“Mrs. Symonds,” Stella called.
The woman looked up—and so did every soldier and nurse in the ward.
“Miss Adderton, what are you doing in here?” Mrs. Symonds asked, her fingers still on the typewriter’s keys. The young man in the bed next to her, whose hand was wrapped in plaster, looked on with interest.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Symonds, but there is something urgent that Miss Pedley must tell you,” said Stella.
Beth stepped forward, all too aware that she was standing in her thick socks.
“Miss Pedley?” Mrs. Symonds prompted, her tone managing to be at once firm and tired.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Symonds. It’s just, I’m a land girl,” she started.
“Yes, I gathered as much,” said Mrs. Symonds.
“This morning, we were told to make our way to Highbury House,” she said.
Mrs. Symonds’s chin jerked. “Why?”
“Mr. Jones said that your land has been requisitioned. There are tractors at the foot of the lawn right now,” she said.
“That’s absurd. He can’t simply drive over here and start tearing up my gardens. I haven’t had a requisition order,” said Mrs. Symonds.
“Beth says he has one,” said Stella.
“Mr. Jones is going to start any moment, if he hasn’t already. He wants the land readied and planted within a week.”
“Mrs. Symonds, I can see them,” called a man who’d shimmied up in bed to peer out of the window behind him.
“Second Lieutenant Wilkes, sit down!” a nurse bellowed.
“Only trying to help,” the man muttered.
Mrs. Symonds pushed away from the typewriter. “Take me to Mr. Jones, please, Miss Pedley.”
Relief washed over her. “Yes, Mrs. Symonds.”
? DIANA ?
In the months after Murray’s death, Diana learned what a powerful motivator fury could be. Mixed with grief, it had propelled her through those darkest days when the government carted in white-enameled bed frames and mattresses, surgical equipment and bath chairs.
As she flew out of the west drawing room, fury fueled Diana again. Behind her, she could hear Miss Adderton and the land girl rushing to keep pace.
In the grand entryway in the center of the house, she spotted Mrs. Dibble speaking with Matron.
“Mrs. Dibble,” she called. “I need yesterday’s post—both deliveries—and this morning’s as well!”
“Yes, Mrs. Symonds. I’ll just fetch it,” said the housekeeper.
“Now, Mrs. Dibble!” she shouted.
From the scuffle behind her, Diana caught the words “garden” and “requisitioned.” Fists balled tight, she pushed out of the French doors to the veranda.
The roaring of an engine from down by the lake quickened her pace, and she raced down the great lawn, past the reflecting pool, to where a crowd of olive-and-brown-clad land girls were clustered around a tractor. On top sat red-faced Mr. Jones glaring at a uniformed man with his arm in a sling who half lay in the mouth of the tractor’s huge metal scoop, looking for all the world as though he was stretched out on a sofa in the midmorning sun.
“Mr. Jones!” she shouted up at the farmer as she approached.
Mr. Jones shoved the brim of his flat cap on his forehead and squinted at her. “Brought the cavalry with you, have you, Mrs. Symonds?”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Miss Adderton, Miss Pedley, Cynthia, and Matron behind her. A dozen yards back, Mrs. Dibble huffed and puffed, waving a white envelope in her hand.
“I think, perhaps, my work here is done,” said the officer, who slid out of the scoop gracefully.
“What is your name?” Diana asked.
“Captain Graeme Hastings, at your service, madam,” he said, bowing as best he could.
“Thank you, Captain Hastings,” she said. “Mr. Jones, I have received no requisition order for my land, so I would like very much to know what you are doing on my property.”
The man reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and held it out.
“Do you expect me to climb up there to fetch it?” she asked.
Chagrined, the farmer came down from his tractor’s seat. “There you are, ma’am. You can read it there, clear as day.”
He was right. Typed out in orderly lines was the agricultural requisition of all unused land at Highbury House.
Her garden. One of the few things that was still her own—which she’d done her very best to maintain throughout this bloody war—and they were going to take it away from her.