Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings (17 page)

The girls lit the fire in the recreation room and sat, stunned, watching the flames. Edward-John slept soundly in his mother’s room. In the kitchen Alice and Rose prepared Monday’s sandwiches in silence.

It was dark when Annie came into the kitchen.

‘We’re going over to the barn, Mrs Todd,’ she said. ‘We want to look at Andreis’s painting. You and Rose can come with us if you want to.’ At first Alice was reluctant.
But the girls, even Winnie, Marion and the cold, detached Gwennan, were gathering in the cross-passage and moving through to the linhay for their boots and galoshes.

A fine rain, lit by wavering shafts of light from their flashlights – the use of the outside light was forbidden because of the blackout – drifted between the farmhouse and the barns as they crossed the yard. One by one they climbed, hand over hand, up the ladder and into the loft which had housed Andreis for almost two years. The blind across the skylight was drawn so they were able to light the three oil lamps. They stood them on the floorboards under the painting. With the illumination from the lamps augmented by the roving pools of concentrated light from their half-dozen flashlights, the picture swam into focus.

The girls, flanked by Alice and Rose, stared at the huge creation and fell silent in the face of the intensity of Andreis’s depiction of the driven people. Jackbooted soldiers herded abject civilians across a landscape of blitzed towns and pillaged farmland, the refugees, some clutching young children, raised their arms in gestures of fear, eyes straining for last glimpses of neighbours, homes and family. The piece was slightly surreal and largely symbolic. The land girls were bewildered by the fact that all the women resembled Annie and the men Andreis himself. Unused to paintings, they learnt, some of them, how to understand what Andreis had spread before them and even those whose intellect remained challenged by the work were at some level affected by it.
There was a loud gulp from Hester and, as Alice looked from one to another of her charges, she saw several pairs of brimming eyes and wet cheeks.

‘Right,’ she said, her voice less steady than she intended. ‘We should go now.’ She turned Hester and moved her towards the ladder. While Rose extinguished the lamps, the girls, one by one, their eyes lingering on the now almost invisible colours and shapes of the painting, lowered themselves down the ladder and into the gloom of the cowshed where the old mangers and stalls stood, disused since Roger Bayliss had moved his dairy herd up to the higher farm.

Rose filled mugs with milky cocoa which the girls carried into the recreation room. They pulled the old sofas closer to the fire and, together with Alice and Rose, sat sipping, united by the disaster of that day.

Then Annie was on her feet, her hands tight around her mug of cocoa.

‘That painting,’ she began, in a clear, firm voice. ‘It can’t stay there. The barn is collapsing and the roof is starting to leak. It must be taken somewhere where it will be safe and where people, lots of people, can see it. We have to do this…for Andreis. And for all the people in his picture… And everyone in this war who have… People like Chrissie… who…’ Her throat closed and she turned to Georgina for support, sitting down suddenly, as Georgina began to speak.

‘That’s a brilliant idea, Annie! There’s a War Artist’s
thing, isn’t there? Some of the big names are already commissioned, people like Stanley Spencer and John Minton and John Nash…to paint the war! To…sort of…record it, for the future.’ She got to her feet. A wing of glossy dark hair swung forward and was hooked briskly back behind her ear, revealing wide eyes which, in the firelight, glittered with energy and determination. ‘My brother’s godfather is a sort of curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He’ll know what we should do! I’ll write and ask him! Now!’

Taking her cue from Alice, Rose heaved herself to her feet and began collecting the empty cocoa mugs.

‘Tomorrow, Georgina, my dear,’ Alice said firmly. She was aware that her immediate duty as warden was to move the girls on from the tragedy of Andreis’s death and to restore, as quickly as possible, the rhythm of life at the hostel. ‘It’s late and everyone’s exhausted. Bed now. For everyone. Goodnight, Hester. Goodnight, Gwennan.’ She spread the embers across the hearth and stood the guard in front of them. The girls, calmer now and each dealing in her own way with the day’s disaster, stretched and yawned, wished Alice goodnight, their voices fading as their footsteps began to thump up the wooden stairs. ‘Night, Mrs Crocker!’ ‘Night, Georgie!’ ‘Night, Taff.’

Annie remained at the fireside, staring at the glowing ashes. Alice sat down beside her.

‘It’s hardest for you, Annie,’ she said quietly. ‘You knew him better than any of us.’

‘Yeah. I did. And I probably knew better than anyone how sad he was. More than sad. More like tortured. Tormented, even… He felt so guilty, Mrs Todd. And ashamed of not being how he thought he should be. Or doing what he thought he should do. And now… Well, it’s all over, isn’t it. And in a way, I’m glad, Mrs Todd. Know what I mean? All his unhappiness has stopped. I reckon that’s what people mean when they say “rest in peace”. Well, I hope he is. In peace, I mean.’

Rose became aware of Oliver Maynard’s feelings for Alice long before Alice herself did. He had taken to dropping in at the farmhouse with phrases like ‘just happened to be passing’, or ‘thought I’d look in on you on my way to…’ But Rose knew only too well that Lower Post Stone Farm wasn’t ‘on the way’ to anywhere, nor would anyone who hadn’t lost their way ‘be passing’ it. Unlike Rose, Alice was unaware of the way Oliver’s eyes followed her as she moved about the farmhouse kitchen making him a cup of tea or coffee, depending on the time of day. Nor did Alice see how appreciatively his gaze lingered, taking in the narrow waist and the slender legs and ankles which were visible now that the weather was warmer and she wore blouses and skirts instead of her winter trousers, bulky jumpers and thick boots. Rose saw him watching her elegant hands as she poured milk into his teacup and slid it across the surface of the kitchen table towards him.

On the day after the shooting Oliver arrived at midday, solemnly offered his condolences to both Alice and Rose and suggested that, in view of the depressing time they were all having, he should take Alice out to lunch.

‘You go,’ Rose had said, when Alice had hesitated. ‘Do you good.’

The pub was a low, thatched building with wooden tables set out on a terrace overlooking the water meadows of the River Exe. In spite of the war, or perhaps because of it – gamekeepers where in short supply – there was salmon on the menu. Poached and dressed with dill and cream, it arrived at their table with a crisp Hock and a bowl of tiny new potatoes and was followed by freshly picked strawberries still warm from the midday sun. Alice was enchanted. Oliver, like most naval officers, had exquisite manners. He was assured, attentive and witty. Alice rediscovered, as she sat enjoying his company and the delightful food and wine he was giving her, the sense of her own self-esteem which James’s desertion had threatened to destroy. In easier times she had known how to respond to the good things in life. She had been witty and self-confident. Now, these
half-forgotten
qualities were returning. The sunshine and the wine were warming her, making her skin glow and a sense of well-being flow through her. What if her husband had left her in favour of a younger – but in fact, rather mousy – girl? What if she was overworked, underpaid and almost constantly exhausted? What if her hair needed properly
cutting, her fingernails were broken and her once smooth hands had become reddened by hard work in the hostel kitchen? This man, sitting opposite her, treating her to a splendid meal, was finding her – at the very least – good company. She sipped her wine and made him laugh at her account of her first meeting with Roger Bayliss but, if anyone had suggested to her that Oliver, if not already in love with her, was becoming seriously attracted to her, she would have been astonished.

‘Tell me about your wife,’ she said suddenly and was slightly surprised by his reaction. His face seemed to stiffen and his smile became fixed and tight. ‘At the cricket match,’ Alice continued innocently, ‘you told me about…Diana, was it?’ His charm seemed to slide back into place. He smiled at Alice. It was a warm, reassuring smile. They had finished their strawberries. Oliver shook the cigarettes forward in his pack of Capstans.

‘D’you mind if I smoke?’ he asked smoothly and when she shook her head, offered her a cigarette, spun the wheel on his lighter, leant forward to light hers and then his own, inhaling deeply and then blowing the smoke carefully to one side.

‘Well?’ Alice persisted, almost playfully. He was a married man, she a married woman. What could be more natural than for her to enquire about his wife? ‘Tell me about Diana!’ Then Alice saw a hardness in his face that she had not noticed before. Or perhaps it had not been there before.
He ashed his cigarette and with his eyes lowered, said, ‘Forgive me, Alice, but I don’t want to spoil our perfectly lovely lunch by talking about my wife.’ Alice felt suddenly chilled.

‘I’m so sorry!’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise…’

‘Didn’t you?’ He continued to avoid her eyes. ‘I would have thought you might have considered it odd that, with a permanent posting down here, Diana did not feel inclined to join me? Just as it seems odd to me that your husband doesn’t appear to want you with him in…where is it?’

‘Cambridge,’ Alice said dully.

‘Yes. Cambridge. I remember now.’ Their eyes engaged and held. She searched his face and found nothing more sinister, now, than a frank vulnerability. ‘It wouldn’t be unreasonable would it, Alice, to assume that both of us have – what these days are described as “marital problems”?’ He paused, blowing smoke. ‘Probably would never have happened to either of us if this war hadn’t barged into our lives. But it did barge in. And problems have developed.’ He paused again. ‘Haven’t they, Alice.’ It was a statement, not a question. Alice nodded and swallowed the small amount of wine that remained in her glass. ‘So what I would like to suggest, my dear, if I may, is that we, you, Alice and me, Oliver’ – he made it, Alice thought, sound rather like a wedding ceremony – ‘form an innocent alliance designed to make life more pleasant for both of us. No strings. Just a simple friendship involving occasions such as this, visits to
the cinema perhaps, a drive to the coast maybe?’ He smiled. ‘What do you say?’

What could she say? There was no question here of an emotional entanglement, no hint of any form of infidelity to their respective spouses. The sun was shining, the food and wine had worked their simple magic leaving Alice feeling at ease and confident. Her son was safe and well. She had surprised herself by achieving and enjoying a modicum of independence. Oliver met her smile, poured the last of the wine into their glasses, lifted his and proposed a toast which took the form of a question.

‘To us?’ he asked as the glass rims chimed.

‘Us!’ Alice agreed, laughing.

Life in the hostel rolled on, leaving the trauma of Andreis’s death in its wake.

Mabel’s brother Ernie was slightly injured in a training accident.

Lionel’s godfather agreed to send someone from the War Artists’ Commission to assess Andreis’s painting and Alice, on several evenings, left the hostel in the company of Oliver Maynard. This caused a certain amount of nudging and winking among the girls when his Navy-issue car arrived at the farmhouse gate to collect her.

Lionel rode over on his motorbike, ostensibly to visit his sister but Georgina soon realised that it was Annie, not she, who was the attraction. So she left them to themselves,
sitting on the garden wall as the light faded, making hesitant conversation until Lionel plucked up the courage to ask Annie if he could take her for a ride on his motorbike.

It had been almost two months since Christopher’s last leave. Roger Bayliss had been vague when Georgina had enquired whether the burns on his hands had healed and whether he was flying again and had muttered something about Christopher spending a leave with a cousin in Sussex. Then the subject had been dropped.

Alice heard no more from Gwennan about Mabel’s inappropriate behaviour with her brother and assumed she had decided not to take her complaint to Margery Brewster who, on her regular monthly visit to the farm, had surprised Alice who caught, as she passed her a cup of tea, an unmistakable trace of alcohol on Margery’s breath.

Marion and Winnie had to be admonished for repeatedly flouting the curfew. One more offence, Alice had warned, and she would be forced to report them. Winnie had been chastened by this threat but Marion had tossed her head in defiance of it.

Mabel ran a pitchfork through her foot and had to be driven to the hospital in Exeter for a tetanus injection.

Reuben, who was training on the south coast, visited Hester several times and wrote to her each week.

‘Has my letter come from Reuben, Missus Todd,’ she would enquire, blushing and beaming with pleasure when Alice said, ‘Yes! Regular as clockwork, Hester!’

The days had lengthened and reached the midsummer solstice when, for a few weeks, the sun hesitated before beginning to track slowly back towards the shortening days of late summer and early autumn. The hay had been mown a second time, turned, dried and the ricks thatched. Barley heads, heavy and whiskered, began to droop and fade from green towards gold. The lambs had grown plump and the ewes parted happily with their fleeces in the July heat.

The water in the valley stream was low but there was enough in the pool below the bridge for the girls to plunge in on hot evenings or on sunny Sundays, sometimes wearing only their brassieres and knickers.

Before the onset of harvesting the farm seemed to gather itself for the coming burst of activity. Ferdie Vallance impressed Mabel with his clever assessment of the signs in the skies and in the hedgerows of the sort of weather they might expect at harvest time. ‘If the Old Man’s Beard be too thick and clustery and the squirrels be already at the ’azel nuts and the magpies ’as gone quiet, then you’ve to worry see, ’cos them’s the signs of August storms!’