Heloise was not interested in bread or fruit or vegetables; instead she took the girls to a dressmaker’s, where the children picked through jars of buttons while Mrs Lockwood mulled over lace, and then to a tea shop, where Heloise had tea and frilly sandwiches and the girls had malted milk and lemon cake. A lady lunching at a nearby table recognised Heloise: “Mrs Lockwood!” she chimed. “I heard you’d come up to Heron Hall with the children — very wise, and not before time. Goodness, you’re looking well. And is that Cecily? Cecily! How you’ve grown. Your curls are lovely. No school today? You can’t be sick — you’re enjoying that cake, aren’t you? And this little blue-eyed kitten is —?”
“This is May.” Heloise abhorred chit-chat, her voice had more icing than the lemon cake. “We’ve taken in an evacuee for the duration.”
“Truly? Aren’t you good. I wish I had one. I seem to be of no use to anyone, just toddling along like it’s business as usual. . . . Speaking of which, how is Mr Lockwood? What’s his opinion of the situation in France? Any news for those of us who can only watch and hope?”
Heloise’s spoon clinked her cup. “Humphrey is well.”
“And his thoughts on the situation? What’s to be our next move?”
Heloise said, “My husband doesn’t share official secrets with myself or with tea shops.”
The woman gave a laugh that sounded pressed out of her by weights. “Forgive me! Sometimes the war feels so far away, the whole thing seems a peculiar dream. Until, of course, you hear of a local boy going missing or being killed. Then it’s not a peculiar dream at all. Will you be staying at Heron Hall for the duration, Mrs Lockwood?”
“Possibly,” said Heloise, “possibly not.”
“Oh, you must! London is so unsafe. Personally I don’t know how those poor people can endure it, the blackout, the constant worry about bombs. I’d be in a perpetual state of tension, I’d think every buzz of a fly was an aeroplane come to blow the house sky-high and tear me into a thousand pieces . . .”
The girls, wide-eyed, looked at Heloise, who said, “Cecily’s father is in London, as is May’s mother. I’m sure they will be perfectly secure. To think otherwise is simply encouragement to the enemy.”
“Encouragement to the enemy! I didn’t mean it like that —”
“And yet that is how it sounds. Encouraging to our enemy.”
The woman was the kind who disliked, and was disliked; Heloise was quite the same. They turned back to their tables pleased to have added one another to their collections.
After the tea shop, mother and girls strolled the streets, Cecily pointing out from window displays things she was sure May would never have seen: baby shawls crocheted from local wool, animals fashioned from horseshoe nails, handmade leather bookmarks with tassels on one end, playing cards with northern wildflowers blossoming on the reverse sides. Heloise, perched atop a high wall of boredom, told them she’d meet them in the hat shop. Cecily and May lingered in the street. They pressed their faces to the post-office window, touched their tongues to the glass. “What do you like most in the world?” asked Cecily.
May squished her nose on the window and thought. “Giraffes.”
Cecily gurgled. “Not giraffes! Something you can buy!”
“You didn’t say it had to be something you could buy. Anyway, you could buy a giraffe, if you were rich enough. If you were a sultan.”
Cecily offered, “One of Daddy’s friends has a tiger skin on the floor.”
“Ugh. Tiger skins should be on tigers.”
“. . . Did you hear what that lady said, about London and all the people being blown to bits?”
“Hmm.”
“I should tell Daddy she encouraged the enemy. He’ll put her in prison. She wouldn’t be so fancy then!”
“You should do it,” said May.
The postmaster was suddenly at the door. “Dirty snouts off the glass!”
May sprang backward, mortified; but Cecily, sensibilities blunted by a lifetime of reprimands, merely swiped the window with the sleeve of her cardigan and sauntered away. Inspired by such sang-froid, May yelled over a shoulder, “You’re as dirty as — as — a nappy!” although the postmaster had returned inside by then, and possibly didn’t hear.
But Heloise heard, as did the milliner. “Cecily,” said her mother, “that was uncouth. I didn’t raise you to scream in the street like an urchin.”
“It wasn’t me!”
“Don’t argue.” Heloise glared steadfastly at a hat. “Just apologise. Cecily.”
“Sorry,” Cecily sighed.
“Sorry,” May whispered, when Mrs Lockwood turned away.
“It’s all right,” said Cecily, and it was all right; it made something better.
Fortunately Heloise didn’t like the hats, so they were able to quickly leave. Their last stop was the grocer’s, where jars of boiled sweets ranged the shelves like so many stars in the sky. Cecily magnanimously divided her loot: May chose barley twists, Cecily cornered liquorice mice. “You’re a little evacuee, aren’t you?” said the grocer to May.
“How can you tell?” asked Cecily.
The man said, “Oh, they all have the same look,” and his wife, who was leaning on the counter, said, “As if they’re not awake or asleep.”
The grocer smiled at May’s face, which was pretty as a freesia. “Has she been any trouble? She doesn’t look like trouble.”
“She’s no trouble at all,” said Heloise loyally.
“That’s just what she looks like, a good little girl.”
Cecily should have heard dull clongs of pride, but instead she found herself thinking, How silly. To describe May as a good little girl was like calling a cathedral big or a lion yellow. Half the time May wasn’t good at all — she was a thief of leftovers, an escapee, a hurter-of-feelings, moody and a know-all and a bossy-boots, just now she hadn’t even owned up to shouting in the street — but somehow these attributes made her better than good. Gripping the mice, Cecily turned away, her gaze running the shelves. She wanted May to become even worse — naughtier, bolder, more clever, more devious — and Cecily wanted to become these things with her. The grocer talked on.
“It’s a privilege to have them in the village, the evacuees. A privilege and an honour. Goodness though, there’s some wild ones in the mix. We get them in the shop after school, pushing and shoving. They’re used to city ways, of course. Quick as lightning, and smart with the mouth. We have to keep an eye on them.”
“Riff-raff.” The grocer’s wife ceased excavating sugar from under a nail and elaborated, “Bad influences. Rue the day.”
“I remember —” Heloise did so with a lurch. “I remember the billeting officer at the town hall mentioning something about troublemakers.”
“It’s to be expected, isn’t it?”
Heloise couldn’t help but glance at May. “Is it?”
“Under the circumstances, I think it is. Look, they’re decent mites mostly,” said the grocer. “Most evacuees I’ve met are no better or worse than the local kids — better, when you consider what’s happening to them. Surrounded by strangers, missing their families, far away from home: it’s no surprise some of them aren’t jumping with joy for being here. And you know how youngsters can be when things aren’t going their way — stubborn, sulky, mischievous. Not doing what their hosts tell them. Mucking about, talking back. Refusing to go to school, giving the teacher lip. Running away — packing their bags and taking to the hills, some are.”
“Surely not,” said Heloise.
“True!” said the grocer. “There’s been five or six already made a break for home. Packed their bags and disappeared in the night, trying to go back to London. They’ve been caught and given a good talking-to, dragged back by the ears.”
“You can’t have children roaming around like foxes,” said his wife. “That’s not what anyone agreed to.”
The man waved his heavy hands. “But dragged back to what, is what you have to wonder. I mean, I don’t thin
k a happy child would run away from his hosts. Do you want to run away?” He loomed over the counter at May.
“No,” said the evacuee.
“No, you don’t. That’s because you’re happy. Landed on your feet, you have, there at Heron Hall. But not all your little friends have been so fortunate.”
His wife snorted like a dubious pig in an apron. “There’d be no pleasing some of them, not if they were sent to Buckingham Palace itself.”
The grocer winced. “Don’t I know it. You don’t own a sweets shop and not learn a thing or two about the fussiness of kids. Still, I bet there’s plenty who took an evacuee just to get another pair of hands on the farm or around the house. I bet there’s plenty who saw an opportunity to take their misery out on someone else’s poor child.”
“Hear him.” The wife’s eagle eye never left her crusted nails. “Always believing the worst of people.”
“Sweetheart, we’re in a war! If that doesn’t make you believe the worst of people, what on earth will? No, my sympathies are with the children. Good luck to them, I say. You do what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to sulk, you sulk. You want to run off, you get going. You’ve got to stick up for yourself in this world. No one fights your battles for you.”
“Listen to it.” The wife rolled her eyes.
“There’s something to be said for stoicism,” said Heloise, who’d never had to learn it herself. “You don’t simply run away from what doesn’t suit you. If we all did that, well . . . who would fight the war?”
“That’s sense,” said the wife, and it was; so much so that the grocer pretended not to hear. But feeling generously disposed towards all children, and particularly to their representative May, before he shelved the jar of liquorice mice he invited her to extend a paw and pluck from amid the sin-black rodents a particularly bulky specimen.
The day-trippers returned to the street and walked it in silence — a silence that caused Cecily physical pain. For the entire length of the road she battled to keep the story of the brothers in Snow Castle from hissing out like air from a tyre. Mama! she craved to say. I’ve met some runaway children, I’ve talked to them, they’re hiding in Snow Castle, I can take you to them! But May was marching along tight-lipped, and Cecily understood that if she ever hoped to be as bold and devious as her newfound sister — if, for that matter, she wished to remain on speaking terms with her — then the tale was not to be told. It was an agonising situation, for Cecily did relish gossip, and the brothers had been so appalling that it would be a pleasure to tell. . . . Yet she also knew that she would never tell. She would keep a thousand secrets rather than lose the sister she’d gained.
May Bright was definitely a Bad Influence.
Home at Heron Hall, they found Jeremy with the day’s newspapers spread out on the dining table. “Reading again!” sighed Cecily. “You read too much, Jem. There’s only sad bad things in the newspapers. Horrible things.”
“Unlike you, I don’t want to live in a play-world and pretend the war isn’t happening.”
“I know it’s happening.” Her brother was being unfair. “I just wish it wasn’t.”
“Did you sweep the chimneys?” asked May.
Because the evacuee had such a charming way about her, Jeremy laughed. “No, not today. But I went out to have a look at Snow Castle. I wanted to see it up close before Uncle Peregrine tells us its history.”
Cecily swung a worried glance to May, but the girl merely nodded. “What did you see?”
“I saw a plate, with the remains of breakfast on it. A raven was pecking at it, but it flew off when it saw me, carrying a piece of toast in its beak. What was a piece of toast doing out at Snow Castle, I wonder?”
May smiled. “Cecily and I went to the castle after breakfast. We wanted a close look too. We took some scraps for the birds. But we didn’t see a raven, just some slugs and stones.”
“I saw slugs and stones, the raven, and two red butterflies.” The girls eyed him watchfully, but Jeremy said nothing further. “I like ravens,” May said finally, and gave him the liquorice mouse.
The war was a sprawling, catastrophic thing, an event that would change lives, and end them; change cities, and raze them; and mar forever the story of humankind’s history. Every minute, all around the world, countless decisions were shaped by the war, from when a woman swept a path to when a man pressed a button to release a bomb. One of the smallest and most insignificant of decisions was made at Heron Hall soon after the arrival of Mrs Lockwood and the children, and this was that adults and children would dine together, rather than at separate sittings. The arrangement was easier for the depleted domestic staff, but it also suited Peregrine. He could think of nothing worse than supping with his sister-in-law, just he and she. He wouldn’t have been surprised to know that Heloise felt the same way. They had things in common, as smart cynical people always do, but one of the things common to them was an awkwardness around each other. Welcome, then, was the company of the children, whose chatter filled the spaces which would otherwise yawn over the dining room.
Peregrine had spoken to his brother on the telephone that afternoon, while Heloise and the girls were in town. “Did you say hello to Daddy for me?” asked an anguished Cecily.
“No,” said her uncle. “But he sends his regards to you. He tells you not to talk with your mouth full and not to bother your uncle.”
“Did he say anything about — what will happen next?”
Jeremy knew from his newspapers that the war continued badly for the Allies. He also knew that, no matter what his father had said, his uncle would remember the girls at the table and tailor his answer accordingly. Yet he couldn’t help asking the question anyway, because frustration chewed ceaselessly at his elbow. Trapped out here in the country he was a wild beast chained, a dog of war muzzled, a worthy warrior lamed. He roamed the corridors of Heron Hall in a simmering fury of helplessness. So he asked, knowing the answer may be dilute, but craving to hear it regardless.
Peregrine looked up from his plate. Dinner that night was leek soup followed by beef, vegetables and dumplings. There was fresh bread on the table, and plenty of butter, and both Heloise and Peregrine had wine. Still to come was plum pudding and cream. One day the stingy fingers of the war might reach into the kitchen of Heron Hall, but that day wasn’t today. Peregrine’s glance went round the table, returned to his nephew. “France, the Netherlands and Belgium have fallen,” he said. “They are occupied countries now, and largely powerless. The Germans are massing their aircraft on the coast of France, noses pointed in our direction. Their army is preparing to cross the Channel for a ground invasion. Our beaches are being strung with barbed wire, but this probably won’t inconvenience the tanks for long. The outlook is poor, as you see. Some people are saying it’s time to hand London over while she’s still standing. Give Hitler the jewel he wants for his crown.”
Although Jeremy already knew this and more, it rattled him to hear it spoken aloud by someone he trusted. It was Cecily who filled the silence. “Hand London over,” she said. “You mean, surrender?”
“We can’t.” May spoke stonily. “If we surrender, all those soldiers who’ve died would be wasted . . .”
“I agree,” said Jeremy. “We mustn’t surrender, not ever. No matter what happens.”
“Daddy won’t let them win.”
Cecily said it with such well-fed certainty that the conversation stopped as if at a trench. Annoyance flew across Jeremy’s face; he asked, “What will happen if they do come here, Uncle?”
“They won’t. Daddy will keep them out.”
“Shut up, Cecily!” Her brother actually kicked the underside of the table. “Uncle? What will happen if they come here? What will happen if they win?”
He asked it with vehemency, wanting the truth from this man with whom he’d spent many of his life’s happiest hours, who had always treated him with the respect due somebody older. But, “You’re a boy of imagination,” Peregrine replied. “What do you imagin
e will happen?”
Jeremy’s gaze wobbled over the table and met for a moment the sapphire eyes of May which looked back steadily, steelishly. She looked ready to take up arms and confront the Führer all by herself. It was Heloise, however, who spoke. “For goodness sake, Peregrine, can we talk of something other than the war? I fail to see how turning the subject over like compost can do anything except raise its stink.”
“It’s important . . .”
“It’s utterly drab. What will happen will happen. Discussing it at the dinner table will make no difference to our fate at all. For the moment, the war is far away. It hasn’t touched any of us terribly. So let us spare ourselves while we can.”
An observer, watching closely, would have seen both Jeremy and May lower their eyes in a withdrawing way, the behaviour of secret-keepers who feel themselves alone. But no one was watching closely, and, Daddy will protect us, Cecily told herself, sotto voce.
“‘Very well, what shall we talk of instead?” asked Peregrine. “While the war rages across Europe, what subject fits our preference for lightness and joy?”
“Don’t mock, Peregrine.”
“I do not mean to.”
“I think you do.”
“No arguing at the table!” warned Cecily.
May looked up. “Snow Castle?” she said.
“Yes!” Cecily yiked. “The story!”
“After supper,” said Peregrine, “not during it.”
“What story is this?” asked Heloise.
Jeremy explained, “Uncle Peregrine is going to tell us the story of Snow Castle. It’s history —”
“It’s gruesome!”
“It’s certainly not lightness and joy.”
“— so it’s not really storytelling, it’s teaching, isn’t it? And if Uncle Peregrine is teaching us, then we needn’t go to school in the village, need we, Mother?”
The Children of the King Page 7