by Amy Myers
‘Them hop-pickers are a rough bunch,’ Mr Chaplin warned her. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you, don’t you worry, young lady.’
Hop-pickers didn’t scare Phoebe in the slightest. Nevertheless, when she saw the signal down and a puff of smoke in the distance, she wished she could turn and run, but the thought of an ‘I told you so’ grin on the stationmaster’s face made her determined to stick it out. The railway train steamed in to the platform, shrouding her in white smoke, and carriage doors began to open. Of course there was no sign of George, just when she needed his help. People spilled out all along the platform, surrounded by battered cases, paper parcels, even sacks of belongings. Their sharp voices disconcerted her, so different to the slow Sussex drawl. Whole families of all ages milled around, from toddlers to ancient grannies.
‘Lemonade!’ She cleared her throat and tried louder. The sound still came out as a squeak. Then one man, in green scarf and shabby cap, saw the notice. ‘Cor, stone the crows. A halfpenny. It ought to be free.’
‘I’ll have one, if you please.’
She jerked her head up at the voice. It was Mr Eliot. Of course, he was the manager, here to meet the hop-pickers. She was instantly confused and nervous, but managed to put on her best business voice. ‘That will be one halfpenny please. For the war effort.’ She raised her voice, this time to a shout.
‘Good girl,’ he said approvingly, taking the glass. Whether he spoke of the lemonade or something else she did not know, and had no time to speculate as the cry went round ‘for the war effort’: halfpennies and pennies were thrown at her from all directions. Late that afternoon she made her way home, well content, clutching a net 3s 7½d in a paper bag, like a talisman. She needed it. She hadn’t yet told Father what she had been doing. Perhaps tomorrow she’d come to a business arrangement with the stationmaster’s wife to do the washing up, though …
‘I suppose we have to, Elizabeth.’ Laurence pulled a face. It would feel like invasion, having strangers sharing their home; even if the war were over in a week or two, it would take time to repatriate all the refugees. They could be here for well over a month, perhaps even two. He struggled to reconcile the man with the vicar of God. He had no choice, of course. ‘Perhaps God will be merciful and send me one who enjoys chess, now Caroline’s left us.’ She was the only one of his family who had any interest in playing at all.
‘Caroline!’ Elizabeth exclaimed.
‘Please, Elizabeth, do not worry –’
‘No, Laurence. It has occurred to me: who is to write the parish magazine if Caroline is not here?’
‘I must, I suppose.’ Laurence was even more dismayed. It was a time-consuming job but an important one.
George poked his head out from the sofa where he was re-reading William Le Queux to get some tips on spy-catching. ‘I will.’
‘Please be serious, George.’ His mother was impatient.
‘Why not?’ George was instantly aggrieved. It had been an idle offer, but now he felt sure it was the only thing in life he’d ever wanted to do, apart from catching a spy. It’s simple. Do let me, Pa. You can read it through afterwards to check my spelling and all that.
‘Why not?’ Laurence was amused. ‘Why not indeed?’
‘We’re nearly there. It’s the next station.’ Felicia peered out of the train window at Lewisham.
‘Somehow Blackheath and the Royal Herbert don’t seem so far from home after Penelope’s news,’ Caroline replied.
Yesterday evening, to celebrate their gaining of first aid certificates, they had dined in Tunbridge Wells with Penelope and Aunt Tilly. The news that Aunt Tilly was there at all was shock enough, since Caroline had thought she was in London, but Penelope’s news was even more startling. She had casually announced that her brother was now caught up in the fighting and that she was off to Serbia in a few days’ time with a hospital unit led by Lady Paget.
‘I’m no use at anything, I told them,’ Penelope had explained. ‘But they must have thought I’d do for something or other, even if it’s only scaring away the Austrians. Bold Englishwoman goes into battle armed with Keating’s Powder and a tin of Zambuk. We’re leaving for Skopje early next month.’
Caroline had seen the look of envy on her aunt’s face, and it was all she could do to persuade her to regain her own health before rushing off to foreign parts to help others do the same. Caroline sympathised. Shooters Hill now seemed dull beside Penelope’s exploits, and it had taken Felicia’s common sense afterwards to readjust her thinking that training widened their usefulness.
The train began to slow down, and Caroline felt her heart pounding.
It was about to begin.
CHAPTER TEN
Isabel walked into Hop House with unexpected trepidation. The early enthusiasm she had felt for a house of her own had mysteriously vanished and, instead of the kingdom she had looked forward to, it had become a land that might hold uncharted obstacles and pitfalls. They presented themselves as soon as she and Edith went inside. The last few days at The Towers, recuperating from her ordeal, had blinkered her against this moment; she had merely reflected that they had been gone nearly a month, and Hop House would therefore be completely ready by the time she and Robert decided to move in. Instead, she was greeted by the smell of emptiness, a house lonely and unoccupied. The furniture, she could see through the door Edith enthusiastically threw open, was there, but pushed higgledy-piggledy around and still covered with dust sheets. The curtains were heaped in piles on the floor while the windows yawned their nudity. A telephone set perched unattached on the mantelshelf, and the walls, newly wallpapered (to Edith’s taste), smelled of distemper and cast out a chill that found its target in Isabel’s spirits.
‘But where are the servants?’ Her dismay made Isabel abandon her customary diplomacy with her mother-in-law.
‘Mrs Bugle starts on Monday, Isabel – dear.’ Edith decided to leave a pause before the endearment.
‘And the others?’
Edith bristled. ‘There are no others.’ There was reproof in her tone. ‘The men have volunteered.’ Not all of them, in fact. William had commandeered the Hop House butler as a Towers footman, to remedy their own sudden shortages.
‘Volunteered for what?’
Edith’s lips stiffened patriotically. ‘The army, Isabel. They’ll be back soon, I’m sure, now our boys are pushing that Kaiser back where he belongs.’
‘How could they volunteer without your permission?’
‘They had it.’ Edith stretched the truth somewhat in view of Isabel’s querulousness. ‘We must do our little bit for England.’
Isabel was appalled. ‘How am I to manage?’
‘I am sure Mrs Bugle will find a reliable girl from the village.’
‘I mean, how are we to manage till Monday? Just look at this.’ Isabel swept a despairing arm round the room.
Edith decided the time had come to take umbrage. In her youth as a butcher’s daughter she had spent many a long, tiring morning helping the cook-general with household duties and somewhat resented the fact that others had escaped so lightly from life’s inequalities. The blue taffeta rustled as she kissed her daughter-in-law goodbye. ‘Such pleasure, playing housewife for the first time. I do so envy you.’
Six hours later Isabel felt as though every dust particle in the house had burrowed through the pores of her skin. The dust-covers were off, but the furniture remained where it was. One curtain hung gaping out from the only two hooks she could find. Two single beds bulged with inexpert bedmaking; her gowns hung neatly in the wardrobe. Robert’s wardrobe remained empty, not as a pointed gesture, but simply because the unpacking and hanging of gentleman’s clothes baffled her. Never had she been so glad to hear his step.
‘Darling.’ She rushed out to the entrance hall to burst into the tears she had been holding back specially. ‘I’ve had the most terrible day; the house is disgusting and there aren’t any servants.’ She clung piteously to him.
‘I daresay we’ll p
ull through.’
Surprise at this lack of support made her loose her hold and stop crying. ‘Don’t you care?’
‘Not very much.’ Robert walked into the drawing room, and flung himself in the nearest armchair.
‘Is something wrong with you?’ It dawned even on Isabel that this was unusual behaviour.
‘I’m sorry, kitten.’ Robert made an effort at normality. ‘I expect we’ll get servants soon, once they’re back from this war. I’ll have to call them sir, then, no doubt.’
Isabel wondered why his normally placid face was looking so downcast. It made her uneasy; it was almost as though they were back’ in Paris, except that then his anxiety had had an edge of excitement, as he insisted on buying every single edition of every single newspaper and talked endlessly of distant places like Brussels, Namur or Liège. She had been so sure Robert would regain his interest in everyday life once they got back home, yet, just when she needed him to organise the house, he’d relapsed into moodiness, especially when he read that one or two bombs had fallen in Paris and the government had left for Bordeaux. He’d cheered up when the next issue of The Times informed him that the new Governor of Paris had decided to defend the city. General Galliéni had stopped all this nonsense of editions of newspapers being published every hour or two, and newspaper sellers were no longer allowed to cry out in the streets. Pity it couldn’t happen here, too, then Robert might cheer up and help her. Perhaps she’d be very nice to him tonight. The sexual side of marriage was a mystery to Isabel. She couldn’t see a lot to it, it wasn’t frightening or repulsive as some friends had claimed, merely rather boring. She in fact found it hard not to giggle when Robert made such a fuss about not having babies when there was a war on. Such a to-do putting on that horrid, uncomfortable looking thing; he’d thought she wasn’t looking, but she was.
‘Pa won’t let me go.’ Robert interrupted her thoughts.
‘Where?’
‘To volunteer, of course.’
‘You volunteer?’ Shock made her gape unbecomingly. ‘But you can’t leave me now.’ She meant with the house to arrange, but he took it otherwise.
‘It’s because I love you, dearest, that I have to go to fight. Every decent man should, to protect his womenfolk.’
‘You could do that much better here.’ What on earth was the sense of going to Belgium to prevent Germans attacking Hop House?
‘It looks as though I’ll have to. Father won’t let me go. He says he needs me at the moment at the brewery, now so many have gone to war.’
‘There are enough men going without you. The menservants have all left.’ Isabel was terrified. She tried hard to think of the war effort and patriotism but all that really registered was that she’d be here alone.
‘Do you think it is right they should go to war and not me? A fine example that sets. The Hunneys have both gone, so has Peter Jennings. Even Philip Ryde volunteered, only they wouldn’t have him.’
‘We’ve only just escaped with our lives,’ Isabel pointed out. ‘I think you owe it to your parents to stay here.’
Robert did not reply. In theory his father could not stop him, in practice he most certainly could. He could remove his ‘job’, such as it was, and his house, leaving Isabel homeless, and worse, he had made it clear he would stop his allowance.
‘What time is dinner, Isabel?’
Isabel’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. ‘Here?’ she asked stupidly.
‘Where else?’
‘We have no cook. We’ll have to go to your parents, as I did for luncheon.’
‘I’ll bally well starve first,’ he told her violently.
‘Then we’ll go to the Rectory. Mother won’t mind.’
‘But I do. We’ll eat here. Our house. Let me have some bally thing to call my own.’
Trained to recognise male danger signs in Father, Isabel went for the first time into the Hop House kitchens. She bitterly resented it, but was also experienced in knowing when self-survival demanded silence. What she found was not encouraging. Tinned peas, Liebig’s extract, blancmange powder, a sack of potatoes, another of onions, and some eggs. No milk, no bread. She was about to inform Robert that he would have to ride down to the general stores, when she thought better of it. With no telephone she could not even ask Mother for advice. A dim recollection of seeing Mrs Dibble make a vegetable omelette came to mind. She would need milk, or was it water, or both? She could walk to the farm, but she wouldn’t. Then she had a good idea. She would borrow milk from her nearest neighbour – no matter if that were Frank Eliot.
Monkey Brand soap, Monkey Brand soap, more Monkey Brand soap, and soda. It made a rhythm as you scrubbed the basins, and took Caroline’s mind off how tired she was. Surely it must be eight o’clock by now? She had begun her working day, like the other VADs, at seven this morning. She began by scouring, she ended by scouring. The middle of the day provided welcome relief, as she laid trays for the patients with knives, forks and spoons all in regimental order to pass Sister’s eagle eye. She performed the same duties all night long too, in her sleep; sometimes in her dreams she was laying cutlery on upturned basins, and sometimes carrying in trays with empty basins stacked up on top. How could Felicia enjoy such apparently contented slumber? She must be equally tired, even though she had been appointed to the grand position of a ward orderly. Grand but not enviable, for she had to be at everyone’s beck and call to fetch slop buckets and remove slops, or buckets of soiled bandages now even more casualties were arriving, all to be dealt with simultaneously it seemed. How little she had known of her sister’s mettle when the Rectory walls were their boundaries. Here was Felicia, seeing blood, pus and even gangrene and amputated limbs, and all Caroline could manage was to scrub a few pots and lay trays. Or was that all? She had found out much about herself too; that her strength was greater than she had thought and would carry her through, despite her fears. Perhaps there was more of her father in her than she had realised, or perhaps God was making sure that Ashden Rectory did not disgrace Him!
She waited as Felicia slipped the dark serge overcoat over her print gown and light blue overall to walk home to their billets near the crest of Shooters Hill. The peaked caps they had to wear suited Felicia but made Caroline look like a cross cockatoo.
‘Another trainload came in today – did you see them arrive?’ Felicia asked her. ‘They aren’t such serious cases as the last one, thank goodness. I could not bear –’ She broke off, as if admission of failure let her down.
‘How do you bear it?’
Felicia looked surprised. ‘Every time I see those dressings being changed, or a wounded soldier brought in, I imagine it’s Daniel, and that I might be able to help him by doing what I do. Don’t you think of Reggie?’
‘It’s rather different with scrubbing bowls,’ Caroline said ruefully. ‘But every time I get tired, I think of him fighting for England over there; it acts as a Master Dabb on me. I start scrubbing twice as hard. Even so, I’d like to be doing something more significant to help.’
‘You’re just like Aunt Tilly. You want to do what men do best, instead of what women do best.’
Did she? Caroline couldn’t believe it was so. All she knew, even more clearly since she had left Ashden, was that somewhere out there was something and someone calling her name, softly now and far away, but ever there. The someone was Reggie, but what was the something? And why didn’t it call louder instead of leaving her feeling as though she were threshing around in a field of corn looking for the one blade for her?
Felicia was saying, ‘I feel as if I’m taking part in a theatrical charade when I go to their ward. They are so self-conscious and act more like schoolboys than officers. The Tommies are far more natural and just let the nurses and doctors get on with it. They joke with me while their dressings are being changed, and I’ve stopped feeling so useless merely standing by with the bucket.’
Caroline wondered at how quickly and how far they – who had been brought up never to look too closely a
t their own bodies – had come in so short a time. What would Mother say if she knew Felicia was in such close contact with men’s bodies; whatever it was it would be irrelevant. This was a different world, and when the war was over it would either vanish as they returned to Ashden, or prove the threshold of a new kind of life. Meanwhile, she decided, she would not allow herself to think of Ashden, for fear of finding just how much she missed it. She would instead re-read the one brief letter she had had from Reggie – re-read it for the twentieth time. Or was it the thirtieth? How sweet even the baldest statements could be, how loaded with inner meaning each mention of platefuls of snails or brawn, how charged each word of love. She knew from the newspapers there had been another big battle, this time on the Marne, not far from Paris. The ‘withdrawal’ had been a ‘retreat’, everyone was saying, but now the British army really was triumphant again, and pushing back the Germans across the river. Let it be so, oh let it be so, she prayed, and dear Lord, keep Reggie safe.
George was becoming bored with his job. The first flush of honour at representing DORA, the Defence of the Realm Act, had worn off, there was a limit to the excitement to be gained by patrolling the footpaths and railway track of Ashden with a large stick, home-made lasso and whistle. Yet there seemed nothing else he could do for the war effort; Phoebe had suggested he help her serve drinks and buns, but that was woman’s work. He’d helped erect the barricades round Castle Tillow, and the rest of Ashden didn’t seem to require protecting from invasion. Together with a fellow scout on a neighbouring watch, he’d been sleeping in a tent for two days in order to maintain a twenty-four-hour guard, but the delights of the hard ground and rough fare provided by some hop-pickers were beginning to pall.
