Bobby waited for the tea to brew, then carried in the pot while Jessie brought the tray through. The little girl had been adamant she could manage the pot as well, but Mary had wisely judged that seven-year-old children and boiling water oughtn’t to be mixed.
Bobby couldn’t help smiling when she re-entered the parlour. Florence was kneeling on a little stool she’d pulled over to Reg’s desk, watching with awe while he showed her how to work his typewriter. Jessie skipped over to join them.
‘Can I try?’ she asked.
‘All right,’ Reg said. ‘Hop up on the stool and see if you can type your name. You need a good, strong tap to make an impression.’
Florence got down from the stool so her sister could climb up. Bobby pretended not to pay attention while she poured out the tea, knowing Reg would be embarrassed at being caught without his usual protective shield of feigned curmudgeonliness.
‘I’d like to learn how to make a magazine,’ Florence announced.
‘Well, happen you can stay with us and learn some tricks of the trade,’ Reg said, avoiding Bobby’s eye. ‘If you’re quiet. Don’t forget, we’re working in here and work needs quiet. One little peep and it’s back to baking bread with Mary in the kitchen.’
Florence nodded. ‘We’ll be quiet, won’t we, Jess?’
‘And when Uncle Charlie comes home, we can play Magazine Spy School,’ Jessie said gleefully, thrilled at being able to expand their repertoire of make-believe games.
‘So, will we be having a children’s page next month?’ Bobby asked nonchalantly as she took Reg his mug of tea.
‘Aye, we might try it the once and see how it’s taken. Not every month, mind.’ He picked up the sheet of paper Florence had given him. ‘Not a bad story, that, lass.’
Florence, who wasn’t accustomed to the Yorkshire habit of understatement, looked rather hurt at what sounded like faint praise.
‘I mean to say, it’s a right good little story,’ Reg said kindly. ‘Best we’ve had, in my opinion. It can go in next month on the children’s page. We’ll make a proper writer of you one day, Florence.’
Florence looked thrilled. ‘Do you mean it?’
‘Course I do. Long as you keep working hard at it.’
‘And when I’m grown up, could I work for the magazine like you and Bobby do?’
‘I reckon so. Put us all out of a job in ten year, most like.’
And that was how the last sceptic at Moorside Farm was conquered. After that, there was no going back. In less than a fortnight, the Parry sisters felt as much a part of the place as if they’d been there all their lives.
Chapter 13
‘Florrie, quick, hide!’ Jessie screamed. ‘He’s coming, he’s coming!’
Florence gave a little squeak and the two girls ducked down behind the barricade they’d constructed from the Athertons’ old tin bath, a couple of chairs, a disused mangle and three cricket bats.
‘Now zen, ver are zose pesky Eengleesh gels who gif me zo much trooble?’ boomed a man’s voice as the door swung open.
Charlie, a square boot-polish moustache painted under his nose and his hair parted at one side, goose-stepped out of the farmhouse. He peered around as if the barricade and its occupants were completely invisible to him. A little curly head belonging to Florence popped up, giggled at him in his disguise, squealed when he started to turn in her direction and popped down again to begin a furious whispering with her sister. Charlie started creeping slowly around the garden, peering into flowerbeds and looking behind the cucumbers growing in the vegetable patch, all the while pretending he couldn’t see the barricade right in front of him.
‘Did he say “trooble”?’ Bobby whispered to Mary, who was watching the game with her as she pegged out the washing.
Mary laughed. ‘And “Eeengleesh”. He sounds more like Mussolini than Hitler.’
‘I’m certain his accent was drifting towards Welsh the last time we played Barricades.’
Mary smiled at the little scene. ‘It’s good to see a young man who’s not afraid to make a fool of himself for children’s sakes. I do think it’s a crying shame when fathers are too stuffy to let themselves join in the play of their little ones. That’s how happy memories are made. I only wish I could persuade Reg to join the fun sometimes.’
Bobby frowned when she noticed a tear sliding down her friend’s cheek.
‘Are you all right, Mary?’
Mary laughed, putting down her basket of washing so she could wipe the tear away. ‘Oh, I’m a daft old lady. It does me good to see them so happy and healthy, that’s all. To hear them laugh. All these years knowing we’d never be able to have any more children, that there’d be no grandchildren playing here in our old age, and now… it almost feels like the good Lord has put everything back as it ought to have been. I only wish we could keep them.’
