‘Wait here, all of you,’ she said sharply, and left the four of them standing forlornly outside the car.
As she did so, her mother came out of the house to usher them in out of the cold, and after Celia had spoken to her rapidly, Skye Pengelly took charge.
‘Tell Liza to get the disinfectant baths ready for the children. The girls first, and then the boys. I have some suitable clothes for them to wear for now; all their own garments must be washed and boiled before they can be used again. Go to it, honey, while I see to them.’
‘But Mom, they’ll infect the whole house.’
‘They’re babies, Celia, and they’re scared. Go, honey, and don’t make them feel worse than they do already.’
She walked towards the children, seeing how they huddled together. Skye had already been through a war, and fleas and lice held no fears for her. There were worse things. Any infestation obviously had to be dealt with quickly, but the most important thing was to reassure these infants that they were safe here.
‘Let me guess your names,’ she began with a smile.
‘You don’t need to do that, missis,’ Tommy said rudely, jabbing a finger at his name label as if she was stupid.
‘Oh, of course I don’t,’ Skye said. ‘How silly of me to forget. Well, then, do you know who I am?’
They didn’t answer, clearly silenced by the size of the lovely old house and grounds, so different from the crowded slum streets of London where they had all been born.
‘It’s Mrs Pen-something,’ Daphne said at last. ‘The lady said we was to call you Mrs Pen.’
‘Well done,’ Skye said. ‘So now that we all know one another, let’s go inside the house and get you bathed, and than we’ll have something nice and hot to eat, shall we?’
‘I don’t need no bath,’ Tommy yelled at her. ‘I ’ad one last week. I just want me tea.’
‘Mary needs a bath,’ Daphne said importantly. ‘She’s gawn and wet ’erself again, but I can see to ’er.’
Dear Lord, thought Skye, eyeing the smallest one properly for the first time. The child was practically dripping by now, and none of them smelled too sweet. A hot bath was definitely a priority, but from the look of Tommy Lunn’s face he was going to run a mile if he didn’t have something to eat first. She made up her mind.
‘Right. We’ll change Mary out of those wet things in the outhouse, then go into the kitchen for some cake and lemonade, and then a bath, and then some proper dinner. All right?’
There was no way she could take Mary into the kitchen. She knew that Cook would throw a fit at the smell. The outhouse would have to do, and Mary could be wrapped in a large towel to eat her food while the offending knickers and woollen stockings remained well out of sight and smell.
* * *
A very long while later, four scrubbed, de-loused and well-fed children examined the rooms where they were to sleep.
‘I ain’t never slept in a room by meself,’ Daphne said uneasily, her bravado finally cracking as she surveyed Wenna’s old bedroom. ‘There was five of us in one bed at home, top to tail, me Ma called it. Can’t I sleep wiv the others?’
‘I ain’t sleeping wiv girls,’ Butch said at once.
‘Then Butch can have this room, and the other three can have the old nursery,’ Skye said, revising all her plans.
‘Nurseries are for babies,’ Tommy argued at once.
‘Well, providing you don’t behave like one, it won’t matter, will it?’ Skye said crisply, getting his measure far sooner that Celia had.
* * *
‘You were wonderful, Mom,’ Celia told her when they finally had some time to themselves. ‘I must admit I panicked when I saw them, but you seemed to know just how to handle them.’
‘That’s because I’ve had three of my own, honey.’
And by now, if things hadn’t gone so horribly wrong, there would have been another babe of my own in the nursery…
She pushed the thought aside as Celia went on, ‘Were we ever this bad? So aggressive and so ready to argue about everything?’
Skye’s blue eyes sparkled as she looked at her daughter.
‘Oh, honey, I assure you that you were – and you in particular! I’ll never forget the little scenes at Lily’s wedding, when you and Wenna were bridesmaids. You hated everything and everyone, especially your cousin Sebby, who you always referred to as a prize pig.’
Celia laughed too. ‘My God, Mom, do you have to remember everything! I hope you’re not including those kind of personal incidents in the history you’re writing about the family. I’d be mortified if you did.’
‘Don’t worry, darling. I’m keeping strictly to business matters and the background of the clayworks. Even so, a business doesn’t exist without the people who worked so hard to make it a success. I still sometimes wonder if I’ll ever write it, though,’ she added.
‘Why ever not?’
Skye shrugged. ‘Things have a habit of happening to prevent my giving enough attention to it. Like a war, for instance. There are so many more important things to do than writing up the memoirs of a business that doesn’t even belong in the family any more.’
‘But isn’t that just why you should? It’s what Daddy thinks, and what David Kingsley is always urging you to do.’
‘David’s a newspaperman, and he’s always wanted me to get back to work with him in some capacity or other. But in any case, I’ll have my hands full with those four upstairs now.’
As if to underline her words, the sound of wailing was heard again, and she gave a sigh. As Celia made to get up, Skye put a hand on her arm.
‘Leave it to me, honey. You’ll only lose your temper, and that will get us nowhere.’
Celia knew it was true, but she watched her mother’s still trim figure move towards the stairs with a small feeling of anxiety in her heart.
Actually, Skye could have refused to foster four children and taken only three, but she hadn’t demurred at all, and Celia suspected she was doing it as a kind of substitute for losing her own late-stage baby last year. She had insisted on including a very young child, which many other families didn’t want, so Celia concluded it could only be so.
* * *
Her stepfather found her staring into space when he came home that evening. By then she had carefully pulled the black-out curtains until she was sure that no chink of light could escape, before switching on the lamps in the drawing room.
Nick Pengelly peered around the door in mock fearfulness.
‘Have they invaded us then? Is it safe to come in?’
Celia laughed. ‘They’re here all right, and Mom’s upstairs with them, trying to pacify the smallest one.’
‘And do I take it that all went well, apart from that?’ he said cautiously.
She shrugged. ‘I guess so. I still think Mom’s taking on far too much. She shouldn’t have to be bothered with other people’s children at her age—’
‘She’s not ancient yet, darling, and she won’t thank you for doubting her abilities.’
‘I know. And I shouldn’t begrudge the poor little devils a decent home. I did, though, when I began to itch,’ she added with a shudder. ‘They were practically alive with lice.’
‘Good God. I hope you’ve sorted that out,’ Nick said.
‘We have. We’re all bathed, and their clothes are either burned or boiled.’
It was some time later when Skye came downstairs to join them, glad to find her husband home from his legal chambers in Bodmin, and already pouring her a glass of wine.
‘They’re settled,’ she said, in answer to his unspoken question. ‘It was Mary who was the noisy one, of course, but once she was asleep I realised Daphne was weeping into her pillow and needed the most comforting.’
‘What?’ Celia said in amazement. ‘I thought she was the toughest little nut of all.’
‘Not deep down.’ She turned to Nick, not yet ready to tell them just how much agonised outpouring Daphne Hollis had revealed to her. ‘So now
we have a houseful again, honey.’
He raised his own glass to her. ‘And here’s to all who sail in her,’ he said euphemistically. ‘Let’s hope there aren’t too many stormy waters ahead.’
Celia groaned. ‘That’s the feeblest thing I ever heard.’
‘And that reminds me,’ Nick went on, unperturbed, ‘have you seen the newspaper today? Food rationing’s going to be stepped up, and it will soon apply to meat as well as butter, bacon and sugar. I hope your little darlings have brought their ration books with them.’
‘It’s all taken care of, Nick,’ Skye assured him. ‘Cook’s already ingeniously planning new dishes that will make the most of what we’ve got, and seeing it as her life’s work.’
‘I wonder if this might be a good time to mention my life’s work – or at least, a little bit of it?’ Celia said. ‘I said I’d help out here for a time, and so I will. But Mom, while everyone else is doing war work, I can’t sit around twiddling my thumbs. The children will be in school all day except Mary, and I’ll willingly take them and fetch them. But in between those times, I’m thinking of applying to be a tram conductress in Truro now that most of the men have joined up.’
‘Good God, Celia,’ Nick said angrily, just as she had anticipated, ‘you’ve been to a Swiss finishing school and become an expert linguist. We didn’t send you there for you to become a tram conductress, for God’s sake!’
‘Then let me enlist properly if you’re so snobbish about it. I daresay my qualifications will be useful in some capacity,’ she snapped.
‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Your mother needs you here.’
‘Does anyone mind if I speak for myself?’ Skye said, just as angry as the two of them. ‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after children, and Celia must do what she feels is right.’
‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know what I feel is right,’ her daughter muttered. ‘I only know I feel useless.’
‘You’re anything but that!’
‘But it’s how I feel, Dad,’ she said, rounding on him. ‘And people are starting to look at me as if I’m one of the privileged few—’
‘Well, so you are, Celia,’ he said. ‘Your mother’s family provided this house and the legacy of the clayworks, to say nothing of the successful pottery she founded. And I’ve always been able to give you children the best education.’
She gave a heavy sigh. ‘I might have known you wouldn’t understand. It takes more than an up-country accent to make someone acceptable today. In fact, I’m beginning to think it’s the very thing that sets you apart in a community like ours.’
Nick’s eyes flashed. ‘Well, don’t start talking like your Uncle Theo, or like that friend of your mother’s in London, that’s all, or I might just disown you.’
He was teasing, and she knew it, but it was on the tip of her tongue to say that right here in his house he had four little Londoners who used far less than perfect diction, and probably knew more choice blasphemies than even Theo Tremayne did! But of course, he hadn’t met the children yet, and that was a delight still to come, Celia thought mischievously.
She turned to her mother.
‘So do I have your blessing to call at the tram company tomorrow and offer my services, Mom?’
‘If it makes you happy, honey, then of course you do,’ Skye said at once.
But they both knew it would take far more than that to make Celia happy. It would take an end to the war that had barely begun, and a resumption of the heady life she had only just started to glimpse with Stefan von Gruber.
* * *
They both took the children to enrol at their new school the following day, knowing what an ordeal it would be for them. There were plenty of other evacuees there too, but they all stood out like sore thumbs from the local children and each faction stuck together warily at the sight of the others. To the Cornish children, it was clearly as great an invasion of aliens as if the Germans themselves had landed.
‘You’d think children would all get along, wouldn’t you?’ Celia said to her mother. ‘Somehow you don’t expect them to have the same reservations as adults have.’
‘Why not? They’re as individual as we are, and they all have their own personalities.’
‘Some more than others,’ Celia added darkly, remembering how the self-assured Daphne Hollis had begun to assert herself as a leader among her own, even before she had been introduced to her class teacher.
‘Well, we have some time to forget them, so since we’re in town, let’s call on Lily for half an hour,’ Skye suggested.
‘Do you think Lily will approve of this one?’ Celia asked, raising her eyebrows at the sulking Mary as they walked back to the car, having just managed to stop her wailing at having been left behind while all the others went to school. Celia was quite sure she hadn’t wanted to go, anyway, but now the small girl was all alone with two strangers who she was perfectly prepared not to like, and was determined to show it in the most eloquent way she knew.
‘Have you wet yourself again, Mary?’ Celia asked her.
‘Only a bit,’ she sulked.
‘Never mind, honey,’ Skye said cheerfully. ‘We’ll soon have you nice and dry again.’
‘Me Ma says it’s only cricket’s piss, anyway,’ Mary said, then without warning her eyes filled with tears while the other two were still gasping at this stunning statement.
‘When can I see me Ma, missis? I want me Ma,’ she howled.
‘Good grief, if the billeting committee hear all that noise they’ll think we’re beating her,’ Skye said uneasily. ‘Let’s get to Lily’s as fast as we can, Celia.’
‘And I’ll leave you there while I go to the tram company, if that’s all right.’
The less she had to deal with the fractious Mary, the better, she decided, and in any case, her mother was so much more tolerant than she was. During the months Celia had lived in New Jersey on the fruit farm, she had been able to deal with the brash and noisy Stone siblings, but that was over a year ago, and she knew she had changed since then.
Just before war had been declared, she had been able to meet Stefan for one brief week in Gstaad, and their love had been as strong as ever despite having been so long apart. But there was no guarantee that they would ever meet again, and Celia was now more moody and impatient than she had ever been. The fact that she fully recognised it didn’t help to conquer it.
An hour later she arrived back at her cousin Lily’s riverside house and pottery shop in Truro, having signed on as a tram conductress for six days a week, with Thursday afternoons free. The pay was ludicrous, but it wasn’t the pay she was after, just the need to be useful.
She entered the shop and paused in astonishment at the sound of laughter coming from the upper storey of the building where the family lived. The shop assistant told her they were all in Mrs Kingsley’s living room, so Celia followed the sounds and went to find them.
‘Am I in the right place?’ she said, poking her head around the door.
‘Celia, come in,’ Lily said with obvious pleasure. Lily was always happy with her company, seeing in Celia an echo of her own strong-willed character in the days when she had been a strident suffragette and proud of it.
‘Where’s Mary?’ Celia said at once. ‘What have you done with her, Mom?’
She hardly needed to ask. Lily’s twin boys were eight years old, and home from school on the pretext of having colds. From being such a stalwart in days past, Lily was far too indulgent a mother, Celia thought, but the boys were obviously making a pet of Mary, and she was revelling in it.
Peace at last, Celia thought, as she relayed the news of her new position within the tram company.
‘Good for you,’ Lily said. ‘We all have to do something, and if I was twenty years younger I’d join up like a shot.’
‘We did our bit in the last war,’ Skye said quickly.
‘But if they decided to conscript women as well as young men, there’d be no choice,’ Celia said, far too casual
ly.
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that, honey. The war won’t last for ever.’
‘I bet that’s what you said last time, didn’t you?’
In the small silence that followed, the three of them looked at one another, and then Robert and Frederick Kingsley came shrieking into the room, with Mary chasing them as fast as her little legs would go.
‘Mind the ornaments,’ Lily yelled too late as a pottery vase shook and teetered on a side table and then went crashing to the carpet. It didn’t break, but it stopped the children running around and brought a hunted look to Mary’s eyes.
‘Me Ma would’ve beat me for doin’ that,’ she announced.
‘Well, nobody gets beaten here,’ Lily said firmly. ‘Nothing’s broken and you can carry on playing, but just do it more quietly.’
Mary studied her for a moment. ‘I like you, missis,’ she said, and as an aside she added, ‘better’n anybody so far.’
‘Well, that’s telling us,’ Skye breathed, trying not to laugh. ‘Anyway, never mind them. I haven’t seen anything of Oliver for several weeks, Lily. Remind him he’s got a home of his own now and then, will you?’
‘I do, constantly, but you know what he and David are like once they get their heads together in the evenings. Sometimes I wonder why they bother to come home from the newspaper office at all, and why they don’t take their beds there and be done with it.’
‘I know what you mean, but Nick would like to see his son occasionally,’ Skye said mildly, trying not to mind that Olly obviously preferred the company of this easy-going family to his own.
‘I’ll tell him,’ Lily promised.
For a moment she hesitated as if she would say more, and then decided it wouldn’t do to worry Skye unduly.
Chapter Two
Betsy Tremayne wasn’t one to fly off into a temper without good cause. She left that to her volatile husband, Theo. Between his bouts of gout and his natural bad humour, there was rarely a day when the house wasn’t in some kind of an uproar. There were times when Betsy thought wistfully of the comparatively peaceful days when Sebby and Justin were small boys, with the innocent ability to smooth things over even better than she could herself. Not that such sentiments had applied in recent years, she conceded. Nothing pleased Theo these days. But this was the last straw.
A Brighter Tomorrow Page 2