Elizabeth Elgin - A Scent of Lavender

Goff Leaman watched her go. A bonny lass with a right grand smile and friendly with it, an’ all. A town lass, without a doubt, but willing to learn it seemed. Should do all right in Ainsty, if she could stand the quiet of the country.

He squinted up into the sky as a bomber flew over, far too low, in his opinion, for safety. Off bombing tonight, he supposed.

He shrugged, picking up his spade, grateful that having done his bit in the trenches in the Great War, he was a mite too old for this one!

‘Miss Hugwitty?’ Ness smiled down at the small, elderly woman. ‘I’m the new girl from Glebe Farm and Mrs Wintersgill wants to know if you could help in the kitchen, them bein’ busy with the hay. Starting tomorrow.’

‘Come in, lass. Was wondering when I’d be hearing. Always help Kate at busy times. They’re late with hay this year. Usually they like to start about Barnaby.’

‘Er –?’

‘Barnaby time. St Barnabas’ Day – eleventh of June. Mind, we had two weeks of wet weather, recent, so it’ll have put things back a bit. Sit you down.’ She nodded towards the wooden rocker beside the fireplace. ‘And what do they call you, then?’

‘Agnes Nightingale, though people call me Ness. And I’m twenty-five and from Liverpool, and I’m not courting.’

Best tell her, sooner than later. Beady-eyed people like Martha Hugwitty always found out in the end.

‘Ah. Well, you’re a bonny lass, so you soon will be. Courting, I mean. There’s not much to choose from in the village with Tuthey’s twins away in the Navy – apart from young Rowley at the farm. But there’s a few young men across the top road at Meltonby. And York is full of RAF lads; aerodromes all around these parts. You’ll not go short of a dancing partner if you’re not already spoken for, that is.’

‘Like I just said, I’m not going steady and I’m not looking, either. See you tomorrow, then?’

Ness got to her feet. Time she was going. Martha Hugwitty had been told all that was good for her to know about Glebe Farm’s land girl. ‘And nice meetin’ you.’

Martha closed the door, nodding with satisfaction. Interesting, the lass was. Very pretty and twenty-five and not courting. Peculiar, to say the least. Young man been killed, perhaps? Agnes Nightingale, whose eyes held secrets to be probed by someone like herself, possessed of the gift. Likely the lass would have an interesting palm as well, could she but get a look at it. She shrugged, turning on the wireless for the evening news.

The pips that signalled nine o’clock pinged out. The land girl could wait. Until tomorrow.

‘There you are!’ Ness found Lorna in the garden, pulling weeds. ‘Messages delivered.’

‘Good. The two of them always help out at the farm. Both glad of the money, I think. But that’s enough for one night. I’ll come inside now, and wash my hands.’

‘That Martha is a bit of a busybody.’ Ness followed Lorna into the house. ‘Got real beady eyes, like little gimlets.’

‘She’s all right, once you get to know her. But don’t let her tell your fortune.’

‘Bit of a fraud, is she?’

‘Far from it! A lot of the things she’s told people have come true – those who’ll admit having been to her, that is. And you are right about her eyes, Ness. They do look into your soul, kind of. It wouldn’t surprise me if she were a medium, on the quiet. Oh, drat! That’s the phone! Answer it, will you, whilst I dry my hands.’

‘Meltonby 223.’ Ness spoke slowly and carefully into the receiver.

‘Hullo! Lorna?’

‘Sorry, no. I’m Ness. Lorna’s here now. I think it’s your William,’ she mouthed, closing the door behind her. And just what the girl needed; cheer her up with a bit of good news and reassurance. But the news it would seem had not been good, and reassurance thin on the ground, judging from the downcast mouth and tear-bright eyes.

‘Lorna, girl, what is it? Not bad news?’

‘No. As a matter of fact there wasn’t a lot of news, good or bad. William spent the entire three minutes telling me off.’

‘Why? What have you done to upset him?’

‘I didn’t tell him about you. He got a shock, he said, when a strange voice answered. I should have told him in my letter and to cut a long story short, he says I mustn’t have you here.’

‘Well, it’s his house, innit? Suppose you’d better tell them at the hostel.’ A pity, Ness brooded. She was really getting to like it at Ladybower. ‘I’ll go as soon as there’s a bed for me. And sorry if I got you into trouble – me answering the phone, I mean.’

‘No, Ness! It wasn’t your fault, and I don’t want you to go! I don’t care what William says. The evacuees we had to take put him off, you see. He said good riddance to them when they left. But he shouldn’t object to a grown-up who’s hardly ever in the house.’

‘Poor love. He gave you a bad time because of me, when all you wanted to hear was that he was missing you and that he loves you,’ Ness soothed.

‘Afraid so. Do you know, if anything awful happened to me, he’d have it on his conscience that the last words he said to me were, “See Nance Ellery in the morning and tell her to find somewhere else for the woman to stay. Is that clear?” Then the pips went. He must have known we’d only get three minutes on a long-distance call, and he wasted them.’ She blinked hard against tears.

‘Never mind, queen. Dry your eyes. I’ll make you a cuppa, eh? Don’t bother ringing the hostel tonight. Tomorrow will do.’

‘No it won’t, because I don’t want you to leave and what’s more, I’ll have who I like in this house. It isn’t William’s, it’s mine!’ Chin high, she dabbed her eyes. ‘Grandpa left it to me. It’s my name on the deeds, not William’s! And I’m sorry, Ness. He isn’t usually so rude.’

‘Ar well, maybe he’s fed up with the war and invasion talk just like the rest of us. Maybe he’s worried about you, here on your own.’

‘But I’m not on my own. You are here with me and he should be glad! And I would like a cup of tea, please, and I’ll bet you anything you like that William will phone again before so very much longer, to say he’s sorry.’

William had not phoned back. Ness frowned as she stood at the open window, watching shifting shapes in the twilight-dim garden, taking deep breaths of cool evening air. But to give him the benefit of the doubt, calls from south to north weren’t all that easy to come by. Sometimes you booked your call then hung around for hours, waiting. Sometimes the call didn’t come at all. Because of the war, and the armed forces being given priority over civilians when it came to using trunk lines. And perhaps, she thought, in further mitigation, William was really cheesed off now, him being so awful to Lorna for three minutes when he could have been telling her he loved her.

Yet nothing changed the fact that as long as Lorna’s husband wanted neither evacuees nor land girls at Ladybower House, there wasn’t a lot Ness Nightingale could do about it – even though Lorna said she must stay.

Sighing she pulled down the blackout blind, drew the rose chintz curtains over its ugliness, then got into bed. Arms behind head she gazed into the darkness. She didn’t usually take sides, but tonight her sympathies were with Lorna. How could William wait ages and ages for a trunk call, then waste it giving Lorna down-the-banks and only because she had taken in a land girl.

William’s silver-framed photograph came to mind. He wasn’t, she was forced to admit, much to write home about. Oh, he looked well in his uniform, but she had noticed an arrogance about his mouth, a down-tilting of the corners of his lips. Mind, perhaps that was the way he wanted to look, all stern and soldierly, but that moustache didn’t suit him, made him look years older than surely he was. And there had been something about his eyes, too. She frowned, trying to find a word for them. Bulbous , that was it! You noticed them almost as soon as you noticed the walrus moustache.