She held out her hands, uncurled her fingers to reveal two white sugar mice, sticky around the edges. ‘From Mrs Townsend.’
A long arm appeared from the dim inside; retreated with a mouse.
Emmeline licked her own gooey load. ‘I’m bored. What are you doing?’
‘Reading,’ came the response.
‘What are you reading?’
Silence.
Emmeline peered into the closet, wrinkled her nose. ‘War of the Worlds? Again?’
There was no answer.
Emmeline took another long, thoughtful lick of her sugar mouse, observed him from all angles, rubbed at a stray cotton thread that had adhered to his ear. ‘Hey!’ she said suddenly. ‘We could go to Mars! When David gets here.’
Silence.
‘There’ll be Martians, good ones and evil ones, and untold dangers.’
Like all younger siblings, Emmeline had made it her life’s work to master the predilections of her sister and brother; she didn’t need to look to know she’d hit her mark.
‘We’ll put it to the council,’ came the voice.
Emmeline squealed excitedly, clapped her sticky hands together and lifted a boot-clad foot to clamber into the closet. ‘And we can tell David it was my idea?’ she said.
‘Watch the candle.’
‘I can colour the map red instead of green, for a change. Is it true that trees are red on Mars?’
‘Of course they are; so is the water, and the soil, and the canals, and the craters.’
‘Craters?’
‘Big, deep, dark holes, where the Martians keep their children.’
An arm appeared and began to pull the door closed.
‘Like wells?’ said Emmeline.
‘But deeper. Darker.’
‘Why do they keep their children there?’
‘So no one sees the hideous experiments they’ve performed on them.’
‘What kind of experiments?’ came Emmeline’s breathless voice.
‘You’ll find out,’ said Hannah. ‘If David ever gets here.’
Downstairs, as ever, our lives were murky mirrors to those above.
One evening, when the household had all retired to bed, the staff gathered by the raging servants’ hall fire. Mr Hamilton and Mrs Townsend formed bookends either side, while Myra, Katie and I huddled between on dining chairs, squinting in the flickering firelight at the scarves we were dutifully knitting. A cold wind lashed against the windowpanes, and insurgent draughts set Mrs Townsend’s jars of dry goods to quivering on the kitchen shelf.
Mr Hamilton shook his head and cast aside The Times. He removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.
‘More bad news?’ Mrs Townsend looked up from the Christmas menu she was planning, cheeks red from the fire.
‘The worst, Mrs Townsend.’ He returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose. ‘More losses at Ypres.’ He rose from his seat and moved to the sideboard where he had spread out a map of Europe and which now hosted a score of miniature military figurines (David’s old set, I think, retrieved from the attic) representing different armies and different campaigns. He removed the Duke of Wellington from a point in France and replaced him with two German Hussars. ‘I don’t like this at all,’ he said to himself.
Mrs Townsend sighed. ‘And I don’t like this at all.’ She tapped her pen on the menu. ‘How am I supposed to prepare Christmas dinner for the family with no butter, or tea, or even turkey to speak of?’
‘No turkey, Mrs Townsend?’ Katie gaped.
‘Not so much as a wing.’
‘But whatever will you serve?’
Mrs Townsend shook her head, ‘Don’t go getting in a flap, now. I daresay I’ll manage, my girl. I always do, don’t I?’
‘Yes, Mrs Townsend,’ said Katie gravely. ‘I must say you do.’
Mrs Townsend peered down her nose, satisfied herself there was no irony intended, and returned her attention to the menu.
I was trying to concentrate on my knitting but when I dropped the third stitch in as many rows, I cast it aside, frustrated, and stood up. Something had been bothering me all evening. Something I had witnessed in the village that I didn’t rightly understand.
I straightened my apron and approached Mr Hamilton who, it seemed to me, knew just about everything.
‘Mr Hamilton?’ I said tentatively.
He turned toward me, peered over his glasses, the Duke of Wellington still pinched between two long tapered fingertips. ‘What is it, Grace?’
I glanced back to where the others sat, engaged in animated discussion.
‘Well girl?’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
I cleared my throat. ‘No, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘It’s just… I wanted to ask you about something. Something I saw in the village today.’
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Speak up, my girl.’
I glanced toward the door. ‘Where is Alfred, Mr Hamilton?’
He frowned. ‘Upstairs, serving sherry. Why? What’s Alfred got to do with all this?’
‘It’s just, I saw Alfred today, in the village-’
‘Yes,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘He was running an errand for me.’
‘I know, Mr Hamilton. I saw him. At McWhirter’s. And I saw when he came out of the store.’ I pressed my lips together. Some unaccountable reticence made me loath to speak the rest. ‘He was given a white feather, Mr Hamilton.’
‘A white feather?’ Mr Hamilton’s eyes widened and the Duke of Wellington was released unceremoniously onto the table.
I nodded, remembering Alfred’s shift in manner: the way he’d been stopped in his jaunty tracks. Had stood, dazed, feather in hand as passers-by slowed to whisper knowingly at one another. Had dropped his gaze and hurried away, shoulders bent and head low.
‘A white feather?’ To my chagrin, Mr Hamilton said this loudly enough to draw the attention of the others.
‘What’s that, Mr Hamilton?’ Mrs Townsend peered over her glasses.
He brushed a hand down his cheek and across his lips. Shook his head in disbelief. ‘Alfred was given a white feather.’
‘No,’ Mrs Townsend gasped, plump hand leaping to her chest. ‘He never was. Not a white feather. Not our Alfred.’
‘How do you know?’ Myra said.
‘Grace saw it happen,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘This morning in the village.’
I nodded, my heart beginning to race with the uneasy sense of having opened the Pandora’s box of someone else’s secret. Being unable now to close it.
‘It’s preposterous,’ Mr Hamilton said, straightening his waistcoat. He returned to his seat and hooked his spectacles over his ears. ‘Alfred is not a coward. He’s serving the war effort every day he helps keep this household running. He has an important position with an important family.’
‘But it’s not the same as fighting, is it Mr Hamilton?’ said Katie.
‘It most certainly is,’ blustered Mr Hamilton. ‘There’s a role for each of us in this war, Katie. Even you. It’s our duty to preserve the ways of this fine country of ours so that when the soldiers return victorious, the society they remember will be waiting for them.’
‘So even when I’m washing pots I’m helping the war effort?’ said Katie in wonderment.
‘Not the way you wash them,’ Mrs Townsend said.
‘Yes Katie,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘By keeping up with your duties, and by knitting your scarves, you’re doing your bit.’ He shot glances at Myra and me. ‘We all are.’
‘It doesn’t seem enough, if you ask me,’ Myra said, her head bowed.
‘What’s that, Myra?’ Mr Hamilton said.
Myra stopped knitting and laid her bony hands in her lap. ‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘take Alfred, for example. He’s a young fit man. Surely he’d be of better use helping the other boys what are over there in France? Anyone can pour sherry.’