The Victory Garden(83)

Even Lady Charlton agreed to attend this time. She was dressed in a very grand, black Victorian dress, with a cape trimmed with sable. Emily had had a little trouble with deciding what to wear. Her waistline had expanded beyond the two good frocks she had brought with her. Her skirts were now held together with elastic. She had to make do with draping her good shawl artfully across herself. As the church hall was always chilly, this was quite acceptable. The day started with a thanksgiving service, then they processed across to the hall to where the tables were laid for the feast. Mr Patterson played the piano, and two of the older pupils accompanied him on violin and recorder. To begin with, everyone was in high spirits. The pig had been roasting on a spit outside all night, and the aroma wafting in through the door was mouth-watering.

Grace was said. The pig was carved, and for a while the hall fell silent as everyone ate.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” Nell Lacey said. “After so long.”

“I don’t know exactly why we’re celebrating,” Mrs Soper replied. “What is there to celebrate? That’s what I want to know. We’ve all lost someone. Life will never be the same.”

“We’re celebrating that at least no more sons will be lost,” Nell said. “Your boys will grow up without you having to fret that they’ll be sent to the front.”

“My boys will have to grow up without their father,” Mrs Soper said bitterly. “Who will teach them the trade properly? Granddad here knows his stuff, but his eyesight is so poor that he’s not much help. We women are muddling through right now, but how long can we keep going? And if we have to close the forge, then where will folks get their horses shod?”

“Maybe we’ll all take to motor cars instead,” one of the younger women suggested, “and motor tractors. I saw one working in a field the other day. Going ever so fast, it was.”

“If you ask me, this village will start dying,” Mrs Soper said. “Who will be coming back to work at the home farm? And if nobody is working, who will buy from the shop? Or who will visit the Red Lion? We might as well call it at day and move to the nearest town.”

“There’s no way you’d find me living in a town,” Nell Lacey said hotly.

“Nor me,” Mrs Upton from the shop replied.

Emily had been sitting at one end of a long table, next to Lady Charlton, who had been afforded the place of honour.

“Then I say it’s up to us women now,” Lady Charlton said. There was silence as they turned to her. “Maybe we give up the smithy, but there are other things we can do. Market gardening at the farm instead of livestock. Chickens instead of cows. People will always need to eat. This young lady has got my winter vegetables going, and we can all do the same. We can survive . . .”

“And some of the boys will be coming back,” one of the young wives from the cottages said. “My Joe is alive and well, last I heard. His ship will be coming back from foreign waters, and he’ll go back to the farm.”

“And my Johnny,” Fanny Hodgson, another of the younger women, spoke up. “He’s alive still. He wrote to me just two weeks ago. He’ll be—”

She had a squirming toddler on her lap and a young boy running around with the other children. Suddenly, this boy let out a scream.

“It’s Dad!” he yelled. “He’s coming now!”

Women jumped up from the tables and raced across to the windows. A young man in a soldier’s uniform was walking up from the bridge, his kitbag over his shoulder. Fanny Hodgson gave a little cry, handed her toddler to another woman and pushed her way through the crowd, running down the path to meet him, arms wide open.

The whole crowd stood in silent awe as the couple came into each other’s arms, embracing with abandon. Emily blinked away tears—tears of joy for this couple, and tears of regret that she would never have a reunion like this.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The days after Johnny Hodgson came home were ones of hope for Emily. Two more men returned—labourers on the home farm. There was optimism in the air, and she found herself thinking about the future. Maud had been right. She did miss her own kind. She did miss having someone to share thoughts and worries with. Lady Charlton was being extremely kind, Emily knew. And she had come to look upon Emily as a young relative. Alice and Daisy were also great pals, but somehow it wasn’t the same. Even though Daisy was making strides with her reading, Emily realized she would probably never tackle Dickens or read poetry. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she wanted to move out of the cottage before the curse could strike her. She told herself over and over that she was a modern woman and she did not believe in curses, but she couldn’t put Susan Olgilvy out of her mind. Had she been hanged? She wanted to know more, and yet she was afraid to learn the truth.

There is nothing I can do about it anyway, she told herself. Best to forget I ever read that diary. And yet it seemed she was destined to take over Susan’s role in the community. Several more women had approached her to ask for the sleeping potion she had given Mrs Soper. She found herself walking through the herb garden and wondering what plants might shoot up again in the spring. She had noticed some remedies to “appease the torments of childebirthe,” and considered making a batch in order to be ready.

One bright morning, she was walking up from the cottage, pleased to notice that her little cabbages and cauliflowers had turned into sturdy young plants and that the saucers of beer that Simpson had put out had taken care of the slugs, when she sensed someone watching her. A man was standing on the hillside above the garden, hands in his pockets and staring at her. At first, she took him for another tramp, but then she saw that he was clean-shaven, with short blond hair. He kept staring for a moment, then started to come down towards her. He was young, but his face was thin to the point of looking haggard, and his eyes were sunken as if he had been ill. The lower half of his face was hidden under a big blue woollen scarf and he was wearing a tweed jacket. She, in turn, walked up to the drystone wall that surrounded the property.