The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(65)

I must have passed out cold as I have no idea how I got to Mrs. Tilling’s house, or even what time it was when I finally awoke. All I knew was that I was in a strange, tiny room, on a soft, small bed. I could hardly move. My body was in colossal pain, my arm especially. I just lay there, blinking into the dark, until I made out that I was in a bed in Mrs. Tilling’s little back room. My arm had been thickly bandaged, and I was wearing an old white nightdress. Everything seemed incredibly blurry, and when I coughed I felt like I had a sack full of grit in my throat.

“Are you feeling all right?” Mrs. Tilling asked, stroking my forehead. As I looked into her worried eyes, it all flooded back to me, and I began to cry, although not hard, as everything hurt.

“What happened to the baby?” I asked through my sobs.

“She’s fine. She calmed down and now she’s asleep in a drawer downstairs.”

“A drawer?”

“Yes, we don’t have a crib, so Colonel Mallard emptied some clothes from a drawer in his dresser, pulled it out, and set it on the kitchen table with a few blankets to make it soft. I dare say it’s a bit old-fashioned to use a drawer,” she shrugged. “But it’s the least of Rose’s problems. She has her life, which is all thanks to you.”

“And her mother? Did Hattie—”

She shook her head. “No, she didn’t make it,” she whispered, the pain catching in her throat like it was choking her. “Prim was killed, too.” A look of anger swept over her, before she quickly replaced it with her usual practicality. “We don’t know what will happen to baby Rose. She has no other close relatives. Victor has an aunt, his mother’s sister, in Wiltshire, so I’ll write to her.”

The news passed over me like a saturated storm cloud waiting to pour out its contents at a later time. Hattie was gone. Prim, too. It was still only words.

“What about Alastair?”

She took my hand, which was also bandaged. “We don’t know what happened to him,” she said quietly. “Was he supposed to be at home last night? Was he waiting for you?”

I looked at her, unsure what she was asking.

“He hasn’t been found yet.” She went on slowly, choosing her words carefully. “We don’t know if he was in the house when it was struck. We thought maybe you’d know?”

My mind was in a muddle. Had he been there? All the other places he could have been flitted through my mind. He could have been in a meeting with spies or black marketeers, or lying in Peasepotter Wood shot dead. I remembered the tall angry man he’d met, the one with clothes too short for him, Alastair handing him the passport.

Why hadn’t I thought of it before? The tall man must have been the downed Nazi pilot the Defense Volunteers have been trying to find. It explains the short clothes, why he was trying to escape the country. I couldn’t believe it. Alastair was helping an enemy soldier. How could he do such a thing?

And how could I love a man like that?

My mind reeled with pain. Through this tangle of doubt and fear, I still couldn’t bear the thought that he might be dead. Might he have been in his house last night? Had I really been expecting him to be there? We’d made no arrangement to meet. The last time we’d been together was when I’d stormed off through the orchard yesterday morning, without even saying good-bye.

We’d never said good-bye.

I began to cry again, softly, silently, and Mrs. Tilling took my hand between hers. It was all too much. Alastair missing, Prim dead, Hattie—my dear friend—gone, leaving her baby motherless. It was all too much.

Eventually I went back to sleep. Mrs. Tilling must have been sitting with me all night, as she was still there when I awoke again in the morning, the sound of the crying baby filling the house.

“Who’s looking after the baby?” I asked. The crying made me nervy, although I suppose that’s its job, to get us women up and moving. It stopped abruptly, as if someone had picked Rose up.

“Colonel Mallard,” she replied. “He seems to have quite a knack.” She lifted her eyebrows as if surprised, although somehow it made sense to me.

“Is she all right? All that smoke—”

“She’s got a cough, but honestly, Venetia, it’s a miracle she’s alive. And you, too!” She looked at me crossly. “Did you know that the building was about to explode when you went in to get her?”

“I didn’t think.” I started getting out of bed, somehow feeling more alert, wanting to be up, finding out what happened to Alastair. “I couldn’t bear the crying and felt, well, compelled.” As I spoke, my memory flashed back to that moment. “I was shouting for help, but no one was there, and the baby was just screaming and screaming. It was only me. I had to go.”

“I think you should stay in bed, Venetia.” She guided me back into bed, pulling the worn counterpane up around me. “You lost a lot of blood.”

I looked at the bandage on my arm, remembering the gash. “Is it bad?”

“I put some stitches in it,” she said in her calm way.

“And the baby? My baby?” I whispered.

“It’s doing all right for now,” she said. “But you’re recovering from concussion, as well as being very battered and bruised. The baby won’t stand a chance if you keep trying to get up. Shall I get your mother to come and get you?”