Nobody’s Girl Page 5

  Suddenly, the mother duck took flight, flapping her wings madly and, somehow, her babies accelerated after her. She led them out into the safety of deeper water, and then swung round to herd them all together.

  A bullet of fur bolted past Clarrie, barking furiously, and skidding to a halt by the very edge of the lake. Annoyed that he’d been thwarted, the little terrier gave one last bark and, turning round in disgust, trotted up to Clarrie and thrust his muzzle under her hand.

  ‘Oh, Patch, you bad boy,’ she chided, absently ruffling his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Clarrie, dear. I called him back, but he wouldn’t come.’

  Clarrie glanced up at the stout figure coming towards her, wide-brimmed sunhat all but obscuring her face. ‘That’s all right, Nana. Has a mind of his own, has Patch,’ she said as the dog settled himself in the shade beneath her chair.

  ‘Sorry I took so long. Mr Yard’s going to bring us some tea at four o’clock.’

  ‘Four o’clock.’ Clarrie gave a wry smile. ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Of course,’ Nana May grinned, the lines deepening in her face. ‘Mr Yard hasn’t been a butler all his life for nothing.’ She lowered herself carefully into the deck chair. Her joints didn’t work quite as well as they used to. ‘Are you sure you should be out in the full sun without a hat? It’s so hot today.’

  ‘Oh, I like the feeling of freedom you get without a hat. Lets me feel closer to nature. I was just watching our family of ducks. How the mother cares for them all.’

  Nana May nodded, her eyes drawn to the water and the feathered creatures bobbing about on it. She and Clarrie fell into an easy silence for a few minutes, soothed by the sun and their peaceful surroundings. So that when Clarrie suddenly spoke in a torn whisper, it quite took the other woman by surprise.

  ‘Oh, Nana, why did I never get pregnant again?’ she moaned softly. ‘I fell so easily the first time.’

  Nana May took her time in replying, anxious to find the right words. She knew the pain had never gone away. ‘Perhaps you wanted it too much,’ she suggested gently. ‘They say that can happen sometimes. But… don’t give up, Clarrie. There’s still time.’

  ‘Huh,’ Clarrie scoffed. ‘I’m forty years old, Nana. Nearly forty-one. It won’t happen now.’

  ‘It could.’

  ‘Oh, dear Nana May, you’re so kind.’ Clarrie reached across and squeezed the older woman’s hand. ‘You’ve always been such a tower of strength to me. Like a second mother after my own mum died.’

  ‘Oh, get away with you.’

  A fond smile tugged at Clarissa’s lips as she glanced across and saw the embarrassment on Nana May’s lined features, but she detected a deep pride underneath her expression as well. They sank into silence again, both lost in thought, so comforted by each other’s trust that the words she’d been thinking suddenly flowed unchecked out of Clarrie’s mouth once more.

  ‘Wig and I,’ she barely whispered, ‘we wanted to fill this place with children.’

  Her voice petered out in an anguished trail, and Nana May frowned. ‘It wasn’t a mistake, moving here, was it? I know it was Wig’s idea, but I’d been thinking along the same lines, and I encouraged him.’

  ‘Oh, no. Don’t ever think that!’ Clarrie sat up abruptly. ‘I’ve no regrets about moving. I love it here. The house, the grounds. The animals. This little scallywag,’ she chuckled, brightening now as she reached beneath her chair to fondle Patch again.

  ‘Mmm, yes, quite a little character he turned out to be,’ Nana May agreed with a light laugh, but then she drew in a sharp breath. ‘How would you feel about expanding your canine family? It’s hardly the same, but…’

  Clarrie raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, we’ve certainly got the space.’ Her voice had taken on an alertness, and Nana May noticed a light shining in her eyes. ‘Not another disruptive little monkey like this chap,’ Clarrie went on, firmly but with deep fondness. ‘But maybe a breed known for its obedience and good nature. A Labrador, maybe.’

  Nana May glanced across at her, heartened by Clarissa’s apparent enthusiasm. ‘That’d be a good choice. But the reason I thought of the idea was that I saw a postcard in the Post Office window in the village. There are some puppies advertised. Cross-breed, it says. Free to good homes. So I expect they’re good old mongrels they’re trying to get rid of. Probably drown them if they can’t give them away.’

  ‘Oh, Nana, that’s appalling!’ Clarrie was horrified. ‘We’ll take them all. And have a Labrador as well anyway.’

  Nana May almost blew a raspberry. ‘I don’t know what Wig will say to that!’

  ‘Oh, he won’t mind, I know he won’t.’ Clarrie jumped to her feet with such purpose that Nana May rejoiced. ‘More to the point, what will Patch say?’ she laughed, picking up the terrier, who gazed suspiciously into her face. ‘Come on, you little toerag,’ she told him, tapping him on the snout. ‘We’re walking into the village to look at this advert. Tell Mr Yard to delay tea until I get back, would you, please, Nana, darling?’

  She ran with Patch up the grassy slope towards the house. Nana May watched her hurry up the steps in the retaining wall to the manicured lawn, then up a further flight to the terrace. The ageing woman shook her head. Yes, Wigmore would indulge his wife if she wanted to keep an elephant in the grounds. He’d do anything to see the same spark in her that Nana May had just witnessed, something she hadn’t seen in her friend and mistress for years.

  Perhaps there was still hope for Clarrie’s happiness, after all.

  *

  March 1935

  ‘But, Meg, you’ve won a scholarship!’

  ‘I know,’ the girl shrugged. ‘But all I did was sit the exams. Half the class did.’

  ‘But only two of you got a scholarship.’

  ‘Yes. But I wasn’t trying to. I just answered the questions on the papers.’

  ‘But don’t you want to go to the grammar school? You’ve always said how you love school.’

  ‘Yes, Mum. And I have. But…’ Meg hesitated, spreading her hands. ‘I feel I’m ready to leave now. I can read well, and do all the accounting necessary for the farm. That’s all that’s important.’

  ‘But you could go on to be a teacher or, I don’t know, a doctor or a lawyer or something, if you wanted to,’ Esther insisted. ‘Oh, Tom, can’t you talk some sense into her?’

  Thomas raised his eyebrows over his spectacles as he glanced up from reading the paper. ‘We can’t force her, Esther. But if you went to the grammar school, love, you might be able to go on to study art,’ he suggested, trying to please both the women in his life.

  ‘Yes, maybe,’ Meg agreed. ‘Except that it’s not what I want. I enjoy drawing and painting, but it’s not what I want to do with my life. There’s no point wasting money we haven’t got on a uniform and everything else that’s not covered by the scholarship, when I never wanted to go in the first place.’

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t worry about the extra money, if that’s what’s really stopping you. We’d find it somehow, wouldn’t we, Tom?’

  ‘Well, yes, I’m sure we—’

  ‘No. It’s not that,’ Meg interrupted, shaking her head vigorously. ‘It really is that I don’t want to. Stay on at school, I mean. Look.’ She exhaled heavily, her gaze moving from her mother’s tense face to her father’s, and back again. ‘All I’ve ever wanted to do is farm. It’s in my blood. Heaven knows, I know what hard work it is, but it’s all I want in my life. So what’s a grammar school going to teach me about farming? Nothing. It’s more experience I need. Learning from both of you. And you could do with more help on the farm. With me working full-time as well, we could maybe expand.’

  She broke off, watching her parents as they considered her words. Please, oh, please. She hated arguing with them, but she didn’t want to sit in a stuffy classroom for another four years, cramming her brain with things she neither wanted nor needed to know. She wanted to be outside, working the land, using nature to produce food and sustenance, the way Go
d had intended.

  It was her mother who spoke first. ‘Why don’t you sleep on it?’ Esther suggested in a quiet, hopeful tone. ‘Give it a few days. And if you still feel the same way, well, we’ll be behind you. We might have a bit of a fight on our hands with Miss Oakdean, mind.’

  Meg gave a grim smile, imagining her battleaxe of a headmistress having to suppress her rage. ‘Yes, we might,’ Meg agreed. ‘I will stay on till the end of the summer term, though, if I must. She can’t argue with that. There were some who turned fourteen in the autumn like me, and left at Christmas.’

  ‘Well, that seems a fair compromise to me.’ Thomas removed his glasses as he rose to his feet. ‘Work calls,’ he murmured, but as he passed behind his daughter’s chair, his big hand patted her shoulder. ‘We really are very proud of you, love. Whatever path you choose. Our Meg won a scholarship,’ he repeated under his breath. ‘We should do something to celebrate. Get you a little present of some sort. Have a think about it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Meg came back instantly. ‘The farm needs a new sheepdog.’

  Thomas’s eyebrows reached towards his hairline. ‘Something for the farm. I might’ve guessed,’ he chuckled. ‘All right. I’ll keep my eyes open.’

  Meg smiled up at him appreciatively as he went out of the kitchen towards the farmyard, and then she turned her attention back to her mother. ‘What about you, Mummy? Would you really be very upset if I didn’t take up the scholarship?’

  Esther’s face softened as a loving smile played on her lips. ‘Like your dad said, I’m really proud of you. You’re our only child, and we only want what’s best for you. But…’ She paused, a wistful chuckle escaping her throat. ‘You always knew your own mind. From the day you were born, I’d say. And as for farming, you delivered your first lamb all on your own when you were only four years old. I really can’t argue with that. You’re more of a farmer than I am, even if I was born into it, too. So, if that’s what you decide, Miss Oakdean can rant and rave all she wants.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy, thank you! And I promise I’ll work really hard on the farm.’

  ‘You already do. Oh, come here. Give your old mum a hug.’

  Meg didn’t need asking twice and skipped around the table to wrap herself in her mother’s arms. This was what her life was all about. Her parents, and the farm. She’d never want anything else. Her life was complete.

  *

  ‘Well, there you are, love. A proper border collie. So, what d’you think of him?’ Thomas grinned, placing a cardboard box on the floor near the range.

  Meg looked up from her drawing, her mouth opening wide in elation as she spied what was in the box. It was black and white and furry, and curled up in a ball, fast asleep. Meg’s face lit up like a beacon and she squeezed her hands tightly together.

  ‘Oooh!’ she breathed, her face aglow. ‘A he, you said? Oh, he’s beautiful!’ She saw her parents smile knowingly at each other and she leapt to her feet. ‘Mum, did you know Dad was getting him?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Esther chuckled. ‘We wanted to keep it a secret so that it’d be a surprise.’

  ‘Oh, thank you so much!’ Meg threw her arms about both her parents in turn, but couldn’t wait any longer and knelt down beside the box.

  ‘Well, you deserve it,’ Thomas grinned. ‘And he could be useful around the farm if you train him properly.’

  ‘Oh, I will, I promise. Oh, I can’t wait for him to wake up.’

  Thomas nodded his approval. Most children would have wanted to pick up the sleeping puppy straightaway, but his Meg knew it was better to leave it to wake up on its own.

  ‘Any ideas for a name?’ he asked, still beaming at his daughter’s happiness.

  Meg frowned, pulling in her lips. ‘It’s got to be something special. Hmm. I know. He’s going to be fast, so I’ll call him Mercury. You know, like the Roman god.’

  Thomas and Esther exchanged bewildered glances. No, they didn’t know. But their Meg had been brighter at school than either of them had. She was so special, and if she was the only child they’d had, they couldn’t have wished for better.

  Six

  Late September 1936

  Thomas flicked the reins of the carthorse as the wagon rumbled along the wide lane, the rhythmical clip-clop of the animal’s hooves as familiar and soothing as an old pair of slippers. He watched the big mare’s powerful rump sway easily from side to side with each step as the wagon was effortlessly pulled along, the chestnut’s tail hanging smooth and untangled from Meg’s thorough grooming each and every morning.

  The rough grass on the far side of the ditch that bordered the tarmac was thick and luxuriant from the long summer. Raindrops from a recent heavy downpour still clung to the fibrous green blades and twinkled in the sunshine that was streaming down again from a duck-egg blue sky. Above the grass, the dried-up seedpods of cow parsley drifted among drooping nettles, burdock heads were curling into sticky burrs with bright purple fringes, and some late flowering knapweed exploded in a splash of vibrant colour in the afternoon light.

  Sitting up on the driving seat of the cart with his wife and daughter beside him, Thomas squinted into the sunshine reflecting on the wet road. Life had been good to him, he considered as they trundled along. The so-called depression years had not affected him. He wasn’t rich, but he could always pay the rent. There was always coal for the fire, clothes on their backs and food on their plates, albeit much of it grown in their own vegetable plot.

  Thomas worked hard, and Esther was the perfect farmer’s wife. They might not have been blessed with any other children, but Meg was an angel, the apple of his eye. Tall and slender as a willow, she’d never given a moment’s trouble. True to her word, she’d devoted herself to the farm since she’d left school the previous summer. She worked as hard as Thomas himself, and took the weight off Esther’s shoulders, too. His darling Esther whose strength had been sapped by so many fruitless pregnancies.

  Ah, yes. Meg was a treasure. Thomas supposed that one day she’d want to move on. Have a home of her own. But as yet, she showed no desire to do so. The three of them were a team, he, Esther and Meg, and Thomas was so steeped in contentment that he felt like a king.

  ‘Did well at market today, didn’t we, girls?’ he said, using his usual term of endearment for the two females in his life. ‘Did I tell you, I even saw Briggsy and paid the rent early?’

  ‘Due at the end of the month anyway, wasn’t it?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Yes, but it saved me a trip, and it’s nice to feel all’s settled for the next six months.’

  ‘And we’ll have plenty of good quality fodder for the herd this winter,’ Esther put in. ‘We won’t need to buy much in the way of supplements. Even less now we’ve sold those bullocks.’

  ‘Got a good deal on them, didn’t we?’ Thomas winked. ‘Meg had them so spruced up, they looked really good.’

  ‘They were good. And they’d have looked even better if we hadn’t had to drive them to market,’ Meg pouted obstinately. ‘If we had a tractor and trailer, it’d save all that, and it’d be so much use about the farm. We could expand, rent more fields—’

  ‘And where am I supposed to find the money for a tractor?’ Thomas chided, amused nonetheless at his daughter’s enthusiasm.

  ‘Borrow it from the bank. Other people do. A tractor would let us increase production. It’d pay for itself in a few years.’

  Thomas tossed up his head with a light laugh. ‘Take over the farm from your old dad, wouldn’t you?’ he chuckled. ‘You young people with your grand ideas! Well, you’ll have to wait until you’re married to a farmer yourself, and then you can tell your husband what to do!’

  Meg’s sapphire blue eyes snapped at her father, but then she caught the teasing light radiating from his lined face and a wide grin parted her full red lips. ‘You mean I have to wait for years?’ she laughed happily. ‘Anyway, I only ever want to work our farm, you know that!’

  Sitting between her parents, she linked an ar
m through each of their elbows. She turned to Esther and they rested their foreheads against each other for a moment, a little gesture that had stayed with them since she’d been a child. Then, meeting her mother’s smile, she tipped her head against her father’s shoulder, feeling the warm strength of him next to her cheek. They went on then in easy silence, just the plod of their trusty horse, the birds twittering in the trees and a gentle breeze whispering along the verge. Meg closed her eyes, her lithe body absorbing the sway and jolt of the cart. There would be jobs to do as soon as they arrived home at the farm, but for now she could dream in the gentle cradle of the balmy afternoon.

  *

  ‘Oh, Lord, Wig, what are you going to do?’

  The sigh that dragged itself from Clarissa Stratfield-Whyte’s throat as they were driven home through the Kent countryside was a curious blend of relief and desperation: relief that her beloved husband was back at her side, and desperation that his business trip could hardly be called successful.

  Wigmore pinched his bottom lip between finger and thumb. ‘I’m not sure at the moment, to be honest. If I can’t get sufficient orders from our customers, I’ll have to cut back on our workers. Again. This recession business is awful. I know it’s not quite so bad down this way, but you should see what it’s like up north, Clarrie. People are desperate. You’d think we were back in Victorian times.’

  ‘But surely there’s something you can do?’ Clarrie’s hand closed on his arm. Wig always had an answer. She believed in him implicitly.

  ‘Well…’ He drew in an enormous, pensive breath. ‘As you know, we supply a lot of small parts to the heavy industries, especially in the north-east. And they’ve been so heavily hit that at least a third of the workforce is out of a job. But on the whole, lighter industries aren’t doing so badly. So we’ll just have to do what we did in the war, I suppose. Change what we manufacture. The question is what do we change to?’