The Meadow Girls

by Sheila Newberry

  The garden seemed smaller, less flourishing than Mattie remembered. She told herself: Gretchen is not responsible for this torrid weather, the dust that coats petals and leaves. The air is still, but the sky above is grey, not blue, despite the heat.

  ‘See,’ Gretchen pointed out the yellow rose, now tall and spindly. ‘We call it Mattie’s rose.’ It’s nice, Mattie thought, she calls me by my Christian name now.

  As they walked back to the house for lunch, fresh fish from the lake cooked by Aunt Lotte, Mattie thought: I shouldn’t have come back. I suppose I knew that really, and that’s why I always made excuses not to do so before . . . It’s not my home any more, and I would rather remember it as it was. But I’m glad my friends are happy here.

  Just before they went inside, Gretchen asked, ‘Do you ever hear from Bert?’

  ‘He’s not one for writing letters, I guess you know that. But Anna gives me news of the family. Bert is doing very well in his job.’

  ‘Has he married?’

  Mattie said quietly, for her friend’s ears alone, ‘No. I don’t think he could find a girl to match up to you, Gretchen.’

  ‘He took too long to say it.’

  ‘You were both so young . . . you are happy with your lot, aren’t you?’

  ‘We are well-suited, Kjetl and me, everyone says so!’

  ‘He adores you, anyone can see that.’

  ‘Dear Mattie, I love and respect him. But I don’t forget that summer, you see.’

  It was later than they intended before Mattie and Megan began the journey home. By the time they had driven through the little town and were travelling along in the open, it was suddenly dark, as a dust storm gathered momentum. They were still on the stony road, with all its hazards, including the cattle grids. Mattie stopped the car. ‘Keep the door closed, don’t open the window whatever you do, and leave the headlights on,’ she cautioned Megan.

  She stepped out to get their bearings. She could just distinguish a light glimmering to her left. Was there a track to a farm, where they might wait out the storm? She missed her footing and plunged down into a deep ditch, where she collided with a fence pole, to which she tried to cling as she scrambled up. Thank God, she thought, we didn’t go over the edge in the car, it would have rolled sideways, and we’d have been trapped, and it could be hours before we were found . . .

  There was an excruciating pain in her right shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the fall, as she crawled, clawed her way up hard-baked mud, towards the car beam.

  ‘Mom, where are you?’ Megan yelled, hammering on the closed window, as Mattie pulled herself up by the door handle with her sound arm. Megan screamed when she saw her, covered in dust and debris from the ditch. She was a tall, strong girl for her age, and she managed, somehow, to pull Mattie inside, where she slumped in the passenger seat. By then, like her mother, she was choking from the dust.

  ‘Mom – are you . . . hurt badly?’ Megan took off her jacket and put it round her mother’s slumped body. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ve put . . . my shoulder out, I think . . . We’ll have to sit the storm out here.’

  Even as she spoke, the car shook alarmingly. They were both too scared to say anything, but Megan clung grimly to her mother’s good hand. Thick dust dimmed the headlights. They were all too aware that the car could be bowled over and they would end up in the ditch, anyway.

  Mattie moaned, then was silent again. Megan felt her mother’s face: her eyes were closed. Mattie was unconscious.

  Megan felt desperate. She knew how to drive, having observed her mother at the wheel often enough, but despite her pleas Mom had never allowed her even to move the car up the drive into the garage between their house and Sybil’s.

  ‘It’s against the law, you know that, Megan. It doesn’t concern us what other kids do,’ she’d said firmly.

  The engine was running, but she couldn’t see the road ahead. She would have to drive blind. The car went in fits and starts at first, then she gained confidence. She had to get help for Mom’s sake. Keep to the middle of the road, she told herself grimly.

  It seemed like hours later when they lurched down the rough drive towards the light that Mattie had spotted earlier.

  Mattie was conscious again, in a haze of pain, but aware of what was happening. She muttered a simple prayer: ‘Dear God, save us please . . .’

  Then she was lifted gently from the car and carried into the farmhouse.

  Mattie spent three days in hospital. Her collarbone was fractured and her shoulder dislocated, but these would heal in due course in the comfort of her own home. The article she was writing for the paper would be late, but she certainly had more material, she thought. Young Megan was the heroine of the hour, of course, the story of her resourcefulness was headlined: DETERMINED DAUGHTER DRIVES THRU DUST STORM. Far from getting into trouble, she was presented with a certificate of bravery by the mayor, no less, and three dollars, which she spent on a wristwatch. Alas, it never went, because she overwound it when she took it home.

  Evie, back in England, eventually learned of these exciting events, but the family there was undergoing great changes, partly caused by the threat of another war.

  They had been looking forward so much to seeing Mattie and Griff again, and meeting Megan for the first time, for the Parrys had been due to visit home after seventeen years in Canada and the States. This visit would have to be postponed.

  Evie was worried about Sophia’s decline in health; her mother was becoming vague and forgetful since Will had passed away earlier in the year. She knew how much Mattie regretted not seeing her father again. It was decided that Sophia needed full-time care herself now that the Jacksons had left; the old lady was in a nursing home near her son in Norfolk, her daughter had recently retired and bought a cottage near her brother’s house. Sophia was now living with Fanny and Ronnie in their home.

  Out of the blue, Evie received a letter from the Amy Able College, informing her, that in the event of war, the Amy Able had agreed to accommodate youngsters evacuated to a safer area with their schools. More staff would be needed: some of these students were in the throes of preparing for matriculation. Would Evie be prepared to join them for the duration? It would certainly be classed as war work.

  I need a fresh challenge, she thought. But what about the Plough? Everything seemed to fall into place. The Plough was requisitioned by the authorities; it would become a wartime hostel for refugees. In due course, as Evie had learned, when her father’s will was read, the property would be inherited eventually by herself. Her brother had insisted on this because, he said, he and Fanny would have saved enough to buy a house of their own after he retired on a good pension. The only proviso was that the Plough would pass down to Robbie, his eldest son.

  In September, two days before the official announcement, Evie was back in Lincolnshire, and reunited with her old friend, Rhoda, home from the mission field.

  They were even accommodated in their old dormitory, which made them smile and reminisce about their college days as Amy Able students.

  This was no longer a sleepy backwater. The fertile fields were still there, the wide open spaces, the vast skies overhead, the watery places; but now there were runways on the flat land and young men being trained to fly aeroplanes in combat and defence.

  ‘I was sure you would marry, not be a spinster like me,’ Rhoda observed. Evie looked youthful and pretty with her curly hair and laughing face, but they were both thirty-one. ‘I always had the feeling I’d end up back here!’

  ‘D’you know, so did I!’ Evie admitted. ‘What about Noreen?’

  ‘Noreen? Oh, we wrote for a bit, then I heard she had married and gone to China.’

  ‘China, eh? So I don’t suppose she’ll turn up here.’

  It was a surprise to Evie and Rhoda when she did, accompanying her class of fourteen-to-sixteen-year-olds evacuated from a grammar school in London. Noreen, much slimmer than they recall
ed and now confident in her caring role, had returned to England two years previously when her husband had tragically died young. She had no children of her own. ‘Which is all to the good, I believe, because I can concentrate on my girls, who need me even more now they are parted from their families,’ she said.

  ‘She’s a good egg,’ Rhoda observed to Evie. They applauded her attitude.

  The three of them were together again, and still there was the morning rush for the hot water in the bathroom, and back to the diet of good food, but not too much of it.

  Even the hierarchy was the same. Dr Anne Withers had postponed her retirement and was still at the helm. Miss Vanstone was now college bursar, and the little ‘Sergeant Major’, Miss Dodds, the games mistress, still blew her whistle and screamed, out in the playing field.

  ‘The only difference is,’ Evie said, defiantly applying Tangee Natural lipstick, which was too orange to look anything like natural, ‘I don’t have to torture my mop of hair into a tight elastic band nowadays!’

  ‘Once an Amy Able girl always an Amy Able girl. Where’s your breastplate?’ joked Rhoda.

  ‘I’ve got so skinny I discarded mine long ago!’ Noreen said smugly.

  War in Europe: the papers were full of it, and Mattie was concerned about her family back in England. They had recently enjoyed a surprise call from Tommy, Grace’s son, now twenty-seven, and a flying instructor in the Canadian Air Force. He had literally made a flying visit to the American air base at Minot, but he’d not told them more than that.

  ‘I couldn’t go back to Moose Jaw without looking you up,’ he said. ‘I’ve got two days free, so I would like to spend them with you, if that’s OK?’

  Megan, of course, wanted to know all about life in Canada, as she’d been born in North Dakota. ‘Is Mom’s friend Ollie still at the trading post?’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t know her, Megan, I’m afraid. Mum saw Mungo, my old teacher, for the first time since I left school, though. I’m sure she wrote to tell you, Mattie, that my stepfather had died? I’m afraid he took to the bottle after the horses were sold, and he lost his job. He stayed on there, because of Mum and Lydia.’

  ‘What is Lydia doing?’ Mattie asked. ‘She must be getting on for eighteen now.’

  ‘She says she’ll join the forces like me, if war breaks out.’

  ‘Why will Canada be involved, and not America?’ Megan queried. ‘We should all fight evil.’

  ‘I believe the war will spread world-wide,’ Tommy said. ‘Now, cheer up, Megan, and how about I take you all out for a meal? Oh, I nearly forgot . . . Mum sent this letter for you, Mattie.’

  Mattie went upstairs to get changed for the evening out, and opened the letter in the privacy of her bedroom.

  Mungo and I are hoping to be together soon. I have to wait a decent interval, as Edwin hasn’t been gone six months yet, but we have waited so long for this day. I know you will be happy for me . . .

  ‘Dear Grace, oh, I am . . .’ Mattie said aloud. She wiped the tears from her eyes. What wonderful unexpected news! Griff had just returned from work and she heard him talking to Tommy downstairs. It was lovely to see Tommy again, too, she thought. Though now it was likely to be a long time before the next reunion.

  TWENTY-THREE

  AUGUST 1941

  Megan had work lined up all this summer vacation from school. She was a salesgirl in one of the big stores in the same precinct as Sybil’s beauty shop. She earned twenty-five cents an hour. It didn’t seem much, but Sybil told her that Dolores, her assistant, had an older sister working in Woolworths; her husband had died leaving no pension and she had several children to bring up. Somehow, they survived on her wages of thirty-seven dollars a month.

  Bigelow’s Store seemed, so her mother often said, a much larger version of the dear old trading post, for it sold everything a customer could possibly want. The clothes were old-fashioned, but so durable you couldn’t wear them out, as Megan knew from experience. ‘Farmers buy their overalls here,’ she reminded Mattie.

  ‘When we were on the farm, we bought from their catalogue,’ Mattie said.

  ‘I can remember you cut the books up and hung the paper on a nail in the john!’

  Still, even temporary employees were allowed a discount on purchases. Megan snapped up the first of a new line of dungarees, nattily striped in blue and white. Dad joked and said she looked like a hillbilly. Both Mom and Sybil reminisced endlessly about the wonderful Empire Emporium back in Plymouth. No sumptuous silk garments in Bigelow’s, Mom sighed, but they had a good drapery department.

  Megan and Kay spent most of their earnings on their social life. They went to the movies at least twice a week, to dances on Saturday nights, where girls often partnered other girls. They experimented with makeup and hairstyles at each other’s homes.

  The girls’ bedrooms were all in similar states of chaos. Most of their mothers sighed and closed the doors firmly on the mess. They’d grow out of it, they said hopefully. Walls were decorated with pictures of film stars, sent by the studios as a response to fan letters. Mattie privately thought all the actresses looked much the same, pouting lips and peroxided hair, but she wouldn’t spoil Megan’s illusion that all the dashing signatures had been personally inscribed. It was the era of secret diaries, writing to penfriends and singing along soulfully to records. There was much whispering about boys, especially the heart-throbs who excelled at sport, but these Adonises seemed to prefer the sweaty company of other adolescent males. ‘Safety in numbers,’ Griff said.

  Megan was envied by her friends; she actually had an admirer. This was Max, Sybil’s step-grandson. They’d had a mutual dislike of each other as children, and she found this new devotion irritating. Fortunately, he was only around in the vacations.

  She had a photograph of Tommy, in his uniform, smiling at her from her bedside table. ‘Will you write to me?’ he’d asked, the only time they met, before he went back to Canada. ‘I enjoy news from friends.’ It was rather off-putting that Mom read her letters before she sent them off, adding a short message from herself and Griff. Maybe Mattie was recalling the young Evie’s innocent attraction to an older man and wanted the letters to remain light-hearted. It had become rather a one-way thing, actually, for Tommy was too busy to write often, but said he sure appreciated Megan’s efforts.

  Britain was soldiering on, as Griff put it. He and Mattie were frustrated that they were powerless to do anything to help family back home. News of the bombing of London and other major cities was alarming. They were relieved to hear that Christabel, and little Dolly had been evacuated to Hampshire, although old Aunt Mary refused to budge from Mitcham. Walter had taken the Civil Service examinations after Christabel left work, in order to secure a better job. He, too was evacuated, with his department, but to the West country, so he and Christabel were living far apart.

  Relations became tense between Britain and the States. However, there had been a boost earlier in 1941 when America presented the Royal Navy with fifty destroyers, which unfortunately proved to be not equipped for modern warfare. In return, Britain gave America long leases on bases in the West Indies. This was the start of the Lease-Lend policy.

  There was exciting news of Robbie, now known as Rob, Mattie’s eldest nephew. He’d joined the Royal Air Force, and was even now in Canada being trained to fly the Miles Majesta monoplane. There he’d met up with their friend Tommy!

  Suddenly, it seemed, summer was over, and Megan returned to high school, as a senior student. She and her friend Kay were at last cheerleaders for the school sports and were proud to wear their attractive uniforms, gold satin blouses with full bishop sleeves and maroon pinafore skirts. The other girls envied her naturally curly hair, for shoulder-length curls were in vogue. Megan secretly wished she had inherited her mom’s silky golden hair – didn’t they say gentlemen prefer blondes?

  *

  Evie and her friends soon discovered that life at the Amy Able was not as hidebound as it h
ad been a decade ago. In their student days the local pub had been out of bounds. Now, when classes were over for the day, and homework marked up to date, there were house mistresses who looked after the younger pupils, and Evie, Rhoda and Noreen were free to go out to meet the local community.

  ‘D’you know,’ Evie confided, ‘Mattie and I were never allowed even to peep into the bar at the Plough! Of course, we weren’t old enough to drink, but Dad allowed us a drop of Stone’s ginger wine at Christmas time. Mother was a teetotaller, apart from saying Christmas pudding and cake needed a generous helping of brandy!’

  ‘Lemonade, then?’ Rhoda enquired with a straight face, having decided it was her turn to buy the drinks.

  ‘We . . . ell, port and lemon would be nice. Dr Withers welcomed us with a glass of that, after all. She said it was a drink favoured by the lower orders, but not too strong for young ladies!’

  Even such a mild mixture saw them giggling over a second glass, and observing the regulars leaning on the bar.

  ‘Not one under sixty,’ Rhoda whispered.

  ‘That old boy with the bulging haversack – poacher I shouldn’t wonder – winked at me – bloomin’ cheek,’ Evie whispered back.

  A couple of farm workers, yet to go home and get changed, were playing a noisy game of darts and downing pints of beer.

  ‘Foul-smelling pipe tobacco.’ Noreen fanned the air with her hand. ‘We’re the only females here . . .’

  ‘Except for the landlord’s wife,’ Evie said. ‘She’s got a bust like a buttress.’

  ‘Seen her muscles when she pulls a pint? She doesn’t count,’ Rhoda decided.

  The outer doors were pushed open, and there was a sudden hush, as everyone looked to see who had arrived.

  ‘It’s the Brylcreem boys,’ the poacher told the assembly.

  ‘Not one of ‘em over twenty,’ Evie sighed.

  The confident young men in air-force blue soon propped up the bar. They talked among themselves and their laughter was infectious. The poacher moved to the edge of the group. He patted his haversack and Evie and her friends caught the words: ‘ . . . should you be int’rested – half a crown . . .’