‘You’re up then?’ Granny Gregory, the one supposedly at death’s door, was obviously very much alive, if not exactly kicking and, after looking meaningfully through the open door to the grandmother clock in the hall, was making her way from the front parlour where she’d been reading yesterday’s newspaper and into the kitchen. She shuffled over to the chair by the window, which she’d claimed as her own the minute she came to live with them after Granddad Gregory had died a couple of years back, and sat down heavily. She was a large woman and, Madge mused, taking in the black voluminous skirt and huge matronly bust, seemingly much larger than when Madge had left home eight months previously. ‘Where is everybody? Left me alone again as usual? How about a cup of tea, Madge? Is there any left in that pot?’
Madge crossed over to the ancient age-blackened stove to put the kettle back on the hob and then, opening the kitchen door, went down the path and threw the detritus from the teapot onto the roses at the bottom of the garden. She stopped, placed the teapot on the ground and enjoyed just taking in the view down the valley from her vantage point under the ancient apple trees already bent over with a glut of late summer fruit; loving being back in the countryside after the dirt and frenzied bustle of a city caught up in war. Madge sniffed the air. It might be a glorious September day now, but some of the leaves, particularly on a pair of venerable oaks to her right, already had the tired, dusty appearance of those submitting to the inevitability of the new season ahead.
She didn’t want to go back inside to be talked at by Granny Gregory – her grandmother never talked with one, only at one – she didn’t want to be quizzed by her mother and Isaac, once they were back from church, on her new life as a cook and she most certainly didn’t want to be hanging around waiting for Arthur to put in an appearance as she knew he must, once he knew she was also back home. And she didn’t want to think about James. Had she been reckless sending James that letter? He was a grown man. He loved her. He’d said so. At least he’d said he was in love with her, and wasn’t that the same thing? He was surely old enough to make his own mind up about whom he could love, even if that amounted to a milkman’s daughter? She should have hung onto him, ignored Fran and his damned interfering father. She should have fought for him, not let him go at the first obstacle.
Madge wanted to garden, wanted to feel the dry soil gritty beneath her fingernails and pull up weeds rendered almost anchorless by the lack of rain these past few weeks. Forgetting that she’d intended to make Granny Gregory a fresh pot of tea, she walked down the garden to where her mother’s hens were pecking fruitlessly in the arid soil for worms, and then on to the allotment beyond where her father, long before the Government’s ‘Dig for Victory’ edict was even thought of, grew and harvested his carrots, potatoes, cabbages and onions.
Madge must have been down there a good couple of hours, using both the hand fork and the much larger full-sized fork to turn the soil, pull weeds and neaten and straighten the edges of the raised beds. Seeing the leaves at the neck of a number of her dad’s onions already flopping over, she bent and pulled until she had a satisfying pile of large, brown onions at her feet.
‘Madge, it’s dinner time.’ Isaac appeared at her side and hunkered down beside her, fingering the papery vellum skin of the onions as he did so. ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ he added. ‘I don’t like it when you’ve gone away.’
‘I’ve missed you too,’ Madge smiled, dusting dry soil from her dress before taking off her sandals to shake the soil that had found its way into them.
‘Are you back for good?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Can you stay?’
‘No, ’fraid not, Isaac. I have to be back by Wednesday evening.’
Isaac paused, counting on his fingers the number of days from Sunday to Wednesday and then stood up. ‘Come on,’ he grinned excitedly. ‘We’ve got beef for dinner.’
Beef? Where had her mother got beef from? They might live on a farm, but the herd was kept for milking and Madge couldn’t see the Co-op being happy about her dad killing one of their number just because she was home on leave for a few days.
Joe Gregory, washing the cow stink from his hands and lower arms, was standing at the sink in the scullery when Madge and Isaac made their way back into the house. ‘Thanks, love,’ he smiled, when she placed the harvested onions beside him. ‘That saves me a job this afternoon.’
The kitchen table was laid with Annie’s best white starched tablecloth, and Granny Gregory was already seated, impatiently waiting to be served the inevitable plate of Yorkshire pudding. ‘Where’ve you got beef from, Mum?’ Madge sniffed the air, suddenly hungry. She realised she’d not eaten much since Lord Montgomery-West had warned her off his son and, smoothing down her thin cotton dress, she could feel her hipbones and knew she’d lost weight.
Annie tapped her nose. ‘Never you mind where it’s come from, Madge. Just enjoy it.’
Joe reappeared through the cellar door to the right of the kitchen, brandishing a bottle. ‘Last year’s elderberry,’ he smiled. ‘It’s not every day we have a war hero back in our midst. Welcome home, love.’
Madge laughed at that. ‘I don’t think Sergeant Briscoe would have me down as a hero,’ she said ruefully. ‘More of a menace when it comes to my Yorkshire pudding.’
‘A war hero?’ Granny Gregory sniffed disdainfully. ‘The boys on the Somme: now they were your heroes. Not some chit of a girl making scones and cakes for the top brass.’
‘Ignore her,’ Annie smiled, but she was cross, Madge could tell.
‘There’s a war hero in the garden,’ Isaac exclaimed excitedly, getting out of his chair and going over to the window. ‘In his blue uniform.’
‘Mum, it’s Arthur. Tell him we’re having our dinner.’
‘You go and tell him, Madge. He can always stay for his dinner, you know.’
‘It’s not Arthur,’ Isaac stammered in his excitement. It’s a proper RAF p… pilot with a proper hat, you know, one of those with a p… peak on.’
Madge’s heart lurched and she shoved back her chair and ran for the kitchen door.
‘Hello, Midge.’ James didn’t smile but just looked at her, his large brown eyes never once leaving her face. ‘Tell me you don’t want to see me and I’ll turn round this very minute and drive back the way I’ve come. Just say the word.’
‘I can’t. You know I can’t.’ Madge walked over to where James was leaning against the wall of their outside lavatory, his arms folded. He was trembling slightly as he took her bare shoulders in his hands and held her from him, gazing into her face.
‘Why did you do it?’ James shook his head. ‘Why did you write that letter?’
‘Because, James,’ Madge said defiantly, ‘I was warned off you.’
‘Warned off me? By your officers, you mean?’ James frowned.
Madge sighed. ‘No, by Fran to begin with, and then… and then by your father.’
James’s hands tightened on Madge’s shoulders. ‘But Fran gave me your address. Told me you’d come back to Yorkshire for a few days. And my father? When? Why?’
‘Mum says, do you want to bring your friend in?’ Isaac was quite tongue-tied with awe. ‘Do you want to come and have a bit of dinner with us? There’s beef and Dad’s wine.’
James held out his hand solemnly. ‘You must be Isaac. Madge has told me all about you. And yes, Isaac, I’m starving. I could eat a horse.’
‘Mum, Dad…’ Madge ignored Granny Gregory, who was more interested in the delay over her Yorkshire pudding coming to the table than meeting any friend of her granddaughter, ‘…this is Squadron Leader James Montgomery-West. He’s come for lunch.’
*
‘You do know that wasn’t beef you’ve just eaten.’ Granny Gregory plucked at James’s arm conspiratorially, glancing over towards Annie to gauge her reaction. ‘It was horse. There, what do you think of that?’
Madge closed her eyes in horror. Her mother had just fed them horse?
‘My favourite,’ James smiled chummi
ly to Granny Gregory. ‘We used to eat it all the time in France. I don’t know why we don’t eat it more in England. That was delicious, Mrs Gregory, thank you. Best meal I’ve had for months.’
Madge started to laugh, giggling until she hiccupped and had to drink more of the elderberry wine. ‘You said you could eat a horse.’
‘He said he could eat a horse.’ Isaac joined in with Madge’s giggling. ‘Outside. He said he could eat a horse. And he has… he has.’
Cross that her bombshell had been a damp squib, Granny Gregory went on, ‘Well, lad, I’d better warn you that she makes her custard with the water she drains from the peas.’
‘Stop it, Mother.’ Joe Gregory was cross. ‘Annie did it once, when we’d run out of milk. We’ve pints of milk here to make custard.’
‘Well, I’ll bet you’ll get shot, lad, if they find you’ve been wasting government petrol coming up all this way to see our Madge.’
Madge glared at the old woman.
‘Avoiding being shot at is what I do most nights, Mrs Gregory.’ James said comfortably. ‘Unfortunately, it goes with the job. And I’m actually on official duty: I’m due at the RAF base in Snaith later this evening. I just called in to see Madge here before I carry on with the journey.’
‘Madge, why don’t you take James for a walk to stretch his legs before he’s back in the car? It’s a good few miles up to Snaith.’ Annie glared at her mother-in-law once more and Madge smiled gratefully at her. Her mother, she realised, disliked Granny Gregory just as much as she did. ‘You could head towards Molly Carr woods.’
‘I’d like that,’ James smiled. ‘I don’t know this part of the country at all.’
*
‘Are you really on official duty?’ Madge asked as they made their way across the fields below her father’s farm. Drystone walls, meticulously built long ago by artisan workers, stretched into the distance on all sides and, as they approached them, James went ahead before helping Madge over.
‘Sort of.’ James grinned and took her hand. ‘I had to see you. I knew a train would take forever, if there even are any up here on a Sunday, so I threw myself on the mercy of my group captain – who also happens to be a friend – and asked for the use of a car. He said as long as I combined the trip and went on to Snaith to pick up three of their flight lieutenants who are being posted to Bourne, he’d turn a blind eye if I happened to stop off in some little village in Yorkshire for a cup of tea.’
‘Oh, James.’ Madge squeezed his hand as they walked.
‘Midge, this is the most beautiful spot in the world.’ James stopped suddenly. ‘Listen to that lark. They both looked skywards, searching for the black, singing dot that was the soaring skylark. ‘How can you ever bear to leave this place and live in a city?’
‘I love London,’ Madge said, surprised. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I’ve had enough of it down there. The air is so pure up here. Look at these fantastic walls: the skill that’s gone into making them.’ James stroked the stones, almost in reverence.
Madge laughed at him. ‘You’ve got walls in Ascot, you daft thing.’
‘Ah, but not walls like this.’ He stopped stroking the wall, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘What’s down there?’
‘Where?’
‘That farmhouse right down in the valley.’
Madge shrugged. ‘Just one of the farms. There are loads round here.’
‘Have we time to go down there?’
‘Depends what time you need to set off for Snaith.’ Madge hated the thought that in an hour or so he’d have to leave.
‘Come on, if we walk quickly we can make it.’
24
‘Holly Close Farm,’ James read slowly, squinting awkwardly at the faded black lettering on the crumbling stone post.
‘It’s seen better days.’ Madge smiled, turning to James, who bent his head to kiss her forehead. He only had to touch her, any part of her, and all her senses were instantly alert, her body craving more of him.
‘I think the place is deserted,’ James frowned. ‘Come on, let’s go in.’
‘It’s just a farm, James. There are loads round here. The farm lads have probably enlisted and the farmer has had enough and given up the ghost. It’s hard work if you can’t get enough workers.’
‘Lord, look at that view.’ James let go of Madge and almost ran to the fence that marked the periphery of the farmland. ‘I feel I’ve died and gone to heaven.’
Madge smiled. ‘It’s just a farm,’ she repeated, catching up with James and taking hold of his hand, wanting to be kissed some more.
‘Midge, I want to live here.’ James was laughing, but she knew the way that he was looking at her, his beautiful brown eyes holding such truth and honesty, he was deadly serious.
‘Your dad would never allow it.’ Apart from when James had first appeared in her dad’s rhubarb patch earlier that afternoon, this was the first time George Montgomery-West’s name, as well as his part in her fleeing from James, had been mentioned.
‘Madge, my father can’t stop me doing what I want. Maybe before the war… Oh, I don’t know… things are different.’ James frowned, pulling her to him. ‘Life after this mess is never going to be the same. It can’t be and… and it shouldn’t be. I don’t want to have been killing innocent people in France and Germany just so that I can take my place as the next Lord Montgomery-West. I don’t want to live in that great pile our family has inherited for the last two or three hundred years. Madge, I want to live here, with you.’
Madge laughed at his intensity, laughed at the idea of him wanting to live in this old farmhouse.
‘I can see its beauty. Look, there’s some sort of smaller building over there.’ James took her hand and together they walked over to where a small cottage built of the same mellow stone as the farmhouse lay nestled below, its south-facing aspect taking full advantage of the glorious view over the fields and valley that stretched into the distance for miles.
‘This is heavenly.’ Madge, caught up in James’s excitement, led the way through the garden gate and into the cottage garden, which was beginning to look abandoned and overgrown.
‘I’m amazed that this garden and the land belonging to the farm haven’t been claimed by the “Dig for Victory” zealots,’ James mused, trying to prop up the spray of yellow roses that had left their anchorage along the front of the cottage wall.
‘Probably too isolated for anyone to bother bringing gardening stuff down here. Maybe the farmer has died and any sons or grandsons who’d have taken the place on are off with the war. It happens, according to my dad.’
‘I’m going to find out.’ James was quite beside himself at the thought. ‘I love this place, Madge.’ He bent to pick a perfect yellow rose, threading it through Madge’s blond hair and kissing her softly ‘And, you must know, I love you.’ James took her hand and led her towards the door of the cottage, positioning her against it before bending his mouth once more to hers.
‘It’s not locked. Look.’ Madge, leaning against the ancient wooden door of the cottage, felt it give way slightly beneath their combined weights. ‘Should we go in, do you think? Although it does seem pretty cheeky wandering round someone’s house and garden like this.’
‘Darling Midge, there’s no one around for miles.’ James put his shoulder against the door and pushed, and the door creaked opened onto a flag-stoned floor. Any furniture that had once graced the cottage had been removed, but a rag rug, very much like the ones her mother would fabricate from clothes that could no longer be worn, still lay on the floor. Sunshine poured through the bank of south-west-facing windows, both warming and lighting the interior of the large room they found themselves in. ‘Oh, how lovely.’ James stood stock- still, gazing around him at the interior of the cottage. ‘It’s like a fairy tale.’
Madge frowned and then laughed. ‘It’s just a worker’s cottage. They’re all like this round here. You only think it’s wonderful because it’s so different from your great p
ile of an estate. This, James, is how the majority of people live. It’s your huge hall that’s the fairy tale.’
James laughed, throwing his arms around Madge, lifting her up from the floor.
‘Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove’.
‘Pardon?’
‘Christopher Marlowe.’
Madge put her fingers to his lips, stopping his words. He took them, drawing them into his mouth, licking each one in turn, his eyes never leaving her face. She was conscious of every single breath James took, sensed every movement of his body as he gently lowered her down to the rug, raining soft kisses onto her eyes, her cheek, the small fleshy part of her earlobe and down to the hollow of her neck. He wove his fingers into her hair, pulling her slightly towards him as he kissed her mouth, tentatively at first and then, as she arched towards him, kissing him back, more deeply.
James moved his hands towards the front of her thin cotton dress, unbuttoning each little tiny disc with tantalising slowness before reaching in to the warmth of her breast, grazing each nipple, now hard and erect, with his thumb. Madge wanted him to know every part of her body and when his fingers moved down to the hem of her dress, pushing it upwards, she moved her legs apart slightly because she simply could not have done anything different. James slipped his fingers up under her skirt, making contact with the silky softness of her underwear, pushing the material aside until they were inside her, stroking softly and expertly at the exact spot he knew would give most pleasure.
Coming Home To Holly Close Farm Page 22