Song of the Skylark

by Erica James

  ‘But we already have Jimmy doing his best in the garden,’ Lavinia said. ‘There’s only so much he can do.’

  ‘We need to think bigger than that. We could have a productive market garden here. Don’t look at me like that, Lavinia; I haven’t lost my marbles, quite the contrary. I have nothing else to contribute to the war effort, other than the land I own, which is currently doing nothing. With a bit of effort, or rather, a lot of effort, we could really do something positive with it.’

  Clarissa sat in the chair next to her grandfather. ‘How would we do the work on our own?’ she asked. ‘I’m willing to learn and do as much as I can, but there’s a limit to what I can do.’

  ‘We’d have to get some of those Land Army girls. Or maybe a refugee – I hear they make good workers.’

  ‘And where would they live?’ asked Lavinia, wringing her hands.

  ‘There’s the barn and those outbuildings with nothing in them but junk that should have been jettisoned years ago.’

  ‘Charles, we can’t expect them to live in the barn. There are bound to be rats there.’

  ‘There are the attic rooms,’ Clarissa said, warming to her grandfather’s idea. ‘We could clear them out; I’ll gladly do that. Jimmy and Lily will help. And don’t forget Thomas and Walter – they can lend a hand too. I’m sure Thomas would be a dab hand with a paintbrush.’

  ‘You’ve both gone completely mad,’ Lavinia said faintly.

  A smile on his face, Charles squeezed Clarissa’s hand. ‘Mad as hatters, the pair of us, aren’t we? But better that than starved to death by that bloody Hitler.’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Shillingbury Grange,

  Shillingbury,

  Suffolk.

  11th May 1940

  Dearest Effie,

  It’s been a while since I last wrote to you and my only excuse is that life has been so busy for us all here.

  Had you seen Shillingbury Grange six months ago, you wouldn’t recognise it now – the garden has been totally transformed. Moreover, the whole of Shillingbury has been transformed – everybody who is able to has dug up their garden and planted it out with vegetables. We’re all Digging for Victory!

  Charles is also a man altered beyond recognition and spends every hour he can outside in the garden. Occasionally he complains that he’s not doing enough to help, stuck as he is in his wheelchair, but I always tell him that he’s the brains behind everything we’re doing. He’s also the one who has to deal with the red tape from the Ministry of Food. ‘Ministry of this, ministry of that,’ he mutters, ‘won’t be long before we won’t be able to sneeze without applying to the appropriate ministry for a blasted permit!’

  The glasshouse has been restored and Jimmy has built a pathway for Charles to come and go to that part of the garden unaided in his wheelchair – he’s in charge of growing seeds in there, something he can easily do.

  Jimmy is now a member of the Air Raid Wardens’ Service and is our local air raid warden. He’s on duty three nights a week and much to our amusement regularly lectures us on the importance of obeying blackout regulations – as if we need reminding!

  As for me, I spend all the time I can digging, weeding and willing everything we’ve planted to grow – I’m quite a sight to behold in my shabby overalls and hair tied up with a scarf, it is far from a glamorous look! Even Lavinia puts on a pair of boots and helps, something I never thought would happen. We have potatoes sprouting up nicely in well-earthed trenches, and also onions, cabbages and carrots. A couple of young lads from the village come in to help now and then, but they both say the moment they turn eighteen, or can pass for that age, they’ll enlist, so that’ll be the end of their help.

  Charles’s original plan to plough up the meadow and plant sugar beet has been put on hold for now, which secretly I’m rather pleased about as it means Thomas and Walter and I can still go for walks there. Yesterday it was warm enough to take a picnic down to the meadow and while the boys were playing a game of hide and seek, I lay on the grass listening to the skylarks singing. I was almost drifting off to sleep when the birds were drowned out by the rumbling roar of a squadron of Wellington bombers flying over in formation – it was such a stirring sight I lost count of how many there were. We’ve become surprisingly blasé about the presence of airplanes filling the sky, but I must say, the airmen from RAF Shillingbury do make a rather dashing sight in the village!

  From the beginning of March we’ve had a Polish refugee living with us. His name is Leon and he’s wonderfully hard-working, which Charles approves of greatly. He’s a shy young man with a sensitive face, and before he fled Poland he was an engineering student. His parents made him leave Poland just before Germany invaded and ever since he left he’s had no word from them. He comes from a farming background, so he’s very hands-on with growing and fixing things. I don’t know what we’d do without him. Thomas and Walter have taken to him enormously and are already teaching him all the East Anglian expressions they’ve learnt from Jimmy and Mrs Cook – one of my favourites is when Mrs Cook says Walter has got why-wiffles; it means he’s fidgety and can’t stay still.

  Lily is still with us, but I fear she might have ideas to sign up to go and do some sort of war work. I don’t blame her, but I hope she doesn’t leave as I shall miss her. Between you and me, I’m hoping she and Leon might form an attachment.

  We had some hens given to us by Brian Coddling, a neighbouring farmer. The boys are in charge of looking after them – every morning they feed and clean them out before going to school. Mrs Cook is very glad of the eggs and has risen magnificently to the challenge of food rationing; somehow she keeps us all fed without a word of complaint.

  Last week I heard from the lawyers in Boston. According to the date of the letter, and the postmark, it had been delayed by nearly two months, which is not surprising, given what’s going on in the Atlantic with German U-boats torpedoing Allied shipping as well as neutral vessels, and killing any number of innocent people. The letter was to tell me that Grandma Ethel’s affairs have now been finalised and that, being the sole beneficiary of the will, I will, when I turn twenty-one become … well, let’s just say, I’m in a state of shock. I suppose I had always known my father’s family had been well off, but this was wildly beyond anything I had imagined. It’s been decided by the lawyers that the bulk of the money should be kept in trust in America, where they believe it will be safer than here in England.

  I haven’t heard from Artie in quite some weeks, have you? I do hope he’s all right – I miss hearing from him. The last letter I had from him was from Paris. With Germany invading Denmark and Norway, and now Holland and Belgium under attack, everybody here is worried about France. I hope Artie gets out before anything awful happens.

  Write as soon as you can, Effie, I so enjoy receiving your news – I loved hearing about you working with Robert Montgomery! I know there’s a danger of our letters ending up at the bottom of the Atlantic, but as Mrs Cook says, we have to carry on as normal or we’ll go mad. So please write!

  With all my love,

  Clarissa

  PS With so much news to share with you I almost forgot to mention the most important news here – as of yesterday Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. The general feeling is that he’s the man to put Hitler in his place. Even Charles, who rarely has a good word for politicians, is full of optimism that Churchill will save the day. I hope he’s right!

  The Plaza Hotel,

  768 5th Avenue,

  New York.

  18th April 1940

  Dear Clarissa,

  Can you believe it’s a year since we met? And good gravy, what a lot has happened to you in that time! With every one of your letters I have to catch my breath in admiration for all that you’ve taken on, you truly are an inspiration.

  What we read here about what’s going on in Europe chills my
blood. It’s a terrifying thing to say, but at the rate things are going there won’t be a country left in Europe that won’t be at war. I’ve read about the awful food rationing that you’re now enduring, if there’s anything I can send you, just say the word!

  You’ll never guess who I ran into last month – none other than Marjorie Boyd-Lambert! I had just been to see the magnificent Queen Elizabeth make her arrival here in New York after her secret maiden voyage across the Atlantic – just too appalling to think of the beautiful liner zigzagging her way to safety from England to the Atlantic while German U-boats lurked wickedly beneath the surface of the water. There was a large welcome party here for her, but I must confess that to see such a beautiful ship painted in battleship grey did make my heart sink a little. She’s now moored alongside her sister, the Queen Mary, and the Normandie and our dear old friend the Belle Etoile. Imagine what a sight they make!

  It was when I was preparing to leave the dockside that I spotted Marjorie, and I couldn’t resist breezing over to say hello. The horrified expression on the old sourpuss’s face was priceless. She was there with her husband to whom she reluctantly introduced me – mercy, the poor man looked like a timid mouse trapped in a corner by a scorpion! I invited them to join me for a drink at The Plaza where I’m staying for an indefinite period of time – indefinite because I’m still trying to find the perfect new home and can’t make up my mind where I want to be, so for now The Plaza is home. Who knows, maybe I shall never leave! Anyway, while Mr Boyd-Lambert seemed inclined to accept my invitation, Marjorie was having none of it and took him by the arm declaring they had a prior engagement. I’ll wager they had no such thing, but who cares!

  Well, enough of my rattling on, I must wrap things up and get this in the mail to you and pray that it not only reaches you, but finds you well.

  My fondest love,

  Betty

  San Antonio,

  Texas.

  20th April 1940

  Dear Clarissa,

  Who knows if this letter will eventually reach you, if it does, you’ll be pleased to know I’m following your lead – heck, if you and Artie can do something worthwhile, so can I! So be impressed – I’ve enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program in Texas, in six months I’ll graduate. Who knows, I might end up in Europe bombing the hell out of those Germans!

  Take care,

  Ellis

  PS Thanks for your last letter – how about knitting me some socks? I think it’s the least you could do.

  Heaven help the Germans, Clarissa thought with a smile after she’d read Ellis’s brief letter which had come in the second post, along with Betty’s.

  She was taking a break from working in the garden and enjoying a welcome cup of tea in the kitchen on her own while Mrs Cook was on her afternoon off and Lily was upstairs cleaning. Lavinia was at the village hall for a Women’s Institute meeting – she’d recently joined after it became known that Virginia Charlbury had stepped down from the role of president, for reasons yet to be revealed, which had everybody highly intrigued – and Charles was in the drawing room going over some papers with Henry Willet.

  Initially when Clarissa had put some distance between herself and Henry he had pushed to know what he had done wrong. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ she had explained, going on to say that she really couldn’t spare the time to go gallivanting off when her grandparents needed her. He’d dismissed her explanation by pointing out that they’d managed perfectly well on their own before she’d arrived in Shillingbury. Annoyed that he was pressing her, she’d said that the war had changed things, and besides, her time was her own and she didn’t need to justify to anyone what she did with it. Such was the sting of her rebuke, he pursed his lips angrily and left without saying goodbye.

  A week later he wrote to apologise for his less than gentlemanly behaviour and begged for forgiveness. ‘For all the world I would never want to offend you or cause you a moment’s distress,’ he’d written, ‘I admire you greatly and do so hope that we can remain friends.’

  She’d replied saying there was nothing to forgive and politely added that of course they would stay friends. Even so, she usually tried to be out of the house, or engineered to be busy in the garden, when he came for one of his visits with Charles. The last time he’d called, she had not been so lucky and had endured a conversation with him during which he had shared with her his disappointment that he’d been turned down by the RAF after failing the medical. ‘It turns out I’ve inherited my father’s dicky heart,’ he’d said mournfully. ‘Just my confounded bad luck!’

  Hearing voices in the hall – Henry’s meeting with her grandfather must have come to an end – Clarissa quickly went through to the scullery, then out to the back porch where she’d left her boots. Pulling them on, she beat a hasty retreat to the garden to join Leon and Jimmy before Henry came looking for her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  June 1940, Shillingbury Grange, Suffolk

  It was the first week of June, and with cottage walls and outbuildings covered in scrambling roses and honeysuckle, the lanes and hawthorn hedges frothing with cow parsley and may flowers, as well as harebells, yarrow, red campion, hollyhocks and foxgloves popping up wherever they’d managed to get a foothold, summer had well and truly arrived.

  It was Saturday afternoon,and that evening there was to be a dance at the village hall. Many a girl’s heart was aflutter at the prospect of dancing with the airmen from the airfield and much effort was being put into preparing the hall for the event; nobody – not even Virginia Charlbury wanted to be accused of not putting on a good show for all concerned. Initially Virginia had opposed inviting the airmen on the grounds of encouraging ‘immoral consequences’, but had caved in when it was put to her that the dance would be a much-needed morale booster, especially for the brave pilots who risked their lives every time they took to the skies.

  Morale was lower than Clarissa could recall since war had been declared. The evacuation of Allied forces on the 4th June from Dunkirk had been a bitter blow, but now that France seemed in imminent danger of falling to Germany, Clarissa had extra cause to worry. She still hadn’t heard from Artie, and had no idea if he was still in France as a war correspondent for CBS, or whether he was now reporting from somewhere else. But worry, as Mrs Cook always told her, was like a rocking chair, backwards and forwards it went without ever getting anywhere. The remedy, as Clarissa knew all too well, was to keep busy.

  All yesterday she had been at the village hall helping to give it a thorough spring clean in readiness for the dance, and then this morning she and Molly had volunteered to set out the trestle tables and cover them with tablecloths before the ladies of the WI took over in the afternoon to decorate them with wild flower arrangements and, more importantly, lay out plates of food.

  Now back at home and walking through to the kitchen, Clarissa could hear Lily joking that she was going to get dressed up to the nines and bag herself a husband at the dance. ‘Trouble is,’ she said, ‘oi don’t have a dress that’s loikely to catch the eye of a good-lookin’ man.’

  ‘You could borrow something of mine,’ Clarissa said, hanging her gas mask case on the back of the door, ‘we’re about the same size, so take your pick.’

  Lily looked at Clarissa in astonishment. ‘Oi couldn’t! Oi really couldn’t.’

  ‘Yes you could. I insist. So long as it’s not the dress I intend to wear,’ she added with a smile.

  ‘I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Lily, my girl,’ said Mrs Cook, ‘you won’t be the only one with their eyes out on stalks looking for a likely husband, so you’d best be prepared for some competition. And I don’t want to hear of no fighting amongst you sharp-clarred cats!’ She gave Lily a wag of her finger.

  From outside, through the open window, voices could be heard and shortly afterwards Leon came in with Thomas and Walter. Standing either side of him, d
ressed in shorts and dusty gumboots, the boys both had large grins on their faces, as well as a few earthy streaks across their cheeks. They appeared to be hiding something behind their backs.

  Playing along, Clarissa put her hands on her hips and gave them a long searching look. ‘You look like you’ve been up to no good,’ she said. They giggled under her scrutiny. ‘What do you think, Mrs Cook?’

  ‘I’d say they both look a proper pair of scants,’ she replied, ‘as sly and guilty as a pair of rabbits caught with carrot stains down their fronts.’

  Walter could keep quiet no longer and from behind his back, and with a triumphant flourish, revealed a small bucket of potatoes. ‘Look! Look what I’ve got!’

  Thomas then showed the bucket he was holding. ‘Leon taught us how to do it,’ he explained earnestly, ‘to dig carefully so the fork doesn’t hurt the potatoes.’

  ‘Well done, boys, and well done, Leon,’ Mrs Cook said approvingly. She bent to inspect the haul; they were the first of the potatoes to be harvested and were about the same size and shape as hens’ eggs. Leon had told Clarissa yesterday that he thought it would be nice for Thomas and Walter to have the honour of lifting the first of the early potatoes.

  ‘They’ll go nicely with the pie I’m making for lunch,’ said Mrs Cook. ‘But first we need to wash them. Would you boys like to help me?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘Leon says we can help him dig up some more, the ones to be sold. We have to very careful with those potatoes.’

  ‘But only if that is all right with you, Miss Clarissa?’ Leon interjected.

  ‘Of course it is,’ Clarissa said, wishing that he would stop calling her ‘miss’. It didn’t matter how many times she asked him not to, he refused to drop the formality. She took the buckets from the boys. ‘I shall wash these little gems myself for Mrs Cook.’