Kitty Little (34 page)

Miss Bebe looked sympathetic. ‘Healthy? Normal?’

‘Oh no, she’s perfectly healthy,
and
normal. A charming child, only her mother isn’t... She never... I mean...’

‘Ah, you’re trying to say that she’s illegitimate, aren’t you? Well, we mustn’t condemn the child for that. It wasn’t her fault after all. And there is a war on.’ As if that excused this loss of morals. ‘Perhaps we can help the poor mother to repent of her immoral ways and be saved.’

Charlotte put her hand to her mouth and dropped her gaze, as if she were shocked by such bluntness, though in truth she was striving to smother her laughter. The very idea of Kitty being ‘saved’ was an utter delight.

Miss Bebe’s voice dropped to a confidential whisper. ‘Don’t tell Hetty though. Not yet. She is not quite so liberal minded as myself, do you see? I shall break it to her gently, later.’

‘Ah yes. I do see,’ Charlotte whispered back in the same tone, not seeing at all.

‘She tends to be a woman of opinions, which is why she never quite caught a man, if you catch my drift. I, of course, had any number of proposals all of which I refused because of my responsibility to Hetty. I couldn’t leave her alone, now could I?’

‘No, no. Of course not.’

‘Though I could still find a husband tomorrow, had I the inclination.’

Charlotte agreed that she probably could and smiled for the first time quite genuinely, itching to say that husbands were really so very easy to find, one could even have two, if one wished. She decided there and then that this was the place for Dixie. These two eccentric old dears appeared ideal for a wayward, wilful child. Good, clean living folk who would provide proper bed times, simple, wholesome food and chapel every Sunday; otherwise Archie would be dragging her back home again in no time. ‘Would you like to meet her? May I bring Dixie on a visit?’

Miss Bebe clapped her hands together in delight and as her sister set down the refilled tea pot, Miss Frost declared she’d been about to suggest the very same thing.

‘We are ever of one mind,’ Miss Bebe said, on a note of placid satisfaction.

There then followed a short discussion on the practicalities of accommodation, costs incurred (which they assured her would be modest) and the Nanny who would naturally be employed by Archie to take care of the child. Charlotte was careful not to give any reason other than that of decent humanity for Archie to be paying for all of this. The two sisters appeared overwhelmed by this evidence of his benevolent generosity to a fellow actor, and spoke movingly of their own Christian endeavours during these dark days of war.

‘We have rolled goodness knows how many yards of bandages.’

‘And no one can knit balaclavas and mittens as quickly as dear Hetty,’ Miss Bebe informed Charlotte with pride. ‘We are happy to do what we can for our boys in France.’

‘There is just one small concern,’ Miss Frost cautiously pointed out. ‘We can’t be doing with a lot of mess about the place. Because of our guests, naturally. Or noise for that matter. I mean, the fact that she’s a girl is the only reason we’re prepared to consider the idea. A boy would be quite inappropriate, you understand.’

‘Yes, I do see that.’ Charlotte privately thought that the money might come in rather handy too, judging by the age of the wallpaper and the shabby furniture in the dark parlour, though judiciously refrained from comment. Instead she thanked the sisters for their goodness and charity though even she was beginning to be concerned about the costs involved. The total would amount to a fair sum each month, of which Kitty would contribute nothing. Money was becoming an increasing problem in these inflationary times. Charlotte thought she might be forced to reconsider her position and pay “Mother” another visit after all.

‘She is a good, quiet child, isn’t she?’

‘You’ll hardly know she’s there,’ Charlotte agreed.

There was absolutely no danger of the Misses Frost ever forgetting that Dixie was in residence at Laburnham House. Her tantrums and screams whenever Nanny tried to coax her into doing something she didn’t care for, seemed to vibrate through the tall house with alarming frequency throughout the day. She point blank refused to sleep in the cot they provided, choosing instead a mahogany Empire bed, which had to be moved specially from another room.
 

They soon abandoned the notion of allowing her to eat with the other guests in the dining room, as Dixie would toss lettuce leaves, which she loathed, over the sides of her high chair, or tip the pudding dish upside down upon her head. This always caused great amusement to the other diners but was not, in Miss Frost’s opinion, conducive to encouraging them to return.

The child was once found seated quite comfortably in the coal house, crunching on lumps of coal. Her clean frock, impish face, even her little pink tongue and white teeth were caked in black dust.

But there were rare moments when the child was an absolute delight. She loved to help Miss Bebe make gingerbread men or jam tarts. Or she would deck herself out in the sisters’ beads, and beam at them delightedly. Though even these apparently harmless pursuits could disintegrate into another tantrum if she wasn’t allowed to eat as many as she wished, or the beads taken from her before she was bored.

And if she didn’t get her way, Dixie would lie on the kitchen floor and drum her heels while the two sisters would wring their hands and wonder what on earth they were doing wrong.

Nanny, poor girl, seemed entirely out of her depth, constantly apologising for her small charge but quite unable to control her. Miss Frost would insist that the infant required more discipline, though even she could be melted by Dixie’s charms at bath time when her angelic baby face would glow pink with the heat and moisture. Dixie would sit contentedly pouring water from one bottle into another, humming little tunes to herself until the water had gone quite cold.

‘Perhaps she will be a chemist when she grows up,’ the sisters would speculate.

‘Or a doctor.’

‘Or she could become a fine cook for some country gentleman.’

All speculation was brought to an end the day Miss Frost opened the lid of the piano to play her favourite ditties and Dixie pulled up a kitchen stool, climbed upon it and began to sing. From that moment on, they were her captives, for Dixie had the sweetest, truest voice you could ever hope to hear.

Chapter Twenty

The LTP’s travelled fifty miles or more every day, moving from one rest billet to the next. Kitty had attempted to persuade Captain Williams to allow them nearer to the Front, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Passing through the ruin of Arras proved to be dangerous enough, surrounded as they were by coils of barbed wire through which they must negotiate a safe passage. So many of the French towns were little more than skeletal ruins with no hope of ever being rebuilt; smashed houses, hollow-eyed women, children crying, the stink of gas and the sweet sickly odour of decay. And often on the outskirts would be a row of simple wooden crosses - a testament to the bravery of lost youth.

The roads too were choc-a-bloc with ammunition trucks, supply carts and wagons laden with the detritus of war. Occasionally they would pass encampments seething with men and horses, and everywhere there were guns.

Nevertheless Kitty was determined to reach as many of the battalions as they could so pushed them ever onward, despite the group’s increasing weariness, making their way parallel to the Front Line. She always found time to stop and talk to any company of men they met along the way, exchanging news, listening to their troubles, agreeing to see that letters would be safely dispatched back home to their loved ones.

Captain Owen worried if the group on the road got too big, or dallied too long and would urge them to move on before they were noticed by the scouting planes. Sometimes Kitty would heed his fears, at others she’d have Reg unstrap the small piano, for all they were generally short of time, and go straight into an impromptu concert there and then on the muddy road beneath the trees, or even once in a shell crater. The soldiers loved it and would always go on their way singing, their hearts lifted.

It was after one such performance as they stood in the mud and rain helping to reload the camion, that Kitty ventured to ask the Captain the question which had been bothering her ever since Jacob had mentioned it. ‘Might I ask why you were chosen for this job? It can’t be much fun wet-nursing a troupe of actors.’

He answered without hesitation. ‘Because I was the best man for the job.’

Kitty gave a shout of laughter as she tossed a blanket into the back of the truck. The arrogance of the man was beyond belief. ‘And clearly the most modest,’ she mocked, aware that he was prevaricating. As ever, he avoided answering a direct question.

‘Maybe I have a fancy for the thespian life myself.’

‘You’d be happy to grace any stage, any tin hut or shell-hole in any part I cared to offer, is that the way of it?’ She wiped the rain from her face and pushed back her hair, eyebrows raised in disbelief. ‘So that you can fulfil your fantasies?’

For a moment he made no reply but simply gazed solemnly down into her face. Kitty was tall, but this man topped her by inches. The collar of his great coat was turned up against the weather, his face blue with cold, deep lines of weariness carved into his cheeks at either side of his mouth. She had a sudden longing to put up her mittened hands to warm them. Then came a rare smile.

‘I trust you would never offer me a small part, Miss Little.’

‘Kitty Little if you don’t mind.
Miss
, makes me sound rather like a Sunday School teacher.’

He laughed. ‘I fear your troupe is tired and in need of some new blood. Who knows, perhaps I could provide it.’

Kitty felt her cheeks start to burn as she heard murmurs of assent from the others, who were standing around stamping their feet with cold and blatantly eavesdropping on this conversation. The implication that they weren’t up to the task in hand, irritated her enormously, and her response was tart. ‘We certainly lack young men. What acting troupe doesn’t these days?’

‘Then why couldn’t I do my bit?’

‘You’re a soldier, not an actor. You have no experience.’

Reg cleared his throat and politely intervened. ‘Hrrmph. Captain Owen does have some experience, as a matter of fact.’

Kitty glared at Reg. So it was Captain Owen now, was it, instead of the more formal Williams?

‘Indeed,’ he calmly agreed, his voice all affable charm and smiling bonhomie. ‘In civilian life, I did tread the boards a little. Even directed my own small theatre company for a short time, though sadly it was closed down and turned into a cinema. Which probably answers your first question as to why I was the one chosen to ‘wet-nurse’ you. Your choice of phrase, not mine.’

Feeling increasingly wrong-footed Kitty bluntly informed him that had she ever been fortunate enough to own a small theatre, she would never have allowed such a terrible thing to happen. Cinema, she informed him loftily, was a passing fad.

‘If you say so.’

The next twenty minutes were taken up by them all putting their shoulders to lifting the piano back up into the back of the truck. ‘Small it may be, but it ain’t light,’ Reg complained, as he did every time it was moved.

‘Then don’t get it out unless you have to. The roadside is not the place for a concert,’ Captain Owen warned, though he had said this so often, no one listened any more. They all climbed up alongside it, sitting with their backs to one side of the camion with their feet propped against the piano. Kitty closed her eyes, suddenly bone weary and desperate for sleep.

‘Ah, but your motives for performing are so much better than mine,’ came that persistent soft voice in her ear, as irritating as a bluebottle. ‘Taking art to the masses, isn’t that what you used to do? Very worthy. Even being here, in this Godforsaken place, speaks volumes for your charity. So noble of you. Not a sign of a lost lover anywhere. Whereas I’m in this dratted war because I must be.’

Kitty bestowed upon him a narrow-eyed glare, wondering if there could be any sincerity at all behind his words in spite of the irony in his tone. She itched to hit back, to smack his arrogant, handsome face with the flat of her hand. Instead, she found herself leaning heavily against his shoulder, eyelids drooping, head nodding while she sternly informed him that tired though they may be, they were still perfectly capable of hard work. ‘My cast may have their problems - who doesn’t?’ she mumbled, already half asleep. ‘But bully-boy tactics would never work with them.’

‘Bully-boy? Is that what you think I am?’ he whispered against her hair. ‘I was merely voicing an opinion that there are one or two members of your team in need of a boot up the backside.’ He nudged her gently awake again and nodded in the direction of Tessa, who spent much of her time hunched in the cab, particularly when there was work to be done, and now seemed intent on stuffing half a dozen pink pills down her throat. Then over to Jacob, who had fallen instantly asleep, the neck of a whisky bottle protruding from his coat pocket, which spoke volumes over why he was snoring so loudly.
 

Kitty groaned as she took in the significance of all of this. The same old problems yet again. Should she send Tessa home? She was clearly far from well and had spent much of last night on the latrine. Was the poor old boy getting past it, this whole trip too much for him? Perhaps it was too much for them all.