Orphans of War. Leah Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ such thing as a bad horse or hound, just a poor owner, so perhaps her experience might come handy after all.

      Plum was to be in charge of ordering provisions, book-keeping and returning a full account to the Town Hall in Sowerthwaite, who were overseeing the evacuation and footing the bills.

      Miss Blunt was a former school matron at a boy’s preparatory school near York, specially selected to control unruly children, and she wore a nurse’s uniform at all times to remind her charges that she would stand no nonsense. It was unfortunate that, to cover her thinning hair, she had chosen a rust-coloured wig, which shifted up and down when she was agitated. Plum could see trouble ahead for the poor soul if she kept up the pretence.

      As the children picked bowls of blackberries in the autumn sunshine, Plum saw to her horror that their cotton shirts and dresses were stained purple and lips were dyed blue. There’d not been a peep out of any of them when she told them that every berry they picked was one in the eye for Hitler!

      ‘Miss, miss, the cow with handle bars’s got Bryan!’ yelled Ruby and Betty in unison, pointing to the boy who was pinned against the stone wall. For once, all his bravado had crumpled.

      ‘Don’t scream and don’t move. He’s just an old softie really,’ she lied. ‘He’s just curious.’

      ‘What if he tosses ’m over his head and kills ’im, miss?’

      ‘Look him in the eye, Bryan, and just hold out your bowl, let him sniff the berries and place it out of reach. Then run like the wind!’ she whispered. Hamish was a glutton for titbits and sniffed the bowl with interest, giving the lad the chance to make for the gate. She’d never seen a boy run faster, and he flung himself over the bars, tearing his shorts in the process. ‘It’s like the cowboys in the Wild West, miss, this country lark,’ he panted. ‘Sorry about the berries. The Rug’ll give me hell for tearing me pants,’ he added. ‘Sorry, miss.’

      ‘The Rug?’ She looked up as the children giggled. Then she realised it was a nickname–no guesses who the name belonged to. She had to stifle a smile. ‘I’ll say it was an accident in the cause of duty. I reckon we’ve got enough for ten jars of jelly out of this.’

      When they returned Matron was waiting at the door, grim-faced. ‘Look at the state of them! Oh, and there’s a message from the Hall. You’ve to go at once, Mrs Belfield says, at once.’

      Why did Avis Blunt make her feel like a naughty schoolgirl? It was probably nothing but just in case there was news from Gerald Plum scurried up the line of poplars along the avenue, each one in memory of one of the fallen in Sowerthwaite in the Great War. The war to end all wars had robbed the Belfields of their eldest son, Julian, and injured their second son, Arthur.

      Ilsa, the refugee cook, stood in the hallway looking worried. ‘Madam’s not well. Come.’

      Pleasance was sitting in the drawing room with her feet up sipping brandy, flourishing a telegram, and Plum went cold and faint.

      ‘No, it’s not Gerry. It’s from Arthur…the one abroad…I thought I told him never to contact me again…He made his choice. Now he begs me to take in his brat, blitzed somewhere near Manchester, would you believe. Dolly’s mother got herself killed. Nowhere else to go and he asks me to come to the rescue. The cheek of it, after all these years. As if I care what happens…’

      ‘Mother, he’s abroad. He can’t get to his child…You have to do your duty, it’s your granddaughter.’

      Plum was shocked by the coldness of this selfish spoiled woman, who had cut herself off from her second son just because he had defied her and married a showgirl for love. Why, the very aristocracy of England was strengthened by the blood of many a Gibson girl and film starlet.

      Gerald was the baby of the family and indulged as such. He dismissed his older brother as a fool. ‘He could have kept Dolly as a mistress and kept Mama happy,’ which was what he himself had done until recently. Sometimes Plum feared he’d only married her for her wider connections in the County, while keeping his Lillie Langtry in town, until the poor girl made a fuss and demanded he marry her. That’s when she disappeared and he came home repentant, bearing expensive gifts. Life was good when they were posted abroad for a while, but on leaving the army Gerald had grown restless back in Yorkshire, running the small estate. They’d meant to buy something for themselves but it seemed sensible to live at Brooklyn with his widowed mother.

      Plum’s parents were dead and her brother, Tim, was in the air force, stationed in Singapore. They weren’t close and she’d never told him much about her marriage. She’d just gone along with the idea, thinking she’d fill the big house with children and life, but it hadn’t turned out that way. Now things were strained. However, divorce was out of the question–even Gerald knew that. He had no plans to be disinherited.

      Plum had stayed up in the country, hurt and ready to make her own plans, then war had broken out and Gerald was called back into the regiment, and they sort of made things up again. Now the thought of one of their own abandoned in all that terror just like the evacuees troubled her.

      ‘She can’t stay here. There’s no room,’ Pleasance whined.

      ‘Of course there is. I’ve got more children arriving on Wednesday. If I can meet her then we’ll manage somehow. It will be good to meet Arthur’s girl.’

      ‘Arthur’s street urchin, more like. Brought up in a pub, I ask you, while they cavort themselves on a public stage. I am sick of this dratted war upsetting everything. Where’s it all going to end?’

      ‘As far as I can see the world has ended for Madeleine; bombed out, her granny dead and parents stuck halfway across the world. Just think of someone else, for a change…or would you prefer life under Herr Hitler?’

      ‘Don’t be facetious, Prunella. You forget yourself. This hostel thing has gone to your head and coarsened you. I’m too old to look after children.’ Mother looked up, her mouth pursed into a mean straight line. She was being unreasonable as usual. Time to butter her up with compliments. It always worked.

      ‘Rubbish! You’ll rise to the challenge, you always do. Look how you’ve provided a house for children already, made a home for Great-uncle Algie and Great-aunt Julia and her companion, and employed refugees. You try to set an example in the community. “By your fruits are ye known”–you keep quoting at me. We’ll manage, and I can see to Madeleine.’

      ‘But I said I’d never speak to him again.’

      ‘She’s Arthur’s child. She’s no quarrel with you. The girl never asked to be born or be part of this estrangement. Where’s your heart? Do we take in strangers but not our own just because of a silly quarrel?’ Plum lit a cigarette from her silver case, drew a deep breath as if it were an oxygen mask. Suddenly she felt so weary.

      Pleasance Belfield was the daughter of a cotton magnate who had married into another successful business family. How quickly she’d forgotten her own roots. The Belfields weren’t old money but new money made in the cotton trade in Lancashire in the last century. They only bought the manor house when the ancient Coldicote family died out. Why did Mother have to behave as if she was queen of all she surveyed?

      This poor mite might be the only grandchild she would ever have. How could she dismiss her so lightly?

      ‘Your grandchild needs a home, Mother. Think about it, at least,’ Plum pleaded.

      ‘I don’t know what’s got СКАЧАТЬ