Ness dumped the clothes basket on the kitchen table, offering to do the ironing, but Martha said she would see to it, though maybe Ness would take a couple of jugs to the workers, if she would be so kind?
And maybe, Ness thought as she made her way to the hayfield with jugs of ice-cold water from the pump, ironing was too warm an occupation on days such as this; days when the sun beat down from a clear summer sky; days when you could forget that places like Liverpool existed. Almost forget, that was …
Two letters had been delivered to Ladybower House; one for Lorna and the other, propped up on the kitchen mantelpiece, for Ness – the one she had been expecting from her mother.
‘So did William mention me?’ Ness hesitated. ‘Did he –’
‘Not a word. But today’s letter would have been written before he phoned. And he’s sure to book a call tonight. It’ll be all right, Ness. I want you to stay.’
‘Ar, but does your husband?’
‘We’ll worry about William when I’ve had his next letter – or another phone call. Now, tell me about the haymaking. How’s it going?’
‘Like the clappers. Rowley was going to work as long as it was light, he said, so he could get the big field cut. Then tomorrow they’ll start on the ten-acre field. And I forgot. There’ll be a rabbit for me tomorrow. Goff shot ten in the big field; half for him, half for the farm. I said I couldn’t skin a rabbit, so Martha said she would do it for me. Said she’d ask Goff for a nice young one, then you could roast it.’ Ness wrinkled her nose. She had heard of rabbit stew but never roast rabbit. ‘Can you roast them, Lorna?’
‘Yes, indeed. Fill the ribcage with thyme and parsley stuffing, then roast them gently on the middle shelf of the oven. Carefully carved, rabbit has a texture like chicken. William says half the chicken you get in restaurants is rabbit.’
‘Fancy that, now.’ Oh dear, they were back to William again. ‘You got any news, Lorna?’
‘Yes, I have. Heard it on the one o’clock bulletin, then had it again from Nance. There’s going to be recruiting for a Home Army. They’re going to call it the Local Defence Volunteers and Mr Churchill wants one in every town and village. Made up of civilians, it’ll be, and they’ll be trained to shoot and put up tank traps and generally make things awkward for the Germans – if they come. Seems there’s no end of things they can do to help out. I think it must be very serious if they’re asking older men to fight. Every man who is able-bodied is expected to join.’
‘And what about women? Can we join, an’ all?’
‘Afraid not. Nance says her husband is going to organize the Nun Ainsty men, and they’ll team up with the men from Meltonby and do their parades together. Gilbert Ellery will be taking his orders from Nance, I shouldn’t wonder. Bet she was real put out it was a men-only affair. But things must be serious, Ness, if the older men have to fight. I mean, Goff was in the last war. He’s done his bit for King and Country.’
‘What about the farm? Does farming exempt Bob and Rowley Wintersgill from joining?’
‘Seems not. All able-bodied men, it said on the news.’
‘Then I suppose me Da’ll have to join. Mam won’t like that. The letter was from Mam. I’ll write to her, tonight. Have I time for a wash before supper?’
‘You have. And when we’ve eaten we’ll sit in the garden and leave the back door open so we can hear the phone. Away with you!’
Lorna sighed deeply. The news about the LDV had troubled her, but Ness didn’t seem one bit bothered when told about it. Overreacting, she had been; looking for things to worry about when all she needed to hear was that William was sorry for the things he had said on the phone and of course it was all right for Ness to be at Ladybower. That they could be invaded at any time would seem less frightening then. And anyway, she argued sternly, surely Hitler’s soldiers, if they came, wouldn’t be making a beeline for Ainsty; wouldn’t be hell bent on destroying the village stone by stone, then pillaging and raping as the Vikings had done around these parts a thousand years ago? She was not their priority target! She was one of many women who had to get on with things as best she could, invasion or not, because her man had gone to war. What was so special about Lorna Hatherwood, then?
She prodded a knife into the potatoes. Two more minutes, then they’d be done and the cabbage, too, to eke out what was left of yesterday’s stew, more gravy than meat. A rabbit would be very handy. Two more days’ supper taken care of. She wished she could go to York, hunt around, find a fish queue. Fish wasn’t rationed; only the petrol to take her to the faraway shops where there was more chance of finding unrationed food. There was the bus, of course, but buses nowadays seemed to arrive and depart at their own times. It was awkward, she sighed, living in so out-of-the-way a place. And then she thought of the invasion – if it happened – and thought that living in Nun Ainsty far outweighed a piece of off-the-ration fish.
‘On the table in two minutes!’ she called from the bottom of the stairs, then smiled because tonight William would be lucky and be able to phone her, she knew it. Only for three minutes, mind, but you could say a lot of I-love-yous in three minutes. ‘Shift yourself or it’ll go cold!’
Sitting in the garden, her bare feet on the cool grass, was a sheer delight. The sun was in the west now, and would soon begin its setting, dropping lower in the sky, glowing golden-red. On the twilight air came the scent of roses and honeysuckle, and on the highest oak in Dickon’s Wood a blackbird sang sweetly into the stillness.
Ness closed her eyes, hugging herself tightly as if to hold to her this moment of complete peace. Peace? But for how much longer? Was this suddenly-precious country to be occupied by jackbooted soldiers? It couldn’t happen to this tiny island that once ruled half the world? Nun Ainsty couldn’t be taken, nor her lovely brash Liverpool? Imagine German soldiers billeted here in the manor house, because they would take it, soon as look at it if the fancy took them!
She stirred, wanting to know why all at once she was feeling like this. Had it been today in the so-English hayfield that the love of this island had taken her or had she, when she boarded the train at Lime Street station, uniform in two suitcases, decided that this cockeyed little country was worth fighting for and being a land girl was the best way she knew to do it?
No, she told a red rose silently, the day she boarded the York train she had felt only relief to be getting away to a fresh start, and sadness, of course, to be leaving Mam and the terraced house she had grown up in. And pain. A tearing pain that jabbed deeper if she let herself think of what she had lost and could never find again.
She shook her thoughts into focus and began to read through the letter she was writing.
Dear Mam and Da and Nan,
You’ll know by now where I am, but it is ten times better than the picture on the postcard. You can’t see my billet on it but it’s a lovely house, with big windows and a beautiful garden with a wood all around it. The lady I live with is called Lorna. Her husband is in the Army, and I think she is pleased to have a bit of company.
Best not go into detail about William’s outburst nor the phone call Lorna was waiting for that would put it right, she hoped.
I work at Glebe Farm for Mr Wintersgill. His wife, Kate, is lovely and they have a son Rowland, but I don’t see a lot of him.
Best not say over much about young Rowley. A bit sly,