Land Girls (9 page)

‘You’d never know there was a war on here,’ said Stella, desperately trying to ease the silence.

‘You would if you had to eat in my canteen,’ said Janet. ‘Last week they ran out of custard powder. We had to have cornflour sauce with the jam roll. As for the chocolate shape …’

‘I love chocolate shape,’ offered Prue, solemnly. ‘Anything chocolate, for that matter.’

‘I’ve never made a chocolate shape. And now I can’t get chocolate,’ said Mrs Lawrence, to fill another silence. She glanced at Prue. ‘So I doubt I ever shall.’

‘And your mother, Janet, how’s she getting on?’ Mr Lawrence, struggling to do his bit, cast a glance at his son.

‘She’s doing fine, Mr Lawrence. A lot on her plate, what with the WVS and the knitting group she’s organized.’

‘You said, Joe, you’d bring down those piles of magazines from the attic for Janet’s mother.’ Mrs Lawrence looked sharply at her son.

‘I did,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll put them in the car for you.’

This was his first direct remark to his beloved fiancée, Prue noticed. Perhaps they made up in private for their public reserve.

‘Mother will be pleased. Thank you, Mrs Lawrence.’ Janet turned to Joe. ‘Will we have time for a stroll before I have to start back? Father said he’d rather I was home before dark.’

Joe looked at his watch. ‘Depends,’ he said, ‘on how quickly I can get through the milking.’

He didn’t look at the girls, but Mrs Lawrence’s eyes travelled from Stella, to Ag, to Prue.

‘I’ll do the milking!’ Prue turned to Joe. ‘You and Janet go for your walk.’

‘We’ll help,’ offered Ag quickly.

‘’Course we will,’ said Stella.

‘Well,’ said Joe. ‘If you insist.’

‘We do.’ Prue giggled.

‘That’s very, very kind,’ said Janet. ‘Joe and I are very, very grateful. We get so little time.’

Prue giggled again. ‘Shall I bring in the apple pie, Mrs Lawrence?’

This gave her the chance to rise slowly from her seat with a small flick of her skirt. Janet’s eyes, she was pleased to observe, were riveted by her narrow hips, small waist and the rise of bosom above the sweetheart neckline.

Praise for the pudding did little to brighten the dismal lunch. When it was finally over, Mr Lawrence was the first to get up, with the air of one about to make an announcement. He addressed the land girls.

‘Faith and I make it our business to be off duty till tea-time on Sundays,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s the only time we get for a rest.’

Stella, glancing at Mrs Lawrence, saw that her face had turned a thunderous colour.

Joe, also embarrassed, patted Janet on the shoulder. ‘Come along, then, Jan. Hope you’ve brought your boots.’

‘We’ll bring the cows in,’ said Stella, urging the other two to hurry.

‘Race you,’ called Prue, brushing past Janet and Joe.

Ag was the last to leave the room. As soon as she was out of the door she heard a wail from Mrs Lawrence.

‘John! How dare you!’

‘Sorry, love. Sorry. I wanted them out of the way, didn’t know how—’

Ag hurried after the others, wanting to hear no more.

Back in their breeches, the three girls strode down the lane towards Lower Pasture to fetch in the cows. Prue’s previous high spirits had subsided.

‘Lucky Janet,’ she said.

‘Oh, I don’t know. She doesn’t seem to be getting much response,’ said Stella.

Ag swung her stick through the long grass of the verge. She turned to Prue.

‘You were rotten,’ she said.

‘Rotten? Why rotten?’

‘All that flirting. Crucifying Janet.’

Prue laughed.

‘For Christ’s sake, if she can’t take another girl smiling at her man, she’ll be in for a bad time. Where I come from, all’s fair in love and – besides, Joe needs cheering up, any road. He’s made a sodding great mistake. He needs a bit of fun.’

‘Whatever he needs, it’s not your business,’ said Ag.

‘Lay off, posh face.’ Prue struck the grass with her own stick, harder than Ag.

‘Come off it, you two.’ Stella moved between them.

Prue ignored her, turned an angry face to Ag.

‘What you’re saying,
Agapanthus
, is you fancy Joe yourself.’

The absurd accusation, so insulting, whipped the colour from Ag’s face. Their eyes met in mutual hostility, but Ag kept her control.

‘I’m not saying that, no. You can have no idea how wrong you are.’

Prue thrashed once more, but less viciously, at the grass. The silence that followed was broken by the pooping of a small horn.

They turned to see the Austin Seven coming up behind them. Joe was driving. Janet, smiling, sat beside him. As they went by, everyone waved. With the passing of the car the tension eased.

‘He looks quite happy, actually,’ said Ag.

‘He likes cars, I dare say,’ said Prue. ‘New cars like that.’

‘Well, good luck to them.’ Stella’s thoughts were more concerned with Philip and herself. She had had no word from him.

Prue looked at Ag, suddenly contrite.

‘Sorry. Once I fancy a man, some devil gets into me.’

‘You take care,’ said Ag. ‘Think of Janet.’

‘I’m not one to upset apple carts, believe me.’ Prue ruffled her curls, smiling again.

At the gate to the field all three girls paused for a moment, arms resting on the top bar, eyes on the herd of impatient cows. Ag thought that with any luck she could return to
Jude the Obscure
in just over two hours: so far, there had been little chance to read. Stella began to compose her next letter to Philip. Prue sighed.

‘Wonder what they’re up to,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine Joe would get very far with that grey skirt, can you?’

Mr Lawrence made sure that he was downstairs before the girls came in from the cowsheds. There were disadvantages, having your house full of strangers. But on the whole, judging by this week, the advantages outweighed them. Faith had been right about the land girls: they were shaping up pretty well. Faith was right about most things.

He cut thick slices of her home-made bread, hungry. But calm. The nervous energy, the buzz of anxiety that had been hounding him since the girls’ arrival, had been dissipated by the hour of making love to his wife. As on all Sunday afternoons, he felt powerful. He alone was able to chase the rigidity from Faith’s bones, soothe the tension, make her smile. The fascination of this regular unwinding of his wife never wore off, and the tea that followed, prepared by him, was the occasion he most looked forward to in the week. Newly bound together in a way that never became stale or mundane, Sunday afternoons revived John Lawrence’s scattered energies, strengthened him for the days ahead.

Slowly, gravely, the farmer spread the bread with butter, put fruit cake on a plate, a spoon beside a jar of Faith’s gooseberry jam. He wished the present silence could go on for hours, the girls never return, the war be over. But in a few moments they would be back, hungry. Nice of them to have done the milking, give Joe an hour or so with Janet. The girls, the girls … that Stella girl. As John stirred the tea, he found himself facing the truth – something that usually, in his busy days, he had no time to afford himself. But here it was confronting him, in all its starkness: he no longer felt unnerved by Stella. The curious, unwanted sensations she had aroused in him so unexpectedly, almost as soon as he met her, had abated. Further probing of the devil that had taunted him – and here the flow of milk from jug to cup wavered – found the exact nature of those feelings put into words: old man’s lust. Disgusting, shaming, horrible. He was fifty-three, married a long time, never looked at anyone but Faith, had never had the opportunity to be tempted. Then an entrancing creature young enough to be his daughter arrives, and the unsettled feeling she causes him is like an illness he’s unable to shake off.

Until now. Now, normal again, he could trust himself. What he would do to prove this would be to test himself. The test would be a simple one – nothing dangerous. On Monday, he would switch the girls’ jobs around (good idea to make sure they could all do anything) and take Stella hedging with him. He’d enjoy teaching her the skill. At the end of the day he’d invite the others to help with a bonfire. By that means the ghost would be laid: he could never have cause for shame again.

Faith came in quietly, dark skin burnished in the deep afternoon light. She tied an apron over her Sunday skirt, stood straight and noble as she poured tea, the merest smile on her lips as she glanced at the thickness of butter on bread.

‘Rationing, remember.’

‘It’s our own.’

‘All the same.’ Mrs Lawrence sat. ‘I hid the last pot of damson jam. Do you want some before the girls come?’

Her small, innocent conspiracies were always a delight to her husband. He shook his head.

‘Not today. They’re good girls.’

‘Not at all bad.’

Mrs Lawrence blushed for the second time that afternoon. Her husband read her thoughts.

‘I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ll say it again.’

‘No need to go on.’

‘What we could do is walk up to The Bells for a drink and a sandwich. Ratty’ll be there.’

‘Escaping Edith.’ Faith laughed. ‘He’d be so surprised to see us it might unnerve him altogether. It’s been an alarming enough week for him anyway with the girls.’

‘We wouldn’t have to face them if we went to The Bells.’

‘I don’t mind facing them. Don’t suppose Joe’d be very happy alone with the three of them, Prudence fluttering her eyelashes. Besides, you’d miss a rice pudding. And it’s
Postscript
, remember. Can’t see you missing Mr Priestley. We’ll stay where we are.’

They heard the slam of a door, voices.

The girls burst in, socks and breeches muddy, bringing cold air with them. They had been for a long walk, got lost on the way back, had problems helping Prue over a stile. As they ate hungrily, laughing, easy, Mr Lawrence reckoned their minds had been far from Faith and himself, and felt relieved. This was the first meal, he observed, at which polite conversation had given way to real banter, merriment. Joe, who had slipped in just as the last of the bread and butter had been taken, seemed surprised by the laughter, the unusual liveliness. He sat by his mother, who cut him a vast slice of cake. He ignored Prue’s surreptitious looks. Maybe he genuinely was not aware of them, but they did not go unobserved by Mr Lawrence, who for once was pleased to see his son’s face as inscrutable as ever. He was a hard one to fathom, Joe. Always had been. Bit of fluff like Prudence would never get the measure of him, of that Mr Lawrence was sure. All the same, Janet’s flat grey skirt and flat grey voice came to mind, and he felt uncomfortable. It didn’t do to think too much about Janet. He slid his eyes to Stella: beautiful – despite mud on her cheeks, hair blown into tangles, total lack of make-up. She smiled at him, innocent. It did nothing to him. His resolve remained firm. Tomorrow he would teach her to lay a hedge.

That night, the girls joined the Lawrences by the wood fire in the sitting-room. Mrs Lawrence darned, Prudence repainted her nails, Ag half-concentrated on a crossword puzzle. Stella just sat, her mind on Philip. While they all listened to J. B. Priestley decrying the government’s policy against ordering potatoes to be sold for a penny a pound, Mr Lawrence gave Stella several glances, wondering at her preoccupation. Still he felt nothing but safety.

But at breakfast next morning the resolve wavered, then fled. The stirrings of disloyalty, an uncontrollable physical thing, assaulted him as he watched her sip her tea. He wondered at her distraction. She kept glancing at the window. When the postman arrived, she leapt up before Faith and took the bundle of letters from him through the window. Quickly she shuffled through them and snatched for one for herself. She slipped it into her back pocket with a look of such vivid joy Mr Lawrence knew he would have to change his plans. He could not hedge all day beside a girl in such rapture, and not be moved, tempted, agonized. She was all smiles again, now: pink cheeks, a portrait of high expectation. Happy the man who is loved by her, thought Mr Lawrence, and realized his wife’s eyes were heavy upon him.

‘I need someone to help with the last of the damsons,’ she said.

‘I’d be willing,’ volunteered Stella at once.

‘In that case, I’ll take Agatha hedging with me,’ said Mr Lawrence, ‘and as for you, young Prudence, you can have your way at last. When the sheds are sluiced down, there’s Upper Meadow to be ploughed. Joe’ll explain the Fordson to you – she’s a temperamental old thing, some days. He’ll take you up there. Then you’re on your own.’

‘
Mr
Lawrence! I’ll not let you down. You’ll not see a straighter furrow,’ Prue squealed. She put down her tea, flung excited arms round his neck. ‘Thank you, thank you!’

Mr Lawrence awkwardly disentangled himself from her embrace, to laughter from the others. Even Joe was smiling.

‘Calm down, child,’ he said, ‘and don’t be surprised if the novelty wears thin after a couple of hours in the metal seat.’

‘You wait,’ she said. ‘My
dedication
to the plough will surprise the lot of you. Down in half a tick, Joe. Just do my lipstick. Never know who you might meet in a furrow …’

Faith explained that, as the last of the damsons were to be made into chutney and jam, there was no need to take great care in the picking. Picking plums for sale, the day before, Stella had chosen only perfect fruit.

She carried a large basket and a stepladder to the orchard, and made for the last unpicked tree, its branches weighed down by a heavy crop.

It was a fine, warm morning. The freak frosts of last week had not returned: Mr Lawrence said it had been the finest summer for many years. Its warmth overflowed into autumn, tempered with an almost imperceptible breeze.

Stella made firm the stepladder and climbed up, buried to the waist in branches and leaves. She liked fruit picking, had enjoyed stripping several trees of apples and plums, though she was still not half as fast or skilled as Mrs Lawrence, who had worked beside her the first few days.