Coming Home to Island House

by Erica James

  ‘As I was saying,’ interrupted Romily, ‘I have something I’d like to share with you. It concerns Arthur in particular.’

  With her eyes firmly on Jack’s elder son, and her voice perfectly steady, she recounted what Florence had told her of what Billy and his friend Tommy had witnessed. A deathly hush fell on the room, and as one they turned to look at Arthur.

  ‘I’m appalled that you would believe a couple of common trespassers over me,’ he said witheringly. ‘Plainly they’ve fabricated this absurd story to avoid the risk of being hauled up before the magistrate for poaching on our land.’

  ‘My land, I think you’ll find,’ said Romily, ‘and frankly, I’d believe their word over yours any day.’

  ‘So you’re calling me a liar?’ Superficially Arthur appeared fully in control, with a suitable measure of outrage thrown in, but there was no mistaking the guilty darting of his eyes, and the reddening of his face, which still bore the bruises from the fight he’d got into at the fete.

  ‘If the cap fits,’ said Romily coolly. ‘But actually I’d go so far as to call you a lot worse than just a liar. As would Allegra and Hope, I’m sure. At the very least I’d say they deserve an apology from you.’ The two women were regarding him with identical expressions of horrified disbelief.

  ‘Hell will freeze over before I do that!’ he exclaimed. He tossed his napkin onto the table and pushed back his chair to get to his feet. His manner had suddenly altered; now he wore the chilling expression of a man who was prepared to fight in any way he had to.

  Opposite him, Hope also rose from her seat. She walked slowly around the table, passing behind Roddy, and when she was directly in front of her brother, she slapped his face hard. In retaliation, and revealing himself for the craven creature he was, Arthur raised his hand ready to strike her back, but next to him, quick as a flash, Kit jumped to his feet and with impressive bravado had his brother’s arm twisted behind his back before he knew what was happening.

  ‘Apologise now to Hope, and to Allegra,’ said Kit. ‘Do it, or I’ll break your arm.’

  Arthur rolled his eyes. ‘Oh please, save the tough talk for those who mean it.’

  Kit yanked his arm further up his back, causing Arthur to wince. ‘All right,’ he gasped, ‘I’ll do it. Hope and Allegra, I’m sorry. Satisfied now?’

  As if knowing that was the best they would get out of him, Kit released his hold. Straightening his jacket, Arthur stared defiantly at Hope and Allegra. ‘You have to admit, what I did proves that neither of you can be trusted to look after a child. God help Annelise is all I can say.’

  ‘And God help you,’ murmured Allegra, who until now had remained silent. ‘May you be forgiven for being such a vile monster.’

  At that, Arthur laughed. ‘Is that the best you can do, Allegra? I’m disappointed. I’d have expected more from you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t waste my energy,’ she said, turning her back on him.

  ‘I think you should leave us now,’ said Roddy, ‘so we can finish our dinner in peace and quiet.’

  Arthur smirked. ‘I’ll be outside if anyone wants me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ said Kit.

  When the door had closed after Arthur, Romily sighed. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said.

  ‘You’re sorry?’ said Hope, resuming her seat. ‘Why?’

  ‘I should have been less dramatic about it, perhaps confronted him on his own.’

  ‘No,’ said Roddy, ‘you did the right thing having us all here. Heaven only knows what he might have said or done to you otherwise. You saw how he meant to strike Hope.’

  ‘Well I for one think it’s time to make that toast now,’ said Kit, also now sitting down again. ‘To truth and honesty!’

  Romily shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘To Jack. To Jack for bringing us together.’

  ‘To Jack,’ they echoed.

  Part Two

  The War

  ‘We have a clear conscience, we have done all that any country could do to establish peace.’

  Neville Chamberlain in his Declaration Of War transcript 11.15 a.m. 3rd September, 1939.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  3rd September, 1939

  This was it then, the waiting was over: they were at war now. No more talk. No more shilly-shallying. No more misplaced hope that Hitler would do the decent thing and climb down. But then really, the moment Germany had invaded Poland two days ago on the 1st September, all doubt had been removed, with Britain duty-bound to honour the treaty to support Poland. It had been all anyone could talk about.

  Now, as Neville Chamberlain’s address to the nation drew to a close and Mrs Partridge rose stiffly from her chair and switched off the wireless, Florence felt a mixture of emotions – relief that the thing was finally settled, but also a churning sickness in her stomach that Billy would now have to do his duty and maybe never come back to her. And as never before, the words of the fortune-teller echoed loudly in her head: You’ll find love and you’ll lose love.

  ‘Well that’s that then,’ said Mrs Partridge with finality. ‘Now we know what’s what and we can get on with showing that ruddy Hitler what we’re made of. Just who does he think he is!’ She spoke as if she would like nothing better than to box Hitler’s ears. Given half the chance, she probably would! Putting her apron back on – she had removed it as a mark of respect for the Prime Minister’s announcement – she resumed what she’d been doing, weighing out the ingredients for an apple and blackberry pie.

  ‘I suppose this means we’ll have to start carrying our gas masks around with us like those pamphlets say,’ said Florence, getting on with peeling potatoes at the sink. War or no war, there was still Sunday lunch to prepare.

  Mrs Partridge snorted. ‘Much good they’ll do us! A waste of paper all those pamphlets, if you ask me. Still, they’ll come in handy for helping to light the fires when the weather turns.’

  As Mrs Partridge continued with her grumbling, Florence wondered if Billy had heard the news. Probably not; more likely he was at the Salvation Army hall with his parents. Poor Ruby Minton, how on earth would she cope with letting her precious son go off and fight? For that matter, how had she taken the news when yesterday Billy and Elijah and all the other lads from the village had taken the bus to Bury St Edmunds to enlist? Florence had hoped Billy might call in to see her afterwards to let her know what he’d been told, her hope being, God forgive her, that he might have been declared unfit for duty.

  ‘Open that window, will you, Florence? I’m sweating like a pig in a glasshouse! It’s fair sweltering in here.’

  ‘It’s already open, Mrs Partridge,’ Florence said. ‘Shall I open the back door and see if that will set up a through-draught for you?’

  Fanning herself, Mrs Partridge nodded. ‘If you would, otherwise I’ll melt to nothing but a puddle on the floor.’

  Florence went through to the scullery and down the few steps to the back door. When she opened it, she started. There on the step was Stanley Nettles, their evacuee, sobbing his little heart out. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ she asked him.

  Lady Fogg had delivered the poor lad to them in person the very day Germany invaded Poland. A pale, sickly boy with bony legs and arms and a disagreeable smell about him, he had cowered beside the terrifying woman looking like he’d make a run for it any minute. Although the stick-thin legs poking out from his dirty shorts hadn’t given the impression they would carry him far. Without further explanation, other than to give his name and age – he was nine years old – and that he was from Bethnal Green, Lady Fogg had handed over the bewildered boy as if he were nothing more than a parcel delivery. He’d even had a luggage label pinned to his ragged old jersey. His belongings, such as they were, had been put in a pillowcase, which he’d held tightly against his chest. He’d made a sorry sight indeed.

  With both Miss Romily
and Kit in London that day, and Allegra out walking with Hope and Annelise, it had fallen to Florence to take the boy in. She had led him through to the kitchen, where Mrs Partridge had been enjoying her customary late-afternoon nap in her favourite chair. Florence had put a finger to her lips indicating to the boy that he keep quiet, and poured him a glass of lemonade. He’d drunk it thirstily in one long gulp, only then to be thoroughly sick all over the floor. The noise had woken Mrs Partridge with a jolt. ‘Lord have mercy, whatever is going on here!’ she’d exclaimed. Whereupon the boy had burst into uncontrollable sobs and thrown himself under the kitchen table as though he were a dog about to be severely punished.

  Florence’s heart had gone out to him; she had recognised the fear of his reaction all too well. Later, when she’d prepared a bath for him, adding a generous dose of disinfectant to get rid of the lice he’d brought with him, she’d caught a glimpse of the bruises and sores on his back and shoulders.

  She had been all for burning his filthy threadbare clothes, including his underwear, which he’d been sewn into, but that evening, when Miss Romily returned from London with Kit, it was agreed that it would be better to wash and mend the rags as best they could to give the boy a degree of familiarity, in the hope it would make him feel more at home.

  But now, as he sniffed and smeared the tears across his pale face with his skinny bare arm, Stanley looked anything but at home. Florence sat down on the step beside him. From her apron pocket she pulled out a handkerchief and tried to wipe his face, but he jerked away. She gently placed the handkerchief into one of his hands. ‘So what’s all this about then?’ she asked. ‘What’s upset you?’

  He pursed his lips and shook his head.

  ‘Have you hurt yourself?’ she asked.

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Do you feel unwell?’

  Another shake of his head.

  ‘Has somebody said something unkind to you?’

  Once more he shook his head.

  ‘Are you homesick?’

  This time there was no shake of his head, just a sniff. To Florence it didn’t make sense that he would be homesick. Why long to be somewhere you were treated so badly? But Miss Romily had explained that that was often the way; that home, even when it was a place of violence and cruelty, was better than being somewhere strange where you didn’t know anybody. Florence had never felt that way; once she’d left home, she’d never longed to be back there. But then she was older than Stanley when she’d made the break.

  She put a hand on the boy’s bony knee. ‘If you are missing home, Stanley, that’s okay. I’m sure you won’t have to put up with us for too long. Just as soon as the dust has settled, you’ll be home before you know it.’

  He looked up at her. ‘D’yer mean that, missus?’

  ‘Yes,’ Florence answered him, hating herself for the lie. War had just been announced, and here she was telling the lad he’d soon be home. Well, who knew, maybe he would be? ‘Meanwhile,’ she said, ‘why don’t you try and enjoy yourself? Island House is not such a bad place to be. Would you like to come blackberry picking with me again later? You enjoyed that yesterday, didn’t you?’

  He gave a small shrug of his pitifully thin shoulders. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And then there are all the other children in the village to get to know when school starts,’ she said cheerfully. ‘That’ll be fun, won’t it?’

  At the mention of school, Stanley’s lip trembled. ‘I don’t wanna go to school,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t have much choice in the matter. You went to school back at home, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not much. Me mum said she needed me at ’ome.’

  His lower lip trembled again and he jammed the handkerchief Florence had given him against his eyes. Florence put her arm around him and gave him the hug she’d wanted to give him ever since he’d first arrived.

  In the drawing room, the wireless now off, Kit was pouring out glasses of sherry and passing them round.

  ‘I don’t know about the rest of you,’ he said, ‘but I feel as if an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The bank will soon be a thing of the past for me!’

  ‘How can you talk like that?’ said Hope with a shake of her head. ‘War is not a game, Kit. Thousands of lives are going to be lost, possibly even yours, so please don’t make light of it. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘I agree with Kit,’ said Allegra. ‘I’d sooner perish honourably and in action than die of boredom in a job I hated. And let’s face it, joining the RAF and learning to fly has to be a lot more thrilling than working in a bank.’

  Kit smiled. ‘Thank you, Allegra; I’m glad somebody understands my point of view. I just hope I don’t have to hang around as a reservist for too long. I’m itching to get going with my training and then do my bit.’

  ‘War is not supposed to be thrilling,’ said Hope with exasperation. ‘You’ve been like a dog with two tails ever since you came back from the recruiting centre in London.’

  With the conversation going on around her, and Annelise on her lap – for some reason the little girl had taken a peculiar liking to her – Romily thought how unreal the situation felt. She almost didn’t know how to react. Somehow she had expected to feel completely changed by the announcement they had all been waiting for. But she felt no different to how she’d felt when she woke this morning. Perhaps she was inured to shock, still numb from losing her dearest Jack and unable to feel any real depth of emotion. In which case perhaps it would simply take some time for the reality of the news to sink in. She had only been a young child when the Great War began, and her memories were patchy. She remembered more vividly the day her father was invalided out of the war, the joy at seeing him again, and later the day peace was announced.

  She listened to Kit, Hope and Allegra as they agreed and disagreed with each other. It came as naturally to them as breathing, this constant wrangling, even on a light-hearted basis; they didn’t seem able to help themselves. Yet far from annoying her, Romily found it mildly diverting, for there was no malice in their exchanges. The three of them were much more comfortable around each other without Arthur in their midst stirring things up. Had he not been around, could they have come together as a family a lot sooner? Who knew? But as Roddy had said, often there was no obvious reason why a family fell apart other than a gradual unravelling over the pettiest of matters. For as far as Romily could see, it really hadn’t taken much for Hope, Kit and Allegra to form an alliance, even if it was a fragile one. Putting Arthur aside, was it too soon to believe she had almost achieved what Jack had wanted her to do? His will had seemed so very draconian in its instructions, but undoubtedly it had led to something positive.

  It was three days now since Roddy had formally declared that having complied with Jack’s wishes, his children and niece would duly inherit as specified under the terms of the will and were free to leave Island House. His case already packed, Arthur had set off for the station straight away, without saying goodbye. Which surprised no one. The surprise was that he hadn’t left at once after that disagreeable scene at the dining table the evening before.

  In the wake of his departure, an undeniable sense of calm and liberation had descended upon Island House. Hope duly apologised to Allegra for being so angry with her over Annelise, and in return, Allegra apologised for providing Arthur with the opportunity to play such a cruel trick. It was with this new level of accord firmly in place that Romily had made it clear that if they wanted to stay on at Island House, they were more than welcome. Kit too was welcome any time he wanted to come. She had told him this when he’d taken the train with her down to London on Friday. He had decided immediately to return with her that evening to spend the weekend with them all.

  Only a short while ago, Romily’s life had been so very different; now it was as if she were suddenly responsible for a house full of people who needed a guiding h
and. There was Hope, who was in loco parentis and struggling to cope; Allegra who had yet to share the secret of the baby she was expecting as well as decide what to do next; and Kit, who with his boyish exuberance seemed badly in want of a rock on which to lean. Every now and then Romily saw through his act of acute cheerfulness and glimpsed a young boy eager to impress and be loved. She had no doubt that that was what Evelyn Flowerday also saw, and who knew, maybe level-headed and assured Evelyn was just the person he needed in his life.

  Romily would never describe herself as having a truly altruistic nature, but something in this trio roused in her the need to stand by them, to be the dependable adult amongst them. Not exactly a mother figure – after all, she wasn’t much older than they were – but perhaps a big sister, a figure they could turn to in their hour of need. They were also, apart from Roddy, the only real connection she had to Jack. They might not have seen the best of him, but they had known something of him that she never had, and deep down her heart yearned to know more of the man she missed so desperately. She hoped that in the days and weeks ahead, she could get them to open up more about Jack, and she in turn would share with them what she had known of him.

  ‘Here’s to giving Herr Hitler what he bloody well deserves!’ declared Kit, interrupting Romily’s thoughts and raising his sherry glass, a gesture that reminded her again of that awful evening last Wednesday when she had confronted Arthur.

  How many other families in the village, and in the country, would be doing the same? she pondered as she reluctantly went along with Kit’s bullish sentiment.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  To her very great relief, Allegra had now made a full recovery from the lethargy that had struck her so profoundly, as well as the worst of the nausea. Occasionally first thing in the morning she felt a little queasy, but it was nothing compared to what she’d experienced before. At Dr Garland’s encouragement, she was also enjoying a daily walk.