Page 3

Mrs. Darling’s farm, Somerset, England

“Aargh!” Ice cold water streamed down Ophelia’s leg, soaking her trousers and pooling in her boot.

She dropped the water bucket and danced awkwardly around as the water seeped between her toes and squelched underfoot.

“Bloody pump!” she grumbled, picking up the bucket and facing the ancient mechanism with a frown.

It wasn’t quite cold enough to freeze the horses’ water buckets, but only by mere degrees.

Ophelia’s hands were stiff and clumsy with cold, and even before the pump had disgorged its contents down her leg, her feet had been freezing.

She had discovered in the year since arriving at Mrs. Darling’s farm that the only real cure for the cold mornings and evenings was to keep moving.

“I’ll stoke the stove and you can hang those to dry,” Mrs. Darling called as she passed by with an armload of firewood. “You’ve two pairs, haven’t you?”

“I do,” Ophelia said as she nodded. “I’ll be in after I feed.

” Hefting a metal bucket in each hand, she made her way carefully toward the open door of the stable where the shadows of two large heads watched her progress eagerly.

Placing her feet carefully on the damp cobbles, head high to help with balancing the slopping water, Ophelia remembered her short-lived deportment tutor, Madame Delacourte, clapping her hands in time to mincing steps and poking Ophelia under the chin to encourage a “regal” appearance.

Her father had deemed it a waste of money when she failed to transform into an immediately marriageable woman, but she smiled to herself now, feeling entirely regal standing in the middle of a farmyard in trousers and boots, shoulder muscles aching with exertion.

She manoeuvred each bucket onto the heavy hook in the wall of the horses’ stalls, and checking their mangers to ensure they still had hay, headed toward the house to dry off.

Hopefully Hannah has started the tea, she thought, shedding her boots and coat at the door.

“Get in here close to the stove,” commanded Hannah when Ophelia came down the short hallway. “Catch your death and then we’ll have your chores on top of our own.”

Bess swatted her arm as she passed a bowl of porridge down the table, and Hannah winked broadly at Ophelia.

She wasn’t a chatty person, nor particularly soft in her ways, but Ophelia was coming to consider her a friend.

One of her first, it had to be admitted, and she enjoyed the other woman’s wry sense of humour.

Their initial meeting at the WLA recruitment session had been frosty; Hannah making it clear that she thought Ophelia na?ve, lacking in any useful understanding of how to become part of the war effort or the suffrage generally.

Ophelia knew now that Hannah had been right, although at the time she had been irritated and offended by the accusation.

She hadn’t known the first thing about work, and even less about the situation faced by women of other classes.

She saw now that she had been chafing against her own restrictions in the beginning, wanting out of a situation that she found unbearable, but with no idea that other women felt the same way she did, nor that so many were caught in situations far more impossible than her own.

In the end, Hannah had been the one to open her eyes to the urgency of suffrage, the possibility of change for so many bound up in her own desire for freedom and agency.

She couldn’t quite put her gratitude into words yet, so she tried her best to demonstrate to Hannah that she was becoming less missish every day.

“It’s alright, Bess,” Ophelia said, smiling. “I’m developing a lizard’s skin; Hannah’s jibes don’t even bother me anymore.” She poked Hannah in the ribs when the other woman rolled her eyes in response.

“Push up closer so as you get warmed through,” Mrs. Darling encouraged from her seat at the head of the table. “Chilblains are the very devil in this weather, and damp clothes are a quick way to bring ’em on.”

Ophelia obediently scooted closer to the stove, heat rolling off its black, enamelled surface, some variety of stew bubbling away on the back burner.

The scent of hot metal cut through the gentle wafting of softening onion and warming beef stock, wrapping her up in a blanket of homeliness.

Tucking her toes closer to the leg of the stove, she sipped the tea Hannah had passed her.

“What’s on your mind, gel?” Mrs. Darling asked. “Can see the wheels turning from ’cross the room.”

Ophelia, still unused to those around her taking note of her emotional state, faltered.

“Just feeling nervous to try the horses together with the plough. I know we need to start turning over the fields this week, and I feel a bit worried about actually doing it.” She toed the edge of the cat basket, set near the stove to keep the mouser warm.

Hannah hummed from her place at the table, mouth full of toast and marmalade. Finishing her bite, she cleared her throat. “It will be a hard go, there’s no denying it. Even with the practise you’ve had driving the team, the plough is a whole other beast.”

Ophelia nodded, anxiety flaring in her belly.

She had been working hard to prove herself on the farm, but self-doubt always seemed to be lurking in the dark corners.

Perhaps she wasn’t gaining as much strength as she had thought.

She flexed her hands without thinking, feeling the twinge of stiffness in the muscles in her forearms.

“Not suggesting you’re not up to it, Ophelia,” Hannah said, noticing her fidgeting. “You’re likely more ready than you think. Don’t let the plough intimidate you and it’ll not get the better of you. Just do as you did with the horses, you had their measure in no time.”

“Aye,” Bess murmured from the doorway. “You’ll be fine, Ophelia. When you arrived, I didn’t imagine a lady used to fine things could be as tough as you are, but already you’re a farm girl through and through.”

A feeling like giddy electricity snaked through Ophelia, the support of her friends lighting her up.

They were right. She could do this. While Ophelia gathered the tendrils of happiness around her, Mrs. Darling began herding them into their outerwear and off to their assignments, pushing a dry sweater and tunic into Ophelia’s hands.

Outside, the damp air bit into every exposed sliver of skin and wormed its way through each layer of cotton and wool.

Ophelia gripped the wooden handles of the plough, the long metallic blade resting on the edge of the field behind Samson and Delilah.

The horses stamped impatiently, Samson shaking his head and setting the harness to jingling in the cool morning air.

Everything before her felt heavy and unwieldy—the long wooden arms, the high heavy rumps of the horses, the sharp club-shaped blade.

Bess stood to one side, her voice low and quiet reminding her of the points they had reviewed in the instruction manual provided by the WLA.

It hadn’t been entirely clear to Ophelia how she might manage manoeuvring the plough through the soil, but standing here in the cold, her friends encouraging her, the horses waiting to be allowed to do the job they knew, she realized the only thing to do was to begin.

“Geeup,” she called to Samson and Delilah, adjusting her grip on the plough, feeling the ridge of the cotton plough lines under her palms. Remembering to walk slightly to the side of the horses to ensure a straight cut, Ophelia stepped out into the field.

It only took one step for the plough blade to catch the soft, damp earth, and then the horses were pulling harder, and Ophelia watched in disbelief as a slice of dark soil revealed itself.

She danced farther to the side to avoid stepping into the divot and shouted, “I’m doing it!

” over her shoulder. Bess and Hannah whooped loudly from behind her just as she tripped and fell directly into the turned earth.

Samson and Delilah took a couple of tentative steps before stopping to wait for her to right herself.

Ignoring the caking of dirt and the cackling of the women behind her, she stood and took hold of the plough once more.

She clucked and the horses walked forward, and this time she made it all the way to the end of the row before the plough wobbled out of her control.

Her arms ached, her back felt as stiff as a board, and sweat gathered between her shoulder blades, but she lifted her arms in triumph, crowing her success to the empty field.

A handful of blackbirds lifted out of the oak at the field’s edge, raucous and eager to scavenge in the upturned soil.