A Liverpool Lass
The Girl from Penny Lane
Liverpool Taffy
The Mersey Girls
Strawberry Fields
Rainbow’s End
Rose of Tralee
No Silver Spoon
Polly’s Angel
The Girl from Seaforth Sands
The Liverpool Rose
Poor Little Rich Girl
The Bad Penny
Down Daisy Street
A Kiss and a Promise
Two Penn’orth of Sky
A Long and Lonely Road
The Cuckoo Child
Darkest Before Dawn
Orphans of the Storm
Little Girl Lost
Beyond the Blue Hills
Forgotten Dreams
Sunshine and Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow
A Mother’s Hope
In Time for Christmas
Heading Home
A Mistletoe Kiss
The Lost Days of Summer
Christmas Wishes
The Runaway
A Sixpenny Christmas
The Forget-Me-Not Summer
A Christmas to Remember
Time to Say Goodbye
A Family Christmas
A Summer Promise
When Christmas Bells Ring
An Orphan’s Christmas
Available by Katie Flynn writing as Judith Saxton
You Are My Sunshine
First Love, Last Love
Someone Special
Still Waters
We’ll Meet Again
A Family Affair
Jenny Alone
Chasing Rainbows
All My Fortunes
Sophie
Harbour Hill
The Arcade
The Pride
The Glory
The Splendour
Full Circle
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Epub ISBN: 9781473537279
Version 1.0
Published by Century 2017
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Copyright © Katie Flynn 2017
Cover photography: girl © Arcangel, train © Getty, boy © Getty
Katie Flynn has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain by Century in 2017
Century
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781780895758
For Geoff and Dorothy Chetwynd and their feathered friends, not forgetting the bees!
I have had a dreadful year healthwise, and am still suffering from shingles, which scrambles one’s brain in a very nasty way, and which has meant both friends and colleagues have had to work twice as hard as usual to keep my work on track. If I acknowledged everyone personally I should need half a book, but my editor Nancy Webber, my agent Caroline Sheldon, and my new in-house editor Viola Hayden, along with my daughter Holly Pemberton and my secretary Jo Prince deserve a special mention as they have all worked uncomplainingly to right the wrongs and check every word.
Still, I have great hopes that 2017 will be a better year since my Australian grandchildren hope to come over to Britain to help us celebrate our Diamond Wedding!
The woman sitting in the back seat of the taxi cab was old; very old. Bert, who had been driving his taxi now for the best part of thirty years, was a connoisseur of the old. They used his cab to take them shopping, or for a weekly trip to the cinema, or a visit to relatives. They liked to chat as he drove, often preferring to sit in the front seat beside him, for most of them were a trifle deaf and found it easier to converse when their heads were more or less on the same level. By now Bert knew most of their names and could have recited those of their children and grandchildren, about whom he had heard a great deal. His passengers liked to discuss their problems with someone not involved and sometimes asked for advice, though he guessed it was seldom taken. Not that Bert minded the gossip; in fact it made his job more interesting. He quite pitied drivers who knew nothing about their fares and cared less.
But this old woman was different. She was a stranger, for a start, and her voice betrayed no hint of the warm burr of a Devonshire accent. He had picked her up at the railway station and had agreed to take her to a farm out on the Moorfield Road, although it was not an area with which he was particularly familiar. At first he had tried to inaugurate some sort of conversation, but he supposed this was one passenger who did not want to talk, for she had climbed into the back and now sat on the worn leather seat gazing absorbedly through the window as they left the suburbs of the small town and reached the countryside.
Bert hummed a tune beneath his breath and drove slowly. It was a glorious day and the breeze coming in through his window carried the scents of summer. Presently, he knew, the Moorfield Road would meet the main Neot road, so if the farm she wanted really was on the Moorfield Road her journey would soon be over. He slowed still further and twisted round in his seat to glance at his fare.
‘This here junction ahead of us is where Moorfield comes to an end,’ he said loudly. ‘Have we passed Drake’s Farm? It was a Drake’s Farm you was wantin’, wasn’t it?’
The old lady nodded. ‘Drake’s Farm,’ she confirmed. ‘It’s back off the road a way. Perhaps I missed the turning, but … ah, no, here it is. Stop here, please.’
Obediently, Bert drew his cab to a halt. He climbed out to give his passenger a hand, but she was staring past him and he turned to follow her gaze. He could see a rough – very rough – track, rutted and overhung by trees which arched overhead, but no sign of any sort of dwelling. He looked doubtfully back at the woman but she was already standing by the car, unclipping her purse. She had asked him about his charges when she had first got into his cab and Bert had guessed an amount which would cover the twelve miles. Now he glanced at the clock on the dashboard and named a sum which was slightly less than he had quoted. She took the money from her purse, plus a generous tip, and placed it in his hand. He thanked her, then cleared his throat.
‘I see there’s a lane which must lead to the farm you’re looking for,’ he said rather hesitantly, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t take the car up there. Is it far to walk?’ He was struck by a sudden recollection. ‘This must be the back way. I remember it was used many, many years ago, but I can take you round to the front if you like. It won’t cost no more – it’s just a matter of turning left at the junction and then left again. Here, I’ll show you; I keep a map in the glove compartment. I doubt if this lane’s shown, but the main road certainly is. Hang on a mo …’
She shook her head and gave him a charming smile, making it plain without words that she appreciated his feeling that she should not be left standing at the roadside. ‘I’ve got a mobile phone, and anyway they’re meeting me here,’ she said, crossing her fingers behind her back as she did so. ‘Well, a little bit further up the lane – only I’m earlier than I should have been. No point in going round to the front.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Bert said, feeling relieved. Today was his day for the school run and though taking his fare to the other end of the lane would only take a few moments he had never been late for the kids yet. He slipped back into the car and wound down his window, about to lean out and remind her that he had given her his card and if she wanted him to return for her she only had to ring the number. He opened his mouth and then realised he would be speaking to himself; the old lady had disappeared. He looked round wildly. The purple and pink of foxgloves and dog roses and tall grasses swaying gently in the breeze met his eyes, but of his passenger there was no sign. Bert turned on the engine and selected first gear, telling himself ruefully that she was pretty nippy for an old ’un. He drove a short way to the nearest point at which he could perform a three point turn, glancing up the rutted lane as he passed, but there was no sign of her. She had disappeared as completely as though she had never been. Bert fished in his side pocket and produced a tin of curiously strong mints. He wondered how she knew the folk from Drake’s Farm, then decided it was none of his business. Doubtless they were friends or relatives and she would be well looked after, for Devon folk were hospitable by nature, and since she was being met she must have warned them of her coming before setting out. Satisfied, he popped a peppermint into his mouth, then speeded up a little. After all, though the kids were often late for him, he had no intention of ever being late for them.
The old woman sat on the bank above the limpid waters of the stream and thought about the past. She could almost hear the splashes as young feet jumped into the water. She closed her eyes, willing memory to come to her aid. Where should she start? She could still remember her first sight of the stream, the day Mummy had brought her to the farm for the first time; and later, the glimpse of Johnny Durrell’s usually dirty face framed by the leaves of the tallest apple tree in the orchard …
But it hadn’t really started with that. She had often dreamed of the farm and the happy band of evacuees who lived there, but dreams and memory are two separate things and today was for remembering. Go back, she told herself. Right back, to the moment when we got on the train meaning to join Daddy in Plymouth.
September 1939
Eve had been gazing through the window with lacklustre eyes as the train on which she was travelling with her mother and her little brother Chrissie chugged slowly through the great city of London, but when it arrived at New Cross station she sat up straight and jerked her mother’s sleeve.
‘Mummy! Have you ever seen so many children? There are some grown-ups, but only one or two, and they look like workmen of some sort.’ Eve shook her mother’s arm again. ‘Do look, Mummy. If Nanny Burton were here she’d say all those boys and girls were the great unwashed, only Daddy said that was rude and I should never repeat it.’
Eleanor Armstrong shook her daughter’s hand off her sleeve and frowned pettishly. She adored her son, of course she did, but he was quite a weight and for the hundredth time she wished she had managed to retain the services of Nanny Burton. She ought to have been the one carrying Chrissie and answering Eve’s questions. However, Nanny Burton was not present, having left the previous week to keep house for her niece, who had taken a job in a munitions factory, and Eleanor was having to cope alone.
‘Mummy? What are the children doing? Are they going to get on our train? I hope they don’t want to come in here – they’ll wake Chrissie and he’ll start to cry again.’
Eleanor heaved a sigh. A guard was pressing his way amongst the children, opening carriage doors as he went, and she had a horrid feeling that the compartment she had bribed a porter to reserve for them would soon be invaded. But the train could not possibly hold the great mass of children on the platform and she said as much, adding that she hoped Eve would behave herself like a little lady and sit quietly in her corner seat.
‘And you needn’t imagine that I intend to allow that rabble to squeeze in with us,’ she added. ‘They are what are being called “evacuees”, you know, getting out of London before the war gets into its stride.’
‘Like us!’ Eve said chirpily. ‘We’re getting out of London before the war starts properly, Daddy said so.’ She gazed into her mother’s beautiful, carefully made-up face. ‘Isn’t that right, Mummy? Aren’t we evacuees as well?’
Eleanor sighed. ‘No we are not,’ she said decidedly. ‘Daddy wants us to be safe, but near him as well. He’s found nice lodgings for us not far from Plymouth, so that’s where we’re going, and whenever his ship docks he’ll join us there. And now will you kindly stop asking questions? If you watch you can see that only a small number of the evacuees are getting aboard our train. The rest will go on another one later, I suppose.’
But Eve was no longer attending to her mother. The guard was returning along the length of the train, slamming the doors shut, and Eve was about to sit back in her seat when a boy in long trousers and a blazer stopped directly outside their open window. He had fair hair which flopped across his forehead, and when he saw her looking at him he pulled the rudest face Eve had ever seen, banged on the glass and said loudly enough for her to hear: ‘We’re gettin’ on a better train than this one. This one’s for kids. Us older ones is goin’ to the country, so yah boo and sucks to you!’
Eve drew in an indignant breath, then glanced towards her mother. Eleanor was not looking in her direction so Eve stuck her tongue out and whispered clearly, ‘Sucks to you as well then. It’s a good thing my mummy didn’t hear you, or you’d be in trouble.’ She hoped to wipe the grin off the boy’s face, but even as the last words left her lips his grin merely widened.
‘Stupid girl!’ he said. ‘Just as well I’m not getting aboard your train, or I’d come along to your compartment and give you a bloody nose.’
Eve gasped. She knew ‘bloody’ was a very rude word indeed, but before she could retaliate her mother grabbed her by one long fair plait and almost flung her back into her seat.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Eleanor Armstrong said as the door to the compartment opened and four or five children filed in and began to take their places on the empty row of seats. ‘If that’s how Nanny Burton allowed you to behave I’m glad she’s left us. And now you’ve gone and woken Chrissie as well as upsetting your mummy. I’m ashamed of you; I never thought you would be so naughty.’
Eve opened her mouth to apologise as the train began to move forward, but the words ‘I’m sorry’ refused to come. ‘He started it, Mummy,’ she said defensively, pointing at the window. ‘And anyway, Chrissie isn’t taking any notice, he’s too busy watching the evacuees.’
Eleanor frowned. ‘Don’t answer me back, miss, just you sit tight until we change trains. Daddy thought you would be a help to me on our journey, but I mean to tell him you’ve been nothing of the sort. No, don’t say anything. I dare say Chrissie will be more assistance to his mummy than you’ve been.’
Eve leaned back in her seat, biting her lip. She had been a great help to her mother when they had boarded the train, but of course that would all be forgotten. Daddy would be told that it was Mummy who had held the tickets and hailed the porter, not to mention persuading Chrissie to get up whilst it was still dark and eat a breakfast of soggy cornflakes with a glass of milk, and thanking Mr Rogers, the caretaker of the block of flats in which the Armstrongs had lived ever since Eve could remember, before they left the building. Then there had been the wait for the taxi to the station, which Eve had enlivened for Chrissie by singing him songs and nursery rhymes. Mummy would be so keen to tell Daddy that Chrissie had been a positive angel that she would not give a thought to her daughter. I’m only nine; lots of girls of nine would not have helped half as much as I have, Eve thought indignantly. But perhaps Daddy would give her a hug and say he knew she must have been a great help because she was Daddy’s girl, his favourite person next to Mummy, and he knew she would have done everything in her power to see that they reached his side as soon as possible. But at this point Chrissie, who had been staring at the other children in round-eyed amazement, began to jabber and point at the small satchel which he knew held chocolate bars. With a resigned sigh, Eleanor reached for the bag where it lay on the string rack above their heads.
‘You may have one small bar,’ she told him firmly. ‘They have to last us until we reach Daddy, and that may be some time. And you mustn’t get chocolate all over your face and hands; Daddy would be angry if I turned up with a chocolatey son.’
Eve watched with watering mouth as her brother snatched a chocolate bar from the satchel, tore the wrapper from the chocolate and cast it on to the floor. Looking around her, she saw that hers was not the only mouth that watered; if the evacuees had food with them she supposed it would be something boring like sandwiches. She remembered Daddy telling Mummy quite severely that she should not give Chrissie chocolate on the journey.
‘If it doesn’t make him sick, which it probably will, then he’ll get covered in it,’ he had said. ‘Do you hear me, Ellie? He mustn’t have chocolate. It would only make him thirsty anyway.’
‘No chocolate,’ Eleanor had agreed, dimpling at her husband. ‘You are cruel, Bill! Waking him up and giving him his breakfast at five in the morning is going to be next to impossible unless I can bribe him with chocolate, and kindly do not call me Ellie,’ she had added, fluttering her lashes. ‘I wish you were able to come with us. You say that’s impossible, though why you can’t ask for leave …’
Eve remembered how for one moment the look of indulgent affection on her father’s face had been replaced by a sort of weary annoyance. ‘Darling heart, you must try to understand that war changes everything. No one will be able to get leave whenever they feel inclined. By the time you have arranged for the flat to be shut up and so on and are ready to come down to Plymouth, I may well be at sea. And you know I’ve had to sell the car now I’ve nowhere to keep it, so even if I’d got shore leave for some reason I wouldn’t be able to pack you and the kids into the car and simply drive off into the wide blue yonder, the way we did on that last holiday.’
Just the memory of that wonderful holiday brought a smile to Eve’s lips and made her forget that Mummy was showing, once more, how she regarded her daughter. Eve was quite as fond of chocolate as Chrissie, yet it had not occurred to her mother to offer her one of the bars with which the satchel was crammed. I could ask, of course, Eve told herself, watching enviously as Chrissie clutched the satchel closer to his chest and made the sort of growling noise that a dog makes when he thinks you mean to steal his bone. But asking would only make Mummy cross and besides, if I tried to take even the tiniest bar Chrissie would scream the place down, and I’d probably get into trouble all over again. But the train was slowing as it approached Waterloo station and Mummy seemed to have forgotten about the satchel and its contents. They had a big cabin trunk and two suitcases stowed away in the guard’s van, and Eve imagined it would be her job to find a porter, discover from which platform the next train left, and go with the luggage to the new train, though it would be Mummy who handed out money when they got there. Better not to mention chocolate bars, then, or Chrissie’s clutch on the satchel. She offered to sling it round her shoulders for ease of carrying, but apparently he suspected that such an innocent move might end in his losing it altogether, so she said nothing more, not even when Eleanor pulled her white velvet vanity case down from the rack and thrust it quite painfully into her daughter’s arms.
‘Stay with Chrissie and take good care of him,’ she commanded. ‘Show the tickets to any official who asks to see them but never give them up.’ And then, as the train jerked to a halt, ‘Ah, we’ve arrived. Stay as close to me as you can, children, and keep your eyes peeled for Auntie Ruby. She promised to come to the station if she possibly could, to help us with the luggage and so on. Oh, Chrissie love, you’ve got chocolate all over your face! What would Daddy say? And I promised him I’d not bring chocolate. Will you let me carry it for you – just as far as the cloakroom, you know? Then Eve can clean you up whilst I check our bags.’
Eve sighed, but knew it was no good complaining. Mummy had loved her once, Daddy said so, so it must be true; and according to Daddy she loves me still, Eve told herself rather dubiously, seizing Chrissie’s hand. Oh, I do hope Auntie Ruby comes in time to help us get aboard the next train. What if we should miss it? And then there’ll be a taxi at the other end, and the driver won’t want a boy covered in chocolate in his nice clean cab. How I wish Daddy was here and not somewhere out at sea, because Mummy will expect me to look after Chrissie on my own and he’s so obstinate and difficult.
Trying to look back, Eve wondered whether she had been as self-willed as Chrissie when she was his age, but she thought not. Why should she be difficult when her beloved daddy understood her so well? But that had been before Chrissie, when, according to Nanny Burton, Eve’s mother had spoiled her too, just as Daddy did now.
It had been nice to be the favoured child and she supposed she should not grumble because Chrissie had taken her place. She sighed. One ought to love one’s baby brother and take pains to help him in any way one could, but in her secret heart Eve did not even like Chrissie, far less love him. Oh, she pretended like anything, put on a good face, praised his golden-haired prettiness, but in her heart, deeply buried, she hated the little beast.
But now Mummy was ushering her out of the compartment to join the queue of people in the corridor heading for the nearest door.
‘There’s Auntie Ruby,’ Eve said suddenly, stopping dead as she spotted her aunt’s bush of tangled hair through the window. ‘Oh, thank goodness. Chrissie will let Auntie Ruby wash his face, because he’s frightened of her.’ She picked her little brother up, satchel and all, and made him wave to Auntie Ruby as the queue of disembarking passengers shuffled past behind them.
When at last they descended on to the platform their aunt whisked Chrissie up and sat him on her hip, ignoring his grizzling and smiling cheerfully at Eve. ‘Your mum has given this child chocolate,’ she announced needlessly, for one glance at Chrissie’s face proved the truth of the statement. ‘You’re a good little lass; I see you’ve got your mum’s vanity case. Well, you hang on to that whilst I clean the young master up. You’d better come with me, because we don’t want to get separated. Your mother’s gone to find a porter – we’re meeting her in the buffet so you can get yourselves something to drink before you board the Exeter train.’
‘The Exeter train?’ Eve said. ‘But we’re going to Plymouth.’
Auntie Ruby looked surprised. ‘Don’t say your mother didn’t tell you? You’re spending one night, or possibly two, in Exeter before going on to your lodgings. Your father’s decided that Plymouth, being a very important port, is no place for his family in wartime.’
‘Where are we going, then? After Exeter, I mean?’ Eve asked, thinking that it was typical of her mother not to admit that their destination had changed. ‘Oh, Auntie Ruby, I wish you were coming with us.’
Auntie Ruby chuckled as she ushered the two children into the ladies’ cloakroom. ‘I have work to do here,’ she said. ‘As for where you’re going, you wouldn’t know where it was even if I told you.’ She took the satchel from Chrissie, and when he wailed a protest and tried to snatch it back she gave him what Eve considered to be a well-deserved slap. ‘Behave yourself!’ she said sharply. ‘Your train leaves in twenty minutes and if I have to spend all that time cleaning you up, young man, spend it I will.’
Despite Eve’s fears, the transfer from the train to a small boarding house in Exeter had been far simpler than she had imagined. Mummy had been at her most charming, praising the town, the lodgings and their landlady, who was clearly fond of children and thought Chrissie adorable, admiring his curls, his big blue eyes and his delightful manners; for like his mother, Eve thought resentfully, he could turn his charm on and off to suit every occasion.
And there had been no difficulty in finding a taxi driver who would pick them up the next morning and take them to Drake’s Farm, where Daddy had arranged for them to stay. Chrissie had pouted but Eve had felt a lift of the heart. So they were to stay on a farm, a real farm, one with pigs and chickens, and cows and horses – all the things she had read about, in short, but had never seen.
‘Farms is the best place for children in wartime,’ Mrs Edge, the Exeter landlady, had told Eleanor wisely. ‘I don’t know this Drake’s Farm, but then I wouldn’t, would I, if it’s closer to Plymouth than here? But all farms is alike when you come down to it, and probably just what your children need, I don’t doubt. You say your husband chose it? Well there you are then.’
Eve had opened her mouth to say the original plan had been to go all the way to Plymouth, then closed it again. Mummy hated it when she showed she had been listening to a conversation. Best play safe; Eve grinned to herself. ‘Lay low and say nuffin’,’ as Uncle Remus had put it, ‘and you won’t go far wrong.’
But Mrs Edge and her comfortable little house were already part of the past, and right now Eve was seated beside her mother, with Chrissie on Eleanor’s lap, watching the green and gold countryside pass by. She had entered the taxi whilst Mummy had been discussing the fare and so had missed any mention of how long this journey would take, which was unfortunate since it seemed to her to be a very long time indeed. She jerked her mother’s sleeve, wanting to remind Eleanor that she was not a good traveller, but her mother was staring out of the window, a frown creasing her brow. Then she leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.
‘How much further is it?’ she said, making it plain from her tone that she had not realised how far they would have to go. ‘I know you said it was a fair way but surely we must be almost there?’
The driver slowed and swivelled in his seat to give his passengers an amused look. He was a young man with bright ginger hair and a face full of freckles. When he smiled Eve saw that he had a front tooth missing.
‘Another couple of miles, I dare say; mebbe three,’ he said jovially. ‘But these country roads aren’t kept up the way the main roads are, which makes it seem longer.’
Eleanor sank back in her seat. ‘Well, I suppose we can put up with three more miles so long as it’s not any further,’ she said grudgingly.
Eve sighed. One of her many faults, according to Mummy, was her inability to travel by car without at some stage having to abandon ship or be sick. The journey had not been so bad whilst the taxi pootled along the smooth main road, but they had left that some time ago and Eve was beginning to feel distinctly queasy. Three more miles of this! There were potholes and bends, puddles and other obstacles, and though the countryside was beautiful it was also growing wilder by the minute. Eve cast a despairing glance at her mother; Eleanor knew her daughter’s weakness and would surely take pity on her. If they could stop for a few minutes she could be sick in the ditch which she had noticed running alongside the road, but if she said nothing …
‘Almost there now,’ the taxi driver said cheerfully. ‘We turn left here and the farm’s about a mile up the lane. Oh …’ He braked sharply, surveying in some dismay the deep ruts and untrimmed hedges that lined the track he had been about to turn in to. ‘Well, I can’t take the taxi up there. ’Twasn’t meant for anything but horse-drawn traffic, clearly, and very little of that.’ He grinned at them. ‘’Tis only a mile. ’Twon’t take you above fifteen minutes if you step out.’
He drew the car to a halt, got out of his seat and went round to the rear passenger door. ‘I’ll knock a bob or two off the fare, seeing as how you’ll have to walk the last bit,’ he said.
But her mother shook her head firmly. ‘How can you be so foolish?’ she said scornfully. ‘We’ve two large cases and the cabin trunk and we only hired you because you had a trailer for our bags. You can’t expect me to tackle that lane with two children and all that luggage. Kindly get back in the car so that we may all continue our journey.’
Eve was fighting her own particular battle – she could feel her breakfast heaving around inside her tummy – but she had heard the annoyance in her mother’s voice; clearly Eleanor had decided that this man would respond better to bullying than to charm. But the taxi driver only grinned more broadly.
‘It’s all right, missus, I was only having a bit of a joke with you,’ he said. ‘This is the back way, seemingly. I’ll drive you round to the front.’ But even as Eleanor relaxed and began to smile the driver, who had ignored the children until now, suddenly pointed an accusing finger at Eve. ‘You’re car sick, aren’t you?’ he said, his tone so matter of fact that it did not occur to Eve or her mother to deny it, though Eve tried her best to hide the churning. ‘Come you out of that.’
He seized her shoulder in a not unfriendly grip and pulled her out of the taxi. ‘Oh aye, I can see all the signs and I won’t have no kid throwing up in my cab, no matter how much you pay me.’ He gave Eve an admonitory little shake, then addressed her. ‘I can’t say as I blame you for feeling a bit off, ’cos these roads are pretty rough, but you look like a healthy young woman. What are you – ten, twelve? If I take your mum, your baby brother and the luggage round to the front of this here Drake’s Farm you can walk up the back way. You’ll be there in no time and you won’t have to put up with being shut in the taxi.’
‘I’m nine,’ Eve said, but she felt a glow of pride. Mummy might not value her or think her capable of finding her way up the steep lane without adult assistance, but the taxi driver had actually thought she was ten or twelve and therefore almost an adult herself.
Right now she was gazing at the lane, delighted to be out of the car and in the open air, yet secretly worried in case she should get lost between here and Drake’s Farm. She said as much and the taxi driver patted her shoulder before climbing back into the driver’s seat, winding down his window so that he might answer her.
‘The only buildin’, apart from Drake’s Farm itself, is an ancient barn. If you just keep on walkin’ you’ll see the farm’ouse quick enough. Want to take your little brother along for company?’
Eve laughed. Her stomach was settling down and all of a sudden she felt excited rather than apprehensive, though the thought of being accompanied by Chrissie almost spoiled her pleasure in the sunny day. She shook her head decidedly.
‘No thank you. I’d have to carry him, you see, as soon as he got tired or bored.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He hardly ever walks if he can help it. My daddy says he’s terribly spoiled.’ She would have gone on to explain that her mother never corrected Chrissie no matter how naughty he was, but Eleanor had opened her door and was clearly listening to every word her daughter uttered.
‘Chrissie wants to come with you, Eve,’ she announced firmly. ‘It’s only a mile; if you have to carry him for a bit, it won’t hurt you. In fact it will probably be good for you to put yourself out for your little brother.’
Eve gathered all her courage and shook her head firmly. ‘No, I won’t take Chrissie. There are puddles and he isn’t wearing wellies. Besides, I’m sure he’d rather go by car.’
Here she was proved wrong. Chrissie pointed at Eve and then at the lane, chuckling with anticipation and preparing to scramble off his mother’s knee and into the warm September sunlight. Eve might have given in, but just in time the taxi driver gave her a friendly nudge.
‘Off with you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I bet that kid weighs a ton. Go on or your mum will nab you.’
Eve did not need telling twice. She hurried away from the taxi, pushing through the neglected verges and trying to ignore the screams with which Chrissie greeted the thwarting of his wishes. Within moments she was out of sight of the car, and alone. Above her, birds darted from one side of the lane to the other, somewhere in the distance a cow mooed, and presently she heard the taxi driver start his engine, its noise growing fainter as he continued on his way.
Eve gazed around her and thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. A huge tree spread protective branches over her head, and telling herself that she would be all the better for a bit of a sit-down she chose a mossy log and perched on it to look around her. This was a magic place, she thought, for in the roots of the great tree there was dark mysterious water; she could imagine a tiny person only a couple of inches high sculling a small boat across the mirror stillness of the pool. She wished she knew what the tree was called and presently a name popped into her mind: it was a beech, and the stuff that littered the ground around her feet was beech mast. Eve frowned; how had she known that? She supposed that at some stage or other they had been taught the names of trees at school. She hoped that whichever school she would now attend had nature lessons.
She slid off the log, gave one last glance around her and set off once again. With every step she took she felt her surroundings becoming more familiar. Had she been here before? If so, Daddy must have brought her, because Mummy would never risk sullying her beautiful clothing or scratching the patent leather court shoes with their narrow heels and cute little bows – cream bows on black shoes – which were her present favourite footwear.
She heard the stream before she saw it and when she did see it she felt she knew it as well as she knew the great River Thames, beside which she had frequently walked with Nanny Burton, pushing the baby Chrissie in his pram.
But this river was nothing like the Thames, of course. In fact Eve supposed it was not really a river at all, but what Daddy would have called a stream. But river or stream, it was as beautiful in its way as the great beeches. At this particular point it ran across the lane, gurgling over big flat stones, and it was easy to see that this was what Daddy would have called a ford, a place where cattle, people in wellington boots and even, she supposed, cars could cross. Eve leaned over the water and saw movement; she had hoped for mermaids but the little silver-gilt fish darting to and fro over the varied coloured stones were the next best thing, and anyway mermaids were sea creatures, not to be found in freshwater streams. She had peered into the depths of the Thames often enough and had never seen so much as a flicker of a fin, let alone a mermaid. But here in this enchanted place anything was possible.
Eve looked a little further upstream and saw the bridge. It was a wooden structure and not very wide, but she supposed that when the stream was swollen by winter rains anyone walking up this lane would have to use it. She hesitated. If she took her shoes and socks off she could cross by the ford, but that would mean replacing her socks on wet feet and she guessed how her mother would scold. Better to go by the bridge. She was halfway over when she remembered something else, and hesitated again. Daddy had told her the story of the three billy goats gruff, who had to cross the river in order to eat the sweet green grass which grew on the further bank. But the troll who lived under the bridge bounded out the moment he heard a footfall and announced his intention of eating the trespasser for supper.
Eve giggled, then leaned over the low parapet and glanced carefully at the tumbling water beneath. What a place for games! If she had to come this way to school she would make up a magic charm to keep the troll in his place, but though she might believe in mermaids – or half believe, rather – she knew that the troll was really just a fairy tale and would never pop out from his hiding place below the bridge to challenge all comers.
Sometimes I wonder if Mummy’s right and I’m dreaming my life away, Eve told herself as she left the stream behind her and continued up the lane. Here it climbed between steep banks, banks so beautiful that Eve could not resist slowing her pace once more. She saw tiny flowers and cushions of moss, and in one particular spot a small plant which had a single red fruit dangling from it. One of Nanny Burton’s stories popped into her mind, for Nanny had been a country girl and one day at nursery tea, when they had had delicious strawberries and cream, she had told Eve how she and her brother had once picked wild strawberries for their mother’s birthday and how thrilled old Mrs Burton had been. Even the city-bred Eve had known that strawberries came in June and were well over by September, and she felt privileged that the little plant had saved one small fruit especially for her. Of course Mummy would say that the wild strawberry had not been saved for anyone, certainly not for her daughter, but so far as Eve was concerned the strawberry was for her alone and she agreed with Nanny Burton that its flavour far surpassed that of the larger cultivated sort.
Naturally enough she scanned the bank closely for several moments, but though she saw plenty of the small green leaves which belonged to the plant she saw no more fruit and presently, remembering how her mother hated being kept waiting, she abandoned the hunt and quickened her pace. She was aware that she must be nearing her destination, and when the lane took a turn to the left and the banks began to dwindle she saw Drake’s Farm for the first time.
Eve stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the house which loomed before her. It was a long low building with a thatched roof, and was surrounded on three sides by what she took to be outbuildings. There were several windows set deep into the whitewashed walls of the house, and before it was a cobbled yard in which hens and other birds she did not recognise clucked and pecked. A wide farm gate separated the lane from the farmyard, and this was wide open. It was old and mossy, and even in one swift glance Eve saw enough to convince her that it was rarely closed. Since the lane appeared to lead nowhere but to Drake’s Farm, she guessed that shutting the gate would be a mere formality.
And there was Mummy, holding Chrissie’s hand in order, Eve realised, to stop him chasing the chickens, because when they went to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons his first action was always to rush amongst the feeding birds, trying to catch them and shouting with glee. He could get away with such behaviour in London because the pigeons did not belong to anybody in particular, but here, she guessed, the farmer and his wife would not appreciate a child who disturbed their flock. Next to her mother stood a large, rosy-cheeked woman in a print dress and a white apron. She had a mass of greying fair hair, shrewd brown eyes and a welcoming smile. Just behind her stood a young girl whom Eve judged to be about three or four years older than herself. She was a pretty girl, fair-haired and fragile. She wore a faded cotton dress and she gave Eve a conspiratorial grin. But Chrissie gave a delighted crow as soon as his eyes alighted on his sister, and he let out his well-known imitation of a train whistle.
‘Evie!’ he shouted. ‘You was a long time. Mummy said you needed a smack to speed you up. We’ve been here hours and hours, just waiting for you. Oh, you are a naughty girl.’
‘Don’t be so silly, Chrissie; I came as fast as I could,’ Eve said coldly. She turned to her mother. ‘You said to keep my shoes clean and some parts of the lane are really muddy, so that’s why it took me a bit longer.’ But before Eleanor could deliver the scold Eve was sure was coming, the large rosy-cheeked woman who had been talking to her turned her head and spoke directly to Eve.
‘Well, dearie? I’m Mrs Faversham, and you’ll be young Eve. Your mum explained you’re not a good traveller, and that’s why you wanted to walk up the back way.’ She chuckled. ‘I dare say the exercise has made you hungry, so there’s lunch set out in the dining room, though as a rule we eats in the kitchen.’ She gave Eve a broad smile. ‘There’s milk fresh from the cow to drink for you little ’uns, and when you’ve finished I’ll get Mabel here to show you round the house.’
The lunch was glorious and the room allocated to the Armstrongs bright and airy. In fact the only incident to mar the afternoon occurred just as they were leaving the house to be shown round the farm, when Eleanor clapped a hand to her forehead and announced that she had forgotten where the bathroom was situated. Mrs Faversham raised her brows.
‘Bathroom?’ she echoed. ‘We bain’t on mains water, Mrs Armstrong; we uses the galvanised bath which hangs on the wall of the scullery. Very few farmhouses this way have bathrooms.’
‘Oh,’ Eleanor said faintly. ‘And – and the lavatory?’
‘Down the end of the garden,’ Mabel butted in before the older woman could speak. ‘And there are jerries in all the rooms – for night time, you know. We manage fine, don’t we, Auntie Bess?’
‘That’s right, my handsome,’ Mrs Faversham said. She turned to Eleanor and patted the other woman’s slender shoulder. ‘Mabel’s staying here whilst this dratted war lasts, ’cos her pa’s been sent to Plymouth and he reckons it’ll be a dangerous place once them dratted Nazis start these here bombing raids we’ve heard tell of. He wanted her mother to come with her, but she chose to stay with him, and now she’s gone and got herself a job of her own.’ She smiled kindly at Eleanor, who was clearly still trying to come to terms with the lavatory at the bottom of the garden and the non-existent bathroom. ‘I’ll introduce you to everyone else when they comes in from the fields, but I can see you’re a trifle shocked ’cos we don’t run to mains water nor electric. Come back to the dining room and we’ll have a cup of tea and a chat while our Mabel takes your youngsters round the farm.’
Eleanor made a little bleating sound which Mrs Faversham clearly took for agreement, for she turned back into the house, first informing the older girl that she must keep an eye on the little lad.
‘Mabel’s good with youngsters,’ she told Eleanor. ‘Go you off, Mabel dear. No need to take young Eve here back down the lane, nor Chrissie neither; just you concentrate on Drake’s Farm itself. Time enough to see the village and the school and that, time enough.’
Mabel murmured an agreement, then took Chrissie’s hand and led her companions across to what she informed them was the milking shed.
‘We bring the cows in morning and evening and Uncle Reg or one or other of the land girls does the milking before they let the cows back out into one of the pastures.’
Eve looked round the dark and dusty interior. ‘How many cows have you got?’ she asked curiously. She looked at the stalls and the mangers. ‘There’s room here for six.’
Mabel laughed. ‘The cows have to take it in turns to be milked,’ she explained. ‘Uncle Reg and the land girls take it in turns as well; if someone’s on early milking they’ll do mornings for a whole week, and if they’re on evenings they’ll do that for a week as well. I’m learning to milk too but I’m still very slow, though Uncle says I’ll get faster the more I practise.’ She giggled. ‘Uncle Reg is slow in all sorts of ways. It’s all very well for Auntie Bess; farming’s in her blood, but Uncle Reg only came to the farm when her first husband died and she married him, and that was only ten years ago.’
‘Oh,’ Eve said rather inadequately. ‘I sort of imagined that he’d been here all his life.’
Mabel laughed again. ‘Why did you think it were called Drake’s Farm?’ she asked. ‘Auntie Bess’s first husband was a Drake, and you don’t go changin’ the name of a farm. Everyone for miles around knows it’s the Favershams who own Drake’s Farm, but they’d never dream of calling it Faversham’s Farm.’ She led them out of the milking shed and into the next building, which proved to contain a number of enormous farm vehicles. Mabel pointed out hay wains, a neat little carriage she called a trap and a large though ancient tractor. ‘Cart shed; some of the stuff’s old, but it all works …’ she was beginning when Chrissie, whose hand she had still been holding, escaped from her grasp and headed for the farmyard.
‘Come here, you naughty boy,’ Mabel shouted, but Eve, knowing her little brother, did not waste breath on calling him but set off at once in pursuit, grabbing him just as he would have turned into the lane. She led him back to Mabel and began to apologise, but Mabel shook her head and gave Chrissie an admonitory slap. ‘’Twas none of your doing,’ she said to Eve. ‘We’ll have to get your mother to keep her eye on this ’un.’
Chrissie opened his mouth to bawl but Mabel bent down and addressed him directly. ‘You’re a big boy. You must be three or four – a good deal older than my little cousin Patrick, anyhow – and I’m telling you now that you’ll get more slaps than kisses if you’re naughty, because farmyards are dangerous places. Now, are you going to behave and come with your sister and me, or shall I take you back to the house where your mummy can deal with you?’
Eve gazed at Chrissie with awe. Two slaps in two days, administered by two different people who had made it plain that they would stand no nonsense from her little brother! Yesterday Auntie Ruby had smacked his trousered bottom, and now this girl had handed out another well-deserved reproof. But it appeared that despite the slap Chrissie for once preferred his sister’s company to that of his mother.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said decidedly. ‘Can I milk a cow?’ As he spoke he grabbed Mabel’s hand again, and though she laughed and told him it would be a few years yet before he was able to do anything really useful Chrissie appeared satisfied. ‘I will be good,’ he announced firmly. ‘I will be very good. One day I will milk the cows and feed the pigeons and them other birds what have nice coloured feathers.’
Mabel laughed again, but shook her head. ‘Time enough for all that,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Just you be a good boy and don’t touch any of the animals or birds unless you’re told you may. Even my little cousin Patrick knows better than to run about loose, disturbing the hens – they’re hens, not pigeons – because the cockerel will attack if you upset his ladies. And if you’re a good boy, a really good boy, I’ll show you where the hens lay their eggs in the barn and you shall choose one of the eggs and have it for your breakfast tomorrow morning.’
Chrissie gave a little crow of glee. ‘I shall have an egg, and soldier boy fingers,’ he announced proudly. He looked up at Eve. ‘You shan’t have an egg, ’cos you aren’t a good boy.’
Eve giggled but Mabel did not seem to be amused. ‘Don’t you love your sister?’ she asked incredulously. ‘If you don’t love her, then you aren’t a good boy.’
Chrissie had been holding tightly to Mabel but had pushed Eve impatiently away when she had tried to take his other hand. Now, however, he snatched Eve’s fingers and to her considerable surprise planted a moist kiss on her palm, then looked up at Mabel.
‘Can Evie have an egg as well?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Must I share my egg with Evie, or can she have one of her own if I say I love her?’
He looked so enchantingly pretty as he raised worried eyes to Mabel’s face that Eve was not surprised when the older girl laughed and nodded her head.
‘We will all have an egg for our breakfasts if you go on being good,’ she promised. ‘And now we’re going to meet the pigs in the sties, the two calves in their pen, the sheep in the fields and the new foal, Conker. I named her that because she’s the colour of a ripe chestnut just out of its prickly shell,’ she added proudly. ‘Uncle Reg says I can break her in when she’s old enough. She knows me already and comes to the gate the moment I appear because she knows I’ll bring her a lump of sugar or a piece of apple.’
Chrissie was fascinated by the two pigs, both of whom had ten or twelve piglets and came snorting to the trough in the hopes of an early supper. For once in her life Eve was glad of Chrissie’s company, since she was as ignorant as he and did not want Mabel to guess that the animals were as much a novelty to her as to her small brother. She had never realised that mother pigs – sows, Mabel called them – were so huge, nor their babies so small. The sows were not at all careful about where they planted their feet, but Mabel explained that the piglets were several weeks old and had learned to keep well clear of their mothers’ careless tread. Chrissie had to be lifted up to see into the sties and chuckled and crowed when the sows looked hopefully up, eager for the apples with which Mabel had stuffed her pockets, guessing that she would be asked to conduct the Armstrongs around the premises.