The Gentleman on Pennyfield Street

by C. G Oster

  "You couldn't throw a stick without hitting an egg here."

  "We lost our kitchen wall, did I tell you? Every afternoon, we sit and eat breakfast in sight of the whole street."

  "I couldn't imagine," Lady Pettifer said with a shudder. "Now you mentioned you got a letter from that lovely detective."

  "He's a captain now. Apparently, he will be in London for a short while some time towards the end of next week."

  "I hope you will see him then. Perhaps he will take you dancing."

  A blush crept up Dory's cheeks and she looked away, hating how she blushed so easily. "Somehow, I doubt he is a dancing man."

  "War changes men," Lady Pettifer said. "Some become more serious, and some less so. He was a fairly serious man to begin with, so perhaps he has lightened a little."

  "I hope so," Dory said—not because she thought he needed to be lighter; she just didn't wish him to be more serious than he was.

  "Cedric is faring well," Lady Pettifer said about her oldest nephew. "They have given him more responsibility." It wasn't strictly mentioned anywhere, but Dory knew that the heirs to landholding titles were mostly excluded from the conscription. The aristocracy feared the turmoil to their class if all their heirs were killed in the war, but they were given responsibilities within the various ministries. Leisure wasn't allowed by anyone.

  "Ah, I believe we have a visitor," a booming voice was heard from the hall and Dory turned to see Lord Wallisford, who seemed to have gotten rounder in the last two years. His wife's absence gave him freedom to indulge, it would appear. "And who might this be?"

  "Miss Dory Sparks," Lady Pettifer said and Dory rose from her chair, putting her hand lightly in Lord Wallisford's.

  "Enchanted. It is so rare we have visitors these days." It seemed the lordship had no recollection that she used to work as a maid here, or perhaps he chose not to show that he knew her, being that she had been instrumental in his wife's conviction of murder and social downfall. It had been a disgrace to the family. In a sense, it was miraculous she was allowed through the doors.

  "Dory mans one of the searchlights down in London every night. Faces the Germans head-on."

  This seemed to impress him. "Well, I help our guns find them."

  "An essential job," he said.

  Over time, Dory had started to wonder how effective they were, considering how few of the planes they brought down. It was the barrage balloons. In doing their job by stopping the planes from diving, they also kept most of them out of accurate range of the guns. It was a trade-off and Dory wasn't sure they were better off this way.

  "What are we planning for supper tonight?" his lordship asked, turning to Lady Pettifer, who had apparently taken over the domestic arrangements. "Not more bloody chicken, I hope."

  "I believe the village boys sold us a pike."

  "Ah," Lord Wallisford said with a lightened mood. "I like pike. Something creamy with a bit of pepper. Gladys does know how to turn out a good fish course. Perhaps I should do some fishing myself when the weather permits."

  "I am sure Gladys will be more than impressed. Mr. Holmes can likely chase down some rods and reels somewhere."

  "Hmm," the man said and left.

  "He's grown increasingly restless," Lady Pettifer said after he’d gone. "I worry about his nerves. He needs something to occupy him, so if he wishes to take up fishing again, I will wholeheartedly support it."

  "And yourself. How are you?"

  "I worry for Andrew, of course. And Vivian. Mostly Vivian, being over there doing God-knows-what. Aldus worries too. I think it preys on his mind. Alfred Morely from the village succumbed, we heard. Very sad. His mother is a good woman."

  It was unlikely they had seen the messenger boys on the bicycles as they delivered bad news around town. Perhaps it was the stationmaster or the postman who delivered the telegrams up here. "I am sorry to hear that."

  "You hear more and more of it," Lady Pettifer continued. "But it was like this during the Great War too. Every day." Twisting her napkin, she looked out the window. "I don't think we'll see the end of this for some time yet. I think we will see total and complete exhaustion before we see the end of this."

  "I hope not," Dory said and meant every word of it.

  Chapter 12

  IT WAS STRANGE RESTING in a room she used to tidy. The lack of maids was showing in small ways all over the house. The whole house had a mustiness. Dory had to air her room out for a few minutes, even though it brought the cold and wind inside, and the wind had picked up dramatically. It pressed on the windows and whined along the hallway. Wallisford Hall was never a warm place at the best of times, but the fire soon warmed her room.

  When it came close to supper, Dory went down to see Gladys, who wouldn't hear of accepting help. The looks from Mrs. Parsons stated that she was definitely not welcome downstairs, so she went upstairs again to wait for Lady Pettifer to come down.

  The house was entirely quiet and mostly dark. In places, they didn't bother drawing the curtains, because they didn't bother lighting it. As she wandered, she could hear Mr. Holmes closing the curtains or shutters around the house. Even out here, blackout needed to be observed—as if the Germans would assume they were simply not there. In all honesty, the Germans were fairly good at finding their targets withstanding their efforts to appear camouflaged into the night.

  There was an edge of ineffective paranoia to the directions they were given by the Ministry of Information. The worst was the flyers telling them how to behave, which were most annoying of all. In fact, they annoyed mostly everyone, especially when they utterly lacked common sense.

  Walking along the hall, Dory slowly made her way to the parlor, passing a portrait of the lord's youngest son, Vivian Fellingworth, standing resolutely with a satisfied expression on his face. The artist had managed to capture him quite well, even the golden hue of his hair. It had been painted a few years ago. There was a youthfulness about him. He'd grown a bit since then, broadened in the face and shoulders.

  Then Livinia, looking ethereal in a gauzy white dress. Carefree and elegant. Her portrait suited her well too.

  "The wind is picking up something shocking, isn't it?" Lady Pettifer said as she walked down the darkened stairs. Dory hadn't heard her coming. "Damn Churchill for not allowing weather reports. How are we supposed to know how to manage our own business? It's not all about the Germans. There could be a full storm brewing and we are none the wiser."

  "I hope not. I have to catch the train back in tomorrow."

  "If it's a storm, I doubt the Germans are senseless enough to fly into it. I'm sure they won't need you."

  "Doesn't actually matter. I have to be there all the same."

  His lordship was heard on the stairs. "Now Gladys has prepared us some fish tonight, I believe," he said. He had to be speaking to Mr. Holmes, whose answer was inaudible. "There you are," he said when he appeared in the salon. "Drink anyone? Sherry, Constance?"

  "Yes, we'll both have one."

  "Cedric called earlier. I understand he is being sent over to Washington," he said as he tended to the bar, which was usually Mr. Holmes task, but Dory imagined he was needed elsewhere.

  A small cut crystal glass with a flaring stand was given to her, half full of the garnet-colored liquid. It had been an age since she'd had a sherry. Not her favorite tipple, but one could not be fussy these days. "Thank you," she uttered.

  "Apparently it has something to do with the work Henry Tizard was doing over there. Jet propulsion or something such."

  "What on earth would they want Cedric for?" Lady Pettifer asked. "No one would accuse him of being technically minded."

  "I don't know. They insist on keeping mum about everything, but I suspect they’re really trying to overturn the Neutrality Act. Everyone wants that bloody act overturned. Roosevelt is proposing to sell munitions to us, but the isolationists are fighting him—as if there were such a thing as isolation in a war like this."

  "Sounds like important work,
" Lady Pettifer said.

  "Yes," Lord Wallisford said absently. "We simply don't have the resources to sustain this war if they don't come to the party. The majority of Americans support repealing it, but the problem with American politics is that their factions are always so unwilling to compromise. It doesn’t help that bloody Hoover has placed that Irish lout Joe Kennedy as their ambassador here in London. Refuses to help with anything. Made all his wealth selling alcohol during the prohibition, so he’s never been much more than a criminal. Hates the English and he’s never hidden that fact. Keeps telling anyone who’ll listen that we will fold to the Germans by Christmas. They really should expel him from the country. In a time like this, it’s criminal to exclusively care about one’s own slights and prejudices. Ridiculous man."

  Mr. Holmes appeared at the door. "Whenever you are ready," he said solemnly.

  "About time, I'm half starving," his lordship said and they placed down their glasses and moved through to the dining room. The curtains had all been drawn tight and even in the large room, it felt a little claustrophobic. Candles sat along the large table and Lady Pettifer and her brother still insisted on sitting at opposite ends of the table, as far away from each other as possible. Dory had to sit in the middle, which still felt far from both of them.

  "So, Miss Sparks," Lord Wallisford said. "How are things in London?"

  "There is more and more devastation every night, but the worst is that the people who lose their residences have nowhere to go. There is no one available to rebuild."

  "Miss Sparks lost part of her kitchen," Lady Pettifer added.

  "Oh, I am sorry to hear that. The place must be riddled with crime."

  "There is some, I suppose," Dory said. "Mostly people simply want to get on with things. There are not enough air shelters and the ones we do have are badly provisioned." She hadn't meant for it to be a session where she spelled out all the wrongs, but it simply flowed. "People are getting very angry about it—the lack of response and consideration from the Government."

  "The Government can't solve all their problems for them," Lord Wallisford said.

  "No, but they should ensure there are enough air shelters when the Germans are coming to bomb us every single night." The people of the East End were not people that he had a great deal of natural sympathy for, and sentiment of him and the people like him was picked up by the people in question, and anger was growing. "The people are experiencing a tremendous degree of strain. Being ignored in their suffering is not something they take kindly to."

  "I'm sure no one is ignoring them."

  "I would hope so, Lord Wallisford," Dory replied tartly, knowing that ignoring them is exactly what the Government had done. "Assistance is starting to filter through to the absolutely destitute, but not enough to rebuild their homes, and there are no homes to move into. Every day the housing stock is less and less. People end up living on top of the rubble of their former houses because they simply have nowhere to go, except a cramped air shelter where there aren't any latrines or even enough room to lay down. Night after night, it wears and I don't know how long they will manage."

  So it turned out that this was the occasion when all her worries surfaced. These were the things she saw each day and she just didn't know how long the people of the East End could be left in this situation. "It was true that the war affects everyone and every single person have sacrifices they have to endure, but the people around where I live are suffering disproportionately. And that is simply fact."

  The table was quiet for a moment. While her friendship with Lady Pettifer was always wonderful, the friendship with her class was typically a little more drawn. Vivian was always good at stoking that fire and poking fun at her and her bourgeoise attitude. ‘Oik’ was the term he'd used a time or two.

  Perhaps she shouldn't speak like this, because neither Lord Wallisford or Lady Pettifer were responsible. They were both kind people. "I am sure the Government is working to rectify things," she finally said as a way of mollifying the discourse she had started. "As I said, things are wearing. I suppose my sensibilities included."

  "Perfectly understandable," Lady Pettifer said.

  "Will anyone be in need for second helpings?" Mr. Holmes asked. "If not, we will continue to dessert." He moved to clear the table away, which wasn't normally his job. Before the war, serving wine was his responsibility, plus shooting warning daggers at the maids for any misstep, but the whole supper service was completely up to him now.

  Dory smiled, but she still felt uncomfortable being there, able to accept a second helping when so many weren't getting quite enough. Rations were never quite sufficient to sate hunger. Even so, her qualms about having more than others would not hold when it came time for another slice of lemon drizzle cake, and that was something she would have to live with. Everyone had their breaking point.

  Chapter 13

  THE WALK FROM THE Whitechapel underground station was long and in places, she had to turn back and find an alternate route, because there was too much rubble strewn across the street. Glass crunched under her feet wherever she walked. Even on the clear streets, there was debris everywhere, so it was faster to walk than taking the bus. In some areas, whole blocks had been razed to the ground.

  Increasingly, the East End was looking more and more like a dump. Debris and sandbags. The normalcy of Wallisford Hall and Quainton quickly faded. For a little while, she had been able to pretend everything was normal.

  Gladys had sent her home with a good portion of ham and cheese, which felt like gold in her bag. On her other hip was her ever-present gas mask. Wardens fined people if they didn't carry them. Not that anyone bothered to pay a fine these days.

  The crater on her own street was there exactly as it had been the day it had happened. Although craters were good places to stash the debris, but no one had the time to address it. What was the point when there was another mess only yards away.

  Vera and Betsy were in the small front garden where the tree trunk had finally been removed. "Hello," she said. "What are you doing?"

  "Planting carrots," Vera said, standing up and stretching her back. Her hands were covered in dirt. "Apparently the Germans have sunk some supply ship and now we can't get tea at the shop. Half the things we have rations for, we still can't get, so we've finally conceded that we need to start making this small patch of dirt productive."

  "I got some ham and cheese," Dory said.

  "Brilliant. They have all sorts of things out in the country, don't they? Especially if you're going to visit fine country houses," Betsy said.

  "Well, they're doing their bit too."

  Betsy turned away for her snort, but Dory still heard it. You can choose not to eat the ham and cheese if you like, Dory felt like saying, but didn't. Instead, she walked into the kitchen and placed the ham and cheese into the warm ice chest. It had been a while since ice had been delivered, and granted, the food never lasted long enough to need cooling.

  Sitting down at the table, she pulled out the note with the names of elderly men with appendectomies. There were twenty-three, which wasn't an insurmountable number. She just needed to start seeking them out. There were a couple on the way to the searchlight and she would try to find them on her way to work that evening.

  Vera turned on the wireless and the tunes of a string quartet filled the room. "I wish they would play more gay music. It's always so solemn."

  "Don't think the people at the BBC could handle anything more upbeat," Betsy said.

  "Might be seen as unseemly."

  Getting up, Dory went to the counter and walked over to the bread bin. The bread was hard and stale, but it was chewable, so she cut herself a thin slice of ham and placed it on top.

  "Should we put the rest of the ham in a stew?" Vera asked. "We can have it for dinner. We have some potatoes and cabbage."

  "Yes, let's," Dory said. There would simply have to be cheese sandwiches from now on.

  "We're just about out of salt," Betsy said. "You d
idn't manage to get some of that, did you?"

  "No, just ham and cheese."

  "Shame."

  "I'll go buy some salt." Lady Pettifer had also given her another five pounds, which she'd been reluctant to accept, but Lady Pettifer rarely took no for an answer. This wasn't something she was about to tell the girls, though. They struggled enough with her friendship with Lady Pettifer, and granted, so did most others too. "I might leave early for work. There are a few things I want to check."

  "Still looking for that man?" Vera asked.

  "Yes, well, I have a list of names and addresses now."

  Moving to the hole in the wall, Vera looked up at the sky. "It's going to be a dark night. The Germans will give us hell tonight, I bet."

  Taking a bite of her sandwich, Dory sat down at the table. And put little checkmarks next to two of the names on her list. Matthew Harrows and George Mason. After finishing her sandwich and having a bit of a wash up in her room, she would take off. She'd slept the entire train ride, so she felt quite refreshed. And salt, she had to get the salt.

  *

  A woman named Dellis opened Matthew Harrows’ door. It was a typical brick two-story house with two windows upstairs and one large window next to the door.

  "Good afternoon, I am looking for Matthew Harrows."

  "Mr. Harrows died about a year back."

  Dory's eyebrows rose. As he had been amongst the living records in the hospital archive, they obviously had wrong information. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

  "What you want with him?"

  This question stumped Dory and she should have been more prepared. "Just making a welfare check," she said with a smile. "My records are obviously wrong. I'm new to this."

  "Oh, aye," the woman said. "Well, he's gone." She closed the door and Dory stepped back from the stoop, crossing the name off her list. If he died a year back, he was definitely not the body in Pennyfield Street. It would even have been before the raids started. For a moment, she wondered if she should inform that man in the archives that the information was wrong. Maybe at the end of her investigation.