The Last Garden in England(81)

I love you.

Yours forever,

Graeme



Beth eyed Ruth, who sat on the edge of her bed, squinting in the fading light of the late-summer sunset. Ruth was attempting to apply a recipe for homemade nail varnish to her toes, but the paint was too clumpy to make a clean line.

“Do you think that one is better?” Ruth asked, sticking her foot up for Beth to examine.

“I don’t want to look at your feet, Ruth,” she said, raising her book in front of her nose. “Could you please go back to your own bed?”

“Yours is closer to the window. Besides, I need your opinion,” her roommate whined. “I’m half-blind as it is.”

“You wouldn’t be if you would wear your glasses,” she pointed out.

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re nearly a married woman. I can’t be out and about in glasses.”

“Nearly married is not the same thing as married,” she reminded Ruth.

In the weeks following D-Day, she’d been able to settle. A little bit. Graeme’s letters had been few and far between in the three weeks directly after the invasion while the supply lines were being established, but when he began to escort goods between Normandy and Southampton, she’d begun to receive letters nearly every other day. He couldn’t tell her much of what he was doing, but it seemed as though he was as safe as a soldier could be.

Each time he wrote, he told her he loved her. Each time she read those words, she knew that she’d chosen the right man. But constantly running in the back of her head were Mrs. Symonds’s words: Love can make women do ridiculous things. Intelligent women become silly. They give things up they never intended…

Day after day, Beth turned those words over in her head. She wasn’t naive. She knew that things would be different between her and Graeme after the war. For starters, she wouldn’t be a land girl any longer. All of her friends—Petunia, Alice, Christine, even Ruth—would go off to their respective homes. If not for Bobby, Beth would have counted on Stella leaving Highbury House as soon as possible.

Despite all of that, she wanted to stay. There were plenty of people who had made her feel welcome. The Penworthys, Mrs. Yarley, the Langs who kept sheep down the road. The sour Mr. Jones could be a welcome sight on days he grunted to her in greeting. Even Mrs. Symonds said hello in the village, although friendship seemed a laughable aspiration.

She could be happy in Highbury—she was convinced of it—and she wasn’t going to let that go on the vague promise of a life uprooting and resettling at army bases across the country. She refused to feel orphaned again.

“Come on.” Ruth shook her foot in front of Beth’s face.

She sighed and gave a cursory glance at the other woman’s toes. “Congratulations, it looks like you’ve painted them with red currant jelly.”

Ruth made an exasperated sound. “I don’t know why it’s not working.”

“Maybe because you’re not meant to be able to make nail varnish in Mrs. Penworthy’s kitchen sink,” she said.

Ruth flopped back on Beth’s bed. “Is it so much to ask for just a little bit of glamour?”

Despite herself, Beth smiled. Her first impression of Ruth—that the well-dressed, spoiled woman would be miserable no matter where she’d been assigned—stood. However, Ruth understood what it was to fall asleep before her head hit the pillow because she’d been baling hay all day. She had suffered through blistered hands, cracked heels, and chapped lips. They were both land girls, and that connection counted for something.

“Why don’t we go into Leamington Spa tomorrow and see if we can find you a new lipstick,” said Beth.

Ruth rolled over on her side. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s our day off. It will be fun.”

Ruth squealed with delight, and Beth settled back into her book with a laugh.



* * *



It was fun. In Leamington Spa, where there were shops and people and not a tractor in sight, Ruth came into her own.

Beth had let her roommate drag her around the shops, looking for a new dress for a dance. Beth was pleasantly surprised when, not having found anything up to Ruth’s standard, they headed for the fabric section of a department store.

“I think I’ll fit it through the bodice with little cloth-covered buttons marching up the front, and I’ll leave the skirt as full as I can with such a measly fabric allowance. But that cobalt blue will look divine against my hair,” said Ruth, touching her long red curls.

“It will,” said Beth as they walked by the train station, “but I didn’t know you could sew.”

Ruth grinned. “How do you think I have such a fabulous wardrobe when fashion is so dreary now? I only do it late at night after everyone’s gone to bed.”

“I had no idea.”

“You’re a heavier sleeper than you think.” Ruth stopped Beth with a hand on her arm. “I’d like to buy a flower for my hair.”

“All right,” said Beth, glancing at her watch. They could always catch the next bus.

They wove through the crowd of people exiting the train station, aiming for the little flower stand near the front.

“The London train must have just come in,” said Beth.

“I wonder if there are any new airmen. I heard that some are already making their way back from Normandy,” said Ruth, scanning the crowd.