at least an hour. But if they weren’t … Perhaps I can get Mrs. Bascombe to have her lesson first, she thought.
She found her putting cakes into the oven. “The children just came in,” Mrs. Bascombe said. “I’ve sent them up to the nursery to take off their coats. What did her ladyship want?”
“The vicar’s going to teach us all to drive. And Lady Caroline said to tell you he’s staying to tea.”
“Drive?” Mrs. Bascombe said.
“Yes. So that we can drive an ambulance in case of a bombing incident.”
“Or in case James is called up and she hasn’t anyone to drive her to all her meetings.”
Eileen hadn’t thought of that. She might very well be worried that her chauffeur would be called up. The butler and both footmen had been last month, and Samuels, the elderly gardener, was now manning the front door.
“Well, she’s not getting me in any automobile,” Mrs. Bascombe said, “bombing incident or no bombing incident.”
Which meant Eileen couldn’t exchange with her. It would have to be Samuels.
“When are we to find the time for these lessons? We’ve too much to do as it is. Where are you going?” Mrs. Bascombe demanded.
“To see Mr. Samuels. The vicar’s to give me my first lesson this afternoon, but as it’s my half-day out, I thought perhaps I could exchange with him.”
“No, the Home Guard’s meeting this afternoon.”
“But it’s important,” Eileen said. “Couldn’t he miss—?”
Mrs. Bascombe looked shrewdly at her. “Why are you so eager to have your half-day out today? You’re not meeting a soldier, are you? Binnie said she saw you flirting with a soldier at the railway station.”
Binnie, you little traitor. After I kept our bargain and didn’t tell Mrs. Bascombe about the snake. “I wasn’t flirting, I was giving the soldier instructions for delivering Theodore Willett to his mother.”
Mrs. Bascombe looked unconvinced. “Young girls can’t be too careful, especially in times like these. Soldiers turning girls’ heads, talking them into meeting them in the woods, promising to marry them—” There was a loud thump overhead, followed by a shriek and a sound like a herd of rhinoceri. “What are those wretched children doing now? You’d best go see. It sounds like they’re in the ballroom.”
They were. And the thumps had apparently been the sheet-filled clotheslines coming down. A huddle of children cowered in a corner, menaced by two sheet-draped ghosts with outspread arms. “Alf, Binnie, take those off immediately,” Eileen said.
“They told us they was Nazis,” Jimmy said defensively, which didn’t explain the sheets.
“They said Germans kill little children,” five-year-old Barbara said. “They chased us.”
The damage seemed to be confined to the sheets, thank goodness, though the portrait of Lady Caroline’s hoop-skirted ancestor was hanging crookedly. “We told them we weren’t allowed to play in here,” eight-year-old Peggy said virtuously, “but they wouldn’t listen.”
Alf and Binnie were still freeing themselves from the wet, clinging folds of sheet. “Do the Germans?” Barbara asked, tugging on Eileen’s skirt. “Kill little children?”
“No.”
Alf’s head emerged from the sheet. “They do so. When they invade, they’re going to kill Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. They’re going to cut their ’eads right off.”
“Are they?” Barbara asked fearfully.
“No,” Eileen said. “Outside.”
“But it’s rainin’,” Alf said.
“You should have thought of that before. You can play in the stables.” She herded them all outside and went back up to the ballroom. She straightened the portrait of Lady Caroline’s ancestor, rehung the lines, then began picking the sheets up off the floor. They’d all have to be washed again, and so would the dust sheets covering the furniture.
I wonder how badly it would affect history if I throttled the Hodbins, she thought. Theoretically, historians weren’t able to do anything that would alter events. Slippage kept that from happening. But surely in this instance, it would make an exception. History would so clearly be a better place without them. She stooped to pick up another trampled sheet. “Begging your pardon, miss,” Una said from the door, “but her ladyship wants to see you in the drawing room.”
Eileen thrust the wet sheets into Una’s arms and ran down to change into her pinafore again and then race back upstairs to the drawing room. Mr. and Mrs. Magruder were there. “They’ve come for… er… their children,” said Lady Caroline, who obviously had no idea what the children’s names were.
“For Barbara, Peggy, and Ewan, ma’am?” Eileen said.
“Yes.”
“We missed them so,” Mrs. Magruder said to Eileen. “Our house has been quiet as a tomb without them.” At the phrase “quiet as