Miss Pettifer studied her for a long moment. Finally she said, ‘Beatrice Marlow, you’re an able girl, very able. In normal times I’d have said that you should try for university. But these are not normal times. And I detect that for some reason, you are not happy. What makes you think you’d feel better doing what is only likely to be rough, manual work?’
‘I don’t know that I’d be happier. But I love horses and it would be doing something. Not being stuck here – I mean, sometimes I feel I’m going mad.’
Miss Pettifer smiled. ‘I hope we aren’t so terrible a place.’
‘No, of course not, I’m sorry.’
Miss Pettifer sighed. She opened a drawer and took out a sheet of writing paper, then unscrewed her fountain pen. When she had finished the letter, she passed it across the desk to Beatrice.
‘You’ll need this reference,’ she said. ‘I’ll speak to your mother and explain that we can’t force you to stay, especially since you’ve been offered war work. But be sure to write to them every week. They worry about you.’
‘I know,’ Beatrice whispered.
‘You’re an unusual girl,’ Miss Pettifer said. ‘But resilient, I think. I remember, when I was your age . . .’ The Headmistress, who had always seemed so poised, gave her a girlish smile. ‘But life is different for women now. Perhaps you will have chances that I never had. Beatrice, I sense your path may not be smooth. “Follow the truth.” That’s what we try to teach our girls here.’
‘The school motto,’ Beatrice said.
‘That’s right. But I must give you another piece of advice.’ She leant forward slightly. ‘Follow your heart.’
Beatrice nodded, not quite sure what she meant, but felt a thrill pass through her all the same.
‘And now I think our little interview is over. You’ll attend lessons for the duration, and when you do leave, it’ll have to be quietly. I don’t want to unsettle the other girls.’
‘Of course. Thank you, Miss Pettifer.’
‘Perhaps you’ll find time occasionally to write. I like to hear how our girls get on.’
Beatrice nodded, and shook the outstretched hand.
She took the letter up to her dormitory, intending to pass it on to Captain Browning unread, but when she made to place it in her drawer she saw that the envelope was unsealed. Miss Pettifer, perhaps, had intended her to know its contents. To whom it may concern, it started. She read on, amazed.
I would like to commend to you most warmly Beatrice Marlow, a pupil at my school for the last two years. She is one of the most naturally intelligent young women I have come across, in addition to which she has a strong sense of duty and loyalty. I find in her diligence, physical toughness and a quiet strength of character. I sense she will do great things.
Dizzy with astonishment, Beatrice read it again. For the first time in her life she felt she was someone who mattered.
Chapter 14
Leicestershire, July 1940
‘Bert’s vicious; you’ve got to watch him. Look what he did to me a few weeks back, the tinker.’ The girl, Tessa, pulled her overall down her shoulder to show Beatrice a puckered bite wound marring her creamy shoulder, still livid. ‘Didn’t half hurt, I can tell you.’
‘That’s awful,’ Beatrice said, looking up nervously at the great bay horse in his stall. ‘What’s with matter with his eye?’ The horse flicked his ears back and watched them warily out of one rolling eyeball. The lid of the other drooped. Now she was growing used to the gloom of the stable she could make out long scars on his flank and chest. ‘Why, the poor old thing. Who did that?’
Tessa shrugged. ‘He’s an old cavalry charger. Came off the boat from India. He’s not the only one to be badly treated there. No wonder he likes to get his own back on humans.’
‘How could anyone do that?’ Beatrice whispered, putting out her hand to the animal, but Bert backed away.
‘Careful,’ Tessa said. ‘It’s shameful, that’s what it is, hurting an innocent beast.’
They moved on past him to the next stall. ‘This one’s Sunny. By name and nature.’ Tessa rubbed the nose of a gentle grey mare. ‘Yes, you’re a darling, aren’t you? And them two over there –’ a pair of quiet draught horses ‘– are Pip and Wilfred.’
Beatrice patted them and stared along the long line of stalls, wondering how many horses there were in here – two dozen perhaps, and this was only one of many rows of shelters at the depot.
It was her first day. She’d arrived by train at the Midlands market town the previous evening and found her way easily to the address Captain Browning had given her. Miss Catherine Warrender, her landlady, lived in a pretty, pebble-studded townhouse, the short front garden rampant with hollyhocks. Miss Warrender herself was a tall, heavily built woman in her fifties, with a deep, cultured voice and a cheerful disposition. She knew Colonel Flanders who was in charge of the depot, which is why she’d been asked to put up Beatrice. Beatrice liked her at once and liked the comfortable bedroom she was given, which looked out onto a small orchard with a beehive, and a pair of tethered goats, later introduced to her as ‘my girls, Moony and Belinda.’