The Victory Garden: A Novel

by Rhys Bowen

  “Or cows,” Daisy added. “Cows are bigger. And they have horns.”

  Alice looked at Emily. “You’re awful quiet. Don’t tell me you’re sad to be escaping from your sherry with the old girl?”

  “I am, actually,” Emily said. “But I was just wondering what I’d do if we find out we’re to be going home. I don’t seem to have a home to go to.”

  “We’ll work it out. Don’t you worry.” Alice patted her shoulder.

  Emily stood in the attic room, watching stripes of sunlight on the sloping ceiling. She put the last of her toiletry items into her bag, fastened it and gave a sigh as she descended the steep stairs. The pony and trap appeared, and the carter helped them on to the long seats at the back, then handed up their bags. Then he clicked his teeth and the pony set off at a lively trot. They passed the village green, over the packhorse bridge and away. The sun shone down on them, and the trap swayed with a gentle rhythm. Emily closed her eyes.

  She opened them when she heard Daisy say, “Oh no.”

  “Oh no what?” she asked. Then she saw they were holding the newspaper that the carter had bought. They looked at her with stricken faces.

  “What is it?” Emily asked again.

  Silently, Daisy passed the newspaper across to her. On the front page, one of the headlines read, “Fearless Flyer Crashes Doomed Plane in Field to Save Village.” Emily didn’t need to read on to know that it was Robbie.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The news had apparently reached the farm before they did. The other women were waiting and helped Emily down from the trap, murmuring condolences. Miss Foster-Blake came out.

  “Emily, my dear. We are all so sorry,” she said. “You’ve had a terrible shock. Come inside and have a glass of brandy.”

  She led Emily away as though she were a little child and sat her down. It was a complete re-enactment of the scene with her headmistress, the unexpected gentleness from one who had been so strict and severe. Emily felt a big gulp come up into her throat. She tried to swallow it down, but it escaped as a heaving sob. She put her hands to her face and burst into tears.

  “I should never have loved him,” she gasped between sobs. “If I hadn’t loved him, he’d still be alive.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Every time I’ve loved someone, they have died. It’s as if I’ve cursed them with my love.”

  “Well, that’s nonsense, and you know it,” Miss Foster-Blake said. “At least you can console yourself by knowing you made his last weeks happy. He died knowing he was loved. Not everybody can say that. And he died doing a noble deed. He gave his life for others. You should be very proud.”

  “Proud?” Emily looked up, brushing tears from her face. “I don’t want to be proud. I want him alive. I read the article. It said he had time to bail out, but the plane would have crashed on to a village full of people. Well, right now, I wish he had bailed out and killed someone else instead. Why did he have to be so bloody noble?”

  Miss Foster-Blake didn’t even react to the strong language. “You’re distraught, my dear. Here, take a sip of the brandy, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”

  She put the glass to Emily’s lips like a child and made her drink. Emily gulped, then gasped as the fiery liquid went down.

  “Now,” Miss Foster-Blake said, “I think the best thing for you would be to go home. Go to a place where you can be taken care of and cherished. You’ll need time to grieve and to heal. I’m discharging you early.”

  “No.” Emily shook her head. “You don’t understand. I can’t go home. My father told me that if I disobeyed him, I was no longer welcome at their house.”

  “People say a lot of things they don’t really mean. I’m sure your parents will change their minds when they see their child in such distress,” Miss Foster-Blake said. “Any parent would. I’m sure they have wanted the best for you all along.”

  “They didn’t want me to marry Robbie,” Emily said. “Now my mother will gloat and say it was all for the best, and I couldn’t stand that.”

  “So you’d rather stay on here?”

  Emily nodded. “I want to work so hard that I don’t have time to think. And these women are my family now.”

  “As you wish,” Miss Foster-Blake said. “But my offer still stands. I will send Jenkins to the doctor and have him prescribe a sleeping powder for you today, at least.”

  Emily allowed herself to be led up to her bunk and tucked in like a small child. As soon as she was left alone, she retrieved the little leather box from under her pillow. She took out the thin gold band and slipped it on to her finger. “Mrs Robbie Kerr,” she whispered. The sleeping powder arrived and did the trick. She slept for twelve hours, not hearing the other women come to bed or rise early the next morning.

  When she opened her eyes, it was to a rainswept sky that echoed her mood. She retrieved the article in the newspaper. “Brave Australian flying ace, Robert Ferguson Kerr of New South Wales.” She kept reading it over and over, as if in doing so she might read a different outcome, that in spite of his plane going down in flames he managed to survive. But the article never changed. He was dead. Gone forever. She would never see that cheeky smile again, never hear that deep Aussie voice saying, “You’re my girl.”

  Miss Foster-Blake poked her head around the bedroom door. “Ah, you are awake. Come and have a good breakfast. The farmer has supplied us with eggs.”

  Emily sat at the oilcloth-covered table and dipped a finger of toast into a boiled egg, but she found it hard to swallow. Miss Foster-Blake looked at her with sympathy. “You don’t have to go back to work right away,” she said. “Take a few days off. Go into Tavistock or Plymouth—”

  “No!” Emily said more violently than she had intended. “You don’t understand. I have to work. I have to work so that I don’t have time to think.”

  “I do understand,” Miss Foster-Blake said. “We lost two of my nephews—they were brothers—within a week of each other. Such bright, fun-loving boys. I know a little of your pain. All I can say is that you are amongst friends here. Although I still think that you should be at home. I can easily arrange for it—”

  “No,” Emily said again, and this time remembered her manners to add, “thank you. Please do not write to my parents or tell them about this.”

  “They will see it in the newspapers, I’m sure. Your young man was quite a hero. He saved lots of lives.” She looked long and hard at Emily’s face, noticing the defiantly stuck out chin. Then she sighed. “But I respect your decision.” She put a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “When you have finished your breakfast, you shall come and help me with paperwork. They are sending us new recruits.”

  “What will you do with them?” Emily asked. “Isn’t the growing season almost over?”

  “Winter vegetables to be planted,” Miss Foster-Blake said. “And some of these girls will train in forestry. Sawing up fallen trees and lopping off dangerous branches. That sort of thing.”

  The women returned from their work, red-faced from the wind and soaking wet.

  “Blimey, I thought I’d be blown away out there,” Alice said.

  “What were you doing?”

  “We’re picking apples, love. I was up a ladder, throwing them down to the ladies below, and there was this ruddy great gust of wind. If I hadn’t clung on to the tree, I’d have been a goner.”

  “She does exaggerate,” Ruby said. “The tree was scarcely taller than us.”

  The others laughed, and Emily tried to smile. She looked around. “Where’s Maureen?” she asked.

  “Oh blimey, you didn’t hear about her?” Alice glanced at the others.

  “What happened?” Emily asked.

  “She sneaked out without permission and went into Plymouth to meet a sailor,” Ruby said with great glee. “And Miss Foster-Blake caught her climbing in through the window in the early morning. Dismissed her on the spot. Sent her packing.”

  “So where did she go?” Emily asked,
wondering what she would have done in the same circumstances.

  “Home to Ireland, so I believe. She was asking for trouble, that one, wasn’t she? Always after the boys.”

  “I, for one, will miss her,” Alice said. “She was always cheerful, wasn’t she? Made us laugh.”

  I’ll miss her, too, Emily thought, and the unfairness of the situation struck her. Maureen had done what she had done—stayed out all night. But Miss Foster-Blake had believed Emily to be a good girl and Maureen to be a bad one. She had accepted Emily’s excuse even though—Emily felt her cheeks flushing—she and Robbie had done what Maureen probably had not. And the memory of that sweet, passionate moment flooded back to her. I will never lie in a man’s arms again, she thought.

  The next day, she awoke with the others as early morning sun streamed in through the window. She sat up, reaching for her toilet bag, and then it all came flooding back to her. Moving like an automaton, she grabbed her bag and stumbled after the others into the bathroom. She found it impossible to swallow more than a mouthful of the stodgy porridge, and was hardly aware of lining up with the others as they climbed on to an old wagon to be taken to the apple orchard. The wagon had been used for dung, and the women were crammed close together. Emily found the smell, coupled with the unwashed odour of the women, to be overwhelming. She leaned out as far as she could, gulping in the fresh, cool breeze. I would be better off at home, she thought in a weak moment. She pictured her pink and white bedroom, the lace curtains, the sweet smell of roses wafting in through her window. And long soaks in a big bathtub, and lots of dresses hanging in her wardrobe and dainty shoes to wear. She had almost convinced herself that she wanted to go home, until she pictured her mother’s triumphant face. Her mother telling her that she was better off without Robbie and now she could look for someone more suitable. No, that could not be borne.

  The apple picking was pleasant enough, although the weather was turning colder. They wore jerseys under their tunics. The jerseys were made of coarse wool and itched terribly, but it was better than being cold.

  “What wouldn’t I give for a nice soft silk blouse or a good fine-wool jumper,” Mrs Anson confided to Emily as they worked together, putting apples into baskets carefully without bruising them.

  Emily glanced at her. “How long had you been married when your husband died?” she asked.

  “Sixteen years,” she replied.

  “You had no children?”

  “We were not blessed with any, I’m afraid, although I should have loved a big family. I was an only child.”

  Emily paused, then asked, “How long did it take you to get over—”

  “My husband’s death?” She shook her head. “One never gets over it, my dear. There will always be a hole in my heart where he used to be, but one comes to terms with it. You tell yourself that you are just one of many. So many other wives and mothers and sweethearts are feeling the same pain. You just have to get on with life and hope that eventually the pain will dull a little. And it does. I can think of my husband quite fondly now, remembering good times. Time is the only healer.”

  Emily nodded and went back to work.

  The weather brightened, and the apple picking became a pleasant occupation. After the best apples had been selected, the ones with bruises or defects were also put into baskets to be made into cider. When the last tree was stripped, Emily felt a shiver of fear that they would be told they were no longer needed. And then what? What would she do when the land girls were disbanded? Where would she go? Clarissa had said that women would need to take over men’s jobs when the war ended. If she went to a big city—Bristol or even London—would she find a job and be able to support herself? The idea was alarming, but at the same time exciting.

  I’m an educated girl, she thought. Her teachers had urged her to go on to university, but then the war had come and Freddie had died, so university had become impossible. But a job in an office, or even teaching in a small school. They would be possible, surely?

  But the apple picking was not their last assignment. Miss Foster-Blake looked stern when she addressed them at supper that night. “I’m afraid I have a real challenge ahead for you. A nearby farmer is readying his fields to plant winter crops, mainly onion sets, but also cabbages and beetroots. The fields will need to be ploughed first.”

  There was a collective groan. None of them had had much success with ploughing.

  “Will he supervise?” Mrs Anson asked. “Does he have a tractor?”

  “He has a team of horses, but he can no longer do the ploughing himself as he has come home from the front with compromised lungs. He will advise.”

  “A fat lot of good that is,” Alice said. “That ruddy plough was almost as big as me.”

  “Perhaps this one will be easier,” Emily said.

  “I don’t mind doing the ploughing,” Maud said. “I’m the biggest one here, and the strongest, too.”

  “Good for you, Maud,” Miss Foster-Blake said.

  The girl looked absurdly pleased, as if nobody had ever told her she was good at anything before.

  They set out for the farm. It was close to the edge of Dartmoor, in a bleak and treeless situation. The women were silent as they climbed out of the back of the van. Wind swept down from the heights.

  “I wish we’d remembered to wear our mackintoshes,” Mrs Anson muttered to Emily. “This wind goes straight through the tunic, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s certainly cold for September,” Emily agreed. “But as soon as we try pushing that plough and planting onions, I imagine we’re going to be warm enough.”

  The farmer met them and led them to a team of massive Clydesdales, standing impatiently in front of a plough. He was a big-boned countryman, a Clydesdale himself rather than a thoroughbred, but his face betrayed that he was in pain, and he wheezed when he spoke to them.

  “Good of you to come, ladies,” he said. “I were worried we’d never get the fields planted this year and we’d all starve come spring. I’ve got four little ’uns at home, and I hate to be letting my family down.”

  “We’ll do our best for you,” Mrs Anson said. “But we have to warn you that we’re not all farm girls. We’ve had little training and experience.”

  “Don’t you worry, my lovey,” he said in his rich Devon accent. “You get them onions and cabbages in the ground and I’ll be happy as a sandboy.”

  He led the plough out to a fallow field. Maud took one handle. Emily looked around at the others. “I suppose I’m the tallest,” she said. “I should take the other handle.”

  They set off. The horses were doing the pulling of the old cast-iron plough, but it was still hard to steer it and keep a straight furrow. Emily’s heart was thumping and she gasped for breath. Why did I volunteer to do this? she asked herself. It’s really too much for me.

  “Are you all right?” Maud asked when they came to the end of the first furrow and stopped to take a breather. “You look a funny colour.”

  “I’m not feeling too well,” Emily said. “I think that rabbit stew last night upset my stomach.”

  “I can manage on my own,” Maud said.

  “Of course you can’t,” Emily replied. “It’s almost too much for two of us. I’ll be all right. I didn’t fancy much breakfast this morning, so I’m probably just hungry. Come on, let’s get going again. It looks like rain.”

  They started back again across the field. Other women were already breaking up clods, hoeing up weeds and raking the turned furrow smooth.

  “Nice work, ladies,” the farmer called to them. “I know that old plough is a bit of a bugger to steer. I meant to get me one of them fancy tractors after the war. Now I’m not sure we can even keep the farm. My oldest boy is only ten. I’ll have to wait a while until he’s big enough to help with the big chores, although they’re all good little helpers in their way. My wife, too, bless her.”

  Emily wanted to say that she’d had enough, but she couldn’t.

  “Should I take over for o
ne of you?” Daisy asked.

  “No, I can keep going,” Maud said, “but I don’t know about Emily here. She doesn’t feel too well.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Emily said. She started off down the third furrow. There was a strange singing noise in her head. Lights flashed in front of her eyes and her legs buckled under her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When Emily opened her eyes, she was in a strange kitchen, sitting with her head between her knees. As she sat up, she saw children staring at her with fascinated, worried expressions. A woman with a fresh, friendly face was standing over her. “Here, my love,” she said. “Have a cup of tea. That ploughing were too much for you. I told Bert that he couldn’t expect young women to do the job, but it were our only chance to get the fields planted, see.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Emily tried to sit up. “I just haven’t been feeling too well. If I can drink the tea and maybe have a piece of bread I’ll be all right again, ready to go back to work.”

  “You’ll certainly do no such thing,” the farmer’s wife said. “I can see you’re from a good family, not brought up for hard work like we are. I told Bert that I’d try to handle the ploughing, but he didn’t want me to, seeing as I’m in the family way again. I always feel terrible the first few months—dizzy, off my food, can’t stand the smell of cooking . . .”

  Emily stared at her. Dizzy, off her food—was it possible? Why had she been so naive that she had never considered it before? But it was over a month since she and Robbie . . . and during that time, she had not had a return of the little monthly visitor.

  I’m pregnant, she realized. I’m going to have Robbie’s baby. She felt a fleeting moment of elation—that the baby would be something to remember him by—before reality and panic set in. What was she going to do? Where was she going to go? If she went home, what would her parents say? She sat, sipping at the big blue-and-white-striped mug of tea, trying to calm her racing thoughts. She couldn’t tell anybody. They would only have a few more weeks at the most before they were dismissed for the winter, and then she’d decide what to do next.