The Children's Book

through and look for this person. Our son is missing in Flanders. Presumed dead. It is bad, out there.”

The chauffeur said, in a Kentish voice,

“You can see where we go. You can keep an eye. You’ll see us come back. There’s nowhere to go you can’t see us, it’s all bare.”

So they drove on. Katharina imagined, not incorrectly, Charles/Karl on his bicycle, on the stony path. They came to the cottage.

A young woman was hanging out washing.

The chauffeur opened the door, and Katharina, in her veiled hat and driving-coat, stepped down.

“We are looking for a Miss Elsie Warren.”

“Well, you’ve found her,” said Elsie, finishing the pegging of a towel. Katharina’s voice trembled. She said “Can we go inside? Sit down? Please.”

“If you wish. Come in.”

Basil stepped out of the car, bowed and caped. Elsie gathered her basket of clothes under one arm, balancing it on a hip, and opened the door. They all went in. Elsie asked if they would like a cup of tea, and Katharina thought she could not sit, with the weight of her news, and endure the tea-making. She asked for water, and Elsie brought water for all of them.

“We have received,” Katharina said, “a letter. It tells us our son Charles is missing. It tells us we must think he is dead.” Elsie took a sip of water. She was rigid.

“We had a letter,” Katharina said, “from him. For—for this time. He asked us—to look for you.”

“It’s true,” Elsie said, in a thin, expressionless voice. “What he told you. We were married before he went out. The vicar could show you the register. You needn’t worry yourselves. I don’t want anything. I’ll not bother you.”

Katharina said “What he said. She is very independent. Taking care of her is hard, as I have found, myself.”

“That’s him,” said Elsie. One tear rolled down her cheek. She said “I lived here with Mrs. Oakeshott and Robin and Ann. Robin was killed in France. Like Mrs. Wellwood’s Robin. So Mrs. Oakeshott went to work in a hospital in Hove, when they closed the school. The military want to have this cottage—for their staff—but I need to stay here and mind Ann. Philip’s in Flanders—my brother. Charles came back once, on leave, some time after Robin was killed, and left us some money. I need to find work. Ann is almost a young woman. She’ll have to find work, too.”

“Ann?” said Katharina.

“Oh no. Don’t think that. Ann’s sixteen. Ann’s not—not your granddaughter.”

“So you were married before?” said Basil Wellwood.

“No. No I wasn’t. Ann was—a mistake. He didn’t tell you about Ann.”

“No. He didn’t.”

“Ann were the bridesmaid when we got married. He’s very fond of Ann. Was very fond of Ann.”

They sat there, and sipped water, in a fog of suspicion.

“It’s all right,” said Elsie. “You don’t have to bother about me and Ann.”

Katharina Wellwood surprised herself. “It isn’t only you and Ann. Is it?”

“I don’t know how you can see. It doesn’t hardly show.” Katharina said “It’s the way you hold your hands, on —You have no right to keep our grandchild from us.” Another tear rolled down Elsie’s face.

“You can’t take it from me. It’s all I got of him. You can’t do it.”

“Can’t do what?” said Basil, slower than his wife.

“Can’t take it and bring it up to be a snobby lady or a posh gentleman. Oh, please go away, I don’t know what to do.”

“You are very unjust,” said Katharina Wellwood, “to think so badly of us. Charles/Karl—asked us to look after you, which is what we want to do. It is not good for expecting mothers to work in armaments factories, and we—I was going to say, we cannot allow you to, but you must understand I know you are a free agent.

“What I want—more than anything—is to take you—and of course Ann—back to our house in the country. To make you comfortable. Karl said—wait—I will read it to you—‘She is a student teacher and I would have hoped, if I had lived, that she could study more widely and deeply.’ ”

Elsie began to cry in good earnest. Katharina said

“You know—Elsie, if I may call you Elsie—we are his parents. He is—he was—our son. Not so unlike each other. Please come with us.”

“You don’t understand. Your friends will despise me and laugh at you. I’m not in your class and shan’t ever be, no matter how you dress me up.”

“I have lost most of my friends because they despise me and sneer at me because I am a German. We can survive that. It is superficial and horrible. You are the woman my son married.”

Basil made a croaking sort of sound. He said “She’s right—um—Elsie—she’s right. It will make us very happy if you come with us. And we shall be—hurt, yes, hurt, if you won’t come.”

“It isn’t right.”