“I never went to a school like that.” Tom didn’t look up.
Cecil put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I did, Tom. I don’t think I ever heard my Christian name between the ages of six and sixteen. Croft this and Croft that—even my father called me Croft or Boy.”
“Then how come you’re different now?” Tom turned round, for the first time facing Cecil Croft.
“Because I wasn’t like any of them, Tom. That’s why I won’t call you Brissenden and you won’t call me Croft, because we’ll do our level best for our country, and we’ll play their game, but that’s all they’ll have of us.” And Cecil Croft looked at Tom for one more second before turning around and stepping along the line of beds to his own, where he slumped down and began writing in a notebook.
Tom finished the polishing, finished the spitting and the blacking and buffing, and in turn lay back on his bed. He pulled an envelope from under his pillow and took out a letter from Kezia.
My Dear Tom,
Let me tell you about the tea I cooked for you today. I am sure you will love it, but please let me know if there’s anything you think I could do to flavor it more to your taste.
Bert brought a rabbit to the door yesterday. Thank goodness Ada skinned and quartered it for me. I thought a hot pot would be a good idea, so I fried up the rabbit parts and put in a whole onion, chopped. But here’s what I thought to add—some sultanas. They come out big and juicy when they’re cooked and add a sweetness to the rabbit, so it’s like a little bit of summer in France added to winter in England. When this war is done, you can tell me all about France, can’t you? I daresay you’ll be home by spring in any case.
Now, back to your tea! Next I put in some chopped parsnip and carrot, and let the whole thing heat up together with a good knob of best butter. Can you smell it? The kitchen is still full of it, and the dogs are pawing at the back door. I poured everything into the big brown dish with a little sherry (I won’t have a glass at Christmas unless you’re here too), and made a stock, and then before I put the lid on, I did two things—I added some rosemary from the kitchen garden, and then I rolled out some bread dough into a long sausage-shaped rope, and sealed the lid with it. That way, when the casserole cooked through, the dough became a lovely bread to dip into the gravy. I dished up some for Bert and Danny and took it to the oast house for them, and they said that if the army had this, well, the Germans would be sent running by our boys and you would be out at the front, leading them. Though I say so myself, it cooked up a treat. Close your eyes, dearest Tom, and tell me what you think of the casserole. It was made for you, only for you, really.
Tom read the letter twice and felt a soporific wave wash over him. What was it Kezia’s father had called it, once, when they’d gone for a Sunday visit and sat down to dinner—what the Marchants called “luncheon”—and when everyone felt tired after the roast chicken and roast potatoes and vegetables and gravy? Postprandial torpor. Torpor. He’d meant to look up the word, but forgot. Now he felt tired, weary, but in truth he knew it was for want of a meal he felt like eating. Perhaps that would change soon. Perhaps if he just imagined the army’s pungent meat and mashed potatoes to be like something Kezia would cook, it would go down a bit easier.
Tom took a small sheaf of paper and some envelopes from the chest next to his bed.
Dearest Kezia,
The casserole was lip-smacking. My mother never called anything a casserole, so I wonder if that’s French, or something foreign like that. The rabbit was cooked right and tender, and it made my mouth water, the way the flesh fell off the bone. The gravy—
He stalled at gravy. Private Gravy, now a washer of floors and a recipient of name-calling.
The gravy was different from anything I’ve ever tasted or that you’ve cooked before. I think you should have gone a bit easy with the rosemary though, love, because you know a little goes a long way as far as I’m concerned. And perhaps a few less sultanas, though I liked the flavor. Did you sneak in a bit of honey? I could have sworn I tasted honey in there—mind you, parsnips can bring that sort of sweetness, can’t they? The bread was good and yeasty, and the way the gravy dripped off it, I thought I would hardly lift it to my mouth before it ran down my chin. I bet Bert couldn’t wait to get that down him, but I reckon Danny poked at it a bit before he had a taste. Now then, don’t you go giving the dogs anything from the table that you could eat yourself. I don’t want them getting fat and you getting thin.
You didn’t say much about the farm, but I was glad to hear that Ted and Mabel are still working for us. I can’t see them apart, and not everyone can get a firm hand on Mabel—even I haven’t got Bert’s way with her. If they took her, they’d have to take Bert as well, and I can’t see him in Kitchener’s Army.
Sid Rawlings, who comes from a farm the other side of Frittenden, said he heard from his missus that the Ministry are going to order woods and orchards to be ploughed in. Have you heard anything about it? Has anyone been around?
It’s going all right here. The other lads in my hut are a good lot. They’re feeding us well, so you’ll be happy to know I’m full to bursting—and with your cooking, how could I want for anything? I’m looking forward to the next dinner you set before me, I feel like a king sitting down at his royal table.
Have you heard from Dorrit?
Thea arrived at the station on the early train. There was a small fireplace in the carriage, between two facing rows of seats, and in this emptiness, with only the almost-spent coals for company, Thea felt in two minds regarding her decision to come to the farm before she was posted to France. It was Kezia’s letter that persuaded her.
The door opened, and a guard, feeling his balance as the train moved from side to side, came into the carriage, bearing a coal scuttle.
“Make up the fire for you, miss? It might be a sunny morning, but it’s still November, and they say it’ll be a hard winter, ’specially after that summer we had.”
Thea moved her legs to one side, allowing the guard to poke at the embers and add more nuggets of coal. She wondered why he had not enlisted—not that she would ask, for she had seen men harassed on the street; men who were lame, or who had been wounded already, or whose disability was not visible to the women who questioned their loyalty. It was always women who asked. Brazen and volatile, they demanded to know why that young man had not stepped forward to be counted among those who would lay down a life for their country. Thea closed her eyes. She had seen how her country had treated the poorest souls, and how they had been the first to press their sons into the army.
“Sorry about that,” said the guard, noticing Thea’s closed eyes as he drew back. “The fumes don’t half knock you back when the flame hits that coal. Goes right into your chest, it does.” He waited for the fire to take again, his legs braced as the train slowed coming into Sevenoaks. “That’s why I’m here and not over there, you know.” He thumped his chest with a closed fist and coughed for good measure. “I went up to the board, but the doc took one listen to my chest and shook his head. Said it was a wonder I could breathe at all. I told him about the pleurisy when I was a nipper, and he said my lungs were scarred, he could hear it, and he couldn’t pass me fit. Not that doing all this shoveling of coal makes me any fitter—but it’s a job, and it was my father’s job before me.”
“Perhaps there’s something else you could do for your country.”
“I reckon I’ll get over there eventually. The way our boys are coming back half dead.” He looked at Thea and leaned towards her. He reminded her of a woman, a gossip about to tell a secret she was bound to keep. “I’ve seen them, you know. At night. They bring them in on trains when there’s no one to see them—men with no faces, with no legs, and all the blood on their uniforms—they don’t even have time to change them, all that French mud still on them. But I’m not supposed to know, see.”
Thea nodded, feeling the locomotive pull as the driver applied the brakes. She closed her eyes and was thankful. She had nothing to
say to the guard. She had heard the story already.
“I didn’t want to say anything, but I’ve not seen many women in uniform. Not like that anyway. What’re you doing, then?” asked the guard.
“I’m with a medical unit.”
The guard laughed. “Oh, rolling bandages and making cups of tea for the doctors, eh?”
Thea shook her head, felt her temper blacken. “Not quite, young man—” She could hear the sharpness of her words, the knife nicking his skin. “I am a driver and a mechanic. I leave for France soon, probably in the next few weeks. I’ll be bringing our wounded from the battlefield, to safety.” She smiled. “And just in case, I’ve learned how to take apart a motor engine and put it all back together again, which will come in useful when the war’s over, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Passengers pushed past, hurrying through the carriage to step off onto the platform, though few joined the train. The guard touched his cap and turned away, caught in the press of bodies making their way towards the doors. Thea looked at her hands, clasped together on her lap. She had soured herself again; she had turned the knife and felt empty for it, and she felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. It wouldn’t have taken much to just agree with the man. After all, how was he to know?
Kezia was waiting in the gig outside the station. She was wearing a familiar tweed jacket, one treasured as best several years ago, and a muffler was drawn around her neck against a sharp wind that made the clear November sky shimmer like cut glass. For a second Thea thought Kezia and the mare resembled trains waiting at the station, their breath visible in rhythmic blasts as it condensed in the chill air.
“Thea!” Kezia waved and leaned to kiss Thea on the cheek as she clambered into the gig, throwing her kit-bag into the well behind the driver’s seat.
“You look the part, Thea—just look at you in your uniform! I hope you’re hungry, because we’ve been busy, Ada and me, making sure you’ll want for nothing before you go off.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have—I’ve a modest appetite these days,” said Thea.
“Not when you sample some of my cherry and leek soup, you won’t.”
“What?”
“It’s a treat, I promise you.”
They talked of the farm as Mrs. Joe stepped out, her gait light with forelegs high and footfall firm. It was when they arrived and Ada came to the back door, wiping her hands on a cloth, that Thea held her surprise in check, for as Kezia drew back the blanket that had protected them from the cold and stood up to jump down from the gig, it was Tom’s woolen trousers she was wearing, tucked into sturdy working boots.
“Where’s Danny, to unhitch the gig?” asked Thea.
Kezia laughed. “Can’t spare him to look out for me, Thea—Danny’s in the old orchard with Ted. We’re doing the Ministry’s bidding now, you know—well, to a point—and it’s a shame the Ministry doesn’t pay as well as the market. Now then, you go in and Ada will get you a nice cup of tea. I’ve to go down to Pickwick to have a word with Bert. Or do you want to come with me?”
Thea shook her head and turned to Ada, who nodded at Kezia in a conspiratorial manner, and Thea wondered what had been said, and perhaps Ada had been told that Thea hadn’t been herself, what with all the suffrage business, and now this volunteering. Together they watched Kezia step up into the gig once more and set off in the direction of the hill, which in turn would lead down to Micawber Wood and Pickwick field. Thea wondered who this Kezia was, and felt the loss of something she had grasped in her hand, as if it were fine sand sifting through a tight fist. She had thought she was leaving Kezia behind, that her friend was ceasing to be important, somehow, here on the farm. But instead, it was as if something of Tom had settled inside her friend and sister. The farm was becoming hers.
Ada held the door open into the kitchen. “Come in and sit by the fire, Miss Thea. Mrs. Brissenden made a lovely cake, you know, though we’re short on a few things now, but she did it all the same. It’s got pears and lavender in it—lavender, who would have thought it? But I tell you, she has a knack with things you wouldn’t wonder to put in a bowl together.”
Ada chatted on, and Thea let her ramble about the farm, about the wind and how the fire wouldn’t draw some mornings, or there was a downdraft and the kitchen would be filled with smoke. And she said there would be plenty of water in the copper, so if Miss Thea liked, she would draw off some into the tin bath and leave her in peace in the kitchen, because it couldn’t be comfortable for a woman, being in a uniform like that, all itchy. And Thea listened, nodding, agreeing, and then she said she’d go up to her room because she needed the familiarity, though it wasn’t familiar, because someone—Kezia, she knew—had filled a vase with small branches of autumn leaves, with cascades of November berries and chrysanthemums taken from her garden—no one had ever grown chrysanths there before, but Kezia had written to tell her that it was important to grow certain flowers amid the vegetables in the kitchen garden, as they kept pests at bay. When had Kezia learned this? When had she become mistress of the farm, as opposed to the farmer’s wife?
Thea took off her leather belt and unbuttoned her woolen jacket, removing one item of uniform after another. She pulled at her leather boots and stood in front of the long beveled mirror—when had there been a mirror in her bedroom? Her mother had always said a mirror was a woman’s distraction, that a wife with a mirror would pay more attention to her face than the mind of her husband, and it was the mind of the man of the house that counted. Now she looked at herself in her regulation undergarments and her regulation hat. She felt comfortable in the uniform. She remembered her uniform at Camden, how it protected her, how she felt safe in the blue serge skirt, with its regulation—always that word, regulation—six gore, two inches above the ankle. Two inches, no less, no more. There was the high-collared white blouse, worn with a blue ribbon at the neck, to be secured with a navy blue pin embossed with the name of the school. It was as if the word was placed under the chin to make girls hold their heads high because they were pupils of Camden. But she believed that wearing the uniform had allowed her character to form—there was no competition in dress, no obvious distinction between the scholarship girls and those of wealthy parentage. It was down to who you were to make something of yourself. And of course Kezia had worn the very same uniform, though the skirt seemed to have more swing on the taller girl when she strode out along the corridor. Thea wondered if anyone else noticed that Kezia could cover a fair amount of ground in a short time—if she chose to do so, and not linger.
She glanced out of the window, then, and watched as Kezia walked out of the barn, along the farm road towards the house. Her sleeves—Tom’s sleeves—were rolled up, and she carried her tweed jacket on a finger over her shoulder, as if the wind no longer mattered. She was striding now, the collies at heel. It occurred to Thea that in her campaign for suffrage, when she had been asking for an enfranchisement she believed in, she sometimes felt as if the request had become a deep black bellow of a yell. She had worn her green sash of hope against a white blouse, and she had run from the authorities to the point where she could not keep her food down. Now Kezia was marching towards the house, marching back to the kitchen. It was as if she were queen, and this her domain. She had assumed her position, not asked for permission.
Thea removed her underclothes and pulled on her old dressing gown, freshly laundered and laid across the bed ready for her. Stepping out onto the landing, she could hear Kezia laughing with Ada downstairs. It was a comfortable laughter, a laughter of inclusion, of belonging, and she could not wait to be in the kitchen, enveloped by Kezia’s warmth and Ada’s caring. As she lowered her head to avoid the beam above the door to the kitchen, Thea thought it would be sensible to consider the future, to talk about it with Kezia, because the future was bound to be different. She smiled, making up her mind to say something over dinner later—over whatever Kezia was dishing up for them. But as she walked into the kitchen and saw Kezia look up while filling the tin bath for
her, she checked herself, realizing that she felt as she had with the young guard on the train. Some rogue element in her character compelled her to show off her strength, to avoid feeling less than worthy—though afterwards she felt the worse for it. A childhood memory surfaced—the day she stepped on a bright May beetle she’d seen crawling across the kitchen floor. The act was quite deliberate. She’d felt a deep regret at her action. But to open the window, to use her hand to steer it towards freedom, would have meant giving in to the softer part of herself.
Chapter 10
In no circumstances is specific reference to be made on post cards, in letters, on matter posted in parcels or in private diaries sent from the theatre of operations . . . to the moral or physical condition of the troops.
—FIELD SERVICE POCKET BOOK,
1914
It was after supper, after the plates had been washed and the fire banked for the night, after the collies had settled on a blanket in front of the stove—a privilege never allowed by Tom, who would have said mollycoddling would soften a working dog’s heart—and after two bricks heated in coals had been wrapped in towels, one placed between the sheets of each bed, that Kezia and Thea made their way upstairs, carrying oil lamps to light the way. On the landing Kezia turned towards Thea and kissed her on the cheek.
Thea felt herself lean into the kiss as if she were a child, and though she drew back from articulating the feeling in her heart—she would not even say the words to herself, silently, in her mind—she felt a mothering warmth as Kezia’s lips brushed against her skin, and as her hand rested on her shoulder. Thea looked down, drawing herself back from the inner realization that perhaps Kezia had always mothered in her way. As her dearest and perhaps only friend, Kezia might have intuited that the former Mrs. Brissenden felt little affection for her children, but could be swollen with pride when it came to Tom’s accomplishments. Yes, she put food on the table, clothed her offspring, and set them off on life’s road, but she was a farmer’s wife, and it was her husband, her son, and the farm that took the milk of her love.