Poppy's War

by Lily Baxter

  Poppy twisted round in her chair to see a maid wearing a black dress with a white cap and apron standing in the doorway.

  ‘Mrs Carroll wants to see you and the evacuee in the drawing room as soon as she’s been fed and bathed.’

  Mrs Toon tossed her head causing her white cap to sit askew on top of her silver-grey hair. ‘All right, Olive. She’s nearly finished her food. You’d better take her up to the bathroom and watch your cousin Violet. That girl’s got a spiteful streak in her nature and I don’t want her trying to drown young Poppy here. Mrs Carroll wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Mrs Carroll says to burn the evacuee’s clothes because they’ll probably be – you know.’ She winked and nodded her head, lowering her voice. ‘She says to find some of Miss Pamela’s old clothes and see if they fit.’

  ‘As if I haven’t got enough to do.’ Mrs Toon clicked her tongue against her teeth. She sighed. ‘Dinner to prepare and an evacuee to feed and clothe; I just haven’t got the time to go poking about in Miss Pamela’s room. You’ll have to do that, Olive.’

  Poppy leapt to her feet. ‘You ain’t going to burn my clothes. My mum sent me with my Sunday best and I haven’t got fleas. It’s only poor folk’s kids that have fleas, not people who live in Quebec Road, West Ham.’

  Olive reached out a long, thin arm and grabbed Poppy by the scruff of her neck. ‘Less of your cheek, young lady. Mind your manners or Mrs Carroll will send you back to London to be bombed by them Germans.’

  Poppy felt her heart kick against her ribs. If Olive had punched her in the stomach it couldn’t have hurt more. ‘They won’t bomb West Ham, will they?’

  ‘Why do you think the government sent all you kids out to pester us in the country? Silly girl!’ Olive gave her a shove towards the door. ‘Now get up the stairs and we’ll make sure you haven’t brought any little lodgers with you.’

  After an excruciating time half submerged in what felt like boiling water while Violet scrubbed her back with a loofah that felt more like a handful of barbed wire and Olive shampooed her hair, digging her fingers spitefully into Poppy’s scalp, she was eventually deemed to be clean enough to be taken down to the drawing room. Dressed in clothes that were expensive but at least two sizes too large for her small frame, Poppy waited nervously outside the door while Olive went inside to announce that she was ready for inspection. Moments later she reappeared. ‘Go in. Speak only when you’re spoken to.’

  Poppy entered the room as nervously as if she were venturing into a cage filled with wild animals. Mrs Carroll was seated in a large blue velvet armchair with her feet raised up on a tapestry-covered footstool. In one elegantly manicured hand she held a glass of sherry and between two fingers on the other hand she balanced her cigarette holder. She was talking to a thin, white-haired man seated in a chair on the opposite side of the huge fireplace. She stopped speaking to stare at Poppy. ‘She looks cleaner, Olive. It’s fortunate that I hadn’t found time to send Miss Pamela’s old clothes off to the orphanage. They fit Poppy quite nicely, considering she’s so small and thin.’

  Olive bobbed a curtsey. ‘Mrs Toon would like to know where she’s to put her, ma’am.’

  Mrs Carroll took a sip of sherry and sighed. ‘I don’t know. There must be a spare room in the servants’ quarters.’

  A sharp intake of breath told Poppy that this suggestion was not popular with Olive.

  ‘The ones that aren’t used have been shut up for years, ma’am.’

  The kindly-looking gentleman had been silent until now but he frowned, shaking his head. ‘You can’t put the child up there, Marina. What about the old nursery?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Edwin. Pamela will need to put Rupert in there when they come to stay.’

  ‘Well, just for the time being then, my dear. The girl will feel more at home in the children’s room.’

  Poppy cast him a grateful look. He seemed nice and had kind eyes.

  ‘So you are Poppy Brown,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘How do you do, Poppy? My name is Edwin Carroll.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, mister.’ Poppy gave his hand a shake and thought how soft his skin was, not a bit like Dad’s which was calloused by years of manual labour.

  Marina Carroll groaned audibly. ‘The reply to how do you do is simply how do you do, Poppy. Not pleased to meet you.’

  The lines on Edwin’s forehead knotted together in a frown. ‘I think the lessons in etiquette might wait until the child has settled in, Marina.’ His eyes, magnified by the thick lenses, smiled kindly at Poppy. ‘Now you go with Olive, Poppy, and she’ll make you comfortable in the nursery. Tomorrow we’ll have a chat and you can tell me all about your family in, where was it? Caterham?’

  ‘West Ham, Edwin,’ Marina snapped. ‘Take her away, Olive. We’ll have dinner at eight o’clock whether Guy gets home on time or not.’

  ‘Yes’m.’ Olive seized Poppy by the arm and dragged her out of the room.

  Mrs Toon said she was too busy with dinner to think about minor details like Poppy’s comfort and she put Olive and Violet in charge of settling Poppy in the old nursery.

  Grumbling all the way, Olive trudged up three flights of stairs with the reluctant Violet carrying a pile of clean bed linen and Poppy following wearily carrying nothing but her gas mask and toothbrush, which was all that was left after Mrs Toon had incinerated her few possessions in the thing they called an Aga.

  Olive and Violet made up a bed in the night nursery. After a great deal of bickering and a little half-hearted flapping around with a duster, they agreed that they had done enough for one day, and Olive flounced out of the room followed by Violet, who popped her head back around the door and poked her tongue out at Poppy. ‘Sleep tight, Popeye. Don’t worry about the ghost. The white lady don’t do much more than tug off the bedclothes and throw things about the room.’

  The door slammed shut and Poppy remained motionless listening to their footsteps retreating down the staircase, and then silence closed in around her. She was unused to quietness. In the cramped living conditions of number 18 Quebec Road, the house reverberated with the sound of men’s deep voices and the clumping of Dad’s and Joe’s heavy boots on bare linoleum. Mum and Gran chattered noisily as they pounded washing on the ridged glass washboard, riddled the cinders in the boiler or beat the living daylights out of the threadbare carpets as they hung on the line in the tiny back garden. Poppy’s eyes filled with tears as she thought of her mum with her tired but still pretty face and her work-worn hands. The smell of Lifebuoy soap hung about her in an aura unless she was going to the pictures with Dad, and then she splashed on a little of the Californian Poppy perfume that Poppy had saved up for and bought from Woolworth’s to give her as a birthday present.

  The day room was furnished with what looked like odd bits of furniture that were no longer needed in the reception rooms. A child’s desk and chair were placed beneath one of the tall windows and a battered doll’s house stood in one corner of the room. A tea table and two chairs occupied the centre of the room and two saggy armchairs sat on either side of the fireplace. It was not the most cheerful of places and Poppy shivered even though the room was hot and stuffy. She could imagine the white lady sitting in one of the chairs or coming to her in the middle of the night. She had read about haunted houses and they were always old and large, just like Squire’s Knapp.

  She hurried into the night nursery, closing the door behind her. This room was slightly smaller and more homely. A baby’s cot stood in one corner, with a large fluffy teddy bear lying face down on the pillow. Twin beds took up the rest of the floor space, separated by a white-painted bedside cabinet that some bored child had scribbled on with wax crayons and pencil. Momentarily diverted, Poppy climbed on the bed beneath the window and dangled her legs over the side as she tried to read the scrawled writing. Apart from matchstick men with six fingers on each spiky hand, the only word legible after many applications of Vim was the name GUY, printed in thick block capitals and repeated over and over a
gain. Poppy lay down on the pink satin eiderdown and closed her eyes, too exhausted to go into the nursery bathroom and clean her teeth or to put on the flannelette nightgown that Olive had left under her pillow.

  When she awakened next morning Poppy thought for a moment that she was back in the boxroom at home, but the brightly coloured cretonne curtains that floated in the breeze from the open window were not her bedroom curtains. The Beatrix Potter prints on the walls were nothing like the pictures of film stars that she had cut from movie magazines and pinned over her bed at home. She sat up, rubbing her eyes as memories of yesterday flooded back in an overwhelming tide of misery. She strained her ears for sounds of life in the house but there was silence except for the birds singing away in the garden below. She knelt on the bed and rested her elbows on the sill as she looked out of the window. Her room was at the back of the house overlooking a wide sweep of green lawns, just like the cricket pitch in West Ham Park. She caught a glimpse of the mirror-like sheen of the lake between a stand of silver birch trees and a dense shrubbery. A movement down below caught her eye as a disembodied hand shook a yellow duster out of a window and was withdrawn almost immediately.

  She slid off the bed and made a brief foray into the white-tiled bathroom with its huge cast iron bath standing on claw feet, a washbasin big enough to bathe in and a willow pattern lavatory. The toilet at number 18 had its own little house situated just outside the back door, which the Brown family considered was quite superior to the back-to-back terraces in the poorer part of town where the lavatory was at the bottom of the yard if you were lucky, and at the end of the block if you were not. She cleaned her teeth and washed her face in what Gran would have called a cat’s-lick, deciding that she could not possibly be dirty after the scrubbing she had received at Violet’s hands. Reluctantly she dressed in Miss Pamela’s cast-offs, and after an unsuccessful attempt to get the comb through the tangles she tied her hair back with a piece of string she found in the day nursery.

  She wondered what she was supposed to do now. Her stomach rumbled and she realised that she was extremely hungry, but it seemed that she had been forgotten. She might starve to death up here and her skeleton be found years later amongst the cobwebs in the disused nursery. She opened the door and made her way along the narrow corridor to the landing at the top of the stairs. Leaning over the banisters she strained her ears for sounds of life, and, hearing nothing but the tick of a slender grandmother clock on the floor below, she made her way down three flights of stairs to the kitchen. A wave of sound enveloped her as she opened the door and Violet flew past her carrying a dustpan and brush.

  ‘I’d clean forgotten you, Popeye,’ she said, grinning. ‘Better keep out of Mrs Toon’s way, she’s on the warpath.’ She slammed the baize door that kept the noise from below from disturbing the genteel calm of the family rooms.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’ Kneading bread dough as if she were pummelling her worst enemy, Mrs Toon glared at Poppy. ‘I can’t be doing with you under my feet today, there’s too much to do.’

  Poppy stood uncertainly at the foot of the stairs, creating patterns on the floor with the toe of her brown sandal. Mrs Toon’s cheeks were bright red, the colour of the geraniums that Gran liked to grow in an old sink in the back yard. Strands of grey hair escaped from her white cap, bouncing about like watch springs as she wielded a floury rolling pin at her. ‘I suppose you’re hungry. Kids always are in my experience. There’s some porridge in the pan on the Aga. Help yourself.’

  Poppy approached the monster cautiously and was about to reach up to grab the ladle when Mrs Toon happened to glance over her shoulder. ‘Not like that!’ she screeched. ‘For heaven’s sake, girl, you’ll scald yourself.’ She bustled over and, snatching the ladle, she filled a china bowl with porridge and thrust it into Poppy’s hands. ‘There’s sugar in the bowl on the table. Don’t take too much! And there’s fresh milk on the marble shelf in the larder. Don’t spill it.’

  Poppy tucked herself away in the corner of the kitchen and ate her porridge, watching in awe as Mrs Toon barked orders at two women who appeared from the scullery at intervals, carrying huge bowls of peeled vegetables. With a face that Mum would have described as a wet weekend, Olive looked distinctly put out as she clattered down the stairs carrying a tray full of dirty crockery.

  ‘I hate bloody shooting parties,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Language, Olive,’ Mrs Toon muttered as Olive disappeared into the scullery.

  There was a loud clatter and she flounced back into the kitchen wiping her hands on the tea towel. She stopped and her eyes narrowed as she spotted Poppy, who was trying her best to appear inconspicuous. ‘You’d best keep out of my way today. I don’t want madam making me look after you as well as doing all my other work.’ She snatched an apple from a bowl on a side table and bit into it. ‘By the way, Mrs Toon, best keep some breakfast hot for Mr Guy. He went out for his morning ride and hasn’t come back yet.’

  This piece of information did not seem to go down too well with Mrs Toon, and Poppy finished her food quickly. Taking her empty bowl into the scullery she made her escape through an outside door and found herself in a cobbled yard surrounded by outbuildings. The familiar smell of coarse soap and soda billowed out in clouds of steam from the washhouse, bringing a lump to her throat and a wave of homesickness as she listened to the washerwomen laughing and talking while they worked. She hesitated in the doorway, longing to go inside and find a motherly soul who would give her a cuddle and tell her that everything would be all right, but it seemed as if she was suddenly invisible. They were all too busy to notice her.

  She was just wondering what to do when she spotted a gateway in the stone wall, and on closer examination she discovered that it led into the stable yard. The smell of horse dung, damp straw and leather was unfamiliar but not as unpleasant as she might have imagined. A horse stuck its great head out of its stall whinnying at her and stamping its hooves and she backed away. Those teeth looked as if they could bite a girl’s head off with one great snap of the mighty jaws. She had been chased once by a carthorse that had seemed intent on trampling her underfoot, and she had been scared of the brutes ever since. She glanced round as a stable lad shouted something unintelligible at her and she panicked, thinking she must have done something wrong. She ran through the yard, past the carriage house and into the safety of a large clump of rhododendrons. The leaves slapped her cheeks and twigs scratched her bare legs as she forced her way through the tangle of branches. A large pigeon flew out of the bush close to her head and she screamed in fright as its wing feathers made a loud flapping noise.

  Suddenly, she was out in the sunlight again and her heart was beating a tattoo inside her chest. Her feet crunched on the gravel as she ran headlong down the drive. Close by she could hear a dog barking. Too late she was aware of horse’s hooves pounding on the hard-baked grass, and the shouted warning to get out of the way. She turned her head and was paralysed with fright at the sight of flailing hooves. The horse reared on its hind legs as its rider swerved to avoid her. She raised her arm to protect her face and plunged once again into a sea of blackness.

  Chapter Two

  POPPY REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS slowly and found herself looking up into a pair of angry, hazel eyes, deep-set beneath dark brows that were drawn together in a frown. ‘Are you Errol Flynn?’ she murmured. His clean-cut features and strong jawline would have made him stand out in a crowd, but he looked decidedly cross.

  ‘Oh God, she’s concussed, Guy. Better send for the doctor.’

  Poppy realised that she was lying on soft cushions and there was ceiling above her where the sky had been. A crystal chandelier dangled somewhere high above her and the female voice belonged to a young and attractive lady with blonde hair who looked just like Ginger Rogers.

  ‘I’m a doctor. Well, halfway there, anyway,’ Guy said, with a wry smile. ‘And she’s not concussed, she just fainted. She went down like a ninepin, having terrified poor old Goliath out of his wits a
nd almost unseated me into the bargain.’

  ‘Who is she anyway?’ Pamela asked, staring curiously at Poppy. ‘And aren’t those my old clothes?’

  ‘She’s an evacuee from London. Mother has decided to do her bit for the war effort.’ Guy raised himself from his knees, ruffling Poppy’s hair with a careless hand. ‘What’s your name, kid?’

  ‘Poppy Brown, mister.’

  ‘How do you do, Poppy? My name is Guy and this is my sister, Pamela. I’m afraid you haven’t had a very auspicious start to your time here.’

  Poppy had not the faintest idea what auspicious meant, but he seemed to understand how she felt and he was really good-looking when he smiled. She remembered what Mum had taught her about manners. ‘I’m quite well now, thank you. And I’m sorry if I frightened your horse, mister, but it scared me first.’

  ‘We’ll have to do something about your fear of animals, young lady. You can’t live in this part of the country and go round fainting every time you see something on four legs.’

  Poppy snapped into a sitting position. ‘The greengrocer’s horse chased me up the road and bit me bum. Don’t make me go near them nasty things, mister.’

  ‘Don’t tease the child, Guy,’ Pamela said, frowning. ‘And we don’t say bum in polite circles, Poppy. Your grasp of grammar is appalling. If you’re going to stay here for a while I think you ought to be enrolled in the village school as soon as possible. I’ll have a word with Mother when she gets back from the morning shoot.’

  Poppy stared at her in amazement. ‘Is she shooting Germans?’

  Guy threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’d back my mother against the Germans any day.’

  ‘Don’t encourage her, Guy. The child has a lot to learn and she’ll get herself into trouble if she comes out with things like that in front of other people.’

  ‘That’s Mother’s department, I’m glad to say.’ Guy leaned down so that his face was close to Poppy’s. ‘And as for you, young lady, we have a date with Goliath when you’re feeling better.’