Daughter of Dark River Farm

by Terri Nixon

‘Oh, there you are, Kitty!’

  I stopped, hissing a quick, impatient breath, before turning back. ‘Yes, here I am. Are you settled?’

  ‘Oh, nowhere near,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but we have plenty of time for that. I was hoping to see Frances first.’

  ‘She’ll be out clipping sheep,’ I said. ‘Would you like to sit down with a cup of tea? I’ll go and find her for you.’ The perfect excuse. Now I was on the outside step, feeling the sun and the breeze, with freedom just a door slam away.

  ‘Will she be back for lunch?’ Jessie wanted to know.

  ‘Probably not. While the weather’s this good she’ll want to see it through. Shall I go and find her then?’

  Jessie shook her head, looking disappointed. ‘Not on my account. I’m keen to see how Belinda is though, aren’t you?’

  I hesitated, then sighed. ‘Yes, of course.’ I stepped reluctantly back over the threshold. ‘It was good of you to say what you did. You know, about her falling off the cart.’

  Jessie turned back with a smile. ‘Oh, I could tell you two had been up to something,’ she said. ‘I bet it was fun. Perhaps you’ll tell me later?’

  ‘I will,’ I promised, hopes of a friendship rekindled, and quashing my sense of mild annoyance at being turfed out of my room.

  In the kitchen Belinda was sitting with a cold cloth pressed to her nose, and with her foot propped on a chair piled high with cushions. Lizzy and Sally were cleaning up the lunch preparations, and Jessie sat down while I went to the cutlery drawer.

  ‘Does Frances have help now that Harry’s…gone?’ she asked.

  ‘She still has Colin Trebilcock, him who collects the milk,’ Lizzy said. ‘He was too old to join up, but he’s healthy enough, and he comes over to help with some of the heavier work. Other than that, she’s learned to ask now and again in the village.’

  ‘Swallowed her pride then,’ Jessie said. ‘Well people will be quite happy to help. Harry was a popular man.’

  I felt that tug of jealousy again. She had only been here half an hour, if that, and already it was clear she knew more about the farm than I did. I was starting to feel edged out again, despite Frances’s heartfelt declaration that I was family now. I shook myself mentally; there was room for both of us, after all.

  ‘How was your training?’ I asked, meaning to sound friendly and interested, but too late I realised I had merely sounded exactly the way I was feeling about myself—making the point that she was the new girl here. I could have kicked myself, particularly when Jessie’s embarrassed look told me she’d heard it in just that way.

  ‘We didn’t really learn very much,’ she said, ‘not in the time we were given. But I’ve learned enough about safety to be reasonably sure I won’t chop off any limbs, or…’ she flicked a sudden grin at Belinda ‘…fall out of a pony trap and break my nose.’

  Lizzy snorted laughter, and the faintly strained atmosphere was broken. ‘I should hope not,’ she said. ‘Right, Bel, that cloth should have done the trick now. Kitty, run and fetch some water, please. Jessie, if you wouldn’t mind, perhaps you could take the plates out of the aga? Sally, the vegetables should be ready for straining now.’

  Within moments the kitchen was a mass of activity, and Jessie moved quickly, and without question, to carry out the task assigned her. There was something about Lizzy’s calm authority that had the same effect on almost everyone who met her, and even Belinda obeyed her without pause, with the result that, five minutes later, we were all sitting down to a hot, beautifully cooked midday meal.

  ‘Which bedroom is yours?’ Jessie asked Lizzy, tearing off a chunk of bread and dipping it into the rich, dark gravy on her plate.

  ‘I live a little way down the road, nearer the village,’ Lizzy said. ‘I did live here for a while, but I moved back into Ma’s house with her, Emily and the twins.’

  ‘And what do they do?’

  ‘Adie and Albert are only little still, so they’re at school. When it’s not being closed down,’ she added with a sigh. ‘Emily, that’s my sister, works at Devonport Technical School.’

  ‘Is she a teacher?’ Jessie looked impressed, but Lizzy shook her head, smiling.

  ‘No, it’s been taken over to put shell casings together. That’s what she’s doing.’

  ‘I didn’t realise they were making bombs there,’ I said with a little shudder, hearing the phantom sounds of Flanders.

  ‘It’s only the casings,’ Lizzy reiterated. ‘They get sent to Bristol for the charges and fuses and things. I know which end I’d rather be working at.’

  I nodded agreement. ‘What about your mother?’ We hardly ever talked about Lizzy’s family, and it had been Jessie who’d led the way. I felt bad about that and determined to make up for it.

  ‘Ma’s just started working up at Princetown, at the moss-drying plant.’

  ‘Boss?’ Belinda asked, and frowned, trying again. ‘Mm-moss?’

  I tried not to giggle, but she caught my expression and flicked a pea off her fork at me.

  ‘Belinda!’ Lizzy cuffed her arm, and Belinda glared at me, but I saw her mouth twitch. She knew how funny it sounded, and she poked her tongue at me out to hide the smile.

  ‘Sphagnum moss,’ Lizzy said. ‘For field dressings.’

  Jessie lit up with interest. ‘What a brilliant thing! How do they get it dried out?’

  Lizzy began to explain the process, and I listened too, quite interested until the door opened and Will and Nathan came in. Belinda and I exchanged wide-eyed looks, and she grabbed her napkin and lifted it to cover her nose while I turned my attention back to them. Will was looking tired, and his hand was wrapped across his waist—I was glad Evie wasn’t here to see that. But Lizzy was, which was the next worst thing.

  She was on her feet in seconds. ‘Will, sit down.’

  He dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘I’m well; don’t worry. Just walked a bit too far.’ He nevertheless eased himself into the vacated seat, and let out a slow, careful breath. He was always taken by surprise that he wasn’t able to move with his former vigour.

  ‘Don’t tell Evie,’ he pleaded, and Lizzy looked at him for a long moment, then her cross, worried expression faded.

  ‘I won’t, if you’ll promise to let him—’ she nodded at Nathan ‘—take on the lion’s share now.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Will said, and grinned. It was easy to see why Evie had fallen for him when he did that, and Belinda even took her eyes off Nathan for a moment and responded with a tiny smile of her own, visible above the napkin that still covered her swollen nose.

  Abruptly Archie’s face floated to the front of my mind, and I saw his own grin—slightly lopsided, shaping his face to something unique and beautiful…eyes of an unusually changing grey, with his bold, dark eyebrows making them appear all the more piercing. I remembered the look in those eyes when I’d turned him down, and the pain that shot through me almost made me gasp out loud and I took a hurried gulp of water.

  ‘So, did you two sort things out?’ Belinda asked, impatient for details.

  Nathan leaned against the door, and nodded, but his eyes were on me. ‘I’ve explained everything,’ he said, ‘and Will understands. I hope that means you’ll take his word that I’m no rogue?’

  ‘Oh, you’re a rogue all right,’ Will said, ‘but I do understand a bit more now.’

  ‘What did he do? Tell us!’

  ‘Bel! It’s not for us to ask that.’ I felt the weight of Nathan’s gaze again and let my eyes rise, until they met his. I saw a glint in them as his lips curved into a smile, then he shifted his gaze to Belinda, and raised a questioning eyebrow. Belinda gave a resigned sigh, and lowered the napkin.

  ‘Hell’s bells!’ Will exclaimed, and Lizzy chuckled.

  ‘Bel’s hell, perhaps. Poor girl fell out of the pony trap.’

  I winced, thinking it made Belinda sound a bit foolish. ‘She was only trying to help,’ I said quickly. ‘It was Pippin’s fault. The silly thing wouldn’t keep still.’
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  ‘Exactly,’ Belinda said. ‘And I’ll have you know I’m really quite badly hurt.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ Nathan murmured, and she gave him a gratified look.

  ‘You need to keep that foot raised,’ Lizzy said. ‘As soon as you’ve finished lunch, go to your room and lie down. Kitty can bring you some cushions to rest your ankle on.’

  ‘But I don’t want to spend the afternoon up there,’ Belinda protested. Her eyes flicked from Will to Nathan and back again, and it was obvious she thought she’d be missing something.

  ‘It’s either that or finish off out in the barn,’ Lizzy said. In Frances’s absence she slipped easily and naturally into the role of leader, and Bel subsided with a disappointed, but thankfully not grumpy look. Belinda disappointed was one thing, and easy enough to remedy, but Belinda grumpy turned everything grey.

  ‘I’m moving my things into your room too,’ I told her, hoping it would cheer her up.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Jessie always has the yellow room when she comes here.’ Too late I realised I’d once again picked the wrong thing to say, and I groaned inwardly.

  Predictably, and momentarily forgetting how Jessie had spoken up in her favour, Belinda scowled. ‘That’s hardly fair, Jessie. You’ve not been here for about ten years.’

  ‘That’s enough, Belinda,’ Lizzy broke in. She looked at the three of us—myself wondering if I’d spoken out of turn, Belinda looking cross on my behalf, and Jessie blushing and clearly wishing she’d said nothing about the bedroom at all.

  In another attempt to steer the conversation onto something pleasant, I told Lizzy that Jessie had brought lots of books with her. ‘Perhaps she and Emily might like to look at each other’s collections,’ I said. ‘Lizzy’s sister is a great reader too, Jessie.’

  ‘That would be lovely, if Jessie doesn’t mind.’ Lizzy smiled at the new girl. ‘Emily is about your age, Jessie. I’m sure you’d get on very well.’

  Jessie smiled back. ‘I’d like to meet her.’

  ‘She’s not home today. She’s taken a trip down to Cornwall, but that probably means she’ll come back with even more books for you to look at. There’s a bookshop down there that she loves.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Cornwall,’ I put in, ‘but it would be nice to visit one day with Emily. We got along famously the last time I was here. I think she mentioned the shop then. Something to do with an attic?’

  ‘Penhaligon’s Attic.’ Lizzy nodded. ‘It’s in Caernoweth. Lovely place. I’d like to go down there again myself sometime. Jack would love it.’ Her expression lost some of its lively enthusiasm for a second, but it soon returned. ‘Perhaps we can all go down there together, after the harvest is in. I’d like to see Freya again too, the girl who lives there.’

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ Jessie said. ‘I adore Cornwall.’

  ‘Evie and I would like that too,’ Will said, and Nathan’s face darkened slightly. I wondered, at first, if it was the mention of Evie. Perhaps Nathan’s antagonism towards her was disguising the fact that he had once carried a torch for her? Then I realised it would more likely because we were speaking of things that must, by necessity, happen after he returned to the fighting. Harvest wouldn’t be for another few months yet. He would be long gone from Dark River by then and it must be an awful thought for him.

  I told Jessie I’d help her with the rest of her things as soon as she was ready. ‘Just let me know when,’ I said, hopeful of a more pleasant relationship with this oddly unsettling girl now we’d found a common interest.

  ‘I still think it’s wrong that you’ve been turfed out of your room,’ Belinda said.

  I shot her an annoyed look. ‘It’s all right, Bel, really. I don’t mind. Jessie’s known Frances much longer, after all.’

  Jessie’s expression sharpened, and her smile dropped, and I recognised the same vague and formless sense of rivalry I’d felt in myself earlier. It must have simply been because I’d used Frances’s first name. I swallowed a sigh; any path to possible friendship between us would clearly not be as smooth as I’d hoped.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘We’re moving those old wet sacks out, and spreading them in the yard to dry.’ I handed Jessie a broom. ‘Hit them first, to send the rats running.’

  ‘Rats?’ Jessie looked doubtfully at the big pile in the corner of the barn.

  ‘There aren’t many,’ I assured her. ‘I suppose you were too young to help out when you were here before?’

  ‘I collected the eggs,’ she said, ‘and fed the hens. And sometimes helped sweep out the henhouses.’

  ‘Well…just look on this as sweeping out a very large henhouse, and imagine the hens are small and brown, with long tails.’

  She gave me an amused look, and lifted her broom, bringing it down on the top of the pile without hesitation. Nothing stirred within, and she nudged it with her foot. ‘I think we’re hen-free here.’

  I laughed, and set to work on the opposite corner, watching her from the corner of my eye. I still couldn’t decide how I felt about her; one minute she seemed keen and eager to help, friendly and a little shy, but there was clearly a wire running through her that twanged, as jarringly as mine, whenever her sense of belonging was challenged. This was made very apparent around half an hour later, when we’d emptied the barn of damp and frayed sacks, and were kneeling out in the yard, spreading them to dry in the afternoon sun.

  ‘Well, at work already, Jessie?’ Frances pushed open the gate that led from the field, and we both looked up to see her face creased in a welcoming smile. Jessie crossed the yard between them at a run, and flung her arms around Frances who looked startled, but pleased, as she returned the embrace.

  I tried to remember how long it had been since anyone held me like that, with the pure joy of seeing someone and not the sadness of impending goodbye, or with the helpless sympathy of one who wants to give comfort but has no words. I couldn’t. I swallowed past a painful lump in my throat, and felt my eyes start to sting. What was wrong with me? This woman had taken me to her heart within hours of meeting me, and yet she’d had to beg me to call her by her first name. Evie had tried so hard to help me after the attack by Colonel Drewe, and I had pushed her away. Belinda only wanted to teach me to have fun, but I couldn’t bring myself look on her as a confidante. And Archie…but I choked that thought off.

  ‘Well done, Kitty, sweetheart,’ Frances said, keeping her arm around Jessie as they walked back towards me. ‘But why isn’t Belinda helping you?’

  ‘She’s hurt her foot,’ I said, avoiding Jessie’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, that girl! What on earth has she done now?’ She held up a hand as I began fumbling with the story. ‘Never mind, I’ll see her in a minute. I must say you’ve both done a wonderful job here.’ Frances let go of Jessie to reach out and remove a stray thread of sacking from where it had become caught in my curls. It was a small gesture, but an intimate one, and I hoped my smile reflected the surge of affection and gratitude I felt.

  ‘Right, time to catch up, young lady,’ she said to Jessie, who took her proffered hand but with a suddenly clouded expression. I couldn’t deny my pleasure at the way Frances so obviously favoured me more highly than she might a regular Land Army girl, but I honestly tried to make it more about Frances and me than about Jessie and me. I remembered the moment on the ferry dock, her work-roughened hands either side of my face, the smile that broke through tears that had startled and moved me…and I resolved to stop questioning my right to that sense of belonging. Frances had never given me cause to doubt her affection, so why had I always done so?

  Relaxing into this new resolution, I left Frances and Jessie to their talk and went upstairs to see how Bel was getting on. Her foot was still obediently propped on the cushions I’d placed for her, but she clutched the little mirror she’d asked for, and when she saw me she raised it and looked at her swollen face again.

  She sighed. ‘Honestly, Kitty, why now?’

  ‘No
w?’ I sat down on her bed, and gently checked the makeshift splint on her ankle. ‘As opposed to when?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, when there isn’t a new girl just starting. I look like a freestyle wrestler.’

  ‘And for another thing?’ I looked at her sideways, with a knowing little smile, but she was still gloomily gazing at her reflection. ‘I’m sure Nathan remembers you quite well as the pretty girl he met in town,’ I said comfortingly, and she flushed and lowered the mirror.

  ‘Well naturally I’d like him to find me interesting and attractive,’ she said, ‘but knowing he tricked me into inviting him here has made me think twice about how attractive a person he is.’

  ‘You deserve better,’ I agreed. ‘He’s charming all right, but then so are a lot of men.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She took a deep breath and let it out, effectively closing the subject. ‘So, how is Jessie at farmwork?’

  We talked for a while about our first impressions, and I mentioned Jessie’s closeness to Frances.

  Bel still frowned at the way I had been summarily removed from my own room, simply because the new girl might have used it once or twice as a child. ‘She presumes an awful lot. I wouldn’t expect to have my own room, and nor would Sally, but you’re different. You’re more like family.’

  ‘Jessie doesn’t know that,’ I pointed out reasonably.

  ‘Then perhaps she ought to. She and I should have a little chat; she’s as much here to work as I am.’

  ‘Gosh, Bel, you sound quite fierce!’

  ‘Well, you’re my friend, and while I’m stuck up here I’m not there to look out for you. Just don’t let her push you around.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said, touched. ‘Are you coming down for dinner?’

  ‘Try and stop me. I’m bored as blazes up here. And—’ she brightened ‘—we might find out why Nathan has come here looking for Will.’

  I smiled at her characteristic return to perkiness. ‘I’ll call you when we’re ready.’ I left her to her mirror, and as I closed the door I saw her prodding mournfully at her puffy nose, and wincing. Poor Bel! Still, at least she was no longer caught up in Nathan’s spell; she was far too nice for him.