Dido’s face brightened. “Yes, that would be a start, wouldn’t it. Good thinking, Pamma. You’re not such a bad old stick.”
As she went to walk past, Pamela said in a low voice. “I know you were out last night, Dido. I heard the floorboards creaking and saw you going into your room. Where did you go?” A worrying thought had been playing in her mind that Dido had been to see Jeremy. And Dido didn’t seem to have any inhibitions about sex—positively keen for it, in fact. Had she been giving Jeremy what Pamela had denied him?
Dido grinned. “To the Three Bells with some of the soldiers I met.”
Pamela heard herself give a sigh of relief. “Dido, for heaven’s sake, be careful. Pah would hit the roof if he found out. And soldiers? That’s not exactly wise.”
“It was brilliant. They were so nice to me. They treated me perfectly.”
“Well, I suppose they would, given that you’re the daughter of the house where they’re staying. And you’re a lady.”
“But it wasn’t like that at all. We talked. We laughed. It was so nice to be just like an ordinary person. One of the gang. Is that what it’s like where you work? Do they have to call you ‘my lady’ and rubbish like that?”
Pamela laughed now. “Of course not. And they certainly don’t treat me any differently because I’m the daughter of an earl.”
“That’s what I want. To be someplace where nobody cares who I am.”
Pamela put a hand tentatively on her sister’s arm. “Your turn will come, I promise you. And if this war goes on much longer, then I’m afraid we’ll all be called upon to do our share.”
“Golly, I hope so,” Dido said. “Thanks, Pamma. And you won’t say anything to Pah, will you?”
“I won’t, but you’ll be lucky if someone from the village doesn’t blab. You know what gossips they all are.”
“You really are a good old stick,” Dido repeated.
“Thank you for the compliment.” Pamma smiled as she went into her bedroom.
Phoebe stomped into her room, making her governess look up from the book she was reading.
“Why, Phoebe, whatever is the matter?” she asked.
“They’ve all been invited to a dinner party at the Prescotts, and I’m not included.”
“Well, I wouldn’t feel too badly about it,” Miss Gumble said with a smile at the girl’s scowling face. “I’m not invited, either.”
“Well, of course you wouldn’t be. You’re only a governess,” Phoebe said and saw a spasm of pain cross the woman’s face.
“For your information, Phoebe Sutton, I grew up in a situation not unlike yours. Oh, our house wasn’t quite as grand as this one, and my father didn’t have a title, but it was a good-sized estate. Then my father died when I was up at Oxford, and my brother inherited everything. And his wife told me in no uncertain terms that I was no longer welcome at my old home.”
“Golly, how mean,” Phoebe said.
Miss Gumble nodded. “So I had no choice. With no money and nowhere to go, I had to leave university and get a job teaching other people’s children because that gave me a roof over my head.”
“Why didn’t you get married?” Phoebe said. “You must have been quite pretty once.”
“I think you mean that as a compliment.” Miss Gumble gave a sad smile. “There was a young man. But he died in the trenches in the Great War, like so many others. A whole generation of young men wiped out, Phoebe. For women of my age, there were no men to marry.”
“Golly,” Phoebe said again. “Do you think that will happen this time? Do you think by the end of this war there will be no men left for me to marry?”
“I hope not, for your sake,” Miss Gumble said. “At least when the last war ended, we were still free. And we won, however terrible the cost.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
All Saints vicarage
Over at the vicarage, Reverend Cresswell opened the morning post and looked surprised. “Well, well,” he said. “We’ve received an invitation to a dinner party tomorrow night, at the Prescotts. That’s a turn-up for the books, isn’t it, Ben?”
“At the Prescotts?” Ben paused. “I suppose they’ve only invited us as a courtesy.”
“Nonsense, my boy,” the vicar said. “They’ve invited you, as Jeremy’s oldest friend. I’m the courtesy.”
“We don’t have to go,” Ben said.
“Not go? I personally shall look forward to a slap-up meal in these times of economy. One hears things about the Prescotts’ table.”
Ben wished he could come up with a good reason not to go. Lord Westerham’s family would most definitely be invited, and he’d have to watch Jeremy and Pamela gazing at each other with that special look. Get used to it, he muttered to himself, disgusted with his own weakness. He was here to work, and the dinner party would see the leading lights in the local community assembled in one place. A perfect opportunity for observation.
“Then we can’t deprive you of a good meal.” Ben got up. “I’ll write an RSVP note to Lady Prescott.”
After breakfast he took out the bicycle. It was a brisk, windy day with the promise of rain. He went back inside again to look for his windcheater.
“I’m going for a bike ride,” he said to his father.
The vicar looked at him critically. “Don’t take this fitness thing too far, Benjamin. You’ve nothing to prove. You’ve made a remarkable recovery from your accident.”
Ben swallowed back annoyance. “I’d hardly call pedalling around the village taking fitness too far. I thought I’d go by the old oast house and see if the artists who live there now will let me see their work.”
“Good luck.” The vicar smiled. “From what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t say putting out the welcome mat was one of their virtues. In fact, they threatened to shoot someone who was using the public footpath. We had to get the local bobby to talk to them and explain about rights-of-way.”
“Then it might prove to be an interesting encounter,” Ben said and headed for the front door.
Half a mile out of the village, he rather regretted his bravado. The wind was coming up from the Thames Estuary, hitting him full in the side and threatening to topple him around each bend. It was fine when the lane dipped between high hedges, but when it skirted the open barley field, it was brutal. Still he was not about to get off and walk. He went first to Broadbent’s farm. Old Mr. Broadbent was mucking out a pigsty when Ben cycled up, with a yapping dog on either side of him.
“Well, if it isn’t young Ben,” he said, wiping down his hands as he came toward the bike. He invited Ben in for a cup of tea, and they talked about the shortage of farmworkers and how the land girls had taken over from the young men.
“Good hard workers, some of them,” Mr. Broadbent said. “Others are hopeless. Worry more about their hair and makeup than getting the job done. I’ve caught a couple going behind the haystack for a smoke. The haystack, mind you! I told them if that went up, my beasts would have no fodder for the winter, and we’d all starve.” He shook his head. “Don’t have much of a clue. City girls.”
Ben hadn’t considered that the contact for the fallen parachutist might be a woman.
“Any of them foreign?” he asked.
“There’s Trudi from Austria. She’s one of my good hard workers. Comes from a farm at home. I put her in charge of the hopeless ones, and she keeps ’em on their toes.”