Free Jenny's War by Margaret Dickinson Page A

no sounds from below and didn’t know what time it was. Should she get up now or wait until someone called her?
    Perhaps the maid, Kitty, would come or maybe the lady called Charlotte. Or better still, perhaps Georgie would come to wake her. But the minutes passed and no one came. Jenny grew restless and, at last, still clutching Bert, she scrambled out of the big bed and went to the window. She pulled the curtains open and looked out. The view from the bedroom window was over the flat land towards the sea and seemed, to the city child, to stretch for miles. The sky overhead was a cloudless bright blue and so vast that Jenny shrank back from the window. She’d never seen such space, such emptiness, nor experienced a place that was so quiet. Always, in the city, there seemed to be noise. Shouting, laughter, doors banging, the sounds of footsteps in the street and the rattle of wheels – even, now and then, the sound of a motor.
    She padded to the door, opened it and peered out up and down the landing. Kitty was emerging from the room next door; the one Jenny had been told was where Charlotte and Miles slept.
    ‘Oh!’ Kitty was startled by the girl standing there completely naked and even more surprised that the child showed no embarrassment.
    The maid blinked and then said kindly, ‘’Mornin’, duck. Did ya sleep all right?’
    Jenny nodded. Kitty came towards her. ‘Let’s help you get dressed and then I’ll take you down for your breakfast. The other’s have all finished theirs, but Cook says you can sit in her kitchen to have yours.’
    ‘Where’s Georgie?’
    ‘Master Georgie? Oh, he’s around somewhere.’
    Jenny could see Kitty’s look of disgust as she picked up the girl’s clothes. The thin cotton dress was secondhand – maybe even third-hand – and washed so many times that even by the time Jenny got it, the pattern had faded. But now the pattern was even further obscured by dirt.
    ‘This could do with a wash, duck,’ Kitty said, but not unkindly. ‘Have you got another frock?’
    Jenny shook her head. She didn’t want Kitty, who was dressed so neatly in a clean, white apron, to see her only other dress, which was even dirtier than the one she was wearing.
    ‘We’ll have to put this ’un on for the minute, then. I’ll tell madam and see if we can get you summat else. Where’s your socks?’
    ‘Ain’t got none,’ Jenny said, pulling on her plimsolls. They seemed too tight for her and already her big toe had worn a hole in the right one.
    ‘Right, you’ll have to do, then.’
    Kitty had not troubled the child to wash; she’d heard the commotion in the bathroom the previous night and didn’t want to spark another rumpus. Instead, she led the child down the wide staircase and through the door from the hallway that led to the kitchen.
    ‘Here she is,’ Kitty announced to Mrs Beddows.
    The cook looked up from peeling apples and smiled a welcome. ‘Come in, lovey. I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you?’
    Jenny merely nodded and climbed on to the chair at one end of the table. Kitty set a bowl of cereal in front of her and poured creamy milk over it. ‘There now, you get that down ya an’ then I’ll make you some toast.’
    ‘I’ll just go and find madam,’ Jenny heard Kitty murmur to Cook. ‘Tell her little ’un’s up.’
    But a few moments later, not only Charlotte but Miles, too, came into the kitchen as Jenny was finishing her breakfast.
    ‘Hello,’ Charlotte said softly. ‘Did you sleep well?’
    Jenny nodded.
    ‘Cat’s got her tongue, I reckon,’ Kitty laughed.
    Jenny gazed up at Charlotte and Miles, her glance going from one to the other. ‘Where’s Georgie?’
    ‘He’s outside. Would you like to go and find him?’
    Jenny glanced towards the big kitchen window and shook her head. But as she slid off the chair, she looked up at Mrs Beddows and said politely, ‘Thank you for my breakfast.’
    ‘You’re welcome, lovey.’
    Charlotte held out her hand. ‘Let’s