Warning here for a little bit of language from Nancy towards the end. Enjoy and please review!
"This house is creepy," Lucy said. "I don't know how I am ever going to get to sleep."
Susan reached over and stroked her younger sister's hair. "I'll be here with you," she said comfortingly.
"And Ed and I are right through that door," Peter said. His little sister smiled weakly at him.
"I like this creepy old house," Edmund said helpfully. "I bet there are ghosts in every corner!"
He laughed as Lucy wriggled further down in the bed, her eyes flicking all around the room. Two bedrooms and a small sitting room had been set aside for them in one wing of the house. The rooms all around them were empty and they guessed the Professor's rooms were in some other place. They had not even heard one of the three maids walk by; except for the one who had brought them some supper.
"Come on, Edmund! Go to bed!" Susan said. "We've had a long day and we all need our rest."
He pulled a face but began to walk towards the adjoining door between their rooms, dragging his feet as he went. Someone rapped on the other door; the door that led to the hallway. It swung open to reveal two groundsmen carrying a narrow single bed between them. They nodded to the four children and then carried the bed over to the far side of the room. Mrs Macready followed them in and with her came a rather dejected looking girl about Edmund's age.
She was rather skinny and her dress and cardigan looked like they had been put through a wash one too many times. Her hair was dirty-blonde and part the way between curly and wavy. Most strange of all, she almost seemed to be scared of them. She didn't want to look at them at all.
"Children, this is Nancy," Mrs Macready informed them, laying her hand on the girl's shoulder. "She too has been evacuated and she will be staying with us."
The girl stared at her scuffed boots. Her fingers fiddled with her pillowcase as she peered at each of them nervously from under her eyelashes.
"Please be civil to each other. I have my duties and one of them is not to separate brawling children," Mrs Macready added as the groundsmen left. "And you, my girl, are having a bath before you go to bed tonight," she said, lifting up one of Nancy's curls.
"I don't need no bath! Mam plastered me up before I left home," Nancy said indignantly. Mrs Macready paused as the other children exchanged a look. Edmund chuckled at her accent and received a warning glance from his older brother.
"I don't know what that means but your head is not touching my pillows until you have had a bath," she said firmly and turned on her heel. Nancy looked back at the others. Her green eyes flicked between each of them, her face calculating.
Peter walked over to her and held out a hand. "I'm Peter," he said. "These are my sisters, Susan and Lucy, and my brother Edmund."
"Nice to meet ya," she said, shaking his hand. Her face had relaxed into one of cautious friendliness.
"Accent like that, I'm guessing you are from London too? We're from Finchley," Susan said. She chuckled and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Sorry but you're barely in London there," she giggled. "Me? I'm Hackney, born n' bred."
She walked across to her bed and threw her pillowcase on the covers. Some balled up socks and a couple of dirty shillings bounced across the blanket. She hurriedly picked them up and stuffed them deep into the pillowcase again. She didn't want to unpack her few things while they were all still in the room. It wasn't as if she was embarrassed by the condition of her clothes, Mam and Dot had pooled their clothing rations to get enough cloth to make new clothes for all the younger ones, she was just very conscious of how little she had. In addition to the socks and her underwear, she had two new dresses, a spare cardigan and her good skirt and blouse. And a nightshirt, but that was a cast-off from Dot.
There was also her exercise book and a few scraps of pencil somewhere in there too so she could practice her letters. It was very important that she practiced her letters.
She scrabbled inside the pillowcase for her nightgown and then went in search of her bath, not wanting to spend much longer hovering awkwardly in silence.
Edmund kicked the carpet as the door closed behind her. "Great! We now have to live with an East-End gutter child; this gets better and better," he said bitterly.
"Edmund!" Peter admonished. "We've only just met her; you can't say things like that about her!"
His brother shrugged uncaringly. "I know she's nothing like us," he said.
Susan opened her mouth to retort but, before she could, there was a shriek from somewhere in the house and the sound of boots pounding along the corridor. Nancy came sprinting through the door and threw herself full-length on the floor in between her bed and Lucy and Susan's, where she was hidden from view.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked as she looked down at her. The tousled blonde head shot up.
"That ain't no bath!" she said darkly as another pair of shoes rapped along the corridor towards them. Mrs Macready appeared in the doorway, her face twisting with irritation.
"Nancy?" she said, steel ringing in her voice. "Where are you? I am not playing games with you! Go for your bath."
Nancy sat up and glared over Lucy's blanketed knees at the housekeeper. "That ain't no bath!" she repeated with a hiss. "You could charge two bob a pop and open it as a municipal public baths! I can't swim; I'll drown if you make me go in that!"
"It's only a bath! What do you wash in at home, a bucket?" she replied shortly. When Nancy didn't respond beyond glaring at her further, she sighed. "I suppose I will go and rouse Betty to sit with you then; just in case you slip and drown in that terrible bath tub."
"I'll sit with her if you need, Mrs Macready," Susan interjected. The housekeeper paused then nodded.
"Thank you. Make sure you are thorough with the nit comb," she said before leaving. Susan looked a bit sick but ushered the girl into the bathroom. Nancy glanced at the full bath tub with trepidation but still started to strip down.
"You got some scissors?" she asked as she pulled off her cardigan and bent down to unlace her boots.
"No. Why would I need scissors?" Susan said, her brow furrowing.
"Like I said, Mam plastered me up before I left," Nancy said. "Ain't you never been plastered up?"
She pulled her dress over her head and Susan gasped. Layers and layers of brown paper had been stitched around the girl's chest, forming a crude vest. She ran her fingers over the stitches. They were strong but made with a cheap thread. The paper was too tight and waxy for Susan to rip but the stitches wouldn't take long to unpick. She found some nail scissors in the cupboard over the sink and began to cut through the threads.
Nancy sighed in relief as Susan pulled the last sheet away from her. Susan looked away as she pulled off her vest and pants and climbed in the bath. There was a slosh and a squeal and some water landed near Susan's feet. She looked round to see Nancy sitting in the bath but gripping the sides like the tub was about to be swept away. Slowly she relaxed and let herself sink further into the hot water. Susan ran her fingers over the sheet of paper that still sat on her lap.
"Why do you do it?" she asked as Nancy began to lather her hair with soap.
"Uh, it keeps me warm?" Nancy said as if was the most obvious thing in the world. "Not everyone can afford a nice warm coat like you have. Me older brother and sister got theirs for their sixteenth birthdays; Mam says it's a waste of money for us little 'uns because we'd grow out of them sharpish."
She tipped water over her head and began to wash the soap from her hair.
"So, your family isn't very well off I take it?" Susan asked cautiously . Discussing a family's financial situation was something that was Not Done, according to her mother, but the younger girl shrugged and answered quite happily.
"The downstairs of my house could probably fit into that bedroom we are sharing and the upstairs ain't much bigger. There's been times when we haven't had much food or we've been cold in the winter but there's always them what's worse off than us," she said. "We should be moving to a new flat soon anyway. Me aunt in Shoreditch moved into one last year. Dead posh it was an' all. It even had," and here her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "a proper indoor bathroom."
Susan, a girl who lived her entire life with indoor plumbing, nearly laughed in her face. It was so utterly ridiculous to her that someone would be impressed by an indoor bathroom. Everybody on their street had an indoor bathroom; the Wells at No. 18 even had two! This girl may have been from the same city as Susan but she was from a completely different world, a world Susan knew absolutely nothing about. Edmund was right, Nancy was nothing like them.
Deer Ma, Jimmy, Dot, Peggy Sue, Georgie and Artha, Nancy wrote carefully in her book. I am stayin in a big house in the middel of the country. I rekon this is what Ireland must look like. It is very green. There are lots of rooms in the house. I think I wud get lost pretty quick if I went for a walk. Guess what, they have an indoor toilet and a bath like the bleedin public baths! They are that posh!
"Come on, Peter, try!" Susan said from the other side of the room. "Gastro vascular!"
She had invited Nancy to join the game she was playing with her brothers, something ghastly involving a big, heavy dictionary, but Nancy had declined in favour of writing this first letter home. Lucy was sitting by the window staring out at the pouring rain. All the children had wanted to get out of the house this morning and explore the gardens and grounds of the house. Nature clearly had a different plan.
"Is it Latin?" Peter said in a very bored voice.
"It ain't English," Nancy muttered under her breath.
There are four other kids here, she continued. They are from Finchlee and they seem nice enuf. I am sharin a room with the two girls and the boys are next door.
"Let's play hide and seek!" Lucy suggested. Looks like the dictionary game wasn't as fun as Susan had made it out to be.
"Come on," Lucy pleaded, tugging on her eldest brother's sleeve. He rolled his eyes and looked at her. The look she gave him through her eyelashes could have melted stone.
"One. Two. Three," he began. Lucy's face split into a wide smile even as Edmund and Susan groaned. Ah, the power the youngest child held over the others. The three of them ran from the room as Peter continued counting. Nancy stayed sitting at the table with her book but looked round as he stood up.
He jerked his head towards the door, a small smile on his face. "Go hide, " he said. "Twenty one. Twenty two."
She ran after the other three as fast as she could. Where to go, where to go? She skidded back and forth along corridors and ran up and down sets of stairs. This house had lots of fancy knick-knacks and statues but no places to hide! Eventually, just as she heard Peter shout that he was beginning to seek, she saw an alcove covered by a curtain. She ran for it and yanked it back. The other boy, the sulky one called Edmund, glared at her.
"Go find somewhere else! This is my hiding place!" he snapped, yanking it back. She bit back one of the more colourful retorts she had learned from Jimmy (who in turn had no doubt overheard it from their Pa) and ran for the small staircase at the far end of the room. She was nearly knocked flying as Lucy came streaking down the narrow steps.
"I'm back! I'm back!" she shouted as Nancy flailed wildly to prevent falling over.
"Shut up! He's coming this way!" Edmund moaned, poking his head out from behind the curtain. Lucy looked between him and Nancy with confusion as Peter joined them.
"Do you three know how to play this game?" he asked jovially. Lucy was now very confused.
"Weren't you worried about where I was? Weren't you searching for me?" she asked. Edmund rolled his eyes.
"Yes, that's the point of the game!" he snapped.
"Have I won?" Susan asked hopefully as she appeared behind Peter.
"I don't think Lucy wanted to play after all," Peter said to her. "Really, Lu, if you didn't want to play the dictionary game then you should have just said instead of dragging us all about the house-"
"But I've been gone for hours!" Lucy exclaimed. "Haven't I?"
"We've only been playing for a few minutes," Nancy told her. Lucy grabbed Peter's hand and tugged.
"Come see!"
She pulled him up the stairs she had run down, the others following behind, and jabbered at top-speed about a wood she had found. It was trapped in winter and there were fauns and satyrs and centaurs and other creatures that Nancy had never heard of before. All this was supposedly hidden in a great wardrobe, the only thing occupying the room which they were dragged to. Lucy threw open the door with a defiant, "Take a look for yourselves!" and Susan and Peter willingly stepped inside. As Edmund vanished around the back, Nancy peered into the darkness inside. She watched Susan tap on the back. There was an answering knock from Edmund.
"There isn't anything in here," Peter said as he stepped out again. Lucy's face dropped slightly and she shoved her way between her elder brother and sister. Her shoulders sagged as she saw the rows of coats and boots.
"It was there," she said in a small voice. "It was so real. I felt the cold and the snow."
"That's enough now, Lucy," Susan said sternly.
"I'm not lying!" she cried, whirling around to face them. She looked really hurt.
"I believe you," Edmund said as he appeared from behind the wardrobe. His face was so innocent and trustworthy that for a moment Nancy was taken in. His brother and sisters appeared to know better though; they were looking at each other in surprise.
"You do?" Lucy asked. Edmund's face twisted into a cruel smile.
"Sure! Didn't I tell you about the football pitch in the bathroom cupboard?" he said. Lucy's face crumpled.
"Oh, stop it. Why must you make everything worse?" Peter said to Edmund. It was almost like a switch had been flipped; Edmund tensed and stormed up to his older brother.
"You aren't Dad, you will never be Dad so stop acting like him!" he shouted in his face and ran from the room.
"Well done!" Susan said drily and hurried after their vanishing brother.
Nancy knew that she had just intruded upon something private and long-standing. This small exchange was only part of a much grander tale. Not wanting to involve herself, she slipped from the room. As she made her way downstairs, she heard Lucy once again protesting the existence of the world in the wardrobe.
She felt a bit sorry for Lucy. She was surprised that the others had made no attempt at all to allow her her fantasy. Had her younger sister or brother come out with such a tale, she thought she would let them indulge in the fantasy for a while. She didn't understand why Peter and Susan had cut Lucy off so harshly.
With a sigh, she went back to the small sitting room they shared. Edmund was there, lying on a sofa and reading something. He still looked grumpy and miserable so she ignored him and walked back to the table. Her exercise book was gone.
"Your spelling is appalling," Edmund said, turning a page of the thing he was reading. She spun around. Yes, he was reading her book. Her precious exercise book.
"That's mine," she said, holding out her hand.
"I mean, our six year old neighbour can spell better than this," he added, turning another page.
She folded her arms. "Actually, my teacher says I got potential," she snapped. "She says if I work hard I could go to secretarial college."
"Really?" he said, meeting her eyes and widening his own slightly. Once again she fell for it; she thought he was being sincere. Her chest puffed slightly with pride but deflated just as quickly when he mockingly added, "Good for you. It is so lovely when somebody knows their limits."
Something snapped inside of her and she leapt over the back of the sofa; landing heavily on him and hitting him in an attempt to grab the book back. He had never been attacked by a girl like this and he momentarily forgot that she was a girl. He braced his knees against her stomach and heaved her off him.
"Give me my book!" she screamed at him as he scrambled over the back of the sofa. She lunged for him again but he skipped away, making her tumble head over heels and land with a thump on the floor.
Peter and Susan burst through the door.
"What is going on down here? You two are causing an absolute racket!" Peter yelled at the pair of them. Nancy pointed an incriminating finger at Edmund.
"He took my book! That's mine; it's mine for practicing my letters! No-one is allowed to read my book except me and my teacher!" she shouted.
"Who is Jimmy? Is he your fellow because you have written a tremendous amount about him," Edmund said, flicking through the pages. Nancy inhaled sharply.
"No, he's my brother!" she screeched. "An' when I write to him and tell him about you, he's gonna come down 'ere and knock your fuckin' block off!"
Whoops.
All three of them were now staring at her with open mouths. She tried to maintain her withering glare but all she wanted was for the floor to swallow her up.
"What does that word mean?" another small voice said from the doorway. All four turned to see Lucy standing there with an expression of complete innocence. She looked at them expectantly.
Peter grabbed Nancy and hauled her to her feet.
"Out," he said grimly.
"But what does that word mean?" they heard Lucy ask again as Peter steered Nancy from the room.
"Drop it, Lucy," Susan said as the door shut behind them. Peter faced her with folded arms. He raised his eyebrows at her. She shuffled her feet and looked down.
"Look, Edmund is being a little beast at the moment but there is no need to use that kind of language," he said. "I will not tolerate you using it around him and definitely not around my sisters. I'm giving you a fair warning; we don't know how long we will have to stay here and I think we should all try to get along."
"He stole my book!" she said sulkily. He sighed.
"Ignore him. I'll get it back for you and if it means so much to you then hide it where he can't get it," he said. She looked away, still sulking.
He walked back into the sitting room leaving her by herself. She sank down to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. A low murmur of voices escaped under the door. They were talking about her, she knew it.
Why had she let it slip out? She should have known they wouldn't be used to things like that. The villagers had been right; she was a bit difficult. This was going to be a very long time away from her family and her home.
