by Allie Burns
‘Please, stop telling me what to do, and leave me alone.’
She wouldn’t go; she’d never let go. For a while everything might seem fine, but Mother would never approve of her, always be disappointed by her and there was nothing she could do about it. If Emily didn’t do something drastic she’d be tied to her for the rest of her life.
‘Go!’ Her hands shook.
The wedding ring slipped off her shrunken cold fingers, and sang as it hit the floorboards. She slipped it into her stocking drawer, buried it deep beneath the wool. Emily pushed the drawer shut, fed John and then sought refuge in her bed, pulling the covers up and over her. Where the ring had been there was a slight indentation. The skin beneath was softer, paler, a sliver of innocence.
She closed her eyes and swam towards the fringes of darkness. When she woke, she asked Daisy to run her a hot bath.
‘Of course, of course. I’ll put the copper on.’ Daisy fetched buckets of water.
‘Don’t tell Mother,’ she pre-empted her.
Daisy put a fresh towel over the rail and hung a clean dressing gown on the inside of the door.
Steam rose off the water. It stung her skin, leaving a vivid red tideline. Tears fell with so little pomp or ceremony like water from a dripping tap and she soon grew used to them and just wiped them away every now and again.
The bath water was clear and exposed her scarred, swollen, empty and yet laden body. She sank down into the bath, submerged her head. Her hair softened and floated. She closed her eyes, and held her breath.
Back in her bedroom, she opened her wardrobe door, pulled out a tango corset. She could wear it loosely, very loosely. She slipped her foot into her stockings, rolled them up to her thighs, clipped them to her girdle. Took out a skirt, a lace-collared blouse. Brushed the tangles out of her hair until it was smooth. Found the hairpins in her drawer and then paused. Slid open the drawer next to it, took out a pair of scissors and snip-snipped through the curtain of hair, in a straight line beneath her chin.
The wet tendrils fell away from her. She had a bob now, like the girls in London. The hairline caressed her jaw. She shook her head. It would be dry in no time. The hairpins were shut away, back in the drawer.
She painted two cheery red circles on her cheeks that stood out against her ashen face. Tears instantly ran through them turning them into cracked hearts.
Downstairs, she followed the chattering to the library where she found her mother, one hand on the baby carriage pushing it back and forth. Norah Peters was visiting again; stooped over the elephant-grey Empire pram, cooing.
‘Emily!’ Mother said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘It was time I was off.’ Norah clattered her teacup into its saucer and didn’t wait to be shown out of the house.
‘He’s awake,’ Mother said. ‘He’s just like you were at that age; he doesn’t like to sleep during the day in case he misses out. Perhaps you might be able to get him off to The Land of Nod.’ Mother lifted her hand from the pram. She passed her what had been Emily’s own Book of Garden Verses. Emily set it down on top of the piano.
‘I’ve reached a decision.’ Emily adjusted the grey hood of the baby carriage. ‘I’m going to join Cecil’s suffragette friends and work on a land colony.’
‘Those blue stockings won’t want you with a babe in arms.’
The hood was up now, the nasty grey plastic stretched to its limit by the frame.
‘They’re very amenable, and they don’t give up.’
‘We could take care of the baby between us.’
She lifted the hood, up and down, up and down. She was trembling.
‘Well.’ Mother straightened up. ‘I’ll just have to go back to London, won’t I?’
‘If that’s what you want. There are things I want to do with my life and you can’t stop me, not in the end.’
‘I can’t, but this baby might. He needs you,’ Mother said. ‘You can’t be a mother and a farm labourer. Good grief, child.’
Mother stepped away now, her arms folded.
Emily hid her trembling hand in her sleeve. Mother’s concern wasn’t what she wanted, despite what she might say. In the end she was taking care of herself. Emily might have lost HopBine Farm, but the country was full of farms, and resourceful women like Alice and Eleanor, and somehow she’d find a way.
The baby’s crinkly mouth had drifted open. His head set to one side. He made tiny sniffles in his sleep.
‘We’re going out,’ she said. Mrs Tipton hadn’t met the baby yet and it was about time she did. She pushed the pram into the hallway. The baby needed fresh air, not to be cooped up in the sitting room all day long.
Chapter Thirty-One
July 1919
She pulled the pamphlet from the envelope first:
A right to work. A right to live.
Women have the right to suitable work for a living wage.
A right to leisure.
Dearest Emily,
I thought you’d like to see the pamphlet we delivered to Downing Street. Can you imagine me, in Downing Street? I can hardly believe we did it. The number of us, women from all over. The NUWSS, WFGA, the LSWS. I don’t know what most of the letters mean, but they all represent women who are disgruntled and feel they’ve been discarded.
They wanted me to come to the deputation. It was so plush inside the house at Number 10. Alice and Eleanor and some of the other educated girls really gave the government official what for. They said there’ll be no forcing women back into the home. Eleanor said to the official, shaking her fist: ‘You think you can enfranchise us with one bill and cut our throats industrially with another?’ She had me scared. I think the minister would have made a run for it if he could!
She was talking about the bill, the pre-war work practices one that has upset her so much. She’s some nerve, I tell you. If it had been me I’d have put her in charge of the Treasury. He didn’t budge at all, mind. Just sat there nodding away. He gave away nothing and I thought it was a waste of time and I said as much when we were back outside and walking down past the spot that they’re going to build a national war memorial.
Alice said that these things took time, but two days later they wrote to say the government wouldn’t fund the colony. So that’s that I suppose, but Eleanor said we mustn’t give up hope. She has funds and we’ll still find a way.
Fondest wishes
Martha
‘John’s sacrifice will be acknowledged and remembered for generations to come. For this little one to remember,’ Mother said, tickling the baby’s chin on her return from her meeting with the village war memorial committee, bringing a bag of cherries from Mrs Tipton, with a spring in her step. Funds were to be raised for a small, stone statue on a patch of land opposite the green donated by the Cothams. On it, they’d engrave the names of all the village men, and one of Lady Radford’s maids who’d been killed in a field hospital near the front line.
It was Peace Day and the King had sent a message of gratitude to wounded soldiers, while riots took place all over the country. At HopBine, more stakes had gone in the ground on the lawns that ran alongside the cedar avenue, and down to New Lane. A huge stack of bricks had been delivered too, and sat down by the old paper mill. Their time there was running out, and if she didn’t act soon Emily would have no choice but to move with Mother, wherever she went.
The problem was baby John. The baby blues had lifted, but John hardly slept at night, and he was hungry all the time. Mother was right: it wouldn’t be easy being a mother and getting what she wanted.
Dear Mabel,
I am sure you can imagine your letter came as quite a shock, but I am glad to you for writing to me because at least now I know the truth and everything makes sense. I married Theo in 1916, in what I think of now as haste, but at the time, in the midst of war and turmoil and following the death of my dear brother, John, it seemed a perfectly sensible thing to do.
In hindsight, the signs were there but I chose to ignore
them. I didn’t want to believe that I had made a mistake and I’m sorry not for myself but for you, his first wife, and your children, that you have been hurt by my error of judgement. I am writing to tell you how deeply, deeply sorry I am for marrying Theo, for not finding out about him first, for not noticing the signs that his mind wasn’t as it should be.
But I am also writing to tell you that I too have a son, Theo’s son. A bonny young baby boy, named John after my brother killed in the war. He was born in May this year. Whether you tell Theo is a decision that I will leave with you – I’m torn. Part of me believes that he must learn that he has another son, and that John too should know his father. The other part of me feels we should leave you be, to live your life and the terrible things that the war has done to Theo. I feel it isn’t my decision to make, but yours.
Kind wishes
Emily Cotham
Cecil filled the doorway. He’d put back on the weight he’d lost in prison, and he’d remembered how to put a comb through his hair.
‘You called,’ he said, waving the letter that she’d sent to him. ‘Am I needed to prise you and Mother apart?’
‘It’s not quite that bad,’ she said, her body sagging. ‘She’s just difficult, and controlling, and vulnerable and caring all at the same time.’ The best thing, in the end, was simply not to talk to her.
Cecil waited, admiring John in the bassinet. ‘And?’ he said. ‘You always save the bad news until last. Out with it.’
Very well, he’d asked for it. She took a deep breath. ‘As soon as I feel strong enough, I’m going,’ she said. ‘You can take care of Mother for a change.’
‘And where are you going to go?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ she admitted. Eleanor had viewed land near Lingfield. She had the funds to lease it outright, and she intended to gift it to the war workers. Martha had checked it and declared it perfect, but things were moving slowly. There wouldn’t be a colony for her to work on for a while, but Wilfred’s solicitor was apparently in a hurry to complete the sale and begin with Wilfred’s plans for the estate.
‘Who do you think he resembles?’ Cecil asked. He pulled the blanket away from John’s chin. He wasn’t the likeness of anyone in their family, or Theo. She supposed he was just himself.
‘He has your hair,’ Emily said. ‘I’ve always envied you.’ She sighed. ‘You can be whoever you want to be, and no one will stand in your way. At least the baby has been born a boy and I won’t have to watch him endure the same frustrations as me.’
His face fell, and in an instant his head was buried in his hand and he sobbed. That was insensitive of her. It hadn’t been easy being who he wanted to be at all, and coming back to Chartleigh would be difficult. Last time he’d been here, he’d been almost beaten to death and no one except the prisoners of war or the doctor had looked him in the eye.
‘It’s a very brave thing to come back,’ she said, handing him a handkerchief. John, meanwhile, was warming up, his face scrunching, tight and red, giving little grunts, each one a bit longer than the last.
She asked Cecil if he was ready to face the village.
‘Yes,’ he said, wiping away the tears. ‘Better to get it over with.’
John stopped grizzling and began to suck on his own fist as soon as they were outside with a view of the sky and within hearing of the birdsong. The bees were busy; everything was golden.
They pushed the pram down New Lane and she asked Cecil to tell her what was going on in the world. She’d lost track since they’d been back in Kent.
A lot, it transpired. Over two million people out on strike across the country: bakers, miners, even the police. The Riot Act had been read in Liverpool, the troops sent in to deal with the looting.
‘And meanwhile in sleepy Kent life goes on. Untouched by Zepps, far from the battle cry of strikes and riots. Joe’s let the sheep into the orchard, the village children are aiming their arrows at the squirrels, Mrs Tipton is throwing corn at the chickens. My goodness, I’ll miss it all so much if I have to leave.’
‘I can’t do what you want of me,’ he said as they approached the house. ‘I’m sorry, Emily, but I can’t live with Mother. Life is so exciting at the moment … The suffragettes’ campaign against the trade unions has been successful,’ he began. ‘The Bolsheviks are forming a society in England. The likes of Lady Radford are on the way out. And we’re leading the way, handing the land back to the workers …’ He trailed away.
‘But?’ she asked.
‘But’ – he sighed – ‘I can’t go back to university – it would be too claustrophobic – though I can change things, change the world.’
She couldn’t ask Cecil to be anything less than Cecil. He would make a difference, and she wouldn’t try to stop him.
‘Mother might run back to Wilfred,’ she said. ‘He’s a bully, utterly controlling her life. She was diminished there.’
‘I’m sorry, Emily, but if I promised you that I’d try, in the end, I’d fail. It’s better I am honest from the beginning.’ He left her unable to climb the front steps, and he disappeared into the house.
*
It was time for Cecil to heal old wounds. His first stop was the farmhouse. Mr and Mrs Tipton welcomed them in and told Cecil he’d not let anyone down. Then he went door to door around Chartleigh. One or two turned away from him, one widow shouted at him, hoped he was satisfied, but Olive Hughes caught him passing and invited him in, told him the German prisoners got a better treatment than him.
On his way back up he bumped into Ada. She told him all about the wonders Emily had worked on the farm, and said she respected him for following his calling. When he returned to the house his eyes were red, his hankie scrunched up in his hand, and he kept repeating over and over, ‘wonderful people, wonderful people’, and she couldn’t disagree.
*
On the Thursday in the sweltering heat, as they walked along the New Lane, cart loads of labourers down for the harvest trundled past on their way to their lodgings at Perseverance Place.
August had faded into September. She talked things over with Cecil. There had been no news from Martha about the land colony. If Martha didn’t write soon she would have to scour the papers for vacancies for farm managers, but no one would ever take her on: a woman, on her own, with a baby.
The next morning, she woke at six o’clock, before John had even stirred. She fumbled for a blanket to cover her icy toes. She’d kicked it off in the night because it had been too warm for anything other than a sheet, but now her breath blew clouds into the room.
She checked on John, put the back of her hand to his cheek. His skin was cold. She slotted a hand beneath his back and without waking him slipped him under the blanket into bed with her. After twenty minutes or so she warmed her toes with bed socks and put on a layer over her nightdress.
John woke, raa-raaing for his morning feed. While he fed, she listened to a blackbird’s song. It was quieter than normal outside, the bird’s song flatter. John had dozed off at her breast. She lowered him back to the silk insides of the bassinet. Pink for a boy, pale red for the war god Mars – she had got that right.
How could the house be so cold? She pulled back the curtains and gasped. The sky was so blue she could slice it in two, but the landscape was still; a heavy haw frost coated the land and froze it rigid. Each blade of grass distinguished itself from the other, standing to attention.
The blackbird was quiet, without much to sing about.
Her hand flew to her mouth. The harvest would be ruined.
She scampered to her wardrobe and lifted out her old land army uniform. Boots, still crusted in mud, sat in the depths on a newspaper spread. She dressed in her breeches, half-brushed her teeth at the basin and splashed her face with water from the bowl. Emily pulled on her thick overcoat, woke Cecil to ask him to take care of John, and dashed out of the house.
The farmhouse door was open. Men she didn’t recognise darted in and out like ants from a kicked nest.
Mr Tipton wasn’t anywhere, neither was Mrs Tipton. A labourer from the village doffed his cap at her as he fled past.
‘Can I help?’ she called after him.
‘Nothing doing, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s too late.’
She paused in the doorway. Its whining creak echoed around the empty room. The air was sharp and clear – no steam or cabbage-soup fumes. The black-leaded range had gone out. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. Mrs Tipton sat on the worn-out settee, her head in her hands, sobbing.
‘Can I help?’
‘It’s done, isn’t it? A whole year’s work. Gone.’ She mimed a handful of nothing going up into the air.
‘Surely something. The apple crop?’
‘S’all ruined.’
‘What does Mr Tipton say?’
‘He’s in a proper pickle. It’s the shock. The shock! He’s scared of that uncle of yours. He knows what he’ll say when he tells him there’s no profit this year.’
Emily fetched the coal in and got the range going. Filled the kettle and got out the leaves, and the teapot. She rummaged about in the depths of the dresser cupboard until she found the little tin, in which Mrs Tipton hid her sugar. This cup of tea was going to need to be as sweet and as warming as she could make it.
*
Percy Greenacre’s head hung low. His hands perched on his hips and he stood in a circle with the other labourers up on the Sunnyside Orchard.
It didn’t need to be spoken out loud; the apple crop would thaw on the bough and go soft and rot. The trees would be damaged too. Percy plucked a low-lying apple and kicked it into the hedgerow.
The labourers, hired help, who now wouldn’t get paid, hovered around the cart smoking and talking in low voices. Some of the villagers’ children, innocent to what this all meant, chased one another around the trunks.
‘Where’s Mr Tipton?’ Emily asked.
Percy was talking to one of the seasonal workers. He walked past her, so close he brushed her arm, but he didn’t answer. It was as if she were a ghost.
She should go. Leave them be. There was nothing she could do to help. She’d be better placed trying to keep Uncle Wilfred under control once he found out his profits would be down. She might be able to stop him from bullying Mr Tipton. It wasn’t his fault that the harvest had failed. She crossed over to the ridge, kept far away from the others. She’d walk down to the old paper mill and trace the stream back towards HopBine.
