Alice's Girls

by Julia Stoneham

  The binder had begun to make an odd rattling sound. Jack slowed the horse that was pulling it and climbed down to investigate.

  ‘Sounds like that wretched pulley belt again,’ Roger muttered, leaving Alice and making his way into the field. She watched him go, striding across the stubble and then leaning over the machine while Jack pointed out to him where the fault lay. She would have to decide what to do about Margery’s drinking problem. Whether to ease her own conscience by confessing what she knew or continue to deceive the person for whom, apart from her son, she cared most in the world. But she had already deceived Roger for nearly two months, although it was true that she had not, before today, appreciated how serious Margery’s addiction had been. But the fact remained that no one had been injured other than the dead woman herself, and she would have wanted her secret kept and been mortified if Alice had eased her own conscience by revealing it. ‘No,’ Alice murmured aloud to herself. ‘I must never tell anyone. It’s not as if I’ve lied; I have simply … not told the truth!’ She was smiling, guiltily, at this less than spotless logic when Roger rejoined her. He was holding a piece of metal which had sheared in two.

  ‘I’ll have to get this brazed,’ he said. ‘Means a trip to the blacksmith’s. We shan’t get any more binding done today, so I’ve given the girls an early mark. Shall I drop you off at Lower Post Stone or …?’

  ‘No, no,’ Alice said, easily. ‘You get off to the blacksmith’s and I’ll hitch a ride in the lorry with the girls.’

  As they lurched downhill, Alice wedged between Evie and Annie, whose bare arms were warm and moist with sweat to which dust from the binder clung, giving their skin a soft, velvety bloom, she realised she had made her decision. ‘If people would just stop confessing things,’ she thought to herself, ‘it would all be so much easier. But everyone will insist on unburdening themselves to me! Gwennan. Georgie. Evie. Winnie and Marion. Hester. Even Roger … So I have all their various transgressions to consider as well as my own!’ Without realising it she spoke her next words aloud. ‘Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,’ she said.

  ‘That’s Shakespeare,’ Annie announced. ‘Hamlet says that. I did it at school. Hector and I are going to the Old Vic when John Gielgud’s in it. You can get tickets in the gods – that’s high up at the back – for two and sixpence, Hector says! Why did you suddenly think of that, Mrs Todd?’

  During the week which preceded the fire, the alterations to the smaller of the Lower Post Stone barns, converting it to its future use as stabling for horses and ponies from the riding school, had been completed. By Friday the first consignment – two horses, a mare and four ponies – had arrived and been settled into their stalls and loose boxes. The loft above the stabling, which had once housed Andreis Van der Loos and in which he had painted his depiction of the persecution of his race by the Nazis, was now cleared of the truckle bed on which he had slept and the table and chair where he had eaten the meals he cooked on a small, cast iron stove. His mural, thanks to the intervention of Georgina, Annie and subsequently Hector Conway, had long since been removed to safety by the War Artists Scheme.

  The weather, that Friday, was foul. ‘More like March,’ Rose said, scornfully, as the rain fell, driven by a chill wind that had everyone reaching for sweaters, waterproofs and even scarves. Edward John, collected as usual from the Exeter bus and already put out by the cancellation of a school cricket match, reacted sulkily when his mother forbade him to cross the yard to see the ponies.

  ‘No, Edward John,’ she had insisted. ‘You’ll get soaked. There are no lights out there and supper is on the table. You can go and see the ponies in the morning.’

  The workmen, one carpenter and two young apprentices, had, that day, lit the stove in the loft and enjoyed its warmth while they used it to dispose of some rotten laths and various offcuts from the timber they were using. By the time five o’clock came, the lad who was sent to check reckoned the fire was out, but foolishly left it piled with unburnt wood and with its iron doors open. As the weather worsened and the wind rose to gale force, the wood inside the stove rekindled, blazing in the semi-darkness of the loft. Burning embers fell from it and ignited a pile of wood shavings. Soon, fanned by strong air currents in the draughty loft, the tinder-dry floorboards and rafters of the roof were well alight, and smoke, pouring from the rear of the barn, was being drawn away from the farmhouse and driven downwind of it. Consequently it was Roger Bayliss, from a window at the higher farm, who first became aware of the blaze and immediately telephoned the fire brigade, while at Lower Post Stone it was Gwennan and Edward John who smelt the smoke and saw the glow of the flames. He, wearing pyjamas and rubber boots, was already leading one of the ponies out of the smoke-filled barn when Roger Bayliss arrived in the farm truck together with Ferdie Vallance and Mr Jack. They were soon joined by the fire brigade and a hose was trained onto the rear of the barn. Both horses, the mare and one of the remaining ponies had been led out and released in the yard, but the remaining three ponies were in a loose box at the far end of the barn. When Edward John, his pyjamas soaked, his face and hands smudged with soot, had emerged with the first of the ponies, Alice had seized hold of him to prevent him re-entering the barn.

  ‘No, Edward John! You’re not to go in again! Ferdie and Jack will—’ She was about to say ‘fetch the other ponies’ when both men, empty-handed and gasping, staggered out of the barn, driven back by choking smoke.

  ‘Can’t get through to ’em!’ Ferdie wheezed, eyes streaming and throat closing as he struggled to breathe. ‘Them poor beasts!’ he croaked, coughing and bending double in an attempt to clear his lungs. It was at that moment that Edward John twisted suddenly from his mother’s grasp and headed into the barn. Rose caught Alice by the arm and prevented her from following him. It was Roger Bayliss who did so, vanishing instantly into the dense interior.

  The scene was horrendous. Wreathed in belching smoke which the wind took and twisted, flinging it, choking and blinding, into the lungs and eyes of the onlookers, the interior of the barn was weirdly lit by the inferno which raged at the far end of it. In the yard, illuminated by the headlights of the fire engine, the land girls herded the terrified horses into the cider orchard and then, desperate to do something to halt the progress of the fire, began filling buckets with water from the pump and passing them from hand to hand towards the blaze. Rose, now joined by Annie, held onto Alice who continued to fight them, struggling to follow her son into the blaze.

  ‘No, Alice! No!’ Rose was yelling. She had pulled Alice round so that her back was to the fire and was shouting into her face. ‘Mr Bayliss’ll fetch ’im out! Just you ’old still a minute! ’Old tight like a brave girl!’ But the seconds passed, and when no one emerged and the crump of collapsing timber and masonry was adding to the uproar of the flames, it seemed impossible that anything other than disaster could follow. Then, through the smoke, three ponies solidified and hurtled out of the barn, followed, to a relieved cheer from the watchers, by Roger Bayliss, staggering slightly but with Edward John across his shoulders, the boy’s sooty arms tightly round his neck.

  Later, with the flames extinguished, the fire engine gone, leaving one man on stand-by in case any burning embers should reignite, everyone had made their way back into the farmhouse.

  Edward John, apart from being hoarse from coughing, soaked by the rain, blackened by soot and reeking of smoke, seemed none the worse for his experience. His mother ran him a bath, and leaving him with a towel, a bottle of shampoo, clean pyjamas, his dressing gown and his slippers, left him and joined Roger Bayliss who was waiting for her in her bed-sitting room. He turned as she entered. He had a glass in his hand.

  ‘I’m doing a Margery Brewster,’ he smiled. ‘Raiding your sherry decanter. Thought I deserved one. You?’

  ‘Please!’ she said, huskily. He took her glass to her.

  ‘You’re shaking,’ he said gently, and sitting her in one of the small armchairs, put the glass into her hands. ‘Don’t
talk,’ he said. ‘Just drink.’ She took a large sip which seemed to steady her.

  ‘That was incredibly brave of you,’ she said. ‘To go into that inferno. Incredibly brave. Especially …’ she hesitated.

  ‘Especially with my history of … how shall we describe it, Alice? Of overreacting to … emergencies?’ He was relaxed and smiling. ‘D’you know, I was so concerned about your young man and what you’d think of me if I didn’t fetch him out in one piece that any other sort of disaster paled into insignificance! Drink up!’ he urged her, seeing the tears welling in her eyes, draining his own glass and reaching for the decanter. ‘And don’t cry, my darling. Don’t cry. All’s well.’

  The land girls had gathered in the recreation room, and when Edward John entered it, on his way through it to the room he shared with his mother, they cheered him, their voices reaching Roger and Alice.

  ‘Well done that boy!’ Marion and Winnie bellowed.

  ‘Bravo! You’re a good lad, Edward John!’ The voice was Annie’s.

  ‘Reckon you deserve a medal for what you done, boyo!’

  ‘Indeed to goodness, Taff!’ Evie teased in a poor imitation of Gwennan’s strong Welsh accent. ‘Indeed to goodness, he do!’

  ‘Shut it! Evelyn,’ Gwennan snapped. ‘I’m not so rude as to make fun of your stupid Brummie accent, am I? And believe me, you sound every bit as daft to me as what I does to you!’ Leaving the banter behind him, Edward John entered his mother’s room, closed the door behind and stood solemnly regarding Roger Bayliss.

  ‘I don’t think I would have got out if you hadn’t come to help me,’ he said, his voice deepened and roughened by smoke inhalation. ‘Thank you, Mr Bayliss.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ Roger said, raising his glass. ‘Strictly speaking, though, you shouldn’t have gone back in, you know. The odds were very much against you and you have your mother to consider.’ He watched the boy react to this, saw a trace of resentment and guessed that Edward John considered it inappropriate for him to be quite so protective of Alice’s position. ‘I know,’ Roger went on quietly. ‘It was the ponies. It was a hard call. You took a brave decision and you succeeded. Some you win and some you lose. That time you won. Good lad. But always consider the effect your actions have on other people.’ He smiled at Alice whose colour and composure were obviously returning. ‘Feeling all right now?’ he asked the boy.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ Edward John said. ‘’Cept my throat’s still sore from the smoke – but it’s not as bad as it was.’ Roger emptied his glass.

  ‘I’m going to leave you two to have a well-earned sleep,’ he said. Alice went to him and tried to brush a mark off his sleeve.

  ‘That won’t come off,’ he said. ‘It’s burnt. Look.’ He poked his finger through the singed Harris tweed. ‘Clean through to the lining. Goodnight, my dear,’ he said. Then he stooped and kissed her lightly on the mouth. ‘Night, Edward John,’ he called, from the doorway. ‘Sleep tight!’

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ Alice asked her son and he nodded, watching her as she removed the cushions that were scattered across the divan that doubled as his bed. He climbed in and let her settle the blankets and eiderdown around him. ‘He kissed you,’ Edward John said, looking up at her from his pillow.

  ‘Yes,’ Alice answered. She sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for his questions.

  ‘Does he love you?’ Edward John wanted to know.

  ‘Yes. I think he probably does.’

  ‘Oh. And do you love him?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a pause. He lay looking at her for a moment or two and then put his thumb between his lips, a habit she thought he had outgrown years ago. She took his hand and gently eased his thumb out of his mouth. He sighed and smiled at her.

  ‘Well …’ he said. ‘That’s all right, then …’

  Chapter Nine

  With the lease of the Red Cow signed and licensed to Edward Grice, and with Winnie nominated as manageress and having agreed to accept the girls’ joint savings, Marion formally accepted Sergeant Kinski’s latest proposal of marriage.

  ‘Be that the eighth time of askin’ or the ninth?’ Rose wanted to know.

  ‘Dunno, do I!’ Marion said, tossing her head and allowing herself a glance at the cluster of diamonds which had, at last, found its place on the third finger of her left hand. ‘I ’aven’t bin keepin’ count.’

  ‘Not much, you ’aven’t!’ Gwennan said. ‘You’ve’ad the poor fellow danglin’ for weeks and you still ’aven’t named the day, ’ave you!’

  Marvin Kinski’s military career was under discussion as they spoke. His skill as an instructor had been noted during the run-up to the Normandy landings a year previously and he had recently presented himself well to a selection board, after which he had been informed that he was to be promoted to lieutenant and would shortly be posted to a US marine training academy in West Virginia. When he mentioned his forthcoming marriage he was advised to make the appropriate arrangements without delay.

  ‘You could be shipped out any time now, Lieutenant,’ his commanding officer told him. The war with Japan was dragging on, but as soon as it was concluded the US army would be put on a peacetime footing and Kinski would be required to take up his new assignment without delay. ‘So if the future Mrs Kinski has it in mind to get spliced in Blighty, you need to get your skates on, soldier!’

  ‘He’s gonna be a lieutenant,’ Marion announced, pronouncing the word as he had.

  ‘A loo-tenant? What’s a loo-tenant, Marion?’ Winnie asked, proud of her joke and the response it got from the other girls.

  The need for haste in the wedding arrangements produced its own problems regarding where and when it should take place, but with Kinski based only a few miles from the hostel, and Marion firmly entrenched in her Land Army life, it was decided to celebrate the wedding at the higher farm and to do so on the lines of a more modest version of the VE Day festivities, which were still fresh in everyone’s minds. Marion was only slightly put out when her parents, on receiving this news, declined her invitation to the wedding on the grounds that it was too far for them to travel. Her main concern then became the frock she would be married in.

  ‘If I spends all me coupons on me weddin’ dress,’ she wailed to Marvin, ‘I won’t have none left for me trousseau! And I’ll turn up in America lookin’ like a freak!’ Kinski, however, saved the day. He arrived one evening in a borrowed jeep bearing a bale of Chantilly lace. He burst into the recreation room, unfurled half a dozen astonishingly beautiful yards of it, sending it frothing across the slate floor at Marion’s feet.

  ‘Marvin! Wherever did you …? You never nicked it, did you?’ she queried, torn between delight and concern. He grinned and shook his head.

  ‘Nah! It got “liberated”, baby!’ he announced, delighted by her approval, his jaw chomping on peppermint-flavoured gum. ‘By a Corporal Abe Gwilt, US Marines. Seems he and his platoon came across a textile factory just south of Nîmes which had copped a bomb from your RAF guys. There was a coupla snipers in there, see, but once the boys had sorted them out they saw these rolls of the stuff lying around! Seemed a shame to let ’em burn! So they grabbed a few! What d’you reckon?’

  The lace was exquisite, more so even than the girls appreciated. To them it was simply the prettiest they had ever seen, the softest they had ever touched. To an expert it was the finest quality in the lacemakers’ range and had been, until the intervention of the war, destined for the wedding dresses of princesses, the ball gowns of duchesses and for creations designed for celebrations attended by the richest, most privileged and beautiful women in Europe.

  ‘Streuth!’ Marion exclaimed. ‘It’s gorgeous, Marvin! You are a one! And there’s loads of it, look!’ She scooped up an armful of the delicate fabric, draped it around herself and posed provocatively.

  ‘Enid could make it up for you,’ Rose announced. ‘She’m good with fancy silks and such. Used to make for Lady Fellowes and her daughters over to Bovey Tracey, she did. N
o one could touch our Enid!’ Rose’s sister Enid had been a seamstress for a leading Exeter dressmaker until the premises was razed to the ground when the city was blitzed. ‘’Er stitches was “invisible to the naked eye” ’er ladyship used to tell ’er! And she never needed no patterns, Enid didn’t. She could copy any dress you could show ’er, just by lookin’ at a picture of it!’

  The girls thumbed through fashion magazines and scoured Enid’s pattern books. After interminable discussion a design was chosen which not only enchanted Marion but, in Enid’s opinion, would make the best possible use of the challenging fabric. Using some of the parachute silk the girls had once salvaged from an RAF training exercise, Enid created a narrow sheath over which she layered eight yards of the lace so that it formed a full-length, bouffant skirt, flattened in front and springing from Marion’s small waist to explode, at the back, into shimmering, floating folds which ended in a short, romantic train. The neckline was modest and the sleeves long, with cuffs tapered to a point, like lilies. The remaining lace would be used to make a bridesmaid’s dress for Winnie.

  While the war with Japan dragged on, plans for the wedding reception, which was to take place on a Saturday afternoon in mid-September, were progressing steadily. A cake would be baked by the cook at Marvin’s barracks, Roger Bayliss would donate a barrel of cider, and his housekeeper, Eileen, would prepare an enormous bowl of trifle. There would be cups of tea for those that chose it, and beer would be supplied by the US military.

  Then, on the sixth of August the US air force dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

  ‘It was inevitable,’ Roger told Alice when they discussed it, scanning newspaper pictures of the smouldering wasteland that was all that was left of that vast city and its thousands of inhabitants, and solemnly reading the reporter’s description of an event of such appalling scale that the other horrors of the war seemed almost diminished by it.