by Pamela Bell
‘Another letter for Mr Verney? Captain Verney, I should say,’ she added archly. ‘My, he must be glad to get your letters, Miss Haywood.’
‘I hope they remind him of home.’
Rose Haywood. Levi stored up the name. She had a musical voice, as pretty as the rest of her. She hadn’t seen him behind her but the postmistress was giving him a suspicious stare and he dropped his eyes and tried to look as if he were just standing in the queue.
‘You’ll be looking forward to him coming home, I expect.’
‘Yes, of course. I don’t think it will be soon, unfortunately.’
‘No, the news from the front isn’t good, is it?’ The postmistress took a coin from Rose and gave her some change. ‘There you are.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Rigg.’ Unaware that he was behind her, Rose turned and Levi stepped quickly out of her way.
‘Oh, excuse me,’ she said.
‘My fault,’ gasped Levi, and leapt to open the door for her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and she smiled at him as she passed.
She smiled at him! A proper smile, unshadowed by any awareness of his uniform. Just a simple, sweet, dazzling smile that left Levi feeling giddy.
In a daze of wonder, he turned back to the counter where Mrs Rigg regarded him with all the suspicion Rose had lacked.
‘Turn out your pockets,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I want to see what’s in your pockets,’ she said. ‘We’ve had soldiers pilfering in t’shops here ever since that camp opened. I’m not saying you’re not doing your duty, son, and good on you for that, but I don’t hold with thieving, so if you’ve got anything in your pockets you shouldn’t, you just take it out now.’
‘I haven’t stolen anything!’ Levi emptied his pockets, slamming the few coins onto the counter and showing her the insides. ‘There! That’s all my money. Satisfied now?’
She nodded, unperturbed by his anger. ‘It’s as well to check. So, what can I get you?’
Levi didn’t want to buy anything from her, but he had better have some reason for being in the post office.
‘A stamp to Ireland,’ he said sullenly, trying to get back his delight at having been on the receiving end of Rose Haywood’s smile.
‘No letter?’
He gritted his teeth. ‘No. The stamp is for my brother. He’s writing to his wife in Ireland at the moment. Is there anything else you need to know or could I just buy a stamp?’
Mrs Rigg raised her brows. ‘There’s no call for that kind of attitude, young man,’ she said.
Levi snatched at the stamp and his change and flung out of the post office, his good mood soured. Rose, of course, had long gone.
Still at least he had seen her. He had heard her voice. She had smiled at him. That was enough, Levi told himself.
There was still half an afternoon to waste. He didn’t want to go back to that blasted camp any sooner than he had to and he paused outside the smithy, drawn by the familiar tapping and clanging. Through the open door, he could see the farrier, a big fellow in the traditional leather apron, running his hand down the flank of a sturdy black carthorse. It stood tensely, and when he touched its fetlock, it let fly with a kick that had him swearing through the nails clamped between his teeth.
‘Come on, Florrie, mi lass, it’s for yer own good,’ he muttered.
Levi went in. ‘Want a hand?’
The smith looked up with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. ‘I didn’t see you there. Did you want summat?’
‘No, I was just passing.’ Levi looked around the cluttered smithy. ‘It reminded me of home.’
The smith took in Levi’s khaki uniform. ‘You at the camp?’
Levi nodded. ‘I miss horses,’ he said.
‘Should have joined the cavalry,’ said the smith.
‘Should have thought about a lot of things before joining up,’ Levi said frankly and the smith nodded.
‘Aye, I reckon there’s plenty in the same boat. My lad, Billy, he were wild to enlist too. Wouldn’t listen to nobody with owt sensible to say.’
He bent back to pick up the horse’s hoof, only to jump out of the way as she kicked again. ‘Ah, yer bugger!’
‘I’ll hold her.’ Levi went round to her head. ‘Now, Florrie, is it? Why don’t you keep still while your man finishes, eh?’
Florrie snorted and blew into his ear while he talked nonsense to distract her until the smith straightened.
‘That’s done,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’ He wiped his hands on a rag. ‘Will Hutton,’ he introduced himself gruffly.
‘Levi Dingle.’
‘You know horses, young Levi?’
‘A bit.’
‘Well, if you want summat to do, why don’t you take Florrie out back and bring in Prince? I’d appreciate a hand to finish up.’
Chapter Fourteen
Maggie rested the pitchfork against the wall and dragged the back of her arm across her forehead. Outside, November had brought plummeting temperatures, but here in the barn the cows created a warm fug. They shuffled and huffed as Maggie cleaned out the straw and laid fresh for them, shoving against their bulk to move them out of the way. She had learnt to like cleaning out the barn, a chore Joe had always moaned about. It was hard, physical work, but Maggie didn’t mind that, and it gave her time to think.
She read Ralph’s letters until she knew them by heart, and she would mull over what he had told her about life at the front as she forked manure-splattered straw into a wheelbarrow. He was always cheerful, but Maggie could read between the lines and it was clear that the war was not going well. Ralph’s promise to be home by Christmas was no longer mentioned by either of them.
It worried Maggie that Ralph’s account of shells and shooting, of death and terrible injuries, was beginning to seem normal. It felt as if they had been at war for ever. Things that would have seemed extraordinary earlier that summer were now taken for granted. They were all used to Lord Kitchener’s recruitment posters, to the notices urging housewives to practice economy, to rising food prices and the growing lists of casualties that were pinned up on the board outside the post office.
The news from the front was depressing, and Maggie stopped buying a newspaper. It was too much to think about what was happening over in France so she thought about Emmerdale Farm instead. Together she and Frank had managed to finish ploughing the fields and had sowed a winter crop of oats, and soon she would bring the sheep down from the hill to keep them close to the farm in case of snow.
They were managing. Maggie was proud about that. Tom Skilbeck had waited in vain for her to go crawling back and beg him to take over the farm. There were still plenty of folk in Beckindale who pursed their lips disapprovingly at the idea of a woman running a farm, and shook their heads at the unladylike trousers she wore, but Maggie didn’t care. She was used to being eyed askance.
Dot brought the news from the village when she came up every morning. So Maggie knew that Ernest Burrows had joined up even though he was only sixteen and his ma had clouted him for a fool when she heard. That Beckindale was a-buzz with stories of terrible war atrocities, of babies butchered and women raped by the Germans. That Ava Bainbridge had bought herself a new hat and was giving out white feathers to anyone she thought should be in khaki and denouncing them as cowards. Clarence Terry had lost three hens and blamed the recruits in the training camp.
The presence of the troops so close to the village was both a source of pride and discontent in Beckindale. In principle, everybody wanted to support the men who had volunteered so promptly to fight for the country. In practice, though, the soldiers with little else to do on their days off roamed around the village and rumours swirled about petty pilfering, drunkenness and brawling, and sometimes worse. Young girls were told to cross the road if they saw a soldier coming.
‘Can’t you do something about it, Maggie?’ Ava Bainbridge had asked in her officious way, tackling Maggie as she left church. As usual there was a cluster of
village women around her, bobbing their heads anxiously.
‘Me?’ Maggie was distracted. Rose had slipped her a letter from Ralph in church and she couldn’t wait to get home so that she could read it. ‘What can I do about it?’
‘The camp is on Emmerdale land.’
Maggie fingered the letter in her pocket. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Ava. I wouldn’t interfere even if I could.’ She hadn’t forgotten that it was Ava who had told Joe about her meeting with Ralph, and had made him so angry that he had killed Toby. Maggie would never forgive her for that. ‘As far as I’m concerned, these troops are training to go out and fight with our menfolk. We should be cheering them not criticising them.’
‘You didn’t cheer our menfolk,’ said Ava. ‘You couldn’t even be bothered to come to the parade when they left.’
Maggie stared at her. ‘I didn’t realise you were keeping track of my movements, Ava.’
‘You weren’t there, were you? Everybody else was patriotic and turned out, but not you.’
Maggie thought of her cracked ribs, the bruises all over her body. She thought about her desperation to reach Ralph and the bitterness of knowing that she was too late to see more than the man she loved march past her and out of sight. ‘I was there,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter who was or wasn’t at the parade, Ava.’ Janet Airey pushed forward. ‘We’re worried about the young lasses. It’s not safe for them to walk the streets now without soldiers making lewd comments.’
‘Or even worse,’ Betty Porter put in.
‘What do you mean, worse?’ asked Maggie.
Betty looked flustered by the direct question. ‘It’s not the kind of thing girls like to talk about, but there have been lots of rumours.’
‘Oh, rumours,’ said Maggie contemptuously. Beckindale thrived on them as far as she could see.
‘I know of two girls – I won’t mention them by name,’ Janet said. ‘They’ve told their parents they’ve been, you know, touched up by soldiers. It’s upsetting.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Maggie said, ‘but I don’t see what you expect me to do about it. I don’t even know the camp commander. He’s not going to listen to me. If they’ve been hurt, the girls should go to the police. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’
‘Typical!’ Ava’s voice was shrill and pitched loud enough for Maggie to hear as she walked away. ‘Maggie Oldroyd always was too grand to involve herself with village problems.’
‘She’s probably right about going to the police,’ one of the women said. ‘If Joe Sugden was here, it would be different, but the camp commander isn’t going to listen to her, is he?’
The support might have come from Janet or possibly Mary Ann Teale, but Maggie didn’t turn round to check. She wasn’t going to get involved in their petty squabbles. She had a letter from Ralph and right then, nothing else mattered.
Young Bert Clark, the butcher’s boy, was Beckindale’s first casualty of the war. The news came like a bucket of water in Maggie’s face. Until then the war had been something that happened somewhere else, but Bert’s death was the slap of reality. Bert was not coming back for Christmas, or ever. There was a gap in the village where he had been that would never now be filled. No more Bert in his striped butcher’s apron, weaving along the streets, pedalling too fast on his bike, whistling out of tune. No more Bert with his cheery smile and the tuft of hair that would never stay flat. He had been blown up by a shell in a muddy field in northern France and there was nothing left of him to bury.
The village was sobered by Bert’s death for a day or two but then, in the way of things, other news began to take its place: Walter Dinsdale had had another of his horses requisitioned, the price of sugar was going up, Tom Harker’s back had gone digging potatoes. And always, the weather, which had turned raw and wet and made for miserable ploughing.
Maggie and Frank had struggled to get a second field of winter oats sown. Maggie led Blossom as she trudged through the mud, dragging the plough behind her, and Frank followed to try and break up the worst of the clods. It was a long, wet day and at one point it rained so hard they had to take shelter in one of the field barns. Poor Blossom had to wait outside, while Frank and Maggie sat on a hay bale by the door.
‘We may as well have dinner,’ said Maggie, producing the pieces of pie that Dot had wrapped up for them that morning. ‘It’s a bit soggy, I’m afraid.’
She handed a piece to Frank who took a huge bite. ‘Good,’ he said through a mouthful of pie.
He spoke rarely, but Maggie was used to him now. If Frank had something to say, he would say it, in as few words as possible.
She was hungrier than she had thought, and she ate her own pie sitting in companionable silence on the bale with Frank. Her trousers and coat were sodden and in spite of her hat, her hair was plastered to her face or straggling, dripping, onto her shoulders. She was cold and wet and uncomfortable, but Frank, who must have felt the same, never uttered a word of complaint, and it was strangely peaceful in the barn, surrounded by the sweet smell of hay, listening to the drumming of the rain on the roof and to Frank chewing contentedly beside her.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ she asked, noticing that he had left a crust.
‘For Blossom,’ he said. ‘She’s a good horse.’
Maggie looked out to where Blossom stood patiently in the rain with her head down. ‘Yes, she is,’ she agreed. She looked at Frank. ‘Like you. You’re a good lad, Frank.’
A smile broke out over his face and he beamed at her, delighted by the praise.
‘Here.’ She gave him the crust from her own pie. ‘Give Blossom this too.’
Frank got to his feet and careless of the rain went out to feed the crusts to the horse. ‘Good horse,’ he repeated as he came in. ‘Good lad,’ he added pointing at himself and his face screwed up with the effort of maintaining a line of thought. He pointed at Maggie. ‘Good farmer,’ he said, clearly pleased with himself for making the connection.
Maggie looked up at him, conscious of a warm glow around her heart. Did this big, gentle boy know what that meant to her, she wondered. Good farmer. She was absurdly moved by the compliment.
‘Thank you, Frank.’
Maggie was thinking of the exchange as she finished clearing out the barn and went to wash under the pump. What would happen to Frank when she left? She hoped Joe would keep him on.
Grimacing at the cold, she soaped her hands and arms. She had sent Joe brief reports on the farm, telling him what she was doing, and she made sure that he knew what a help Frank had been. In return, she had curt scrawls about his training and the chances of leave. He still had three months of training to go before they would be awarded embarkation leave. Maggie was hoping that Ralph would have come home before then, and that she would be gone.
But she did worry about Frank.
When she went into the kitchen, Dot was at the range, tipping a pan of sizzling fat from side to side. As Maggie watched, she poured in batter for a Yorkshire pudding and slipped the pan back into the oven where Maggie glimpsed an apple pie browning.
‘Smells good,’ she said. ‘I’ll lay the table.’
She went to the dresser to find the plates, and it was not until she turned round that she realised that Dot was nervously twisting her apron in her hands.
‘I’ve got summat to tell yer,’ she said abruptly.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m going to work in Bradford.’
‘Oh, Dot!’ said Maggie in involuntary dismay, putting the plates down with a clatter. ‘Oh, no!’
‘I’m right sorry,’ said Dot doggedly, ‘but there’s that many posters telling us females to take on jobs so men can go and fight, and I dunno, since Bert died, I feel like I need to do summat. My friend Ellen, she reckons they’re looking for women in t’munitions factories so’s men can go and fight. Pay’s not bad, neither,’ she added as if honour bound.
Maggie drew a steadying breath. She hadn’t realised how much she had come to
rely on Dot to keep the house running until she had to face the prospect of her going. It was a blow she hadn’t expected.
She forced a smile. ‘Of course you must go. The war’s affecting all of us now, and we each have to do what we can. It’s just … I’ll miss you,’ she confessed.
Dot hunched a shoulder, embarrassed. ‘You’ll miss my cooking, mebbe.’
‘Yes, there’s that – and Frank certainly will,’ she said. ‘You know what a terrible cook I am! But I’ll miss you as well.’
It was true. She had found Dot difficult at first, but since Joe’s departure they had been rubbing along, and Maggie had come to value Dot’s no-nonsense practicality.
Dot scowled as if to disguise her pleasure. ‘I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I never thought you’d be able to take on running of t’farm, but I reckon you’re tougher than you look.’
Coming from Dot, that was nearly as good a compliment as being a good farmer.
‘I won’t stop you going,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s the right thing to do … but, oh, Dot, how will I manage without you?’
‘I’ll ask around in t’village, see if there’s anyone fancying being a farm lass.’
But no one wanted to go to Emmerdale Farm. ‘I’ve told them you’re all right,’ Dot reported, but all the lasses are looking for jobs now, and the younger girls, well, their mams don’t want them so near the training camp.’
Or near Maggie Sugden, Maggie guessed. She wore trousers, had been involved in a scandalous affair with Ralph Verney, had been beaten up by husband … She understood why the mothers wanted their daughters to go to a more respectable household.
Hearing the news about Dot’s departure and sensing weakness, Tom Skilbeck renewed his offer to take over the farm. ‘Would you take on Frank?’ Maggie had asked, but he’d shaken his head.
‘I don’t have time for sentimentality. The boy’s not all there, and that’s a fact. My men can manage Emmerdale.’
So Maggie had turned him down again and probably made herself another enemy.
Now she summoned a smile for Dot. ‘Thanks for asking around, Dot.’