The Land Girl

by Allie Burns

  ‘I’m visiting you, that’s all. Our house is empty and the war is over. And I wanted to tell you that you’re going to be a grandmother.’

  Mother’s eyes widened. ‘Goodness! Well you always did like to shock, didn’t you?’

  Emily put her hand across the small bump that was growing; she would make up for any love that might be lacking.

  ‘Has this officer chap of yours got somewhere for you to live?’

  She’d forgotten that Mother still thought Theo was an officer – not that her fib mattered any longer because she had an even bigger disappointment for her mother now. It was a wonder Cecil hadn’t written and told Mother what sort of a man she’d hitched herself to.

  ‘I want to move to the farm,’ she said. ‘Mr Tipton is going to retire and I want to take over.’

  Mother searched her daughter’s face. ‘With a baby? I suppose your husband will do the work. It’s hardly the life of a gentleman, is it?’ Mother checked over her shoulder. ‘I need to get back.’

  ‘But what about HopBine House? It’s empty now. And the farm. Mr Tipton is going to retire after the next harvest. There won’t be a manager soon. We need to plan for the future.’

  ‘You’ll need to speak to Wilfred,’ Mother said.

  Emily opened her mouth to ask more, but the cloak flapped back up the stairs, and Mother was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Christmas 1918

  Emily held out her arms, but when Mother didn’t moved towards her, Emily hid her discomfort by retrieving the brace of rabbits from the back seat and handed them to her uncle.

  ‘Can you take them to the cook?’ Wilfred said. As he glanced behind him she snatched a look at Mother. ‘She’ll know what to do with them.’ He handed back the animals to Emily.

  ‘Mr Tipton sent you some butter as well.’

  Mother reached for the pat, but Wilfred’s hand shot out and snatched it and smoothed the greaseproof paper with his thumbs. ‘I’m having to hide my sugar ration from her.’ He rolled his eyes in mock amusement. ‘She has a terrible sweet tooth.’

  Emily’s meagre selection of luggage, three suitcases and an old Gladstone bag, were stacked in the dusty road and the porter lifted it in.

  ‘It was a surprise to receive a letter from you,’ Uncle Wilfred said. ‘What with your new life taking shape, but I couldn’t put a war girl out on the street at Christmas.’

  Which was just as well; a farm labourer and his family had moved in to her old cottage in Perseverance Place. Martha was in a spare room at the Tiptons’ and until she could persuade Mother to reopen HopBine, she had nowhere else to go.

  Emily’s footsteps echoed back at her as she entered the hallway, which on its own was wider than Perseverance Place. She crossed the gleaming black-and-white-tiled floor and passed beneath the looming shadow of the crystal chandelier that framed the base of the staircase.

  ‘You don’t have a Christmas tree?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t like a fuss,’ he said. ‘Or noise. I’m used to the quiet.’

  Two maids with their hands clasped in front of them bobbed their heads. Wilfred introduced them, Bassett and Green. Sullen-faced Bassett had been there forever – Emily remembered her from those days long ago when they’d visited Uncle Wilfred without Father.

  ‘Once your bags are up, why don’t you change out of your travelling clothes?’ said Mother.

  Emily poked her head through the doorway of each of the three pristine, high-ceilinged rooms that led off the hallway. ‘Why isn’t there a photograph of John on the mantelpiece?’

  Her Mother cowered, pushed Emily into the room and shut the door, checking over her shoulder. ‘Wilfred has rules. Dwelling on the past won’t help me over my grief.’

  ‘I see.’

  Mother rubbed her daughter’s hand, as if to push away any discussion on how they might feel.

  ‘Well, I must be off.’ Wilfred appeared behind them making them both jump. ‘I have a drinks party.’ He rolled his eyes as if it was a terrible chore, but someone had to do it.

  ‘It’s always business with Wilfred,’ Mother said, with a frothy little chuckle. ‘Even at Christmas.’

  The footman, Henderson, came back down the stairs empty-handed.

  ‘I’ll show you to your room.’ Mother had been jumpy when Uncle Wilfred was there. Now her arms swept around her as she walked, and she had more colour in her cheeks.

  She led Emily around in squares, hands smoothing the bannisters until they reached what was to be Emily’s bedroom on the fourth floor. A sickly pink affair, with a blushing carpet and roses on the wallpaper and curtains, a coral upholstered velvet stool in front of the dresser, and bedspread.

  ‘Here you are. I suppose it’s cheery,’ Mother said. ‘If that’s your cup of tea. I’m directly beneath you in the yellow room.’

  At least that was something. Mother fawned so much over Wilfred that it wouldn’t have been a surprise to find them sharing a room.

  ‘Maid will be up shortly,’ Mother said. ‘To dress you for dinner.’

  Emily said she could dress herself, but apparently that wasn’t an option.

  Her window overlooked a small back garden, a tiny patch of lawn with some sorry-looking shrubs, diseased and dying, along the borders. The brick wall either side was piled high with ivy, which crept its way around the fruit tree at the foot of the garden.

  ‘Maid is on her way,’ Mother announced, standing rigidly as the footsteps grew closer.

  ‘Perhaps we could make some garlands, decorate the hallway. Isn’t that a holly bush?’ She pointed to the far corner of the garden. Entwined with the ivy it would jolly up the hallway. Just as she had done at HopBine.

  ‘They won’t like the fuss. Have a rest after your journey,’ Mother interrupted. She glanced first at the wedding band and then at Emily’s stomach.

  ‘Perhaps you can find me some secateurs. I will get to work. There isn’t even a wreath on the front door, Mother.’

  Inside the wardrobe, her clothes were already hung up. She’d hardly worn any of them since she’d been working on the farm. They greeted her now with the silent judgement of abandoned friends who expressed their dissatisfaction with blank stares. Outfits she’d owned in another life. She pulled each dress, blouse and skirt out in turn and examined it. Then she let them go. Let them swing. One of them would have to do for the rest of the evening, and she didn’t much care which threadbare, out-of-mode outfit it would be.

  Just as she began to unbutton a blouse there came a knock at the door. She swung around.

  ‘I have come to help you change, Madame.’ It was Bassett. ‘I am to be your maid, if that’s all well and good with you.’ Bassett didn’t exactly sing her announcement.

  ‘Of course,’ Emily said, her hands falling from her buttons. ‘I remember you, I think, from when I came here as a child?’ Emily made conversation while Bassett removed a heavily boned camisole embroidered with blue ribbon from a drawer.

  ‘Most probably,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here over twenty years, stayed on during the war, too.’

  ‘You must remember me and my brothers John and Cecil then – we visited once when we were young?’

  Bassett’s cheeks coloured. She pulled the blue laces tight, forcing the breath out of Emily’s chest. Emily glanced down at her stomach. ‘Leave it loose at the bottom,’ she said. ‘I haven’t worn these since before the war. I ought to get measured for new ones while I’m in town.’

  Bassett yanked the laces again. Emily hoped the baby didn’t mind being pulled about. ‘John always enjoyed visiting here. He liked to feed the ducks in Hyde Park.’

  ‘Miss Emily, I’m afraid the master doesn’t permit talk of Masters John or Cecil in the house.’

  ‘Either of them?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said. ‘The master says it doesn’t do to dwell.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll do my best to remember that,’ she said, stepping into her skirt and pressing her hands on the material that
covered her up.

  Once she was dressed and Bassett had brushed and waved her hair with curling irons she left Emily alone in the pink room. In the mirror was an alien in a starch-heavy chemise, ruched up under the stays.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked the reflection, but it didn’t answer. It was too busy wondering how Mother could tolerate this place.

  ‘Are you happy here?’ Emily said outright when she found Mother perched on the edge of an armchair in the drawing room.

  She’d had to find the secateurs for herself, tucked away in a glass-fronted lean-to that ran along one wall, outside the French door in the library.

  Mother must have heard her banging about in the hallway, as she wound the ivy around the staircase and threaded in the holly berries, but she hadn’t left the drawing room to help her, or to ask if there was anything she needed.

  Emily had made a base for the ivy itself by twining the two fronds together into a circle and then added adornments of holly and some scarlet berries she’d found on a bush in the public gardens opposite.

  Then she joined Mother in the immaculate drawing room. The silverware in the cabinet behind her gleamed in the candlelight. Emily snapped the door tight.

  She repeated her question.

  ‘Is this really the best place for you?’ Grandmother had been right, things weren’t as they should be. Wilfred was her son – she knew him far better than Emily did – and her advice echoed in Emily’s ears.

  ‘Of course. I’m taken care of here. Wilfred does everything. I have no concerns at all.’

  That hadn’t been Emily’s question at all.

  ‘What about HopBine?’ Emily said. ‘It’s empty. You could move back there.’

  ‘Why would I want to live there alone? No, no. It’s out of the question. HopBine is in the past. I’m settled here. And what about you – you didn’t tell me where you and this chap …’

  ‘Theo,’ she reminded her.

  ‘Theo and you are going to live.’

  She took a deep breath. She couldn’t keep avoiding the truth. She told her that Theo hadn’t written to her since the war had ended.

  Mother’s gaze settled on Emily’s stomach. She continued to be a disappointment to her; first a bad marriage, then a career on a farm, and now she was having a baby without a father. Mother asked all the questions Emily had asked herself: had he abandoned her, was he still at a demob camp, was he injured and in hospital?

  ‘I don’t know, so I must forge on with plans for me and the baby. As I mentioned, I want to run the farm.’ She jumped around, avoiding her lies: he wasn’t even an officer; he’d been a working-class man. That hadn’t mattered to her because he’d been kind and supportive at a time when she’d needed it, but it had been a mistake, a terrible error of judgement and she hadn’t known him at all.

  Mother shook her head, wrinkling her nose. Emily couldn’t tell her all of that.

  ‘You’ve been quite irresponsible. You’ll have to look for him, contact his family. You’ll have to stay here until you find him. Wilfred will allow you to remain here.’

  Emily sighed. What else had she expected? ‘I can provide for us if I need to.’ She put a protective hand over her stomach. ‘And what about you?’ She took the conversation back. ‘Surely you can’t want to stay here.’

  ‘It’s not a case of what I want,’ she said.

  ‘But we could all live together, at HopBine. You could ride Hawk out on the gallops.’

  Now Mother scoffed. ‘I’ve been here almost three years. It’s not perfect, but it’s tolerable.’

  Mother fiddled with her outstretched fingers. Her ring finger was bare, the wedding ring gone, along with the eternity ring she wore on her right hand.

  ‘So what will happen to HopBine?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll need to speak to your uncle. John thought it best if anything happened to him that Wilfred take control of the family affairs.’ Mother fiddled with the skin where her wedding ring had been.

  ‘What! Why would John do that? Is it because he gave us money?’

  Mother nodded. ‘That and the fact I made it clear that I was never raised to deal with finances, land management, running an estate and dealing with staff. I could never count on Cecil, and you wouldn’t be any more able than me.’

  Emily sprung out of her chair. ‘That’s simply not true,’ she said. ‘Of course, I can manage the estate.’

  Mother shook her head and gave an irritating mocking laugh. ‘No, you will not.’

  ‘Well then, I’m going to go home and open up HopBine, and when Mr Tipton retires I’ll take over there, and you can sit around here and do whatever it is you do all day that doesn’t tax you or cause you to worry.’

  Emily strode to the door. As she flung it open, Mother called her back.

  ‘Sit down,’ Mother ordered. Emily folded her arms. They were back exactly where they had been before she became a land girl. ‘Sit,’ she said. Emily flung herself back on the sofa and buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Wilfred owns half of HopBine. John had no choice but to offer him the property when Wilfred cleared our debts.’

  So, he hadn’t been the munificent uncle swooping in, in their hour of need. He had seen an opportunity to own half of their estate and steer it too if anything were to happen to John.

  ‘You’d need his permission and his money to reopen HopBine. He would be your employer on the farm. He could appoint you as a manager. But frankly that’s such a ludicrous idea I wouldn’t even raise it with him. He’ll simply laugh you down.’

  Before she could say any more, Uncle Wilfred burst through the door, spic and span in a double-breasted frock coat unbuttoned to reveal his waistcoat, stiff high-winged collar and narrow, striped trousers.

  He pecked her mother on the cheek, as if it were a nightly routine.

  He addressed Emily by pointing his silver-topped walking stick at her. ‘You’re pale, my dear niece. You need a pick-me-up.’

  He leant heavily against the doorframe to remove his gold watch from his waistcoat, then pressed the call button for Henderson.

  ‘My niece doesn’t have a drink,’ he said. ‘And what about you, Louisa? Have you been taken care of?’

  Her mother’s hand rose to the nape of her neck to tame imaginary loose hairs. ‘I’m quite all right, thank you.’ The way she fawned turned Emily’s stomach.

  ‘How about a glass of port wine?’ Wilfred suggested.

  Mother agreed. Emily wanted brandy but kept that to herself. Wilfred’s mood had a troubling edge to it.

  ‘Didn’t Cook bake another batch of mince pies?’ he asked Louisa with a tut.

  ‘I’m still hungry – the meal at the club wasn’t up to much. May I have a mince pie?’ Henderson poured him a large whisky on ice, handed him the cut crystal tumbler, set a coaster on the table and left the room in search of mince pies.

  ‘It’s been a sad day one way or another,’ Wilfred said.

  ‘Whatever happened?’ Mother asked.

  ‘Some blasted young girl: a clerk. She asked me for a pay rise.’

  ‘And?’ Mother prompted.

  ‘I had to let her go.’ He shook his head, took another swig of his whisky.

  ‘On Christmas Eve?’ Emily said.

  ‘Yes. You see why I’ve been drinking now, don’t you? I should point out that she’s married so she has no concerns over keeping a roof over her head. She’s earning pin money, that’s all,’ he slurred. ‘But I had to let her go – it’s the example it sets to the other girls. I already have more females on the payroll than I need. She was being greedy. What would she do with the extra other than buy herself some fancy clothes? And this, a time of sacrifice.’

  He had rested his walking stick by his leg and he raised it now towards Emily. ‘You’ve been a dutiful girl. Very admirable, your war effort.’ A mincemeat-stained drool escaped from the side of his mouth. ‘And it was right that I should step in and take care of your mother to allow you to do so. But you saw, didn’t you?
You were bright enough to see that your time was over.’ He raised his voice. ‘Why didn’t that girl today see things the same way?’ His eyelids drooped, and then his face clouded. ‘If she had, I wouldn’t have had to put her out of a job at Christmas.’

  His words turned her stomach. Mother was already watching her, waiting for her, so she could glare at her with raised eyebrows. See? the look said. You really think he will hand the estate back to you? You really think he’ll employ you on the farm?

  ‘We fought to maintain our way of life,’ Emily countered, ‘but at the same time the war has changed things, and life won’t ever go back to how it was before.’

  He mocked her by rolling his eyes at Mother. It was a noble hope. But now her father’s estranged brother owned half of everything, and Mother was too weak to do anything other than cling to him. The past was rather inviting.

  Mother kept her head down and played again with the spot where her wedding ring had been. What had happened to her rings? Had she sold them, or had Wilfred taken those from her too as part of his deal?

  Emily closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to shake it all away. When she opened them again Wilfred’s head had fallen awkwardly to one side, his mouth gaped open, and the half-eaten mince pie sat in the flat of one palm, while his walking stick slid forwards and landed onto the rug.

  She eyed her uncle as he slept in his chair. Unless she could persuade Mother to stand up to him, she was stuck living in De Vere Gardens. She’d really rather be homeless.

  Upstairs later, she knocked on her mother’s door. It opened a crack.

  ‘I shan’t stay here. And I don’t think you should either,’ she whispered. ‘He’s horrid. I’m only sorry that you’ve been here so long.’

  ‘I hope you have some money then,’ Mother replied. ‘He is in charge of the bank accounts, too.’

  Emily had some savings, but her wages as a land girl had only just covered her living expenses. Rent she had thought had been going to Mother had been paying her uncle.

  She returned to her room, sat at the dresser. The alien in the chemise reappeared in the mirror. The first tear squeezed its way out, and fled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the flat of her hand, but there was another already taking its place. She swiped at that too. She hadn’t stopped to think about the life Mother was living here, should have guessed that Mother would settle for anyone who would take the strain and prevent her from standing on her own two feet.