Corporal Williams, fighting for King and country in Flanders, seeks a well-bred country lady for correspondence and conversation and tales from our green and pleasant land.
Well, Corporal Williams. She’d be delighted to write and tell him all about this pleasant land, and it would be jolly nice to correspond with someone who was interested in what she had to say.
Dearest Emily,
I am so pleased that you decided to write to me. You are quite right that we are in need of good cheer from home. I miss Yorkshire, and the dales more than I can put into words.
Thank you for telling me all about HopBine Estate – it is clear that the place is very dear to you.
I can’t say too much because of the censor, but I can tell you that we’re stationed up the line, billeted in a barn at the moment. There are no boards so we sleep on the ground, and with no fire it is terribly cold at night.
I admire your desire to work; don’t give up on it.
Fondest wishes
Theo Williams
She didn’t have to wait long in the evening for Mother to retire to bed. Once the light had disappeared from beneath her bedroom door, Emily crept down the hallway and out through the back door.
There was no moon and a chilly breeze blew across the open fields and straight down her neck. She couldn’t go back for a lantern in case she disturbed Mother.
At the edge of the driveway, she stopped to admire her home; cream coloured, and square, it glowed a little in the shade of darkness. It had three pitched gables. Her late father had designed and built the house when he’d moved the family to the country to set up the cement works. Father had built one gable for each of his children. Those gables sheltered each of their bedrooms and protected them from the rain and wind. But the missing tiles and loose guttering that Lawrence had noticed made their situation now an open secret.
She entered the cedar avenue that lined the long drive down to New Lane and then it was a short walk to the farmhouse. All of the lights were hidden behind curtains and blinds and pulled tight in case of a night-time visit from a Zepp. Even the candles on the makeshift shrine at the edge of the village green had been extinguished.
But it didn’t matter, she could find the way in the deepest of dark nights.
In the low-ceilinged farmhouse kitchen, she found Mr Tipton stroking Tiger, the tomcat, on his lap. The farm manager was halfway through a story to Mrs Tipton.
‘Oh do go on,’ Emily urged him, presenting Mrs Tipton with some bluebells that she’d picked in Hangman’s Wood earlier that morning. ‘You know how I love your stories.’ He had a wonderful imagination and his improvised tales of the forest folk had kept Emily entertained for nearly two decades.
‘I love the scent of these beauties,’ said Mrs Tipton, bending her head into the blooms. Grey tufts escaped from her hair like Old Man’s Beard. ‘I can’t remember the last time the ole man gave me flowers. He was a romantic when we were first courting. Wasn’t you, dear? Always bringing me a posy.’
Mr Tipton shook his head and muttered something to Tiger, while Mrs Tipton shook the rafters with an almighty sneeze.
Mr Tipton found his place in his story as Emily took the armchair closer to the fire. Sally the collie dog joined her, rested her head on Emily’s feet. The warm weight comforted her toes, as the heat of the flames rose and fell against Mr Tipton’s cheeks and stroked the back of her neck.
When he’d finished the story, the conversation moved on to bemoan his dwindling workforce. He’d taken on local schoolboys and a few labourers who’d not yet joined in with the war, but more and more men disappeared every week. Some had volunteered to do their bit, a patriotic answer to the call of duty. John had joined up after the recruitment drive marched through the village. It had encouraged many of the villagers to enlist with him. Then Lady Radford had run a campaign to make their village the bravest in Britain and those who hadn’t answered those calls had gone to help build the seaport at Richborough.
‘The government are setting up a corps of educated women, to act as gang leaders,’ she said, but before she could continue he’d sent Tiger scurrying from his lap. ‘Good God and heaven preserve me. Not over my dead body. If women like Olive Hughes who’s worked the harvest on this farm since she was a girl can’t hack it, how am I supposed to cope with a lady who’s never done a day’s work in her life?’
Emily stiffened. After all these years of following him around, helping and learning from him, how could he not see that she could be useful?
‘What about Mrs Hughes and Mrs Little?’ Emily said. ‘Lily would have injured them if I hadn’t been there.’
‘You took a terrible risk to help that undeserving pair. You got lucky, but don’t ever think just because a cow knows you that she won’t trample you.’
He had a point. Standing her ground like that against Lily had been perilous and she was fortunate Lily had decided to stop, but surely it had shown that she was prepared to put herself forward and be counted.
‘Women don’t belong on the farm, and I shan’t be taking on any more. I’m sorry about that. The Belgians are in need of work, kind souls they are an’ all. I’d rather take on a rotten German prisoner o’ war than any more work-shy, weak-willed women. No offence.’
‘Well I am offended, Mr Tipton.’
He stood, snatched a lantern up from the wall and stomped off into the yard, slamming the door behind him before she could say any more. Emily rose to her feet and watched from the window as he swung his lamp across the farmyard. The shadows stretched and grew to ghoulish heights against the farmhouse and the Kentish ragstone of the stables.
Then as she stoked the fire, she noticed wet newspaper soaking in a bucket, being readied to make into bundles for the fire. Next to that, a pile of old newspapers. The Standard sitting on top. She pulled the newspaper cutting from her pocket just as Mrs Tipton emerged from the scullery, wiping her hands on her pinafore.
‘You got my hand delivery then.’ Mrs Tipton pointed her nose towards the cutting.
It had been Mrs Tipton? She knew more than anyone how much Mr Tipton and Mother would object. What was she thinking of – encouraging Emily to taste ideas and dreams that were out of her reach?
‘You shouldn’t take any notice of the ole man’s bluster. He’s ready for his retirement, that’s the problem. He wants life nice and easy; he doesn’t want the trouble the war is bringing.’
Sally the collie nudged at her with her wet nose.
‘It’s true, those villagers are a let-down to the farm, your family and the country,’ Mrs Tipton said. ‘And no one’s as surprised as me to learn that Olive Hughes is shirking off. But I think the ole man is wrong to say he won’t take on another woman, because a bright, strong girl like you who loves this place and the outdoors and is familiar with the animals is just what he needs. He just doesn’t know it yet.’
June 1915
Dearest Emily,
I expect it is so very quiet with you in Kent. No such luck in Flanders. Fritz called on us twice in the night with his gas shells. I lay in a fitful half-sleep waiting for