Free Dark Angel by Sally Beauman Page B

were childless; my mother had prayed for a child, and—eventually—her prayers had been answered.
    “Did Daddy pray for one too?” I wanted to know, and my mother frowned.
    “I expect so, Vicky. In his way. Always remember, it’s important not just to pray for yourself. You mustn’t treat God like Father Christmas and ask for too many things. But if you ask for good things, the right things, then God listens. He might not always grant your wish, or”—she paused—“He might grant it in an unexpected way, but He does listen, Vicky. I believe that.”
    Was my visit to my godmother a good thing, one it was permissible to pray for? I weighed the pros and cons for some time; eventually I decided it was quite a good thing. I had been taught to be methodical, and I was methodical about this. I prayed every night and every morning; I prayed on Sundays when I went to church. I bought penny candles once a week and lit them to give wings to the prayer, and I couched the appeal politely: Please-God-if-You-think-it-is-a-good-thing-may-I-go-to-New-York-to-stay-with-Constance-if-it-is-Your-will-thank-you-Amen.
    Twice a day, every day for three months. At the end of that time, when it was high summer at Winterscombe, my wish was granted. I should have listened to my mother more carefully perhaps, because it was granted in a most unexpected way.
    Until my wish was granted, I enjoyed that summer. I remember days of sunshine and of warmth, a sensation of lull, as if the world waited and held its breath. There was calm, but it was an expectant calm; somewhere, beyond the boundaries of that safe world, something was happening, and sometimes I would fancy that I could hear it, still distant, and soft, like a great, invisible machine in gear—events elsewhere, their momentum gathering.
    For many years I had known, in a vague way, that the orphanages that took up so much of my mother’s time and ate such a worrying amount of my father’s money, had connections with their counterparts in Europe. So, that summer, when my mother took me aside and explained that plans had changed, that she and my father would be in Europe on orphanage work during July and August, I was surprised, but not greatly. Although we never went abroad for holidays, my mother had once or twice made such trips in the past, usually in the company of her closest friend, the formidable Winifred Hunter-Coote, whom she had known in the Great War. This time, she explained, my father had decided to go with them, because they were not just visiting European orphanages, as they usually did, but were seeing friends in Germany who would help them to bring certain children to England. Just for a while, she explained, it would be safer for those children to be here, rather than at home in their own country. They were not necessarily orphans, she said in her careful way; they were perhaps more like refugees. It was not always easy to persuade the authorities to let them leave, which was why my father was going with her and with Winifred, for his German was fluent….
    Here, in a way that was uncharacteristic of her, my mother paused, and I knew there was something she was leaving out, something she did not want me to know.
    “Won’t their parents miss them?” I asked, and my mother smiled.
    “Of course, darling. But they know it is for the best. We shall be away quite a long time, and I shall miss you too. You’ll write, won’t you, Vicky?”
    I did write, every day, joining the letters together so that they were like a diary, and sending them off once a week to a series of poste restante addresses. To begin with, it felt strange, a summer at Winterscombe without my parents, but after a while I became used to the new quietness in the house, and besides, there were diversions. My aunt Maud was brought down to stay, and arrived with packages of brightly bound novels. She was a little frail, for she had had a mild stroke the previous Easter, but her appetite for fiction was