Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings

by Julia Stoneham

  The morning passed awkwardly. By noon the wind had backed to the south-west and the temperature began to rise. Icicles dripped and then fell, the outline of yesterday’s snowman was already softening and the carrot that formed his nose had slipped sideways. Christmas in the Webster house seemed to be over and Georgina, feeling responsible for this, decided to return to Lower Post Stone. After an early lunch she climbed onto the pillion seat of her brother’s motorbike, waved as happily as she could to her parents and was borne away.

  They had covered half their journey when Lionel turned off the main road and headed west, towards the moor. Georgina dug him in the ribs and, shouting through the slipstream and the wind, demanded to know where he thought he was going.

  ‘Small detour,’ he yelled back.

  As they climbed onto higher ground the snow was still thick and Lionel was forced to reduce speed. Georgina had already guessed where he was heading. She didn’t know the exact location of the woodsmen’s cottage but she was familiar enough with the land around the Post Stone farms to be sure that her brother’s detour was going to involve Christopher Bayliss and she protested vigorously.

  ‘This is stupid, Li! He doesn’t want to see me and I don’t want to encourage him to think—’

  ‘Think what?’ Lionel shouted. ‘That you’re too wrapped up in yourself to pay a friend a Christmas visit?’

  The steepening lane had become little more than a track and their progress was reduced to a slithering crawl that demanded all of Lionel’s skill and attention. ‘Now, shut up, Georgie and hold tight!’

  At Lower Post Stone, Marion, Winnie and Gwennan had dozed their way through their hangovers. Reuben, promised a lift from the nearby camp back to his unit, had said his farewells to Hester. They planned to visit her parents at the next available opportunity in order to formalise their engagement and if possible arrange for the marriage to be celebrated by her father at his church. Both Reuben and Hester understood the unlikelihood of achieving this and, if her parents obstructed the wedding, were prepared to be married at the barracks and by the regimental chaplain.

  Ferdie had slithered down from Higher Post Stone on a toboggan that dated from Christopher Bayliss’s childhood. Watched by Alice, he and Mabel had shown Edward-John how to negotiate the lower slopes of one of the pastures that rose from behind the farmhouse where, having become quickly proficient, he was soon flying downhill with Mabel’s ‘little brother’ safely wedged between his knees and squealing with delight.

  ‘You take care, Edward-John!’ Mabel called anxiously. ‘He’s on’y a baby and any’ow, Annie wants a go now, don’t you Annie!’

  Rose’s Dave produced from somewhere a sledge that, twenty years previously, his father had built for him. Sections of it were rotten but after some hammering it was serviceable and he persuaded Hester, whose engagement ring was glittering very satisfactorily in the sunlight, to trudge up the hill with him and ride precariously down again.

  Fred arrived with a load of firewood and a churn of milk. Roger Bayliss, who had declined an invitation to drinks at the vicarage on the grounds that he needed to check on his land girls, rode down to Lower Post Stone on his mare. He doffed his hard hat to Alice, who, beginning to feel the cold, invited him into the farmhouse.

  They sat on either side of the recreation room fireplace relishing the heat of the flames that were roaring extravagantly up the chimney. He had brought with him a cocktail shaker that contained what he described as a stirrup cup. She fetched glasses and they toasted the New Year.

  ‘It’s an old family recipe,’ he told her, watching her sip. ‘What d’you make of it?’ She tasted it carefully.

  ‘My goodness!’ she said, blinking at the strength of the liquor. ‘Well… It’s too appley for brandy… Calvados?’ She looked at him and had never seen him smile so unreservedly. ‘But that’s not all…’ she went on, concentrating on her analysis. ‘There’s something nutty… And a sweetness there, too… Armagnac?’ Yes! Armagnac!’ Roger Bayliss was delighted with her.

  ‘Well done, Mrs Todd!’ he said. ‘Very well done!’ They laughed and sipped.

  ‘We’ve known each other for almost a year. Won’t you use my Christian name?’ Alice asked. Then, having agreed that she, in turn, though possibly not in front of the girls, would call him Roger, he refilled her glass and they talked about the success of the previous day.

  ‘Very good of Major Maynard,’ Roger said. ‘Christmas wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun for your girls – or indeed, for you – without his company and that of his men.’

  Alice agreed, adding, almost without thinking that, yes, she would miss Oliver. There was a slight pause before Roger spoke.

  ‘Off somewhere, is he?’ He had managed to keep his tone as casual as possible but he was watching Alice carefully as he waited for her reply.

  With the onset of the cold weather, Christopher’s fire had been consuming fuel faster than he was adding to his store of dry wood and the pile of split logs he had stacked undercover was dwindling alarmingly. On the morning of Boxing Day he was wielding his axe, bringing it down hard, making the logs crack satisfactorily apart. He had already wheeled three heaped barrow-loads into the lean-to. The exercise had made him sweat and he had soon discarded his scarf, his jacket and his pullover. He felt fit. The concentration necessary to achieve the maximum result from each stroke of the axe pleased him, focusing his attention, his muscles and his brain perfectly synchronised.

  It had been two months now since he had retreated, alone and broken, to the forest. Since then, the life he had chosen had rested his mind and exercised his body. Both had responded. Although unaware of it, the months in the forest had physically and emotionally changed him. His bearing was altered. He stood erect now, not stooped and tense, as though braced against catastrophe as he had been when, ‘scrambled’ into mission after mission, his plane had flung him skywards and into the path of the bullets and the shrapnel that were intended to end his life or leave him maimed. His face was no longer the gaunt mask it had become before – and had remained during his breakdown. His eyes were clear, his uncut hair shoulder length and glossy. As a result of the good food, consistent exercise and lack of stress he had gained weight. Still perspiring, he dragged his flannelette shirt off over his head and had just brought the axe down hard on a resistant log when he caught the sound of the motorbike and turned, axe in hand, to face it.

  At first Christopher saw only Lionel, who was a stranger to him. When he recognised the well-wrapped figure perched behind him, he laughed. It was a delighted and delightful sound of jubilation which echoed through the bare trees surrounding them. Lionel watched his sister and Christopher Bayliss stand smiling at one another. After a moment he felt it necessary to introduce himself.

  ‘Brought you a late Christmas present!’ he added after Christopher had shaken him by the hand. Neither Georgina nor Christopher appeared to hear him. She watched as Christopher pulled his shirt back on, his smile reappearing, charmingly, through the open neck. ‘I knew you’d come,’ he said and when she started to speak he silenced her. ‘No, no. No need for any explanations! You must be frozen! Come inside.’

  He made tea for them and cut large wedges from Eileen’s cake. Georgina told him she could not believe how well he looked.

  ‘I’ve never seen you like this! You are…’ She hesitated. ‘Transformed, Chris! I hadn’t realised…’ Again she paused, trying to choose her words carefully.

  ‘How messed up I was before? It’s the life up here, Georgie,’ he went on. ‘Basic and simple – with some useful back-up from Pa’s housekeeper, of course! Hence this noble cake!’

  It was, she considered afterwards, almost like meeting a stranger. The clinging, self-deprecating wreck that had both scared and depressed her was gone. Now, just as she had been when they had first met and he had been concealing his imminent breakdown under a carapace of swaggering arrogance, she found herself attracted to him. But with this realisation came a sense of guilt. Her
initial reaction to him had been superficial. She had, to begin with, lacked perception and then, when the wretchedness of the breakdown had stripped him of the qualities that, despite herself, she had found attractive, she had almost despised him. Now, having misunderstood him, she felt, as they sat in his firelight and he enthused about what he had already achieved in the neglected woodland, unworthy of him.

  After half an hour or so Lionel got to his feet. ‘Better make tracks, sis,’ he said. ‘It’ll be dark soon and after I drop you off—’

  ‘You’re taking Drusilla to a party. I hadn’t forgotten.’ She stood, winding her scarf round her neck, smiling at Christopher.

  ‘You’re still going, then?’ he asked her as they moved out into the half-light where the thaw was steadily reducing the patches of snow. ‘To do this flying thing?’

  ‘Yes. I’m still going. But I could come and see you… When I get some leave… If you’d like me to?’ Christopher took her by her shoulders, kissed her and told her there was nothing in this world that he would like better.

  Then Lionel was revving the bike, she was on the pillion and they were negotiating the slushy track. Christopher’s mouth had felt warm. This kiss was quite different from the cold neediness of their first, when on a sharp April night, after an awkward dinner together, she had volunteered to drive them home because his burnt hands were hurting him.

  ‘Coming in for a warm-up?’ she asked Lionel when they arrived at the farmhouse.

  ‘I’d better crack on,’ he said, the noise of his bike echoing round the yard.

  ‘Don’t want to be late for your bit of cradle-snatching!’

  ‘Cradle-snatching? Dru’s almost eighteen, Georgie!’

  ‘And you’ve been going out with my friend Annie for the past six months!’

  ‘Annie’s lovely,’ he said, ‘absolutely lovely and great fun and everything…but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Oh, you know, Georgie… She’s…well, she’s…’

  ‘Not posh enough for you? Is that the problem? Are you a bit of a snob, little brother?’ He pulled down his goggles and shut her out. She watched him turn the heavy machine and ride off, the beam from his headlamp wavering down the lane.

  Annie must have heard the bike. Georgina would lie. She would tell Annie that Lionel had to get back to their parents’ guests. Avoiding the girls she climbed the steep stairs to her room and stood for a moment, looking round it. At the desk where she had studied for her Ministry of Agriculture exams. At the narrow bed in which she had lain, arguing with her conscience about pacifism, and about Christopher. And up at the small, ill-fitting window, the blackout curtain pulled across it.

  From the recreation room Georgina could hear someone at the untuned piano, picking their way through the refrain of ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’. She recognised Annie’s voice, hesitantly singing the words as her fingers fumbled over the keys. As she mastered each phrase of the song, Annie’s pace quickened and some of the girls broke off their conversations and began singing with her, stopping, starting and laughing as she stumbled through the familiar tune. Georgina identified Gwennan’s heavy Welsh contralto and snatches of Winnie’s thin soprano. The voices and the laughter rose and fell, reaching Georgina through the gaps in the floorboards of the draughty little room above the porch.

  After supper she would slide her expensive monogrammed suitcases from under her bed. In three days’ time she would no longer be a land girl, a member of what was still disparagingly referred to as ‘the Cinderella service’, and she would leave Lower Post Stone Farm for what would probably be the last time.

  About the Author

  JULIA STONEHAM began her career as a stage designer before moving into writing. She was a regular writer on The House of Eliott and her radio series, The Cinderella Service, was nominated for a Sony Award and was commissioned by Granada TV.

  By Julia Stoneham

  Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings

  The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate

  Alice’s Girls

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  13 Charlotte Mews

  London W1T 4EJ

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  Hardback published in Great Britain in 2008.

  Paperback published in 2009.

  This ebook edition first published in 2011.

  Copyright © 2008 by JULIA STONEHAM

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1130–7