‘It’s darker now than it were when I saw ’im,’ Gwennan said defensively. ‘But you must admit, I could of!’
They returned to the kitchen where Alice had to admit that, in her opinion and despite the poor visibility, it was possible that Gwennan could have seen someone emerge from the wood.
‘That’s not to say who it was, though, is it?’ Mabel shrieked.
‘No,’ Alice agreed, ‘but whoever it was…’ Before she could continue Gwennan’s sharp voice filled the kitchen.
‘There’s no “whoever” about it, Mrs Todd!’ Gwennan interrupted. ‘Ferdie Vallance was who I saw! Ferdie Vallance! And d’you know why I am so certain it was him?’ She paused dramatically, her eyes meeting and challenging the eyes of everyone in the kitchen, from the shivering Eleanor, past the blubbering Mabel, the astonished Elsie, Eva and Nancy and the disapproving Rose, to the intrigued Marion and Winnie and on, round the crowded room, to the concerned and perplexed Annie and then to Alice herself. ‘I’ll tell you why,’ Gwennan said. ‘It’s because he was limping, that’s why! Rolling from side to side and dragging his left foot! And there’s only one man round these parts as walks like that!’
They had all been convinced that Gwennan was at best embellishing the truth or at worst lying. No one could believe that Ferdie would have stalked Eleanor, however much he admired her, or even lusted after her. He was, they all instinctively believed, a simple but honourable man.
In the total silence that followed Gwennan’s words, Alice quietly suggested that Eleanor should go and have her bath. She went, with Rose, out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
While the girls watched, stunned into silence, Mabel whimpering miserably, Gwennan sat self-righteously at the table and boldly engaged the eyes of anyone who dared to meet hers. Alice pushed her feet into her rubber boots, took an umbrella from the porch and made her way through the downpour across the yard to the barn where the hostel telephone was housed.
‘What shall I do?’ she asked Roger, who had been finishing his evening meal when his housekeeper came to tell him that Mrs Todd was on the line. ‘It’s a serious accusation and I don’t think she’s lying. Eleanor is scratched and bruised but was not molested in any way, thank goodness… But what do we do about Ferdie?’
‘I’ll come down,’ Roger told her. ‘Be with you in ten minutes.’
They led Gwennan through to Alice’s sitting room and sat her in one of the two small armchairs, Alice opposite her, while Roger paced up and down the length of the room. He warned Gwennan that she had made a very serious allegation which could have far-reaching consequences for Mr Vallance and that she must be absolutely certain that what she had told them was the truth. Then he questioned her, very calmly and precisely, about what she claimed to have seen, and asked her to repeat her evidence for identifying the man as Ferdie Vallance.
‘It was his limp,’ she said sullenly. ‘It was the funny way he walks because of being injured by your tractor when he was a lad.’ Roger remembered the incident fifteen years previously when Ferdie, in his mid-teens had been trapped for two hours and Christopher, then only ten years old, had crawled under the overturned tractor and given him brandy to deaden the pain until he could be freed.
Roger completed his interrogation, thanked Gwennan for answering his questions and told her she could go.
‘Will you be calling the police in now, then, Mr Bayliss?’ Gwennan’s tone seemed to suggest that she would not tolerate much delay on his part.
‘Just leave us, please, Gwennan,’ Alice said. She opened the door, watched Gwennan go through it and invited Roger to sit down. They sat for a while in silence.
‘Well…’ Roger said. ‘I suppose I’d better report this.’ He got to his feet. ‘I know the chief inspector in Exeter. I’ll give him a call and find out how we should proceed.’
‘Shouldn’t you speak to Ferdie first?’ Alice asked him. ‘He might have some explanation for why he was there.’
‘It’s hard to imagine what! He was two miles from his cottage. It was almost dark. A thunderstorm was about to break and he knows that footpath, Alice! Must have used it a thousand times. Why would he be struggling through the undergrowth beside it and not walking along it, as he has done all his life? And according to your girls, he was, understandably, rather smitten by Eleanor.’
‘It’s one thing being smitten, Roger, and quite another to… Oh, I don’t know. I was just trying to think of some innocent reason why he might have been there. It’s not that I don’t trust Gwennan – surely she wouldn’t invent anything so outrageous – but she’s always very quick to see the worst in people… What’s that?’
From Alice’s window they saw, through the half-light, the wavering beam of a bicycle lamp.
The policeman, helmeted and draped in a waterproof cape, dismounted, leant his machine against the gate post and, head down, lumbered through the torrential rain towards the porch.
The girls had begun to disperse from the kitchen and were gathering instead in the recreation room, intending to expand on the unexpected drama that was unfolding and, some would have said, deliciously breaking the monotony of life at the hostel. And here, they realised, as Rose opened the door to a police constable, came the next thrilling instalment.
The policeman stood awkwardly in the cross-passage, dripping rainwater onto the slate floor.
‘Constable Twentyman!’ Roger said, making his way through the girls. ‘What can we do for you?’ Twentyman tilted his head and eased off his helmet.
‘Just to let everyone here know that we got ’im, sir!’
‘Got who, Twentyman?’
‘The POW, sir!’ The constable looked round at the astonished faces. ‘But p’raps you didn’t know, sir. We’ve ’ad trouble getting round to all the farms, what with the storm. One of the Italians, sir, made a break for it a couple of hours ago. Seems he got a “Dear John” from his girl in Naples. Anyhow, they picked him up just down the lane, from ’ere. Reckon he’d lost himself. He couldn’t of got far on account of he’d busted his ankle! Limping along the lane, he was! He’s bin took off to hospital, poor fellow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, sir? Only I’ve got a few more calls to make. Just to put everyone’s mind at rest, you see. ’Night, ladies.’
Constable Twentyman ducked under the low lintel and, settling his helmet back on his head, loped through the rain to his bike. He cycled unsteadily off, avoiding the brimming potholes, the dim beam of his lamp blurred by the downpour.
Alice assembled the girls. Roger Bayliss, fixing his eyes on Gwennan Pringle, lectured them about the dangers of jumping to conclusions and making unsubstantiated accusations.
‘I guess we were all as guilty as each other,’ he said thoughtfully, as he and Alice, alone in her sitting room, sipped sherry. She nodded.
‘Poor Ferdie!’ she said. ‘He would have been mortified!’
‘And that wretched what’s-her-name…?’
‘Gwennan. But she didn’t lie, Roger. She did see a man down there and he was limping.’
‘So she assumed it was Vallance—’
‘And so did we! Just as Eleanor assumed that whoever was in the wood was about to molest her, when he probably didn’t even know she was there. Thank goodness he was caught and everything was explained.’
‘He wouldn’t have got far with a Pott’s fracture! Poor lad, loses his girl and then smashes his ankle. Just not his day, was it?’ As they laughed, partly with relief that the outcome of the incident was less serious than it might have been, they heard a tap on Alice’s door.
Eleanor, in her dressing gown, hesitated when she saw Roger and suggested she should come back when Alice was alone. ‘Only there’s something you should know, you see,’ she said.
Roger excused himself and Eleanor sat down nervously in the chair opposite the warden. Her hands and forearms were badly scratched and an abrasion on one cheek was turning from pink to a delicate mauve. Alice asked her how she was feeling and she said she felt stupid.
‘Anyone would have done the same,’ Alice assured her. ‘It’s horrid when you think you’re being followed. And you didn’t accuse anyone of anything, so…’
‘No, I didn’t. But I did do something stupid, Mrs Todd. It’s to do with what you said the other day, about not waving to the Italians.’
‘Did you wave to them?’
‘Well, not exactly wave.’ Eleanor was looking seriously embarrassed now and neither of them spoke for a moment.
‘Well…what did you do?’
‘Jack had sent me down to the water meadow to oil the hinges on the gate because they kept locking up. I was crossing the bridge and a kingfisher flew under the central arch and it looked so lovely, Mrs Todd, that I sat on the bridge and waited to see if it would come back, but it didn’t. And then I heard the Italians coming. They were marching along and singing that “feniculi-fenicular” song, you know the one.’ Alice said she did. ‘Well, they were going in the same direction as I was – at least as far as the barn where the footpath starts – so I thought I’d better stay where I was until they’d gone past.’
‘That sounds a sensible decision.’
‘Well, yes. But when they saw me they started whistling and calling out. I don’t know what they said because it was in Italian. The guard shouted at them. He said “Get your eyes down and your filthy minds off!” which I thought was pretty horrible. They made rude signs at him behind his back and laughed. Well, you could hardly blame them!’
‘Did you laugh too, Eleanor?’
‘I might have done… I shouldn’t have done, should I? Then the guard stopped to roll a cigarette while they all went past me… But one of them stooped to tie his boot lace, or he may have just pretended to, anyway, he sort of dropped back and came over to me. He said “bellissima” or something and kissed his fingers as though he was tasting something nice and then he put the tips of his fingers on my knee and…and smiled. It was so sweet, Mrs Todd! You couldn’t possibly have minded!’ Alice was not so sure about this but she confined herself to asking what happened next. ‘Oh, it was awful! The guard turned round and saw us and came over, shouting. He was terribly angry. He hit the Italian, quite hard, with the butt of his rifle and called him a randy dago bastard! Then he kicked him in the shins and jabbed the barrel of the gun into his ribs, shoving him back towards the other prisoners, who were all shouting and whistling. I felt so sorry for him. He turned round to look at me and blew me a kiss. He looked so sad.’
‘Eleanor, you didn’t…you didn’t blow a kiss back, did you?’
‘No, Mrs Todd! I almost did. But I didn’t. D’you think he was the one who ran away? And if he was, d’you think it was my fault he did? Because he’s in terrible trouble now. Not only because of his ankle but because he’s broken the rules that POWs have to obey and Gwennan says he could get locked up for it!’
Alice told her they would probably never know whether or not the prisoner who had escaped had been the one who had spoken to her or whether, had he been, her behaviour had provoked him into making a bid for freedom.
‘He’d had a letter,’ Alice told her, ‘from his girl. Breaking off their engagement. They think that’s what had upset him.’
‘So it wasn’t me?’ Eleanor said, brightening visibly.
‘No,’ Alice said, ‘I shouldn’t think it was you.’
‘Well, I certainly shan’t wave to them any more! Or even look at them!’
‘I think you should go to bed now, Eleanor.’
‘Yes, Mrs Todd.’
Eleanor’s enchantment with life at Lower Post Stone Farm ended that night. Her parents arrived to collect her a few days later and drove away, delighted that their scheme had worked. By indulging her passion for the land she had seen the folly of it and was now eager to return to their particular fold. She was subsequently presented at court and narrowly missed becoming debutante of her year. Her parents experienced no further worries on her account.
Chapter Eight
It was in July that Annie received the results of her second Ministry of Agriculture exam. The buff envelope caught her eye as she entered the kitchen but she took her place at the supper table without claiming it. It was Gwennan who spotted it and drew her attention to it.
‘There’s a letter on the dresser for you, Annie. See? Looks like it’s from the Min of Ag! Scared to open it, are you?’
‘I’m sure she needn’t be!’ Alice said evenly. ‘You passed your last exam easily enough, didn’t you Annie?’ Alice, having carefully sliced a plum duff into equal portions, was placing them on the girls’ plates, where Rose neatly doused them with generous helpings of custard.
‘Yeah, but this last one was on Farm Machinery, Mrs Todd. Tractors and drills and threshing machines and that. Jack was going to give me some help on the vehicle maintenance section but he never…’ She eyed the envelope nervously. ‘Reckon I know what it’ll say.’
‘Go on, Annie! Open it!’ Mabel reached the letter down from the dresser and laid it on the table beside Annie’s plate.
‘Come on, lass,’ Marion urged her, spooning up custard. ‘Get it over with!’
Annie slit the envelope and drew out the printed notification. There was a hush as she read it. Then she waved the printed page triumphantly above her head.
‘Yes! I passed! Wait ’til I tell Georgie! She always said as I could do it!’
‘Let’s see!’ Gwennan demanded waspishly, as though she needed proof of Annie’s success. ‘Credit, it says…’ She handed the certificate back to Annie and returned her attention to what was left of her pudding. ‘But what’s the point of it?’
‘You what?’ Marion exclaimed, a loaded spoon halfway to her mouth.
‘I said, what’s the point? A girl like Annie’s never going to get much of a job, is she? Not with her background! What’s a few certificates, when all’s said and done? Useless they are. Except to hang on the wall if you want to show off!’
‘You’re a miserable cow, Taff! D’you know that!’ Annie’s retaliation was loud.
‘Keep your temper, Annie, please,’ Alice said.
‘Well, I’m sick of it, Mrs Todd! Carp, carp, carp! That’s all she ever does! That and make false accusations!’
‘I do not!’
‘You do! You’re a spiteful, mischief-making…’
‘That’s enough!’ Alice felt as though she were refereeing a boxing match. ‘If you’ve finished your meal, Gwennan, I suggest you go to your room. Now, please!’
Gwennan’s chair scraped back across the slate floor.
‘Righto!’ she snapped, her spoon clattering into her empty plate. ‘I’ll go! I know when I’m not wanted and who the favourites are here!’ From the doorway she threatened, not for the first time, to resign. ‘I could lodge a formal complaint! I could tell them this place is a shambles and refuse to work here no more!’
‘Hooray!’ Mabel shouted, waving her own spoon in the air.
‘Don’t let us keep you, Taff!’ Eva called, her mouth full of pudding.
‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’ Winnie chanted venomously, but as Marion opened her mouth to join in, Alice’s voice cut the air.
‘Stop this, all of you!’ Alice was quite surprised by the authoritative tone she had managed to produce. ‘Finish your puddings and try to act like grown women and not a bunch of badly behaved children!’ The girls, even Marion and Winnie, who, before doing as they were told, giggled in token defiance because no one, not even the warden, was going to tell them when they could or couldn’t speak, obeyed Alice and finished their food in silence.
‘My certificates are worth having, Mrs Todd,’ Annie said when supper was over and she and the warden were alone in the kitchen.
‘Of course they are!’
‘Now I got them I could get a proper farming job, you know. I could apply to be an assistant manager or a forewoman. There’s good work for people with qualifications…if I want it.’
‘And do you want it, Annie?’
‘I dunno.
I never meant to stay in the country for the rest of me life. I on’y come ’ere ’cos it’s different.’
‘My gran’s coming to visit!’ Mabel announced. ‘She’s stoppin’ at the Malsters Frid’y, Sat’d’y and Sund’y nights! I’ve swapped me milkin’ rota with Elsie so’s I’ll ’ave all day Sund’y off!’
‘And is she bringin’ little Arfur, wiv ’er?’ Eva enquired. Being a newcomer to the farm she had not yet met the toddler who, officially, was Mabel’s brother but was, Eva had been interested to learn, in fact her son.
‘You bet!’ Mabel beamed.
Arthur, who was now more independent, irrepressible and fleet of foot than he had been on his previous visit to the farm, had, by the Saturday lunchtime, fallen into the horses’ drinking trough, been stung by a bee, torn his trousers on a nail, broken three hens eggs, tried to eat pig swill, slipped off the back of the most docile of the dairy herd and landed, head first, in a bucket of milk.
Cries of ‘Arfur! Come here!’, ‘Don’t do that, Arfur!’, ‘Leave that alone!’, ‘Get down!’, ‘Get up!’, ‘Get off!’, echoed round the yard and in and out of one or other of the barns.
On the Sunday afternoon a calf was unexpectedly born and while Mabel and Ferdie were involved in the difficult delivery, Arthur went missing. Alice and Edward John, invited by Roger Bayliss to afternoon tea at Higher Post Stone Farm, heard Mabel’s frantic cries as she searched the yard for the little boy and went, with their host, to help to find him.
‘Come ’ere this instant, you little brat,’ Ferdie bellowed. ‘I’ll tan your ’ide proper when I gets my ’ands on you!’
‘Don’t shout at ’im, Ferdie!’ his mother pleaded. ‘You’ll scare ’im!’
‘I’ll give him “scared”!’ Ferdie muttered darkly, putting his shoulder against the stubborn door of an outhouse and searching its dark interior. ‘Where be to, you little varmint?’
The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate Page 17
