The Heart of the Family. Annie Groves

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СКАЧАТЬ with her mother. You wait here and I’ll go and bring them over and introduce you.

      ‘Here we are,’ Ivy announced, puffing and panting as she reappeared with a small apple dumpling of a woman with rosy cheeks, her iron-grey hair pulled into a bun that looked like a cottage loaf. Everything about her was round, even her sharp blue eyes.

      ‘This here is Emily, Brenda,’ Ivy began the introductions.

      Emily smiled and shook the post mistress’s hand.

      ‘Well, now, and what have we here?’ she began in a singsong Welsh accent, and looking down at Tommy, before turning to her mother to say something to her in their own language.

      They were both smiling and Emily had no idea what she had said but the effect on Tommy was electric. The minute he had heard the post mistress’s singsong accent he had stiffened, but now with her speaking Welsh Tommy pulled away from Emily, a look of terror on his face as he ignored her anxious ‘Tommy!’ and bolted for the church gate.

      Although she was aware of the confusion and the curious and shocked looks his behaviour was causing, it was Tommy and his safety that concerned Emily the most as she hurried after him, begging him to stop but knowing somehow that he was in such a panic that he probably couldn’t even hear her.

      And then to her relief, the German prisoner of war she had noticed earlier, moving extraordinarily fast for such a heavily built man, somehow managed to step in front of Tommy, reaching for him at the same time and holding him firmly until Emily arrived.

      ‘Oh, thank you.’ She was out of breath now, puffing just as Ivy had been, but although she had thanked the POW her attention was all for Tommy, who was shivering and shaking so much he could hardly stand up.

      She might be wearing her Sunday best frock but Tommy was her precious boy. Emily dropped to her knees and took him in her arms, cradling him close.

      ‘Oh, my poor little lad, what’s to do?’

      Ivy and Brenda Evans had caught up with them now and immediately Tommy tensed again, pulling away from her, but the POW was still there and his hand on Tommy’s shoulder managed to stay him.

      A small crowd had gathered round them. The postmistress looked anxious and concerned but it was Ivy who unwittingly gave Emily a clue to what might be wrong when she joked, ‘It’s you speaking Welsh what did it, Brenda. I reckon the poor lad must have thought the Germans had invaded.’

      Everyone laughed, and then someone pointed out that they were going to be late for church, and people started to move away.

      Emily reached for Tommy’s hand and squeezed it, telling him softly, ‘It’s all right, Tommy. You and me will be all right, I promise you that.’

      She could feel him starting to relax. She looked up at the man still holding him.

      ‘Thank you.’ She felt self-conscious and awkward, conscious of how she must look in his eyes, a plain fat woman who had nothing about her to appeal to any man, never mind such a well-set-up man as he.

      ‘You are welcome.’ His English was stilted, the words carefully spaced.

      ‘He is your boy, ja?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, he is my boy,’ Emily agreed.

      ‘You are a good boy to your Mutter? You take care of her, ja?’ he asked Tommy, who had calmed down enough now to nod his head.

      But Emily was still astonished when Tommy asked the POW politely, ‘What is your name?’

      ‘It is Wilhelm,’ the man told him promptly. ‘What is yours?’

      ‘Tommy.’ Emily and Tommy both spoke at the same time.

      The soldier guarding the POWs gave a command and the column started to march into the church.

      Emily drew Tommy to one side to let them pass. Wilhelm had ever such a lovely straight back, Emily noticed, as she hurried Tommy into the church ahead of the marching men.

      Well, things could not have worked out better for him if he had planned them that way, Charlie decided smugly as he sang lustily along with the rest of the congregation at the parish church of his in-laws-to-be.

      The Wrighton-Budes had their own pew right at the front of the small Norman church, with soft kneeling pads embroidered by Daphne’s mother and her late grandmother as a gift to the Church, whilst to the left of the pew the stained glass had been another family gift.

      On the dark oak commemoration board on the opposite wall, the gilding of Daphne’s brother, Eustace’s, name was still bright and fresh. His was the last name to appear on the board, and the first so far from the current war.

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