Caro’s letters were always crammed with amusing anecdotes and tales of other residents at the farm, so that it felt as though she were still there.
After she’d finished reading the letter for the second time, Selina got up and walked to the window. She stared out across the autumnal grounds, lost in thought. It seemed to have been a busy and momentous week at the farm. A third Land Girl had come to live with the Postbridges, and it sounded as though Caroline had made herself a new best friend …
Her name is Miss Grace Morgan, and she’s from Liverpool, though her mother is Trinidadian. She’s wonderfully striking, and she’s quite a chatterbox, more talkative even than old Mrs Newton.
I know you wrote in your last letter that it was unlikely you could visit us again for a long while, fuel rationing being what it is. But I hope you will reconsider so you can meet Grace. She’s already made such an impact at the farm. She’s experienced as a Land Girl and knows a few tricks of the trade that even Tilly and I had never thought of.
Oh, and she can sing too. At dinner on her first night, Mrs Newton mentioned the vicar’s wife was looking for volunteers to help with the meal and entertainment at the Harvest Supper, and Grace told us she can sing and would gladly stand up and entertain everyone with a song. She really is the most smashing girl.
Taken aback by her friend’s bubbling enthusiasm for this newcomer, Selina was tempted to make a visit to Porthcurno one of her top priorities once she had learned to drive a car. But then she recalled her responsibilities here, which madeit unlikely she would be able to visit the farm until next year at least. Bad enough she had already gone back once for her fellow Land Girl Joan’s wedding to Arthur Green. She couldn’t ask poor Mrs Hawley to look after the two girls again, along with her other duties, while she went on another visit to Porthcurno …
Nonetheless, she could at least write back to her friend and let her know everything that had been going on at Thornton Hall. She didn’t write as often as Caroline, but her letters tended to be longer. There was always so much to say about the girls and Peter. And now she would be able to share the news that she was finally learning to drive. Though she didn’t own a car yet, an additional problem she would have to rectify once she had her licence. How she would afford it, she had no idea. But one step at a time, as William MacGregor would say.
Selina sat down at the elegant writing desk, drew out paper and pen, and began to compose a reply to Caroline’s letter.
Grace sounds amazing, she wrote carefully.I can’t wait to meet her. But you’re right, it may be hard for me to get away until after Christmas.
Do you remember Mr MacGregor, the solicitor? He called once while you were visiting in the summer. He’s been very kindly teaching me to drive.
She was just hesitating over those lines when Peter peered around the door. ‘Aunt Selly?’
Quickly, she laid aside her pen, turning with a smile. ‘Yes, Peter, dear?’
‘Mr MacGregor says he’ll be driving me to boarding school.’ He looked oddly sullen, no sign now of the impishsmile with which he’d greeted her outside. ‘I don’t understand. I thought, since I’d been ill, that I wouldn’t be starting school until next term now.’
‘But you’ve been feeling much better, haven’t you?’ Selina got up and checked his forehead, which was cool. He certainly didn’t seem unwell. Frowning, she studied her nephew’s averted face. ‘What’s this about, Peter? You know I can’t let you miss any more school days without good reason.’
‘But Mr Harrington—’
‘Mr Harrington is an excellent home tutor for Jemima,’ she pointed out, ‘but you’re fourteen and you need proper tuition at a good public school if you’re to achieve top grades in your examinations. Your mother wanted you to have the best possible chance of a university place, and it would be wrong of me not to heed her wishes.’
‘Yes, I see that.’ He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets, his chin jutting. ‘Only I d-don’t want to go to school,’ he stammered, ‘or to university, if it comes to that. I want to stay here with you and Jemima and Faith forever.’
‘Oh, Peter, you know that’s not possible.’
Selina put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, meaning to be reassuring, but he ducked away with an angry scowl, and ran from the room, shouting, ‘Don’t touch me!’
She started after him in dismay, but then stopped herself, deciding to let it go for now. Her nephew was clearly not ready to face the world again yet. And she could hardly blame him after the horrors he’d endured that summer. Losing his mother had hit him hard, as it had hit all of them. But Peter was a boy, and boys were often expected to grit their teeth and show no emotion, which was impossible, not to mention unfair.
She would have to take this slowly. And perhaps ask William for advice. She didn’t know much about dealing with boys his age, and the friendly solicitor might know better than her how to encourage Peter back to school without upsetting the poor child further.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sheila couldn’t believe how her life had changed since she’d taken over running her late husband’s village shop. It wasn’t just how busy she always was, nor the new skills she’d acquired in terms of ordering stock, dealing with suppliers, and making sure her customers always went away happy. No, it was how the shop had become a focal point for the village in ways she didn’t recall from when her dearest Arnie had run it. Everyone had respected Arnold Newton, but he’d had a sharp tongue and it had made him a few enemies over the years. When she had to be sharp, she tried to be funny too, finding people preferred a smile over a scowl.
That Saturday morning, Sheila was not only selling fruit and veg to the villagers and overseeing Margaret’s dusting and rearranging of the magazine shelves, but also teaching Jack Treedy to read and write. A task which required her to smile more than usual, coaxing the reluctant lad to learn his letters.
Jack was one of the village youngsters, a boy who’d left school early to help out at home. About to turn sixteen, hewas the eldest son of Mrs Treedy, a doughty, reed-thin woman with a parcel of hungry-looking kids, all ginger-haired like herself, who’d come round asking for a job when the shop had reopened. Unable to give her work, Sheila had found Mrs Treedy a position at Eastern House instead. The listening post was not as busy as it had been during the war, but they always needed cleaning staff. Sheila’s own daughter Violet had worked there as a cleaner when they’d first come to Cornwall in the early forties, and later as housekeeper too. That had been before her marriage to Joe Postbridge though, and Sheila had to admit that Violet suited being a farmer’s wife much better than being a housekeeper.
Now she was trying to help the woman’s son as well.
‘I can’t do it, Mrs Newton,’ Jack complained, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning away from the book she had been showing him. He stared moodily through the shop window at the sunlit village street. ‘I couldn’t learn me letters in school and I can’t learn ’em now. I don’t have that kind of brain.’
‘Now you listen to me, young man,’ she told the boy firmly. ‘There ain’t nothing wrong with your brain, even under that mop of hair which you could have done with combing this morning.’ She nodded to his unruly ginger curls, cut pudding-basin style above pale brows. ‘If you hadn’t left school early to help your mum, you’d have learned to read and write like everyone else. It ain’t hard, you just need a little confidence in yourself.’
Sheila tapped the simple alphabet book again, refusing to let him give up. She couldn’t stand idly by when a lad in her own village was being held back simply as a result of not knowing his letters. He had left school far too early and never been chased up for it, on account of the war.
‘Come on, let’s start again at the letter A.’
