Satisfying herself that nothing could ever change, Grace’s heart took a happy bound and she skipped down the long front garden to the farmhouse. She found Mrs Snell in the spacious kitchen, stirring something on the large range in the inglenook fireplace – much as her mother had been, except that Grace knew the ingredients in Mrs Snell’s pan would be far superior.
‘I’ll do that,’ she offered, going to the sink to pump water into the enamel bowl. ‘Or would you like me to start on the ironing?’
‘The ironing, I think, maid,’ Mrs Snell beamed at her. ‘And how was bonding today?’
Grace dried her freshly washed hands and went to stand the flat irons on the range with a thin cloth between to prevent any smuts being transferred onto the ironing plates. ‘Good as ever. But everyone’s talking about a war coming. Larry’s convinced there’s going to be one.’
‘Aw, that boy’s too serious by half. And he won’t be doing any fighting himself, will he, poor fellow? Not with that leg of his.’
‘No, I suppose he won’t.’
Grace frowned as she spread the thick ironing pad on one end of the vast table, for why should the mistress think that anyone from the village was likely to go off to fight? Not unless they wanted to. And why anyone would want to leave the peace of Walkhampton for the battlefield was beyond her. But this was all speculation and only time would tell what was really in store.
‘When I’ve finished this,’ Grace said, nodding at the overflowing laundry basket, ‘I’ll bring in the coal and then I’ll wash the floor. And the dairy needs scrubbing ready for tomorrow. I assume we’m making butter as usual on a Tuesday?’
‘Certainly are.’
‘And I’ll give the furniture in the sitting room and the dining room a good polish, too.’
‘By the time you’ve finished that there mountain of ironing,’ Mrs Snell chuckled, ‘it’ll be supper time. You’re a good worker, young maid. But just because I give you a few hours off every now and then doesn’t mean you have to work like a slave to make up for it. I give you that time off because you deserve it. And how was your mother, by the way? How are her nerves, poor soul?’
‘She’m still worrying about the tackers. Reckon she always will.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s one thing about never having been blessed with chiller of our own. We don’t have to worry about them. Now, we’ve a spring cabbage ready in the vegetable plot, so I’m just going to fetch it in.’
Grace was left alone with her thoughts for a few minutes, but soon Mrs Snell came back in with the said vegetable and they chatted away the afternoon while Grace ploughed through the ironing. She had indeed scarcely finished turning the crumpled heap of laundry into beautifully pressed items of clothing or smooth bed and table linen before Farmer Snell returned for the evening meal. Afterwards, he settled himself in his easy-chair by the empty fireplace in the sitting room to read the paper, and his wife sat opposite him knitting.
In the kitchen, Grace washed up, scouring the pans until they shone. Then she cleaned the dairy so that it was spick and span and ready for the morning, and went outside to lock the hens away for the night. It was almost dark before she came inside and met Farmer Snell coming out of the kitchen.
‘There you are, cheel,’ he smiled benevolently. ‘I’ve put the newspaper on the table. All yours.’
‘Thank you. I’ll read it afore I go to bed.’
‘Don’t stay up too late. Need your beauty sleep,’ he winked.
‘I won’t. Good night, then.’
Grace turned up the lamp. She loved her work, helping the bustling, jolly mistress all day and living as one of the family. But she had to admit this was the best time of day when she allowed herself ten minutes to look through the paper. Recently Farmer Snell had taken to having a daily national delivered in addition to the weekly local – to keep abreast of the times, he had said casually. But after all the talk that day in the village, Grace realized he was trying to conceal his concern over the current situation.
The first few pages were full of conjecture and Grace tried to understand it all in the light of Larry’s earlier explanation. And then horror darted into her stomach as she recalled Martin’s words. Give the Germans a bloody nose. Be a chance to see something of the world. Surely he wouldn’t consider going to fight himself? He might even encourage her brother Stephen to join him. Grace knew that Stephen had a yen to travel beyond their Dartmoor home, and he had always been easily influenced, especially by the persuasive Martin. Oh, God. It would destroy their mother if her eldest son went off to war! Grace really must have a quiet word with Martin and beg him not to get Stephen involved even if he was determined to go himself.
Pleased with her plan, Grace turned back to the paper and another article caught her attention, one that she felt more comfortable with. More than that, she felt inspired and invigorated by it as if her life had suddenly expanded and begun to mean something radically important.
It was another piece about the Suffragettes.
Grace devoured every word. Men like John Sampson were entirely wrong. Women bore and brought up the children who would be the future of Britain and its empire. They worked as hard as men – at least all those Grace knew did – so surely they had just as much right to vote for the country’s future. If only she knew more.
But there, at the end of the article, was an address to write to for more information. Surely it wouldn’t hurt just to find out a little more? It was Grace’s job to tear the newspaper into squares and skewer them onto the hook in the outside privy. It wouldn’t matter if a piece was missing. And so, very carefully, she tore out the article, folded it and put it in the pocket of her apron.
‘Oh.’ Grace’s voice landed with a thud of disappointment. It had been several days before she had found the chance to call into the wheelwrights’ to speak to Martin, and now he wasn’t there. Still, as she wanted to have a word with him in private, it was perhaps for the best. So she put a casual tone in her voice as she asked where he was.
‘Skiving off somewhere as usual, I expect,’ Larry grumbled. ‘Why, did you want him for something?’
Grace hoped no one noticed the colour she felt tingling in her cheeks. ‘No, not especially. I just wondered, that were all.’
‘I thinks he were going up to the stables to mend that door what’s rotted at the bottom,’ John Sampson put in helpfully, and Grace knotted her lips. She didn’t want to feel at all beholden to John, and was grateful when Larry spoke again.
‘Was he? About time, too. I’ve been on at him for ages to do that.’
Grace was wondering what she could say next that would disguise the fact that she had indeed been looking for Martin, when a newly painted wagon wheel caught her eye. It had been decorated with an intricate design of small red and blue flowers, a typical example of a traditional farm wheel.
‘Oh, that’s beautiful, Mr Cowford!’ she cried, taking a closer look. ‘Excelled yourself again.’
‘Proper pleased with it myself,’ the elderly painter gloated proudly. ‘I can see a time, mind, when folk won’t bother with such things.’
‘Well, they’ll be missing out, truly they will. But I must be off. Just called in to say good day.’
‘Bye, Gracie,’ Larry called as she turned back out of the workshop and across the yard.
Grace hesitated as she came to the road. Would it look obvious if she turned left towards the field just outside the village where the Vencombes kept their three horses? But no one seemed to be watching her, and so she scudded past the inn and the school, following the road up the slight incline.
John Sampson waited just a few minutes before he announced that he was going to the timber yard to search for a suitable length of planking for the wooden chest he had been entrusted with repairing. But when he left the yard, he, too, turned left instead of right.
When Grace reached the field, the gate was padlocked. Typical of Martin, that would be, not bothering to bring the key but to drop his bag of too
ls over the top and then vault the gate himself. Grace had to hitch her skirt up to her knees to climb over. Not that it bothered her too much. There was nobody around to see, and if Martin caught a flash of her calves, it wouldn’t count. They had all of them, Larry, Martin, Stephen and herself paddled in the Black Brook together all their lives. And if her legs were longer and more shapely now, it made no difference.
The two enormous carthorses and Sunny, the cob, were plodding contentedly about the field, their heads lowered as they went from one tasty mouthful of grass to the next. The large doors to the stable block were propped open so that the animals could take shelter if the weather suddenly changed, but there appeared to be no sign of Martin. He must be somewhere inside, then, since no one had mentioned exactly which door it was that needed attention. But when Grace checked each of the individual looseboxes inside, she found the place deserted.
‘Martin?’ she called in puzzlement, and turned to go back outside.
She almost collided with the short, stocky figure of John Sampson who had evidently come up behind her. She frowned, even more confused and not a little irritated that he had sent her on a wild goose-chase. ‘You were wrong,’ she said tartly. ‘If you’m looking for Martin, he’m not here.’
She went to push past John’s burly form, but he sidestepped into her path. ‘I knows. He’s gone up to Huckworthy Mill.’
‘Huckworthy? Then why did you say—?’
The odd way he was looking at her made her pulse begin to throb. He had deliberately sent her up here, hadn’t he, so that he could follow her? But…?
‘Been putting ideas in my Nan’s head, haven’t you?’ he growled. ‘Ideas above her station. Well, women’s good for one thing only, and I’s going to show you what!’
Before his words had sunk into Grace’s shocked brain, he grasped her wrists in an iron grip and pushed her back against the stable wall with such force that a sharp pain shot down her back. For a few seconds it paralysed her so that when he released one of her wrists to rip open the front of her blouse, she was powerless to resist. It was only his hot breath in her face and his stubby, sweating hand reaching inside her camisole that brought her to her senses.
‘Get off me!’ she screamed, struggling to free herself. Panic seared through her veins, followed by a squall of white-hot rage. How dare he! But he only laughed, pressing his body so tightly against hers that she was completely trapped, no matter how desperately she tried to escape.
‘Come now, it’s what you wanted with young Martin, bain’t it?’
‘What!’ Outrage burned inside her at the very idea. ‘No, it most certainly weren’t! However could you think—?’
‘I’ve seen you, watching him across the yard with your big, yearning eyes!’
Oh, good God. Had he seen her looking at Martin when she had actually been thinking that she must persuade him not to encourage her brother to enlist? Her fury at once overtook her terror. ‘Then you’m mistaken,’ she grated with contempt, and hawking up a gobbet of saliva, she spat it full in his face. She held her breath, petrified lest it was entirely the wrong thing to do. But then as she saw the anger flare and then subside on his face, he suddenly stood back and gave a cruel, mocking laugh.
‘You doesn’t really think I’d want a scrawny vixen like you when I’ve got my lovely Nan waiting for me at home, does you? Just wanted to teach you a lesson for poking your nose into my affairs. And if you says ort, I’ll deny it and say you was telling lies because I caught you trying to chase young Mr Martin.’
It was Grace’s instinct to duck past him and run for her life, but his triumphant expression ignited her rage like a match to bone dry tinder. She drew herself up to her full height so that her eyes were on a level with his, and she glowered at him challengingly.
‘No, I won’t say anything,’ she hissed back. ‘But not because of that. Because I’m afeared you might take it out on Nan. Pity the poor woman, I do, married to a brute like you.’
‘Huh!’ John snorted, and then shaking his head with a derisive chuckle, he began to whistle as he sauntered out of the stables.
Grace stood, turned into a statue, until she heard the gate rattle as he climbed over it. And then, as her wildly beating heart slowed, she sank down on her knees, grasping her torn blouse across her chest. Dear Lord above, she could hardly believe what had happened. She would have to make some excuse as to why her clothes were in such a state. But for Nan’s sake, she would never reveal what John had done. She couldn’t, though, for ten minutes, bring her quaking limbs to move.
For his part, when he arrived back in the village, John Sampson hurried up to the timber yard to search for the required length of timber, a grimace of satisfaction on his lips.
CHAPTER THREE
‘GOING TO JOIN the Suffragettes, then, Gracie?’
Grace lifted her head and a surge of hot indignation swept through her at the man’s teasing tone. She was crossing the small stone bridge over the brook, engrossed in the pamphlet she had received in the post that morning – and considering that while there were men like John Sampson in the world, it was imperative for women to fight for more than just the right to vote! So deep in thought had she been that she hadn’t noticed the figure coming from the wheelwrights’, and she was relieved to discover that it wasn’t the bully she had just been thinking about.
‘What’s it to you if I am, Martin Vencombe?’ she answered challengingly, though she quickly hid the front page with the title blazoned across it. ‘Why shouldn’t women have the vote? We’m just so good as men any day.’
‘I’m sure you are.’ Martin tipped his head in a jocular fashion, his eyes gleaming with mischief. ‘You especially, Gracie. Hey, Larry!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Gracie here’s going to join the Suffragettes!’
Grace could have kicked herself. If she hadn’t risen to Martin’s teasing bait, this might have been the perfect opportunity to have that private word with him, for since the unpleasant encounter with John Sampson, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to visit the wheelwrights’ again. But now the moment was lost and Grace watched as another familiar figure came towards her, swaying with an odd, limping gait. The resemblance between the two brothers was uncanny, and yet it was Martin who bore the striking good looks. Larry’s jaw was just a little too angular, his nose slightly too long, and of course he had been cursed since birth with the wretched wasted leg and club foot. He was just as strong as his brother, mind, and even though he had four years more experience than Martin, when Grace watched them at work, it seemed to her that Larry was the one who possessed a natural affinity with the wood and the tools with which he fashioned it.
Now his broad forehead dipped in a frown. ‘Nothing wrong in that. Just mind you don’t get arrested. And if you do, don’t do anything stupid like going on hunger strike.’
Beside him, Martin at once cupped his own chin with one hand, holding his mouth open, and pretended to stick something down his throat with the other. ‘Force feed you, they do!’ he grated and proceeded to make a choking noise.
‘Get away with you.’ Grace dug him in the ribs, laughing as she saw the funny side of his antics. ‘Don’t you fret none. There’s no rallies or ort like that going on around here, and I’m hardly likely to travel up to London or anywhere, am I?’
‘You never know, there might be something nearer one day, in Plymouth or Exeter,’ Larry said thoughtfully. ‘Not that I’m advocating that you should go along. There was a rally in Tavistock once, about five years ago if I remember correctly. But it was a peaceful, non-militant branch of the movement. But shouldn’t you be at work, Grace?’
‘I’m just running an errand for Mrs Snell. Posting a couple of letters for her.’
‘Going to the Post Office myself.’ Larry waved the envelope in his hand. ‘I’ll come along of you. And you’re supposed to be helping Reg,’ he admonished, glaring at his brother.
‘Hard taskmaster, you!’ Martin grinned back. ‘Only stepped outside for a few mi
nutes’ break.’
‘Just because this is our family business doesn’t mean any of us can slack off, you know.’
Martin pulled a face and then gave a broad grin as he strode round the corner of the house towards the mill and workshop behind. Grace wondered if she shouldn’t go after him, but the time wasn’t quite right, so she bounded forward a few paces to catch up with Larry.
‘You don’t think it’s a silly idea, do you? Me joining the Suffragettes?’ she asked.
‘Not at all. But I know you, Grace. Too headstrong for your own good, and I wouldn’t want you to get yourself hurt.’
‘So you think I’m not capable of looking after myself?’ she bristled. ‘That just because I’m a girl—’
‘No, that’s not what I said. It’s just that sometimes, well, you’re inclined to jump in with both feet, and you might get into something deeper than you realize. Like when you insisted on copying us boys jumping off Huckworthy Bridge into the river when you can’t swim. Fully clothed, and all. Could’ve drowned, you could.’
‘But I didn’t,’ she pouted obstinately.
‘Only because we rescued you. I hate to say it, but you need to grow up a bit, you do. But you know my opinion. I reckon the whole country will have some thinking to do soon, the way things are going.’
Grace had been about to retaliate, but Larry’s change of subject altered the course of her thoughts. ‘Do you think it’ll affect us at all, then, if there is a war?’ she asked instead. ‘I mean, in wars in the past, it’s just been going on in other countries and nort to do with us here.’
‘But this time it’s in Europe and right on our doorstep. And then there’s all this Home Rule business in Ireland. They say the Unionists are smuggling arms from Germany, so it’s all connected. But let’s hope I’m wrong and nothing comes of it.’
Wheels of Grace Page 3