The Land Girl

by Allie Burns

  ‘What about if I travel back early at the end of my leave? We could have the day together in London,’ he said.

  She nodded. She’d like that, but she wouldn’t be able to come to London without a chaperone. Mother might never let her out again if she caught wind of what she’d been up to today. And that animalistic look in his eyes had made her want to run for the door. He’d been a gentleman in the end, but he might expect more from her next time.

  Back at the station he handed his ticket to the guard. He opened the train door and, then, leant in and without warning or reaching out to hold her, he kissed her. His lips pressed against hers while she steadied herself by gripping his arms, sinking into his embrace. His cologne, his skin soft, his shoulders broad and strong. Her eyes were pinned open, close up to his eyelids and the bridge of his nose, until he opened his eyes and his pupils contracted.

  ‘You were watching me?’ he said.

  Two men whistled and laughed to one another, breaking the spell. Emily gave the soldier looking over his shoulder at them a stern shake of the head that made him turn away, and then trained her gaze fully back to Theo.

  ‘You could marry me,’ he said, a huge grin on his face. ‘Don’t look like that.’ He searched her face. ‘I’m not that bad, am I?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said. What was the right thing to say? She didn’t want to hurt him or send him away with a bad memory. He had been so sweet and kind to her today, and hadn’t complained once about watching the women’s march. ‘It’s just … we have only just met.’ Train doors slammed shut on the platform. The atmosphere shifted to one where time was speeding up, running out.

  ‘What about our letters?’ he asked. ‘I feel I knew you before I’d even met you.’

  He was a romantic. It was sweet but one of them had to be sensible.

  ‘Why rush?’ she said.

  ‘The war, that’s why. I might not get the chance to ask you again.’

  ‘You said I’d see you at the end of your leave,’ she said with a wry nod.

  ‘And if you don’t become Mrs Williams then, it might be months before we get another chance.’

  Goodness. He was right; as with John this morning once they went back to the Front she was left with no idea of when or if she would ever see him again.

  She waved as he leant out of the window, his face serious, receding from view as the train glided away from the platform.

  ‘Think about it,’ he called. ‘I’ll write.’

  For the second time that day, she waved as a young soldier disappeared from view.

  *

  HopBine was dark and silent when she returned that night. There was no thin light shining beneath Mother’s bedroom door. The tales of her last sight of John would have to wait until the morning.

  When the sun came up, Emily raced down to find Mother at breakfast, but Daisy reported that the mistress was sleeping in. Emily assumed it was John’s return to the Front that had stirred up her anxiety, but in a hushed voice she told her that Mother had taken a pill from the doctor.

  ‘She slept all day,’ she said.

  When Mother did eventually surface after lunch, she made slow, careful movements. Her skin was as pale as milk and the skin beneath her eyes purple and bruised. Emily steeled herself for a telling-off for coming home so late. They’d agreed she’d say farewell to John and catch the very next train home. It was the most freedom she’d ever been granted, and she’d violated it terribly. She had prepared her excuses; she was going to say that she’d joined Cecil and his friends for their debate, and would hint at a young officer friend of Cecil’s to test the waters, so that Mother couldn’t accuse her of becoming unduly politicised.

  But she needn’t have gone to the trouble of being so creative with the truth. Mother shuffled through to the sitting room, eyes glazed, and sat in an armchair that faced out onto the terrace, and the Victory Garden she and John had begun.

  She didn’t say another word to Emily; she didn’t even notice her, for the rest of the day.

  Emily imagined conversations with Theo. She didn’t have his address in Yorkshire, so she pictured him rapt when she whispered to his photograph the tale of Mrs Tipton’s chickens following her all the way home or when Lily had escaped from the paddock and left a pat on their lawn.

  *

  August 1915

  She’d thought of little else, since she’d decided that she would meet with Theo on his return to the Front and arranged to visit Grandmother in London to coincide with the end of his leave.

  ‘I’ve asked Norah Peters to come and sit with you. Grandmother says it’s urgent,’ she lied. She would have to pray that Grandmother didn’t call or write to Mother and tell her that the visit had been Emily’s idea.

  She allowed an hour between her arrival in London and when she would be at Grandmother’s to meet with Theo on his way back to the Front. She should perhaps have brought a chaperone; it was clear that he was a passionate man, but she reasoned they were meeting in daylight, and she’d make sure he understood that just because she was deceiving her Mother, it didn’t mean she was fast.

  She sat on the edge of her seat at the tea rooms, bolt upright. She would raise a hand this time if he tried to kiss her, but despite her anxiety she couldn’t keep the smile from her face. She toyed with a stray lock of hair, twirling it around her finger, and laughing at just about everything Theo said, even when it wasn’t that funny. She couldn’t control it.

  He didn’t say anything about the proposal this time. His eyes were soft and warm; his gaze wasn’t probing. She had rejected him, but it was for the best, and the time at home would have given him the chance to think it through and see that it was madness. It had been romantic, and why shouldn’t he want to go back to war with a sweetheart waiting for him at home?

  Since she’d been at the women’s march, she was resolved to do some war work, and just as soon as Mother was stronger she would tackle the subject again, but this time she would have the backing of John and Mr Tipton.

  ‘Grab the opportunity, girl,’ he said.

  When the hour was up, he walked her to the corner of her Grandmother’s mews. He kept a respectable distance this time.

  ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘I’m on my best behaviour today. I won’t be getting carried away. I got a bit overexcited last time, didn’t I? The company of a beautiful, clever girl, well, I was flattered. Can you blame me?’ She held out her palm and waved away his concerns. ‘But I haven’t given up on the idea of marrying you. I admire your spirit,’ he said. ‘I think it’s just the tonic I need.’

  He cupped her elbow with his palm, and said, ‘May I?’

  She nodded, and he pecked her on the cheek, one warm kiss, his breath caressing her skin.

  ‘Don’t forget to write,’ he said.

  She waved, holding her other palm to her cheek.

  When she returned in the evening she trod the hallway floorboards quietly, gauging the atmosphere in the house as to whether Grandmother had telephoned to tell Mother that Emily had arrived for her visit flushed and late. Grandmother had made her views on Emily travelling about London alone very clear, but with more and more young women working now, and so many men away, they couldn’t possibly be expected to be accompanied everywhere. The older ones would always cling on to the old way of doing things. It was a sign their ideas were close to being replaced.

  The sitting room was empty. The muted fire was dying down without anyone there to tend it. All was quiet and still. She was about to quit while ahead and go straight to bed, when her mother came to life in the chair that faced out towards the window.

  Even in the dim light, Mother was paler than usual. Despite the fire she looked frozen. Then Mother blinked, but that was the only movement. ‘Where were you?’ she asked, her voice thin and choked.

  ‘Some silly cows found their way onto the line near Sidcup,’ Emily said. She clenched her fists and waited. She was about to excuse herself, but something stopped her fr
om speaking. Resting on her mother’s lap, loosely in her grasp, was a yellow slip of paper.

  ‘What’s that?’ Emily said.

  Her legs were jittery, too weak to move her. Her mother didn’t speak. She had to cross that vast space of floorboards to reach her. One. Two. Three. Four. Her boots clipped on the floorboards. Unable to catch her own breath. She slid the piece of paper out of Mother’s flimsy grasp.

  Her eyes scanned the typed words …

  regret to inform …

  … report has been received from the War Office …

  … Name: Cotham J …

  Her hands shook. The East Kent buffs had been under siege at the Battle of the Hooge near Ypres. Her brother was missing in action. She concentrated on the typed words: was posted as ‘missing’ on the … 30th July 1915.

  ‘He’s only been back there a week,’ she said. ‘It says that missing doesn’t necessarily mean …’ She couldn’t say the last word. She had read about that battle in the newspaper; it was the first time the enemy had used a flamethrower. She read on. ‘It says that he may be a prisoner of war, or have become temporarily separated from his regiment.’

  The village doctor had received a telegram like this about his eldest son. The son had turned up several months later, in a German prisoner of war camp.

  ‘Yes, all is not lost,’ Mother said. A lightning strike of a smile, pained and twisted, flashed onto her face.

  ‘They say if he’s been captured that unofficial news is likely to reach us first, and we should notify them at once.’

  Emily paused for a moment, tried to imagine John in a prisoner of war camp, or in a front-line hospital unaccounted for; perhaps a nasty blow to the head had caused him to forget who he was.

  The letter seemed to be encouraging them to think he’d been captured, and they surely wouldn’t give them hope without good reason.

  But still, however would they cope with the wait? Mother’s knitting needles and wool were discarded by her feet, her lips tinged blue. Hands trembling, pupils dilated, she wheezed.

  ‘Mother, can you breathe?’ Emily asked, her own throat constricting so much she could hardly catch her own breath. After a few moments Mother inhaled, panted, and slumped forwards.

  ‘It’s been a terrible shock,’ Mother said. ‘The letter came in the first post.’

  ‘You’re shivering,’ Emily said. She stepped out to speak to Daisy, suggested they call out the doctor and give her a sedative.

  ‘I need to lie down,’ Mother said when Emily returned.

  Emily perched on the end of Mother’s dark oak bed. Mother was tucked up and they prayed quietly together for John’s return, and silently she wished for Theo’s safety too, for good measure. Mother’s face glistened with the residue of grease that her cold cream had left behind. Her hands flat on the bedspread, she stared off towards the window and didn’t say a word. Mother had managed her regular night-time rituals – that had to be a sign that everything would be all right, didn’t it?

  ‘Oh, John,’ Emily whispered to herself later in her own room.

  The British army had lost her dear, sweet brother. How could she sleep until they found him and returned him safely home?

  Chapter Eight

  August 1915

  Dearest Emily,

  What terribly distressing news. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, and of course John. We mustn’t lose hope that he’ll be found and returned to you safe and sound.

  Fondest wishes

  Theo

  The darkness pressed up against each of the window’s panes, but she was too alert to think of going back to sleep. She pulled the heavy burgundy damask curtains along their runners anyway, ready for the day that wasn’t yet prepared for her.

  If she lay down again her mind would whirl and make John’s smile merge with Theo’s, their voices becoming one, until she couldn’t remember whose was whose. Who had said what, who had comforted her, and who had advised her. The tiredness had muddled her mind until she could no longer distinguish one from the other.

  She couldn’t stay inside and whilst roaming about she found Mr Tipton in the shippon supervising the milking. She told him about John missing in action and without hesitation he embraced her, warm and clammy, his short arms stretching around her shoulders.

  ‘I need to keep busy. I can’t sit around up at the house. Can you give me something to do?’

  She would worry about Mother later. She had insisted that Emily stayed at the house with her, but she was drugged and drowsy and Emily doubted she’d notice if she was gone.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Mr Tipton wiping away the tears with the back of his sleeve.

  John was somehow missing like a hoe or a scythe, not a living, breathing person. He had said it could happen and she’d pushed the thought of it aside. He’d asked her to take care of Mother, but their problems were bigger than her – what about the house, the estate, the farm? Would they have to sell up if John didn’t come home? If only she’d asked him what it was that he meant, what she would need to accept and how she might be of best help to Mother.

  Mid-morning, as she was going into the farmhouse for a cup of tea, she did a double take as Mother, holding her skirts aloft to reveal her heeled boots, stepped around the puddles and shooed away Mrs Tipton’s welcoming committee of chickens.

  ‘Emily dear, there you are.’

  Mother had aged twenty years in that one night. Puffy pillows had gathered beneath her eyes, new hoods hung over them and shadows lurked beneath her cheekbones.

  ‘Has there been more news?’ Emily asked, realising that this was how it would be now: waiting and wondering when news of John would come.

  ‘I’m just so astonished that you deserted me,’ Mother continued. ‘I think you should come back to the house.’

  ‘Will Cecil come home?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘I’ve sent him a telegram,’ Mother said. ‘I insisted he stay in Oxford. His studies mustn’t be interrupted. We must carry on as usual.’

  She suggested Mother pay a visit to Hawk; the stallion had grown restless in his stables at Mother’s voice. His hooves dragged across the cobbles. It had been so long since Mother had ridden him and yet the faithful old beast was still loyal. He might be the balm, the connection that Mother needed.

  ‘I want to see John, not a horse.’

  Emily raised a boot to a too-brave hen. She could never say the right thing.

  *

  She and Mother spent the afternoon in the conservatory, amongst the potted palms and ferns, Mother with a pristine newspaper folded in half across her blanketed knee. She faced the vegetable garden that Emily had dug with John when he’d been home on leave.

  ‘It makes me sad; my rose garden all ploughed up like it is and then just abandoned to nature. You have desecrated our lawn. Surely it can’t make that much difference to food supplies.’

  ‘While there’s still a shortage of food, the potato crop …’

  ‘Haven’t we given enough to this war?’

  It was a funny thing to worry about: the rose garden.

  ‘Can you see to it for me?’ Mother continued. ‘I want the roses back. Perhaps ask Mr Tipton to send up old Alfred to lend a hand.’

  Emily held her tongue. John had asked her not to argue with Mother, to pull together, to accept what had happened. She owed it to him to try her best. But he had also told her not to give up on what she wanted. He’d been certain that she’d find a way; but then he must have known that in the event anything happened to him it would make her escape even harder.

  ‘I’m glad I have you here, dear.’ Mother smiled weakly. Her head slumped in her hands. ‘You are quite impossible, but you’re all I have.’

  *

  Bishop warns against spate of hasty marriages

  She was under the monkey puzzle tree, the newspaper resting on her knees.

  Young people were getting carried away with romantic ideals and marrying when they
’d only just met, the Bishop warned. A young man, a gunner with the army, spoke out against the Bishop. The gunner argued that the man of the cloth didn’t understand how war made every moment precious. He stated that the marriages weren’t hasty at all, but blossomed after couples wrote to one another for many months, becoming better acquainted in pen and ink then they ever would under the watchful eye of a chaperone.

  So, Theo wasn’t the only one proposing out of the carriage windows. It had seemed so soon, well it was soon – she’d only met him that afternoon and he’d asked her to marry him. But they wrote letters often and she discussed things with him she’d never dream of sharing with anyone else. He was interested in her, he believed in her and he’d been such a great comfort to her since John had been reported missing. He was often the only beam of light in an otherwise dark existence.

  Her gaze travelled through the jagged branches of the tree. The gunner in the newspaper was right; life was precious. John’s disappearance had taught her that. It was important to reach out and grasp whatever the Fates sent you.

  *

  January 1916

  Emily and Cecil shared a birthday and so Cecil came home from university so they could celebrate as a family. She might have guessed that he’d cause trouble before they’d even got to the main course of their evening meal.

  ‘I’m going to ignore my call-up papers,’ he announced. ‘I won’t be fighting in the war.’

  Emily let go of the spoon and it fell into the soup bowl. The Conscription Act had just been passed and all single men between eighteen and forty-one had to join up.

  ‘John’s news made up my mind,’ he continued. ‘I’m not going to fight this government’s war for them.’

  ‘Hasn’t what’s happened to John invigorated you, made you angry and want to fight?’ Emily asked. It certainly had fuelled her desire to do everything she could to help them win the war. If the allies lost, John might never come home. And yet Cecil was passing that opportunity up while she was left at home to take care of Mother.