It was a beautiful summer evening, William had enjoyed his supper and she, Lorna, had got away with her misdemeanours with hardly a protest. And fingers crossed she would get away with –
The White Hart! The thought struck her like a slap. Who might he meet there? Would Mary Ackroyd ask him, innocently enough, what he thought of his wife’s lodger and didn’t he think the land girl from Liverpool was a very nice lass?
‘Mary!’ Panic stricken, she sent her thoughts winging to the landlady of the White Hart. ‘Whatever you do, don’t mention land girls – please?’
‘Oh, damn!’ she wailed. Not another misunderstanding, another coldness between them? There would be the mother of all rows if he found out about Ness from someone other than herself!
She took a deep breath, folded her arms belligerently and stared out at the hen ark. Then she ran her fingers through her short, soft hair – to give herself courage, that was – and whispered,
‘Sorry William, but Ness stays. I don’t want to have to remind you that Ladybower is my house; I never have and I never will, if I can help it. But if you bluster and blow and demand, then I shall. I shall tell you, quietly and calmly, that I will have whomever I want to stay here. I’m sorry, dear, but I will!’
Then as suddenly as defiance had taken her, it deserted her and flew out of the window and away, taking her brief courage with it.
‘Please, Mary …?’ Talk to William about the harvest and the bombing in the south and the soldiers who could arrive any day at the manor. Talk about ships and shoes and sealing wax but please, I beg you, don’t talk about Ness?
Lorna slid out of bed and walked on tiptoe out of the bedroom. Last night had been all right. No misunderstandings, no recriminations. William had returned without knowing that Ness still lived at Ladybower, and gone to bed almost at once.
‘I won’t wake you when I come up,’ she promised, and he had slept heavily, arms flung wide, leaving her only the edge of the bed to cling to. She had awakened twice in the night and been surprised to realize that William was there beside her. It had not taken long, she thought guiltily, to get used to having the bed to herself; to go to it master of the house and get up her own mistress! Then she thought shame on herself and ran downstairs, opening curtains as she went, letting in another sunbright day.
She walked barefoot into the garden, curling her toes on the dew-damp grass, loving the way the hens ran to greet her and to stand, heads cocked at the wire, waiting for the food she would throw to them.
I wonder, she thought indulgently, which of you is going to lay an egg today for William – bring home to him what a very good idea hens on the lawn is?
Carefully she filled a can with rainwater from the tub at the back door, then topped up the drinking trough. They were such pretty creatures. Surely William would come, if not to like them, then at least to accept their right to be on his lawn? There was a war on after all, and he might well have come on leave to find it had been dug up wantonly, and potatoes and carrots and cabbages planted for the war effort as the government so often pointed out.
‘Another egg today?’ she whispered fondly.
The weekend had gone well. Yesterday morning they made love as they always did on Sundays, and afterwards she had been unable to stop herself pulling the back of her hand across her mouth. She had forgotten how scratchy William’s passionate kisses were and lost no time splashing her face with cold water against the redness, then sighed with relief at wifely duty done. And, she had reminded herself firmly, you couldn’t get the child you secretly hoped for without duty done. If she were honest, she hoped with every coupling that a baby might happen. She wanted a child; had been amazed to find they did not come automatically when man and wife had relations within the intimacy of their double bed. She had been surprised, too, when William made it plain that children, when another war with Germany threatened, were not a good idea at all. And when that war came, she reluctantly ceased to hope for a child – at least until it was over – and to long, instead, for a mistake to happen in William’s calculations so she might find herself pregnant after all.
But there were ways and means of not having babies, she should have known. She had learned that much in her final year at boarding school, when talk after lights out turned, as it often did, to men and the things men did and the things you should not let men do. Men were only entitled to that when they married you. It said so in the marriage service, didn’t it? With my body I thee worship. Stood to sense that that was what it meant – the Church saying it was all right, once the priest had said the words.
Mind, it was the men who wanted that before they put a ring on your finger you had to look out for, said the form prefect, whose periods had started ages before anyone else’s and who therefore considered herself an authority on such matters.
Ah, yes, Lorna sighed; she had not been a complete innocent on her wedding day and had accepted that doing that was part of what was called wifely duty, or conjugal rights; the price a woman paid for the smug gold band on her eager wedding finger.
And now Lorna made sandwiches for William’s journey back to Wiltshire; cut them into dainty triangles, then wrapped them in greaseproof paper and a paper serviette. On the draining board stood a vacuum flask, filled with boiling water so the tea she would fill it with would stay hot, longer.
‘That’s got the stuff loaded.’ William, in his uniform once more and eager to be off. ‘Best make a start. Due back at 18.00 hours. Don’t want a black mark.’
‘Going by road will be better.’ Lorna filled the flask with tea. ‘You never know when a train is going to start, let alone when it will arrive. A good idea, dear, to take your car with you.’
There was a knocking, once, twice, three times on the front door, the calling card of the Meltonby postman. They heard the snap of the letterbox.
‘I’ll get it.’ William hurried into the hall. ‘See if there’s anything of importance before I leave.’
Of importance to her husband, Lorna thought, were things like the water rates, the council rates, the electricity bill and most important of all, the telephone account, which could run dangerously high when ladies spent so much time chatting to friends. But there were no such missives to excite William’s senses; nothing to check for errors or omissions, no telephone account to be queried. Yet for all that, his face was red and angry as he tossed the letter on the kitchen table.
‘Miss A Nightingale? And who is she? A land girl, by any chance?’
‘Yes. Ness.’
‘So why do her letters come to this house? Did she not think to tell her family and friends she no longer lived here?’ He looked into his wife’s flushed face, saw eyes that would not meet his. ‘Or is there some other explanation, Lorna?’
‘Ness lives here.’ She forced her gaze to his. ‘She’s in the hostel in Meltonby for the weekend; didn’t think it right we shouldn’t be alone for your leave.’
She was shaking so much she was sure he must see it, hear the trembling in her voice.
‘But you said she’d left. Weeks ago!’
‘No I didn’t, William. Never. You said she was to go, but I didn’t ask her to.’
‘So
