The Legend of Nimway Hall: 1940-Josie Page 11

  “I pray there’s no air raid, tonight, Miss Josie!” Patsy said as she added Josie’s bowl to the stack. “It’s my turn for a bath. I plan to wash my hair in the sink then soak for at least ten minutes in my five inches of warm water. After that, I’ll write to my husband again—”

  “—then you’ll sneak down to the kitchen for a hot milk and a slab of honey bread,” Trina said, “as usual.”

  “And find you there before me, Trina!”

  “Well, thank you ladies,” Josie said as she stood with her empty plate, “for another hard day’s work in the fields. Nimway Hall couldn’t possibly survive the war without you!”

  “Thank you, Miss Josie!” Francie said. “You’re a right good egg, you know. The four of us hooked the brass ring when the Women’s Land Army assigned us to Nimway Hall.”

  Josie stopped at the butler’s pantry door. “Why would you say that, Francie?”

  “Oh, miss, the stories we’ve heard from the other girls. Slighted rations, dangerous farm equipment, sleepin’ stacked like cord wood in tiny rooms, or on moldy mattresses alongside the bats in the attic, treated like slaves—”

  “We’re only two to a room at Nimway, Miss Josie, not in the barn but in the main house,” Patsy added. “Our beds are soft and warm, plenty of food, you let us play the gramophone in the parlor for as long as we like, you trust us like the grown women we are—”

  “And we bless you for your kindness every day.”

  Josie couldn’t help her broad smile or the catch in her throat. “Well, thank you. We’re each doing our best to bring Patsy’s Bert, and all the others who are in harm’s way, safely home. Enjoy the rest of your evening, ladies. If anyone should ask for me tonight—” like a certain injured colonel “—I’ll be at a meeting of the WVS in the village hall and should be back by ten o’clock.” In time for her meeting with the injured, or perfectly healthy, Gideon Fletcher.

  Josie left the young women still gossiping about Gideon and his staff of eligible officers. She found Mrs. Lamb and Mrs. Tramble eating a late supper with the evacuee children in the servant’s hall dining room, their animated conversation turned to the badger sett they had discovered in a copse of alder near the apple orchard—a capital event that had kept them out until near dark.

  “Sleep well, children,” she said, “work hard at your new school tomorrow and listen to everything Mrs. Tramble tells you.”

  They wished her a chorus of good nights and caught the kisses she blew back to them.

  Josie donned a farm jacket, grabbed a shielded torch and took the shortcut to the WVS meeting, through the new fields south of the Hall, all the while trying to think back on her hike through the forest with Gideon. Tried to recall him limping, or stumbling. Propping his gait with a make-do walking stick, or relying on a tree to steady his balance. He’d led Cassie as they ambled over the trails, keeping up with her pace, seemed to pick his way along the pathways as steadily as she.

  Had easily caught her up in his arms when she knocked herself off balance; she would have fallen to the ground had he not been quicker than gravity.

  And oh, those arms that held her. Powerful and steady. She had lain back in his embrace for longer than she ought, had stared up into those sparkling blue eyes, focused on his mouth, wanting him to kiss her. Maureen had it right. Lips to nibble on, and oh, to be nibbled upon, by those strong, straight white teeth.

  Oh, stop! And stop wondering about the sudden appearance of Aunt Freddy’s Orb of True Love. What balderdash! Better to believe in fairies and Father Christmas than in her auntie’s tales of love fulfilled.

  The nearly moonless night had fallen hard and the village was shrouded in wartime darkness as she approach from the churchyard, with every household window blacked out, shop and pub doorways closed and draped against light leaks that would guarantee a hefty fine from the Air Raid Protection Warden.

  Nothing to warn her of the next hazard but the pale amber beam of her shielded torch. Hearing a motor engine rumble toward her round the corner, Josie stopped on the grassy verge near the lych gate outside the church and waited as two army lorries lumbered slowly past, their shuttered head lamps barely illuminating the road surface ahead.

  She crossed the roadway to the pavement, negotiated her way along the familiar row of shop fronts, around the corner at the butter cross and finally made it into the darkened vestibule of the village hall without grazing a knee or falling over Mrs. Lister’s bicycle as she’d done last week.

  “There’s Miss Josie, now!” she heard above the din of female voices as she ducked through the blackout curtains into the comparatively harsh brightness of the old village hall, its fat oaken cruck beams still holding up the roof after a few hundred years. “Let her decide who must take the older boys this time!”

  “Sorry I’m late, ladies,” Josie said, ignoring the opening salvo as she shrugged off her jacket and hung it with her hat on the communal rail of hooks along the wall. “I see we have a full house tonight, thank you all for coming.”

  “The County Evacuation Officer is sending us fifteen more evacuees, Miss Josie,” Mrs. Hartley said from her seat at the long table in the center of the room. “Ten of them are teenage boys from Bristol. I’m a woman alone, as you know—I’ll not be safe a moment if I take in one of them— ”

  “That was your excuse about the young ones that come here last month. Eight-year-olds!”

  “Vera’s right, Edith Hartley! You’ve an extra room in your house; it’s time for you to—”

  “How dare you, Myrna Sykes!” Mrs. Hartley stood, knocking her chair over backward with a crash. “That room belongs to my own boy—”

  “He’s twenty-four years old, and in the RAF, Edith, he’s got a perfectly good bed in his barracks at—at, wherever he’s stationed.”

  “Roy needs his room when he comes home on leave—“

  “Ladies, please!” Josie said as she took the seat at the end of the table, seeing a too-familiar fear in Mrs. Hartley’s eyes, hearing it in her voice. Her only child, her son, flying nightly against a ruthless enemy. “We’re here tonight hoping to find a fair and kindly way to house these new evacuees, the children especially—for their benefit, not our own.”

  Myrna Sykes stood, thumped the table and got everyone’s attention. “All I can say, Miss Josie, is that we ought to be thankful the reception officers no longer line up the poor dears against a wall at the train station and allow the billeting families to choose on their own.”

  “Agreed, Mrs. Sykes,” Josie said as the chattering began to die down and she leafed through the evacuee log book. “We’ve seen fewer broken hearts since we began matching the incoming children with the proper family situation.”

  Lots of nodding and peaceable agreement around the table.

  “And, Mrs. Hartley,” Josie continued quickly, before anyone could interrupt, “I see here on the list that we’ll be taking in a middle-aged blind woman, a retired school teacher who lost her sight in the first wave of bombings. Perhaps, you’d consider sharing your home with her.”

  Mrs. Hartley scanned the intent faces of the women now sitting around the table and seemed to relax some. “Well, perhaps.”

  “Good then. Shall we get started?”

  A simple question that launched another hail of opinions that took the better part of a quarter-hour, three pots of blackberry leaf tea and a plate of carrot biscuits to finally bring the subject back to ground.

  And an additional two hours to match fifteen names to fifteen beds. The blind woman to Mrs. Hartley. Four children to Nimway Hall, two little girls and two of the older boys who she could only hope would be kept well in hand by the mere presence of Colonel Fletcher and his men.

  “You were exactly right to choose this spot for the Operational Base, Colonel,” Crossley said from the near utter darkness on the rise above the tumbled entrance to the ice house. “There’s certain to be a passage into a cave just below here; the hills of Somerset are riddled with them.” Crossley washed th
e shuttered beam of his torch across the ground, the light flickering through the underbrush like a wild fire. “The roof can’t be more than four feet thick up here, the same limestone as the surrounding hillside.”

  “How long will it take to get through to the chamber?” Gideon asked from his position in front of the entrance below.

  “Six hours, seven at most, sir, depending on the composition of the strata, and the power of the charges we can set without making too much noise–“

  ”And causing too much interest from the locals,” Gideon said, remembering Josie’s warning, “including the evacuee children, who seem to be as inquisitive as a tree full of squirrels.”

  “Best to do the work in the dead of night, Colonel,” Easton said, “when the little imps are abed.”

  “And camouflage the works by day. Good idea, Easton. Let’s finish surveying the site tonight. Estimates will suffice until we know what’s behind the rubble and the old door behind that.”

  ”And if we can get through the roof,” Durbridge said, his boots appearing in Crossley’s beam of light on the ridge above.

  “Indeed.” All things being as they appeared, his staff would verify the specifications in the next day or two, then draw up construction plans, arrange for the delivery of supplies from the air field at Yeovilton and, with the help of his crew of sappers, be finished by the middle of next month.

  Finished and moving on with his unit to the next assignment. He hadn’t spent a moment considering the timetable of his mission. The Operational Base, training the Aux Units, securing the Taunton Stop Line and, most critically, establishing a relationship with Agent Arcturus that would guarantee a permanent communication hub here in Balesborough.

  A lot to accomplish for a man reduced to relying a cane. Yet, each accomplishment would bring him closer to the moment when he could return to special intelligence work on the front lines, where war was waged and a soldier belonged.

  It was nearly half-nine by the time they returned to the Hall. Most of the men cleaned up and eagerly headed off to the Hungry Dragon to blow off steam in the village.

  “Comin’ with us, sir?” Sapper Mullins asked, running a comb through his hair as he came out of the bath he shared with the other sappers.

  “Thank you, Mullins. But I’ve reports to finish in my office before tomorrow.” Besides that, his knee ached like fire and made him feel like an old codger in the company of his men when they weren’t on duty.

  And there was the meeting with Josie.

  “No rest for the man in the commander’s chair, eh?” The young man tucked his comb into his back pocket and flashed a smile.

  “Something like that.” Gideon watched Mullins hurtle toward the stairs, relieved when the crash he expected to hear from the floor below didn’t come.

  He was on his way to clean up in his private bathroom when he noticed a light on in Stirling’s sitting room in the opposite wing of the Hall from his own, the faint sound of music and humming coming through the open doorway. It had been on his mind all day to share an idea with the man, but the father had been as elusive as his daughter.

  Gideon found Edward reaching into a large wooden crate and rapped on the open door. “Have you a moment, Edward?”

  Stirling looked up and smiled broadly. “Gideon, hello!” He waved Gideon into the room. “Do come in, have a seat.”

  “Can’t just now,” he said, clasping Edward’s proffered hand, surprised at the earnest strength. “My clothes are a mess.”

  “Nevertheless, you’re welcome any time to my ad hoc gentleman’s club.” Edward swept his arm in a grand gesture to include the paneled sitting room with its desk and pair of upholstered chairs. “Not the Garrick, but I prefer the old nursery to being bombed to oblivion. Don’t tell my daughter—she’ll gloat.”

  “Official secrets.”

  Edward raised a dusty bottle from the divided box. “Join me in a Cognac? Rescued a crate of my finest from my cellar. Must make the lot last till the end of this bloody war. Those bloody Ruperts at the War Office have any idea how long that will be?” The twinkle seemed to never leave the man’s eyes.

  “If only they did. But, on the subject of prosecuting the war, I may have a job for you. If you’re interested.”

  “Of course, I’m interested, man. This bull is already bored of the pasture. What sort of job?”

  “Right up your alley, I think.” Gideon stepped inside the room and closed the door. “I’m quietly recruiting a group of men to join Churchill’s secret, stay-behind army.”

  “Ah, yes, I believe I’ve heard of Winston’s secret army.”

  “You have? How?”

  “My dear man, the Garrick is not only a venerated gentleman’s club made up of actors, artists, writers and men of letters, it’s also a hot-bed of military intrigue. Not a few of us are veterans of the Secret Service Bureau in the last war. We’ve old connections, as you can imagine, buried deep in the halls of government. Also, my Anne and Churchill’s Clemmie were in school together, remained dear friends until Anne’s death. The two families go way back.”

  So there was the lady of Nimway’s link to Churchill, a name she had casually strewn across his path like caltrops.

  “Then, Edward, I could certainly use a man of your experience in the Auxiliary Unit,” he said, wondering—but not caring in the least—what the man’s daughter would think of him recruiting her father. “And as you’re already covered under the Official Secrets Act, you’ll not mention our conversation to anyone.”

  “Especially not my Josie Bear, eh?”

  Stirling’s smile was damn near as contagious as his daughter’s. “Especially not her. Thank you, sir. We’ll talk later.”

  Just now he had to clean up for his meeting with the lady in question.

  He stood naked in the bath, scrubbed and hosed off, letting the cold water sluice over the incision that ran from above his knee half-way down his calf. He dried off, determined not to spend more than a moment patching up the angry-looking wound, before dressing in clean brown trousers and a white shirt.

  Ten-fifteen, not enough time to decrypt the message from Arcturus before his meeting with Josie. There would be time enough to do it later.

  He left his cane in his room and took the backstairs, and timed his arrival in the library to exactly half-ten, expecting Josie to be waiting for him with a quip about proving how punctual she was. He was ready with a witty comeback, hoping to ignite the emerald green of her eyes when she laughed.

  But Josie wasn’t in the library. Wasn’t lounging out of sight in one of the wingback chairs in front of the flames dancing in the hearth. Both chairs were empty.

  So he switched on the reading lamp between the chairs, added a few logs to the fire then sat down and began idly thumbing through a copy of “Country Life” magazine, hoping to look as though he had been waiting hours for her.

  More than fifteen minutes and a dog-eared article on cultivating edible ornamentals later, his “always punctual” hostess still hadn’t shown herself. Had begun to make him wonder if she had forgotten—

  Slam! And another slam! The Hall had been so quiet that the sounds echoing in the service corridor behind the hearth brought him to his feet, would have sent him searching for the source, but in the next breath the library door swung open and Josie burst into the room.

  “I’m late. I know. Sorry, Gideon. Couldn’t be helped.” She was drenched to her knees in mud, though the skies had been clear for the past two days. Her jacket and hair were strewn with twigs and leaves, which she was trying to tug free. “I’m afraid I’ve given you the wrong impression of me.”

  “Hardly that, Josie.” She was breathing hard, eyes flashing in frustration with herself and whatever mischief she’d been making since their idyll in Balesboro Wood. “No need to apologize. We live in disorderly times. I was late myself. And you should stand over here, closer to the fire.”

  She slipped in front of the hearth and sighed. “But at least you’re presentable.
”

  He’d been as bedraggled as she an hour before, but she didn’t need to know that detail of his work. “You look more than presentable, Josie, but if you’d like to adjourn until tomorrow night at half-ten—”

  “I’ll stay. And I’ll be here tomorrow night on time, I promise.” She threw off her coat and turned her back to the fire. “Because I won’t have spent the last two hours leading the WVS meeting in the village. Seventeen women, and as many opinions about what to do with the new group of evacuee children we’ve been told to expect at the end of next week. Like herding badgers.”

  “The children?”

  “No. The women, not the children. So far the evacuees have been generally delightful, once they adjust to life in the country.” She combed her fingers through her hair, the image of an untamed creature from the forest. “That said, I’m deeply proud of each member of our group, for their willingness to sacrifice their time and treasure to help win this horrid war. Hitler and his commanders discount their contributions at great peril.” She shot him a challenge. “That goes double for our side as well, Gideon. ‘The WVS never says No’, as you’ve probably heard.”

  “Countless times, from my own mother.” And his three sisters. A rallying cry that accompanied their rationale for taking on wartime roles that only a man should be assigned.

  “Is your mother a member of her local WVS?”

  “President.”

  “I thought as much. Has she taken in evacuees?”

  “No children, but the last I heard from my sister, Mother had turned the Dower House into a way-station for older women displaced by the bombing in Maidstone.”

  “Your mother and I have a lot in common, Gideon.”

  Wise, iron-willed, compassionate to a fault; yes, more in common than he cared to admit. “Plainly.”