The Watercress Girls Read online

  The Watercress Girls

  Sheila Newberry

  Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Part Two

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Epilogue

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  The Watercress Girls is dedicated to the five ‘Mackley Girls’ who grew up variously in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada and Minot, North Dakota, USA.

  Also, to the memory of two lovely English sisters, Lottie, who was painted as a child wearing a yellow dress, and her sister Clare, missionary and teacher.

  I would like to thank my Canadian/American cousins, Jean (Mackley) and Del Plaisance for their warm encouragement, vivid recall of past times, and help with my research, (which included splendid photographs by their nephew Gary Hagen).

  Also ‘over here’, Sara, Glenys, Joyce, G.C. and, as always, John.

  Prologue

  August, 2005

  The old farm gate, stuck fast in a tangle of brambles, refused to budge. Tilly climbed over first, after dropping her canvas bag on to the ground on the other side. She liked to have drawing materials with her, in case she was suddenly inspired to capture a moment in time.

  ‘Pass Aunt Evie’s basket to me,’ she told her companion as he made to vault over.

  The grass was long and damp; trainers and trouser hems were soon caked with mud. They skirted the patches of thistles, strolling hand-in-hand across the meadow in the late-afternoon sunlight. The midges were beginning to bite, the birds to circle in the vast skies overhead. Tilly had been told that her great-great-grandfather once kept a small flock of sheep in what now appeared a long-forsaken place.

  Earlier, Evie said: ‘I hear watercress still grows in the stream; Mattie and I used to gather great bundles of it when we were girls – why don’t you get some for tea?’

  Tea, the girl thought, with a wry smile. Here, that still meant bone-china cups and saucers, thin slices of bread and butter cut into triangles on matching poppy-patterned plates; small, warm tomatoes picked from the lean-to greenhouse, cottage cheese with chives; home-made raspberry conserve to spread with little knives with mother of pearl handles. The tea itself would be freshly brewed in a round-bellied pot, with a crocheted cosy to keep it hot, milk would be sweet and creamy in the jug with its beaded cap, and sugar lumps lifted with silver tongs. When they left the old house, there had been the tantalizing smell of rich fruit-cake baking in the oven and, on the kitchen table, she’d glimpsed a tray of plump scones, gently steaming. Her great-grandmother’s sister Evie was a marvel, doing all this, at ninety-seven. She’d managed on her own, since Mattie died.

  This was very different from the meal Tilly and Tom threw together in the shared student house on their return from art college each evening. Pasta, often mixed from ends of packets; sauce from a jar, sniffed to make sure it hadn’t gone off; grated hard cheese melted on top of the dish – eaten on plates balanced on knees as they sat together on a settee with twanging springs, staring at the portable TV she’d brought from her bedroom at home. The table was used not for meals but for homework, strewn with great sheets of paper, jars of brushes in turps, tubes of paint, rags, charcoal, pencils and half-drunk cups of coffee.

  ‘It’s so quiet here,’ Tilly observed. She hoped he didn’t mind, being a city boy.

  ‘No roar of London traffic,’ he said ruefully. She’d had to persuade him that a weekend in the country, with an elderly relative, would be fun. They’d travelled by coach, which had taken hours, but they’d slept most of the way.

  They reached the stream. The water rushed clear, clean and cold over small shining pebbles shifting on a fine, sandy bed.

  Tilly sank to her knees, cupping her hands in the water. Droplets ran down her chin as she drank. ‘It’s delicious!’ The tips of her long hair, coppery in that golden light, were wet, too. She fingered the locks back behind her ears.

  ‘Are you sure the water’s safe to drink?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Evie and Mattie always slaked their thirst here – they never came to any harm. And watercress only grows in fresh water….’

  ‘Come on then,’ Tom said. ‘We should follow the stream to find it.’

  Tilly slipped off her shoes, tied the laces together, slung them over her shoulder. She pocketed her socks.

  ‘Well, I’m going to paddle my way there, how about you?’

  ‘We’ll have to roll our jeans up.’ Tom was the more practical of the two.

  ‘The water’s not deep, look.’ She stepped in with a splash. ‘But it makes you gasp!’

  They gasped again when they came upon the profusion of glossy green watercress. Tilly nipped a tender sprig to taste it before getting down to serious picking.

  ‘It’s not bitter like the cress you buy in the London markets,’ she reported. ‘This is tender and sweet.’

  Like you, Tom thought. This was not something he could say to her. Instead, he observed awkwardly, ‘You’ve bits of green in your teeth.’

  ‘Try a piece – go on. It’s good for you! Full of iron for growing girls – and boys, I shouldn’t wonder,’ she teased him.

  At nineteen Tom was a lanky six-footer. Tilly, too, was tall and skinny. Evie had exclaimed that she obviously didn’t eat enough, hence the rich fruity cake to come.

  Back at the house Evie didn’t comment on their wet footprints on the worn carpeting, Her bent old fingers ruffled the brimming watercress in the basket.

  ‘You’ve done well! You know, this was Mattie’s basket; they called us the watercress girls…. When Plough Cottage was still the village inn, and we had visitors staying in the summer, we picked some nearly every day for them.’

  ‘Can I make a quick sketch of it before you serve it up for tea?’ Tilly asked.

  ‘Of course you can. Put the basket in the centre of the table, it’ll go well on that yellow cloth. Mattie always loved that colour … she wore a yellow dress when she had her picture painted. You look a lot like her, so it’s right you’re named for her, Matilda.’

  ‘No one’s ever called me that.… What picture? I’ve never heard of one.’ Tilly positioned her sketch pad, selected stubby pastels from a tin. Finger and thumb were soon powdery with colour as she deliberately but delicately smudged her drawing.

  ‘I’ll tell you the story after tea. Your young man looks hungry, don’t keep him waiting too long, will you? We’ll eat watercress like a second Nebuchadnezzar, eh?’

  ‘Where does that expression come from?’ Tilly smiled. One to store up and bring out nonchalantly, on occasion, she decided.

  ‘Dickens, my dear – Sketches by Boz. You should read them. Old Neb was a king mentioned in the Old Testament. Daniel tells us he went mad and ate copious amounts of grass. Watercress is far superior!’

  Part One

  One

  Mattie was danci
ng about in the stream, spraying her sister with silvery showers of water. It was a blazing hot day in late August, 1914. The girls had come down to the meadow to cool off. Later they would fill the basket with watercress, but there was only one guest to enjoy it for Saturday tea, at present. The rest of the visitors had departed abruptly at the beginning of the month when War was declared.

  Six-year-old Evie retreated from the bombardment, stumbled and sat down inadvertently in the water. ‘Look what you’ve made me do!’ she cried reproachfully.

  ‘You’ve got your bloomers wet!’ sang out her sister, but she waded over to help Evie up. She was twelve, twice as old as Evie, but her mother often reminded her that she didn’t act her age. Lately, she’d added that it was time for Mattie to grow up ‘now the whole world’s gone mad’.

  ‘We’ll have to go home.’ Evie sniffed.

  ‘Not yet. Your clothes will soon dry out in this heat. Come on, we promised to take back some watercress!’ She felt in her pocket. ‘Here’s a piece of toffee. It might have a bit of fluff on it, but you can rub that off, can’t you?’

  Mollified, Evie tagged along behind Mattie to the watercress bed.

  Some of the young men of the village had already volunteered to join the army. Last week there had been a march of new recruits through the main street and everyone had emerged with flags to cheer them on their way. The lads of the Boys’ Brigade had played their polished brass instruments and banged their drums. The girls had watched from the doorway of the Plough inn with their parents to wave a last, public goodbye to their two elder brothers. Afterwards they’d observed tears in their father’s eyes despite his proud beam. Their mother, Sophia, whispered apprehensively, ‘They won’t take you too, will they, Will?’ He patted her arm. ‘Not at forty, old girl,’ he said gruffly.

  They both knew that difficult times lay ahead. They’d miss the support of their strong sons, although the bar was now half-empty each evening with the regulars gone.

  Still, there was their paying guest, Mr B. They called him that because his name was difficult to pronounce. He had come to this country some forty years ago as a young man. He was an artist, quite a famous one, it was rumoured, whose pictures had been hung in the Royal Academy. He was a regular summer visitor, paying extra for the use of a wooden chalet in the garden as a studio where he could, he said, ‘breathe in good, clean air, look out on pastoral scenes, paint in peace and quiet….’

  Mr B had a hawklike profile, dark, oiled-back hair and deep-set eyes under beetle brows. Despite his stern appearance he was kindly, and tolerated the giggles of the girls when they counted under their breath the number of times he stirred the three sugar lumps in his tea. Fourteen twirls of the spoon, to be exact. He was very fond of watercress too.

  ‘Thank you girls – thank you, Mrs Rowley,’ he declared, in his slightly accented voice, when he joined Sophia and her daughters for tea. ‘I tell my mother how very nice this is, the way you serve the watercress, with a touch of vinegar and a pinch of sugar.’

  The girls were full of mirth again, thinking of one so old still living with an even more ancient parent.

  Sophia’s look quelled them. She said: ‘Mattie, Mr B has asked my permission first, and now he has a question for you.’

  Mr B dabbed at his mouth with a linen napkin. ‘Yes, this is so. I have been commissioned to paint a portrait of a young girl, ah, about your age; my client has supplied me with a photograph and details of her colouring, but I am used to painting, ah, from life. It seems to me that you would be a suitable model, and, yes, in particular for the hair, which is described as golden, long and luxuriant. The eyes are blue—’

  ‘But mine are green!’ Mattie interrupted.

  ‘I should explain – I shall not paint your face. Your figure only. The only requirement would be, you must wear a yellow dress. If you have not one suitable, it shall be provided. Would you like to sit for me?’

  Mattie always made her mind up quickly. ‘Oh, yes please!’

  ‘What about me?’ Evie asked in an aggrieved voice. She nibbled her watercress like a rabbit, which she had been told was impolite in company.

  ‘You, my dear child, can act as chaperon,’ Mr B suggested.

  ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.

  Mattie had the answer. ‘You can watch and tell Mother if I fidget too much!’

  Mattie could just about manage to keep her pose for one hour. She sat in a straight-backed chair with an uncomfortable rush seat, looking pensively into space. Her bright hair was carefully brushed, allowed to fall loose over her shoulders; the simple yellow dress, made by her capable mother, was smoothed over her knees. She wore dancing-pumps on her feet. Crossing her ankles was not permitted. Mr B looked pained when once she sneezed.

  The chalet door was left open, at Sophia’s request, which enabled Evie to go in and out – to sit on the lawn and make a long daisy-chain. Being a chaperon was somewhat tedious, she’d soon discovered. She envied her sister her role.

  Mattie wasn’t allowed to look at the picture until Mr B said it was finished, when there was a formal viewing by the girls and their parents.

  There was a definite autumnal twinge in the air by then. After careful laundering, the yellow dress was folded in tissue and placed in the trunk with their summer clothes. Last of all, lavender-bags were tucked inside, ones that she and Evie had painstakingly sewn.

  Today, like her sister, Mattie wore a warm, cinnamon-brown dress with a velvet collar, and a lace-trimmed pinafore over it, wool stockings and neat little boots. Her hair was restrained in a single plait which hung down her back, secured with a large satin bow. Mattie envied Evie’s short, springy, black curls. Evie didn’t have freckles – Mattie hoped hers were not evident on her portrait!

  It was Evie who first realized that the girl in the picture had no discernible features. Her face was a perfect oval, with a hint of flesh-pink, but that was all. She opened her mouth to say something, and Mattie clapped her hand over it. ‘Shush,’ she hissed.

  Mr B seemed preoccupied, not quite himself, but he essayed an explanation.

  ‘I hoped to stay a few more days, to complete the painting from the photograph, but the telegram I received this morning … I must return to London almost immediately.’ He spread out his hands. ‘I am required to register as an enemy alien.’

  The family were silent, trying to take this in.

  The artist added: ‘I have a favour to ask of you, Mr Rowley. When I have packed the picture, with a letter of explanation to my client to say that when this matter is cleared up I will finish the assignment at his home – please would you arrange for the package to be collected by carrier, and taken to the address I shall give you? I will provide money to pay for this, and to settle our account.’

  Will shook hands with Mr B. ‘Of course I’ll do it,’ he promised. ‘Good luck.’

  They never saw or heard from the artist again. Had he been interned – or even deported? Surely, if he had been allowed to stay in his adopted country, he would have eventually got in touch….

  *

  Mattie didn’t wear the yellow dress again. By the following summer she was thirteen and maturing rapidly. It wouldn’t have suited Evie with her more sallow complexion. Also, it was a time for more sober clothes. Her elder brother, Robbie, had been lost in the battle of Ypres. In fact, almost a whole generation of village boys, for most were scarcely more than that, would not return home.

  Within two years of the end of the Great War the Plough was forced to close because the brewery did not sanction credit. They were able to stay on in the house, where Will had been born, lived all his married life and which, later, he inherited from his own father. The lambs brought in a tiny income. Ronnie, who had come through the recent terrible conflict almost unscathed physically, joined an uncle employed by the railway as a crossing-keeper. Ronnie’s wages as a trainee porter were a godsend to the family.

  Mattie worked part-time in the village post office, as assistant to elderly, arthr
itic Miss Hobbs, selling stamps, weighing parcels and wiring telegrams. She doubled up as shop assistant, serving boiled sweets from glass jars, selling farm eggs and fresh local vegetables, which included, in season, bunches of their watercress. The rest of the day she helped her mother in the house. She yearned for more excitement in her life.

  Sophia suffered from bouts of depression after losing her eldest child. Every afternoon she sat on the window-seat watching out for Evie returning from school, taking the short cut home across the field. It was Mattie who cooked their supper, who talked to her young sister about the day’s events, for Sophia was also prone to long silences.

  After her eighteenth birthday, when she had been at the post office for three years with no prospect of promotion, Mattie determined to venture away from home. If she had a better job, she reasoned, she could send money to help her family. She felt guilty that she would be leaving her sister behind but Evie, at twelve, was still at school. Mattie whispered that she might help out and perhaps gain a little pocket money by picking, then selling watercress at the gate.

  Maybe, subconsciously, Mattie resented the arrival of Ronnie’s young wife in the family home in the summer of 1920. She had been at school with Ena but they had never been close friends.

  Ena ingratiated herself with Sophia and was pandered to, particularly since she announced that she was expecting a baby the next May. Ena took over the housekeeping purse and held out her hand each Friday for Mattie’s contribution. It was understood that in due course Ena would be the lady of the house.

  ‘I have expectations, you don’t,’ Mattie was told spitefully by her sister-in-law when they had a falling-out one day. Ena made sure Sophia was not in earshot, naturally.

  This was true, Mattie acknowledged to herself. It was time to go.

  As for the picture, it went down in family lore as the painting of an unknown girl – the only clue to her identity being the name and address to which the picture had been sent. This piece of paper Sophia locked safely away in her writing-box.