The Victory Garden: A Novel

by Rhys Bowen

  “You’ve got a good bloke there, Emily, love,” Alice said.

  “You don’t know how I’m wishing that would happen to me,” Maureen said dreamily. “I think I’ll have to come out to Australia to visit you and you can introduce me to his friends.”

  “We’re going to live out in the middle of nowhere on a farm,” Emily said. “I don’t think you’d find it much fun.”

  “Well, maybe not a farm. I’ll have had my fill of farming by the time this is over. How many more potatoes can there be in the world?”

  “It might be something worse after this,” Maud said gloomily.

  “What could be worse than digging up potatoes all day?” Maureen demanded.

  “Mucking out pigs?”

  They nodded agreement.

  “I heard that we’ll be done here by the end of the week,” Mrs Anson said.

  Emily slipped off to their room. She sat looking at the ring on her finger, then she took it off, put it in its little box and tucked the box under her pillow. She wasn’t going to risk wearing it in the fields.

  Perry’s Farm

  Devon

  August 8, 1918

  My dear Clarissa,

  I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while, but we’ve been worked so hard that I’ve had no time to breathe, let alone write. By the time we come back to the farm after twelve hours working in the fields, we are almost too tired to eat the stew or meat pudding that’s waiting for us, and we fall asleep instantly after.

  But luckily we have dug up our last potato and moved on to something new. We are haymakers! We are learning to use a scythe, which looks terrifying. One wrong sweep and we cut off our feet at the ankles! Then we have to rake, bundle and bring the bundles to the haystack. The farmer does the actual stacking. He’s much nicer than the last grumpy man, although he does get a good laugh out of our pathetic attempts at scything.

  And I’ve good news I’ve been dying to share with you. Robbie asked me to marry him and I said yes. We’ll get married as soon as he is out of uniform and I’ll go out to him in Australia. And in answer to your unspoken question: no, my parents do not know, nor would they approve. They have made it quite clear what they think of Robbie. It is a terrifying thought that I’ll never see them again, but I had to choose, and I chose a man who loves me.

  You’ll have to be bridesmaid of course. Or maybe we can have a double wedding when you marry your Lieutenant Hutchins. Does he write to you faithfully? Robbie isn’t the best correspondent, but I can quite understand that he can’t tell me what he is doing, and post from the front lines doesn’t always get through safely to England.

  So I am counting off the days, and I bet you are, too. One of the girls has acquired a Brownie camera and has taken snapshots of us haymaking. When they are developed, I’ll send you one so that you can see what a brawny farm girl I have become.

  Do take care of yourself,

  Your friend,

  Emily

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The haymaking coincided with a dry spell. The work no longer seemed hard after the baptism of fire with the potatoes. The women laughed and sang as they worked. The farmer’s wife and daughters appeared with pasties and jugs of lemonade. Alice, who had been to the music halls in London, sang them all the cheeky songs of Marie Lloyd.

  “Oh, you don’t know Nellie like I do, sang the naughty little bird on Nellie’s hat.”

  Daisy and Ruby were shocked, but the others chuckled and joined in the chorus, even Mrs Anson, who certainly hadn’t heard such things before. Emily realized that she had seldom felt so happy before. Her happiness was perfect every time a note arrived from Robbie. As she had said to Clarissa, he wasn’t much of a letter writer, but at least the notes were positive. He was being trained to fly a Vimy bomber, which was much bigger than the small fighter planes he’d flown before. He’d taken to it instantly, he said, and he was thinking it would be the perfect aeroplane to take back to Australia to carry cargo and passengers.

  When Emily lay in bed, she pictured herself in an empty red landscape, waving to Robbie as he flew off in his aeroplane. Would she worry about him? Would she be lonely? Doubts crept in, but she pushed them aside. She’d be Mrs Robert Kerr, and that would be enough.

  When the hay was all gathered and successfully stacked, and as there was no rain in sight, the farmer held a party. There was cider, and sausages were cooked on a bonfire. They sang in the firelight “Keep the Home Fires Burning” and “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag.”

  “I wonder where we’ll be going next,” Daisy said to Emily as they rode back to the training centre in the back of a van.

  “I don’t know.” Emily thought about this. “It’s getting towards the end of the season, isn’t it? I wonder what they’ll do with us when winter comes and nothing grows.”

  “Send us home, most likely,” Daisy said. “They won’t want to pay or feed us when there’s no work. Oh Lord, I don’t want to go home. Do you?”

  Emily couldn’t say that she didn’t have a home to go to. “We’ll think of something,” she said. But in bed that night, she lay staring at the ceiling. What if the war went on and it was another year before Robbie was released from service? Where would she go? What would she do? Her parents would hardly be likely to take her back.

  The next morning, they waited to hear their fate. Miss Foster-Blake came in while they were still eating porridge at breakfast.

  “The farmer tells me he was satisfied with your work, girls,” she said. “Most satisfied. Well done. I am proud of what you have accomplished, and you should be, too. And as we have no requests for your service for the immediate future . . .” She paused.

  “We’re going home?” Ruby asked excitedly.

  “No, Ruby, you are going to make good use of that time with extra training. You never completed the course, so there were items that were not covered. The handling of sheep, for one thing. And methods for improving the quality of the land . . .”

  A sigh could be heard amongst the women.

  “She means dung spreading,” Maud muttered.

  “Be ready to report for duty in twenty minutes,” Miss Foster-Blake added. Then, in a quieter voice, “Emily Bryce, I’d like a word with you.”

  Emily’s heart leapt into her throat. What had she done wrong? And then, worse than that: she’d had news about Robbie. She could hardly make her feet follow the woman across the room. When they were outside in the hallway, Miss Foster-Blake turned to her. “We have had a rather unusual request, Miss Bryce. Do you happen to know Lady Charlton?”

  Emily reacted with surprise. “Lady Charlton? I’m afraid not.”

  “I thought you might move in the same circles.”

  “Much as my mother would love it,” Emily said, “we do not mix much with titled people.”

  “No matter,” Miss Foster-Blake said. “As I said, we have had a request. Lady Charlton owns an estate not far from here, at the edge of Dartmoor in the village of Bucksley Cross. Her gardeners all enlisted in the army, leaving the grounds to run completely wild. She wondered if we could spare any of our land girls to bring the estate back to its former state. I thought of you, naturally. You are a good worker, a quick learner, and you know how to behave with a person of her class. So I’d like you to select two girls to accompany you—girls you know will work hard and conduct themselves well.”

  “Alice and Daisy,” Emily said immediately.

  Miss Foster-Blake raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised at your choices. Not Mrs Anson, with whom I presume you have more in common?”

  “Alice and Daisy have nothing,” Emily said. “They need to be needed.”

  “Ah. Very wise.” She nodded approval. “I see you are growing into a leader like your father, Miss Bryce. Very well. Alice and Daisy it shall be. Go and fetch them, and have your bags packed in half an hour. Lady Charlton will be sending a motor car for you.”

  “Will we be staying there then?” Emily asked.

  “You will. I
gather there is a cottage on the estate where you will be housed, and you will take your meals at the big house. When you arrive, the handyman will show you where you can find the necessary implements for your work. So work hard and do us credit, Miss Bryce.”

  “Don’t worry, we will,” Emily said. She went in to fetch Alice and Daisy. They followed her, mystified.

  “’Ere, I ain’t finished me porridge yet,” Alice said. “It will get cold.”

  “No time for that now,” Emily said. “We have a new assignment. We’re going to work on the estate of a titled lady.”

  “Just us?” Daisy looked back at the rest of the group, still eating.

  Emily nodded. “Miss Foster-Blake wanted to send me, and she asked me who I’d like to take with me.”

  “And you chose us?” Daisy’s pinched little face lit up.

  “I did, because you’re both good workers and because I get along well with you.”

  “That’s real nice of you, Emily,” Alice said. “You’re a proper toff, you are. So we’re going to swan it with the aristocracy, are we? Blimey.”

  “Don’t thank me until you’ve seen it,” Emily said. “It might be awfully hard work.”

  “What can be so hard about tidying up a garden?” Alice chuckled. “She doesn’t grow potatoes, does she?”

  A well-worn Daimler motor car arrived in front of the farm about twenty minutes later. The rest of the girls crowded around as Emily, Daisy and Alice loaded their bags on to the board at the back, where an elderly chauffeur strapped them on.

  “Some people have all the luck,” Ruby said. “There you lot will be, living in a swanky house and eating good food while we’re stuck here shoving around a lot of sheep and doing muck spreading.”

  “We’re being housed in a cottage, Ruby,” Emily said. “And we’ll be estate workers—no different from farm workers, except no sheep.”

  The others laughed.

  “There might be a handsome footman,” Maureen said. “Emily’s snagged her beau, but you could do worse, Daisy!”

  “No, thank you,” Daisy said. “I’ve had my share of big houses and their dramas. I wouldn’t mind marrying a country boy—if any of them come home, that is.”

  They fell silent, considering this.

  Then Maureen managed a laugh again. “If they don’t, then you’d all better come with me to Canada—hook ourselves up with big strong lumberjacks, eh?”

  “I’m thinking of going to Canada,” Mrs Anson said, making them all look at her in surprise. “I’ve a sister out there, and there’s nothing for me in England once the war is over.”

  “In you get,” the chauffeur said, eyeing them with distaste. “You can’t keep Her Ladyship waiting.”

  The others waved as the motor moved away. They drove along country lanes between fields of sheep and cows until the great curve of Dartmoor rose in front of them, its smooth, bleak hills punctuated with rocky outcroppings and weathered stands of Scots pines, sculpted by the winds. But before they reached the moor, they turned into an impossibly narrow lane, bordered by high hedgerows. They crossed a rushing stream on an old granite pack bridge. A memory stirred in Emily’s head—a family outing up to Dartmoor, to a place that looked a lot like this. She had been four or five at the most. Freddie had been ten. She, always the adventurous one, jumping ahead on stepping stones over the rushing stream, missing her footing and falling into the swiftly flowing water. And instantly her big brother had been beside her, sweeping her up, carrying her to safety. She closed her eyes to shut out the pain, and when she opened them again, there before them was the village.

  “Blimey,” Alice said.

  “It’s like something from a picture book,” Daisy agreed.

  Emily’s spirits rose. The village nestled at the edge of the moor. A great sweep of hill rose behind it, and there was a group of wild ponies silhouetted against the horizon. The village itself was built around a sloping green with a weathered Celtic cross in the middle. On one side of the green was a row of thatched cottages, on the other a pub called the Red Lion, with its sign swinging in the breeze. And at the far side of the village was a church with a tall square tower. The lane continued behind the cottages, between two granite posts and up a curved driveway to a large grey-stone house. The facade was free of adornment, apart from a front porch. A Virginia creeper climbed up one side, its leaves already turning blood red. Scots pines at the rear protected the house from the Dartmoor winds. And around it was a wilderness of land—an overgrown lawn, tangles of shrubs, herbaceous borders high with weeds.

  “Blimey,” Alice said again, only this time she didn’t sound so enthusiastic.

  Emily nodded. “I can see we’re going to be kept busy here.”

  At the sound of the motor, the front door opened and a frail-looking old lady came out. She was dressed head to toe in black, with a high collar and a beaded shawl over her dress. On her head was a black lace cap, and she leaned on an ebony cane. As Emily had time to observe her, she decided she wasn’t as frail as she looked. Her expression was of extreme haughtiness and disdain.

  “Ah, there you are. I wondered if there had been an accident or something. It’s not much more than five miles, is it?” Her voice matched her haughty expression.

  “They weren’t quite ready,” the old man said. His voice, on the other hand, had a strong Devon burr to it. “And it took a while to get their bags loaded on.”

  “No matter,” the woman said as they climbed out of the back seat. “I am Lady Charlton. Welcome to Bucksley House. I trust you are going to return my grounds to their former glory.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Emily and Alice muttered in unison.

  “Splendid. Now, Simpson will show you where we keep the tools of your trade, and then he’ll drive you and your bags down to the cottage. You’ll install yourselves and then get right to work. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, my lady,” they all muttered. In spite of her diminutive size, Emily found her quite intimidating.

  “This way, ladies.” The old chauffeur led them around the house to a cluster of outbuildings. There were stables, now no longer used for horses. One now served as a garage for the motor car. And at the end of the row was a tack room. Inside was an ancient lawnmower and a rack of assorted shovels, forks, hoes and rakes.

  “I reckon that grass is going to need to be scythed before you can mow it,” the old chauffeur said. “I doubt you young ladies have ever used a scythe!” And he chuckled.

  “As a matter of fact, we’ve just come from haymaking,” Emily said. “We are pretty handy with a scythe.”

  “Well, blow me down,” he said. “I’d help out, only my rheumatics makes it hard for me to do much these days. But I’ve been doing what I can for Her Ladyship, since all the menfolk went away and it were only me.”

  “You’re the only man what’s here?” Alice asked.

  He gave a grunt. “That’s me. Chauffeur, handyman, boot polisher—you name it, I do it. Should have retired years ago. I’m seventy-seven now, but I can’t leave Her Ladyship in the lurch, can I?”

  “It’s very good of you, Mr Simpson,” Emily said.

  He looked at her with interest. “And good of you, too, miss, if you don’t mind my saying so. Girls of your class aren’t meant to work in fields.”

  “But I’m quite enjoying it, Mr Simpson,” Emily said. “Better than sitting at home doing nothing.”

  “I’d agree with that,” he said. “My wife thanks the good Lord every day that I’m out of the house and not under her feet.” He nodded at them. “Come on then. Get back in the motor, and I’ll drive you down to the cottage. ’Tis a fair walk.”

  They bumped down a rutted track that ran behind a kitchen garden. There were vegetables and various fruit bushes growing. “I tries to keep the kitchen garden growing so Her Ladyship has something to eat,” he said. “There used to be plenty coming from the home farm. Ten men working on that, there were, but now they’ve all gone to the war, apart from the farm manager
and a couple of boys, so they are down to just a few cows and chickens these days.”

  They had come to the bottom of the estate, close to the church and a weathered stone school building. Simpson got out to open a gate and they were back in the lane.

  “Here we are,” he said. “Cragsmoor Cottage. It ain’t pretty, but it will keep the rain off your heads.”

  This was not like the thatched cottages they had seen beside the green. It was a square stone building, like a child’s drawing of a house: two small windows on either side of a front door, its paint peeling. It was surrounded by a high stone wall and an overgrown garden.

  “Come on then, get your things,” Simpson said, and he unlatched the straps on the back board. They opened the front gate and walked between high bushes to the front door. It opened with an ominous creaking sound. Inside felt cold and damp. They stood looking around them.

  “I’ll leave you to it then.” Simpson started to walk away. “Don’t dilly-dally too long. Her Ladyship expects you to get straight to work. You can pick up your bedding when you come up to the house for your dinner.”

  “Dinner?” Emily asked. “Are we not going to be fed at lunchtime?”

  The old man chuckled. “Only posh folks like you call it luncheon. To us, it’s our dinner, isn’t it? I’ll be off then. You know your way back.”

  “I was going to say I’ve seen worse, but I really haven’t,” Alice said.

  “It really is pretty grim, I must admit,” Emily agreed. They were standing in what had been a living room. There were a couple of rickety wooden chairs, a table covered in a faded woven cloth and a big stone fireplace. The floor was slate tile. There were dark oak beams across the low ceiling, and tattered net curtains hung in the window. At the back was a tiny kitchen with a cast-iron stove, a copper and a sink, and on the other side was a bedroom with an old brass bedstead. An impossibly steep, narrow staircase led up to an attic, of which one end had been partitioned off into a small bedroom. The other side was an open storage area with no proper floor and various bits of broken furniture lying about. The bedroom ceiling sloped down, so that it was only possible to stand upright in the middle of the room. A small window on the side wall looked out over the village.