The Blue Note Read online

  But Aunt Sophie had cared less, scooping up Miranda and Ted’s gas mask cases and their small cardboard suitcases and putting the cases under each of her thin arms she had given the two children one each of her mittened hands and stalked off in the chill evening air in the vague direction of the old Regency rectory which was her and Miss Prudence’s home, and which stood, churchless and alone, on the edge of Mellaston. This was where once, centuries ago, there had been a small parish church, but it had long been swept away, the victim of some new religious movement. In its stead, some miles from it, the magnificent Mellaston Cathedral had been built.

  Miranda and Ted had been freezing cold from hanging about waiting for someone to take them in as evacuees. They had no gloves, so Aunt Sophie’s mittens seemed warming and they quite forgot how cold their knees were in contrast to their hands because she walked them along smartly until they reached the pony trap, as if, although they might have forgotten their bare knees, she had not, and could not wait to put the rug in the pony trap over their skinny, purple-patched legs, and herself sit up behind Tom Kitten, her smartly turned out driving pony.

  ‘Home, Tom, home,’ she called to the pony, and they set off at a smart pace, the wind blowing hard, which made Miranda put out her arms to Ted and hold him close, because the little boy was hard put to stay on the seat of the trap, what with the smart pace of the pony, and his own short legs.

  It was quite dark when they finally reached the old rectory, and saw Aunt Prudence shining a torch to greet her sister, the tiny beam of light glowing under the blackout material curtaining the old-fashioned Regency half-glassed doors.

  As soon as Aunt Sophie introduced Miranda and Ted the tall, slender Prudence Mowbray put out her arms, and said, ‘Come in, come in,’ and brought them hot drinks of a mixture of fruit juices and some bread with stiff jam on it, and a spoonful of Virol which made Ted cry because it got round his teeth and he didn’t like the taste.

  After that they were put to bed, and in the morning Miranda woke up to find Bobbie at the bottom of their beds staring at them both, and asking their names, which Miranda told her were Miranda and Ted Darling but which their new aunts promptly changed to Miranda and Teddy Darling, for some reason that no-one else could imagine but which seemed to make the two spinsters very happy. All they told the children was that they had once had a cousin called Teddy, and they had liked him a great deal, a fact which the children accepted as easily as they accepted that they should call their hosts ‘Aunt’ or ‘Auntie’.

  And so that had been the start of their friendship, and now they were all walking along towards the town, and as they walked the two aunts, who never believed in wasting a shining minute of any hour of any livelong day, span the wool which the children had collected during the week from the hedgerows, from field wires or off old gates and sticking-out nails in wooden stiles and fencing – from anywhere the sheep had rubbed or caught themselves and left precious wool that could go to make mittens and socks, or mufflers and hats.

  The sun shone as they walked, and every now and then Aunt Sophie looked up and about her and murmured, ‘It’s not a bit like Christmas, is it, Prudence?’

  At last they arrived at the cathedral after their brisk walk, the children a somehow strangely appropriate sight on Christmas morning, in their long old-fashioned clothes with their new knitted gloves, and feeling really rather thrilled at finding themselves arrived not just in good time, but early for once, joining the other morning worshippers outside Mellaston Cathedral.

  Nowadays Prudence and Sophie Mowbray, having always attended church, found themselves regularly astonished, as doubtless was the dean, by the huge congregations that now followed their regular church-going example.

  ‘Such a contrast to before the war,’ Prudence muttered, every Sunday, while Sophie hardly looked up from her relentless spinning.

  Bobbie knew more of the people who made up the congregation than Miranda and Teddy, simply because she had been at the rectory longer than the other two. Of all the regulars she most dreaded seeing Mr and Mrs Eglantine, who were what Aunt Sophie wryly called very correct, and had a habit of trying to pretend that the three children were not visible and saying things to Aunt Prudence like, ‘And how are your little Cockney sparrows, Miss Prudence?’ which made Bobbie squirm and Aunt Prudence turn away as if she had not really heard.

  This morning, perhaps because it was Christmas, Mrs Eglantine came across to them and said, ‘Happy Christmas, little people. I hope you realize that today is not just about presents and eating too much?’ Then she stared down at Teddy in a particularly officious way, as if she suspected him of eating everyone else’s Christmas ration, which made the little boy shrink behind Aunt Prudence, and stick a newly gloved thumb in his mouth.

  ‘Well, well, the children look like some sort of illustration from an old-fashioned book, not like modern children at all, Miss Mowbray. Cloaks and hats, which really – well, I have not seen such cloaks and hats since I don’t know when, really I haven’t. And nor I suppose has Eustace, have you, Eustace?’

  ‘Quite so, quite so, ahem.’

  Mr Eglantine ran a thick, stubby finger underneath his moustache and nodded, lifting his hat as he did so to each and every lady who passed them, to some of whom he gave a second and more lingering glance, until his wife tapped him briskly on the arm and he followed her obediently into church.

  ‘We do not want to sit near the Eglantines. It would not be wise,’ Aunt Prudence said in a low voice to Aunt Sophie, and she pulled her feathered hat down firmly to illustrate her aversion to such a notion.

  ‘We may not want to, dearest, but we may find we have to, because there is nowhere else suitable.’

  Prudence Mowbray saw what her sister meant, for although they had arrived early others must have arrived even earlier, as they discovered when they entered the cathedral and saw that every pew was already taken up with churchgoers eager to pray for loved ones in danger. Since the start of the war everyone had come to cherish not just their church but a real church service, so many of the buildings having been already bombed to nothing but rubble.

  In the event, the Misses Mowbray were quite happy to sit at the very back of the lovely old cathedral, in the last pew, and well away from the Eglantines, which was probably just as well, for Miranda had not yet quite mastered what could be called ‘church manners’, and Teddy could never be relied upon to sit completely still.

  Having solemnly crossed herself, as she had only really just learned to do, Miranda looked up at Aunt Prudence with her round, blue eyes and demanded in piping tones, ‘Which is me bloody hymn book, Auntie Prudence?’

  Aunt Prudence smiled.

  ‘Now, now, Miranda dear,’ she told her charge, in a gentle voice, ignoring the amazed looks from their fellow worshippers around them, ‘never me, always my, remember?’ and handed her the hymn book.

  Mrs Eglantine was speaking for all the Mellaston Evacuation Committee, she said, when she sat down in the drawing room of the old rectory a week later and announced that she thought that Miranda and Teddy were really too much for the two unmarried Miss Mowbrays to handle.

  ‘But they are very happy, and we are very happy with them.’

  ‘But I understand from your laundry lady, whom I just happened to glimpse as I came up the drive and caught pegging out the laundry, that the little boy bed-wets, Miss Prudence. Surely it would be better if we at least took him and put him with a village family? After all, Miranda and Teddy do not have to stay together. The war has separated so many brothers and sisters. It is quite common to split up families.’

  Outside the drawing room door the two girls stared at each other. Mrs Eglantine’s voice was so loud that it carried all too easily into the hall where the children had been seated, waiting for some sort of verdict from inside where the two Misses Mowbray were receiving their uninvited guest.

  ‘I hate Mrs Eglantine.’

  ‘Yah, she’s an old cow, in’t she?’

  ‘No. I
like cows.’ Bobbie looked at Miranda, reproach in her eyes.

  ‘She’s nasty, then. She’s like …’ Miranda searched desperately in her mind for something she knew that Bobbie could not like. ‘She’s like Hitler.’

  ‘She’s a bad meat pie.’

  ‘She’s tapioca …’

  ‘Urgh.’

  They all started giggling, not because they were in the least bit amused, but because they were frightened, and seconds later Teddy clutched at the front of his trousers and rushed off to the cloakroom, because he still had problems.

  Inside the room Sophie Mowbray was telling Mrs Eglantine in a firm voice, ‘Lady Reading thinks that children should be kept together. And after all, they are brother and sister. Miranda is devoted to Teddy.’

  ‘Lady Reading is a wonderful person, and you girls in green, you members of the WVS, are doing a grand job. All of us in the WI appreciate that, I am sure. But sometimes it is up to us as Christians, let us say, to come to the rescue of each other, and the committee feels that Teddy and Miranda are not really suitable for the rectory. Much better if they were with, say, my cleaning lady, some village woman. Besides, it would free both of you to do other war work, wouldn’t it?’

  Bobbie could hear the natural firmness in Mrs Eglantine’s loud voice becoming more and more insistent, and her heart sank down to the bottom of her secondhand shoes.

  Oh please, please, please, don’t let her take Miranda and Teddy away from the aunts and me at the rectory, she prayed to God.

  In her imagination Bobbie thought she could see the Almighty with His long white beard bending down from His great gold throne and booming to some angel who had just rushed her prayer in to Him: Prayer granted to Miss Bobbie Murray! Let the Darling children stay at the rectory with the aunts.

  The children were still seated, looking outwardly a great deal more meek and good than they felt inwardly, when Mrs Eglantine walked smartly past them, her silk-lined skirt making a rustling sound so that despite her utter lack of lipstick, her tweed suit and pearl earrings, as the front door was closed behind her she left behind a distinct feeling of town-come-to-the-country.

  ‘She is … she’s a …’ Miranda hesitated, and then leaning back against the hall chair upon which she was seated, and staring up at the ceiling, she said in resigned tones, to please Bobbie more than anything, ‘meat pie.’

  After which for no reason at all, and despite being far too old for such girlish displays, Teddy burst into tears and Aunt Prudence took him and Bobbie to the kitchen for a glass of milk while Aunt Sophie beckoned Miranda into the drawing room and sat down at the piano to play for Miranda to sing.

  She had already taught Miranda hymns such as ‘There is a green field far away’ and ‘The oxen with the lambs did lie’, as well as songs made even more popular by wartime circumstances – such as Noel Coward’s ‘I’ll See You Again’. After only a week or so in this vein Miranda was mastering ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’ as well as some of Vera Lynn’s latest hits – ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and others for which they had the sheet music sent from Milsoms in Bath.

  Miranda had proved extraordinarily quick at picking up not just the hymns but the songs, following Aunt Sophie faithfully and artlessly as if it was the easiest thing in the world not just to sing, but to hold a tune and never be behind or in front of her accompanist, and within only a few weeks to accompany herself on Aunt Sophie’s piano too.

  ‘She is a natural. She has only to hear a tune once on the wireless, and voilà, she can sit down and play it straight off. A complete natural, quite extraordinary, never known a child like it,’ Aunt Sophie would murmur, filled with that particular kind of satisfaction that only the magic of discovering someone else’s true talent can bring. ‘She is such a natural that there is only one way she can go – right to the top. Mark my words, she will be at the Royal Opera House by the time she reaches her eighteenth birthday.’

  ‘Now, now, Sophie dear, do not let us get carried away with such a notion. After all, there may not be a world at all by the time Miranda reaches her eighteenth birthday.’

  This was usually said just before grace before meals, and could at will bring soulful tears to Miranda’s eyes – for herself, of course, not for the world. The very idea that she would not reach her eighteenth birthday or the Royal Opera House was too terrible for her not to feel dreadfully sorry for herself, never mind the world.

  Gradually, due to the singing, and the general feeling of refinement that necessarily pervaded the old rectory, the children started to change over the next months, so that by the time spring was about to creep through the hedges of the West Country and signal its arrival with hawthorn and with chestnut blossom, banishing the rust of the beech hedges to a conforming green, and Aunt Sophie and Aunt Prudence were talking about early potatoes and whether or not there would be any swallows coming back across war-torn France, Miranda was no longer to be heard coming out with artless expletives in the middle of matins, nor indeed could she be heard angrily comparing Mrs Eglantine to a farm animal with two horns and an udder.

  Of course these were not the only changes in the children in Aunt Sophie and Aunt Prudence’s care. During their first winter with the aunts each of the children had managed to fill out and start to bloom. Miranda’s blond hair had been allowed to grow down and out of its hideous pudding-bowl cut and trimmed to a graceful shoulder-length mop, while even Bobbie’s straight brown hair had responded to Aunt Prudence’s constant rinsing with camomile tea. So much so that it now showed touches of red in the dull glow of the old yellowed wax candles that were the only form of lighting used on the upstairs floor of the rectory.

  The first warm day of that spring Aunt Prudence insisted that photographs were taken of the three children on the lawn outside the drawing room windows. Miranda and Teddy were posed standing either side of the brown-haired Bobbie, their almost matching blond heads making Aunt Sophie murmur more times than any of them would ever care to remember, ‘Not Anglos but angels,’ leaving the children to wonder why she and Aunt Prudence thought this phrase so awfully appropriate whenever Miranda and Teddy were standing together.

  Naturally Tom Kitten, the stout ex-milk pony who went between the shafts of the old Victorian trap, had become the focus of the children’s attention, and once the worst of the weather had passed it was bliss for them all to climb into the back of the vehicle and sit up behind Aunt Sophie as they trotted off round the narrow Somerset lanes to collect for the Penny A Week fund that went to help the servicemen fighting all over the world. So marvellous were the rides in the pony trap that sometimes Bobbie would jump out of bed in the morning with only one thought in her mind: she might be going to be allowed to help with Tom Kitten’s harness, or even, one day, take the reins.

  ‘Your mother’s coming to see you on the cheap ticket on Sunday.’

  They were in the kitchen eating home-baked brown bread when Aunt Prudence announced this to Miranda and Teddy, and Teddy for some reason burst into tears as Miranda went quite pale.

  ‘I don’t think they, I don’t think the Darlings, like their mother being talked about, dearest. It does always seem to make them very low, somehow. Brings back memories of their parting from her, one supposes,’ Bobbie heard Aunt Sophie saying to Aunt Prudence while she went to find her coat and wellington boots by the back door. ‘She is coming down to Somerset on the cheap Sunday ticket that is being so encouraged. The idea is to keep the parents from taking the children back to London with them, because what with the bombs and everything else – even shop windows being quite destroyed, I hear – going back to London is really not to be encouraged, I should not have thought. Although I believe that there is so much of that going on now, you know, children being taken back by their mothers, that one can only suppose they don’t wish their children to be safe, dearest, that is what one can only suppose.’

  Sunday proved to be a gentle day of sunshine and a light breeze which stirred all the trees and hedges a little,
a day when all the West Country colours seemed to be at their Sabbath best. The pale greens and yellows, the daisy-strewn grass, the last of the primroses in the hedges, all seemed to be striving to look particularly welcoming for the visiting relatives of the evacuated children.

  After church as usual, the children sat silent and thoughtful behind Aunt Sophie as she drove them smartly in the pony trap to the station. Miranda had hardly eaten since the announcement about her mother arriving, and Teddy had become tearful and sad by turns. Bobbie on the other hand felt only excited and envious, thinking that if the Darlings did not want their mother she might be able to have her instead, and that would stop her from being an orphan any more. She imagined the Darlings’ mother would be pretty and blond like Miranda and Teddy, and kind, with blue eyes – just what she would like in a parent. Since she could not remember her own mother, it did not seem to her to be in the least bit wrong to want someone else’s for her own.

  There were other children at the station, and they all stood lined up outside the platform railings, waiting. All ages and all types of children, none of them holding hands or talking together, all of them standing quite alone, their eyes fixed on the track that led back to the train that they so hoped would bring their loved ones to them.

  As if in respect of the hopes hanging on the arrival of the great black steam engine pulling the passenger carriages, the host families stood quite apart from the evacuees, chatting and gossiping among themselves as everyone waited for the train with the smoke puffing from it, to push its way at long, long last into Mellaston station. No-one expected it to be on time – not in wartime – and the station master and the porter could only nod and stare up the track, nodding and staring down the railway track a minute later, and then up the track again while still the line of children waited, their socks pulled up, their hair brushed, some of them longing so much to see their mothers that their knuckles were already white from clinging to the iron railings in front of them, as if just the very hope of the sight of a loved one was proving too much for them, or as if by holding on for all they were worth they could will the sight of those dear, familiar faces to appear soon at the windows of the longed-for train.