Legacy of Greyladies (3 page)

‘We only have plum, I’m afraid. But it’s Mrs Olworth’s jam that I’m selling for her, because she had a glut of plums last year, and heaven knows, the poor woman needs the money now her husband’s gone and died on her. You’ll have to give her the jar back, though.’

As she started back, Phoebe slowed down to study the house where the newcomers now lived. There was no sign of life at the front of the building and the garden, which had been Bill’s pride and joy, was looking untidy; it hadn’t been cleared for the winter. She supposed the occupants were in the kitchen keeping warm.

On that thought she shivered and began to walk more quickly. It felt like rain and the wind had a real bite to it.

Just before she reached the big house, she heard the sound of a bicycle behind her and a voice calling, ‘Mrs Latimer! Mrs Latimer!  Telegram for you.’

She spun round, her heart thumping in her anxiety. Surely this couldn’t be one of
those
telegrams? Corin wasn’t fighting at the front.

The lad handed over the envelope. ‘Shall I wait for a reply?’

‘Yes, please. Give me a minute.’ She tore open the telegram, then sighed with relief. ‘No reply needed.’

‘Is it bad news?’

‘Just that my husband might not be able to come home for Christmas.’

‘Sorry to hear that, Mrs Latimer.’

She watched the delivery lad tear away on his bicycle. That was the village for you, or it had been until now. Everyone kept an eye on what other people were doing, helped out as
needed, which was nice in some ways, annoying in others.

She reread the telegram. Corin’s father was ill with pneumonia and his life was feared for. Her husband had been given compassionate leave and was going north to Manchester at once.

It might be a very quiet Christmas, even a sad one.

She wasn’t going to tell Corin about the baby in a letter, though, because she wanted to see his face when he found out. Like her, he very much wanted children.

And if they had a son, then
he
could inherit Corin’s family home near Manchester one day. That would make her feel so much better about depriving her husband of his birthright.

He said he didn’t mind, that what she did at Greyladies was a sacred trust and through it she did a lot of good in the world, but of course it made him sad sometimes to lose his home. She knew him too well for him to be able to hide his feelings from her.

After some thought, Phoebe went into the new part of the house to pass on to Captain Turner what Mrs Pocock had told her.

‘Is she sure the fellow was advocating violence?’ the commandant said. ‘Perhaps the good lady misheard.’

‘It was Mr Diggan who heard it and he told Mrs Pocock. She’s nobody’s fool and says this Hatterson fellow seems to blame all Germans for losing his leg.’

The captain glanced down instinctively at his own missing limb. ‘That’s foolish. No, no. The man may shout and complain, but I doubt he’ll actually do anything. Not in a small place like Challerton. Who would support him? They’re a friendly lot in the village, I’ve always found.’

‘Most of them are, but one or two families aren’t quite as friendly, and there are other villages and hamlets nearby, not to mention Swindon. If Hatterson’s been talking about it to one person in secret, he must already have found others who agree.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll inform all my staff and we already keep a careful watch on the house and grounds at night.’

But Phoebe still felt uneasy. She didn’t feel that the commandant was taking the matter seriously enough. She decided to take a good look at Mr Hatterson on Sunday in church, and try to eavesdrop on what he was saying to people in the churchyard afterwards.

If he continued to urge violence against the internees, she might have to organise something herself, hire some of the village lads, perhaps. No one was going to damage Greyladies if she could help it.

When she returned to the old part of the house, she told her two maids what Mrs Pocock had reported.

Cook hesitated and said, ‘I’ve heard my cousin saying something similar. She hates the Germans since her husband was killed. She wasn’t talking about burning down Greyladies, though. What a shocking thing to suggest! I shan’t sleep a wink at night now.’

That made Phoebe even more worried. She’d told Captain Turner that there were other disaffected people around, and that had immediately been confirmed by her own servant.

She would speak to him again if she heard so much as a whisper of unrest.

As she walked past the church in Nether Bassett, Olivia nearly bumped into the vicar’s wife who was coming from the opposite direction. ‘Oops! I’m sorry, Mrs Simmons. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘That’s all right. Excuse me saying so, but you look rather upset, Mrs Harbury. Are you all right?’

‘Not really. Does it show that clearly?’

‘That you’re angry? I’m afraid it does. Look, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? It can help to talk to someone and I never betray a confidence.’

Olivia hesitated, then followed the vicar’s wife inside. ‘This is a lovely house. I always admire it as I walk past.’

‘It’s far too big for the two of us and I wish there were less of it to heat and clean. It took two years of pleading before the church would even put in a gas cooker and gaslights in the main downstairs rooms. I’d just like to see them cook meals on that monster.’ She gestured towards a large, old-fashioned kitchen range. ‘It still heats the water and it keeps the kitchen warm, but that’s all it’s good for.’

She gestured to a chair. ‘I hope you don’t mind sitting in here? It’s much warmer.’

‘I don’t mind at all.’

Her hostess put the kettle on, then cocked one eyebrow. ‘So … what’s been upsetting you, my dear Mrs Harbury?’

Olivia didn’t like to be disloyal and didn’t know Mrs Simmons very well, so hesitated.

Her hostess asked quietly, ‘Captain Ballam returned this afternoon, didn’t he? Is it something to do with him?’

Why try to deny it? ‘Yes. My cousin hasn’t changed since he was a boy. He’s just as annoying. More!’

Mrs Simmons laughed. ‘Let me guess. He’s been ordering you around.’

‘Trying to. How did you know?’

‘He kept telling my husband how to run this parish when we first came here. Fortunately, my husband has had many years’ experience of smiling blandly, saying very little and doing nothing unless he agrees with it.’

‘I wish I could be the same. Donald always tries to order people around, but when he said something about my husband, it was too much to bear, and I walked out. If he doesn’t stop carping, I shall have to leave earlier than planned.’

‘We’re going to miss your cheerful face in the shop when you do go.’

‘I wouldn’t like to spend my life behind a counter, but it’s very interesting to see how things are done and I’ve enjoyed meeting people.’

They chatted together with the ease of old friends, and Olivia gradually calmed down.

Only when Mr Simmons came in from visiting a parishioner did she realise it had grown completely dark
outside. ‘I’d better get back or my cousin will be sending out search parties. Thank you so much for the cup of tea … and the soothing chat.’

‘I’ll walk back with you,’ Mr Simmons offered.

‘It’s only three hundred yards and the village is quite peaceful. If I screamed for help, a dozen people would be with me in seconds. There really is no need. You look tired.’

Mrs Simmons stood up. ‘I’ll see you to the door and watch you down the street.’ As they stood at the step, she hesitated then asked, ‘I wonder if you care about women’s position in society?’

Olivia was surprised by this, so asked cautiously, ‘Do you mean votes for women, and – and things like that?’

‘Yes. I would never have gone as far as the sorts of things the suffragettes did because I abhor violence, but I very much agree with what they were trying to achieve. I do not consider my mind to be inferior to that of a man, and if a woman does the same sort of work, as they have during the war, and shows she can cope, I feel it’s only fair she should be paid the same amount of wages.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘Good. I meet with a small group of like-minded ladies every week and we discuss what we can do to change things and help other women, both now and after the war. We’ve helped quite a few people in the area. Would you like to join us?’

‘I’d love to, as long as the meetings are after my shop hours.’

‘They are. Um, I’m afraid I can’t include your sister-in-law in the invitation. Mrs Ballam holds rather different views on women’s role in the world.’

Olivia chuckled. ‘She doesn’t hold any views whatsoever
of her own. It’s Donald who doesn’t believe in women getting the vote. And whatever he tells her, she believes. I promise not to bring her.’

‘We meet here on Wednesdays at four o’clock. Everyone brings a plate of food and we have tea together after our chat. Not too much food and nothing lavish because some of the women don’t have much money.’

‘I shall look forward to it.’

When Olivia went into the living room Donald greeted her with, ‘You shouldn’t have been out on your own after dark.’

Cecily nodded vigorously in agreement.

Olivia tried to keep her tone light. ‘Why on earth not? You keep telling me how safe Nether Bassett is. And before you ask, I was chatting to the vicar’s wife. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and finish eating my meal.’

‘One moment, if you please.’

She waited, saying nothing, wondering what else he had found to complain about.

‘I wish to apologise to you. If you thought I was … um, denigrating your husband and the great sacrifice he made, that was definitely not my intention.’

‘Ah. Well. That’s all right, then.’ She went into the kitchen and closed the door on them. When she took her plate out of the pantry, she also got out her book.

It was bliss to eat a meal alone. She took as long as she decently could over it, sure they wouldn’t miss her company.

By the time she returned to the sitting room, Donald was growing tired and had decided to go to bed early ‘just this once’.

Olivia made sure Cecily could manage to help him and
sought her own bed, smiling as she put on her nightgown and picked up her book again. Meeting Mrs Simmons and her group of ladies would be something to look forward to.

And if Donald or Cecily asked what the meetings were about, she’d say … She thought for a moment and chuckled aloud. She’d say the meetings were for women who’d lost someone close and wanted to pray together.

On Wednesday after work, Olivia got ready to visit the vicar’s wife again. She felt happy to be going out but tried to hide that since she was supposed to be praying for her late husband.

Donald swung into the kitchen on his crutches and scowled at the plate she was about to wrap in a tea towel. ‘I don’t know why you’re going to this thing today.’

‘Because I want to.’

‘And why you need to stay for tea afterwards is beyond me. Don’t those women have families to look after? A few private prayers should be more than enough to mourn the departed. This public parading of grief is unnecessary.’

She glared at him. ‘Has it occurred to you that women who have lost their husbands can get lonely? They go for the company as much as anything, and there’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘Some people may need that, but
you
have Cecily to keep you company. When I return to my posting, you’ll have to take her with you to the meetings, because she’ll be lonely.’

‘I don’t
have
to do anything at your order, Donald.’

He went red in the face and seemed to puff up a little, like an angry rooster. ‘I never thought you’d be so ungrateful for the shelter of my roof.’

‘Well,
I
never thought you’d expect me to stay and look after your wife for the duration of the war, and what’s more, I won’t do it.’

She picked up her plate, saw that someone had pinched a scone, leaving a gap at one side – no need to guess who had done that – so took another scone off the plate of four she’d left for her cousins’ tea.

‘Hoy! You said those were for our tea.’

‘Well, you took a scone from my plate, so you’ve already had one of yours. And how would it look for me to go there with a half-empty plate? As if we couldn’t afford to contribute our share, that’s what.’

‘Oh, there’s no talking to you.’

‘No, there isn’t. And certainly not in that tone of voice.’

She left via the back door, banging it good and hard behind her.

She’d tried to excuse his grumpiness by telling herself he must be in pain, but really, other people coped with pain without taking it out on the people they were living with. He’d even made poor Cecily cry this morning.

Olivia heard laughter as she knocked on the door of the vicarage and her heart lifted.

Mrs Simmons’ elderly maid opened the door. ‘Do come in, Mrs Harbury. I’ll take your plate into the dining room, shall I?’ A whistling sound came from the kitchen and she swung round. ‘There goes the kettle! Could you please hang your coat and hat up, and join the other ladies?’ She hurried through a door at the back of the hall.

Olivia went into the sitting room, pausing in the doorway to get her bearings. To her relief, and in one case her surprise,
several women she knew by sight from the shop were there.

The vicar’s wife beckoned her over. ‘You all know Mrs Harbury by sight, I think?’ She named each of the ladies, giving only first names and adding with a smile, ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here, Olivia. Pauline was just telling us about her trip to London and the dreadful conditions some poor women are living in now they’ve lost their husbands. We see the same problem in Swindon.’

‘It’s not only because they have children to look after, but because women’s wages are so low,’ a younger woman said. ‘And the girls find it hard to obtain as good an education as the boys. I get so angry when my older girls are kept at home regularly on Mondays to help with the family’s washing. The only time boys are kept at home is to help with the harvest. Half the school was missing this summer.’

Olivia recognised her then as the local schoolteacher. Cecily had said scornfully that it was a two-room school for the children of common persons, but the children in the senior class clearly had a teacher who cared about their welfare.

The conversation ranged from whether the government would give women the vote after the war, which some people expected to happen and others doubted, to the higher education of girls and women. The schoolteacher had a very intelligent girl in her class she wanted to help. The family was poor and would need their daughter’s wage, so they couldn’t afford to keep her at school, much as they’d have liked to.

The ladies decided that when this school year ended, they would each contribute some money and offer the parents a small sum per week to allow the girl to stay at school for another year and become an assistant teacher.

It was just the sort of lively conversation Olivia had been missing and she was enjoying it greatly.

There was such a loud knock on the front door, everyone fell silent.

‘That has to be Babs,’ Mrs Simmons said with a smile. ‘Mrs Horner-Jevons from the big house,’ she said to Olivia, ‘only she prefers to be called Babs. She lost her husband last year and lives in London. But she still comes back to the village from time to time. I don’t think you’ve met her yet. I’ll let her in myself. My maid will be having her own tea now.’

Calling, ‘I’ll get it, Susan,’ she hurried out to the front door.

The woman she brought back was tall and plump, wearing trousers and a knee-length tunic, with a rather mannish hat. ‘Sorry I’m late. I nearly drove my car into a herd of cows,’ she announced cheerfully. ‘They were going in for their evening milking and I couldn’t see round the corner, could I? Luckily I managed to stop in time, but the man with them shouted at me.’

‘What did you do about that?’ one woman asked, winking at Olivia.

‘Shouted back at him, of course. After my husband died, I decided I had to stand up for myself.’ She took the plate Mrs Cummins offered her and piled it high with sandwiches, cakes and scones.

‘I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t have time to make anything. However, I bought a nice surprise instead. No, I’m not showing you till after we’ve all eaten.’

When the table had been cleared, she went out into the hall and brought in a rather tarnished silver dish. Whipping
the cover off, she displayed its contents, a heap of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolates.

There was a chorus of oohs.

‘I was in London and I went into a shop which had just got a new tray of chocolates sitting on the counter. Five pounds of them all whispering, “Buy me.” So I bought two pounds and if you ladies can’t finish them, I will.’

There were more delighted exclamations. Such chocolates were expensive and often bought one at a time for a little treat. They weren’t even sold at the village shop, which offered only ordinary Cadbury’s chocolate, which arrived in big bars that could be broken into smaller bars for customers wanting a treat.

Babs smiled as she watched each woman choose a chocolate in turn, then go round again. She did her share of consuming the treat, then moved across to sit next to Olivia. ‘I don’t know you, do I?’

Almost immediately the two of them were chatting like old friends.

Later, as they got ready to leave, Babs stopped Olivia just outside the front door. ‘I’m trying to set up a Women’s Institute nearby. Do you fancy helping me?’

‘I’m not quite sure what you mean by a “Women’s Institute”.’

‘Ah, then we’ll have tea together and I’ll tell you all about the movement. The idea comes from Canada and they set up the first one in Wales in June at that village with the long, unpronounceable name. I just call it Llanfair PG. A Women’s Institute is a local group of women from all social classes who meet every month in sisterhood and equality. The AOS is taking it on board and—’

‘Just a minute. I don’t know what the AOS is.’

‘Agricultural Organisation Society.’

Olivia was still puzzled. ‘Why should they be involved?’

‘They are there to encourage self-help and mutual cooperation in the farming community. WIs bring people together to share information and skills.’

‘Goodness, that sounds wonderful.’ Olivia really liked this idea. After all, women couldn’t gain the vote or other changes on their own, that was certain. But if they could learn to work together, they might stand more chance.