‘Mess.’

  ‘What’s that you say?’ Percy was indignant on behalf of his wife and the Rectory. Daisy kept a clean kitchen.

  ‘Don’t like.’

  Percy followed the direction of his eyes; he was watching a group of sergeants walking into the cafe. He realised poor old Fred was confused, thinking the cafe was the sergeants’ mess, and camp was probably home. He swallowed and took courage.

  ‘What about the Rectory, lad? See your workshop again? Animals and birds, just like these pigeons?’

  To his relief Fred broke into one of his beaming smiles, but Percy didn’t relax completely until they had squeezed onto the East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells train and it was steaming out of the station. In one hour and forty-seven minutes they’d be at Ashden, they’d walk down Station Road and then they’d be home. Never had he wanted to see Daisy so much in his life. Still, there was nothing more to worry about now.

  ‘Ma, sit down,’ Lizzie commanded. ‘You’re pacing around like old Lake counting his corn bales.’

  Farmer Lake, invalided out with the loss of his arm after the first battle of Ypres, was not an easy man to work for, even though it was nominally his wife who was in charge now.

  ‘Suppose—’

  ‘Suppose you walk up to the train to meet them, Ma? You’re doing less than a scarecrow for a blind crow here. I’ll peel the blessed potatoes for you. It makes a change from digging them up.’

  ‘You mind you peel ’em thin, my girl.’ It was an automatic response and there was no malice in her mother’s voice. Margaret was grateful, for it might help to walk up to meet them. She put on her coat quickly, for the train they’d be on should have got in a few minutes ago. She crammed her hat on her head, the one with the feather Fred had given her from one of his wounded birds, and went out, hoping the drizzle had stopped. It hadn’t quite, but she was too anxious to go back for an umbrella. Besides, Percy hadn’t mended that spoke yet. She must have a few words with him.

  She hurried across the road, waving to Nanny Oates who was sitting outside her door on Bankside selling eggs. Whoever would have thought before war came that she’d be greeting her old foe? It just showed you, war could bring you together as well as separate … No, don’t think of that. But she found she was almost running in her anxiety as she turned into Station Road. Mrs Lettice stopped to talk, but Margaret just said what a nice day it was for the time of year and carried on. In the distance she could see people walking towards her, and her eyes searched for Percy’s tall figure and a Tommy at his side.

  She thought she saw them, and was quite sure about it as she drew nearer, but they weren’t alone; there was a large woman with them, whose shape she didn’t recognise. Was she a nurse sent with Fred to look after him? No, she’d be in uniform and, besides, the Army didn’t run to nurses. It was a stranger, not too old either, despite her shape. What was Percy playing at? Then she forgot about the stranger as she felt tears of relief pricking at her eyes because Fred was home again, and even though it was only for a short leave, he was still alive. She closed her mind to the future. We are safe in the Lord’s hands, is what the Rector would say. She didn’t mind that, it was being in Field Marshal Haig’s hands she worried about.

  As she grew close, she could see the relief on Percy’s face as he caught sight of her. She knew that look; it meant Percy was out of his depth. Why was he bothering to make conversation with this girl? She was a country girl, that was clear from her red cheeks and healthy look, but she wore a funny kind of wooden shoe on her feet.

  However, Fred was all she cared about, and she primly kissed him. ‘Hallo, Ma.’

  He had recognised her, and almost sobbing with relief she felt she could take anything now.

  ‘This is Miss Katie Burrows, Margaret. She’s from Yorkshire.’ Percy couldn’t wait to hand over responsibility.

  Yorkshire was in the north, wasn’t it? That was the other side of England, almost Scotland really. ‘How do you do?’ she said shortly, annoyed at this intrusion on her reunion with Fred. She found her hand being pumped up and down like a washing dolly. The girl grinned, and let off a stream of unintelligible words.

  ‘That French, is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yorkshire, Margaret,’ Percy said nervously.

  ‘Oh. Where are you staying, miss?’

  It was Percy who answered. ‘The Rectory, Margaret.’ He didn’t dare look at her and no wonder.

  It didn’t just rain, it stormed. What was this new calamity? ‘Mrs Lilley didn’t say.’

  The grin on the girl’s face faded. She rummaged in her bag and produced a letter, headed National Land Service Corps. She flourished it under Margaret’s nose, and the only words she took in were: ‘You will be lodged at the Rectory, Ashden in Sussex.’

  Margaret left Agnes making everyone a cup of tea, and immediately marched in to tackle Mrs Lilley in her glory-hole, deep in a precious moment of free time to sort out ‘The Heap’. It was Miss Caroline who had given it that name; onto this pile was thrown every article of clothing or household equipment not yet specifically designated for a particular relief fund.

  ‘You mean she’s come to stay with you?’ Elizabeth looked puzzled.

  ‘It doesn’t say, madam. It merely states the Rectory. I thought being a Land Corps lady it might be to do with you.’

  ‘I must come and talk to her … oh, my goodness!’ Elizabeth sat down again. ‘I’ve just remembered. When Caroline resigned from the Agricultural Committee, their representative came to see me to ensure someone would be continuing her work here. I said I’d need a helper. I was thinking of Phoebe or someone local of course – but she was an officious kind of woman. I wonder if she’s sent someone from outside the area. It was a mistake, Mrs Dibble. I know we have the room, but it’s the work—’

  ‘And the Rector’ lay unspokenly between them. The Rector believed in people coming in need but going as quickly as possible.

  ‘And this weekend, when Fred is home,’ Mrs Lilley lamented. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Margaret was disposed to be gracious at the look of consternation on Mrs Lilley’s face. ‘You leave her to me, ma’am. I’ll put her up in the room next to Miss Lewis.’

  ‘Oh dear. How difficult. If she’s helping me, I’m afraid she’ll have to be treated like those awful Belgians who came here. As a guest.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am. If you say so. She’ll be dining with you, then.’ Margaret’s voice was wooden, to disguise her relief.

  ‘I suppose she will,’ Elizabeth agreed unhappily. ‘My husband won’t like this at all.’

  Miss Burrows, to Margaret’s satisfaction, was swept from the kitchen and installed in the small bedroom next to Tilly’s, a room rarely used now. Agnes quickly made it up for her – trust Myrtle to choose today for a day off. Still, Myrtle had been as good as gold since that munitions affair, or as near gold as she was capable of. Five-thirty rising or not, she had at last appreciated when she was well-off.

  How the Rectory took the news of the stranger amongst them and whether they understood a single word she said, Margaret neither knew nor cared for once. It was her day off on Sunday, and Fred was home. Her family, not – for the first time ever – the Rectory’s.

  It was nice to have a party. Fred seemed bewildered at first, but by the Sunday morning he seemed to know where he was. She had a fright, not finding him in his room, but then thought of looking in his workshop and there he was. There he stayed too, and had to be persuaded to meet everyone. He was very pleased to see the cake, at first. Then he said: ‘No candles.’

  ‘Fancy you remembering you have candles for your birthday, Fred. But it’s not your birthday, love,’ Margaret said fondly.

  ‘We’ll have a special one for that,’ Lizzie chimed in. ‘I’ll bake it.’

  Fred laughed. He’d obviously remembered what everyone knew – that Lizzie’s cakes were like cannonballs. But where would Fred be on his birthday, with his big smile and empty head?

  ‘Absent loved ones,’ Lizzie said quietly, toasting with a glass of Percy’s home-made wine. Margaret didn’t mind. It was a special occasion, after all. It even crossed her mind she’d have a sip, but then she thought of King George. He’d signed the pledge and she was quite sure he wasn’t taking a nip on the side.

  ‘Absent loved ones,’ she echoed, with her glass of elderflower cordial. There was Lizzie’s Frank, sent out east somewhere, now he was trained, and Rudolf goodness knows where. And there was Joe, pioneering away on the western front.

  Muriel was shedding a tear or two. Although Joe wasn’t in a fighting battalion, he took just as many of the risks. Margaret sighed. She’d like to think that one day, when – God willing – those absent today would be back, it would be like old times again. Only it wouldn’t for the old times were gone for good.

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs Dibble would have her worst suspicions confirmed if she could see these teacakes. Caroline could almost hear her saying: ‘Potato teacakes with sultanas and dripping? Not in my kitchen, whatever the Kaiser says.’ Her landlady had been so proud of them too. Apparently her grandmother used to make them in the Isle of Wight. ‘Isle of Wight?’ Mrs Dibble would say scornfully. ‘English cooking’s good enough for me.’

  Caroline sought for something to break the silence in the stultifying atmosphere of Mrs Clark’s private parlour, otherwise she might giggle at the stoical expression on Captain Rosier’s face as he bravely ploughed his way through ‘tea’. Her landlady had graciously allowed Caroline to use the parlour for her lessons, with a cryptic addendum that she did so only because Miss Lilley was a lady. It took some time before it dawned on Caroline that Mrs Clark still clung to the belief that entertaining a gentleman in private could lead to only one conclusion. Tea, provided unasked, was an attempt to protect her lodger’s virtue. The days of uncorseted ladies in flimsy floating tea gowns entertaining their lovers to tea – and whatever they hoped might follow afterwards – were over, however; an ancient blue serge costume and potato cakes following a tired piece of ham and – as a treat – half a hard-boiled egg, did not provide the same ambience, even in the dark gloom of the parlour.

  This too was a relic of the past, crowded with souvenir china of visits to Margate with the absent Mr Clark, several framed photographs of Mr Clark, Mrs Clark and Master Clark (now married himself), a china plate commemorating General Gordon at Khartoum, a picture of the King and Queen, and a print of a Gainsborough lady. In front of the window on its own spindly support stood an aspidistra which looked as if it were bravely resisting every effort to kill it.

  ‘Custer’s last stand.’ She broke the silence at last as she saw Captain Rosier gazing at the plant, then realised he could not possibly understand what she meant. To her surprise, a quick nod of the head showed he did, and moreover it encouraged him to speak:

  ‘It need not fear. I have no tomahawk.’ He hesitated, then asked politely: ‘If you please, Miss Lilley, what is this meal I am eating? Supper?’

  ‘No. The famous British institution: high tea. That means it is more than afternoon tea, and has pretensions to being an evening meal.’

  ‘More than tea?’ He looked at the sparse table.

  ‘In summer it would have a lettuce leaf with it. And shouldn’t we be speaking in French?’

  ‘Je m’excuse, Miss Lilley.’ Conscience-stricken, he began painstakingly discussing the tablecloth, the potato cakes, the appalling trifle, the knives and forks, and then correcting her pronunciation in her replies, until she wondered why on earth she had agreed to this charade. The time had come to speak out.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you, but this isn’t the kind of French I need to know.’

  He immediately began to rise from his chair, consternation on his face since he had obviously assumed he was being dismissed.

  ‘Please don’t go,’ she cried in alarm, appalled at how easily misunderstandings could still arise. ‘I didn’t mean that I don’t want to learn French from you. I do. But not about tea tables. Or is it this terrible tea that you want to get away from?’

  Up until then, his correct manner had made her assume that he was here only in response to Luke’s suggestion. Now, however, his eyes sparked with interest, and for the first time she felt they understood each other. ‘Naturellement,’ he said, ‘you need to know how people speak when they are together, and the words they use. I have been selfish in enjoying your company here alone.’

  Flattery sat oddly on his lips, and so she ignored his last comment. ‘Could you arrange for me to meet other Belgians, Captain Rosier, or should I ask someone from the section office to introduce me?’

  ‘I will escort you.’ He seemed a little reluctant however, adding to her annoyance: ‘Would your parents approve?’

  ‘Whatever have they to do with it? And of course they would approve of you.’ Really, was he proposing to ask their permission to escort their precious daughter without a chaperone?

  ‘I am honoured, Miss Lilley.’

  He was trying not to laugh! How dare he – even if it was obvious she had misunderstood what he meant.

  ‘My compatriots, as you know, Miss Lilley,’ he explained, ‘meet in the clubs such as the one held in the bathing establishment’s hall, and that run by the Catholic Church of Our Lady Help of Christians, and many others. They have their own schools and church services, and their own newspaper, Le Franco-Belge, published here in Folkestone. I can give you copies of that, and take you to the clubs, even the Militaire Cercle Albert held in the parish hall. However, in the evenings, when lights grow dim and drink flows, some of the language and behaviour can be bad. Not all the Belgians here are interested in literary discussions, many are Belgian soldiers passing through the town and, like the Tommies, they have more basic concerns.’

  Her annoyance increased, as she realised she had overestimated this man. ‘I’m here to work for the war. How can you believe I am too prim and proper to visit a few rough clubs, where people drink too much in order to forget? If you won’t take me, Captain Rosier, then I will go alone.’

  She found herself on her feet. She must get out of this claustrophobic room. He had risen too, however, and seemed to be towering above her, barring her way to the door, although he was only five inches or so taller than her. She couldn’t very well rush past him. She would wait and let him speak. Would he grovel his apologies or simply stalk out of the room with his deep, hurt eyes? He did neither. He took her hand, and raised it to his lips.

  ‘I will take you wherever you wish, Miss Lilley, and we shall go now.’

  ‘And don’t call me Miss Lilley.’ She felt ridiculously like crying.

  ‘Caroline.’ It emerged as Caroleen, which sounded delightfully different to her.

  ‘May I call you Yves?’ Did she have to make every move herself?

  ‘I should be honoured.’

  ‘Then, Yves, let us hide those two remaining potato cakes in my bag, smuggle them past my landlady’s suspicious eye, and when no one is looking feed them to the seagulls. Then you can introduce me to your Belgian friends.’

  That had been a month ago, and since then she had begun to think she was more Belgian than English. She spent her evenings at Belgian clubs, and she visited the Belgian section bureau run by Major Mage, a first-class intelligence officer, Yves said. She even went to the new Belgian schools. It was difficult at first, for even with Yves present the talk was too quick and too idiomatic, quite apart from the fact that half of the Belgians were Flemish-speaking. She had already picked up some written Flemish through her work, but the spoken guttural sounds seemed to bear little relation to it.

  Before the war there had been no love lost, Yves had explained, between the French-speaking Walloons and the Flemish, but war had brought them together in their determination to free Belgium. The German governor of occupied Belgium therefore spared no effort in trying to set one faction against the other again. Caroline gathered that just as a few months ago the Germans had ordered every male of military age in occupied Belgium to register for work, so King Albert had issued an edict for all Belgians to enlist for national service. As boys reached fighting age they would leave Folkestone and other towns where the refugees had settled to join the Belgian army; those in occupied Belgium tried to escape over the border into Holland, to make a roundabout way to the lines via Folkestone.

  To her gratification, Caroline found her French was improving rapidly, and she had even mastered the small but important differences between Belgian French and that spoken in France. The Belgians were comfortable people to be with, and she instantly felt at home with them. Literally so, for she could pick out their Ashden counterparts. There was a Wally Bertram, if ever she saw one, and she had been charmed when he informed her half in French, half in broken English, that he too was a butcher. And that elderly black-clad Mere Bissart was a Nanny Oates, just as shrewd and just as cantankerous, and also well into her eighties.

  Caroline was treated to strange drinks at private gatherings (a practice now forbidden in licensed premises) and wondered how they were obtained in times of war. Smuggled over from Holland, she presumed, for the terrible food shortages in occupied Belgium, particularly Brussels, were an international disgrace. King Albert had appealed to the free world for food supplies to be sent, and although the Germans had the wickedness deliberately to sink some of them, there should have been plenty to satisfy starving Brussels, especially from America, busy salving its conscience for not joining in the war. But there wasn’t enough, despite all the Allied International Relief Committee could do.

  It seemed all wrong that she could enjoy Belgian cooking here in Folkestone. Mrs Dibble, she felt, would approve of it – apart from the use of beer. It was even used in stews, to her amazement. Waterzooi would undoubtedly have Mrs Dibble’s blessing. And there wasn’t a single snail in sight, Caroline wrote triumphantly to the Rectory.