Foxden Acres (The Dudley Sisters Quartet Book 1)
Page 20
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July had been one of the hottest and driest months since records began and according to the BBC’s long-range weather forecast September was going to be one of the wettest.
The harvest had dominated the lives of Woodcote’s men, women and children for as long as anyone could remember and this year was no different, except for the added workload involved in harvesting Foxden Acres. Instead of meadows and pastures there were fields of corn, wheat and oats, forage maize and cow cabbage.
Kitty and Fanny started work at High Fields Farm at five o’clock in the morning. After milking the cows they took the churns to Lowarth dairy. By the time they returned the herd was grazing in a nearby field and Ethan Baylis had washed down the stalls. During the harvest, Ethan paid a couple of local lads to help him in the evenings, so Kitty and Fanny could work on Foxden’s harvest.
Iris and Mavis spent most of the summer months working at Foxden, because Charity Farm’s busiest times were the lambing season in February and the shearing in April. In July, Garth Davies’s sons, fourteen year old John and David, who was twelve – naturals at all things agricultural – broke up from school and took over Iris and Mavis’s chores.
Mr Porter bought a combine harvester for the Estate. The other farmers preferred the traditional binder. Foxden’s arable land was considerably bigger than the farms, so both methods were used. High Fields dairy farm laid claim to the first ten acres of Foxden’s harvest, and the remainder was split between a hayrick and winter fodder stored in the Estate’s barns.
The land girls worked from dawn until dusk. The sun burned and blistered whatever parts of their bodies were exposed. Their arms, legs and backs ached from wielding pitchforks and hay rakes. They were bitten and stung, and they itched and scratched until they were sore. Haymaking was hot, dirty work, and the nightly ritual of picking hayseeds out of their hair and clothes became very tedious. Then one night the dusty, itchy lives of Foxden’s Land Army changed forever.
Returning to the Hall exhausted after a day’s haymaking, Bess and the land girls found Mr Porter in the rick-yard hammering nails into large pieces of wood.
‘I’ve made a screen around the water pump. Thought you might like to wash the worst of the day’s dust off before you go indoors,’ he announced to the small gathering of dirty and bemused young women. ‘You can put your feet into these buckets and pump cold water onto them – cool you down a treat,’ he beamed.
And it did. As soon as Mr Porter was out of sight the girls stripped to their underwear, filled the buckets with cold water from the well and washed the dust from their arms and legs. Then they sat in a row on the low wall in their undies, put their feet into the buckets and let the evening sun dry their bodies.
‘Hey!’ Kitty said to Fanny. ‘Watch it, you’re soaking me.’
‘Sorry, I was trying to splash water on my face. I’m so hot!’
‘I’ll cool you down,’ Kitty said. Flicking water at Fanny, she splashed Polly.
Polly retaliated by picking up her bucket and throwing its contents over Kitty, and in the process wet the other girls, who then picked up their buckets and threw water at Polly. Soon the girls were running round laughing and screaming, and emptying their buckets over one another.
Eventually the novelty of splashing each other wore off, but washing off the worst of the day’s dirt and relaxing with their feet in buckets of cold water didn’t.
By early September, by the time the rain came, the harvest was in and the girls were given a long weekend off.
‘I think we should celebrate,’ Bess said to Mr Porter at breakfast. ‘Let’s have a party. Everyone has worked so hard and it wouldn’t cost much. We could have a barn dance, like they used to do in the old days. What do you think, Mr Porter?’
‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ Mrs Hartley called from the scullery.
‘Now there’s a surprise,’ Mr Porter muttered. ‘It’ll take a lot of organising. I don’t know that I’ve got the time.’
‘Not to worry,’ Bess said. ‘If you can’t do it I’m sure with the help of a couple of the girls Mrs Hartley and I can sort something out.’
Mrs Hartley came back into the kitchen, nodding. ‘Yes, between us--’
‘All right, you two, steady up. I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. It’ll just take a bit of arranging, that’s all.’ He looked up at them with a twinkle in his eye. ‘If we must have a shindig, it might as well be done properly.’
The party started at three o’clock on Saturday afternoon. The farmers and their wives brought the bulk of the food, with a substantial contribution from Mrs Hartley’s larder. Everyone who had worked on the harvest was there – farm workers, land girls, villagers and their children. In the evening Arthur Hanley brought a barrel of beer and several flagons of cider. ‘With his Lordship’s compliments,’ he announced to assorted hoots and cheers.
The women sat and gossiped, the children played and squabbled, and the men drank their fill of ale. But for Bess the party began when Tom arrived.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t have any leave left,’ Bess said, hugging her brother.
I haven’t! I’ve brought a Major General up to Laughton Manor in Northampton. There’s a big powwow going on and dozens of the top brass are there. I’ve never seen so many medals in one place. Anyway, the MG said he didn’t mind if I came home for a couple of hours, so long as I was back to pick him up at seven sharp. So here I am!’ Tom looked around. ‘I think I’ll go and say hello to the lads in the west wing. Won’t be long.’
One of the older men took a harmonica from his pocket, another produced a squeezebox and someone took a fiddle from its case. While the Barn Dance Trio blew, squeezed and fiddled old country songs, as well as a few modern tunes, the partygoers sang and danced.
Bess had just slipped out of the barn to check the horses as it started to rain. She stopped halfway across the yard, looked up and closed her eyes. She could feel the fine rain on her face and smell the warm scent of newly mown hay – and she was satisfied that the harvest was a job well done. Bess still had a long way to go, but she was happy with what she’d achieved since she’d been back at Foxden. And she was more content and at ease with herself than she had been for a long time. Any doubts she had on the night James visited her in London, when he’d asked her to come back and turn the Estate into arable land, had gone.
There was still a great deal of work to do before winter, but Bess was determined to go to London for Molly’s baby’s christening and while she was there, visit her friends Natalie and Anton Goldman. But first she had a barn dance to go to.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bess stared at her old lodgings, too numb to move. She felt sure her legs would give way at any second. ‘Molly! Elizabeth!’ she cried, tears stinging her eyes.
‘Edna?’ An elderly man grabbed Bess’s arm. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked affectionately, shaking his head as if she was a mischievous child. ‘We’ve been worried.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bess said, ‘I’m not Edna.’
The look of disappointment in the old man’s eyes when he realised Bess was not who he was looking for distressed her so much she began to cry. ‘I’m so sorry…’
The old man shook his head again, muttered something Bess couldn’t hear and shuffled off in his carpet slippers.
She was still watching the old man when a younger man in pyjamas carrying a little girl in a pink nightdress ran past. The little girl dropped her teddy bear and began to cry, ‘Daddy, stop!’ But her daddy didn’t hear her above the noise of wailing sirens and collapsing houses. The little girl twisted her small body until she was able to look over her father’s shoulder at her fallen comforter on the ground. She reached out and, like the halfpenny crane game on the end of the pier, her small hands opened and closed in rapid succession. But unlike the jib that picks up the treasure the little girl wasn’t near enough to grasp the prize. Tears spilled from the child’s eyes but her father didn’t stop.
‘Have you seen two men and a little girl?’ The young woman began to choke from the smoke and brick dust. ‘One man was older, the other-- That’s my little girl’s teddy,’ she said.
Bess gave the woman the teddy bear and pointed to the opposite side of the road. ‘The older man was looking for someone called Edna.’
‘Edna was my mother-in-law. We were on our way to the shelter. We crossed the road, father-in-law and me, my husband and our little girl, but Edna went back to get dad’s spectacles. She was only in the house a minute. She came out of the front door with the glasses in her hand. She was smiling when the bomb… Dad won’t accept she’s gone. He keeps saying she’s got herself lost and she’s waiting for him to find her.’
The woman thanked Bess for the teddy bear and ran off to look for her family. Bess wanted to help her but she had her own loved ones to find.
Two ARP men were cordoning off the area around what remained of numbers seventy-seven and seventy-nine Arcadia Avenue. They were directing people across the road to the church hall, where the women of the Women’s Voluntary Service were giving out blankets and cups of tea.
‘Move along, Miss,’ a tired looking, smoke-stained ARP man shouted at Bess. ‘There’s an unexploded bomb,’ he said, pointing to a huge hole in Mrs McAllister’s next door neighbour’s front garden.
‘You are sure there’s no one trapped inside number seventy-nine, aren’t you?’ Bess asked.
‘Positive! Now will you please move along!’
‘The old gentleman who lived in that house spent his life tending his garden,’ Bess said, as much to herself as to the ARP man. ‘No matter the season, it was always a profusion of colour.’ The ARP man ignored her. He was too busy.
‘And this house has been so badly hit it’ll collapse any minute, I shouldn’t wonder,’ the other ARP man said.
A gaping hole, as wide as the front room, went from the hall at the foot of the stairs to the ceiling of the bathroom. Bess was watching rivulets of plaster-dust, like sand in an egg timer, trickle through the floorboards of the upstairs landing when, along with its neighbour, her old lodgings groaned and lurched to the left. Then the stairs she had walked up so many times collapsed, one on top of the other, until there were no stairs left.
When the dust had settled Mrs McAllister’s house was no longer a mirror image of its neighbour. The roof was lopsided. It looked like a large black beret that had been put on at an angle. Bedroom ceilings, bowing under the weight, had started to bear down on the outside walls. Suddenly there was a loud splintering sound followed by a terrific crack – and the front bedroom window, along with a panel of plaster, plunged into the front garden. Tears filled Bess’s eyes as she looked into Miss Armstrong’s bedroom. Miss Armstrong was a private person. It wasn’t right that her personal belongings were exposed for everyone to see. Bess turned and walked away.
She needed to get rid of her suitcase. It was heavy. She joined a queue of people going into the church hall. Inside she asked a WVS lady who was serving tea if she would keep an eye on her case while she looked for her friends. The woman put the suitcase under the table and said she would do her best, but warned there were opportunist thieves about, so she couldn’t guarantee the case would be there when Bess returned. Bess said she’d risk it. After searching the hall for her friends – and not finding them – she left.
Outside the noise of exploding bombs and collapsing houses was deafening – and the dust and smoke created by the debris made it difficult to see. Bess cupped her hands over her nose and mouth and zigzagged her way through the queue of people going into the hall. ‘Can you tell me where the nearest shelter is?’ she asked an ARP man who was running towards her.
‘Fifty yards along the avenue on the left,’ he shouted without stopping. ‘Follow me.’
Bess turned and fell into step behind the man. But before she was able to get into her stride an ear-shattering explosion lifted her off her feet and threw her to the ground. From where she landed she could see fire and smoke coming from a gaping hole where the garden of number seventy-seven used to be. The bomb had exploded. Fire took hold of the semi-detached house, spreading quickly to number seventy-nine. Flames licked at the remaining windows, causing them to shatter and shower the road with glass. Bess put her hand up to shield her eyes as the roof of her old lodgings collapsed into the bedrooms. Within seconds the weight had forced the upstairs floors to give way and the upper half of the house crashed into the inferno that was once Mrs McAllister’s sitting room. Finally the whole house disappeared into the cellar, taking with it the hornbeam – a sapling when Bess first came to number seventy-nine – the post box that stood on the pavement, and the street light.
Bess stumbled to her feet and rubbed the dust from her eyes to see more clearly the devastation the German bombs had wrought on this quiet suburb of London. There were no factories or military installations in Kensington. There were only people. Ordinary people living in ordinary houses. People who took pride in their vinegar-clean windows, scrubbed front door steps and neat gardens.
As she neared the Anderson shelter closest to number seventy-nine people were beginning to leave. She searched the face of every dazed and disorientated person as they left the safety of the shelter for the uncertainty of the street, but her friends were not among them. Bess sat on the kerb, exhausted. After a few minutes she decided to go back to the beginning of the avenue and start the search again. She stood up and stretched – and she heard a baby cry.
‘Molly...’ Bess shouted frantically, ‘Miss Armstrong, Mrs McAllister…’
‘Bess, we’re here!’ Molly came running out of the shelter into Bess’s arms. ‘Have you seen Mrs Mac? She went home to fetch Elizabeth another bottle, but she didn’t come back.’
‘No, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen her. She’s probably in one of the other shelters,’ Bess said, hugging Molly. ‘Miss Armstrong, thank goodness you’re safe,’ Bess said, holding her hand out to her friend as she came out of the shelter with Molly’s baby in her arms. ‘I can’t tell you how good it is to see you. And this must be Elizabeth?’ Bess smiled at her little goddaughter. ‘She’s beautiful, Molly. Let’s get her out of this smoke.’
‘We can’t leave, Bess. We have to be here when Mrs Mac gets back. If we’re not here she’ll worry.’ Molly began to cry.
‘We can’t stay here, Molly. Besides, Mrs Mac’s probably in the church hall by now, looking for you. Come on, let’s go and see, shall we?’
Molly didn’t want to leave, but because Miss Armstrong agreed with Bess she gave in on the condition they called at number seventy-nine first, to make sure Mrs Mac hadn’t returned there.
Bess tried to persuade Molly not to go to the house, that Mrs Mac wasn’t there, but Molly insisted on seeing for herself. When she saw the destruction the bombs had caused, Molly fell to her knees and howled.
Bess knelt down in front of her friend and put her arms around her. ‘There’s nothing we can do tonight.’ She helped Molly to her feet. ‘Let’s go to the church hall and get some rest and first thing in the morning we’ll look for Mrs Mac. She can’t have gone far.’
Reluctantly, Molly let Bess lead her across the road to the church hall, where the ladies of the WVS gave them each a blanket and directed them to a row of thin single mattresses before bringing them cups of hot sweet tea. As worn out as she was, Molly wouldn’t rest. While Miss Armstrong gave Elizabeth the last of her bottle, Bess collected her suitcase and Molly searched the room. When she was satisfied that Mrs McAllister was not in the hall, she returned to Bess and Miss Armstrong and, with her little daughter in her arms, fell asleep.
The morning sun did nothing to disperse the pungent smell of acrid smoke, even though the fires had been extinguished for several hours. The Auxiliary Fire Service had left the area, leaving the ARP men to clear paths through
the rubble and tape off the areas that remained dangerous. The man who had moved Bess on the night before – and probably saved her life – looked exhausted as he roped off a house further along the avenue. He smiled wearily as Bess approached.
‘We’re looking for our friend,’ Bess said. ‘She lived at number seventy-nine. She came back to the house last night during the bombing raid, but didn’t return to the shelter. Have you seen her? She’s my height, in her late fifties with light brown hair and she has a Scottish accent.’
‘She was wearing a navy blue hat and coat,’ Miss Armstrong added.
‘There was so much going on last night we didn’t get that far down the avenue until after the house was hit. Sorry ladies, I didn’t see anyone of that description when I arrived, or afterwards,’ the ARP man said.
‘Is there another shelter she could have gone to, in the other direction perhaps?’
‘There’s only the church hall, miss.’
‘We’ve just come from there.’
‘The only thing I can suggest is that you give the WVS a description of your friend and they’ll circulate it to the other voluntary services.’
‘We’ve done that too, but thank you,’ Bess said.
The three women walked along Arcadia Avenue and turned left into Kensington High Street without looking back. Elizabeth was hungry and cried continuously and Bess’s arms felt as if they were going to drop off with the weight of her suitcase.
Bess suggested they stopped for something to eat. ‘I’ve got plenty of coupons, so if we can find somewhere to have breakfast--’