Читать книгу Whisper on the Wind - Elizabeth Elgin - Страница 4

‘Don’t agree with them trousers. You’re a married woman, and married women shouldn’t wear trousers.’

‘Breeches, Aunt Min, and there is a war on.’

Slowly, ponderously, Kathleen Allen gazed around the room as if looking at it for the very last time; a room she would rather not remember, truth known. An over-furnished, over-decorated, overcrowded little room.

Her eyes trailed the back of the sofa to the piano top and the photographs of her husband’s parents and Barney – Barnaby, her husband as a little boy, scowling into the camera. Barney with his bronze medal for ice-skating and Barney in khaki, grown fatter now, his toothbrush moustache tilting rakishly with the crooked, Clark Gable smile.

He wouldn’t smile when he got her letter, she frowned, wondering why she should feel so guilty about what she had done. But it wasn’t so much what she had done, she supposed, but the way in which she had done it. Sneakily, really, it had had to be, because her husband condemned out of hand any woman who joined the armed forces. He always had.

But surely Barney couldn’t object to the Land Army? Army. In that word the trouble lay. The Land Volunteers or the Farming Corps would have pacified him, but to call it the Land Army at once suggested a group of liberated women in breeches and bright green pullovers, swinging along in ranks of four, pitchforks at the ready.

‘And you’re still set on going, girl?’

‘Doesn’t seem I’ve left myself a lot of choice. I did volunteer.’

‘Yes, you did. And Barnaby won’t be pleased, but you know that, don’t you? I suppose you’ve told him?’

‘He knows.’ Well, he would when he got her letter, she amended silently. The trouble would start when she received his reply. Because trouble it would contain.

It was unfair, really, that her husband should object to her doing her bit for the war effort, but Barney could, and what was more, he would. He would object loud and long in every letter he wrote, not caring at all that the Censor would read every word.

She had written to her husband immediately the OHMS letter came; the letter that told her she had passed her medical examination and been accepted into the Women’s Land Army for the duration of hostilities. That official letter had also told her to report for service on Thursday 18 December, using the enclosed railway travel warrant, and that her uniform, which had already been posted to her in two parcels, would arrive within the course of the next few days. And that had been that. There could be no going back.

The day she had written to Barney was one she would always remember, for it was not only the day on which her calling-up papers came, nor the day on which she summoned up the courage to confess, on a sixpenny airmail letter-card, what she had done, but the day, too, on which her country declared war on the Japanese nation. The day on which, she accepted sadly, the entire world had finally been drawn into war.

But Aunt Min was right. Barney would not be pleased that his wife had joined the Land Army. Hadn’t he always made his feelings about women in uniform quite clear? Common, the lot of them and nothing more nor less than comforts for officers. Groundsheets. Why else would women doll themselves up in uniform? Plain as the nose on your face, wasn’t it?

No doubting it, Barney would not approve, but on the credit side, Barney wasn’t here to prevent it and for better or for worse she was in the Land Army for the duration; having a baby seemed just about the only thing that would free her from it. And getting pregnant when your husband was in the Army in Egypt was hardly likely to happen.

‘Where was it you said you was going?’ Minnie Jepson asked yet again. ‘In the wilds, I suppose it is?’

‘Somewhere in Yorkshire. Alderby St Mary. It’s in the North Riding, I think.’

Aunt Min stiffened. Back of beyond, that’s what. It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn it was cannibal country. To a Londoner, anything north of the river Trent was cannibal country.

‘You’ll have to watch your step, my girl. Funny lot, up there. And they talk funny, too. Whereabouts in Alderby St Mary will it be?’

‘I’m going to a house called Peacock Hey. It’s a hostel, really, and I’ll be living with other women so you needn’t worry, Aunt Min. I’ll be fine. There’ll be a Forewoman and a Warden to keep an eye on us all.’

‘Hmm. And how long will it take you to get there?’

‘I don’t know, for sure. It’ll depend on the train and if we get a good run through.’ And if they weren’t shunted into a siding to await the passing of something more important; a train carrying vital war supplies or a troop train, maybe. ‘I change at Crewe for York, then get a bus to Alderby.’

‘Then let’s hope you’ll be all right, girl,’ Minnie Jepson muttered. ‘Let’s hope they put you off at the right stop.’ After all, it would be dark tonight by tea-time. Black as pitch it would be, owls hooting and things creeping in hedgerows. ‘Can’t say I envy you with all them moors …’

‘Aunt Min, I’m not going to Wuthering Heights. Alderby isn’t in hilly country. It’s in the Vale of York. I’ve looked it up. It’s good farming country, not all windswept trees and sheep.’

She sounded far braver than she felt, for her husband’s aunt was right. To a city dweller like herself who’d never been anywhere nor seen anything, the countryside was a place of mystery and she, too, hoped she would get off the bus at the right place because in the blackout one bus stop was much the same as any other.

She shivered apprehensively. Suppose she did get off at the wrong stop? Suppose she found herself in the middle of nowhere with never a light to guide her and owls hooting like Aunt Min said and eyes watching her and –

‘I’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘And I’ll have to go soon. Why don’t I put the kettle on? Goodness only knows when I’ll get another cup of tea.’

Had she been stupid, she thought as she filled the kettle. Wouldn’t it have been better to have stayed here in Birmingham, where all the factories were on war work and crying out for men and women and good money there for the earning?

No, it wouldn’t. Last-minute nerves, that’s all this was. She’d felt exactly the same before her wedding. Nerves, and doubts. And hadn’t she always wanted to live in the country? Hadn’t she longed as a child in that green-painted dormitory, to sleep in a room of her own with windows wide open to the silent fields and trees? Even when she had grown up and married Barney, that little aching dream had still been with her. Suddenly she had needed to get away from Birmingham’s streets, the sirens and bombs, away from this house, too – Barney’s mother’s house – and all it reminded her of.

‘Looks as if you’re going for the duration,’ Minnie Jepson mourned, pushing past the suitcase that almost blocked the passageway. ‘What ever’ve you got in there, then?’

‘Oh, uniform, mostly.’ Kath smiled. ‘Dungarees and wellingtons and boots. My own underwear, of course. And shirts and socks, and a working jacket …’

‘Hmm. Don’t know why them blokes at the War Agriculture place didn’t think to give you some sort of training. Well, what if they tell you to milk some cows, eh? What’ll you do then?’

‘Don’t really know.’ Trust Aunt Min to put her finger right on it. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to learn, won’t I?’

‘Bein’ on a farm isn’t all collectin’ eggs and having a romp in the hay.’ She took a spoonful of tea from the caddy then shook it level before sliding it into the pot. ‘Evacuees from next door to me came home. Couldn’t stand it. Wet and smelly they said it was. Couldn’t wait to get back to London – bombs or no bombs.’

‘I’ll manage.’ Kath wrapped the knitted holder around the handle of the kettle, pouring carefully. ‘I hope you’ll be all right, Aunt Min. When I decided to join up I didn’t know you’d be coming to live here, though I’m glad you did.’

Very glad. With Aunt Min left in charge, there would be no bombed-out families taking possession of the little house in her absence, she thought gratefully. Aunt Min would keep it clean and warm, though where the old lady would go when the war was over was a problem to be shelved until the war was over. ‘I’ll try to send you something every week to help with the coal and electricity, and I’ve left my address on the mantelpiece so you’ll know where I am. If there’s a phone in the hostel I’ll let you have the number, though I don’t suppose you’ll need to ring me.’

‘Don’t suppose I shall.’ Minnie Jepson was used to managing alone. A childless widow from the last war, she had quickly learned to make ends meet and live from day to day on her pension. ‘And don’t give this house another thought once you’ve left it. I’ll soon have it to my liking, never you fear, girl.’

Housework was Minnie Jepson’s religion. Her London home had been her total joy until a direct hit from a German bomb had forced her to seek shelter with her sister in Birmingham. Indeed, it was as if Fate had intervened on her behalf, for her sister had died peacefully in her sleep not six weeks after, her nephew Barnaby Allen had been despatched to fight the war in North Africa and now young Kath was taking herself off to darkest Yorkshire. It could not have suited her better.

‘I’ll send you a letter every week, Kath, to let you know I’ve got the money all right. And I’ll see your bed is kept aired, just in case they let you home for a holiday, though I don’t suppose they will.’

She gazed unblinking at her nephew’s wife. A good-looking girl, without a doubt. Small wonder Barnaby had courted her with such ferocity and married her with such determination. Dark, almost black hair, yet eyes of blue; so blazingly blue that you couldn’t help noticing them. Thick, dark eyelashes and a nice smile. Irish, those looks were; even her name was Irish. Yet there’d been no one of her own at that hasty little wedding. Only the girl who’d stood bridesmaid for her and even she wasn’t family. Some girl, hadn’t it been, who’d worked as a parlourmaid in the house next door?

‘You can pop a saccharin in my tea,’ she murmured. ‘And give me the second cup. Can’t abide it weak.’

‘Yes, Aunt Min.’ Can’t you wait until I’m out of the house before you take it over? It is Barney’s after all and I am his wife and if anything happened to Barney it would be my house. ‘Are you going to be able to manage on just one ration book when I’m gone?’

‘I’ll be all right. Managed before I was bombed out, didn’t I?’ Of course she would manage. With Kath out of the way and the cleaning and polishing done, there’d be plenty of time to stand in the food queues. It wasn’t a bad way of passing a couple of hours – even in winter. ‘I suppose you’ll be living off the fat of the land? Them farmers’ll have plenty of milk and eggs. Don’t tell me they don’t keep a bit back for themselves.’

‘I really don’t know. But wouldn’t you keep some for yourself now and again? Wouldn’t you treat yourself to a nice fresh egg for your breakfast?’

Fresh eggs. They were a thing of the past to ordinary people. Minnie Jepson reckoned that the weekly egg on her ration book was at least a fortnight old when she got it; stood to reason, didn’t it, the way they smelled when you cracked one? Only fit for putting in a cake – if you had the butter and sugar to spare.

‘What’s a fresh egg?’ she demanded, truculently. ‘And hadn’t you better be thinking about getting yourself off? You can’t rely on a bus being there when you want one; not with a war on, you can’t. That case is going to take a bit of carrying, an’ all. Best be on your way, girl. Take it slowly.’

‘Yes. No use hanging around, I suppose.’ She wished Aunt Min wasn’t so anxious to be rid of her. ‘I’ll just slip across the yard to the lavvy and then I’ll be going.’

She wished the churning inside her would stop. She was always like this when something untoward happened. Like the morning she married Barney. She’d wanted to run away. If she hadn’t been so desperate to leave the house she’d worked in for the past six years, she would have. A skivvy, that’s all she had been. She had exchanged the drabness of the children’s home for the drabness of domestic service and only marriage to Barney had freed her from it. Or so she had thought until he’d taken her to the little house he had promised her. Trouble was, he hadn’t ever mentioned they’d be sharing it with his mother.

She had felt the same churning that day she walked through the doors of the Labour Exchange and told them she wanted to be a landgirl, surprised that she hadn’t needed her husband’s permission. The knowledge had made her feel slightly giddy, because for once she was doing something entirely because she wanted to. She was making only the second important decision in the whole of her twenty-three-and-a-bit years and she had been shaking with the enormity of it when she left the counter; when the clerk had already made an appointment for her medical and there was almost no going back.

‘Ain’t you taking Barney’s picture with you, then?’ Aunt Min took the Clark Gable photograph from the piano top and dusted it absently with her pinafore.

‘I’ve packed one already. I’ll leave that one for you.’ Kath smiled, wishing her heart hadn’t joined the turmoil inside her with loud, insistent thuds. But this was her first real adventure and being in the Land Army was the only taste of freedom she would ever have.

Oh, she was grateful to Barney. He’d given her respectability, a name. She was Kathleen Allen. She knew exactly who she was and that no one could push her around any more – unless she chose to let them. Now she was the same as anyone else. She had the same identity card, the same ration book and from today she would wear the same uniform and get the same pay as all the other landgirls in a hostel called Peacock Hey. For a woman who had never quite known who she was, that was something of an achievement. When the war was over and Barney came home, she would settle down, be a good wife and have his children. When the war was over. In two years, three years, maybe even longer now that Japan had come into it; now that it wasn’t just Hitler they had to see to but all those Japs as well. Funny little slant-eyed men who people said fought and fought and never gave in. How long would it take to beat them, she wondered, even with the Americans on our side.

‘Well then,’ she said, wondering why her voice sounded so whispery and strange. ‘I’ll just put on my hat and coat.’

A short, well-cut top coat; a round, leather-tied hat, though just how she was expected to wear it she didn’t know. She placed it comfortably on the back of her head, picked up her gas mask and said again, ‘Well then.’

Minnie Jepson walked down the passage, opened the front door then stood, arms folded, waiting.

Kath picked up her case, manoeuvring it with her knee to the doorstep. Then she put it down with a thump, placed her hands on the elder woman’s shoulders and kissed her cheek.

‘So-long, Aunt Min. Take care of yourself. I’ll write, like I promised.’

‘Ta-ra, girl. God bless.’

Kath picked up her case. She didn’t turn round – you didn’t ever look back in wartime – and she wasn’t surprised to hear the door slammed shut behind her. Even before she reached the gate.

Slowly she walked to the top of the street. The churning and thumping were even worse now and she felt strange in her uniform, especially in the breeches and knee-length socks.

‘Alderby St Mary,’ she whispered. Somewhere in the North Riding of Yorkshire and a million miles away, thank God.

The letter addressed to Rosalind Fairchild came by the second delivery on the 18th of December. It bore the words On His Majesty’s Service and she had expected it daily for the past two weeks. Sucking in her breath she opened the envelope with a swift, decisive tear, quickly scanned the single sheet of paper, then looked up, her face a blank.

‘It’s all right, Gran. They’re letting me stay at Ridings. I don’t have to be called up.’

Hester Fairchild let go her indrawn breath. She had been worried; useless to deny it. Government departments usually did the exact opposite to what was expected or hoped of them, but for once it seemed they had got it right. She was more relieved than her face showed, for war was hateful to her. War – the last one – had taken her husband and she had no wish for this one to snatch away her granddaughter.

‘I suppose it’s official, now – puts you in a reserved occupation?’

‘Seems it does. I’m exempt from call-up, it says here, but I can’t change my job without first asking them.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I’d better let Mat Ramsden know. At least I’m one of his problems solved.’

So now it was official. She had a reserved occupation; work considered so important that she was exempted from call-up. And farming was important. Now into the third year of the war, food was becoming alarmingly short. Already it was strictly rationed, with rumours of cuts after Christmas and farmers were left in no doubt that they must grow as much food as they could, and then some, with every acre of land used to capacity. Farms and farm-workers became important almost overnight and vital to the war effort, Mr Churchill said. Britain’s rundown farms were suddenly in the front line. For the first time since the last war ended, farmers were needed.

‘Read it.’ Roz handed over the letter.

She was glad it was all settled, that she could stay in Alderby St Mary, though not so very long ago a small, secret part of her had longed to join the armed forces. She had wanted to wear a uniform, to be seen to be doing her bit for the war, but that was before Paul; before she had gone to a dance at the aerodrome and met the tall, flaxen-haired navigator. Once she would have scoffed at the idea of love at first sight. That kind of feeling couldn’t be love, she’d have said. Instant attraction, perhaps; something sexual. But something strange had taken hold of her that night; some feeling she had not known to exist had set every small pulse in her body beating exquisitely and her mouth had gone dry as he crossed the floor towards her. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to dance. He’d held out his hand and smiled as if their meeting was meant to be. They had danced the floor twice round before he said, ‘Paul. Hullo.’ And she had whispered, ‘Rosalind. Roz. Hullo, yourself.’

At least she thought that was what she said, but her heart was thudding in her ears and she’d only been sure of his nearness and the absolute rightness of their being together.

Paul Rennie. Crew member of the Lancaster bomber K-King, based at the hastily constructed aerodrome not two miles away. Paul, who had flown his eighth bombing raid the night before and who would soon be on his thirteenth. Operational flight number thirteen; the dicey one, after which it would all be easy until the thirtieth, which would mark the end of the tour.

His first ‘op’ had been a swine, he’d said. He couldn’t remember a lot about that first raid over Germany save that it had been on Bremen and that the sickness in the pit of his stomach had been nothing at all to do with turbulence. But Paul was like that. He didn’t think that flying was a piece of cake; bloody stupid of him, really, ever to have volunteered for aircrew. But he was smiling as he said it and his eyes had been laughing, too. Flying Officer Paul Rennie, who lived near Bath and had a twin sister called Pippa who was a Waaf, somewhere in Lincolnshire.

She would see Paul again tomorrow at the Friday-night dance – if he wasn’t flying, that was. If this viciously cold weather continued all week; if a wind from the south didn’t banish the frost overnight.

‘Won’t be long, Gran.’ She shrugged into her coat. ‘Just going over to the farm.’

Mat would be glad they were letting her stay, just as Gran was. Even if she had never met Paul, it made sense that she should remain in Alderby, because Gran needed her and now Ridings needed her too; a need which had first arisen the day the representative from the War Agricultural Executive Committee – the man from the War Ag. they called him – had come to Ridings. That day, he had gravely and silently paced the boundaries of the parkland surrounding the house, the game-cover and all the grazing Gran rented to Mat for his beef cattle. He had made notes and calculations then said he hoped Mrs Fairchild appreciated that all these idle acres must come under the plough?

‘Technically, you see, parkland is grassland and grassland is an extravagance. It just doesn’t produce enough food to the acre. It’s wasteful, and –’ He shrugged away the remainder of the sentence. He had no need to explain or to ask. It was simply a case of going politely through the preamble. The Government needed more wheat and barley, potatoes and sugarbeet and farmers must grow them. A landowner with two hundred-odd acres of parkland doing nothing must contribute too. Or lose her land.

‘We’ll confirm it officially, Mrs Fairchild. And I think it might be reasonable to expect it to be ploughed –’ he waved an all embracing arm, ‘by the first of March, next?’

Hester Fairchild nodded apprehensively. ‘The beeches?’ she asked him, gazing stunned down the majestic tree-lined drive. ‘And the oaks? I don’t have to – surely you aren’t asking me to –’ Her lips refused to form the words have them cut down. There were more than a hundred, and to fell such magnificent trees was unthinkable.

The man from the War Ag. pursed his lips. ‘I think we can leave the trees – plough round them.’ He had acquired over two hundred acres for cultivation with less trouble than he’d expected; he was willing to leave the woman her trees. ‘I’m afraid, though, that the spinney …’ He condemned the game-cover with a nod. ‘The rough woodland must go. You’ll appreciate that?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ The mistress of Ridings agreed at once; there were no trees of importance there.

So the man from the War Ag. had thanked her, shaken her hand and wished her good-day, well satisfied. She watched him drive off in his official car wondering how she was going to be able to plough up all those acres, tear out game-cover, and cultivate and harvest crops for the war effort.

But at least it would be a means to an end, Roz considered, reluctant to leave the warmth of the kitchen. Ridings was almost a farm now, and she was a farm-worker in a reserved occupation and for that she must be grateful. She could see the war out at home, which was more than most eighteen-year-olds could even begin to hope for.

‘Oops! Sorry, Polly,’ she gasped, almost colliding with the slight, grey-haired woman who stood in the doorway. ‘Didn’t see you! Gran will tell you the news.’

‘And what in the name of goodness was all that about?’ Polly Appleby put down the brown paper carrier-bag which held polishing cloths, pinafore and slippers. ‘Rush, rush, rush, that one. Never a minute to spare. Where’s she off to now?’

‘The letter came.’

‘Oh, aye? It’s all right, then?’

‘It’s all right. They’re not going to call her up.’

‘Never thought they would.’ Polly filled the kettle and set it on the stove top. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it? I suppose she’s away to tell Jonty Ramsden?’

‘To tell Mat, actually. It’s good of Mat to help out with the ploughing and such-like. He hasn’t got the time, really, and he certainly doesn’t have the men. He’s got his own farm to run and there’s only Jonty to help him.’

‘There’s Grace. Works like a man, Grace Ramsden does. And Mat Ramsden’ll do all right out of your parkland – or so talk has it.’ She held her hands to the fire. ‘But you’ll not be interested in village talk.’

Only Polly spoke to Hester Fairchild as an equal. Polly had always been there; had been a housemaid at Ridings when Hester Fairchild came there as a bride, all those years ago.

She stooped to throw a log on the fire, sending white ash falling into the hearth, and red sparks darting up the chimney.

‘My, but that’s a frosty fire, ma’am. Be a cold ‘un tonight.’

‘The village?’ Hester took cups and saucers from the dresser. ‘What are they saying now?’

‘Well, talk has it that Mat Ramsden has asked the War Ag. for a landgirl. All Alderby knows. If he’s to go into partnership with you, they reckon he’s going to need all the help he can get.’

‘Alderby seems well informed, as usual,’ Hester observed. ‘And it won’t be a partnership, exactly. But I’m told I must plough up my parkland and grow food on it, and since my acres are next to his, it seems sensible to work them between us as best we can.

‘That’s why Roz applied for exemption. She might as well work on her own land as join the Land Army and work on someone else’s. I was beginning to think they wouldn’t allow it. It seemed such a straightforward solution that I was certain they’d tell her she had to join up, or go into munitions, or something.’

‘Hmm.’ Polly laid traycloth and cups on the silver-handled tray for, war or no war, even a cup of tea was taken in a civilized manner at Ridings. ‘And there’s talk that the War Ag. is paying farmers well for putting grazing land under the plough. Two pounds an acre subsidy, I heard tell they’d get. That’ll be more than four hundred pounds, won’t it?’

‘Four hundred and eighty.’ The information was tersely given. ‘There are two hundred and forty acres, to be exact.’ Drat the village for its nosiness and drat it again for being right for once. ‘And one landgirl won’t be enough, Mat told me. He’ll need Roz, too, and a good ploughman. Oh, there’ll be enough for the girls to do; just for them to take over the milk-round will be a load off Grace Ramsden’s mind.

‘But my land must be ploughed up, and soon. Those acres have been down to grass since ever I can remember and the sooner they’re opened up to the weather the better.’

‘I’ll grant you that, but a good ploughman is as rare as hen’s teeth these days,’ Polly brooded. Stood to reason, didn’t it? There’d been little money in farming between the wars and small use growing crops that nobody wanted to buy. Ploughs had lain rusting these last twenty years; ploughmen had abandoned their skills and gone to the towns.

‘I know that, Polly, but we’ll manage between us. We’ll have to. If that parkland isn’t under cultivation by March, the War Ag. will take it over for the duration. It’s as simple as that.’

‘But they can’t do that, ma’am. Isn’t theirs to take!’

‘They can, and they will. The War Ag. can take my land just as any government department can take anything it wants. They’d fling the Defence of the Realm Act at me and if I protested I’d be unpatriotic.’

‘And lose your land, whether or no.’

‘Exactly. So let’s hope Mat gets his ploughman and his landgirl.’

‘Aye.’ Polly settled herself in the fireside rocker, stirring her tea, gazing into the hearth. Just the one fire burning here, now, yet when she’d been a young under-housemaid here, she could have counted five fires at least burning from morning till night, and fires in the bedrooms, too. But coal was a pound a ton then, and logs for the taking from the estate. And the Master had been alive and Miss Roz’s mother a slip of a girl.

Ridings had been the place to work at the turn of the century, Polly considered. Far better than being in service at Peddlesbury, ugly old Victorian pile that it had been. Built on wool and inherited coal money and them as lived there then not real gentry, like the Fairchilds. Now Peddlesbury was an aerodrome and Ridings not the house it used to be.

But things had been different before the Master was killed. And before that fire. Twenty-four bedrooms there’d once been and three housemaids and a cook and scullery-maid and a footman. Aye, and a parlourmaid and a housekeeper as well as the outside staff.

But that was another life it seemed, and now she, Polly, lived in one of the gate lodges and came each day to ‘do’. She had been a part of a life that was long gone and because she still remembered the Master and Miss Janet, she was as much a part of Ridings as the woman who owned it and the granddaughter who would one day inherit it, and the worry of it.

‘You’re quiet all of a sudden. Penny for them?’

‘Oh, they’m worth more than a penny,’ Polly returned gravely. ‘Oh my word, yes. A lot more than that.’

‘Then I’d best not ask. But sometimes, Polly, I wonder. Have I been wise, urging this exemption on Rosalind? Often, I think she spends too much time with me. Might it not have been better if I hadn’t tried so hard to keep her here – if she’d been left free to join the forces, seen a bit of life outside Alderby St Mary?’

‘It might have been, but like you said, she just might have opted to join the Land Army and been sent to work on some other farm.’

‘I know. But what do you mean, some other farm? I don’t have a farm, Poll Appleby.’

‘You don’t? Then what would you call all those acres you’ve got to cultivate? Seems to me that whether you like it or not you’re up to the neck in farming for the duration, and so is Miss Roz. And she’s as well staying at home and looking after her inheritance as she is joining the Air Force or the Army.’

‘Inheritance? A few hundred acres of parkland and all that remains of a house? And the parkland will go back to grass when the war is over and be left idle again. Some inheritance! And it’s all I have to leave her. That, and her name,’ she whispered bitterly.

‘Now don’t get yourself upset, ma’am. I know it’s the time of year, but soon it’ll be Christmas and afore you know it there’ll be a new year to look forward to.’

The time of year. December, when everything awful happened, Hester brooded. They’d taken Martin from her in December and it had been December when Ridings caught fire, the lanes so blocked with snow that the horses pulling the fire engine made heavy going and arrived almost too late.

And did it have to be December when Janet and Toby drove up to Scotland, leaving a two-year-old child behind them at Ridings and never coming back for her?

‘Yes, Polly, it’ll soon be over. And take no notice of me. I’m just a silly old woman.’

‘Old? You? Nay, I’ll not have that.’

The Mistress was sixty-four, Polly knew that as fact. She looked nowhere near her age, with those great brown eyes and hardly a line on the whole of her face. A beautiful woman, holding back time; still waiting for her man to come home, and find her unchanged. To Polly, she was still the laughing young girl who came to Ridings all those years ago on Martin Fairchild’s arm. And she would always be a fitting mistress for Ridings, no matter how life had treated her.

Thank God for the man from the War Ag. because now Ridings would be earning its keep again – the Mistress would have a pound or two in her pocket and not have to worry about keeping body and soul together, counting every penny and every lump of coal she put on the fire. Hester Fairchild had kept her pride and reared Miss Janet’s little lass to be a credit to the place. High time she had a bit of luck. Heaven only knew she deserved some.

Sniffing, Polly placed her cup on the draining board. ‘Ah, well. Best be making a start. What’ll it be today, then? Bedrooms or bathroom and stairs?’

The sky was ice-blue, the earth hard underfoot, the grass white and crisp with hoar frost. There was no sun, but the sky shone with a strange, metallic brightness and Roz knew that tonight it would be bitterly cold again. Tonight, the bombers at Peddlesbury would remain grounded.

‘I’m back!’ she called, slamming shut the door, hurrying to the fire. ‘My, but it’s cold. No sign of a let-up. It’ll freeze hard again tonight, just see if it doesn’t. I don’t suppose there’s a cup of tea in the pot?’

There was. Almost always. Tea was rationed, so the pot was kept warm and used until the leaves inside it would take no more diluting.

‘What did Mat say?’ Hester poured boiling water into the pot. ‘Was he pleased?’

‘Mat wasn’t there. He’s gone to the Labour Exchange again to nag them some more about a farm man, and Jonty’s gone to York for spares for the tractor. Grace said he wants to make a start on our ploughing as soon as the frost lets up a bit. It’s going to be one heck of a job, you know.

‘And good news – they’re getting a landgirl very soon. She might even be there tomorrow. Grace said that since I know everybody in the village, it might be a good idea for me and the new girl to take over the milk-round.

‘So don’t worry too much, Gran love. We’ll have Ridings parkland earning its keep before so very much longer. Think I’d better pop upstairs and tell Polly about the letter …’

‘Polly knows, so don’t keep her talking!’ Hester called to the retreating back. Then her lips formed an indulgent smile, because it seemed that her granddaughter was right. Between them they would make those long-idle acres grow food and earn money. Roz didn’t have to go away and December would soon be over. There’d be another year to look forward to; another spring.

‘Thank you, Janet,’ she whispered, eyes closed, ‘for giving me this lovely child …’

Roz walked around the bed Polly was making and picked up a corner of the sheet. ‘You know about the letter, Poll?’

‘Aye. Charity begins at home.’

‘Hmm. Jonty’s making a start on Gran’s ploughing very soon and Mat’s been allocated a landgirl at last, so it’s all going to work out, isn’t it? We’ll make it by March, if the frost breaks soon. Bet it’s terrible on the Russian front. They say it’s the coldest December for nearly twenty years.’ She abandoned the bed-making to wander over to the dressing-table mirror. ‘It’s freeeeezing outside. Just look at my nose. Red as my hair, isn’t it?’ Frowning, she turned away. ‘I’m not a bit like Gran, am I, Poll? Come to think of it, I’m not really like anybody. Where do you suppose my colouring came from?’

‘Colouring? With hair like yours, you’re complaining?’

‘No. Just curious. Gran is dark and so was Grandpa. And my parents were dark-haired and dark-eyed, so who sneaked in my carrot top?’

‘Auburn.’ Carrot top, indeed!

‘Auburn, then. But where did it come from?’ Not from anyone in any of the portraits, that was certain. All the way up the stairs and on the landing and in the downstairs rooms, not one of the Fairchilds hanging there had red hair. ‘Where, will you tell me?’

‘Gracious, child, how should I know? From your father’s side, perhaps, or maybe you’m a bit of a throwback? Yes, come to think of it, there was one with red hair, I seem to remember. Her portrait got burned, though, in the fire.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Roz didn’t remember, but best not talk about the fire, especially in December, that bleakest of months. ‘I suppose it makes a change – my being green-eyed, I mean, and red-haired.’

‘Suppose it does. Wouldn’t do if we all looked alike, would it? Now are you going to give me a hand with this bed, or are you going to stand there staring into that mirror till it’s done?’

‘It isn’t going to be a barrel of laughs, Poll, my being in a reserved occupation.’ Roz straightened the fat, pink eiderdown. ‘People look at you when you’re young and not in uniform, you know. Jonty’s had all sorts slung at him.’

‘Then I’m sure I don’t know why.’ Polly sniffed. ‘Jonty is doing a good job for the war effort and so will you be. Growing food is important, or why did they make you reserved?’

‘Yes, but when you’re as young as Jonty and me, people just expect you to be in uniform. He’s taken quite a bit of stick about it. “Get some in!” someone yelled after him. “Why aren’t you in khaki, mate? A bloody conchie, are you?”, though I know he’d rather have been a pilot, or a Commando.’

‘They’d never take Jonty Ramsden for a pilot nor a Commando,’ Polly retorted, matter-of-factly. ‘When did you ever see a pilot or a Commando wearing spectacles? Jonty will survive such talk and so will you, though it’s sad people should say things like that.’

If Martin Fairchild had been in a reserved occupation in the last war, he’d have been alive today, the older woman brooded. Uniforms were all very well, were fine and smart and patriotic, but they got you killed. The Mistress wouldn’t have minded the taunts. And now it was happening again. The war to end all wars, they said that one had been, yet only twenty years on …

Sad for the young ones, really. This war was none of their making, yet it was young shoulders the burden had fallen on, Polly sighed silently, and so many of them would never see the end of it. The Master hadn’t, nor her own young man. But that war was history, now. Their war had been glorified slaughter and because of that she was glad Miss Roz was staying at home with her gran; glad she would never join the armed forces, nor wear a uniform. And if thinking that was unpatriotic, then she didn’t give a damn, Polly thought, defiantly. Roz was all the Mistress had left. It was as simple as that.

Now the daft young thing was nattering on about her hair again, and that they could do without. Mind, it came up from time to time and was dealt with by her grandmother. But Roz ought to be told, Polly scowled, picking up dustpan and brush. She’d said as much, not all that long ago.

‘Don’t you think Miss Roz is old enough to know about –’ she’d said.

‘About what?’ the Mistress had interrupted, off-hand. ‘That she’s a Fairchild? But she knows that, Polly. She’s always known it. What more is there to tell?’

What more indeed? The Mistress had probably been right. And even if she wasn’t, she had her reasons for acting as she did.

‘She’ll hear nothing from me.’

‘Of course she won’t, Poll Appleby. There’s nothing to tell,’ Hester Fairchild replied briskly. Then her face had taken on that long-ago look. ‘Polly, if suddenly I weren’t here –’

‘Oh, aye? And where, suddenly, are you going, then?’

‘You know what I mean! I’m talking about the war; about nobody being certain of anything any more, and you know it. If suddenly I weren’t here, Poll, then it would be up to you. Because you’re the only one who knows, apart from me; the only one I’d trust to tell her. But only if she really needed to know, you understand?’

‘Aye, ma’am. Only if,’ she’d said, and the matter had been dropped for all time. Or so they had thought.

Oh, drat that lass and the colour of her hair! Why did she have to go on about it? Why on earth couldn’t she leave well alone?

‘Marvellous!’ Kathleen Allen heaved her suitcase from the bus stop opposite, glad to reach the shelter of the railway station again. ‘Flipping rotten marvellous!’

To think she might now be sitting beside the fire at home, her feet snug in Aunt Min’s hand-knitted slippers, a cup of tea at her side. But she stood instead in a blacked-out, unknown city and the next bus to Alderby St Mary not due for two more hours.

But it was her own fault. She should have heeded her husband’s warning and found war work in a factory or office; anywhere but in the Land Army. Dejectedly she sat down on her suitcase. The journey to York had been a nightmare. She had missed her connection at Crewe, though she strongly suspected there had been no connection to miss, then, after giving right of way to a goods train, a troop train and a train carrying ammunition, they at last pulled out of the station almost two hours late.

You were right, Barney. I should have listened to you. And do you know something else? I’m so cold and hungry that I’d sell my soul for a cup of tea!

She wasn’t crying, she really wasn’t. It was just that it was so cold and draughty sitting here in a gloomy, grimy station that her eyes were watering, and –

‘Hi, mate! Anything the matter?’ A Waaf corporal in trousers and battle-dress top stood there, smiling. ‘Would one of these help?’ She reached into her pocket for cigarettes. ‘Go on, it’s all right.’

‘No! I shouldn’t.’ Cigarettes were hard to come by. It wasn’t fair to take other people’s, be what they called an OP smoker, ‘I’m all right, thanks. Just a smut in my eye …’

‘I know the feeling well, but it passes, it really does.’ The girl in airforce blue took two cigarettes from the packet, then struck a match. ‘You wouldn’t be looking for a lift?’

‘A lift? Oh, aren’t I just.’ Kath inhaled blissfully. ‘But I don’t suppose you’re going my way. Not to Alderby St Mary?’

‘I can do better than that.’ The corporal laughed, ‘I go right past Peacock Hey, and I’ll bet a week’s pay that’s where you’re going.’

‘But I am! I am!’

‘Then just wait till that lot have unloaded their kit.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the airmen who jumped down from the back of the truck. ‘They’re going on leave, the lucky dogs. Home for Christmas. Makes you sick, don’t it?’

‘Sick. Yes.’ Kath drew deeply on her cigarette, then held the lighted end in the cup of her hand, just as she had seen Barney do; just as the corporal did now. Come to think of it, it was the way cigarettes were always held after dark, for didn’t they say that even the minutest glow could be seen from an enemy plane, though she very much doubted it. The real reason for cupping a cigarette, she supposed, was to hide it, for smoking outdoors in uniform was forbidden. Wasn’t it wonderful that she, Kath Allen, was in uniform now and being called mate by an Air Force driver? Mate. It sent a great glow of belonging washing over her and Barney’s expected disapproval was suddenly forgotten. She was a landgirl, wasn’t she? Still cold and hungry of course, but she was going to live in the country and work on a farm. Before long she would be at Peacock Hey and with luck there’d be a sandwich and a cup of tea there, maybe even hot water for a bath.

‘Thanks.’ She smiled at the Waaf corporal. ‘Thanks a lot – mate.’

They drove carefully. The streets of York hadn’t been laid down with RAF trucks in mind, the corporal said, and there were blacked-out traffic lights which could hardly be seen.

‘Isn’t it amazing,’ Kath murmured when the city was behind them, ‘you knowing about Peacock Hey, I mean.’

‘Not really. The girls there go to the Friday-night dances at our place and sometimes, if I’m on late duty like now, I take the truck and collect them.’

‘Your place?’

‘RAF Peddlesbury. There’s a big old house on the very edge of the runway called Peddlesbury Manor; it’s the Ops Centre and the Mess, now, and some of the unmarried officers sleep there, too. I believe Peacock Hey was once owned by the manor; I think the bailiff lived there. The Peacock girls are a decent crowd. It’s your first billet, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never lived in the country, you see – come from Birmingham …’

‘Well, one thing’s certain. It’s a whole lot quieter round these parts than Birmingham – or London, where I come from. Not a lot of bombing here, but we get quite a few nuisance raids. On the whole, though, you can expect to get a good night’s sleep. Has anyone told you where you’ll be working?’

‘Haven’t a clue. Hope it isn’t a dairy farm. Couldn’t milk a cow to save my life.’

‘You’ll learn, mate.’ The girl at the wheel grinned. ‘When I joined this mob I’d never been in charge of anything more lethal than a push-bike and look at me now, driving this truck.’

Kath sat contented in the darkness of the cab, peering into the rolling blackness as if she were riding shotgun. She wished she didn’t feel so smug, so defiant almost, because at this moment she didn’t care what Barney’s next letter might bring. For just once she was doing what she wanted to do and it was heady stuff. When the war was over and Barney came home, she would be a devoted wife, keep his home clean and always have his meals ready on time. But for now, for the duration, she would enjoy every minute of being a landgirl and living in the country. If the corporal could learn to drive a truck, then Kathleen Allen could learn to milk a cow and maybe even drive a tractor. She let go a sigh of pure bliss.

‘Tired?’

‘No. Just glad I’m almost there.’ Kath smiled.

‘Not almost. This is it.’ Gently they came to a stop. ‘Careful how you get down.’

‘This is the hostel?’

‘Across the road, beside that clump of trees. Mind how you go. See you around.’ The engine started with a roar.

‘See you. And thanks a lot, mate!’

The front gate of Peacock Hey had been painted white and the stones, too, that lined the path to the front door. Kath walked carefully, feeling for the doorstep with the toe of her shoe. She couldn’t find a bellpush, so knocked loudly instead, waiting apprehensively.

From inside came the swish of a curtain being pulled, then the door opened wide.

‘Where on earth have you been, girl? We expected you before supper. It’s Kathleen Allen, isn’t it?’

‘That’s me. Sorry I’m late. The –’

‘Oh, away with your bother.’ The tall, slender woman drew the blackout curtain over the door again then switched on the light. ‘Trains bad, I suppose?’

‘Awful. I got a lift, though, from York.’ She looked around at the linoleum-covered floor and stairs, at the row of coat pegs and the letterboard beside the telephone. It reminded her of the orphanage, yet her welcome here had been warm, and there was a vase of yellow and bronze chrysanthemums in the stair alcove. The flowers comforted her, assured her it would be all right. She had a theory about houses – they liked you or they didn’t. Either way it showed, and Peacock Hey liked her.

‘I don’t suppose there’d be a cup of tea?’ she asked, nervously.

‘There would, lassie, but let’s get your case upstairs, then you can come down to the kitchen and have a bite. Cook lives locally and she’s away home, but she left you something and I’ve been keeping it hot in the bottom of the oven.

‘Afraid you’re in the attic – oh, I’m Flora Lyle by the way. I’m your Forewoman.’ She held out her hand and her grip was warm and firm. ‘I hope you don’t mind being shoved up here? It’s cold in winter and hot in summer, but it’ll only be until someone leaves and there’s bedspace for you in one of the rooms. We shouldn’t really use the attics – fire-bomb risk, you know, but I don’t suppose there’ll be any, and there’s sand and water up there, just in case. And you will have a room to yourself,’ she added, as if by way of compensation. ‘It’s just that we’re so crowded …’

‘It looks just fine to me.’ Kath set down her case and gazed around the small, low-ceilinged room, saw a black-painted iron bed, mattress rolled, blankets folded, a window hung with blackout curtains in the gable-end wall. Stark, it was, like the orphanage; bare like her room had been in service.

‘Your cupboard is outside on the landing, I’m afraid.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t.’ A chest of drawers stood beneath the sloping ceiling, a chair beside the bed. ‘It’s fine, truly.’

Kath didn’t mind being in the attic. She had slept in an attic the whole of her years in domestic service and shared it, what was more, with a maid who snored. A room to herself was an unknown luxury, far removed from the long, green dormitory she once slept in with nineteen others. Even married to Barney she had shared, not only with him which was to be expected, but with his mother next door, for she’d been sure the old lady lay awake nights, ears strained for every whisper and every creak of their marital bedsprings. Yes, an attic – a room to herself would be bliss and she wouldn’t care if they left her there until it was all over, and Barney came home.

Barney? Oh, lordy! If only he could see her now.

‘I don’t suppose you know where I’ll be going to work?’ Kath hung her coat and gas mask on the door peg.

‘I do. You’re going to Ramsden’s farm, at the far end of Alderby village. You’re urgently needed, it seems. They want you there in the morning. Now, lassie, do you want to unpack first, or would you rather eat?’

‘Eat – please!’ Kath followed her amiable Forewoman to the warmth of the kitchen, sighing as the plate was set before her.

She would remember this day for ever, she really would. Thursday, 18th December 1941; the day on which her new life began. It had taken a long, long time, but now she was here in the country and it was near-unbelievable and undeniably wonderful.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered huskily. ‘Thanks a lot …’