Connie Willis - Blackout

I have an idea the vicar would make an exception in your case, Eileen had thought. But the Hodbins weren’t the only thing preventing her from going. Ever since Christmas she’d spent what was supposed to have been her half-day out soliciting for the saving-stamps drive or working on some other project Lady Caroline had devised for “assisting the war effort,” which somehow never involved her doing anything, only her servants.

If I don’t go through to Oxford soon, they’ll think something’s happened and send a retrieval team after me, Eileen thought. She needed to at least tell the lab why she hadn’t checked in, and perhaps persuade them to open the drop more often than one day a week. “Which means I need to finish hanging these wretched sheets before the Hodbins get home,” she said aloud to the portrait of an earlier Lady Caroline and her spaniels, and bent to take another sheet out of the basket.

The kitchen maid, Una, was standing in the door. “Who was you talking to?” she asked, peering between the hanging lines.

“Myself,” Eileen said. “It’s the first sign of going mad.”

“Oh,” Una said. “Mrs. Bascombe wants you.”

What now? I’ll never get away. She hastily hung up the last sheet and hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen.

Mrs. Bascombe was cracking eggs into a bowl. “Put on a fresh apron,” she said. “Her ladyship wants you.”

“But today’s my half-day out,” Eileen protested.

“Yes, well, you can leave after. Her ladyship’s in the drawing room.”

In the upstairs drawing room? That meant someone had come to take their child home. They’d been steadily shedding evacuees since Christmas. If many more departed, she’d have no one left to observe. Which was another reason she needed to go to Oxford today, to see if she could persuade Mr. Dunworthy into sending her somewhere else. Or cutting this assignment short and letting her go do the assignment she truly wanted: VE-Day. Eileen hurriedly tied on a fresh apron and started out of the kitchen.

“Wait,” Mrs. Bascombe said. “Take her ladyship’s nerve tablets with you. Dr. Stuart brought them round.”

The tablets were aspirin, which Eileen doubted would do much for Lady Caroline’s “nerves,” which in any case seemed to be mostly an excuse for insisting the evacuees be kept quiet. Eileen took the box from Mrs. Bascombe and hurried to the drawing room, wondering whose parents were here. She hoped not the Magruders: Barbara, Peggy, and Ewan were the only three well-behaved children left. All the other children had been hopelessly corrupted by Alf and Binnie.

Perhaps it’s their mother, she thought, brightening, but it wasn’t, nor was it the Magruders. It was the vicar, and she would have been glad to see him except that he’d probably come because the Hodbins had committed some new crime. “You asked for me, ma’am?” Eileen said.

“Yes, Ellen,” Lady Caroline said. “Have you ever driven an automobile?”

Oh, no, they stole the vicar’s car and wrecked it, Eileen thought. “Driven, ma’am?” she said cautiously.

“Yes. Mr. Goode and I have been discussing Civil Defence preparations, particularly the need for ambulance drivers.”

The vicar nodded. “In the event of a bombing incident or invasion-”

“We will need trained drivers,” Lady Caroline finished. “Do you know how to drive, Ellen?”

Except for chauffeurs, servants in 1940 hadn’t had occasion to drive, so it hadn’t been part of her prep. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid I never learned.”

“Then you shall. I’ve offered Mr. Goode the use of my Bentley to aid the war effort. Mr. Goode, you may give Ellen her first lesson this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?” Eileen blurted out, unable to keep the dismay out of her voice, and then bit her lip. Nineteen-forties maids didn’t talk back.

“Is that inconvenient for you?” the vicar asked her. “I could just as easily begin the lessons tomorrow, Lady Caroline.”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Goode. Backbury may come under attack at any time.” She turned to Eileen. “When it comes to the war, we must all be prepared to make sacrifices. The vicar will give you your lesson as soon as we’ve finished here. And then you’ll stay to tea, won’t you, Vicar? Ellen, tell Mrs. Bascombe that Mr. Goode is staying to tea. And tell her she and Mr. Samuels will have their lessons after tea. You may go.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eileen curtseyed and ran back down to the kitchen. Now she really needed to go to the drop. It was one thing to not know how to drive, and another thing to be completely unfamiliar with 1940s automobiles. She needed to get some advance prep. She wondered if she should try to make it to the drop and back before the lesson. If she knew Lady Caroline, they’d be at least an hour. But if they weren’t … Perhaps I can get Mrs. Bascombe to have her lesson first, she thought.

She found her putting cakes into the oven. “The children just came in,” Mrs. Bascombe said. “I’ve sent them up to the nursery to take off their coats. What did her ladyship want?”

“The vicar’s going to teach us all to drive. And Lady Caroline said to tell you he’s staying to tea.”

“Drive?” Mrs. Bascombe said.

“Yes. So that we can drive an ambulance in case of a bombing incident.”

“Or in case James is called up and she hasn’t anyone to drive her to all her meetings.”

Eileen hadn’t thought of that. She might very well be worried that her chauffeur would be called up. The butler and both footmen had been last month, and Samuels, the elderly gardener, was now manning the front door.

“Well, she’s not getting me in any automobile,” Mrs. Bascombe said, “bombing incident or no bombing incident.”

Which meant Eileen couldn’t exchange with her. It would have to be Samuels.

“When are we to find the time for these lessons? We’ve too much to do as it is. Where are you going?” Mrs. Bascombe demanded.

“To see Mr. Samuels. The vicar’s to give me my first lesson this afternoon, but as it’s my half-day out, I thought perhaps I could exchange with him.”

“No, the Home Guard’s meeting this afternoon.”

“But it’s important,” Eileen said. “Couldn’t he miss-?”

Mrs. Bascombe looked shrewdly at her. “Why are you so eager to have your half-day out today? You’re not meeting a soldier, are you? Binnie said she saw you flirting with a soldier at the railway station.”

Binnie, you little traitor. After I kept our bargain and didn’t tell Mrs. Bascombe about the snake. “I wasn’t flirting, I was giving the soldier instructions for delivering Theodore Willett to his mother.”

Mrs. Bascombe looked unconvinced. “Young girls can’t be too careful, especially in times like these. Soldiers turning girls’ heads, talking them into meeting them in the woods, promising to marry them-” There was a loud thump overhead, followed by a shriek and a sound like a herd of rhinoceri. “What are those wretched children doing now? You’d best go see. It sounds like they’re in the ballroom.”

They were. And the thumps had apparently been the sheet-filled clotheslines coming down. A huddle of children cowered in a corner, menaced by two sheet-draped ghosts with outspread arms. “Alf, Binnie, take those off immediately,” Eileen said.

“They told us they was Nazis,” Jimmy said defensively, which didn’t explain the sheets.

“They said Germans kill little children,” five-year-old Barbara said. “They chased us.”

The damage seemed to be confined to the sheets, thank goodness, though the portrait of Lady Caroline’s hoop-skirted ancestor was hanging crookedly. “We told them we weren’t allowed to play in here,” eight-year-old Peggy said virtuously, “but they wouldn’t listen.”

Alf and Binnie were still freeing themselves from the wet, clinging folds of sheet. “Do the Germans?” Barbara asked, tugging on Eileen’s skirt. “Kill little children?”

“No.”

Alf’s head emerged from the sheet. “They do so. When they invade, they’re going to kill Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. They’re going to cut their ’eads right off.”

“Are they?” Barbara asked fearfully.

“No,” Eileen said. “Outside.”

“But it’s rainin’,” Alf said.

“You should have thought of that before. You can play in the stables.” She herded them all outside and went back up to the ballroom. She straightened the portrait of Lady Caroline’s ancestor, rehung the lines, then began picking the sheets up off the floor. They’d all have to be washed again, and so would the dust sheets covering the furniture.

I wonder how badly it would affect history if I throttled the Hodbins, she thought. Theoretically, historians weren’t able to do anything that would alter events. Slippage kept that from happening. But surely in this instance, it would make an exception. History would so clearly be a better place without them. She stooped to pick up another trampled sheet. “Begging your pardon, miss,” Una said from the door, “but her ladyship wants to see you in the drawing room.”

Eileen thrust the wet sheets into Una’s arms and ran down to change into her pinafore again and then race back upstairs to the drawing room. Mr. and Mrs. Magruder were there. “They’ve come for… er… their children,” said Lady Caroline, who obviously had no idea what the children’s names were.

“For Barbara, Peggy, and Ewan, ma’am?” Eileen said.

“Yes.”

“We missed them so,” Mrs. Magruder said to Eileen. “Our house has been quiet as a tomb without them.” At the phrase “quiet as a tomb,” Lady Caroline looked pained. She must have heard the children.

“And now that Hitler’s coming to his senses and realizing Europe won’t stand for his nonsense,” Mr. Magruder said, “there’s no reason not to have them with us. Not that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for them, your ladyship, taking them in and loving them like your own.”

“I was more than glad to do it,” Lady Caroline said. “Ellen, go pack Peggy’s and… the other children’s things and bring them here to the drawing room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eileen said, curtseying, and walked quickly along the corridor to the ballroom. If she could find Una, she could have her get the Magruder children’s things ready while she went to the drop. Please let her still be in the ballroom.

She was, still holding the damp wad of sheets. “Una, pack the Magruders’ things,” she said. “I’m going out to fetch the children,” and fled, but when she ran outside, the vicar was standing there, next to Lady Caroline’s Bentley.

“Vicar, I’m sorry, but I can’t have my lesson now,” she said. “The Magruders are here to fetch Peggy and Ewan and-”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Bascombe and arranged for you to have your lesson tomorrow.”

I love you, she thought.

“Una will have hers today.”

Oh, you poor man, but at least she was free to go. “Thank you, Vicar,” she said fervently, and walked quickly across the lawn in the misty drizzle toward the stables, then ducked behind the hothouse and ran out to the road and set off along it, hurrying so she wouldn’t be overtaken by Una and the vicar in the Bentley.