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Wood Grange Estate, Somerset, England

It was dark by the late afternoon, dreary and damp in the way that cold January days almost always are, and Ophelia hurried to collect the last of the items laid out on her bed before she completely lost the light.

In a neat row on her counterpane lay a packet of her favourite biscuits the housekeeper, Mrs. Greene, had carefully wrapped in waxed paper along with a note of encouragement, her journal and pen, and a small portrait of her mother in a chased-silver frame.

Tucking them into the side pocket of the carpetbag, she ran her hands over the items inside.

Chemise, blouse, skirt, stockings, nightdress, cardigan.

Everything was accounted for, but once she closed the clasp on the worn bag, she was admitting to herself that she was actually going to go through with the plan.

A noise in the hall caught her attention; she listened to catch a hint of the walker’s gait, the telltale click of her father’s walking stick on the hardwood floors.

Nothing. Thank God . Then a small scratch at the bedroom door.

She opened it a crack to the housekeeper’s serious round face.

“A minute, Miss Ophelia?” she whispered.

Ophelia opened the door and hurried the woman inside. She came only to Ophelia’s shoulder, her strawberry-blonde hair streaked with grey and escaping in soft tufts from her top knot, her blue eyes serious in her wide intelligent face.

“I had a thought and brought ye one more thing for the road,” she said, pressing a small flask into Ophelia’s hands.

“It was my mam’s. She kept it in her knitting basket for when she needed a little extra courage or calm, as it may be.

” The housekeeper smiled up at Ophelia, who was turning the small silver container over in her hands, wondering whether at the ripe old age of twenty-two drinking on the run was going to become part of her new life.

Mrs. Greene patted her hand gently, saying, “It’s no bad thing to have a nip to warm you or when you need a little fortitude. ”

Ophelia returned the press of the woman’s hand with hers. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Greene. I’m sure I’ll need all the courage I can get, but oughtn’t you keep it?”

Mrs. Greene waved her hand. “I’m glad for you to have it.

Mam approved of women finding their own way in life, even in the bad old days.

She’d be happy to know it was going with you on your adventure.

” The housekeeper clutched Ophelia’s hand, eyes teary, nose a little pink.

“I’m so proud of you, miss, doing your bit for the war.

You’re going to have such an adventure in that Women’s Land Army, I just know it.

But you ought to get going now. The longer you tarry, the better the chance of your father noticing something’s afoot. ”

Ophelia nodded, pressing the clasp on her carpetbag home, the click feeling as heavy as the beating of her heart.

Down the stairs and out through the kitchen entrance, she made her way carefully in the dark, past the long beds of the kitchen garden toward the gate in the brick wall.

The warmth spilling around Mrs. Greene in the kitchen doorway disappeared quickly when the housekeeper doused the light.

There being no moon, Ophelia had to rely on her memory of the estate to make her way out of the garden, through the gate, and across the gravel drive.

She clutched the leather handle of her bag tightly, listening intently for any sign of disturbance behind her.

It seemed unlikely that her father would notice her absence before the next day; he rarely sought her out unless he required her presence for one or another of his schemes, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he would suddenly acquire some parental awareness after a lifetime of ignoring her.

Reaching the rise of the drive and breaking out of the shadow of the Atlas cedars that lined the long entrance to the house, Ophelia stood for a moment to catch her breath.

She could hardly believe she was going through with this.

She turned to look back at the house, only one or two windows visible from this vantage.

Its warm stone walls had been the scene of her entire life, had witnessed every quiet day, every lonely night, every conversation that had gradually brought her to this moment.

Her chest felt tight, but her head was clear.

She nodded to herself and stepped up onto the road.

“Thought you might’ve changed your mind,” came a voice from the gloom. The owner, a tall red-haired woman, stepped forward, her face a delicate collision of angles and shadows in the low light. Ophelia started, then moved toward her.

“Hannah?”

“Said I’d meet you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, it’s true, you did.” Ophelia felt flustered, the determination of just a minute ago fading a little in the face of her terse companion.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot uncertainly.

She felt the same flush of naiveté she had upon meeting Hannah at the Women’s Land Army recruitment event months before.

The other woman had a directness of speech and action that made Ophelia feel like an awkward schoolgirl.

“Let’s be on our way then. The wagon will take us a good way to the station.

We’ll walk the rest.” She turned, and Ophelia trotted to catch up with her.

A small cart waited a little ways up the lane, the dark horse at its head standing quietly.

“Let me get you up, then I’ll pass your bag,” Hannah said.

Ophelia dropped her bag and grasped Hannah’s hand, stepping on the wheel to get a foot onto the footboard of the cart.

Seated, she settled her bag at her feet and waited for Hannah to clamber up the other side.

They started off down the lane, the horse’s hooves hollow and loud on the packed earth of the road.

“I wasn’t going to change my mind,” Ophelia said into the silence.

She didn’t know why she needed Hannah to know that she hadn’t hesitated, but it felt important to her that the woman know she was committed to her decision, to this choice.

“Only I got to the edge of the property and it hit me all at once that I was really leaving.”

“Ah, I know. I was only cheeking you,” Hannah said, a hint of the North in her voice. “’Tisn’t easy for anyone to leave a place they know, even when it’s not been good to them. I know that well enough myself.”

Ophelia nodded and squeezed her hands together on her lap.

“Were you able to get away without interference from your father?” Hannah asked. “It was he you were worried about, wasn’t it?”

She thought of her father’s diatribes at the dinner table over the last year, venting his spleen about the termagants set on rending the very fabric of England.

“Ideas above their station, no matter they’ve husbands and families waiting at home for them,” he’d fumed, poking his kidney pie viciously, as though it, too, had demanded the right to vote.

“Yes, he doesn’t support women, me, working—” she began, but that wasn’t true. She began again. “He thinks I should be accepting the suitors he’s arranged for me, that I am useful only as a means to refill the estate coffers.” Her face felt hot in the dark, like she had revealed too much.

“Huh.” Hannah huffed a quiet sound, half laugh, half acknowledgement.

“It’s often the way men think. Can’t tell you how many of the women I’ve recruited for the WLA that have some version of that story.

Husbands, fathers, and brothers who want to keep us silent, chained to our homes by history and ridiculous notions of what women are capable of. ”

“I think Father would have been just as ghastly to a son?—”

“Unlikely,” Hannah interrupted.

“I only meant that he is not a good man, not to anyone,” Ophelia said. “I wanted to leave because of what he wanted from me, but it wasn’t only that.”

“No?”

“No. I want something different ... for my life.” She faltered a little. “I’m not sure what, really ... but when I heard you speak at the village hall, I thought perhaps the WLA could be it.”

“You didn’t seem so sure that night,” Hannah countered.

“No, but what you said stayed with me and ... well, when I decided to leave, this felt like the right choice.”

“And you’ve nothing keeping you here? No beau waiting in the wings?” Hannah said this with a slight edge to her voice.

Ophelia shook her head. “No one.”

“An eligible lady such as yourself, I’m surprised.”

Ophelia wasn’t sure if Hannah was teasing or insulting her, and before she could stop herself, she said, “I did share something with someone, once, but it’s been two years since he left for the war.

” Ophelia thought of Silas, hands moving quickly as he spoke, green eyes crinkled with mirth.

Hannah was silent, and Ophelia felt awkward and embarrassed to have blurted out such a silly confession.

“Never mind, it was nothing, ancient history. As I said, I’m sure this is the right choice. ”

“I think ’twill be. You’ll be billeted at Mrs. Darling’s. She’s a good woman who could use the help. Bess is to join us from Bristol, and I’ll be there, as well. To keep an eye on all of ye,” Hannah said, and Ophelia was relieved to feel the sound of a smile in her voice.

They travelled on in silence for a while, Hannah clicking to the horse every now and then, Ophelia’s head nodding as they passed along the winding lane toward the village.

She wondered where she would sleep on the farm and had a quick pang of nerves thinking of her soft bed at home.

But soft beds were nothing compared to a life of one’s own, she reminded herself.

And she thought, perhaps one day, a woman mightn’t have to choose between the two.