The Land Girl: An unforgettable historical novel of love and hope. Allie Burns

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in the dim light, Mother was paler than usual. Despite the fire she looked frozen. Then Mother blinked, but that was the only movement. ‘Where were you?’ she asked, her voice thin and choked.

      ‘Some silly cows found their way onto the line near Sidcup,’ Emily said. She clenched her fists and waited. She was about to excuse herself, but something stopped her from speaking. Resting on her mother’s lap, loosely in her grasp, was a yellow slip of paper.

      ‘What’s that?’ Emily said.

      Her legs were jittery, too weak to move her. Her mother didn’t speak. She had to cross that vast space of floorboards to reach her. One. Two. Three. Four. Her boots clipped on the floorboards. Unable to catch her own breath. She slid the piece of paper out of Mother’s flimsy grasp.

      Her eyes scanned the typed words …

      regret to inform …

      … report has been received from the War Office …

      … Name: Cotham J …

      Her hands shook. The East Kent buffs had been under siege at the Battle of the Hooge near Ypres. Her brother was missing in action. She concentrated on the typed words: was posted as ‘missing’ on the … 30th July 1915.

      ‘He’s only been back there a week,’ she said. ‘It says that missing doesn’t necessarily mean …’ She couldn’t say the last word. She had read about that battle in the newspaper; it was the first time the enemy had used a flamethrower. She read on. ‘It says that he may be a prisoner of war, or have become temporarily separated from his regiment.’

      The village doctor had received a telegram like this about his eldest son. The son had turned up several months later, in a German prisoner of war camp.

      ‘Yes, all is not lost,’ Mother said. A lightning strike of a smile, pained and twisted, flashed onto her face.

      ‘They say if he’s been captured that unofficial news is likely to reach us first, and we should notify them at once.’

      Emily paused for a moment, tried to imagine John in a prisoner of war camp, or in a front-line hospital unaccounted for; perhaps a nasty blow to the head had caused him to forget who he was.

      The letter seemed to be encouraging them to think he’d been captured, and they surely wouldn’t give them hope without good reason.

      But still, however would they cope with the wait? Mother’s knitting needles and wool were discarded by her feet, her lips tinged blue. Hands trembling, pupils dilated, she wheezed.

      ‘Mother, can you breathe?’ Emily asked, her own throat constricting so much she could hardly catch her own breath. After a few moments Mother inhaled, panted, and slumped forwards.

      ‘It’s been a terrible shock,’ Mother said. ‘The letter came in the first post.’

      ‘You’re shivering,’ Emily said. She stepped out to speak to Daisy, suggested they call out the doctor and give her a sedative.

      ‘I need to lie down,’ Mother said when Emily returned.

      Emily perched on the end of Mother’s dark oak bed. Mother was tucked up and they prayed quietly together for John’s return, and silently she wished for Theo’s safety too, for good measure. Mother’s face glistened with the residue of grease that her cold cream had left behind. Her hands flat on the bedspread, she stared off towards the window and didn’t say a word. Mother had managed her regular night-time rituals – that had to be a sign that everything would be all right, didn’t it?

      ‘Oh, John,’ Emily whispered to herself later in her own room.

      The British army had lost her dear, sweet brother. How could she sleep until they found him and returned him safely home?

       Chapter Eight

      August 1915

       Dearest Emily,

       What terribly distressing news. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, and of course John. We mustn’t lose hope that he’ll be found and returned to you safe and sound.

       Fondest wishes

       Theo

      The darkness pressed up against each of the window’s panes, but she was too alert to think of going back to sleep. She pulled the heavy burgundy damask curtains along their runners anyway, ready for the day that wasn’t yet prepared for her.

      If she lay down again her mind would whirl and make John’s smile merge with Theo’s, their voices becoming one, until she couldn’t remember whose was whose. Who had said what, who had comforted her, and who had advised her. The tiredness had muddled her mind until she could no longer distinguish one from the other.

      She couldn’t stay inside and whilst roaming about she found Mr Tipton in the shippon supervising the milking. She told him about John missing in action and without hesitation he embraced her, warm and clammy, his short arms stretching around her shoulders.

      ‘I need to keep busy. I can’t sit around up at the house. Can you give me something to do?’

      She would worry about Mother later. She had insisted that Emily stayed at the house with her, but she was drugged and drowsy and Emily doubted she’d notice if she was gone.

      Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Mr Tipton wiping away the tears with the back of his sleeve.

      John was somehow missing like a hoe or a scythe, not a living, breathing person. He had said it could happen and she’d pushed the thought of it aside. He’d asked her to take care of Mother, but their problems were bigger than her – what about the house, the estate, the farm? Would they have to sell up if John didn’t come home? If only she’d asked him what it was that he meant, what she would need to accept and how she might be of best help to Mother.

      Mid-morning, as she was going into the farmhouse for a cup of tea, she did a double take as Mother, holding her skirts aloft to reveal her heeled boots, stepped around the puddles and shooed away Mrs Tipton’s welcoming committee of chickens.

      ‘Emily dear, there you are.’

      Mother had aged twenty years in that one night. Puffy pillows had gathered beneath her eyes, new hoods hung over them and shadows lurked beneath her cheekbones.

      ‘Has there been more news?’ Emily asked, realising that this was how it would be now: waiting and wondering when news of John would come.

      ‘I’m just so astonished that you deserted me,’ Mother continued. ‘I think you should come back to the house.’

      ‘Will Cecil come home?’ she asked hopefully.

      ‘I’ve sent him a telegram,’ Mother said. ‘I insisted he stay in Oxford. His studies mustn’t be interrupted. We must carry on as usual.’

      She suggested Mother pay СКАЧАТЬ