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Chapter One

March 1915

Emily held her breath as she stood at the top of the stairs. When she was sure it was safe she tiptoed down, which was not that easy in her brother John’s work boots, even with the gap in the toes stuffed with balled-up newspaper.

The muffled chatter from her mother’s knitting party flooded the hallway. She quickened her pace to reach the safety of the door that led through to the kitchen, only to narrowly avoid colliding with Daisy – the housemaid – and a platter of crustless sandwiches. They greeted one another and before Emily could remind her, Daisy nodded and said, ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t seen you.’

Emily opened the back door and the dazzling sunlight caressed her skin. She would have to make it up to Mother later because she couldn’t sit in that stifling sitting room, knitting socks for the soldiers at the Front when the sun shone.

‘By the way,’ Emily called back to Daisy who was straightening out the sandwiches again. ‘Did you leave this on my pillow?’ She waved a newspaper cutting that she’d found on her bed in an envelope addressed to her.

Daisy shook her head. ‘I found it on the doormat, hand delivered.’

Emily shrugged. She would thank whoever the sender was when they made themselves known.

Outside, she leant back against the scullery door, and admired the plump, carefree clouds, shifting their shapes and rushing onwards against the backdrop of the heavenly blue sky.

She held up the notice cut from the Standard, reading it slower this time to take it in. Her heart began to thump.

Women on the Land

Highly trained women of good birth and some country-bred women, hitherto working in service, or in trade, will make themselves useful in any way on a farm to gain experience.

May we make known that we wish to hear from farmers, market gardeners and others wanting the services of women for work on the land.

The notice went on to say that educated girls would act as a shining example to village and city girls – encourage them out in their numbers to do their bit for the war effort.

But whoever posted this through the door must know that she wasn’t ‘highly trained’ in anything other than English literature, and that wasn’t an easy situation to fix. She did spend far more time on the farm and outdoors than was usual for a girl like her, as Mother was always reminding her, but that didn’t mean she could turn her hand to farming so easily; she’d need to be trained and the notice in the Standard said that took six weeks.

She couldn’t in all good conscience leave her Mother to attend a course. Mother hardly slept and was afraid to be left alone since Father had died two years ago, and it was even worse now Emily’s older brother, John, had received his officer commission, turning Mother a ghastly pale whenever the delivery boy came up the path.

At the tool shed, she lifted Mr Flitwick’s hoe and carried it back to the kitchen garden – humming to herself while she worked. She tilled three neat rows width-ways in the fine, crumbly soil of the raised bed. Mr Flitwick, their gardener, had generously given the bed over to her and her experiments, along with access to his stash of seeds. She came out here when Mother thought she was resting, reading or writing letters. It was a secret between her and the few trusted staff, and her little winged friends. She scattered the black dots, buried and then sprinkled them with water from the can.

‘Hello there,’ she said to her usual companion, a robin, who watched her from his favourite spot on the espaliered pear tree that spread its arms out along the wall. ‘I see what you see.’ She lightly pinched the flailing worm that she’d exposed with her hoeing, scooped a hole with the bare fingers of her other hand and tucked the worm inside, blanketing him with the soft soil. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own afternoon tea,’ she told the robin. ‘My crops need this one.’

The bird whistled back at her, probably an admonishment for not doing as she was bid.

Emily started as Edna, the cook-general, opened the door.

‘The mistress is asking where you are,’ Edna said. ‘She was expecting you to join her and her guests.’

Emily contemplated her boots – John’s boots – her mud-lined fingernails, the hem of her skirts that had been steeped in the soil and were now a sepia brown. She would usually dash upstairs, clean, change her clothes and be back down in the sitting room knitting, awaiting Mother’s approving nod. But the newspaper article had fired her up, given her dreams a shape, and now she simply couldn’t bear to be parked on a sofa cushion while the conversation drifted around like pregnant rain clouds.

‘Could you say I have a headache? It’s a lot to ask, but I’d let her down if I went in there today.’

And if it was anything but knitting … Mother’s stitches were always perfect and uniform; Emily’s always too large and loose. ‘The men will have cold feet wearing those,’ Mother would say. Always pointing to the spot where Emily had dropped a stitch. And as for the yarn, it went on forever; no matter how many hole-filled pairs of socks she made, no matter how many stitches she dropped, or how unevenly they grew, the yarn kept on coming.

As she wiped her brow with her sleeve the sun came out from behind a cloud, rooting her to the spot. She sighed. How on earth would she ever persuade Mother? When Father was alive he’d wanted nothing more than for the HopBine Estate and its four-hundred-acre farm to be the epicentre of village life. He’d dreamt of the family living the rural idyll that he’d moved them out of London to enjoy.

She’d asked once, when Father was alive, if she could take a course at a horticultural college. Lots of educated women were doing it, and Mother hadn’t objected then. She’d even believed it would be good for Emily to follow her dreams. Now, Mother’s frown made her shrink inside. Things had changed. A good marriage and being a dutiful daughter – those were the things Mother wanted from her now.

The gate out of the walled kitchen garden led to the lawns. The sitting room, and Mother, overlooked those very same lawns. So, Emily cut around to the front of the house and then raced across the gravel drive, and through the gap in the hedge before the cedar avenue that took her into the paddock that joined HopBine House to its farm. The paddock usually housed Mother’s stallion Hawk. The other horses had been requisitioned, but Hawk was old and Mother’s dearest companion – though she’d not ridden him since Father had his heart attack.

Today, however, the field had a different guest. She placed her boots carefully now, as if she were sneaking down the hallway again, to keep a safe distance from Lily, a tetchy heifer. Lily had lost her first calf by trampling it, possibly an accident – Mr Tipton the farm’s manager wasn’t sure – so the cow was being given a second chance and being grafted with a spare twin. Mr Tipton was pleased with how it had gone so far. The new calf had nursed from Lily last night, although Lily had been unsettled and hence she and the calf had been separated from the rest of the herd.

Lily snorted at Emily now, warning her to keep her distance. Emily didn’t need to be told twice.

A third of the way down the paddock, she snuck inside the foliage of a low-growing Turkey oak. Its web of trunks close to the ground offered low-hanging, gnarly, twisted arms; the perennial leaves offered a canopy, while the other trees were just warming up for spring. The ground was dotted with scraggy grass tufts like brushes. A crow batted the air as it took off.

She climbed, weaving her way up, until she could peep through the branches to enjoy the view of the HopBine Estate. To think, she might be working by Father’s side now, but it wasn’t to be. Neither Father, nor his dreams, had survived.

With another sigh, she took in the view of the church tower and Perseverance Place in the dip. Father had built the labourers’ cottages there shortly after HopBine House was finished. Beyond them was the crumbling old paper mill down by the orchards next to the stream, and then the villas belonging to the new countrymen, which lit up a previously darkened village enclave, then Hangman’s Wood and fields all the way to the coast. There the submarine-infested channel lay, and on the other side of that, France and Belgium being torn apart by the war.

Right in front of her, at the bottom of the enclosure was the farmyard, where the chickens bustled about, clucking. Behind the yard were orchards full of apple, cherry and cob trees, hop gardens and other meadows for the sheep and cows.

Two women she recognised from the village caught her attention. Olive Hughes the wheelwright’s wife and Ada Little the blacksmith’s wife hurried over a stile to the right of her. Lily’s new calf was on its own at the farmyard boundary, while Lily herself was higher up the paddock. The cow stamped a warning hoof at Olive and Ada who were now a wedge between the mother and her adopted baby.

The two women were in such a rush that they hadn’t even noticed. What on earth were they thinking, getting in between a cow and her calf?

‘Watch out!’ Emily called from the tree, causing Olive to start and let out a yelp. Lily turned her head, looking directly at the village women. ‘Mad cow on the loose!’ The cow snorted. Ada screamed. She tried to smother it with her hand, but it was too late – she had startled Lily.

The cow was slow away, heavy and lolloping, but within a few strides it was clear she was picking up pace. She was running down the hill, her head high as she charged down, homing in on her targets.

Emily dropped from the tree with a thud. ‘Stand your ground,’ she called to the women. Ada took no notice, turned on her heels and ran like the clappers back towards the stile. Olive, meanwhile, remained rooted to the spot, mouth agape, whimpering.

Lily dropped her chin to her chest, took a deep breath and sprinted. Olive would be trampled if Emily didn’t do something. Lily was fast, her size deceptive. Emily’s boots thumped down the paddock. She bent to pick up a stick, didn’t drop her pace, and then she reached Olive and stood between her and Lily, facing the cow down.

‘She’s going to flatten us!’ Olive cried.

‘Run like stink,’ Emily yelled, her breath coming thick and fast. ‘Don’t look back and don’t stop until you’re over the stile.’ Olive hesitated, her eyes darted back and forth, torn between saving her own skin and leaving Emily there. But there wasn’t time to think it through – Emily pushed her away. ‘Go!’ she cried.

As the footsteps and the whimpering receded, it was just the two of them: Emily and Lily. Emily spread her feet wide, waved the stick at the cow, stretching out her other arm to make herself as large as possible.

‘Now, girl,’ she shouted, her heart pounding as violently as Lily’s hooves. The thud, thud grew louder; the ground even shook.

Behind her came a scream that carried through the air. Emily ignored the hysterics, and kept on waving the stick.

‘Look, you daft beast, the calf is safe. It’s just me. You know me. We’ll both die if you don’t stop.’

She stared into Lily’s eyes, willed them to have a better sight than the cow had been born with, that Lily might recognise Emily before it was too late. The beast was a matter of feet away now, thundering closer. She glanced at the stile; she should have run with Olive, she wouldn’t make it in time now. She waved the stick, close enough now to make out her spidery eyelashes. She held her other hand aloft and expelled a deep guttural yell that echoed and reverberated through her whole body, making her shake, waiting, waiting for the impact, and to be biffed by Lily’s head from here to next Thursday.

As Lily’s nuzzle reached Emily’s palm, the cow stopped, dead. Emily relaxed her hand and patted the cow’s nose as Lily panted. So did Emily, her heart boom, booming in her ears. Lily nudged Emily’s hand out of the way, her round gelatinous eyes close to Emily’s, then her fleshy tongue dragged itself across her face. Emily giggled.

‘That tickles, Lily,’ she said, scratching playfully at the sparse fur above the cow’s nose. Lily mooed in appreciation.

‘It’s wonderful to see you look after your new calf, Lily,’ she said, backing away now, but still facing the cow. Still holding the stick aloft, she took careful, steady strides back, and back, until finally she gripped the solid surface of the stile, and hopped to safety.

Emily took a deep breath; her heart was just about settling down now.

‘Well, that was close.’ She leant over the stile to catch her breath. Lily had forgotten all about her charge already, she glanced over at the innocent calf and chewed her cud, watching them with a disinterested gaze. ‘Are you both all right?’ she asked the women.

Both of them had been struck dumb by the whole event.

‘Th-thank you, Miss Cotham,’ Olive Hughes said in the end, and Ada then found her voice too.

‘How did you do that? How could you be sure that the cow would stop?’

‘I couldn’t,’ Emily confessed. ‘Be careful next time. If she can trample her own calf to death, she won’t think twice about flattening you.’

Just as she was about to find out what the women had been running from in the first place, dear old Mr Tipton waddled around the edge of the paddock, waving his finger at the women and shouting something that Emily couldn’t quite make out.

The two women gawped at one another, thanked Emily again and shot off in the opposite direction to Mr Tipton.

Emily waited, trying to hide her amusement from Mr Tipton at his pink-faced exertion. When he caught her up he tipped his brown felt hat. But as Olive Hughes and Ada Little disappeared over the horizon he put his hands on his hips and kicked a clod of soil with his crusty old boots.

‘Whatever is going on, Mr Tipton?’ she asked him.

‘Those two are skiving off again.’

‘Mrs Hughes and Mrs Little?’ she asked, confused as to what they might be skipping.

‘Aye. Those two are what the Board of Trade calls help. I’m supposed to have the same yields from the farm even though my men are all gone, and in their place, they’ve sent me two village women who run off whenever my back’s turned.’

‘You need a supervisor for your new workers, Mr Tipton,’ she said.

‘Women,’ Mr Tipton said with a shake of his head, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘No disrespect to you, Miss Cotham, but we’re never going to win this war if we have to rely on the likes of those two. The government’s lost leave of its senses if it thinks it’s so.’ He put his hands together in a prayer. ‘Please Lord, don’t send me any more of your women,’ he said, face upturned to the heavens, before he trudged back to the farm.

That was another thing the person who sent her the newspaper notice didn’t realise. She could be as highly trained as any man, but Mr Tipton would never view her as anything other than the owner’s daughter.