Chapter Four
Edmund pulled Lucy back in through the window as the train picked up speed and Peter and Susan disappeared from sight. He sat back down on the seat, not protesting when Lucy curled up beside him. After a minute, Edmund dropped his arm around Lucy's shoulders, and his little sister smiled tremulously at him.
"Are we almost there?" Lucy asked, plaintively.
"I don't think so," Edmund said, checking the name of their destination printed clearly on his and Lucy's tags. "Coombe Halt is a long way out in the country; we probably still have a ways to go, yet."
"I miss Peter and Susan, already," Lucy told him.
"Peter said they'd write every week," Edmund reminded her. "He'll probably get Susan to compose the letters, and you know how she writes. She'll have so many details, we'll feel like we're right there with her and Peter."
"It's not the same, though," Lucy insisted, and Edmund found himself agreeing with her, even if he didn't voice the sentiment out loud.
Lucy fell silent, then, and Edmund went back to staring out of the window. He caught Nancy's sympathetic look out of the corner of his eye, and scowled. They didn't need her, or anyone else's, pity. They had each other, didn't they? He was going to look after Lucy like a proper big brother, just like he had promised Peter, and they were going to be just fine.
The train jerked to a stop, startling Edmund out of his thoughts. The conductor announced the name of the station, and Nancy stood up, gathering her bags and Jamie around her.
"Good luck," she said, and Edmund nodded.
"Good luck," he echoed, and the older girl smiled at him before leaving the train, Jamie in tow.
The train started moving, again, after the children had disembarked, and Edmund and Lucy were once more treated to a view of the seemingly-endless countryside. Lucy soon fell asleep, using Edmund's lap as her pillow, and Edmund was left without even her fidgeting to keep him distracted.
Bored, he blew a puff of warm air onto the window and began doodling in the spot left behind. He was nearly done with his picture before he realized that he was drawing a fighter plane – one of the ones that the Germans used when dropping bombs on London. Hastily, he puffed on the window, again, fogging over the picture. He didn't want to think about the war anymore than he had to, and he especially didn't want Lucy to start crying, again, if she woke up and saw the image.
Instead, he doodled shapes and squiggles, and something that almost looked like a lion, for the rest of the trip. He became so engrossed in adding more and more to the random designs that he didn't even notice that the train had stopped until the conductor announced Coombe Halt Station.
Edmund stood, wincing when all his careful work was obliterated when his elbow knocked against the window. He shook Lucy awake, grabbed their bags down from above the seat, and they clambered to get off the train before it left the station.
There was a sizable gap between the train and the platform, as though someone hadn't put much care into building it. Edmund looked, worriedly, at the gap and at Lucy, wondering how he was going to get her across with her shorter legs, but the conductor solved the problem by picking Lucy up and jumping across to the platform with her, making her laugh with delight. The man then held out a hand to Edmund to help him across, but Edmund shook his head and passed their bags over to the older man, jumping over on his own as soon as the way was clear. Lucy giggled, again, as the conductor exaggeratedly tipped his hat to them before jumping back onto the train, and then the children were alone as the train left the platform, white smoke billowing up into the clouds.
This station was much smaller than any of the others, hardly a proper train station at all. And there were no crowds of people waiting to greet the children they were housing; in fact, there was no one at all besides the group of children standing at the other end of the platform. As he and Lucy approached the group, Lucy grabbed his hand, holding on tightly.
"Are you going to Professor Kirke's, also?" Edmund asked, and the oldest of the group, a girl about his age, turned to look at them.
"Is there anywhere else to go?" she asked, looking around the countryside. "I'm Sophie, and the little monsters are David, Richard, and Matthew."
She gestured to each boy as she spoke, and Edmund recognized the two youngest as the boys he'd seen on the train. The third boy, about Lucy's age, glared at Lucy when she smiled hesitantly at him, and Edmund scowled at the younger boy.
"Peter and Susan could have come with us," Lucy said, as she looked over the group. "The Professor never would notice two more."
"Your friends?" Sophie asked.
"Our brother and sister," Edmund explained. "They got off at Goosey Station."
"You were split up," Sophie said, knowingly. "It happens, sometimes."
Just then, the sound of a car engine broke through the still silence, and the children hurried off the platform to meet it. It drove over the tracks without stopping, though, and Edmund looked up the way it had come to see if there was anyone following.
"The Professor knew we were coming," he said, as everyone craned their heads around, trying to spot an elusive vehicle. "Didn't he?"
"Perhaps we've been incorrectly labeled," Matthew suggested, looking down at his tag in confusion.
"We have not been incorrectly labeled," Sophie told her brother, firmly. Glancing back up the road, she added, "There has to be someone coming. He can't mean us to walk, can he? We don't even know where he lives."
"Here comes someone!" Lucy exclaimed, suddenly, pointing up the road.
A small horse-drawn car drew near, stopping alongside them and the stern-faced woman driving the cart gazed down at them.
"Mrs. Macready?" Edmund ventured.
"I'm afraid so," the woman replied. Looking over the group more closely, she asked, "Is this it, then? Haven't you brought anything else?"
"No, ma'am," Sophie answered. "It's just us."
"Small favors," Mrs. Macready said, a hint of a smile ghosting over her face.
She waited while they loaded themselves and their luggage into the cart, Edmund helping the younger children up, first, before he got in, and then she glanced back at the group.
"All settled?" she asked, and when everyone had nodded, she flicked her whip across the horse's back, staring the cart forward.
They reached the Professor's house, shortly, and went inside, but Mrs. Macready stopped them just inside the foyer.
"The Professor is unaccustomed to having children in his house," she informed them. "As such, there are a few rules you must follow. There is to be no running, no shouting, and no improper use of the dumbwaiter," she added, this last included an eyebrow raised in the boys' direction.
Edmund smirked, slightly, when Sophie's brothers elbowed each other, whispering, no doubt planning how to sneak into the dumbwaiter.
"No touching of the historical artifacts," Mrs. Macready continued, shooting the younger boys a suspicious look and silencing their whispers. "And, most importantly, no disturbing of the Professor."
"I should rather think I'd like to be disturbed once and a while."
The older gentleman that appeared at the top of the stairs came down to their level, surveying the children with obvious delight.
"Well, what have we here?" he asked.
"These are our guests, Professor," Mrs. Macready said. "The evacuees from London."
"Well," the Professor repeated. "What to do with you, then? You have families back in London, I recall?"
"Yes, sir," Sophie answered.
"Our father went away to war, sir," Lucy spoke up.
"As did a good many men," the Professor said. "Well, I suppose, seeing as it's war time, one must make some pretense at military precision. In a line, all of you!"
This last was barked out as though it was an order, and the children dutifully obeyed, lining up in their respective family units. The Professor went down the line, and each recited their name, and the old man beamed when it was done.
"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Now, Mrs. Macready, I'm sure the children are all tired from their long journey, and don't want to have to keep an old man company. See that their dinner is served in the upstairs study."
"Melissa has already retired for the evening, sir," Mrs. Macready reminded him.
"I don't think she'd mind being woken up for this, do you?" the Professor asked.
"No, sir," Mrs. Macready responded.
She escorted the group upstairs, and they were served dinner rather quickly by a young maid who was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. They ate in relative silence, still too unused to each other to try and make small talk. And as soon as they were finished eating, Sophie and her brothers took off for their rooms without a look back.
When they were gone, Lucy pushed her plate away, listlessly.
"I'm not hungry," she said. "The food doesn't taste right, here."
Edmund took another bite of his meal and chewed slowly.
"It tastes fine to me," he said, finally.
"It doesn't taste like home," Lucy told him, unhappily. "Mum makes it differently."
"We'll go home, soon," Edmund said, trying to sound reassuring. "We won't be here, forever. The war has to end sometime."
"What if it doesn't end?" Lucy asked, plaintively. "Or, what if home isn't there, anymore?"
Before Edmund could think of an answer, Mrs. Macready poked her head into the study.
"I believe it's time the two of you were in bed," she told them.
Lucy scrambled to her feet and Edmund followed. Both grabbed their plates, but the older woman shook her head.
"Leave them for Melissa," she said. "She'll clean them up."
"It's what I'm here for," the young woman said, as she entered the room.
As Edmund and Lucy left the study escorted by Mrs. Macready, presumably so they wouldn't linger on the way to their rooms, they could hear the quiet clinking of the dishes as Melissa stacked them. She was singing softly to herself, a little tune that Edmund remembered their mother singing, before the war, and tears sprang to his eyes before he hastily dashed them away.
He and Lucy were shown to Lucy's room by Mrs. Macready, who wished them a good night before continuing down the hall. Edmund helped Lucy get ready for bed as best he could, and then he tucked her in and dropped an awkward kiss on her forehead. Then, he went to his own room and fell deeply into a dreamless sleep.
What seemed like only seconds later, Edmund was being shaken awake and, when he opened his eyes, he saw Lucy standing beside his bed.
"I can't sleep," she whispered. "The sheets are scratchy."
"Go back to bed, Lucy," Edmund groaned, irritably, shutting his eyes and shutting his sister out.
Then, feeling a pang of guilt, and hearing Peter's voice in the back of his mind, he opened his eyes to see Lucy still standing there, her lower lip trembling. With a sigh, Edmund lifted the edge of the blanket and scooted over as Lucy scrambled into the bed beside him. She snuggled against Edmund's shoulder, falling asleep as soon as he had tucked the blanket back around her shoulders, and Edmund followed soon after, the sound of his sister's rhythmic breathing quiet to his ears.