Joan wasn’t terribly good at cycling but now it was June, the fine weather made the hard work of pedalling enjoyable at least. ‘Whee,’ she cried on the downhill stretches, the wind lifting her hair, but groaned on the upward slopes and often stopped to admire flowers in the hedgerow while catching her breath. Porthcurno was quite a hilly place, so by the time she reached the track leading to the Grange where she was due to meet Arthur on her afternoon off, she was breathless and a bit shiny with perspiration. Still, she bumped along the uneven track with enthusiasm, admiring the impressive exterior of the Grange, a building which was clearly over a hundred years old, and the neat gardens bordering the drive. Although the owner was still in Germany – according to Arthur – he clearly kept on staff to maintain the house and gardens.
Stopping outside the creeper-covered front entrance, she leaned her borrowed bike against the wall and rang the bell. While she was gazing about the place with interest, a window was almost immediately thrown up on the first floor and she saw Arthur poke his fair head out of the window.
He lifted a hand in greeting, asking with a grin, ‘Shall I come down and let you in, or would you rather climb up the creepers?’
‘I doubt they’d take my weight.’
He laughed. ‘I’d better come down then. Just a tick.’ And with that, he disappeared.
Soon, the front door swung open and Arthur stood there, smiling. She greeted him shyly, for although she’d insisted at their first meeting that she wouldn’t mind being alone with him at the Grange while they sorted out the library, she was a little nervous. Which was silly, as she’d met plenty of boys before who were on the handy, impudent side. And Arthur wasn’t like that at all. He had an honest, clean-cut air, and she trusted him instinctively.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he admitted, closing the door after her. ‘The library’s upstairs. This way. Oh, don’t mind the cat. She belonged to Geoff’s late father. Pining for the old man, I imagine.’ He waited while she stopped to pet the animal, who had come forward with curious eyes. The cat was a tortoiseshell with large glowing eyes, who began to purr as soon as Joan stooped to stroke her. ‘Probably got fleas too.’
‘Of course you don’t have fleas, do you? What a horrid boy to say such a thing.’ Joan scratched behind the cat’s ears and was rewarded with deeper purring. ‘You’re a beauty. Though it must be boring for you, poor thing, hanging about an empty house all day.’
‘The housekeeper looks after her. And once or twice she’s come up to the library to keep me company. Scratches at the door and meows until I let her in.’ As they went up the stairs, the cat followed, and he laughed. ‘Like that, see?’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Shelley.’ He saw her quick look and nodded. ‘Yes, after the poet. Bit of an odd choice, perhaps. But the library’s crammed with poetry.’
Joan bit her lip, trying not smile. ‘I expect it’s more because she’s a tortoiseshell.’
‘Oh, good grief.’ He was blinking in surprise at the cat, who had trotted ahead of them. ‘You’re right, of course. What a duffer I am. Bit slow on the uptake, I’m afraid.’
They passed a few open doors, and Joan, peering curiously inside, saw furniture draped in covers to protect against dust and sunlight. The windows were also shuttered or had curtains drawn to keep out any rays that might fade fabrics and wallpaper. The rooms looked sad and empty, and their footsteps echoed emptily along the landing. But when they entered the library, she found it a much more welcoming space. There, the shutters had been opened and sunlight was streaming in, dust motes spinning in the air. Books lay scattered across the tables and in uneven, leaning stacks, large gaps yawning in the bookshelves from where they’d been withdrawn. There were loose sheets of paper lying about too, with mysterious lines and squiggles on them. She paused to examine one more closely, and guessed that Arthur had been attempting some form of inventory. But his methodology was suspect, for his lists were not in alphabetical order, either by title or author. She said nothing, however, for perhaps he had some secret methodology, which he would soon divulge.
It was a long room, with free-standing bookcases as well as shelves lining the walls. Four diamond-patterned, lead-lined windows let in the light. And on each deep windowsill stood an austere stone bust. She recognised one august head at least. ‘Shakespeare,’ she murmured, stopping beside that familiar head.
The cat jumped up on the windowsill and waved her tail in Shakespeare’s face.
Arthur gave a snort of laughter. ‘Not a fan of the bard, I suspect.’
Laughing with him, Joan turned on her heel, taking in the intimidatingly high shelves opposite, which came equipped with a sliding ladder so that one could reach the top shelves.
‘What a marvellous room,’ she breathed, her heart thumping with excitement at the sight of so many books. Her reading at the farm had been frustrating so far, limited to the few books she could borrow monthly from Penzance Library. ‘You’re so lucky to have been given access to all these. Have you made a good start on sorting them out?’
He looked awkward. ‘To be honest, I’ve been slacking off a bit lately. All this fine weather … I’ve been taking walks and reading more than anything else.’ He shuffled his feet, not meeting her gaze. ‘This kind of job would be better for someone who doesn’t like books. I’m hampered by having to open the damn things to find out what’s inside, and then I get lost in them. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Funnily enough, yes. But I promised I’d help. So perhaps you’d better explain your plan, and what exactly all these squiggles mean.’ She nodded to one of the loose sheets of paper. ‘Is it a code?’
‘Code?’ He looked blank. ‘That’s my handwriting.’
‘Oh.’
‘And I don’t have a plan, as such. I pull out the books that look oldest … The leather-bound volumes with gilt lettering on the spine, you know. Then I note down the title and author. I thought maybe I could sit down later and categorise them. You know, into poetry, classical literature, linguistics and so on.’ His voice tailed off and he scratched his head. ‘Not much of a method, is it?’
Joan was astonished. ‘You went to Eton, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but as you can see, I didn’t learn much there. To be honest, I’m pretty rotten at organisation. It’s what’s inside the books that I enjoy, not the librarian side of things. Don’t have that sort of brain, I suppose. More poems and ballads than, erm, quantum mechanics.’ His mouth worked in self-deprecating humour. ‘Whatever on earth that means.’
She laughed, finding him amusing. ‘All right, here’s an idea. You carry on doing that, and I’ll sort them out into categories as you finish each sheet. In fact,’ she added, turning to the pack she’d slung over her back on leaving the farmhouse that afternoon, ‘I can use this.’ She rummaged in the backpack for her black notebook and a pencil. ‘I bought it last week in Penzance, expressly for this job.’
‘I say, Joan, you are a simply marvellous girl.’ His brow had cleared. Turning with an eager smile to the shelves, Arthur dragged out a few calf-bound volumes at random, blowing dust off each one as he did so. Choosing one, he flicked through marbled endpapers to the old-fashioned title page. ‘Goodness, this is an old one. Blount’s Glossographia, 1661. Looks like an early English dictionary. I bet it’s worth a packet.’ Laying it carefully aside, he noted down the details on one of his loose sheets. ‘I suppose that comes under the heading of Languages.’
‘Sounds like it, yes.’
Dutifully, she opened her new notepad and began to draw a few columns freehand. At the head of the first column, she wrote ‘Subject’. Next column was ‘Title’. And the third column was ‘Author and Date of Publication’. She hesitated over whether to squeeze in a fourth column for publisher, but decided there wasn’t enough space. Besides, she could note that down under publication date if necessary.
While the cat sat on the desk beside her, purring and kneading steadily at the sleeve of her cardigan, Joan lined ten pages in this way, with space on each page for at least ten or twelve titles to be listed. On the first three pages, she wrote ‘Poetry’ in large letters at the top. On the next few, she wrote ‘Classical Literature’ – judging by the abundance of Greek and Latin titles on the shelves, it would be a large category. Then came ‘Language’, under which the Glossographia would presumably be listed. She left the next few sheets blank, in case other categories occurred to her as they went along.
Finally, she gathered Arthur’s loose notes, and painstakingly began to transcribe the scribbled details into her notepad, so that any poetry collections were listed under the ‘Poetry’ heading, and so on.
They passed several hours in this pleasant manner, chatting about subjects as varied as the weather, Shelley’s killing sprees with mice and rabbits, the general frustrations of rationing, and where Arthur had been stationed during the war.
He told her entertaining anecdotes from his basic training, and they were soon laughing like old friends. Joan, who’d not had so much fun in years, was ecstatic that she had made such a wonderful new acquaintance, for apart from being scatterbrained at times, she couldn’t detect any faults in the young man.
As the afternoon wore on into early evening, the sun disappeared and the room grew chilly. Perhaps noting how Joan was struggling to read her own writing, not to mention having to button up her woolly cardigan, Arthur turned on the overhead lights as well as a two-bar electric fire set discreetly in an alcove.
‘It can get a bit nippy here in the evenings. I usually try to get home before dark, though only because my mother fusses if I don’t.’ He saw her glance surreptitiously at her watch. ‘I’ll walk you back to the farm, if you like. What time do you need to return?’
When she spent her afternoon off with the girls in Penzance, they were rarely back in time for supper, so fended for themselves on their return to the farmhouse. Caroline and Tilly had gone into Penzance without her today to visit a friend and she doubted they would even be back yet. The last bus from Penzance would be due into the village in just under an hour, and though it was often late coming back, she calculated that she should have time to catch up with the girls as they walked back to the farm.
His offer of accompanying her home left her secretly pleased though. She had dreaded cycling back on her own in the dusk. Not that anything untoward was likely to happen to her in a quiet spot like Porthcurno, but she had a lively imagination and would often glance with suspicion at dark shapes in the hedgerow or looming ahead on the narrow Cornish lanes, even though her rational mind told her they were probably just trees and shrubs.
‘Not for another hour at least,’ she told him, and was surprised to feel her heart beat faster at the thought of spending more time alone with Arthur. With the electric fire glowing beside them, the library was cosier than before, and she had to admit to enjoying the musty smell of old books and the rustle of pages being turned.
‘In that case, I’ll nip down to the kitchen and see if I can find us some bread and cheese. And maybe some tea?’ Arthur eyed her, hesitant. ‘Unless you’d prefer something stronger to drink?’
She laughed, shaking her head. ‘Tea would be fine, thank you. And bread and cheese sound heavenly too, if you’re sure they won’t be missed?’
‘Oh, Mrs Penhallow never lets me go hungry,’ he assured her, ‘and you’re my assistant now, so that means she’ll have to feed you too.’
Arthur hurried away on his mission, and when he returned some fifteen minutes later, he was accompanied by the housekeeper, carrying the tea tray.
Mrs Penhallow was a stout, smiling Cornishwoman who greeted Joan cheerfully and without any hint of disapproval at her being there. She was clad soberly in grey with a white lace-trimmed apron over her dress, and keys dangling off her belt in the time-honoured fashion of housekeepers. She seemed to know all about the Land Girls and Joe’s farm, and gave a nod of appreciation when mentioning the village shop that Mrs Newton had recently reopened.
‘We’re all very glad to see the shop open again at last. There’s a man with a barrow who comes round but it’s not the same.’ Mrs Penhallow paused. ‘One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I found old Arnie a little brusque in his manner. He always kept the shelves well stocked though, God rest his soul.’
‘I’m sure Mrs Newton will too,’ Joan assured her.
The housekeeper smiled. ‘Well, m’dears, I’ll leave you to your books. Though I can see I’ll need to do some dusting in here tomorrow,’ she added, coughing as she left the room.
Arthur and Joan grinned at one another.
After their bread and cheese was finished, and Joan had gulped down the last of her tea while finishing up her notes, they decided to call it a day. Arthur insisted on walking back with her to the village, where they only waited five minutes before the last bus from Penzance came trundling into view.
Tilly and Caroline jumped off the bus, studying Arthur Green with smirks of undisguised curiosity. Perhaps seeing this, he didn’t stay long, merely shaking Joan’s hand and muttering that he’d be pleased to see her again the following week, if she was free on the Thursday. Then he hurried away in the opposite direction, no doubt on his way home.
‘Goodness, you sly thing,’ Tilly said in a rush when he was no longer in earshot. Her green eyes sparkled. ‘Did you have a date? You never breathed a word to us about meeting a boy. In fact, I distinctly remember you saying something about having an errand to run in the village.’
‘Must have been an interesting errand,’ Caroline remarked, her gaze on Arthur as he trudged away into the dusk.
Joan was glad of the gathering gloom; it meant they wouldn’t be able to see the blush in her cheeks. ‘Now you’re just being silly. It really was just an errand.’
Tilly tossed back her red hair, laughing. ‘Oh, come on!’
‘No, honestly. Don’t you remember him? He’s the one who told us about the lamb falling over the cliff. We got talking on our way down to the farm, and I said that I like reading, so he asked if I’d help him with a private book collection he’s trying to sort out.’ She hated the thought that they’d got the wrong idea about her and Arthur. ‘That’s all I’ve been doing this afternoon. Looking through books with him.’
‘Whose private collection?’ Caroline was frowning.
‘A local bigwig called Sir Malcolm Castleton. He died recently and now his son wants to sell his library, so Arthur’s been helping him work out which books might be valuable. Their home is on the other side of the village.’ Carefully, she didn’t mention that the ‘son’ was away in Germany.
Caroline nodded. ‘I remember that house. We went there once when Selina and I were flogging tickets for a charity auction. It’s big. Very posh.’
‘A posh errand, then.’ Tilly was still laughing.
‘Arthur’s not posh,’ Joan said desperately. ‘Not really. He … He’s only there as a favour to his friend, who hates books and reading.’
‘Well,’ Tilly said, ‘I see now you must have been thoroughly bored, locked up in a library all afternoon with that dreamboat.’
Dreamboat?
Joan glanced over her shoulder but Arthur was no longer visible. She supposed he was quite dreamy. But of course she had only gone to meet him out of curiosity and because she loved books. And since he hadn’t laid a finger on her the whole time, and had been perfectly polite on the way back into the village, she had to assume he had no special designs in asking her to help out. He was just a nice young man. Or so she told herself.
As the hill steepened, Tilly and Caro fell into step together, arms linked, while Joan pushed the bicycle.
‘And are you going to spend your next afternoon off with him?’ Caroline asked, breathing heavily at the exertion.
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Joan replied in lofty tones, though that wasn’t true. She did like Arthur and had every intention of meeting him again next Thursday, come hell or high water. But she wasn’t about to admit that to the other Land Girls. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll see how I feel next week.’
The other two laughed, and after a moment, she joined in. Suddenly, the world didn’t seem quite as dull and boring as usual.
When they got back, they discovered the farmhouse in uproar. Mrs Newton seemed to be providing most of the uproar, though Violet was also bashing noisily about with sud-covered pots and pans in the sink, and Joe was holding forth with uncharacteristic loudness as they entered the house.
Mrs Newton turned on seeing them come in and waved a piece of paper in the air. Her face was flushed, her grey hair dishevelled as though she’d dragged her hat off without bothering to comb her hair afterwards.
‘’Ere, girls, look at this. We’ve ’ad a letter from London. Our Alice … She’s getting wed at last. To that lad of hers, young Patrick. Bloomin’ marvellous news, ain’t it?’
‘And about time too,’ Joe grumbled, with a disapproving shake of his head, ‘the way those two have been carrying on together.’
Violet turned to glare at her husband. ‘Carrying on? I’ll thank you to remember that’s my niece you’re talking about, Joe Postbridge.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘Besides, they ain’t been living together in London, if that’s what you’re tryin’ to suggest. Stop putting wicked ideas in the girls’ heads.’ She looked at the Land Girls seriously. ‘Pay no attention to Joe. Patrick has his own digs, and Alice is living with a very nice family in London, picked out specially by her dad. Nothing untoward about it at all.’
Right on cue, as though he had heard himself mentioned, the door from the snug opened and Alice’s dad, Ernest Fisher, strolled into the kitchen, a rolled-up newspaper tucked under his arm and a wry smile on his face. He was rarely at the farm during the day now that he was working full-time at Eastern House, helping George Cotterill out with goodness knows what … Presumably the communications devices Joan had overheard Violet and her nieces discussing once or twice, machines they’d seen housed in tunnels behind the listening post during the war, when they’d worked there as cleaners. It was an open secret at the farm that Ernest had worked in Intelligence during the war …
Mr Fisher saw the Land Girls standing hesitantly on the threshold and nodded to them. ‘Evening, ladies,’ he said pleasantly, and wandered across to place an empty tea mug on the draining board for Violet to wash. ‘I’m afraid you’ve walked into a minor family disagreement. My daughter Alice is getting married and would like to come back to Porthcurno for the ceremony. Only Joe here is worried that people will talk.’
‘Only because everyone will be wondering why two young people who went away together to London months ago aren’t married yet,’ Joe pointed out in his slow way, not raising his eyes from his tea mug. ‘It’s your Alice I’m thinking of, Ernest. Yes, and Sheila too.’ At this, he looked up directly at his mother-in-law. ‘Now you’re running the shop, you don’t want tongues wagging in the village, do you?’
‘They’ll be wagging about nothin’,’ Sheila Newton muttered, hands on her ample hips, her expression fierce, ‘and I’ll tell ’em so.’
‘Aye, but Porthcurno’s a small place and folk do gossip,’ Joe reminded her unhappily. ‘They might say nothing to your face. But they can still make you feel bad.’
‘I catch a single blighter gossiping about my granddaughter,’ Mrs Newton promised him shrilly, ‘and I’ll give ’em what for, no mistake. Alice is a good girl, and Patrick’s a nice, well brought up lad. There’s been no funny business. And it’s quite proper she wants to tie the knot here in Porthcurno. Where else would she do it, but with her family all around her? Yes, and her friends too,’ she added, nodding towards the Land Girls. With an air of awful restraint, she passed Mr Fisher the letter. ‘Ernest, you’re the girl’s father. Write back and tell her yes, we’ll book the parish church for later this summer, and we’ll lay on a nice spread here at the farm after the wedding.’ Then she stamped out of the kitchen, snapping over her shoulder, ‘Blimey, Joe, it’s 1946. Anyone would think Queen Victoria was still on the bloomin’ throne the way you go on sometimes.’
Once she’d gone, Violet stood drying her hands on a tea towel, clearly embarrassed by her mother’s outburst. ‘Did you have a nice afternoon off, girls?’ Without waiting for an answer, she turned to refill the kettle and set it on the range. ‘I’ll put a brew on for you, how’s that?’
‘Thank you,’ Caroline said wanly, ‘but I’m quite tired, Mrs Postbridge. I’m going straight up to bed.’
‘Without any supper?’ Tilly demanded, staring after her friend in amazement, but Caroline had already disappeared. ‘Well, I’d love a cup of tea, Mrs P,’ she said with a shrug, hanging up her coat. ‘Caro and I had a great time in Penzance. Though Joan didn’t come with us, did you?’ she added, turning with a wink to Joan.
Violet glanced their way, surprised. ‘Why was that, Joan?’
‘Oh, she was seeing a boy,’ Tilly announced while Joan said nothing, standing in horrified silence, her heart thumping at this betrayal of her confidence. But perhaps the younger girl wasn’t aware that her afternoon with Arthur ought to have been kept a secret. Tilly was only eighteen and not very discreet.
Violet’s eyes bulged. ‘A boy?’
Even Joe was looking their way now, his thick brows knotting together. ‘Eh? Which boy?’
‘I … I wasn’t seeing him, precisely,’ Joan stammered, aware of everybody staring at her now. She felt heat in her cheeks and twisted her hands together awkwardly. ‘Not the way Tilly’s making it sound.’
‘What were you doing with him, then?’ Violet demanded, almost as though she were Joan’s mother.
Hot-cheeked, Joan was tempted to tell the farmer and his wife to mind their own business before following Caroline up to bed. It was what Selina would have done in her place. But she was a polite girl and didn’t want to make a scene. Besides, getting upset would only confirm their suspicions that she had something to hide.
‘He asked me to help out with a job, that’s all.’ Briefly, she explained what they had been doing at the Grange. ‘Then he walked me to the bus stop, and I came back with the girls.’
‘Are you talking about the young lad who brought the injured lamb down to the farm the other week?’ Joe asked, and glanced round at Violet, who bit her lip.
‘Yes, Arthur Green.’ There was a horrid silence and Joan’s blush deepened. She was confused by their unexpected reaction and didn’t know what to think. ‘What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Yes, what’s wrong?’ Mr Fisher asked, a sharp curiosity in his face.
‘It’s not our business to say …’ Joe began cautiously, but his wife interrupted him.
‘Of course it’s our business, Joe. The Green’s son … Arthur, is that his name?’ Violet took a deep breath when Joan nodded. ‘Thing is, love, there’s been some gossip in the village about him … It seems something happened to that poor lad in the war. Nobody’s sure what exactly. But he … he came back not quite right.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Joan couldn’t believe her ears.
‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,’ Violet told her, more gently. ‘And I don’t know the ins and outs of it, it’s true. But next time he asks for your help, you tell him no thanks.’
Angrily, Joan began, ‘I don’t see—’
Violet shook her head, frowning. ‘No, Joan, listen to me. Steer clear of the Green boy, all right? Joe and me, we’re responsible for your welfare while you’re living under our roof, young lady. And you’re not to see that boy again, do you hear? Not if you know what’s good for you.’