written Mrs. Hodbin but hadn’t had an answer, and no one in Warwickshire would take them. “I’ve written the Evacuation Committee,” the vicar said, “but they’re swamped with billeting requests just now. Everyone’s afraid the Germans will begin bombing London soon.”
They will, Eileen thought, and then there’d be no chance at all of placing Alf and Binnie. More than a hundred thousand children had been evacuated from London after the Blitz began. They needed to find Alf and Binnie a home immediately.
Lady Caroline had sent Samuels ahead with her trunks to Chadwick House, where she was going to stay with the Duchess of Lynmere, which left Eileen, Una (who was useless), and Mrs. Bascombe to finish preparations for the Army’s arrival on their own. And no time for Eileen to check the drop or go to Backbury to ask if anyone had been inquiring after her. Or to look for another position.
If she could find one. A number of households were making “wartime economies,” which meant they were cutting back on the number of their servants, and there were no “Housemaid Wanted’s” in the Backbury Bugler. Una had announced she was joining the ATS, and Mrs. Bascombe was going to Shropshire to help out a niece whose husband had joined up, so Eileen couldn’t stay with either of them, and Backbury had no inn, even if she had enough money for one. And even if she did stay, there was no guarantee the drop would open or that a retrieval team would come. It had already been nearly four months.
You’re going to have to find another way of getting home, she thought. She needed to go to London, find Polly, and use her drop. If she’s there.
She wasn’t coming till the Blitz. It would begin in September—Eileen didn’t know the exact date. I should have asked Polly, she thought, but it had never occurred to her she’d still be here when Polly arrived. And the Army didn’t take possession of the manor till the middle of September. The Blitz would surely have begun by then.
The idea of being in the midst of the bombing terrified her, but she couldn’t think of anyone else she could go to. Michael Davies had been in Dover, but the evacuation of Dunkirk had been months ago. He’d have long since gone back by now. She thought Gerald Phipps was here—she remembered him saying something about August when she’d seen him in the lab—but she didn’t know where. He’d told her, but she couldn’t remember. It had begun with a D. Or a P.
She didn’t know where Polly would be either. She’d said she was going to be working in a department store in Oxford Street and that Mr. Dunworthy would only allow her to work in one that hadn’t been bombed, and Eileen had a vague memory of her naming them. Which ones had she said? Eileen wished she’d paid more attention, but she’d been worrying about getting her driving authorization. She remembered one had been a man’s name.
She went down to the kitchen to ask Mrs. Bascombe if she knew the names of any of Oxford Street’s stores. “You’re not thinking of working in one of them places, are you?” Mrs. Bascombe said.
“No, I’ve a cousin who does. I’m going to stay with her.”
“Two girls on their own in London? With all them soldiers about? You’ve no more business in the big city than Una has in the ATS. I’ll tell you what I told her: You stay in service where you belong.”
She’d have to wait till she got to London to find out the name of the store. If she could get there. With the wages she had coming, she had enough for a second-class ticket, but she would need money to tide her over till she found Polly. Since it was the Blitz, she might be able to sleep in a shelter, but she would still need money for meals and bus fare.
But she would have to worry about that later. She had other, more pressing problems. Theodore’s mother wrote to say that the aeroplane factory she worked in had gone to double shifts and she couldn’t come for Theodore till the Saturday after next. They still hadn’t heard from Alf and Binnie’s mother, and when she went to the vicarage on the first of September to deliver a message from Lady Caroline, the vicar said, “I can’t find anyone to take them. Their reputation obviously precedes them. We may have