Land Girls, The Promise

by Roland Moore

  Finch’s mind drifted off, as memories filled his head. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he gasped when he felt Evelyn place a comforting hand on his across the table.

  “It’s good to remember the past, Fred,” she said, kindly. “Don’t ever forget the past.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a grandson too, you know.”

  “You don’t look old enough!” Evelyn smiled. Finch grinned, realising she was joking.

  “Get away with you!”

  They sipped their drinks at the same time. Finch was pleased that he had slowed down. But he was still thinking about his next one. Evelyn continued the conversation, “What is it like having all those Land Girls around the place?”

  “It means I can be a bit more, erm, like a manager.” He smiled. “It’s really good because I don’t have to get my hands dirty as much, with all of them doing it all. Truth is, I haven’t planted a potato since this war started!”

  They giggled together. “No, they’re a good bunch of girls,” Finch said.

  “And there are two farms on the Hoxley estate, aren’t there?” Evelyn sipped at her cider.

  “Pasture Farm and Shallow Brook Farm,” Finch confirmed. “My one is the better farm, if I do say so myself. Shallow Brook was run by the Storeys. Have you heard of Vernon Storey?”

  Evelyn shook her head. She lived on the outskirts of Brinford, so there was no reason why she would know many people in Helmstead.

  “Nasty piece of work.” Finch scrunched his face as if he’d sucked on a lemon. “Wanted for murder, you know?”

  “Oh gosh,” Evelyn said. “What happened? Was it one of the Land Girls?”

  Finch leaned in close to tell her. “No, his own son.”

  Evelyn wanted to know more, but Finch didn’t want to spoil their evening with the whole sorry tale of Frank Tucker and Walter Storey, and how Iris had discovered the truth about Walter’s murder. It would put a bit of a dampener on things. No, he wanted to make Evelyn laugh again. He liked it when she laughed because her eyes twinkled and she’d arch her head back. Suddenly Finch wondered if he was falling for Evelyn Gray.

  “So I’ve taken over the other farm. Surprised meself, because I can barely manage one place let alone two!”

  It had the desired effect. Evelyn’s face broke into an amused grin and she arched her head slightly.

  “Got some help, though. Martin, the warden’s son, and John Fisher - he’s married to one of my girls - are sorting the place out for me.”

  “Sounds like you’re busy?” Evelyn smiled warmly.

  “Which is exactly why I need relaxing nights out like this!” Finch got up. “I’ll get us another round, shall I?”

  “All right. But that will be enough for me.”

  “Me too,” Finch said. As he carried the glasses to the bar, he glanced back to where Evelyn was checking her face in a powder compact. He had known her two weeks and they were getting on famously. Finch hadn’t noticed her at the dance. As far as he was concerned, he’d clocked eyes on her for the first time at one of Lady Hoxley’s agricultural shows. Finch had been showing his prize pig, Chamberlain, and was trying to get the pig into a gated enclosure. Evelyn and a group of women had been watching and Finch felt the weight of expectation upon him as he’d tried to manhandle the heavy animal.

  “Come on, you blighter!”

  But Chamberlain had turned quickly, taking Finch off balance, and the stout farmer had fallen face first into the mud. While some of the women couldn’t help but laugh, Evelyn looked concerned and ran to his aid.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “No. Only me pride,” Finch replied.

  “Let me help you.” And Finch had been surprised to see Evelyn outstretch her arms and try to corner Chamberlain in a bid to edge him closer to the paddock. She was gamely trying her best, but Chamberlain easily side-stepped her. Soon, Finch and Evelyn were working together in a pincer movement to cut off the pig’s escape route. Finally, after several failed attempts and some swearing from Finch, they managed to get Chamberlain into the pen. Finch slid the bolt across with a triumphant smile and mopped his brow with the back of his hand.

  “Thanks for your help, Mrs -?” Finch outstretched his hand to shake hers, but she scrunched up her nose instead. Finch looked down and realised his hand was covered in mud. “I’ll wash it first.”

  “Then I’ll shake it.” Evelyn laughed.

  And since then, they had seen each other three times. Two pub outings, including this one, and a trip to an entertainment show at the village hall. Finch was very happy with his new friend. Evelyn was happy too.

  As Finch brought the drinks back to the table, he was surprised to see that a visitor had arrived by Evelyn’s side. It was Martin Reeves, out of breath having run all the way from Pasture Farm.

  “Mr Finch!” he gasped. “You have to come back. It’s Iris!”

  “What is it?”

  “Mum is worried about her. She’s gone to her room.”

  “Well, can’t it wait?”

  Martin shrugged. He wasn’t sure. “She just told me to get you. She’s worried that Iris has been drinking.”

  “You want me to come back just so I can discipline Iris?”

  “Mum said it was important. Sorry.”

  Finch nodded, sighed and started to get his coat and hat. He said a hurried goodbye to the understanding Evelyn and made his way out of the pub to follow Martin back to the farmhouse.

  When they got there, Finch placed his Homberg hat on the coat stand and started to take off his overcoat, with help from Martin. Finch’s face was etched with concern as he glanced at Esther, thoughts of his romantic evening fading from his mind.

  “How is Iris?” Finch asked.

  “Asleep, I think,” Esther replied. “Sorry to interrupt your night.”

  “No, this is more important.” But Esther could see the hint of disappointment on Finch’s face. She knew he’d been looking forward to it for some time. She couldn’t help but notice that the shirt she had ironed was now looking creased and dirty, but she didn’t say anything. As Martin made a cup of tea for everyone, Esther and Joyce told Finch what had been happening. They all agreed on what was the root of the problem. Iris was obsessed with the thought of Vernon coming back for her. She was imagining that she could see him and hear him, and she would have regular nightmares about him coming to kill her. And this was causing her to mess up at work, her mind too distracted to focus on the job in hand. They all wanted to sort this out.

  “She’s a bright girl, but she’s obsessed about this. And nothing we can say seems to stop her thinking about it,” Frank said.

  “How about if we get Dr Channing up at Hoxley Manor to take a look at her?” Esther suggested. “If there is something wrong in Iris’s mind, he might be able to treat it.”

  “She just needs a distraction. Something to take her mind off it,” Joyce said.

  “We’ve got to sort her out because she’s pretty much good for nothing on the farm,” Esther snapped.

  “Yeah, we’re all agreed we’ve got to do something. But what?” Finch said.

  “I think we should vote on it,” Esther announced. Joyce looked uncertain. She didn’t like the thought of voting, somewhat arbitrarily, on someone else’s future.

  “All right.” Frank nodded. “All those in favour of taking her mind off things?”

  Joyce put her hand up. She was the only one. She put it down again, despondently. “So much for that, then.”

  “All those in favour of getting her seen by Dr Channing?” Esther said, raising her own hand.

  Joyce shrugged and reluctantly stuck her hand in the air. It was probably the best thing. Channing might be able to cure the root of the problem, whereas something like going to a dance would only be a temporary sticking plaster. Frank added his own hand to the vote.

  “Fred?” Esther said, turning to Finch.

  “All right, then,” he replied, adding himself to the vote. “Here, this is like one
of those Women’s Institute meetings, isn’t it? All voting on what to do. Except we’re not making loads of jam.”

  “I’ll have you know we don’t just make jam. Bloody cheek. Anyway, this is the closest you’re going to get to one of those meetings.” Esther smiled. “Motion carried. I’ll talk to the doctor in the morning.”

  But as she and the others debated what to do, they didn’t realise that Iris was sitting at the top of the stairs formulating her own plan of action. Her head felt pleasantly fuzzy from a few numbing slugs of carrot whisky and she had decided what to do. Holding the bottle in her hand, she felt her head swaying and her cheeks flushing. Suddenly it all seemed clear. The answer. And she had to do something fast as she didn’t want to be seen by Dr Channing.

  She decided she would go back to the place where Vernon Storey had made his promise.

  I’ll come back for you.

  Tomorrow, she would return to Shallow Brook Farm and confront her demons head on.

  Chapter 4

  As the first rays of daylight started to beat away the shadows in the kitchen of Pasture Farm, Iris laced up her boots. She finished buttering a slice of bread and carefully lifted the latch on the door. It was four in the morning; perhaps an hour before Esther and the others would be awake. Iris thought she had time to walk the mile and a half to the neighbouring Shallow Brook Farm and get back before she was due to start work. She sneaked out the door, closing it behind her, the bread lodged in her mouth as if she was a bird about to feed its young. Then she set off down the path, crossing through the yard and finding herself on the single track that connected the two farms. The air was cold, not yet warmed by the rising sun, and Iris found herself gasping occasionally as she struggled to walk fast and finish the food in her mouth.

  Eventually, she reached a blind corner and turned it to find herself facing a sign that read Shallow Brook Farm. Iris looked beyond the faded, painted sign, its black letters long since bleached grey by years of sunlight. There was the farmhouse itself, a small red-brick building with eves that hung low over the windows like drooping eyelids. And whereas this might give the appearance of a picture-book home, there was something foreboding and cold about it. The curtains were thin, plain white veils like cataracts behind dirty, darkened windows. Iris edged closer, past an ancient hay barrow. Something squealed from within and there was a flurry of movement as she moved alongside it. She didn’t look, preferring not to know what was living in there. The stone cobbles of the yard were broken and smashed in places, and in one corner there was a bucket, trowel and a pile of cement under tarpaulin, where John and Martin had started to repair things. The work was progressing slowly as, with a whole farm to run, they couldn’t focus all their time on the one job and much of the yard was still overgrown with weeds. She reached the front door. As she extended her hand towards the latch, she remembered the last time she entered this house. The time she had discovered the truth about poor Walter Storey. The time Vernon had made his dreadful promise.

  This time, she knew that the house wouldn’t be empty. John Fisher was staying here. She didn’t want to wake him as she entered so, carefully she lifted the latch and crept inside. The broken barometer was still showing the prospect of snow. The side table in the hallway had a pile of unopened post and some bills that had been opened, presumably by John. Iris took a deep breath and moved towards the living room. She pushed open its door and felt her stomach lurch, as adrenaline and fear suddenly rose up in her body. It was just like it was before. There was the carpet, patterned, but predominantly red. The carpet where she had found the shard of broken bottle with Walter’s blood on it. The mantelpiece that she had stood alongside when she made the discovery. And there was the small desk where Vernon had attacked her, forcing her onto it as he threatened her.

  I’ll come back for you, Iris …

  The words whispered around the ghostly room. Iris looked at the fire, where the poker was now cradled in the coal scuttle. The telephone had been put back in place on its small table near the desk. But apart from those two aspects, little had changed about the room since she had last been here.

  Iris opened the drawer on the desk. It was full of papers, letters. She picked one up and could tell, by the way it was laid out, it was a bill for payment. But she couldn’t read the words. She put it back and looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece. There he was. The small, dark figure of Vernon Storey, smiling as he posed with a gigantic pike he’d caught in the river. She wasn’t sure which one had the worst teeth. Next to him was a small gate-fold photograph frame with Walter Storey in one half and his brother, Samuel, in the other. A hairbrush near the end of the mantelpiece caught her eye, the red-brown hair on it catching the early morning light that was peeking through the gap in the curtains. Vernon’s hair. Iris found herself compelled to reach out for it, to touch it. As her fingers neared the hairbrush, suddenly a man’s voice made her jump.

  “What are you doing?”

  She spun round. For a second, Vernon was standing there, his gimlet eyes squinting at her. But, of course, it wasn’t Vernon Storey. It was John Fisher. He was good-looking, clean-cut with kind eyes. And at the moment, those eyes were trying to work out why he had an uninvited Land Girl in the house at this absurdly early hour of the morning.

  “Sorry. I needed to have a look.” Iris said apologetically.

  John nodded. It was all right. He understood. He knew about what had happened here with Vernon and Iris. And he’d been through enough trauma of his own to know that she might need to come back. It would do her good to return to the scene of the event, knowing that this time it was safe.

  “Want a cup of tea?” he asked kindly, turning to leave. Iris noticed that he was wearing his dressing gown. Now she knew for certain that she must have woken him up.

  “Sorry, I thought I was being quiet.”

  “Stop saying sorry. I was getting up soon anyway. Farming keeps the same unsociable hours as the RAF. I’m used to it.” His voice carried from the hallway. Iris went to follow, but was surprised to see another figure on the stairs, also in a dressing gown. It was a bleary-eyed Joyce Fisher, complete with a few curlers in her hair; one of which was dangling over her left ear. It looked as though she’d been dragged through a hedge.

  “Iris?” she gasped.

  “Joyce?” Iris was equally surprised.

  Joyce pulled her dressing gown tight around her ample bosom. Iris couldn’t help but smirk.

  “Joyce stays here whenever she can,” John explained. He revealed that they had a system. Joyce would wait for Esther to go to bed and then creep over in the middle of the night. Then, after spending the night together, they would get up early and Joyce would hurry back to Pasture Farm before everyone woke up. Even though they were married, they knew that Esther wouldn’t condone Joyce spending anything other than Friday and Saturday nights at Shallow Brook Farm. It would be a distraction from her work and commitments as a Land Girl.

  “But, why?” Iris asked. “Connie is allowed to live at the vicarage with Henry. Why can’t you live here with John?”

  “It’s not fair, is it?” Joyce said, glancing at John, to perhaps indicate that they had discussed this same imbalance many times. “Truth is, Connie got permission from Lady Hoxley. And because she was married to a vicar, that was somehow all right. I asked and Lady Hoxley turned up her nose. It’s simply one rule for the wife of a clergyman and another rule for the rest of us.”

  “She did agree to two nights a week, but wanted Joyce to spend most of her time at Pasture Farm,” John said, trying to be diplomatic. The last thing he wanted was to upset Lady Hoxley and find himself turfed out on his ear.

  “I’m the most senior, apart from Esther,” Joyce said, refusing to let the matter go.

  “You’ve been there longest, that’s all.” John laughed. He turned to Iris. “Truth is, we don’t mind -”

  “We do bloody mind,” Joyce snapped. “I want to stay here all the time!”

  “It’s excitin
g this way. We feel it’s dangerous,’ John added. ‘Which it is, if we get caught.”

  Joyce looked imploringly at Iris. Iris knew what she was about to say and got there first.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to say anything.”

  John smiled his thanks and went through to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Joyce raised an eyebrow to Iris. “And I won’t tell Esther about that new bottle of whisky you keep in your room.” Iris wondered how Joyce knew, but Joyce explained, “I could smell it on your breath, so I put two and two together.” The bottom line was that they understood each another. They walked through to join John in the kitchen. As he poured the tea, Joyce asked Iris what she thought about Finch being in love. Iris hadn’t given it much thought. But she felt it was strange seeing Finch all dressed up and smart.

  “I keep thinking he’s off to see the bank manager.” Iris laughed.

  “Yes, he’s certainly improved the way he’s turned out,” Joyce said. “I haven’t seen her. Have you seen her?”

  “I saw her briefly in the village, when I was delivering eggs.” Iris nodded. “Seemed a very attractive older woman.”

  “He’s done well for himself,” John smiled, stirring the pot with a teaspoon. Joyce shot him a look, realising that he knew full well he was being playful with his comments about another woman’s attractiveness. He knew it would get a rise out of his wife. Joyce bristled and tried to resist the urge to fall into his trap.

  “Yeah, but what does she see in him?” Joyce asked. “I mean, he’s funny and warm, but he’s no oil painting.”

  “Isn’t funny and warm enough?” John teased.

  “Maybe.” Joyce frowned. “I just worry she’s after his money.”

  “What money?” Iris laughed. “Until two weeks ago, his trousers were held up with string!”

  “But that’s just it. He’s got the money squirrelled away to buy himself a smart suit, a hat and a thick coat. He’s been saving it up for years, all that money from his scams and wages. Think on, Iris. Men like that keep fortunes under their beds.”