Where Bluebells Chime

Yet what concerned Rowangarth’s parlourmaid more immediately was what to wear to her wedding four weeks hence. She was the first to admit she was past bridal white and anyway, a once-only dress was an extravagance she didn’t subscribe to.

Now if Alice could be persuaded to make her something pretty yet sensible, she pondered, and she could find a nice matching hat, her problem would be solved.

‘I’ll ask Alice,’ she said to Tilda, ‘to make my dress – for the wedding, I mean …’

‘I’d concentrate, if I were you,’ Tilda frowned, ‘on getting Miss Clitherow’s sitting room seen to. She’s back tomorrow and you could write your name on the top of that table of hers. I’ve no time, Mary, what with the bottling to see to and the raspberry jam to make!’

‘Oh? And where did Tilda Tewk get sugar for jam, then?’

‘Never you mind!’ It wasn’t only silver could be hidden away! There were twenty two-pound bags of sugar, an’ all, and Hitler, if he came, could draw her teeth one by one before she’d tell them where so much as a grain was hidden. ‘And don’t forget, herself’ll be on the night train and back here before noon!’

‘Aye.’ Mary wasn’t likely to forget. It had been grand with the housekeeper away and just her and Tilda to see to things. ‘She’s been gone so long I thought we’d seen the back of her, but I’ll give her room a going-over in the morning.

‘Now would you favour blue for a wedding dress, Tilda, and a matching hat? And do you think Mr Catchpole would make me up a few flowers? Not a bouquet – not without a veil – maybe a little posy, though.’ Miss Julia had worn blue and carried white orchids – at her first wedding, that was, to the doctor, Andrew MacMalcolm.

She lapsed again into daydreams and Tilda, who was nothing if not practical, knew better than to interrupt them. But she’d be glad when Miss Clitherow got herself back; when Mary and Will were safely wed and when – and may God forgive her for such thoughts – Hitler had made up his mind about the invasion. Maybe then, things could get back to normal – or as normal as they ever could be with a war on.

Tilda sighed, remembering the last one, then turned her thoughts to the evening meal ahead. She supposed it would be rabbit. Again.

‘Do you think, dear,’ Helen Sutton asked of her daughter at breakfast, ‘that either Will or Catchpole could be persuaded to look after a few hens?’ Eggs were rationed now, and sometimes to only one each person a week. ‘Surely we could keep them on household scraps and gleanings of wheat and barley?’

‘We could ask. Polly Purvis has six Rhode Island Reds at the bothy. She says they are laying well – a couple of dozen eggs a week. She gives the land girls a boiled egg apiece every Sunday for breakfast and keeps what’s left for cooking. But perhaps we should ask Will? Catchpole has more than enough on his plate. He can just about manage the kitchen garden on his own, but he’s not going to have the time to grow flowers.’

Growing flowers was unpatriotic, the Government pronounced. ‘Dig for Victory!’ the posters demanded, with people being urged to plant cabbages, leeks and peas instead of flowers.

‘In the last war we ploughed up the lawns and grew potatoes,’ Helen murmured. Beautiful camomile lawns were turned under the plough, but they had been hungry then. Maybe before this one was over they would be hungry again. It was a distinct possibility when so many ships carrying food were being sunk every day by U-boats.

‘I’ll have a think about the hens, but first I think we should seriously consider getting some help for Catchpole.’

‘But how, Julia? They don’t consider gardening to be a reserved occupation.’ They had taken the garden apprentices into the militia and a waste of six years of training when you considered that two of them were in the infantry and one consigned to an army cookhouse.

‘No, but growing food is important and with a bit of help our kitchen garden could supply no end of vegetables and soft fruit. Anyway, I’m going to try.’

‘But where are we to find another gardener?’

‘You’ll see.’ It was such a mad idea, Julia supposed, she just might bring it off. ‘Tell you later,’ she smiled mysteriously. ‘And that was the postman, if I’m not mistaken. Bet you anything you like there’ll be a letter.’

From Drew, of course. No other letters mattered.

Daisy sat on the gate, waiting for Tatiana. It was where they usually met; halfway between Keeper’s Cottage and Denniston House, where Tatiana lived with her mother, Anna, with Karl, the big, black-bearded Cossack, to watch over them; was where, soon, Tatiana’s grandfather would be living when he handed over Pendenys Place to the Government.

Daisy hoped Rowangarth would escape. It would be awful having the military there, especially if they wanted Keeper’s Cottage, too.

But They could do anything they wanted now, and no one’s house – or car or boat, even – was safe if They decided they had greater need of it. For the war effort, of course. Mind, Mam thought it was a good thing about Pendenys and that Mr Edward would be better off living at Denniston. ‘All on his own in that great pile of slate and stone, like living in a cathedral.’

Daisy jumped off the gate as Tatiana arrived, red-faced from pedalling.

‘I am sick, sick, sick of old people,’ she announced dramatically, leaning her cycle against the hedge. ‘It was awful at Cheyne Walk!’

‘Well, you’re back home now,’ Daisy offered mildly because she was used to her friend’s fiery outbursts. Probably something to do with her being half-Russian.

‘Yes, thank God! Grandmother Petrovska was her usual awful self and Uncle Igor was rushing around making sure they weren’t going to be interned.’

‘But they won’t be. We aren’t at war with the Russians.’

‘Not yet, but we will be, Grandmother says. And don’t call them Russians, Daisy. They are Communists, not real Russians. They’ve made a pact with Hitler, you know.’

Daisy did know. Dada hadn’t been able to understand it. Communists and Fascists should be natural enemies, he’d said.

‘So what was so awful about staying with your grandma?’ Daisy demanded.

‘Oh, it was Grandmother, I suppose, being stubborn.’ Tatiana took a deep breath, sighing it out dramatically, leaning her elbows on the gate, gazing out over the field of ripening wheat. ‘Mother wants her to pack up and leave London – stay at Denniston for the duration. She thinks London will be heavily bombed soon. Stands to sense, doesn’t it? Hitler’s got to knock out London before he invades.’

‘We-e-ll, yes …’ It made sense, Daisy was bound to agree, running her tongue round lips gone suddenly dry.

‘And all the ports, too, Uncle Igor said.’

The ports, too, and Drew was near Plymouth.

‘So it was better, Mother said, for Grandmother to move out. Apart from the two aerodromes, there isn’t a lot around Holdenby for the Luftwaffe to waste its bombs on.’

‘So when is she coming?’ Daisy had met the autocratic Countess Petrovska and felt sorry for Tatty.

‘Oh, she isn’t. Refused point-blank. She said if she left Cheyne Walk, They would take it because there’d be no one living in it.

‘“I hef lorst my beautiful house in St Petersburg and my estate at Peterhof to the rabble. I vill not give up this one, too,”’ Tatiana mimicked. ‘And I suppose you can’t blame her. Drew said he’d hate it if the Communists had taken Rowangarth.’

‘But there aren’t any Communists here.’

‘No, but They might commandeer it, like Pendenys.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Tatty, don’t be so miserable!’

‘I can’t help it. It’s my Russian soul.’

‘Don’t be daft! You’re as English as I am.’

‘Half-English. I speak the mother tongue, don’t forget.’

‘Y-yes.’ Daisy was forced to admit it. Tatiana Sutton spoke the politely correct Russian learned from her mother but she was fluent, too, in the dialect spoken by Karl, a Georgian by birth. Tatiana, when provoked, had the advantage of being able to let fly a string of Russian swear words – learned from Karl – and get away with it. ‘But tell me – how was London?’

‘Poor old place – it seemed a bit bewildered. Barrage balloons in all the parks and sandbags everywhere. And it’s so completely dark now at nights. The shops haven’t a lot to sell. Mother didn’t buy a thing except a lipstick, and she had to stand in a queue for half an hour to get it. And there are uniforms everywhere. Such gorgeous men, and all of them going to war.’ She sighed loudly and with regret. Such a waste when she, Tatiana Sutton, hadn’t even been kissed yet – leastways, not with passion. ‘It makes you want to join up, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose so. As a matter of fact,’ Daisy took a deep breath, ‘I have joined up.’

‘Wha-a-t? You mean you’ll be leaving, too? But, Daisy, you can’t! Drew’s gone, and Kitty and Bas can’t visit any more, and Keth’s stuck in America! If you go, there’ll be only me left out of the entire Clan!’

‘I know, and I’m sorry I did it. But don’t worry overmuch. They haven’t even acknowledged my application yet, and not a word about my medical. I could be months and months waiting.’