The guard’s shrill whistle splits the air. There is no time to explain. Jack climbs up into the carriage and slams the door behind him. There is not even time to lower the window before the train jerks away. He presses his palm against the glass, watching the three of them grow smaller and smaller, knowing that for him there can be no return; that he will never see Gwen again.

Chapter Forty

Gwen

September 1945

Gwen throws herself into work after Lady Helen’s unwelcome visit. She labours from dawn until dusk and then beyond. She does not want idle time on her hands, she does not want to give her thoughts time or space to roam. She is afraid of where they will go.

She confides only to Muriel the contents of that fateful conversation. They sit at the kitchen table in the gloaming, both too preoccupied to muster themselves to light the paraffin lamp before them. Instead, they leave their faces to fall into shadow, grateful that the failing light masks the extent of their concern. Neither are willing to tempt fate by lending voice to their fears.

Nora laughs when she finds them. She strikes a match and the paraffin lamp flares into life. They contrive their self-deprecatory smiles and exclaim how quickly the night has come on, but as soon as the Land Girl has left them, their expressions grow grave once again.

Muriel pats Gwen’s hand as she leaves. ‘They don’t have a leg to stand on,’ she says, but they both suspect that isn’t true.

Gwen had returned to the field that day promising Tom a bicycle. He listened in wide-eyed wonder as she boldly made her guilt-fuelled pledge, triggered by Helen Allingham’s words. She was determined her boy would have all the gifts she could give him.

So, as Tom sleeps above her and while Nora hums along to the wireless in the front room, she descends to the cellar searching for treasure to sell. She opens boxes of bits collected over the years, but with a sinking heart realises there is little of value, little that will raise the sum she needs.

Even so, she sweeps the cobwebs from Tom’s highchair and lugs it up the narrow steps, planting it in the kitchen, before descending again. She remembers his pram in the barn, splattered with bird droppings and crusted with dust, but nothing a good scrub couldn’t fix.

In a damp cardboard box nibbled by mice, she finds an old china tea service wrapped in yellowed newspaper and thinks it might fetch a bob or two, and then – to her surprise – a copper tea urn, a little battered perhaps, but with a spot of Brasso and a bit of elbow grease it would gleam.