Chapter 3 Lilias
Lilias
“So sorry to be late, Mr. Rooney. One of the chickens ran off. Took me an age to catch the blighter again . . .”
“Not to worry, Miss Carter-Brown,” Mr. Rooney said vaguely, busy with his clipboard, but in any case, Lilias wasn’t really listening.
Her attention was caught up by the scene taking place in the village hall; a hall more accustomed to whist drives and Women’s Institute meetings.
Across the centre of the room stood two rows of people—one consisting of villagers and farming folk from around the area, and the other a ragged jumble of evacuees, some clutching the hand of a sibling, some alone, and some—the youngest—with their mothers.
Without exception, the children looked bewildered and afraid, each of them wearing a name label attached to their clothing as if they were a piece of luggage.
Only days since war on Germany had been declared, and here they were, in a strange part of the country, most of them without those they loved most in the world.
It was a hideous manifestation of what impact war could have.
One boy caught her eye. He was standing next to a woman Lilias took to be his mother and was gazing around, absorbing everything.
His mother looked cross, and seemed to be complaining to the woman standing next to her.
As Lilias watched, the boy turned his head to look straight at her.
As their gazes met, Lilias smiled at him.
But before there was time to see if he would smile back, Lilias noticed somebody entering the hall behind him. Irene Cook. Oh, Lord.
Mr. Rooney had wandered off with his clipboard and didn’t seem to have noticed her. He couldn’t have done, or surely he would have intervened by now? She had to act, before it was too late.
Making her way quickly through the press of people, Lilias managed to arrive at Irene’s side before the other woman could approach the ragged line of evacuees.
“Mrs. Cook,” she said, placing her hand on Irene’s shoulder.
“I haven’t seen you in the village for months.
How is your brood? Has young Sally had her baby yet? ”
Irene didn’t answer right away. Her long brown coat was buttoned completely up to her throat, and what with the scarf above her collar and her gloves and hat, there was very little of her on display at all.
All around them came a swirl of conversation and unfamiliar London accents, a smell of damp coats and exhaustion.
Beneath Lilias’s hand, Irene’s body seemed to stiffen.
Sensing the other woman’s intense need to twist away from her, Lilias gently tightened her grip.
“Not yet, Miss Carter-Brown,” Irene replied at last, her voice not much more than a whisper. “She has another two months to go.”
“Still,” said Lilias, smiling but firm, “it’s a big household for you, baby or no baby.
There’s no need for you to be here, my dear.
The planning committee agreed you and your family could be made exempt from taking in an evacuee.
I do hope you got our letter?” And Lilias began, still very gently, to steer Irene towards the door.
“Yes, we got the letter, but my husband said . . .”
Lilias turned Irene round to face her, managing not to flinch at the sight of a yellow bruise on her cheek. Gosh, what a bruise. “Go home, my dear. You have enough work to do, and look, we’re almost sorted here, anyway. Send my regards to your family, won’t you?”
For a moment, Lilias thought Irene might argue, but soon a closed, broken look came over her face, and when Lilias let go of her, she moved away towards the door.
Lilias sighed, watching her go. Who knew when the wretched woman had ever successfully argued against anything?
And if Percy Cook had wanted to take an evacuee for whatever nefarious reason, then no doubt Irene would suffer for the lack of one when she returned home.
If only she would accept help, but the one time Lilias had tried to offer just that, she had been very firmly rebuffed.
And for all Lilias hated the thought of the woman enduring more abuse at that man’s hands, the thought of an innocent refugee in Cook’s household was a far worse prospect. No, it was unthinkable.
Doing her best to dismiss Irene and the Cook family from her mind, Lilias returned her attention to the group of refugees still standing in the centre of the hall.
The boy was still there, and he must have done something to annoy his mother, for she was telling him off.
The boy turned away from his mother, and, as he did so, a small round object dropped from his hand and rolled right across the floor to Lilias.
Stooping to pick it up, she saw it was a small red ball, battered and obviously very well played with. Feeling as if the ball’s progress right to her feet had been some sort of selection process, Lilias approached the little family with a smile.
“Here,” she said, holding the ball out to the boy, “I think this belongs to you, doesn’t it?”
He transferred the box containing his gas mask to his other hand and reached to take it from her, receiving a sharp tap on the arm from his mother as he did so. “Say thank you to the lady, David.”
“Thank you.” The boy’s head was bent towards the ball in his hand, and the way his fingers were clutching it for dear life stirred something in Lilias. It was as if the ball was all he had left of home. He looked to be about five years old; older than the other boys who had come with their mothers.
“Would you both like to come and stay with me?” she asked, looking up in time to catch the boy’s mother giving her clothes a disapproving once-over.
Lilias had been late leaving for the hall and hadn’t had the chance to change out of her painting clothes.
It was very possible she had paint on her face too.
Well, if the woman didn’t fancy staying with her, it didn’t matter one whit to her.
Before the woman could answer, Mr. Rooney was there with his clipboard. “All sorted, Miss Carter-Brown?” he asked, and in a trice he had written down the names of the pair next to hers, and they were leaving the hall together.
“Can you manage your bags? Here, David, let me take yours. I’m afraid I didn’t bring the motor car. Rationing, you know. I have to keep it for emergencies.”
Lilias could hear her voice rattling on, and wished she had brought the car after all. It would be worth doing without it on another occasion just to have its friendly chugging to fill the tense silence.
“It’s all right. You don’t need to carry his case. He can manage.”
The woman—Nadine Smith, according to Mr. Rooney’s information—sounded so openly hostile, Lilias wished she had picked one of the children who had come on their own.
Straightening her back, she smiled firmly in Nadine’s direction.
“I don’t doubt it, Mrs. Smith, but it’s getting late, and David’s had a long journey.
Besides, I don’t mind at all.” And with that, she walked on, not bothering to make any further conversation, leaving mother and child to follow on behind.
The most direct route back to Marsh House from the village was along the path at the top of the salt marshes, so this was the route Lilias took, despite the gathering twilight.
However, a quick glance round showed her that her female guest wasn’t coping too well with the soft ground in her unsuitable footwear.
“Sorry, it’s rained a great deal lately,” Lilias said, waiting for the pair to catch up. “We’ll have to find you some Wellington boots.”
The horrified expression on Nadine’s face made Lilias want to snort out loud with laughter, but she refrained from doing so with difficulty, carefully hiding her expression from David.
Instinctively, Lilias liked the boy, but it would hardly be right to encourage him to be disrespectful to his mother.
“Not far now,” she said in a bright voice, but Nadine stood rooted to the spot, gazing out at the horizon.
“There ain’t nothing here, is there?” she said wonderingly. “Nothing.” The woman’s stance drew her attention to the slight swell of her belly, and Lilias realised that here was the explanation for the woman’s presence with her son. She was pregnant.
Lilias looked away to gaze out across the salt marsh, which, she knew, contained delicate flowers, delicious samphire to cook in butter, and hidden gullies of water which reflected the limitless Norfolk sky. Not to mention oyster catchers, lapwings, barn owls, and skylarks.
“I suppose it depends on how one views it,” she was about to say, but Nadine spoke first, giving a little shiver.
“Don’t it give you the creeps?”
“No, never,” Lilias answered simply. “The marshes fill me with constant joy. Unfortunately, they’re about to be commandeered by the military; rumour has it they’re going to train troops to use antiaircraft guns down here.
I’m making the most of them while I can.
Anyway, come along, it’s not much further. ”
Striding forward with David’s little suitcase bumping against her leg, Lilias turned left up a track between twisted, wind-blown trees.
“Careful,” she warned. “This bit’s a tad pot-holey.
It’s on Symonds’s list of jobs to do—he’s my handyman—but it hasn’t quite reached the top yet.
He’s only just finished making our air-raid shelter, and now food’s the priority, obviously.
He’s been fencing off the vegetable garden this week to keep the deer and rabbits out. ”
Neither David nor his mother said anything to this, but Nadine picked her way even more carefully along, meaning progress was painfully slow. Goodness, had the woman only ever walked on cobbled pavements her entire life? Compass would be desperate for his dinner.