Easier said than done when she couldn’t even exit Lavender. Besides she didn’t want to leave this friendly peaceful place.
And she hadn’t come here by choice, but had been brought here by unfathomable forces.
She was a long time going to sleep as the arguments played out in her mind. The usually comfortable bed felt lumpy. She saw monsters in the dark that, when she lighted her candle, proved only to be shadows of the furniture. And once she’d breached the gate of sleep, it was only to slip again into that almost world of dreams that sometimes seemed more real than the sunlit days.
“Hello, Violet,” a familiar voice said, and then Warne was at her side, smiling down at her. “You look so pretty in your new dress.” The smile faded. “Not that you didn’t always look pretty. At least I thought so. But now. . .”
She laughed, raising her left hand to his mouth to hush him. Dear Warne, he was such a kind man. He didn’t want her to think she’d look like the poor bedraggled orphan she was before Betsy had seen to it that she was outfitted in new clothes.
They walked together, concentrating on each other in a new grownup way, until they came to a stop just outside the shop where she lived and worked. He was enough taller than she to bend down and drop a light kiss on top of her head. As though startled by his own actions, he drew back and only when she put both hands on his arms, pulling her to him, did he aim for her mouth, his kiss sliding from there to the soft place on the side of her neck and over to her shoulder.
She was too busy kissing back to take in all her emotions. She was like a motor car that had been idling but was suddenly racing its motor, her blood and skin heated, her insides churning.
When they parted, it was to leave only inches between them and, quite suddenly, the soft moonlight street where they stood in Lavender whirled away and they were sucked up by a vacuum, the two of them and another smaller figure, until she drew in the familiar smoky air of London and felt smothered by darkness.
“Where is this?” Warne whispered, tightening his arms around her as though guarding her from danger. “What’s happening?”
In the past his glimpses of the city where she lived had been rare as their shared dreams had been lived out in Lavender, but he quickly took in and analyzed the information of his senses. “We’re in wartime London,” he whispered, awe in his voice. “In the future.”
This wasn’t the future to her. Nor were these the streets with which she was familiar. Here they were narrow and dirty and she had a sense of people watching and waiting for no good purpose. Hers had not been a pleasant life, but until recently it had been a protected one. She’d been guarded within a house with few freedoms and not that many risks.
This was a different world of tiny cottages and meager flats. The east end of which she’d heard, a dismal area near the factories and the river. This was where the bombers thronged in great roaring clusters, attempting to rob London of its economic life.
She was back in the blitz and she’d brought Warne with her. Warne and another small person, perhaps one of Betsy’s children. No, this couldn’t be true. She didn’t see a child anywhere. “Only a dream,” she said aloud. “Only a dream.”
But it felt entirely too real and from the far distance she heard the familiar drone.
Warne didn’t seem to hear the remote sound, but then he’d never lived through a night when shells cracked and bombs landed with a thud that set the world ablaze. “It must be a r storm,” he said.
October 1940, she remembered, when she’d last been here only days, or was it weeks, ago?
“What is that sound?” he asked. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness but imagined his puzzled frown. “Doesn’t sound like thunder. Not exactly.”
“The bombers are coming,” she whispered even as the air raid sirens began to sound and then the hacking of the defensive guns started down closer to the river. “Hurry! We’ve got to find shelter.”
They ran and, unlike in real life, Violet didn’t limp, but was able to move swiftly and with ease. The house they approached was small and old, yet well kept and so far untouched by the bombs. Warne pounded on the door.
A woman with a crying child opened the door, her face surprisingly calm. “The bombers,” Warne said by way of explanation.
It was all that was needed. “You’re a yank,” she said, waving them inside, leading them through the crowded rooms of her modest home and out the back door.
In the tiny back garden they found what Violet recognized as an Anderson Shelter, which was comprised of a sheet of metal buried underground as a covering for a home-made refuge. As the sound of anti-aircraft guns blasted not too far away and the roar of the invading bombers grew louder, they followed their hostess down into the crowded shelter where three children lay on homemade bunks along the sides, their eyes large and fearful.
“My kids,” the woman said, “Peter, Lettice and Martha. The baby’s Samuel and I’m Alicia Johnson.”
Violet swallowed hard. Having previously sheltered in the reinforced cellars at Lady Lady’s substantial home she felt less them comfortable in this little makeshift place. Still it was a whole lot better than being left standing in the streets.
Warne smiled with surprising calm. “We are grateful to you, Mrs. Johnson, for giving us shelter. My name is Warne Chapman. I’m not a Yankee, but come from Texas. And my friend is Violet James and she hales rom this city.”
“You’re not from the U.S.?” Mrs. Johnson looked puzzled. “But you sound . . .”
Violet thought she would go mad. Here they were in the area of London most often targeted, in a shelter with four defenseless children and their mother. There wasn’t time to explain the geographic eccentricities of Warne’s home country.
The bombers sounded like they were overhead and from somewhere not too far away she heard the thud of a bomb.
“That was close,” the boy she’d called Peter, who looked about ten, commented, sounding more excited than fearful.
“Closest yet,” his next in size sister Lettice contributed.
“Probably from a Junkers Ju 88,” the boy said, sounding knowledgeable though she had no idea if he had any idea what he was talking about.. “You can tell because it roars louder.”
“Mum, do you think Dad’s safe?” the smallest girl asked.
“Safe as houses, love,” the mother said. “He’s at his office downtown and he’ll know not to stick his head out.”
This must be the worst of it, Violet realized for the first time. The father was at work, this mother home with her four children, neither knowing if the others were safe. Still she pretending, keeping her courage up for the children’s sake.
Up ‘til now Violet had felt separate from the conflict in London, set aside in the big house on the square. Now she was seeing the real London where ordinary people like herself suffered and died and held the world together by their everyday courage.
This was the only world the smaller children knew. Even the toddler in his mother’s arms seemed calmer now, perhaps accustomed to the routine of attack and hide. Mom handed around biscuits, one to each child, glancing apologetically at her visitors as though to say she wished there were enough to give everybody one. Of course, she didn’t have a biscuit for herself.
Violet heard another bomb fall and even covered up in the little shelter, sensed the smell of cordite and smoke and knew that somewhere not far away more destruction and death had landed and parts of London burned.
The children finally sleeping soundly, Betsy sat at her desk trying to draft the letter to her sister that she had only a meager chance of seeing delivered. Eddie must be frantic about them by now.
But somehow the words wouldn’t come. Something closer at hand seemed to threaten those she loved and she couldn’t quite think what it was. It was as though some natural intuition told her that danger lurked outside the windows, hovered in the trees back of the house, waiting to pounce.
She sat, half asleep, her fears heightened by night and dar
kness, and knew she must do something, but she couldn’t figure out just what was to be done. Then she heard a soft tapping from downstairs, the sound carried throughout the sleeping house. Someone, probably in need of her parents’ help, was at the door.
Slipping on her dressing gown, she tiptoed from the room and downstairs, only to find her ever-alert mother already opening the front door. “Go back to bed,” she whispered, “It’s most likely someone sick and needing a doctor. Your father was so exhausted that I slept down here in hope of catching any interruption before he could be disturbed.”
Somehow Betsy didn’t think so. She didn’t believe it was someone suffering from a putrid throat or the summer complaint so that a relative had come looking for help.
This was about her and whatever threatened Lavender, she was sure of it. Cynthia pulled open the door to reveal her son-in-law, Betsy’s husband, standing there.
Betsy cried out at the look on Caleb’s face. She knew so well this man, this dear man who had suffered through much loss and deprivation, and recognized that anger and fear fought for dominance on his face.
“Caleb?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Cynthia stepped back to let him enter, watching as Betsy went into his arms. She didn’t linger to ask any uncomfortable questions, but quickly dismissed herself to go back into the medical offices on the west wing where she would sleep fitfully in case she was needed by someone either injured or ill.
Caleb was strong from the many hours he worked his farm in spite of the fact that he had to use a cane to walk. He was the kind of man, Betsy thought for not the first time, to not let much of anything stand in his way.
“You’re all right,” he said now. “Ben and Emilee?”
“Upstairs asleep. They’re fine.” What worried her, though, was that Caleb way out on the farm had sensed something wrong just as she had here in the safety of her family home.
She’d learned through hard experience to pay attention when her husband got worried.
It was morning before they got confirmation of their fears. The first was when a farmer from out on the far east side came looking for Forrest while they were all eating breakfast.
Ezra Bolger’s wrinkled old face looked troubled when Sylvie let him in the front door. Assuming he was sick, she called her father, “Papa, Mr. Bolger’s here.”
“Naw,” the old man disagreed. “I need to see someone in charge. This is big, really big. I want to talk to Forrest.”
Betsy, having just come down the stairs her arm linked in her husband’s and their two children trailing sleepily after them, said, “He’s most likely at breakfast, Ezra.”
She led the way, acting as hostess, and found her parents and her grandfather as well as Mrs. Myers, Margaret and Dottie seated at the breakfast table. Ben ran for the chair next to his grandmother, but the others hung back to hear what Ezra Bolger’s news could be.
He stopped, ignoring the rest of them to address himself to the head of the family. “Forrest,” he said, “the creek is plum gone. Vanished overnight.”
Betsy could see that her grandfather was trying to take this in even as she was seeing the answer to the feelings she’d had over night. “You mean the creek that edges Lavender on the east?” she asked.
It was as though Forrest had asked the question. He didn’t even look over to acknowledge Betsy, but nodded at her grandfather. “Gone,” he said. “Our land ends in pasture where my cows are still grazing.”
Forrest put down his fork. “Ezra,” he said. “How can that be?”
Don’t know. But that’s the way it is. And the Clarences’ house down where old Seth used to live just to the south of the creek. It’s gone too and not a sign of neither hide nor hair of any member of the family, not even of Ruby Clarences’ cat. They done disappeared.”
“Sit down, Ezra,” Mrs. Myers instructed. “And drink a cup of Dottie’s good hot tea.”
Obediently he sank into an empty chair and Sylvie vanished into the kitchen, returning almost immediately with his drink.
Betsy and Caleb also sat down and Cynthia served breakfast to little Ben, who seemed to be the only one at the table still interested in food.
“Now Ezra,” Forrester said once his friend downed his first cup of coffee. “Are you saying the creek washed out and the Clarence place with it?”
“Goldarn it, no,” Ezra responded fiercely. “I’m saying they are gone, the creek, the cat and the house with every single member of the Clarence family!”
Chapter Thirteen
Violet awakened with a sudden jerk only to realize she’d fallen asleep leaning against Warne’s shoulder in the Johnson family bomb shelter. Around her the others were stirring to wakefulness and the sound of the bombing seemed to have subsided.
Warne went to peek out the opening that led outside. “Almost morning,” he said. “Seems quiet enough.”
This nightmare should have ended by now, Violet thought irritably, but instead it went on and on. Mrs. Johnson, her youngest in her arms, got wearily to her feet. “The all clear sounded a while back.”
She motioned to her three other children and, yawning and stumbling, they followed her like ducklings in a row and Warne helped them from the shelter. Violet was the last out and when she emerged she saw flames leaping in the distance and smoke clouded the air.
This was apparently not uncommon enough to stir talk among the little family and Mrs. Johnson soon had them all inside, though Warne ended up carrying the younger girl. They were barely in the house when a burly man carrying another little girl in his arms came in, took anxious count of his family, then set the child down.
“Glad to see you all made it through the night,” he said with what Violet guessed was a false cheerfulness put on for the children’s sake.
His wife smiled broadly, her only indication of her relief at seeing him and again Violet guessed that she’d been a whole lot less sure of his safety last night than she’d wanted her children to know.
The little girls piled on him for hugs while his baby reached out his arms, ignoring the child that his father had put on the floor.
That child’s eyes were large, green and full of horror. Her thumb was stuck in her mouth.
“Found this little one wandering alone just down the street,” Mr. Johnson explained. “Figured I’d better bring her home until her family’s found.”
If they are ever found, Violet thought with a surge of pity for the forlorn looking child. So many families were separated, so many children orphaned in these nightly attacks.
Warne didn’t try to shake hands because his host had both arms full with children, but he introduced himself and Violet and explained how they’d been given shelter by the family during the raid.
“We’ll be forever grateful,” Violet added quickly. “It was awful out there.”
He nodded. “I noticed,” he said with wry humor. “But where would we be if we didn’t help each other.”
The little girl he’d brought home looked from face to face as though seeking familiar features. Finally she seemed to settle on Warne and rather gingerly approached him. “Warne,” she said.
Violet frowned. How could this London street child know Warne Chapman?
He looked even more puzzled than she felt, bending down to peer more closely at the child. “Maudie?” he asked finally in bewilderment. “Maudie Clarence is that you?”
She nodded and when she spoke her voice had nothing of any of London’s varied accents in it, but was all soft Texas drawl. “Did Mama send you to find me, Warne?”
“Not exactly, but we’ll locate her for you. This is my friend Violet and she knows the city and will help us.”
The child looked searchingly into his face. Violet thought she was perhaps six or seven, old enough to know something was very wrong. “I didn’t think this was Lavender,” she said.
Not Lavender, Violet thought. Very not Lavender. Somehow it seemed important that the little Texas town be kept secret even from the Johnson
s, their benefactors from the night before. “We need to be going,” she said quickly. “Everybody will be worried about us and we’ll have to get to work helping Maudie find her mum and dad.”
“And her sisters,” added Warne.
“And her sisters,” Violet agreed, for the first time aware there were sisters.
Mr. Johnson frowned. “The girl seems to know you, but we’d be happy to keep her here until her family’s found.
“No!” Maudie grabbed hold of Warne’s legs. “Warne. He’s my dad’s friend. He’s the law.”
That seemed to resolve the matter. With obvious relief, the Johnsons agreed to release the girl to their custody, though they asked for an address where they could be contacted.
Mr. Johnson seemed reassured when he saw the address Violet wrote on a scrap of paper for him. “A fancy part of town” he said reading the address of the house Violet didn’t even know was still standing.
“I work there,” Violet said to clarify matters. It must be obvious to anyone that she wasn’t the lady of that house. “In the kitchen.”
Obviously he wanted to ask more questions, but the baby started crying and the littlest girl whined, “I’m hungry,” and they managed a grateful goodbye and got out of the house.
Even though she’d seen destruction before, Violet still was shocked at the sights and smells of the city and could only imagine how it felt to Warne and his little friend who had spent their whole lives in peaceful, simple Lavender.
Maudie clung tightly to Warne’s hand, her face white and drawn, highlighted by those huge frightened eyes. She was a plain child, reminding Violet a little of herself at that age, though her coloring was fair while Violet had dark hair and eyes.
“It’ll be all right,” she said softly, knowing how inadequate and even untrue those words were. Still she had to offer the child what comfort was available, the reassurance that two grownups, she and Warne, were there to take care of her.
She reached out with her other small hand to pull Violet into the link with her and Warne.
Lavender Dreaming: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 5) Page 8
