Daughter of Dark River Farm (13 page)

‘It’s either that or finish off out in the barn,’ Lizzy said. In Frances’s absence she slipped easily and naturally into the role of leader, and Bel subsided with a disappointed, but thankfully not grumpy look. Belinda disappointed was one thing, and easy enough to remedy, but Belinda grumpy turned everything grey.

‘I’m moving my things into your room too,’ I told her, hoping it would cheer her up.

‘Why?’

‘Because Jessie always has the yellow room when she comes here.’ Too late I realised I’d once again picked the wrong thing to say, and I groaned inwardly.

Predictably, and momentarily forgetting how Jessie had spoken up in her favour, Belinda scowled. ‘That’s hardly fair, Jessie. You’ve not been here for about ten years.’

‘That’s enough, Belinda,’ Lizzy broke in. She looked at the three of us—myself wondering if I’d spoken out of turn, Belinda looking cross on my behalf, and Jessie blushing and clearly wishing she’d said nothing about the bedroom at all.

In another attempt to steer the conversation onto something pleasant, I told Lizzy that Jessie had brought lots of books with her. ‘Perhaps she and Emily might like to look at each other’s collections,’ I said. ‘Lizzy’s sister is a great reader too, Jessie.’

‘That would be lovely, if Jessie doesn’t mind.’ Lizzy smiled at the new girl. ‘Emily is about your age, Jessie. I’m sure you’d get on very well.’

Jessie smiled back. ‘I’d like to meet her.’

‘She’s not home today. She’s taken a trip down to Cornwall, but that probably means she’ll come back with even more books for you to look at. There’s a bookshop down there that she loves.’

‘I’ve never been to Cornwall,’ I put in, ‘but it would be nice to visit one day with Emily. We got along famously the last time I was here. I think she mentioned the shop then. Something to do with an attic?’

‘Penhaligon’s Attic.’ Lizzy nodded. ‘It’s in Caernoweth. Lovely place. I’d like to go down there again myself sometime. Jack would love it.’ Her expression lost some of its lively enthusiasm for a second, but it soon returned. ‘Perhaps we can all go down there together, after the harvest is in. I’d like to see Freya again too, the girl who lives there.’

‘That would be wonderful,’ Jessie said. ‘I adore Cornwall.’

‘Evie and I would like that too,’ Will said, and Nathan’s face darkened slightly. I wondered, at first, if it was the mention of Evie. Perhaps Nathan’s antagonism towards her was disguising the fact that he had once carried a torch for her? Then I realised it would more likely because we were speaking of things that must, by necessity, happen after he returned to the fighting. Harvest wouldn’t be for another few months yet. He would be long gone from Dark River by then and it must be an awful thought for him.

I told Jessie I’d help her with the rest of her things as soon as she was ready. ‘Just let me know when,’ I said, hopeful of a more pleasant relationship with this oddly unsettling girl now we’d found a common interest.

‘I still think it’s wrong that you’ve been turfed out of your room,’ Belinda said.

I shot her an annoyed look. ‘It’s all right, Bel, really. I don’t mind. Jessie’s known Frances much longer, after all.’

Jessie’s expression sharpened, and her smile dropped, and I recognised the same vague and formless sense of rivalry I’d felt in myself earlier. It must have simply been because I’d used Frances’s first name. I swallowed a sigh; any path to possible friendship between us would clearly not be as smooth as I’d hoped.

Chapter Eight

‘We’re moving those old wet sacks out, and spreading them in the yard to dry.’ I handed Jessie a broom. ‘Hit them first, to send the rats running.’

‘Rats?’ Jessie looked doubtfully at the big pile in the corner of the barn.

‘There aren’t many,’ I assured her. ‘I suppose you were too young to help out when you were here before?’

‘I collected the eggs,’ she said, ‘and fed the hens. And sometimes helped sweep out the henhouses.’

‘Well…just look on this as sweeping out a very large henhouse, and imagine the hens are small and brown, with long tails.’

She gave me an amused look, and lifted her broom, bringing it down on the top of the pile without hesitation. Nothing stirred within, and she nudged it with her foot. ‘I think we’re hen-free here.’

I laughed, and set to work on the opposite corner, watching her from the corner of my eye. I still couldn’t decide how I felt about her; one minute she seemed keen and eager to help, friendly and a little shy, but there was clearly a wire running through her that twanged, as jarringly as mine, whenever her sense of belonging was challenged. This was made very apparent around half an hour later, when we’d emptied the barn of damp and frayed sacks, and were kneeling out in the yard, spreading them to dry in the afternoon sun.

‘Well, at work already, Jessie?’ Frances pushed open the gate that led from the field, and we both looked up to see her face creased in a welcoming smile. Jessie crossed the yard between them at a run, and flung her arms around Frances who looked startled, but pleased, as she returned the embrace.

I tried to remember how long it had been since anyone held me like that, with the pure joy of seeing someone and not the sadness of impending goodbye, or with the helpless sympathy of one who wants to give comfort but has no words. I couldn’t. I swallowed past a painful lump in my throat, and felt my eyes start to sting. What was wrong with me? This woman had taken me to her heart within hours of meeting me, and yet she’d had to beg me to call her by her first name. Evie had tried so hard to help me after the attack by Colonel Drewe, and I had pushed her away. Belinda only wanted to teach me to have fun, but I couldn’t bring myself look on her as a confidante. And Archie…but I choked that thought off.

‘Well done, Kitty, sweetheart,’ Frances said, keeping her arm around Jessie as they walked back towards me. ‘But why isn’t Belinda helping you?’

‘She’s hurt her foot,’ I said, avoiding Jessie’s eyes.

‘Oh, that girl! What on earth has she done now?’ She held up a hand as I began fumbling with the story. ‘Never mind, I’ll see her in a minute. I must say you’ve both done a wonderful job here.’ Frances let go of Jessie to reach out and remove a stray thread of sacking from where it had become caught in my curls. It was a small gesture, but an intimate one, and I hoped my smile reflected the surge of affection and gratitude I felt.

‘Right, time to catch up, young lady,’ she said to Jessie, who took her proffered hand but with a suddenly clouded expression. I couldn’t deny my pleasure at the way Frances so obviously favoured me more highly than she might a regular Land Army girl, but I honestly tried to make it more about Frances and me than about Jessie and me. I remembered the moment on the ferry dock, her work-roughened hands either side of my face, the smile that broke through tears that had startled and moved me…and I resolved to stop questioning my right to that sense of belonging. Frances had never given me cause to doubt her affection, so why had I always done so?

Relaxing into this new resolution, I left Frances and Jessie to their talk and went upstairs to see how Bel was getting on. Her foot was still obediently propped on the cushions I’d placed for her, but she clutched the little mirror she’d asked for, and when she saw me she raised it and looked at her swollen face again.

She sighed. ‘Honestly, Kitty, why now?’

‘Now?’ I sat down on her bed, and gently checked the makeshift splint on her ankle. ‘As opposed to when?’

‘Well, for one thing, when there isn’t a new girl just starting. I look like a freestyle wrestler.’

‘And for another thing?’ I looked at her sideways, with a knowing little smile, but she was still gloomily gazing at her reflection. ‘I’m sure Nathan remembers you quite well as the pretty girl he met in town,’ I said comfortingly, and she flushed and lowered the mirror.

‘Well naturally I’d like him to find me interesting and attractive,’ she said, ‘but knowing he tricked me into inviting him here has made me think twice about how attractive a person
he
is.’

‘You deserve better,’ I agreed. ‘He’s charming all right, but then so are a lot of men.’

‘Absolutely.’ She took a deep breath and let it out, effectively closing the subject. ‘So, how is Jessie at farmwork?’

We talked for a while about our first impressions, and I mentioned Jessie’s closeness to Frances.

Bel still frowned at the way I had been summarily removed from my own room, simply because the new girl might have used it once or twice as a child. ‘She presumes an awful lot. I wouldn’t expect to have my own room, and nor would Sally, but you’re different. You’re more like family.’

‘Jessie doesn’t know that,’ I pointed out reasonably.

‘Then perhaps she ought to. She and I should have a little chat; she’s as much here to work as I am.’

‘Gosh, Bel, you sound quite fierce!’

‘Well, you’re my friend, and while I’m stuck up here I’m not there to look out for you. Just don’t let her push you around.’

‘I won’t,’ I said, touched. ‘Are you coming down for dinner?’

‘Try and stop me. I’m bored as blazes up here. And—’ she brightened ‘—we might find out why Nathan has come here looking for Will.’

I smiled at her characteristic return to perkiness. ‘I’ll call you when we’re ready.’ I left her to her mirror, and as I closed the door I saw her prodding mournfully at her puffy nose, and wincing. Poor Bel! Still, at least she was no longer caught up in Nathan’s spell; she was far too nice for him.

I was just finishing clearing the yard when Evie returned from work. I hadn’t even heard the lorry that dropped her off at the top of the road. I had been too preoccupied thinking about Oliver; he’d be allowed to write and receive letters soon, and I was mentally preparing what I would say to him, how I would describe this new life, and whether or not I should ask him if he’d heard from ‘the parents’, as he called them. I didn’t want to open any wounds that might be beginning to heal over.

I looked up as Evie came into the yard, her bag across her shoulder, her hat off, and her sleeves rolled back against the evening warmth. She put the bag down and came over to help me put away the last of the sacks, stacking them neatly in the now-swept corner of the barn.

‘How’s the new girl settling in?’ she asked, as she closed the barn door.

‘Well, I think. She and Frances are very close.’

‘Yes, Lizzy was telling me. Frances knew Jessie’s mother, quite some time ago when they were both living in Gloucester. Your trousers are filthy, by the way.’

I dusted them down. ‘I thought Frances was from Tavistock?’

‘She was, originally. Then again neither of us is from Devon are we? Yet here we are. They met when they both worked at the same hotel.’

‘Jessie doesn’t say much about her mother. Perhaps they had a falling out?’

‘Perhaps.’ Evie took my arm as we walked back to the house. ‘Have you seen Will today?’

‘He and Nathan joined us for lunch. They went for a long walk in the woods, I think. They seem to have talked things through and reached some understanding.’

Evie looked across the yard towards the woodland path. Her expression was guarded, but I could see her blue eyes narrowing slightly, and it wasn’t in reaction to the early evening sun. I followed her gaze.

I frowned, unsure if I’d said too much. ‘Are you worried?’

She didn’t answer at first, then seemed to shake off the shadow. ‘No, not worried. Sad for Will, though.’

‘What happened between them?’ I asked softly.

‘It doesn’t sound so awful really,’ Evie said, ‘not when you compare it to everything that’s happened since.’ She guided me towards the low wall that kept the pigs in their sty, and we sat down. Evie ran her hands through her dishevelled hair and tried to tug it back into order, but quickly gave up. ‘When they were very young, and lived in Blackpool, they were the best of friends. Nathan inherited an attic room in Breckenhall and asked Will if he wanted to go with him, to set themselves up an art studio.’

‘I love Will’s work,’ I broke in, and Evie smiled, pride and love glowing in her expression.

‘He’s incredible,’ she said quietly, and for a moment I thought I’d lost her; her eyes seemed focused on a different place, and a different time. Then she swam back. ‘Nathan’s very talented too. He’s a painter. But no-one bought his work, and Will’s small sales at market weren’t enough to sustain them. One morning Will woke up to find Nathan had gone. No word, no note.’

‘That’s horrible.’ I knew how it felt when someone close just vanished from your life. Betrayed and hurt barely scratched the surface.

‘The real trouble was he’d left an unmanageable pile of debts,’ Evie went on. ‘He’d sold the studio, without telling Will, and so Will had to try and find work to pay off those debts, but he also had to leave the studio and find another home. That’s when he took the job with the butcher.’

‘Didn’t you say his family were butchers too?’

‘Yes.’ Evie smiled suddenly, as if that question had brought back some private memory, but I didn’t press her to share it.

‘So Nathan didn’t write, or come back at all?’

‘Not until now,’ Evie said, her smile dropping away. ‘Which makes me wonder why. And how did he find us down here?’

‘Maybe someone at Oaklands told him.’

‘They wouldn’t, I’m sure. More likely it was Martin, the boy who took over from Will as Mr Markham’s apprentice when Will joined up.’ She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Anyway, Skittles, that’s the whole sordid, but not very exciting story. Now, have you heard from Archie lately?’

‘He writes,’ I said, feeling my throat tighten when I thought about those letters—light-hearted, even funny, confident and matter-of-fact. I loved to look at his slightly scrawly handwriting, yet it hurt a little too. Worse was the way I could actually hear the words, spoken in his softly accented voice. He had never again asked me to consider waiting for him, but now and again he would say something that made me realise we must talk; I had to tell him how it must be between us now, because while he had accepted that I didn’t love him in the same way he loved me, he still believed we could be good friends. But I wasn’t sure I could do it. How could I bear to be that close to him and not be touching him? Or watch him fall in love with someone else and have to stand by and smile, offering congratulations while my heart splintered as I knew it would? I had to decide whether to break from him completely, or to hold on to as much of him as I could without ruining his life.