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Jack was clearly embarrassed. ‘Don’t know a thing about buses.’
‘Can you drive, Jack?’ Grace had remembered her early-morning conversation with Lady Alice.
Again he seemed ill at ease. Could he be embarrassed by his obvious advantages?
‘Sorry, Jack, I don’t mean to be nosy; it’s just that Lady Alice needs someone to help her drive the milk lorry.’
‘If you’ve all finished eating, pass the plates down to the end of the table. The tea is ready and there’s a box of biscuits. It’s Jacob’s 1940 Assorted but it’s never been opened; two each.’
The question of Jack’s driving ability was shelved. Grace drank her tea and took one digestive biscuit when the tin was passed to her. Mrs Love was correct. Even though the biscuits had been in the box for some time, they were still crisp.
Esau drank two cups of tea and ate his allotted biscuits very quickly and then stood up, wiping his mouth with his hand. ‘I’m off home and I’ll see you all tomorrow. Weeding the corn, Jessie?’
Mrs Love nodded but got up and walked him to the door.
Grace stood up, said, ‘Good night’ to the two men, who were still drinking tea. She was not expected to wash dishes and so intended to go to her room, write at least two letters, and then fall into an exhausted sleep.
‘I’ve put a pig in your bed, Grace.’ Mrs Love was in the hall.
For a moment, Grace was puzzled. A pig? And then, realising, she started to laugh. ‘Thank you, Mrs Love. It’s not really cold but that was very kind of you.’
‘We don’t want you catching cold on your first day with us,’ said the cook, and disappeared into the scullery.
Grace hurried up the uncarpeted backstairs and then along a linoleum-covered corridor to where the carpeting started – the dividing line between the servant areas of the great house, she thought, and the family part. That meant that she, Grace Paterson, land girl, was in the family quarters. Would that change when the several other land girls they were expecting arrived? As she opened the unlocked door of her room, she wondered idly where Jack and Harry slept and then rapidly pushed all such thoughts out of her mind.
First, she looked for her pig. She laughed when she saw its outline under the covers. What a woman of contrasts Mrs Love was: touching kindness one minute and grouchy martinet the next. Grace pulled back the covers to see the pig, the fat earthenware bottle that, filled with hot water, was used to warm cold sheets, or feet.
Megan didn’t use pigs, certainly not for me. I don’t remember one in the house at all.
Once again, she was beset with the annoying feeling that a distant memory was hovering just out of reach. ‘Who did give me a pig?’
Unable to drag up the memory, Grace hurried to undress and, then, once she was washed and ready for bed, she took a new writing pad, which she had bought at the station, and climbed into bed. Yes, buying Basildon Bond paper and envelopes had been the right thing to do. She wrote her new address and the date and then sat back to think about how to write the letter. She could make Mrs Petrie smile by telling her that she had been given a hot-water pig. ‘Imagine,’ she could almost hear Mrs Petrie say, ‘it’s so cold where Grace is, she needs a hot-water bottle.’
At last, Grace was really ready and the words flowed across the lovely blue paper:
Dear Mrs Petrie,
I am so sorry that I did not tell you that I had joined the Women’s Land Army. I wanted to do more for the war effort than file pieces of paper but it was wrong not to tell you and Mrs Brewer who have always been so good to me. Why the Land Army? I don’t know exactly but I just felt that it was the right place for me. Megan never told me anything about our family but sometimes I seem to remember being in a field and being happy. Silly, I suppose. As you can see, I’m in Bedfordshire. I was sent to a training place in Kent, not really so far from you.
She stopped writing, wondering how to tell Mrs Petrie about Miss Ryland and poor Olive, and decided to skim over the training experience.
The four-week course is over and here I am, the only land girl on this farm. More are coming and there are some real farm workers and two other men. There’s a cook, Mrs Love, and there’s Lady Alice, whose father owns the place. She helps with the milking, would you believe? Even drives the lorry and would Sally ever be jealous of her beautiful fingernails!! Please tell Daisy and Rose where I am. I hope they are both well and that the boys are safe and sound. I’ll stop now to write to Mrs Brewer. Thank you for everything.
She signed it and put the sheet in an envelope, which she addressed quickly, as if afraid that if she did not do it at once, she might not do it at all. Her letter to Mrs Brewer was almost an exact copy and that too was quickly put in an envelope and sealed. She would worry about stamps in the morning.
Feeling as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders, Grace turned off the small bedside oil lamp that had been put in her room at sometime during the day, lay down and, within a few minutes, was fast asleep.
FOUR
A loud ringing woke Grace and, for a moment, she could not remember where she was. Then she threw back her covers and got out of bed. A quick glance at the clock, which had stopped ringing, told her that she had better hurry, or ‘scarper’, as Mr Petrie used to say.
She scarpered and, less than fifteen minutes, later was in the kitchen, hoping for a hot cup of tea. There was no sign of Mrs Love, but Jack Williams appeared through the scullery door.
‘Tea’s ready, Grace, and I’ll be going along with you on the milk run this morning. Have to learn the route.’
‘So you do drive.’
‘I don’t very often, but I can.’
She turned away from him in annoyance. Had he just corrected her grammar, pompous oaf?
‘I’ve made you angry and I didn’t mean to. My father’s an English teacher, and my sister and I used to try to be one-up all the time. Wasn’t your family like that?’
‘No,’ she answered shortly, and made to push past him.
‘Miss Paterson, I apologise. Please allow me to pour you a cup of tea.’
Grace walked back towards the range. ‘I can pour it for myself, thank you.’
‘Actually, you can’t. Sorry, Grace, I’ve just made it and it’s heavy, even for me.’
She nodded and mumbled her thanks. Jack carried the large teapot over to the table and filled two cups. ‘Going to be a lovely spring day. Harry’s sure there’ll be blossom on the apple trees in a few days.’
‘Cows wait for no man.’ Mrs Love had come in. ‘You hear Jack’s going along this morning, Grace? Her ladyship will pick him up and let’s hope he’s got that trench dug or there’ll be flood water all over the side lawn.’
Jack gulped his tea and set his cup down. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Mrs Love, although he had both made the tea and poured it. ‘Later,’ was directed at Grace as he left.
‘My Tom wants to learn to drive.’
‘I’m sure he will.’
‘But that coward got all the chances, didn’t he?’
Grace really did not want to become involved. Besides, what did she know about either conscientious objectors or Jack Williams, who had a sister and whose father taught English? ‘I really don’t think conscientious objectors are cowards, Mrs Love.’
‘Then why isn’t he in the Forces like my Tom?’
So they were discussing Jack Williams and not conscientious objectors. ‘They don’t believe in killing people.’
‘Neither does my Tom,’ said Mrs Love, ‘except Germans, of course. He wants to kill lots of them.’
Grace felt very, very cold. She put down her cup. ‘Golly,’ she said, as if she had just realised the time. ‘I’m due in the milking parlour. Sorry, Mrs Love; I have to dash.’
She was glad to be out in the lovely cool spring air and ran all the way to the milking parlour, dashing through the door just after Walter Green.
‘Dammit, woman, don’t scare my milkers.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Scrub your hands and then the udders.’
Grace hurried to obey. Carbolic soap again. When the war was over, she would never use anything but the finest, perfumed soap. Lady Alice had not arrived and, after she had milked three cows, Grace began to worry that she might have to milk the entire herd – I’ll never get the milk delivered if I’m on my own – but then she saw that Walter was milking the cows on the other side. She relaxed and it seemed that so too did the cows. Not even the feisty ones gave her any trouble but stood patiently while they were being milked and made no attempt to kick either Grace or her pails.
‘We’ll take them down to the buttercup meadow and then we can have breakfast.’
A meadow full of buttercups sounded lovely and Grace looked forward to seeing it as she walked along with Walter, helping him guide the lumbering cows.
They reached a vast field, where several enormous trees grew. A thick hedge on which there were already signs of blossom divided the buttercup meadow from its neighbour but, to Grace’s disappointment, there was not a spot of golden buttercup anywhere.
‘You don’t know much about the country, girl,’ said Walter, after he had explained the life cycle of several wild flowers. ‘This time next year, you’ll be amazed by what you know.’
‘I hope so,’ said Grace, and they walked up to the house to join the others in the kitchen.
With the exception of Esau, everyone was present. But no, on looking round, Grace saw that Jack was missing, too. She wondered where he was and found herself hoping that he would get some breakfast, but then she reminded herself that whether or not Jack Williams had breakfast was none of her business.
She sat down between Walter and Harry. Mrs Love carried over a large iron pot that she put on a heavy brass trivet. She lifted off the lid to reveal thick, creamy porridge. It was so hot that little bubbles kept popping up on the surface.
‘Porridge with cream this morning. That’ll set you all up till dinnertime.’
Grace stirred the pot of porridge, watching until tiny bubbles broke the surface. She could hear Megan moving about upstairs.
‘Come on, come on,’ she badgered the contents of the pot, for a hot steaming bowl of porridge must be on the table when Megan came down for breakfast.
The teapot? Had she poured boiling water in to warm it? The generous spoonful of fragrant tea leaves was ready beside the teapot. Megan liked a good strong cup of tea and never seemed to run short. To give her credit, her older sister was perfectly happy for Grace to enjoy the tea, too.
Not for the first time, Grace wondered why her sister had given her a home in the first place.
‘You all right, Grace? You’ve gone all funny.’ Mrs Love was standing with a deep white bowl of porridge in her hand, waiting for Grace, who seemed to be in a daze of some kind, to take it. ‘Didn’t I tell you yesterday …’
Mrs Love did not finish whatever it was she was about to say because Jack had arrived and, seeing the commotion, had gone to Grace’s side and was holding her wrist in his slim brown fingers while he looked at his watch.
At his touch, Grace started up, saw Jack holding her hand, and blushed furiously. She tried to pull her hand away but he tightened his grip so that she winced.
‘I’m taking your pulse, Grace; you’re fine. Probably, she just needs to eat, Mrs Love.’
Without another word, he moved away to sit beside Harry. Mrs Love continued to serve porridge. ‘She went all funny,’ she said, angrily, as she practically slammed a bowl down in front of Jack.
‘I’ll be with her on the milk run this morning and I’ll keep an eye on her. Nothing to worry about.’
Grace felt like bursting into tears. She had no idea what had happened, just that she had remembered something that had already swum away from her; something about porridge – but what? She felt stupid and was so embarrassed to find the others looking at her with concern. They quickly turned back to their breakfast bowls, when she looked at them and, for a time, there was no sound but the clinking of spoons and the pouring of tea.
Grace was first to finish.
‘You should tell her ladyship you’ve had a turn,’ said Mrs Love. ‘If she’s got him with her –’ she jerked her head in Jack’s direction – ‘she might get by without you this morning.’
Grace tried to smile. ‘It’s nothing, really, Mrs Love. I’m so sorry to have been a nuisance.’
She picked up Lady Alice’s coat and walked off towards the milking parlour.
Jack caught up with her before she had gone less than halfway. ‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Good. Lady Alice terrifies me.’
Grace stopped in mid-stride. ‘Why? She’s working as hard as we are and she loaned me this coat.’
‘Perhaps that’s why I’m petrified. She’s destroying all my preconceived ideas.’
They walked on and, just before they reached the milk lorry, Grace laughed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Nice laugh,’ said Jack, and Grace felt herself blushing again, but this time, in the nicest possible way.
‘You drive, Jack, and I’ll give directions. ’Fraid that means you’ll have to squeeze in behind, Grace.’
Grace, who had feared being stuck in the lorry with the heavy milk churns, was quite happy to squeeze into the back of the cab. Nothing could fall on her in this tight space.
Her worry that Jack would say something about her behaviour at the table was unfounded. On the way to the village Lady Alice told them that the next day they would also be expected to collect the milk money.
‘It’s quite simple: four pence halfpenny per pint multiplied by number, and two pence farthing the half-pint. Most of the villagers, have it ready with the jugs. Usually, they’re honest, but do a quick check.’
For the first time, Grace was thankful that she had spent so much time in offices. She could add, subtract, multiply and divide with the best of them.
‘Any difficulty with that, Grace?’
‘No, Lady Alice.’
‘Ten times four pence halfpenny?’
‘Three and nine pence.’
‘Bravo. I won’t insult you by asking you to divide farthings.’
‘I liked arithmetic. We had a dragon for a teacher and, every Friday morning, she used to write a circle of numbers on the board and then she’d yell questions at us, and in no order so you couldn’t work it out ahead, if you know what I mean. Some of us were pretty thick but we all learned to count.’
‘Fascinating.’
The tone with which the word was uttered made Grace want to curl up. Instead, she closed her eyes, knowing perfectly well that if they turned round, the two in the front could still see her even if she could not see them. She made a rather childish vow never to speak to Lady Alice again.
The only sounds in the lorry before they arrived in the village were rather distressing noises from the engine and the occasional clunk as churns brushed against one another. The lorry drew to a halt. Grace and Jack got out and walked around to the tailgate, so as to reach the milk. For a slender man, Jack was surprisingly strong. It took two men to lift the churns on as a rule and, although Jack asked for Grace’s help with the largest churn, he appeared to lift the smallest one easily.
‘Which side, Grace?’
Grace shrugged and filled her jug. She sniffed and moved quickly away to the first house.
Jack was waiting for her as she finished.
‘Are you all right, Grace? I can easily do the round if you’re not feeling well.’
Grace was determined to pull herself together. ‘I’m fine, Jack. I just feel stupid.’ She looked in the jug, to make sure she had enough milk, and went off next door. When she came out, Jack was beside the lorry and Grace could see Lady Alice in the cab, looking at a piece of paper.
‘Let me fill that for you.’ Jack moved as if to take Grace’s jug and she pulled it back, and somehow it fell, smashing into several pieces.
‘Blast.’
Grace shouted so loudly that Lady Alice opened the door and looked out.
‘It’s only an old jug, Grace. Pick up the bits without cutting yourself and get another one. There should be several in the back.’
‘Yes, Lady Alice.’ Grace bent down, picked up the pieces and put them in a small heap beside the tailgate.
‘Brush up the tiny bits, girl; there are barefoot children in this village.’
‘Yes, Lady Alice.’ Grace found the broom and the shovel in the lorry and did as she had been told, then took a larger jug and filled it with milk.
‘Yes, Lady Alice, yes, Lady Alice,’ Grace muttered to herself. ‘Damn it, I wasn’t going to speak to her again.’ She realised immediately that she was being rather silly and felt even sillier when she heard Jack trying to stifle laughter as he filled his jug. She did her next deliveries efficiently and returned to the lorry to refill the jug, handing over the milk money given to her by one of the customers who would not be at home on the next morning. ‘One and three pence halfpenny from Miss Shield. She’s short a farthing …’
‘… but will pay next week,’ Lady Alice finished for her. ‘If I had all the farthings out of which that seemingly charming old woman has diddled my family, I would be spending the winter months in the Bahamas, Grace. The winters after the war, of course.’
The deliveries completed, Jack drove the lorry back to the estate. Lady Alice sat in the passenger seat and Grace, once again, was squeezed in behind.
‘Are you fearfully uncomfortable?’ asked Lady Alice, who did not wait for an answer but carried on: ‘It’s perfect that you’re not too tall, isn’t it? I had a dear chum at school, taller than my father, poor girl. She could never have squashed down like you.’
The words ‘I had a very tall friend at school, too’ popped onto the tip of Grace’s tongue and she felt so proud because she managed to swallow them. Lady Alice would have no interest in the Rose Petries of this world. There, of course, she wronged Lady Alice.
‘Back to ditches for you, I’m afraid, Jack,’ said Lady Alice when she had pulled up outside the front door of the main house, ‘but it’s going to be so useful to have another driver about the place. If you do Mondays and Saturdays from now on, and the occasional extra day when I have to be in two places at once, then I can manage the other mornings. Reasonable?’
‘Absolutely, m’lady.’
Lady Alice jumped down lightly from the driver’s seat and began to walk towards the door. Before she reached it, she turned. ‘No harm in teaching Grace either; just make sure she doesn’t crash.’
Grace and Jack watched Lady Alice until the door closed behind her.
‘She didn’t mean that?’
‘Of course she did,’ said Jack. ‘If it makes you feel better, think of it as another task the upper classes can inflict on you. If you can drive, she won’t have to hire a driver.’ He looked into her face. ‘What a bundle of doubts you are, pretty little Grace. She’s a decent human being. Look at the way she treats Harry and me.’
‘This morning, you said she terrifies you,’ Grace said, and was pleased that he looked uncertain. ‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘you’re almost a doctor and you can drive.’
‘Yes, and she wonders why I’m not driving ambulances at the front instead of digging ditches in Bedfordshire. Come on, we’d best get this back and the churns cleaned before we start the day’s work.’
Without waiting for Grace to say anything else, Jack started the lorry and drove down the back driveway to the dairy. There, they unloaded the churns, not nearly so heavy now that they were empty, and carried them into the dairy, where Walter was waiting to help them scrub them clean.
‘Maybe you should teach Walter to drive, Jack,’ Grace teased.
As she had expected, Walter looked horrified at the thought. ‘Not me, lad, I’m a horseman. Always was, always will be.’
He told them how he had done the milk deliveries for years with a horse and cart. ‘And he gave us good manure into the bargain. Can your engine beat that, Jack, lad?’
‘Horses win hands down, Walter.’
In better spirits, Jack and Grace left the dairy. Grace’s mind was still full of his description of her: ‘pretty little Grace’. I’m not little, she thought, and Mrs Petrie always said I was pretty if too thin, but what Jack said about my ‘bundle of doubts’ – I don’t like that much. Do I doubt people? Am I not too ready to think the best of them? Yes, I am, she answered herself, and then I find I’m wrong. Honesty then demanded that she add: but not all the time.
‘Jack, why does Lady Alice wonder why you aren’t driving ambulances at the front … if I can ask you, that is?’
‘Of course, you may ask anything you want, Grace. Asking questions is a really good way to learn. It’s like this: I just cannot bring myself to believe that it’s right to take another person’s life. I know that I could not possibly shoot another human being.’
‘Not even if he was a German.’
‘Not even. Grace, I think we would find that lots of the German people don’t want to be at war, don’t want to shoot at us, bomb our towns. There must be objectors among them, too. Maybe their government says, “Right, you don’t want to kill people, but we have to have someone driving ambulances.”’
Grace was not sure that she completely understood, but she nodded as if she did. ‘And should our government have asked you if you’d like to drive an ambulance?’
‘They could have told me and I would have been perfectly happy. I don’t want to die and so, yes, you can say I’d be frightened but I’d do my duty.’
Grace was surprised to see Jack blush as wildly as she had ever done. A strange feeling stole over her. Not even her adored Sam had ever made her feel quite like this. What on earth’s happening to me?
Jack was talking and she had missed his first words.
‘… if you are honestly interested. I can explain my feelings and my actions. It’s quite simple. You see, it’s all in the Bible. God said, “Thou shalt not kill.” So, therefore, it is morally wrong to go to war. There has to be a better way to deal with difficulties. And besides, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a doctor. Don’t know why. Doctors maintain life; they save life. How could anyone expect me to do otherwise? It just doesn’t make sense. Warfare is morally indefensible.’
Grace was painfully aware that she had had very little education or experiences that could be compared to Jack’s. Obviously, he knew more and bigger words than she did and could quote poets and politicians. But the argument that God had said, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ worried her. If God had said that, did he mean that it was never right to kill or did he mean that it was wrong to go out and murder someone? She remembered reading a newspaper article about her friend Daisy, who had seen a German pilot deliberately strafe a woman and child on Dartford Heath. Could that be called an act of warfare or should it be called murder? Oh, she could not bear to go on with this train of thought, especially since she had seen the newspaper long after the ghastly event and even then had not written to Daisy.
Jack was looking at her rather strangely. ‘Grace, does it make it easier for you if I say truthfully that I would be perfectly happy to go into any area of warfare, helping qualified doctors as much as I can with my fairly limited training? But to put on a silly little uniform and allow myself to be encouraged to shoot at my fellow man – I simply can’t do that.’
Grace felt unbearably sad. He believed so much in what he was saying that he was prepared to tolerate being bullied, even cruelly treated. ‘Jack, how do you know – as an actual fact – that God spoke to some human being and used those exact words?’
His look was both fond and pitying. ‘Poor dear Grace. Of course, it’s a fact. It’s in the Bible and the Holy Bible is the word of God.’
She could not let that pass: ‘Who says? God didn’t sit down himself and write it, did he?’