The Victory Garden

by Bowen, Rhys

  Christmas was followed by the first serious snowstorm of the season. Emily slid and floundered as she made her way up from the cottage to the big house, hardly able to see in the wind-driven snow. She was gasping for breath as she entered the front hall. Lady Charlton came down the staircase and saw her.

  “My dear girl, what possessed you to come out in this storm?” she demanded.

  “I thought you wanted to start on the Indian artefacts this morning,” Emily said.

  “Such devotion to duty, but foolhardy. What if you had lost your way in the blizzard? Or slipped and frozen to death?”

  “I’m really quite hardy.” Emily grinned. “And it isn’t too far from the cottage to the house. I could see the shape of it, even in a blizzard.”

  “You have no idea how difficult the weather can be here in winter. Almost arctic,” Lady Charlton said. She went ahead into the sitting room and jerked violently on the bell. Daisy appeared almost instantly.

  “A cup of something hot for Miss Emily. She has braved the storm to come here. And, Daisy, please put sheets on the bed in the blue bedroom and light a fire. There is no way she is attempting to go back to the cottage until this storm abates.”

  “But my cat!” Emily blurted out. “I can’t leave him alone.”

  “Oh yes, the witch’s cat.” Lady Charlton looked amused. “But trust me, my dear, cats can fend for themselves in any weather. Is it shut inside?”

  “No, I leave the scullery window open a sliver and he goes in and out that way.”

  “Then I assure you he will be fine. And we can send Simpson down later to have a look when the snow stops.”

  “Lady Charlton, Simpson is almost as old as you. It’s a wonder he can do half the work you give him.”

  “Nonsense. Keeps him young,” she replied.

  Lady Charlton would not allow Emily to go home that night, or the next. She had to admit to herself that it was rather nice to sleep in a big warm bedroom with a silk eiderdown over her and someone to bring her a cup of tea in the morning. It reminded her of her old life. It was so tempting to give in and tell Lady Charlton that she would move up to the house. But the cottage nagged at the corners of her brain. “I should go back,” she told herself. “I am supposed to be there.”

  When the storm had abated and the sun sparkled on fresh snow, she made her way back down the hill. The cottage looked like a scene from a fairy tale. The roof was softened by a blanket of white and the herb bushes were now gentle humps and bumps. As she came up to the front door, she saw that someone had been there. Footsteps led to her front door, then went away again. Two sets of footsteps, or rather the same footprints had come twice. She suspected it was Alice, coming to see if she was all right after the blizzard. But as she traced the steps away from the cottage, they did not lead down the lane and across the green to the Red Lion, but rather up the lane. Intrigued by this, she followed them, and found that they ended at the furthest of the thatched cottages where the farm labourers lived. The cottage of the Hodgsons, the young family whose father had returned from the war. The father who cried out at night.

  Someone at that cottage had come to see her twice. She went around to the front door and knocked. The wife, Fanny Hodgson, opened it, relief flooding her face as she saw Emily.

  “Oh, thank God. You’re here. I was afraid you’d gone away.”

  “What’s the matter, Fanny?” Emily asked. The young woman looked distraught, as if she hadn’t slept in days. “Is it your husband?”

  “No, it’s Timmy, my boy,” she said. “He’s come down with the influenza, and there are snow drifts blocking the road. No doctor could get through, even if we could get to the telephone box for one. But the phone lines are down, too.”

  “Influenza? Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “It has to be. I’ve read descriptions in the newspaper, and that’s exactly how it’s affecting our Tim. High fever, tossing and turning, and he can’t breathe. You have to help him, Mrs Kerr.”

  “Me?” Emily took a step backwards. “I’m not a doctor, Mrs Hodgson.”

  “But you’re her. The herb woman. Your sleeping potion worked a treat. You have to make something for Timmy before he dies.” She clutched at Emily’s arm, like a drowning person. From inside the cottage, Emily heard moaning.

  Emily’s brain was racing. Had she seen any recipe that might be of any use for a disease that killed healthy men in days? And yet the woman was desperate. “I’ll try,” she said. “But you know how serious this disease is, don’t you? I’m not a miracle worker, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Anything. Anything at all at this stage. I feel so helpless watching him suffering and knowing I can’t do any more than put a cold compress on his forehead and bathe away his sweat.”

  “All right. I’ll get working on it then,” Emily said.

  She saw relief on the woman’s face. “God bless you, my dear.”

  Emily found it hard to breathe as she stepped into her cottage. It was icy cold, the fire having gone out some time ago, and the cat met her with an accusing mew, staring up at her with unblinking yellow eyes. She put down a saucer of bread and milk, then got the fire and stove going. She noted with satisfaction how easy these tasks had now become. Then she sat with her quilt wrapped around her, studying Tabitha Ann Wise’s original recipe book and her own notes.

  Knitbone was recommended to promote sweating, but the part to be used was the flower, which she didn’t have. Combine with yarrow, elderflower, peppermint, angelica and mulberry leaf to combat a fever. She had yarrow, angelica root and peppermint, but not the other ingredients. Catnip was also recommended, and she was pretty sure she had some of that, judging from Shadow’s attraction to a certain small plant.

  Then she read that cowslip root, thyme and elecampane were lung restoratives. Cowslip was a spring flower, so no chance of that, and she had no idea what elecampane might be. But willow bark was reputed to reduce a fever, and she knew where there was a willow tree by the stream. It was hard going, ploughing through the snow, but she returned triumphant with willow bark. The recipe recommended finely chopping or grinding the bark. She took down the kitchen mincer and did her best.

  “I have no idea how much I should be using,” she worried, “or whether too much is dangerous, but I suppose at this stage anything is worth trying.”

  The final concoction she made included the ground willow bark, dried catnip, peppermint, angelica root, thyme, sage and yarrow, to which she added ground ginger and purple echinacea root, since Susan had mentioned that it possessed marvellous anti-inflammatory properties. She poured boiling water over the mixture and allowed it to steep. When it had cooled, she poured off the liquid into a jug and carried it up to Timmy Hodgson.

  “I’m not sure whether it can help,” she said as she handed it to Timmy’s mother. “But it can’t hurt. All of these herbs are beneficial.”

  “I won’t ask you to come in and see him for yourself,” the woman said, “knowing how the disease is so catching. I’m keeping the other kids in the kitchen, and my man is not feeling too well, so he’s staying in bed, but we can just hope, can’t we?”

  Emily went back home, trying to swallow down the sick feeling. She had never been called upon to save someone’s life before. If the child died, would she be blamed?

  Realizing that Lady Charlton would be worried about her, she trudged back to the house. The old lady looked relieved to see her. “Thank God you’ve returned. I sent Simpson to see if you had fallen into a snow drift. He said he saw smoke coming from your cottage chimney, so I was hoping you were not stupid enough to want to stay in the cottage.”

  “I think I had better stay down there, if you don’t mind,” Emily said. “A crisis has developed in the village. Young Timmy Hodgson has come down with influenza.”

  “Then given your delicate condition, you should stay well away.” Lady Charlton wagged a warning finger.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t go in to check on the child,” Emily said. �
��But I have tried to make a brew to see if we can bring down his fever and ease his lungs.”

  “Have you? What do you think might work against something as virulent as influenza?”

  “I don’t know if anything can,” Emily replied. “But I’m trying willow bark because it’s supposed to be effective against fever, and several other things to ease the lungs and excessive phlegm.”

  Lady Charlton nodded. “That sounds like a sensible plan. Let’s just pray that it works. They have just got their father back safely. They don’t need to lose a child now.”

  Emily insisted on going back to the cottage. She made another batch of the remedy, in case more was needed. First thing the next morning, she went back to see how Timmy was doing, almost dreading to hear the worst. But the news was good.

  “He seems a bit better, you know. The fever broke overnight, but now I think our Lizzie is coming down with it.”

  Emily supplied more of the remedy, and then heard that Mrs Soper’s older son, Sammy, had also developed influenza. Emily treated him, then his brother went down with it, and then Maud and Mrs Soper herself. Emily couldn’t believe that someone as robust as Maud could be so stricken. She had made a vow not to go near the infected people, but in the Sopers’ house, there was nobody to take care of them. Only the old grandfather seemed to be immune. “You can’t die, Maud!” she shouted as Maud moaned and tossed in her fever and Emily attempted to force some of her mixture past her dry and cracked lips.

  Alice came up to the Sopers and found Emily there.

  “You want to watch yourself, love,” Alice said, looking at her with concern. “You should be thinking of yourself. If you get it, then what might happen to the baby?”

  “I can’t let anyone die, Alice,” Emily replied. “If my herbs can do any good at all, then I have to keep going.”

  “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if something happened to the baby,” Alice said. “It would actually be the best solution for your future, but—”

  “No!” Emily exclaimed. “Nothing is going to happen to my baby! I won’t let it.”

  “Then let me do the actual nursing,” Alice insisted. “It don’t matter if I get it. Nobody’s going to miss me.” And she laughed.

  “I’d miss you,” Emily said. “You’re the big sister I never had.”

  “Go on with you!” Alice poked her in the side, but Emily could tell she was moved.

  She had just reached her front door, looking forward to putting her feet up by the fire, when she saw the vicar slipping and sliding down the lane towards her. He waved and shouted. “You have to come right now,” he called, gasping for breath as he reached her. “It’s my wife. She’s very bad. I don’t think she’s going to survive.”

  Emily hesitated. Mrs Bingley’s unkind words echoed in her head. How easy it would be to refuse. But instead she went inside, poured more of the infusion into her jug and set off again.

  By the end of the week, three quarters of the inhabitants of Bucksley Cross had contracted influenza. Emily stayed well away from the big house, hoping that the disease would not reach the old lady. She brewed more and more of her mixture, and she and Alice went from house to house. By the end of the month, the disease had run its course and nobody had died.

  “Quite astonishing,” the doctor proclaimed when he could finally make it through the snow to visit his patients. “It must be so cold and bleak up here that even the influenza didn’t want to stick around.”

  Emily felt the warm glow of accomplishment. I helped with that, she thought. They are alive because of me. It was an amazing feeling, and the irony struck her. She had wanted to join Clarissa and be a nurse, but had been turned down. Now it was her medical skills that had saved a village. Clarissa would be impressed. She got out her writing paper and wrote her a letter.

  I know it wasn’t anything like as terrible here as your conditions in London, but I am sure some of these people would have died without my remedy. I’m enclosing the recipe, just in case someone in the medical profession at your hospital would like to take a look at it and see if it could be of any help to you.

  At the end of the week, she received a letter with a London postmark, but written in a strange hand.

  Dear Madam,

  I am not sure of your last name, as you only sign yourself as Emily. I am the matron of the Royal London Hospital, and I am sorry to inform you that Nurse Clarissa Hamilton succumbed to complications of influenza two weeks ago and passed away. She was a brave young woman who worked tirelessly in the worst conditions of the East End and gave her life for others. I am enclosing her family’s address in case you would like to write a letter of condolence.

  Emily sat staring at the piece of paper, as if willing the words to change. “Not Clarissa!” she wailed out loud. “That’s not possible. It’s not fair!”

  Clarissa, the fearless, strong one. The one who had taken the risks at school, sneaking out of the dorm window, smoking in the old bell tower. Who had risked her life every day at the front in France. To have perished now, in her own country, when the war was over, seemed the ultimate cruelty.

  “I still can’t believe I won’t see her again,” Emily said to Lady Charlton, trying desperately not to cry in front of the old woman.

  “I felt the same when Henry died, then my son, James,” Lady Charlton said. “There is nothing to say except that life is unfair. You will get over it, just as you will get over the death of your beloved lieutenant, but only time will heal your wounds, and then not completely. We just have to make do with what we have left and treasure those around us who are still alive.”

  “But I have nobody,” Emily wanted to say, but didn’t. She also now had no alternative—she was stuck there in the little cottage in the village of Bucksley Cross, whether she liked it or not.

  Later that evening, she was sitting alone in the cottage, not wanting to engage in polite conversation, when there was a tap at her door. Please, no, she prayed. Not another case of influenza. She opened it, and was startled to see several people standing in the darkness. One carried a lantern. They looked as if they were a band of carol singers, only it wasn’t Christmas.

  Mrs Soper revealed herself in the lamplight as she stepped forwards. “We’ve come to say thank you, Emily,” she said. “We may call you by your first name, may we not? Because you are one of us now.”

  Emily looked around the group. “I was glad to help,” she said, “and so glad that my remedy actually worked so well.”

  “You took a big risk for strangers,” Mrs Soper said. “I know my family and me wouldn’t have made it without you, and so I wanted to say we know there’s a little one on the way. We’re all going to be making the layette. Anything you need for the baby, you shall have it.”

  “And I’ve got the pram I used for our Lizzie,” Mrs Hodgson added, coming through the group. “I don’t know how to thank you enough. Your coming here was a miracle.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Emily’s eyes were welling with tears. “Would you like to come in? There’s not much room, but I can make you a cup of tea.”

  “Cup of tea?” Nell Lacey’s voice came from the back of the crowd. “We’ve brought a bottle of whisky with us. We’re going to have a toast to beating that ruddy influenza.”

  That night, Emily lay in bed with Shadow curled up beside her. I do have a place where I belong after all, she thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Spring came to Bucksley Cross. First, the snowdrops appeared on the hillside, then the crocuses, and at last the whole of the grounds of Bucksley House were filled with daffodils. And in the herb garden, there were new leaves and the first flowers. Emily did more identifying from the herb book, and picked, dried and carefully labelled the new herbs. She had now started attending the meetings of the Women’s Institute, and they were being given a lecture on how to make jam with local wild berries when one of the farm wives said, “It’s all very well and good, knowing how to make jam, but
how do we pay for the sugar? That’s what I want to know.”

  “That’s right,” someone else said. “My husband isn’t coming home, is he? How am I supposed to exist on my widow’s pension?”

  “We should have young Emily make her miracle potion and sell it in case the flu ever comes back,” Mrs Soper suggested. “I bet it will work on other things, too—chicken pox and the like.”

  “I couldn’t do that, Mrs Soper,” Emily said. “I’m not a qualified doctor. I’m sure that selling medicines is against the law.”

  “Well then, what about that hand cream?” Alice asked. “It worked wonders on my chapped hands.”

  “Yes, why not?” Nell Lacey agreed. “I tried it, too. Lovely, it was. Smelled nice, too.”

  “We’d have to have enough beeswax and have small tins made to put it in,” Emily said, but she could sense her own growing excitement. “And I’m not sure if my small garden will produce enough lavender.”

  “I’ve got lavender bushes behind the house,” one of the wives said. “And Lady Charlton has every flower you could ever think of growing in that big garden of hers. Lovely roses. I reckon this is something we could all do. You just show us, Emily, and we’ll all help. We’ll have our Bucksley Dartmoor cream in all the posh shops.”

  Emily felt their enthusiasm and saw their hopeful faces. “We can give it a try,” she said. “And if it goes well, perhaps we can work on a face cream and lotion, too, now that the flowers are coming out.”

  Mr Patterson was also enthusiastic about the idea. “You’ve given me the incentive to put in more hives,” he said. He and Emily were meeting again once a week, and nobody seemed to want to gossip about it any more. Emily enjoyed her evenings with him, discussing books and her herbal remedies. One evening, when she was getting ready to leave, she could sense that he was nervous, and wondered what she had done. He cleared his throat.

  “My dear Emily,” he said. “I know that a little one is expected soon, and I know the truth of your circumstances. Mrs Bingley told me some time ago, meaning to spoil our friendship, I’ve no doubt. But I do know that you are not a widow.” He paused. He’s going to tell me he doesn’t want to associate with me any more, Emily thought. Then he cleared his throat again. “I have been a confirmed bachelor for many years, and I am a good deal older than you, but I wondered if you might consider marrying me, to ensure that the child is born with a legitimate name. I know how hard it will be for a child with no father and no name. I am not what they would call a good catch.” He gave a little smile. “But I am not without funds, and I think you can see that the schoolhouse is a snug enough little dwelling. And I would take good care of you both. I think you enjoy our little village, and you are well liked here, well respected. I do not think you would be unhappy with such a life.”