Binnie had fallen ill, felt a loosening of the tightness around her heart.
“She did almost die, didn’t she, Eileen?” Alf said and turned back to Binnie. “But you ain’t goin’ to now.”
Which seemed to reassure Binnie, but that night as Eileen put her into a fresh nightgown, she asked, “Are you certain I ain’t going to die?”
“Positive,” Eileen said, tucking her in. “You’re growing stronger every day.”
“What ’appens to people who die, when they ’aven’t got no name?”
“You mean, when no one knows who they were?” Eileen asked, puzzled.
“No. When they ain’t got a name to put on the tombstone. Do they still get to get buried in the churchyard?”
She’s illegitimate, Eileen thought suddenly. Having an unmarried mother had been a true stigma for children in this era, with the child branded a bastard.
But the stigma hadn’t extended as far as tombstones. “Binnie, your name is your name, no matter whether your mother is married or not…”
Binnie made a sound of complete disgust, and Eileen was certain that if she hadn’t still been too weak to get out of bed, she’d have stomped from the room like her brother. As it was, she turned over onto her side and faced the wall.
Eileen wished the vicar was here. She racked her brain to recall any customs involving names and tombstones in 1940, but she couldn’t think of anything. Alf, she thought. He knows what this is all about, and hastily gathered up the dirty linen. “I’m taking these downstairs,” she told Binnie. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
No response. Eileen dumped the linens in the laundry and went to the ballroom, where Alf was wrapping Rose in bandages. “I’m practicin’ for the ambulance,” he said.
“Alf, come with me,” Eileen said. “Now,” and took him into the music room and shut the door. “I want to know why Binnie’s worried over her name being on a tombstone, and don’t say you don’t know.”
Something in her tone must have convinced him she meant business, because he muttered, “She ain’t got one.”
“A tombstone?”
“No, a name,” and at Eileen’s bewildered look, “Binnie ain’t a real name. It’s just short for ’Odbin.”
“Can you believe he told Binnie she didn’t have a first name?” she told the vicar when he arrived the next day. “And she apparently believed him.”
“Did you ask Binnie?” he said.
“What do you mean? You can’t seriously think… everyone has a first name. Just because they come from a poor—”
He was shaking his head. “The Evacuation Committee’s run into more than one slum child without a name, and the billeting officer’s had to make one up on the spot. I’m not certain you realize how hard some of the children’s lives were at home. Many of them had never slept in a bed before they came here—”
Or used a toilet, Eileen thought, remembering her prep. Some evacuees from the slums had urinated on the floors of their foster homes or squatted in a corner. And Mrs. Bascombe had told her several of the evacuees at the manor had had to be taught to use a knife and fork when they’d first come. But a name! “Alf has a name,” she argued, but the vicar wasn’t convinced.
“Perhaps their father felt differently about a boy. Or perhaps it wasn’t the same father. And you must admit, Mrs. Hodbin—if she is a Mrs.—hasn’t shown much maternal instinct.”
“True. But still…” she said, and when she went in to talk to Binnie, tried to reassure her. “I’m certain your name’s not short for Hodbin,” Eileen told Binnie. “That’s only Alf teasing. I’m certain it’s a nickname—”
“For what?” Binnie said belligerently.
“I don’t know. Belinda? Barbara?”
“There ain’t no ‘n’ in Barbara.”
“Nicknames don’t always have the same letters,” Eileen said. “Look at Peggy. Her real name’s Margaret. And there are all sorts of nicknames for Mary—Mamie and Molly and—”
“If Binnie’s short for somethin’, why ain’t nobody ever said what?” she said, and was so skeptical Eileen wondered if their mother had made some comment that had put the idea in their heads. Whatever had, it was the last thing Binnie needed while she was recovering. After a fortnight her eyes had a shadowed look and she hadn’t gained back any of the weight she’d lost.
Eileen said briskly, “If you haven’t got a name, then you must choose one.”
“Choose one?”
“Yes, like in ‘Rumpelstiltskin.’”
“That wasn’t choosin’. It was guessin’.”
Why did I think this would work? Eileen wondered, but after a minute, Binnie said, “If I chose a name, you’d call me it?”