A Christmas Wish for the Land Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Oh!’ Dorothy sat down with a bump on a nearby bench. ‘Everything’s ruined! What are we going to do?’

  ‘Not panic; that’s what.’ Brenda went outside to check the source of the leak. ‘First off, we have to fix this pipe. I’ll fetch the stepladder.’

  ‘And nobody touch the wiring.’ Evelyn added a timely warning. ‘It could give you a nasty shock.’

  ‘I’ll get a mop.’ Joyce ran to the annexe.

  ‘How will we let everyone know in time?’ Convinced once more that the end of the world had come, Dorothy sagged forward, head in hands. ‘People will have started to get ready, washing their hair and so on. The food from Fieldhead will already be on its way.’

  Brenda rushed back with the ladder. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit,’ she muttered as she carried it outside and set it down in the melting snow. A closer inspection told her that the cast-iron pipe had split at the junction with the guttering. ‘This will be tricky to mend,’ she reported glumly.

  Evelyn, who had observed quietly until now, came up with a suggestion. ‘Cliff’s very handy; I’m certain he could mend both the downpipe and the fuse box if only we can dry it out in time.’

  Dorothy saw a ray of hope. ‘Yes; fetch Cliff!’ she cried, springing up from the bench. Her brother was the one to turn to in any emergency.

  Evelyn nodded. ‘Shall I run up to Garthside and get him?’

  ‘What for? He’s not there.’ Dorothy sagged and sat down again.

  Evelyn’s stomach lurched. ‘Not at Garthside?’

  ‘No. Isn’t he on his way over from Acklam? Yes, he must be. He’s probably been held up. Someone – Brenda, hop on your motor bike and find him. Tell him we need him here, right this minute.’

  ‘No,’ Evelyn insisted. Her stomach had clenched tight and she began to feel light headed. ‘I knocked on his door earlier; he definitely wasn’t there.’

  Joyce came back and set her bucket down with a clang. She asked everyone to stand back while she mopped up the puddle on the floor, failing to pick up the sudden tension between Evelyn and Dorothy.

  ‘Didn’t you say that Cliff was due here anyway?’ Brenda reminded Dorothy, whose spirits zoomed up and down like a yo-yo. From the top of her ladder, she spied Walter Rigg coming down the vicarage path and then noticed Cliff’s Morris pull up by the gate. ‘Panic over,’ she reported as the two men engaged in conversation. ‘The wanderer returns.’

  Up at Black Crag Farm, Laurence wished that the weather would make up its mind. Snow followed by a quick thaw brought hill farmers a set of problems they could do without during these short winter days: namely overflowing streams and flooded fields that led to lone sheep getting cut off from the flock. So he tramped the fell with his dogs, herding the stragglers to safer ground and unblocking streams and ditches. He found two ewes marooned behind the crag and three more stuck on a ledge beyond Mary’s Fall, so it was almost midday by the time he’d brought them all down to the lambing field. From there he made his way back to the farmhouse, expecting to find his dinner on the table. Instead, he saw Muriel Woodthorpe’s car parked in the yard.

  Laurence halted in the lane. For two pins he would have turned back the way he’d come, but Patch and Flint gave him away by running ahead to investigate. They entered the yard and sniffed at the wheels of the Ford while Muriel sat nervously behind the wheel, waiting for him to call them to heel.

  He entered the yard intent on having as little to do with Alma’s aunt as possible.

  She wound down her window. ‘There you are!’ she said archly.

  ‘Here I am,’ he grunted.

  Muriel gave several tuts at his glowering expression and surly reply. She would never understand what Alma had seen in this uncouth individual; he was old enough to be her father for a start and Muriel had done her best to warn Alma about how he had driven Lily to drink. ‘Typical farmer,’ people said about him. ‘Tight-fisted and ill-mannered. And if he doesn’t get his own way, there’s merry hell to pay.’

  ‘I’ve been sitting here for a full hour,’ she complained.

  He shrugged. ‘Have you tried knocking on the door?’

  ‘Of course I have.’ Silly question; again, just like him to be so disobliging.

  ‘Then she must be out.’ He strode to the door and opened it to check. ‘Alma, are you there?’ Spying her note on the table and quickly scanning its contents, he came back again to where Muriel sat. ‘Yes, she’s out.’

  ‘I can see that. When will she be back?’

  ‘Search me.’ Don’t you know when you’re not wanted? he thought.

  Muriel pointed to the large, colourfully wrapped parcel perched on the passenger seat beside her. ‘I’ve brought her a Christmas present.’

  He glared but said nothing. Bloody woman with your fur collar and daft hat. Who do you think you are?

  ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘How long will she be?’ Two can play at this game. I’ll carry on asking the questions, you carry on batting them away; let’s see who gives in first.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Why not leave the present with me and I’ll give it to her?’

  Muriel gave a short sniff. ‘No, thank you. I’ve driven a long way to hand it over in person.’

  ‘Please yourself.’ Faced with a choice, his frown deepened. Should he run the risk of Muriel barging her way into the house uninvited or should he send her on her way to find Alma? He chose the latter. ‘If you must know, she went to the village hall with her Land Army pals. You’ll find her there if you shift yourself.’

  At last! ‘Thank you, Laurence,’ she said with queenly politeness, before turning on her engine and executing a three-point turn. ‘I’m much obliged.’

  A Christmas present! A peace offering, more like; for all the wrong you’ve done to Alma over the years – the brow-beating and snobbish put-downs, the deadly blows you’ve dealt to her self-confidence. Laurence turned his back and went into the house. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  Muriel felt a simmering resentment as she drove to Shawcross, splashing through muddy puddles that had formed at the sides of the road. This was why she’d sworn never to visit Alma at Black Crag Farm. The man’s boorish behaviour was beyond the pale. He was everything that his first wife Lily had described and worse: sullen, silent, uneducated, with a shaky hold on his temper that could and did explode into anger at the least provocation.

  He’d been handsome in his youth; Lily had been prepared to concede. His hair had been dark and thick and there’d been no lines etched into his face. In those days Lily had interpreted his silences as thoughtfulness or shyness until she’d found out different – the hard way.

  The fact was, Muriel had done everything she could to stop her niece from tying the knot with Laurence Bradley. She’d pointed out the everyday hardships of living as a hill farmer’s wife – the shortage of home comforts, the scarcity of buses into town to visit the shops and cinema, not to mention the duties of a wife that could only be hinted at. Muriel herself had never married or even been curious about what that aspect of marriage might involve. In fact, a romantic embrace viewed on the cinema screen tended to embarrass, even repel, this prudish spinster so she had no information to impart to Alma on that score, even if she’d wanted to.

  And how right I was, she thought now as she drove over the packhorse bridge and spotted a gathering outside the church hall at the far side of the village green. Alma’s life at Black Crag Farm was obviously every bit as bad as she, Muriel, had warned her it would be and she regarded the Christmas present as a first step towards rescuing her niece from her fate. Gradually Alma would admit that she ought to have listened to her aunt’s advice. There would be a reconciliation, and who knew where that might lead? A return to Northgate, to the hat shop on Kitchener Street and a job as Muriel’s assistant, perhaps.

  Cliff shook his head at the water dripping into the porch. ‘It’s no good, Dorothy; you’ll have to call it off.’ He’d gone ou
tside for a closer look at the burst pipe then delivered his brutal verdict.

  ‘Can’t you mend it?’ she cried.

  Walter Rigg stepped in to have his say. ‘Cliff is right. Without electricity the dance can’t go ahead.’

  ‘Even if I had time to replace the pipe, the fuse box would still be sopping wet,’ Cliff pointed out. ‘That’s that, I’m afraid.’

  Evelyn, Alma, Brenda and Joyce took the news more calmly than Dorothy, who wept loud, bitter tears.

  ‘We could postpone it until after Christmas,’ Joyce suggested. ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to rearrange.’

  ‘But how will we let everyone know?’

  ‘Easy,’ Brenda assured her. ‘All we have to do is pick up the phone.’

  ‘But not everyone has a telephone. And who’s to say that the RAF boys will get another chance to come? After Christmas, it might all be different.’

  Still brooding over the question of where Cliff might have spent the night, Evelyn did her best to concentrate on the problem that stared them all in the face. ‘Do we actually need to get the electricity back on? Couldn’t we carry on and do it the old-fashioned way with oil lamps?’

  Joyce noticed Alma’s sharp intake of breath and sudden exit from the porch. She followed her quickly on to the green to ask her if she was all right.

  ‘Yes, don’t worry about me.’ She swallowed hard. ‘It really is time for me to get back to Black Crag.’

  Joyce gave her a reassuring smile then watched her fetch her bicycle from the railings in front of the vicarage. For a moment she thought that the black Ford driving slowly towards them belonged to Cliff, but then realized that he was sorting out the fuse box fiasco inside the porch.

  Alma was astride her bike when she looked up and recognized the driver. ‘Aunty Muriel!’

  Muriel stopped and pulled on the handbrake. She stepped out of the car with a large, bright parcel. ‘Alma, there you are!’ The habitual phrase with its underlying implication that Muriel had somehow been inconvenienced slipped out of her mouth. Why couldn’t Alma make more of herself? she wondered. Must she always wear that dowdy blue skirt and brown coat? ‘I’ve brought you a Christmas present.’ Without more ado and with a self-satisfied smile she thrust the parcel at her.

  ‘For me?’ Alma’s pale cheeks coloured up.

  ‘Of course it’s for you.’ Aware of the group of girls standing outside the hall, observing the scene of Christmas cheer taking place at the gate, Muriel tapped the top of the parcel. ‘Open it, why don’t you?’

  ‘Shouldn’t I wait until the twenty-fifth?’

  ‘No; open it and see if it fits.’ Muriel was adamant.

  So Alma took off the paper wrapping to reveal a large, round cardboard box. She removed the lid and saw a pale blue felt hat with a curved brim, trimmed with dark blue ribbon and a sprig of seed pearls. ‘A hat,’ she whispered. She took a sharp breath; the second in so many minutes.

  Her aunt sailed blithely on. ‘Do you like it? I made it especially for you. Why not try it on for size?’

  ‘Not now, Aunty Muriel,’ Alma pleaded. Everyone was staring. Cliff and Mr Rigg emerged from the porch. ‘I’d rather do it later.’

  Muriel glanced round at their growing audience of three women and two men – the older one wearing a dog collar, the younger of the pair dressed in shirtsleeves and corduroy breeches. He was tall, bare-headed, with an olive complexion that gave him a distinctly Italian look. She blinked twice and when she opened her eyes her manner had stiffened. ‘Very well; if the hat doesn’t fit, please let me know.’ She backed away towards her car. ‘Happy Christmas, Alma.’

  ‘I will, I promise.’ Alma felt the tension ease as her aunt hurried to her car. ‘Thank you, Aunty Muriel. And a Happy Christmas to you too.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was decided: oil lamps would light the hall for the Christmas hop.

  ‘It’ll be more romantic,’ Dorothy had consoled herself after Cliff had at last persuaded her that the electricity supply could not be mended in time. ‘Dim lighting is more flattering for a girl’s complexion, don’t you know? The main drawback is that we won’t be able to use the fairy lights.’

  The cup-half-empty afterthought, so typical of Dorothy, had brought a wry smile to Brenda’s face. ‘Never mind about that. Why don’t I whiz around the farms on Old Sloper to scrounge some spare lamps? How many will we need?’

  ‘Twenty should do it.’ Scatterbrain Dorothy was sharp as a tack when she needed to be. ‘A dozen for the hall and the rest for the annexe. Luckily we’ve got bottled gas to boil kettles for the tea and Cliff has fired up the boiler for the radiators. Try the Cross Keys for oil lamps. I know for a fact that Fred didn’t chuck out his old ones when he had electricity put in.’

  So, while Joyce and Evelyn had cycled off to Black Crag and Acklam to get changed for a half-seven start, Brenda had set herself the task of buzzing around the village and local farms on her motor bike and Dorothy had headed home to beautify herself by putting rollers in her hair, cold cream on her face and pearly pink polish on her fingernails.

  ‘I want them all back in good working order,’ the pub landlord growled at Brenda as he handed over eight dusty lamps from a damp storeroom next to the beer cellar. ‘And tell everyone I’m open for business as usual tonight.’

  ‘I will, Mr Williams.’ Brenda stowed the borrowed lamps in a cardboard box strapped to her pillion seat. ‘I’d stand by behind the bar if I were you; dancing is thirsty work.’

  On she went, fetching more lamps and riding back with them to the as yet deserted hall. She dusted them down, filled them with oil and primed the wicks then placed them on window sills down the length of the hall.

  ‘Hello, Brenda. It’s six o’clock; shouldn’t you be getting ready?’ Geoff asked when he dropped by to pick up his gramophone. He was surprised to find her still in Land Girl dungarees and sweater.

  ‘Oodles of time,’ she replied airily. ‘It doesn’t take me long to spruce myself up. Anyway, I’d far rather keep busy.’

  ‘And stay out of Major General Dorothy’s way?’ he guessed correctly.

  ‘Would you like a hand with that?’ she asked as he eased the gramophone out of the corner.

  ‘No ta – I’ve brought a pal along. Giles, come in and meet Brenda.’

  Brenda wiped her palms on her trousers, ready to shake hands with Geoff’s friend.

  ‘Giles Pickering, this is Brenda Appleby.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ She immediately liked the look of Giles who, at six feet and a bit, towered over her. He had a warm smile and a firm handshake, a mop of straw-coloured hair and pale freckled skin.

  ‘Giles and I were at veterinary school together,’ Geoff explained. ‘I hope you don’t mind; I’ve invited him along to the hop.’

  ‘Mind? Of course not; the more the merrier.’ Brenda stood to one side to let the men get on with the task of taking away the now-redundant gramophone. She followed them from the annexe into the porch where water from the melting snow still trickled down on to the fuse box. ‘On condition that you two promise not to tuck yourselves away in a corner and reminisce the night away. Dancing is obligatory, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Scouts’ honour,’ Giles promised with his easy smile.

  ‘Steady; try not to tilt it,’ Geoff warned as they eased the cabinet down the path and into his Land-Rover. ‘We’ll see you in a couple of hours,’ he called to Brenda as he drove away.

  ‘How do I look?’ Dorothy made her grand entrance into the kitchen at Garthside Farm. As she twirled on the spot for her father and brother, her gored skirt flared to reveal a pink silk petticoat trimmed with lace.

  ‘Like the bee’s knees.’ Bernard decided not to voice his opinion that the skirt might be a little too short. After all, this was Dorothy’s big night; something that she’d been looking forward to for weeks.

  ‘Is that what they’re wearing these days?’ Peering over the top of his father’s Yorkshire Post, Cliff t
ook in the off-the-shoulder pale blue satin dress set off by a corsage made of darker blue silk flowers strategically placed to draw attention to Dorothy’s cleavage.

  She fluffed up the curls piled on top of her head. ‘Yes; I made it with a pattern from the latest Butterick catalogue,’ she confirmed. ‘Do you like it or not?’

  ‘You look very nice,’ he conceded.

  ‘What about you? Isn’t it time for you to dash home and get changed?’

  Cliff shrugged. ‘What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’ He lowered the newspaper to reveal his open-necked checked shirt and corduroy trousers.

  ‘Cliff!’ He needed to put on a decent jacket and a collar and tie at the very least.

  ‘I’m kidding,’ he said with a grin as he made for the door. ‘I brought my smart gear with me. It’s laid out on the bed in my old room.’

  ‘Well, hurry up then.’ Her reflection in the shaving mirror above the sink showed the care she’d taken; her eyebrows were plucked to perfection and a touch of rouge gave her cheeks a rosy glow. The mirror was in line with the door and she saw a reflection of Brenda entering the room in her royal blue dress with the frilled neckline and hem, dressed up with a marcasite brooch and matching earrings. She carried her leather jacket over one arm.

  ‘What happened to the bridesmaid’s dress?’ she asked without turning round.

  ‘I changed my mind.’ At the last minute, in the privacy of her billet, Brenda had gone for the warmer, less showy option. ‘Oughtn’t we to get a move on?’

  ‘Why, what time is it?’

  ‘Half six. The Rixley boys said they’d be here early, to allow time for the band to get set up.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ Dorothy dashed to the foot of the stairs. ‘Cliff, Brenda and I are going to be late. You’ll have to give us a lift!’

  He came down in shirtsleeves, carrying his shoes in one hand and hitching his braces over his shoulders with the other. His tie hung loose around his neck. ‘Don’t rush me,’ he muttered. ‘I’m going as quick as I can.’