Last Letter Home by Rachel Hore (15)

March 1939

Warm sunshine and little tugs of breeze accompanied Sarah on her walk up to the walled garden one morning. The boxes from India were arriving later in the week and Mrs Bailey had brought in decorators to repair the damage the Watson family had wreaked on Flint Cottage. What with the noise and the stink of paint, Sarah couldn’t bear to be in the house. There was plenty to do in the garden at this time of year, but Mrs Bailey was out of sorts with the upheaval and took every opportunity to interrupt and send Sarah off on some errand. Diane had gone to Norwich with Aunt Margo in search of dress material, so Sarah thought she would satisfy her curiosity and see properly the garden where Paul worked, for she had only seen it in its wintry state. She took a box of home-made biscuits for his mother and set off with them in a basket that also contained a cutting from a plant she was hoping he would identify, her new secateurs in case there was anything she could help with while she was up there and an envelope that had arrived in the post for her the day before.

The wooden door in the wall stood ajar and she paused to run a hand over the bright green moss growing on the pitted surface of the ancient brick. Then she slipped inside, only to stop short at the top of a flight of steps.

An extraordinary feeling came over her. It was as if she was passing from one world into another. The kitchen garden where she found herself was large enough for the needs of a manor house, but small enough to feel intimate, safe. There was no one there, but there were signs of activity, a spade dug into the freshly turned earth of a flower bed, several trays of seedlings on the path nearby. A clattering sound and she glanced up as a door in the opposite wall flew open and Paul entered, carrying a coil of hose on his shoulder and in one hand a heavy pail of water. For a moment he didn’t see her, so intent was he on his work, and she watched him shrug off the hose, sink one end in the bucket and test the handpump affixed to the other end. Then he sensed her presence. She brightened at his pleasure on seeing her and laughed as he doffed his cap and the water ran over his boots.

‘Don’t let me stop you getting on,’ she called. ‘I only came to take a look.’ She descended the steps and set her basket down. ‘What are you planting? Lettuces?’

‘Dozens of them,’ Paul wiped his face with the back of his forearm. ‘They’ll be ready to eat when the Kellings return for the summer.’

‘I’ll give you a hand if you like.’

‘No, no. Let me have a little break and I’ll show you round. These fruit trees are pretty, no, such delicate blossom?’

He spoke with knowledge and enthusiasm as they circumnavigated the garden and she duly admired the peach trees, their spread branches pinned to the south wall, and followed him into a lean-to greenhouse where a grapevine like the one at Flint Cottage grew in a latticed shape above their heads. Here, seedlings flourished in trays and pots on all surfaces and last year’s strawberry plants, safe from the frost but pale-leaved, waited in a corner to be replanted.

Outside once more, he showed her beds where the air was fragrant with herbs, flower beds pungent with manure. ‘These trenches are for the asters. Over here will be mixed annuals for the house. And sweet peas should come up over there by the dwarf plums. Lady Kelling very much likes sweet peas.’

Paul had explained before that the head gardener who supervised him was muttering about retirement, and that apart from himself as under-gardener there was only a boy from the village called Sam who was being trained. But the gardens were not extensive and the family rarely in residence outside the summer months, though a box of fruit and vegetables in season was sent up to their London residence on the train twice a week. Major Richards supervised other estate workers to manage the woodland.

‘It’s a lovely place, this garden. It feels so quiet and safe. And very old. What’s this rose?’ Sarah was examining a plant that rambled over the wall above the flower beds.

‘It grows beautiful cream flowers with pink edges, but I don’t know what it’s called. I think you have them at Flint Cottage, too. Perhaps they’re a local speciality.’ Paul smiled and returned to his lettuces, spraying the ones he’d planted with the handpump.

‘Oh, I forgot,’ Sarah said and went to forage in her basket. ‘I bought these biscuits for your mother – and for you of course.’

‘Thank you! Best to leave them by the steps there, then I won’t squash them by accident.’

She laid down the box, then more hesitantly picked up the envelope. ‘There’s a letter I want to show you later. I’d like to ask your advice.’

‘My advice? I’d be honoured. I’ll finish planting first or the old man will wonder what I’ve been doing this morning.’

‘I’ll help, really. I like this kind of planting, the rhythm of it.’

‘If you insist, then thank you.’

While she pulled on her gloves, he fetched a bit of old carpet for her to kneel on. She set about making deft holes with her forefinger, into which she dropped the delicate plants, and gently pressed the earth round them.

When they’d finished, Paul doused the lines of plants with more water, then tucked his gloves under his arm and took the letter she handed him.

‘What is Radley?’ he said, looking up from his reading, eyes puzzled.

‘It’s a college in Kent for women gardeners.’

‘Ah.’

‘They say they might be able to offer me a place for the autumn. I wrote to them a week ago, but I didn’t expect to hear back so soon.’

‘You seem uncertain.’

‘Yes. I mean it sounds possible that I could start there. It’s a shock. My letter was . . . speculative, I suppose. I would have to find the fees, but Mummy gave me some money to remember Daddy by. It’s simply . . . it would mean leaving her and Diane.’

‘And you don’t want to do that.’

‘I do want to study. I need something to occupy me, you see, and I love the idea of designing gardens. Of course, I haven’t a clue about the techniques, so this would enable me to get started.’

She stopped, seeing that his attention had shifted, and turned, following his gaze. In the doorway to the garden a man had appeared, an older man who stood stiffly and leaned on a stick. It was Major Richards. He touched his hat to Sarah and glanced quickly around, his shrewd eyes taking in the half-dug beds, the wheelbarrow, the array of tools lying on a tarpaulin on the path. ‘Keeping busy, are we, Hartmann?’ he said. ‘I’m sure Lady Kelling wouldn’t like to think time was being wasted.’

‘I’m very aware of that, Major.’ Paul passed the letter back to Sarah and slowly, very slowly, grasped the handle of the spade and tugged it from the earth.

‘Good afternoon, Sarah. Your mother is well, I hope?’

‘Very well, thank you.’

He nodded, and shooting Paul one final admonishing glare, he turned awkwardly and went on his way.

‘I cannot advise you, Miss Bailey,’ Paul murmured, setting both hands on the spade. ‘It is a decision for you alone.’

He sank the spade into a patch of hard earth and with it plunged Sarah’s spirits. There was a remoteness about his expression that confused her, made her wonder whether he was a different person to the one she’d imagined. Was it merely anger at Major Richards’ interference?

‘I know it’s my decision. It’s simply there isn’t anyone else I can ask. I used to speak to Daddy about these things.’

‘Then you must make your own judgement. It is your life.’

‘Yes, of course.’ She spoke unhappily. There was no point asking Mummy or Diane. Mummy would think she was mad and Diane would be upset. She folded the letter up and slid it back inside the envelope.

Sarah had read about horticultural colleges in a gardening magazine and written to Radley, which she’d liked the sound of, to find out more. The letter offering her an interview for a place had jolted her out of her dreaming. The thought that she really could pursue a career was both invigorating and alarming. She would need all her strength to leave her mother and Diane. She could imagine the conversations, Diane’s pleading eyes, her mother’s cold silence and her own guilt for putting her needs above her family’s. What would her father say if he was looking down on them? The thought gave her heart, because in fact she believed he’d have been sympathetic to her. ‘That’s my Molly,’ he’d always said in response to her success – Molly was his pet name for her. He’d been puffed out with pride by her final school results. Tears pricked her eyes at the memory and she blinked fiercely.

Paul had begun to turn over the earth in the bed. Everything about his posture spoke of unhappiness. She snatched up the basket, but then her eye fell on the box of biscuits.

‘Is your mother in?’ she asked him. ‘Perhaps I could take these to her.’

He paused in his work and forced a smile. ‘She is. That is kind of you, I’m sure she would appreciate it.’

Mrs Hartmann took a long time to come to the front door and she opened it with hesitation, timid dark eyes in a pale oval face peering at Sarah, but when Sarah introduced herself and showed the box, she drew the door wide. ‘How nice of you. Come in for a moment, please.’ She had a low, gentle speaking voice.

‘I’m sorry, the house isn’t tidy. I wasn’t expecting anyone.’ Her glance darted from the shabby hallstand to the threadbare rug, her anxiety obvious. She was a small, slight woman dressed in navy, a colour which Sarah thought aged her. The effort of speaking made her cough and her whole body tensed up with the exertion.

Sarah surveyed her with pity, imagining what she must have gone through with the loss of her husband and her home. The experience had broken her health. ‘I won’t stay,’ she assured Mrs Hartmann. ‘Your son said it would be all right to call. I baked the biscuits this morning, so they’re quite fresh. I hope you like ginger.’

For the first time a sparkle came to Mrs Hartmann’s eyes. ‘I love it. I have happy memories of making gingerbread as a child with my mother,’ she said, taking the box and opening the lid. The sudden spicy smell filled the air. She smiled as she breathed it in and Sarah saw that she’d been pretty once in a frail, dainty way.

‘It’s a favourite of mine, too.’ I’ll bring her flowers next time, she thought, watching Mrs Hartmann place the box on the hallstand. Daffodils, they’ll brighten this house. They hadn’t been able to take many possessions away with them from Germany, she remembered Paul telling her, and again she felt a rush of pity.

Mrs Hartmann’s troubled eyes rested on her now. ‘Your family has been so kind, we are so grateful.’

‘Not at all. We were sorry to hear of all your trouble. We hadn’t known before what things were like in Germany.’

A shadow passed across Mrs Hartmann’s delicate features, causing Sarah to wish that she’d held her tongue. ‘That is the problem. No one here really believes it.’ She stopped for a moment to cough.

‘I think a great many people have their suspicions,’ Sarah ventured, ‘but nobody wants war.’

Mrs Hartmann batted the excuse away. ‘This country is asleep. I have met people here, some our closest neighbours, who say England should stay out of Europe’s business. They think that things can go on here as they always have done, that Germany does not want to go to war with us so why should we? But I tell you, Herr Hitler is not a man to trust on any account. Think of Kristallnacht. Oswald Mosley’s bullying is almost nothing to that. There is great evil moving in Germany. It’ll engulf us all if it is not checked.’

This sounded so dramatic, almost biblical, that Sarah could not think what to say. She knew about last November’s events, the vicious attacks on Jews in German cities. She knew, too, Mr Churchill’s view, that Hitler could not be trusted. Yet, whatever the level of violence in Germany, could it be that a whole nation was infected by evil? Surely this was an exaggeration.

When she left soon afterwards, her mind was troubled. Paul’s sudden coldness to her and his mother’s dire predictions had upset her deeply.

At home in the early evening Sarah heard the letter box rattle and shortly afterwards Ruby brought a letter to her in the drawing room where they’d all settled after dinner. ‘Miss Sarah Bailey’ was written in thick black ink in a hand she did not recognize. But before she could open it, Diane switched on the wireless and her hand stilled on the envelope. She listened with horror to the news, the first they’d heard today. ‘German troops have marched into Czechoslovakia.’ Sarah knew what this meant. Hitler had lied at Munich. He wasn’t interested simply in a Greater Germany, he had grand imperial plans. And if Czechoslovakia wasn’t safe, then Poland wasn’t either. Mrs Hartmann is right, her thoughts ran. The news ended and Mrs Bailey turned off the wireless.

‘Why’s everyone so serious?’ Diane looked wildly from her mother to her sister, worried by their silence. ‘It’s all so far away, what does it have to do with us?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ Mrs Bailey said calmly, extracting a cigarette from the case in her bag, but her hand trembled as she held the lighter.

Sarah opened the letter without interest and smoothed out the single sheet inside. Dear Miss Bailey, it began. Reading seemed an effort, but she sighed and started again.

How nice of him, she was touched. She thrust the letter into the pocket of her cardigan, determined to reply to him that evening. He had been too courteous, it occurred to her, to mention Major Richards’ interference, though that had clearly annoyed him at the time. His advice was sound. She would apply to the college as he suggested, though perhaps not immediately. She needed to speak to her mother first, and tonight’s bulletin made it more difficult to plan for the future.