The Orphan Twins

by Lesley Eames

  I won’t be able to look Mr Alderton in the face if I flunk them. I hope to see more of you when I’m back in London for the summer. Perhaps we could even manage a day out together.

  A day out together sounded blissful. Lily received another postcard in early July as Artie’s school term neared its end.

  Did you read about the assassination of the Austrian Archduke? Mr Burrows has suggested we read newspapers over the summer so we know how Austria-Hungary reacts but I heard another teacher tell him it was ridiculous to be concerned about the consequences of tragic events happening miles away in a country most of us have never even heard of. Have you heard of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lil? I expect you have as you’ve always been clever.

  Lily had a vague idea that Bosnia was between Austria-Hungary and Greece but looked it up in the Everetts’ atlas to be sure. It did indeed seem to be very far from Britain.

  Weeks passed and Artie returned to London after spending a few days with Fordyce. He travelled down to see her, flushed with heat because the summer was proving to be glorious. ‘I passed all of the examinations, thank goodness,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t bottom of the class but I was a long way from the top. I hope Mr Alderton isn’t disappointed in me.’

  ‘Has he said he’s disappointed?’

  ‘No, but… I don’t know, Lil. I can’t help wondering if he’d have preferred to sponsor a boy with a more academic turn of mind.’

  ‘You weren’t top of the class in your first year and he didn’t mind that,’ Lily pointed out.

  ‘I expect he made allowances for me being a little behind the other boys when I started at the school, but I’ve been there for two years now and I can’t helping wondering if he hoped I’d catch up and even overtake some boys.’

  ‘I remember him saying he just wanted to give you a better chance than you’d have without his help. You may not become a university professor or write complicated books, but you’ll still find better work than you would have done in Bermondsey, and you’ll have some choice about what you do. Really, Artie. Stop worrying and enjoy the holiday.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ve always been sensible, Lil. I’m definitely going to treat you to a day out soon. Mr Alderton has suggested I tutor some younger boys over the holidays so I’ll be earning a little money of my own.’

  Artie’s wobbles gave Lily a sense of perspective about her own concerns. Everyone lacked confidence about something and so far her concerns about her bond with Artie weakening had come to nothing. They’d been separated for almost four years now and Artie was as loving as ever. Maybe she should cling to that thought instead of fearing what the future might bring.

  Hilda was all for Lily having the time off. ‘I’m going to insist on it,’ she promised, but was spared the bother of having to ask the Everetts because they went away for a week.

  Artie took Lily to Folkestone on the train. It was the first time Lily had seen the sea since Mum and Dad had brought them to Folkestone years ago. ‘It’s vast,’ Lily said, staring out at the expanse of blue-green water. ‘The air tastes different here. Cleaner and saltier.’

  The sounds were different too – the cawing of gulls instead of gentle birdsong, the soft swish of waves instead of lumbering cars and carts.

  ‘It’s peaceful,’ she remarked. ‘Europe’s troubles feel as far away as the moon.’

  ‘Have I told you that Fordyce’s eldest brother and two of his cousins are in the army?’ Artie asked. ‘The whole family is pretty tense about the situation.’

  ‘Will it come to war, do you think?’

  ‘Germany seems to want a fight and is using the assassination situation to urge Austria to start one. That’s what Mr Burrows believes, and why would Germany turn down Britain’s proposal for a peace conference if it wasn’t true?’

  ‘Is Mr Burrows writing to you?’

  ‘Me and some of the other boys in the News Society.’

  ‘I pity Fordyce’s family and all the others who’ll have to fight if Britain gets dragged into it. I’m glad you’re too young to go to war.’

  Artie smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Lil. I’m safe and perhaps the trouble will blow over after all.’

  But by early August Britain was at war and before the month was over Fordyce’s eldest brother was dead.

  FIFTEEN

  Out shopping to save Hilda’s legs, Lily paused to stare at the poster that had been pasted to a red pillar box.

  Your King and Country need you. A Call to Arms. An addition of 100,000 men to His Majesty’s Regular Army is immediately necessary in the present grave National Emergency. Lord Kitchener is confident that this appeal will be at once responded to by all those who have the safety of our Empire at heart.

  The poster went on to describe the terms of service. Only medically fit men between the ages of nineteen and thirty of at least five feet three inches in height and with a chest measurement of at least thirty-four inches were required. Married men and widowers with children could apply and would receive a separation allowance for their families.

  Service would last for the duration of the war and the men who enlisted would be discharged with all convenient speed, if they so desired, the moment the war was over. Men who wished to join could attend any military barrack or obtain the address of a recruiting office from the Post Office.

  There was no need for the men of Drayton to make enquiries of the Post Office, because a recruiting officer had come to town. Lily watched as a group of young men approached the steps of the town hall where the officer had set up. They were grinning and jostling each other. ‘Lost your backbone, Bert?’ Lily heard one say.

  ‘Mother’ll kill me if I enlist.’

  ‘A man shouldn’t be afraid of his mother! Come on, Bert. It’ll be a lark.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  Bert joined his friends as they climbed up the steps and Lily walked on, wondering what his mother would say when he got home and told her what he’d done.

  Not all mothers were against their sons enlisting. Some actually boasted of having sons who’d answered the call for volunteers. They bought Union Jack flags and displayed them in their windows, sometimes alongside pictures of their menfolk in khaki uniforms. If the men were lucky enough to have uniforms, that was. There was currently a shortage.

  ‘My George is having to parade up and down the training camp in his own clothes. His trousers and coat are getting ruined,’ Lily heard one mother complaining.

  ‘At least he’s being paid thruppence a day for wearing them,’ another mother said. ‘They gave my Alec someone else’s old clothes to save paying him to wear his own. He says they make him look like a proper ragamuffin. There aren’t enough rifles either so they have to pretend they’re carrying them. Still, I expect it won’t be long before they’re kitted out properly.’

  ‘Let’s hope it won’t be for nothing because it might all be over before our lads get to the fighting.’

  ‘Over by Christmas, they say.’

  *

  But there was no sign of an end to the war by Christmas.

  The Everetts stayed at home for both Christmas and New Year so there was no party in the kitchen for Lily and Hilda. They toasted 1915 with a cup of tea instead.

  Ralph Everett and his petulant wife had come to stay but Lily dealt with his leering advances easily. ‘Just being friendly,’ he said, running his hand over her slender hip as she set the table in the dining room.

  ‘I’m sure your parents will be pleased to hear how friendly you’re being,’ Lily told him. ‘So will your wife.’

  He snatched his hand away and glowered but Lily didn’t care. Nor did she care when he spilt coffee deliberately to cause her more work. His moody resentment was a small price to pay for staying unmolested.

  Lily saw Artie only once over the Christmas holiday. ‘It’s getting harder to cycle in London these days,’ he told her. ‘They’re worried about German airships so they’ve banned the sort of signs that light up and other lights have to be dimmed. They’ve
even smeared the streetlamps with dark paint. I could barely see to pay my fare last time I travelled on a bus.’

  ‘Do you think the Germans really will attack from the air?’

  ‘They’ve already used Zeppelins to drop bombs across the Channel,’ Artie said. ‘I expect it’s only a matter of time before they use them here.’

  Lily was appalled when, only weeks later, the first bomb fell in Norfolk, the county where Artie’s school was based. But nowhere near it, Artie wrote to reassure her.

  Mrs Everett had begun the year in a bad mood that didn’t shift in the weeks that followed. Lily heard her talking on the telephone one day. ‘Everyone has grown so dull! I go up to town and see men walking about in dreary brown uniforms. I pick up a newspaper and it’s full of the war. I can’t even meet my friends for a leisurely luncheon or tea because some of them are rushing to roll bandages or learn how to mop fevered brows. Tell me something delicious, Marjorie. Tell me some gossip.’

  Artie was as interested in the war as Mrs Everett was bored by it.

  Winter isn’t a good time for fighting according to Mr Burrows. Terrible weather and too much mud. The horses and cannons become bogged down in it and so do the men. Come the spring there’ll be more action and then we’ll see what’s what. Fordyce is trying to put a brave face on things – a chap has to do that here – but sometimes he’s angry and sometimes he just goes off by himself for a while. You’d advise me to be patient with him, wouldn’t you?

  She would.

  Lily met Artie in London one day during his Easter holidays when the Everetts were away in Tunbridge Wells. It was her first time back in London since leaving all those years ago. They walked past Buckingham Palace then through St James’s Park and along Piccadilly before Artie treated her to ham and eggs in a Lyon’s Tea Rooms. She saw many men in khaki but was too busy hoping they’d stay safe to worry about their dreariness.

  ‘Some of the Camfordleigh old boys have visited the school in their uniforms,’ Artie told her. ‘Most of them were in the OTC.’

  ‘OTC?’ Lily queried.

  ‘The school’s Officer Training Corp. I’m going to join but don’t worry, Lil. I’m still too young for the real army.’

  The year wore on and the war made itself felt at home in food shortages and price rises as ships that were bringing in food from overseas were sunk by German submarines. ‘Makes me shudder to think of those U-boat things sneaking up on ships and sending those… What do they call them?’ Hilda asked

  ‘Torpedoes.’

  ‘Makes me shudder, it does. As for those flying things…’

  ‘Zeppelins?’

  ‘Imagine one of them flying over while you’re asleep in your bed and dropping a bomb on you.’ Hilda shook her head.

  The Zepellins had reached London now. Seven people had been killed and dozens more injured.

  The food shortages continued. ‘I told Madame that eggs went up to tuppence each a while ago,’ Hilda said. ‘Now they’re threepence thruppence and the grocer says he shouldn’t wonder if they went up to fivepence. Bacon’s gone up from tenpence a pound to twice that price, and as for sugar, the grocer says he can get hardly any. The mistress only shakes her head and says war is a ghastly business. She won’t give me more money for housekeeping but she always seems to have enough for those creams she puts on her face. She doesn’t understand that the shops have long queues either, so a good bit of the working day has to be spent waiting in line.’

  ‘Maybe the Americans will come in on our side now,’ Lily suggested, thinking of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania with almost two thousand people on board, many of them American civilians.

  ‘Yes, and let’s hope they show those nasty Germans what’s what.’

  But America didn’t enter the war. The death and destruction continued, and expectations of an early peace drained away.

  Given the cost of eggs and shortage of sugar, Lily didn’t expect a cake on her sixteenth birthday but Mrs Tibbs baked one for her anyway, saying, ‘I don’t see why you should go without because the mistress is mean with money.’

  It was a quiet birthday as Artie was at school and neither Elsie nor Phyllis could get over on a visit. But now they were all sixteen they intended to take the train to London when they could get a day off together and start looking for work. Artie was concerned that she’d be putting herself in danger from Zeppelins but Lily was determined and so were the others. She did worry about how she might break the news of her plans to Hilda, though.

  Fate took away the necessity. ‘That’s it,’ Hilda said, when eggs had gone up to fourpence. ‘I’m going to tell the mistress I can’t manage the sort of meals she wants unless she gives me more money.’

  Hilda took her bad legs upstairs in umbrage only to return a few minute later, white-faced with shock. ‘They’re leaving,’ she said. ‘The master has been promoted so they’re moving to Edinburgh. It’s all arranged. They even have a buyer for the house.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ Lily asked. ‘No one’s been to see it.’

  But then she remembered a man walking around the house with a measuring tape and notebook a few weeks earlier. Mrs Everett had described him as a surveyor who was assessing how the house might be wired for electric lighting in place of gas lamps, but clearly he’d been an estate agent.

  She also remembered another day when Mrs Everett had sent Lily on the bus to Chislehurst to find a replacement for a lost button while also sending Hilda all around Drayton to hand deliver invitations to a card party that was later cancelled. That must have been the day the house had been opened to viewing by people interested in buying it.

  ‘When are the Everetts leaving?’ Lily wanted to know.

  ‘Next week. They must have been planning this for a while.’

  ‘They didn’t want us to know in case we left before they did,’ Lily guessed.

  ‘That sounds like the Everetts. I’m sorry, dear. We’re to stay for an extra week after they’ve gone to clean the house ready for the new buyers. Mrs Everett thinks she’s doing us a huge favour with that extra week though heaven knows where she thinks we’re going to live afterwards.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Lily asked.

  ‘I’m going to write to Marion and tell her what’s happened. We reckoned on working for another couple of years but perhaps we’ve enough put by for our cottage by the sea as long as it’s a small one. We could take a paying guest or two to help put food on the table. But what about you, Lily? Will that Booth’s place help you to find work?’

  ‘Not now I’m sixteen.’ Lily swallowed down a wave of anxiety. It was one thing to explore what London had to offer when there was no pressure to find work quickly. It was quite another to be forced to find a job urgently or face destitution.

  She straightened her shoulders, reminding herself that at least she had a little money put by to fall back on. ‘I was hoping to move to London eventually anyway so I can see more of Artie. This just means it’ll happen sooner.’

  She spent an uneasy night which left her both tired and angry. How dare the Everetts treat them so shabbily?

  ‘I’d like my black shoes taken to the cobbler today,’ Mrs Everett told her at breakfast time. ‘Tell him I need them back tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll drop them at the cobbler but then I’m going to London,’ Lily said. ‘You must have been planning your move to Edinburgh for months but you’ve left Mrs Tibbs and me needing to make urgent plans for our futures.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told, girl. I’m your employer.’

  ‘Not for much longer. You could have given us time to make arrangements but you didn’t. That means we have to make our arrangements now even if it inconveniences you. If you refuse permission for me to go to London, I’ll pack my bags and leave right now, and where will that leave you? In chaos, that’s where.’

  Mrs Everett’s mouth opened and closed but no words emerged.

  ‘I take it I have your permission?’ Lily said.

  She
turned and headed for the door only to pause and look back. ‘Oh, and we expect an extra week’s wages on top of the money we’ll get for staying behind for a week to clean. We’ll have it paid in advance and have references written in advance too. I’ll write them out then you can copy them and sign them.’

  ‘I’ve never heard such insolence.’

  Lily shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  ‘All right! An extra week’s wages.’

  ‘And excellent references for both of us.’

  Leaving the room before Mrs Everett exploded and threw something, Lily ran to the kitchen. ‘Whatever’s happened now?’ Hilda asked, seeing Lily’s flushed face.

  Lily told her about the demands she’d made.

  ‘You never did?’

  ‘We have to stand up for ourselves.’

  ‘You’re a slip of a girl, Lily Tomkins, but I reckon you’ve more courage than a lion. What would you have done if she’d told you to leave?’

  ‘Panicked,’ Lily admitted.

  She sat down and wrote out two glowing references then took them up to Mrs Everett for copying onto her personal notepaper. Mrs Everett snatched them from Lily’s hand without a word.

  ‘I’ll come back for them in twenty minutes,’ Lily said.

  She spent the waiting time writing notes to Elsie and Phyllis, explaining what had happened. I need to find a job and place to live as soon as possible so I’ll take whatever I can get to tide me over. Hopefully, you’ll be able to join me in London soon.

  Mrs Everett handed over the references without a word when Lily returned for them. Lily read them through then said, ‘Thank you.’

  She posted her notes, dropped Mrs Everett’s shoes at the cobbler then caught the train to London, her reference tucked into an envelope inside her bag. Despite spending her first eleven years in London Lily was familiar with only a small pocket of it. Being alone in the big city now felt daunting. But she braced her shoulders and headed for the underground railway that would take her to the northern parts of the city.

  Strongly suspecting that Mr Alderton would prefer to see her fade from Artie’s life completely, Lily had decided she shouldn’t risk crossing paths with him near his house in Hampstead. She wasn’t even sure if Artie himself would welcome the risk of crossing paths with her if he happened to be out with a Camfordleigh friend or one of the boys he coached during the holidays. Lily might feel secure of Artie’s love but she was still uncertain about how she might fit into his future life. She took the train to Highbury and Islington instead, thinking that those places were close to Hampstead but not too close.