Those Kids From Town Again

By Adrian Alington

Some further incidents in the lives of the children and grown-ups, whose previous adventures were recorded in the These Our Strangers and the film Those Kids from Town.

Those Kids from Town is a 1942 British comedy-drama film, directed by Lance Comfort and starring George Cole, Harry Fowler and Percy Marmont. The film was adapted for the screen by Adrian Alington from his own topical novel These Our Strangers, dealing with the experiences of a group of wartime evacuee children from London, sent to safety in a rural village, and their interaction with the host community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448205394

Adrian Alington

Alington was a crime writer, and author of The Amazing Test Match Crime, inspired by his years playing County Cricket for Oxfordshire during the 1920s. He also wrote and adapted his own novels for screen and television during the 1950s.

Book preview

Chapter One

Sunday Morning at Payling Green

Through the open doors of the church, that murmurous morning of early summer, came the strains of the National Anthem played with a certain squeaky defiance upon the organ and subsequently taken up in a ragged and somewhat self-conscious manner by the congregation within. The singing grew, however, in unity and confidence as it progressed; the final long-drawn God save the King was lustily, even aggressively, uttered. It was followed after a tiny interval of silence by the scraping of feet, the rasp of nailed boots upon the stone floor of the church, and the congregation emerged, blinking a little in the strong sunlight.

The congregation was larger than usual, for this was a Sunday of very special import, the day of thanksgiving for the deliverance of Dunkirk. With the new sense of urgency and menace which the tumultuous events of the last few weeks had brought, something of a corporate spirit, generally dormant, had been reawakened. Payling Green went to church this sweet summer morning, not so much to listen to the remarks of the Vicar upon an epic story in the nation’s history, as to prove its own solidarity and sturdy defiance of the rampaging maniac who was uttering his fantastic threats just across the Channel.

Certainly it was a splendid congregation, thought Mrs. Cartland, the Vicar’s wife, as she nodded and beamed here and there with something of the air of a hostess at the conclusion of a particularly successful party. Almost the whole village was there. She nodded to Miss Georgina Weybourne of the White House and beamed upon the village folk, self-conscious in their Sunday clothes, upon Mr. Stigson, landlord of the Magpie Inn, a majestic figure with a heavy watch-chain across his ample paunch, upon Mr. Egworth, proprietor of the Payling Green Stores, upon Mr. Cropper, the local representative of the County Constabulary, who was present in mufti, upon Mrs. Cropper and all the others. But by far her most elaborate beam was reserved for the Earl of Stainwater who had taken his place that morning in the Payling Court pew. She had seen little of the Earl lately, for he was engaged upon work at one of the war-time Ministries—very mysterious and secret work, so it was said—and was rarely at Payling Court save for weekends.

Good morning, Lord Stainwater. So pleasant to see you again.

Good morning, Mrs. Cartland. No, I don’t see nearly as much of Payling Green as I should like nowadays.

Henry and I often say you are quite a stranger. Working hard at the Ministry, I suppose?

Yes, yes. They keep us busy.

She hoped that he was going to congratulate her upon her husband’s sermon—it had certainly been one of Henry’s best—but he did not. He left her and walked slowly down the path towards the lych-gate, smiling his shy courteous smile at the village people, halting for a special word of inquiry and encouragement with elderly Mr. and Mrs. Neasor, whose boy George was over in France with one of the battalions of the County regiment.

His tall figure, dressed in a neat grey suit, but topped most incongruously by a deplorable old felt hat, passed through the gate and disappeared. His unexpected appearance at church would be widely discussed in the village, but in a respectful, even affectionate manner. For the Earl had always been well liked by the people of Payling Green, even though he was by nature retiring and left it to his gay and lovely young Countess to dazzle the village by her periodic appearances. In the old days she had held lively house-parties at Payling Court, which were often mentioned, it was said, in the newspapers, thus shedding much reflected glory upon Payling Green. But ever since the beginning of the war the Countess had been away, occupied in war work, and the glory had departed. She was in Scotland now, where she was reported to be Commandant of a camp occupied by one of the Women’s Services.

Despite his reputation as a recluse, not a little eccentric in his ways, there were many who could tell of unobtrusive acts of kindness on his lordship’s part and lately he had figured in a most romantic and curious episode which had greatly intrigued the countryside. In the very early days of the war Payling Green had received its quota of evacuated children. They had come from a mysterious district of London, called Cockers Town, descending on Payling Green one September afternoon in a bus, a handful of white-faced, bewildered children—a cargo of little human souls Sheila Truck, the lady novelist of Lobelia Cottage, had called them—all labelled and with gas-masks slung about them. Payling Green’s earliest glimpse of England at war. Among the children from Cockers Town had been two sisters, Liz and Maud Burns, kids of about fourteen and seven, who had been billeted on the Miss Weybournes at the White House. Miss Georgina’s sister, Miss Millicent, had lived at the White House then—a gentle, ineffective soul, as different from domineering Miss Georgina as chalk from cheese—and the two maiden ladies had undertaken the care of the Burns children. Exactly what had happened few in Payling Green knew accurately—though knowing Miss Georgina’s bossy and aggressive ways it was easy to make a pretty shrewd guess—but the two children, finding life at the White House insupportable, had run away one wet dark night in a despairing attempt to make their way back to London. Eventually they had turned up at Payling Court, wet through and exhausted. They had been taken in, and the Earl, far from being displeased at the invasion of his solitude by two unexpected London children, had taken such a fancy to the pair that they had stayed on ever since, and at Christmas-time the Earl had invited the Burns parents to stay at Payling Court. It was even rumoured that the Earl intended to have Liz, who was a clever, lively little thing, trained for the stage.

The low monotonous throbbing of an aeroplane engine came to the ears of the Earl as, having passed through the lych-gate, he turned left up the lane which led to the Vicarage. He paused to look up and beheld the plane, little more than a distant moving speck against the background of immaculate blue.

He walked on slowly and thoughtfully, stooping a little as was his wont, carrying the deplorable hat in his hand. The service in the drowsy church that morning had stirred him oddly. The singing of the National Anthem, so often a perfunctory formality, had moved him as it had not done since he had heard it at a certain church parade on the Amiens-Bapaume road twenty-four years ago.

England, thought the Earl, turning off from the lane and mounting the stile which gave on to the field path leading to Payling Court, England fighting for life, once again in peril. England, what exactly did one mean when one spoke the name? For his part, with the memory of the church service still warm in his mind, he knew that he thought of her not in grandiose terms of empire; he knew that when the name was spoken there came instantly into his mind a picture of Payling Green, this green and pleasant corner which he had known ever since he could remember anything. Here in Payling Court, thank God, things changed little and slowly. The place did not change, the sturdy, self-contained people with their slow, rich, country voices did not change, generation after sturdy, self-contained generation. Even, he thought smiling, the arrival of a horde of Cockney children had failed to change them.

And this set him thinking, as he ambled across the fields in the hot sunshine, of his young protégée, Liz Burns, who had wandered so unexpectedly into his life one wet wild night. It was really absurd how that little Cockney child had wound herself round his heart. In fact, he admitted to himself that he came down for weekends as much for the pleasure of his evenings in the library with Liz as for the joy of escaping from the heat of London.

Not so very long ago Mrs. Anderson, wife of his butler, and housekeeper at Payling Court, had said to him,

Having children about the place does brighten it up, my lord, now that her ladyship is away.

And there was no doubt that it did. There had been a time when he had dreamed of his own children and Clarissa’s, but the dream had faded. Now that he came to think of it, there had not been children about the place since he himself was a long-legged dreamy boy, irritating his father because even then he preferred the library to the stables.

The sun struck hot upon his head. He was about to put on his hat when something vaguely wrong in its appearance struck him.

Good God, he murmured aloud, have I been to church in my old gardening hat? What a mercy Clarissa wasn’t here to catch me!

It was too late, however, to do anything about it now. He clapped the deplorable thing on his head and went on his way.

Miss Georgina Weybourne, passing through the lych-gate alone, turned in the direction opposite to that taken by the Earl. The lane at this end led into Payling Green’s single street in which Georgina’s home, the White House, was situated. She walked briskly, an erect, full-bosomed figure in sober dark coat and skirt and small sensible hat, such as she always affected. She held her head high, her big aquiline nose thrusting before her, her pale, rather prominent eyes staring straight ahead. In her hand she carried the large and somewhat ornate prayer-book which had been given to her by her father on the day she was confirmed; her name together with the date were written in his meticulous handwriting on the fly-leaf.

Glances by no means friendly followed her. She had never been particularly popular in the village—too bossy and interfering, they said of her, always ready to make trouble—and the incident of the Burns children had crystallized and intensified this feeling into one of active dislike. Georgina was not unaware of her unpopularity, nor had she failed to observe how Mrs. Cartland’s smile had taken on a certain glazed, unreal aspect as it alighted on herself, as though the poor feeble thing had been afraid to ignore her, yet did not wish her husband’s parishioners to think she approved of her.

The knowledge of her unpopularity caused her momentary irritation because of its injustice. Moreover, the unaccustomed presence of the Earl had brought vividly back into her mind the wretched incident of the Burns children which, on the whole, she was anxious to forget. Not that she considered that she had acted in anything but the most correct, the most Christian manner. Liz from the beginning had been lawless and unruly, entirely ungrateful for the blessings of a well-ordered Christian home. It was always the same—try to bring a little wholesome discipline into the lives of people of that class and what was your reward? Rudeness, rebellion. And then, if you please, to crown it all, Liz had simply walked out of the White House one night taking her sister Maud with her, not caring what anxiety she might cause. Oh no—selfish to the bone, that was Liz. She herself had never believed that it was by accident that the child had found herself at Payling Court. She might pretend to be simple but she was quite smart enough to know which side her bread was buttered. Oh yes, she was a cunning little rat, sharp as these common children so often were and utterly without conscience.

At the end of the lane Georgina turned into the village street. The lilac and laburnum which had turned the street into an avenue of delicate beauty were faded now, the blossom fallen and scattered. But, despite the need to grow vegetables for Victory, the cottage gardens made a cheerful show this June morning. In the garden of Lobelia Cottage Georgina perceived Miss Sheila Truck, the novelist, pottering about, dressed in her trousers and smoking the everlasting cigarette. A nice example to set the village on a Sunday morning! These artistic people who considered themselves above social laws!

Sheila Truck, who usually wrote, so Georgina thought, unwholesome trashy novels of the kind that put ideas into the heads of servant girls, had recently published a book called Thatch, which was all about Lobelia Cottage and life in the village. Of course the evacuee children came into it and there was a great deal of hysterical and unhealthy nonsense about her own two, detestably common little brats called Ern and Charley. Sheila must needs refer to them as her two little sooty blossoms and her little flowers from the slums and put in a great deal of rubbish about their souls and psychologies. A lot of good that sort of thing did! Putting ideas into the heads of people of that class! The precious story about the Burns children had to come into the book, of course, romanticized and sentimentalized without any regard for truth. Trust Sheila Truck for that! The Burns children had become in Sheila’s version the two brave little waifs battling through the darkness and storm in search of home and dear ones. The hypocrisy of the thing made one sick.

This morning she did not feel at all in the mood for conversation with Sheila Truck, but Sheila, waving a hand which held a lighted cigarette, hailed her. Georgina halted and regarded her with disfavour across the gate of Lobelia Cottage. Pottering about on a Sunday morning in full view of the village people, dressed in those unwomanly trousers! At her heels her ridiculous little toy dog, which she called Nutworth after a character in one of her novels, puffed and waddled.

Good morning, Georgina, said Sheila. Been to church?

Obviously, replied Georgina. It’s a pity you didn’t do the same instead of setting a bad example to the village.

Sheila uttered a particularly irritating kind of titter.

What deliciously quaint things you do say, darling Georgina! As though the village would take an example from poor little me! Besides, dear, Sheila dropped her voice into a low, earnest tone to show that she bantered no longer, besides, I find my religion here among the flowers. My cathedral is the great Out of Doors.

Georgina sniffed sardonically. An easy way that of squaring one’s conscience!

I have been at work, too, said Sheila. The urge, you know.

What are you working at now? New novel?

"No. A sequel to Thatch. Lichen."

What?

Lichen, repeated Sheila, trying a different pronunciation. Rather a fascinating title, don’t you think? It came to me quite suddenly this morning, while I was frolicking with Nut-worth. You helped your mother, didn’t you, my precious dog? You put the title into her head in your clever doggy way.

Sheila bent down to fondle Nutworth, who sniffed more odiously than ever in reply.

You make a fool of that dog, said Georgina.

Hush, whispered Sheila. He understands every word you say and he is so terribly sensitive, aren’t you, dog thing of mine?

That is his psychology, no doubt, Georgina could not resist saying sarcastically.

But of course, the darling is simply full of inhibitions, aren’t you, my sweet?

Georgina prepared to move on.

Well, I can’t stay here all day gossiping.

Nor I, cried Sheila. Inspiration calls. I was in quite a white heat when I came out here for a little refresher. Besides, my two little cherub boys will be back before long, as hungry as a pair of young hunters. Miss Treadle has taken them all for a ramble. Such a good idea; they will see our countryside at its loveliest. I hope you get good news of your sister?

Georgina’s always highly coloured face reddened a little.

Yes.

Ah, I’m so glad. Please remember me to her when next you write.

Certainly.

The two ladies parted.

Georgina marched on to the White House, pushed open the gate, walked up the path and entered the cool dim hall. She went upstairs to take off her hat and tidy herself for lunch, then she came down into the Victorian drawing-room, which was furnished with all the things that had been in the drawing-room of her father’s house in West Kensington. She sat down to read the Sunday paper until Mrs. Porson, the village woman who came in daily to attend to her wants, should tell her that lunch was ready. Presently something which she read displeased her. She laid down the paper and glanced through her pince-nez at the chair opposite to her own, the chair in which Millicent had always sat. It was curious how even now she often failed to realize that Millicent had gone away, how automatically, when anything displeased her, as this article in the Sunday newspaper had done, she would look across at Millicent’s chair, as though she expected to see her sister’s gentle, indeterminate figure sitting there. It was with almost a conscious effort that she checked herself from saying aloud,

Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous as this, Millicent?

Thoughts of Millicent were not altogether welcome, because they were apt to bring in their train the appalling memory of that wild unladylike scene which had taken place in this very room on the night the Burns brats were lost. That was a scene so strange, so altogether unprecedented in the reversal of the parts taken by the sisters, that the very long-familiar ornaments had seemed to watch and listen aghast. Millicent, of course, had been upset and hysterical, but even making all allowances, her behaviour had been quite extraordinary. She had told Georgina that her cruelty had driven the Burns brats from the White House, and that she hated her, that she had always hated her. Sometimes even now, after all this time, Georgina could hear again Millicent’s voice, unnaturally shrill, as she spoke the unforgivable words, still see Millicent’s face distraught as though by some tremendous tearing emotion.

And the extraordinary thing was that Millicent’s whole nature had seemed to change that night. Instead of the abject and probably tearful apology which Georgina had confidently anticipated, Millicent had shown defiance. Almost without a word of farewell she had walked out of this house where she had lived all these years, Millicent who had never been able to make up her mind for herself! She was living down in Cornwall now, had got herself some sort of a little job, if you please, helping to look after evacuated babies. She still wrote occasionally, indeed her last letter lay on Georgina’s desk now, awaiting an answer.

No, Georgina, the ridiculous stubborn creature had written, it’s no use asking me to come back to the White House. I’m far too happy in this lovely place, looking after my babies. They like me, you know. I feel they really need me. I have found a little place of my own in the world at last …

Georgina’s mouth tightened, as she recalled the phrases of Millicent’s letter. What had come over Millicent? But even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. Millicent had never had any of these ideas before the Burns children came into the house to upset everything. It was Liz who had set Millicent against her, Liz, that slum child who had been taken into a decent home and repaid kindness with lies and ingratitude. Liz who had put it into Millicent’s mind to tell her that she hated her. Liz …

The little group of which Mr. Stigson was the central and most imposing figure, turned into the village street just as Georgina, having finished her short colloquy with Sheila Truck, moved on to the White House. The menfolk were engaged in argument over the identification of the distant plane which was, in truth, much too far off to permit of any but professional diagnosis. Gradually, the argument still unresolved, the group broke up, as its component members reached their homes. Mr. Stigson arrived at the end of the village street alone.

At the end of the street the village green was situated, a wide grassy triangle, flanked on the one side by the village school with its adjoining asphalt playground and on the other by the Magpie, whose hanging signboard and timbered façade gave it the appearance of an altogether model village pub. Standing upon the grassy verge, Mr. Stigson halted to remove his hat, wipe his forehead and contemplate his domain, a thing which he never did without pleasure. Then he consulted the large watch which he drew from the pocket of his capacious waistcoat, expressed mentally a hope that in his absence the bars had been opened up at the correct hour, and set off ponderously across the green, a portly and impressive figure in his suit of unaccustomed black. He moved with a certain conscious majesty, as befitted one who was, without any doubt, a personage of some importance in Payling Green. Since the very outbreak of war he had been its Air-Raid Warden, lord, as it were, of the darkness. And now in the sombre hours of his country’s peril a new and even greater call had come to Mr. Stigson.

The wireless in the bar parlour of the Magpie had become those days the very voice of Fate. Out of the square-shaped box had come, to the accompaniment, it must be admitted, of not a little whistling and crackling, a voice telling of incredible happenings. Holland overrun, Belgium overrun, cities bombed, roads packed with humble terrified people. And then the French line broken. Mr. Stigson, like a man in a nightmare, had heard names familiar in the last war as comfortable places of refuge rushing madly into the news. Amiens, St. Omer, Abbeville and then—would you believe it?—Calais and Boulogne. Mr. Stigson was profoundly shaken. It was, indeed, with difficulty that he was able to preserve his oracular attitude as a kind of unofficial military spokesman.

In my opinion, he told his audience in the bar parlour, that fateful day, this yere Maginot line was a mistake and no good wouldn’t never ’ave come of it.

’Ow do you reckon that, Mr. Stigson?

Because, Mr. Stigson replied weightily, "it bain’t war. All these yere underground apartments with cocktails bars and W.C.s, they bain’t no good. Because why? Because they saps the morale and the offensive spirit, to use a military term. It’s the same with these yere fancy caps as the troops wear. The army bain’t what it was, not by a long way it bain’t. Take this yere newfangled marchin’ in columns of threes,