The Meadow Girls

by Sheila Newberry

  Mattie busied herself at home, preparing for the baby, something Megan had put off, saying there was plenty of time. The old trunk yielded up a few items she’d forgotten, like two tiny flour-sack night-gowns, trimmed with lace at neck and cuffs. She washed them by hand, and pressed them carefully, as she had for the little Megan.

  A specialist was called in to give an opinion. He thought that the baby should be delivered a month early by caesarean section. Mattie and Griff were asked to give permission as her next of kin. They were told gravely that time was of the essence. Both the mother and her baby’s life were in danger.

  Megan awoke at last to see a nurse with a thermometer in her hand and a big smile on her face.

  ‘I’m . . . still here?’ she managed. Her mouth was very dry, and although she wanted to, she couldn’t manage to struggle up in the bed. Her hands strayed to her abdomen. It was flat, but padded with dressings. She winced as pain gripped her, then receded.

  ‘You’re still here,’ the nurse agreed. She opened the cubicle door, called out: ‘She’s come round – you can see her for five minutes, but no more, this time. She is due for some pain relief.’

  ‘Mommy, Dad.’ Megan lay there, with a drip attached to her arm. ‘What’s happened?’

  Mattie couldn’t speak for a moment. Griff took Megan’s limp hand in his warm clasp. ‘You have a baby daughter, Megan . . .’

  ‘Where is she?’ Megan asked.

  ‘She’s in the nursery with other premature babies, but she’s fine. Not a bad weight. The doctors are checking her over. You’ll see her very soon.’

  ‘I thought it would be a boy,’ Megan said, like her mother before her.

  ‘But you don’t mind?’ Mattie found her voice.

  ‘No . . . so long as she’s all right . . . Mom, I can’t remember . . . the baby being born.’

  ‘That’s because they had to put you out, operate,’ Griff said.

  ‘You’ll have to stay here while you recover,’ Mattie had to tell her.

  The nurse came back. ‘Time’s up. Oh, have you a name for your baby, Megan?’

  ‘I thought . . . I’d call her after her two grandmas, but I’m not sure which – Grace Matilda, or Matilda Grace.’

  Her tactful father said, ‘There’s only one Mattie, eh? Your Mom. Grace is good.’

  Megan and Grace came home just before Megan’s nineteenth birthday, and Christmas. At Megan’s suggestion Mattie and Griff had redecorated her bedroom. Down had come the childish posters, the film star photographs, but the picture of Tommy remained. They papered the walls with pink paper with a tiny silver star pattern, and Griff made a mobile of hand-painted butterflies to hang over the crib.

  Mattie gave up her job. She was needed at home, she said. She could tell that Megan was not really ready to be a mother. ‘I can do the practical bits,’ she told Griff. ‘She’ll grow up fast. All she needs to do for now is give Grace plenty of love.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  APRIL 1945

  Mattie had not written much since her prairie articles for the newspaper; in wartime there was not much call for nostalgia, with more immediate action to report. She missed the quiet enjoyment of sitting down with pencil and paper and expressing her thoughts. Among the gifts for the baby was a book to record her progress, with space for photographs and anecdotes.

  ‘You might as well have this, Mom,’ Megan said casually, passing it over. ‘I know I wouldn’t keep it up to date – I never did with diaries, eh?’

  ‘She’s depressed,’ Mattie thought with a pang of fear, as she remembered what had happened to Ena, young Robbie’s mother.

  This was confirmed when she went into Megan’s room one morning, carrying Gracie, as Griff had soon dubbed her, freshly bathed and fed, to lay her down for her nap. Megan had gone back to bed – not downstairs to tackle the baby’s washing, as her mother believed.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked, when Gracie was in the crib. She suddenly realised: it must be exactly a year since Megan and Tommy had been together, in London . . .

  ‘Oh, Mom, I didn’t get much sleep last night. She wouldn’t stop crying . . .’

  ‘She just needed a cuddle, maybe, and a drink.’

  ‘I know. It would have been so much easier, she would have been more contented, if I’d been able to nurse her myself, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Darling, you couldn’t help that. You were so poorly after she was born, it seemed best to start her on the formula milk.’

  ‘Mom – I keep thinking what I could have done with my life, if—’

  ‘Well, you would have married Tommy, I guess, and then had a baby.’

  ‘Perhaps not. I thought it was real love – but we didn’t have time to find out whether it would last, did we? Mom, when I was in the bath earlier, I looked at my scar. It’s still livid. They told me at the hospital it would be unwise for me to have another child. I don’t suppose any man would want me, knowing that. I guess I’m stuck with my lot for a good few years yet, and I don’t have a career to fulfil me, like Aunt Evie.’

  Mattie surprised herself. ‘You could do something about that. You could apply to go to college in the fall. I’d look after Gracie, with help from your dad . . .’

  Megan sat up. ‘Mom, d’you mean that? Isn’t it too much to ask of you both?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ Mattie said firmly, hoping that Griff would agree. ‘Why not write to Evie, and ask her advice?’

  ‘I will, today!’ Megan threw back the covers, swung her legs out of bed. She’d donned a clean pair of pyjamas after her bath, and on impulse, she’d fastened Max’s pin to the lapel. Mattie noticed but, wisely, didn’t comment.

  Evie, in England, was considering her own future. The evacuees were returning to London and the suburbs, to schools preparing for the influx. The war in Europe was not officially at an end, but there was renewed determination among the population that things would be better in the future. Rationing was still strict, and it was just as well that folk were unaware that this would carry on for years after the war was over.

  The year of 1944 would never be forgotten because of D-Day, but also for the white paper in Parliament, outlining the proposed National Health Service, and R.A (‘Rab’) Butler’s Education Bill, which promised good secondary education for all children.

  Their friend Noreen resumed her teaching post in London, but Evie and Rhoda were still undecided. In due course, the Amy Able would be once more a teachers’ training college, but the original staff, including Dr Withers, were taking well-deserved retirement, which had been deferred due to the war. A new head was to be appointed; both Rhoda and Evie received letters asking them if they were interested in applying for this position.

  Rhoda’s father was now vicar of a country church. The mission field was unsafe still in many parts of the ravaged world. Evie decided she wanted to continue teaching, rather than be in administration, so she urged Rhoda to put her own name forward.

  ‘Only if you agree to stay. I’d need your back-up if I get the job,’ Rhoda insisted.

  Both appointments were confirmed a few days before Evie received Megan’s letter, enclosing a brief note from Mattie: Please don’t feel you should discourage her, for my sake – you did your bit all those years ago with young Robbie – now it is my turn!

  Megan studied Evie’s response, then she passed the letter to her mother, at the breakfast table. Griff was just leaving for work. ‘Tell me later, after you’ve talked it over,’ he said. Gracie jigged in her high chair, knowing she was about to have a kiss. She loved her grandpa, that was obvious, and the feeling was mutual. ‘Look after my girl,’ he added, and Mattie and Megan knew he meant his little granddaughter. Gracie was not a bonny baby, as Megan had been – she didn’t take after her mother in looks; she was small and skinny, with wispy brown hair and dark eyes with a fleeting squint. However, there were definitely signs of Megan’s spirit when she refused to swallow a spoonful of spinach purée. Her red fa
ce and tightly closed mouth showed her determination.

  Dear Megan,

  My advice is, if your parents are happy to look after your baby while you gain further qualifications, send off those applications now! Just what Mattie urged me to do, at your age! Like you, I had family responsibilities, but ‘there is always a way’.

  Why don’t you apply for teacher training? Over here, because of the urgent need for experienced staff, the courses have been shortened to two years, instead of three. Is it the same in the States? I’d be thrilled if you decided to follow in my footsteps!

  I have decided to stay on here at the Amy Able as a lecturer in English. So, I have had to make a decision regarding Plough Cottage, which will shortly be derequisitioned. I hope to retire there in twenty or so years’ time, but in the meantime, I am offering it as a home for young Robbie, when he is demobbed and marries his fiancée. He will inherit the place eventually, as Mattie knows, but why shouldn’t they have the pleasure of living there now?

  Good luck, my dear – my best love to you and Gracie, Mattie and Griff.

  From Evie.

  ‘Right!’ Megan cried. ‘I’ll be a teacher! Long vacations will make life easier for you and Dad. I’ll enjoy playing mom to Gracie then!’

  Mattie wasn’t quite sure that ‘playing mom’ was the right expression, but, as she’d learned to do with Megan lately, she kept that thought to herself.

  VE Day, 8th May

  ‘We’ll have an early, extra Thanksgiving celebration,’ Mattie decided. ‘A family affair, I think – the war is far from over in the Pacific—’ she was about to add: when the boys come home for good, that’ll be the time to pull out all the stops, when she thought of those who would never return, including Tommy. She glanced at Megan, but she was engrossed in a bulky letter which had arrived among others for her in the morning post.

  Megan looked up, flushed with excitement. ‘I didn’t expect a reply so soon, but I’ve been invited to an interview! I’ll need references – from school, the army and from a “professional person” it says. D’you think Lloyd would qualify, being a professor?’

  ‘I imagine so. They’ll be joining us for dinner, you could talk to him then. Not much point enquiring about others for a day or two, till all the excitement dies down, eh? You didn’t say where the letter was from, Megan.’

  ‘Well, not Minot State Teachers College, only a mile or two from home, as you hoped. It seems too many applied earlier than me. I’d have to live on campus, if I get a place at this one. It’s still North Dakota, but miles away.’

  She doesn’t sound as she’d mind that at all, Mattie reflected wryly to herself. I hope it’s not rattlesnake territory – no poisonous snakes in Minot, thank goodness! You could even enjoy the song of the meadow lark when they picnicked in the hills on a summer’s day. She’d liked the idea of the local college, which had a mainly female intake. She said: ‘Look, I need your help now. Your father’s out front cleaning the car, as he’s got a day off. Tell him to leave the bucket and sponge and get over to that farm where they promised us a turkey. First come, first served, remind him.’

  ‘I’ll go with him, shall I?’ Megan was too eager.

  ‘I’d rather you looked after Gracie for the day, if you want to avoid being too involved in the kitchen!’ There, I’ve made my point, Mattie thought.

  Unabashed, Megan returned: ‘OK Mom! I might push her to town in the pram, to see all the flags flying!’

  ‘I wonder if they’ve decorated Teddy Roosevelt’s statue in Roosevelt Park?’ Mattie mused. ‘Plenty of high jinks in Trafalgar Square in London, I heard on the wireless. Street parties being organised – I can’t imagine much going on at the Amy Able, can you, though? Just a few staff in residence, life will be pretty much the same as usual there . . .’

  ‘Maybe not, with the Yanks not too far away!’ Megan grinned.

  Sybil hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, which was unusual. She wore a simple white blouse and, to Mattie’s surprise, serviceable blue jeans. Her hair, which she had grown, was now more white than blonde, and was combed back into a chignon; it actually made her look younger. She had retained her trim figure into her early sixties. She sat down gratefully on the proffered chair and sipped a celebratory glass of sparkling wine while talking to Mattie, who was taking a breather before serving dinner. Megan was actually putting the baby to bed upstairs.

  ‘Lloyd will be over in a little while. He’s been working far too hard, and the doctor says it’s time he gave up. I’m still busy, of course, with my cosmetic courses, but I have some very capable assistants who could take over. It’s time we both retired.’

  ‘You’re thinking of moving away from here?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘In the autumn: I still can’t think of it as the fall, as you do! First, we plan to take a holiday during August: visit Lloyd’s sister Ruth and family on Juan Island, a ferry ride from Puget Sound, Washington. She and her husband have a ranch there – together with comfortable quarters, all mod cons for visitors who enjoy helping with the chores. There’s not the usual student lot, due to the war, so I wondered if you and Griff would join us there for a couple of weeks, and if he would like to be involved in the harvest?’

  ‘Well, I know Griff will jump at the chance! But what about Megan and Gracie?’

  ‘They can come too! It would do Megan good to work hard outdoors in the fresh air – while you and I relax in the sunshine and keep an eye on the baby.’

  ‘Megan’d be fit to go on to college then. I’ll persuade them, don’t worry!’

  ‘Lucky I didn’t let you throw out my old farm boots, Mattie!’ Griff teased her, as he finished carving the turkey, and the plates were passed round the table.

  ‘Oh, those monstrosities! Wait till you see them, Sybil; I did dispose of the old knee britches he wore with ‘em – they were so stiff, they could stand up without him in them! Those boots were the very devil to do up, a double row of flat hooks down the front, and long laces which crisscross one to another, and tuck behind the hooks.’

  ‘They don’t make them like that nowadays,’ Griff said regretfully.

  ‘Just as well!’ But Mattie was smiling, too. ‘Now, pass the vegetables round.’

  Never mind that the pastry on the pumpkin pie was not as short as prewar, fats being rationed. They drank to a liberated Europe and to a speedy end to the war with Japan.

  In Lincolnshire Evie and Rhoda attended a thanksgiving service in the local church, followed by a lively social gathering in the village pub. A band played music out on the green, and there were indeed American servicemen dancing with local girls.

  Evie and her friend sat a little apart, enjoying the music and the fun, but lost in their own thoughts. Evie hoped that Dave, whom she hadn’t heard from again, had come through safely and that he would soon be home with his family. She was content with her lot; it was not the life she had envisaged, but still a good one.

  August 1945

  Four months previously President Roosevelt had died, and Harry Truman, the Vice-President, took his place. On 23rd May, Winston Churchill resigned, but formed a caretaker government. There was a general election on 5th July. There had been general unrest in the country since the spring, and despite the promise of sweeping changes in health and education, the Labour Party was ready to take over. It took time to count all the votes, especially from those serving overseas in the armed forces.

  When the Potsdam Conference resumed it was Clement Atlee who joined Truman and an increasingly dominant Stalin. Churchill was rejected, and dejected.

  The family were on San Juan Island when the news came that the atom bombs had destroyed Hiroshima on the 6th of August and devastated Nagasaki on the ninth. The war was over, and the harvest was under way.

  Megan was in her element. ‘You can drive?’ Ruth’s husband, Jock, a Scotsman by birth, was delighted when she said ‘yes’. After the wheat had been cut and piled into stooks Megan drove to the field in a truck and stopped by each stook i
n turn. Sometimes it was Griff who stuck his pitchfork into the stook and tossed it into the truck, where another man dealt with it. She drove through woodland to an outlying barn where it was unloaded, then back to the ranch to repeat the performance.

  Gracie, in gingham rompers and a tiny baseball cap, crawled on a rug on a stretch of grass under a shady tree. Mattie, in shorts and T-shirt, and Sybil, in a dirndl skirt and sleeveless blouse, sat on canvas seats, taking it in turns to jump out and propel Gracie back on to the rug whenever she tried to venture further. She thought it was a good game. Lloyd sat engrossed in a book. Ruth joined them with a tray of lemonade and home-made shortbread.

  ‘I’ve never been so lazy before in my whole life,’ Mattie confessed, ‘I like it!’

  ‘Your Megan’s a marvel,’ Ruth commented, watching the truck in the distance.

  ‘Yes she is,’ Mattie agreed. Megan was enjoying being young and unattached again, she thought. She was sure now that they were doing the right thing, leaving her free to go to college with other girls of her age.

  It was a golden holiday, golden grain, glorious sunshine and best of all, peace.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Gracie was eight years old and still living with her grandparents in spring, 1953. Sometimes Mattie looked at her, wondering where all the years had gone to. Not that she or Griff could imagine parting with her now. When Megan qualified as a primary school teacher she had been offered a post near the border of North Dakota and Manitoba, in Canada. It was a small school, taking pupils up to seventh grade, and she said it reminded her of the one she had attended herself before the move to the city.

  They’d agreed then that it would be easier for Megan to carry out her duties if Gracie were to join her mother when she was of school age herself, but so far this hadn’t happened, because Gracie needed frequent visits to the ophthalmic clinic as her squint became more of a problem. It was Mattie who patiently applied eye drops, supervised special exercises to try to strengthen and straighten the weak eye, and persuaded Gracie to wear spectacles with one blacked-out lens. Eventually, an operation was deemed necessary. It was an anxious time, reassuring a fractious child, but fortunately it was a success. Mattie convinced herself that Megan would not have had the time to deal with all this.