Page 92 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

‘I know. It’s not much to put up with, when I’m so happy. And Alec is being really sweet about it, looking through his toys to see what he can spare for the refugee. He’s borrowed a German language book from a master at school to learn some phrases.’

‘He’s an ingenious boy. How will he share his pony, I wonder?’

‘Hmm. I wish now we hadn’t parted with Mr Pickles.

Oh, and Nanny’s as pleased as a cat with one kitten.

Alec’s too old for her petting, but she’s licking her lips over a poor homeless child.

I think she’s imagining a barefoot ragamuffin saved from the gutter.

I’m worried the first thing she’ll want to do is burn his clothes and put him in a carbolic bath. ’

‘Even if he comes from a fairly prosperous home, he’s going to find Morland Place overwhelming, let alone all the strange people,’ said Burton.

‘Some stranger than others.’

‘Well, if there’s anything I can do …’ he concluded.

Mrs Hughes was able to give twenty-four hours’ notice of a little boy called Benjamin – Bibi for short – who was eight years old, and an orphan.

‘His mother died when he was very young,’ she told Polly, over the telephone.

‘His aunt went to live with them, but then his father was taken away during Kristallnacht to a concentration camp, and died a few days later. Terribly tragic.’

‘How horrible,’ Polly said. ‘The poor child. I hope he won’t be too—’

‘I expect he will be. So many tragedies in one short life. His aunt was naturally eager to get him away. But are you worried about taking care of him? If you think it will be too much—’

‘What? You’ll send him to someone else? I don’t imagine you have a large number of alternative homes lined up.’

‘None,’ she said bluntly. ‘But—’

‘I have a houseful of people to help me. And Nanny is so eager for it, she would never forgive me if he didn’t come now. Don’t worry, it will all work out for the best, I’m sure.’

The following day the snow came, and from midday it started to settle, but it was not yet so heavy as to make travel impossible.

Everyone was wound up, waiting for the child to arrive.

The servants kept finding things to do that meant passing through the Great Hall.

Alec had been jumping around like a clockwork toy, so much so that he had finally exhausted himself, and had fallen asleep in the big armchair by the drawing-room fire.

Ethel was knitting a colourful scarf from left-over wools, hoping to have it finished by the time of arrival.

They had no idea when that would be. Lunch was delayed, until Polly said they had better have it and get it over with.

The afternoon advanced and the early winter dark came.

The snow had stopped, and it was freezing hard.

Burton went home to his wife and child, telling Polly he’d be in early the next day in case there was anything he could do.

John got back from work, bringing a miniature dynamo he had made that he thought the boy might like.

Alec started to say why couldn’t he have it, then nobly stopped himself.

And finally there was the sound of the door knocker, and everyone jumped, and hurried into the hall.

Barlow let in Mrs Hughes, alone. Her eyes sought Polly even as she brushed away Barlow’s efforts to take her coat. ‘Mrs Morland, I must speak to you. There’s been a development.’ She took Polly’s arm and stepped aside with her.

‘A problem?’ Polly said.

‘Not necessarily. A development.’

‘No Bibi?’

‘Bibi is here – he’s waiting outside in the car.’

‘Well, bring him in,’ Polly said impatiently. ‘It’s cold out there.’

‘He’s not alone,’ said Mrs Hughes. ‘There’s a little girl, Miriam, Mimi for short, nine years old—’

‘And you want me to take her as well?’

‘It turns out,’ Mrs Hughes said, scanning Polly’s face for reaction, ‘that there were two of them, but a mistake was made. Bibi was registered with his father’s surname, but for some reason the little girl was put down under her aunt’s.

So, of course, we didn’t know they were brother and sister.

Arrangements were made to foster them separately.

But naturally they are upset by the whole evacuation business, not to mention their father’s death, and I really don’t want to make it worse by separating them now. ’

‘No, of course not,’ Polly said.

Mrs Hughes hurried on: ‘The little girl was to have gone to a family in Leeds, but they haven’t room to take two.

Oh, Mrs Morland, if you could take them both, just for the present, it would help me so much!

It will take time to find another home that has room for two children, but room is not the problem here, and it’s late and it’s cold and—’

Polly held up her hand to stop her – she could see the loquacity was the result of tension, anxiety and exhaustion.

‘Please don’t worry. Of course we’ll take both children.

It would be monstrous to part them. They can have a home here for as long as they need it, until they go home to Germany.

As you say, we have plenty of room. Do go and bring the poor things in – they must be perished. ’

Mrs Hughes looked so relieved, Polly thought she might cry. But she was made of sterner stuff. She pushed a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, smiled, and said, ‘You are very good. I’ll fetch them.’

She went out to the car, and Polly used the interval to send people away, thinking how overwhelming a crowd of staring strangers would be.

Everyone but Nanny and Alec drifted reluctantly off; Barlow remained at the door, and presently opened it again to admit Mrs Hughes ushering two children in winter overcoats, woollen hats and stout boots.

The girl had on black woollen stockings, but the boy’s knees were bare and red-blue between his short trousers and long socks.

His coat was navy, worn pale at the seams; hers was brown, with a brown velvet collar that must once have been a touch of smartness and was now rubbed shabby.

She put down beside her a cheap cardboard suitcase; he had a knapsack on his back.

They were both pale and looked exhausted, and their dark eyes were wide with apprehension.

‘This is Bibi and Mimi Lohmann,’ Mrs Hughes said, a hand on the shoulder of each child. She gave them a little shove, and they took half a step forward.

Polly thought they looked like calves arriving at the slaughter house. She smiled at them, laid a hand instructively on her chest and said, ‘I am Mrs Morland. You are very welcome. And this is my son Alec.’

Alec had been practising for this moment. ‘ Ich hei?e Alec ,’ he said very clearly. ‘ Sie sind hier willkommen .’ He beamed at the children, but there was no reaction, and he looked up at his mother, puzzled. ‘Didn’t I get it right?’ he whispered penetratingly.

The boy’s lip began to tremble, and the girl was holding back tears, both still looking as if they thought they might at any moment have their throats cut.

Nanny had had enough. She surged forward, gently pushing aside her mistress and the young master.

‘Now then, there’s no need for long faces, never mind tears,’ she said.

‘You’re tired out from the journey, and hungry too, I expect.

’ She inserted herself between them and took a hand of each.

‘You come along with me, and we’ll get you out of those coats and boots.

There’s a nice fire in the nursery, warm as toast it is, and I’ve got some hot milk and biscuits ready for you, while you warm yourselves up.

Then you can have a nice hot bath, and have your supper by the fire in your pyjamas.

And it’ll be early to bed for the both of you, because I never saw two children look so worn out, indeed I never. ’

They could not, of course, understand what she was saying, but a nanny is a nanny in any language, and they went with her without resistance and without looking back. Alec went to follow, but Polly caught him back. ‘Leave them to Nanny for tonight.’

‘But I’ve got presents for them,’ he said, disappointed.

‘They’re too tired to want presents just now. Wait until tomorrow. They’re going to be here for a long time – you don’t have to do everything at once. Your best present was talking to them in German. You did that very well.’

‘I can see they’re in good hands,’ Mrs Hughes said. ‘Your nurse is a treasure.’

‘She couldn’t be happier than having two new children to spoil – and children who really need it, too, not like Master Alec here. Won’t you come in by the fire and have a glass of sherry? And stay to supper?’

‘Thank you, but no. You are very good, but I just want to get home. It’s been a long day. I’ll check on you all tomorrow.’

‘I put them in beds next to each other, madam, at the other end of the nursery from Alec,’ Nanny reported to Polly the next day, ‘but when I went to check on them a bit later they’d got in together and were huddled up like two puppies.

I don’t hold with girls and boys sharing beds, not when they’ve got to that age, but with your permission, madam, I think I’ll let them, just at first.’

‘I expect it will give them comfort. They’ve come through such a lot, poor things.’

‘Poor things is right, madam – puny, I’d call them.

The boy is the same age as Alec but not nearly so well grown, and both of them pale as milk.

City complexions, I suppose – not rosy and healthy like Alec.

They need feeding up, plenty of good country food and running about in the fresh air.

’ She glanced doubtfully at the window, outside which the snow was falling again, softly and heavily, obliterating the view.

‘Playing outside may have to wait a day or two. But feed them up by all means. How are they this morning?

‘Very quiet. Creeping about like they think we mean them harm. Start when you speak to them. Sit where you put them, as if they’re scared to move. I don’t know what was done to them where they came from …’

‘It’s all a big change for them,’ Polly said. ‘And this house will be a lot to get used to – so many rooms and so many people.’

‘That’s what I was going to suggest, madam, that for the first few days, I keep ’em up in the nursery, till they get used to things, then they can see the rest of the house gradual.

And no-one to come up there but me and Jenny and Doris.

’ Jenny was the nursery maid and Doris was the housemaid who did the nursery fires and cleaned.

‘And Alec, of course. And you, naturally, madam.’

‘I think you’re quite right,’ Polly said. ‘Let them get used to things gradually. Do they speak any English? Do they understand anything you say?’

‘They understand what I mean ,’ Nanny said, ‘and I make sure to tell them the words for things – milk and fire and bath and so on. They’ll soon catch on.’

‘I’ll come up later and see them. For now, I think you’re doing just what’s right, Nanny. Thank you.’

‘Thank you , madam.’ She hesitated.

‘What is it?’

‘Well, I understand they’re not Christians.

And I wouldn’t hold it against them, poor things, given it’s the way they’re brought up.

But I like to see prayers said at night before bed in my nursery, and I make sure Alec says them, but what about these two?

It’ll set him a bad example if they don’t say ’em, but—’

‘I’m sure Jewish children say prayers before bed too. They worship the same God, you know, Nanny, just in a different way. Let them do it in their own words when Alec says his. I’m sure it will comfort them.’

‘Very good, madam.’

When Polly went up, she took the dogs with her.

Like nannies, dogs were the same everywhere, and excellent ambassadors where language was a problem.

She found Bibi and Mimi sitting on the hearth-rug by the nursery fire looking at a picture book.

Mimi was wearing a dark red woollen dress she seemed to remember had been Laura’s, and Bibi was in shorts and a jumper she knew Alec had outgrown last year.

Evidently Nanny had decided everything they had brought with them needed cleaning.

They looked even paler than they had the night before, which might have been the result of professional washing by a determined hand, and their hair was clean and shiny – mid-brown hair, slightly wavy.

They scrambled to their feet as Polly came in, and looked at her warily, though with a degree less fear than the night before.

She smiled and said good morning, but there was no answering smile or speech.

And then the dogs surged in behind her, and the ice was broken.

Fand could never see a face he didn’t want to wash, and they were within easy reach of a tall Morland hound.

Kithra didn’t want to be left out of any fun or affection that was going, and Helmy bustled in to give a laughing greeting and then check the hearthrug for dropped toast or biscuit crumbs.

The children started, then smiled at last, and soon were patting and stroking the dogs.

Alec, who had been fetching another book, came back in time to tell them the dogs’ names.

‘I’m teaching them English, Mummy,’ he explained earnestly to Polly. ‘I’ve given them a picture book, and I point to the things in the picture and say what it is in English. And now I’ve got one with words as well.’

‘It’s lucky the snow’s keeping you off school today,’ Polly said. ‘You’re being a good host to them.’

Alec smirked under the praise. ‘It’s going to be my house one day, so I have to, don’t I? Will they be going to school?’

‘Eventually, of course. You’ll be breaking for Christmas soon, so perhaps after that, when they’ve had time to settle in. It’s a big change for them. Have they spoken to you about their home?’

‘They don’t really speak much at all,’ he said. ‘Should I ask them about home?’

‘I think that would be a good thing. Encourage them to talk to you. But don’t worry if it makes them cry. People need to cry sometimes, and their father died.’

‘My father died too,’ he said.

‘But that was before you were born. Theirs died not long ago, and they must be very sad.’

He gave her a determined, grown-up look. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. I’ll look after them.’