Authors: Anne Bennett
‘Don’t be daft,’ Meg snapped. ‘Must be round Rugeley somewhere because Kate Carmichael came with them and she says most of the children were evacuated in and around Rugeley. They get a postcard to send home.’
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Doris said she got no postcard.’
‘Didn’t she make enquiries?’
‘Meg, you know as well as I do that all Doris wanted was the kids out of her hair,’ Nicholas said. ‘Evacuation fell in nicely with her plans, and that – as far as she is concerned – is that.’
‘What about Miss Carmichael?’ Meg cried. ‘She was sort of organising it. Surely she knows where they’ve gone?’
‘She says not,’ Nicholas said. ‘She said it was chaotic and she thought they may have returned home, and asked me how they were when we met in Rugeley. First I knew there was anything wrong.’
‘But they could be living with anyone,’ cried Meg in distress. ‘Anything could be happening to them and we won’t know.’
‘I’m sure it’s just some wee understanding,’ Enid said calmly, patting Meg’s hand. ‘Though I fully understand your concern. You start your holiday next week and you’ll be going back to Birmingham yourself then, so I’m sure you will clear it up in no time.’
‘I will, don’t worry,’ Meg said rather fiercely. ‘But for now it’s best not to spend time worrying until I can do something about it.’ She got to her feet. ‘We’ve got a field to clear. Come on, we’d best get going. We’re losing the light.’
Outside the rain had eased to a mizzle, and Will kitted Nicholas out with a sou’wester and wellington boots that had belonged to Stephen, though he rebuffed the heavy-duty rubber gloves the girls were so grateful for.
‘Tracked them down in the hardware shop in the end,’ Will said, as they set out for the field. ‘Old Mac, who owns the shop, said there will be no more. Every bit of rubber is being syphoned off to help the war effort, so I got a few pairs. He said he will be lucky if he stays in business with this war on, because it’s hard to get hold of anything made of metal, and that is mainly what he sells.’
‘Of course,’ Meg said. ‘Never thought of that.’
‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘I did feel sorry for him because he’s been there years and he said he’ll be reduced to selling the odd broom or mop. And that won’t really keep the wolf from the door. Still, if we talk from now till doomsday it will change nothing, and meanwhile we are wasting the light, as Meg so rightly pointed out, so let’s get cracking.’
It was amazing the difference an extra pair of hands made. Now more comfortable with gloves, the girls carried on cleaning the ditches, while Will and Nicholas were going to tackle the sprawling mess of vegetation threatening to take over the field.
‘Never get the spade through this,’ Will said. ‘Reckon we need to scythe down as much as we can first.’
Nicholas agreed with that, though at first Will was reluctant to let Nicholas anywhere near the scythes, worried that he would slice his legs off. Nicholas insisted – though later that night, when they had eventually stopped for the day, he confessed that he ached all over.
With time of the essence, they decided on future days not to come home until the light failed. They needed the horse and cart anyway, so that they could fork the chopped-down thistles, gorse, brambles and grass onto the cart to be disposed of in the compost heap by the farmhouse. Enid would bring out their dinner, usually some warm pies she had wrapped in tea towels, and hot tea in the Thermos flasks, and even an old damp towel, so they could take some of the muck off their hands before they ate.
By the time they had started to dig the field on the third morning, the girls had finished cleaning the ditches, and they followed behind the men, turning over the soil and removing any large stones or anything else that might damage the plough. On the fifth day, Will began ploughing at one end of the field while Nicholas and the girls finished off at the other end. By Saturday afternoon the field was ready: the rich, moist soil was now set out in neat rows and Will was dropping seed potatoes into the furrows.
Meg let out a sigh of contentment that began in her toes and spread in a glow all over her body. Never, in her whole life, could she remember feeling such pride as she did at that moment. In reclaiming a sizeable field they had achieved a considerable task, and one that she had originally thought might have been beyond them. Will finished his sowing and joined them as they stood surveying their handiwork.
‘Well done,’ he said as they began walking back to the house. ‘I couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you. Now I know Enid has a good dinner planned for tonight, because there was a hen not laying, she said yesterday, and she intended wringing its neck today.’
Then he let out a bellow of laughter at the look of distaste on Meg’s face. ‘No need to look like that, young Meg,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got a handy butcher’s shop at the end of the lane, and I’m sure you will enjoy the meal as much as the rest of us, especially as I intend to open a cask of cider to go with it. Have you tasted cider?’ he asked. Meg, Joy and Nicholas all shook their heads. ‘A treat in store then, ‘Will went on, ‘because you have done more than enough this week to deserve a drink.’
Meg enjoyed the meal and the drink, but she woke with a thick head the next morning.
‘What’s up with you?’ Joy said as they dressed. ‘You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a sixpence.’
Meg made a face but didn’t answer and Joy said, ‘You best tell me. Will won’t let you in the byre looking like that. You’ll turn the milk sour.’
‘You are a fool,’ Meg said, and the ghost of a smile played around her lips.
‘Oh, a smile,’ said Joy. ‘Or is it a touch of wind you have, perhaps?’
‘Joy …’
‘Let me guess,’ Joy said. ‘You are fretting about your brother and sisters.’
‘Well, wouldn’t you if the boot was on the other foot?’
‘I suppose,’ Joy said. ‘It is worrying, I grant you, when they are so young, but I don’t see what you can do till you get home.’
‘One thing I am going to do this morning and that is talk to Miss Carmichael after Mass, and I am not going to come away without some answers.’
Everyone thought Meg was doing the right thing to try to find out what had happened to her siblings, and they waited for her in the cart so she could have a quiet word with Kate when she emerged from the church.
What Richard had told Kate about Meg’s behaviour had shocked her to the core for she had thought she had known what manner of girl she was. Well, all goes to show, she thought and the look she threw Meg was one of disappointment threaded through with disgust.
Meg would have been puzzled by that look if she’d noticed, but her mind was filled with anxieties about the children and so without any beating about the bush, she asked Kate candidly, ‘How is it that you don’t know where my brother and sisters are when it was you who brought them?’
Kate saw how agitated Meg was and quite understood, for she had begun to feel uneasy herself. If the children truly were missing it was very worrying indeed and she wondered if she should have done more to find out where they had gone. She knew however she felt now about Meg Hallett she had to tell her the truth.
‘I know I said I would be bringing them down, but at the last minute there was a change of plan,’ Kate said. ‘For so many extra children at the small village schools we needed more books, pens, pencils and things like that from an educational supplier in Birmingham city centre. As it was quite a big order, it might have been difficult to transport it by train so Richard offered to drive me down but we were delayed because the order wasn’t quite ready. So when we arrived at the village hall, the children had all gone to their prospective foster homes and the billeting officer had left.
‘It had been a bit chaotic, they said, because there was another school evacuated with ours, and that had a lot more children, so some of the children were not billeted in the village at all, but in isolated farms. It was only on the first Sunday I collected them all to take them to Mass that I realised your brother and sisters were missing.’
‘So what did you think had happened?’ Meg said. ‘Weren’t you worried?’
‘A little,’ Kate admitted. ‘They were on the train because I checked the list, but they weren’t on the billeting officer’s list.’
‘So what happened to them?’
‘Well, I thought they had probably returned home because they couldn’t stay together. Apparently that does happen. I wrote to your stepmother, but didn’t get any sort of reply, but I only became really concerned when I met your cousin, Nicholas, and he said that Rose, who is still in Birmingham, wrote often to his mother and the children weren’t back there.’
‘Maybe Rose knows something but she can’t put it in a letter,’ Meg said. ‘I’ve got a week off starting tomorrow.’
‘You might find out more then.’
‘I hope so, Kate,’ Meg said sincerely. ‘I really hope so.’
Meg was so white-faced when she climbed into the cart after she had spoken to Kate Carmichael that no one dared ask her anything, and the short journey home was completed almost in silence. Meg was glad of this, because what Kate had told her had shocked and worried her.
It was as they were sitting down to their steaming bowls of porridge that she told them what had transpired between her and her old teacher.
‘It’s monstrous,’ Enid declared when Meg had finished. ‘I thought in the beginning that posting children all over the country, like they were parcels, was wrong, but I did think that they would look after them properly.’
‘But what shall I do? How will I find them?’
‘Maybe if you found the billeting officer?’ Joy said. ‘Maybe she can tell you why they weren’t on her list and what happened to them.’
‘I think that would be pretty hard to do,’ Nicholas said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t think that they
were
billeting officers as such.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean they were probably employees of some council drafted in to help with the evacuation,’ Nicholas said. ‘Once the evacuation was completed, they’d probably have gone back to what they were doing before, whatever that was.’
‘If they were from the council, maybe Richard Flatterly will know who they are?’ Meg said hopefully.
Nicholas shrugged. ‘It’s worth asking him,’ he said. ‘Only from what you said before, Richard Flatterly was there to oversee the evacuation on behalf of Birmingham Council, and yet he only arrived after all the children had been placed.’
‘And Kate did.’
‘Yes, but she’s just a teacher in the school, not in overall charge,’ Nicholas said. ‘Flatterly should either have travelled with the children, or at the very least been here to welcome them and made sure it all ran smoothly, I would have said.’
‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘I think you’re right, young Nicholas.’
‘And instead of doing what he was meant to be doing, he was probably canoodling with Miss Carmichael.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Meg said sharply.
‘Well, they looked very lovey-dovey to me when I met them in Rugeley.’
That shook Meg a little, for it just confirmed what she suspected, but she had had more pressing concerns. ‘But what difference does that make?’
‘They arrived at Rugeley Village Hall together?’
‘Yes,’ Meg said. ‘Kate said she had some things to bring from the school and so he drove her. She said they were late because not everything was ready for them to just collect.’
‘Well, he shouldn’t even have been there.’
‘I suppose not,’ Enid said. ‘But if this young woman had a lot to carry, it was nice to give her a hand.’
‘Not if it meant neglecting the children.’ Will said. ‘That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘And if Flatterly had done his job properly, maybe three of my young cousins might not have gone missing.’
The words hung in the air, and for a moment no one could think of anything to say. And then Nicholas said, ‘Anyway, there will be two of us searching once we get to Birmingham.’
‘You’re coming too?’ Meg said in surprise.
Nicholas nodded. ‘Before I came here my mother was talking about me collecting some thicker clothes for her because she only packed summer-weight stuff.’
Meg just stared at him. ‘Will you know what to pack?’
‘Not likely,’ Nicholas said, ‘I wouldn’t have a clue. Mom sent a list to Aunt Rosie.’
‘I was going to say,’ Meg said, ‘I would never ask Terry to pick out some clothes to send me. God knows what I might end up with.’
‘I’d be the same,’ Nicholas said. ‘But Aunt Rosie will probably have the stuff waiting for me. I don’t have to go back straight away, and between us we will do our best to find out where the kids are.’
‘Oh, I would be grateful for that,’ Meg said.
‘It’s all right,’ Nicholas said. ‘They are my cousins, remember, and I’m as worried as you.’
Joy, watching Nicholas, knew that though what he said was true, he was doing this as much for Meg’s sake as he was for his own because he was another one who had a fancy for her. It was futile, of course, because there could be no relationship between first cousins, but forbidden or not, Joy was certain Nicholas carried a torch for Meg.
Proper
femme fatale
she was, Joy thought with a slight smile, and a totally unassuming one, because she could never see just how attractive she was and how people were drawn to her, like Stephen, who she saw as a friend when he really wanted to be her lover.
Meg had never experienced a day that dragged so much as that Sunday. If she could have, she would have left straight after Mass, but no trains ran on Sundays. The children never left her thoughts all day, and she hoped fervently that when she got to Birmingham someone might throw some light on their disappearance.
‘Doris could be lying,’ she said to Joy as they were eventually getting ready for bed.
‘About the postcards, you mean?’
‘Yeah. They all had to have them,’ Meg said. ‘Lily told me, and all addressed and stamped and just a short message written that they had arrived safely. She said the organisers even posted the postcards they collected from the children in the village post office, knowing that some of them might be going to isolated cottages.’ She gave a shrug and went on, ‘That was here, not Rugeley, but I imagine all evacuation points operate the same format, wouldn’t you?’