Chapter 4

The day the Bletchley Park boarders were due to arrive, Beth Finch lost half an hour down the center of a rose.

“Really, Bethan, I’ve been calling and calling. How long have you been sniffing that flower? ”

I wasn’t sniffing it, Beth thought, but didn’t correct her mother. Sniffing a rose was at least normal—roses smelled nice; everybody agreed on that. Not everybody looked at a rose and got entranced not by the scent but by the pattern of it, the way the petals overlapped like stairs winding inward. . . inward. . . she’d run her finger gently along the spiral, moving toward the center, only in her mind there wasn’t a center with stamens. There was just the spiral, going on and on toward infinity. It sounded very poetic—“What lies at the center of a rose? ”—but it wasn’t the poetry that entranced Beth, or the scent. It was the pattern.

And before she knew it she’d lost half an hour, and her mother was standing there looking cross.

“They’ll be here soon, and look at this room! ” Mrs. Finch took the bud vase from Beth, placing it on the mantel. “Wipe down the mirror, now. Whoever these girls are, they won’t have anything to complain about in this house. Though who knows what kind of girls are boarding away from home, anyway? Leaving their families for a job—”

“There’s a war on, ” Beth murmured, but Mrs. Finch had been on a tear since learning that, being in possession of a spare bedroom with two narrow beds, they would be required to billet two females working at nearby Bletchley Park.

“Don’t tell me it’s the war. It’s flighty girls taking any excuse to bolt out on their families and get into trouble. ” Mrs. Finch moved about the room in small quick motions, straightening the bedside-table doily, tweaking the pillowcase. She and Beth had the same mouse-fair hair, the same nearly invisible brows and lashes, but Beth stood round-shouldered and slight while her mother was imposing, handsome, her bust like a prow. “What kind of war work are they going to be doing in the middle of Bletchley? ”

“Who knows? ” The war had sent such ripples through their sleepy little village: blackout preparations, the call for Air Raid Precautions wardens, Bletchley Park just down the road suddenly a hub of mysterious activity. . . everyone was curious, especially with women coming to work there as well as men. Women were flinging themselves into all sorts of new ventures these days, according to the papers—joining the FANYs to be nurses or shipping overseas with the women’s Royal Navy. Every time Beth tried to think herself patriotically into one of those roles, she broke out in a cold sweat. She knew she’d be expected to do her bit, but she’d volunteer for something behind the scenes, something even utter idiots couldn’t muck up. ARP First Aid, maybe, rolling bandages and making tea. Beth was hopeless at most things. She’d been hearing that all her life, and it was true.

“These boarders had better be decent girls, ” Mrs. Finch was fretting. “What if we end up with two tarts from Wapping? ”

“I’m sure not, ” Beth soothed. She didn’t even really know what a tart was; it was her mother’s all-purpose condemnation for any female who wore lipstick, smelled of French scent, or read novels. . . Guiltily, Beth felt the weight of her latest library paperback in her pocket. Vanity Fair.

“Run out to the post office, Bethan. ” Mrs. Finch was the only one to call Beth by her full name. “I can feel one of my headaches coming on. . . ” Massaging her temples. “Rinse out a cloth for me first. Then after the post office, the corner store. ”

“Yes, Mother. ”

Mrs. Finch patted her shoulder fondly. “Mother’s little helper. ”

Beth had been hearing that all her life, too. “Bethan is so helpful, ” Mrs. Finch loved to tell her friends. “What a comfort to think she’ll be with me when I’m old. ”

“She might still marry, ” the widow down the street had said at the last Women’s Institute meeting. Beth had been making tea in the kitchen, but the old woman’s whisper carried. “Twenty-four years old—that’s not utterly hopeless. She hardly has two words to say to anyone, but that doesn’t bother most men. Someone might still take her off your hands, Muriel. ”

“I don’t want her taken off my hands, ” Mrs. Finch had said with that brisk finality that made everything seem preordained.

At least I’m not a burden, Beth reminded herself. Most old maids were just a drain on their families. She was a comfort, she had a place, she was Mother’s little helper. She was lucky.

Tugging at the thin mouse-fair plait hanging over one shoulder, Beth went to put the kettle on, then wrung out a cloth in cold water the way her mother liked. Bringing it upstairs, she darted back down and set off on errands. All Beth’s siblings had settled out of town when they married, but not an afternoon passed when Beth wasn’t dispatched to post a letter full of maternal advice or a package with a maternal decree. Today Beth posted a square package to her oldest sister, who’d just delivered a baby: one of Mother’s samplers, a wreath of pink roses round the words A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place. An identical sampler hung over Beth’s bed and over the bed of every new baby born to the Finch family. It was never too early, Mother said, to instill proper notions about one’s place.

“Have your boarders arrived yet? ” the postmaster inquired. “They’re peculiar fellows, some of them. Mrs. Bowden at the Shoulder of Mutton inn, she’s got a pack of Cambridge dons coming and going at all hours! That won’t please your mother, eh? ” He waited for a response, but Beth just nodded, tongue-tied. “Something not right with that last Finch girl, ” the postmaster whispered to his clerk as she turned away, and Beth felt herself flushing crimson. Why couldn’t she manage ordinary small talk? It was bad enough being slow-witted (and Beth knew she was), but did she have to be so flustered and awkward as well? Other girls, even the dimmest, seemed able to look people in the eyes when spoken to. It was one thing to be quiet, another thing to freeze in every social gathering like a frightened rabbit. But Beth couldn’t help it.

She dashed home just in time to lift the kettle off the heat. At least the Finch household had been assured it would be girls boarding, not men. If life were a novel, the mystery boarders would have been dashing young bachelors who would then immediately have vied for Beth’s hand, and Beth couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying.

“Beth, ” Mr. Finch called absently from his armchair, doing the crossword. “‘A freshwater fish of the carp family, ’ five letters. ”

Beth flipped her braid back over one shoulder, laying out the tea things. “Tench. ”

“I thought bream—”

“Bream puts a B into Seventeen Down. ” Beth reached for the teapot, perfectly able to envision the crossword, glimpsed this morning when she’d set the paper by her father’s breakfast plate. “And Seventeen Down is codify. ”

“Seventeen Down—‘to organize into a system, as in a body of law, ’ six letters—right, codify. ” Her dad smiled. “I don’t know how you do that. ”

My one talent, Beth thought, rueful. She couldn’t cook, she couldn’t knit, she couldn’t make conversation, but by God, she could finish the Sunday crossword in eight minutes flat without a single mistake!

“‘Unlucky or ill-fated, ’ seven letters—” Beth’s dad began, but before she could say hapless, footsteps sounded outside, and their boarders were being ushered in with a clatter of suitcases. Mr. Finch held the door, Mrs. Finch shot downstairs like a ferret into a rabbit’s burrow, and by the time Beth had taken care of the kettle, introductions were flying. Two girls, both clearly younger than Beth, entered the spotless kitchen and immediately seemed to take up all the air. Both were brunettes, but that was where the similarity ended. One was dimpled and beautiful and wrapped in a fur-trimmed coat, chattering in a very posh accent. The other was about six feet tall with severe features, perfect red lipstick, and black eyebrows arching like cavalry sabers. Beth’s heart sank into her shoes. These girls were just the sort who made her feel clumsy, slow, and, well, hapless.

“So pleased, ” Mrs. Finch managed to say through pursed lips, “to welcome you to my home. ” Her gaze traveled up and down the tall brunette, who returned the stare coolly. Tart, Beth knew her mother was thinking. Who knew about the dimply girl, but the one with the eyebrows had without a doubt been classified as a tart before she spoke a single word.

“We are so chuffed to be sent here, ” the dimply girl gushed, curly lashes working up a breeze of enthusiasm. “One can always tell nice people, can’t one? I knew the moment I saw your absolutely topping vegetable garden. . . ”

Beth could see her mother thawing at those polished Mayfair vowels. “We hope you’ll be teddibly comfortable here, ” she said, her own accent hitching north. “You’ll share the room beside my daughter, first floor. The toilet—the loo, that is—can be found at the bottom of the garden. ”

“Outside? ” The smaller brunette looked startled. The tall one shot her an amused look.

“You’ll get used to it, Osla Kendall. I’ve never lived in a single flat with a loo inside. ”

“Oh, shut up, Queen Mab! ”

Mrs. Finch frowned. “What is it you young ladies will be doing over at Bletchley Park? ”

“Clerical work, ” Osla said breezily. “Such a snore. ”

Another frown, but Beth’s mother left it for now. “Lights out at ten. Hot baths every Monday, no dawdling in the tub. We have a telephone”—proudly; few homes in the village did—“but it is for important calls only. If you’ll come upstairs. . . ”

The kitchen seemed to echo when the newest additions to the household swept out. Dad, who hadn’t said a word after shaking hands, sat back down with his newspaper. Beth looked at the tea tray, scrubbing her hands up and down her apron.

“Bethan. . . ” Mrs. Finch swept back into the kitchen. “Don’t just stand there, take up the tea. ”

Beth made her escape, glad to be spared the dissecting of the two lodgers she was certain her mother was about to deliver. She paused outside the spare room door, mustering the nerve to knock, and heard the rustling of suitcases being unpacked.

“. . . one bath a week? ” Mab’s voice, crisp and scornful. “I call that stingy. I’m not demanding hot water; I don’t mind a cold-water scrub, but I want clean hair however I can get it. ”

“We’ve a washstand at least—hello again! ” Osla Kendall exclaimed as Beth came in. “Tea, how scrummy. You’re a darling. ”

Beth couldn’t remember ever being called a darling. “I’ll leave you, ” she muttered, but she saw a copy of Vanity Fair unpacked from one of the bags and exclaimed despite herself, “Oh! That’s a good one. ”

“You’ve read it? ”

Beth flushed to the roots of her hair. “Don’t tell Mother. ”

“Wouldn’t dream of it! ” Osla plucked a scone off Mrs. Finch’s second-best china. “No one should tell their mother more than one-third of anything they get up to. Curl up with us and have a chin-wag. . . ”

Without knowing how it happened, Beth found herself perched on the end of Osla’s bed. It wasn’t much of a conversation; she hardly said two words as the other girls nipped back and forth about Thackeray and whether they should start a literary society. But they both smiled at her periodically, all encouraging glances.

Maybe they weren’t quite so intimidating after all.

Are not there little chapters in everybody’s life, Beth had read in Vanity Fair only that morning, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of history?

Too soon to tell. . . but perhaps this was, in fact, going to be one of them.

Twelve Days Until the Royal Wedding

November 8, 1947

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