’t say another word until we were safely in the kitchen with Gran, and even then they were ten times quieter than usual. I suppose it must have seemed very strange to them; the whole of our ground floor at home would have fitted into that one room. ‘Where are the posh people?’ Alfie whispered, and I had to explain that the Vyes were having their own tea in another part of the house where we couldn’t even hear them. Mum helped Gran get ours ready and then Mr Huggins appeared with the huge silver teapot and hot water jug, followed by Alina with a tray of dirty cups and saucers. The boys sat and stared at them, speechless. They perked up when Sissy came through with the children, though: the chance of meeting Master Tristan was not to be missed.

  ‘Can we go outside and play football?’ Stan asked, and when Mum said yes, as long as they found a quiet spot well away from the house, Tristan went along as well. He looked scared to death of the big boys, but Stan let him carry the ball and I knew they’d make sure he was all right.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Mum said quietly to me. ‘We haven’t had a proper talk in such a long while. Come on, I’ll show you where your grandad and I used to work.’ Mum had started off as a kitchenmaid but she became a groom alongside her father when most of the young men in the house went off to war.

  Gran sent us off with her blessing, so we set off along the terrace towards the stable block. Mum glanced sideways at the windows. ‘Are we allowed to walk here? It was out of bounds to us servants in my day.’

  ‘Nobody’s ever told me not to,’ I said. ‘Anyway, Lady Vye’ll be in her room by now, and that’s on the other side of the house so she won’t see us.’

  She took my arm. ‘I didn’t like to mention it in front of your gran but I’d say they’ve let the place go a bit, even since the last time I was here.’

  Andreas was working in one of the flower borders so I stopped to say hello and introduce him to Mum. He shook her hand and they had a chat about roses; I think she liked him but it was hard to say for sure. ‘He can draw beautifully,’ I told her. ‘He’s painting a picture of Swallowcliffe for me as a leaving present.’

  ‘That’s nice of him,’ she said. ‘You’ve hardly been here long enough for leaving presents.’

  By now we’d come to the stables. She reached up and ran her hand above the lintel. ‘Da always used to keep the spare key up here. Yes! In we go.’

  Here was another sad, ghostly place. Mum walked down one row of stalls and up the other, looking at a few of the name plates that were still on the wall. Mercury, Dolly and Snowflake; Daffodil, Moonlight, Bella and Cobweb. ‘Did you know those horses?’ I asked.

  ‘In another life,’ she replied. ‘Most of them had gone by the time I was working as a groom. They were taken away to serve in the war, you know. None of them ever came back.’ She rubbed her arms and shivered. ‘Let’s see how the harness room’s looking.’

  Now that was cosier; even the stag’s head over the fireplace seemed to have a friendly gleam in its eye. A pink and yellow striped tie hung from one of its antlers which Mum unhooked and rolled into a ball, tutting. Walking round the small room, she ran a hand over a cracked leather saddle and jangled a row of chain straps with her fingers. ‘Well, would you believe it?’ She picked up a pair of dusty riding boots from the corner. ‘These used to be mine, a hundred years ago. Fancy them still being here.’

  ‘Don’t you miss all this?’ Maybe now was a good time to ask why Mum hardly ever came back to the Hall.

  She sank into an armchair beside the fireplace while I sat on the table, swinging my legs. ‘Not really. In a way, of course I do, but the things I miss disappeared so long ago it’s hard to believe they ever existed. Working with Da and the horses - well, it all seems like a dream now.’

  ‘Gran’s still here, though, and the house. It probably hasn’t changed that much.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not sure what to think about the house, to be honest. When there are five families sharing one outside toilet in the East End, it doesn’t seem right that the Vyes should have this great big place all to themselves. The world’s different now, and I can’t say I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not even a little bit? Gran told me about the fun you used to have in the servants’ hall.’

  ‘Oh, sometimes we were allowed to have a laugh, but we couldn’t ever get above ourselves. Do as you’re told and don’t ask any questions, that’s how it used to be. And then the war came and suddenly everything changed. People realised the generals giving out orders and getting other people killed didn’t always know best.’ She chipped at a patch of dried mud on the floor with her shoe. ‘Not that your gran would ever accept that.’

  I knew what she meant but, all the same, it wasn’t the whole story. ‘But Gran loves this house, and the family, and she still does things her own way.’ To be honest, I couldn’t see that being a housekeeper was so very muc
h worse than being a teacher. Everybody has to answer to someone, don’t they?

  ‘The Vyes look down on us, though - that’s what I can’t stand. Underneath, they think they’re better than everyone else and they’ve no reason to. If you knew some of the things I do about that family, Is, you might feel differently about them.’

  She wouldn’t say any more, no matter how hard I pressed her, which seemed jolly unfair after dropping such a mysterious hint. Yet one of Mum’s secrets was about to unravel all by itself, if only I’d known …

  Eleven

  How shall we sing Thy song in a strange land?

  How shall we not? For if my tongue should cleave

  To the roof of my mouth and no song ever come

  The dream must perish.

  From ‘How Shall We Sing?’ by Jewish writer and poet, Julian Drachman, 1939

  When the boys and I came down to breakfast the next morning, Mum was deep in conversation with Alina - or Angela, as we had to remember to call her.

  ‘Listen to this, you lot,’ she said. ‘You might learn a thing or two.’

  Besides the next day being Easter Sunday, apparently the festival of Passover had started. Mum knew something about it because she had a Jewish boy in her class at school, she told us, and he’d written an essay on the subject.

  ‘Passover comes from when Moses took the people of Israel out of Egypt,’ Alina said. It was the longest sentence I’d heard her speak. ‘And so quickly, they had no time to make good bread - only flat, like biscuits. So that is what we eat at Passover. It is called matzah.’

  ‘Yes, and to get ready for Passover they have to clean the whole house so there isn’t a crumb of ordinary bread left,’ Mum added. ‘Can you imagine, Ma? Clear the shelves, beat the rugs, sweep every inch of the floors.’

  ‘Sounds like spring-cleaning to me,’ Gran said, ‘Funny them having the same custom as us.’

  ‘A nice hygienic one, anyway,’ Sissy put in, loading boiled eggs on to the children’s breakfast tray. This was the strangest thing: instead of handing in her notice as Gran had predicted, Sissy had taken to Alina. Maybe it was because she worked so hard and had no intention of taking advantage. I’d seen them walking down to the village together with the girls when Alina had the afternoon off, and Sissy was the one Alina went to for help if she didn’t know where something was. I felt a pang of jealousy that she had chosen Sissy for her friend rather than me but, then again, they were closer in age so it wasn’t particularly surprising. They made an odd pair, though: large, placid Sissy next to slender, nervy Alina.

  That afternoon, Mum and I went for a long walk through the woods and out into the fields beyond. The boys were building a den somewhere with Tristan and Gran was having a rest. ‘She looks tired,’ Mum said. ‘I wish she’d call it a day, find a nice little cottage somewhere in the village and take things easy. It’s not as though the Hall would crumble away without her - they could easily find another housekeeper.’

  ‘Andreas’s mother is desperate for a job in this country.’ Before I knew it, I was telling Mum the whole story: what was happening to the Jews in Germany and all those other countries, Andreas coming over on the Kindertransporte and ending up in Mr Tarver’s shop, how Gran had found Alina through the Jewish Refugee Movement. ‘The trouble is, Lady Vye doesn’t want any more foreigners in the house. That’s why Alina has to be called Angela.’

  Mum laughed. ‘I wonder how long you’ll be able to get away with that. Was it your idea? I’m surprised Gran agreed.’ She looked out across the fields, shading her eyes against the sun. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful it was up here. Look at the colour of that grass! It’s so fresh you can almost taste it.’

  I tried to focus her attention. ‘Is there anything Andreas’s mother could do at your school, perhaps?’

  ‘I’ll ask, though I don’t think so.’ She squeezed my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Is. You needn’t take every problem in the world on your shoulders.’

  ‘But no one else seems to care!’ I burst out. ‘And when we go back to London, Andreas won’t have anyone to speak up for him.’

  She gave me a long look. ‘Time was, you wouldn’t have spoken up for yourself, let alone anyone else.’

  Fat lot of good it had done, though; so far I’d got precisely nowhere and now we were going home. I’d let Andreas down. He’d soon forget about me and even if I did come back to Swallowcliffe in the summer, he and Alina were bound to be friendlier by then and wouldn’t want me around. She couldn’t go on resenting him being German for ever, and they had so much in common: so many shared experiences I couldn’t understand. Just thinking about it made me feel grumpy and awkward. Suddenly I wanted to leave right there and then, without having to endure these last few pointless days, waiting to go.

  We all went to church on Sunday morning - apart from Andreas, Alina and Gran, who stayed at home to start cooking the luncheon. Reverend Murdoch preached a sermon about standing shoulder to shoulder in God’s army (we’d heard on the wireless that Italy had just invaded Albania - wherever that was - which might have had something to do with it) and we sang ‘Onward Christian soldiers’, but I found myself too unsettled by the way Mr Tarver was glaring at the Vyes to concentrate. Not just the Vyes, either. He kept shooting Mum and me spiteful looks, as though everyone from the Hall was part of a conspiracy to steal Andreas away. Thank goodness I’d managed to steer clear of the shop those past few weeks.

  Gran set me to peeling potatoes as soon as we got back. ‘And make sure you do plenty,’ she said. ‘There’s two extra for luncheon today. The Hathaways are coming.’

  She glanced at Mum across the table, and Mum blushed. Nobody noticed except me. I knew straight away that blush was significant; I’d never seen my mother look so uncomfortable. Mrs Hathaway’s words suddenly sounded again in my head. ‘Maybe there’s still hope for them. You know my Philip never married again.’ How could I have forgotten? Because what she was saying didn’t make sense, I suppose. Dr Hathaway was one of the family: his mother was Lord Vye’s aunt, so that made him Lord Vye’s cousin. Surely there could never have been anything between him and my mother.

  I kept an eye on Mum all the time we were preparing luncheon for the Vyes and ourselves. Because it was Easter Sunday there was a joint of meat for us in the kitchen, too, which we’d have after the Vyes had finished theirs. Mum didn’t eat much and she was quiet all through the meal. Was she wondering where Dr Hathaway was, and maybe hoping to catch a glimpse of him? No, she looked more wary than anything else. After we’d eaten our own dinner early, Stan and Alfie disappeared outside somewhere with Andreas and Tristan, but Mum and I were roped in to help with the washing up. We were halfway through when a fair-haired man in a brown tweed suit walked into the kitchen. ‘I’ve come to see you’re not wearing yourself out, Mrs S,’ he said. ‘That lunch was so delicious it had to be hard work.’

  Mum turned around from the sink. Her face was flushed and damp from the heat of the water, her hair was falling out of its combs and she wore an old checked apron over her dress, but from the way he stared at her, she might have been a film star. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds and then he said, ‘Grace? Nobody told me you were here.’

  ‘Only for a little while.’ Mum wiped her wet hands quickly down the apron. ‘I’ve come to collect my daughter. We’re going back to London tomorrow.’ She pushed me forward. ‘This is Isobel.’

  ‘Hello.’ He smiled at me distractedly, putting one hand on the back of a chair as if to steady himself. ‘I’m Philip Hathaway. Dr Hathaway.’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘Dr Hathaway’s been keeping an eye on me,’ said Gran. ‘But as we can see, I’m right as rain. Aren’t I, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes, no. Absolutely.’ Now he was looking at Mum again. Her fingers dug into my shoulders as she held me in front of herself like a shield. ‘Well, better get on, I suppose,’ he said at last. ‘Good to see you, Grace. And Isobel.’ He went out of the room as though he were sleep-walking.


  Mum didn’t say a word but the next glass slipped out of her hands to shatter in the sink, and now I knew for certain there was a whole other story she hadn’t told me. If only we weren’t leaving the next day! Dr Hathaway still felt something for her, anyone could see that; it was as if an electric current had flowed through the air between them. I looked at Mum as though I’d never seen her before. She still had a lovely, open face, despite the fine lines on her forehead and crows’ feet around her eyes, and even these few days in the country seemed to have taken years off her. Surely this was where she belonged, walking through fields in the fresh air, not grimy London streets piled high with sandbags.

  But London was where we were heading and there was nothing I could do to change that, not now. When the kitchen was clean and tidy, I went up the back stairs and started packing my suitcase so it would be ready for the morning. Luckily it hadn’t been too full in the first place, so the skirts and frock Gran had given me for my birthday fitted in without much trouble. When it was done, I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and imagining myself back home. I must have fallen asleep because some time later a knock on the door woke me up and there was Andreas, holding a package in his hands.

  ‘I have come to say goodbye,’ he said, ‘in case there is no time tomorrow. And to give you this.’ He held the package out to me.

  I rubbed my eyes, still half asleep, and invited him in. He took the flowery chair while I sat on the bed and tried to untie the string around the package. ‘Here, I will help you,’ he said, seeing me struggle, and came to sit on the bed beside me. Inside the brown paper was a framed painting of the view from the Fairview Tower, looking down on Swallowcliffe Hall. There was so much detail, it must have taken him ages.

  I stared at the picture, not knowing what to say. ‘Oh, Andreas! It’s beautiful.’

  ‘And there is me,’ he said, pointing out a tiny figure standing in the rose garden. ‘See? I am waving so when you look at this painting, you know I am saying hello.’