by Nicola Upson
The open parklands of a manor house gave way to woodlands on either side, and a dense canopy of dark green hues marked the passing of spring into summer. The shade was a welcome interlude in a day of unrelenting sunshine, and Josephine relaxed her eyes, pleased to stop squinting against the glare. Nothing had been explained after George and Harriet returned from Moira House, but the behavior of both women had changed. Harriet was tight-lipped and less visible than usual, barely speaking unless it was to answer a question or give an instruction; George carried on working as tirelessly as ever, although Josephine thought she detected a new watchfulness about her whenever she was around the girls, as if she were trying to catch them out—but perhaps that was simply her own imagination, fed by what Gertrude Ingham had said on her arrival. There was a definite distance between Harriet and George, though—that much she hadn’t imagined. The small moments that she had witnessed—a private joke or a hand on the shoulder, the myriad things that had spoken of their mutual respect and unshakeable unity—all that had gone, replaced by an awkward detachment, and Josephine could count on one hand the number of times that she had even found them in the same room. In the days that followed the meeting, she had half-expected some sort of official communication from Moira House, an endorsement of their orders, but nothing had been forthcoming.
“I think it’s Lomax, you know,” Jeannie said thoughtfully.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there was a letter on the kitchen table from her parents—that was the morning post. I couldn’t read what it said, obviously, but the letterhead was unmistakable. And if Lomax’s family is kicking off about something, that really will get Miss Ingham worked up.”
“But kicking off about what? I haven’t noticed Lomax getting the rough end of George’s tongue, mostly thanks to your covering for her. What’s she got to complain about? Unless Betty put her up to it, of course. You’re right—those two are as thick as thieves.”
The lane curved round to the left, with another road leading straight ahead, rising steadily toward the ramparts of the downs. “That’s the route to the Beacon,” Jeannie said, “but we’ll park at the pub, and you can meet my parents.”
The Ram Inn was an attractive old building that meandered over three stories, built of brick and flint, and beautifully kept, with fresh white paintwork and flower tubs by the door. A small crowd had gathered at the front to watch a Morris side perform, resplendent in matching flannels, with bells and ribbons tied to their calves. “What’s the occasion?” Josephine asked. “It’s not a festival day, is it?”
“Doesn’t have to be round here,” Jeannie said, parking the van on the other side of the road. “We’re a pagan lot when it comes down to it, and we never need an excuse to flick a hanky in the eye of the devil.” They watched until the accordion player brought the dance to an end, and the men—with one final clash of sticks—disbanded to enjoy a well-earned drink. “And I suppose it is a festival day of sorts—for them, at least. It’s the last dance they’ll do for a while. They’re off next week, all six of them. That’s why most of the village has turned out to wish them well.”
“I thought it was busy, even for a Sunday.”
“Oh, it always is. There used to be four pubs in the village until they built the main road. Now ours is the only one left.”
“Good news for your father.”
“Yes, and my mother never stops. She’s always got a sideline on the go—teas in the summer and shooting parties during the season.” They got out and Jeannie led the way to the nearer of two entrances, exchanging greetings with some of the villagers, and Josephine noticed how pleased people seemed to be to see her. “Come and say hello,” she called back over her shoulder. “We won’t stay long, though, or I’ll find myself with an evening shift.”
There were three rooms inside, each of a slightly different character but with scrubbed tables and polished wooden floors in common. Most of the tables had been deserted in favor of the sunshine outside, and the drinkers left gathered at the bar were all farmworkers—middle-aged men whose faces had been prematurely aged by the weather and whose bodies were so accustomed to hard physical labor that they seemed incapable of relaxing, even on a precious day off. The men were talking loudly and were clearly in high spirits, and the arrival of two young women did nothing to dampen their mood. “That’ll be enough now, gentlemen,” said the woman behind the bar—obviously Jeannie’s mother—and Josephine was impressed to see that the chorus of wolf whistles and teasing died away immediately, even though the landlady had barely raised her voice. Mrs. Sellwood was an older version of her daughter, and Josephine liked her immediately. Her face was naturally serious, giving her the authority that she had just used to such good effect, but her eyes—the same cornflower blue as Jeannie’s—were full of humor, and there was a twitch at the corner of her mouth that suggested a smile was never very far away. She finished pouring a pint of beer and took the money for it, then came out from the bar to give her daughter’s friend the warmest of hugs, as if they had known each other for years. “It’s lovely to meet you, Josephine,” she said, squeezing Jeannie’s hand affectionately. “Jeannette’s talked about you so often since you started. How are you finding it up at the college? Have you settled in all right?”
“Yes thank you, Mrs. Sellwood. It’s interesting work—and every day is different, which is what I really love about it.”
“Nice to be out in the open air too at this time of year. I wouldn’t mind a bit more of that myself.” A man at the bar cleared his throat and waved an empty glass pointedly in their direction, and Mrs. Sellwood looked at Jeannie. “Just mind the bar for a bit, love, while I pop to the kitchen. I won’t be a minute, I promise.”
Jeannie raised her eyes at Josephine. “What did I tell you? Do you want a drink while I’m busy?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Don’t tempt me.” She poured two glasses of mild, and Josephine took hers over to a table to wait. A heady scent of geraniums drifted in through the open window, mingling with the beer and tobacco smoke that seemed ingrained in the walls of the room, and she watched while Jeannie dealt with the barroom banter almost as effortlessly as her mother, envying the quick retorts that gave as good as they got but always stayed just on the right side of courtesy. Three more men came in to join the others, and Jeannie’s face changed as she turned to serve them, losing its easygoing welcome in favor of something much more forced. “Given up playing at a man’s work, then, have you, Jeanette?” one of them said, as she poured the beer he had ordered. “Quitting the bonnet brigade and leaving the land to those who know what to do with it?”
His friends laughed, and Josephine noticed the barely suppressed hostility in Jeannie’s voice as she answered. “We’re not playing at anything, Mr. Farrell—at least the man from the Board of Agriculture doesn’t think so. He’d hardly be supporting the college if he didn’t take its work seriously.”
“And what does he know about it? Sitting in his office in London and never getting his hands dirty. I wouldn’t mind, but you’re not even teaching our women. Most of the girls who pass through that college aren’t from around here.”
“Living just over the county boundary doesn’t exactly make them foreigners, does it? Anyway, isn’t Mrs. Farrell from Norfolk?”
Farrell’s friends sniggered again, but this time they were laughing at him. Jeannie took his money and turned away, but he obviously wasn’t the sort to allow a woman the last word when she had embarrassed him in front of his peers. He eyed her up and down, and said in a loud voice, “And that’s no way for a girl to dress either. I’m surprised at your father, letting you bring that sort of getup in here. It’s enough to turn the beer.”
She handed him his change and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m a bit confused, Mr. Farrell. Which offends you most? The bonnet brigade or the breeches? When you’ve quite made your mind up, I’ll know what not to apologize for.”
Ther
e was more laughter, and while Josephine admired Jeannie’s spirit, she wished she would stop provoking Farrell. He was becoming increasingly angry, on the verge of losing his temper altogether, and the other men at the bar were enjoying the sport sufficiently to goad him. “She’s got you there, Jim,” one of them said. “And anyway, speak for yourself. I’ve no objection to seeing the shape of a woman’s legs every once in a while. Makes a nice change.”
“So what else are they teaching you up at that college, eh, Jeanette?” Farrell continued, his tone now even more aggressive. “Fucking man-hating bitches, the lot of them.”
A man came through from the other bar, carrying a tray of empty glasses. “Watch your language around my daughter, Jim,” he said. “You’re not in the fields now.”
“No, and I won’t be tomorrow or the day after that if they carry on like this. I’ve got to look out for my boys, George—if people can get away with paying women eighteen shillings a week, where does that leave them?”
“You could always do the decent thing and let them sign up, like my father did.”
“Jeannie …” There was a warning note in the publican’s voice, and he gave a flick of his head to dismiss her from her bar duties. “I’ll take over here now. You get on your way.”
“You know I’m right, though,” Farrell insisted, a dog with a bone now that Jeannie had been cautioned. “It’s not natural, two women running a house without a man in sight, doing just as they like in front of all those girls—and very close, by all accounts. I wouldn’t let a daughter of mine anywhere near them.”
“You take too much notice of gossip, Jim. What those women get up to is their business as long as they keep it to themselves, but it’s got nothing to do with my daughter. We’ve already waved two of our kids off recently, and it would break Annie’s heart to lose the other one, so I’d appreciate it if you could leave your filth at the door when you come in here. Jeannie knows what’s right and what’s wrong, and I won’t have you saying any different. Now, do you want another one in there?”
The speech was meant to be supportive, but when Jeannie came over to Josephine’s table, all her defiance was gone, and she looked upset. “Let’s get going,” she said. “I’ve had enough of village life for one day.”
To Josephine’s relief, the men at the bar had already moved on to another topic of conversation, and they were able to slip out of the pub unnoticed. They hadn’t got far when a voice called them back, and she turned to see Mrs. Sellwood hurrying toward them with a basket. “I’ve made you a picnic to take on your walk,” she said. “You’ll need something to eat if you’re going all the way up there.”
“Thanks, mum, but you needn’t have gone to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble to spoil my daughter once in a while.” She handed over the food and gave them both a kiss. “Have a lovely afternoon, and it was nice to meet you, Josephine. I hope we’ll see you again.”
“That was kind of her,” Josephine said as Jeannie’s mother waved over her shoulder and disappeared back into the inn. “They seem nice, your parents. I can see where you get it from.”
“My charm and my unwavering sense of right and wrong, you mean?”
Josephine smiled. “He was only looking out for you.”
“Then I’d hate to be there when he’s sticking the knife in. Come on—it’s far too nice a day to hang around here.”
The road climbed gently at first, and then—as they left the last few houses of the village behind—it became more punishing, rising steadily from one bend to the next, but always with another small joy up its sleeve to lure them on. The dense, springy turf on either side was awash with banks of pink and purple flowers, and the occasional scrub of gnarled hawthorn gave the landscape a dramatic, weatherworn twist. High above them, Firle Beacon crowned the whale-backed downs that until now Josephine had been familiar with only from Kipling’s poetry, and she noticed that the hills lost their soft lines and gentle grace once she was among them, becoming steadily more oppressive as they ate into the sky. For a long time she resisted looking back, wanting to extract every ounce of surprise from the scene below, and when she finally gave in to temptation, it didn’t disappoint. The Weald was laid out before her, a checkerboard in every shade of green, and she stared at it in delight. “Stunning, isn’t it?” Jeannie said, linking her arm through Josephine’s. “I can never decide whether it’s better to be down there looking up at these hills, or up here looking down.”
“It’s beautiful either way.” It seemed an inadequate description for this fresh, new world that had made such an impression on her. The instinct to call it home that Josephine had first felt on the train coming down had proved more accurate than she could have imagined, and what began as a simple aesthetic response to the countryside was growing into something much richer—a sense of ownership and belonging which couldn’t be entirely separated from Jeannie’s friendship. “Can we see the farmhouse from here?” she asked, trying to plot its location from where Firle nestled in the valley, its church peeping out through the trees.
“Easily on a day like this.” Jeannie pointed to the right, and Josephine recognized the striking tall chimneys that had been her first acquaintance with the house. “More peaceful from a distance at the moment.”
They walked a little farther, then left the road to find a shady spot to eat. The sedge rustled in the breeze, and they chatted about Scotland or Birmingham, lapsing occasionally into a lazy silence that suited the heat of the day, but as the afternoon wore on, something remained unspoken between them, and Josephine sensed that Jeannie was waiting for her to bring it up. “Is it true what that man was saying?” she asked. “Harriet and George—are they more than good friends and business partners?”
She hated her own euphemism, which was only marginally less vague than “unseemly,” but Jeannie didn’t mock her for it. “Yes, I think so,” she said quickly, as if she had been expecting the question. “I’ve always assumed they are, anyway. Not that they’ve been anything other than discreet, but you can tell sometimes, can’t you?”
It was true, Josephine thought. She hadn’t needed village gossip to tell her that the two women were in love, although she would have found it hard to say what had given it away; something in her as much as in them, she suspected, and perhaps simply the fact that she was capable of imagining it. “So is that why they’re in trouble with Miss Ingham?”
Jeannie shrugged. “Not necessarily. Not everyone’s as ignorant as Jim Farrell and his cronies, thank God.”
“But if one of the girls had seen something and reported it, that would explain why George and Harriet were hauled over the coals at Moira House—and why they’ve been behaving so strangely toward each other.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” There was a long pause, and this time the silence was less comfortable. “Does it shock you?” Jeannie asked eventually. “Their relationship, I mean.”
“No, it doesn’t shock me. The only thing that shocks me is that they have the courage to follow their feelings.” Without meaning to, Josephine had given herself away, and she felt something slip from her grasp, something dangerous, as if she were taking a leap into nothingness. Her stomach tightened, and she could see from the expression on Jeannie’s face that the implication of what she had said had not gone unnoticed. “If I were in their position, I know I could never be that brave,” she added, making a clumsy attempt to distance herself from her honesty. It was hard to tell if Jeannie took the words as a warning, and even harder to know if she had meant them as one, but she got up before the conversation could take a more personal turn. “We’d better get on. It would be a shame to come all this way and not make it to the top, and you promised me a glimpse of the sea.”
The intensity of the sun was fading as they reached the summit, and Josephine was struck by how abruptly the birdsong stopped. It had been such a feature of the walk that its absence seemed ominous, a reflection of the sudden awkwardness in conversation, and the only thing that filled
the silence now was the strengthening breeze and occasional bleating of sheep. The view from the Beacon stretched out for miles in every direction, quite literally as far as the eye could see, and although Josephine had been expecting the stark contrast between the countryside on one side and the English Channel on the other, it still took her breath away. “I’m so glad you brought me here,” she said, knowing how much it meant to Jeannie and touched that she had wanted to share it. “It’s magical.”
“It is, isn’t it? And it does me good to see it through your eyes. Lately, whenever I’ve come up here, all I’ve been able to think about is what’s happening on the other side of that water. It feels so insubstantial now. Funny, because when my dad brought me here as a kid, that sea seemed to stretch so far that it might as well have been the end of the world.” She gave a wry smile, mocking her own sentimentality. “Thinking about it, I don’t suppose that’s changed so much.”
Josephine looked at her, seeing straight through the cynicism. The childhood memory had sparked the same sadness in Jeannie that she had noticed earlier, when her father’s defense of her at the bar had had the opposite effect to the one he intended, and she understood how deep-rooted Jeannie’s love was for her family and how frightened she was of destroying it. “Sometimes you only realize how strong something is when you test it,” she said. “It looks solid enough to me. You might be surprised.”
They fell quiet again, and in the distance Josephine could just make out the dull thud of the guns from France. “Did you ever hear from your soldier?” Jeannie asked. The question came out of the blue, but its phrasing was too deliberately casual to be entirely spontaneous.
“Yes. I got a letter from him last week, with an invitation to go and see Vesta Tilley. In fact, right now I could be belting out ‘Six Days Leave’ in the Hippodrome.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because I’d rather be with you.”
There was laughter from somewhere behind them, and another couple with two young children appeared over the ridge. Josephine and Jeannie turned away and began to walk back the way they had come, instinctively wanting to be alone. The sky was streaked with swaths of a pink so intense that it seemed artificial, and they stopped by a five-barred gate to watch the sunset, tucked away from the road and standing as close as it was possible to stand without touching. Then Josephine felt Jeannie’s hand on her back, and a jolt ran through her as she realized that it was what she had been waiting for. It was a cautious gesture, easily laughed away if necessary, and yet so different from any touch that she had ever known. She stood stock-still, unable to remember a moment when she had been quite so aware of everything around her—the scent of the grass and Jeannie’s breath faint against her cheek, the racing of her own heart. It was still not too late to pull away, she told herself; all she had to do was smile and turn for home, and nothing more would be said. Then Jeannie moved her thumb a fraction of an inch, caressing Josephine’s spine, and suddenly they were kissing—shyly, almost stealthily at first, and then with no self-consciousness between them, no conscious thought of anything at all.
