The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. Jennifer Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ slurring from drink. ‘Which is why I had Proggett put you in the back drawing room. I have a service for you to perform. Time is of the essence.’ He sat down behind his vast desk, all businesslike, leaving me standing on the other side, the servant awaiting instruction. I considered pulling over a chair, but fancied this act of rebellion might lose me a few bob, so I just plonked my black bag on the floor and waited.

      ‘Before I begin, I must know I have your full confidence,’ he said, narrowing his eyes as if this were an official war deal, when I knew outright it was going to be nothing of the sort.

      ‘Of course you have it, like you always do,’ I lied, glowering at him for even doubting my integrity. He didn’t scare me with his upper-class military ways. ‘I’m a professional, Brigadier. If that’s what you mean? I’m never surprised by what is asked of me. And I always keep my mouth shut.’

      ‘I need a job done,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ve heard you’re willing to go beyond the usual services?’

      ‘That depends on what the service in question is,’ I said. ‘And how much I’ll be paid.’

      A gleam came to his eye, and he sat up. I was speaking the language he wanted to hear – more interested in the money than the nature of the deed. ‘A lot of money could be yours.’

      ‘What exactly do you have in mind?’

      By now I’d guessed he was about to come out with something big, something that would line my pockets well and good. My bet would have been another affair gone wrong (perhaps a high-profile woman involved, maybe someone from the village), so shocked doesn’t describe how I felt when he came out with it.

      ‘Our baby must be a boy.’

      There was a pause as I wondered what he meant. He took in my reaction, his eyes scrutinising me, debating whether I had the requisite bravery, deceit, greed.

      ‘Ours is not the only birth to happen in the village this spring,’ he continued, acting like he was giving complex orders on the front line. ‘And ours must be a boy. If there were a way to ensure that this might be the case—’

      The penny dropped. It was outrageous. He wanted me to swap his baby with a baby boy from the village, if his was a girl. I sucked in my lips, working hard to keep the ruddy great smile off my face. I’d take him to the bank for this! But I had to keep calm. Play it for all it was worth.

      ‘I think it would be a tremendous risk, as well as an immense personal compromise,’ I clipped.

      He leant forward, dropping his façade for a moment, his eyeballs shooting out, bloody and globular. ‘But could it be done?’

      ‘Possibly,’ I said elusively. But I knew I could do it. I have a vicious herbal potion that induces babies to come forth very promptly, and the village is small, you can get from one house to another in minutes.

      ‘Anyone who could help that to occur would certainly be well compensated,’ he said evenly, his fingers toying with his moustache as if it were a battlefield conundrum.

      ‘How well?’

      There was a scuffle from outside the door that made him pull back. ‘We can discuss that at another time and place.’ He stood up and went to the window. There was a French door that overlooked a muddle of fields and valleys down to the English Channel, grey and churning like dirty dishwater.

      ‘We’ll meet the Thursday after next at ten in the outhouse in Peasepotter Wood,’ he said in a low voice.

      ‘I’ll be there,’ I whispered.

      ‘You may leave now,’ he added. Then his head shot round and his eyes dug into me with threatening revulsion. ‘And mention this to no one.’

      Only too happy to get away, I spun round and bolted for the door, fiddling with the key in the lock and then closing the door gently behind me, before sallying out into the thronging hall. My stride widened as I swooped in and out of the black-clad mourners, the uniforms, the nosy neighbours. I marched straight out of the front door without so much as bye your leave. People were still arriving in the expansive driveway, so I had to refrain from skipping for joy as I trotted briskly back to the village.

      Once I was at my drab little home, I gave a well-earned cheer, throwing my arms up into the air and laughing with utter delight. This is going to work.

      I’ll show you that you can forgive me for what happened with Bill, and for taking the money when we ran off. How was I to know he’d grab the cash and vanish as soon as he could?

      We can be happy again, you and me, like when we were young. Funny, you never think how lucky you are until it’s all whisked away, first Mum dying, then staying with disgusting Uncle Cyril when Dad was in jail, shut in his attic like slaves. But enough of that. We’ll put the past behind us, Clara.

      It’s time to gird our loins. There are two other women in the village who are expecting around the same time as Mrs Winthrop. Droopy Mrs Dawkins from the farm is on her fourth, so that should be simple. Less easy would be the goody-two-shoes school teacher Hattie Lovell, whose husband is away at sea. Hattie is chummy with that niggling nurse, Mrs Tilling, who’s done the midwifery course and sees fit to poke her nose into my birthing business. Every time I go round to Hattie’s, she’s there, hanging around like a superior matron, saying she’s going to be midwife at the birth. She doesn’t understand. This village is only big enough for one midwife.

      I’ll write again after the meeting with the Brigadier. Who would have known such an upper-class gentleman could stoop so low? I’m going to tap him for the biggest money he’s ever known. I won’t let you down this time, Clara. You’ll get the money I owe you, I swear.

       Edwina

       Kitty Winthrop’s Diary

      Saturday, 30th March, 1940

      They announced on the wireless that keeping a diary in these difficult times is excellent for the stamina, so I’ve decided to write down all my thoughts and dreams in my old school notebook. Nobody is allowed to read it, except perhaps when I’m old or dead, and then it should be published in a book, I think.

       Important things about me

      I am thirteen years old and want to be a singer when I grow up, wearing glorious gowns and singing before adoring audiences in London and Paris, and maybe even New York too. I think I will handle the fame well and become renowned for being terribly levelheaded.

      I live in an antiquated village full of old buildings that always smell of damp and mothballs. There is a green with a duck pond, a shop, a village hall, and a medieval church with an overgrown graveyard. The church is where we used to have choir until the Vicar decided we couldn’t go on without any men. I’ve been pestering him to change his mind, but he’s simply not listening. In the meantime I’ve been trying to set up a choir at the school. I used to go to a boarding school, but they evacuated it to Wales and Mama didn’t want me to go. So now our butler, Proggett, has to drive me five miles to school in Litchfield every day. It’s not СКАЧАТЬ