her. “She’s in good hands now, and you mustn’t worry. Doctors can do marvelous things. Why don’t you stay here in the shelter with us tonight?”
“I can’t, thank you,” Doreen said to Miss Laburnum and turned to Polly. “Miss Snelgrove asked me to tell everyone, and Nan still doesn’t know. I must find her and tell her.”
“But you can’t,” Polly said. “The sirens will be going any minute now, and you’ve no business being out in a raid.”
“It’s all right. Nan’s usually at Piccadilly,” Doreen said, and looked vaguely around at the notices painted on the wall. “Does the Piccadilly Line run from here?”
“You take the District to Earl’s Court and change from there,” Polly said. “I’ll go with you. Miss Laburnum, tell Sir Godfrey I’ve gone to help a friend locate someone.”
“Oh, but we were to rehearse the shipwreck scene tonight,” Miss Laburnum said. “Sir Godfrey will be so cross.”
She was right. He’d thrown himself into the role not only of butler, but of director, and bellowed at everyone, including Nelson. And if she missed a rehearsal—
“No, no, you needn’t go with me,” Doreen was saying. “I’m much better now. Thank you both.” She handed Miss Laburnum back her handkerchief and hurried off.
“How dreadful!” Miss Laburnum said, looking after her. “To be trapped like that without anyone knowing where you are. You mustn’t feel badly, Miss Sebastian. It wasn’t your fault.”
Yes, it was. I should have known something was wrong, but I was too busy worrying about whether she’d spoken to the retrieval team. I am so sorry, Marjorie.
She went to the hospital the next morning, but all they would tell her was that “the patient is stable,” and that she wouldn’t be able to have visitors “for some time.”
“Perhaps Miss Snelgrove will be able to find out more from the doctors,” Doreen said, passing round a card for everyone to sign with cheerful comments like “Hitler 0, Marjorie 1.”
Polly was doubtful, given Miss Snelgrove’s less-than-charming manner, but she returned full of information. They had operated successfully to remove Marjorie’s spleen; there appeared to be no other damage except for the arm and four broken ribs, and she was expected to make a full recovery, though it would be at least a fortnight before she was able to return to work. She’d lost a good deal of blood.
“She was under several feet of rubble,” Miss Snelgrove said. “It took the rescue squad nearly a day to dig her out after they found her. She was lucky to have been found at all. The house was listed as empty in the ARP ward records. The elderly woman who owned it had shut it up and gone to the country when the bombings began.”
And what was Marjorie doing in an abandoned house? Polly wondered.
“—so the rescuers hadn’t even looked for anyone. If an air-raid warden making his rounds hadn’t heard her calling from under a section of collapsed wall—” Miss Snelgrove shook her head. “She was very lucky. She was apparently in a sort of recessed doorway.”
Like the drop, Polly thought, remembering that night with the bombs falling all around. If the wall had collapsed on the passage, no one would have known she was there either.
“Did they let you in to see her?” Sarah Steinberg, who’d been sent down to fill in for Marjorie, asked.
“No, she’s still much too ill to have visitors,” Miss Snelgrove said. “I gave the matron your grapes and your card, and she promised to deliver them to her.”
“And you’re certain she’s going to be all right?” Doreen asked.
“Quite sure,” Miss Snelgrove said briskly. “She’s in excellent hands, and nothing can be gained by worrying. We must concentrate on the task at hand.”
For the next week, Polly tried to do just that—concentrating on selling stockings, wrapping parcels, learning her lines and her blocking—but she kept seeing Marjorie buried in the rubble: frightened, bleeding, waiting for someone, anyone, to come dig her out. And if she’d been unconscious or unable to call for help, she’d still be there, and no one would ever have known what happened to her.
“Lady Mary!” Sir Godfrey roared at her. “That’s your cue!”
“Sorry.” She said her line.
“No, no, no!” Sir Godfrey bellowed. “You are not on a picnic. You have been shipwrecked. Your vessel has been blown off-course, and no one has any idea where you are. Now, try it again.”
She did, but her mind was on what Sir Godfrey’d said: “No one has any idea where you are.”