Dark Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page B

long, thin, intelligent and gentle.
    ‘So you do see, Philip,’ she finished her outpouring, ‘why I feel I have to do something to make a place for women to work in this war.’
    He thought for a moment. ‘You say women are unable to contribute save peripherally, but that’s not true, Caroline. Have you looked around you?’
    ‘At what?’
    ‘At who’s trying to run the farms. Owlers, for instance. Mr Lake’s wife has been out ploughing. And not the second or third ploughings either, but the fallowing. And did you see who was behind the counter at Naylor’s? Mrs Naylor is the draper now. My sister is helping me here in the school, and taking more and more of the responsibility now I’m away such a lot.’ There was some pride in his voice. He had told her he was a special constable in Tunbridge Wells, detailed for the areas where the troops were billeted.
    ‘Yes, but what of all those women who don’t have jobs they more or less have to take over?’
    ‘There’s always work if they seek it out.’
    Caroline thought this over as she walked home down Station Road to the Rectory. No, she wasn’t satisfied. Women weren’t used to seeking work, it wouldn’t naturally occur to many that they were as capable as men of doing most jobs. They needed to be told, to be recruited. Women needed their own Lord Kitchener to call them to factories, shops, offices and farms.
    A wagon passed her which she vaguelyremembered as belonging to the Swinford-Browne estate, and its driver glanced at her as if waiting for her to acknowledge him. Did she know him? She realised she did. It was that strange man Frank Eliot, manager of the Swinford-Browne hopgardens and oasthouse. She wondered idly how the hops would fare this year. Would the pickers come down from London as usual? Already this month the hop stringing would be in progress. Or would it? She turned to shout after the wagon, then ran up to it as Frank Eliot, surprised, tugged on the reins.
     
    ‘Mother!’ Caroline rushed upstairs and burst into what was called ‘Mother’s boudoir’. Far from being a place of dainty lace and feminine fripperies, it was her workroom and as cheerfully untidy as a room could be. Heaps of clothing for refugees occupied most chairs, her own sewing was piled on the floor, and the desk had almost disappeared under brown paper, string, sealing wax and tissue paper.
    ‘Don’t distract me, darling, I’m busy. I can’t recall whether Edith said mark the parcels Serbia or St Omer for the woollens.’
    ‘Address some to both. I want to distract you. I’ve had the most wonderful idea and you’re going to help me.’
    Laurence had just returned home from visiting old Sammy Farthing, the bootmaker, who was laid low with a quinsy, when he heard a shriek from above. Alarmed, he dashed up the stairs, and was relieved to find Caroline lookingexuberant and, though white with shock, his wife still in good health.
    She leapt up from the chair into which she had collapsed on Caroline’s announcement. ‘Laurence, Caroline has gone completely off her head. She wants to go into farming —and what’s worse, she says I’m to help her.’ Elizabeth looked despairing.
    He burst out laughing, glad it wasn’t serious. ‘I don’t see you in trousers and boots.’
    ‘Not in that way, Father,’ Caroline interrupted. ‘I’ve been talking to Frank Eliot. I asked him how he’ll manage with so many of their labourers and casual hop-pickers having volunteered. He said that he’d applied to see if any of the troops in the camps around the Forest could be spared, but it didn’t look promising. The government, you won’t be surprised to hear, is dragging its feet. So I want Mother to help me organise the women of the village, everyone doing a week or two, when and where the work is needed. It would mean going round to see the farmers to explain and sort out rates of pay, then finding volunteers and running the rota system.’
    A hard fist seemed to thump