LITMIR.BIZ

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about me. I’m fine, and I’ll be given leave, just as if I’d joined the Armed Forces, and be given a rail ticket, too, so you’ll be seeing me before long. And Liverpool is easy to get to from York.

      A bomber flew over, and another. Best not mention the aerodromes all around Nun Ainsty. Careless talk, that, and you never knew who just might get hold of her letter. There were spies all over the place it said in the newspaper. Ordinary people you’d never suspect.

      ‘Looks as if the lads are flying tonight.’ Lorna looked up from her magazine. ‘Wonder where they’re off to.’

      ‘Dunno.’ Ness hoped they would drop one slap bang in the middle of Berlin, but the bombing of open cities was not allowed, it seemed. Very gentlemanly this war was at times. ‘Think William will manage to get through?’

      ‘Yes, fingers crossed. But if he doesn’t, there’ll be a letter in the morning and everything will be OK. He’ll ring, though …’ Of course he would. Shouting at her wasn’t a bit like him and he’d be only too eager to put things right between them. ‘Writing home, are you, or to your boyfriend?’

      ‘I told you, didn’t I, that I haven’t got a boyfriend. Told Martha Hugwitty, an’ all, and that I wasn’t lookin’ either!’

      ‘Then you told the right person! Martha will make it her business to let Nun Ainsty know that the land girl at Glebe isn’t courting. And she’ll read your palm, if you let her, and find a nice young man for you in it! By the way, what do you think of Rowley Wintersgill?’

      ‘Not a lot. Why?’

      ‘He’s got a reputation around these parts for being a bit of a lady’s man.’

      ‘That a warning, Lorna?’

      ‘We-e-ll, not exactly. Been a bit spoiled, being an only child. Thinks the world’s his oyster.’

      ‘You mean I’m not to encourage him?’

      ‘Something like that,’ Lorna said uneasily, though glad, for all that, that she’d put out a warning.

      ‘Well, don’t worry. I can look after meself, queen.’

      ‘Good. And I’m disturbing you?’

      ‘No. This letter is just a quickie to let Mam know I’m all right and liking it here.’

      ‘Good – that you like it, I mean. I want you to stay here, Ness.’

      ‘But will I be allowed to?’ There was still tonight’s phone call or tomorrow’s letter, either of which could land her in the hostel.

      ‘I said I wanted you to, didn’t I?’

      She said it, Ness thought, with a surprising firmness – for Lorna, that was. Maybe there was more to her than wide blue eyes and a gentle nature.

      ‘Then I want to, an’ all.’

      The phone rang, and Lorna ran to answer it. Ness turned back to the letter she was writing.

      Sorry this isn’t much of a letter but I’m tired and plan an early night. Will write a longer letter tomorrow. Just to let you know I’m fine and I don’t regret leaving Liverpool. It was for the best, Mam. You’re not to worry …

      All done now. Carefully Ness addressed the envelope to 3, Ruth Street, Liverpool 4, Lancashire. Tomorrow, or the next day, she would write again. Tomorrow, or the next day, she would know how long she would be staying at Ladybower House, because determined though Lorna was, Ness wouldn’t take bets on her getting her own way. The cut of William’s jib told her that.

      ‘Oh, damn!’ Lorna said, back from her phone call. ‘It was Nance Ellery, would you believe. I was so sure it would be my trunk call. And Ness – guess what? The Germans have invaded the Channel Islands. It was on the nine o’clock news and we missed it, sitting out here as if it didn’t matter!’

      ‘Just like that? Was there any fighting?’ Ness whispered.

      ‘Doesn’t seem so. It was a peaceful takeover, by all accounts. Nance said it looks as if we’re going to need the Local Defence Volunteers now. Oh, she upsets me sometimes. Always the first with bad news! She seems to attract it!’

      ‘Well, we’d have heard it for ourselves, queen, sooner or later. Had you thought them islands are a part of us, sort of. British, and not all that far away, either. I’ll bet Churchill’s goin’ to have sumthin’ to say about it! He vowed Jairmans would never set foot on British soil, but they have!’

      ‘Technically they have, I suppose. Perhaps that’s why William hasn’t phoned.’

      ‘Ar, I wouldn’t worry, Lorna. He’s a long way from there, though it might have affected the telephone lines with calls buzzing all over the place once the high-ups heard about the Channel Islands. I wouldn’t worry too much, girl. It’s getting a bit chilly. Let’s you and me wait inside, eh? If your feller can’t manage to get through, there’s sure to be a letter in the morning.’

      ‘You’re right. It’s nearly ten. I’ll go round the house and see to the blackouts; you be a dear and make us some cocoa.’ Cocoa thankfully wasn’t rationed.

      So they left the enchantment of the garden to the blackbird, a tiny creature that didn’t know there was a war on. Lucky little bird, Ness thought.

       THREE

      ‘There you are, then!’ Martha Hugwitty met Ness outside Ladybower. ‘Another swelterer it’s going to be.’

      ‘You could be right. Is Goff coming today?’ They fell into slow step.

      ‘There already. Said last night he was going to give a hand opening up ten-acre field. Crafty old devil. Knows he’ll get a breakfast out of Kate if he does! They’ve got home-cured bacon and eggs aplenty at Glebe Farm. And how are you this morning, eh?’

      ‘Fine. Slept like a log. Must be the country air.’

      No use telling Martha she had awakened in the night to hear Lorna weeping and lain awake worrying about her, wondering if she should offer comfort; deciding against it.

      Was it the phone call that hadn’t come or was it that the Germans were so much nearer now? Was Lorna miserable because she was missing William or was it because she knew her husband would win and the land girl be sent packing? Would Lorna give in in the end?

      ‘You’re lucky. Woke me up at four this morning, those bombers coming back. Hope they’re all safe, for all that. Don’t tell me you slept through it!’

      ‘Afraid so.’ She had. After lying awake for a long time, she must have dropped off just before. ‘Tell me about that wood, Martha. Any truth in it – the nun, I mean?’

      ‘Oh, it’s true about Ursula; no doubt about it. But what I s’pose you mean is have I seen her ghost?’

      ‘So there is one. She does walk?’

      ‘Yes. But very rarely. Lived here all my life you might say, so I know what’s what around this village. Mind, I keep my mouth shut. The less you say, the more you hear. And I can tell you there’ve been women come to my house who have seen her. Admitted it.’

      ‘No men?’

      ‘We-e-ll, men might have seen her, but men don’t avail themselves of my services, Ness lass. And I mean services of the occult. I read palms, as Lorna will have told you, and I do the tarot cards, though not often. Too much death and destruction in the cards. I do psychometry, too.’

      ‘That’s a big word, Martha!’

      ‘Aye. I’m not as green as I’m cabbage looking, Ness Nightingale. I know a lot of big words, and that particular one means I can pick up messages from things. Now, if you had a young man and you was worried

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