by Gloria Cook
‘Poor Ronnie. Th–thank you, Uncle Stanley.’ Her chin quivered. She so badly wanted to cry for her former friend and first love but her uncle was too much of a stranger to her to reveal her deepest feelings.
‘No, you shouldn’t be thanking me, Jill.’ Her uncle came close with outstretched pale hands. ‘I want to thank you, for seeing me, for having the grace not to send me away. Mind you, you always were a pleasant little soul. Aunty said as much before I left. We feel bad about neglecting you, for taking so little interest in you, leaving Mother to struggle to bring you up on her own. We want to put that right. We’d like you to feel welcome to come and see us, or to stay with us, for as long as you like, at any time you like. I hope you’ll at least agree to us keeping in touch from now on.’
This earnest plea, so sincerely given, did make Jill cry. She sobbed softly into her clenched fist. ‘Dear Ronnie. He was too gentle for war and soldiering. I’m glad he made it good at the end. It will be a comfort to his parents. Yes, Uncle Stanley, I’d really love to visit you and the family. Of course, I get very little time off, but I’ll try to come as soon as I can.’
When her uncle had gone, after giving her a shy kiss goodbye, Jill trudged up to her room. If Ronnie hadn’t broken off their engagement, she would have been grieving so much more, feeling her future had been cruelly wrenched away. ‘This awful, bloody, bloody war!’ she screamed, needing to lash out. How many more people would have to perish before it all came to an end?
She changed back into her dungarees quickly and went back to the woodshed. There was no time to linger and brood and grieve. The only thing anyone should do is to get on with the task in hand, to fight for peace. Jonny gave her a long comforting hug and they worked on quietly until all the logs needed were cut and stored. Then he withdrew, sensing she needed to be alone.
It was strange to think that if not for the war she would never have come here. Where she enjoyed the work no matter how strenuous and tiring it was. Moulding into the village. Making so many new friends. Meeting Tom…
When Lottie had taken responsibility for the cooler way between her and Tom, she had emphasized, ‘I know Tom got high-handed, but it’s not what he’s really like. He got all mixed up over Louisa, I’m sure he did. He didn’t mean to hurt you, he cares about you, Jill. You will give him a go if he apologizes, won’t you?’
‘You know I don’t bear grudges, Lottie.’
She missed Tom’s friendship. Just as she missed Ronnie’s. She had trusted them both, but both had been deceptive in their different ways. Ronnie hadn’t been a bad man. Tom certainly wasn’t. But it was going to be difficult to trust another man to reveal his true self. The enjoyment of working here had lost its golden edge, but she had her own family to turn to now.
* * *
That night Tom was in the pub, sitting alone in a dark corner, bent over a glass of whisky. It was nearly closing time – he had worked as late as possible in the fields and come straight here without telling anyone where he was going; Ruby Brokenshaw had kindly kept back some of the nightly whisky ration for him. He had no buying and selling business tonight, but was toying with calling on a girl who lived just along the road. She was guaranteed to give him a good time without hoping for anything more. No, he couldn’t be bothered. He wasn’t in the mood. What would Will have said about that, him losing his sex drive? Jonny would laugh at him and would try to jolly him out of his depression. He didn’t want that either. He didn’t want to cheer up. He wished everyone would stop trying to make him see a bright side. They all made the effort to at home. Except Lottie, who, thank goodness – because he couldn’t stand it if she became all sugary sweet with him – bawled at him for being a ‘miserable sod’, and ordered him to apologize to Jill. As for Jill, she behaved around him as if she was walking on ice. If Jill wanted to turn unfriendly, if she wanted to mope over what was just a little row, then she could just get on with it!
‘Oh hell,’ he groaned to himself. ‘Why am I feeling like this?’ He was at the lowest ever ebb of his life. It was like a great wide pit had opened up, he had fallen into it, and he didn’t have the energy or inclination to climb out.
The bar door opened and Jonny came in. Tom kept his head down. Stay with your adoring hordes, Jonny. I’m in no mood for company.
‘Shame about Jill’s former bloke, eh?’ Jonny said, joining him with a pint of beer. Bright red lipstick was on his cheek from a hopeful admirer.
‘What do you mean? Has he bought it?’ Tom couldn’t be chary about this.
‘Afraid so, in Normandy. I had the pleasure of working with Jill this afternoon. Can’t see why any chap would want to give her up. Even I could be tempted to make a go of things with her.’
‘What does that mean? Have you propositioned her?’
‘Steady on. It’s not as if you’re interested. Are you?’ Jonny noted the fear of loss in every part of his cousin’s frame. ‘If you are, it’s time you did something about it or you could risk losing her.’
‘She doesn’t care for me.’
Jonny was wondering if the man on Jill’s mind was Tom. They would make a perfect couple. ‘You might never know if you don’t approach her. I’d make it pretty damned quick if I were you.’
Before Tom had time to digest this, Sidney Eathorne, important in his Home Guard uniform, pushed a loud entrance into the bar. ‘Oh no,’ Tom swore. He’d drink up and vanish.
Unfortunately Sidney was up to him and Jonny before he could put the glass to his lips. The hot tittle-tattle of Ronnie Trenear’s death made him bypass ordering a drink. Then he started on something different. ‘The young man had spurned her but Jill must be upset, all the same. It was good of her uncle to come personally with the news. She’s going to visit him soon. He’s asked her to live with his family, so I’ve heard.’
‘What the hell are you spouting about?’ Hating the notion of Jill leaving the farm for any reason, of things happening in her life without him being involved as before, was too much for Tom. He gulped down the whisky in one impatient swallow and nearly gagged on it.
‘There’s no need to be rude!’ Sidney’s chubby face turned turkey-wattle red. He was aghast, piously superior. ‘It’s not like you, Tom Harvey, but even so I’ll be having a word with your mother if you don’t watch it!’ He twitched his nose. ‘’Tisn’t like you either to enter a public place not washed up decently and changed. What’s got into you these days?
Tom was experiencing the biggest panic of his life. His continuing frostiness to Jill, his omission at apologizing to her, was baffling her and making her miserable and he had chosen to ignore it. She now had the option of leaving the farm and living with her own family – she could, if she felt it necessary, ask for a transfer in the Land Army. He couldn’t have that. He couldn’t live without her close by, every single day. He jerked up to his feet. ‘Excuse me, Mr Eathorne, I’d better be off.’
‘That’s better. Manners never come amiss,’ Sidney aimed virtuously at his back.
Chapter Thirty-One
Tom raced along the lanes, foregoing the stone bridge beside the ford and splashing straight through the water. He had sworn he’d protect Jill, but the very moment she’d have needed him most he’d been off somewhere with his miffed nose stuck up in the air. Ronnie Trenear had cruelly rejected her but she was too good not to grieve over him. He hated the thought of her suffering. Yet he had deliberately left her feeling lost and lonely. Of all the people in the world who didn’t deserve to feel that way it was Jill.
He reached the spot where he had first seen her, as a filmy shadow in the failing light. It was pitch dark now and in his troubled haste he tripped over his own feet and went crashing down. He scraped along the dusty, gritty tarmac but immediately hauled himself up and fled on as if Jill’s very life depended on it. His happiness did.
He didn’t stop to take off his boots or wash his hands but hurtled through the back kitchen door. A glance round the kitchen, where everyone always gathered except for on Sundays
, showed that Jill wasn’t there. He made for the back stairs.
His mother planted herself in his way. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, my son. How dare you come into the house like that? It isn’t you who cleans the place, is it? Look at the state of you.’
‘Mum, it’s only a bit of dirt,’ he said, exasperated, trying to dodge past her. ‘And please don’t start on about me missing supper. I need to see Jill.’
‘Dirt, muddy water and blood to be precise,’ Emilia said sternly. ‘But if it’s Jill you want to see…’ She stepped aside.
Tom didn’t stop to wonder why she’d suddenly broken off her lecture.
Emilia put her hands together, prayer-like, and said to her family and Tilda, ‘At last, do you think?’
‘I hope so,’ Lottie replied, carrying on with the baby’s matinee coat she was knitting. ‘But I hope Jill doesn’t give in too easily. He’s really upset her and she should make him pay for it first.’
‘Jill’s not like you, darling,’ Perry pointed out. He turned a page of the wafer-thin newspaper he was reading. ‘And as I remember you were putty in Nate’s hands.’
‘Pappa!’ But she happily conceded this.
The instant he was outside Jill’s bedroom door, Tom stalled. He was panting. He was in a mess. He didn’t smell too sweet either. He was in no fit state to present himself at a woman’s bedroom door to offer humble apologies, and to say what else was on his mind. He should wash and tidy up first. Think over what to say. But he had already wasted too much time.
He knocked on the door. ‘Jill, please, I need to talk to you.’
She was sitting on the bed, thinking about Ronnie, hoping he had not suffered at the end. She was thinking about Tom too, wishing with all her being that their relationship hadn’t changed so much; yet even if they were still on their former matey terms, it didn’t mean he’d see her as anything more than a friend. Why was life so awful for so much of the time? How was she going to cope with living here now she was in love with Tom? To her knowledge he had not seen anyone new since he and Louisa had finished, but it was going to be terrible when he did. If Tom fell in love again, gave his heart to someone else and brought a bride here, it would be unbearable. He would be just the farm manager to her, her boss’s son at best, formerly a friend. His sudden presence outside her room made her plummeting heart leap straight to her throat. It took several seconds to catch her breath.
Tom thought she was ignoring him or that she didn’t want to be disturbed in her grief over Ronnie. ‘Jill, I’m sorry to disturb you. Can I talk to you for just a minute, please?’ Afraid she might take more than a little persuading, he gazed at his skinned, work-toughened hands and rubbed the pricks of blood on them over his chin, and pleaded, ‘I’m in an awful mess. In fact, I’m hurt.’
Tom hurt? She got off the bed so quickly, she dragged the counterpane with her, her feet became tangled in it and she was sent falling to the floor. Hearing the thud and her cry of alarm, Tom opened the door and rushed in to her. ‘Jill, what’s happened?’
She looked up at him and he looked down on her. Seeing the blood on his chin, on the palms of his hands and through the knees of his trousers, she was horrified. ‘Oh, Tom! You’ve had an accident. Let me help you get cleaned up.’
‘Let me help you up. How did you get down there?’ He was with her in a moment, freeing her from the bedcover and gently lifting her up. He carried her to the chair, put her there and crouched in front of her. ‘Are you badly shaken up?’
All the thoughtfulness and kindness of how Tom had been before, how he really was, was reflected in every inch of his handsome dark face. She smiled at him, a natural warm smile borne out of being back on old terms with him, and of loving him. ‘I very stupidly got myself all twisted up in the cover. But what’s happened to you?’
He reached for her hands, overjoyed that there was no reluctance on her part. In one mighty impact his whole being shook and was consumed even more by the force of real love. Jill had been coming out to him simply as her lovely, caring, constant self. The divine and gorgeous woman who had captured all of his heart. ‘I mustn’t be a fraud. I fell while hurrying back from the Ploughshare. I’d heard about Ronnie. I’m really sorry, Jill. Are you in a bad way?’
‘I’ve had a good cry, Tom. It’s Ronnie’s mum and dad I feel sorry for. He was their only child. They’ve only got each other now.’ He was gazing at her with such concern and tenderness, and she wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him close, as close as she possibly could.
‘That’s the saddest thing of all when there’s no one left. Another young man gone, who in normal circumstances would have given so much to the world. Jill, I know about your uncle coming here today. You aren’t thinking of going to live with him and his family, are you? I mean, I’d hate that. I know it’s selfish of me but I want you to stay here for ever. I don’t want you thinking about leaving with Lottie either. I’m sorry I was so horrid to you that day. I didn’t realize then why I reacted so badly. I was a fool. I had no idea how much I cared about you.’ His voice had dropped several tones and was husky and beguiling, his words emerging as if he was savouring them carefully on his tongue. He was eyeing her as if he wanted more of her. ‘I do care for you, Jill. Really care for you, Jill, darling. I love you. And I mean, I really love you. I haven’t left it too late, have I?’
‘Not a bit.’ She stroked the thick unruly hair off his forehead, then leaned forward and kissed him there. ‘I love you too, Tom.’
‘Oh, thank God.’ He smiled, the deepest, most loving smile of all. ‘While I’m down here like this, can I ask you to marry me?’
‘I’d like nothing more than to be your wife.’ She curled her arms around his neck. Bound herself to him by slipping off the chair and kissing his mouth. He wrapped her up in his arms. Their kisses turned rapidly from a gentle exploration to an inquisition, they would waste no more time apart. Their endless kisses were a meeting of love, of passion, of an everlasting joining of something wholly meaningful and beautiful.
‘You’re so very lovely, darling,’ he murmured against her neck. ‘I’ve got blood and dirt on you. I shouldn’t be touching you.’
‘You needn’t stop.’
‘Do you know, I feel a bit shy now. I’ve never felt shy with a woman before.’ It didn’t stop him taking a concentrated look over her. ‘From the first time I saw you, I loved everything about you, I just didn’t know it then. I’d better not stay much longer. Mum knows I’ve come up to talk to you. I don’t think she’ll let me stay in here for as long as I’d like to.’
‘And for as long as I’d like you to. We’ll have lots of opportunities to be alone.’
‘I shall make the most of them.’ Losing the unaccustomed shyness, he gently manhandled her. ‘One more kiss, then let’s go downstairs. I’ve got a feeling that Mum and Lottie will be down at the bottom hoping we’ll be coming down together.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lottie put on her skirt and home-made smock, pinned on her corsage of a yellow rose and fern and viewed herself in the mirror. She was proud to be Jill’s matron of honour today, proud that she didn’t have the slim figure as on her own wedding day. She smoothed over her six months’ bulge. ‘This day would be perfect if only your daddy could be here.’
She’d had other letters from Nate, roughly one a fortnight. It was wonderful to hear from him, to read again and again the words that declared his love for her, and his joy at becoming a father. He’d suggested names. She was sure they were the names of the men he was serving with. Some of the girls’ names were French. He had met a little orphaned girl whom he’d been particularly taken with – Madeleine – and he’d gone on to say he’d been delighted to take her on to the next village and reunite her with a grown-up cousin, who was glad to foster her. Madeleine, it was then, if the baby was a girl. Just keep safe, darling, was her constant prayer. As sweet as his letters were, they comforted her only for a little while, for it meant he was alive and well when he’d put pen
to paper, and she dreaded all day and every day receiving a black-edged telegram.
She must hurry. There was only Jill, her Uncle Stanley and herself left in the house. The family were all at the church – Tom had been so nervous and looked so young when Jonny, his best man, had collected him yesterday to spend the night at Tremore, so as not to risk seeing the bride today until she arrived in church. Lottie had loved helping Jill put on her wedding dress, once her aunt’s, a white showy affair that Tilda had altered to complement Jill’s quiet character. Now, she only had to finish off herself by putting on the pearl necklace Nate had given her.
‘Hey, sweetcake! Hurry up, you’re keeping everyone waiting!’
Lottie was so startled she nearly dropped the precious pearls. ‘Herv!’ She waddled as fast as she could to the top of the stairs. ‘Is that really you?’
‘Sure is.’ And there he was, in dress uniform, his curly black hair oiled and slick, a cigarette perched nattily on an ear; one hand missing, the sleeve pinned up. ‘I was down this way and heard of the little shindig and thought I’d invite myself. Could kick myself for missing out on Jill. She’s down here, looking beautiful. Well, are you coming?’ Jill and her uncle came along the passage from the sitting room and waited, all smiles, at the front door.
‘Yes. Yes! Just give me a moment to go back for my bouquet. Sorry to keep you waiting, Jill.’
‘Wait. I’ve got something for you, Lottie,’ Herv said.
‘You’ve got a letter from Nate? He’s written to you and enclosed a letter to me?’
‘Nah.’ Herv delved inside a clean white handkerchief and took out a small object set in gold. It was a pearl earring. ‘He said to give you this.’