by Allie Burns
Emily narrowed her eyes to search his inscrutable face for a clue as to whether he was telling the truth. He’d been estranged from the family for such a long time, but what motive could he have other than kindness?
‘It of course means you’d be free to work on the farm.’
‘I’d already thought of that.’ Her breath caught, but then reality landed. ‘But wouldn’t I need to go to London too?’ she asked. ‘I think I ought to wait and speak to Mother.’
‘Very well. Talk it over with Louisa if you wish. It’s awfully quiet in the house, isn’t it?’ He ran his fingertips along the body of the piano. The lid had remained shut since they’d received the letter from the War Office. The gramophone hadn’t played a single one of its metallic tunes. ‘Your father was fond of music as I recall.’
She nodded, and wished that Cecil was there to help with the small talk. She was far too tired and her mind too foggy to keep up with the events unfolding this afternoon.
Uncle Wilfred pressed the middle C key and its dull reverberation pierced the room and his fingers began to unfold a tune she didn’t recognise just as Mother reappeared in a white dress made of linen that accentuated her waist. A wide, white hat perched on the side of her head, obscured a patch where her hair had fallen out.
‘Ah.’ Uncle Wilfred rose to his feet, casting an admiring glance from Louisa’s head to her toe.
Mother let the music pass without comment.
‘Uncle Wilfred tells me that you’re thinking of staying with him in London.’
Mother nodded.
‘That’s right. I think it will do me good to have a change. I even thought we might volunteer the house up to the army – they’re hunting for a convalescent home.’
She clenched every muscle in her body, and waited for Mother to tell her that she would need her in London with her.
‘I thought over what Lady Radford had to say about the need to do all we can for the war, and Cecil has lowered our standing in the community. If you were to take on some war work too it might balance out his damage.’ Emily could only have believed it if she’d heard the words coming straight from Mother’s mouth. ‘Mr Tipton has said you can take a billet in Perseverance Place and start work with him when you’re ready.’
Just like that? Every day since Father had died she had told Emily she needed her by her side, that she couldn’t cope without her. And now, after months of resistance to her plea to volunteer for war work and outright disapproval of her ambitions to be a land girl, Mother was giving her blessing. Mother didn’t need her any longer and so she was letting her go to do the one thing she dreamt of more than anything. So why then didn’t it feel like a victory?
‘You could park a Zepp in your jaws,’ Wilfred said with a chuckle.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked Mother. ‘I mean, will you be all right, without me?’
‘Of course,’ Mother said, evenly, with a light shrug.
Wilfred was some sort of miracle. Instead of a future spent trying to support Mother, and falling short, of trying to stretch across the empty distance between them but finding her still out of reach, she was going to be on a training course, a residential one, and then she was going to work, properly, officially on the farm. She couldn’t believe it. She was really going to be a war girl.
Wilfred presented Mother with his arm and suggested a walk down to the village shrine.
‘Splendid idea,’ Mother said.
They walked away across the driveway towards the cedar avenue. Mother stooped over but there was a lightness to her step that she hadn’t seen since John was home on leave. Father, then John and now Cecil. Mother was all that Emily had left, and Emily thought she was all Mother had. She was wrong. For once she wouldn’t have minded if Mother had exerted more control over her now and pulled her so close that Emily might suffocate. But grief affected them all in different ways, and perhaps Mother was right and time away from all these memories was exactly what she needed.
It was only just sinking in: a billet, work on the farm. She was free to be a land girl. After all that asking and being met with outright refusal, who could have thought that tragedy and grief would lead to her being granted what she wanted?
She dashed upstairs and wrote with the news to Theo. He would be so delighted for her, she couldn’t wait to tell him.
Chapter Eleven
April 1916
Dearest Emily,
I am so saddened by the news of your brother’s death. To lose someone so dear to you is a tragedy. I’m afraid I don’t understand Cecil’s actions, but then I haven’t had a brother cruelly snatched away from me, and so perhaps you might know more of what is going through his mind. As time moves on and the grief that clouds his vision lifts, I am certain that he will reconsider and will unite with his fellow countrymen to defeat Fritz.
Quite wonderful that something of good has come out of the whole sorry business. When your eyes lit up at the march in Westminster it was clear that you had a desire to make a difference. Whatever reservations you have about your mother’s sudden change towards you, you should put to one side. She is a woman who knows what is best for her, and if she insists that she must be with your uncle then you must take heed and not attempt to sway her because the other path, the challenge ahead of you, daunts you.
This country needs you, and you are keen to do your bit, so I would urge you not to hesitate, not to look back over your shoulder, questioning whether you have done the right thing, but to train your eyes upon the task in hand – and that is to ensure we win this war.
And finally, my dear, some news of my own: my next leave has been approved. I would love nothing more than to see your beautiful, smiling face. I suppose now you are free to see me, before you begin your work as a land girl? I will wait outside the Telegraph Office at mid-day on Wednesday.
Fondest wishes
Theo
She stood at the top of the church aisle. The third day into Theo’s leave. Her stomach turned somersaults when the church organ erupted into a swirling flurry. Whatever happened next, she had to do as John said, and not give up on her dreams.
She’d waited for him by the Telegraph Office. When he strode across the concourse, he was deep in conversation with a friend. His expression was glazed; his gaze didn’t settle on her. A tiny whimper escaped from her and the floor fell away from her feet. Then, as he drew level one of his mates elbowed him in the ribs.
‘Oh, um … Emily,’ he said coming to a halt.
He dropped his kit bag and pulled her close, his chin on top of her head. She burrowed into his chest, shut out the light and there, for the first time since John had died she let the tears flow, the sobs overtaking her body. That evening he proposed again, and this time something told her to say yes. Three days later, here they were.
She searched past the empty rib cage of pews and gawped for a moment at a crooked old dear bent over the organ’s keys as her frail fingers conjured up the insistent tone of the Wedding March. Another somersault. This was it. The music would carry her down the aisle.
In front of the altar Theo waited, his shoulders hunched as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He had his back to her, his face to the heavens, perhaps praying for a happy marriage, or that his bride would get a move on and get things over with before he had to catch his train back to the Front. Beside him, patting the breast pocket which contained the ring, was Theo’s best man, who he’d found earlier in The Mitre pub opposite the church.
The vicar, who’d been scanning the pages of his Bible, flashed his gaze up the aisle to Emily, raised his eyebrows and nodded to her. Another somersault. Believe in yourself, John’s voice said in her head.
She couldn’t think about what Mother would say because it might stop her from doing this; but Mother hadn’t even replied to her letters. If she had, Emily might not even be there at all. The surprising truth stopped her dead. She pulled back her veil and called: ‘I’m sorry about this. I’ll be back in a moment.’
She should have at least told her Mother what she had planned to do, but there was no getting away from it, Mother had moved on. She had told Mrs Tipton, who’d clucked and said she hoped she knew what she was doing. Theo believed in her; with him by her side she could make anything happen.
A couple of soldiers, home on leave, appraised Emily with a quick up and down as they passed, their eyes drawn to the mid-calf length, scalloped hem of the white-lace dress Theo had bought her in Selfridges. She gave the men a warning glare. They laughed to one another as they moved on. The one on the right, the taller of the two, turned again and winked at her. She shook her head.
‘The next couple will be here soon.’ Theo was behind her. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ His face glistened with sweat; his soft brown eyes had hardened to black dots. Emily wanted to comfort him. By taking flight she’d clearly given him the jitters too.
On his next leave, he’d promised her they would visit his family, and go to Yorkshire to see the place that they’d call home after the war.
She slipped her hand inside his.
‘Let’s get married,’ she said.
Chapter Twelve
June 1916
Dearest Emily,
I wonder how you are. Thank you for sending me the photograph of you in your land girl garb. As soon as I saw it, I knew I’d never see you any other way.
Just ten minutes ago Fritz was letting us have it. My good pal Patch and I were lying side by side, barely a movement between us on the ground for nearly half an hour. We didn’t strip our eyes away from one another the entire time. It was most strange when the spell broke and we went back to our duties. Captain Robinson brought us all a nip of rum when it was all over.
I am afraid I have little else that I may tell you.
Keep thinking of me.
Fondest wishes
Theo
She skipped over to the farmhouse on her first morning, in her new garb: a wedding ring, a jaunty silk scarf fastened about her head, one of Father’s old shirts, and a new knee-length oilskin coat belted around the waist that was the bee’s knees, though beneath it she was almost naked with nothing but stockings, knickers and knee-high leather gaiters. The stout boots were rubbing her heels already, but not enough that it would spoil her first day on the job.
‘How about starting with collecting the eggs, while we find the ole man?’ Mrs Tipton handed her a basket at the farmhouse kitchen door. The chickens crowded Emily’s ankles like a cloud of dust as she foraged about in the coop for the little gems they’d left behind. So precious those eggs had become that they had to collect them up quickly in case anyone tramping through stole them away.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Mr Tipton said when she found him up at the dairy. ‘It’s muck-spreading today.’ He beckoned her towards a hay barn and thrust a pitchfork into her hand and they walked over to the field and a twelve-foot pile of manure.
She copied the other women, sliding the muck down from the wain and fixing as much of it as she could on to the prongs of the pitchfork, then tossing it about, giving a rich texture to the faded clods of earth it covered.
It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected – the aroma was quite sweet. For the first half an hour she got stuck in. If only Mother could see her now. She straightened up to enjoy the tease and tickle of a gust of wind on her skin.
After an hour, her mouth was dry and her back was nagging at her to stand up straight. But nothing would make her complain; Cecil’s initial sentence was one hundred and twelve days of hard labour, with nothing but bread and water to keep him going.
She outstretched her hand for a glimpse of her golden wedding ring only to find a bare finger. Her mind raced; had she been wearing it that morning? She always wore it. Why would today be any different? She’d not stopped admiring the band since Theo had slipped it on her finger. How had she even managed to let it out of her sight long enough for it to slip off?
She searched about on the soil, crouching down and sweeping her way across where she’d been working, back and forth. What would she tell Theo? She couldn’t possibly expect him to buy her another.
‘What on earth are you up to?’ Mr Tipton asked. She told him about the ring, but he shrugged and checked the position of the sun. ‘Time’s moving on, you got five minutes more and then you need to get back to work. Have you checked the muck pile?’
She hadn’t. There was a chance it had slipped off her finger while she was digging in with her pitchfork.
She turned to her housemate Martha, a girl about her age with raven hair fastened beneath a scarf. Martha had previously worked as a housemaid at a big house the other side of West Malling and had hardly said a word to her since she’d moved in to Perseverance Place, but she had made it clear to Mrs Tipton that she disapproved of Cecil.
‘Sorry,’ Martha said turning her back on her. ‘I prefer to mind my own business.’
Emily gripped the fork and pitched through the muck, but it was shifting in clumps, which was no use. She had no choice but to inspect it closely. She crouched on her haunches again and sieved the muck through her fingers, taking two handfuls at a time, her eyes moving from left to right. She glared at Martha. How could she stand by while she was frantic? It certainly gave new meaning to the search for a needle in a haystack. Halfway through the pile she wiped her brow with the back of her hand. It irritated her throat and made her cough.
‘Right then, now,’ Mr Tipton said. ‘It’s time for work. It’ll turn up sooner or later – you’ll see.’
Her jaw tightened. She’d have to let it go for now. She wouldn’t give Martha the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
‘You two can follow me.’ Mr Tipton walked ahead of them. He was treating her like any of the other girls, which she supposed was how it should be, but she missed the old way he joked with her and always took the time to explain what he was doing.
As they left the lonely muck pile Emily scanned it one last time, but there was just a hundred different shades of brown and nothing golden apart from the sun in the sky and the sheen of her skin.
On the top field, there was a fresh pile of manure already waiting for them. Halfway along the path at the edge of the meadow Mr Tipton stopped and raised a forefinger to his lips. ‘Quiet now,’ he whispered, and they crept along the path.
At the end of the hedge, Mr Tipton grabbed Emily by the arm, yanked her through a gap and into the top corner of the neighbouring field. He pointed along the base of the foliage. She narrowed her eyes, expecting a flash of a deer’s tail to disappear through the hedgerow. Instead, there were two women on the ground, their legs hunched up under their chins, eyes fixed on their novels.
‘Ya!’ Mr Tipton shouted.
Olive Hughes and Ada Little squawked. They stuffed their books into their knapsacks, dusting down their oilskins as they rose to their feet.
‘You puddle ducks ha’ been caught red-handed,’ Mr Tipton bellowed as he marched along the ploughed edge of the field. Emily traipsed after him, avoiding the large clods that would disturb her footing. ‘And not for the first time.’
‘We were just having a ten-minute rest,’ Olive grunted. ‘Miserable ole beggar.’
‘You rest and eat when I say.’
‘We know the men get paid three or four times our one pound a week,’ Olive Hughes said. ‘You can’t expect the same work if you don’t pay the same wages.’
‘You ducks develop the strength of the men I’ve lost from here, and I’ll pay you the same. Now, you must know Miss Emily. She’s been training, and is some sort of farming expert now. She’ll be in charge of you lot from now on. I’m washing my hands of you.’
The women switched the focus of their snarling faces from Mr Tipton
to Emily.
‘Well, these women are quite the cowherds, aren’t you?’ Emily chuckled.
She had no hope of getting a working party together to search for her wedding ring, if Olive’s eye rolling and Ada’s muttering were anything to go by. It was most likely that they’d desert her for their beds and she’d be frantically sieving through that muck on her own in the dark.
Once Mr Tipton was out of sight, she puffed up her chest, though they probably could see straight through her. She said, ‘Let’s get back to work.’
She marched away from the women hoping and praying that they had done as she asked and followed her, because her training course hadn’t prepared her for what she was supposed to do next. But they were there, traipsing a short distance behind her. They were moaning and their glares could have toasted muffins, but at least they’d done as she requested. She couldn’t have asked for anything more.
When they took a break for lunch, Olive and Ada – who’d had their heads together with non-stop chattering travelling between them like an electrical current – dumped their pitchforks on the ground and started to loll off without a backwards glance. But she had to start now as she meant to go on. She cleared her throat and then called after them: ‘Ahem.’
The ladies didn’t hear, or ignored her, and Martha also dropped her pitchfork where she stood and stared at her in a way that made her wither like wheat in a drought.
Her cheeks burnt, but if she let them go now they’d never have any respect for her, and then things could only get worse.
‘Mrs Hughes. Mrs Little.’ She spoke more sharply this time. ‘Ladies! Please stop.’ Her voice cut through the air – even the birds seemed to hush. Ada and Olive came to a standstill. Her fleeting smile of victory was quickly extinguished. These two women had shown Mr Tipton, the farm’s manager, a shocking level of disrespect since they’d come to work on the farm. Did she really stand a chance of making them listen to her?
She let the heels of her boots sink into the mud, her stride wide. Her voice was foggy again; she cleared it.