A little while later she had deposited her suitcase in the cloakroom of a quiet hotel while she went to the telephone. She looked through the directory for the name she wanted, that of her father’s brother.
She dialled the number and Father Andrew Vale answered the telephone himself. A Catholic priest, he had given up his whole life to working in the slums and devoted himself to serving the poorest and most destitute of England’s citizens.
“Uncle Andrew, this is Mona.”
“How are you, my child?”
“I want your advice. I want to do some war work. I am completely untrained, but I want to go where the work is really hard and where I should be most useful.”
“Go and see Mrs. Marchant, 1003 Queen Victoria Street,” was the reply, and then with few more words and an abruptness that was characteristic of him, Father Andrew rang off.
Mona did as she was told. She found Mrs. Marchant, a sweet-faced, white-haired woman, sitting in a busy, overcrowded office, where several typewriters were making an almost unbearable noise. Mona told her by whom she had been sent, and instantly a smile of welcome lit up her face.
“We all love Father Andrew.”
“He’s my uncle.”
“Then you are more than welcome.”
“I am looking for work,” Mona said. “That is why my uncle has sent me here. He said you could help me.”
“Indeed we can,” Mrs. Marchant replied.
Then she hesitated, Mona felt that her clothes were too smart, that her air of expensive sophistication was alarming.
“I want something that is really hard. Something where I won’t have time to think.”
Mrs. Marchant seemed to understand.
“I was half-afraid to suggest it,” she said, “but we are greatly in need of helpers for the war nurseries, which we are setting up in all parts of the country.”
“There are two sorts, those that are placed near factories where the workers can leave their children for the day, the others for children who have been evacuated, tiny children who are too young to be billeted on householders and must therefore be sent as a complete unit, with nurses and helpers to look after them. These latter, of course, contain a large number of children who are orphans or whose mothers have been killed in air raids.”
“That is the sort of work I’d like,” Mona said. “I love children, although I’m afraid I don’t know very much about them.”
“You soon will,” Mrs. Marchant replied. “I’m afraid the work will be hard. Are you quite sure you are prepared to undertake it?”
“Quite sure,” Mona said firmly.
A few hours later she was in the train travelling towards Fulton-under-Slough where one of the nurseries had recently been established. Before she left London, she arranged with Mrs. Marchant that her letters to her mother should be forwarded from the London office. She gave no explanation of this strange request, but Mrs. Marchant promised that all letters should be readdressed immediately on their arrival.
Sitting in the train, Mona wrote to her mother and tried to explain as gently as she could the reason why she was not giving her the address of her destination.
‘You are too soft-hearted, darling,’ she wrote. ‘I know Michael would get round you. He’d seem so unhappy and so wistful that you’d just be unable to resist him – then he’d come and see me and all my trouble would have been wasted.’
She made no mention of her jewellery, that was too difficult, too embarrassing to explain even to her mother, but she wrote enthusiastically of what lay ahead of her, letting no suspicion of apprehension or anxiety creep into her letter.
Only to herself, as she stared out at the landscape, did she admit a feeling, not only of doubt, but almost of despair. She was gripped by loneliness, torn within herself at the idea of being utterly alone, and having no one to whom she could turn.
She thought of Michael and felt she was like a person deliberately leaving the warm, cosy intimacy of a fireside to go out ill-clad into the freezing darkness of the night.
‘But I am right,’ Mona thought to herself. ‘I know I am doing the right thing.’
Although it was cold comfort, she tried to encourage herself by considering her own nobility of action.
It was hard. Every pulse in her body ached and longed for Michael. She thought of how closely he had held her the previous evening, his lips on hers, murmuring words with which he had dedicated them both to a life of love and unity.
“Oh, Michael!” Mona cried suddenly out aloud.
The tears were pouring down her cheeks, she could not stop them. She covered her face with her hands. Children, however much they needed her care and her assistance, were but a poor substitute for the home that Michael had offered her, for the protection and the joy of his love, for the babies they might have had together, children of their own, the perfect consequence of a perfect happiness.
Angry with herself for her weakness, Mona wiped her eyes. There was no looking back, she had to go forward. She had made the plunge, she had been determined to renounce the easier path and make atonement by the hardest and most difficult way. She could not weaken. She would not let herself be defeated by her own frailty.
She powdered her nose just before the train drew in to Fulton-under-Slough. It was raining and the wayside station looked drab and dreary in the fading afternoon light. Mona got out and carrying her own suitcase, made for the station yard.
There was no car or trap to meet her, only a dray loading up with sacks of potatoes. She addressed herself to the old, bearded driver.
“Do you know if there’s anyone here from Ivydene?” she asked, “or how far it is from the station?”
“Ivydene?” he said. “It ’ain’t far. Be they expectin’ ye?”
“I think so,” Mona said, wondering if the telegram Mrs. Marchant had sent early in the morning had reached its destination.
The driver took his pipe out of his mouth and shouted across the yard.
“Bill! Where be that lad? Bill!” A sheepish-looking boy, dressed in a tattered coat two or three sizes too large for him, came out from the goods shed.
“ ’ain’t ye bin expectin’ a lady fer Ivydene?” the drayman asked.
