The War I Finally Won

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  “No,” I said. I felt a little uncomfortable. “She wanted to share. She just went ahead and did everything without asking me.”

  Maggie nodded. “I know. She’s always like that.” She sat down on the edge of her bed. “What do you want? I think we should both use the coverlets. That way our beds would match. Like we were sisters.”

  “Sisters?”

  Maggie scowled. “Don’t sound so horrified. I always wanted a sister.”

  I never thought about having a sister.

  “I don’t mind the coverlet,” I said, “if we can get rid of those lace things around the beds.”

  “The dust ruffles? Deal.”

  • • •

  Maggie and I rode out together to the top of our lookout hill. It was lovely to have company on my rides again. “I missed you,” I said.

  Maggie nodded. She scanned the sea from side to side, the way we always did, checking for spies. “I missed you too,” she said. “I miss everything. School’s wretched in wartime. I’d give anything to be home.

  “Three girls have gotten telegrams so far,” she continued. “There’s this long drive from the road leading up to the school, and you can see the whole of it from every classroom window. Whenever the telegraph boy turns down the drive, all of us are watching him by the time he gets to the door. We all stand at the windows, not breathing, hoping his message isn’t for us.”

  I’d seen a messenger bicycling around the village. I said, “When Mam died I got a letter, not a telegram.”

  “The military sends telegrams,” Maggie said. “Sometimes they say wounded or missing in action. The three that came to our school all said dead. Two brothers and a father.” She paused. “We watch the boy bicycling up the drive and then the head calls someone out of class and we all know what’s happened. And we’re just glad it wasn’t us that was called. We don’t feel sad as much as relieved. It’s horrible.”

  Jonathan wasn’t my brother and I still worried about him. I couldn’t imagine having to think about telegrams and Jamie.

  “Getting a telegram here would be just as bad as getting one at school,” I said.

  Maggie turned to me. Her eyes looked dark in her pinched face. “That’s not true,” she said.

  • • •

  When we got home there was a letter waiting for Maggie. I looked at it anxiously but Maggie’s face lit up. “It’s from my grandmother!” she said. “From Scotland!”

  Ruth spun around. For one brief moment her face glowed with joy. Her expression fell so quickly into her usual solemnity that I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. “Oh,” she said, “your grandmother. Not mine.” She turned and went up the stairs. I heard her lock her bedroom door.

  Maggie was laughing. “My grandmother’s got a bunch of evacuees staying with her,” she said. “A whole dozen boys. She says it’s worse than when my father and his brothers were small.”

  Maggie’s grandmother in Scotland was Lord Thorton’s mother. Maggie had explained it to me. Before the war, Maggie used to visit her every summer and every Christmas.

  Grandmothers sounded cozy. But so did mothers, and my mother had been dreadful. It was hard to imagine how my grandmother might have been. Anyhow, Susan had made inquiries. No one knew of any other family for Jamie and me.

  • • •

  At dinnertime I asked Ruth, “Are you expecting a letter from your grandmother?”

  Ruth shrugged. “My mother says there is still hope.”

  She hunched over her plate and wouldn’t say anything more.

  Chapter 26

  “Can’t I stay here?” Maggie asked her mother, the day before she had to return to school. “Susan could teach me like she teaches Ada and Jamie.”

  “Of course not,” Lady Thorton said. “We must not impose.”

  “Susan wouldn’t mind,” Maggie said. “You could pay her.”

  Lady Thorton’s eyes flashed. “I think not.”

  “It would be fair.”

  “It’s out of the question,” Lady Thorton said. “You’re far safer at school. I nearly didn’t let you come home for your holiday.”

  Maggie’s mouth dropped open. “That would have been dreadful.”

  Lady Thorton sipped her tea. “It would have been prudent,” she said.

  • • •

  I looked it up. Prudent: acting with or showing care and thought for the future. I read the definition to Maggie.

  “Oh, please,” Maggie said. “She just doesn’t want to have to deal with me herself. Her life’s easier when I’m gone.” She hugged me. “Take care of her for me.”

  “Me, take care of your mother?”

  Maggie nodded. “Someone should.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I wouldn’t know how. Besides, she’d never let me.” Also, it was all I could do to take care of myself and Jamie and Susan. I didn’t have room in my head to worry about Lady Thorton.

  “Just keep an eye on her, is what I mean,” Maggie said. “Write me if you notice anything odd.”

  I doubted I would notice anything new that was odd about Lady Thorton. Everything about her seemed odd to me.

  “Please,” Maggie said.

  I nodded. “I’ll try.”

  • • •

  Without Maggie the house felt empty again. I missed her snoring in the bed across from mine. I missed having someone to ride with.

  I told Fred about Ruth. He spat on the ground. “We don’t want Germans here,” he said.

  “She’s just a girl,” I said. “She’s younger than the Land Girls.” The Land Girls worked on the Thortons’ home farm, in place of workmen who’d joined the army. Fred didn’t like them. “She’s Jewish,” I added. “Does that make a difference?”

  Fred looked at me down the side of his nose. After a long pause, he nodded. “Some.”

  • • •

  Ruth loved horses. I didn’t think someone who loved horses could do us harm.

  “That’s a logical fallacy,” Susan said when I told her. “Hitler himself could love horses for all we know.”

  Fallacy: a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.

  “So Judaism is a fallacy?” I brought my dictionary down to the sitting room.

  Lady Thorton laughed. I didn’t know why.

  “Of course not,” Susan said. “Religious beliefs are complicated. You can’t call someone else’s religion a mistake.”

  I didn’t see why not. I did see that it was complicated.

  “There isn’t a right and a wrong,” Susan said. “There are just different ways of thinking.”

  “I think Mam’s in heaven,” Jamie said. He’d been playing on the floor with Bovril. I hadn’t thought he was listening.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I think she went to hell.” Fred had told me about hell. It was the opposite of heaven, the place bad people went when they died. In hell Mam’s soul would burn for all eternity. Forever.

  “Ada,” Susan said, “we don’t know that. We can never know that. Your mother was clearly incapacitated.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Susan considered. “The root word comes from capacity, which means being able to hold. Your mother wasn’t able to take proper care of you. She didn’t have the ability to do it.”

  “Maybe she just didn’t want to.”

  Susan said, “I don’t think anyone wants to be a horrible person. I also like to think that God shows mercy.”

  “What’s mercy?” I sounded angry. I was.

  Jamie said, “Being nicer than you should be.”

  I had no idea how he knew that. Susan nodded. “Yes. Mercy means that you have the ability and the right to hurt someone, or punish them, and you choose not to. Maybe it would be right for God to punish your mother, for the way she treated you. But maybe God ch
ooses mercy. I like to hope so.”

  I picked at the dry skin around my fingernails. Susan hated it when I did that. “Why?” I asked.

  She sighed. “Perhaps because I’ve always wanted mercy for myself. Or perhaps I just think it would be kinder. Ada, your mother can’t hurt you now. She can never hurt you again.”

  She could, though. Mam had never loved me and never would. That would hurt forever.

  Jamie dropped Bovril into my lap. “Everyone loves everyone once they get to heaven,” he said.

  Bovril jumped down. He stalked away, twitching his tail. It would take getting to heaven for Bovril to love me.

  Chapter 27

  Lady Thorton hated Ruth and Ruth hated all of us. Not that I blamed her. A few days after Maggie left, in the middle of another silent, awkward meal, Ruth took a swallow of water, then belched. I could tell it was an accident, not an impertinence, but Lady Thorton rolled her eyes and sighed as though belching Germans were far too much for her to bear.

  “Oh, stop it!” I said. “Ruth can’t help belching, but you can help the rude noises you make!”

  Lady Thorton lowered her chin, looked down her nose at me, and glared. “I hardly think—”

  A sudden crash shook the table. I jumped. It came from Susan—Susan—who’d picked up her plate and slammed it down hard. “Ada’s right,” she said calmly. “Eleanor. You can help the noises you make. Also, I will not continue to be the referee in this house. Nor the sole cook, nor the tweeny. Nor do I wish to live in the middle of a battlefield. Bad enough there’s a war outside our home. We don’t need a war inside as well.”

  Lady Thorton’s mouth formed a thin grim line. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I don’t believe so,” Susan said. “When Becky died I thought I was doing the best I could too. Then the children arrived and it turned out I could do better. It wasn’t easy, but I could do it.” She stood. “Let’s take a walk,” she said to Lady Thorton. “You and I. Children, when you’re finished eating I expect all three of you to do the evening work in a calm and cooperative manner.” She grabbed Lady Thorton by the elbow and walked her out the door.

  Jamie, Ruth, and I stared. Jamie said, “Cor.”

  When we finished eating, Ruth cleared her place, then started to walk up the stairs. “No,” I said. “You heard Susan. Come back here and help.”

  Ruth sniffed. “I’m supposed to study, not do housework.”

  I said, “I do both.”

  Ruth said, “That’s because you live here.”

  Ruth lived here too, as far as I could tell. “Wash or dry?” I asked. “Jamie’s going to bring in coal.”

  Ruth looked at me. She folded her arms across her chest. I folded my arms across mine. Finally, Ruth looked away. “Dry,” she said, and did.

  • • •

  Susan and Lady Thorton returned while I was taking my bath. I came downstairs in my pajamas and dressing gown. “Ready for our story?” Susan asked. Jamie was curled up beside her. Lady Thorton sat as usual in her wing-backed chair, knitting a stocking. Her face was flat and calm.

  I wasn’t sure what to think. Susan sounded normal now, but at dinner she had not been normal. I felt anxious. “Are you finished being angry?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “and you survived it. You’re okay.”

  Maybe.

  “Tomorrow,” Lady Thorton said, “you and I are doing the shopping, Ada. Together.”

  • • •

  Next morning Susan taught us, the way she always did.

  Lady Thorton came down late. “Good morning, Susan. Good morning, children. Ada. Jamie. Ruth.” She said Ruth’s name stiffly, but at least she didn’t sneer.

  Ruth glanced up from her textbook. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Ready, Ada?” Lady Thorton pulled on her gloves.

  In the village the women in the queue outside the butcher’s shop were all politeness toward Lady Thorton. If they were surprised to see her doing the shopping with me, they didn’t let on. We stood for an hour; when we finally reached the front of the queue the only choices left were beef shin bones or a ragged piece of liver.

  “Sorry,” the butcher said, wiping his hands on his grimy apron. “All I’ve got.”

  Lady Thorton peered into the glass case, then down at me. “Do you know how to cook liver?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Susan would.” I didn’t like liver; I thought it tasted muddy.

  Lady Thorton grimaced. “I told her you and I would make dinner tonight.”

  “I can do shin bones,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Really?” She shuddered. “I never thought of shin bones as something people actually ate.”

  I said to the butcher, “A shilling’s worth of the beef shins, please.”

  “You want them sliced like your mother gets them?”

  “Susan’s not my mother.”

  “Right,” said the butcher. “You want ’em sliced like she gets ’em?”

  Lady Thorton looked amused. I gave the butcher a dignified nod. “Please.”

  • • •

  At home Lady Thorton watched while I browned the shins in leftover dripping. She chopped carrots while I chopped celery and a slice of onion. Then I put the shins in a pan with water, added the chopped veg plus salt and pepper and some herbs and things, covered the whole mess, and stuck it into a slow oven.

  “That’s it?” Lady Thorton asked.

  “It takes a couple of hours to cook,” I said, “so we should put some potatoes in too, and maybe some apples.” In wartime you were never supposed to use your oven to cook only one dish. It wasted fuel.

  We found other things that could be baked and put them in the oven. “What next?” Lady Thorton asked.

  “I’ve got to go help Fred.” I couldn’t imagine Lady Thorton on the business end of a pitchfork. On either end, actually.

  Apparently, neither could she. “I want to finish some paperwork for the WVS,” she said. “We can just leave all this to cook?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s not so hard,” she said, with a wide smile.

  I knew she didn’t really feel cheerful. I knew she was pretending. I liked her better for being willing to pretend.

  As I pulled on my coat, Ruth came in from outside.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Stables. To do chores.”

  “Can I come?”

  I looked at Lady Thorton. She pursed her lips. I shook my head. “No.”

  • • •

  Beef shins are just about the least expensive kind of beef you can buy, but if you cook them right, they taste lovely. By the time I got home from the chores, the whole house smelled savory and good. I took the leftover oatmeal from breakfast, formed it into lumps, and dropped them into the stew’s gravy. Just as I hoped, they swelled and turned into something like dumplings. As I was finishing, Lady Thorton walked in.

  “Why didn’t you let me know you’d come back?” she asked. “I would have done that with you.”

  I hadn’t even thought about it. I wasn’t used to Lady Thorton helping in the kitchen. She said, almost apologetically, “It wasn’t ever part of my training to learn to cook, you know. When I was growing up, before the first war, girls of my class were expected to assume we would hire a cook.”

  I didn’t reply. Was I supposed to feel sorry for her? She wouldn’t have hired me to be her kitchen maid before the war. Not me nor any girl like me, who grew up poor in the London slums. I started to take the potatoes out of the oven, one by one, using a towel to protect my hands.

  Lady Thorton said, “I suppose where you grew up you often ate beef shin.”

  I said, “We could never afford beef shin. We were lucky to get bacon once a week.”

  Lady Thorton said sharply, “I wasn’t jo
king, Ada.”

  I straightened and looked her in the eye. “Neither was I.”

  She looked as uncomfortable as I’d ever seen her. After a long pause she said, “Was that true for your neighbors too?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. Most of them had fathers that worked, but most had more mouths to feed. Jamie wasn’t any skinnier than the rest of the kids his age.” Dirtier, maybe, but not skinnier.

  I sliced the potatoes open and arranged them on plates. Lady Thorton spooned beef shin stew over the steaming potatoes. “What about you?” she asked. “Were you worse off than Jamie?”

  Even now, thinking about it made me want to send my mind far away. “I stayed in the one room,” I said. “I never left it.”

  Lady Thorton paused, her spoon dripping stew. “Susan told me that once,” she said. “I didn’t believe her.”

  Susan always believed me about Mam.

  “I never thought a mother could be like that,” Lady Thorton said. “Cold, yes. I’ve known unaffectionate mothers. My own was quite remote. But not evil. What you describe is evil.”

  I said, “Susan said she was incapacitated.”

  Lady Thorton nodded. “Very much so.”

  That night, while we ate beef shin, Lady Thorton asked Ruth quite civilly how her studies were progressing. Ruth swallowed and returned a civil answer. Later as we were washing up I overheard Susan thank Lady Thorton for the meal.

  “Don’t thank me,” Lady Thorton said. “I’m beginning to learn how much I never realized I didn’t know.”

  Chapter 28

  Lady Thorton tried harder but she didn’t thaw all the way. She quit opening Ruth’s mail, but she always asked Ruth who her letters were from. If Lady Thorton had known how to read German, she would have insisted on reading them. “They’re all from my mother or my father,” Ruth said. “My mother’s have already been cleared by a censor. I told you. You don’t need to be afraid.”

  “I’m being cautious,” Lady Thorton said. “Of course I’m not afraid.”

  Ruth cut her eyes at me. I grinned. Of course Lady Thorton was afraid.