afternoon train to London hasn’t already gone, has it?” Eileen asked.
Mr. Tooley squinted at her. “You’re one of the maids up to the manor, an’t ye?” He looked down at Theodore. “This one of her ladyship’s evacuees?”
“Yes, his mother sent for him. He’s to take the train to London today. We haven’t missed it, have we?”
“Sent for him, has she? I’ll wager she said she missed her precious boy. Wants his ration book, more likely. Couldn’t even be bothered to come get him herself.”
“She works in an aircraft factory,” Eileen said defensively. “She couldn’t arrange time off from work.”
“Oh, they can manage it, all right, when they want to. Had two of ’em come in Wednesday on their way to Fitcham. ‘Taking our babies home so we can all be together for Christmas,’ they said. So they could sample the drink at Fitcham’s pub, is more like it. And done a bit of drinking on the way up—”
You’re a fine one to talk, Eileen thought. She could smell the alcohol on his breath from where she stood. “Mr. Tooley,” she said, trying to get him back to the matter at hand, “when is the afternoon train for London due?”
“There’s only the one at 11:19. They discontinued the other last week. The war, you know.”
Oh, no, that meant they’d missed it, and she’d have to take Theodore all the way back to the manor.
“But it hasn’t been through yet, and no tellin’ when it will be. It’s all these troop trains. They push the passenger trains onto a siding till they’ve gone past.”
“I want—” Theodore began.
“Bad as their mothers,” Mr. Tooley said, glaring at him. “No manners. And her ladyship working her fingers to the bone caring for the ungrateful tykes.”
Making her servants work their fingers to the bone, you mean. Eileen only knew of two times Lady Caroline had had anything at all to do with the twenty-two children at the manor: once when they’d arrived—according to Mrs. Bascombe, she’d wanted to ensure that she only got “nice” ones, and had done so by going to the vicarage and choosing them herself like melons—and once when a reporter for the Daily Herald had come to do a piece on the “wartime sacrifices of the nobility.” The rest of the time she confined her care to issuing orders to her servants and complaining about the children making too much noise, using too much hot water, and scuffing up her polished floors.
“It’s wonderful the way her ladyship pitches in and does her bit for the war effort,” Mr. Tooley said. “I know some in her place wouldn’t take in a stray kitten, let alone give a lot of slum brats a home.”
He shouldn’t have said the word “home.” Theodore immediately began tugging on Eileen’s coat. “How late do you think the train will be today, Mr. Tooley?” she asked.
“No telling. Might be hours.”
Hours, and the afternoon was already drawing in. This time of year it began to grow dark by three and was pitch black by five. With the blackout…
“I don’t want to wait hours,” Theodore said. “I want to go home now.”
Mr. Tooley snorted. “Don’t know when they’re well off. Now Christmas is coming, they’ll all want to go home.” Eileen hoped not. Evacuees had begun to trickle back to London as the months of the Phoney War went by, and by the time the Blitz began, 75 percent had been back in London, but she hadn’t thought it would happen so soon.
“You want to go home now, but when the bombing starts, you’ll wish you were back here.” Mr. Tooley shook his finger at Theodore. “But it’ll be too late then.” He stomped back to his office and slammed the door, but none of it had any effect on Theodore.
“I want to go home,” he repeated stolidly.
“The train will be here soon,” Eileen assured him.
“I’ll wager it won’t,” a little boy’s voice said. “It—” and was cut off by a fierce “Shh.”
Eileen turned, but there was no one on the platform. She walked quickly over to the edge and looked down at the tracks. There was no one there either. “Binnie! Alf!” she called. “Come out from under there immediately,” and Binnie crawled out from underneath the platform, followed by her little brother, Alf. “Come up off those tracks. It’s dangerous. The train might come.”
“No, it won’t,” Alf said, balancing on a rail.
“You don’t know that. Come up here immediately.”
The two children climbed up onto the platform. They were both