Mrs Boots Goes to War

by Deborah Carr

  ‘Well, that was a new experience, wasn’t it?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

  Florence suspected that now they were all safe and well he was finding the unexpected adventure rather exciting. She went over to him and kissed him. ‘Yes, it was. And it’s not one I care to repeat.’

  ‘I’ll agree with you there.’

  As she settled down in her bed Florence couldn’t help thinking of the people that might be caught up in the frightening bombing raid. Her thoughts straying to Agnes Tweed and her sister, Florence prayed that no one had been injured or killed this time. She had been lucky so far that no one in her family had been hurt, or worse. She shuddered at the thought and quickly pushed it away. It dawned on her that while she had been fretting about John and Margery away at war, the rest of her family and her granddaughters were no longer as safe as she had imagined now that the war had come to Britain. She stared at the walls, the rose-patterned wallpaper she loved so much impossible to see in the darkness. Would this war never end? she wondered anxiously. And, if it did, would her family survive it intact?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Florence arrived at work the following morning. She had gone ahead of Jesse for once, wanting him to sleep a little longer while she stopped by Margaret and Dorothy’s homes to check that they and their little girls were safe and well. He needed to catch up with a little of the sleep he had lost the night before. Relieved to know that those closest to her were fine, she rushed to the Pelham Street store to check that there had been no damage caused by the bombing raid seven hours earlier.

  Florence stepped out of her car and stood facing the shop front, studying it to see if there was any obvious damage to the red-brick building. She sighed with relief, noting that there didn’t seem to be anything.

  She entered the store and, as she walked past the counters and bid her staff her usual good mornings, couldn’t help sensing that the mood was rather sombre. She wasn’t surprised. After all, she thought, most of the area must have had their night’s sleep interrupted. She herself felt a little worse for wear after the frightening sight and sound of that enormous airship and the bombs exploding.

  She supposed Jesse would be reading out reports from the newspapers later in the day and hoped that there hadn’t been any fatalities. Florence reached her office to be met by Enid ready with a cup of tea and the early morning post opened and sorted by her assistant secretary, ready for Florence to read through and draft her replies.

  ‘Were you disturbed by that horrendous raid last night?’ Florence asked, taking off her coat and hanging it up then unpinning her hat and doing the same with that. She sat at her desk and waited for Enid to finish placing the tea and post on her desk and reply to her question.

  ‘We were, Lady Boot,’ she said.

  Florence noticed dark circles under the girl’s pale eyes. ‘Sit down, Enid,’ she said gently. ‘Are you all right this morning?’

  Enid gave her question some thought. ‘Just a little tired, that’s all.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  Enid nodded. ‘We’re fine. Thank you.’

  Florence knew something was wrong and that Enid would never like to burden her with anything from her personal life. She wished it wasn’t the case. She valued Enid’s loyalty even if she had not turned out to be as efficient as either Miss Tweed or Gladys, and wished she was more comfortable confiding in her.

  Surely, her instincts were not wrong on this? ‘I can tell there’s something the matter though,’ Florence said. ‘Please won’t you tell me what it is? Maybe I can be of some help.’

  Enid pressed her right hand against her chest. Florence wasn’t sure if it was to steady herself or because she had a lot to say. ‘We’re fine, Lady Boot, but our neighbours four doors down were killed in the raid.’ Florence frowned. ‘That is, the husband and son were. The mother and daughter were taken to hospital with cuts and bruising and I believe they’ll be all right.’

  ‘Physically, maybe,’ Florence said thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure what this sort of shock will do to their minds though. Do you know if they have somewhere to go and stay? If they have any other family who can take them in?’

  ‘I’ve seen an older lady and another woman Mrs Cooper’s age coming to the house on Sundays and high days sometimes,’ Enid said. ‘I assumed they were Mrs Cooper’s mother and sister, or maybe they were related to Mr Cooper’s side of the family. I’m not certain.’

  Florence was determined to help in any way she could and her first instinct was to go and visit the woman in hospital, but as she thought about doing so it occurred to her that maybe this grieving widow would not welcome a stranger, however well-meaning, to visit her at her hospital bed.

  ‘Enid, how well do you know your neighbours?’ When her secretary seemed confused, Florence added, ‘That is, would you feel comfortable going to visit Mrs Cooper in the hospital to speak to her on my behalf?’

  Enid seemed surprised at Florence’s request. Then, gathering herself, she nodded. ‘Yes, I’d be very happy to do that, Lady Boot. What would you like me to say to her?’

  Florence thought for a few seconds. ‘I think the first thing to do is to send my commiserations for her terrible loss. Then maybe take her some flowers and fruit from Sir Jesse and me. Mostly I’d like you to ascertain if they have anywhere to go after she and her daughter are discharged from hospital.’ She watched Enid noting down all she was saying. ‘Also, if there’s anything at all that they need.’ She sighed, trying to keep her emotions in check. The thought of losing a son and a husband was almost too terrible for her to contemplate. ‘Maybe to gauge if she needs help paying for the funerals. That sort of thing. Whatever you think. Please let me know and we can talk about it tomorrow and then work something out.’

  Enid laid her right hand on her chest. ‘Oh, Lady Boot, you really are the most generous person. Truly.’

  Florence didn’t want appreciation for what she was doing. ‘Not at all. I’m just in the lucky position of being able to help others when they need it most. It will give me an awful lot of satisfaction to know I’ve helped Mrs Cooper and her daughter. She won’t be the only one benefitting from whatever it is that I do for her.’

  ‘Still, though,’ Enid said, uncharacteristically speaking without being asked for her opinion, ‘I think it’s a wonderful thing for you to do. So very caring.’

  Florence raised her hand and shook her head. ‘Nonsense. Now, if you find out the visiting hours and then, probably not today as it’ll be too soon and her family will probably want to go and see her, but maybe tomorrow or the next day, if you visit her then you can tell me what you think.’

  Florence was shocked to discover that there was nothing about the bombing in the local papers. ‘How strange,’ she said to Jesse over a light lunch that she had arranged to be delivered to his office at midday. ‘You’d think there would be columns of reporting about what happened last night. It must have affected many people.’

  ‘I thought the same thing,’ Jesse said, wiping his mouth after finishing his chicken salad. ‘But then I suspect the government might have put an embargo on the story.’

  ‘But why would they do that?’ It didn’t make any sense, she decided.

  ‘I don’t know but I would think that the shock of being bombed in our beds is enough to terrify the population. Maybe the government think that to read about the horrors in the papers will lower people’s morale. They could be right.’

  When he put it like that, Florence mused, she could understand the motive behind the restrictions. ‘But how are we supposed to know who has suffered at the hands of these bombers and be able to help them?’

  ‘I have no idea, my love.’ He smiled at her. ‘I believe though that the local grapevine will soon tell us all that we need to know. People talk regardless of what the newspapers do or do not report.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’ She was relieved. It might take days but they would end up hearing at least some of what had occurred the
previous night and then they could create a plan for helping any families or individuals that needed them to do so.

  Half an hour later, Florence welcomed Lily into her office. She could see that her friend was concerned about something. ‘Please don’t tell me that one of your girls has been hurt in that awful raid last night.’

  Lily tilted her head. ‘Only one and she has a few cuts, nothing more. She is very shocked though.’

  Florence motioned for her friend to take a seat and called for Enid to bring some tea for them. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The house where she boards has been badly damaged by one of the explosions. I’m told that no one was hurt but she’s having to move out because the property will need extensive repairs before it’s habitable again,’ Lily explained. ‘I gather that no one was killed and that she is able to move in with her brother’s family but she’s rather shaken.’

  ‘Have you sent her home to her brother’s?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Good. If you let me have the brother’s address, I’ll call in on her and take a hamper of food for them.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Florence. I’m sure they’ll be grateful, what with the shortages and having an extra mouth to feed.’

  Florence listened to her friend but was more focused on the dark circles under her eyes than on what she was saying. ‘And you, my friend, how are you keeping?’

  Lily sighed. ‘I’m fine, although a little tired. My sister is now engaged to be married and was still out last night when the raid occurred. I’m afraid I was rather frantic worrying about her, but she finally arrived home shortly after it ended. I have to admit I lost my temper with her a little.’

  She looked so sad that Florence wanted to console her. ‘Well, that’s hardly surprising. You must have been beside yourself with all that destruction going on and not knowing where your sister was.’ Florence reached out across her desk and patted her friend’s hand before sitting back down. ‘I’m sure she’ll understand once she has time to reflect on what she did and how that must have made you feel.’

  Lily sighed miserably. ‘I do hope so. We usually get along ever so well, and I would hate for that to change.’

  ‘Your brother, how is he?’

  ‘He’s fine. I don’t think he’ll ever marry and to be honest it’s pleasant sharing the cottage with him. I know I was never interested in marrying but it is nice to have someone to talk to and share supper with each evening.’

  Florence realised she had never spent evenings alone. Or at least not completely alone. Even if Jesse had been unwell and upstairs eating supper in his room, she had asked for hers to be served in there, too, so that they could spend the time together.

  ‘I’m glad you have some of your family living here with you, Lily. We all need family sometimes, or close friends with whom we can spend time talking about our days.’ She thought of all the women who were now alone since their husbands had been killed since the beginning of the war. How strange life was sometimes, she marvelled. Last night they were all hiding in a cellar to try to avoid mass slaughter and today she was back at work trying not to fret about her daughter working hard to look after the many wounded soldiers who passed daily through her canteen, while at home her other two children were raising their small families. The range of emotions coursing through her was tiring but she was relieved and happy.

  ‘It makes me wonder at life sometimes,’ Florence admitted, thoughtfully.

  ‘What exactly?’

  ‘How no matter what horrors some are experiencing, or how close to death others are, life simply goes on.’ Florence shook her head. It really was quite exhausting. ‘I’m grateful my children live nearby and that I am able to visit my granddaughters when I wish to.’ She then pictured Margery working hard in her canteen, surrounded by soldiers who were in pain and desperate to return home. ‘It’s such a strange time right now, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re not wrong there, Florence.’

  The next day, Florence went to Jesse’s office before leaving to go and visit Lily’s shop assistant with a hamper of food.

  ‘I’ve been told,’ Jesse said, ‘that when the sirens began most of the city immediately turned off lights yet for some strange reason the railway companies didn’t do so.’

  Florence thought of the passengers travelling. ‘Maybe it was because they were concerned that passengers might fall and hurt themselves if they couldn’t see where they were going?’

  ‘Whatever their reasoning,’ he said, ‘it meant that the Zeppelin pilot could see them and then knew they would hit their target when they dropped their bombs. The porter also told me that bombs were dropped on Eastcroft, through the Meadows to Midland Station. They hit Haddon’s factory in Carrington Street and a warehouse in Lister Gate before making their way to Victoria Station, where, thankfully, the damage was restricted to broken windows.’

  Florence was shocked. To think that the airship could do such damage and from the sky too. How could they ever be safe from such a monstrous event?

  ‘I’m also told that the Methodist church on Canaan Street was set on fire by an incendiary bomb. So much destruction.’

  ‘It is shocking, but bricks and mortar can be replaced,’ Florence said, thinking how devastated she and Jesse would be should one of their properties be destroyed. ‘What about the people? Were there any casualties that you know of that we might be able to help?’

  Jesse rubbed his tired eyes with the back of his hands. ‘I’m told that there have been a few, yes. All we can hope is that they were asleep and didn’t suffer.’

  Florence thought again of Miss Tweed and her sister as she had done just after the bombing. She thought it highly improbable that anyone could sleep through a bombing but didn’t want to upset Jesse further by suggesting that might be the case. She gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. ‘I’m sure that if we do hear of anyone we can then decide if there is a way that we could help them, or at least send them whatever they need to help them in some way.’

  He raised his hand to rest lightly on hers. ‘You’re a thoughtful person, my dear. These are such troubling times. I can’t help thinking how lucky we are to live in such a big house with a cellar where we can go at a moment’s notice with our servants.’

  ‘Yes, we are very lucky.’ As she spoke, a thought occurred to her: ‘We don’t have any instructions in place for the staff to follow should there be a daylight raid. We need to work out what each of our shops or factory managers must do to ensure our staff and customers are kept safe should there be one. Don’t you agree?’

  Jesse opened his mouth to speak then closed it again. ‘I do. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about doing this already,’ he said. ‘I’ll start making plans while you are out and then we can discuss them later and put them in place as soon as possible.’

  The following day, John visited his mother and father at Pelham Street. Florence took one look at him and knew he had come to tell them something they wouldn’t like. Her heart pounded rapidly. ‘Nothing’s wrong with Margaret or any of the family, is it?’ she asked before he had time to take off his coat.

  He shook his head and kissed her on the cheek. ‘No, it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘But it is something for me to worry about, isn’t it?’ She prayed he would disagree, but he simply waited for her to take a seat next to Jesse. ‘Go on then, you’d better get this over with before your father or I send ourselves mad panicking over what news you have for us.’

  ‘Yes, do tell us,’ Jesse said, irritation obvious in his voice.

  ‘I’m returning to France.’

  ‘What?’ Florence couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘But you’ve been demobbed. Your legs? You can’t possibly go back there.’

  John pulled back a chair on the opposite side of Jesse’s large desk and sat. ‘I’m not fighting and will be away from the front lines,’ he said, calmly.

  His words reassured her slightly but the thought of her son going away again was a
lmost too much. She waited for him to continue.

  ‘I’ve been given a managerial role at General Headquarters and I’ll be leaving in the next week. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about it to you before, but I wanted to be certain first that I was ready and had completed all the training that I needed to do.’

  Florence thought back to John’s absences and realised she had assumed they were to do with work so hadn’t bothered to question them. ‘But why would you want to go back there when you can stay working for the company?’ She felt breathless at the notion of losing him to the war once more.

  ‘Because as much as I know I’ll miss you all, I know that this war won’t last forever and I want to be certain that when it is all over I can feel satisfied that I did all I could for my country.’

  Jesse mumbled something Florence couldn’t quite make out and then added, ‘But you can do that from the safety of Nottingham, son. You do valuable work for Boots. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  John scowled. ‘You know it does, Father. But I have to go where my conscience takes me. You’ve both always instilled that in me, Dorothy and Margery, haven’t you?’

  He was right, Florence realised. How could they expect him to go against the very virtues they had both brought him up to follow? ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she admitted. ‘But it won’t stop your father and me from worrying about you.’ Florence wondered how much more she could stand of this interminable war. How was she going to bear to lose her son, yet again, to the war effort?

  ‘You have to do as you see fit,’ Jesse said. ‘Naturally, your mother and I will be worried for you until you return, but we can’t argue with what you’re doing.’ He turned to Florence. ‘Can we, dear? Although I know we both wish to.’

  ‘When do you go?’ she asked, hoping it wouldn’t be too soon.

  ‘Tomorrow, I’m afraid.’