The Penny Bangle

by Margaret James

  ‘Gin,’ said Frances promptly. ‘Thank you, Steve.’

  ‘A half of best,’ said Cassie, who had never tasted gin. In Smethwick, only crones and tarts drank gin.

  She scowled at Frances, who was muttering something to Stephen’s grumpy brother. Obviously, she hadn’t been brought up well enough to know that whispering was rude.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, smile. You’ll need to get along with Frances,’ Stephen murmured as he brushed past Cassie. ‘She’s the other land girl at Melbury, you see.’

  Chapter Three

  Cassie heard the insistent rattle of an old alarm clock going off in what seemed like the middle of the night. She became aware of someone coughing, heard them strike a match, and then she smelled the tang of cheap tobacco as someone lit their first smoke of the day.

  A few minutes later, Mrs Denham was tapping on her door, telling her that it was time to get up for the milking. ‘Put on a couple of your jumpers and your regulation breeches, then come down straight away,’ she added briskly. Then she clattered off downstairs herself, and Cassie heard her fill the kettle.

  Oh, Jesus Christ and all the blessed saints, she thought, as she splashed some water from the basin on her face and then began to pull her warmest clothes on hurriedly, they really do have cows.

  Last night, she had been told so many stories, and been led up so many garden paths, that she hadn’t been able to decide if she should believe the twins when they’d said their father’s dairy herd was famous nation-wide.

  After all, she’d never heard of it.

  Mr Denham’s Jerseys, which he’d bred himself, were coveted by farmers everywhere, Stephen had said proudly. They won all the prizes at the biggest agricultural shows.

  ‘A female calf from Melbury is worth as much as any working horse,’ his brother added, as he’d forced himself to speak, or rather grunt, between his gulps of beer.

  ‘You’ll see why, Cassie, when you meet our bull,’ continued Stephen.

  ‘Yes, you’ll have your work cut out with Caesar.’ Frances smirked into her gin.

  Cassie was used to getting herself up and dashing off to work. So she was downstairs two minutes later, even before the twins or Mr Denham had appeared.

  Mrs Denham handed her a mug of milky coffee. This must be the real thing, thought Cassie as she sipped it, not that coffee essence muck that looks like gravy browning and smells like dirty socks. She drank it very slowly, savouring each delicious mouthful.

  As she was finishing her coffee, Robert slouched into the kitchen, swallowed down a mug of scalding coffee in two seconds flat, and Cassie followed him into the yard.

  At the far end was a smart new building, much grander than the cottage, and from it came some loud and ominous sounds, like somebody in pain.

  A moment later Frances Ashford rode into the yard, her bike wheels bumping on the frozen cobbles. ‘Hello, midget,’ she began, and grinned. ‘You didn’t run away, then. We were afraid we might have scared you off, that you’d be on the first train back to Birmingham this morning.’

  ‘Did you?’ Cassie tried her best to grin and sound relaxed and self-assured. ‘I don’t scare easily.’

  ‘So I see,’ said Frances. ‘Rob?’ she added, turning to the grumpy twin. ‘What shall we do with Cassie? If we have to show her how to milk, she’s going to hold us up. The lorry will be here before we’ve finished. She could feed the chickens, couldn’t she?’

  ‘Dad says she has to learn about the cows,’ said Robert gruffly. ‘When Steve and I have gone, you two will have to manage them between you, so she might as well get cracking.’

  Robert glanced at Cassie. ‘Go and put on a pair of rubber boots, you’ll find some in the porch,’ he snapped, and then he strode away.

  ‘Come on, midget, get a move on.’ Frances clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘We haven’t got all morning.’

  Cassie pulled on some rubber Wellingtons that were far too big – these toffs all have enormous feet, she muttered to herself – and then she scuttled after Frances.

  She had never seen anything like it, or imagined it. As she followed the other land girl into the warm cowshed, rows of brown and golden cows all turned around to stare.

  Shaggy-coated beasts as big as rag-and-bone men’s ponies, with huge, brown bulbous eyes, they gazed with curiosity at Cassie, who suddenly felt sick and ill with dread.

  She realised she was going to have to touch one. But she couldn’t, it would bite her hand off, it would trample her to death.

  ‘The churns are ready.’ Stephen came in, blowing on his hands. ‘Come on, you lazy devils, shift yourselves. The lorry will be here in an hour. Cassie, grab a bucket. I’ll show you what to do.’

  Cassie picked up a new-scoured metal bucket. She followed Stephen down the rows of cows, flinching as their tails swished her shoulders, and watching out for vicious, stamping hooves.

  ‘This is Daisy,’ Stephen told her, patting a golden-coated animal which was chewing placidly and watching them with interest. ‘She’s our friendliest, most docile cow. We called her after Daisy, our big sister.’

  ‘Your sister’s Daisy Denham?’ whispered Cassie, as she eyed the munching cow with horror and disgust, looking at the bulging, swollen thing between its legs and wondering how on earth you got at it without being kicked to bits. ‘Do you mean the film star?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been in a couple of films,’ said Stephen carelessly, raking back his straight, black hair, then sitting down on a three-legged stool. ‘We’re very proud of Daze. There are lots of pictures of her on the sideboard in the sitting room. Didn’t you notice when Mum showed you round?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ But Cassie was so busy being terrified of all the cows that she didn’t have time to be impressed.

  Stephen stuck a metal bucket underneath the cow.

  Cassie watched him squeeze the swollen thing. She saw the milk come spurting out in streams, and she heard Daisy sigh contentedly.

  ‘Now you do it,’ Stephen said. ‘Cass, don’t look so worried, she can’t bite you, she’s tied up. Sit down on the stool here. Get a bit closer, lean your head against her flank – that’s right. Now, you just go on squeezing, until the bucket’s full and Daisy’s empty, and that’s all you have to do.’

  Cassie sat down. She braced herself. She groped for Daisy’s udder, found a teat and yanked at it.

  Daisy yelped and kicked the bucket over.

  Cassie fell backwards off the milking stool.

  Frances and Robert turned to stare. Robert glowered, but Frances laughed out loud.

  I’ll show them, Cassie thought. She sat down on the stool again, and shoved the bucket underneath the cow. Daisy shifted, stamped a bit, put one foot in the bucket, and then began to moo in – panic, irritation, anger, pain?

  ‘Get out of the way, you idiot,’ muttered Robert testily. ‘There, there, girl,’ he murmured, stroking Daisy’s heaving side. ‘Steve, take Cassie to feed the hens, all right? Fran and I can manage by ourselves.’

  Stephen looked as if he was considering arguing, but Robert glared at him so angrily that he backed down again.

  ‘Come on, Cass,’ he said, and walked out of the shed with Cassie trailing after him.

  Robert and Frances got on with the milking, both annoyed they were so far behind.

  As he made his way along the row of lowing cows, who were all annoyed to be kept waiting and wanted him to know about it, he decided he’d been right about this idiot. They couldn’t afford to keep a time-waster on this particular farm. He would probably tell his father later on today.

  ‘Robert?’ murmured Frances, as she was moving on to the next cow. ‘You’re very quiet today, even for you.’

  ‘I was just thinking,’ Robert said.

  ‘Yes, I bet,’ said Frances, and she grimaced. ‘Let me guess – about our new recruit, our little pixie with the pretty face and cheeky grin. She’ll never make a land girl.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right.’

  Robert was u
sed to Frances, who was always watching Stephen jealously. She’d been so disconcerted to see him come into the Lion last night with an attractive blonde girl on his arm.

  Poor Fran, he thought, she doesn’t know it’s hopeless. Or she won’t accept it, anyway. ‘You don’t need to worry about Cassie, Fran,’ he said. ‘She’ll soon be on her way back home to Birmingham. Anyway, she isn’t Stephen’s type.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re going on about,’ said Frances, as she picked her stool up and moved on down the row.

  ‘I’m his brother, Fran,’ said Robert. ‘So I know him best – and don’t forget I know you, too. He won’t be interested in whatsername, take it from me.’

  When he glanced at Frances, she was scarlet in the face, but she didn’t say any more. She just sat down and then got on with milking the next cow.

  ‘It’s just that they’re so blooming big,’ said Cassie, as she lugged two buckets of warm mash into the chicken run, where she was soon mobbed by hungry hens, all pecking crossly at her feet.

  ‘They’re actually quite small,’ said Stephen, opening more wooden coops and letting out more chickens. ‘Ayrshires and Holsteins, for example, are a whole lot bigger, and they’re more aggressive, too. Jerseys are the gentle ones.’

  ‘I must have hurt her, then.’

  ‘I don’t think you did, but sudden movements startle cows, and then they’re liable to kick out. You’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry. Come on, Cass, we must collect the eggs.’

  ‘I didn’t think hens laid eggs in winter?’

  ‘You thought right – left to themselves, they don’t. But Mum’s determined to encourage them to lay all the year round. So they get a better diet than we do, and thanks to our old generator their new coops are always warm and light.’

  Cassie took a basket, went into a hen coop, and then began to fill the straw-lined pannier with freckled, new-laid eggs.

  ‘Lay them in rows,’ said Stephen. ‘Then put layers of straw between the rows. If you just heap them up like that, they’ll break and Mum will kill you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Stephen.’ Cassie looked at him hangdog, then she sighed. ‘I’m pretty useless, aren’t I?’

  ‘This is your first day, and once you’ve found your feet I’m sure you’re going to be all right, so please don’t worry.’ Stephen smiled encouragingly. ‘Everybody has to learn, and this is new to you.’

  After the lorry had been to fetch the milk, after they’d washed everything down and left the cows all munching happily, the four of them trooped in to have their breakfast.

  It wasn’t true about the hens enjoying better diets than the humans, and Cassie cheered up at the sight of breakfast, for there were great big bowls of steaming porridge, plates of bacon, sausages and eggs, racks of toast, and coffee or tea to wash the whole lot down. You wouldn’t have known there was a war on.

  ‘Get stuck in then, midget,’ murmured Frances, heaping crisp-fried red and golden rashers on to Cassie’s plate. ‘This is Sally,’ she continued, grinning. ‘She was one of Mr Hobson’s pigs – a black one with a pretty little snout and curly tail. Next week, we’ll be eating Bess or Patsy.’

  ‘Stop it, Fran,’ said Stephen.

  But Frances took no notice. ‘You must be hungry after all that work,’ she went on slyly, making Cassie want to stick her tongue out at the bitch.

  ‘How did you get on, then?’ asked Mr Denham kindly, as he poured thick cream on to his porridge.

  ‘Um – not very well,’ admitted Cassie, who expected to be ratted on by Frances, then told to get the next train back to Birmingham. She hoped she’d have a chance to get her breakfast down her first. ‘I wasn’t any good at milking.’

  ‘You did your best,’ said Stephen, dipping his fried bread into his egg.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Frances, as she poured herself more coffee, making Cassie stare, astonished. So who would tell, she wondered. It was going to be Robert, obviously.

  But Robert didn’t speak. He just sat there, buttering his toast, then spreading it with honey from a jar.

  The minutes ticked on by, and the Denhams talked of other things. Much to her relief, Robert didn’t say she had been hopeless with the cows.

  When he glanced up, she smiled at him in gratitude.

  He didn’t return her smile.

  Somehow, with a lot of help and encouragement from Stephen, even though she got shouted at and bossed around by Robert, and Frances criticised her all the time, Cassie got through the day.

  Looking at the twins in daylight, she observed that Robert was bigger, broader and no doubt much stronger than his brother, and that his sullen features were more regularly handsome. Too handsome, she decided ruefully. They were a distraction. They invited her to look at him, even when she didn’t want to look. He should have a warning notice tattooed on his forehead, saying idiot women keep away.

  Robert was the leader. Stephen looked to Robert for approval, but Robert didn’t care what anybody thought of him.

  ‘Frances lives at home,’ Stephen explained, as they watched her cycle off into the frosty gloaming later on that afternoon. ‘Poor Fran, her parents are quite elderly, and she’s an only child, so she gets somewhat smothered. When her call-up papers came, Sir Stuart and Lady Ashford more or less insisted she should stay in Dorset. But I don’t think she wants to be a land girl.’

  ‘What would she like to do, then?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘She says she’d like to join the ATS. But Lady Ashford thinks the ATS is common, and Fran would meet all sorts of awful people, and so she’s put her foot down.’

  ‘Lady Ashford,’ murmured Cassie, thinking blimey, was I supposed to curtsey? ‘Do they live in that castle I passed on my way here?’

  ‘Castle?’ repeated Stephen, frowning.

  ‘Yes, that big, square place with all those towers and lots of little windows. It’s built of yellow stone.’

  ‘Oh, you mean Charton Minster.’ Stephen laughed. ‘No, that’s a boarding school for wayward boys. But, funnily enough, our mother lived there once, because her family owned it.’

  ‘Did they?’ Cassie looked at Stephen and it was her turn to frown. ‘So why do you all live in this – um – ’

  ‘Hovel?’ Stephen shook his head and sighed. ‘As I believe I told you, once we lived in Melbury House. But after it burned down we had to move into the cottage. We hope to get the house rebuilt one day. But farmers didn’t make much money in the 1930s. We didn’t have the cash.’

  ‘You must be doing better these days, though?’

  ‘Yes, the war has made things easier, even though it’s hard to get the labour. The country’s growing most of its own food, and the government pays the farmers well. But in the 1930s, this country was importing almost everything we ate, and British farmers were going out of business every day. Dad was almost bankrupt by 1939. I honestly don’t know how he held on.’

  ‘But he managed it.’

  ‘Yes, but he owes money to the banks. Mum is getting old before her time, and Dad’s not well at all.’ Stephen shrugged. ‘That’s enough family history, Cass. Let’s go and have some supper.’

  After he had thought about it for a little while, and realised it would be very difficult to get another land girl at short notice, Robert decided to give Cassie Taylor a chance to prove herself. After all, he thought, if I get rid of Cassie, they might send us someone even worse.

  But, after she had given a couple of cows mastitis by tugging at their udders, he finally made his mind up. He ignored the little voice which told him he found her quite attractive, that if she wasn’t here at Melbury, he’d miss her, wouldn’t he?

  Cassie had to go.

  ‘I’ve written to the Ministry,’ he said, as he and Stephen walked across the cobbled yard, a few days later that same week.

  ‘I tore your letter up.’ Stephen glanced at Robert, whose mouth had fallen open in surprise – for no one was allowed to cross Rob Denham, least of all his twin. ‘You lef
t the letter on the kitchen table, assuming Mum would post it when she went into the village. So I opened it, and then made an executive decision. Cassie’s trying hard to be a land girl, and I think she ought to stay.’

  ‘So Fran was right,’ growled Robert.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve fallen for a skinny little slum kid with a cheeky smile and pretty face. It doesn’t matter that she’s useless, worse than useless, and – ’

  ‘Now you’re being stupid.’ Stephen scowled at Robert, who glowered back at him. ‘Yes, she’s very attractive, but I haven’t fallen for her, as you choose to put it. She’s probably got a boyfriend, anyway. He’ll be on a convoy, or in North Africa.’

  ‘Or selling stolen goods on the black market, or in some prison cell, or – ’

  ‘Listen, Rob,’ said Stephen patiently. ‘It’s damned near impossible to get a useful land girl. Mum’s had half a dozen, and none of them have been a patch on Frances. Cassie’s very skinny, I agree, but Mum is doing her best to feed her up. I think we ought to keep her on.’

  ‘It’s like I said, you’ve fallen for her, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, but someone needs to be on Cassie’s side,’ said Stephen, who was getting angry now. ‘You scowl and glare and shout at the poor girl. She takes it on the chin and does her best. She’s trying hard to learn. She doesn’t shirk, she doesn’t whine, she doesn’t grumble, even when she’s half dead from exhaustion. Once she’s found her feet, she’s going to be an asset here. You know it.’

  ‘I suppose she’s willing,’ conceded Robert. ‘Yes, she tries – I’ll give her that.’

  ‘As we’re agreed, she’s quite attractive, too.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Robert shrugged. ‘If you like anaemic-looking, scrawny little blondes, which I can’t say I do.’

  ‘So let’s give her another week, at least?’

  ‘All right,’ said Robert. ‘But if she doesn’t learn to milk a cow and do it properly by Wednesday week, she’s on the next train home.’

  Cassie was determined to show everyone in Melbury that she was every bit as good as Frances.