By your readiness to serve you have helped the State in a work of great value.
Warwickshire-February 1940
IT BEGAN TO RAIN JUST AS EILEEN WAS ABOUT TO HANG out the laundry, and she had to string up the clothesline in the ballroom, amid the portraits of Lord Edward and Lady Caroline’s ruffed and hoop-skirted ancestors, and hang the wet sheets in there, which would take twice as long. By the time she finished, the children would be home from school. She’d wanted to be gone before they arrived. Last time the Hodbins had followed her into the woods, and she’d had to postpone going to the drop for another week.
Again. The Monday before that she’d had to spend her half-day out fumigating the children’s cots for bedbugs, and the Monday before that she’d had to take Alf and Binnie over to Mr. Rudman’s farm to apologize for setting his haystack ablaze. They’d claimed they’d been practicing lighting signal fires in case of invasion. “The vicar says unless everyone does their bit we can’t win the war,” Binnie’d said.
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.”