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POLLY

‘It’s so very good of you to invite me to dinner,’ Max said, offering an uncertain smile to Betty as he took his seat at the dining table.

‘And sorry he’s brought along an uninvited guest,’ Polly said, laughing to herself as she stood at the dining-room door, watching the scene unfold at Rowan Farm.

Her visit to Harmony’s cottage might not have borne fruit just yet – Harmony was proving elusive as usual – but hanging round the farm had paid off, when she’d heard Rissa on the phone to her dad, inviting him to tea on Betty’s behalf.

‘You’re very welcome,’ Betty said, beaming at him. ‘We’re all friends here, and we’re delighted to meet Rissa’s father. Fancy you only living out at Chipping Royston all this time! We had no idea. You should have come to see us sooner.’

Max smiled politely and Polly thought he was trying to work Betty out.

He’d got a proper bee in his bonnet about her family and clearly wasn’t sure if her welcome was genuine.

He probably hadn’t expected an invitation, and if Rissa had had her way, he wouldn’t have got one.

Polly had listened as she’d reluctantly called him to tell him that Betty was very keen to meet him, and would he be free to come for tea on Saturday?

Betty had been hovering nearby, nodding eagerly as she’d spoken, clearly wanting to encourage a thawing of relations between Rissa and her dad.

As she surveyed the table, which was groaning with food, Polly suppressed a sigh.

High tea, she remembered, had always been a hearty affair at Rowan Farm back in Helen’s day, and it seemed Betty was continuing the tradition.

There were plates and dishes spread all over the table, holding slices of cold meat, cheeses, sliced hard-boiled eggs, potato salad, coleslaw, salad vegetables and goodness knows what else.

She knew that, if it were possible, her mouth would have been watering and her tummy rumbling at the sight.

Sometimes, afterlife seemed very unfair.

Polly had assumed it would only be the four of them at the table, but as Max settled himself in one of the hard-backed, mahogany chairs, Lars, Bram, and Erin arrived. Max looked momentarily uncomfortable but quickly masked his feelings and greeted the newcomers with a smile.

Then Betty’s husband, Nick arrived. He shooed their beloved cat, Mitzi, into the kitchen then took his place at the head of the table.

Polly liked the look of Nick, who she’d seen a few times around the village.

He was an amiable-looking man with sandy-coloured hair and blue eyes that shone out from a weatherbeaten face.

He had a look of Betty’s own grandad, Alf.

She smiled as, after welcoming his guest, Nick began to load up his plate. Evidently, there was nothing formal about this meal, and she sensed that Max felt some relief at that.

For a few moments, she battled with herself, wondering if it would be too torturous to sit down at the table while everyone was eating all this yummy food, but in the end, she decided that she was being daft.

After all, she spent enough time at the teashop, watching as people stuffed their faces with all kinds of tasty treats. She could cope with this.

Besides, she was on a spying mission, and spies didn’t have time to think about food.

She slipped into the remaining empty chair at the table as Betty said kindly to Max, ‘Now, you just help yourself. We do things in the traditional way here, which I’m sure is just what you’d expect.

High tea in summer is more like a buffet.

You eat whatever you fancy and don’t stand on ceremony.

’ Her gaze slid over to where the three farmworkers were, like Nick, already digging in.

‘See what I mean?’ she said with a wry shake of her head.

‘Best get stuck in before this lot eat it all.’

‘Thank you. It’s a marvellous spread. I shouldn’t think,’ he said carefully, ‘that this is how your family would have eaten during the war.’

Polly pursed her lips. Straight in there, no messing about. Direct the conversation to the war. Well played, Max.

Nick laughed. ‘You’re not wrong there, Mr Meyer.’

‘Please, call me Max.’

‘Okay, and you must call me Nick. No, there’s no doubt rationing would have made sure the table wasn’t as full back then as it is now. But I daresay Betty’s family had a little bit extra now and then, whatever the rules. More than most of the poor blighters in the city had, at any rate.’

Polly agreed. They’d been lucky, despite the rationing. For one thing, so many people in the cities didn’t even have a garden or access to an allotment. How were they supposed to dig for victory in those circumstances?

‘It must be strange,’ Max said, rather shyly helping himself to some chicken, salad and coleslaw, ‘living in the past the way you do.’ He eyed the Dutchmen curiously. ‘And you, playing prisoners of war. German prisoners of war at that, when Rissa tells me you are Dutch.’

The two men shrugged.

‘We like it here,’ one said. He had dark hair, grey eyes and a cheerful smile. ‘We’re only here until September, sadly, but it’s been fun, hasn’t it, Lars?’

The fair-haired one nodded in agreement. ‘Yeah. We’ll miss it, but real life calls. Can’t stay here forever, can we?’

‘No indeed,’ Max said, giving Rissa a pointed look.

She put her head down and concentrated on her meal.

‘So what are your plans when you leave here?’ Max enquired politely.

‘I’m going back to Nederland,’ Lars told him. ‘I have a job waiting for me in my father’s business.’

‘Really?’ Max raised an eyebrow. ‘What sort of business is that?’

‘He owns a haulage company,’ Lars said. ‘I shall be helping him run it when I return. I have completed my studies in business management with logistics and I look forward to going home when the summer is over and putting my knowledge to work in a practical way.’

Polly had no idea what any of that involved and she wondered if Max was any wiser.

‘I see. I’m sure your father is looking forward to your return,’ he said politely.

‘For sure,’ Lars said with a chuckle. ‘But my mother is looking forward to it even more. She has sent me food parcels every week since I left and is crossing off the days on her calendar. One would think I was still a child.’

‘Says the man who spends every evening playing Transformers video games,’ Erin said, laughing.

‘Hey! It’s a classic,’ Lars protested.

‘I notice you didn’t tell your mother to stop sending you the food parcels,’ Bram said.

‘Well…’ Lars squirmed a little. ‘It makes her happy to think she is feeding me. Besides,’ he added, an accusatory tone in his voice, ‘you ate your fair share of them!’

‘Guilty,’ Bram admitted.

‘And what of you?’ Max asked him politely. ‘Will you be returning to the Netherlands in September?’

Bram shook his head. ‘No. I’ll be moving to Scotland. I got my Masters degree, and now I’m aiming for a PhD.’

Max’s eyes widened. ‘A PhD? Impressive. What are you studying?’

‘Scottish History at Edinburgh University,’ Bram said briefly.

‘ Scottish History?’ Evidently, that had really surprised him. ‘Why Scottish?’

‘My mother is Scottish,’ Bram explained. ‘I have dual nationality and spent several years living in Scotland during my teens.’

‘Nothing so grand for me,’ Erin said cheerfully.

She flicked back her red hair then speared some chicken with her fork.

‘I’m hanging on here. I like the work. I like the Cotswolds.

I grew up in Coventry – a country girl at heart trapped in a big city.

This job was a dream come true for me and I’m not about to let it go anytime soon.

’ She winked at Betty. ‘You’ll have the oldest land girl in history one day, you wait and see. ’

Betty laughed. ‘You’ll always be welcome here, lovely. We’ll just have to keep you out of the sun. My mother always said that was the secret to keeping the wrinkles at bay. Mind, I think you might have chosen the wrong profession. You and me both.’

Polly thought that dying at thirty-seven had done a pretty good job of keeping her own wrinkles at bay, and she supposed it was always better to look on the bright side. Max, meanwhile, had seized on the opportunity to explore Betty’s family history a little further.

‘I believe,’ he said politely, oblivious, Polly noticed, to the tension in Rissa’s face at his words, ‘that this farm has been in your family for some generations?’

Betty buttered a slice of bread as she considered her answer.

‘Not “in the family” if you mean we’ve always owned it,’ she explained.

‘The farm belongs to the owner of the Harland Estate. Everything round here does. We’re all tenants, you see.

But my family has been lucky enough to have the tenancy of Rowan Farm for well over a hundred and twenty years, so it certainly feels like ours. ’

‘And you were happy to live here, Nick?’ Max enquired. ‘When you married Betty, I mean?’

Nick chortled. ‘Happy? I only married her for the farm!’

Max looked startled for a moment, but his face relaxed as Betty squealed with laughter and he realised the farmer was joking.

‘My dad runs a farm about thirty miles from here,’ Nick explained.

‘Farming’s in my blood and I never wanted to do anything else.

When I met Betty, I’d have moved to the ends of the earth for her, so thirty miles was nothing.

Mind, I’ll admit it took some getting used to, having to go back in time as it were to all these old-fashioned agricultural methods.

Having said that, I wouldn’t have it any other way now.

There’s something calming about working the land the way they used to.

It’s a more relaxed way of life, even though it’s bloody hard work. ’

‘And your father doesn’t mind? He doesn’t expect you to take over his own farm one day?’