here at Padgett’s waiting on six-year-old psychopaths till either someone came for her or she saved enough money to return to Backbury.
She’d written the vicar on the pretext of telling him she’d safely delivered the children, so he knew where she was staying and could tell the retrieval team, but if she were in Backbury, they wouldn’t have to come to London looking for her.
And it was far safer there. Stepney was bombed constantly, and Oxford Street had already been hit twice. The first time John Lewis had been gutted, which meant it hadn’t been the one Polly had mentioned. She must have got it muddled with the similar-sounding Leighton’s, and Townsend Brothers was where she’d got the idea it was a man’s name.
Thank goodness she hadn’t been hired on at John Lewis. But nowhere on Oxford Street was truly safe. If she’d been on her way to the tube station when John Lewis’s windows blew out…
But at this point she hadn’t managed to save enough money to go to Backbury. She needed not only train fare, but enough to pay her expenses once she got there. Mrs. Willett wasn’t charging her to stay since she watched Theodore at night and since they’d spent every night thus far in the Anderson. But she was charging Eileen board, and there were also her lunches and tube fare. She would have to work another full fortnight before she could afford to go.
And it looked as though it might take Mrs. Sadler that long to decide on a blazer. “No, I’m afraid that isn’t warm enough either,” she was saying. “Haven’t you anything heavier? A tweed, perhaps?”
Eileen went on yet another search, wishing Mrs. Sadler would make up her mind so she could get her purchases written up before Padgett’s closed. The air raids had been starting earlier and earlier this past week, and it was a long way to Stepney. And if she was forced to spend the night in town, Theodore would have to stay next door with Mrs. Willett’s neighbor, and Eileen didn’t trust her to take him out to the Anderson.
She’d had to stay in Padgett’s shelter the night before last, and when she reached home, Theodore’d told her they’d spent the night at Mrs. Owens’s kitchen table playing cards. “She’s teaching me to play gin rummy,” he reported proudly. “And when the bombs get very bad, we hide in the cupboard under the stairs,” and when Eileen had confronted her, Mrs. Owens had said, “That cupboard’s safer than a bit of tin, I don’t care what the government says.”
Eileen hoped Alf and Binnie’s mother didn’t have the same cavalier attitude toward shelters. Whitechapel was bombed nearly every night. She hoped she’d done the right thing in not giving Mrs. Hodbin the vicar’s letter. It was too late to give it to her now. After the City of Benares’s sinking, they’d suspended overseas evacuations, and she’d heard on the wireless this week there was a severe shortage of places for evacuees.
“No, this tweed’s much too rough,” Mrs. Sadler said. “Roland is extremely sensitive.”
Sensitive, my foot, Eileen thought.
“Haven’t you anything in camel’s hair?”
The closing bell rang while Eileen was searching for it. Thank goodness, she thought, but Mrs. Sadler remained oblivious, even though all around them customers were departing and shop assistants were covering their counters and putting on their coats and hats.
“I’m afraid Padgett’s is closing, ma’am,” Eileen said. “Would you like me to send the things you’ve purchased thus far and decide on a blazer tomorrow?”
“No, that won’t do at all,” Mrs. Sadler said. “Roland leaves next Thursday, and if it should need to be altered…”
Eileen’s supervisor, Miss Haskins, hurried up. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Sadler?”
Thank goodness, Eileen thought. Tell her the store is closing, but Mrs. Sadler had already launched into the tale of her decision to evacuate Roland to Scotland. “Everyone said I should send him to the country, but what’s to keep the Germans from bombing Warwickshire as well as London? I want to know that he’s truly safe. In my opinion, the Queen’s simply being foolhardy not to send the Princesses to Scotland. After all, one must put the safety of one’s children first, no matter how painful the separation may be.”
“Painful” is the word, Eileen thought. Roland had taken the opportunity of his mother’s not watching him to pinch Eileen hard on the arm.
“… so you can see how important it is I complete Roland’s shopping today,” Mrs. Sadler was saying.