Read Online Women on the Home Front by Annie Groves - Free Book Online Page B

you to be upset and cry.
    Agnes had nodded her head, but inside she had felt sick with misery and fear. She still did, but now those feelings were even worse because this afternoon, instead of going to see Mrs Robbins at 13 Article Row, she had gone and sat on a bench in Hyde Park, where she had wished desperately that she didn’t have to leave the orphanage and that the orphanage didn’t have to be evacuated to the country. Agnes had never hated anyone in her life, but right now she felt that she could hate Adolf Hitler. She would have to go and see Mrs Robbins eventually, she knew that. And tomorrow morning she would have to present herself at Chancery Lane underground station, ready to start her new job. She wouldn’t be able to escape doing that, because Matron was going to take her there herself.

Chapter Four
    â€˜So you’re going ahead then with this taking in lodgers business?’
    Nancy had caught Olive just when Olive was in the middle of hanging out her washing, coming to the hedge that separated their back gardens and obviously determined to have her say.
    â€˜Yes. I’ve got lodgers for both rooms now,’ Olive agreed as she pegged out the towels she had just washed. There was a decent breeze blowing, so they should dry quickly.
    â€˜And one of them’s from the orphanage, so I’ve heard.’ Nancy’s voice was ominously disapproving. ‘You wouldn’t catch me taking in an orphan. You never know what bad blood they might have in their veins.’
    â€˜According to the vicar’s wife, Agnes is a very quiet, respectable girl.’
    â€˜Well, that certainly wasn’t her I saw coming walking down the Row yesterday afternoon then, all dressed up to the nines and on a Sunday too. Anyone could see what sort she is. Too full of herself for her own good. I hope you won’t be giving her a room.’
    â€˜I think you must mean Dulcie,’ Olive felt obliged to say. ‘Yes, she is going to be moving in. She works in Selfridges.’
    â€˜She might work in Selfridges but it’s plain where she’s come from, and where she’s going to end up if she isn’t careful. I don’t want to worry you, Olive, but there’s going to be a lot of people in the Row who won’t be at all happy about what you’re doing. You know me – I like to mind my own business – but I wouldn’t be being a good neighbour if I didn’t warn you for your own good. It’s like I was saying to Sergeant Dawson after church yesterday: we’ve got standards here in the Row.’
    Olive nodded but didn’t say anything. Inwardly, though, she suspected that she hadn’t heard the last of her neighbour’s disapproval.
    Agnes had had the most terrible day, the worst day of her life, starting from when Matron had left her in the charge of Mr Smith, the portly, moustached, stern-looking man who was in charge of the ticket office at Chancery Lane station and thus in charge of her.
    Her new dull grey worsted uniform piped in blue, which London Transport supplied for its female employees working on buses, trams and the underground, was too big for her. They hadn’t been able to find anything to fit her when she’d been taken to the large supply depot where the uniforms were handed out because she was so small and thin. Agnes knew she’d only been taken on in the first place because Matron had spoken up for her, and that had only made her feel even more as though she wasn’t really good enough. The grey serge didn’t do anything for her pale complexion and mouse-brown hair, her uniform somehow making her face look pinched and thin, and she’d seen from the look that Mr Smith had given her that her appearance hadn’t impressed him.
    She’d felt sick with anxiety before she’d even tried to follow Mr Smith’s brisk instructions, but that had been nothing to the horrible churning feeling that had