The Last Garden in England(36)
“And you want to bring it back to life,” said Emma.
“It deserves to be filled with people and love and laughter again. And the garden, too.”
Emma picked up the photos. “If you don’t mind, I’ll show these photographs to Charlie, and we’ll incorporate them into our plans. We’ll start planting the garden rooms and borders as soon as the rain eases up.”
“Have you had any luck with Henry?” Sydney asked.
Emma shifted in her seat, thinking about how often she’d checked her phone the week after they’d met. “We talked, but he hasn’t been in touch,” she said. He was a source of information, that was all. But that didn’t explain why she’d started listening to Motown albums since meeting him.
“I’ll talk to him and get a progress report. Or better yet, you could ask him yourself. He’ll be at the pub quiz tomorrow,” said Sydney.
“I—”
“And before you tell me that you’re busy that evening—again—just know that it’s a no-pressure situation. We won’t make you do an initiation rite or anything like that. You can ask Charlie. He came a couple of weeks ago.”
And Charlie showed up to work with a sore head the next day, claiming he’d gotten caught up in a discussion with a philosophy professor from Warwick University and hadn’t noticed the bartender swapping his empties.
Still, Emma returned Sydney’s smile. “I appreciate that, but I’m not sure I’m free.”
“One of these weeks I’m going to catch you in the right mood at the right time, and you’re going to come and love it.”
“One of these weeks,” she echoed. Maybe a little time at the pub would do her good after all.
? BETH ?
12 April 1944
Dearest Beth,
You don’t know how much I look forward to your letters. They remind me there’s someone besides Ma and Dad waiting at home for me, praying I return.
The little drawings you’ve done of all of the land girls and the Penworthys are very good. I feel like I almost know them. My favorite is Stella, chasing after the Bosh with a rolling pin. If we had women like that on the front, this war would be won faster.
It’s strange that you’ve met so few of the soldiers at Highbury House, but maybe that’s for the best. I’d like to keep you all for myself.
With all my affection,
Colin
The spring sun shone down strong and hot enough that Beth took off her cap as she crossed through the gate of Highbury House Farm. Last week, the farmer here, a Mr. Jones, had called on Mr. Penworthy, asking if he could have loan of her because she knew how to drive a tractor. Her employer had allowed her to go, but with strict stipulations.
“She’s a good one, our Beth. As good as any of the men I’ve had work here,” she’d overheard Mr. Penworthy say from around the corner of the barn where she was scrubbing mud off the tractor. “I won’t like it if I hear any word about her being mistreated.”
Beth’s heart had swelled twice its size, and she’d smiled brightly the next time she’d seen Mr. Penworthy, causing him to mutter something about cheerful girls.
Apparently she was not the only one on loan that day. In Mr. Jones’s farmyard, she saw a dozen land girls in a semicircle. She hurried to the edge and nodded hello to Christine and Anne from the dairy farm in Combrook and Alice, a girl who’d just turned eighteen and had come to help with the sheep in Alderminster. She’d seen them last at a country dance at the end of March, each one dressed in their best, imitation stocking seams drawn up the back of their calves with eye pencil and lips coated in the precious lipstick they saved for when the men from RAF Wellesbourne Mountford were allowed off the air base. Now these same girls were scrubbed clean, dressed in bulky green sweaters and loose-fitting, durable trousers. Without their makeup and with their hair pulled back, they all looked startlingly young, but, Beth supposed, that was because they were.
“Welcome to Highbury House Farm, ladies,” said Mr. Jones, casting a skeptical eye over each of them. “I don’t know what it’s like on your farms, but I want to make it clear that I won’t tolerate any whinging here. If you can’t do the work, I’ll send you back. Is that clear?”
“And what work will we be doing?” a strapping girl with a crooked grin asked. The posh cut to her vowels drew some looks, and even Beth cast her an extra glance. Yet this girl leaned forward as she spoke as though she couldn’t wait to get stuck in.
Mr. Jones grunted. “Clearing land at the big house. We have a week to prepare and plant it.”
Beth’s heart sank at the idea of all that beauty sacrificed to the war effort. Each time she made her deliveries for Mr. Penworthy, she risked a little peek at the garden. She didn’t dare go as far as the lake because of the risk of being spotted by the hospital or household staff, but she loved the garden rooms with their surprising little nooks and crannies. She’d asked Stella about them, but her friend said she had far too much to do every day to spend time in the garden.
“Which of you can drive?” Mr. Jones asked. Beth and Christine put their hands up. “You’ll find the keys in the ignition. The rest of you can walk.”
Beth walked over to one of the two tractors and climbed up into the cab.