Dark Harvest Page 6

  Oh, clever. Caroline chewed her way furiously through her mouthful of beef before replying. Help came from an unlikely quarter.

  ‘I can offer women more than having to scratch around in the muck and dirt,’ announced William Swinford-Browne.

  ‘In the hopgardens?’ Isabel asked.

  ‘The land’s finished. It’s shells this country needs.’

  What was coming, wondered Caroline.

  ‘The brewery’s a white elephant now the King’s signed the pledge for the whole Palace,’ he went on, ‘and meddlesome local councils are cutting drinking hours. Lloyd George is right though. It’s munitions the country needs, and if he thinks drink is doing more harm to the war effort than German submarines, then that’s that. I’d sell the brewery if I could, but no one would buy it now. I’m gutting and expanding it and converting to munitions. There’ll be work enough there for your girls.’ The brewery was on the outskirts of East Grinstead, and several of his present workers travelled there daily from Ashden.

  ‘What sort of munitions?’ Laurence enquired.

  ‘Shells. There’s only the Woolwich Arsenal producing them now, and we need more. Many more. I’ve heard whispers.’ He tapped the side of his nose with a podgy forefinger, as if to convey that he walked in high places. ‘That’s why we’re not winning this war. No shells, no ammunition. Strikes, drink—whatever the reasons, there’s a shortage. Girls can fill shells as well as men, and more cheaply.’

  ‘But that’s dangerous work, William.’ Edith sounded a little shocked.

  William glared at his wife. ‘You women say you’re equal to men; that’s what those suffragettes like your sister believe, Rector.’ He could not even mention Aunt Tilly by name, Caroline realised with amusement. How he loathed her!

  ‘And as for the hop farm, I’ll give it a year and if it doesn’t improve I’ll grub the lot up and plough it for wheat.’

  Caroline felt tears stinging her eyes as the whole family fell silent. She wanted to shout, ‘But Ashden has always had its hopgardens.’ Now she knew why Swinford-Browne had let her have such an easy passage when she called to see him. He did not care. But it was another ominous sign that the war could be nowhere near its end, if there were whispers in Whitehall of a need to build dark satanic factories in Sussex’s green and pleasant land.

  She noticed George gazing speculatively at Swinford-Browne and knew just what was in his mind. A cartoon. Swinford-Browne in a beer jug? His Majesty looking forlornly at a brandy and soda?

  ‘My bit for the war effort, eh, Edith?’ Swinford-Browne chortled benevolently.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Mr Swinford-Browne,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘You and your wife are an example to us all. Now, I wonder, Edith’ (although she would never accord her husband his Christian name she felt some sympathy for his wife) ‘as you are so willing to do extra work, there is one task for which I know your kind heart has fitted you.’

  ‘And what is that, Elizabeth?’ Edith beamed.

  ‘So many women have answered our call that we need others to look after their babies while they are working on the land.’

  Oh, well done, Mother. Caroline had to struggle not to laugh at the look of horror on Edith’s face.

  Agnes kept her head high amidst all the curious looks. She knew what they were thinking. What was the Rector’s former parlourmaid doing waiting her turn for Rector’s Hour? The next thing would be whether they dared ask her about the Norvilles. Or maybe they were thinking about how the baby was due and she and Jamie had only been wed since Christmas? Well, let them.

  The Rector did not show the surprise he felt when he saw her sitting there. He called her in to his study.

  ‘What is it, Agnes?’ Then, when she did not speak, ‘Are the Miss Norvilles upsetting you?’

  ‘No, sir. I’ll stay there with the baby and have it there too. It’s the Thorns.’

  ‘What have they done?’

  ‘They keep telling me I should go there and now the baby’s late and I don’t want to go,’ she managed to gasp. There, it was out.

  ‘Then don’t go. I’m sure Jamie will understand.’

  ‘But he’s not here, and there’s been a message sent up with Mary that Len and Mr Thorn are coming to collect me tomorrow and this time won’t take no for an answer. Being Jamie’s father, Mr Thorn says he has a right.’

  The Rector was puzzled. ‘It would be more comfortable for you at Mrs Thorn’s. I’m sure she’ll treat you kindly.’

  ‘But I won’t get away again.’ Didn’t anybody understand. ‘They’ll want me to work there.’

  ‘Would that be so bad?’

  She hesitated, then blurted out, ‘It’s Len, sir. I’m scared of him. And he do hate Jamie so. Up in Castle Tillow I feel safe. When I told Johnson he said he wouldn’t let them in, but I know them Thorns. There’ll be a fight, all over me, and I’ll have to go.’

  The Rector thought for a moment. ‘Excuse me, if you will, Agnes. I won’t be long.’ He went outside.

  Agnes felt mightily relieved now it was off her chest and allowed herself a little weep. Five minutes later she was recovered when the door opened and both the Rector and Mrs Lilley came in.

  ‘We’ve solved your problem, Agnes,’ the Rector informed her. ‘I’ll talk to the Thorns. I think you’ll find they’ll change their minds.’

  ‘And I can have the baby at Castle Tillow?’

  It was Mrs Lilley who answered. ‘If you wish, Agnes. We’d prefer somewhere else though.’

  ‘Where?’ She wouldn’t go to her parents, she wouldn’t.

  ‘The Rectory.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Out, Kaiser Willie, out! And you. And you!’ Caroline hoed vigorously round the barley crop at Owler’s Farm. If she convinced herself each jab was a jab at His German Imperial Majesty, she would truly be contributing towards the war effort. She hadn’t expected to be wielding a hoe herself, but when Mrs Lake broke her arm after slipping on muck in the yard, there had been an emergency call from her husband, incapacitated himself after losing an arm at Ypres in November. She had welcomed it, because Farmer Lake had at first been a die-hard, telling her they could manage without a pack of women squawking around, thank you very much, Miss Lilley. But now here she was, advancing hoe in hand to defeat the enemy. And enjoying it, tiring though it was.

  So far her scheme was working reasonably well, with a few hiccoughs as one or two women tired of the hard labour. She had heard whispers about the better pay at Swinford-Browne’s munitions factory, and there were always more volunteers for sowing and picking than for weeding. Which was why she was fighting the Germans in this field single-handed.

  Caroline stood upright to rest her aching back, glanced at her wristwatch (a present from Reggie at Christmas), and realised with pleasure it was time for lunch. Sometimes she brought sandwiches, but with Agnes’s baby already overdue—it had been due last weekend, the 2nd May, and now it was Saturday—she wanted to be at the Rectory as much as she could. How busy they all were! Even Mother. Caroline felt somewhat conscience-stricken at how much time her mother was having to spend out of the Rectory, chasing women who had been ‘thinking it over’, and altering rotas after last-minute changes of plan owing to the fickle weather which obstinately ignored the fact that it was spring and remained cold and grey.

  Father also spent much more of his time out in the village. As well as the sick, the elderly and the bereaved, the war had brought practical problems of how to survive when old means of livelihood were threatened and new ways seemed slow to appear. There were far too many problems to deal with in Rector’s Hour. Some of the villagers were, in any case, too proud to attend such a relatively public parade of their troubles, but could be persuaded to respond to a personal visit.

  Caroline jabbed at a recalcitrant clump of scarlet pimpernel, aware that she was still frustrated to be here while Reggie was facing such terrible horrors on the Western Front. She knew there were two faces to this war, the one put over in the newspapers, full of
successes and gallant heroes, and the one she had seen during her VAD work at Dover, which manifested itself in mangled, gangrenous limbs and now, after the terrible use by the Germans of gas at Ypres, eaten-away lungs.

  She poked another clump. This was no time for despondency. If every woman added her pile of weeds, yes, it would help, for every job done by a woman would free a man for the front. That was the message being put over by the suffragette movement now. Yet so far little seemed to be coming of the Government’s register of women willing to work. Although she had put her name down immediately, she had heard nothing, nor seen anything more about it in the newspapers.

  She leaned her hoe against the hedge and hopped over the stile into Silly Lane to return to the Rectory for lunch. As she emerged past the barrier created by the thick May growth of hedgerow, she almost collided with Lady Hunney, the last person usually to be found strolling in the lane. What could she be doing here? Lady Hunney, immaculately dressed in a severe navy costume and hat, eyed Caroline, from the Wellington boots, up the trousers and old smock she wore over them to the battered panama hat of Father’s which she had crammed on her head. A large mud patch adorning one knee completed her toilette.

  ‘Is this your usual attire for your new organisation, Caroline? It seems somewhat strange.’

  It was a mild comment, but somehow this woman had the power to reduce her to one of Mrs Dibble’s less successful jellies. Caroline summoned her strength. ‘No, but I’m helping the cereal harvest at the moment. The Kaiser has imposed a submarine blockade, as you know.’

  Lady Hunney ignored the Kaiser. ‘I greatly regret that you have taken no notice of the guidance I gave you. Good-day, Caroline.’

  Before she had a chance to reply, Lady Hunney had walked on. Caroline was relieved that she had escaped comparatively lightly. She shrugged off the slight uneasiness the encounter had left her with. After all, the only hold Lady Hunney had over her was Reggie. She must try to avoid conflict with his mother for his sake, and perhaps Lady Hunney felt the same—hence her less than virulent words just now.

  The ever-nagging fear when she did not hear from Reggie had been allayed by a letter yesterday; at last she knew that the terrible battles that had taken place at Ypres in late April had not claimed him, for the letter was dated 1st May. He had written of the yellow poisonous gas fumes that left men choking for breath and blinded. It had been the Canadians who suffered most, he wrote, but the Germans would have a taste of what it was like because now they had Kitchener’s permission to use gas. It would be the Germans whose lungs slowly, inexorably drowned in water. Once again, the insidious thought nagged at her: Reggie may have survived Ypres, but what about the next battle? This afternoon she must hoe twice as hard, she decided, as the Rectory gate clicked home behind her.

  She found her father alone and pacing around the dining room. That meant Mother was out, she realised guiltily, remembering this morning’s panic about finding extra labour for planting cabbage at Robin’s farm.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Caroline. I thought I was doomed to lunch alone.’

  She relaxed. He didn’t seem to be blaming her, and all had been progressing normally in the kitchen. Still no sign of the baby, Mrs Dibble informed her.

  ‘I’ll go to change. Mother will be here any moment, I’m sure.’

  ‘Perhaps. She went to comfort Mrs Swinford-Browne.’

  ‘What?’ Caroline almost laughed, so unexpected was the image conjured up. Then with sudden alarm: ‘Not bad news of Robert or Patricia?’

  ‘No. Her brother was on the Lusitania. You read the newspapers?’

  ‘I didn’t have time. What’s happened?’

  ‘A German submarine has sunk a civilian liner in the Atlantic with terrible loss of life. Over eleven hundred dead. It’s no accident, this is a new and terrible policy. They’ve even boasted of it in the New York press. Any vessel flying the British or Allied flag is at risk, no matter who sails in it. There were over a hundred American citizens lost in the Lusitania. Coming so hard on the heels of the American merchant ship sunk a week ago it must surely persuade President Wilson he cannot remain neutral any longer.’

  Eleven hundred lost. Caroline remembered that awful day in 1912 when the Titanic went down, and the loss of the Empress of Ireland last year. But they were accidents, and this new catastrophe was not. Only last month they had sunk a Dutch tanker, violating her neutrality. That could have been no accident either. ‘Now the Kaiser acknowledges no rules of war, America must enter; that would help bring peace.’

  ‘But at what cost? More and more lives to be lost while the fighting goes on.’

  ‘Don’t you believe in the struggle. Father?’

  In April there had been an international women’s peace congress at the Hague in neutral Holland to seek peace. Her father had welcomed it, and she had been puzzled that not only the Government but the Women’s Social and Political Union, Mrs Pankhurst’s organisation, had been against sending delegates in case, presumably, it diminished Britain’s fighting spirit. The other suffrage societies wanted to send delegates, but were unable to travel because, so she’d heard, the Government deliberately suspended the ferry service to Holland.

  ‘I believe we must stand firm against the forces of evil. How to reconcile this with man’s inhumanity to man in the form of shells, gas and Zeppelin bombs is a matter that one could argue for ever. But now this war means death to civilians as well as soldiers. I just don’t know.’

  So far the much-feared Zeppelin raids had been fewer than anticipated. April had seen four, however, although they wreaked little harm. But who could tell what would happen now? Caroline felt alarmed. Seldom had she seen her father so distressed. Perhaps the Misses Norville had been right to fortify their house, useless though barbed wire would be to keep out German bombs. Mentally though, everyone should fortify themselves.

  ‘God is our strength, Caroline.’ Her father’s quiet comment came as a relief.

  Mrs Dibble plonked down a plate of stew and new potatoes in front of Agnes. ‘You work your way through that, my girl. You’re eating for two, remember. There’s a nice pond pudding to follow.’

  ‘Why so much fuss about a bally Thorn?’

  ‘What did you say?’ Mrs Dibble whirled round on Harriet, who had come into the kitchen after a hard morning cleaning the windows.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  Harriet’s temper flared. ‘I don’t mind waiting on Agnes. But I ain’t a-waiting on that bastard Thorn she’s got inside her.’

  ‘We’re wed,’ Agnes shouted.

  ‘Late,’ sneered Harriet. ‘And the Rector had a say in that, I’ve no doubt.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Harriet Mutter.’ Mrs Dibble intervened before Agnes could reply. ‘The Rectory is no place for Thorns and Mutters to air their grievances. And you remember, Harriet, you’re employed here as parlourmaid-cum-housemaid, and it don’t matter what your name is.’

  ‘I don’t take my orders from you, but from Mrs Lilley.’

  ‘Want me to ask her, poor lady, with all she has to do, whether she approves of you using bad language about an unborn baby? She’s a good Christian lady, praise be to God.’

  Harriet subsided. She’d gone further than she meant, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She had her pride, after all.

  ‘Tea, miss, and make it a strong ’un, me old china.’

  Countless khaki-clad bodies pushing and shoving, shouting in the hot refreshment room, the talk and raucous songs in such thick Cockney accents that Phoebe didn’t understand most of it. Drink wasn’t the attraction here because there was no alcohol, it being a YMCA-sponsored operation. The soldiers came in droves because it was much nearer than Crowborough’s and Tunbridge Wells’s public houses—and girls were serving the refreshments.

  The refreshment rooms in the recreation hall were under the management of a stern-eyed lady called Mrs Manning, who kept her ‘young ladies’, as she called them, under a st
rict eye. Not that Phoebe had any intention of misbehaving; she was still too overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. At the railway station, her own venture, she had felt in control when the troops laughed and joked as she took them tea. This was a different world. The sound of ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ and ‘We are Fred Karno’s Army’, not to mention the awful ‘Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers’ being bawled out night and day filled her dreams, as tiredness refused to let her brain stop working.

  Her work colleagues were strange to her too. Helen was the one she liked best. Her father kept a draper’s shop in Tunbridge Wells. Marie’s was a milkman in Crowborough and Betty’s a farmer. Their language and jokes both fascinated her and repelled her, but she was gradually growing accustomed to them, and Mrs Manning’s grim eye stopped them in their tracks anyway, much of the time. Only Marie had so far accepted an offer to step out with a young soldier; she had reappeared the next day with never a word to say about it. Phoebe was the only one who dared to ask her. She giggled but said nothing.

  There were thousands of young soldiers at this camp and the recreation hall could hold two thousand, so it was not surprising that the faces were a bewildering and ever-changing mass. One group, though, always seemed to be there, and one face in particular. She noticed him because he never shouted and was often silent when his mates were yelling their heads off. She told herself he was homesick for London, and gave him a special smile whenever she could.

  ‘Miss Phoebe’s got her eye on you, Harry,’ one of his mates observed.

  Harry Darling blushed.

  Laurence walked briskly up Station Road to the railway station. Briskness was called for—the weather was cold. All around him May was burgeoning forth and the hedgerows were brilliant green, but above the skies lowered day after day, not even sending welcome spring rain. Half the village grumbled that the guns on the Western Front had changed the weather, and the other half that they were paying for last year’s heat. He had just come from a brief chat with Isabel which had somewhat perturbed him. He knew the signs of restlessness in his eldest daughter. He remembered the uncontrolled excitement she had shown when she was so friendly with that scallywag from Groombridge—until he had chased him away. He’d been justified. He was an idler, a rich one perhaps, but he’d married the following year and led his wife a sorry dance. He wondered idly what was making her restless now, then dismissed Isabel from his mind. She was safely married, after all.