than sorry,’ she concluded. ‘And think about all the displaced Chinese children and refugees who are benefitting from your parents’ missionary work.’ She gave a little smile. ‘And at least Dorothy and Joan – or should I say, “Sprout and Mouse” – are staying, too, so that’s something, isn’t it?’
She hadn’t used my friends’ nicknames before. I suppose she did it to make me feel better.
I held the sheet of writing paper to my nose. ‘It smells of her,’ I whispered. ‘Of lavender. Her favourite.’ I tucked the letter into my pinafore pocket and wiped a tear from my cheek. ‘She likes the smell of sweet peas, too. And roses. She doesn’t care for lily-of-the-valley though. It makes her sneeze.’ My mother had become a collection of such memories; scraps and fragments I rummaged through. ‘I really did want to see her, Miss. Ever so much.’ I pushed my hands into my pockets. ‘It isn’t fair.’
I hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. Self-pity was not a trait to be admired, and homesickness was considered ‘sentimental nonsense’. We were often reminded how disappointed our parents would be to learn that we were thinking only of ourselves, but still, it was unfair that I couldn’t see Mummy, and I didn’t care that I’d said so.
Miss Kent asked me to join her at the window. We stood for a moment, side by side in silence. I wondered if she might place a comforting arm around my shoulder, but she kept her arms folded and looked straight ahead.
‘What do you see outside?’ she asked.
I reached up onto my tiptoes. Beyond the window, several school servants, dressed in their uniforms of cropped black trousers and a white blouse with knotted buttons, were busy with various tasks. ‘I can see Shu Lan carrying a basket of laundry. And Wei Huan, with a rake and broom …’ I trailed off as we watched them work.
Wei Huan, one of the school gardeners, had helped us with our Gardener badge for Brownies that summer. He called us his ‘Little Flowers’. Shu Lan was less friendly and wasn’t very popular among the girls as a result. If we interrupted her before she’d finished tidying our dorm, she would shoo us away with her hands, and mutter things at us in Chinese.
‘Perhaps it isn’t fair that Shu Lan has to carry that heavy basket, full of our dirty bedsheets,’ Miss Kent said. ‘Or perhaps it isn’t fair for Wei Huan to sweep up the leaves that we walk over and kick into the air, for fun.’
I thought about my amah, one of many ‘little mothers’ at the Mission compound in Shanghai, who’d helped with domestic chores while our parents carried out their missionary work. Having our own servant had been a novelty when we’d first arrived from England, but I hardly noticed them now. I certainly didn’t think about all the work they did to make our lives more comfortable.
‘We might see them as the school’s servants, but that’s just their job,’ Miss Kent continued. ‘They’re also somebody’s daughters and sons, and no doubt they also receive disappointing news from time to time, and wish they could see their mothers more often. Life isn’t always fair for them, either.’
When she was cross, Miss Kent spoke in a way that reminded me of brittle twigs snapping underfoot on autumn walks. I pressed the toe of my shoe against the skirting board and felt my cheeks go red. Without giving me a ticking-off, she’d done exactly that.
‘We all have to make the best of the circumstances we are given, Nancy,’ she continued, as she turned to face me, her expression softening a little. ‘All things considered, I’d say we have plenty to be grateful for. Don’t you?’
I nodded, and bit my lip. ‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Then we won’t need to discuss things being fair or not again, shall we?’
I shook my head and took Miss Kent’s handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my tears. The embroidered letters EK and HE had started to fray a little, but the fabric still carried the scent of roses and kindness, just as it had when Miss Kent had first given it to me.
She let out a funny little gasp. ‘Gosh! So that’s where it went.’
‘You gave it to me on the boat, remember? When we left Shanghai.’ I thought about the promise she’d made to Mummy, to keep a special eye on me during the journey to Chefoo. Miss Kent had given me the handkerchief to dry my tears as I stood beside her at the railings. I’d waved madly to Mummy until she’d eventually disappeared beneath a sea of colourful rice-paper parasols held by elegant ladies sheltering their faces from the sun. ‘I’m sorry, Miss,’ I said as I held the handkerchief out to her. ‘I should have given it back.’
She hesitated before closing my fingers around it. ‘It’s yours now. Let it be a reminder that there’s always somebody worse off, no matter how rotten things might seem.’ She let her hand rest on mine for just a moment before folding her arms again. ‘Now, run along.’
I forced a smile as I left the office and set off down the corridor.
‘And pull your socks up, Nancy Plummer,’ she called after me. ‘It’s impossible to feel cheerful with socks sagging around your ankles like bread dough.’
I added Mummy’s letter to the collection I kept in the tea caddy beneath my bed. It was almost full of letters and other special things that reminded me of her: a button from her coat, a photograph of us standing outside our house in England, the eye of a peacock feather I’d found in the Pleasure Gardens in Shanghai. Simple mementoes of time spent with her; precious treasures while we were forced to be apart.
Even my best friend, Sprout, couldn’t cheer me up as we got ready for Brownies.
‘It’s not the end of the world, Plum,’ she said, using my nickname, as she tucked a strand of wispy blonde hair behind her sticky-out ear and made herself go cross-eyed to make me laugh. ‘We’ll have plenty of fun. And you’ll see her in the spring.’
Sprout – given her nickname for being skinny as a bamboo stalk, and much taller than the rest of us – was from Connecticut, in America, which made her fascinating to me, a freckled English girl who’d grown up in the Sussex countryside and enunciated everything in Received Pronunciation. Sprout spoke with a lovely loose confidence that I envied and admired. Out of nearly two hundred children who attended the school – mostly British nationals, a dozen or so Americans, and a handful of Canadians, Australians and Dutch – Dorothy ‘Sprout’ Hinshaw was the funniest, and most interesting person I’d ever met. She was also very good at getting herself into trouble. I often wished I could be more like her: more American and carefree.
For once, I wasn’t in the mood for Brownies that evening. I tried not to let it show as we stood in our Fairy Ring and said the Brownie Promise because, as Sixer of Pixies, I had to set a good example to the rest of the girls. As we recited the familiar words, I really did promise to do my best and serve my king and country and help other people, but a flush of shame rushed to my cheeks when I promised to love my God. I wanted to, very much, but I had an awful lot of questions about Him that nobody could ever answer, mostly about why He never answered my prayers to see Mummy. To make up for it, I squeezed my eyes shut extra tight as we said the Amen.
I’d been a Pixie since joining the 2nd Chefoo Brownies in my first term. We were one of two Brownie Guide packs, and several Girl Guide and Boy Scout groups at the school. I’d worked hard for Golden Bar, and the interest badges I’d sewn onto the sleeve of my tunic – Booklover, Thrift, Musician, Gardener, Collector and, most recently, First Aider. Every badge earned was a source of immense pride, each one a step towards becoming a Girl Guide. I was especially proud of the second yellow stripe
