43THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Volume One: The Ormer
Part Five: Betwixt the Heather and the Sea
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Powerless
~*o*~
Sunday, August 27, 1939
Pre-dawn Twilight
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women
Merely players
William Shakespeare
Cathy still lay cosily in her bed, thinking of what came next after the washing-up…
It was the time of the Evening Entertainment, for which all the diners on steak and kidney and brummel pies retired to the sitting-room to hear the tale of the Ormer's adventures. The men passed the decanter round, while the children played with blocks on the middle of the worn Persian carpet.
When the six o'clock B.B.C. News bulletin ended, Grandad in his black horsehair armchair lowered the earphone of his crystal wireless set and laid it on the little table at his elbow to keep company with his other things: a leaden tobacco-box, the crystal sherry decanter, a thick Bible atop which lay his reading spectacles and a small tin printed with the picture of a trawler and the words FISHERMAN'S FRIEND. And the chilling Public Information Leaflets numbers one through four with Some Things To Know If War Should Come lay there as well in their neat little stack that Cathy tried not to notice.
By way of distraction, she smiled to see that there was another room in this big old house with heavy curtains meeting the black-out regulation. One less room she must sew for. But she almost shed a tear for what was left of the stately stag whose glassy eye had caught her own, still chuff as ever to hold the twelve points of his branching rack high over the fireplace.
Everyone looked pensive to hear of the cross-Channel passage from Rozel to Weymouth, and they ooh'ed about the sail through the Solent, and they ah'ed about the famed Needles Rocks and Rainbow Cliffs and Cowes yachts and the classy RMS Aquitania with her four red funnels with black tops. And they laughed when Harold said his father jumped in the Looe, though they sat at the edges of their seats biting their nails and gasping, Oh dear! or 'Ey up! or By gum! to hear of the broken shear pin, where Cathy wielded Old Bess, the shot-gun, to ward off pirates, who were merely friendly fishermen in the Looe Channel offering assistance south of Selsey Bill.
Everyone laughed at that, as well, except Ronnie, who asked from his perch on the piano-stool,
"'Ey up. Wot's se funny, then?"
Then Wally beside his wife on the old moss-green couch told of Shoreham-by-Sea, where the Ormer had been built years ago, and of how Harold and Cathy had retraced Charles II's flight from Parliamentarian forces during the Civil War all the way to Brighton and back, and he told how the Ormer was moored very near where the rightful King boarded the Surprise, the ship that delivered him to France and to safety.
Wally never breathed a word about how Harold had been caned; nevertheless, all the while he was telling the story, Harold and Cathy were shrinking into their chairs fearing a slip-up.
"Now then, young 'uns," someone asked. "Why do ya luk se guilty?"
Good old Dad quickly carried on with the story of how Cathy did not get stuck by the venomous dogfish spine, as the Ormer crossed the Prime Meridian in sight of the celebrated Seven Sisters and Beachy Head.
Everyone laughed again except Ronnie.
And with all the good heartedness, Cathy overcame her shyness before the good-hearted relations to mention having seen Pevensey and Hastings through the glasses, and Harold told about the explosive display at the Lydd Firing Range and about rounding the desert of Dungeness to sight a destroyer squadron and the White Cliffs of Dover.
"'Ey up. Ah first set eyes on 'em Cliffs on mi way te South Africa."
Grandad got a far-off look in his eye, giving a few words about the Second Boer War and transporting a four-point-seven-inch gun from his naval cruiser, HMS Doris, first by rail, then by teams of oxen. They hauled the heavy gun miles and miles over rough terrain to help the British garrison to relieve the Boer siege of Kimberley, the diamond town swinging an anxious searchlight into the night sky, begging for help. It happened in the days when Grandad was a bluejacket of a naval brigade and he said a very few words, indeed, which were mostly prompted by a second cousin.
Cathy noticed that her grandfather generally did not have much to say about himself unless asked. He said he liked to hear others speak. But she was sorry not to hear the rest of that story, about the Relief of Kimberley. The only other thing he said about his African adventures was—
"'By 'eck! A bloke should keep 'is pipe goin' from mornin' till neet if 'ee uses reet Boer, anyroad."
"Boer, eh?" Harold wondered.
"South African t'baccy," his Grandad told him, blowing a blue stream into the room. "We reekt it from a wee cley pipe. Rough gear that Boer."
"Then why did ya smoke it, Dad?" Ronnie asked.
"Stayed lit."
And Cathy told how the Ormer left the Straits of Dover to round the sands and the lightships at dawn, and she told about Harold's special affinity for the Goodwins.
The Royal Navy veterans laughed when Ronnie asked—
"Oo are t' Goodwins, then?"
But Cathy came to her young uncle's defence, admitting that she thought they were Who's, as well, before Harold had made her the wiser.
Harold cut in to tell about how they happened to see the brand-new RMS Mauretania with her two funnels in the Thames Estuary, and how a few days later, she had been requisitioned by the Crown for the War Effort. That interested Jim, especially since the elegant Atlantic liner had taken her maiden passage June last and was soon to be armed and painted battleship grey.
Wally told about almost getting forced into the sands of the Thames Estuary by a wayward cargo steamer, making him a more grateful man.
Cathy told about digging in the mud for lob-worms and swimming in the River Stour with the swans at sunset, and her father described the lovely Norfolk Broads and Great Yarmouth.
"'Ey up! Ah'm set all anonsker for goin' te Yarmouth Town on a thumpin' big steam trawler, noo t' herrin's on t' go!" Ronnie brightened for the first time that evening, thinking of herring running in the North Sea.
But Jim reminded that steam trawlers had been recalled from the fishing grounds by the Admiralty directly the Russo-German Pact was signed, and that the Admiralty had been buying up trawler fleets to use as minesweepers, bringing his little brother low.
And the favourite story of all was the one about how Harold and Cathy had been wacagees in Burnham Thorpe and signed the wisters' book, as the Spinkses furthest guests, and called on Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's Church and the site of his birth.
There was a reverence in the sitting-room, as Harold spoke, and handkerchiefs came out of pockets when he recounted how the village folk had congregated to watch him discover the Vice-Admiral's bust mounted on the chancel wall.
Cathy smiled when her brother gave her the credit for having seen the venerable bust first, after she had nudged him.
"Mirak'lous! Ah wish Ah'd been theer, then," Ronnie sounded wistful.
"I wish you had been, too, Ronnie," Harold was misty-eyed.
"It's Uncle Ronald!" the strange young uncle glared.
Harold set his jaw.
"Now then, Ronnie, me pet," Granny corrected. "You's te be mates wi' 'Arold. At t' end o' t' day, 'ee's ya elder, anyroad."
"Uncle Ronald," he repeated, as if he had not heard his mother.
There were sighs and meaningful glances all round, and Cathy hurried to divert attention by telling of the beauty of Flamborough Head and of the great flocks of seabirds wheeling like glittering clouds over those great white cliffs, she had seen for the first time that morning.
That prompted Grandad to tell the story of the Scotch-American Pirate John Paul, since the Ormer had sailed so close to the watery graveyard of his infamous ship of war, the USS Bonhomme Richard.
Then a great uncle on Granny's side told of flounder and sole trawling in the Silver Pits with Cleveland yawls, and getting caught out in a sudden storm, and how they lived to tell about it, while others did not.
"And all te think!" Granny was wreathed in smiles. "Oor very oon Wally sailed reet oop from Jersey, and then all t' way from Bridlington and t' Silver Pits jus' t'day, and now 'ome is t' sailor, 'ome from t' sea te stop wheer 'ee's belongin', reet and soond, and afore any War bother's kicked off! It's reet mirak'lous, anyroad!"
That is when her very own Wally cleared his throat, turned red and broke the news that he was leaving next morning for Jersey.
"Nânnîn, Dèdè!" Tori sprang to her feet from her block tower in the middle of the floor. "You can't go back there! Herr Hitler will get you! That's why we left, eh!" while Stevie made himself into a little ball on his father's lap.
"Ch't! Ch't! Hush, Tori!" Marie, pale and thin, held a hand to her beastly headache.
"Now then. If I can get the others to come, it'll be well worth it," Walter explained himself.
"If," Marie cut to the pith, having already used up her best arguments while shut away in the lean-to.
"'Ey oop, auld lad," Grandad gaped. "You's jus' gotten 'ere. And efter se many year, ya knows."
"Nut sin' t' summer o' t' weddin's, and jus' a bit afore tha'," Granny was just as stricken, but she repeated her offer to have Marie's family in her big house as evacuees, if her dear Wally must fetch them.
Everyone looked grim including the children.
Ronnie's was the only impassive face.
"'Ey up. You may nut 'ave time te come back afore War starts, Wally," Jim solemnly crossed the floor to show him a headline.
Walter set his spectacles on the end of his pointed nose in order to read The Times held before him.
"Hmmm…," he rumbled past his puffing pipe. "As if the Coventry blast wasn't bad enough, yesterday."
When he had finished reading, he passed the evening newspaper to Harold, while Cathy looked on, her eyes lighting on the most egregious thing on the front page.
It was the report of a Nazi force having captured a Polish railway station, intending to gain access to a tunnel through which the German army could invade Poland from eastern Czechoslovakia, which country the Nazis seized March last.
"Oh, Dad," Cathy brought a shaking hand to her mouth suddenly gone dry.
"The Spark, eh?" Harold wondered.
"The Spark that gets the whole War started, eh?!" Tori turned white before diving between her parents on the couch.
"Nowt said yet, anyroad," Grandad glanced at his crystal set on the small table beside his easy-chair. "Thoo t' situation's startin' te luk terrible grave."
"W-what war, Dèdè?" shaky Stevie glanced up from where he had been clutching his father's waistcoat.
Walter hugged Stevie and Tori close, looking to Jim and Charlotte seated across from him.
"Do your children know?" he asked low.
"'Ey up," Jim nodded. "They knows Germany's tekken ower other countries on t' Continent and wish te tek ower more."
"And tha' England and France 'ave promised te stop 'em, reet Dad?!" Joanie looked up anxiously.
"Aye," Jim smiled on his little daughter.
"'Asn't put 'em off yet, 'as it?" Grandad noted.
"What's continent, Dèdè?" Stevie's eyes were very blue in his pale face.
"It's the Continent, where France is," Walter tried.
"Across the Strait. What we see if we sit on the big pier in Rozel, eh," Cathy helped.
"Germany, she wants to take over France, eh?" Stevie asked.
"'Ey up. That they do, lad. And Dad's got to go back to Jersey and try to get your Papa and Manman to come here before that happens. But I'll be back soon."
"And you'll come back before the War starts, eh?" Stevie cuddling closer to his father, was already as close as he could get.
"That's my aim, my little lad. But I'm confident I'll be back before Herr Hitler finishes taking over France, if he's successful in taking over France, which I reckon he'll not be, for General Gamelin, who proved himself in the Great War, is Commander in Chief over the French army, which is the biggest and best in all the world, anyroad."
"The whole wide world?" Stevie smiled wanly. "Even bigger than England's, eh?"
"Aye. If Herr Hitler succeeds, it'll take about a month to get done, if the events of the Great War are any indication. And he's anonsker to take Poland first. I'll be back before his armies recover from that foray, anyroad."
"You can bet they'll mine t' English Channel and ports afore 'ee's finished tekin' Poland!" Jim stressed. "And they could mine 'em reet off t' bat! And dun't ferget! Unlike t' last War, it'll be t' combined forces o' t' Nazis and red Russians that'll be fightin' us this time!"
"You must get back, Dèdè! You must, eh!" Tori gasped.
Marie covered her face with both hands and sniffed.
"Now then, just as bitty Joanie here has told us, both the U.K. and France have given their Guarantees should Herr Hitler invade Poland. So, I expect him and the Russians to be bottled up there for a bit before they can move west, if there's owt left of them after that. They'll be that busy, Hitler won't have the time or the resources to mine the Channel," Walter assured them.
Harold humphed, looking at his feet.
Cathy closed her eyes in agony, for marching through the neutral Low Countries was impossible for either the United Kingdom or France to do, and it would be a very costly thing to march through hostile Deutschland to help Poland. Besides, the Royal Navy could never enter the Nazi controlled Baltic Sea to transport troops to the northern coast of Poland in order to bottle Germany and the Russians up there. And Cathy knew her father and elder brother knew these things, too.
"And the War, 'twill be over soon, Dèdè, so we can go home, eh?" Stevie asked.
"I hope so," Walter sighed a deep sigh.
"Me, too," Tori sighed her own deep sigh.
"That Herr Hitler, he's a bad man, eh, Dèdè?" Stevie went on.
"Aye, a right bad bloke, a bairn of wrath, nursed by hate."
"'Ey up. 'Ee's a reet beastly little Austrian paper-hanger set all anonsker te rule t' world by murder and mayhem, anyroad," Jim chipped in.
"And he can't get me, eh?" Stevie hoped.
"He can't get you here, so you're safe," his father assured him.
"Can he get you, Dèdè?"
"Nay! He can't get me!" Walter chuckled.
"Eh?" Harold raised an eyebrow.
"He won't get me, because I'll run so fast, he could never catch me, anyroad."
"Oh, Walter!" Marie moaned dismally.
"Me, I can run fast, too, Dèdè! As fast as a lion, eh!" Stevie squealed.
Joanie and Jamie giggled at the silly vision of Uncle Wally and their little cousin running from a big bad man with a tiny moustache. Then Joanie roared like a lion and chased Jamie about the carpet until she caught him in her arms and they both fell amongst the blocks, giggling, knocking over the tower.
Jim wagged his head sadly.
Charlotte's dark eyes crinkled merrily, while little Jeffie slumbered in her arms.
Ronnie's brow furrowed.
Grandad and Granny and the great-uncles and great-aunts and cousins were glum…
"Oh, Dad!" Cathy shivered for her dear father running from wicked Hitler, as she lay in her nice, warm bed, hearing the horrid rooks in the elm tree out her open window begin their harsh morning call, those pests, those harriers of the sheep, lambs, rabbits and even newborn calves, which, along with crows, hawks, eagles, gulls and foxes, were known to pick out their eyes, disembowelling them in broad daylight. Rooks also ate grain and pulled up seedlings and young potatoes while scratching for worms and grubs.
Like an evil rook, mad Kaiser Wilhelm had almost got her Dad in the Great War during the Battle of Jutland, and there would have been no amount of running on the dreadnought that could have saved him then. His best mate had even been killed by the same shell that had injured her father so badly.
The nightmare of Hitler shooting at him, while the Ormer was anchored on the Stour, came in a rush to her mind.
Had that nightmare been an evil omen?
Cathy flopped onto her back, crashing her fists into the mattress.
"You can't go back, Dad!" she cried to the dusky room, the light from the open window not so pale anymore.
She could look straight at it and out through the many panes of wavy glass and into the opalescence of dawn just under the horizon, the dawn of the day her father would be leaving her to plunge himself into peril on account of Papa and Manman and her uncles and aunties and cousins, who would never leave Jersey no matter what! He must know that! But somehow, he did not.
She felt about the counterpane until she happened upon poor Lovey, tossed when she had had her fit. Then she asked his little face, featureless in the half light—
"Why is life so hard, eh?"
Then she knew what she must do.
As soon as it was light enough to see, she would dress and run to the midden – for she would not use the chamber pot hiding under the bed on any account! And then she would run to the byre for the milking. After that she would beg her mother not to allow her father to go back to Jersey, for it was clear that she did not want him to go, either.
Her grandmother had left a box of matches next to the little oil lamp on her bedside table last night when she showed Cathy to her chaam'er, as the good woman had called it. Harold and Cathy had followed her up the gloomy staircase in the light of that lamp and then Granny had told her, when she bade her a goodnight, to be sure to blow it out directly, as she feared Cathy would fall asleep while it was still burning and waste precious paraffin, which made the poor girl long for gas lighting or the electric power her grandfather did not wish to acquire for Hardscrabble Farm.
She knew her grandfather did not wish to acquire it owing to the conversation in the sitting-room last evening soon after the village folk had left…
It had become dark since the family had taken their seats, but no one seemed to have been bothered by it, until Grandad and Granny began to light the big oil lamps arranged on side tables.
"Now then, it's gettin' dusk. Cockshut time's gettin' earlier and earlier these days, then," Granny held a lit match to the wick, after having raised the glass chimney a few inches on one of the lamps.
"Now then, dad. No mains electricity yet?" Walter nodded at the dead lamp hanging from the ceiling, as he broached the question he could have answered himself.
"We're a reet distance from t' village, lad," was the reply.
"'Ey up! T' lines go bang past oor drive, dad!" Ronnie pounced.
"We'd need more than jus' a few telly-posts te bring t' 'lecky te t' 'oose, and each 'un would come reet dear, as ya knows, lad. It'd be more bother than it's worth. And anyroad, oo knows wot bother War might bring? Savin's good addlin'."
"Even deepest, darkest Africa were electrified durin' t' Boar War," Ronnie hit him again. "'Oo else could Kimberley 'ave a searchlight if they 'adn't got t' lecky?!"
"Now then, Kimberley isn't in deepest darkest Africa," Grandad stated calmly after a few puffs on his pipe. "And t' town 'as its oon dynamo. Wealthy South African town. Famed fer t' diamond mines. Anyroad, mi dad sold oor dynamo te Boulby Grange ages sin', and wheer's t' brass comin' from fer a new 'un wi' me still payin' t' mortgage on this farm and t' loan ya brother give me, then, Ah 'asn't even started te settle oop yet? Lies 'eavy on mi mind. 'Eavy on mi mind, then."
"Now then, you don't need to fret aboot paying me back, then," Walter chuckled.
"'Ey up. Even t' Cowbar Cottages 'ave electric service and telephone from cables laid under t' road." It was Jim hitting him that time. "And they're nobbut a quarter mile from oour 'oose."
"And Ah could dig a ditch and bury t' cable, anyroad!" Ronnie was energised. "Tha' would give me summat te do, then!"
"You've got plenty te do on t' farm, mi laddie," Grandad countered.
"Ah need summat reet important te do!"
"Farmin's reet important, anyroad. Shootin' rooks and crows is reet important."
"A water-closet would be reet grand, then," Charlotte nodded pleasantly.
"A reet new load o' expenses involved theer," Grandad shook his head sadly. "Ah've nivver 'ad owt like that all mi life, and Ah'm none t' worse for it."
"We could be better," Granny ventured.
"'Ey up. We could even put oop a couple o' windmills," Jim suggested. "Each o' em could generate thirty-two volts o' direct current. It wouldn't be owt te write 'ome aboot, but we could use it te power some reet useful machin'ry or recharge accumulators. Mebbe even run t' kitchen gadget, then. Cheap as owt compared te buyin' a dynamo, anyroad, and should pay for theirselves in ne time wi' t' labour they'd save."
"Maybe," Walter agreed. "But not right powerful enough, anyroad."
"You'd best think on it, Steve," Granny urged.
"'Ey up. Wally says it'll nowt be reet powerful enuff, but Ah'll think on it," her husband puffed three perfect blue rings as he thought on it.
"Now then?" she asked.
"Nay," he decided. "Can't be dune."
The conversation seemed to Cathy to be a one act play performed for the new-comers' benefit. It was as if Grandad, Granny, Jim and Ronnie were repeating well-rehearsed lines as the characters in that play, giving Cathy the distinct feeling that a discussion of the sort had happened many times before that night, and she thought she might have occasion to hear it again.
Even in the soft light of the big oil lamps, it was evident that her father's eyes were heavy, and that Stevie had fallen asleep on his lap. So, Wally and Marie said their goodnights and carried Stevie to their ugly little cottage.
All was well, until a short time later, after their three eldest had followed, when all the trouble started…
But before Harold, Cathy and Tori actually got the chance to follow their parents through the front-door and out into the darkness, Granny reminded them of Church in the morning.
"Another Great War, 'tis about to begin, and perhaps has already begun, and we're going to Church, eh?" Tori, hands on hips, frowned at her grandmother.
"Now then. Can't think o' a better place te be at sich a time as this," Grandad put in. "Best be at t' United Prayer service t' Vicar 'olds every day, anyroad, and Sunday comes once in a week."
"And tha's where ya'll be meetin' Robert, t' lad oo'll show ya t' German Sea," Granny reminded Harold. "'Ee's a brave bauf lad, eighteen-year-auld, a good lukkin' lad, anyways," she stressed with a sidelong glance at Cathy.
"'Ey up, mam! Ah keep tellin' ya. It's nowt t' German sea! It's called t' North Sea, for t' Royal Navy oons it. And Ah'll be t' 'un te show it te 'Arold, then! Nowt Robbie!" Ronnie insisted.
"And Church is wheer Cathy'll see 'er surprise! And we're all invited te dinner efter!" Granny laughed merrily, further frustrating her son.
"Where, eh?!" Tori's ringlets bounced.
"Yak a back o' Arram wheer they mek things o' steel, anyroad!" Granny was bursting with her secret.
Grandad sighed and studied his shoes.
"Granny!" Tori gaped. "You know 'tis pigs of steel not things of steel, eh!"
"Now then! Dun't say tha' word, mi petal. It's unlucky, then!" Granny gasped.
"What! The word pigs is unlucky, eh?"
"Pigs are unlucky, eh," Harold corrected.
"Dun't say it, then!" Granny sealed her grandson's lips with a finger. "Now then, you'd best be oop wi' t' sun fer t' milkin', ya knows!"
Cathy remembered how Granny's letter had promised a surprise, and she hoped her grandmother's surprises would prove to be as diverting as her Dad's had always been.
Cathy expressed that hope, as she and Harold followed Tori to the midden, which was just a privy, pitch black as the inside of a cow, before retiring to their ugly new cottage for the night.
"Since this Robert, he'll be a chum for you, Harold, the surprise'll probably be a nice girlfriend for me, eh," Cathy ventured.
"Hope she's pretty!" Harold looked sly in the silver light of the portly moon, soaring high above in the darkness.
"Perhaps 'tis a nice young man for you, Cathy. Granny, she's acting so strange, eh!" Tori teased.
"Me, I've no need for one of those!" Cathy laughed. "And if I ever do decide I want one, I'll choose my own, me!"
"But why do you need a nice girlfriend when you have me, eh?" Tori pouted.
"Let's all be pals together, eh!" Cathy suggested.
"Now you're talking, sis!" Harold patted her back.
When they finally showed in the cottage – not so ugly in the pearly glow from an oil lamp – their mother met them in the kitchen, her thick braid swinging down the back of her dressing gown.
"We were just going to lie down with Stevie till he fell back to sleep, this being a strange place to him, but Dèdè, he fell asleep in your bed," she told Harold. "So, you can sleep in mine, eh."
"You're surprised, eh?!" Harold burst out. "He hasn't slept since we left Bridlington early this morning! And that was before we ever rounded Flamborough Head, eh!"
"Harold," Cathy warned low. "You're tired, too, eh."
"Where're you going to sleep, if I sleep in your bed, eh?!" he challenged his mother.
"I'll go back upstairs. There's a bit of room for me," she smiled gently.
"Jiminy! I don't want to sleep in your bed! You need to sleep there, eh!" Harold got louder.
"Ch't! Ch't! You'll wake them, man chièr. Dèdè, he has a big trip to-morrow. He must be alert."
"'Tis not right!" Harold grabbed the lamp off the kitchen table. "I've a perfectly good bedroom waiting for me in the house according to Granny. If I have to live under these conditions, I might as well join up now, eh!"
He tramped about the lean-to until he found his suitcase and his bucket of lob-worms, shoved the lamp at his mother and left the cottage forthwith.
That is when Marie carried the lamp into the gloom of the lean-to.
"Quand la mé monte ou n'sait pon tch'est qu'ou veurt! Lose your temper, lose your reason, eh!" she was muttering, as she returned with something heavy.
"Cathy, s'i' t'pliaît. Here's your suitcase. Do keep an eye on him for me, eh."
"Oh, M'mée!" the girl started back from the evil thing. "We all of us were to be together, eh!"
"You must go," Marie held it out to Cathy. "'Tis vitally important, eh."
"Véthe, M'mée."
Cathy understood very well, remembering all her father had told her just that morning about how he had run away to join the Royal Navy under-age, even younger than Harold, which was what her brother had always threatened to do, though he had promised not to. Her mother had also blinded off into the blue at the same age, becoming a telephone operator in Saint Helier and then in London a few years later.
Harold must not walk in his parents' footsteps, for Cathy would be lost without him in this strange land of North Yorkshire.
Grasping the suitcase handle, she turned toward the door.
"'Tisn't fair! I was supposed to sleep with Cathy, me! We've always shared a room, eh!" was the last thing she heard her little sister shouting before she stepped out into the night and headed for her new lodgings in the big house…
And that is how Cathy came to be in the big bed, watching the large window brightening in her new chamber, a chamber which had almost the same amount of space as the ugly little cottage her whole family had attempted to live in. It was a shameful thing to live so well, when loved ones had it worse, but her mother had sent her to mind Harold for her, to watch over and make certain he did not run away as his father had done when he was a boy, as his mother had done when she was a girl.
Cathy did not know how to keep him from running. If Harold wanted to go, he would, and she would be powerless to stop him.
Perhaps, he had already gone off into the night?
She must peep into his chamber soon…
She stretched long and wide in the big bed, kicking off the covers. She could see in shades of grey the glass globes in both windows, and she could see the faded wallpaper and the stained ceiling and the brass electric lamp hanging from its centre, she thought should look much better polished shiny bright, for its three naked light bulbs were of the fancy type, shaped like flames of fire.
She was pleased to see a fireplace with a coal hearth swept and cold, for in the coming months its heat would be very much appreciated. And that would be an improvement over her old room in Rozel, for her old room had no fireplace. When it was freezing on an odd winter's morning, she and Tori raced down the stairs for the warmth of the gas fire in the kitchen.
And she was not surprised to see the clock which had been ticking upon the mantelshelf, the clock case having a sharp Gothic gable rising above its round face, and on either side of the case was a finial tapering to a sharp point, making the clock look much like a church between two steeples – strange but charming.
There were chests of drawers, and she was overjoyed to see a dressing table with drawers and an oval mirror, just as her mother had said she would before she ever left Jersey. She dreaded finding out if the War had started or if Harold had run away, until she remembered that he had but a few pence to his name, his Jersey louis he had given to his father, rendered practically worthless in England. Their Dad would be spending those notes in Jersey during his upcoming journey, if he could not be kept from going.
But then it occurred to her: there might be a recruitment office in Cleveland village; then Harold would need no money at all for train fare after he had lied about his age and collected more than two shillings for his signing bonus and two shillings a day after that. He would probably wait for Dad to leave, and then one day soon he would slink off, and she would never see him again.
And if her father were never to return, then the two of them would never be seen again!
There was a knot in the pit of Cathy's stomach as she tried putting the horrors from her mind, and she was sick of making black-out curtains, and she was suspicious of Granny's surprise, as she had been since she had first heard of it. But she would take courage and attend Church and meet a nice girl or two with whom to be friendly with or without Granny's help. Then she would lie awake nights listening for Harold's tread on the squeaky floor-boards…
The most immediate problem would be saying good-bye to her Dad at the railway station on the way to Church.
She hated good-byes, especially at such a time as this, when another Great War was just about to begin…