Until We Find Home

by Cathy Gohlke

  “It’s been a long time since children played tag or hide-and-seek in these halls, since children climbed the trees or played in the mazes or overran the orchard or the gardens.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep them quieter, less into things.”

  “Please stop apologizing. I’m not sorry. I only mean to say that it’s been too long. Raibeart—Dr. MacDonald—is right. This is the perfect place for children . . . and for me to have them. I’m glad they’re here.”

  Claire felt as if she might fall off her chair. To calm her nerves, she took a sip of tea and had nearly set the cup in its saucer when she boldly asked, without thinking, “And me? What about me?”

  Aunt Miranda turned and looked at her. Claire couldn’t read what she saw in her eyes. But she didn’t have long to wait. Her aunt moistened her lips. “You’re more difficult.”

  The frank rejection called up tears Claire hated but couldn’t control. What about me is so unlovable, so repulsive? “My mother found me difficult. It’s natural that you would.” Claire tried to make light but couldn’t stop the wells from overflowing.

  “You’ve misunderstood me again. We can’t keep doing this to one another, Claire.” Aunt Miranda shook her head. “It’s only that you look so much like him, so much like my Christopher.”

  “Again, I’m sorry, but I can’t help that.”

  “Of course not. It’s just that sometimes I see you, and for a moment—just a tiny moment—I think he’s here again.”

  “And then it’s just me.”

  “And then it’s you—not just you, but you. It’s you I must get to know and not expect you to be like him, not expect you to be him.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’d leave if I could.”

  “Which also makes me afraid to know you, to—to love you. I know you won’t stay longer than you must. I’m not sure how much more loss my heart can take.”

  Her aunt seemed to want some sort of response, but Claire still didn’t know what to say. To stay tortured her aunt. To leave frightened her. Leaving, if she couldn’t return to France, frightened Claire, too. Where can I go? Who wants me now?

  Aunt Miranda sighed. “That’s my problem, not yours. Your challenge is to face the life you have now and make the most of it.”

  “I’ve taken on the children as best I can, but I’m not a teacher.”

  “No, and it was unfair of me to expect it. Dr. MacDonald helped me see that we need more help in that department and the children need to continue their education. We’ve no idea how long they’ll need to remain here or what shape their future will take after the war.”

  Claire agreed wholeheartedly that more help was needed. Despite her desire to prove the perfect governess, she had little idea what she was doing. Getting more attached to the children terrified her. Claire refused to love another person who would surely walk away from her, who found life elsewhere more appealing, even if returning to their homes and parents was the most natural conclusion. But Aunt Miranda was right. Who knew what the world of these children would look like after the war or what would become of them? “I’m afraid for their parents.”

  “So am I, with good cause. But I also want what’s best for you.”

  “You do?”

  Her aunt smiled and shook her head as if she couldn’t understand Claire’s thickheadedness. “Of course I do.”

  Claire swallowed.

  “Dr. MacDonald has arranged for the children to join the evacuee school in the village weekday afternoons from one to five. There’s a teacher from Liverpool in charge of her own pupils then. She’s agreed to take ours as well.”

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “Yes, well, as long as the children are not disruptive and as long as their English is fluent and won’t hold the other children back.”

  Claire’s heart dropped. “I don’t know if Gaston can go an entire hour, let alone four, without being disruptive.”

  “He’ll need some coaching or the threat of no dinner if he misbehaves, but I’m certain he can learn. Food seems to be a powerful motivator for him. Aimee can spend the afternoons with Mrs. Newsome or with me after her nap. That will give you a bit of free time for yourself. I’ll need you to continue being a den mother to the children in the evenings, and you’ll need to work diligently with them in the mornings to improve their English and make certain their lessons are accomplished for school.”

  “Free time? For me?” Claire was certain she’d not heard correctly.

  Her aunt smiled knowingly. “I thought it might give you opportunity to dust off those literary ambitions of yours.”

  “I don’t know what to say—or how I would even do that.”

  “Say yes, and take this letter. Read it over. Britain has embarked on the Mass Observation Project. I think you’d make an excellent candidate for one of their writers.”

  “I’ve heard of that—the recording of daily lives—but I’m not even British. The few villagers I’ve met turn away the moment I open my mouth. There’s little love for Americans here.”

  “Well, they took me, and I’m American, though I’ve not been very faithful in my contributions for the last year. I think they’d find the observations of a young American woman caught up in the French Resistance absolutely fascinating.”

  Claire’s heart rose at the notion, then thudded. “I’m not doing anything about that now.”

  Aunt Miranda knelt before her, taking both Claire’s hands in her own. “Claire, look at what you are doing, not what you imagine you should be doing. Life is not a drama on the stage with cued entrances and exits; it’s messy and unpredictable.

  “You’re a den mother to five French children you rescued and will soon add who knows how many German children to that mix, some of them already orphans for all we know. What you’re doing is a desperately needed contribution to the war effort. It matters. You matter.”

  Claire felt her head spinning, confused both from the things Aunt Miranda said and from the strength she poured into her hands. “It’s only happening because you took them in—took me in.”

  Her aunt sat back on her heels. “So I have the privilege of being part of the story. You have the privilege of being part of the story, of writing it down from your own perspective.”

  Claire tried to comprehend that.

  “I dare you.” Aunt Miranda rose and resumed her seat. “Now, drink your tea.”

  Chapter Nine

  ON THE FIRST AFTERNOON, Claire walked the children to the village school and introduced herself to Miss McCoy. The teacher, shorter than Claire by a few inches, seemed similar in age, but much more sure of herself.

  “You’ll need to work with your children at home, Miss Stewart. I’ll not have them holding back my own students; is that clear?”

  “Perfectly.” Claire bristled, determined that “her” children would not hold anyone back, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she would ensure that academic achievement.

  That ought to have worried her, Claire knew, but from the moment Miss McCoy closed the school door in her face, she felt free—swept away and gloriously, giddily free. Four entire hours to do just as I please! She’d squandered time as a child with no idea of its meaning or value. But now, it was as if someone had handed her mountains of gold and she couldn’t imagine how to spend it, although the pen and sheets of lined paper planted in her pocket gave her a very good idea. She nearly skipped down the road to the village proper.

  She toured the village in search of a tea shop or a nook—a safe and quiet place to write—which took far less time than she’d hoped or imagined, especially since the local shopkeepers kept their eye on her as though she were bent on pocketing merchandise from their shelves.

  There was little to buy, which didn’t matter. The frosty, “Another American, eh?” from the greengrocer sent her scurrying, and truth be told, she had no money except for the shilling Aunt Miranda had given her to splurge on her afternoon of freedom with a cup of tea and a scone. Still, Claire did
her best to ignore the cold shoulders and luxuriate in the lazy browsing and walking alone, something she hadn’t done in ages.

  She looked for a bookstore but found the only books available at the chemist’s shop—few and of little interest. Claire realized four things: how differently the English viewed Americans than did the French, how difficult it was to find a quiet place to write, how desperately Windermere needed its own bookstore, and what a treasure trove her aunt’s library boasted. She’d taken too little advantage of it since her recuperation. If she was going to be here for the duration—though they all hoped that wouldn’t be long past Christmas—perhaps she’d best take note.

  Claire rounded the long walkway to the church guarded by wide-spreading yews, grateful for their shield from the all-seeing eyes of the vicar, and made her way to the cemetery. No stone rubbings today, for certain, but perhaps she could find a bench or some quiet place to write. Surely no one could object to that.

  Despite her earlier cemetery faux pas, Claire was comforted, even spellbound, by the old tombstones and their unique epitaphs. Many were older by far than any she’d seen growing up in Princeton.

  She’d long romanticized the idea of finding intriguing characters—at least their names—among the stones, and loved to imagine stories of the lives those people had lived, or the ones they might have lived had they taken different paths. She was glad now that she’d not shared that fancy with the disapproving Bertram.

  She spotted the tall monument near the far edge of the cemetery—the one she’d planned to investigate before Aimee’s screams. Claire glanced guiltily over her shoulder. As near as she could see, she was quite alone, so she pushed open the gate and headed for the solitary bench positioned near the graves—and the solitude to write. Only when she’d rounded a corner boxwood hedge could she read the name on the monument: Langford.

  Ripples of goosebumps ran up and down Claire’s arms and legs. She felt she’d inadvertently stepped on sacred ground. It was all sacred ground, she realized, but this was Aunt Miranda’s family, her family.

  Gilbert Langford

  Beloved husband and father

  Served his king and country well

  November 9, 1884—August 23, 1916

  This was the man her mother and aunt had fought over, had divided their tiny family over. You must have been someone quite special, Uncle.

  Claire kept staring at her uncle’s monument, almost afraid to move on. She knew whom the next stone would belong to:

  Christopher Langford

  Beloved son

  Served his king and country well

  April 12, 1914—November 17, 1939

  Ironic that the epitaphs are nearly the same, that they say next to nothing about the men they commemorate. Did Aunt Miranda write these, or was she so distraught that someone else chose these words for her? Bitter words, or bittersweet?

  And what of you, Arnaud? Are you alive and well, or are you buried somewhere in France—somewhere in the cold, dark ground? Claire knew her Arnaud would have no monument set above his plot, not if he’d been given a choice. He saw himself as one of the people of France and would not want what he would surely label a bourgeois monument.

  If he’d died in a German prison, would there even be a stone to mark his grave, a place for her to visit in years to come? Or would the Nazis have thrown him into an unmarked mass grave? There were rumors of such in Poland, even before she’d left France.

  Claire sat on the low stone bench, the heaviness of the place a weight on her spirit. Where are you, Arnaud? What’s become of you?

  Where the afternoon went, Claire wasn’t sure. The air turned cooler as the shadows lengthened. Sorry she’d not brought a jacket, Claire pulled her cardigan tight about her chest and began her trek back up the long hill, sadder, more sober than when she’d walked down.

  She passed the village school just as the students turned out for the day. Gaston burst through the door, delighted to be set free. Claire smiled. He seemed as glad to walk beside her as she was to have him, a young boy living and breathing and full of chatter and teacher imitations bordering on the disrespectful. Perhaps this life—this joy of life—is what Aunt Miranda has been missing, what she’s decided is good about having us all here.

  Perhaps, Claire considered, it’s good for me, too.

  The German evacuees had been scheduled to arrive in October, the day after the bombing of the east end of the Henry VII Chapel in London’s Westminster Abbey, and the day they learned of a German prisoner escaped from the nearby POW camp. The three impossible events became, in Mrs. Newsome’s mind, inseparably linked.

  Mr. Dunnagan brought the news to Lady Miranda at the breakfast table. “No doubt about it, my lady, a German prisoner of war escaped from Grizedale Hall earlier this month. Hidin’ among the fells and in caves and such, he was.”

  “Is he still at large?” Lady Langford drew her fingers to her throat.

  “Nothing to worry there, my lady. A farmer over the way caught him sleepin’ in his barn—took ’im by surprise a week or more ago. By the time he telephoned the authorities, the scoundrel’d got away again, but they caught him for good and all last night. He’s locked up tight and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve sent ’im off to a higher security prison. Grizedale Hall’s not much of a fortress, if you ask me.”

  “Have they many prisoners there?” Bertram wanted to know.

  “That I don’t know . . . except to say they’re mostly naval officers and those nabbed off captured submarines and such. They’re callin’ it the U-Boat Hotel. Fancy that!”

  “Why have we not heard of this before now? We could have all been taken unawares.”

  “That’s just what the locals are sayin’, my lady—up in arms they are, and demandin’ to be kept abreast of such things in future. The officer from the hall said he didn’t want to alarm the village.”

  Mrs. Newsome plunked another bowl of porridge on the sideboard. “It’s more alarming by far to think we could all be murdered in our beds because we don’t know—”

  “Mrs. Newsome, please, the children.”

  Mrs. Newsome straightened the toast on the rack. It was very well for her lady to hush her, but Claire and the children should think of these things. What if one of them is accosted on their walk to and from the village school, or in the woods or orchards, where they’ve all taken to roaming freely?

  “You don’t suppose those prisoners will try to make contact with the German evacuees coming here, do you?” Gaston wanted to know.

  “What a stupid thing to say,” Bertram reprimanded his younger brother. “The evacuees are children—like you.”

  “Like us!” Gaston retorted. “You’re a children, too!”

  “Boys!” Lady Miranda admonished. “That’s quite enough. May I remind you that we will welcome the children arriving today in the same way you wished to be welcomed.”

  After breakfast Elise stood beside Mrs. Newsome as she scraped the plates.

  “They’re Jewish, these new children coming today?”

  “Yes, they are, like you. And like you, they’ve been through a great deal already in Germany—perhaps more than we guess—and are likely to still be afraid. They might find it hard to trust us at first. We’ll all be strangers to them. We must remember that and be patient with them. They’ve had to leave their first English homes along the coast because of the German bombing.”

  “But they are Germans,” Elise ventured.

  “Yes.”

  “Then . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we trust them?” she whispered.

  Mrs. Newsome wondered the same thing, though she was ashamed to say so. It was nothing more than a feeling born of fear of Hitler and his hateful swarm of bomb-wielding Messerschmitts that terrorized England night and day, but a feeling just the same. Still, it wouldn’t do to pass her fears to Elise.

  “These are children, Elise, escaping the claws of the Nazis, just like you young ones from France. They’
ll be missing their parents fiercely, just as you miss yours. We must be very kind indeed to them and make them feel at home.”

  Elise nodded uncertainly.

  Mrs. Newsome didn’t blame her. It was hard to understand, this war and the throwing together of refugees from hither and yon. Mrs. Newsome hardly understood it herself, could barely separate her inclinations and prejudices from facts. How could she expect a child to do so? “I believe we’ll all get on once we’ve gotten to know one another. Dr. MacDonald will be bringin’ them by this afternoon, so you’ll meet up after school. Perhaps I’ll ask Mrs. Creedle to prepare us a little welcome tea. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Elise nodded, smiling tentatively.

  Mrs. Newsome stroked the little girl’s hair and gave her back a pat, sending her on her way. She hoped that all she’d said was true and that her own fears were unfounded.

  Lady Langford asked Mrs. Newsome to combine the boys into one large dormitory room and the girls into another, despite the vehement protestations of the French children.

  “There’ll be no national divisions in this household; do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly, Madame Langford.” Gaston crossed his arms, pouting. “But there is a line that cannot be crossed.”

  Bertram sent his brother a look Miranda classified as “daggers.”

  “No Maginot Line here, Gaston; just remember that. These children are in the same plight as you were when you came, and I expect you to make them at home and welcome, as I did you.”

  Gaston colored slightly, but did not nod in agreement. He simply looked the other way.

  Miranda thought it best to introduce the German children to Claire and the French children in the library, just before tea. As Miranda introduced Claire and Mrs. Newsome to the newcomers, the two groups of children stood off like small armies, neither giving the other a welcome or acknowledgment, but sizing up their new housemates as if planning military strategy.

  “My name is Peter, and I am thirteen—I will soon be fourteen.” The tall and muscular teen gave a small bow, eyeing Bertram with an air of superiority, then clamped his hand on the shoulder of a younger boy. “This is my brother, Jo—”