Moonlight and Ashes (18 page)

Danny felt much the same way but he was hungry so he ate his anyway. As the meal continued, the sound of motors pulling onto the little gravel car park outside filtered into the hall.

Seeing Danny look towards the sound, Miss Timpson leaned over and whispered, ‘That will be the people you are all going to be staying with.’

Newcomers began to filter into the room and the children watched them curiously. Men, women and children of all shapes and sizes were soon crowded down the opposite wall.

At last the meal was over and Miss Williams, who they were later to discover was the billeting officer for that area, again took up her clipboard and approached the different families, pointing to children on their table as she did so.

By now, Lizzie’s eyes were almost starting out of her head and she was clinging on to Danny’s hand beneath the table as if she would never let it go. They saw Miss Williams pointing to different children, and people shuffled forward to introduce themselves to their new charges until there was only them and another two children left seated at the table.

And then suddenly there was a large woman in a voluminous coat with a red-faced man at the side of her lumbering towards them. Lizzie knew instinctively that they were heading for her and Danny, and she choked back the sob of fear that was lodged in her throat.

‘Right then, it’s Lizziebright, is it now?’ The woman was towering over her and holding out her hand, and Lizzie tentatively shook it as her head bobbed up and down in agreement.

‘Good, good. This is Mr Evans, my husband. You’ll be coming to stay with us for a while. You collect your things then now,
bach
, and come along with us.’

Lizzie was pleased to note that the woman looked kindly, so she plucked up the courage to ask, ‘What about my brother Danny. Isn’t he comin’ too?’

‘Ah, sadly we only have the room for one evacuee,
bach
. My husband is the local blacksmith and our cottage only has two bedrooms, so you’ll get to have a room all to yourself, so you will. Won’t that be nice now, eh?’

Lizzie stopped and shook her head as panic engulfed her. ‘I ain’t goin’ without Danny,’ she stated stubbornly.

Fearing a tantrum, the woman looked at her husband, who scratched his head, bemused.

‘Now, now, don’t take on, so. You’ll get to see your brother every single day at the village school, so you will. And then of course you’ll be able to play together after school too, when the weather permits. So come along now. Show the others what a big brave girl you are.’

Lizzie flashed Danny a look of pure desperation, but all he could do was shrug his shoulders as the large fair-haired woman led her away. He was so intent on watching the plight of his sister that when a man’s voice addressed him in an English accent he almost jumped out of his skin.

Glancing up, he found himself looking into the frowning features of a giant. The man had jet-black hair, which was slicked away from his forehead. A large black eye-patch covered one eye, and below that Danny saw that one side of his face was horrifically disfigured with livid red scars. His brain immediately began to work overtime. Perhaps the man was a hero who’d been injured in the war? He had no time to think on it, for suddenly Lizzie’s voice pierced through the babble of voices in the hall.

‘Danny.
Dannnnnnnny!
’

His face crumpled as he saw the big woman dragging Lizzie towards the door. His sister was looking across her shoulder imploringly at him, as tears rained down her face, but he was powerless to do anything about it. Even as he watched, she disappeared through the door into the darkening evening, and his heart did a somersault in his chest.

The man standing beside him said not a single word until Danny finally dragged his eyes away from the door and looked back up at him.

‘Danny Bright, is it?’ the man snapped. ‘I’m Mr Sinclair and you’re coming to stay with me.’

Danny nodded fearfully. The man wasn’t the nicest to look at and he didn’t seem to be any too friendly either.

‘Good. Get your bags and follow me then. I haven’t got all night to waste.’

Too afraid not to obey, Danny scooted away from the table, almost overturning his chair in the process, and snatched up his small suitcase. He noticed that all the other villagers were chatting and standing about in little groups, but no one spoke to the man as he headed purposefully towards the door.

Once outside, he nodded towards a small car that was parked against the hall. ‘Get in there.’

Obediently, Danny clambered in as the man slid into the driving seat. ‘Wh . . . where are we going?’ he dared to ask in a very small voice.

‘To my home on the hillside, of course. You’ll find it basic but comfortable. Let’s just hope that you don’t have to stay too long.’ As he spoke he was reversing the car onto the road and for a time Danny was silent as he enjoyed his first ride in a motorcar. He kept watch for a sight of his sister as they drove through the village but there was no sign of her, so when they hit the unlit roads Danny leaned back in his seat and studied the man from the corner of his eye.

‘Do you live very far away?’ he ventured eventually.

The man sighed as if it was too much trouble to have to reply. ‘Not really. You’ll be well within walking distance of the village school.’

Danny gazed at the window but it was dark now and the drizzle had caused a mist, which made it difficult to see beyond the car headlights. Leaning his head against the back of the seat he rested his eyes and before he knew it, he had fallen fast asleep.

The man shaking his arm brought him springing awake. He blinked, and as the man climbed out of the car he scrambled out and snatched his suitcase before following him up a path that led to what looked like a large house, surrounded by trees nestling in the hillside.

There were no lights on in the windows, which looked like dark hungry eyes blinking out into the night. The place looked cold and uninviting, and when Danny involuntarily shuddered he wasn’t sure if it was through cold or his circumstances. A picture of the cosy little kitchen back at home flashed into his mind and he had to blink away the tears.

He stood silently in the misty drizzle as the man took a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door. He went in ahead of Danny then motioned with his hand for the boy to follow him. As he snapped on the light, Danny blinked and looked around at what was to be his home for the unforeseeable future. He found himself in a spacious hallway with various doors leading off it. An ornately carved banister curved upwards to the first floor. He followed the man to a doorway right at the end of the long hall and found himself in what was obviously the kitchen. The room was reasonably clean and tidy, though there were no knick-knacks of any description to make it homely. A large scrubbed table took up the centre of the room, surrounded by four matching hard-backed chairs. A dresser in the same wood stood against the far wall, holding various plates, dishes and bowls. In a corner was a deep stone sink with a window above it, and on each side of the fireplace was an armchair. A large cooking range, in dire need of blackleading, stood apart from the sink but other than that, the room was bare. There were three more doors leading from the room, which the boy would later discover led to the stairs, the outside yard and a deep walk-in pantry.

A huge tabby cat was curled up fast asleep on one of the chairs, and when Mr Sinclair saw Danny looking at her, he told him, ‘That’s Hemily. I bought her to catch the mice round here but she tends to eat and sleep for most of the time. And that’s Samson.’ Even as he spoke, a huge black Labrador with a furiously wagging tail lumbered towards them. Danny would have loved to stroke him but was too afraid to in Mr Sinclair’s presence, so he just stood mutely as the man bent to fondle the huge dog’s ears.

The man seemed as ill-at-ease as Danny felt, and when he straightened he told him brusquely, ‘You can hang your coat there. There are some hooks on the back of the door. Then, if you follow me, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. I’ve no doubt you’ll be tired after your journey.’

Clutching his case, Danny trod across the dull red tiled floor, followed the man back the way they had come and up the staircase. He glanced curiously at the doors leading off the hallway as they passed through it, but was too afraid to ask where they led. At the top of the stairs, the man marched along to a door which he pushed open. Danny stepped past him into a sizeable room that again was scantily furnished.

‘You’ll be sleeping here,’ Mr Sinclair said. ‘If you need to . . . you know, there’s a chamber pot under the bed. You can empty it into the outside lavatory in the morning.’

He was about to close the door when Danny plucked up his courage and asked him, ‘Sir, what am I to call you?’

The man paused. ‘My name is Eric - Eric Sinclair. You can call me Mr Sinclair.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Danny replied, remembering his manners, and then the man closed the door and he was finally alone.

His eyes scanned the room. A large brass bed was placed against one wall with a big wardrobe one side of it and a chest of drawers the other. On the opposite wall, a pretty china jug and bowl stood on an elaborately carved washstand, which he noted was full of cold water. This, he guessed, was where he would be expected to wash in the morning.

On the other wall was a huge window with plain dark curtains drawn tightly across it. Crossing to it, Danny swished them aside and peered out into the night. Below him he could vaguely make out the shape of what appeared to be a number of outbuildings, but beyond that he couldn’t see for the swirling mist.

Sighing, he hoisted his case onto the bed and began to unpack the contents into the chest of drawers. Then, pulling on his pyjamas, he snapped off the light and clambered into the big brass bed. He shuddered as he snuggled down into the cold sheets and instantly his thoughts turned to his sister. He hoped that she was having a better reception than he was, for without saying a word, Mr Sinclair had made it more than obvious that Danny wasn’t welcome there. If that was the case, Danny wondered, why had he agreed to take him?

He started as the lonely sound of an owl hooting in a nearby tree pierced the unnatural silence. He could hear the wind whistling through the trees and snuggled further down the bed. And only then did he allow himself to be a little boy who was far away from home as he cried himself to sleep.

Down in the village, Lizzie was having a much more cheerful welcome to her new home. Mr and Mrs Evans showed her into a little stone cottage next to the village smithy that seemed to be bulging with ornaments on every available surface. Compared to the house that Danny was to stay in, the cottage was tiny, but it was also warm and welcoming. Mrs Evans, who was the mother of two grown-up sons, was looking forward to having a little girl to fuss over, and it showed.

Mr Evans looked on indulgently as she cooed over their new arrival.

‘Now,
bach
,’ she told the child in that curious, lilting voice that Lizzie was struggling to understand, ‘if there’s anything you need, anything at all, you just ask me or Mr Evans now.’

Lizzie, whose eyes were red-rimmed from crying, nodded as she looked around the bright little room. Everything shone like a new pin and it was warm and cosy, with a great fire roaring up the chimney.

‘Come along,
cariad
. I’ll show you to your room. Give me that case and let me carry it for you. And Father, while we’re gone, you put the kettle on now.’

Like a child with a new toy, she took Lizzie’s hand and led her upstairs. When she threw open the bedroom door where Lizzie was to be staying, the little girl’s eyes opened wide with amazement. A little bed covered in a pretty pink satin bedspread stood against one wall, and bright flowered curtains hung at the window which, Lizzie was later to discover, overlooked the village green and the duckpond. The gaily-painted walls were covered in pictures of fairies, and on the windowseat sat dolls and teddy bears of various shapes and sizes. A soft rug covered the shining linoleum on the floor, and the huge wooden wardrobe and matching chest of drawers had been polished until Lizzie could see her face in them. Even as Lizzie gazed around her, Mrs Evans was unpacking her case, keeping up a continuous stream of cheerful chatter as she did so.

‘Have you ever been to the seaside before then,
bach
?’

Lizzie had no idea why Mrs Evans kept calling her
bach
and
carry
something. She could only surmise from the way it was said that it was some form of endearment. She shook her head, setting her fair curls dancing, and the big woman’s heart melted with sympathy for the child. It must be hard for her to travel so far away from her mother at such a young age. And then to be parted from her brother only added insult to injury.

At the thought of the boy, a frown flitted across the woman’s face. God help the poor little mite, being sent off to that dreadful man up in the hills. None of the villagers liked him, from what she could make of it, and was it any wonder? In the years since he’d moved there he had never shown the slightest inclination to become one of the community. Indeed, he was bordering on becoming a recluse, venturing down into the village only once a week to the post office and to buy groceries. He had snubbed everyone’s efforts to include him in village life, and the locals had long since given up trying, herself included, though that didn’t stop him from being something of a mystery. Miss Tibbs, who ran the village post office, had once confided to her that each week he posted off a huge envelope to an address in London, and this had added to his air of mystery. Who could he be writing to? And why did he never have any visitors?

Despite herself, she found him intriguing. Had it not been for the terrible scarring to his face, he could have been a handsome man, if not the friendliest person in the world. She recalled the night they’d all been summoned to the village hall to discuss the expected evacuees, and the terrible fight Miss Williams had waged with him to get him to agree to take one.