Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings by Julia Stoneham Read Free Book Online Page A

cutlery clattered.
    ‘Perhaps we should introduce ourselves,’ Alice suggested tentatively. ‘We could go clockwise round the table. Would you begin, Christine?’
    ‘OK then,’ Christine smiled round the chewing faces. ‘I’m Christine Wilkins. Everyone calls me Chrissie… Me and Ron got married two months ago…’
    ‘Up the spout, are you?’ Winnie asked, nailing Chrissie with her shrewd eyes.
    ‘No, as it happens,’ Chrissie said cheerfully. ‘We’re not having kids till the war’s over… He looks like Leslie Howard, my Ron. I’ll show you his photo after. He got a forty-eight-hour pass for our wedding and I haven’t seen him since!’ There was a murmur of sympathy as she turned to Gwennan. ‘Your go now,’ she said.
    ‘Gwennan Pringle. From Builth Wells. My folks are both dead and I live with my aunt and my uncle, who is an undertaker.’ The girls stared at the narrow face with its prim mouth and at the hard, dark eyes that seemed to be daring anyone to make some joke or other at an undertaker’s expense.
    ‘A “taffy”, eh!’ said Hannah-Maria. ‘How do, Taff!’ Everyone laughed and suddenly the room felt warmer.
    ‘Next!’ demanded Chrissie.
    ‘Georgina Webster. My people farm in Taunton Deane.’ Winnie and Marion nudged and giggled. Georgina paused and then continued in a clear voice. ‘I volunteered for the Land Army so that my brother could stay on the farm.’ There was a slight intake of breath. Rose, about to dispense the last of the prunes, paused, spoon in mid-air.
    ‘And not get called up, you mean?’ asked Gwennan in her clipped, sing-song Welsh voice.
    ‘He’s a pacifist,’ Georgina said and then, her words dropping into a heavy silence, continued, ‘and so am I.’
    ‘What’s a pacifist?’ asked Hannah-Maria while Hester’s eyes went anxiously from speaker to speaker because she didn’t understand a word anyone was saying.
    ‘Someone who…’ Alice began, searching for a definition that would not provoke further dissension.
    ‘Who’s a friggin’ coward!’ Marion interrupted sharply. ‘And what’s more, Mrs Todd, me and Win’s not sharing a bedroom with no bloomin’ conchie!’
    ‘We didn’t want to come here in the first place!’ Winnie chimed in, self-righteous and injured. ‘We liked our digs in the village!’
    ‘Yes!’ said Rose. ‘And there’s some as knows why!’ Marion and Winnie gasped. Hester was now thoroughly alarmed by all this shouting. Hannah-Maria and Gwennan exchanged speculative glances, Georgina dropped her eyes and smiled at her plate as Rose continued, ‘But whilst you’m ’ere you’ll sleep where you’m told! And be in be ten o’clock, like itsays in the rule book!’ Alice was slightly taken aback by the ferocity of Rose’s tone and placed a restraining hand on her arm.
    ‘I noticed that there’s a small single room,’ said Georgina coolly. She was in the habit of getting what she wanted. ‘If you would allow it, Mrs Todd, I’d prefer to sleep there.’
    ‘Fine by us!’ spluttered Marion.
    ‘Yeah!’ echoed her shadow.
    ‘Quiet, you two!’ Rose commanded and the girls subsided into a stunned silence. Alice said she thought it could be arranged, although the room Georgina proposed using was very small. Georgina said she didn’t mind a bit and the matter was closed. Rose offered the last of the prunes and Mabel accepted them with an alacrity that amused Chrissie and Hannah-Maria.
     
    Later, in the double room they were to share, Hannah-Maria , who at supper had invited everyone to call her Annie, was unpacking her suitcase. Hester, whose one change of clothes was already stowed in the wardrobe and in the lower drawer of the shared dressing table, watched, fascinated as Annie shook out frilled blouses, floral frocks, sleeveless Ceylonese nightdresses with lacy inserts and two pairs of cami-knickers, which, she told Hester, had been a farewell gift from her boyfriend, Pete, who had run a barrow in Petticoat