Kitabı oku: «Whisper on the Wind», sayfa 2

‘You don’t? Then what would you call all those acres you’ve got to cultivate? Seems to me that whether you like it or not you’re up to the neck in farming for the duration, and so is Miss Roz. And she’s as well staying at home and looking after her inheritance as she is joining the Air Force or the Army.’

‘Inheritance? A few hundred acres of parkland and all that remains of a house? And the parkland will go back to grass when the war is over and be left idle again. Some inheritance! And it’s all I have to leave her. That, and her name,’ she whispered bitterly.

‘Now don’t get yourself upset, ma’am. I know it’s the time of year, but soon it’ll be Christmas and afore you know it there’ll be a new year to look forward to.’

The time of year. December, when everything awful happened, Hester brooded. They’d taken Martin from her in December and it had been December when Ridings caught fire, the lanes so blocked with snow that the horses pulling the fire engine made heavy going and arrived almost too late.

And did it have to be December when Janet and Toby drove up to Scotland, leaving a two-year-old child behind them at Ridings and never coming back for her?

‘Yes, Polly, it’ll soon be over. And take no notice of me. I’m just a silly old woman.’

‘Old? You? Nay, I’ll not have that.’

The Mistress was sixty-four, Polly knew that as fact. She looked nowhere near her age, with those great brown eyes and hardly a line on the whole of her face. A beautiful woman, holding back time; still waiting for her man to come home, and find her unchanged. To Polly, she was still the laughing young girl who came to Ridings all those years ago on Martin Fairchild’s arm. And she would always be a fitting mistress for Ridings, no matter how life had treated her.

Thank God for the man from the War Ag. because now Ridings would be earning its keep again – the Mistress would have a pound or two in her pocket and not have to worry about keeping body and soul together, counting every penny and every lump of coal she put on the fire. Hester Fairchild had kept her pride and reared Miss Janet’s little lass to be a credit to the place. High time she had a bit of luck. Heaven only knew she deserved some.

Sniffing, Polly placed her cup on the draining board. ‘Ah, well. Best be making a start. What’ll it be today, then? Bedrooms or bathroom and stairs?’

The sky was ice-blue, the earth hard underfoot, the grass white and crisp with hoar frost. There was no sun, but the sky shone with a strange, metallic brightness and Roz knew that tonight it would be bitterly cold again. Tonight, the bombers at Peddlesbury would remain grounded.

‘I’m back!’ she called, slamming shut the door, hurrying to the fire. ‘My, but it’s cold. No sign of a let-up. It’ll freeze hard again tonight, just see if it doesn’t. I don’t suppose there’s a cup of tea in the pot?’

There was. Almost always. Tea was rationed, so the pot was kept warm and used until the leaves inside it would take no more diluting.

‘What did Mat say?’ Hester poured boiling water into the pot. ‘Was he pleased?’

‘Mat wasn’t there. He’s gone to the Labour Exchange again to nag them some more about a farm man, and Jonty’s gone to York for spares for the tractor. Grace said he wants to make a start on our ploughing as soon as the frost lets up a bit. It’s going to be one heck of a job, you know.

‘And good news – they’re getting a landgirl very soon. She might even be there tomorrow. Grace said that since I know everybody in the village, it might be a good idea for me and the new girl to take over the milk-round.

‘So don’t worry too much, Gran love. We’ll have Ridings parkland earning its keep before so very much longer. Think I’d better pop upstairs and tell Polly about the letter …’

‘Polly knows, so don’t keep her talking!’ Hester called to the retreating back. Then her lips formed an indulgent smile, because it seemed that her granddaughter was right. Between them they would make those long-idle acres grow food and earn money. Roz didn’t have to go away and December would soon be over. There’d be another year to look forward to; another spring.

‘Thank you, Janet,’ she whispered, eyes closed, ‘for giving me this lovely child …’

Roz walked around the bed Polly was making and picked up a corner of the sheet. ‘You know about the letter, Poll?’

‘Aye. Charity begins at home.’

‘Hmm. Jonty’s making a start on Gran’s ploughing very soon and Mat’s been allocated a landgirl at last, so it’s all going to work out, isn’t it? We’ll make it by March, if the frost breaks soon. Bet it’s terrible on the Russian front. They say it’s the coldest December for nearly twenty years.’ She abandoned the bed-making to wander over to the dressing-table mirror. ‘It’s freeeeezing outside. Just look at my nose. Red as my hair, isn’t it?’ Frowning, she turned away. ‘I’m not a bit like Gran, am I, Poll? Come to think of it, I’m not really like anybody. Where do you suppose my colouring came from?’

‘Colouring? With hair like yours, you’re complaining?’

‘No. Just curious. Gran is dark and so was Grandpa. And my parents were dark-haired and dark-eyed, so who sneaked in my carrot top?’

‘Auburn.’ Carrot top, indeed!

‘Auburn, then. But where did it come from?’ Not from anyone in any of the portraits, that was certain. All the way up the stairs and on the landing and in the downstairs rooms, not one of the Fairchilds hanging there had red hair. ‘Where, will you tell me?’

‘Gracious, child, how should I know? From your father’s side, perhaps, or maybe you’m a bit of a throwback? Yes, come to think of it, there was one with red hair, I seem to remember. Her portrait got burned, though, in the fire.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Roz didn’t remember, but best not talk about the fire, especially in December, that bleakest of months. ‘I suppose it makes a change – my being green-eyed, I mean, and red-haired.’

‘Suppose it does. Wouldn’t do if we all looked alike, would it? Now are you going to give me a hand with this bed, or are you going to stand there staring into that mirror till it’s done?’

‘It isn’t going to be a barrel of laughs, Poll, my being in a reserved occupation.’ Roz straightened the fat, pink eiderdown. ‘People look at you when you’re young and not in uniform, you know. Jonty’s had all sorts slung at him.’

‘Then I’m sure I don’t know why.’ Polly sniffed. ‘Jonty is doing a good job for the war effort and so will you be. Growing food is important, or why did they make you reserved?’

‘Yes, but when you’re as young as Jonty and me, people just expect you to be in uniform. He’s taken quite a bit of stick about it. “Get some in!” someone yelled after him. “Why aren’t you in khaki, mate? A bloody conchie, are you?”, though I know he’d rather have been a pilot, or a Commando.’

‘They’d never take Jonty Ramsden for a pilot nor a Commando,’ Polly retorted, matter-of-factly. ‘When did you ever see a pilot or a Commando wearing spectacles? Jonty will survive such talk and so will you, though it’s sad people should say things like that.’

If Martin Fairchild had been in a reserved occupation in the last war, he’d have been alive today, the older woman brooded. Uniforms were all very well, were fine and smart and patriotic, but they got you killed. The Mistress wouldn’t have minded the taunts. And now it was happening again. The war to end all wars, they said that one had been, yet only twenty years on …

Sad for the young ones, really. This war was none of their making, yet it was young shoulders the burden had fallen on, Polly sighed silently, and so many of them would never see the end of it. The Master hadn’t, nor her own young man. But that war was history, now. Their war had been glorified slaughter and because of that she was glad Miss Roz was staying at home with her gran; glad she would never join the armed forces, nor wear a uniform. And if thinking that was unpatriotic, then she didn’t give a damn, Polly thought, defiantly. Roz was all the Mistress had left. It was as simple as that.

Now the daft young thing was nattering on about her hair again, and that they could do without. Mind, it came up from time to time and was dealt with by her grandmother. But Roz ought to be told, Polly scowled, picking up dustpan and brush. She’d said as much, not all that long ago.

‘Don’t you think Miss Roz is old enough to know about –’ she’d said.

‘About what?’ the Mistress had interrupted, off-hand. ‘That she’s a Fairchild? But she knows that, Polly. She’s always known it. What more is there to tell?’

What more indeed? The Mistress had probably been right. And even if she wasn’t, she had her reasons for acting as she did.

‘She’ll hear nothing from me.’

‘Of course she won’t, Poll Appleby. There’s nothing to tell,’ Hester Fairchild replied briskly. Then her face had taken on that long-ago look. ‘Polly, if suddenly I weren’t here –’

‘Oh, aye? And where, suddenly, are you going, then?’

‘You know what I mean! I’m talking about the war; about nobody being certain of anything any more, and you know it. If suddenly I weren’t here, Poll, then it would be up to you. Because you’re the only one who knows, apart from me; the only one I’d trust to tell her. But only if she really needed to know, you understand?’

‘Aye, ma’am. Only if,’ she’d said, and the matter had been dropped for all time. Or so they had thought.

Oh, drat that lass and the colour of her hair! Why did she have to go on about it? Why on earth couldn’t she leave well alone?

‘Marvellous!’ Kathleen Allen heaved her suitcase from the bus stop opposite, glad to reach the shelter of the railway station again. ‘Flipping rotten marvellous!’

To think she might now be sitting beside the fire at home, her feet snug in Aunt Min’s hand-knitted slippers, a cup of tea at her side. But she stood instead in a blacked-out, unknown city and the next bus to Alderby St Mary not due for two more hours.

But it was her own fault. She should have heeded her husband’s warning and found war work in a factory or office; anywhere but in the Land Army. Dejectedly she sat down on her suitcase. The journey to York had been a nightmare. She had missed her connection at Crewe, though she strongly suspected there had been no connection to miss, then, after giving right of way to a goods train, a troop train and a train carrying ammunition, they at last pulled out of the station almost two hours late.

You were right, Barney. I should have listened to you. And do you know something else? I’m so cold and hungry that I’d sell my soul for a cup of tea!

She wasn’t crying, she really wasn’t. It was just that it was so cold and draughty sitting here in a gloomy, grimy station that her eyes were watering, and –

‘Hi, mate! Anything the matter?’ A Waaf corporal in trousers and battle-dress top stood there, smiling. ‘Would one of these help?’ She reached into her pocket for cigarettes. ‘Go on, it’s all right.’

‘No! I shouldn’t.’ Cigarettes were hard to come by. It wasn’t fair to take other people’s, be what they called an OP smoker, ‘I’m all right, thanks. Just a smut in my eye …’

‘I know the feeling well, but it passes, it really does.’ The girl in airforce blue took two cigarettes from the packet, then struck a match. ‘You wouldn’t be looking for a lift?’

‘A lift? Oh, aren’t I just.’ Kath inhaled blissfully. ‘But I don’t suppose you’re going my way. Not to Alderby St Mary?’

‘I can do better than that.’ The corporal laughed, ‘I go right past Peacock Hey, and I’ll bet a week’s pay that’s where you’re going.’

‘But I am! I am!’

‘Then just wait till that lot have unloaded their kit.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the airmen who jumped down from the back of the truck. ‘They’re going on leave, the lucky dogs. Home for Christmas. Makes you sick, don’t it?’

‘Sick. Yes.’ Kath drew deeply on her cigarette, then held the lighted end in the cup of her hand, just as she had seen Barney do; just as the corporal did now. Come to think of it, it was the way cigarettes were always held after dark, for didn’t they say that even the minutest glow could be seen from an enemy plane, though she very much doubted it. The real reason for cupping a cigarette, she supposed, was to hide it, for smoking outdoors in uniform was forbidden. Wasn’t it wonderful that she, Kath Allen, was in uniform now and being called mate by an Air Force driver? Mate. It sent a great glow of belonging washing over her and Barney’s expected disapproval was suddenly forgotten. She was a landgirl, wasn’t she? Still cold and hungry of course, but she was going to live in the country and work on a farm. Before long she would be at Peacock Hey and with luck there’d be a sandwich and a cup of tea there, maybe even hot water for a bath.

‘Thanks.’ She smiled at the Waaf corporal. ‘Thanks a lot – mate.’

They drove carefully. The streets of York hadn’t been laid down with RAF trucks in mind, the corporal said, and there were blacked-out traffic lights which could hardly be seen.

‘Isn’t it amazing,’ Kath murmured when the city was behind them, ‘you knowing about Peacock Hey, I mean.’

‘Not really. The girls there go to the Friday-night dances at our place and sometimes, if I’m on late duty like now, I take the truck and collect them.’

‘Your place?’

‘RAF Peddlesbury. There’s a big old house on the very edge of the runway called Peddlesbury Manor; it’s the Ops Centre and the Mess, now, and some of the unmarried officers sleep there, too. I believe Peacock Hey was once owned by the manor; I think the bailiff lived there. The Peacock girls are a decent crowd. It’s your first billet, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never lived in the country, you see – come from Birmingham …’

‘Well, one thing’s certain. It’s a whole lot quieter round these parts than Birmingham – or London, where I come from. Not a lot of bombing here, but we get quite a few nuisance raids. On the whole, though, you can expect to get a good night’s sleep. Has anyone told you where you’ll be working?’

‘Haven’t a clue. Hope it isn’t a dairy farm. Couldn’t milk a cow to save my life.’

‘You’ll learn, mate.’ The girl at the wheel grinned. ‘When I joined this mob I’d never been in charge of anything more lethal than a push-bike and look at me now, driving this truck.’

Kath sat contented in the darkness of the cab, peering into the rolling blackness as if she were riding shotgun. She wished she didn’t feel so smug, so defiant almost, because at this moment she didn’t care what Barney’s next letter might bring. For just once she was doing what she wanted to do and it was heady stuff. When the war was over and Barney came home, she would be a devoted wife, keep his home clean and always have his meals ready on time. But for now, for the duration, she would enjoy every minute of being a landgirl and living in the country. If the corporal could learn to drive a truck, then Kathleen Allen could learn to milk a cow and maybe even drive a tractor. She let go a sigh of pure bliss.

‘Tired?’

‘No. Just glad I’m almost there.’ Kath smiled.

‘Not almost. This is it.’ Gently they came to a stop. ‘Careful how you get down.’

‘This is the hostel?’

‘Across the road, beside that clump of trees. Mind how you go. See you around.’ The engine started with a roar.

‘See you. And thanks a lot, mate!’

The front gate of Peacock Hey had been painted white and the stones, too, that lined the path to the front door. Kath walked carefully, feeling for the doorstep with the toe of her shoe. She couldn’t find a bellpush, so knocked loudly instead, waiting apprehensively.

From inside came the swish of a curtain being pulled, then the door opened wide.

‘Where on earth have you been, girl? We expected you before supper. It’s Kathleen Allen, isn’t it?’

‘That’s me. Sorry I’m late. The –’

‘Oh, away with your bother.’ The tall, slender woman drew the blackout curtain over the door again then switched on the light. ‘Trains bad, I suppose?’

‘Awful. I got a lift, though, from York.’ She looked around at the linoleum-covered floor and stairs, at the row of coat pegs and the letterboard beside the telephone. It reminded her of the orphanage, yet her welcome here had been warm, and there was a vase of yellow and bronze chrysanthemums in the stair alcove. The flowers comforted her, assured her it would be all right. She had a theory about houses – they liked you or they didn’t. Either way it showed, and Peacock Hey liked her.

‘I don’t suppose there’d be a cup of tea?’ she asked, nervously.

‘There would, lassie, but let’s get your case upstairs, then you can come down to the kitchen and have a bite. Cook lives locally and she’s away home, but she left you something and I’ve been keeping it hot in the bottom of the oven.

‘Afraid you’re in the attic – oh, I’m Flora Lyle by the way. I’m your Forewoman.’ She held out her hand and her grip was warm and firm. ‘I hope you don’t mind being shoved up here? It’s cold in winter and hot in summer, but it’ll only be until someone leaves and there’s bedspace for you in one of the rooms. We shouldn’t really use the attics – fire-bomb risk, you know, but I don’t suppose there’ll be any, and there’s sand and water up there, just in case. And you will have a room to yourself,’ she added, as if by way of compensation. ‘It’s just that we’re so crowded …’

‘It looks just fine to me.’ Kath set down her case and gazed around the small, low-ceilinged room, saw a black-painted iron bed, mattress rolled, blankets folded, a window hung with blackout curtains in the gable-end wall. Stark, it was, like the orphanage; bare like her room had been in service.

‘Your cupboard is outside on the landing, I’m afraid.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t.’ A chest of drawers stood beneath the sloping ceiling, a chair beside the bed. ‘It’s fine, truly.’

Kath didn’t mind being in the attic. She had slept in an attic the whole of her years in domestic service and shared it, what was more, with a maid who snored. A room to herself was an unknown luxury, far removed from the long, green dormitory she once slept in with nineteen others. Even married to Barney she had shared, not only with him which was to be expected, but with his mother next door, for she’d been sure the old lady lay awake nights, ears strained for every whisper and every creak of their marital bedsprings. Yes, an attic – a room to herself would be bliss and she wouldn’t care if they left her there until it was all over, and Barney came home.

Barney? Oh, lordy! If only he could see her now.

‘I don’t suppose you know where I’ll be going to work?’ Kath hung her coat and gas mask on the door peg.

‘I do. You’re going to Ramsden’s farm, at the far end of Alderby village. You’re urgently needed, it seems. They want you there in the morning. Now, lassie, do you want to unpack first, or would you rather eat?’

‘Eat – please!’ Kath followed her amiable Forewoman to the warmth of the kitchen, sighing as the plate was set before her.

She would remember this day for ever, she really would. Thursday, 18th December 1941; the day on which her new life began. It had taken a long, long time, but now she was here in the country and it was near-unbelievable and undeniably wonderful.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered huskily. ‘Thanks a lot …’

2

There was no denying that bicycles figured importantly in Kathleen Allen’s life. They always had, as far back as she could remember, starting with the orphanage and the little tricycles that were the only memory worth keeping from those days of grudging charity. The bright red three-wheeler with the noisy bell was her favourite and she had pedalled around and around the asphalted yard on this gaudy friend who shared her secret dreams; dreams in which she was not an orphan but a real little girl whose mother dressed her in a buttercup-sprigged cotton dress with knickers to match and whose father gave her rides on the crossbar of his bicycle and boasted, ‘Our Kathleen’s doing well at school.’ Our. That lovely, belonging little word.

When her in-service days began, there had been her first proud possession, something entirely her own, paid for at three shillings and sixpence a month, for a whole year. A second-hand bicycle, black-painted, with a bag on the back and a basket at the front.

‘Lizzie,’ she whispered, remembering. ‘Old Tin Lizzie.’

She had ridden Tin Lizzie on her afternoons off and on summer evenings when she finished work. She was cycling in the country the day she and Barney met. Had it not been for a flat tyre, the lorry driver would never have jumped from his cab and offered his help.

‘Oh dear, chucks. Know how to mend it?’

She shook her head, knowing only that the cost of repair would take a large bite from the one pound ten shillings she received on the last day of each month.

So the driver put the bicycle on the back of his lorry and drove to the Birmingham town house in which she worked, offering to remove the wheel and repair the puncture in his own backyard. To her shame she had refused, for where was the guarantee she would ever see her wheel again?

But she saw Barnaby Allen again that very next evening when he knocked loudly on the front door – the front door, mind you – saying he was the bicycle repair man. The parlourmaid pointed in the direction of the area steps, reminding him tartly that the kitchen door was the one upon which to knock when doing business with a housemaid.

Barney. His cheekiness had made her laugh and the dedication with which he courted her had been quite bewildering. And now, at six o’clock in the morning she was cycling into her new, exciting life, wishing she knew where Alderby St Mary was, let alone Matthew Ramsden’s farm.

She stopped, listening, eyes peering into a darkness that came back at her in dense, rolling waves. ‘Alderby’s about a mile down the lane,’ Flora had told her at the hostel. ‘Keep straight on and you can’t miss it. Watch out for the Air Force boys, though. Drive those trucks like fiends some of them do …’

She set off again cautiously; you had to take care in the blackout. Swollen noses, bruises and shattered spectacles had become a joke, almost. ‘Jumped out and hit you, did it?’ Unexpected obstacles had a lot to answer for, especially lamp-posts.

Ahead, the first pale streaks of daybreak coloured the sky, tipping the clouds with yellow, all at once giving shape to houses and trees and the tower of a church. This must be the place, sitting at the end of the longest, darkest, slowest mile she had ever pedalled. Surely she would find someone soon, who could tell her where to find Matthew Ramsden’s farm.

She stood still again and listened, breath indrawn. That was something else about the blackout. You couldn’t see, so you listened. Surprising how another sense took over. Someone was there and not too far away, either. She pulled in her breath once more, heard the slow, rhythmic grating of cartwheels and the clop of hooves somewhere to her right. ‘Hullo?’ she called eagerly. ‘Hullo, there!’

‘Over here! Watch out for the horse-trough!’ A pinpoint of light made circles in the darkness and she walked carefully in the direction of the voice. A pony and trap came into focus; milk bottles clinked.

‘Hullo?’ she said again.

‘Here I am.’ A woman’s voice. ‘Looking for someone?’

‘Goodness! Am I glad to meet you.’ Kath’s laugh was high with relief. ‘I’m looking for Ridings Home Farm. Is this Alderby St Mary?’

‘It is. Just hang on till I check that I haven’t missed anybody.’ A spot of torchlight shone on the pages of a book, lighting a young face and a fall of auburn hair. ‘That’s it, then. Just the school milk to drop off, and Polly’s, then I’m finished. I’m Roz Fairchild, by the way. I work at Ridings.’ A hand reached out.

‘Kathleen Allen. Kath.’ She grasped the hand firmly, ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’ She really was.

‘Not as glad as Mat Ramsden’s going to be to meet you. He’s desperate for help. Hope you’re his new landgirl?’

‘That’s me, though I’ve only just joined. It’ll be my first farm and I’m a bit nervous.’

‘Then don’t be, because I’m new to it, too. This is my first day – my first official day. We’ll muddle through between us.’

‘I can’t milk, Roz.’ Worrying about those cows again, dammit.

‘Neither can I, but it’s machine milking at Mat’s so it won’t be too bad. Jonty will show us how. Let’s be making tracks, eh? I’m just about frozen.’ The weather wasn’t letting up, thank heaven. There’d be no ploughing but there wouldn’t be any flying, either. Paul would make it to the dance tonight. ‘Grace is sure to have the kettle on. C’mon, Daisy. Hup, girl.’

The little pony set off with a toss of its head that set the harness jingling.

Daisy, Kath smiled; Roz and Daisy. Two friends, and she was on her way to hot tea and a welcome.

Happiness flushed her cheeks. She wouldn’t spoil one minute of this day by worrying about what Barney’s letter would bring. There was a war on and a woman whose husband was away at war must learn to think for herself, make decisions she would once never dreamed of making. No, Kath decided, suddenly headily defiant, she wouldn’t worry – well, not until Barney came home.

She smiled with pure pleasure and fell in behind the milk-float that would lead her to the farm. New friends and tea. What more could a girl – a landgirl – want on this most special morning?

They came upon Ridings unexpectedly, rounding the broad sweep of lane to see it there ahead of them. It was one of the nice things about the old house, Roz always thought. Now, the fast-lightening sky silhouetted it sharply, sending a glow like candlelight through the empty stone windows, gentling the jagged, broken shell.

‘What’s that old ruin? An abbey?’ Kath gasped.

‘That’s Ridings,’ Roz laughed, ‘or what’s left of it. I live there.’ She always enjoyed telling people she lived in a ruin.

‘Oh, goodness, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …’ Her embarrassment was short-lived, for Roz was smiling. ‘I mean – it’s an unusual name, isn’t it?’

‘Ridings? I suppose it is. It’s because half of it is in the North Riding and half of it’s in the West Riding. The boundary line runs right through the estate. And it isn’t all a ruin. There’s a bit more to it than that. It was built in the shape of a T, you see, and the top of the T was completely destroyed, but the stem, the bit at the back, survived. That’s the part we live in.’

She called the pony to a halt. She loved this aspect of the old house; always from this spot she sent up a thank you that it hadn’t been entirely gutted that December day, twenty-four years ago.

‘It must have been one heck of a place,’ Kath breathed. ‘And just look at those gates …’

The entrance to Ridings had been built with pride. Sweeping stone gateposts were topped by finely chiselled greyhounds and on either side of them the gate lodges stood splendidly ornate. Kath gazed at the intricately patterned gates and the garish morning light that filtered through the delicate ironwork.

‘The height of three men and as old as the house itself.’ Roz smiled, though the name of the craftsman who created them had never been known. ‘I’m glad you like them. Mind, we live in fear that someone’s going to take them away before very much longer.’

She hoped the gates would escape the scrap metal hunters; men who came with the blessing of the Government and removed gates and railings without so much as a by-your-leave, carting them off to be melted down for the war effort. Only field gates were safe, and unpatriotic though it was to harbour such thoughts, Roz was glad that so far Ridings’ gates had not been found.

‘Who did it?’ Kath demanded. ‘Cromwell?’

‘No. This one we can’t blame on him, though the Fairchilds were Royalists, I believe. It was a fire; a wiring fault. Funny, really, that it survived for nearly four hundred years with candles and oil lamps and then my grandfather decided that electricity would be safer.’

‘How big was it?’ Much bigger, surely, than the orphanage.

‘Quite a size – over twenty bedrooms, but I never saw it the way it was. There are pictures, though, and photographs, and I sometimes think the fire was meant to be because Gran and me couldn’t have kept it going; not a place that size.’

‘It’s yours? You own it?’

‘It’s Gran’s. Before my father died – he was an architect – he had the ruins tidied up, sort of. The fire destroyed the roof so everything had to be pulled down for safety, except the outer walls. Then Gran had creepers and climbing roses planted against them and in summer it looks really beautiful. It’s mellowed, I suppose.’

‘And was much left, at the back?’

‘Too much, I’m afraid. It’s murder keeping it warm in winter. The part that survived was once the kitchen block and servants’ quarters and my father drew up the plans when Gran had it done over. You’ll see it, when you meet her.

‘But let’s get Daisy watered and fed, then we can thaw ourselves out at Grace’s fire, and cadge a cup of tea.’

Roz looked at the young woman beside her, seeing her clearly for the first time, amazed by her beauty. There was no mistaking it, even in a face pinched with cold and tied round with a head-scarf. Deep, blue-grey eyes, thick-lashed, and a full, sensuous mouth.

‘Is your boyfriend in the forces, Kathleen?’

‘My husband is. Barney.’ Her lips moved into a brief smile. ‘He’s in North Africa – a driver in the Service Corps. And call me Kath, will you? I’m used to Kath. What about you?’ Too young to be married. Seventeen, perhaps?

‘Not married, but I’ve got a boyfriend. I’m seeing him tonight. There’s a – Damn!’ She reached for a bottle of milk. ‘I forgot Polly at the lodge! Won’t be a minute. Just follow Daisy, will you? She knows her way home. I’ll catch you up.’