acres have been down to grass since ever I can remember and the sooner they’re opened up to the weather the better.’
‘I’ll grant you that, but a good ploughman is as rare as hen’s teeth these days,’ Polly brooded. Stood to reason, didn’t it? There’d been little money in farming between the wars and small use growing crops that nobody wanted to buy. Ploughs had lain rusting these last twenty years; ploughmen had abandoned their skills and gone to the towns.
‘I know that, Polly, but we’ll manage between us. We’ll have to. If that parkland isn’t under cultivation by March, the War Ag. will take it over for the duration. It’s as simple as that.’
‘But they can’t do that, ma’am. Isn’t theirs to take!’
‘They can, and they will. The War Ag. can take my land just as any government department can take anything it wants. They’d fling the Defence of the Realm Act at me and if I protested I’d be unpatriotic.’
‘And lose your land, whether or no.’
‘Exactly. So let’s hope Mat gets his ploughman and his landgirl.’
‘Aye.’ Polly settled herself in the fireside rocker, stirring her tea, gazing into the hearth. Just the one fire burning here, now, yet when she’d been a young under-housemaid here, she could have counted five fires at least burning from morning till night, and fires in the bedrooms, too. But coal was a pound a ton then, and logs for the taking from the estate. And the Master had been alive and Miss Roz’s mother a slip of a girl.
Ridings had been the place to work at the turn of the century, Polly considered. Far better than being in service at Peddlesbury, ugly old Victorian pile that it had been. Built on wool and inherited coal money and them as lived there then not real gentry, like the Fairchilds. Now Peddlesbury was an aerodrome and Ridings not the house it used to be.
But things had been different before the Master was killed. And before that fire. Twenty-four bedrooms there’d once been and three housemaids and a cook and scullery-maid and a footman. Aye, and a parlourmaid and a housekeeper as well as the outside staff.
But that was another life it seemed, and now she, Polly, lived in one of the gate lodges and came each day to ‘do’. She had been a part of a life that was long gone and because she still remembered the Master and Miss Janet, she was as much a part of Ridings as the woman who owned it and the granddaughter who would one day inherit it, and the worry of it.
‘You’re quiet all of a sudden. Penny for them?’
‘Oh, they’m worth more than a penny,’ Polly returned gravely. ‘Oh my word, yes. A lot more than that.’
‘Then I’d best not ask. But sometimes, Polly, I wonder. Have I been wise, urging this exemption on Rosalind? Often, I think she spends too much time with me. Might it not have been better if I hadn’t tried so hard to keep her here – if she’d been left free to join the forces, seen a bit of life outside Alderby St Mary?’
‘It might have been, but like you said, she just might have opted to join the Land Army and been sent to work on some other farm.’
‘I know. But what do you mean, some other farm? I don’t have a farm, Poll Appleby.’
‘You don’t? Then what would you call all those acres you’ve got to cultivate? Seems to me that whether you like it or not you’re up to the neck in farming for the duration, and so is Miss Roz. And she’s as well staying at home and looking after her inheritance as she is joining the Air Force or the Army.’
‘Inheritance? A few hundred acres of parkland and all that remains of a house? And the parkland will go back to grass when the war is over and be left idle again. Some inheritance! And it’s all I have to leave her. That, and her name,’ she whispered bitterly.
‘Now don’t get yourself upset, ma’am. I know it’s the time of year, but soon it’ll be Christmas and afore you know it there’ll be a new year to look forward to.’
The time of year. December, when everything awful happened, Hester brooded. They’d taken Martin from her in December and it had been December when Ridings caught fire, the lanes so blocked with snow that the horses pulling the fire engine made heavy going and arrived almost too late.
And did it have to be December when Janet and Toby drove up to Scotland, leaving a two-year-old child behind them at Ridings and never coming back for her?
‘Yes, Polly, it’ll soon be over. And take no notice of me. I’m just a silly old woman.’
‘Old? You? Nay, I’ll not have that.’
The Mistress was sixty-four, Polly knew that as fact. She looked nowhere near her age, with those great brown eyes and hardly a line on the whole of her face. A beautiful woman, holding back time; still waiting for her man to come home, and find her unchanged. To Polly, she was still the laughing young girl who came to Ridings all those years ago on Martin Fairchild’s arm. And she would always be a fitting mistress for Ridings, no matter how life had treated her.
Thank God for the man from the War Ag. because now Ridings would be earning its keep again – the Mistress would have a pound or two in her pocket and not have to worry about keeping body and soul together, counting every penny and every lump of coal she put on the fire. Hester Fairchild had kept her pride and reared Miss Janet’s little lass to be a credit to the place. High time she had a bit of luck. Heaven only knew she deserved some.
Sniffing, Polly placed her cup on the draining board. ‘Ah, well. Best be making a start. What’ll it be today, then? Bedrooms or bathroom and stairs?’
The sky was ice-blue, the earth hard underfoot, the grass white and crisp with hoar frost. There was no sun, but the sky shone with a strange, metallic brightness and Roz knew that tonight it would be bitterly cold again. Tonight, the bombers at Peddlesbury would remain grounded.
‘I’m back!’ she called, slamming shut the door, hurrying to the fire. ‘My, but it’s cold. No sign of a let-up. It’ll freeze hard again tonight, just see if it doesn’t. I don’t suppose there’s a cup of tea in the pot?’
There was. Almost always. Tea was rationed, so the pot was kept warm and used until the leaves inside it would take no more diluting.
‘What did Mat say?’ Hester poured boiling water into the pot. ‘Was he pleased?’
‘Mat wasn’t there. He’s gone to the Labour Exchange again to nag them some more about a farm man, and Jonty’s gone to York for spares for the tractor. Grace said he wants to make a start on our ploughing as soon as the frost lets up a bit. It’s going to be one heck of a job, you know.
‘And good news – they’re getting a landgirl very soon. She might even be there tomorrow. Grace said that since I know everybody in the village, it might be a good idea for me and the new girl to take over the milk-round.
‘So don’t worry too much, Gran love. We’ll have Ridings parkland earning its keep before so very much longer. Think I’d better pop upstairs and tell Polly about the letter …’
‘Polly knows, so don’t keep her talking!’ Hester called to the retreating back. Then her lips formed an indulgent smile, because it seemed that her granddaughter was right. Between them they would make those long-idle acres grow food and earn money. Roz didn’t have to go away and December would soon be over. There’d be another year
