Don't Know Where, Don't Know When (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Hannah gave a short laugh through her tears, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and nodded with a watery smile.

  “Of course he adores her,” said the Professor gently. “Mrs. D. has made Eric feel loved for the first time in his life. And you like her, Hannah, despite everything, because you can tell that she’s brave, and caring, and trustworthy. She has her faults, and she’s unlike anyone you know in our world, but she is kind and decent. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Hannah sighed, and gave a rueful half-smile. “Why do the Brits need an army to fight the Nazis? They could have saved themselves a whole lot of trouble, and just sent her to Berlin instead. If Mrs. D. took Hitler over her knee, the war would be over….”

  “That’s the spirit,” said the Professor, laughing. She turned the key in the ignition, and they set off again. “You know, I just might borrow that joke… I’m glad to see you cheer up, because you need a sense of humor when you’re in another time and place, Hannah. Time travel is like ordinary travel, only more so: It tends to turn our ideas of what is right and usual completely upside down. Believe me, I do know.”

  “Okay, but I still don’t get something. If Mrs. D. is so nice and all, why doesn’t she care that she hurt my feelings?”

  The Professor groaned. “I have said all that I’m going to say. You must form your own opinions. But I hope you’ll think carefully about everything I’ve told you.”

  They pulled up outside the Archers’ house. The Professor said, “Life’s complicated, isn’t it? And time only makes it more so.”

  “I guess,” said Hannah uncertainly, as she stepped carefully out of the car, grimacing. But then, she paused, and turned to look curiously at the Professor. “How do you know all this stuff, anyway? Like, what Mrs. D. is thinking?”

  “I told you,” said the Professor. “I’m an historian. Good night, now.” And with that, she drove off.

  Hannah dragged herself slowly upstairs to her brother’s room, flinching with every step. Alex was having a nap, but she woke him, tugging at his shoulder. He struggled to sit up, pulling the sheets and blankets around him. Gingerly, Hannah sat on the bed, and immediately turned, lying down on her side. In tragic tones, she described to Alex what had happened since his departure, with special emphasis on her own indignity and suffering. She chose not to mention ninety percent of her conversation with the Professor.

  Finally, Alex shook his head, and said, through his stuffy nose, “Hannah, I’ve been listening to the radio. Do you know that World War Two is happening? It’s happening right now, and it’s about thirty miles away, okay? Bombs are falling on London. People are dying. Everyone’s afraid. So, excuse me if I don’t care that Mrs. D. flipped out and spanked you. No permanent scars, right?”

  “She totally damaged my self-esteem!” exclaimed an indignant Hannah.

  “Wow, did she? Did she really?” said Alex in a voice laden with sarcasm. “Hey, is that a new name you gave to your butt?”

  Hannah gasped.

  “Look, sis, I’m sorry, but it’s no big deal. Everyone will get over it. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  “No wonder I have issues,” Hannah raged, “when my little brother is such an insensitive jerk.” Suddenly forgetting her delicate state, she stormed from the room.

  When school ended on Wednesday, Hannah found Eric waiting for her at the gate.

  “Eric, are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

  He was puzzled. “Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be? Why? Has somefing happened?”

  “You know…Sunday.”

  “Oh, that,” he said with a wan smile. “Nah, ‘course I’m alright. Mind you, when the old girl’s on the warpath, her bite is a damn sight worse than her bark, innit?”

  “She shouldn’t have whipped us,” said Hannah, shaking her head. “I mean, no offense to Mrs. D., but that’s child abuse.”

  Eric scoffed at her. “Don’t be so soft. What did you think she would do, give us all a medal? I’m just happy she’s not going to pack me off to another billet. Mind you, Verity said I was daft even to fink she would do that to me.” He smiled happily at Hannah, and looked at his wristwatch. “Look, I can’t ‘ang about,” he said, “but I ‘ave got some good news: Mrs. D. wants you and Alex to come round the ‘ouse on Friday afternoon. Verity’s got an ‘alf-day ‘oliday off school, so she’ll be ‘ome, too.”

  Hannah was amazed. “Mrs. D. wants to see me? So soon?”

  He laughed. “Of course she does. Verity’s right. She’s a big believer in bygones being bygones, is Mrs. D. And, anyway, she wants to talk to you. You see, after me and Verity stopped ‘opping up and down the hall clutching our bums, we got her to listen to us about what I reckon I saw at that woman’s ‘ouse. And ‘ere’s what else, and you’ll never believe it. Mrs. D. got a letter yesterday, the WVS in London thought she ought to see it. It’s from some bloke, name of George Braithwaite.”

  Chapter 10

  Mysteries and Messages

  It was a late afternoon, not long after the Balesworth Arms pub had opened, and customers were already trickling in. A strong smell of stale beer and a fog of tobacco smoke hung in the air. A woman and two couples sat at the small tables and the cushioned benches that lined the walls beneath the frosted windows. Only three men stood at the bar, each of them resting a foot on the brass rail that ran along its base.

  Among them were Constable Ellsworth, the billeting officer Mr. Simmons, and, newly arrived, Mr. Smedley, who was digging in his pocket for change.

  “My round, I think. You’re both having a pint of best, right?” Smedley said to the others. To the middle-aged woman behind the bar, he said, “Same again, love.”

  “No more pints, boys. Only halves of bitter for the rest of the night, Betty,” said the pub landlord, edging past his wife. “Same goes for the mild, too.”

  “Old Adolf’s got a lot to answer for,” said the constable. “But a shortage of beer, I mean to say, Ernie, what’s the world coming to?”

  The landlord shrugged his shoulders. “There’s a war on, in’t there?”

  While Betty pulled the handle to dispense beer into a dimpled half-pint glass, Smedley turned back to the other two men.

  “So, how’s tricks, then? Evacuees all settling in alright?”

  “Seem to be,” said Mr. Simmons the billeting officer, taking a sip of beer. “No complaints from my end. Mind you, I mostly let the WVS keep an eye on them. I think it needs a woman’s touch, dealing with all the domestic arrangements. What about you? Did you ever find that little Negro kid who ran off?”

  Smedley let a cigarette and shook his head. “No. Vanished into thin air. We reckon a bomb might’ve got ‘im, poor mite.”

  Exhaling smoke, Smedley turned to Constable Ellsworth. “No nicking from the shops, then, or scrumping apples from some farmer’s orchards? These evacuees can be a right tough lot of little so-and-sos.”

  Ellsworth said, “Well, we did have the one incident, just this past Sunday as it so happens: Two evacuees and a local girl, bothering some woman and breaking her window.”

  “I didn’t hear about that, Jim,” said Simmons.

  “You wouldn’t, would you,” said Ellsworth, taking a drag from his cigarette, “because I haven’t said anything to anyone about it. The local kid was only Mrs. Devenish’s granddaughter, and one of the evacuees was hers, too.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Simmons, significantly. He lit a cigarette, and blew out a great puff of smoke.

  Seeing Smedley’s bafflement, Ellsworth explained. “Mrs. Devenish is one of our local magistrates. She’s a bit of a tartar, between you and me, so I left her to deal with the three kids. I’ll bet those little blighters won’t sit down for a week.”

  Simmons said, “I say, Mrs. Devenish should know better than that. There was some edict came down from London, said that you can clip the evacuees round the ear and so forth, but that they shouldn’t be beaten. At least, I think that’s what it said. I don’t always read these things too closely.”
r />   “Yeah, well, good luck to that,” said Ellsworth, with a snort. “I mean, it’s one thing when people are treating the kids like dogs, that’s when I’ll take steps if I get wind of it, I promise you. But it’s another thing altogether when they treat them like their own kids. I’ve no objections if they give them a hiding when it’s warranted. And would you want to be the one who tells off Mrs. Devenish?”

  “Well…er…no…” admitted Mr. Simmons.

  “It is the law,” grumbled Smedley.

  “Well,” said Simmons, “with apologies to Charles Dickens, there are times when the law is an ass. No offense, Constable.”

  Ellsworth laughed. “None taken, mate,” he said. “Anyway, the end of the story is that I ended up in Mrs. D.’s good books, because I kept it on the QT about what the kids got up to.” He tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

  “Except for telling us about it,” Simmons interrupted with a short laugh. “Careless talk costs lives, eh?”

  “Yes, well, obviously, I’d be much obliged if it didn’t go any further,” said Ellsworth, flustered. “Having Mrs. Devenish in my corner should make my life easier next time I go to give evidence in magistrate’s court. Usually, she’s far too much concerned for the rights of the accused, that one. That’s the trouble with having some of these ladies on the magistrates’ bench. Last time I was in court, Mrs. Devenish questioned my evidence about an old widow woman who had pinched two tins of beef from the grocer’s. What do you reckon to that, eh? She said the old dear probably just forgot to pay, and that it wouldn’t be right to punish her. I mean, I ask you, what a blinkin’ waste of police time.”

  “You said two of the kids were hers, but what about the other evacuee you mentioned?” asked Smedley.

  “Yes, who is it, anyhow?” asked Simmons.

  Ellsworth tapped his chin with his fingers. “Oh, let me think…I’m sure she told me…Day’s the name. Hannah Day.”

  “I remember her!” Simmons said. He turned to Smedley. “She was a cheeky little madam. Came in with a brother, and that colored boy of yours. Odd thing, really. Some WVS woman from London brought them, and then went off in a hurry. They weren’t with the rest of the children that day, but we got the girl and her brother settled with Geoffrey Archer and his wife. Nice enough couple, although I heard my wife say that Archer’s missis isn’t very happy with the kids. Nothing too urgent, I gather, but she’s asking around, trying to find them another billet. I’m not surprised, now I know what the little beggars have been up to.”

  “Is she now?” said Smedley thoughtfully. “Maybe I can help? Look, give me an address for these people, and I’ll see if I can’t sort something out. It’s a bit late tonight, but I’ll be back up this way in a few days….”

  “I say, that’s very good of you,” said Mr. Simmons. “Saves me the trouble, and, to be honest, while I don’t mind the old pencil-pushing, I’m a bit at sea when it comes to that sort of thing.” He asked the landlady for a pencil and paper.

  It was a quiet evening in the fall of 1915, when Brandon plunked himself down in a chair in the parlor. Too late, he saw that Mrs. Gordon was already seated in a corner of the room, working on a piece of embroidery. He had always managed to avoid being alone with her before.

  She looked up and stared at him sourly, reminding Brandon of his Aunt Morticia, who could screw up her face until she looked like a prune.

  “I would really prefer that you not sit in this room,” Mrs. Gordon snapped. “The kitchen is a more proper place for you…assuming that any place in this house, or in this country, might be described as proper for one of your kind.”

  Brandon felt his anger rise, and he decided that while he would not lose his temper, neither would he try to please her. As casually as he could, he picked up a book at random from the table. Within minutes, he was tempted to give up on it, because it was very boring. But suddenly he realized, to his shock, that the author was arguing that non-white people were inferior to white people. He glanced at the cover, which read The Science of Eugenics. Flipping through the chapters, he saw that the author had also written that white English people, whom he called Anglo-Saxons, were far superior to other Europeans, such as the French and Germans. The author also seemed to have a special dislike of Jewish people. It was all very disturbing.

  Just then, Oliver entered the room, clutching The Time Machine, one of his favorite books, and gave Brandon a quick smile.

  “I trust you find that informative?” said Mrs. Gordon to Brandon, nodding pointedly at the book on eugenics.

  “Very much so,” said Brandon, staring hard at her.

  “I’m surprised you can understand it,” she retorted.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Brandon, angrily.

  “What that means,” she said, laying down her embroidery in her lap, “is that Negroes such as yourself are among the many alien races weakening the purity and strength of the English people. I don’t know where you came from, but I do wish that you would go back there.”

  “Yorkshire?” said Brandon, raising an eyebrow at her.

  “You know what I mean. Whichever savage country your family came from. Not long down from the trees, I imagine.”

  Brandon’s struggle with his temper was usually successful, but not this time.

  “You are a stuck-up, ignorant racist,” he seethed. “I bet you’ve never even been out of Balesworth more than half a dozen times in your life. You don’t know anything.”

  “How dare you, you…you nigger,” she hissed at him. “How dare you speak like that to a white woman?”

  “How dare you use that word to me?” shouted Brandon.

  Oliver had been observing this exchange with alarm, but now he jumped to his feet.

  “Leave him alone, Aunt Sarah!” he yelled. “George is jolly clever, and really nice too. And he talks to me, and you never do.”

  “And you,” she said, rising to her feet, and staring down her little nephew, “ought to be flogged. I shall have a word with your uncle.”

  But Oliver knew better. “Uncle Bob would never beat me, if he knew what you were saying to George. You’re a nasty old witch, and I hate you.” He stamped his foot.

  His aunt glared at him. Then she said quietly, “I didn’t want you in this house, you know. We shall be glad to see the back of you when you go to boarding school next year.”

  Brandon could see that Oliver was devastated, and was struggling not to cry. Suddenly, the child threw down his book onto the floor, and ran from the room, sobbing.

  Brandon looked at Mrs. Gordon in wonderment. “What the hell is the matter with you? What kind of woman would do that to a little boy? I’m going to pray for you, Mrs. Gordon, because it seems to me like you need all the help you can get.”

  She was unmoved. “Don’t bother making any prayers on my behalf to your heathen god,” she said stonily.

  Without another word, Brandon left the room to go and look for Oliver.

  In the kitchen, Mary and Brandon comforted Oliver, soaking up his tears with cloth handkerchiefs, and tried to persuade him to eat some of his favorite cake. Suddenly, one of the service bells rang.

  “It’s the study,” Mary said, looking up. “Back in a minute.” She hurried toward the stairs. A minute later, she returned. “It’s Mr. Gordon, George. He wants to see you.”

  “Can you tell him I’ll be up in a couple of minutes?” Brandon said, glancing anxiously at the inconsolable Oliver.

  “Sorry, George,” she said, giving him a sympathetic look. “He said he wants you upstairs straightaway.”

  Brandon had expected to be in trouble, and he was.

  “I cannot allow my apprentice to speak like that to my wife,” fumed Mr. Gordon, as he paced about the study in front of Brandon, who was standing to attention before the desk, “or to any member of the family. What on earth were you thinking, George?”

  “She… Mrs. Gordon…said that black people live in trees, and she was really mean to Oliver… Sir.�
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  Mr. Gordon paused. “What prompted that?” he asked curiously. Brandon told him as politely as he could, and Mr. Gordon looked both thoughtful and angry at the same time.

  Finally, he said, “My wife has demanded that I rescind your indentures, or, failing that, that I beat you. I have told her that I cannot afford to lose you, that your work is satisfactory, and that the shortage of workers would make it difficult for me to replace you. That, of course, would appear to leave me no choice in resolving the matter.”

  Brandon nervously wondered which part of the apprenticeship contract he had apparently not read closely enough, as he watched Mr. Gordon take off his belt. But immediately, Mr. Gordon put his finger to his lips and handed the belt to Brandon.

  “George,” he whispered conspiratorially, “she’ll be listening. Just go and thrash the armchair, would you, lad? Gie it laldy….That means hit it hard.”

  After Brandon did as he was told, enthusiastically bashing the armchair and throwing in an occasional yell for effect, he handed back Mr. Gordon’s belt to him with a smile.

  “Ach, just man to man, I’ll tell you, she’s not a bad woman, in her way,” said Mr. Gordon, pouring out a whisky for each of them, to Brandon’s amusement. “But she has always had some funny ideas, and the war has made her worse. She reads all this eugenics nonsense, even though my late brother-in-law was a medical man, and he used to tell her it was absolute tripe.”