The Runaway (44 page)

Dana agreed that they were indeed lucky, though she thought privately that, the station being a little way outside the village, they might presently find themselves in a more built-up area, and this was speedily proved to be true. The village was small, consisting of perhaps a dozen cottages, a pub called the King’s Arms, a smithy, what Dana took to be a general store, and a bakery with a sign outside announcing that it doubled as post office and telephone exchange. The girls got a good look at the village since the bus stopped here, to take on board not passengers but various parcels and packages, including an extremely lively and aggressive young goat and a basket from which two hens popped inquisitive heads. Dana beamed at her companion, loving every minute.
This was so like Castletara! Many a time Dana had caught the local bus into the village with a couple of broody hens wanted by a neighbour squashed into a basket on her knee. When she and Con were young they had walked to school in good weather and caught the bus in bad, and she had no doubt that, later in the day, this very bus would be ferrying schoolchildren from the village to their homes in some remote part of the countryside.

She was explaining all this to her companion when the bus juddered to a halt. The conductor, who had been filling in a form and anxiously counting the money in his bag, got laboriously to his feet. He was a thin, grey-haired little man of sixty or so, and as the bus stopped he beckoned to the girls, giving them a wide and toothless smile as they approached him. ‘You asked for Tullimore’s, ain’t that right, my women?’ he asked genially. ‘Well, if you foller that lane you can’t make noo error.’ He eyed their brogues doubtfully. ‘Thass a rare shame you in’t wearin’ wellies, ’cos the lane lead over the marsh and we’ve had a deal o’ rain lately.’ He snorted. ‘Typical August weather in these here parts. Still an’ all, thass oonly half a mile so you’ll soon be settin’ down to a noice cuppa and a slice o’ Mrs Tullimore’s apple cake.’

The girls jumped down, waved to the bus and set off along the lane, trying to avoid the deepest puddles, though with very little success. At this point the track was thickly hedged and also ditched, but presently they emerged on to the marsh, which appeared to stretch as far as the eye could see. Dana would have plodded on, but Vera caught her arm. ‘Where’s the bloody farm?’ she
said, her tone incredulous. ‘You can see for miles, so we ought to be able to spot a building easily.’

Dana laughed. ‘Country folk have strange ideas about distance,’ she told the other girl. ‘Besides, no one could grow any sort of crop, not even sugar beet, in a marsh. I reckon we’ve a good way to walk before we reach Tullimore’s, and when we get there there will be fields and hedges and all sorts.’

Vera pulled a face and gave an eloquent shudder. ‘I’m a city girl, I am, and this perishin’ marsh scares me stiff. I mean to apply for a transfer just as soon as I can get paper and pen,’ she said, slowing her pace to a snail-like crawl. ‘After all, I’m a perishin’ volunteer; it’s not as though I were conscripted. So if I don’t like it here I shall move on.’

‘Oh, don’t be such a ninny,’ Dana said scornfully. ‘And if you did move on, which I don’t think the Land Army would allow, you might find yourself even worse off. Give it a chance for heaven’s sake, and keep walking. I know this lane’s pretty muddy but at least it’s not as muddy as the marsh.’

Vera sniffed but quickened her pace to keep up with her companion, and sure enough, after they had walked well over a mile, the marsh disappeared, to be replaced by enormous fields, hedged and ditched. The crop, which the girls guessed must be sugar beet, was already at knee height and clearly being harvested, though they could not as yet see any sign of life. Shortly after this they saw trees, and through the leafy branches a house. ‘There it is: Tullimore’s Farm, our future home,’ Dana said, trying to infuse her voice with enthusiasm, though in fact as they drew nearer she thought that despite the many trees
surrounding it it looked a grim place. Between them and the house was a large pond surrounded by reeds, with willow trees bending over the still water as though anxious to see their reflections in its dark depths. Dana repressed a shudder. She was not normally imaginative, but the sight of the black water, the bulrushes and the reeds made her remember the book by Mary Webb and the poignant picture the author painted of Sarn Mere and the pathetic little figure of Jancis carrying her baby as the girl walked slowly into the dark mere, until the water closed over their heads.

Her companion seemed to find the water eerie as well, for she clutched Dana’s arm, saying tremulously: ‘Is that there lake thing what they calls a Broad? Oh, Dana, I’m that scared I’d run off home for two pins. I reckon you could drown in there if you was to miss your way on a dark night.’

Dana, who had been thinking exactly the same thing, pulled herself together. ‘Of course it’s not a Broad, it’s just a pond,’ she said reassuringly. ‘And as for walking into it on a dark night, how would you get through the reeds and the bulrushes?’ As she spoke a flotilla of ducks spotted them and came quacking towards them, accompanied, to Dana’s dismay, by several very much larger birds which she recognised as geese. The birds made their way through the reeds and Dana, who had been about to say that only ducks could get in and out of the pond without flying, remembered incidents from her own home and grabbed her companion’s arm. ‘Geese! Run like hell!’ she shouted, suiting the action to the words. ‘You aren’t going to drown, but if we don’t get out of their territory our bums will be black and blue.
Geese are better than guard dogs and they can peck harder than you’d believe. Don’t look back, just run.’

However, the geese knew where their territory ended, and twenty or thirty yards from the pond they ceased their pursuit and waddled back the way they had come. Dana looked at her companion and could not suppress a laugh. Poor Vera was puffing breathlessly and staring round her as though at any moment some huge creature might appear from the trees which crowded close to the poorly maintained drive. ‘I wish I’d never come,’ she whimpered. ‘What would them geese of done if they’d caught us?’

‘I told you; they’d peck any bit of us they could reach. But they only do that to strangers, which we shan’t be for very long, of course.’ Dana hoped that Vera had not noticed that she was crossing her fingers behind her back, for all the geese she had ever known had attacked anyone they considered threatening. Still, one grew used to them, as she and Vera would have to do.

Despite Vera’s nervous fears, they reached the farmyard without any further alarms, crossed the muddy puddles and knocked boldly on the back door. There was a considerable pause before it was answered, and then, just as Dana had put out a hand to grasp the doorknob, it shot open and a woman’s face appeared.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Tullimore. We’re your new land girls. May we come in?’ Dana said politely, and the woman grunted and moved aside.

‘I were told you’d be comin’ tomorrer,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d go to your lodgings, settle in there afore coming on here.’

The girls stared at each other. Lodgings? There had
been no mention of lodgings in their instructions. And just where were they supposed to lodge, anyway? They had caught a bus from the nearest village to the end of the lane and had then walked for the best part of an hour over flat and muddy countryside. If they were indeed meant to live so far from their place of work they would have to have bicycles or a regular lift from a friendly villager, otherwise they would spend a large proportion of their time getting to and from the farm. Poor Vera, clutching her kitbag and gazing timidly round the large kitchen, was clearly in no state to question Mrs Tullimore’s words, but Dana knew that if she did not make the situation clear at once she and Vera would find themselves most uncomfortably situated. She spoke up firmly, as though to an employee rather than an employer.

‘I’m very sorry you’ve been misinformed, but there is nothing in our instructions concerning lodgings. Why, it would take us half our working day just to get to and from your farm, and in really bad weather we wouldn’t be able to report for work at all.’ She looked around her, at the large stone-flagged kitchen and the equally large cooking range, the big table and the quantity of chairs surrounding it. ‘Judging by the number of chairs, you must have other land girls. Do they lodge in the village? I imagine not.’

The woman glared at her balefully. She was tall, taller than Dana herself, and hatchet-faced. Her small mouth, which appeared lipless, tightened at Dana’s words and her tiny black eyes sparked dangerously. ‘We’ve one other girl; she live in,’ she admitted after a pause so long that Dana was beginning to fear she did not intend to answer. ‘Her name’s Elaine and a fat lot of use she is, idle trollop.
But I’m tellin’ you, there ain’t no room for a couple more; you’ll have to lodge out. As for arrivin’ late, if you do that you won’t get no wages.’

Dana snorted. By now her blood was up, and a glance at Vera showed that her companion was equally irate. Good, because it might take the pair of them to worst this horrible woman. ‘This appears to be a very big house,’ she said coldly. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’ve no empty bedrooms? I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll take a look around.’

The woman bristled, clenching her long thin fingers into fists. ‘You’ll do no such thing …’ she was beginning, but Dana had slung down her kitbag, Vera had followed suit, and they were already heading for the door which must, they realised, lead to the rest of the house. They were actually halfway up the first flight of stairs when the woman shouted at them to stop and, when they did so, said grudgingly, ‘You can join Elaine in the attic; I was forgettin’ that there’s room in there for several, so don’t you go meddlin’ with any other doors. Go straight up the attic stairs. It’s a wretched nuisance, because there’s only the one bed up there, but it’ll give you and your pal something to do for the rest of the day. You can carry the old iron bedstead and the mattress that’s in the third room on the left up to the attic.’ Her eyes flickered over them with loathing. ‘You looks strong enough for that, at any rate.’

‘If there’s a bed and presumably furniture in the room third on the left why can’t we sleep there?’ Vera asked suddenly. ‘Attics is cold in winter and hot in summer – I should know – so why not let us have a room on the first floor?’

This time there was an even longer pause before the farmer’s wife spoke again. ‘It ain’t convenient to have young girls sleepin’ on the same floor as married folk; besides, my husband snores. And what about when my son come home, eh? No, if you won’t get lodgings in the village it’s the attic or the cow byre, take your choice.’ And before either girl could say a word their unwilling hostess turned on her heel and clattered down the hall, slamming the kitchen door when she reached it with enough force to crack its hinges.

The girls took advantage of Mrs Tullimore’s absence to do exactly as she had forbidden and have a good nose round all the rooms on the first floor. There were seven bedrooms, most quite large and commodious and all bar two obviously unused. The Tullimores’ own room had so much furniture in it that the girls thought the couple must dress and undress in some other place, otherwise they would be constantly barking their shins and cracking their elbows on the occasional tables, chests of drawers, wardrobes and similar objects that cluttered the floor. Most of the stuff was old, the upholstery moth-eaten or riddled with dry rot, so that even moving it might prove hazardous. The only thing of interest was a photograph of a young man in RAF uniform with his forage cap set on Brylcreemed hair and a slight smile – shy but proud – on his lips. This was clearly the Tullimores’ son, who from his photograph looked a nice enough lad, and when they reached his room Dana thought he was probably as glad to get out of the farm as they would have been, for from every available space model aeroplanes soared. Some were strung on fine cotton from the ceiling, others stuck to the walls and windows. He had two bookshelves,
one crammed with technical tomes, the other with the usual boyish fiction: Henty, Kipling, Maxwell Scott and Frank Shaw.

The girls stared, then backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind them. ‘Poor devil; what he must have suffered livin’ in this hellhole and dreamin’ of escape, though I dare say he didn’t think escape would come in quite the way it has,’ Dana said softly as they headed for the next room. ‘I dare say the old crab didn’t think of it, but there’s no way we could possibly get that huge old bedstead up the attic stairs, so we’d best look around for a couple of camp beds. And while we’re about it, we’ll nick a washstand and a couple of chests of drawers for our stuff. I wonder what time this Elaine gets back?’

‘I wonder where she is now, for that matter?’ Vera puffed as she and Dana manoeuvred a large chest of drawers up the narrow stairs. ‘What a surprise she’ll get when she sees us!’

‘Yes, I dare say, but she must be a bit of a wet weekend,’ Dana said as they reached the attic. ‘If she’d had any gumption she would have nicked some of the furniture from the proper bedrooms and brought it up here instead of laying her clothes out on the dusty floor and washing downstairs in the kitchen.’

‘Don’t be so critical, Dana. How was she supposed to move any of this awful old furniture without someone to give a hand?’ Vera said reproachfully. ‘I wonder where she got the camp bed from?’

They were soon to discover, for in one of the bedrooms they found a good deal of camping equipment and triumphantly provided themselves with a camp bed and a
sleeping bag each. Their hostess was supposed to supply them with bedding, but they guessed that they would have to fight for every extra blanket, no matter how icy cold the weather might become.

When they had made the attic – which was huge and ran the whole length of the house – as comfortable as possible, they returned to the kitchen, just as the back door opened and a small, slender girl with wide blue eyes and soft fair curls entered the room, just ahead of two very elderly farm hands. All three were clad in breeches, oilskins and big wellington boots, and Dana guessed it had started to rain again, for all three took off their boots, placed them in a row by the back door and then shed their oilskins, shaking them vigorously into the yard before hanging them on the pegs above the boots. Dana heard Mrs Tullimore’s grumbling tones begin and spoke loudly. ‘Good afternoon one and all, or should I say good evening? I’m Dana McBride and this is Vera Potter and we’re the new land girls.’ She grinned at Elaine, pretending not to notice how the other girl’s eyes filled with tears. ‘And you must be Elaine, but I’m afraid these two gentlemen weren’t mentioned when Mrs Tullimore welcomed us to her home.’