Winter Roses, page 22
He zoomed round the kitchen again, managing to sweep the carrots and potatoes off the table in the process.
‘Just you take care of yourself, Master George,’ Margaret said sharply as he scrabbled to pick them up again. ‘None of your pranks up in the air – you’re there to keep the Germans away, not show off. And you mind you find all those spuds – there’s a shortage, you know.’
‘Yes, Mrs Dibble.’
‘Will you be anywhere near Fred? My Joe said he was on the Somme, and I can’t help being worried.’ This was understating the case. She hadn’t slept a wink the night after she read that.
‘There’s no shortage of spuds out there, Mrs D. He’ll still be busy on those, don’t you worry. Someone has to peel them.’
‘Yes.’ She wasn’t convinced. Weren’t they recruiting girls like Miss Phoebe now for canteen work?
Master George stayed two days and then went back to join his new squadron. Everything became quiet again in the Rectory, and she tried to be extra cheerful herself for Mrs Lilley’s sake.
‘I’ve got a nice piece of lamb for family dinner, Mrs Lilley. Wally Bertram put it aside specially,’ she announced when she went into the morning room for her daily ‘orders’. Not that she was given (or accepted) orders nowadays; it was more a discussion of what was available.
‘Now it’s just the three of us again, and Lady Buckford, of course,’ Mrs Lilley said practically, ‘there’s little point in your cooking two separate meals, one for us and one for yourselves. It’s much more economical of time and food to cook just the one dish. And just the two courses.’
‘But what about the Rector’s cheese?’ Margaret was appalled. ‘He can’t do without that.’
Mrs Lilley didn’t reply. She had been opening her post, was staring at one letter, something official, it looked like.
‘It’s this new Women’s Land Army they’re recruiting for. They want the WWAC to establish hostels and training facilities in East Grinstead. Oh, I wish Caroline were here. And they want to know how many we can absorb.’
‘Here in the Rectory, madam?’ Margaret tried not to sound horrified. She thought of the war effort; then she thought of her Tunbridge Wells training school beginning in a few days, and kept her fingers crossed the answer was no. It wouldn’t do to put such an unchristian thought up to the Lord.
‘No, but I have a feeling,’ Mrs Lilley said gloomily, ‘that the farmers aren’t going to like this. They’ve accepted the idea of the village women being paid for helping out, but female foreigners coming in, as they’ll call them, could be a different matter.’
‘What about soldiers?’
‘The new Food Production Department at the Board of Agriculture is in charge of organising their labour. The lack of skilled ploughmen amongst them is the problem, so they’re opening ploughing schools for them, but by the time they’re trained it will be too late for us. We could apply for prisoners of war, of course, but—’
‘Germans? Working on our food?’ Margaret was outraged. Yorkshire was one thing, but not Germans. They might poison the livestock or crops.
‘It works very well, I understand,’ Mrs Lilley said placatingly. ‘In fact, um … um – that’s to say, our area has applied for a batch. If we’re accepted, we get seventy-five prisoners and about half that number of guards for them.’
‘We’re billeting them all in the Rectory, are we?’ Margaret asked grimly.
‘There’d be a specially built camp in the forest.’
‘Oh, the forest.’ There were enough soldiers already in Ashden Forest to make sure none of the Germans was set loose on decent village girls.
‘That will take some time to set up, so it’s a question of how many Land Army girls we need in the meantime.’
‘And where will they be living?’
‘We must take a couple. I’ll have to speak to my husband.’
‘What about The Towers, Mrs Lilley?’
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘The Army has only just moved in. They’ll need to get the land cultivated, but they won’t want a group of young women billeted with them. Or rather,’ she corrected herself, ‘they may want them, but it isn’t perhaps advisable.’
‘I’ll ask my Lizzie if she’s any ideas.’
Tunbridge Wells was creeping up in Margaret’s list of worries. The first lecture was next Monday, and after all the fuss she couldn’t confess that she wanted to back out. She’d been over to the Great Hall which was nice and handy for the railway station, but it hadn’t been as straightforward as she had expected. She had to make decisions on equipment, stores and special ingredients. It wasn’t going to be a question of popping down to Mrs Lettice’s provisions shop, but of ordering from the unknown. Worst of all, they’d informed her at the hall they’d installed one of those newfangled electric stoves. They looked like gas, and she didn’t like to admit she’d never used an electric one, so she nodded wisely instead. Then she’d tackled the shops. John Brown’s bakeries were very helpful, and so was the dear old Maypole. The butcher was not.
‘Of course,’ she’d said to him, ‘I do understand. Mind you, it’s a pity. I was going to put on the posters that you supplied the food, and ask you to do a talk on meat shortages. ‘I’ll ask that new provisions store with the good butchery department in Mount Pleasant. Sainsbury’s, it’s called.’
The butcher had rapidly changed his mind, but she went to Sainsbury’s anyway. Butchers were only men, and men were like children. You had to let them know where authority lay.
On Monday morning Percy took her up to the station in Dr Marden’s trap. She clutched her small bag containing her favourite kitchen knife and one or two other things she couldn’t do without, and hummed fiercely to tell the Lord He was her shepherd. Lady Buckford, to her surprise, had said she couldn’t manage the journey, and so Lord Banning was coming to introduce the talk. What would a man know about housekeeping? It would get her off to a good start, however. She had wondered, ever since that Christmas they’d spent here together, if Miss Tilly – when she came home – would marry him. He needed a good woman about the house, though she doubted whether Miss Tilly quite fitted this description. She had been more interested in hunger strikes than in organising good meals for a man. Still, now that women over thirty looked likely to get the vote, there would be no more of this suffragette nonsense.
Women over thirty … for the first time Margaret realised this included her. She would have the vote. So would Percy for the first time, since he hadn’t been able to have his say in the country’s running before, not being a houseowner. She began to feel proud. Miss Tilly had been fighting for her, and women who had the vote need not be scared about cooking demonstrations in Tunbridge Wells.
Her voice was never going to carry. Her tiny squawk in this vast hall? Now it was filled with 700 expectant faces, its enormous size terrified her.
‘I can personally vouch,’ she heard Lord Banning concluding, ‘for the delicious results of anything cooked by Mrs Dibble’s hands – or, rather, her cooker.’
She’d been eyeing this brightly polished stove, trying to get its measure. A Tricity it was called, with a radiant coil boiling plate. That she could manage, and the oven looked all right. It had a temperature button arrangement, which she’d never used before. She took a deep breath.
‘We all know there’s a butter shortage, so I’m going to show you what you can do with cocoa butter as a tasty substitute …’
She never thought she’d see the day when that nasty cocoa butter had to be mixed with cottonseed oil just to bake a few cakes or make a pie. Nevertheless, she popped the scones on the top shelf in the oven, just as though she’d been cooking electric all her life, and a reassuring blast of warm air hit her.
‘And while they’re baking, here’s an idea for something to spread on your bread.’ It wasn’t at all bad in Margaret’s view; even the Rector had approved this mixture of cocoa butter, cornflour, syrup and mashed potato, and in this cold weather it kept for a week if you were lucky.
‘Next week,’ she glared at her audience for they seemed to be getting restless after a while, ‘we’ll be doing scraps and saving on eggs. It beats me how the hens know about the Kaiser, but—’
The smell! She’d been so intent on melting and mixing the blessed butter, she’d forgotten the cakes – no, she hadn’t. They weren’t due to be ready for another five minutes. She rushed to the oven all the same and a column of blue smoke shot up as she opened the door. Inside was a tray of little black circles. At her very first lecture! Centuries of iron Sussex discipline came to her aid, sending the panic back where it came from.
Margaret turned round, strode to the front of the platform where they had all gathered for the demonstration and flourished the tin so they could all see. ‘Nothing wrong with burnt cakes,’ she informed them severely. ‘Look at King Alfred. He burnt cakes and he still did a good job for England’s war effort.’
The sniggers turned into a roar of laughter.
‘All the same,’ Margaret grinned, ‘don’t you try to do it like that. It’s not everyone can manage it.’
The next day Lizzie came up with the answer, just as Margaret was in the middle of telling her for the fourth time about the way to handle big audiences.
‘I’ve had an idea, Ma.’
‘You’re no cook, my girl.’
‘About these Land Army girls,’ her daughter explained patiently. ‘We’ll ask all the farmers to board them themselves. The Sharpes have room now Joey’s not there, and they were asking for more help, and so was Seb Grendel; and Mrs Lilley was saying the numbers from the village are falling now.’
‘More babies what with menfolk on leave.’
‘Ma, I’m surprised at you.’ Lizzie giggled. ‘It’s not only that, anyway, it’s the unmarried ones going into munitions and this Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps they’re recruiting for. And Jenny Bertram was saying she’s off to join the Forage Corps. They’re looking for girls for the army camp at King’s Standing. If the Rectory takes the lead …’ Lizzie continued nonchalantly.
‘Of course,’ Margaret gulped valiantly. ‘I’ll speak to Mrs Lilley.’
She put off this unwelcome task in favour of going to see whether Nanny Oates could put a few from the ones she sent to Tunbridge Wells. With the spring coming on and eggs being a little more plentiful, she’d tell them about preserving them in fresh-slaked limewater so they’d last through next winter, even if the war didn’t. They were a luxury food now, according to the Food Controller, owing to only a quarter of their content having food value, thus making them expensive for what they gave you. To her mind, he was talking rubbish. There was nothing like a good egg – all of it.
Although they had not seen eye to eye when she lived in the Rectory, Margaret was now on better terms with Nanny Oates; especially since eggs had been scarce.
She put on her coat and hat, and marched purposefully up Bankside, where she was surprised to find the door shut, for Nanny didn’t go out now and had all her shopping delivered. It was nearly dinner time too, and the Rector hadn’t said anything about her going away. She peered in the windows, but there was no sign of Nanny.
She’d been full of life yesterday, even pottering about her garden now. Worried, Margaret went round to the back to see if she could get in through the kitchen, but that was locked too. She debated what to do next. Fetch the Rector? Ask one of the neighbours? Fetch Joe Ifield, the village policeman? The Rector, she decided.
Five minutes later she was back, accompanied by the Rector and Agnes, as the most agile of them if they had to climb in a window, but the Rector managed to force the scullery door open. There was still no sign of Nanny, and Margaret braced herself. ‘I’ll go upstairs.’
‘I’ll go,’ the Rector said firmly, to her relief.
He disappeared up the staircase to the two small bedrooms upstairs, and they listened to his footsteps hurrying across the ceiling above them. A moment or two later he appeared again. ‘Agnes,’ he called gently. ‘Go to fetch Dr Marden, will you?’
As Agnes ran out, Margaret gathered her strength. She was needed up there, so up she went.
Nanny Oates had had a stroke. Dr Marden had come and said it would do more harm than good to move her immediately, and someone should sit with her to see what movement started to come back. At the moment she couldn’t speak more than a gabble of words, and couldn’t move her left side at all. Margaret had offered to stay, but Mrs Lilley had refused to let her, and gone over herself, having made arrangements for Mrs Hay, the midwife, to relieve her and stay overnight. Mrs Lilley returned just in time for dinner, and Mrs Isabel had come over from the cinema as usual. Margaret was keeping an eye on Myrtle serving the soup and was witness to a most surprising conversation.
‘Can’t she come here?’ Mrs Isabel enquired, shocked at the news about Nanny.
‘Dr Marden thinks it best not to move her for the moment. We’ll have to find someone for tomorrow and tomorrow night. I’ll do it if necessary.’
‘No, I’ll do it,’ Mrs Isabel had said suddenly. You could have knocked Margaret down with a feather. ‘I could move in there and we’d just find relief for the times when I’m working.’
‘It means staying there until she’s well enough to be moved.’ Mrs Lilley was very doubtful, and rightly, in Margaret’s view. ‘And there’s only that cold tap, darling. Where would you sleep? The second bedroom is little more than a cupboard.’
‘I’ll manage.’ Mrs Isabel had that obstinate look on her face.
She’d never cope, of course, Margaret thought. Mrs Isabel liked her comforts, and as well as the one tap, Nanny only had an outside earth closet.
‘Isabel dear,’ her mother pointed out gently, ‘Nanny can’t turn herself, and she’d need help with everything.’
‘We’ve got that old commode chair. I’ll clean that up, and if I need help, I’ll … I’ll … get Ben Brock’s wife to help. The Norrington Arms is only a few doors along.’
The doubt still showed on Mrs Lilley’s face for Mrs Isabel burst out: ‘You don’t think I can, do you, Mother? Or you, Father. You’re keeping very quiet. You don’t think I can do anything, but I can. I’ll show you.’
‘But the cooking—’ Mrs Lilley began helplessly, and this time Margaret spoke out.
‘I can manage that, Mrs Lilley. I’ll send Myrtle over with it, three times a day.’
‘That’s very good of you,’ Mrs Isabel replied. ‘I’m not a very good cook.’
She was no cook at all, in Margaret’s opinion, but this time Mrs Isabel stuck to her word and stayed for two weeks with Nanny Oates. Nanny got some movement back in her arms and legs, even getting on her feet with Isabel and a strong stick supporting her, and a few words came back to her. All the same, it was a great worry for the Rector, and though Mrs Isabel said she’d stay on, he wouldn’t let her. Instead, the Rector had come to see her, Margaret. She had known what he was going to ask immediately: ‘About Nanny, Mrs Dibble—’
‘We’ll manage, Rector. Bring her here.’
He looked amazed at her speedy acquiescence, but she squared up her shoulders. If Mrs Isabel could do it, so could she. ‘I could ask Lady Gwendolen—’
Margaret pooh-poohed this immediately. ‘What would Nanny Oates do in Wiltshire or Dover, Rector? Here’s where she lives.’
But where, was the problem, she’d realised after he’d gone. And after where would follow how and who. It was all very well doing your Christian duty, but the glow always came first and the hard work followed.
The evening post brought a forces letter with strange handwriting. It couldn’t be Fred, for he couldn’t write. But it was in a way, for someone had written for him.
Dear Mrs Dibble,
Fred wants to tell you we’re [the next few words had been blacked out by the censor] and he won’t be on potatoes no longer.
Yours sincerely, Archie.
Now what did that mean? Why did everything have to happen together? We’re must mean they were moving somewhere else. Not on potatoes. What did that mean? It could mean anything from Fred having been put on peeling carrots, to going in the trenches. Margaret decided not to show the letter to Percy, he’d be upset. Then she decided she would. After all, she was upset, and what were husbands for?
Chapter Thirteen
Would this winter never end? It would soon be May and there was little sign of spring yet. Caroline missed the Ashdown Forest where the birdsong, flowers and trees gave more hints of changing seasons than the clifftops of Kent. Even the birds were keeping their heads down in this cold weather, and she envied them. Sometimes she could picture life at the Rectory so clearly, it seemed as though she had just to walk through a door and there she would be. Perhaps she was seeing an idealised Rectory, not the real beehive it was. Beehive wasn’t the right word, however, for bees worked for a common cause, whereas increasingly the Rectory seemed to house as many different causes as there were people. When she had last visited home for a weekend, two weeks ago, her mother was deep in the worries of planning to increase village food production, now that the Kaiser’s submarine campaign of unrestricted warfare was biting deep, and her task was made more difficult with the long, hard winter slowing down the usual pattern of growth. The Board of Agriculture’s ‘Plough-up Britain’ campaign was all very well, but it needed organisation.
Caroline had been amused to hear that the very day the act came into force, an officer from The Towers had visited her mother, anxious to be co-operative. The two Land Army girls lodged at the Rectory had promptly been allotted to The Towers estate for belated hop-cultivation. After a few false starts, including a certain amount of misunderstanding by some of the soldiers detailed to work with them as to the girls’ role there, it was at last getting into shape. With the help of advice from Lizzie and one or two old hands from the village, the hops were already planted, stringing complete, and dressing in progress. There was markedly more interest among the co-opted soldiers in producing a hop harvest than fields of potatoes.
