Kissed a sad goodbye - Deborah Crombie [59]
“She said I needed nourishing,” Lewis explained.
John gave a disgusted snort. “Hot, sweet tea, or a jug of milk from the dairy, would have done better. You remember that next time and don’t let Cook teach you bad habits. Here we are, then,” he added as they reached the stable.
As they entered through the central doors, John uncovered the lantern, and Lewis caught a glimpse of stalls to the right. One held Zeus, who looked curiously at them over the door, and the other a dark brown horse with a white blaze down the center of its face.
To the left the old stalls had been torn out, and two humped, canvas-covered shapes filled the open bays. But before Lewis could exclaim, John said, “Tomorrow, lad,” and nudged him up the steep flight of stairs. “You can have a look at the autos then. In the meantime, you’ll be snug enough up here.”
Lewis saw a small, bare-planked room with a single, blanket-covered bed. A straight-backed chair and an old chest with a china basin and ewer atop it completed the furnishings. His battered case sat neatly beneath the heavily curtained window.
“There’s an oil stove, but you won’t be needing that tonight. The pump’s in the yard, and there’s a privy on the far side.” John seemed to hesitate, then said, “I’ll leave you the lantern, but you must promise to take care with it, and don’t forget the blackout.” He set it gently atop the chest, then went to the door. “You just go across to the kitchen in the morning. Good night, lad.” His heavy footsteps clumped down the stairs, and the door at the bottom banged shut.
At home, Lewis had always slept in the same room as his brothers, and his mum or his sister had always been there when he came home from school in the afternoon. Now, he found himself completely alone for the first time in his life.
He sat down on the rough blanket and stared at the lantern light wavering on the walls. Although the room still held the day’s heat, he began to shiver. He got up and extinguished the lantern, then curled himself into a fetal position on the narrow bed, his fist pressed to his mouth to keep the grief welling up inside him from escaping.
And so he slept, deeply and dreamlessly, until the morning sun brought a faint brightening round the edges of his window.
Awakening brought a moment of comfort, until he realized he couldn’t smell his mother’s cooking, or hear faint snatches of the songs she sang as she moved about the kitchen. Reality flooded back into his awareness, and with it the sense of being watched.
He opened his eyes, blinking stickily at a shadow in his doorway. As his vision cleared, the fuzzy form resolved itself into a boy about his own age, who crossed the room and pulled aside the curtains. Light flooded in, and Lewis saw that his visitor was tall and slender, and wore a navy blazer with a school tie. His dark hair was slicked neatly back above a pale face.
“Cook sent me to fetch you,” the boy said in an accent Lewis had heard only on the wireless. “And I wanted to see you for myself. I couldn’t get away last night—Mummy kept me fetching and carrying for Aunt Edwina while they talked about the war.”
Lewis sat up and rubbed his face. “The war? Has it started, then?”
The boy leaned against the window frame. “Not officially, but they expect the announcement sometime today. Aunt Edwina has the wireless on in the sitting room, and Cook’s listening in the kitchen. Aunt Edwina has a wager on with my dad that it will all come to nothing. ‘A bloody old windbag’ is what she calls Hitler. I think she’s wrong, though. There is going to be a war.”
“Is that why you’re here, too?” Lewis asked, feeling confused. He couldn’t imagine this elegant boy being sent away from home like a mislaid parcel.
“Edwina’s my godmother,” the boy explained. “Edwina Burne-Jones, she’s called. This is her house. Mummy is certain the Huns will bomb London, and my school with it, so she wants me to stay down here for a bit.