Ellie (11 page)

From Ellie’s very first day in her class, Miss Wilkins was amused by the girl’s sense of humour. She had asked Ellie if she was comfortable at the Gilberts’.

‘I wouldn’t call it “comfortable”, exactly,’ Ellie replied with a mischievous grin. ‘But at least they haven’t made me sleep in a coffin.’

Miss Wilkins had found the London children were a tough breed. Many of the locals had been appalled at their lack of table manners, their shabby clothes and symptoms of malnutrition. One distracted foster mother claimed she couldn’t get the children into a bed – they’d insisted on sleeping under it, the way they had at home. Yet these children were quick-witted, resourceful and receptive. They soon adjusted to their new life and contributed to the community with their cheerful natures, making some of the local children look very dull in comparison. Ellie, however, had been plump on arrival, with glossy hair and sparkling eyes. Today, faced with her dejected state, Miss Wilkins noticed for the first time how thin Ellie had become, how dull her hair and eyes.

Ellie had a strong personality: she was self-assured, warm-hearted and popular with both children and staff. Time and again Miss Wilkins had seen her entertaining the other children in the playground with tap-dancing, slapstick comedy and song-and-dance routines. She was by far the best actress in the school club too, but now, as Miss Wilkins saw the desolation in the girl’s face, she realised to her horror that Ellie Forester had been acting out a role, fooling everyone into thinking she was content and even happy at the undertakers.

‘Now listen here.’ Seeing that Ellie wasn’t about to talk, Miss Wilkins took a tougher line. ‘Something is very wrong and I insist on knowing about it. If you won’t tell me I’ll go to Mr Gilbert.’

Ellie blanched. Mr Gilbert was a decent sort, quite unlike his sister. They had even established a kind of tentative friendship as she helped him trim coffins out in the workshop. If he were to discover what had happened last night she wouldn’t be able to live with the shame.

There was nothing for it but to take Miss Wilkins into her confidence.

She blurted it out, her fear, embarrassment and shame when Miss Gilbert called her a slut.

‘Oh Ellie.’ Miss Wilkins’s eyes softened with sympathy at Ellie’s whispered explanation, drawing her close and hugging her. She understood completely the girl’s trauma of being unprepared for menstruation. Even with a mother to explain and advise, it was still a source of embarrassment to girls. Her heart went out to Ellie, silently cursing the bitter old maid who’d made her feel so ashamed of her femininity. ‘It’s quite normal, you know, you’ve just started a bit early. Let me explain it all to you.’

Miss Wilkins sat at her desk deep in thought for some time after Ellie had gone home. She was appalled that Miss Gilbert could betray her own sex by humiliating the girl at such a crucial time. Miss Wilkins had explained, reassured and even given Ellie a packet of proper sanitary towels. Yet during their talk she had sensed that this wasn’t an isolated incidence of callousness on Miss Gilbert’s part, but a long and vindictive campaign against the girl.

What should she do?

Miss Wilkins knew there wasn’t an alternative billet in the town. Many of the people had had bad experiences with their first attempt with evacuees and when the children had gone home they’d refused to try again. Now an influx of RAF wives whose husbands were stationed in East Anglia had descended on the town, filling the remaining places. If she asked Mrs Dunwoody to find Ellie a new home it might be miles away in one of the villages, involving a change of school. Ellie had been emphatic she didn’t want that, and neither did Miss Wilkins.

Ellie was the kind of child who made teaching a pleasure. She wasn’t academic, but her enthusiasm and desire to soak up knowledge were delightful. Since arriving in the village she’d all but lost her cockney accent, taking pride in learning to speak correctly. On top of that, Ellie’s acting ability needed nurturing. She was good enough to have a career on the stage.

Miss Wilkins smiled as she remembered back to last September. She’d got the evacuees to tell the class about their parents and homes back in London, in an effort to show the local children a glimpse of city life.

One by one the evacuee children created a picture of big families living in cramped conditions, noisy street markets, eel and pie shops, the docks, pawnbrokers and second-hand clothes shops. Miss Wilkins opened it up as a class discussion, getting the locals to ask questions and indeed to explain to the London children the differences in their lives. Ellie had taken a big role in all this, being far more articulate than many of the others, and her vivid descriptions of her neighbours back home made all the children laugh.

When Ellie had mentioned that her mother worked as a dresser in a theatre, Miss Wilkins picked up on this.

‘Tell us about it,’ she suggested.

‘’Ow d’you mean, tell ’em about it?’ Ellie asked in surprise.

It was just half an hour until the bell rang for the end of school. Miss Wilkins usually read to the class at that stage of the day.

‘None of us has been backstage in a theatre,’ Miss Wilkins said. ‘We want to know what a dresser does, how you helped.’

Miss Wilkins didn’t expect much from Ellie. Speaking out in a group was one thing, but standing up alone and making it interesting enough to hold anyone’s attention for more than a few moments was hard for any child, even one as confident as Ellie.

But as Ellie began to speak, Miss Wilkins found herself being richly entertained.

Ellie began by describing how her mother put out all the costumes with the accessories for each performer. Unconsciously, she soon slipped into acting it out.

She mimed her mother’s exertions at lacing a fat singer into a corset, then strutted around being the singer trying out a few tentative notes. She described the chorus girls’ pushing and shoving to see in one mirror, acting it out with provocative wiggles and pouts. The children experienced Polly Forester’s rush against the clock, darting around the overcrowded dressing-room, putting a fan in one hand, a feather boa on someone’s shoulders. Ellie kept up the dialogue, too, the plummy tones of some of the actors and actresses, with her mother’s rich cockney voice admonishing them to keep still while she did last-minute running repairs to their costumes. The picture she painted was so vivid that every child in the class was spellbound.

The bell for the end of school ended it all abruptly, but for once not one child leapt to his or her feet anxious to leave.

Since then Ellie had been called on many a time for impromptu performances. She could create a scene on the underground trains, become a market trader bawling out his sales pitch, or a harassed mother with four children in tow. But one memorable sketch Ellie had performed now came sharply into focus: Miss Gilbert preparing a meal, counting out the potatoes and carrots, measuring the loaf with a piece of string in case Mr Gilbert’s apprentice was to nip in behind her back to steal a slice. Miss Wilkins had assumed then it was exaggerated for comic effect. Now she was sure the reality was probably worse.

Miss Wilkins had known Grace Gilbert since they were children. Grace had always been odd – a withdrawn, whey-faced girl who peered out through the gates of the undertakers at other children and ran away when anyone tried to befriend her. Since reaching adulthood, there had always been rumours about her. Miss Wilkins didn’t believe all these tales, because she knew people whispered about her too, for different reasons. But it was certainly true that Grace Gilbert wasn’t entirely normal. She had a well-documented obsession with cleaning, she was a skinflint and she was impossible to like. But if Grace Gilbert was now ill-treating a child in her care, it was time her brother put a stop to it.

Miss Wilkins hesitated at the gates of Gilbert’s yard. It was half past five and already dark and the undertakers yard was a daunting place for anyone.

She knew Amos was in his workshop; she could hear the sound of sawing and smell the woodshavings, even though because of the black-out no lights were visible.

A row of tombstones glowed eerily further into the yard. She had no way of gauging how deep the puddle of water in front of her was, and she couldn’t call at the shop door as she had no wish to run into Ellie or Miss Gilbert just now. This talk with Amos was intended to be a private matter.

Miss Wilkins crossed the puddle, which wasn’t deep after all, and tapped lightly on the door of the workshop.

‘Come in,’ he called back.

She opened the door, went in and quickly shut it behind her. ‘Good evening Amos,’ she said.

Amos was making a tiny coffin on his workbench by the light of an overhanging hurricane lamp. Dressed for funerals in a black frock-coat, wing-collar and top hat he was a formidable-looking man, but here he was just a craftsman wearing working-men’s clothes, rugged, muscular and comfortably ordinary.

His workshop was a surprisingly agreeable place to be in, despite the many different-sized, half-completed coffins standing on their ends like sentry boxes. A small stove kept it warm, a six-foot cabinet of small glass-fronted drawers held all his handles, screws and other equipment and his planes, saws and chisels were hung on the walls with the kind of care which suggested this was where he was happiest. There was still enough harnessing, bridles and other equipment hanging up on the walls and rough beams to show it had once been a stable. The timber stacked up in the old hayloft filled the air with its pungent smell.

‘Well, Dora!’ Amos looked surprised but pleased to see her. ‘It’s a few years since you last came in here.’

The teacher smiled. She and Amos had been close friends as small children. As a boy he’d had a great sense of fun and they’d played together up in that hayloft on many an occasion.

Amos had always been quite different from his older sister. He shared her grey eyes and thin lips, but not her pallor or nature. Even now he still retained his ruddy, wholesome appearance and the same shy, warm smile she remembered.

Here in the workshop, Amos was a carpenter, a job she seemed to remember he would have preferred. But considering the serious nature of his profession, the responsibility for the family business and the company of Grace, it wasn’t really surprising he had become a dour and perhaps lonely man.

Miss Wilkins saw the meticulous care he was taking with the tiny coffin, and felt saddened that his craftsmanship was destined to rot away six foot underground instead of making fine furniture for generations to come.

Amos saw her glance at the small coffin and lifted it from his workbench, putting it down on the floor out of sight. ‘The Sawyers’ little one,’ he said gruffly, his grey eyes compassionate. ‘I expect you heard she died. A baby’s death is something I never come to terms with, not even after all these years.’

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she said. ‘You were always so adamant you wouldn’t follow your father.’

‘You were going to be an actress,’ he replied. ‘Remember us putting on a play up there?’ He nodded towards the hayloft. ‘You were the Queen and I was Sir Francis Drake.’ His words were a gentle reminder that most people’s dreams had to take second place to duty.

‘We had some good times back then.’ Miss Wilkins half smiled at the memory of knighting Amos with a poker as he kneeled at her feet. ‘But this isn’t a social call, Amos, I came to talk to you about Ellie.’

Amos was always gentlemanly. He pulled a stool out from beneath a bench, dusted it off and offered it to her.

‘What’s she been up to?’ he asked, brushing back his dark hair with one hand. Miss Wilkins noted the way his eyes twinkled and she knew immediately that he liked the girl.

Amos hadn’t wanted an evacuee foisted on him. He had no experience with children and Grace had even less. But once Grace knew there was money in it, she was determined to have one. And despite Amos’s reservations, he had grown to like Ellie. She was eager to please, nimble-fingered and when they were working alone out here she made him laugh with her impersonations of neighbours. Inside the house he rarely saw her because of the long hours he worked. Grace was always sharp with her, but then she was with everyone.

‘Ellie hasn’t done anything. It’s your sister,’ Miss Wilkins said quietly. ‘I’m very concerned, Amos, and I’m counting on your help to put things right.’

Amos frowned, sat down on an upturned box and took his pipe out of his pocket. ‘Tell me, Dora.’

Dora spoke first of Ellie’s weight-loss and general condition, mentioning the girl’s work-reddened hands and her suspicions about Grace’s ill-treatment of her. It was excruciatingly embarrassing to bring up the tale of last night’s events to a man, especially an unmarried one, but she managed it with a few euphemisms.

Miss Wilkins could see by the way his face reddened and his eyes couldn’t meet hers that Amos was embarrassed. But there was something more. She sensed she’d struck a sensitive chord in him: she could almost hear his thought processes, and the unvoiced question, Why hadn’t he realised what was going on under his own roof?

‘Girls at puberty are very sensitive,’ she explained. ‘Ellie would be mortified to know I’d divulged anything like this to you, but you must take Grace in hand, Amos. She can’t be allowed to take out her bitterness on a young girl, especially one as vulnerable as Ellie.’

Amos sucked on his pipe thoughtfully. Grace had never been like others, although Amos, being three years younger, had just accepted her oddness in the way any brother would. She was eighteen and Amos fifteen in the summer of 1912, when Sean O’Leary and Meg Butterworth died. Twenty-eight years on he still hadn’t managed to squash those dark suspicions about his sister’s part in it.

Grace had blighted his life. As a young lad he’d taken stick from his friends at having such a queer sister. Because of her he’d felt compelled to stick to the family business rather than break away and become a carpenter.

Even if the First War hadn’t taken most of the young men from the village, no man in his right mind would have wanted a mean-spirited woman like Grace for a wife. She flew into tantrums about nothing, she drove shopkeepers wild with fury when she picked over their goods, and if Amos hadn’t been firm enough to keep her away from bereaved relatives, her abrupt, cold manner might have lost them the family business too. But it was her cruelty that had always concerned Amos. He had seen her once strangle a kitten with her bare hands because it made a mess on the floor and the last apprentice that lived in the house had run away when she flogged him for helping himself to a slice of meat pie.