‘I don’t believe that’s true, Jack.’
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘I thought I’d learned to live with it, but it’s as if Fate’s been mocking me since the little ones came. Cosy evenings by the fire, with the missus I never had and the children I always wanted. Visions of the life I might’ve led, if things had gone my way instead of Bert’s.’ He sighed. ‘Feels real, but it’s a mirage. No more substance than a dream.’
‘But it is real,’ Edie said earnestly. ‘Or it could be, if you just told Prue how you felt.’
He smiled sadly, glancing down at the Arabian Nights on the chair arm. ‘You’ve read too many storybooks, child. Prudence don’t even talk like she used to. She’s too much the lady now.’ He held up a hand and watched it shake. ‘And me, what the hell am I? A trembling, broken-spirited wreck who screams like a bairn every time he has a bad dream. If I was a carthorse they’d have taken me out and shot me by now.’
‘Prue doesn’t think you’re a wreck.’
‘Huh.’ He was silent for a long moment, brooding darkly as the fire cast flickering shadows over his hunched body. But eventually he looked up, with just the glimmer of something like hope in his eye. ‘What makes you say that, lass?’
‘The way she looks at you. Even little Aggie sees it. Haven’t you ever noticed how she –’ Edie began, but they were interrupted by the arrival of Prue herself. Jack gave a guilty start.
‘All tucked up,’ Prue said, beaming at them. ‘I told Aggie she may read Jimmy a story before they go to sleep. It helps with her vocabulary, and it does them good to have happy thoughts in their little heads at bedtime.’ She frowned as she looked from Edie to Jack. ‘I didn’t interrupt a conspiracy, did I? You look as guilty as Guy Fawkes, Jack.’
‘We, er … we were just talking about the treat day again,’ Edie said, fabricating wildly. ‘I know you said you wouldn’t consider holding it here, but I wondered if there might be space in one of the fields, if the farmer was amenable. Sorry, I know you’re sick of me wittering on about it.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ Almost unconsciously, Prue dropped to her knees and made a soft cooing noise that instantly brought the four kittens purring and rubbing at her legs. ‘You know, Edie, I’m rather coming around to the idea. You’re right, it would be an excellent thing for the children.’ She smiled at the kittens. ‘And since my home seems destined to be the victim of invasion by stealth … what do the Americans say? If you can’t beat them, join them?’
Edie blinked. She hadn’t been expecting that. Prue had been so vehemently against the treat day, Edie had just about given up on the idea. The only reason she’d brought it up again was that it was all she could think of to cover for Jack’s embarrassment.
‘Really?’ She glanced at Jack, who also looked surprised at Prue’s sudden change of heart. ‘Well, that’s … thank you.’
‘I’ll speak to Patricia and Andrew about it. It always used to be planned with the Sunday School.’ Prue reached out to tickle one of the kittens, her face seeming to glow in the warmth of the fire. Edie had never seen her looking so blissfully content and at peace with the world. ‘Wouldn’t it be splendid, Jack, if we could arrange it for when Bertie will be home on leave? You know the boy adores any kind of fair.’
Jack smiled. ‘Aye, that he does. He’ll be the biggest child of the lot.’
He watched her fondly as she played with the kittens. Clad in a becoming cotton dress, her hair loose down her back, Prue, Edie thought, must look once again like the girl Jack had fallen in love with all those decades ago. Nevertheless, she could see that there was pain as well as affection in his eyes.
Chapter 30
A fortnight passed, and Applefield prepared to don the mantle of summer as May edged towards June. Prue sang as she worked in the kitchen one Tuesday, occasionally patting her apron pocket to remind herself of what she had stored there.
It was the start of jamming and pickling season at Applefield Manor. Prue had considered delaying it until Matilda was sufficiently recovered to go back to work, but they had had a bumper crop of strawberries this year – largely thanks to Coco’s efforts in keeping down the Applefield Manor rat population – so it really couldn’t be put off any longer. Besides, Prue loved making jam, and she had never been in a better mood for indulging in it.
She had received two pieces of good news that day. The first, announced on the wireless earlier, was that the fearsome battleship Bismarck – the pride of the German navy, deemed unsinkable – had been despatched to the depths by Allied forces. Prue knew this meant an end to a reign of terror that had cost many lives, and that the seas were now safer for the one sailor in whose welfare she had a particular interest. However, she couldn’t help feeling sadness, too, when she thought of the men aboard who had been injured or killed. Every one of them was somebody’s son, after all.
The second piece of good news was of no significance to the course of the war but of great significance to her. It had arrived by letter that morning – a letter currently tucked safely in Prue’s apron pocket while she stirred the pan of delicious-smelling syrup simmering on the cooker.
She looked around when she heard a noise, and saw a twitching canine nose poking around the kitchen door.
‘Oho. An intruder,’ she said, smiling. ‘Coco, you needn’t think that as saviour of the strawberry crop you’re entitled to any of this jam. I’m saving it for a special guest.’
The dog looked up at her, tail wagging hopefully, and Prue went to pick him up. She sat down with him on her lap, and he rested his front paws against her arm while he licked her cheek.
‘Look, Coco,’ she said, taking the letter from her apron and showing it to him. ‘Do you see what this says? It says that my son Bertie will be coming home on leave in July. What do you think of that?’
The little dog blinked puzzled brown eyes at her. Laughing, Prue put him on the floor.
‘Well, a mouthful of bread won’t do you any harm, I expect,’ she said. ‘But that’s all until your dinner, pup.’
Aggie stuck her head round the door as Prue was slicing a bit of crust from yesterday’s loaf. It was around quarter to four and she and Jimmy were just home from school.
‘Is Coco here, Aunty Prue?’
‘Yes, begging bowl in hand as usual. Or in paw, I should say,’ Prue said. ‘Come in, children. I want you to taste something for me.’
The evacuees entered the kitchen and Prue dipped a teaspoon into the jam mixture for them to taste.
‘Be careful now, it’s very hot,’ she said. Aggie blew on the liquid then put it in her mouth.
‘Mmm!’ She smacked her lips. ‘That’s sweet. Is it to drink?’
‘No, it’s strawberry jam,’ Prue said as she spooned out a little for Jimmy to try too. ‘Once it’s hot enough, it can go into jars to set and we’ll be able to eat it on our bread and butter. Well worth the investment of our precious sugar, I think – we shall be glad of it now preserves have been added to the ration. Would you two like to help me finish making it?’
‘Ooh, yes please!’
‘All right, but go wash and change out of your uniforms first.’
The children didn’t need telling twice. Somehow the two of them managed to get changed and back to the kitchen in under five minutes. Cooking – and especially cooking sweet things – was a favourite hobby for them both, second only to licking the bowl afterwards.
‘Now,’ Prue said when they’d rejoined her. ‘You see all those jars on the kitchen table? When the liquid is at the right temperature, we’ll leave it to settle and warm the jars in the oven. Then we can ladle the jam into them. But first they need to be thoroughly washed – can you do that, Aggie?’
Aggie nodded. She didn’t object to washing-up when it was done in the name of cookery. She went to the sink and turned on the tap to fill it.
‘You look happy, Aunty Prue,’ she observed artlessly.
‘I am happy,’ Prue sa
id. ‘I had some good news this morning. My son is going to be coming to visit.’
‘Your son what’s in the navy?’
‘That’s right: Bertie. You’ll like him, he knows lots of fun games.’ She glanced from Aggie to Jimmy. ‘Have you two ever been to a fair?’
‘You mean like with games and rides and things?’ Aggie said.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘No, but we seen one once. It come near our house.’ Aggie’s eyes glazed. ‘They had all these brilliant things, I could see ’em through the gate. There was a gypsy man with an accordion and a little monkey, and for a tanner you could hold it. And there was a helter-skelter, and a merry-go-round, and a big coloured organ, and a fortune teller, and candy floss and toffee apples and ginger beer and … and everything good you can think of, Aunty Prue, honest there was.’ Her face darkened. ‘But then Bet come and give us a clip round the ear for looking. She wouldn’t never let us go to nothing like that.’
‘Well, I don’t know if we can get a monkey or a helter-skelter, but I’m certain we could have candy floss and toffee apples, and swingboats and a coconut shy and other good things,’ Prue said, giving the little girl a fond squeeze. ‘Should you like that, my dears?’
Aggie’s eyes went round. ‘You mean you’d take us?’
‘I mean we could have a fair here at Applefield Manor, in the gardens. We used to have them every year, until … well, until they stopped.’ Prue rested a hand on Jimmy’s head. ‘I think now that we have young people living here again, it’s high time we brought them back.’
Aggie didn’t seem to know what to say. She just stared at Prue for a moment, her mouth open, before her feelings exploded in the single word ‘Blimey!’
‘Now, Aggie, language,’ Prue said, frowning.
‘Sorry, Aunty. I didn’t mean to, it just popped out.’
‘That’s all right, but be more careful in future.’
Prue was turning back to stir the jam when she felt it. A little hand slipping into hers, and the whispered words, quiet as a summer breeze, ‘Thank you’.
She looked down. Jimmy was holding her hand as he looked up at her with shining eyes.
‘What did you say, Jimmy?’
‘Thank you, I says,’ he murmured. ‘No one ever done anything that nice for us before.’
Prue cast a surprised look at Aggie, who shrugged.
‘I told him he better start talking but he said he was scared to,’ she said. ‘Changed your mind, did you, Jim?’
He nodded shyly. Prue, realising that making a fuss might well cause the boy to retreat back into himself again, just gave his hand a squeeze and let it drop.
‘You’re welcome, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Now, can I give you a very important job?’
‘Yes, please,’ Jimmy whispered.
‘Are you sure? This is actually the most important job, so I wouldn’t want to give it to you unless you were positive you could do it properly.’
Jimmy puffed himself up. ‘I can do it.’
He had the same East End accent as his sister, of course, but Jimmy’s tone was softer: less bold, more hesitant. It was a strange novelty, hearing the little boy speak. Prue felt as though she was at the picture house and Harpo Marx had turned to deliver a lengthy monologue to the audience.
‘Good.’ Prue pulled a chair over to the cooker and hoisted Jimmy on to it, then handed over her preserving thermometer with some ceremony. ‘Now, Jimmy, when this says 220°F, the jam will be ready. The mercury must go up to exactly that number, do you understand? If the jam isn’t hot enough then it won’t set.’
Jimmy nodded.
‘In two more minutes, put the bulb end of the thermometer into the jam, hold it there for a moment and read the number. Be very careful not to scald yourself, dear. If the number is less than 220, then wait a while and try again. Can you do that?’
Jimmy nodded again, then turned to watch the bubbling liquid intently, as if afraid it might try to escape.
The doorbell rang, and Prue wiped her hands on her apron.
‘That will be the Reverend and Mrs Featherstone, come to talk about plans for the fair,’ she said. ‘Just a moment, children, and I’ll ask Edie to come in from the gardens to mind you.’
‘We’re all right,’ Aggie said. ‘We can do it on our own, can’t we, Jim?’ Jimmy nodded enthusiastically.
Prue could only imagine. The cooker on fire, the kitchen covered in liquid jam, little Coco doggy-paddling through it while the kittens floated along on top …
‘I’m sure you can, but you might need help … reaching things from the shelves,’ Prue said diplomatically. ‘I think you’d better have an adult here.’
Edie was harvesting rhubarb in one of the greenhouses. Prue went to fetch her, explained briefly what was needed, then left her with the children while she went to answer the door.
‘Good day, Andrew. Patty,’ Prue said, beaming at them. She was in such a good mood, she even had smiles for Patricia. ‘Oh, and little Edgar is with you too. How lovely.’
Patricia looked taken aback by the warmth of the greeting. ‘Why, yes. Good afternoon, Prue.’
‘Come in, please,’ Prue said, ushering the three of them into the hallway. ‘We’ll go into the sitting room.’
‘The sitting room?’ Patricia knew that Prue very rarely received visitors anywhere other than Applefield Manor’s austere library since Albert had passed.
‘Yes, I’ve become used to spending time in there since the young people came. We’ve been having some jolly evenings – well, children do tend to make a house a home, don’t they?’
Patricia looked rather lost for words. ‘Um, yes.’
‘Go on through, please.’ Prue smiled at Edgar. ‘Unless you’d be interested in something more interesting than sitting with the old folk, young man? Jimmy and Aggie are making jam with Edie if you would like to join them.’
‘Oh, no,’ Patricia said, curling her lip. ‘I couldn’t have Edgar playing with those comm– with those London children. Goodness knows what words he might pick up.’
That was typical of Patricia. When she had wanted Prue to take the evacuees in, she’d waxed lyrical about the innocence of childhood and the horror of the bombings, as if to underline the contrast between her own public-spiritedness and Prue’s selfish isolationism. Now Jimmy and Aggie were no longer her problem, the snobbish side of her personality came to the fore. But Prue had promised herself that nothing was going to ruin her happiness today, not even Patricia, and she managed to keep smiling.
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t do the boy any harm to play with the evacuees, my dear,’ Andrew said to his wife. ‘I believe it does children good to make friends outside their own circle.’
‘I said no, Andrew,’ Patricia told him shortly. She grabbed Edgar’s hand and swept him into the sitting room.
The kittens were in there, sleeping in a little furry huddle on one of the armchairs. Edgar let out a squeak when he laid eyes on them, clapping his hands together.
‘Grandmother, please may I?’ he whispered, bouncing a little in his anxiousness.
‘Absolutely not. Who knows what diseases they might be carrying? Nasty, smelly things.’ Patricia turned a look of disgust on Prue. ‘Wherever did they come from?’
‘They were orphaned in the air raid,’ Prue told her. ‘Somehow we ended up adopting them.’
‘And those?’ Patricia nodded to a pair of canaries clucking happily at each other in a birdcage.
‘Ah, those are Jimmy’s little pets. A boy in his class needed to find a new home for them.’ Prue moved the kittens from the armchair to their soapbox bed so she could sit down. ‘We’ve got quite the menagerie here now. So far, I seem to have gained four cats, two canaries, two chicks, a dog, a crow, two children, a baby and a Land Girl.’
‘I thought you couldn’t abide animals.’
‘I think it’s unfair to say I couldn’t abide them. I was always a little nervous around them.’ Prue leaned down to stroke a kitten
, which rubbed its face against her fingers. ‘But you do grow fond of them in time.’
‘Why take them in though?’
‘Because they had nowhere else to go, I suppose. Perhaps they are only animals, but they can still suffer; feel sadness and pain. I hate to think of them dying alone out there.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘There’s far too much of that going on as it is.’
‘That’s a very charitable attitude, Prudence,’ Andrew said. ‘We’re all God’s creatures, after all.’
‘Yes, that’s how I think of it.’
Patricia pursed her lips. ‘I’d have thought that with a war on, one would have more important things to do than shelter a lot of mangy animals. I can think of a hundred useful purposes a house this size could be put to.’
Prue frowned at her. ‘I’m sure you can, Patty, but this is the useful purpose I’ve chosen for it. Now, can I offer you both something to drink? We’re on the last of our tea ration, I’m afraid, but we do have some Camp Coffee.’
‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Patricia said. ‘Andrew and I can’t stand chicory.’
Edgar was still gazing longingly at the kittens. Andrew rested a hand on the child’s shoulder.
‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t play with the kittens, my lad,’ he said. ‘These aren’t strays but pets. I’m sure Mrs Hewitt sees to it that they have no fleas or diseases.’
‘Really, Grandpa?’ Edgar whispered.
‘Andrew, I do wish you would tell him not to call you “Grandpa” in that common way. “Grandfather” is the proper term,’ Patricia said with a click of irritation. ‘And you heard me say no, quite clearly.’
‘And you heard me say yes,’ Andrew said mildly, meeting her eyes.
Patricia looked at him for a moment, noting the steely spark in his usually placid expression. She turned to Edgar.
‘I suppose five minutes won’t do any harm,’ she said with a magnanimous nod.
Edie's Home for Orphans Page 26