The Victory Garden(36)

“Ah, there you are. I wondered if there had been an accident or something. It’s not much more than five miles, is it?” Her voice matched her haughty expression.

“They weren’t quite ready,” the old man said. His voice, on the other hand, had a strong Devon burr to it. “And it took a while to get their bags loaded on.”

“No matter,” the woman said as they climbed out of the back seat. “I am Lady Charlton. Welcome to Bucksley House. I trust you are going to return my grounds to their former glory.”

“We’ll do our best,” Emily and Alice muttered in unison.

“Splendid. Now, Simpson will show you where we keep the tools of your trade, and then he’ll drive you and your bags down to the cottage. You’ll install yourselves and then get right to work. Is that clear?”

“Yes, my lady,” they all muttered. In spite of her diminutive size, Emily found her quite intimidating.

“This way, ladies.” The old chauffeur led them around the house to a cluster of outbuildings. There were stables, now no longer used for horses. One now served as a garage for the motor car. And at the end of the row was a tack room. Inside was an ancient lawnmower and a rack of assorted shovels, forks, hoes and rakes.

“I reckon that grass is going to need to be scythed before you can mow it,” the old chauffeur said. “I doubt you young ladies have ever used a scythe!” And he chuckled.

“As a matter of fact, we’ve just come from haymaking,” Emily said. “We are pretty handy with a scythe.”

“Well, blow me down,” he said. “I’d help out, only my rheumatics makes it hard for me to do much these days. But I’ve been doing what I can for Her Ladyship, since all the menfolk went away and it were only me.”

“You’re the only man what’s here?” Alice asked.

He gave a grunt. “That’s me. Chauffeur, handyman, boot polisher—you name it, I do it. Should have retired years ago. I’m seventy-seven now, but I can’t leave Her Ladyship in the lurch, can I?”

“It’s very good of you, Mr Simpson,” Emily said.

He looked at her with interest. “And good of you, too, miss, if you don’t mind my saying so. Girls of your class aren’t meant to work in fields.”

“But I’m quite enjoying it, Mr Simpson,” Emily said. “Better than sitting at home doing nothing.”

“I’d agree with that,” he said. “My wife thanks the good Lord every day that I’m out of the house and not under her feet.” He nodded at them. “Come on then. Get back in the motor, and I’ll drive you down to the cottage. ’Tis a fair walk.”

They bumped down a rutted track that ran behind a kitchen garden. There were vegetables and various fruit bushes growing. “I tries to keep the kitchen garden growing so Her Ladyship has something to eat,” he said. “There used to be plenty coming from the home farm. Ten men working on that, there were, but now they’ve all gone to the war, apart from the farm manager and a couple of boys, so they are down to just a few cows and chickens these days.”

They had come to the bottom of the estate, close to the church and a weathered stone school building. Simpson got out to open a gate and they were back in the lane.

“Here we are,” he said. “Cragsmoor Cottage. It ain’t pretty, but it will keep the rain off your heads.”

This was not like the thatched cottages they had seen beside the green. It was a square stone building, like a child’s drawing of a house: two small windows on either side of a front door, its paint peeling. It was surrounded by a high stone wall and an overgrown garden.

“Come on then, get your things,” Simpson said, and he unlatched the straps on the back board. They opened the front gate and walked between high bushes to the front door. It opened with an ominous creaking sound. Inside felt cold and damp. They stood looking around them.

“I’ll leave you to it then.” Simpson started to walk away. “Don’t dilly-dally too long. Her Ladyship expects you to get straight to work. You can pick up your bedding when you come up to the house for your dinner.”

“Dinner?” Emily asked. “Are we not going to be fed at lunchtime?”

The old man chuckled. “Only posh folks like you call it luncheon. To us, it’s our dinner, isn’t it? I’ll be off then. You know your way back.”

“I was going to say I’ve seen worse, but I really haven’t,” Alice said.

“It really is pretty grim, I must admit,” Emily agreed. They were standing in what had been a living room. There were a couple of rickety wooden chairs, a table covered in a faded woven cloth and a big stone fireplace. The floor was slate tile. There were dark oak beams across the low ceiling, and tattered net curtains hung in the window. At the back was a tiny kitchen with a cast-iron stove, a copper and a sink, and on the other side was a bedroom with an old brass bedstead. An impossibly steep, narrow staircase led up to an attic, of which one end had been partitioned off into a small bedroom. The other side was an open storage area with no proper floor and various bits of broken furniture lying about. The bedroom ceiling sloped down, so that it was only possible to stand upright in the middle of the room. A small window on the side wall looked out over the village.

“I don’t like to say it, but there’s no bathroom and no lav,” Daisy said, coming up the stairs behind the other two.