And then he was gone, running down the steps, his kit bag bumping against his legs, out to where Brewster waited to drive him to the station.
Over the following weeks, the war news was no better. Britain now fought on alone and, as Mr Churchill had called it, the Battle of Britain was being fought by the RAF over the south of England. And whilst Georgie was in the thick of the fighting, Philip and Ben completed their basic training and awaited a posting.
They both came home on a week’s leave and Charlotte tried to make their time at home very special. She planned their favourite meals – as far as rations would allow – and made a determined effort to heal the rift between herself and Philip. But she couldn’t prevent Georgie being never far from her thoughts. Ben went back to the life he loved – working on Home Farm – whilst he waited, but Philip didn’t want to involve himself in anything. He whiled away the days reading or just sitting staring into space, preferring to be alone rather than in company.
Jenny stood in front of him as he sat on the terrace one sunny August morning reading the newspaper. She regarded him solemnly for several moments before Philip became aware of her silent presence. He frowned over the top of the paper. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Georgie’s not here.’
‘No-o,’ Philip said carefully. The child was stating the obvious, he thought, so why – ?
‘And Charlotte’s gone to see that grumpy old man.’
‘Ye-es.’
‘And the mister’s busy, so – ’
‘So?’
‘Will you read to me?’ She held out the book. ‘It’s the one Georgie gived me.’
‘Did he now?’ He could see the battered copy of
The Wind in the Willows
in the child’s hands. It had always been a favourite – one he remembered his mother reading to him . . .
Before he knew quite how it was happening, Jenny had tweaked the newspaper from his grasp and dropped it on the floor. Then she handed him the book and clambered on to his knee.
‘We’ve got to Chapter Eight where Mr Toad’s just been put in a dinjun.’
‘A dungeon,’ Philip said mildly.
‘That’s what I said – a dinjun.’ With Bert clutched under one arm, she put her thumb in her mouth, curled up on his lap and, resting her head against his shoulder, waited for him to begin.
Half an hour later, that was how Charlotte, returning from Buckthorn Farm, found them.
‘He was reading to her,’ she told an incredulous Miles. ‘There she was, sitting on his knee, and he was reading to her.
And
doing all the funny voices just like Georgie does.’
‘Well, I never,’ Miles murmured. ‘You know, Philip hasn’t always had this – this prickly side to his nature. When he was young – ’ He stopped, afraid he would cause Charlotte pain, but she finished his sentence for him.
‘When his mother was alive, you mean?’
Slowly, Miles nodded.
For the remaining days of his leave, Jenny monopolized Philip.
‘Georgie’s not here,’ she told him candidly, ‘so you’ll have to do.’
Hearing it, Charlotte held her breath, expecting a bad-tempered outburst from her stepson. But to her amazement, Philip only laughed. ‘Well, I suppose it’s no bad thing to be second-in-command. So, Jenny, what do you want to do today?’
Charlotte turned away, shaking her head in wonderment. I must be dreaming, she thought.
Charlotte’s thoughts were never far away from her beloved Georgie in his Hurricane. And though they tried not to speak of it too often, Miles’s preoccupied air told her that his thoughts, too, were often in the skies over the Channel. Philip and Ben had both gone and there was only Jenny to take their minds off their worries.
Charlotte went as often as she could to Lincoln to see her mother, aunt and uncle, but still there was no evading the talk of war that seemed to dominate everyone’s thoughts. As she arrived home from one such visit in early September, Miles greeted her. He was distraught.
Seeing his ravaged face, Charlotte’s knew in an instant that it was the news she’d dreaded the most.
Georgie.
He held opened the front door as she climbed the steps on trembling legs. She reached out to him. ‘What is it?’
‘The worst possible.’ His voice was deep and thick with emotion. ‘Georgie’s missing. One of his pals telephoned. He was seen going down over the coast of France. There is a chance – a slim one – but . . .’
Charlotte was dying inside. Her ‘golden boy’ lost. Missing – presumed killed. That was the heartbreaking official wording they would receive in a day or so.
‘Perhaps . . .’ she began, clinging to any vestige of hope, but the bleak, defeated look in Miles’s eyes told her she was clutching at straws.
‘Don’t tell Jenny,’ he pleaded hoarsely. ‘It’ll break her heart. She idolizes him.’
Her throat too full of tears to speak, Charlotte nodded as Miles turned away towards his study. She let him go, aware that he needed some time alone. Slowly she climbed the stairs towards her studio to seek her own solitary consolation. But it was not to be found; Jenny sat in her own little corner daubing a piece of paper with yellow ochre and dots of green.
‘I’m painting another picture for Georgie,’ she said brightly. ‘He’ll be home again soon. That’s samphire, that is. We picked it together – me an’ Georgie.’
Charlotte had never known what it felt like to have her heart broken.
But in that moment, she knew.
‘Where is she? I can’t find her.’
Miles burst into the morning room where Charlotte was patiently darning a sock. Make do and mend was the order of the day now.
She raised her eyes, pausing in her work but not flying into a panic straight away. ‘Isn’t she outside with the others?’
‘No. They’re clamouring to be taken home. Miss Parker too.’
Miss Parker was the teacher who came every day to the manor.
Charlotte rose with an outward calm she wasn’t feeling inside. ‘You take them all home and I’ll mount a search party.’
‘Easier said than done,’ he muttered, but turned away to do as she suggested.
‘Be careful,’ she called after him, knowing he would drive like the wind, taking the corners in the narrows lanes far too fast in his haste to get back.
This time Jenny was not in the studio, nor in any other part of the house.
‘Where can she be?’ Charlotte worried, biting the edge of her thumb as she hovered in the hall, uncertain what to do next. ‘Where might she go?’
But she couldn’t answer her own question. Jenny was still a little afraid of the great outdoors unless there was someone else with her.
‘If only you were here, Georgie,’ she murmured sadly, ‘she wouldn’t have gone missing. She’d be stuck to your side like a limpet.’
Miles burst in through the front door.
‘They’ve told her,’ he blurted out. ‘Those little buggers have told her. About Georgie. That’s why she’s run off.’
Charlotte gasped and her eyes widened. ‘Oh, how could they?’
He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. ‘I suppose we shouldn’t blame them. The whole village knows. The kids are bound to pick it up and – and they don’t understand . . .’
‘But where’s she
gone
? I’ve looked everywhere I can think of.’
‘Where did Georgie take her? Where did they go together?’
‘The shore!’ Charlotte gasped. ‘Last time he was home, he took her to the seashore.’
Within minutes they were both on horseback riding towards the sea, neither of them daring to voice their fears. Jenny didn’t understand the ways of the sea, its tides and treacherous currents and creeks. She wouldn’t know what to do if the water came swirling in around her . . .
They galloped down the long lane towards the sea bank. Pausing at the top of the rise, they scanned the beach.
‘The tide’s coming in,’ Charlotte cried.
‘Samphire? Where’s the samphire.’
‘Yes, yes. They collected samphire. She was painting a picture. This way.’
Leaving their horses, Charlotte led the way carefully across the marshy ground to where the samphire grew.
‘There – over there. I thought I saw something . . .’ Miles pointed. ‘No – I’m imagining it.’
They walked on, scanning the marsh and the creeks around them. And with every second the incoming tide was coming closer and closer. After a few moments Miles shouted again. ‘There! There, Charlotte. I did see something.’
Charlotte too had caught a movement a short distance in front of them – something white and fluttering in the breeze.
‘Look!’ She pointed excitedly. ‘She
is
here. There’s a peg with a piece of white rag tied to it.’
Miles frowned, then he remembered. ‘You – you think Georgie told her what you told us all those years ago? So she could find her way back?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
They quickened their pace towards the peg and its makeshift flag.
‘There’s another – and another,’ Charlotte cried.
Just then, a figure bobbed up, stretching up to glance around her, watching the tide and the encroaching water.
‘There she is,’ Miles breathed. ‘Thank God.’
‘Don’t be angry with her, Miles. Please. If she’s just been told about Georgie . . .’
Jenny had seen them and was standing perfectly still watching them approach, a look of fear on her face. She knew she was in trouble.
‘My, you’ve collected a lot. Mrs Beddows will be pleased.’ Miles smiled down at her, reining in his instinct to either shake her roundly or clutch her to him in a thankful embrace. Instead, keeping his tone level and calm, he went on, ‘But the tide’s coming in now, love. Time we were heading back. Come on. We’ve got the horses on the sea bank. You can ride in front of me.’
They walked back the way they had come, collecting the pegs and pieces of cloth as they went. Miles hoisted her up on to the horse’s saddle and then swung himself up behind her. She was still clutching the bag of wet samphire she’d collected.
‘I was all right, mister. Honest. Georgie told me to watch out for the water comin’ an’ how to set the pegs. I wouldn’t have drownded. Georgie . . .’ Her voice broke and her head dropped. Miles held her close feeling the thin little body racked with sobs.
Beside them, Charlotte rode in silence, her throat full of tears, remembering how she’d taught Georgie about the tides and how to mark the path back across the marsh.
And he’d passed the knowledge on to little Jenny. Georgie had kept her safe even though he’d not survived.
Late one afternoon in October, when Charlotte and Miles were having tea in the morning room, the door was flung open with a crash and Jenny leapt on to the end of the sofa.
‘There’s an ’orrible noise an’ banging,’ Jenny wailed. ‘I don’t like it.’
Miles got up and went to the window, whilst Jenny scrambled along the sofa and snuggled up to Charlotte. ‘I don’t like it,’ she muttered again and put her thumb in her mouth.
‘It’s only the sirens,’ Charlotte said, thankful that they were far enough away from Lynthorpe for them to be no louder than they already were.
‘And planes,’ she heard Miles mutter. ‘There are planes almost overhead.’
Jenny gave a scream and buried her head against Charlotte as more dull thuds sounded in the distance. ‘It’s ’Itler. He’s comin’.’
Intrigued rather than frightened, Charlotte tried to untangle herself from the child, but Jenny held on tightly.
‘What’s happening?’ Charlotte asked.
In a low voice, Miles said, ‘They’re dropping bombs. On Lynthorpe.’
‘Don’t like it,’ came Jenny’s muffled voice. ‘And Bert don’t like it neither.’
The banging ceased and soon the ‘All Clear’ sounded.
‘There, there, it’s all over now,’ Charlotte comforted Jenny.
It was over for that day but, a month later, several incendiaries fell in a field belonging to one of Miles’s tenant farmers. No one was hurt but the incident was to bring Miles and Charlotte more heartache than they could ever have imagined.
‘I want ’er back ’ome with me, where she belongs, an’ there ain’t nuffin’ you can do to stop me.’
Miles and Charlotte stood on the driveway facing the stranger, helpless in the face of her anger. Jenny clung to Miles’s hand and made no move towards the woman, whom Charlotte presumed to be her mother.
‘I ain’t coming,’ Jenny blurted out and pointed a trembling finger at the tall, thin man lounging against the motor car, smoking a cigarette. He was thin faced and handsome, Charlotte supposed, in a flash kind of way. She fought back a rising bubble of laughter. The man reminded her of Max Miller, the outrageous comedian, whom they’d seen once at the theatre and heard often on the radio. This man sported a thin, neatly trimmed moustache and was dressed in a flamboyant check suit. Loud, Miles would have called it. ‘Not if
he
’s still there.’ Jenny spat out the final words.
Charlotte saw the flash of anger in the man’s face and he pushed himself upright, jabbing towards Jenny with his cigarette.