The Children of the King (9 page)

May flung a dismissive glance. “What are you sorry about? You weren’t taken from your mother and put on a train and sent to a place you’d never been. You didn’t sit on a floor and hope you were nice enough for somebody to want you. You don’t have to live with strangers every day — even kind strangers are still strangers. You don’t know what that’s like!”

“Oh, May! Are you unhappy? Do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” May answered, “and I’m not unhappy. But I might have to stay at Heron Hall for a long time, Cecily. Mum said it might be months and months, depending on the war. So you can’t keep treating me like a guest, or like — like your best friend —”

“Don’t you want to be my friend?”

“I
do,
you
are
my friend, but can’t I be — someone you don’t have to
take care of
all the time?”

Cecily tripped, lurched wretchedly on. She knew what May meant: she meant she did not want a shadow in the shape of Cecily. It was hurtful — Cecily believed the only thing that mattered was to be included, needed, remembered — but she struggled not to be hurt. “I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll try to treat you more like — a brother?”

“Or a sister?”

That was a better idea, and Cecily brightened. “I don’t have a sister, so I don’t know how to treat one, but I’ll try my best.”

“I don’t have a sister either,” said May. Mercifully, she slowed. “I’ve got you, though — and you’ve got me. We can practise on each other.”

Cecily pranced with happiness. They were nearing the woods, and once past the trees they would be able to see Heron Hall. The prospect made Cecily want to run, to speed back to that place of warmth and certainty. On this far side of the woods, things could be unpredictable. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she really was. “I wish I hadn’t said nasty things to those boys. I didn’t think. That’s what Mama always tells me:
I never think.
”

May didn’t disagree. She resumed a whippet’s pace over the grass. “Too late to worry now. They’re probably miles away. Especially if they think Mr Lockwood’s going to get a gun and shoot them.”

“Yes,” said Cecily. “Unless they ate that breakfast you brought, in which case they’re probably already dead.”

A scruff of laughter escaped May, making her frown all the deeper and walk that much faster. Cecily scurried in her wake. Even as exertion drove the brothers to the back of her mind, a thought occurred to her. Their luxurious clothing had reminded her of something, and now she remembered what it was. A
pantomime:
those boys had been dressed like characters on the stage.

They asked Cecily’s mother to take them to the village, and Heloise agreed as she had nothing better to do. Though there seemed nothing better for Jeremy to do either, the boy assured his mother that he’d prefer to stay behind. “I can read, I can hike, I can sweep chimneys,” he said; but Cecily sensed that, although he intended to do
something,
it wasn’t any of these. With money in her pocket, she couldn’t care what it was.

By now the sun had gathered sufficient strength to make people shed their coats, if not their vests. The fine weather had brought the villagers out into the streets. Women strolled about in no hurry to go home, their children clamped to their hips or trailing nonchalantly behind them. Boys were unloading vans and polishing windows and carting trays of groceries here and there. Rationing had cast its miserly pall over the country but the shopkeepers were doing their best to present tasty displays to the passers-by, and there was enough for everyone, provided nobody was greedy. The girls wove past the street stalls on the heels of Heloise, looking left and right, bonked on the head by baskets, reaching out for what they shouldn’t touch. Lads laughed, babies cried, women haggled, shop-bells rang. It was surprising to remember that, in places around the world, the sky was not sunny or perhaps it was too sunny, the shops were closed and empty, and some people, many people, had no home left standing, no normal life left to live. In this green village, it was a lovely day.

Heloise was not interested in bread or fruit or vegetables; instead she took the girls to a dressmaker’s, where the children picked through jars of buttons while Mrs Lockwood mulled over lace, and then to a tea shop, where Heloise had tea and frilly sandwiches and the girls had malted milk and lemon cake. A lady lunching at a nearby table recognised Heloise: “Mrs Lockwood!” she chimed. “I heard you’d come up to Heron Hall with the children — very wise, and not before time. Goodness, you’re looking well. And is that Cecily? Cecily! How you’ve grown. Your curls are lovely. No school today? You can’t be sick — you’re enjoying that cake, aren’t you? And this little blue-eyed kitten is —?”

“This is May.” Heloise abhorred chit-chat, her voice had more icing than the lemon cake. “We’ve taken in an evacuee for the duration.”

“Truly? Aren’t you good. I wish I had one. I seem to be of no use to anyone, just toddling along like it’s business as usual. . . . Speaking of which, how is Mr Lockwood? What’s his opinion of the situation in France? Any news for those of us who can only watch and hope?”

Heloise’s spoon clinked her cup. “Humphrey is well.”

“And his thoughts on the situation? What’s to be our next move?”

Heloise said, “My husband doesn’t share official secrets with myself or with tea shops.”

The woman gave a laugh that sounded pressed out of her by weights. “Forgive me! Sometimes the war feels so far away, the whole thing seems a peculiar dream. Until, of course, you hear of a local boy going missing or being killed. Then it’s not a peculiar dream at all. Will you be staying at Heron Hall for the duration, Mrs Lockwood?”

“Possibly,” said Heloise, “possibly not.”

“Oh, you must! London is so unsafe. Personally I don’t know how those poor people can endure it, the blackout, the constant worry about bombs. I’d be in a perpetual state of tension, I’d think every buzz of a fly was an aeroplane come to blow the house sky-high and tear me into a thousand pieces . . .”

The girls, wide-eyed, looked at Heloise, who said, “Cecily’s father is in London, as is May’s mother. I’m sure they will be perfectly secure. To think otherwise is simply encouragement to the enemy.”

“Encouragement to the enemy! I didn’t mean it like that —”

“And yet that is how it sounds. Encouraging to our enemy.”

The woman was the kind who disliked, and was disliked; Heloise was quite the same. They turned back to their tables pleased to have added one another to their collections.

After the tea shop, mother and girls strolled the streets, Cecily pointing out from window displays things she was sure May would never have seen: baby shawls crocheted from local wool, animals fashioned from horseshoe nails, handmade leather bookmarks with tassels on one end, playing cards with northern wildflowers blossoming on the reverse sides. Heloise, perched atop a high wall of boredom, told them she’d meet them in the hat shop. Cecily and May lingered in the street. They pressed their faces to the post-office window, touched their tongues to the glass. “What do you like most in the world?” asked Cecily.

May squished her nose on the window and thought. “Giraffes.”

Cecily gurgled. “Not giraffes! Something you can buy!”

“You didn’t say it had to be something you could buy. Anyway, you could buy a giraffe, if you were rich enough. If you were a sultan.”

Cecily offered, “One of Daddy’s friends has a tiger skin on the floor.”

“Ugh. Tiger skins should be on tigers.”

“. . . Did you hear what that lady said, about London and all the people being blown to bits?”

“Hmm.”

“I should tell Daddy she encouraged the enemy. He’ll put her in prison. She wouldn’t be so fancy then!”

“You should do it,” said May.

The postmaster was suddenly at the door. “Dirty snouts off the glass!”

May sprang backward, mortified; but Cecily, sensibilities blunted by a lifetime of reprimands, merely swiped the window with the sleeve of her cardigan and sauntered away. Inspired by such
sang-froid,
May yelled over a shoulder, “You’re as dirty as — as — a nappy!” although the postmaster had returned inside by then, and possibly didn’t hear.

But Heloise heard, as did the milliner. “Cecily,” said her mother, “that was uncouth. I didn’t raise you to scream in the street like an urchin.”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Don’t argue.” Heloise glared steadfastly at a hat. “Just apologise. Cecily.”

“Sorry,” Cecily sighed.

“Sorry,” May whispered, when Mrs Lockwood turned away.

“It’s all right,” said Cecily, and it
was
all right; it made something better.

Fortunately Heloise didn’t like the hats, so they were able to quickly leave. Their last stop was the grocer’s, where jars of boiled sweets ranged the shelves like so many stars in the sky. Cecily magnanimously divided her loot: May chose barley twists, Cecily cornered liquorice mice. “You’re a little evacuee, aren’t you?” said the grocer to May.

“How can you tell?” asked Cecily.

The man said, “Oh, they all have the same look,” and his wife, who was leaning on the counter, said, “As if they’re not awake or asleep.”

The grocer smiled at May’s face, which was pretty as a freesia. “Has she been any trouble? She doesn’t look like trouble.”

“She’s no trouble at all,” said Heloise loyally.

“That’s just what she looks like, a good little girl.”

Cecily should have heard dull clongs of pride, but instead she found herself thinking,
How silly
. To describe May as
a good little girl
was like calling a cathedral
big
or a lion
yellow.
Half the time May wasn’t good at all — she was a thief of leftovers, an escapee, a hurter-of-feelings, moody and a know-all and a bossy-boots, just now she hadn’t even owned up to shouting in the street — but somehow these attributes made her
better than
good. Gripping the mice, Cecily turned away, her gaze running the shelves. She wanted May to become even worse — naughtier, bolder, more clever, more devious — and Cecily wanted to become these things with her. The grocer talked on.

“It’s a privilege to have them in the village, the evacuees. A privilege and an honour. Goodness though, there’s some wild ones in the mix. We get them in the shop after school, pushing and shoving. They’re used to city ways, of course. Quick as lightning, and smart with the mouth. We have to keep an eye on them.”

“Riff-raff.” The grocer’s wife ceased excavating sugar from under a nail and elaborated, “Bad influences. Rue the day.”

“I remember —” Heloise did so with a lurch. “I remember the billeting officer at the town hall mentioning something about troublemakers.”

“It’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

Heloise couldn’t help but glance at May. “Is it?”

“Under the circumstances, I think it is. Look, they’re decent mites mostly,” said the grocer. “Most evacuees I’ve met are no better or worse than the local kids — better, when you consider what’s happening to them. Surrounded by strangers, missing their families, far away from home: it’s no surprise some of them aren’t jumping with joy for being here. And you know how youngsters can be when things aren’t going their way — stubborn, sulky, mischievous. Not doing what their hosts tell them. Mucking about, talking back. Refusing to go to school, giving the teacher lip. Running away — packing their bags and taking to the hills, some are.”

“Surely not,” said Heloise.

“True!” said the grocer. “There’s been five or six already made a break for home. Packed their bags and disappeared in the night, trying to go back to London. They’ve been caught and given a good talking-to, dragged back by the ears.”

“You can’t have children roaming around like foxes,” said his wife. “That’s not what anyone agreed to.”

The man waved his heavy hands. “But dragged back to
what,
is what you have to wonder. I mean, I don’t think a happy child would run away from his hosts. Do
you
want to run away?” He loomed over the counter at May.

“No,” said the evacuee.

“No, you don’t. That’s because you’re happy. Landed on your feet, you have, there at Heron Hall. But not all your little friends have been so fortunate.”

His wife snorted like a dubious pig in an apron. “There’d be no pleasing some of them, not if they were sent to Buckingham Palace itself.”

The grocer winced. “Don’t I know it. You don’t own a sweets shop and not learn a thing or two about the fussiness of kids. Still, I bet there’s plenty who took an evacuee just to get another pair of hands on the farm or around the house. I bet there’s plenty who saw an opportunity to take their misery out on someone else’s poor child.”

“Hear him.” The wife’s eagle eye never left her crusted nails. “Always believing the worst of people.”

“Sweetheart, we’re in a war! If that doesn’t make you believe the worst of people, what on earth will? No, my sympathies are with the children. Good luck to them, I say. You do what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to sulk, you sulk. You want to run off, you get going. You’ve got to stick up for yourself in this world. No one fights your battles for you.”