The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate

by Julia Stoneham

  ‘And now I’m going to feed you! There’s ham, cheese and pickle… Or a slice of Eileen’s excellent game pie… The choice is yours.’

  Rose pulled the tray of mince pies from her oven and slid them onto the kitchen table where Dave, who had arrived home for Christmas an hour previously, was sitting, idly leafing through the local paper.

  ‘These pies be for Mrs Brewster’s party!’ his mother announced, ‘’Er wanted for me to bake her some of my extra special ones. She give me the butter, a pound of sultanas, half a bottle of port and ten shillings for me trouble, ’cos she’s too posh for to make ’em ’erself, I reckon. Or too tiddly!’

  ‘Still knocking the gin back, be she?’ Dave enquired listlessly.

  ‘Reeks of it, she do! I’m never sure whether Alice don’t notice it or just pretends not to, out of the kindness of ’er ’eart!’ She was arranging the pies carefully in a basket. ‘D’you remember Albertine?’ she asked her son, glancing sharply at him in order to catch his reaction to the name.

  ‘Albert who?’

  ‘No, Dave! Albertine. Albertine Yeo. Eileen’s niece. She were in your class at school. Lovely girl she’s grown into. A real hourglass figure, she’s got! She’s gonna to be the parlourmaid at Mrs Brewsters’ party. All dressed up in a black satin frock with white frills and a cap with ribbons, she’ll be!’ When there was no noticeable reaction from Dave, his mother sighed heavily and slammed her oven door. How long, she wondered, was this pining for Hester Tucker going to last?

  The postman seldom had occasion to call at the Tuckers’ smallholding but one morning a parcel was delivered into Hester’s hands. It was about the size of a shoe box and was addressed to Miss Thurza Westerfelt.

  ‘Who be there, Hester?’ her father’s thin voice called from the upstairs room in which his illness now confined him.

  ‘Nothing, Father. Just a package from the seed merchant.’ She bit her lip, for she had lied.

  Thurza lay in her crib, waving her arms, and when Hester leant over her, greeted her mother with a amiable, toothless smile.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got a Christmas present!’ Hester said, stripping off the brown paper wrapping and lifting the lid of the cardboard box.

  Until last year’s Christmas, which Hester had spent at the Post Stone hostel, she had never, because the Pentecostal Brotherhood disapproved of such frivolity, given or received a Christmas present.

  The rag doll had hair made of loops of yellow wool. Its eyes were bright blue glass beads and the rosebud mouth was outlined in crimson thread. Its dress was made of pink gingham and the long, floppy legs were sheathed in white stockinette with shoes embroidered onto the ends of them in black wool.

  Hester held the doll out to her daughter who, young as she was, reached for it and pulled it down towards her mouth. ‘No, Thurza!’ Hester said, laughing. ‘You mu’n’t eat the dolly!’

  Under the doll was a sheet of paper on which Dave Crocker had printed the words, Dear Thurza, this is for your Christmas. Tell your Mama that I loves her truly and I always will do. Tell her I am here whenever she wants to come to us or I will fetch her anytime. She only needs to say the word. Signed D Crocker. Corporal. Then he had written, Her loving Dave and added the date, which had been 10th December 1944.

  Behind her, Hester’s mother came silently down the stairs in her black stockinged feet, taking her daughter by surprise.

  ‘What have you there?’ she asked. ‘Your father is expecting nothing from the seed merchant.’ It was too late to hide the doll and Hester did not resist when her mother took it from her, turned and went soundlessly back up the stairs.

  She stood, Dave’s letter in her hand, until she heard her mother returning. Seconds before the woman re-entered the room Hester crumpled Dave’s letter and threw it into the low fire that was smouldering in the grate.

  ‘He says you’m to burn the doll,’ her mother said, ‘and if you will not do it, I must.’ When Hester did not move, her mother carried the doll to the grate and laid it across the smoking wood. ‘And now the letter,’ she demanded. She had seen the letter in Hester’s hand and assumed that she was concealing it. ‘In your pocket, I suppose. Give it to me, Hester.’ At that moment the sheet of paper on which Dave had printed his message and which until then had been curling and slowly turning black in the fireplace, suddenly ignited, yellow flames engulfing it and licking round the doll.

  ‘’Tis already burning, Mother,’ Hester said.

  Her mother, mistrusting her, peered into the flames until she was convinced that what Hester had said was true. Then she stared, her face as bleak as a bone, at her daughter, before turning away from her and creeping back up the stairs.

  The Brewsters’ party was in full swing when Alice and Roger arrived. Supper at the hostel had been delayed by the fact that the rain-soaked girls had taken longer than usual to get dry and warm before devouring the shepherd’s pie Alice and Rose had prepared for them.

  The path from the farmhouse porch to the gate where Roger’s car stood had been awash after the heavy downpour, so rather than remove her evening shoes and put on rubber boots, Alice allowed Roger to carry her to the car and deposit her into it without her feet touching the muddy ground and with Rose and Annie smiling and nudging one another in the cross-passage.

  For the occasion of her party, Margery had borrowed from Roger Bayliss not only his housekeeper, the reliable and competent Eileen, but her niece, Albertine. Eileen had produced platters of what she called her ‘savouries’, which the girl, her maid’s uniform rather tight across her chest and around her thighs, was offering to the guests while Gordon Brewster, beaming at his door, greeted the familiar faces. Margery herself, already flushed and perspiring, was presiding over the punch bowl when Alice and Roger presented themselves.

  ‘Punch!’ she roared, and then lowered her voice to a stage whisper. ‘Looks innocent enough but it has the kick of a mule, I promise you! It’s based on an old family recipe handed down from Gordon’s mama! But it seemed a bit lacking when I tasted it, so I beefed it up with a couple of bottles of brandy that Gordon didn’t know I had! In they went, when the dear soul’s back was turned!’ She gave each of them a glass, filled two more and sailed off, slightly unsteadily, through a sea of guests, to meet and greet some new arrivals. Later, when several people were clearly feeling the effects of more alcohol than they were used to, Eileen and Albertine came through from the kitchen with plates of Christmas cake, cut into neat cubes, the dried fruit, candied peel and sugar for the marzipan and the icing, all having been carefully hoarded throughout the year.

  In common with their fellow guests, both Alice and Roger felt mellow, relaxed and warm. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. By evening most of the land girls would have left for their homes, Edward John had already arrived from his school, the news of the war was good, victory was in sight and the ambience in the Brewster house that evening was benign and optimistic. At nine o’clock the guests charged their glasses and wished one another a merry Christmas. Margery, Alice decided, was very sweet, Gordon, her husband, delightfully Dickensian as he stood, blushing, under the mistletoe.

  ‘Roger,’ Alice heard herself say, ‘if I asked you to do something, would you agree to, without asking what it was?’

  ‘Agree to…?’ he asked, bemused. ‘Without…?’

  ‘You have to trust me!’ Alice said. ‘Don’t you trust me?’ For a moment he hesitated and then, with a feeling of immense pleasure, realised that, yes, he did trust her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do! All right, what’s the deal?’

  ‘It’s Christopher,’ she said, leaning forward and taking the lapel of his jacket between her finger and thumb so that, whatever happened next, she would have hold of him.

  ‘Christopher?’ he echoed blankly, his face clouding, unable to imagine anything that Alice could possibly ask of him that would involve his son.

  ‘I cannot bear to think of him up there in the forest, all by himself in that isolated hovel for a secon
d Christmas! Last year was a different matter. He had chosen to be alone while he recovered from his breakdown and I understood that you felt you had to humour him. But this year – no! Absolutely not! He is becoming a hermit! He need only stay for twenty-four hours or so but I insist that you insist that he spends Christmas Day at Higher Post Stone Farm and eats dinner with you, me and Edward John! I know I’ve already accepted your invitation but, if it doesn’t include your own son, I shall withdraw that acceptance and Edward John and I will not, after all, join you! There! What do you say?’ She was trying very hard not to laugh but he looked so affronted and shocked that however hard she fought to control it, the laughter kept erupting.

  ‘Are you drunk, Alice?’ he asked her, lowering his voice, glancing round at the other guests and hoping that none of them had noticed her extraordinary outburst.

  ‘Possibly,’ she admitted, ‘and if I am I really do apologise! Perhaps you should have a word with our hostess about the punch! Nevertheless, Roger, you agreed to do as I ask and what I ask is that you and I drive up to the woodsman’s cottage, pick up Christopher and bring him home!’

  ‘Now? Alice, are you insane? It’s blowing a force eight gale out there and pouring with rain!’

  ‘No,’ she announced coolly, ‘look.’ Outside the window the sky had cleared and stars were visible.

  ‘The track’ll be washed out!’

  ‘Then we’ll use the farm truck.’

  ‘But…your frock!’

  ‘You can lend me your duffle coat and a pair of rubber boots. Come on! Say goodnight to Margery and Gordon!’

  As they left the party and drove to Higher Post Stone Farm, Roger was laughing too.

  ‘This is absurd, Alice!’

  ‘I know! But isn’t it fun?’

  ‘What if he won’t come with us?’

  ‘Leave that to me. I can be formidably persuasive when the need arises!’

  ‘So I’ve noticed!’

  They found a warm coat for Alice and a pair of rubber boots that more or less fitted her. He led her out to the truck, helped her up into the cab and drove carefully out of the yard.

  Although the rain had stopped, the lanes through the valley were awash and the ditches overflowing. There were several places where Roger, swearing under his breath, had to negotiate shallow, fast-moving floodwater. Then, as the land rose and the engine laboured up the steep incline and into the forest, the state of the surface of the track became a problem, causing the truck to lurch wildly, lose traction and slew from side to side.

  Roger, Alice noticed, now seemed to be enjoying himself. Perhaps it was the pleasure of meeting her challenge, of being as good as his word, a man capable of dealing, without flinching, with the darkness, the cumbersome vehicle and the treacherous terrain. She glanced at him, his profile was just visible in the greenish glow from the dashboard lights. She liked what she saw, reached across and patted the back of his hand as he gripped the wheel, gritted his teeth and controlled a dangerous slide on a patch of slippery clay.

  They were almost there. The lights from the cottage windows, low as they were, were just visible, glimmering through the trees.

  ‘Must have a word with that boy about his blackout!’ Roger muttered, negotiating a final bend before the hillside levelled out.

  It was here that they came upon the fallen tree, its upper branches effectively blocking the track. Roger swore under his breath.

  ‘Looks as though we’ll have to walk the last few hundred yards. Think you can manage that? It’ll be pretty heavy going?’ Alice thought she could and got down from the cab of the truck. It was then that she caught sight of the motorbike and at once recognised it as the one Georgina often borrowed from her brother.

  ‘Looks as though Christopher has a visitor!’ Roger said, shining his torch onto the mud spattered bike. ‘Just shows how we misjudge people, Alice my dear! Here’s you feeling sorry for the solitary boy and here’s he, entertaining! Come on, then!’ he said, putting his hand under her elbow. ‘As we’ve come this far, lets go and give ’em a surprise!’ But Alice took Roger’s hand and guided the beam of the torch back onto the motorbike. She couldn’t precisely recall the figures and letters of Lionel’s number plate but the machine looked very familiar. Then she saw, protruding from the pannier, a glimpse of a rain-soaked scarf. A scarf which, she was absolutely certain, belonged to Georgina.

  ‘I think not,’ she said, firmly.

  While she herself was delighted that Christopher and Georgina were together in such romantic and intimate circumstances, she wasn’t certain what his father’s reaction would be. Would his conventional, Victorian morals be affronted? Was he likely to be unimpressed by Georgina’s behaviour, especially, as seemed likely to Alice, she might now be a potential daughter-in-law? ‘No,’ she repeated, leading Roger back to the truck, opening the door on the passenger’s side and climbing up into the cab. ‘I don’t think we should barge in on them, Roger. Not tonight.’ He pulled a face.

  ‘Very well,’ he sighed, unsure whether he was amused by Alice’s change of mind, baffled, regarding the reason for it, or very slightly irritated by it. Like Professor Higgins in the Shaw play – he’d forgotten its name – he never could understand the workings of a woman’s mind.

  He had to reverse most of the way down the track which twisted his neck in an uncomfortable way and convinced Alice that now was definitely not the time to confess that she knew the identity of Christopher’s visitor.

  Chapter Ten

  Alice, embarrassed by what must have appeared to Roger to be incomprehensible behaviour on her part, felt guilty and was, without realising it, especially attentive and charming to him when they sat sipping milky Horlicks on either side of the warm Aga in his kitchen. She had changed out of the borrowed coat and boots and they found themselves giggling irresponsibly at the expense of their fellow guests at the Brewsters’ party and at the surprising effect Margery’s punch had had on some of them.

  ‘I would never have thought the vicar’s sister would prove to be such a brilliant exponent of the Charleston,’ Roger said, conjuring the image of the usually staid woman who had, that evening revealed an unexpected side to her character. ‘I had always thought of her as strait-laced and a bit dour…’

  ‘Or that Margery could deliver Juliet’s speech so movingly!’

  ‘She almost brought tears to my eyes. I wonder how many other talents are concealed under bushels in this parish. It’s amazing what a drop of alcohol can do!’

  ‘On a slightly negative note,’ Alice said more seriously, ‘I am rather concerned about Margery’s drinking, Roger.’

  ‘She does put it away a bit,’ he said easily, relaxed and warmed in his own kitchen, with Alice’s presence pleasing him. ‘Only on special occasions though, eh?’ Alice thought better of telling him that when the registrar made her regular visits to the hostel, there was frequently a telltale whiff of gin on her breath.

  Roger was enjoying looking at Alice, whose appearance, as a result of their foray up into the windswept forest, was slightly dishevelled. The touch of make-up she had applied before the party still highlighted her eyes and cheeks, while her hair, less confined than usual, was framing her face in a way that delighted Roger so much that he drew breath, intending to ask her, then and there, whether she would consider marrying him.

  He planned strengthening his case by telling her that, in his opinion, Edward John was growing into a fine boy and that it would be his privilege to help prepare him for adulthood. He would confess to her that, for months now, he had thought of very little but how happy it would make him if she accepted his proposal. He was, in fact, so occupied by this silent rehearsal of his declaration that he was almost unaware that Alice was speaking to him. ‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘Didn’t quite catch that.’

  ‘I was just saying,’ she smiled, ‘that I had a Christmas card today from the man Ruth introduced me to. You remember? The architect who is threatening to put me in touch with some contacts of his w
ho will, he believes, employ me as a design consultant? Apparently they have some impressive new projects in the early stages of development. It won’t be for ages, of course – certainly not until the war is over – but it’s very much on the cards… Roger?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Certainly am!’ He spoke brightly, disguising, he thought, his huge disappointment. She was planning to leave Ledburton. He was going to lose her.

  ‘Only you look…’ she hesitated, ‘suddenly rather tired. Perhaps you should take me home?’ He got to his feet, smiling gamely.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should.’

  To Alice’s surprise, Rose was waiting up for her, filling her time by cutting neat crosses into the bases of the Brussels sprouts ready for Christmas dinner.

  ‘The telephone kept on ringing, Alice,’ she said. ‘At first I didn’t answer it but then I thought p’raps I’d better, in case anything ’as ’appened.’

  ‘And has it?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. It were Georgina’s father. Seems she went out on ’er brother’s bike and she bain’t come ’ome. Leastways she ’adn’t done when ’e telephoned. ’E wondered if she was ’ere ’cos ’e knows as she rides over to see you sometimes.’ Rose was watching Alice’s face.

  ‘I’ll go and ’phone him,’ Alice said, locating her address book and torch, pulling on her rubber boots and preparing to cross the yard to the telephone. ‘What…?’ she asked, aware that Rose was staring at her.

  ‘I reckon you knows where Georgina be!’ Rose declared. ‘’Ow come you know, Alice? I mean to say, I can guess where she be, but I can tell by your face, that you know!’

  Rose had to wait for Alice to return from the barn before she could satisfy her curiosity.