by Ruby Jackson
Her heart, which had been beating so quickly that it was in danger of jumping right out of her body, slowed its beat and she wiped the cold sweat from her brow. ‘Pull yourself together, Grace,’ she said, ‘and just hope no one heard that scream.’
She stopped shaking, decided that only a fool would have put bare hands deep into a nest of hay and made her way outside, where she leaned against the badly whitewashed wall and took a few breaths of farm air.
She looked at the door. This was it. There was at least one rat in the stable and her job was to kill it. For a moment, it occurred to her that she might have frightened the rat more than it had frightened her but, on reflection, decided that that was highly unlikely. She swallowed the bile that was rising in her throat and went back inside.
Deliberately, she forced herself to walk to the manger that she had been cleaning and looked up. Above her was a loft, no doubt a comfortable home to hundreds of rodents. She had to go up there but, when she reached the ladder that led to the loft, she stood for a moment, listening. Nothing. No little creature with horrible ever-growing teeth was crouching up there, ready to pounce. She climbed slowly and, as soon as her head approached the loft floor, she switched on the torch. No beady little eyes. She finished the climb and stood up, stretching her spine. Evidence of the presence of small animals was everywhere.
Little prints crisscrossed the dusty floor; there was evidence of gnawing on every plank of wood and she shuddered in distaste as she found sausage-shaped droppings. Rats, rats and more rats.
I’m standing in their WC.
Grace closed her eyes for a moment, shook her head as if to banish all nasty thoughts and opened her eyes again. No need to pour Mrs Fleming’s flour on the floor. She was surrounded by prints.
She went back down into the stable much more quickly than she had climbed up and, once on the floor, looked around to see where it would be best to leave some food. The stable door creaked open a little and a cat walked in. It looked at Grace as if annoyed to find a human being in its favourite dinner hall.
‘You’re not doing a great job, cat: this place is alive with rats.’
The cat sidled up to her and attempted to wrap himself around her leg. Grace shuddered; she was unfamiliar with cats and hated the fact that the few cats with which she had had contact, seemed to want to … to what, be too close too soon, perhaps. Gently, she pushed the animal away, deciding that, no matter how warm summer became, she would wear Wellingtons, not shoes in the barns.
Since she was at work in the farm buildings, she returned to the farmhouse for dinner, a hearty bowl of vegetable-and-lentil soup and a slice of home-baked bread.
‘If there was enough water boiled, Grace, I’d suggest a bath right now. You’re a right picture.’ Mrs Fleming laughed but it was not unkind laughter. ‘Are you done for now in the farm buildings?’
‘Yes, I’m going to the beet fields.’
‘Glad we didn’t waste hot water on you then,’ said Mrs Fleming with another laugh. ‘Best carry some water with you; it’s going to be a hot afternoon.’
How did the others manage to take an afternoon break? Grace drank water as she worked. The hard work and the hot sun made her very thirsty. After an hour, she felt that she would never again be able to straighten her spine, but somehow she did. She looked out across the beet field and there in the next field was Eva. The Polish land girl was sitting against the trunk of a tall mountain ash, a beautiful tree that Fiona, the Scot, called a rowan. Curls of white smoke rose from her cigarette into the graceful branches of the tree. Eva’s work would be done and done well, and yet she had time to rest. How does she do it? Grace thought, as she returned to hacking away at the persistent weeds that grew among the beets.
She was quite exhausted and absolutely filthy when she heard Eva calling, ‘Come on, Grace, you are having bath and water is colding.’
‘You look as cool as when you went out,’ said Grace in envy. Eva was dusty but she had worn a turban round her bright hair and now she removed it and shook her head. Her dungarees were uncrushed. Grace looked down at her own and decided that she looked as if she had slept in them.
‘Is nothing, Grace; maybe dirt not likes persons with yellow hair.’
‘Very possible.’
To her surprise, Eva linked arms with her and together they walked and skipped back to the farmhouse, where Grace was escorted upstairs by bucket-carrying land girls.
‘Wash your hair first or you won’t have clean water to rinse it,’ Fiona said. ‘Do you want me to rinse your hair for you?’
Never had Grace sat naked in a bath while other girls milled around, helping. She could not begin now. ‘No, thanks, don’t want to make any of you late,’ and with that, they trooped back downstairs, leaving Grace alone.
She did wash her hair first, wrapped her head in her towel and stepped into the water. Bliss. She sat down, wishing she had all the time in the world just to lie in hot water feeling the aches and pains slowly dissolve. She remembered in time that she must, in no circumstances, be late for supper.
Bob Fleming had shot two rabbits and so the delicious smell of stew met her on the stairs and immediately she felt far hungrier than she had been for some time. Rabbit stew, containing lots of onions, carrots, leeks, potatoes and whatever else Mrs Fleming had in her larder or kitchen garden, was a treat much appreciated by the usually very hungry and hard-working girls. A round, crusty loaf of Mrs Fleming’s baked bread sat on the wooden bread board and there was a large glass of fresh milk beside each plate.
‘Oh, and there’s something else,’ said Mrs Fleming as she began to serve large portions. ‘Sheila, reach up above my china dog and fetch out the post. Sorry, girls, there was only Grace here at dinner time and I forgot all about them.’
Sheila distributed the letters and cards and, as always, only a few of the girls received anything.
‘Wow, quite a fat letter for Katia, I think,’ said Sheila, and handed over a large envelope, which Katia looked at and then pressed to her heart. ‘Is from sister of my father. She is escaped from Warsaw before war. I will read after.’
‘One for Jane and one for Fiona.’ These letters were handed over, looked at and stuffed into overall pockets to be read later.
Sheila looked very carefully at the last letter. She glanced at Mrs Fleming, who nodded and then handed the letter to Grace. ‘For you, Grace, awfully official-looking.’
Grace took the letter and looked at the envelope. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, ‘it’s from solicitors. That’s lawyers, isn’t it? What would solicitors want with me?’
‘It’s not always bad news, Grace. Maybe there’s something due you because your sister died. Do you want to read it now or will we eat our tea?’
It was obvious that Grace wanted to read the letter and that the others wanted to know what was in it. She put the envelope face down on the table so that she could not see the solicitor’s name. ‘Shameful to let such a lovely tea go to waste, Mrs Fleming. Shouldn’t think there’s something now for there never was anything before. It’ll keep.’
During the meal, which everyone ate very quickly, Grace tried to chat as easily as the others but her mind was going over and over all manner of scenarios. To her the meal seemed endless but she tried to be patient.
‘I don’t see why the girls can’t read their letters over a piece of my marmalade cake and a nice cup of tea, Bob.’
‘I’ll away to the office for a while to let them get on,’ said Mr Fleming, and he pushed back his chair, nodded and strode off.
Mrs Fleming cut generous slices of cake. ‘There’s fresh eggs in this,’ she told them. ‘In a month or two, I’ll put raspberries in – better than marmalade in the summer.’
Sheila passed the plates of cake and Mrs Fleming began to pour tea. ‘He’s a bit nervous of private things; wouldn’t want to hear things as is too personal. I’ll slip away too if you’d like.’
Katia started to giggle. Mrs Fleming was large and probably incapable of
slipping anywhere. The awareness that Katia too could see the funny side of the words spoken by the farmer’s wife relaxed the other girls.
‘Nothing personal in mine,’ said Jane. ‘Anyone’s welcome to read it.’
‘Mine too,’ said Fiona. ‘A raid on Edinburgh, not too ghastly; it’s in the papers and on the wireless. Can’t think why we didn’t hear that; we’re no’ a million miles away.’
‘Sorry,’ began Grace, standing up. ‘Sorry, it’s just … sorry.’ She got to her feet and ran from the room, leaving the others looking after her in mingled interest and dismay.
Mrs Fleming stood up. ‘Help yourselves, girls. I’m away to see if she needs anything. Who’s close to her?’
‘We all like very much Grace,’ said Eva whose language skills were growing every day.
‘I’m glad of that, girls. I’ll see what I can do but if you wouldn’t mind not going to bed yet, girls. Maybe a good play on the wireless.’
Grace was sitting on her bed. To Mrs Fleming’s surprise, there was no sign at all of tears.
‘Is everything all right, Grace?’
‘Yes, Mrs Fleming. It’s just a surprise, getting a letter from a solicitor.’
‘A nice surprise, I hope.’
Grace made no reply.
‘Have you come into money, Grace?’
‘Nothing like that. It’s just, well, it won’t mean anything to anyone but me. Seems the firm that owned the building … the place where my sister died, have found a box that belonged to her, has her name and address on it, and they want me to collect it.’
‘And where is this firm? Dartford, I suppose.’
Grace nodded, too upset to speak.
‘Ask them to send it to you in the post.’
Grace shook her head. ‘The solicitor says … because it was in the property … they want to open it but they won’t do it until I’m there.’
‘Sounds peculiar. Never heard of such a thing. I’ll talk to Mr Fleming, but we’ll be harvesting in a few weeks. Now, if you’re not upset, do you want to come down and drink your tea?’
Grace shook her head. ‘I can’t, Mrs Fleming. I need to think.’
Mrs Fleming assured Grace that she would help her in any way she could. ‘We were a bit concerned about you after that lad was here, Grace. Lady Alice said maybe she’d made a big mistake telling him where you was. I’m saying no more, but in future, tell me when anything is wrong.’
Grace promised and, when Mrs Fleming left, she undressed and curled up in bed, hoping that none of the others would come up early. She relived the first weeks at Newriggs and her despair then that there was no word from Jack. And then she felt the anguish of the terrible weeks after her … what could she call it, date with Jack? But rising above everything was this news from the solicitors. There had been an inventory and some items of possible value were unaccounted for. Had they been destroyed in the fury that had taken the lives of Megan and some unnamed Canadian or were they in the box?
Open it, open it, Grace cried in silent agony. I hope Megan wasn’t a thief. But they’ll just take any stuff back. They can’t blame me. Maybe there’s something about me in the box, some information that will explain why I was handed over to my sister, and by whom. She pushed her face into the pillow. Why won’t these dreams I have show me more? Is there somewhere someone who thinks about me, worries about me? She turned over again and lay quietly, picturing a cosy kitchen like the Petrie kitchen; two comfortable if slightly battered chairs near the fire. And a cat, a nice cat … no, a dog, I would be happy with a dog. And two people, two …
But no picture of the second person drew itself in her mind.
Letters? Once more, she had forgotten. Angry with herself, Grace threw back the cover and, after getting out of bed and finding her notepaper with matching envelopes, returned to the sanctuary of her bed and began to write.
For once, words poured out, to the grieving Daisy, Mrs Brewer, Sally, Mrs Petrie, Rose, to Jack. She talked of her work, her distaste for rat-killing, the beauty of the land, the pleasure of living with girls from different countries and of learning from them. To everyone but Jack, she wrote of the worry over the solicitor’s letter and she finished each, ‘Hoping to see you soon. Love, Grace.’
Her letter to Jack was almost abrupt. It was obvious from his letter that he had worried that she might be pregnant, although he had never used the actual words. But although he had said that his father would have helped her, he said nothing of how he felt about the possible situation and nothing at all about any feelings he had for Grace.
Dear Jack,
You will be glad to know that I do not need any help from anyone. I am fine and enjoying the work on the farm, except for the rat-catching. We have two refugees, Polish girls, who are trained land girls but they don’t talk much about the war. They tell us a bit about their country, especially the food, and one has a lovely singing voice but it’s all in Polish. I hope no one is shooting at you,
Grace
Was the last sentence a bit silly? He’s in the war, she reminded herself, but she could not possibly write what she wanted to write. She wanted to ask him if he still cared for her, if he had ever cared for her, but … she could not write, ‘You held me and I felt loved. But you did not love me.’
Another face shimmered before her inward eye. Sam. Sam, who had never let her down. He would never let anyone down and, her heart lifted as she realised that, even when she had grown too old to be held, Sam had always made her feel safe.
Grace put the letters in envelopes; she would post them when she cycled into the village with the other girls.
She lay down and, when the others crept in, they were sure that she was sound asleep.
ELEVEN
The crops grew tall in the fields, the rats were killed, collected and incinerated, and were somehow replaced by other rats. Summer fruits – raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries – swelled and ripened, and currants of many colours danced like jewels on their branches. Farmers all over Britain, asked to do the impossible, did it with some muttering and the help of the Women’s Land Army, squads of conscientious objectors and even prisoners of war. There was no such thing on a farm as a five-day week or an eight-hour day. Lamps were hung from trees and on hedges so that harvesting could go on. The Nation had to be fed.
Letters from ‘foreign fields’ were few and far between, and too often the news that did come was unwelcome, but still Grace and her fellow land girls at Newriggs Farm wrote and posted their little notes, hoping that they would reach their loved ones. All the girls, and the Flemings, too, worried about Eva and Katia, their Polish land girls. They knew little about them, only that each had fled to Britain before the fall of Poland, leaving parents and grandparents behind. When news seemed to travel too slowly between the south of England and that little farm in the south of Scotland, the English girls would look at their Polish friends, noting how bravely and efficiently they went about their work, and would stiffen their backbones.
‘Tomorrow, we’ll hear tomorrow,’ were the words spoken in hope all over the country.
Grace had given up thinking of the pleasure of a few days’ leave in order to return to Dartford to see the solicitor about her sister’s locked and mysterious box. She had written to the firm, explaining the situation, and had given them written authority to open the box and to examine the contents. Mrs Petrie was to be her representative at the opening. Grace knew that anything of importance that was found in the box would be safe with Mrs Petrie and so decided to try not to think of it.
That, of course, was when Mrs Fleming told her that she had been given a forty-eight-hour pass and a travel warrant. Mr Fleming drove her to the railway station and promised to telephone the solicitor’s office to give them her approximate time of arrival. They, in turn, would alert the Petries.
The train was only thirty-five minutes late on departure and there were no long and unexplained delays, and so she arrived in Newcastle in plenty of time to catch the Lon
don train – if the London train would come. It did – seven hours after it was due to arrive. While she waited, Grace finished the Walter Scott novel she had borrowed from the farmhouse and ate her sandwich. Mrs Fleming, obviously aware of the difficulties of travel, had spread an egg salad between two slices of her home-made bread. She had filled a small glass jar with fat red raspberries and each one had remained uncrushed. Her delicious picnic cheered Grace as she waited and waited. With so short a leave, every hour’s delay made it less likely that she would be able to visit the solicitor.
As always, Mrs Petrie would be making something special for her to eat; she would have whisked through the twins’ bedroom, making sure that Daisy’s bed – which is where Grace would sleep – was immaculately tidy, clean and comfortable.
‘And I’m not going to get there,’ she groaned.
She looked around the station: soldiers, sailors, airmen, Waafs, nurses, and all seemingly waiting for the train to London. Were they going to new bases, or home on leave, or heading abroad?
Sam. A tall, slim soldier with sun-streaked fair hair was standing, his head bowed as if he were grabbing a moment’s rest. Everything about his size and his posture shouted Sam to her. How wonderful. Sam had been set free and was returning home. She did not think it unlikely that a POW returning from France or Germany to England would arrive in Newcastle. She ran forward and touched his arm. ‘Sam,’ she began, ‘Oh, Sam, I’m so … ’
