LITMIR.BIZ

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you. I don’t mind waiting, Lady Alice.’

      ‘I mind. Wear the coat.’

      They drove in silence, Grace going over and over in her head all the things she thought she should have been saying. Seeing Lady Alice in the uniform, albeit a uniform that had been made to measure from finer materials, had made Grace think of all the unwritten words describing her WLA uniform she had intended to write to her friend Daisy. She had intended to say it was smart and attractive. In fact, it was ugly, utilitarian and quite inadequate for winter conditions. Her shoes were extremely heavy: wearing them all day exhausted her and she often had blisters on her heels and her toes. But at least no one else had ever worn these clothes; they were hers.

      ‘Cat got your tongue?’ asked Lady Alice eventually. ‘Relax, girl. Now, when we get to the village – which is called Whitefields Village, by the way – you take the measuring can, which is beside the churns in the back, fill it with milk, and then go to the first house. Knock, and if no one answers, walk in, the door will be open, and the housewife’s measuring jug will be on the sideboard or the table. Fill it, come out and go to the next house. There will probably be one or two people up, having breakfast, getting ready for school or work. Just say, ‘Hello, I’m Grace,’ and you’ll be fine. Any questions?’

      ‘No, Lady Alice. Thank you for the coat.’

      ‘“The labourer is worthy of his hire.” Right, I’m stopping here. Coat first and then the milk.’

      Grace stretched in the general direction of her employer’s pointing finger until her hand met something soft. She grasped the material and pulled.

      ‘You’ll need two hands, Grace; it’s bigger than you are.’

      Grace pulled with both hands and, eventually, the coat gave up the fight and fell over into the front seat. Grace looked at it in awe. ‘Lady Alice …’ she began.

      ‘It’s twelve years old, Grace. I trust it will keep you warm until the Requisitions Department has its house in order. Now, for heaven’s sake, girl, put it on and deliver the milk.’

      The dark brown skin coat was fur-lined and very heavy. The weight surprised Grace as she struggled into it. It was so long that it reached nearly to her ankles and, initially, made walking rather difficult. Grace felt sure that, even if she were to lie down in the street wrapped in this wonderful coat, she would still be cosy and warm. The thought made her smile. ‘But I’m not going to experiment,’ she said aloud as she reached the first house. She knocked, opened the door and found herself in a small, dark room, where the smell told her that the fire had been banked up with potato peelings in a futile attempt to keep it burning until morning. She made out the shape of a jug on the wooden table top, filled it, and hurried out as quickly as possible. She had been brought up in poverty and the sight of it was just as depressing as it had ever been.

      A gas mantle lit the next small house. A tired-looking woman was bending over the fire where a pot bubbled.

      ‘Oh, thank you, miss,’ said the woman with a smile. ‘You’re new. Where did the other girl go? Woman really, much older than you. I’d enlist myself if I didn’t have three upstairs waiting on their porridge.’ She stopped stirring and stood up. ‘And another one on the way. There’s the jugs. I take two lots on a Friday; get my sister’s lads for their dinner.’

      Grace filled the jugs, smiled at the woman, said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ and hurried back to the milk lorry.

      ‘I should have warned you about Peggy; she’ll talk your head off given half a chance. Nice woman and a good mother but we don’t have time to chat. I suppose children are more difficult than animals because they certainly let one know when they’re hungry. Not being a mother, I can say that animals are just as important. Does that shock you, Grace?’

      There was no time for Grace to answer even if an acceptable answer had occurred to her. Megan had certainly thought anything and everything more important than the one child she was supposed to look after, but not everyone was as selfish as Megan.

      Lady Alice knew the area well and effortlessly manoeuvred the lorry and its rapidly diminishing load up and down dark, narrow streets and alleys, until the last customer in the grey-stone village had been served.

      ‘Can you drive, Grace?’

      The question surprised Grace, who, eyes closed, was drifting into a doze.

      ‘No, Lady Alice. I can ride a bicycle and I’m not afraid to dangle on the broad back of a shire, but that’s as far as it goes.’

      Lady Alice made a very unladylike noise. ‘Should we ever need to deliver milk on horseback, I’ll remember your talents, but we really need someone who can drive. Otherwise, I will spend the rest of the war driving a milk float.’

      Grace thought of her friends, Daisy and Rose Petrie. Both of them could not only drive but also maintain car engines. Their father and their brothers had taught them. ‘Do none of the men drive, Lady Alice?’

      ‘Just how many men have you seen on the estate, girl? Most of our young unmarried men enlisted after a rousing talk in the village hall. Saw themselves coming home heroes, I think, God help them. The married men stayed. We have a few middle-aged farm hands with a wealth of knowledge and experience between them, and several retired men who’ve come back. They live either on the estate or in the village and most work a full day. “Farm work keeps you fit”, could well be a slogan. Not one has even driven a tractor.’

      ‘The two men—’ began Grace.

      ‘Are you deaf? There are no …’ Lady Alice paused, thought, and began again: ‘Sorry, Grace, you mean the conscientious objectors. I’d forgotten about them. Like you, they have just arrived. Yes, they’re men, and I suppose you’re right and there’s a good chance that the student one can drive. They are, however, supposed to cut down trees and dig ditches – very sensible use of a medical student, don’t you think?’

      Grace hoped she was not expected to answer that question, although there was something in Lady Alice’s voice that made Grace wonder what her employer was thinking. She herself thought that a medical student would be more sensibly employed studying medicine, but who was she to say?

      The pale grey light of early morning was beginning to spread itself across the sky. Grace sat up, anxious to get a proper look at the house where she was now living. The night before, she had been aware only of a huge mass at the end of a driveway that had to be longer than Dartford High Street.

      ‘Golly,’ she said as the great building revealed itself. Now she saw that the splendid sandstone building consisted of a magnificently proportioned central wing, standing proudly, and almost defiantly, between two other wings, which stood back from it a little, as if assuring the central building of its importance. The exquisite whole, its many windows looking out over possibly hundreds of acres of gardens and rolling farmland, was in the style Grace was later told was Jacobean. As it was, she could only gasp and admire. ‘That’s one house, for one family. It’s bigger than all the houses on our street stuck together.’

      Lady Alice glanced across at her. ‘Quite something, isn’t it? One never really thinks about the house one lives in. Whitefields Court began as a monastery in the sixteenth century. My family was given it, and most of the land, villages et cetera around it, for reasons best left quiet, just before Henry the Eighth died.’ She stopped in the driveway, as if to see the house better. ‘Most of the land has been sold off, of course. Frankly, I’m never quite sure whether that was a good or a bad thing – being given the house, I mean, not selling the land or poor old Henry dying.’

      ‘But it’s beautiful.’

      Lady Alice started the engine again and swept past the shining windows on the front, carrying on around the building to the kitchen entrance, where she parked. ‘Beauty doesn’t keep out rain. Right, out you get. Lunch is at one, in the kitchen, but now I want you to go to the tiled barn near the dairy. Bob Hazel, one of our senior men, is waiting there to show you the home farm and give you an idea of what will be expected of you. I’ll see you in the

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