Free Hitler's Girls by Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey

the bed said, “My baby.”
    “Mrs. Nairn!” she shouted down the stairs. “The water—and some sheets.”
    She went back to the bed. “You’ll be all right now, my dear.” The woman, Clemmie, tried to speak and could not. The baby lay where Kirstie had put her, on the floor, on one of the pillows. She was making a snuffling noise .
    Kirstie went to the door again. “Mrs. Nairn. Where are you now?” She started down, only to find Mrs. Nairn coming up. “There’ll be no clothes for the bairn?” she asked. The housekeeper shook her head .
    With the sharp scissors she kept in her bag, she cut up a sheet—pure linen, she noted—and wrapped it round the baby. She put the child at the mother’s shoulder .
    “My God, Jessie, what have you got yourself into?” she asked .
    “For good or ill, you’ll leave tomorrow morning on the boat,” said Jessie Nairn .
    Kirstie spent the night looking after the mother and child. At dawn, she dozed in a chair beside the bed in which mother and child lay sleeping. Later she rose, made tea and toast for the mother, and brought a little broth she found in the larder.Mrs. Nairn was nowhere to be found. Clemmie, propped up in the bed, apologised: “Thank you. I’m sorry if I made a fuss.”
    “It was very hard for you. The bairn seems well, after all that. What do you think of calling her?”
    “Isolde,” the mother said .
    “A lovely name,” said Kirstie .
    Mrs. Nairn emerged at the front door with an envelope in her hand. “Your fee,” she said, holding it out .
    “Thank you, Mrs. Nairn. I require no fee for this night’s work,” Kirstie said .
    In the boat, watching Rob’s back as he bent over the oars, Kirstie could only wonder: “Isolde. What sort of a heathen name was that?”

JEAN HASTIE’S DAIRY
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6TH
Notes On Visit To Amesbury House
    Tea served in the library. Strawberry Hill Gothick. The unfortunate addition of Art Deco chairs and table. “Clouds” Morris carpet in excellent condition. No sign, as is so often the case in this type of establishment, of messy or indulged pets.
    Lady Ray is elegant and well dressed. Tea: scones and anchovy paste. The ceilings have been repaired: good workmanship in evidence.
    My National Trust connections turned out to be more than enough in the way of a calling card. I go so far as to flatter myself that the name Dr. Hastie was not unknown to Lady Ray. Almost immediately, our hostess invited us to walk down the Long Hall, pointing out various portraits or Ray ancestors (state of preservation: good) by Van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds. She was quick to remark how much she regretted not selling St Ronan’s House to the Trust. Expressions of remorsewere slightly overdone—Lady Ray still has a pretty face and the air of a great actress. There was a trifle too much fluttering of her chiffon scarf; and heavy sighs at the mention of the Dutch financier who had acquired and then abandoned St Ronan’s. Perhaps Lady Ray suffered from the ennui of advanced age and a long winter in the English countryside and would answer our questions without any very great effort on our part.
    I did not, alas, have an opportunity to test this impression. My companion had already boasted on the drive down the M3 to Amesbury of his past relations with Her Ladyship. At first, I paid no attention. I was at the wheel, having indicated to my companion that the aroma of a gin of far-flung provenance would prove undesirable to the constabulary of Hampshire and Wilts.
    He lit an odious small cigar as he spoke, clenching it between his teeth as if in emulation of a screen character from America, a country I have visited but once. Americans care only for money, a subject to which I have seldom given more than a moment’s thought.
    “Older women… Yes, Artemis was a great lay,” mused this impossible traveller. “She was on the stage, y’know, Jean. Not the real stage—more like a theatre for naked women. In those days they could stand