Secrets of a Charmed Life (12 page)

After the girls helped with the dishes, the four of them settled in the parlor to look at Charlotte's family photographs. Night fell. Charlotte switched on several lamps and pulled the blackout curtains down, shutting out a sky full of stars.

DESPITE
the lovely room, Emmy had trouble getting to sleep that first night at Thistle House. She had gone to bed when Julia did, though she could have stayed up later with Charlotte and Rose if she had wanted. Julia had grown pensive as they looked at Charlotte's and Rose's family pictures. For the first time since they had been notified of the evacuation, it seemed as if Julia understood more fully that she and Emmy had been sent away because London was not safe. That meant Mum was not safe. She did not want to go to bed alone in a strange house with such heavy thoughts.

Emmy pulled the curtains open when she turned out the light so that the bright moon, which had become London's enemy in recent months, could bathe the room in lustrous half-light and keep away the deepest dark.

She had sat on the edge of Julia's bed and stroked her
back to lull her to sleep, but it was a long time before her sister stopped asking questions such as “Why didn't Mum come with us on the train? Why isn't she here with us? What if the Germans come to London?” and closed her eyes.

When Julia was at last asleep and Emmy was finally in bed, she had her own troubles to keep sleep elusive, primarily the loss of her job, the meeting with Mr. Dabney that she did not want to miss, and the notion that Mum had willingly chosen to bear all the responsibility of raising her.

The more Emmy thought about it, the more she understood what she had simply failed to notice before.

What kind of man would sixteen-year-old Mum have agreed to leave unnamed on a birth certificate? A man who didn't want to be charged with statutory rape, that was who. And how else could this man have secured Mum's silence unless money had been involved? Surely that was how she had financed those first few years of her life as a single mother. There had been a payoff. That was how she was able to stay in London with a new baby instead of moving with her mother to Devonshire. How long had the money lasted? Emmy wondered. Because at some point Mum had met Neville and she had let herself get pregnant again. But this time she was twenty-four. Since she would not be paid off, perhaps she was hoping she could at last be married off. The trouble was, Neville hadn't had a keen sense of responsibility. A pregnant girlfriend wasn't exactly a problem, and it certainly wasn't
his
problem. Mum had been wrong about herself, too, because she fell in love with the man who fathered her second child but didn't want to marry her. And when that happened, it didn't matter
that Neville had lots of money one day and nothing the next, or that he had no scruples. She was in love with him until the day he left her for good. Love had not worked out like Mum had hoped.

Love had failed her. But money had not.

Was that what she had returned to, then? Was that why they had moved to a nicer flat than a kitchen maid could afford after Neville left? Was that why they had warm beds, hot water, enough food to eat, and suitcases to pack their clothes in for the evacuation?

Because someone was giving her money on the side? And what else could it be
for
but for sex? Mum didn't have anything else to offer but her lovely body.

Emmy sat up in bed, both repulsed and heartbroken by what her mother had become. For several long minutes she sat there, drawing breaths in and letting them out, as she sought to calm her thundering heart. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached underneath it for her brides box. Emmy opened the latch and withdrew the sketches, laying them across her rumpled blanket now awash in moonlight.

A translucent glow draped the gowns with the sweet white radiance due them, such that each one seemed touched by magic for just that moment.

It did not matter that there were no faces on the penciled-in heads: The gowns themselves exuded elation and perfection, exactly what you would expect a bride to radiate on the day of her dreams, on the day everything was right in her world.

No wonder Emmy loved these dresses so. Each one was an emblem of all that she wanted for her miserable life.

Emmy didn't hear Julia rise from her bed, nor did she feel the tears on her own cheeks. Her sister was just
suddenly at her side, crawling up next to her and laying her head on Emmy's shoulder.

Julia's small arm curled around her sister's back and Emmy lowered her head to Julia's.

“I miss Mum, too,” Julia whispered.

*   *   *

THE
next day over breakfast Charlotte made a list of the girls' chores so that they would feel Thistle House was their home. Guests didn't do chores, Charlotte said. And she didn't want the girls to feel like guests; nor did she want them to get bored. School would not be in session until September, which meant they had nearly three months to occupy themselves. Emmy couldn't quite grasp the idea that she would still be with Charlotte come September, but she said nothing.

Julia got her wish to be able to feed the chickens, and to water them, change their straw, and gather eggs. Emmy would take care of their laundry, bedding, and towels, and she would do the sweeping and run the Hoover. Rose, sitting at the table while the chores were divvied up and wanting to be a part of the conversation, was placed in charge of using the feather duster, although Emmy did not think she would actually remember that she had asked for a chore to do. The sisters would take turns setting and clearing the table and drying the dishes.

The vegetable garden and fruit trees were best kept by all four of them, Charlotte said, since both required constant vigilance against weeds and pests and inclement weather, and because the gardens and fruit trees might be what kept them all fed if rationing continued to become more strict. Butter, bacon, and sugar had been rationed since the beginning of the year, and meat,
cheese, and fruit had followed not long after, when fewer and fewer supply ships could get past the German U-boats patrolling the English Channel. No one in London had a garden the size of Charlotte's. It was amazing to think that here in the country, a ration book didn't determine what you ate or didn't eat, but rather the state of your vegetable garden and henhouse.

Charlotte also decreed that Julia and Emmy should read a book every week to keep their minds fresh, and that they should write Mum twice a month, or as long as the stationery held out. Paper had also recently been rationed, Charlotte said, and Emmy could not help but frown at this. She could afford no reject gowns if the writing paper was to last. And while Charlotte had ample books in her sitting room, Emmy doubted she'd let her tear out the blank pages in back to sketch bridal gowns.

The four of them walked into town after lunch to post the letters, stop at the library so that the girls could check out books for the first week, and to buy meat, dried beans, and other staples Charlotte could not grow in her garden. The townspeople on the streets and in the stores regarded Emmy and her sister with friendly but wary smiles. It was obvious no one knew what to expect next. If the evacuation was complete and all the children were safely out of London, then what could possibly follow but the brutal attack everyone feared? Two of the women Charlotte introduced them to told the girls that their sons were far away fighting hard so that they could be reunited with their mum and dad. It was as if they needed the girls to know that although they couldn't see the war there in the Cotswolds, they could still feel it.

There were other London evacuees in the village; not just from their train, but from others as well. Just as she
was about to enter the library, Emmy saw two evacuees she recognized, a sister and brother from their train car. Their eyes met from across the street and an unspoken communication passed between them. Somehow in that wordless exchange they were able to ascertain that neither of them had been taken in by a lunatic or a tyrant. The woman they were with was younger than Charlotte and held the hand of a little boy who was clearly hers. Emmy was glad in that moment that she and Julia didn't have to compete for attention from a foster mother's own child.

At the post office, Charlotte introduced them to the postmistress, easily the tallest woman Emmy had ever met. She handed her the letters and the postmistress accepted them with a confident nod, saying it took only two days for mail to reach London. As the letter to Mrs. Crofton passed from Emmy's hand, she unashamedly prayed for God's favor. She knew how selfish it was to ask for something so self-serving as an appointment with a dressmaker in light of the war, but she also knew the war could not last forever. One day it would be over. And they would all be able to go back to doing what they had been doing before—dreaming what they had been dreaming, and planning what they had been planning.

Emmy was already plotting how she would be able to sneak away unnoticed back to London. That daunting process had to begin with receiving Mrs. Crofton's letter of response and without Charlotte's asking about it. And she could not begin the journey there in Stow where someone would recognize her. She would need to get herself to Moreton where she would attract far less attention.

After leaving the post office, Charlotte stopped for a copy of the
Daily Mail
, which she said she liked to pick
up every other day or so. Emmy quickly offered to add to her list of duties walking to town to get it for her. A trip to town away from watchful eyes would allow Emmy to post as many letters to Mrs. Crofton as she needed to without drawing attention to it. Charlotte seemed to think that the London newspaper might seem like a small tether to Emmy's real home. She also had no reason to mistrust Emmy's motives.

“Of course,” she said.

The last stop before returning home was the variety store. While they waited outside with Rose and their armload of library books, Charlotte went inside for Epsom salts and a bottle of aspirin. She emerged a few minutes later with those items, plus several strange-looking pencils and ten sheets of card stock.

“So that you can keep drawing your bridal dresses.” Charlotte handed the paper and the pencils to Emmy. “The pencils are special for sketching. They're what artists use and they're supposed to be just what you need.”

It took Emmy a second to find her voice. “Thank you,” she muttered, surprise making her gratitude sound halfhearted.

Julia stared at the pencils and the tissue-wrapped paper and then turned to Charlotte with an unmistakable “what about me” look.

Charlotte tousled her hair. “I have something for you back at the house, Julia.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Let's go home and I'll show you.”

Julia brightened and happily took Charlotte's hand. As the two of them walked ahead, Rose fell in step with Emmy.

They hadn't taken more than a few steps when Emmy felt Rose's hand in hers.

Back at the house, Julia could scarcely wait until what they had brought home with them was put away.

“Just let me get Rose settled with her tea and then I'll show you,” Charlotte said as she put the kettle on. Emmy took the drawing paper and pencils to her room and laid them on top of the brides box on the bedside table. Back downstairs, she got out the cream and sugar while Charlotte poured Rose's tea and placed the hot kettle in the tea cozy. She handed Emmy two digestive biscuits.

“Give those to Rose, will you, dear?” she said to Emmy, then turned to Julia. “All right. Let me get a torch.” Charlotte grabbed a flashlight from the shelf near the back door and then headed out of the kitchen. “Come along, Miss Julia.”

Julia skipped after her.

Emmy brought the biscuits to Rose, and the two of them watched as Charlotte and Julia left the room.

“Where are they going?” Rose said, her brow furrowed.

“I don't know.”

“I don't want them going in my room. They shouldn't be going into my room. It's my room.”

Emmy could hear Charlotte and Julia on the stairs. So could Rose.

“It's my room. My things.” Rose didn't sound agitated and she made no move to rise from her chair. Hers was the weirdest opposition Emmy had ever seen. Resistance without effort.

Emmy's own interest in what Charlotte was planning to give Julia was also piqued, and not just because of Rose. She turned to the older woman.

“Want me to go see what they're doing?” Emmy asked.

Rose picked up her cup daintily. “For heaven's sake, yes. It's my room. And my things.”

Happy to oblige, Emmy made for the stairs.

But Charlotte and Julia were headed into the yellow room, not Rose's. Charlotte turned to Emmy when she appeared behind them, happy, it seemed, that Emmy had followed them.

“Rose wanted me to make sure you weren't traipsing about in her room,” Emmy volunteered.

Charlotte just smiled. She turned back to face the far wall and the desk. She lifted the lace tablecloth off the waist-high table next to it, revealing a crawl space door between the wooden legs.

Charlotte sank to her knees and clicked on the flashlight. “Been a while since I've had any need to root about in here. Want to make sure no spiders or such have taken up residence.” The door protested as she opened it, the hinges squeaking at the disturbance.