Because Bessie’s eighteenth birthday fell on a Sunday, and because Mrs Drake had sent a plea in the form of a carefully worded letter, promising that Rosamund would be taken good care of were she allowed to stay the night, and returned safe and sound the next morning, Mildred Kenton had given her permission after much prevarication.
‘Mind, you’ll have to help Dad with the morning milking and go to chapel as usual,’ she told her flush-cheeked daughter. ‘It isn’t right you should get there until after Sunday dinner, anyway …’
Ill-bred and inconsiderate to expect to share the family’s midday dinner, rationing being what it was. ‘And you’ll leave for home on Monday morning as soon as it’s daylight.’
‘I will, Mum, and you’re sure you don’t mind doing the afternoon milking for me?’
‘Of course she won’t mind, will you, Milly?’ Bart Kenton urged. ‘Your mum’s a good milker, for one not brought up to it.’
Milly’s father had worked at the council offices in Skipton, and his Aunt Mildred, a maiden lady, had left her entire estate to the little girl he’d shrewdly named after her.
The house and furniture had been sold and the money banked until Mildred came of age, upon which she confounded everyone by marrying a farm worker from Ribchester way, and setting him up in quite the grandest farmhouse, fifteen miles the other side of Clitheroe.
She had taken to farm work with an ease that stemmed from a necessity to work or go under, and her inheritance with her. She learned to milk cows, pluck chickens and skin rabbits all the quicker because of it, and Laburnum Farm to keep its head above water until the coming of a second conflict with Germany caused it to prosper overnight.
‘Careful how you go,’ Bart murmured as Rosamund kissed her parents dutifully.
She felt especially happy as she pedalled along the narrow lane that led to Laceby Green. In her saddlebag were six eggs, carefully wrapped in newspaper, a large loaf and a teacake – both home-baked – a jar of plums and a screw-topped lemonade bottle filled with milk, which was also rationed.
In the wicker basket at the front of her cycle were her pyjamas, a change of underwear and a little bottle of saccharin tablets to use in her drinks so as not to take any of Mrs Drake’s rationed sugar, even if it were offered.
In her coat pocket was a birthday card into which she had tucked a pair of fully-fashioned silk stockings, bought with two of her own clothing coupons. She would have liked to give Bessie something more glamorous, but living at the back of beyond gave her little chance to join lipstick queues, or stand in line for a pot of cold cream. Living on a farm they ate better than most, but fared badly with the extras to be had from time to time in the shops.
Given a choice, Rosamund would not change a thing, even though Bessie had the best of both worlds by living in the village and working in Clitheroe, where lunchtime queuing was a part of her life.
‘Mother’s gone to church,’ she said when Rosamund had unpacked and pushed her cycle into the wash house at the back of the lodge. ‘I was excused because you were coming and because it’s my birthday.’
Evensong in St Mary’s, Laceby Green, was held at three each Sunday afternoon, because its lofty windows were near impossible to reach, let alone fit with blackout curtains. Only in summer, when days were long, could evening worship be held at the proper time. Almost everyone attended church or chapel now, because almost everyone had someone close to commend to Divine protection.
‘For you. Happy birthday.’ Rosamund offered the card and Bessie hugged her and said thank you and that only the dearest of people gave up her clothing coupons for a friend!
‘What does it feel, being eighteen?’ Rosamund held her hands to the fire.
‘Just the same as yesterday, when I was seventeen. I won’t feel properly grown up until I’m twenty. Whilst you’re still in your teens, nobody takes you seriously.’
‘The government does. Won’t you have to register soon?’
‘I suppose so. I’ll be reserved, though, because I’m doing war work – if you can call working in a shirt factory war work!’
‘If the shirts are for the Armed Forces, then it is,’ Rosamund reasoned. ‘Would you like to join up?’
‘I think I would, but I wouldn’t like them bossing me around. And I’d hate to have to salute people. Makes you subservient, sort of …’
‘You wouldn’t be saluting the person; only their rank.’
‘Same difference. Anyway, when push comes to shove, if I’m really truthful I want to stay at home if I can. Joe takes a Wren dancing when his ship is in Plymouth, but he says it’s a dead loss, her having to be in by half-past ten. Imagine? Half-past ten!’
‘But we don’t stay out that late, Bessie!’
‘Only because there’s nothing going on around here, but when the RAF arrives, it’ll be different!’ She closed her eyes, and sighed ecstatically. ‘How’s the aerodrome coming along, by the way?’
‘It isn’t – at least not what I can see of it. Dad says they won’t lay concrete runways until the risk of hard frost is over. Everywhere is flat; sort of soulless. All They seem to have done is put a high wire fence round all the land they’ve grabbed.’
‘They’ll get cracking before so very much longer – at least I hope so. The war’s going to be over if they don’t get a move on!’
‘You think so, Bess?’
‘No, not really. But things are going a bit better for us now.’
‘Leningrad being relieved, you mean? It must have been terrible, there. Imagine being so hungry you’d eat cats and dogs. But you’ve got to feel just a bit sorry for those German soldiers, dying so far from home and their bodies left there, because the ground was too frozen to dig graves,’ Rosamund sighed.
‘Sorry my foot! It was their lot started it! And surely Hitler had grabbed enough, without invading Russia.’
‘Yes, but maybe they aren’t all Nazis. Mum said it wasn’t decent, them not having a Christian burial.’
‘Rosamund Kenton, I’m surprised at you! Of course they’re all Nazis, though Dad says you can’t blame them for listening to Hitler in the first place. We really humiliated Germany after the Great War.’
‘Wars are stupid. But let’s not be miserable today. Mum said she would have liked to send some cream to eat with the plums, but cream is illegal now, and she daren’t make any. Remember when we always had cream on Sundays?’
‘Mm. Big dollops of it on tinned peaches. But there aren’t any peaches now, nor cream biscuits, nor Christmas cakes …’
‘And hardly ever a lipstick in the shops. Once every Preston Guild, if you’re lucky. And did you see it in the paper the other day? A girl nearly blinded herself using black boot polish on her eyelashes. It said to brush Vaseline on them until mascara is back in the shops.’
Which was all very well, Rosamund accepted, but her mother forbade makeup anyway, except for parties and dances. And who had food for a party, these days, and when did she last go to a dance, even in Laceby parish hall?
Yet in spite of its remoteness, Laburnum Farm was a lovely old house, though they hadn’t as yet got a bathroom; not one with running water. Nor could they hope to get mains water till the war was over, with building work forbidden and only the most urgent repairs to bombed houses allowed.
Meantime, the well in the stableyard never ran dry, nor the pump, which gave them drinking water, though just to turn on a tap and have water at your fingertips and not have to bucket it everywhere would have been nothing short of marvellous.
‘What on earth are you thinking about?’ Bessie broke into her dreamings. ‘You were miles away! You were thinking about boys, weren’t you?’
‘I was thinking about bathrooms! You don’t know how lucky you are, having one here.’
‘Lucky? Our bathroom is freezing in winter and you can’t get bath salts or scented soap now. Baths are a dead loss, especially when you can’t have more than six inches of water in them. Six inches doesn’t even cover your bottom! You’re the lucky one. At least you get your baths in front of the kitchen fire!’
‘I wonder who thought up the six inches lark, and why …’
‘Some chinless wonder in Whitehall, I suppose, though water is vital to the war effort. When London was blitzed, there wasn’t enough water to put the fires out, if you remember. It must have been awful, seeing everywhere burning, and not being able to do a lot about it.’
‘I suppose we should count our blessings,’ Rosamund said softly. ‘There’s nothing here to bomb, is there?’
‘Not yet. But there soon will be.’
‘Bess – can’t we forget about that aerodrome?’ It still hurt to think about the beech trees and the desolation their far fields had become.
‘OK, let’s talk about blokes; droves and droves of them – when they come – and getting asked on dates. And they’ll hold dances, I shouldn’t wonder, and drink at the White Hart. I can’t wait!’
‘Bessie! Don’t you ever think about anything but men?’
‘Of course not! What else is there to think about, when we might all get killed tomorrow?’
And when you thought about it, Rosamund admitted, there was no answer to that!
Three taps on the window; three knocks on the kitchen door. Mildred put down the sock she was darning.
‘Who is it?’ she demanded firmly.
‘It’s me, missis – Ned Loftus.’
‘What on earth do you want at this hour of the night?’ she demanded, opening the door only a little, because of the blackout.
‘A bit of business,’ he whispered.
‘You’d better come in then, and be sharp about it!’ She slammed the door, pulling the long curtain over it. ‘What sort of business?’
‘Was out for a bit of a walk, and came across this.’ He pulled a pheasant from beneath his coat. ‘Thought I’d give you first refusal.’
‘One of these days the law’s going to catch up with you, Ned Loftus, and then where’ll we all be!’
‘I doubt it.’ He let go a wheezy laugh. The law, around Laceby Green, was partial to roast pheasant too.
‘How much?’
‘The usual. A couple of bob and a few eggs will do nicely.’
‘Sorry! It’s cash or nothing. Hens don’t lay well in winter!’
He settled, in the end for half a crown, because eggs were all very well but, rationed or not, they weren’t legal currency in the White Hart.
‘Will that be all?’ she demanded, when he stood his ground.
‘As a matter of fact, there is summat else …’
‘Then you’d better sit down.’ She motioned to a chair, which he drew up to the table, then propped his chin on his hands.
‘Where’s the gaffer tonight?’
‘In the shippon. There’s a cow calving down and she’s having a bit of bother. Why do you ask?’
‘Because this is women’s business really.’ And because he didn’t want Bart Kenton’s opinions on selling things you weren’t entitled to sell. ‘Clothing coupon business.’ He sucked air through his teeth.
‘And you’ve got some to get rid of?’ Stood to reason. Apart from his wife’s scrubbing and the money he got from poaching and thieving, it was common knowledge they lived from hand to mouth.
‘Reckon I might have. In very short supply, though. Would fetch a pound apiece in London.’
‘But this isn’t London, Ned Loftus, and folks up here aren’t so daft with their money. Anyway, Bart wouldn’t countenance buying clothing coupons. I could end up in prison.’
‘So could we all,’ he said with relish, ‘if we were daft enough to get caught. What do you say to five bob apiece, then?’
‘Not even a shilling!’
‘You’ll regret it, Mrs Kenton. You know they’ve been cut from forty to thirty-six!’
‘Of course I know!’ Just eighteen coupons to last for six months was plain ridiculous, because not for anything would she go stockingless as a lot of women did now. Not even in summer!
‘It isn’t breaking the law,’ he wheedled. ‘Not when I’ve got no need of ’em, and you have money to spend on clothes!’
‘You’d have money enough if you’d shift yourself and find work.’
‘Can’t work now; me breathing’s bad. And anyroad, work’s hard to find.’
‘Not these days it isn’t! Not with a war on!’ She looked him up and down. A work-shy scrounger, in need of a shave and a haircut and a change of linen, an’ all!
‘I’m hard put to it, Mrs Kenton.’ He was almost whining now, she was pleased to see. ‘Five bairns and a wife to feed! How’s a man in my state of health to do it?’
‘Your state of health didn’t prevent you fathering five! Don’t you ever stop to think that bairns are to feed and clothe?’
‘Aye, clothe! And here’s me with nigh on two hundred coupons and nowt to do with them.’
‘Yes, and I’m right sorry they’re going a-begging, but I’ll not buy on the black market!’
Imagine it – Mildred Kenton getting caught with illicit coupons! What a field day folk in Laceby would have! Her at the big house up before the magistrates!
‘Then I’m right sorry, because there’s our Betty with the offer of a job, and nowt to wear to it. Work at the vicarage minding the bairns, and seven-and-six a week and her keep. She’s desperate to go and live there. Says she wants a bed of her own, and respectability. But what’s a father to do?’
‘You tell a fine tale, Ned Loftus! But I’m sorry for your girl. She deserves a chance. How old is she?’
‘Fifteen, though inclined to be small for her age …’ He gave her a meaningful glance then held her eyes with a steady stare, so she would get the message.
Smaller than Rosamund! Mildred Kenton got the message.
‘What would your girl need?’
‘Just about everything, but a warm winter coat and a pair of shoes wouldn’t come amiss.’
‘Then if I was to have a poke around the attic and see what I can come up with …?’ She never threw anything away.
‘Our Betty would be right grateful.’
He slid two fingers inside his jacket pocket and brought out a sheet of coupons. A whole sheet! Twenty! Two long nightdresses and two pairs of stockings!
‘You know you can’t spend loose coupons.’ They had to be in a ration book. Shopkeepers weren’t allowed to accept them otherwise.
‘I can give you a list of shops as’ll take them, no questions asked!’
‘And you’d give me one or two coupons for some of Rosamund’s clothes?’
She was fighting her conscience now. In one ear she heard the hissing urges of the wicked one.
Take them! Who’s to know? You’re giving him clothes in return, aren’t you?
Using clothing coupons that aren’t rightly your own is a sin! the voice of the Minister thundered in her other ear. ‘And it’s against the law!’
Against the law to buy them, surely. But what about fair exchange?
‘Exchange for second-hand clothes?’ The Minister again. ‘But you know that coupons aren’t required for second-hand clothes!’
But clothing wasn’t brought here by sea. By doing business with Ned Loftus she wasn’t putting the life of a merchant seaman at risk, was she? The only risk was to herself, and getting caught with them!
‘Come tomorrow morning.’ Bart would be at the market then. ‘Maybe there’ll be one or two things Rosamund has grown out of …’
Her conscience squared, she let him out as Bart crossed the yard.
‘Ned Loftus just left.’ She nodded towards the pheasant on the table. ‘Cow all right, is she?’
‘Aye. A bull calf, after a bit of a struggle. Just in right time for the market tomorrow.’
There would be little sleep tonight. The animal would be bawling till daylight for its calf, Mildred supposed. A cow made a terrible noise when its calf was taken away, but it would be back with the milking herd tomorrow morning, calf forgotten. That was the way of it on a farm. She had soon learned to push her scruples aside.
‘Seems Betty Loftus has the offer of a job at the vicarage, but the lass has nothing decent to wear.’
‘Then can’t you find a few bits that Rosamund’s grown out of? I don’t think Betty would be too proud to accept them.’
‘I’m certain she wouldn’t!’ The entire family was clothed at jumble sales, though people thought twice and thrice now before throwing clothes out. ‘I said he was to come up in the morning when I’d had a chance to root something out!’ She made no mention of the clothing coupons. ‘Get yourself washed down, Bart, and I’ll make us a sandwich.’
Come to think of it she cogitated as she sliced bread, she shouldn’t get herself into a tizzy over a few under-the-counter clothing coupons, because hadn’t They taken Laburnum’s acres without so much as a by-your-leave? If the government could take things willy-nilly, then so could Mildred Kenton!
All that mattered now was how many the rascal would be prepared to part with …
Laceby Hall lodge was almost as old as Laburnum Farm, Rosamund thought as she sat in the parlour with Bessie and her mother, listening to the Forces programme. Not for anything would Bessie’s mother turn over to the Home Service, and the nine o’clock news, because she listened to the one o’clock news and that, as far as she was concerned was enough, with the government giving people a bit of good news with one hand, then taking it away with the other!
‘Can we have Lord Haw-Haw on at half-past nine, Mum?’ The man who broadcast from Hamburg every Sunday night had become something of a star turn, though no one admitted listening to him. His voice was harsh and nasal – it was how he got his name – and for a long time what he told the British people caused nothing but laughter and derision.
‘We have sunk your Ark Royal!’ he sneered. HMS Ark Royal had been sunk so many times it had become a music-hall joke.
‘Haw-Haw? No, we can’t have him on! That man’s British and he’s gone over to Hitler! When this war’s over they’ll hang him along with the rest!’
‘But we always tuned in to him after the nine o’clock news!’
‘Not any longer we don’t!’
Now Elsie Drake had two sons in the Royal Navy for the duration, and the jibes and taunts of Haw-Haw the traitor no longer made her laugh.
‘Do you really think all the top Nazis will be tried for war crimes after the war, Mum?’
‘That’s what Mr Churchill said, and I hope they hang the lot of them for what they’ve done! In the Great War, a soldier could get shot for desertion, and Haw-Haw has deserted to the enemy, which is far worse! But I’ll say no more about that creature!’ She wouldn’t let him spoil her Sunday, which she thoroughly enjoyed, especially when her husband worked late shift, as he was doing tonight, at the factory making aircraft components. He earned good money now; much more than Mr Ackroyd had paid him as handyman before the war; before the Hall had been pulled down.
Yet she would change it all for the pinchpenny days when her bairns were young and a dratted nuisance with their tree-climbing and fighting and getting caught by the head gardener at the Hall, scrumping apples in Mr Ackroyd’s orchard.
‘You’ve gone all quiet, our Mum! Penny for them.’
‘I was thinking we could all do with a cup of tea and that you and Rosamund should make it! And we’ll all have a slice of Mrs Kenton’s teacake whilst we’re about it. And I never thought to ask how your mother is, Rosamund. Well, I hope, in spite of that business with the aerodrome.’
‘They’re both fine. I think they’ve accepted it now, though it was an awful shock at the time.’
‘I should think so, too. They do what They like, these days. A man came one day from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and said all that beautiful parkland around the Hall had to be ploughed up and put to better use. When the Ackroyds lived there, sheep grazed it and they kept a herd of deer there – pretty little things. But the man from the Ministry wanted potatoes grown, and if anyone had protested they’d have been called unpatriotic! But off you go and make that tea, then I just might let you tune in to Haw-Haw – though not a word to a soul, mind!’
Rosamund pedalled quickly, her woolly scarf wound round her neck and over her ears, for the morning had come in bright and sharp. She had enjoyed staying with Bessie. They had talked and giggled long into the night, snuggled in the big bed, and she thought it would be good to have a sister.
They breakfasted off boiled brown eggs, with Mrs Drake saying she had forgotten what a decent fresh egg tasted like!
‘You tell your mother those eggs were a real treat and I won’t say a word to a soul about her sending them.’
‘You better hadn’t, or we’ll end up in Preston jail,’ Rosamund laughed. ‘And thank you for having me, Mrs Drake. I enjoyed Bessie’s birthday, even if she couldn’t have a party.’
‘She’s getting a bit old for parties, now. Suppose the next one will be her twenty-first – if the war is over by then, and food rationing has been done away with …’
If. Such a little word, but surely the most used, nowadays. If the war is over by then; if the shops have food in them; if Dave and Joe can get leave; if the Nazis don’t use their secret weapon against us and bring the country to its knees.
Last night, Lord Haw-Haw hadn’t mentioned the defeats in Russia. All he spoke of was Germany’s secret weapon, and how it would crush Britain into submission. But Mrs Drake laughed, and said she wondered why they hadn’t used it before now, them being in so much trouble on the Russian Front.
‘Secret weapon my foot!’ she had said. ‘Who does he think he’s kidding?’
Of course the Nazis didn’t have a secret weapon, Rosamund echoed as she pedalled into a wind that stung her face. Hitler was bluffing. He had to be, unless he intended using poison gas.
Yet by the time she was halfway home and passing the clump of oaks, she had completely forgotten secret weapons, because she glanced across, almost in passing, to where the aerodrome would be, then stopped to stare in amazement at the distant activity.
The flatlands had come to life again. Men and machines were everywhere. She leaned her cycle against a tree, then watched the lorries, at least a dozen of them, piled high with rubble. Brick rubble, it looked like from a distance, and it was being tipped in a straight line than ran from west to east. The foundations of the runways were being laid, and what they were using was probably blitz rubble. There had been heavy raids on Liverpool and Manchester; in all probability it had come from there. She turned her back on the scene below her, saddened that work had begun again on the aerodrome. There was no chance now that it wouldn’t happen. Within a year it might well be finished, and bombers would be using the runways.
The only good thing, if you thought about it in a practical way, was that when those aircraft took off to carry the war to Germany, it would be from a runway made partly from homes the Luftwaffe had blasted to the ground. Manchester, Liverpool, Clydeside, Coventry and London, all fighting back in a roundabout sort of way. Poetic justice, really …
When she got to the crossroads, a slash of winter-blue sky appeared and beneath it a lightening of the clouds, as if the sun were trying to break through. Then she rode to the other side of the road, jumping off to wait the passing of Laburnum Farm’s truck, which slowed and stopped.
‘Hullo, our lass! Had a nice time, then?’ asked Bart.
‘Smashing! Going to the cattle market?’
‘Aye. Taking the calves …’
‘Then have a look as you pass the six oaks. They’ve made a start. I think they’re putting the runways down. There was a convoy of lorries dumping rubble, and there are steamrollers there, too.’
‘We knew it would come, Rosamund. It’s the way things are when there’s a war on. Your mum is in the dairy, seeing to the milk. Give her a hand with the churns, will you?’
She said she would, then stood to watch him out of sight. Dad didn’t seem to mind her growing up; it was Mum who kept reminding her she was still a child. And she wasn’t. If Mum knew some of the things she thought about there would be big trouble. She always thought about things when she and Bessie were together. Bessie brought out the curiosity in her and convinced her it wasn’t dirty to think about falling in love and getting babies; that she’d be very peculiar if she didn’t!
When she was with Bessie, she felt normal. Only when she was at home and watching everything she said did she accept that it was better to think like a child and act like a child, if only for the sake of peace and quiet, and keeping her mother happy.
A bitter, north-easterly wind hit her as she turned into the dirt road. Just a few more weeks, she sighed, and the worst of the weather would be over. They had had a long, dark winter. Everyone was tired of it and longed for warm days and long, light nights. Summer wouldn’t make the war go away, but at least it would be more bearable.
And when summer came, she would be eighteen!
The milk churns were loaded ready for her to take down the lane to the standing from which they would be collected. The cheque that came each month from the Milk Marketing Board was their main support now they had lost the fields. Yet her father said she wasn’t to worry; that he intended increasing the herd and that her mother had plans to get more hens, and to fatten cockerels for the Christmas market. And the compensation from the Air Ministry – when it came – would be a nice little sum to put by, and earn them interest into the bargain.
Dad was a love. If she had to say, hand on heart, which of her parents she cared for most, it would have to be her father. Mum was fine, but she had high ideals that took a bit of living up to. To her, things were either black or white, right or wrong and there was nothing in between. No grey areas, no white lies. Mum never wavered in her opinions. She was, Rosamund supposed, very dogmatic, and sadly she would never change.
‘Hi! I’m home!’ She hugged her mother extra hard and kissed her extra warmly to make up for her unfilial thoughts. ‘Bessie’s mum was very pleased with all you sent, especially the eggs. She said she’d forgotten what a good egg tasted like. We had some for breakfast.’
‘Hm. Can’t expect her to feed you, not with food being what it is. What did you do?’
‘Nothing, really.’ She knew her mother would expect a detailed account of everything done and said, if it was in any way interesting. ‘We sat by the fire and talked about the war. Dave and Joe are very well, and Bessie’s dad was working lates and we’d gone to bed before he came in. I’ll nip upstairs and get changed, then I’ll see to the churns. You shouldn’t have loaded them onto the trailer, you know!’
‘Someone’s got to do it! Your dad wanted to be at the market early, and I hadn’t finished putting the milk through the cooler when he left. And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heaved churns!’
‘No, Mum.’ Her mother was being self-righteous, which meant she had either something on her mind, or something had upset her.
‘Anything bad on the early news?’
‘No! Why should there be?’
‘I just thought – I mean I …’
She shrugged. Mum had been more quiet than ever since They had taken the fields. Maybe, Rosamund thought, it would be as well if she didn’t mention that work had started again on the aerodrome. She had just lifted the sneck on the staircase door when something caused her to turn and stare. Funny she hadn’t noticed it when she came in.
‘What are those?’ She nodded towards the pile of clothes on the table.
‘You know what they are! Some of your old things. I’m giving them to Betty Loftus.’
‘But they’re mine!’ Frantically Rosamund searched through the pile, checking what had been taken.
‘They’re only your school clothes! Surely you didn’t think I’d go in your drawers!’
She nearly said, ‘I know you would!’ but bit on her tongue and said instead, ‘I think you might have asked me first!’
‘And why should I? Wasn’t it me paid for them?’
‘I know you did, but there might be things I’d want to keep. My hockey badge, and my school hat – sentimental things.’
‘Your badges are of no interest to Betty Loftus and I certainly wouldn’t give her your hat. She never went to the grammar school and she isn’t entitled to wear it! All I’ve given her is your gabardine and some shoes and gumboots. And one or two blouses and your last school skirt. And there’s a cardigan, an’ all, that’ll never fit you again! Betty Loftus has been offered a place at the vicarage and has nothing decent to wear, and I think it most unchristian of you, Rosamund, to begrudge the lass something you aren’t in need of!’
‘I still think you should at least have mentioned it to me first! I’m sorry, but –’
‘And I’m sorry too, that I can’t do what I want in my own house without having to ask my daughter! Now get yourself upstairs to your room, and don’t come down until you’re sorry – and are prepared to say so!’
‘No! I won’t! Not until you tell me what I’m to be sorry for!’
‘For back-answering your mother!’
‘But I didn’t back-answer! I only said that I’d liked to have been told about my things being given away!’
‘Don’t you think you’re being just a little childish, Rosamund?’
Her mother’s tone had changed. Now her voice was soft and coaxing; the one a grown-up used when talking to a wilful child. It offered Rosamund the chance to climb down, say she was sorry, but she didn’t say it because defying her mother and getting away with it was heady stuff!
‘Childish? Yes, I suppose I am, but if you treat me like a child, then you mustn’t be upset if I act like one!’
She felt her cheeks burning and her mouth had gone dry, but her eyes met those of her mother and held them steadily. The unspoken challenge was like a gauntlet thrown down and Mildred Kenton did not pick it up, being saved the climb-down by a knocking on the kitchen door.
‘Well, go on then, girl! Answer it!’ She held her hands to her cheeks, drawing in a calming breath, knowing she had been the loser; promising herself it would be the last time Rosamund would be allowed to stay the night with Bessie Drake if that was the mood she came home in!
‘It’s Mr Loftus,’ Rosamund said quietly before walking head high across the kitchen and taking the back stairs with her nose in the air. And when she came down, dressed in working trousers and a thick sweater, the garments had been stuffed into two bags and Ned Loftus was handing over a sheet of clothing coupons.
Both he and her mother looked sheepish and seemed relieved when Rosamund walked out of the kitchen without saying a word, and Rosamund, out of harm’s way for the time being, climbed onto the tractor, her cheeks still burning, in spite of the coldness of the morning.
Had she gone out of her mind, then? Would she ever be forgiven for cheeking her mother? And what would her father say when he’d been given chapter and verse of her fall from grace? Dad would be shocked. It would hurt him far more than his wife’s sharp tongue, because Mum could be waspish when the mood was on her!
Rosamund stopped the tractor beside the platform, unloading the churns, tilting them slightly, rolling them carefully into position for the lorry driver to collect about noon. Then she would return before evening milking to onload the empty churns he would leave behind him, and though they would be clean and sterile, still her mother would insist on washing them out again because her mother trusted no one, and nothing would change her. There were two ways of doing a thing: Mildred Kenton’s way and the wrong way! For the first time in her life, Rosamund wondered how her father had managed to live for nearly twenty years with such perfection.
She knew the answer, of course. Dad was grateful to her for buying the farm, and though Rosamund had never laid eyes on the deeds, it would not surprise her to find they were in her mother’s name only, and not held jointly with her husband.
She parked the tractor beneath the Dutch barn, then made for the storeroom to fill a bucket with wheat and another with water for the hens. The ground was cold underfoot, the sliver of blue sky gone, but feeding and watering the hens – all twenty arks of them – was to be preferred to her mother’s disapproval.
Climbing the stile into the paddock, she wondered when the time would be right to ask her mother’s pardon, and was shocked to realize she did not want to, and nor would she, save for peace and quiet. She was almost a woman. In a few months’ time she would be ordered to register for war work at the Ministry of Labour office. Not even her mother could prevent it happening and she was tempted, when the time came, to register as unemployed – and that would put the cat among the pigeons!
But she knew she would not do it. She wanted to remain at Laburnum Farm.
What would happen when she registered, she was still in too much of a bother to think about. Yet of one thing she was sure: she had challenged her mother for the first time, and won! From this day on, her childhood was behind her.
And she didn’t want it back!