nine o’clock. So if you want to write a postcard home, do it now, ladies. They’re already stamped, which will cost you tuppence.”
She slammed the box down onto the nearest table and picked up an old tobacco tin with a slot cut in the lid. “Honesty box is here for the tuppences. Of course, if you are literate enough to write a proper letter home, you can come now to my office. Letter stamps are tuppence ha’penny.”
As Miss Cradditch turned smartly and left the room, there was a scramble of hands trying to grab one of the postcards and a stubby little pencil from the basket, and a tinkle of coins dropping into the tin. Several women got up and followed Old Crabby out of the door, each holding at least two or three thick envelopes.
Maisie stared at the basket, wondering if today was the day she should write a postcard home to her parents. She’d sent no word back since she’d walked out of the front door of the home she’d lived in for all seventeen years of her life, her father’s hurtful words still ringing around the tiled hallway. She wasn’t even sure they would know which part of Scotland she was doing her training in. All the letters from the WTC had been addressed to her by name, and since her parents had been so furious with her for signing up, they’d refused even to look at the information she had been sent. It was only at the last minute, as Maisie was standing in the front hall with her suitcase, that her mother had softened, if only marginally. She’d come out of the kitchen holding a brown paper bag, which she held out to Maisie.
“Here’s a sandwich for the journey. It’s only fish paste, but that’s all there is. And I’ve given you an apple and your ration of cheese for this week. You can get a cup of tea at the station.”
Maisie had taken the bag with a tight-throated thank-you and had stepped forward in the hope that her mother might embrace her, but her mother stayed where she was.
“Will you at least walk me to the bus stop?” Maisie had asked.
“The fact that you’ve chosen to leave home before you’ve even finished your schooling”—her mother hit the well-worn track without hesitation—“suggests you have no desire to spend any more time with us than you must.”
“Mother, please let’s not do this again.” Maisie had tried not to sigh. “I’d like it very much if you’d all walk with me to the bus stop. Thank you.”
Maisie’s sister, Beth, had been the only one who had seemed in the slightest bit excited for Maisie. Perhaps she was already envisaging her own escape from their parents—she was almost sixteen, after all. As if to prove her support, Beth had already had her shoes on and had been grabbing her coat from the hall stand.
“Shall I get your coat too, Mother?” Beth had asked.
Father’s voice from the dining room had not been loud, but it had been crystal clear. “Your mother will not be needing her coat. And neither will you, Elizabeth.”
“But, Dad,” Beth had begun, “what if there’s rain?”
“Put. The coats. Away.” Maisie’s father’s tone had been unmistakable, a command that was to be followed without question. But as she always did, Beth had pushed back.
“But surely—”
“Elizabeth! Your sister has decided she is mature enough to ignore the wishes of her parents and sign herself up for some ridiculous venture with women who clearly have no more sense than she does. She must therefore be mature enough to get herself there alone, so put the coats away, and go help your mother in the kitchen.”
Suddenly he had been at the dining room door, and without even glancing in Maisie’s direction, he’d stalked past his daughters and his wife to his study door. There he’d stopped, his fingers on the brass knob.
“I will not repeat myself again, Elizabeth. Your sister can see herself out. You have breakfast dishes to wash.”
So Maisie had walked to the bus stop alone, and she had not written home since.
Maisie sighed as she looked at the basket of cards. She knew she ought to send something, at least to Beth. It hadn’t been Beth’s fault their parents had reacted so badly, but even so, that morning might have been the first time in years that quarrelsome and complaining Beth had ever supported Maisie in an argument. With two and a half years separating the girls, arguments had been routine, and it was usually Beth who started them.
No, Maisie did not even want to write to Beth.
Now feeling grumpy, Maisie picked up the plates and cups in front of her and Dot, and cleared them onto the pile of dirty dishes stacked on the serving counter. Dot’s nose was still buried in a book, as it was most mornings over breakfast, and all the other women around her were scribbling on their cards. Dot didn’t ever send mail home either, Maisie had noticed, though the one time she’d mentioned it, Dot had evaded her question and quickly changed the subject. Since Maisie had no desire to share details of the misery of her own home life either, she’d let the matter drop.
A sharp stab of pain and a spurt of warm pus across her palm made Maisie realize that she’d been distractedly digging her thumbnail into one of the large blisters on her left hand. Hoping no one else had noticed, she dabbed at her palm with the corner of her handkerchief. She ought to wash her hands, but she was sure that the harsh carbolic soap was partly to blame for her blisters since it dried out her skin, which was already in trouble from its first exposure to an outdoor life. So if she wanted to avoid washing her hands so much, what she needed was …
Maisie changed course and sidled a little nervously toward the kitchen. Old Crabby had made it clear on the first day that Mrs. McRobbie’s culinary domain was not to be entered without invitation. Mrs. McRobbie was the cook for Shandford Lodge, and was married to the old woodsman, Mr. McRobbie, who had been their primary instructor for all the ax and saw cuts, and also for tool care. He also had an encyclopedic mind when it came to all things flora and fauna in the woods around the lodge, something that Maisie had already found useful when faced with a patch of stinging nettles or if one needed to know, as Helen had the week before, whether the snake wrapping itself around one’s boot was a venomous adder or a benign grass snake. Although Mr. McRobbie tried to be gruff and miserable with them, no one was convinced by the act. His wife’s reputation, however, was truly fearsome, and so Maisie knocked gingerly on the doorframe before her toes had even crossed the kitchen threshold.
“Mrs. McRobbie?” she called tentatively.
There was a rustling and shuffling from beyond the pantry door, and the cook appeared, her tiny frame dwarfed by the enormous sack of flour she was carrying.
“Oh, here, let me help,” said Maisie as she dashed forward and wrestled the sack out of Mrs. McRobbie’s arms. “Where shall I put it for you?”
The cook pointed over to the far counter and Maisie laid the flour down. Hoping this favor might make Mrs. McRobbie more open to a request of help, Maisie quickly asked her question. “Do you have any spare pig fat I could have?”
The older woman gazed at her for a moment. “Pig fat?” she replied. “You mean lard?”
“Oh, well, if lard is pig fat, then yes, lard. Please, if you have some to spare. I have money.”
“Show me,” said Mrs. McRobbie, putting out her hand.
Maisie dug her sore hand gingerly into her pocket to find some coins, uncertain of how much pig fat might cost.
“Not
