Secrets of a Charmed Life (9 page)

Alice shushed her. “Keep your voice down.”

All eyes were on Emmy now. She and Julia would be back on the train in no time; she was sure of it. “I will
not
keep my voice down. I will not allow my sister and me to be trafficked like slaves. This is debasing.”

“Now, now. I’m sure these are good people.”

“And all of us forced out of our homes, are we not good people? Do we really deserve to be picked over and poked like melons on market day?”

There wasn’t a sound now in the room except Emmy’s voice.

Howard Trimble, a few feet away, was shaking his head. It was no surprise to him that Emmy was mouthing off like she was. What could one expect from someone like her—an illegitimate urchin of a girl.

For a long moment there were only silence and wide-eyed stares.

Then Emmy saw movement out of the corner of her eye. And then there was a voice.

“You are absolutely right, my dear.”

Emmy turned. The woman who had spoken was older than either of the Trimbles. Her silver hair, flecked with hints of a former coffee brown, was bound in a braid that lay across her shoulder and then trailed down past her left breast. She was tall and slender, and her skin was wrinkled but in a nice way, as if she had one day started smiling and then had never stopped. She was wearing a cornflower blue blouse and twill skirt with a smudge on the hem that suggested she had been gardening that day. The spectacles on her face were slightly skewed; perhaps she had recently sat on them and had to bend them back into shape.

“Please forgive our thoughtlessness?” the woman said.

Emmy didn’t detect a hint of sarcasm or a patronizing tone, but she said nothing.

“Please?” she continued. “My name is Charlotte Havelock. It would be my great honor to welcome you and your sister, Julia, at Thistle House during this distressing time of war. I have a nice bedroom for you to sleep in, and a garden to play and read in, and I promise to treat you with all the respect that you are due. That is, if you will have me.”

Again silence reigned in the room. Emmy felt Julia tugging on her shirt. She looked down at her little sister.

“I like her,” she whispered.

The woman smiled.

The room was library-quiet and Emmy still had everyone’s attention. Alice nodded to Emmy, a wordless gesture of desperation. She wanted Emmy to be wanted by someone; it made her job easier. There was no going back to London; Emmy could see that in her eyes, too. She would have to find a place for the girls, if not here in Moreton-in-Marsh, then in some other little town. Emmy could not return to London by refusing Charlotte Havelock’s invitation.

But she
would
return to London.

One way or another she would return. It was just a matter of time.

“All right,” Emmy said.

Charlotte Havelock extended her hand and Emmy, after a second’s hesitation, took it. Charlotte’s grip was warm and firm.

“Shall we take care of the paperwork, then?” She released Emmy’s hand, and an openmouthed Alice led them all to the billeting table to complete the process. Several seconds passed before the hum of conversation resumed.

Charlotte filled out her contact information so that Mum could be notified where Emmy and Julia would be staying. Emmy looked over her shoulder as Charlotte wrote. Her home, Thistle House, was located in Stow-on-the-Wold, a village Emmy had never heard of.

Charlotte set the pen down and turned to the sisters.

“Let’s go home.”

THE
road between Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold was narrow but straight, taking them past rock walls, grazing sheep, fields of hay, and cottages of fawn-colored stone. London and all that Emmy had left behind seemed remarkably distant. It was as if they were traveling back in time or maybe to an entirely different world. There were no sandbags here, no air raid shelter signs, no barrage balloons in this endless sky. Emmy wondered how anyone out in this vast countryside knew they were even at war.

She and Julia sat up front with Charlotte in a dusty blue jalopy that sputtered like a steam engine as she drove. It was a four-and-a-half-mile jaunt between the two towns, Charlotte said, but since she lived on the edge of Stow, it would seem more like five.

The woman filled the silence inside the car by telling
the girls about herself, which allowed Emmy to sit back and memorize the route they were taking so that one day soon, if she had to, she could make her way back to London on her own.

Charlotte was sixty-six, a retired schoolteacher, and a widow of five years. She and her husband, Oliver, hadn’t been blessed with any children, but she had a younger sister, Rose, whose disabilities made her childlike in many ways, so Charlotte felt as though she’d been gifted the chance to mother someone.

Oliver, bless his soul, had owned a hardware store in Stow-on-the-Wold, as had his father before him, and his father before him. He had been quite handy and liked to build things. She had an indoor loo before anyone else she knew did, thanks to Oliver. The century-old house had been in Oliver’s family all that time, and had a lovely name, Thistle House. Many houses in the Cotswolds had names.

“What is a cot’s wold?” Julia asked.

Charlotte Havelock smiled. “The Cotswolds is everything you can see out the window. For lots of miles. A hundred of them. Think of England as a very large book. The Cotswolds would be an unfussy chapter in the middle somewhere where there is lots of limestone and even more sheep.”

“But what is a cot’s wold? I want to see one.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I’d like to see one, too. Here’s the thing. Everyone agrees ‘wold’ means ‘hills’ but not everyone agrees what the ‘cots’ are.”

“That’s easy,” Julia said. “Cots are little beds.”

“Indeed.” Charlotte’s smile was broad. “Right you are, Julia.”

Charlotte then told the girls that she had been born
in Cornwall, near the coast, and that she met Oliver at his brother’s wedding in Bristol in 1893. They fell in love, and married a year later, and she moved to Thistle House. It had been her home ever since. She and her husband took in Rose eighteen years ago when Charlotte and Rose’s mother died.

“I know I wasn’t born here in the Cotswolds, but I feel like I was. This place has a way of welcoming you in, even if you are a stranger.”

Her words were meant to convey welcome, but Emmy didn’t want to imagine she could belong there, even for a little while. Still, she sensed the subtle embrace of Charlotte’s seemingly warless world where everything appeared to be bathed in butter.

“I’ve never seen so many houses and buildings all made of the same yellow stone,” Emmy said.

“That’s Cotswold stone. We are sitting on a vast blanket of limestone here. Loads of it. They’ve been building with it for centuries. When it’s been out in the weather decade upon decade, it turns a lovely honey color, which is rather nice. Can you imagine if it turned pink with age?”

“I like pink,” Julia chimed.

“A lovely color for flowers, but not so much for houses,” Charlotte said.

“It’s—it’s pretty here,” Emmy said, unable to stay disconnected from her new surroundings.

The woman nodded. “I think so, too, Emmeline. I know it’s not your home. And I wish there weren’t a war. But I do want you to feel it
is
your home for as long as it must be such for you.”

Her words were heavy with the weight of what could happen. No one knew how long the war would last or
how long England could defend herself. But Emmy refused to give in to such negative thinking on the first day of the evacuation.

“I’m sure it won’t be for very long,” she said.

“I hope you’re right. I really do.”

The three of them were silent for a few seconds.

When Charlotte spoke again, her voice was bright. “Now, then, would you girls like to call me Mrs. Havelock or Aunt Charlotte?”

“I like Aunt Charlotte,” Julia answered.

This woman, kind though she was, was not Emmy’s aunt. “I prefer Mrs. Havelock,” she said.

Charlotte regarded Emmy for a moment, taking her eyes off the road ahead for a second or two. “You know, Emmeline, you’re very nearly an adult. How about you call me Charlotte?”

“Fine with me.”

“Right, then. That’s settled. So here’s Stow.”

They entered a village that was what Moreton might have been like fifty years before. Stores and offices made of Cotswold stone lined both sides of the street that led into the center of town, some with thatched roofs, some with shingles. They passed a town hall, a pub, a grocer, a bank, a butcher, a dentist. There seemed to be one of everything needed for a town to survive on its own without any interaction from the outside, ever.

“There’s the hardware store,” Charlotte said, pointing to a toast brown building with a shiny red sign with black lettering in front. “It’s called Browne and Sons Hardware now. Used to be Havelock Hardware. We sold it the year Ollie retired. I used to have tea with him Saturday afternoons before Rose came. I’d bring it down in the basket of my bike. Down that way is our train station, so
if your mum wants to come see you, she can come straight here. Oh, and there’s my church.” Charlotte nodded toward a castlelike structure with a bright blue door and a steeple arrowing past the treetops. “And down that way is the primary school. The secondary school is back behind us a bit. I’ll show them to you sometime if you want.”

“That’s all right,” Emmy said as politely as she could. She didn’t see much purpose to that. It was June. The school term was three months away.

Then they were back in the countryside, on a narrow, treelined lane.

“This is the Maugersbury Road,” Charlotte said. “The village officials had to take all the road signs down because of the war, but everyone here knows this road leads to little Maugersbury. Rose and I live on the edge of both towns. Maugersbury is small, just a few houses, some farms, and the manor, really. Now, tell me about you. What do you girls like to do when you’re not in school?”

Emmy nodded to Julia so that she could answer first. “Well, I like going to the park and playing with my paper dolls and I like Thea’s cat and kittens and I like going to my friend Sybil’s house because she has lots of toys. And her own tea set.”

“Well, how lovely.” Charlotte beamed. “My back garden is sort of like a park. I’ve lots of fruit trees and a little pond and a vegetable garden and chickens. And I have the tea set that was mine when I was a little girl. I’ll have to get it out for you.”

“Do you have a pony?” Julia said, as animated as Emmy had seen her since Thea’s kittens were born.

“I don’t have a pony. But my neighbor has two goats. Edgar and Clementine. And my other neighbor has a miniature horse named Jingles.”

Julia whipped her head around to face Emmy, her eyes bright with anticipation and an “I told you so” gleam.

“How about you, Emmeline? What do you like to do?”

“Emmy draws brides,” Julia said before Emmy could answer, her attention fully back on Charlotte.

“She draws brides?”

“Their dresses. She has drawn a whole bunch. She gave me some. I have them inside my book. You want to see?”

“Well, perhaps when I am not driving.” Charlotte glanced at Emmy, hoping for a fuller explanation.

“I like to sketch bridal designs,” Emmy said. “I am hoping, I mean, I am planning to become a designer. I had a job at a bridal shop. Until today.”

“Oh. I see. I’m so sorry you had to leave it, Emmeline.”

Her empathy was genuine and full, almost too much for Emmy to handle.

“Her dresses are really pretty,” Julia continued, and Emmy was happy for the interruption. “She has them in the brides box. I like to look at them and Emmy lets me whenever I want as long as she is there with me. I’m not supposed to get them out when she’s not home.”

“I would love to see them sometime,” Charlotte said. “If you don’t mind showing them to me, that is.”

“Um. Sure,” Emmy said. Charlotte’s interest, almost maternal in nature, was strangely welcome.

“If you like, I can show you my wedding dress sometime,” Charlotte said, her smile broad. “Oh my goodness, Emmeline. Just wait until you see what was in style back when I got married. Would you like to?”

Emmy nodded, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She found she could not speak.

Charlotte seemed to pick up on this. It was as if she
knew Emmy needed the topic of discussion to shift to something not so desperately personal.

“So, we are almost to Thistle House,” Charlotte said. “I need to tell you girls that my sister, Rose, is a dear soul, but she’s a bit forgetful and simpleminded. She’s only a year younger than I am, but you would do me a great favor by thinking of her—if you don’t mind—as if she were five.”

“Why does she think she’s five?” Julia asked, genuinely concerned.

“She doesn’t think she’s five. She just has a difficult time thinking like an adult would think. Rose was in an accident a long time ago. It was very bad and we thought she might die. She finally came back to us, but she came back different. When she woke up from her injuries, it was as if she were a little girl again and she just stayed that way.”

“How old was she when that happened?” Emmy’s sympathies had been aroused as only a fellow sister’s would.

“She was thirteen. A very long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Emmy didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s all right. My parents and I just learned to love the new Rose. It actually wasn’t that hard to do.” Charlotte laughed nervously, as though the accident was still fresh in her mind. “Once we let go of the old Rose. Here we are.”

They turned down a narrow gravel path wide enough for only one car, which, after a slight curve, led to a house constructed of Cotswold stone, with wood trim painted forest green. Climbing roses rioted across the front gate and ivy crawled up the sidewalls. Gabled windows on the second story boasted window boxes of white and pink geraniums. A brass oval nailed to the stone framing
the doorway read
THISTLE HOUSE
. It was such a charming, storybook place that Emmy instinctively reached into her skirt pocket to touch the ticket stub from Paddington station and the key to Primrose nestled behind it. She needed to remind herself that she really had awakened that morning in London. Julia was similarly awestruck. There was no house like this in their little corner of the world, and that corner was all her sister knew. Julia held her fairy tale book close to her chest, her eyes wide with wonder and doubt.

They got out of the car.

Charlotte, carrying Julia’s suitcase, walked up the stone pathway to the front door and opened it wide. “Welcome to Thistle House, Emmeline and Julia. My home is yours.”

The short, narrow entryway led to a sitting room and a staircase straight ahead, a kitchen and pantry and the privy on the left, and a dining room and living area on the right. In Charlotte’s absence, Rose had been looked after by a neighbor who lived nearby. Mrs. Tinley bid them all welcome and then left by the garden door to return to her home.

Rose looked a lot like Charlotte; she had the same nose and chin, the same eyes, even the same long silvery braid. Their voices had the same tone and timbre. Their sameness seemed to accentuate Julia’s and Emmy’s differences. Julia’s fair skin, green eyes, and blond hair were all Neville. Emmy’s brown hair was darker than Mum’s, and so were her eyes.

Charlotte led the girls to the table where Rose sat surrounded by a pile of magazines. “Rose, these are the children from London I was telling you about. This is Emmeline and this is Julia.”

Rose languidly blinked at the girls. “Are they staying in my room?” she finally said, frowning.

“No, they’re in the guest room. Remember?”

Rose studied the sisters for another long moment. “The green towels are mine. But I’ll share them.” Then she bent over her magazine.

“How about I show you to your room and then we’ll have a nice tea out in the garden?”

They made their way back to the main entry and to the staircase that led to the three bedrooms upstairs. The guest room was decorated in shades of yellow with dormer windows graced with eyelet valances and the familiar blackout curtains. So they did know about the war here, Emmy thought. Two four-poster beds were side-by-side, both covered with daisy-patterned quilts and ruffled bed skirts. Each one was paired with a bedside table. Directly across from the beds and on the other side of the door was a tall wardrobe, painted white and decorated with sunflowers. A tall bureau painted white with yellow glass knobs filled one slanted wall, and a desk with a little gooseneck table lamp sat along another. A waist-high, lace-covered table stood next to the desk. It was the prettiest bedroom Emmy had ever seen.