Elizabeth Elgin - Whisper on the Wind

‘Kathleen Allen. Kath.’ She grasped the hand firmly, ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’ She really was.

‘Not as glad as Mat Ramsden’s going to be to meet you. He’s desperate for help. Hope you’re his new landgirl?’

‘That’s me, though I’ve only just joined. It’ll be my first farm and I’m a bit nervous.’

‘Then don’t be, because I’m new to it, too. This is my first day – my first official day. We’ll muddle through between us.’

‘I can’t milk, Roz.’ Worrying about those cows again, dammit.

‘Neither can I, but it’s machine milking at Mat’s so it won’t be too bad. Jonty will show us how. Let’s be making tracks, eh? I’m just about frozen.’ The weather wasn’t letting up, thank heaven. There’d be no ploughing but there wouldn’t be any flying, either. Paul would make it to the dance tonight. ‘Grace is sure to have the kettle on. C’mon, Daisy. Hup, girl.’

The little pony set off with a toss of its head that set the harness jingling.

Daisy, Kath smiled; Roz and Daisy. Two friends, and she was on her way to hot tea and a welcome.

Happiness flushed her cheeks. She wouldn’t spoil one minute of this day by worrying about what Barney’s letter would bring. There was a war on and a woman whose husband was away at war must learn to think for herself, make decisions she would once never dreamed of making. No, Kath decided, suddenly headily defiant, she wouldn’t worry – well, not until Barney came home.

She smiled with pure pleasure and fell in behind the milk-float that would lead her to the farm. New friends and tea. What more could a girl – a landgirl – want on this most special morning?

They came upon Ridings unexpectedly, rounding the broad sweep of lane to see it there ahead of them. It was one of the nice things about the old house, Roz always thought. Now, the fast-lightening sky silhouetted it sharply, sending a glow like candlelight through the empty stone windows, gentling the jagged, broken shell.

‘What’s that old ruin? An abbey?’ Kath gasped.

‘That’s Ridings,’ Roz laughed, ‘or what’s left of it. I live there.’ She always enjoyed telling people she lived in a ruin.

‘Oh, goodness, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …’ Her embarrassment was short-lived, for Roz was smiling. ‘I mean – it’s an unusual name, isn’t it?’

‘Ridings? I suppose it is. It’s because half of it is in the North Riding and half of it’s in the West Riding. The boundary line runs right through the estate. And it isn’t all a ruin. There’s a bit more to it than that. It was built in the shape of a T, you see, and the top of the T was completely destroyed, but the stem, the bit at the back, survived. That’s the part we live in.’

She called the pony to a halt. She loved this aspect of the old house; always from this spot she sent up a thank you that it hadn’t been entirely gutted that December day, twenty-four years ago.

‘It must have been one heck of a place,’ Kath breathed. ‘And just look at those gates …’

The entrance to Ridings had been built with pride. Sweeping stone gateposts were topped by finely chiselled greyhounds and on either side of them the gate lodges stood splendidly ornate. Kath gazed at the intricately patterned gates and the garish morning light that filtered through the delicate ironwork.

‘The height of three men and as old as the house itself.’ Roz smiled, though the name of the craftsman who created them had never been known. ‘I’m glad you like them. Mind, we live in fear that someone’s going to take them away before very much longer.’

She hoped the gates would escape the scrap metal hunters; men who came with the blessing of the Government and removed gates and railings without so much as a by-your-leave, carting them off to be melted down for the war effort. Only field gates were safe, and unpatriotic though it was to harbour such thoughts, Roz was glad that so far Ridings’ gates had not been found.

‘Who did it?’ Kath demanded. ‘Cromwell?’

‘No. This one we can’t blame on him, though the Fairchilds were Royalists, I believe. It was a fire; a wiring fault. Funny, really, that it survived for nearly four hundred years with candles and oil lamps and then my grandfather decided that electricity would be safer.’

‘How big was it?’ Much bigger, surely, than the orphanage.

‘Quite a size – over twenty bedrooms, but I never saw it the way it was. There are pictures, though, and photographs, and I sometimes think the fire was meant to be because Gran and me couldn’t have kept it going; not a place that size.’

‘It’s yours? You own it?’

‘It’s Gran’s. Before my father died – he was an architect – he had the ruins tidied up, sort of. The fire destroyed the roof so everything had to be pulled down for safety, except the outer walls. Then Gran had creepers and climbing roses planted against them and in summer it looks really beautiful. It’s mellowed, I suppose.’

‘And was much left, at the back?’

‘Too much, I’m afraid. It’s murder keeping it warm in winter. The part that survived was once the kitchen block and servants’ quarters and my father drew up the plans when Gran had it done over. You’ll see it, when you meet her.

‘But let’s get Daisy watered and fed, then we can thaw ourselves out at Grace’s fire, and cadge a cup of tea.’

Roz looked at the young woman beside her, seeing her clearly for the first time, amazed by her beauty. There was no mistaking it, even in a face pinched with cold and tied round with a head-scarf. Deep, blue-grey eyes, thick-lashed, and a full, sensuous mouth.

‘Is your boyfriend in the forces, Kathleen?’

‘My husband is. Barney.’ Her lips moved into a brief smile. ‘He’s in North Africa – a driver in the Service Corps. And call me Kath, will you? I’m used to Kath. What about you?’ Too young to be married. Seventeen, perhaps?

‘Not married, but I’ve got a boyfriend. I’m seeing him tonight. There’s a – Damn !’ She reached for a bottle of milk. ‘I forgot Polly at the lodge! Won’t be a minute. Just follow Daisy, will you? She knows her way home. I’ll catch you up.’

Kath turned to watch the girl who ran swiftly back to the gates. A little older than seventeen, she conceded, but in love for the first time if shining eyes were anything to go by. Amazing how important people were in wartime; how easily you got to know them. Before the war you didn’t ask such personal questions; you kept yourself to yourself and respected the other person’s right to privacy. Yet now it was necessary to make friends quickly, because one thing no one had a lot of was time. For some, there wasn’t even a tomorrow. Young as she was, Roz could already have learned that, poor kid.

But tomorrow was a long way off when today had only just begun. Lovely, lovely today. Her first day in the country where she had always longed to be.

‘Sorry, Barney,’ she whispered, ‘but you owe me this one.’

Smiling, she set off after the little pony.

‘There now, that’ll be Roz. I thought she’d forgotten us.’ Polly Appleby glanced up from the porridge pan at the clink of the milk bottle on the back-door step. ‘Bring it in, Arnie, there’s a good lad.’

She watched the boy dart away. He would expect the top of the milk on his porridge and she would give it to him; after all a growing lad needed a good breakfast inside him. Arnie ate every last scrap of food she set before him with silent dedication and no I-don’t-like-this and I-don’t-like-thats. His appreciation of food made cooking a joy, even with rationing the way it was. He’d been like that right from the start, come to think of it; a small, hungry seven-year-old, scrawny and unwashed, the last of the bunch.