The Lost Days of Summer (10 page)

‘Damn!’ Nell said. She struggled back into her nightgown, added a thick woollen dressing gown which had once belonged to the uncle she had never met, and headed for the stairs, jug in hand. She would ask Auntie Kath for some hot water and might mention the spots or might not, depending on her aunt’s mood, she decided.

However, the choice was not to be hers. She entered the kitchen, began to speak, and walked slap bang into the table, banging her hip so hard that she cried out. Auntie Kath turned from the pot she was stirring and frowned, then put her spoon down and approached her niece. She seized Nell under the chin and stared hard into her hot face, then ran a hand across her spotty forehead.

‘Measles!’ she cried triumphantly. ‘I guessed how it would be when Eifion told us Bryn had contracted them at that confounded party. It’s gone through the schools like wildfire; both Mr Bellis’s grandchildren are full of them, and I said to myself it’ll be Nell next, and wasn’t I right? Don’t tell me you’ve had the measles already, because you can’t get ’em twice and if ever I saw a case of it, I see it before me now!’

Nell’s eyes filled with tears which trickled down her hot cheeks. ‘No, I’ve not had measles, and I’m sure I wish I hadn’t got them now,’ she protested, scrubbing the tears away with the heels of her hands. ‘Have you had them, Auntie? And what about Eifion? If old Mr Bellis gave them to me, I suppose I might give them to you.’

Her aunt pulled a chair out from beneath the table and pushed Nell into it, then gave a derogatory sniff. ‘Course I’ve had measles; so has everyone with any sense,’ she said crossly. ‘My mother made sure I had all them infectious diseases whilst I was still a child. Oh aye, I had measles, mumps and chickenpox, all of ’em. So did Trixie, as I recall. You’d have thought she’d have had the sense to make sure her daughter had ’em before landing you on someone else, but that’s just like your ma. I dare say she never gave it a thought.’

Nell began to try to defend her mother, but the sheer misery of the situation overcame her and she threw herself down on the table, buried her head in her arms and began to cry again. ‘How could my mother have made sure I caught all the infectious diseases?’ she asked in a muffled voice. ‘She did her best, I’m sure, and I have had chickenpox and that other one you mentioned. It’s just that when some of my cousins had measles, which was a good five years ago, Auntie Carrie took me and my other cousins into the country for a bit of a holiday. We went down to Herefordshire for the hop-picking.’ Nell gulped and raised a tear-stained face, glaring up at her aunt. ‘It were lovely, honest to— I mean truly it was, so if you want to blame anyone, you’d best blame your sister Carrie.’

Auntie Kath, ladling porridge into a bowl and setting it down in front of her niece, had the grace to look a little ashamed, Nell thought. ‘All right, all right, so it weren’t your ma’s fault, but a fat lot of use you’ll be to me while you’re covered in spots,’ she said gruffly. Then, to Nell’s astonishment, she gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. ‘Never you mind me; I’m just disappointed to be losing my new worker just when she’s learned to milk.’ She reached for the sugar bowl, handed it to her niece and then returned to the range to heat the big frying pan. ‘Reckon it’ll take a good fortnight, maybe three weeks, before you’re out of quarantine. Then you can start work again.’

Nell sprinkled sugar sparingly over her porridge, knowing that it was now on ration. Usually, she helped herself from the big honey jar, but today, because of the measles, she felt justified in having some sugar. ‘But Auntie, if you and Eifion and Bryn have all had the measles, why can’t I carry on as usual,’ she asked plaintively. ‘Or are you afraid I’ll give it to the cows?’

Her aunt actually chuckled, but shook her head chidingly. ‘You can’t give it to the animals, thank the Lord,’ she said piously. ‘But you’re not going to feel like milking the cows or mucking out the beasts yet awhile; you’ve got to resign yourself to some time in bed. When Bryn’s better and comes back to work, I dare say he’ll carry up some food for you a couple of times a day. If not, I suppose I’ll have to do it myself. Now finish that porridge and then go back upstairs, for I’ll warrant you don’t feel like a cooked breakfast this morning.’

Nell opened her mouth to say that, on the contrary, she felt very hungry indeed, then realised that her aunt was right; she could not even finish the porridge. She laid her spoon down and got carefully to her feet. ‘I’m sorry about the porridge, Auntie, but I think you’re right and I’ll be best in bed,’ she said meekly. ‘Oh dear, I feel ever so odd . . .’

She swayed and might have fallen, but her aunt looped a strong arm round her waist. ‘I’ll help you upstairs,’ she said curtly, and presently Nell found herself glad to be back in her bed, though she wished she had thought to bring up with her the mug of tea her aunt had just poured.

Auntie Kath went out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her, and Nell was just wondering whether she might return to the kitchen and beg for a drink when the door reopened and her aunt came in. ‘Had a good sleep?’ she asked and Nell, casting a startled glance at the alarm clock on her bedside table, realised that she must have slept for several hours. She sat up and her aunt placed a tray containing a large mug of weak tea and a bowl of what looked like rice pudding across her knees. ‘You won’t be wanting meat and veg for a while yet,’ she said, and her tone was almost kindly. ‘When you begin to feel better you can come downstairs and lie on the couch in the parlour. But right now bed’s the place for you.’

Nell did her best, over the next week, to put up with the isolation, for it turned out that Bryn had been very ill indeed once the measles took hold. Auntie Kath tutted and said it just proved that he should never have been accepted for the RNVR. Nell had hoped that he would return to stay with his grandparents once more so that he could visit her as she got better, but Eifion’s wife had decided that he should remain in Holyhead where his mother, who had finished her training with the WRNS and was at home awaiting her first posting, could nurse him herself. The doctor had applauded this decision, insisting that Bryn should be kept indoors and carefully watched for a good three weeks. Auntie Kath, hearing this, had decided to follow the doctor’s advice too, though she did allow her niece to come down to the kitchen at teatime and stay downstairs until seven or eight o’clock in the evening.

Poor Nell speedily grew to hate the four walls of her bedroom. She had brought no books with her to the farm, expecting that there would be a library within walking distance or that her aunt would be able to supply her with reading matter. Whilst she was working on the farm she had not missed it, but now, spending most of the day in her bedroom, she simply longed for a book – any book – with which to while away the long hours. Auntie Kath, when appealed to, had said that Owain had been a great reader, but she rather thought that after his death the rector, the schoolmaster and several fellow farmers had asked for permission to take his books, and had done so. Nell had asked her aunt for a writing pad, and as soon as her eyes had stopped hurting she had written long letters to her mother and all the aunts, explaining about the measles and begging them to post off to her any old magazines, newspapers or books which they happened to have about them.

Meanwhile, she asked whether it might be possible for her to search the attic, since she remembered her aunt once saying that it was full of all manner of rubbish, no longer wanted in the house itself. But it seemed that the idea of Nell climbing up the ladder-like stair did not appeal to Auntie Kath. ‘Don’t you go poking around in all that dust and muck,’ she said crossly. ‘There’s nothing up there which isn’t broken or useless. If it’s books you want, there’s a good library in Llangefni, and though I’m too busy to go there while the snow’s making so much extra work – trust you to get ill in the worst winter for a hundred years – I’ll try to find you something to read next time I’m in town.’ And with that, Nell had to be content.

However, the winter which Auntie Kath had described as the worst for a hundred years showed no sign of letting up and Auntie Kath’s temper was not improved when tremendous snowstorms and the resultant drifts cut the farm off from the outside world and for several days the milk lorry did not call. She fed them on junkets, custards and delicious savoury onion sauces; then she made butter, cottage cheese and anything else which would stop her having to waste the milk.

Nell, who had suffered her three weeks’ quarantine with as good a grace as she could manage, rebelled against yet more incarceration. As she pointed out, she was over the measles and, if she wrapped up warmly, could reach the shippon to help milk the cows, cart the heavy buckets of swill to the pigs, collect the eggs, feed the poultry, give an eye to the ewes now shut up in the big barn . . .

Auntie Kath reluctantly agreed that her niece might as well be useful. ‘You’ve learned to milk all right, and I don’t mean you to forget the knack,’ she snapped. ‘So you can begin this afternoon by eating your tea and then giving Eifion a hand with the evening milking. You can start with Dora and Daisy; they’re patient creatures and won’t mind if you’re a bit slow and fumblesome at first.’

Nell was only too eager to comply, because whilst the lanes were blocked and the churns could not be collected Auntie Kath seemed to be perpetually finding fault. She tried to teach Nell some simple cookery, but after a couple of unsuccessful attempts she refused Nell’s request to be taught to make more interesting things such as cakes and puddings. ‘I’ve got enough to do without you ruining good food,’ she said shortly. ‘Though you can give a hand with the butter and cheese making, since I don’t mean to see all this good milk go down the drain.’

Churning milk into butter was both boring and extremely hard work, but Nell stuck at it and earned grudging praise from Auntie Kath. Then one icy morning she entered the kitchen to find her aunt wrestling with what appeared to be a couple of elongated tennis rackets but which, her aunt told her brusquely, were snow shoes.

‘I’m not going to let all this good food go to waste,’ she said, jerking a thumb at a large cardboard box piled with packs of butter, cheese, clotted cream and a tray of eggs, ‘so I’m taking this little lot over to Valley on the sledge. After all, there’s a war on, as they keep telling us, and the country needs feeding. Besides, I’ll likely get a tidy sum for all this grub if I put it on a train for London. You’ll have to make do with porridge this morning, since I’ll be off as soon as I get these dratted things attached to my boots.’

‘Oh, Auntie, are you taking it to London yourself?’ Nell asked, dismayed. ‘Will you be gone many days? I know I can milk now, but suppose a ewe drops her lamb early, or one of the cows begins to calf after Eifion’s gone home . . .?’

Her aunt gave a short bark of laughter. ‘As if I’d bobby off and leave you in charge!’ she said derisively. ‘Oh, I know you’ve more sense than your ma, but even so . . .’

‘All right, all right; sorry I spoke,’ Nell said huffily. ‘I only asked. You know I want to be useful, but . . .’

Auntie Kath tutted and shook a reproving head. ‘Oh well, you’re not a bad kid when all’s said and done. And of course I’m not going to London; Tommy Evans, or his brother Jack, whichever one is guard on the train today, will sell it for me – they’ve done it before when folks have had a glut. I’ve made out a list of prices, so Tommy or Jack will collect the money for me and bring it back.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Nell said blankly. It all sounded rather hit and miss to her, particularly considering the weather. ‘But suppose the trains aren’t running? Because of the snow, I mean.’

‘Then I’ll have to leave it at the station and hope the line clears tomorrow,’ Auntie Kath said briskly. ‘There’s a meat pie for your dinner, and I used the trimmings to make an apple flan for afters; I reckon I’ll be home in time to make us a nice high tea.’

‘If I put on my boots and my thick coat, wouldn’t it be better if I came with you?’ Nell asked. ‘Suppose you fell and broke your leg, or suppose you got lost? Everywhere looks very different when snow is on the ground.’

Her aunt, struggling into her own thick overcoat, shook her head. ‘I’m taking Fly and Whisky with me; if anything unfortunate were to happen to me, I’d keep Whisky with me and send Fly for help.’ She eyed her niece rather sourly. ‘You might not know what to do if you heard Fly barking and leaping around outside the back door, but Eifion would.’

‘That’s all right then. But if you do reach Valley, could you buy me something to read? I’m that desperate, even
Farmers Weekly
would be welcome.’

Her aunt sniffed. ‘I’ll maybe bring back a pile of newspapers, if nothing else,’ she said rather grudgingly. ‘Tell you what though, I’ve been meaning to buy a wireless set, ever since the war started. I’ll see if I can get one sent over from Llangefni, ’cos I don’t think Valley would run to such things. How would that suit you?’

‘Oh, Auntie, that would be wonderful,’ Nell said happily. ‘And whilst you’re gone, I’ll help Eifion as much as I can. Off you go then, and if I hear so much as a squeak out of Fly, I’ll come running, only I don’t suppose I’ll be able to find my way to Valley in all this snow.’

Her aunt was knotting a head square under her chin and bending to fasten the snowshoes so her reply, when it came, was interspersed with grunts. ‘My dear Nell, of course you wouldn’t be able to find me. That’s why you must tie a piece of rope through Fly’s collar and hang on to the other end. And even if I did fall – not that I shall, of course, I’ve got more sense – someone would come across me sooner or later.’

‘And find a stiff and frozen corpse, I dare say,’ Nell said sarcastically. ‘Oh, go by yourself then, but if you aren’t home by five o’clock, I warn you I shall panic.’

Her aunt laughed and stood up, having strapped the snowshoes on to her sturdy boots. ‘Now eat up that porridge before it goes cold.’ She picked up the box of food, not without difficulty, and carried it out to the yard just as Eifion appeared outside the back door, towing the sledge. ‘Goodbye for now, the pair of you. See you later.’