Page 63 of Strangers in Time

“It might not be there later!” exclaimed Charlie.

“I’m sure it will. Now, let me just nip in and check on your breakfast.” She hurried off.

Charlie sat there, forlorn, because he knew that things at Dapleton Terrace tended to go missing when left behind by folks who died or couldn’t pay their rent. But he couldn’t hurry all the way back there now because he was so very tired, not so much from running, but from losing the only family he had left.

He stood and looked around the room. He had never been in a home such as this, full of furniture and paintings on the walls and thick carpet underfoot. And over there was a towering fireplace with a proper mantel and a fine brass-and-wood clock perched on top of it. He knew that some lived like this, but he’d had no firsthand knowledge of it.

Then the realization that he was all alone in the world hit him so incredibly hard that he sank back onto the couch, all of his strength withered away. He had always tried to overcome adversity with a proper spirit, somehow consistently seeing the good in the bad. But now he could glimpse nothing save misery ahead.

Molly returned and said, “Your breakfast will be ready presently and the kettle is nearly hot. Why don’t you come and settle at the kitchen table while I take the bags to my room and go through them?”

She led him into the kitchen, where Mrs. Pride was preparing his plate. There was one fried egg, a slice of toast with actual butter and a wedge of cheddar, a bit of ham, a small bowl of porridge, a stewed prune, and a cup of what looked to be real milk. Molly would have once looked askance at such a shabby meal, but Charlie, his grief dissipating for a few moments, looked astonished. “Goodness, Miss, do you eat like this every meal?”

She could neither meet his eye nor answer his query. She simply fled the room.

While Charlie took up his cutlery, Molly carried the bags to her bedroom and looked through the first one. She carefully folded Gran’s clothes and hung in the wardrobe what needed hanging, after first smoothing out some wrinkles. Mrs. Pride could iron them properly later. Her inventory showed that Charlie had missed a few essentials, which Molly was sure she could provide from their own stock of clothing. When she opened Charlie’s bag she had to gasp. The smells emanating from within were quite overwhelming. All she could glimpse was a hodgepodge of rough, blackened garments.

She took nothing out, but hastily carried the bag at arm’s length down the back stairs, found Mrs. Pride, and instructed her to have it all thoroughly laundered.

Mrs. Pride looked in the bag and said, “My Lord, I don’t see much worth saving in there, Molly. It’s for the dustbin, I’d say.”

“When we go to get his book I can stop and purchase a few essentials for him. At least that’ll do for now. Where do you keep the household funds?”

“I used to keep them in the cabinet in the small sitting room at the back of the house. But now I just keep them in a box in a cupboard under the stairs.”

She showed Molly the box. When Molly saw what was there she said, “This really is all we have?”

“I should have told you this earlier, but I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Tell me what?” asked Molly, looking curiously at her nanny.

“I went to the bank last week to get some more pounds. Hadn’t had to do that since your father left. But with you back and all. Anyway, the accounts he set up, well…”

“Well what?”

“The bank manager himself came out, took me to his office, and told me that the funds were no longer available.”

Molly looked perplexed. “Did he say why?”

“No, but he was quite rude about it. Why, he looked at me quite suspiciously.”

“What in the world?” said a bewildered Molly.

“And then he called in another man who asked me, bold as brass, where was Mr. Wakefield? And why didn’thecome in to inquire as to his account?”

“This is all so confusing,” said Molly.

Mrs. Pride gave her a side-eye look. “It… well, it was almost like he was suggesting that your father had committed some act of, I don’t know, theft, or larceny, or whatever they call it.”

“Father would never,” replied Molly fiercely.

“Oh, I know that. I’m just telling you what I think that bank person thought. War does funny things to folks, Molly,” she added.

Molly didn’t know if she was referring to the bank people or her father.

“Mrs. Pride, you said you had also seen a man watching the house?”

“Yes. And I told the bobby on the beat about it. He wrote it down and promised to keep an eye out for him.” Mrs. Pride stiffened. “Wait, do you think it could be connected to this bank business?”

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