The Wartime Singers

by Lesley Eames

  ‘I’ve been studying as you asked.’

  ‘You’ve been studying as you asked, Miss Monk.’

  Did the woman think she was some sort of queen herself? Queen of Briar Lodge?

  She snatched the book. ‘Henry the First?’

  ‘King from 1100 to 1135.’

  ‘Queen Anne?’

  ‘1702 to 1714.’

  Miss Monk looked peeved when all of her questions were answered correctly. Her expression turned cunning. ‘Who became king in 1553?’

  ‘Mary the First became queen in 1553.’

  Frustrated, Miss Monk returned the history book to its shelf and brought out an atlas. ‘Learn the names of every country in Europe.’

  With that she returned to the door but paused and looked back. ‘I’m making changes from tomorrow,’ she warned, gloating. ‘Lots of changes.’

  It was obviously Miss Monk’s way to torment her victims.

  *

  More chimes from the grandfather clock… Eight, nine, ten o’clock. It was rare for Papa and Miss Monk to retire for the night this early but, still determined to take no unnecessary chances, Lizzie took her coat off, bundled it under her bed and lay down, ready to feign sleep.

  *

  Lizzie had got her dinner that first night. She was secretly enraged to see Miss Monk sitting in Mama’s place but kept her anger to herself, heading for her usual seat and deciding to say nothing unless invited.

  Miss Monk served the soup into bowls, took a sip from her bowl and grimaced. ‘Hmm.’

  The soup was tasty in Lizzie’s opinion. Cook’s food was always tasty.

  A joint of beef followed. Miss Monk poked it with a fork. ‘I need to have words with the butcher,’ she told Papa. ‘According to the household accounts, he’s charging for the best cuts but this meat is inferior. Either he’s imposing on Cook or she’s making money out of the arrangement.’

  How dared this woman accuse Cook of stealing? Lizzie seethed quietly.

  Betty brought in treacle tart for pudding. ‘Stodgy,’ Miss Monk declared, though it was delicious.

  There was little conversation during the meal. The silence hung heavily and Lizzie felt herself to be very much in the way.

  As soon as the meal was over Miss Monk rose to her feet. ‘We shall leave your papa to his port,’ she told Lizzie, who got up too.

  Reaching the door, Miss Monk turned back to him. ‘Elizabeth damaged a book today. I think it fitting that she goes straight to her room to reflect on her behaviour rather than enjoy the indulgence of tea.’

  ‘Oh, certainly,’ Papa said. ‘I defer to your judgement on all things domestic, Susan.’

  A triumphant glow lit Miss Monk’s mean eyes. It occurred to Lizzie then that this woman had been testing Papa to see how far she could go with chastising his daughter. The answer seemed to be pretty far – which didn’t bode well for the future.

  Glad to be spared Miss Monk’s company, Lizzie read a book until Betty came to see her into bed, a task Mama had always undertaken. ‘You and Cook are my only friends now,’ Lizzie said.

  Betty looked troubled instead of flattered. ‘Get some sleep, because heaven alone knows what the morning will bring.’

  It brought a new schoolroom for Lizzie – a table and chair in the icy attic room that overlooked the front of the house. There was a second table and chair, presumably for Miss Monk but apparently just for show, as she showed no inclination to sit. Instead, she instructed Lizzie to copy out several pages from the history book and calculate a few basic sums. Having got Lizzie out of her way, she swept downstairs again, doubtless to upset Betty and Cook with more criticisms and orders.

  Lizzie managed the work easily. Miss Monk looked disappointed but Lizzie was thrilled to be told that exercise was next on the agenda. A long tramp was just what her body needed. Miss Monk had other ideas. ‘Six turns around the garden only. I won’t have you letting your papa down by behaving like a hoyden.’

  Lunch was taken with Miss Monk in the dining-room as Papa was at the glassworks that Mama had inherited. Lizzie had long known that her father had married her mother for money. ‘Of course, it’s her money as bought this house,’ she’d heard Cook telling Betty. ‘The glassworks belonged to her family too. I suppose he saw his chance when her parents died so quickly. They should have tied her money up tighter. Then he might have looked elsewhere for a wife.’

  ‘I understand why he married her, but why did she marry him?’ Betty had asked.

  ‘There’s them that turn two faces to the world and he’s one of them. When he had her money in his sights I’m sure he made himself agreeable – charming, even – and she was too innocent to realise he had another side to him. Until it was too late.’

  Lunch was a silent meal. ‘May I play the piano now?’ Lizzie asked afterwards.

  ‘Certainly not. I can’t have you thumping the keys and bringing on one of my headaches.’

  ‘I don’t thump. Mama taught me well and we played together every day.’ Music had given them joy, but realising it only made Miss Monk look even more determined to thwart Lizzie’s wishes.

  Within a week, the true purpose behind Miss Monk’s constant complaints about Betty and Cook was revealed when she dismissed them both. Some of Betty’s work was given to the regular cleaning lady, who had a sick husband at home and wouldn’t cross Miss Monk in anything. Mrs Clegg arrived too.

  *

  …Nine, ten, eleven o’clock. Lizzie heard Mrs Clegg huffing and puffing as she made her way to her room. Not Cook’s old attic room. Only a room on the middle floor was good enough for Miss Monk’s crony.

  A few minutes later, Papa and Miss Monk retired. Lizzie stayed in bed. Waiting.

  *

  Miss Monk met Mrs Clegg in the hall the day she arrived at Briar Lodge. ‘It’s good to see you, Hilda. Things are falling into place nicely.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Mrs Clegg looked around the hall with eyes that appeared to be putting a price on everything they saw. ‘Yours at last, eh?’

  ‘Of course, things aren’t quite perfect.’ Miss Monk nodded towards Lizzie who was standing inside the dining room where they’d just eaten breakfast.

  The women exchanged looks which suggested they’d talked about her before, and not in flattering terms.

  ‘Mrs Clegg is our new cook, Elizabeth,’ Miss Monk said.

  Lizzie came forward. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs Clegg.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, I’m sure.’ The words were polite but the accompanying look was insolent.

  ‘Go to the school room and learn the capital cities of Europe, Elizabeth,’ Miss Monk instructed.

  Lizzie walked upstairs but lingered on the landing. The women must have moved into the drawing-room because their voices grew fainter.

  ‘So that’s her,’ Mrs Clegg said.

  ‘A sly, scowling sort of a girl. Very different from that lily-livered fool of a mother. But if she thinks she’s a match for me, she’ll soon discover her mistake. I’ve spent the best years of my life waiting for this triumph, and I’m not going to let a chit of a girl spoil it for me.’

  ‘Edward had to marry money, but it’s a pity the wife lasted so long.’

  ‘All those years I had to sit in that mean little house on Canal Street waiting for him to visit! But it’s my turn now, and once I’ve broken the brat’s spirit, she’ll be no bother to me.’

  ‘Trust you to have it all worked out, Susan.’

  Lizzie had never suspected that her father was involved with another woman but perhaps it explained his lack of interest in Mama. Pondering the matter kept Lizzie awake after everyone had gone to bed that night, and when she heard the rustle of movement out on the landing, she got up and opened her door the merest crack to see Miss Monk in her nightclothes, tapping on the door that led to Papa’s room. The room he’d shared with Mama.

  Papa opened it and Miss Monk began to move inside. But then she whirled around as though instinct had warned her she was being watched. H
er harsh gaze pinned Lizzie to the spot. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.

  Lizzie thought rapidly. ‘I heard a noise. I thought it might be a burglar. Did you think it was a burglar?’

  Miss Monk looked ready to shout at Lizzie for lying. Then her expression changed. Clearly, it had occurred to her that the lie could work to her advantage. ‘That’s why I’m here. I came to warn your father.’

  She looked at him expectantly. For a moment he did nothing. Then he sighed and headed for the stairs as though to investigate.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ Miss Monk ordered Lizzie, who duly obliged.

  A murmur of voices signalled Papa’s return but Miss Monk swept away to her own room, her footsteps no longer furtive but brisk and angry.

  The next day Betty’s old iron bed was carried into the attic schoolroom. ‘You’ll be sleeping in here from now on,’ Miss Monk announced. ‘It makes sense for you to occupy one room instead of two.’

  No, it didn’t. She simply wanted the freedom to visit the room of a man who wasn’t her husband.

  Did Papa know how spartan Lizzie’s accommodation was now? Perhaps it suited him not to ask about it.

  There was more to come. One day Lizzie returned from her six turns around the garden to hear Miss Monk and her crony laughing in one of the bedrooms. Papa’s bedroom.

  ‘Look at this, Sue. Does it suit me?’ That was Mrs Clegg.

  ‘You look grand, Hilda. I like these earrings. Real pearls. Good quality too.’

  ‘Take ’em. You’ve earned ’em, biding your time all those years.’

  Mama had looked exquisite in her pearl earrings. The thought of Miss Monk taking them was too much. Lizzie raced along to the room to see Miss Monk studying her reflection in the dressing-table mirror as she held the pearls to her ears while Mrs Clegg rifled through Mama’s wardrobe. ‘Why are you touching my mother’s things?’

  Miss Monk’s eyes flashed annoyance. She didn’t like being caught out. ‘We’re following your father’s instructions to pack them away. What are you doing here?’

  ‘They’re my things now. Mama wanted me to have them.’

  ‘Your mama isn’t here,’ Mrs Clegg said.

  Miss Monk sent her friend a warning frown then turned back to Lizzie. ‘It isn’t for you to question your father’s instructions.’

  ‘It isn’t for you to steal my mother’s earrings.’

  The hand lifted threateningly and would have struck at Lizzie’s head had she not darted back. ‘You were going to hit me!’ An angry slap across the face was very different from a smack across the hand with a ruler.

  ‘Did you think I was going to hit her, Hilda?’

  ‘Not me.’

  Miss Monk bent forward and hissed into Lizzie’s face. ‘If I take anything, it’s only what I’m due. Not that I’m actually taking anything. But don’t cross me again. Get upstairs this minute.’

  Straightening, Miss Monk returned the earrings to the jewellery box and signalled to Mrs Clegg to pack up a dress she’d taken from the wardrobe.

  Lizzie ran back upstairs. What vile people those women were. After a while they came up to the attic floor. They didn’t enter Lizzie’s schoolroom, but heaving and shuffling sounds indicated that they were putting Mama’s things in the storage room.

  At dinner that night Miss Monk turned to Papa and said, ‘Mrs Clegg was helpful when I was packing up Grace’s things. I take it you were satisfied with how we left the room?’

  Papa sipped his wine and grunted an assent. Miss Monk didn’t look at Lizzie but this conversation was obviously intended to make her squirm.

  ‘It occurred to me that the most valuable jewellery – the pearl earrings, for example – shouldn’t be left in an attic,’ Miss Monk continued. ‘I’ve put them on your desk in case you’d prefer to keep them at the bank.’

  ‘I’ll take them tomorrow,’ Papa said.

  Miss Monk stood and Lizzie followed her into the drawing-room. Instantly, Miss Monk turned with menace flashing in her eyes. ‘I’m here to stay and it’ll make life easier for both of us if you accept it sooner rather than later. The more you fight me, the more I’ll make you suffer. Now go to your room and stay there.’

  Soon Lizzie was eating her meals alone after she knocked over a glass of water at dinner, creating a small puddle that Miss Monk chose to treat as a major flood. ‘It’s such a pity to have your peace disturbed,’ she told Papa. ‘It would be no trouble for Elizabeth to eat her dinner earlier.’

  ‘Just as you like, Susan.’

  Clearly, Papa wasn’t going to defend his daughter and it became apparent that neither was anyone else after Mrs Chant, one of Witherton’s wealthier residents, called. Lizzie stole down to the middle floor to listen in on the conversation. ‘I haven’t called before because I wanted to give you a chance to settle in,’ Mrs Chant told Miss Monk. ‘Now I feel it’s time to welcome you to Witherton.’

  ‘How kind.’

  Miss Monk was putting on a show of friendliness as well as putting on airs, as though her upbringing had been more genteel than had actually been the case. She spoke the same way to Papa, though she dropped the pretence of refinement with Hilda Clegg.

  Miss Monk must have pulled the bell because Mrs Clegg bustled out of the kitchen to be asked to provide tea. ‘Yes, Miss Monk,’ she said, and Lizzie imagined the cronies swapping secret winks.

  ‘So very sad,’ she heard Miss Monk say next. ‘I feel for poor Elizabeth, but I believe it would be a mistake to let her throw herself into her grief completely. The child has a taste for drama and an inclination to consider herself a victim of all sorts of imaginary offences. It isn’t the child’s fault that she’s been so indulged, of course, but it wouldn’t be kind of me to let the mistakes of the past continue. Discipline and routine are what Elizabeth needs now if she’s to take her proper place in the world. I consider it to be my duty to provide them.’

  It was clever of Miss Monk to cast Lizzie as the sort of child who made up stories. No one would believe her now if she complained of Miss Monk’s ill treatment.

  Little by little Susan Monk was digging herself into the household while pushing Lizzie out, testing Edward Maudsley’s tolerance along the way.

  It comforted Lizzie to have Mama’s things close by in the neighbouring attic, especially after she found two slender diaries among them in which Mama had written of her time at school. Reading those diaries gave Lizzie a chance to escape her woes temporarily. So did watching the fair-haired girl pass by on Amesbury Lane, presumably on her way to and from school. When she sang the girl’s voice was sweet and silvery. Utterly charming.

  But Lizzie needed to be more than just an observer of life. She grew ever more desperate for simple human contact, and in time she had an idea for making her life just a little more tolerable.

  *

  That plan had been risky in its way but it had succeeded and, as a result, Lizzie had survived a whole year since Mama’s death, even finding moments of happiness. Circumstances had changed again, though.

  Now Lizzie had another, infinitely more desperate plan in mind. Only one other person in the world knew of it, and that person was full of fear for her.

  …Ten, eleven, twelve o’clock. Midnight. It was time.

  2

  For a moment the enormity of what she was doing paralysed Lizzie with terror. Then she reminded herself that she was thirteen years-old now – almost an adult – and deeply desperate. Pushing through the panic, she dressed quickly, thankful for the moonlight that bathed the room in a silvery glow.

  Unwilling to risk the clatter of boots on bare floorboards, she moved on silent, stockinged feet to her door and listened. Hearing no one stirring, she opened it carefully then glided into the attic which was used for storage. Here she’d left a bag packed with what she considered to be essentials – a spare set of clothes, her toothbrush, her hairbrush and a selection of her mother’s most precious things.

  Choosing which of those things to take had been agoni
sing, as she’d wanted to take them all. She’d settled on a trinket box, a sewing set with a silver thimble and silver scissors, a silver-framed photograph of Mama in evening dress before her marriage, another silver-framed photograph of Mama cradling Lizzie as a baby, and the diaries from Mama’s time at school in London.

  Retrieving the bag, Lizzie collected her boots then crept downstairs to the kitchen. There she took a hessian bag from a hook and filled it with bread, cheese, a pork pie, apples, cake and a bottle of lemonade. The house keys were kept in a dresser drawer. Lizzie used one of them to unlock the back door then lock it behind her after she’d stepped outside. Much as she disliked the people inside the house, she wouldn’t be responsible for letting a murderer walk in to slay them in their beds.

  She tiptoed around the house to post the key through the letter box then made her way to the gateposts, keeping to the frosty lawn as much as possible to avoid crunching the gravel. Pausing, she looked back at the house. She’d had happy times there with her mother but those days were over and Lizzie needed to carve a future elsewhere – unless her departure changed the way her father felt about her and made him want her back. Unlikely, perhaps, but time would doubtless tell.

  Lizzie saw not a single soul as she walked through Witherton. Houses were dark and all was quiet on this wintry night. She kept her footsteps soft and moved in shadow where possible, just in case anyone happened to look out of a window.

  Witherton had a train station but concern over being recognised had made Lizzie decide to catch a train further down the line where no one would know her, finding her way by a map in a traveller’s guide she’d taken from Papa’s study a few nights previously.

  Soon she reached the very edge of town and all that lay before her were fields. Dark, isolated fields. Lizzie swallowed and kept on walking, with only the sound of her own footsteps for company. Fear danced inside her and, knowing she had to keep it at bay, she thought back to that other plan of almost a year ago, the plan that had brought her moments of joy in dark times.

  *

  It started as a modest ambition to make contact. When the poor children passed the following morning, Lizzie waved from the window. She was disappointed when neither of them appeared to see her. Clearly a mere wave wasn’t enough to attract their attention so when they returned in the afternoon she also called out, ‘Hello!’