Bloody Awful. Georgia Evans
“Maybe it’s time to pass it on.” Alice was not going to ask how or where. Knowing one witch was quite enough, finding there were half a dozen in the village would really ruin her day. Or week. “There’s a witch over in Bringham, I might just hand it to him for safekeeping,” Mother Longhurst mused. “Better see if he’s to be trusted first. There’s strong magic in that knife.”
A point Alice would never dispute. “Thank you for lending it,” she said, as she stood. “You’re right I wouldn’t be standing here without it.” And hoped to high heaven the other one was long gone. Bombs and air raids were quite enough.
“You did well, young Alice. You and that young man of yours. When’s the happy day?”
She’d been asked that question at least ten times a day since the news of her engagement rippled across the village. “Soon. We just had banns posted, in case Peter gets posted somewhere else, and we hope his family can get up from Devon.”
Old Mother Longhurst shook her head. “They won’t. Best go ahead and marry him while you can. Things are too uncertain these days to wait.”
Since she’d actually been thinking along those lines herself, Alice just smiled.
“They won’t be up this side of Christmas, you go ahead and marry him. Once you have a little one in the cradle, then they’ll come. You mark my words.”
She didn’t want to. For Peter’s sake, she wanted his family there, but his mother had been awfully lukewarm about it on the phone. “We’ll see. Thank you again for the loan of the knife.”
“The village should be thanking you and that young man of yours.”
“The village had best not know. There’d be flat panic if the news got out that vampires were rampaging across the North Downs.”
Mother Longhurst let out another loud cackle. “Would liven up the place a bit!”
Between bombs dropping, falling in love and dispatching vampires to wherever vampires went when they disintegrated, Alice had quite enough excitement to keep her going for a long, long time.
“Bye.”
Alice had the door open when Mother Longhurst added, “If you and your intended need any potions, you know where to come.”
Alice restrained the smirk. So far she and Peter had done very nicely without.
Starting the old shooting brake that her father before her had driven across the countryside, Alice headed toward a row of cottages on the outskirts of Brytewood village. Seems two members of the Boyle family were coming down with mumps. Just what the village needed with a new batch of evacuees expected.
Mrs. Longhurst’s scalded arm was healing nicely but just as Gloria was leaving, Julia, one of the land girls, came in with a bloody hand from too close contact with a scythe. After cleaning the wound, telling Julia she was darn lucky to still have hand and fingers attached and dispatching her with Tom Longhurst to the hospital to get it stitched, Gloria was on her way home.
Until she was flagged down by a young woman in one of the farm cottages.
“Nurse, I hate to bother you but two of my evacuees have this awful cough. I was thinking of calling the doctor in but then I saw you leave the farm and I thought I’d ask you to have a look at them.”
“Of course. It’s Mrs. Grayson isn’t it?” She’d been one of the host houses when the evacuees first arrived. She’d taken two children and their mother, if Gloria remembered rightly.
“That’s right, nurse! Fancy remembering!” Mrs. Grayson’s smile welcomed but did little to ease the weariness in her face. “If you’d have a look at them. I’d be so obliged.”
“Of course!” Gloria propped her cycle against the house and went into the open door. The kitchen was warm and cozy, a pot simmered on the old-fashioned black stove, a kitten slept on the hearth rug and a baby napped in the pram in the corner. The scent of baking added to the feeling of well-being.
“That’s my one,” Mrs. Grayson said, nodding toward the pram. “I hope he doesn’t get it too. The other two are proper poorly.”
Gloria followed her up the narrow stairs. The back bedroom looked out on fields and the downs beyond, but was chilly compared to the warmth downstairs. The two little boys snuggled together under ample covers. They would be better for the warmth of a fire but the fireplace was blocked. No doubt to keep out the drafts and chill from the chimney. Both boys wore clean pajamas, the sheets were crumpled but ironed and the room was neat and tidy. Mrs. Grayson did right by her evacuees.
“Here we are, boys, Nurse Prewitt was passing and said she’d have a look at you.”
“Hello,” piped up the younger one who’d been lying down while his brother read from a tattered copy of Dandy.
“Wotcher, nurse,” the elder said, “I’m Jim and this ’ere is me bruvver Wilf,” he went on, clearly identifying his East End origins.
“How are those coughs, then?” Gloria asked, perching on the edge of the bed. “Bothering you?”
“Not all the time,” Jim replied, “but when it comes it’s awful bad. Hurts my chest, it does. Don’t it, Wilf?” Gloria popped a thermometer in Jim’s mouth and turned to his brother for corroboration.
Wilf nodded and pulled himself to sitting. “Gets on me wick it does,” he said, as great hard, dry rasps shook his little chest. “Sorry,” he got out between coughs before he bent almost double with a fierce burst of paroxysm of coughing and he upchucked all over the bedclothes, the floor and the thin rug on the floor.
“Oh gawd! I’m sorry!” he said with a weak wail.
“Never mind, Wilf,” Mrs. Grayson said, “I’ll get you cleaned up.”
Gloria hadn’t the heart to leave her to it, not after Jim bit the thermometer in shock and the baby downstairs decided he was missing the fun, and started crying.
By the time the two boys were washed and changed, their bed made up with fresh sheets and the baby settled, to say nothing of making sure Jim hadn’t swallowed the end of the thermometer, Gloria was only too ready for home. She even declined the offer of a cup of tea.
“I’ll definitely ask Dr. Doyle to call,” she told Mrs. Grayson.
“Whooping cough, is it? I remember my younger brother having it.”
“Can’t say for sure, the doctor will make a diagnosis, but keep them warm, and if it gets any colder, you might want to think about moving them down into the parlor and lighting a fire there. If you can spare the coal.”
“I thought of that. I’d bring them down here but I’m scared my baby will catch it.”
It was probably inevitable. A worry too. The baby wasn’t more than eight or nine months. “What about the boys’ mother?” Wilf was nowhere near school age. Surely she’d come down with him?
“She’s up in London. Her own mother got bombed out last week. I told her to bring her back down here if she liked, we’d squeeze in somehow. I’m waiting to hear from her but I don’t have the phone so she has to call Madge White next door but one. The boys got sick just after she left. I didn’t tell her. Thought she had more than enough on her plate but now I’m not sure. If they’re really ill…”
“Why not wait until the doctor sees them tomorrow?” The boys were in a clean house and well cared for. Many were far worse off. “Just keep them warm and give them children’s aspirin to bring their temperatures down. Do you have any?”
“Only the adult, but I cut them in half and mash them up with a spoonful of jam. It works. Or will as long as I have jam. Couldn’t make as much as usual on account of the sugar. I should have gone down to Whorleigh’s in Brytewood. He seemed to have plenty.”
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