The Land Girl

by Allie Burns

  ‘You must come and visit,’ she said to him. This couldn’t be how it would end between them. His friendship was too valuable to let it go. But as soon as the words were out she knew that she shouldn’t have suggested it.

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

  She jumped, her breath snagging in her throat. It was too painful for him to revisit that part of his past and it was wrong of her to push him. Unsurprisingly, the frown didn’t fade to a smile, nor did he nudge her in the ribs and say that of course he’d be delighted to keep their friendship alive and know her in the place she loved best.

  He lifted his collar, and before she could tell him how much of a tonic he’d been to her in London, or to thank him for listening and offering his advice without judgement, he had said goodbye, buried his hands in his pockets and walked away.

  She didn’t move from the bench. The park was fuller than ever with nannies pushing perambulators along, smaller children scurrying about picking up treasures from the edge of the path. Down by the Serpentine there was a line of them along the water’s edge tossing bread to a mob of ducks.

  He was doing perfectly well now. He didn’t need her, or to be reminded of the man he’d been at HopBine House.

  *

  She shut the door on the pink room without a backward glance. Downstairs, Mother was already waiting for her.

  ‘He’s back,’ she said to Mother. ‘Are you ready?’

  In the hallway, they retrieved their things from the cloakroom, slipped into their cloaks and buttoned their gloves. Bassett was smiling despite herself, her arms folded across her chest. She would have her master all to herself again now. They declined the offer of a driver, preferring instead to take a cab to the station.

  The commotion roused Uncle Wilfred from his study. The door handle rattled, and the two of them swallowed, moving closer to one another as they waited for him to appear.

  ‘I’d like to make a suggestion,’ he said. He would never let them leave without flexing his muscles. ‘We should sell HopBine.’ He put his hands in his pockets. ‘After the baby is born, if Louisa returns here, the free capital would enable you, Emily, to buy your own home.’

  Emily didn’t like the way her mother was hesitating, as if he was the victim in all of this.

  ‘We’ll think your offer over,’ Emily said. ‘But I won’t be needing anywhere to live. I’m going to take over the farm.’

  ‘Well, no.’ He frowned. ‘I own half of the farm, too.’ He paused, examined her face. ‘You didn’t know?’ He smirked at her now, but she nodded with assurance as though she’d been aware all along, and her plans for the farm and a colony hadn’t just grown wings and flown out of the door right before her eyes. She should have thought to check what sort of bargain he’d struck with Mother. Why had she assumed the debts only applied to the house, not the whole estate?

  Well it wouldn’t stop her. She had influential friends now, with their own wealth, who wanted to set up a land colony. He might have half a stake and half a say, but he couldn’t force them to sell. Let him think it was over if he liked, let him think he had won and held all the best cards, because it wasn’t true, not by a long way.

  He insisted that Henderson arrange for a driver to take them to the station.

  The three of them hesitated, trapped in the moment. Was his lip trembling as he gazed across the hallway at Mother? He was certainly dewy-eyed. He tried to speak but he was choked, and he obscured his mouth with his fist. If he did really care for Mother, he had a terrible way of showing it.

  ‘We ought to go,’ Emily said, and ushered Mother out of the door before she changed her mind.

  *

  The drive to Victoria station was a short one from De Vere Gardens. It had been so easy in the end. All she’d needed to do was to stand up to him, and he’d released his hold on Mother without any resistance, for now at least. Until the baby was born.

  They swung into Pall Mall, but now they headed away from Buckingham Palace, which was behind them, St James’s Park to their right.

  ‘Excuse me. Are we headed in the right direction for Victoria station?’ Emily called to the driver.

  ‘I’m to take you all the way to Kent, ma’am,’ the driver called over his shoulder. ‘The master said to say he insisted you got home safe and sound.’

  She instinctively checked the rear window. With a bit of luck that was the last they’d see of her uncle for a very long time.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  May 1919

  Once they’d left behind the city and hit the narrow high-sided lanes, Emily let down her window so the breeze could tickle her face.

  The driver whizzed alongside the land from Cob Tree Farm, the neighbour to HopBine. The tall wooden poles were adorned in the fur of the green hop bines. The drowsy white-green cones drooped, ready for the influx of the hop-pickers come the harvest.

  The car turned sharply, the driver asking Mother questions about the village all the while. Who had gone to war and who had come back. He was undeterred by her one-word, clipped responses, oblivious to how, as they grew increasingly closer to their home, her gaze grew blanker, her eyes wider.

  They were now running alongside Sunnyside Orchard; then they approached the estate and tucked into the cedar avenue. Hop Hill on which their house sat. It had been bare when she’d left in midwinter. Now the grass had charred, the leaves were heavy as if the summer’s party was just getting going.

  At the end of the cedar avenue HopBine House popped up to greet them. A cheery cream facade, the protective three-gabled windows. The missing roof tiles and peeling paintwork.

  Out on the lawn were some stray bags of cement, a delivery of timber, and the area over by the monkey puzzle tree was staked and roped off. Her heart pulled her towards the paddock. She could be at the farmhouse in five minutes, but Mother cowered in front of the house as if facing the jaws of a tiger. She’d go later. Daisy flung open the door and called out a welcome to them, pointing and covering her mouth at the sight of Emily all bloated up like a Zepp.

  The primrose yellow hallway walls were scarred with signs of scrapes from its time as a convalescent home. Antiseptic still hung in the air. A glass was abandoned on the hall table, next to the silver post tray with a pile of letters, some addressed to the Cothams, others to people they didn’t know.

  ‘It’s a bit shoddy of the army, don’t you think? All that stuff dumped outside. It’s as if they haven’t really gone.’

  When a response didn’t come she turned around, but Mother wasn’t there.

  ‘Will you come with me?’ Mother called from the sitting room. ‘Let’s look around together. Reacquaint ourselves.’

  Together, silently, they visited each room of the house, one by one.

  ‘Remember how I used to sit on Father’s knee while you played the piano?’ Emily said. ‘I remember when John captured a badger and wanted it as a pet. Father said he had to let it go, but the two boys kept it hidden from us for nearly a week. Until it scratched Cecil and he had red marks down his face.’

  ‘He was a good son,’ she said.

  In some rooms, the ghostly dust sheets covered the furniture; others were set, in anticipation of their arrival. All were still. All were empty.

  ‘Coo-ee.’ Breathless and red-cheeked, Norah Peters was in the hallway. ‘I wanted to be the first to welcome you back. I was just at the post office and they said that you were here.’

  ‘I’m tired after the journey.’ Emily excused herself to take a nap and let Mother catch up with her friend.

  She paused in the library, in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that opened out on to the terrace. John’s rose garden was overgrown. Some of the bushes hadn’t survived the winter, but one or two were in full leaf now. There were signs of buds, keeping the crimson blooms locked up tight.

  She’d played battles out there with her brothers, not so far from the spot where Cecil had told them he would become a conscientious objector.


  It was different now, as if the house wasn’t embracing her any longer, no warmth, no comfort, but they were only just home. It would come – she had to give it time.

  The familiar twinges pulled the side of her belly. The doctor had told her it wasn’t the baby coming. The muscles were just practising, preparing for the birth. She took herself up to her bedroom. Daisy had made up her bed. She climbed under the covers.

  ‘At least we’re safe here,’ she told the baby, ‘away from your horrible Great Uncle Wilfred. You wouldn’t like him.’

  They were home. Away from Wilfred. Mother could rebuild, learn she did have the strength to face her responsibilities, and then Emily could chase after the life she wanted for herself.

  She lay on her bed, with the curtains and windows opened. A fresh start. Somehow. With her head propped on the pillow, she listened to the bleating of the sheep, until she was dreaming of them.

  *

  Mother was in and out of the room like a jack-in-the-box to ask Emily’s opinion on where she should put furniture and where they might put the bassinet in the room they were to use as the nursery. Emily pulled the pillow over her head. She’d overdone it, and she’d never be well enough to visit the farm if she didn’t get any peace.

  On the second day, Emily flung back the blankets. The baby had settled down; her legs were steady. She’d left Mother taking morning tea with Norah Peters and Mrs Woods the new doctor’s wife. The old doctor had been killed in the war. The three of them were knitting for the baby’s layette.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mother had said. ‘You don’t need to look so petrified. You don’t have to join us if you don’t want to.’

  Emily nearly pointed out what a delight it was to hear her say that, but it was better that it passed unspoken. Mother would never admit that Emily had been right to bring them home, or that she was changing for the better, she just had to let it happen.

  She went out the front door, straight in the direction of the paddock. She waddled more like a duck every day, but it didn’t matter here, where the long golden grass was laden with cricket song, wild daisies and poppies that threaded themselves through the jungle of it. By the time she reached the bottom she had a colourful posy for Mrs Tipton.

  A labourer was at work in the yard. He’d returned to the farm from the Front just about the time she had left for London. She waved, and he tipped his cap in reply. As she crossed the yard, she sensed the heat of his gaze tracing her progress towards the farmhouse. She’d had no idea that a pregnancy could draw so much attention, but she was growing used to it, which was just as well because the baby would bring even more.

  The labourer had stopped what he was doing and strayed forwards, his arms folded. As she rapped on the kitchen door, he was still behind her. The door opened and Mrs Tipton, her hair wild and free, and her cheeks apple-red, pulled Emily into a tight hug.

  ‘You’re still here then,’ she joked.

  ‘We’re waiting for you to take over from us, girl. What’s taken you so long?’

  ‘Complications,’ she said. She hated to tell them that her plans to run the farm had become all the more unattainable. Being allowed to skip a knitting party was the first tiny step of many to where she needed to be.

  Mrs Tipton asked after the baby’s father. Emily hesitated, nearly told her mother’s lie that he was dead; but no, she couldn’t do that.

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she confessed. ‘But can you keep that to yourself?’

  Mrs Tipton clucked and invited her into the farmhouse’s steamy kitchen. She sat back, soaked up the crashing and clattering and the old familiar aromas while Mrs Tipton fussed about, preparing the lunch for the labourers, and asked after Cecil. She told her how she’d had the idea of running the farm as a land colony for ex-war girls with Martha.

  ‘But … come on, what’s the but?’ Mrs Tipton said. ‘If you were ready to take over this place, baby coming or not, you’d be upstairs packing my bags for me.’

  She told her everything.

  ‘At the moment, Wilfred thinks I’m a noble ex-war girl, who should know her place. But it looks as though he’s going to force us to sell up. At first I thought we could stop him, but we can’t afford to keep it all running. My best hope is that the new owner will appoint me, because Wilfred will never agree to it.’

  Mrs Tipton sucked air through her teeth. ‘And if the new owner won’t take you on?’

  Emily couldn’t think about that. Even without a baby to take care of it would be almost impossible to convince anyone to take her on as a manager. And even if she could convince the new farm owner she was up to the job, the male labourers would never take orders from her. Her only real hope was if one of the suffragettes set up a colony, otherwise she’d have to live with Mother.

  Mrs Tipton dumped the teapot back on the table.

  ‘Sometimes, my dear, you have to accept when you’re beat. That baby will change everything.’

  Emily’s head drooped.

  ‘Oh, I’ve upset you. I always speak as I find. The ole man always says I should button up.’

  Mr Tipton. What would he say? He’d been holding out for retirement and would have gone by now if it wasn’t that he’d promised to wait and hand the reins over to her.

  ‘Would you tell him that we’ll be selling up? Explain that Wilfred will leave us with no choice.’ Emily asked. Mrs Tipton nodded.

  ‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll survive.’

  One hand rested on the chair behind Emily, the other she lowered so that the palm curved around Emily’s belly.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do whatever’s best for you and your family.’

  The baby was resting. He’d been quiet today, and then just as Mrs Tipton lifted her hand a tiny foot pushed up at her.

  ‘Oh my, another determined one in the family, eh? A true Cotham.’

  *

  ‘Come this way first.’ Mother sashayed in front of her, smiling to herself. ‘There’s a surprise in here for you.’

  A delivery had come while she’d been out. Boxes were stacked on top of one another in the hallway. Her mother stood in the midst of it all, hands clasped. She’d been waiting for her.

  They paused outside the sitting-room door. Emily put her hand to her chest. Surely not, it couldn’t be Theo, here in time for the baby’s arrival. She swallowed. Her mother’s hands were on the door handle. She adjusted a strand of hair that had strayed across her face, pressed her lips together, and straightened her skirt. Gosh, she was such a size and she had mud on her boots.

  Mother pushed back the sitting-room door with gusto. Emily blinked fast.

  ‘Surprise!’ Mother called.

  The smile froze to her face. The sofas were empty. The room creaked with its own emptiness. Mother was beaming, pleased with herself. It all appeared to be the same.

  ‘It is the one that you wanted, isn’t it?’

  She checked again. Ah. She nodded. There it was. The glint of the brass handlebar, the crocodile jaw of the collapsible hood.

  ‘Elephant grey,’ Mother said. ‘Don’t tell me I remembered it wrong. I was sure you hadn’t liked the brown, and the blue would be no good for a boy, and you’re so sure it’s a boy. I thought it would be useful if you wanted to get the baby out in the fresh air.’

  Emily moved towards it. She kept her arms by her sides though she longed to curl her palms around and make the wheels click-click as she rocked it back and forth.

  ‘Did you …’

  ‘Ask for the war widow’s discount?’ Mother said.

  Emily nodded, and swallowed. She couldn’t accept it if she had.

  ‘I decided if you wanted to be forthright about the truth then we should do it your way. But I would add that I ran through our household expenditure last night and that discount would have come in rather useful.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  May 1919

  They placed the bassinet closest to the wall between her own room and the nursery.

  Th
e baby’s room wasn’t going to be on the unheated top floor like it had been for her and her brothers. She wanted the baby to be nearby. There wouldn’t be a nanny either; she was firm on that. Even if they could have afforded one, she wanted her family to be as close together as possible, to make up for lost time, with no interferences from anyone outside of their small circle.

  There was an adjoining door to her own room. The nursery was smaller, cosier, had a small hand basin in one corner and the same aspect as her bedroom – the view of the rose garden, the terrace and beyond the orchard, the sheep, and the spire poking up from the valley.

  Mother hadn’t called her a nuisance for several days now, and emptied out a chest of drawers from a guest room. They borrowed Joe from the farm to move it into the nursery. It would have been far easier to take the set of drawers from John’s room, but it was still full of the clothes that were pressed and folded and innocently awaiting his return. They would have to deal with it soon, but for now there wasn’t a rush. They would take a step at a time, and deal with the more difficult tasks when they were ready, and not before.

  Emily shook out the gowns. It was hard to imagine a person so small that they would fit. The mixture of terry and muslin napkins were piled into the top of the drawers. Emily hugged the teddy bear close.

  When it was all complete and everything was away they both stepped back to admire their work. It was the bassinet that made the difference, a small change, but everything pointed towards it. If she was right and the baby was a boy, she would call him John.

  She sent Joe off for a slice of Daisy’s Victoria sponge cake and reminded him to take a piece back in a napkin for Mrs Tipton too. And while he was at it, remind her to come up for tea.

  ‘Thank you,’ Emily said to Mother.