Bloody Good. Georgia Evans
shift. Was easier than I thought. No one wants the night shifts and since one of the drivers was considerate enough to fall into the river and drown on his way back from the pub a couple of nights back, your arrival will be welcomed. Doubt anyone will question the dicey paperwork.”
If they did they could meet an unfortunate end. Shocking things happened in wartime. “You live here alone?”
He shook his head. “No, my granny is upstairs. It’s her house. She had a stroke last year and is bedridden. They were muttering about billeting evacuees here a while back, but your arrival should put paid to that.”
And if it hadn’t, regrettable things might happen to them. Still, seemed a snug enough base to operate from. He had a roof over his head, a good cover, and a job that would put him deep in the heart of the hurts and injuries and any time he hungered for fresh blood, there was a helpless old woman upstairs. “Does your grandmother know who you’re working for?”
“Good God, no! She’d have a fit! She and my dear, departed grandfather were lifelong members of the Communist party.”
High time the invasion got underway and these degenerates were disposed of. “Interesting,” Paul replied with a smile. “Now, if you would be so good as to show me my resting quarters.”
Chapter 4
“Is Miss Waite badly hurt?”
Alice looked up from her toast. “Could have been worse, Gran. Broken leg and wrist and a collection of colorful bruises. She was lucky it happened the night her nephew arrived. Alone, she’d have lain there until the milkman arrived this morning.”
“Did you meet this nephew?”
Alice paused, toast halfway to her mouth. What exactly was Gran fishing for? “Of course. He was the one who called me after the accident and went with her in the ambulance.”
She raised a gray eyebrow and Alice knew it wasn’t over yet. “Arrived suddenly, didn’t he? She never mentioned he was coming until he got here. Never heard her talk about him, or any family for that matter, in all the years she’s been here. She sat at the same whist table as Howell and Maggie and me the other night and didn’t say a word about his visit until she was leaving. Odd if you ask me.”
Please! She had more to do than cope with village gossip. “Gran, is it really any of our business?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but I can’t help wonder. Especially after what Mother Longhurst said.”
The long pause demanded a response. A stronger woman would have nodded and finished her toast. Alice caved. “What did the old witch say?”
“Don’t mock her, Alice. She knows what she knows and your father wasn’t too hidebound by science and qualifications to discount her lore.” Rebuke noted. No sense in pointing out medical science had progressed a long way since the turn of the century when her father had trained at Barts. In Alice’s silence, Gran went on. “She mentioned last night that Jane Waite’s aura had blackened and it had. It’s always been murky. Something sad in her past we always suspected but now it’s darkened. She’s been in contact with evil or bad trouble and odd it should so happen hours after her visitor arrives and just a short time before she has a serious fall.”
Only true love and caring for her grandmother’s feelings kept Alice’s laughter contained. Gran believed this nonsense and so, it seemed, did half the village. “And talking about Miss Waite, they’ll want her out of hospital as soon as possible. I’ll ask Gloria to drop by and see what they’ll need for her convalescence.”
“You’ve got a good backup in Gloria Prewitt,” Gran said, seeming to change the subject. “She’s overworked, though, just as you are.”
And would be even more so if she didn’t get a move on. Alice drank down the last of her tea. “We’ve asked for help, even a part-time first aid worker would be a godsend.” Especially with all the evacuees and now having to treat the workers up at the government plant on the heath.
Alice carried her dishes to the sink and kissed her grandmother. “I’ll be back for lunch, all being well. I need to see how things are at the Watsons on top of all my other house calls. Bye, love.”
Helen Burrows shook her head at Alice’s departing form. The girl had a good heart but oh, if only she’d admit the truth right under her nose. Pixie blood flowed in her skeptical veins. Maybe someday soon she’d acknowledge what was hers by right.
No time to sigh and wish for “if only.” Helen turned to the sink. She’d get the breakfast things done so when Doris came in, she could start on the floor. The young woman was a godsend. Evacuated to Brytewood with her infant, she soon tired of village gossip and the moans and complaints of the other evacuee mums and asked Alice if she knew anyone who needed a charlady. After Alice snagged her for once a week, Doris had no trouble finding other work in the village. She even confided to Helen one day that she was saving up all she could and planned on opening a “nice, little” tea shop after the war was over.
Meanwhile she “did” for the echelons of Brytewood who’d lost their housemaids and charladies to the war effort. Helen knew Doris wouldn’t last. In a few months her toddler son would be old enough for a day nursery and no doubt Doris would be off for a better paid job up at the munitions camp on the heath or in one of the factories in Dorking or Leatherhead. But meanwhile, she came in every Friday morning and “did” for them.
“You know, mum,” Doris said, as she paused for a morning cup of tea between vacuuming and starting on the bathroom. “Could you use me this afternoon? I could do out the office and surgery if you like.”
“Aren’t you going to Miss Waite’s?” It was Doris’s usual Friday afternoon.
“Should be, but I stopped there on my way up here this morning. Thought I’d ask if I could pick up anything for Miss Waite, seeing as she’s in a bad way, and that nephew or whatever he is, rum lot he is, too, he said no need to come. He didn’t need me and wasn’t sure they’d need me next week. In fact he told me not to come back again until they called.”
She paused to bite a corner off a chocolate digestive biscuit. “As good as fired me he did. Well, I told him I’d have a word with Miss Waite when she got home. Seeing as she’d hired me to do for her, it was her who’d tell me when I wasn’t needed. Proper shirty, he got. Nasty he was. I tell you, Mrs. Burrows, if I didn’t need the money, and didn’t care to let Miss Waite down, I’d never go back.”
“Don’t worry about it, Doris,” Helen replied. “Men can be abrupt. We can certainly use you here this afternoon. And once the word gets out around the village that you have a free afternoon, I don’t doubt you’ll be drowning under offers. I know Mrs. Roundhill would grab you in a flash. She’s up to her ears with all those evacuees.”
Doris finished her biscuit—one of the last of a prewar cache Helen always offered her as a little luxury to supplement her modest wage. “Well, best get finished, and thanks for mentioning Mrs. Roundhill. I’ll stop off at the vicarage on my way home. See what we can work out. Hope she won’t mind me bringing Joey.”
“What would one more child be in that big house?”
Doris nodded. “Bet he’d like the company, too. He really needs to be with other children. He spends all his days in a playpen in other people’s houses.”
Helen drank her own tea down. Here she was wanting to keep Doris as long as possible, when Doris had to think of Joey first. “He’s such a good boy.” No lie. He really was a most contented child, given he’d been whisked from his home. Seemed babies settled more readily than some school-age children. “How about I take him with me down to the village? I need to pick up a few things in the shops.”
“Fresh air would be good for him, wouldn’t it? Sure it’s no bother?”
“Not a bit.”
Sid Mosley’s