Once a Land Girl (35 page)

The address given was a few miles from Johnny’s cottage. Prue’s first thought was that, should she get the job, she could bicycle there to save petrol. She read the card again. She
would have done anything to take it away, send it to Ag – it was her sort of thing. As the job was still advertised, she thought, it was probably still available – if you could call it
a job. There was no point in waiting, postponing. Why not go at once, apologize for arriving with no warning?

She found the house at the end of a small village of scattered grey stone cottages. The Old Rectory was up what Prue considered to be a long drive – almost as long as the Ganders’
rough road, but with an immaculately tarmacked surface, and hedged in with trimmed yews. The house was a real-life dolls’ house: red brick, symmetrical windows with glossy white frames, a
shiny black front door with a brass knocker. Prue parked, but didn’t move for a few moments as she determined whether or not to call unannounced on the Hon. Mrs Ivy Lamton. What was an Hon.?
Was Ivy really a name? Why didn’t a vicar live in the Old Rectory? All so peculiar. But now she was here she might as well . . .

Prue tried to tug her skirt a bit further below her knees. She dabbed at the bow in her hair, wishing it wasn’t the yellow one with red spots. For some time she stood looking for a bell to
press before she realized a wrought-iron handle, attached to an iron pole twisted like barley sugar, was the sort of bell that came with old rectories. She pulled it. Silence, for a moment. Then a
deep, growling, far-away ring like a noise that might come from the bottom of the sea. But no footsteps.

Prue was about to turn and go back to the car when the door opened. An old lady stood there, one hand on a cane. She was very upright, as if she had learnt to balance books on her head and never
lost the habit. Her soft white hair was piled up, a bun on top like a cottage loaf. She had the smallest eyes Prue had ever seen, set far back in hollows the colour of black grapes. Prue bit her
lip, worried that the Hon. Ivy could read her astonished thoughts.

‘Can I help you?’ The voice was thin, high, sweet.

‘I’ve come – I mean, I saw your card and I thought I’d better come right away before the job had gone.’

‘Oh, that.’ The old lady laughed. ‘Do come in. That card’s been there for months. No one remotely interested. I don’t know why I thought anyone would be . .
.’

Prue stepped into the hall. No wonder there had been no footsteps: the carpet was so thick she felt the heels of her red shoes sinking into it.

‘I was about to give up. How very good of you to come, how delightful. Let’s go into the sitting room.’

Sunlight on the brass face of a grandfather clock in the hall made a sudden flash, like a wink, acknowledging the oddness of the encounter with the Hon. Ivy who, tapping her cane on the carpet,
which changed from grey to dark red as they went through a heavily panelled door, led Prue into the sitting room. There, Prue came to a halt, suddenly overcome.

‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, I’ve never seen anything like this. Such a room.’

Ivy looked at her. One pale eyebrow twitched. She smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘its heyday’s long past. I don’t mind the fading or the threadbare tapestry, but
it’s all a little . . . lifeless now. Everyone gone.’ For a second she was melancholy, then instantly righted herself to brightness. ‘Why don’t we have a pot of coffee, and
you can tell me all about yourself?’

‘Lovely. Thank you.’

‘And do sit down.’

‘Lovely. Thank you.’

Prue was cross with herself for the silly repetition. She could not imagine why she felt so nervous, ill at ease, but supposed it was because she hadn’t come prepared to find herself in a
world so far from her own. She looked around, wondered how many books there must be in the shelves that lined an entire wall, and chose the corner of a sofa by the fire. She put out her hand to
move a cushion covered with what must be real satin. Ivy crossed the room to a desk of dark wood with brass trimmings. She picked up a small bell and rang it. The tinkle, in the deep silence, was
almost impertinent.

‘Alice will bring us a tray in here,’ she said. ‘Dear Alice has been here for ever. She’s not the fastest but she’s a treasure, one of those saints who spend their
lives in English villages helping people. She probably didn’t hear the bell. I’ll just go and tell her.’

Ivy loped towards the door faster than she had previously moved. Prue stroked the satin cushion and looked round the room. Old furniture glowed from decades of polish. The sage green walls that
were free of bookshelves were crowded with portraits. The stern faces shone out from dark and gloomy paint – they all looked either cross or sad. A bit spooky, Prue thought. She
wouldn’t much like to be alone with them in this room on a winter’s evening. At the high windows curtains hung from elaborate pelmets – the word suddenly came to Prue: her mother
had once expressed an acute desire to live in the kind of house that had pelmets. They were gathered into breathtaking pleats. The curtains – brocade, was it? – were the colour of the
wet sand on the seals’ beach. Oh, how she wanted to tell Rudolph all this. But their edges, where the sun had touched them, had paled to the colour of candle wax. On a table beside Prue stood
a precise arrangement of photographs in silver frames. One was of a very grand-looking man in uniform, medals all over his chest. On another table there was a bowl of white hyacinths. Their scent
reached across the room.

Ivy returned.

‘So sorry, my dear,’ she said, and lowered herself into an extravagant armchair opposite Prue, hitching up the back of her long black skirt before her behind touched the cushion.
‘Now, you must tell me why you’ve come. Were you really attracted by my plea? If so, I can’t imagine why. Who knows? Maybe I’m in luck. Who are you? What’s your
name?’

‘Prudence. Prudence Lumley.’

‘Such a lovely name. I fear it’s destined to go out of fashion. My sister-in-law was a Prudence – very aptly in her case. Over-Prudence, I called her . . .’ She
smiled.

As Prue had no idea how to respond to this observation, she kept quiet. She hoped the Hon. Ivy’s questions would not be too hard to answer.

A bent old woman came through the door carrying a tray of clattering china. The chances of her crossing the room without it crashing to the floor, Prue reckoned, were small. She leapt up,
hurried to take it from her.

‘Thank you so much. Put it here.’ Ivy patted a brocade ottoman. Prue put the tray on a copy of
The Times,
wondering if that was the right thing to do. Perhaps she should have
moved the newspaper. Her heart was battering. Never had a room made her so uncertain. But the Hon. Ivy looked on with approval, so she guessed she had done the right thing. Blimey, relief. The cups
and plates, the coffee pot and milk jug were almost transparent in their thinness – they made Barry’s ‘best’ china look thick, clumsy. They weren’t decorated with
prissy roses, like Barry’s: there was just a thin gold line round the rims. Ivy turned to Alice, who swayed like a statue poorly soldered to its base, her mouth open, indignation stiffening
her clenched hands. She was not accustomed to having her tray snatched away by some young whipper-snapper with a film-star bow in her hair. ‘Thank you, Alice,’ said Ivy. ‘This is
just what we need. I said, thank you.’

Alice, further affronted, shuffled out.

Ivy leant back in her chair, ignoring the tray. It occurred to Prue that a companion’s job would be to pour the coffee. This she suggested.

Ivy, whose tiny eyes had glazed, brightened. ‘Would you be a darling? That would be so kind.’

Not that kind, really, Prue thought. All she said was ‘Cripes’. As Ivy did not question this, she imagined she should explain. ‘Your house, this room . . . everything,’
she said. ‘I’m afraid I’m overwhelmed. It’s perfect—’

‘Now, now,’ Ivy interrupted. ‘It’s just an ordinary old rectory filled with some nice things my husband Edward and I collected over the years. He was in the diplomatic
service. We moved about all over the world. I insisted we take all this clutter everywhere, so a bit of each foreign embassy would feel like home. Most of the places were so hot it all looked a bit
heavy. I can’t tell you how grateful I was to get back here. I’ve always loved England better than anywhere. Give me just a speck of milk, would you mind? And help yourself. But I want
to know about you. Tell me all about yourself. Tell me why such a pretty young thing as you – oh, I do love your shoes, I’ve always loved red shoes – would like to be a companion
to a very old lady like me.’

Prue settled deeper into the cushions. It was like being on a firm cloud. Had she not been juggling in her mind how to start, she might have fallen asleep, lulled by the scent of the hyacinths.
She was about to begin, having drunk her fragile cup of coffee very fast, and returned it to the saucer where it skidded about, when the clock in the hall struck eleven: each note echoed, and the
echo thinned till the next strike took its place. Prue waited for absolute silence to return.

‘OK,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll try to explain.’

She began her story.

O
ccasionally, during the hour that Prue recounted (most, but not quite all of) the events in her life, the Hon. Ivy flicked at specks of invisible
dust on her skirt. Occasionally she moved her deep-set eyes towards the hyacinths and gave the beginnings of a smile, which never matured. For the most part she sat absolutely still, seeming to
listen with her whole being. When Prue judged she had nothing left to tell this stranger, on whose grand sofa she sat, she shrugged, and fell silent.

Ivy sighed. She tipped back her head, closed her eyes. ‘Well, well, dear Prudence,’ she said, ‘what a life in so few years. So much of it sounds familiar. I felt I knew so many
of those people. You’re a wonderful raconteur.’

Prue didn’t know what a raconteur was, and did not like to ask. But she took it as a compliment, given it was preceded by ‘wonderful’. ‘Thanks,’ she said. She
wondered which way the interview – which didn’t feel like an interview – would go now.

Ivy opened her eyes. ‘Oh, that land-girl life. What would we have done without you? My sister, you know, joined the Land Army just as it was starting up at the end of the First World War.
It lasted such a short time because, of course, the war ended. So fortunate it was reinstated for this war, though by then Maud was too old to join up.’

Maud? Maud and Ivy? The Hon. Mrs Lamton and her sister plainly came from another world. Prue felt a strange keenness to know more about it just as, coming from Manchester, she had been keen to
discover about the Lawrences’ rural life.

‘Now,’ Ivy was saying, ‘there must be some questions you’d like to put to me.’ The pale eyebrows rose and fell.

Prue hesitated. The question she had in mind might be considered cheeky, but she was convinced Ivy wouldn’t be offended. ‘What exactly is a Hon.?’ she asked. ‘I’ve
never met one before.’

Ivy laughed. ‘Well, how can I best explain it? It’s all to do with the weird English system of titles and so on. My father was a viscount. The children of viscounts, who are
themselves the children of earls – oh, it’s all too complicated to go into. Pretty silly, not to say confusing, really. It’ll all come to an end one day. But I’ll tell you
another silly thing.’ She clasped her hands, working out how best to put it. ‘A Hon isn’t actually pronounced . . . the H is silent. Daft, I know.’

‘You mean you’re an On, really?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Cripes. Can’t wait to tell my mum all this. She’ll never believe it – me meeting the daughter of a whatever . . .’ Prue giggled.

‘But what I actually meant, when I said had you any questions, was have you any questions about the job I’m offering?’

‘You’re offering?’

‘I don’t see why not. I’m not quite clear in my mind the exact nature of the job, but I’m sure we could work it out once you’re here.’

‘I’m sure we could.’

‘It would just be sharing a few hours of my day, really. Two or three times a week, perhaps. We could see how it goes.’

With surprising agility Ivy, suddenly scorning her cane, now rose from her chair as easily as someone half her age. She looked, it occurred to Prue, exactly as she imagined the ghost of an old
lady would look. For a second she wondered if she was a ghost, and this whole peculiar visit was no more than a dream. But Ivy was speaking very firmly: nothing insubstantial about her.

‘One little idea came to me while you were telling me about Johnny and his bad luck,’ she said. ‘A couple of stable doors in the yard are completely rotten and the wonderful
old carpenter who lived in the village died last week. I wonder if your friend Johnny could make two new ones?’

‘I’m sure he could. He’d be thrilled.’

‘That would be such a relief. I didn’t know where to turn.’

Prue felt that she, too, ought to stand now. But Ivy had picked up one of the silver-framed photographs and handed it to her. ‘If you ever fancy another husband, you could do worse than
Gerald, my nephew.’

‘What?’ Prue had no notion of how to respond to this extraordinary idea.

Ivy was laughing, enjoying her joke. ‘Awfully clever. Scholar at Eton, classics at New College, Grenadier Guards, and now the City.’

None of this meant anything to Prue: a different language was used at the Old Rectory, which she found hard to understand.

‘What City?’ she asked.

‘The City of London, dear girl. Banking. Bores him stiff. Still, once I’ve gone, he’ll take over all this. He loves it here.’

As Prue got to her feet she studied the photograph of an impossibly handsome man in soldier’s uniform. Gerald. Wow. ‘How old is he?’ she dared herself to ask.

Ivy waved a hand vaguely. ‘I don’t know – thirty-five, forty, maybe.’

‘Bit old,’ said Prue.

‘What? For marriage? Older husbands are a darn good idea. Of course, they usually die first, but by then the wife has got used to the idea. Edward was fifteen years older than me, looked
after me wonderfully well, gave me good advice about what I should do once I was a widow. And I don’t want you thinking, Prudence, that because I fancy a little companionship I’m a
lonely old thing. For I absolutely am not. I love living alone. I’ve never been lonely for a moment. There’s so much to do.’ The beginning of this declaration had been made in a
firm voice, which was now petering out.