When the Bough Breaks (10 page)

The arrangements made, Fred Dawkins was ready for a chat.

‘A big responsibility for a woman,' he said. ‘How will you go on with your husband gone and those two lads too?'

‘For the time being Sarah Mitchell, the daughter from the Rose and Crown, and Sally Brent are helping me – you may know Sally's people, you attend the chapel in Rupert Street, don't you?'

‘Indeed I do. He often preaches there; a fine man.'

‘They're both good girls; I'm really lucky. I must fly. See you later.'

Watching her cycle away, he thought what a lucky chap Dennis Hawthorne was to have a wife like that prepared to take on their livelihood.

By afternoon Kathie's good intentions had begun to give way to doubts. Normally a happy, optimistic woman, over the last seventy-two hours depression would suddenly descend on her without warning. So far there had been no telephone call from Dennis. Perhaps this evening he would have a chance to ring. If only he were here, if only she could wake up to find the horrors of the past week had been a dream. With the raspberry punnets lined up on the bench in the shed, the two girls were picking runner beans and laying them carefully in neat piles in the boxes she had put out. They had worked well, following her instructions and, as Sarah had said, never leaning on their spades while they talked. But talk they certainly did, calling to each other as they worked, competing over the length of the beans they picked, and seemingly looking on a day's hard work as a game to be enjoyed. Listening to them now as she waited for Mr Dawkins to arrive Kathie felt her own spirits bouncing back. She wished Den could see how well they were all doing.

When she heard the click of the garden gate, she looked out of the kitchen window, seeing without being seen. Fred Dawkins was holding the little girl's hand as though he was stopping her escape rather than protecting her. And the child? Smaller than Jessie, pale and thin with colourlessly fair, straight hair looking as though it had been hacked at by someone with no training and a blunt pair of scissors. Even though she was small, her faded frock was much too short and the cardigan (no doubt with a hole in the elbow) had been strained across her and done up on the wrong buttons. The sight of her gave Kathie back her resolve.

‘Jess!' she called, opening the back door, ‘leave the eggs till later. Beth is here. Mind you shut the gate of the chicken run.'

‘Yippee!' Before the visitors reached the front door, Jess was rushing down the path at the side of the house. ‘Beth. I didn't know till I got home from school. You're coming to live here with us. And Beth we're going to sleep in the same bed. It's going to be such fun. Come on, I'll show you where our room is.'

Pulling Beth away from her warder she dragged her to the back door and into the house just as Kathie opened the front door to Mr Dawkins' knock.

‘A good start.' Kathie smiled at him. ‘I don't think you'll have any cause to worry about her; she'll be happy here.'

‘Of that I have no doubt. Now then, Mrs Hawthorne, there's just the little matter of business to transact if I may step inside. Mrs Bullingham has given me back the payment record book. Each week you take it to her at the post office and she'll pay you six shillings and four pence. You'll sign the receipt and she'll stamp the counterfoil. Another job added to the postmistress's burden, she has to keep a tally of how much she has paid out each week and send the slips to the billeting office. And then there's this – the child's ration book and a note of her parents' address.'

The formalities over, he shook her hand in farewell and departed. Kathie put the books in her handbag, and then went up to meet the new member of the family.

‘Mum, I've been telling Beth about collecting the eggs. Do you know what, Mum? She doesn't know about chickens and eggs and things.'

‘I don't expect you do, Beth. I didn't know much about them until I came here to live. Do you like eggs?'

Beth nodded, then, holding her head an inch higher and seeming to take a huge step into her new life, she gave Kathie what was almost a smile and answered, ‘Eggs is my favourite, missus.'

Kathie laughed, reaching to lay a hand on the silky pale hair. ‘That's a good thing,' she said, ‘because thanks to the chickens, we have lots of them. But of course the chickens do make extra work and I've always been glad to have Jessie's help. Now that you're here, I shall have two helpers.'

Again Beth nodded, but her slim grasp on confidence had slipped from her fingers.

‘Jess, take Beth and show her round outside,' Kathie said as they went downstairs. ‘Not just on the grass where you play, but show her how the things are grown. And introduce her to Sarah and Sally. They help in the garden, Beth, but they're new too; they only started to work here yesterday. Coming from living in town it'll all seem very different, Beth. I know it will because I used to live in a town before I came here and I had lots to get used to. But we all help each other.'

Beth stood with her head down, making no attempt to move off with Jess. It seemed she had something else to say. Visibly she forced out the words.

‘Thank you, missus, for letting me come here. I was
that
glad.'

Every impulse in Kathie made her want to hug the desolate little figure; but it was wiser to go slowly.

‘It was Jessie's idea. You're friends at school so it'll be better for both of you to keep each other company. And I bet before long you'll be helping with the jobs just like she does. There's always work to be done on a place like this.'

‘Cor, missus, do you reckon I'll be able to help?'

‘I'd bet my last shilling on it,' Kathie answered with a laugh, just as Jess shouted for her trainee helper to buck up, they had to finish collecting the eggs. Kathie just stopped herself from calling out to say that she would finish collecting the eggs and shut the chickens up for the night herself while Jessie took Beth for a walk and showed her what was growing. A child who'd never seen a chicken-run, let alone been inside one, was more than likely to panic and drop an egg or two. But a broken egg was nothing compared with the giant step Beth's self-confidence was about to take.

Then the telephone rang and she forgot the girls as she picked up the receiver knowing even before he spoke that it would be Dennis. She had been looking forward to telling him everything that had happened.

Three minutes would go so fast, but he started by saying he had another shilling ready to feed into the pay box when the operator interrupted them.

‘We're moving off first thing in the morning. I don't know where but don't panic, it can't be overseas, we still have to have more jabs. How are things going?'

When she told him she had engaged two sixteen-year-old girls for a moment his silence made her think he couldn't have heard what she'd said.

Then: ‘Damn this war', almost under his breath. Something warned her it might be wiser to change the subject so she told him about the addition to the family taking it for granted he would be of the same mind as she was herself.

She was wrong.

‘Kathie, oh Kathie, what the devil have you done a damn fool thing like that for? You knew I'd made it clear we couldn't have an evacuee. You've got more than enough to do with only two useless girls to help you. Why didn't you wait and get a man instead of grabbing the first to apply?' She could tell from his voice that he wanted to criticize anything that hinted at a change to the way things had been. ‘I ought to be there. It's bad enough that you're having to be in charge, but at least with an experienced man I would have felt things might work out.'

‘I'm not a complete fool!' There was an edge to her voice too. What was happening to them? He'd been gone only half a week, yet in those moments they were divided by something more than miles.

‘I can't be sure of
that
if you can do anything as foolhardy as land yourself with some kid we don't even know and without even asking what I thought about it. Never mind if it makes you feel stupid, I insist you're to go back to Dawkins in the morning and tell him it isn't going to work out – tell him that I object if you like – but say the child must be put somewhere else.'

‘I'll do no such thing! Anyway, how can it make any difference to you if I take half a dozen poor little children into the house. You won't have to look after them.' Then quietly, she added, ‘But don't talk about it now, Beth and Jess are just coming in. Listen – and this is important.' And she told him about their meeting of spirits at a quarter to eight each evening, ending with, ‘Promise, Den. It's important.'

His mood changed.

‘Oh Kathie, what a bloody mess it all is. Of course I promise. Is Jess there? Let me say hello to her. I've only got one more shilling to feed into the phone.'

Jess took the receiver, and Kathie moved just out of earshot holding out her hand to Beth to come with her. Obediently the uncertain child took it, taking a quick peep at her new minder.

‘Were there many eggs?' Kathie asked in the same adult way she spoke to Jess.

‘We got six. I never seen a chicken, not with its fevvers, only hanging up in the butcher's all white looking.'

‘There will be lots of things that are new to you in the country, Beth. I remember how exciting I found it when I first came. Did you meet Sarah and Sally?'

‘Yes missus.' Just two words.

‘Mum, Dad wants to speak to you. It's all right about a quarter to eight. He's going to do it. Come and take the phone quickly cos his money's nearly gone.'

‘Kathie . . . I still think you're crazy. If only I could get home for a couple of hours I'd get you out of the hole you've dug yourself into. You're all heart and no head – but I love you Kathie Hawthorne,' he said, almost shyly; face-to-face he wouldn't have said it and neither would she have wanted him too.

‘And I love you, Den Hawthorne.' Then, with a laugh that seemed to bring them back to their normal day-to-day relationship: ‘Just as well we do, too; we're stuck with each other.'

How many people must have been saying the same thing, even if the words were different? For them all, war was something to be lived through until life could be back in step marching towards the future they'd once taken for granted.

That evening as the three of them sat at the supper table Kathie told Beth she was going to write to her parents and suggested she might like to draw a picture to send.

‘Won't be no use you writing to Tilly – that's what I call her, that's her name you see. She never learnt to read an' write. But there's Mrs Martin, she lives so that her door and Tilly's are next to each other. If anything needs reading, that's who does it.' The words had rushed out, but now she hesitated. Humiliation was written all over her. ‘But, missus, it won't be no use you looking for a letter back, cos you see Tilly won't know how to do it.'

‘A reply doesn't matter. But it's important for them to know what it's like for you here. So I'll write to them and hope that Mrs Martin reads it. Most important, though, what about if you draw a picture – maybe the chicken run with you and Jess collecting the eggs. Could you do that?'

The letter duly went, and with it Beth's impression of egg collecting. As expected, no reply came.

It was a happy working atmosphere at Westways. Sarah and Sally were keen and quick to learn and with each passing day Kathie became more certain she had done the right thing to engage them. As for the children, they both did their jobs; Beth's main responsibility being making their bed and putting their dirty clothes in the linen basket while Jess laid the breakfast table. The all-female establishment was running on oiled wheels.

‘Have you heard what's happening up at the hall?' Sarah said during the second week in September.

‘I thought the hall was unoccupied,' Kathie answered, trying to sound interested while her concentration was fixed on finding the best marrows to cut.

‘Fancy you not knowing! I suppose tucked away down the lane here you don't hear half the goings on. We knew there was a lot of work being done. There's not much goes on that Dad doesn't get wind of in the bar and people were saying they thought Sedgewood Hall must have been sold. Well, what would a great star like Richard Marley want with living in the sticks in Devon? He's better off out there in Hollywood.'

Kathie knew something of the Marley family; it wouldn't have been possible to live fifteen years at Westways and not be aware that the woods sloping down to a gate on the opposite side of the lane belonged to the big house, which had been in the Marley family since it was built nearly two hundred years before. She knew elderly Herbert Marley had died a year or two ago and his widow had moved away; she had heard that the grandson, Richard Marley, an actor and screen idol, had inherited as his own father had been killed in the Great War. None of it had particularly interested her, but clearly Sarah had other views.

‘Bang goes all our hopes that one of these days he'd come and stay in Sedgewood. Don't you think he's just gorgeous, Mrs Hawthorne? Or I suppose you never get to the flicks?'

‘Not a hope,' Kathie answered with a laugh that showed she didn't consider it any great miss. ‘I wonder who's bought the Hall,' she added, trying to show an interest. They really were such good girls, she thought, full of chatter and fun, but working all the time they talked.

‘That's the thing,' Sarah said. ‘Richard Marley hasn't sold it; he's rented it to a school, a boarding school for boys. Dad was told about it last night. The work is pretty well done and the school is moving in at the weekend. Be funny hearing a lot of noisy boys in the wood there.'

There the matter rested and as far as Kathie was concerned the conversation was soon forgotten.

A few days later, their breakfast eggs finished, the children were topping up with toast before going off to school when the snap of the letterbox told them the postman had brought something.