Dark Harvest (17 page)

‘I didn’t start it,’ Lizzie cried. ‘I can’t help having a German husband. It doesn’t make me a German, does it? I didn’t sink the bloody
Lusitania,
or drop no bombs.’

‘Is that what it was about? Then I’m ashamed this has happened in my hopgarden,’ Frank replied.

Lizzie shrugged. ‘It’s happened before and will likely happen again.’

‘Happened before?’

‘In my cottage which the Rector got me.’

‘Have you told Police Constable Ifield?’ Elizabeth was appalled.

‘What’s the use? The whole village is against me just because I’m married to a German.’

‘You can’t go back to your cottage on the Ashden estate after this,’ Frank said. ‘Many of this mob were from the East End, but some were local.’

‘What else do you suggest?’ Lizzie sneered. ‘Buckingham Palace?’

‘The Rectory,’ offered Elizabeth immediately.

Lizzie hesitated, taken aback by kindness. ‘Thank you, Mrs Lilley, but no. I get on with Ma fine when we’re apart, but not under the same roof. I’d rather take my chances in the cottage.’

‘But it’s so isolated,’ Elizabeth worried. ‘My husband told me it’s almost as far as the Manor’s forest boundary.’

‘I could find you a small house on this estate when hop-picking’s over, if you’re prepared to go to the Rectory in the meantime,’ Frank offered. ‘No one would dare harm you here. The Swinford-Browne estate is guarded.’

‘Could you?’ Lizzie’s face was suspicious, but hopeful.

‘But—’ Elizabeth stopped, remembering that Lizzie was no longer a Dibble but Lizzie Stein, a married woman, and she had no jurisdiction over her, whatever she chose to do.

Agnes stretched contentedly. Her old room at the Rectory was luxury compared with Castle Tillow, even though it now contained Elizabeth Agnes’s cradle as well as her. It was funny being back; it was as though nothing had changed and she was still Agnes Pilbeam, the new parlourmaid at the Rectory. But she wasn’t, she reminded herself. She was Agnes Thorn. Apart from its association with Jamie she hated the name Thorn. Jamie’s mother wouldn’t even speak to her now she’d refused yet again to work
in the ironmongery. And not even Len would dare try to force her because of the Rectory. Yes, she was safe—and so for the moment was Jamie. Under her pillow was a letter which arrived yesterday, dated 7th September. ‘We are being rested for a week or two.’

She didn’t like the sound of that. Rested for what? Something important was going to happen, and Jamie would be in it. At least she’d seen him in May. That was another reason Mrs Thorn didn’t like her. He hadn’t gone to see his mother, or anyone else come to that. Only her. Nor had he at Christmas when they were wed. ‘Why not, Jamie?’ she’d asked.

‘Because I ain’t going back until I’ve got a medal, Agnes, that’s why.’

‘A
medal?
But that’s daft, Jamie. You’ve shown ’em all what you’re made of by volunteering, you don’t have to have a special medal too.’

‘Daft or not, that’s what I decided. They didn’t—’

He stopped, but she guessed what he was going to say. ‘They didn’t believe me last year’—but nor had she for a while. Oh, how she’d make it up to him when he came marching home for good.

Quickly she washed, fed Elizabeth Agnes, and hurried downstairs. ‘Morning, Mrs Dibble.’

‘Good morning, Miss P—Mrs Thorn. Late, aren’t you?’

Agnes laughed. ‘No. You’re early. As always, Mrs Dibble.’ Nothing and no one had the power to upset her now she was back in the Rectory. Mrs Dibble had once been a terrifying monster.
Now she was a flesh and blood cantankerous old biddy.

‘Myrtle says we’re out of glove-cleaning paste.’

‘I’ll mix some up.’

‘I’ll do it myself. That way it gets done.
And
the mangle rollers is getting hollow again.’ Mrs Dibble sniffed.

‘What’s wrong?’ Agnes realised that even Mrs Dibble wasn’t usually so pernickety over mere trifles.

‘Nothing, Mrs Thorn.’ The reply was quick and sharp. ‘Why should it be, save that I’m all behind?’

‘Something is.’

‘Mayhap. We’re going to have a guest.’ Mrs Dibble looked defiantly at Agnes.

‘The family, you mean? Miss Tilly?’

‘No, us. The servants’ hall. Only a guest, mark you. Too la-di-da to do honest work for her living.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘My Lizzie.’

‘But I thought—’

‘What you thought and what is are as different as lardy cakes and latten bells,’ Mrs Dibble snapped. ‘She should never have married that German. I was against it all along. Just because someone’s banging out jolly songs on a drum doesn’t mean they don’t have evil hearts.’

‘She seemed very happy with him,’ Agnes ventured.

To her horror, the impossible happened. Mrs Dibble, she saw, was crying. Her face was
wrinkling up and she was screwing it up in an effort to stop the tears.

‘You sit down, Mrs D,’ Agnes commanded. ‘I’m going to make the tea, and you can tell me all about it. It can’t be as bad as you think.’

‘Joe out there fighting them Germans. Lizzie attacked here for being wed to one,’ Mrs Dibble whispered. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. And her not wanting to live here even though Mrs Lilley asked her for the second time. Not live with her own mother, indeed. Why not, I ask you?’

Agnes knew the answer to this one. She poured the water into the teapot. ‘Sometimes,’ she explained, ‘mothers and daughters love each other but can’t live together. I couldn’t go home no more than Lizzie can. And Lizzie’s been a married lady longer than me.’

‘Miss Isabel’s come home. She ain’t so hard-hearted.’ Mrs Dibble sniffed.

‘If you ask me,’ Agnes remarked companionably, ‘Miss Isabel only comes home so she doesn’t have to go on thinking for herself at Hop House. That Mrs Bugle, so I hear, isn’t a patch on you. Why, if she were even a hundredth as good as you are, that Mrs Swinford-Browne would have had her at The Towers. What we would do without you, I don’t know.’

Mrs Dibble’s chest swelled infinitesimally as she watched the tea being poured into her cup, nice and strong. ‘Always was a self-centred little thing, Miss Isabel, for all she can twist you round her little finger in a moment. She’s not like Miss Caroline.’

‘I miss Miss Caroline.’ Agnes was wistful. They were the same age, twenty-three, and she felt a proprietorial interest in her.

‘We’ll be missing her a lot more, you mark my words,’ announced Mrs Dibble darkly.

‘When she marries Mr Reginald, you mean?’

‘I do hear Mr Reginald and she aren’t engaged any more. Have you seen that ring? I ain’t.’ Mrs Dibble reflected on the oddities of life. Here she was swapping stories with Miss Pilbeam, of whom she used to disapprove so strongly. Still, Agnes was a married woman now,
mature.

‘She’s never broken it off?’ Agnes exclaimed.

‘Him more like. That Lady Hunney can be a tartar.’

Agnes gave due consideration to this, remembering how scared she had been as a child when Lady Hunney sailed through their cottage door without so much as a by-your-leave bearing a basket of fruit from Ashden’s greenhouses for her mother who was sick. Her presence had seemed to fill the whole room. ‘She is that,’ she agreed.

‘Say what you like,’ Mrs Dibble declared. ‘The Rectory’s not the same without Miss Caroline or Miss Felicia.’

For the second time this week Laurence was holding Matins alone. It was September now and the corn harvest was still claiming many of his regular flock. Even the war respected the harvest, and the news from the front in France at least was quiet, waiting—just as the
Zeppelins too had been waiting. There had only been three raids in the whole of August, but now by mid-September there had been a further five, in two cases on successive nights. There had also been a daylight raid on Margate—a sinister development. Hitherto such attentions as they had had in Kent had probably been the unintentional results of raids on London or the East Coast. It did not bode well for Dover—or Buckford House. Stray thoughts went through his mind which he tried to push out on the grounds that Matins and the Lord’s Word must have priority.

‘Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep … We have left undone those things which we ought to have done …’ But those unwelcome thoughts lingered.

He did not mind being alone this morning with God. Here, in the peace of St Nicholas, surrounded by the ornaments and symbols of his calling, war could be distanced. But still it inched its way insidiously towards him, claiming all that was most dear. When Caroline first left home it had seemed of no more importance than her taking a long holiday. The Rectory was her home, whether the holiday was of weeks or months. But how could he be sure of this now? The rift between her and Reggie might drive her away for ever. She was establishing a new kind of life in London; would she ever be content to return to Ashden now that her future was no longer tied to it?

And what would happen to Felicia? Her
shyness had always set her apart from her sisters. He remembered the disaster of the finishing school, when he had rushed to Paris and found her ill through unhappiness. Her large dark eyes seemed to him full of reproach for his having endorsed his mother’s insistence that she come to this place. He knew he had made the wrong decision, and it had haunted him in his dealings with her ever since, making him acquiesce with scarcely a word when, with equal determination, she had announced her intention of going abroad. He had never truly known what Felicia was like, for shyness hid or had developed an inner strength he had never suspected. Though neither Caroline nor the press had been specific about what her work entailed, the distraught girl who could not face a group of girls her own age had marched off to the war front and won an award for gallantry.

At least Phoebe seemed to have settled down, even though he could wish it were elsewhere than in an Army camp. She was docile, polite, enthusiastic about her job, and if her tidiness had not improved, her manners had. He could not ask for more. Isabel was home, George seemed to be devoting himself to his studies. And that left Elizabeth.

‘O Lord, in Thee I have trusted. Let me never be confounded.’

It was he who had begged her to fight the war at his side when, confused that her brood of children had been suddenly weaned from her control, she had lost her way. As a result she seemed to be becoming
independent of him—though not necessarily by her choosing. She still brought some of the village problems to him for she heard much that might not necessarily reach his ears. This, he acknowledged, was good for Ashden, and perhaps some day he would see it as good for them, but for the moment he wondered where the world he had known all his life was taking him.

After Matins he left the church, intending to visit the post office before beginning his parish visiting. Before the war, there would have been breakfast to look forward to, with Elizabeth calmly reading her post. Now it had been agreed that family prayers and breakfast should be held
before
Matins so that Elizabeth could make an earlier start to her day.

Glancing up Station Road as he walked by the corner, he saw Fred walking to the station with a basket of eggs, and Len Thorn swaggering up behind him. To his horror, Len jumped up behind the lad, shouting and waving his arms, obviously with the intention of frightening him. He succeeded for Fred yelled, turned round, and head-butted Len in self-defence.

Laurence was not in time to stop Len’s retaliation. As he ran up shouting for him to stop, the basket of eggs was torn from Fred’s hand and thrown to the ground.

‘Is this your way of winning the war, Len?’ Laurence shouted as he reached them.

Len stared at him insolently. ‘Accident, Rector.’

‘Then you will apologise to Fred for it.’

‘Suppose I won’t?’

Laurence’s anger rose. ‘Blessed are the meek, Len Thorn. God didn’t send you into this world to bully others.’

‘That’s right. Rector. Meek little babies like my niece you’re keeping from her rightful kin.’

What was he doing bandying words with this hooligan, Laurence thought impatiently. ‘Come to me when you want to make your peace with God, Len. Now help me pick up these eggs.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m a working man.’ Laughing, Len marched off towards the station, leaving Laurence to console Fred who was standing at his side, tears running down his face.

‘There’s a good dozen here not broken, Fred,’ Laurence said, picking up an envelope which had tumbled from the bottom of the basket. To his surprise he recognised Phoebe’s handwriting. ‘How did you get this?’

‘’Tis a secret,’ Fred informed him proudly, still gulping.

‘Then you must keep it, of course.’ With growing perturbation, Laurence looked to see to whom it was addressed. He should have guessed, he should have known. It was to Private Harry Darling, the young man at the tennis party. ‘Don’t worry, Fred. I’ll take care of this now.’

Laurence felt immensely depressed. Never in the old days would a young man of Len’s age have dared speak in such a fashion to the Rector. And never would his own daughter have so blatantly ignored his authority. He thought for
a long time over what he should do, and finally decided he had no alternative.

Phoebe looked at her father warily when he put his head out of the door after Rector’s Hour and asked her to come into his study.

‘Can you explain this?’ He handed her the letter, keeping his voice neutral.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘Through no fault of Fred’s. I take it this is not the first time he has taken your letters to Tunbridge Wells for posting?’

‘No.’

‘And why is that, Phoebe?’

‘Because I knew you’d make a fuss about it.’

‘And why should I do that?’

Phoebe did not reply.

‘I take it this is merely a letter written in friendship?’ Laurence continued.

‘Yes,’ she stammered.

‘More than friendship?’ he asked inexorably.

‘Yes,’ she cried again, cornered. ‘I love him, Father. Just like Caroline does Reggie, and Isabel Robert. What’s wrong about that?’

‘A great deal,’ he replied, even more horrified now at how blind he had been. ‘This young soldier seemed nice enough, but he has been brought up in an entirely different background to yourself. How could there be more than friendship involved?’