Land Girls: The Promise: A moving and heartwarming wartime saga. Roland Moore

Esther said, turning to Finch.

      “All right, then,” he replied, adding himself to the vote. “Here, this is like one of those Women’s Institute meetings, isn’t it? All voting on what to do. Except we’re not making loads of jam.”

      “I’ll have you know we don’t just make jam. Bloody cheek. Anyway, this is the closest you’re going to get to one of those meetings.” Esther smiled. “Motion carried. I’ll talk to the doctor in the morning.”

      But as she and the others debated what to do, they didn’t realise that Iris was sitting at the top of the stairs formulating her own plan of action. Her head felt pleasantly fuzzy from a few numbing slugs of carrot whisky and she had decided what to do. Holding the bottle in her hand, she felt her head swaying and her cheeks flushing. Suddenly it all seemed clear. The answer. And she had to do something fast as she didn’t want to be seen by Dr Channing.

      She decided she would go back to the place where Vernon Storey had made his promise.

       I’ll come back for you.

      Tomorrow, she would return to Shallow Brook Farm and confront her demons head on.

       Chapter 4

      As the first rays of daylight started to beat away the shadows in the kitchen of Pasture Farm, Iris laced up her boots. She finished buttering a slice of bread and carefully lifted the latch on the door. It was four in the morning; perhaps an hour before Esther and the others would be awake. Iris thought she had time to walk the mile and a half to the neighbouring Shallow Brook Farm and get back before she was due to start work. She sneaked out the door, closing it behind her, the bread lodged in her mouth as if she was a bird about to feed its young. Then she set off down the path, crossing through the yard and finding herself on the single track that connected the two farms. The air was cold, not yet warmed by the rising sun, and Iris found herself gasping occasionally as she struggled to walk fast and finish the food in her mouth.

      Eventually, she reached a blind corner and turned it to find herself facing a sign that read Shallow Brook Farm. Iris looked beyond the faded, painted sign, its black letters long since bleached grey by years of sunlight. There was the farmhouse itself, a small red-brick building with eves that hung low over the windows like drooping eyelids. And whereas this might give the appearance of a picture-book home, there was something foreboding and cold about it. The curtains were thin, plain white veils like cataracts behind dirty, darkened windows. Iris edged closer, past an ancient hay barrow. Something squealed from within and there was a flurry of movement as she moved alongside it. She didn’t look, preferring not to know what was living in there. The stone cobbles of the yard were broken and smashed in places, and in one corner there was a bucket, trowel and a pile of cement under tarpaulin, where John and Martin had started to repair things. The work was progressing slowly as, with a whole farm to run, they couldn’t focus all their time on the one job and much of the yard was still overgrown with weeds. She reached the front door. As she extended her hand towards the latch, she remembered the last time she entered this house. The time she had discovered the truth about poor Walter Storey. The time Vernon had made his dreadful promise.

      This time, she knew that the house wouldn’t be empty. John Fisher was staying here. She didn’t want to wake him as she entered so, carefully she lifted the latch and crept inside. The broken barometer was still showing the prospect of snow. The side table in the hallway had a pile of unopened post and some bills that had been opened, presumably by John. Iris took a deep breath and moved towards the living room. She pushed open its door and felt her stomach lurch, as adrenaline and fear suddenly rose up in her body. It was just like it was before. There was the carpet, patterned, but predominantly red. The carpet where she had found the shard of broken bottle with Walter’s blood on it. The mantelpiece that she had stood alongside when she made the discovery. And there was the small desk where Vernon had attacked her, forcing her onto it as he threatened her.

       I’ll come back for you, Iris …

      The words whispered around the ghostly room. Iris looked at the fire, where the poker was now cradled in the coal scuttle. The telephone had been put back in place on its small table near the desk. But apart from those two aspects, little had changed about the room since she had last been here.

      Iris opened the drawer on the desk. It was full of papers, letters. She picked one up and could tell, by the way it was laid out, it was a bill for payment. But she couldn’t read the words. She put it back and looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece. There he was. The small, dark figure of Vernon Storey, smiling as he posed with a gigantic pike he’d caught in the river. She wasn’t sure which one had the worst teeth. Next to him was a small gate-fold photograph frame with Walter Storey in one half and his brother, Samuel, in the other. A hairbrush near the end of the mantelpiece caught her eye, the red-brown hair on it catching the early morning light that was peeking through the gap in the curtains. Vernon’s hair. Iris found herself compelled to reach out for it, to touch it. As her fingers neared the hairbrush, suddenly a man’s voice made her jump.

      “What are you doing?”

      She spun round. For a second, Vernon was standing there, his gimlet eyes squinting at her. But, of course, it wasn’t Vernon Storey. It was John Fisher. He was good-looking, clean-cut with kind eyes. And at the moment, those eyes were trying to work out why he had an uninvited Land Girl in the house at this absurdly early hour of the morning.

      “Sorry. I needed to have a look.” Iris said apologetically.

      John nodded. It was all right. He understood. He knew about what had happened here with Vernon and Iris. And he’d been through enough trauma of his own to know that she might need to come back. It would do her good to return to the scene of the event, knowing that this time it was safe.

      “Want a cup of tea?” he asked kindly, turning to leave. Iris noticed that he was wearing his dressing gown. Now she knew for certain that she must have woken him up.

      “Sorry, I thought I was being quiet.”

      “Stop saying sorry. I was getting up soon anyway. Farming keeps the same unsociable hours as the RAF. I’m used to it.” His voice carried from the hallway. Iris went to follow, but was surprised to see another figure on the stairs, also in a dressing gown. It was a bleary-eyed Joyce Fisher, complete with a few curlers in her hair; one of which was dangling over her left ear. It looked as though she’d been dragged through a hedge.

      “Iris?” she gasped.

      “Joyce?” Iris was equally surprised.

      Joyce pulled her dressing gown tight around her ample bosom. Iris couldn’t help but smirk.

      “Joyce stays here whenever she can,” John explained. He revealed that they had a system. Joyce would wait for Esther to go to bed and then creep over in the middle of the night. Then, after spending the night together, they would get up early and Joyce would hurry back to Pasture Farm before everyone woke up. Even though they were married, they knew that Esther wouldn’t condone Joyce spending anything other than Friday and Saturday nights at Shallow Brook Farm. It would be a distraction from her work and commitments as a Land Girl.

      “But, why?” Iris asked. “Connie is allowed to live at the vicarage with Henry. Why can’t you live here with John?”

      “It’s not fair, is it?” Joyce said, glancing at John, to perhaps indicate that they had discussed this same imbalance many times. “Truth is, Connie got permission from Lady Hoxley. And because she was married to a vicar, that was somehow all right. I asked and Lady Hoxley turned up her nose. It’s simply one rule for the wife of a clergyman and another rule for the rest of us.”

      “She did agree to two nights a week, but wanted Joyce to spend most of her time at Pasture Farm,” John said, trying to be diplomatic. The last thing he wanted was to upset Lady Hoxley and find himself turfed out on his ear.

      “I’m the most