Home Front Girls

her an’ Robert may make a go of it now, so happen she’ll pick up eventually.’
    ‘I hope so,’ Lucy answered sadly.
     
    ‘Off out again are you, darling?’ Miranda asked as Annabelle picked up her coat and headed for the door. Along with Robert and Dotty, they had been having breakfast together.
    Annabelle merely nodded.
    ‘Then wrap up warmly,’ her mother advised. ‘It’s so cold. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t have some snow before too long.’ She would have liked to ask Annabelle where she was going but didn’t fancy having her head snapped off. The girl was unbelievably touchy at present, but then Miranda blamed herself for that. Perhaps her mother had been right all along and she should have told Annabelle about her true parentage a long time ago. But she had only been trying to protect her, and right from the first time she had held her, Miranda had never thought of the girl as anything other than her own.
    ‘I wonder where she’s off to?’ she said as the door closed behind her daughter with a sharp click. ‘She’s been going out at the crack of dawn every day for ages and not coming back till late afternoon. Has she told you where she’s going, Dotty?’
    ‘No, she hasn’t.’ Dotty dabbed at her lips as she placed her toast down on her plate. She had never realised how difficult it must be for people like Robert who only had one good arm, and couldn’t wait to have her plaster cast off now. ‘Perhaps she’s job hunting?’ she suggested.
    ‘Hmm, you could be right but if that’s the case, why is she making such a big secret of it?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Dotty admitted. Then, glancing at Robert, she gathered her courage and said to Miranda, ‘Actually, we were thinking of leaving for London at the end of the week, if that’s all right with you? Will you and Annabelle be all right on your own?’ She was more than grateful that Robert had chosen to stay with her but knew that he was keen to return to London now.
    ‘Of course we will, but are you sure you’re up to the journey? And what about your plaster?’ Miranda asked.
    ‘Oh, I’ll be fine,’ Dotty said. ‘And Robert will take me to a hospital in London to have the cast off when it’s time. We just feel we’ve imposed on you enough now, and once I’ve seen Miss T— Mother’s solicitors again tomorrow to make sure that everything’s in order, we can get out from under your feet.’
    ‘You haven’t been under my feet,’ Miranda told her, and she meant it. ‘I just wish you could have stayed again under happier circumstances.’ Dotty had been very brave since the day of the funeral, helped by Robert’s presence, but Miranda sometimes glimpsed the grief and regret in the girl’s eyes when she thought that no one was looking.
    ‘Well, I appreciate what you’ve done, but it’s time to get on with the rest of my life now,’ Dotty said softly and Robert smiled at her. They had been back to the cemetery the day before, where yet another mass burial had taken place, and Dotty had laid flowers, although she had no idea at all where in the grave her mother might be. She just hoped that she was in a better place and at peace now, but she felt aggrieved that they had never had time to spend together as mother and daughter. Her mother had given her own life to save hers, and Dotty would never forget it.
     
    When Annabelle came home late that afternoon she sat down at the table, folded her hands in her lap and told her mother calmly, ‘I’ve joined up to be a VAD.’
    ‘What?’ Miranda almost dropped the saucepan of potatoes she was straining into the sink.
    ‘It’s the Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment—’
    ‘I know what it is,’ Miranda snapped. ‘But what do you mean, you’ve joined?’
    ‘Exactly what I said.’ Annabelle stared coolly back at her. ‘That’s where I’ve been going – to do the training – and now that’s done and out of the way, I filled all the forms in today. I’m going to be mobile as well but I don’t know where I’ll be posted as yet.’
    Wiping her hands down the front of her apron, Miranda sank heavily onto the nearest chair as she tried to take in what Annabelle was telling her.
    ‘But why?’ she asked numbly. ‘And why couldn’t you have stayed around here? Do you know how hard VADs have to work? You’ll be doing all the menial jobs like emptying bedpans and doing bed-baths. It’s nothing at all like being a qualified nurse.’
    ‘I’m quite