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  An image flashed into Josephine’s mind of two young women surrounded by soldiers with only one thing on their minds, but Miss Ingham had paused in her address and clearly expected some sort of endorsement from her newest staff member. “So Miss Sellwood was telling me on the journey here,” Josephine said, feeling Jeannie stiffen by her side in an effort not to laugh. “It’s a very inspiring atmosphere to learn in, and I’m sure the girls benefit from it enormously.”

  The principal nodded approvingly. “Indeed. We encourage individual and collective aspirations through music and a participation in team sports, and are particularly proud of our cricketers. Moira House has one of the first all-female teams in the country. Do you play?”

  “Not cricket, I’m afraid, but I like sport very much, and I’m willing to try most things.”

  “Good. That’s the spirit. I’m sure you’ll fit in very well, and your teachers at Anstey certainly speak very highly of your achievements.” She paused, considering for the first time what to say next. “Do you know why we chose our name?” Josephine shook her head. “Ah, you must study your Greek mythology. The Moirai are the three fates who guard the destiny of us all, and that is our responsibility to the girls in our charge. With that in mind, I would like to talk to you in confidence about your work with us this summer. The college placement at Charleston is both valuable and rewarding, but it is not without its pitfalls.”

  “Can I ask what they are?”

  “Well, for a start there are the physical dangers that horticultural work inevitably throws up, and I would ask you to ensure that all our girls observe the rules they’ve been taught when working on the land. Then there is the more delicate matter of their moral welfare.” She stopped again, looking meaningfully at Jeannie, and Josephine realized that the principal was perfectly aware of the lie that had been invented in her honor. “There are two men living in the household, as well as a number of laborers and conscientious objectors working on the surrounding land. We were all sixteen once, and know how exhilarating a small taste of freedom can be, but I’m sure I don’t have to stress how important it is that you keep those girls safe from outside influences and, where necessary, safe from themselves.”

  “Of course, Miss Ingham.”

  “And finally to the most sensitive matter of all—your hosts. Miss Hartford-Wroe is a woman of great ambition and achievement, and a role model for us all. She has a unique vision and an unwavering determination to pursue it, which is why we value our connection with her work—but those same qualities can also lead to what might best be described as single-mindedness. What I’m about to tell you must not be discussed outside of this room, and I hope I can rely on your discretion.” Josephine nodded and stole a glance at Jeannie, who was obviously as surprised as she was. “I have recently received a complaint about Miss Hartford-Wroe’s treatment of one of the students in her care.”

  “But that’s nonsense,” Jeannie began, obviously bewildered by the accusation. “Yes, she works them hard and believes in discipline, but I’ve never known her to overstep the mark. Who is the complaint from?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say just yet. The matter may come to nothing, and I wouldn’t want either of you to be prejudiced against the person concerned. I hope very much that Miss Sellwood is right and that it will prove to be a simple misunderstanding, but it’s my duty to investigate the matter thoroughly, and I need your co-operation as the people best placed to do that.”

  “You’d like us to come to you if we see any sign of bullying or cruelty?” Josephine said, trying to clarify exactly what the accusation was.

  “I’d like both of you to be vigilant and report to me anything you think is … well, unseemly. Anything that betrays the trust that Moira House has placed in the college as a temporary custodian of its students. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Miss Ingham.”

  “Good. And please remember—you represent this school and I expect your conduct to be exemplary at all times, day and night. Now—lunch is about to be served downstairs. You may eat here, and then go straight back to the college.”

  “Of course, Miss Ingham. Thank you.”

  “Do you really have no idea at all what she was talking about?” Josephine asked when they were outside the office.

  “None whatsoever. As I said to you on the way, the girls all love Miss H—at least I thought they did.”

  “Perhaps that’s the trouble.” Jeannie looked at her questioningly. “Does Miss H have favorites?” Josephine asked. “You said it was competitive. Perhaps someone’s getting her own back for being overlooked.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s possible, I suppose.” She stopped by one of the first-floor windows that overlooked the front gates. Charity Lomax and Betty Norwood were standing by the van, deep in conversation, and Josephine saw Charity put a hand briefly on the other girl’s arm, as if to reassure her of something.

  “Why did you take the blame for them?” she said.

  “Because I like Charity’s spirit and I feel sorry for Betty. She’s a twin, and she spends all her time trying to live up to her more brilliant sister. Sometimes I think that’s why she gets herself into trouble—just to be noticed for a change.” She sighed. “Come on. I hate the idea of being asked to spy on them all, but I suppose we’d better get on with it.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The residents of Charleston might have made a careful distinction between a farm and a horticultural college, but any visitor arriving for the first time would have struggled to pinpoint where one finished and the other began. The yard where Jeannie parked was a sea of mud, suggesting that the countryside owed its rich, fresh greens to a recent spell of poor weather, and only a narrow track separated the house from a clutch of farm buildings—barns, a pigsty, and an impressive wooden granary, which sheltered hay wagons and tumbrels of varying sizes. Another lane led off to the left, deeply rutted by cows going to and from their pastures to be milked; the enclave nestled comfortably in its pleasant, rural surroundings, with cornfields and straggling hedges pushing out toward the low curve of the downs. Josephine looked up at the house, which was around a couple of hundred years old and substantial if straightforward—square and solid, with an ordinary façade rendered in an unattractive shade of brown and partially covered by a Virginia creeper. Beyond its limits, the harsh colors softened a little in a long flint and redbrick wall—presumably surrounding the gardens—which sang with the warmth of the day.

  “I’ll tell our strays to take your trunk upstairs,” Jeannie said, getting out of the van, “then we’d better go and eat humble pie with Miss H. Why don’t you go and introduce yourself to Harriet? She’ll be in the kitchen, just down there on the right.” She pointed to a side door, which stood ajar. “And don’t forget—Lomax and Norwood have been with us all the time. Wish me luck.”

  Jeannie beckoned to her students, leaving Josephine to present herself at the tradesman’s entrance. She hesitated, feeling suddenly shy of a strange household, then walked purposefully across the yard in case anyone was watching her from inside. As she passed the main gate, she noticed a sign with the words “The Hartford-Wroe Horticultural College for Ladies” painted in a circle around a deep pink rose and thought about what Jeannie had told her. If the two women really did run the college together, there was not much evidence of it in the name, and she wondered if that set the tone for their partnership in general. She knocked and waited, then knocked again, but the only response was the leisurely buzzing of a bee as it moved from one hollyhock to another, so she pushed the door wider. A small vestibule filled with oilskins and gardening boots led to the kitchen, but there was no one there. The room was pleasantly cool, with a stone floor and tiled walls, which were more than a match for the afternoon sun. A range took up most of one wall, and the sweet smell of stewing fruits came from a large copper pan. In the middle of the floor there was a freestanding scrubbed table with accounting books and paperwork at one end and mixing bowls at the other, arranged arou
nd a slab of marble that was liberally sprinkled with flour. Onions and garlic hung in strings from the ceiling, and a battle-scarred ginger tomcat was fast asleep on one of the chairs, oblivious to the arrival of a visitor.

  Josephine hovered on the threshold, wondering if she should go round to the front door and ring the bell there instead, but someone was obviously in the middle of making pastry, so she decided to wait. Sure enough, after a minute or two she heard the sound of footsteps coming down a passageway from the other side of the house. The woman jumped when she saw Josephine, then smiled. “You must be our new recruit. How nice to have you here.” She put the bags of flour and sugar down on the table and wiped her hand on her apron before offering it to Josephine. “I’m Harriet Barker. Welcome to the college.”

  Her host was a slender woman in her late thirties, with a combination of self-assurance and youthful energy that could have placed her five years either side of Josephine’s estimate. She had wavy, shoulder-length dark hair that she wore tied loosely at the neck, and a complexion that obviously had a natural affinity with the sun: her arms and face were pleasantly tanned, even though she was probably the only person at Charleston who spent most of her working day indoors. Her greeting was formal but genuine, and Josephine warmed to her immediately. “Thank you, Miss Barker. I knocked a couple of times, but …”

  “Oh, I’m sorry about that. I was in the larder, so I didn’t hear you. I’ve often thought that whoever designed this house must have despised women; otherwise, why would he have put the pantry in the most inconvenient place imaginable? I swear I walk miles every day.” She took a kettle from the range and filled it at the sink by the window. “And please feel free to call me Harriet whenever the girls aren’t around. Have you and Jeannie had lunch?”

  “Yes, we ate at the school. My train was delayed, so I’m afraid we’re later than expected.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Nothing about today has gone according to plan, and I’m running late with supper, as you can see. The girls take it in turns to help me out in the kitchen, but this morning happened to be Miss Lomax’s turn, and she made alternative arrangements, so I’ve had to do everything myself.” Her eyes, which were a deep honey-brown, twinkled as she looked at Josephine. “I’ll have to decide how she’s to make it up to me. They are with you, I presume? No other errands to distract them on the way back from Eastbourne?”

  Josephine smiled. “No, they’re both here. Jeannie took them straight back to work.”

  “Good. I suppose I overreacted by alerting the school so quickly, but we can’t be too careful at the moment.” Was the comment a coincidence, Josephine wondered, or did Harriet have some inkling of the charge laid against her friend? “Let me take you up to your room while the kettle’s boiling; then you must come down and have some tea. You’ll be tired from your journey, and George will want to meet you. She’ll be in from the garden at five.” She glanced past Josephine to the vestibule. “Are your things still outside?”

  “No, the girls took them upstairs.”

  “Then come with me.”

  Josephine followed her out of the kitchen and along a series of dark, short passageways to the main staircase. “Do the students sleep here too?” she asked as they climbed up to the first floor.

  “No, not during the summer. There’s a row of shepherd’s huts in the field by the orchard, and the girls share those, with Vera keeping an eye on them. That way, we can have the house for paying guests and visitors like you who are connected to the college.”

  “Is Vera another teacher?” Josephine asked, wondering why Jeannie hadn’t mentioned her.

  “Oh no. Vera is our right-hand woman.” She spoke with an affection that offset the faintly tongue-in-cheek description. “Vera Simms. The place needed a lot of work when we first took the lease, so we advertised for someone to help out. Vera soon made herself indispensable.” The landing was narrow and a little claustrophobic, dark except for the occasional shaft of daylight through the keyholes of closed bedroom doors. “As for the other guests, we’ve got a chap from the Board of Agriculture with us at the moment,” Harriet continued. “George is hoping to get the college included in some sort of government support program, which would mean we could expand, so he’s here to inspect our work. My cousin Peter is in the room at the end, but he’ll be going back to the front soon.” There was very little emotion in her voice, and Josephine wondered if that was because the cousins weren’t close or if—like most of the population—she had simply resigned herself to the inevitable comings and goings of war. “And we have our rooms in the attic,” she continued. “George insists on overlooking the garden, of course. It means she can check that the planting lines are straight while she gets dressed in the morning.”

  Josephine smiled, although she sensed that the comment wasn’t entirely a joke. Her trunk was waiting outside room number three, and Harriet let her in. “I’ll leave you to unpack and make yourself at home,” she said. “Come back down to the kitchen when you’re ready.”

  After the dim and rambling passageways, the light, airy room was a relief. It was generously proportioned and furnished with nothing more than was necessary: a large chest of drawers to the left of the window and a narrow bed to the right; two rush seats, one in better condition than the other; and a small oak desk with a pot of blue anemones to welcome her. She pushed her trunk into the corner, ready to unpack, and walked across to the window. It overlooked the pond at the front of the house and was partially enclosed by the vigorous green leaves of the vine. Cattle were drinking at the far side of the water, where a stream entered the pond, but otherwise the surface was still and clear, reflecting the chimney pots and red-tiled roof; to her left, a line of dark yew trees made the silver of an enormous willow even more intense. Josephine wasn’t an early riser by nature, but even she would have very little trouble in getting up every morning to a view like this. Without wasting any more time, she removed the bare essentials from the trunk and looked with satisfaction at the small signs of ownership—the book on the bedside table, the dressing gown hanging from the hook on the door. It was the first time that she had ever had a room of her own to retreat to—a far cry from the dormitories of Anstey or the inevitable give and take of sharing with her sisters.

  She went back downstairs, taking a wrong turn before eventually finding the kitchen again. The fruit pie was now made and stood waiting to be cooked, while its place on the table had been taken by a tea tray and half-eaten Madeira cake. “Have you got everything you need?” Harriet asked, looking up from the accounts.

  “Yes thank you, and the flowers are lovely.”

  “I’m glad you like them. I’ve given you what I would have chosen for myself, but feel free to pick something else when they need refreshing. Flowers are something we’re never short of.”

  “Do you work in the garden too?”

  “As a hobby, not a religion. The borders outside the windows are mine to play with, but I don’t interfere with anything else. Come on, Byron—let our guest sit down.” Harriet scooped the cat up from the chair, offering a saucer of milk by way of compensation, and gestured to Josephine to take his place. “When George and I started the business, we each had our own strengths, and we tend to stick to them. It’s best not to compete. I learnt that quite early on.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “At Charleston? Only for three years or so, but we had another place before that—just two or three students at a time, but enough to find out what worked and what didn’t. Here, we can take up to twenty girls and teach them over a longer period—enough to make a real difference. No one learns gardening in a day.” She poured two cups of tea and cut Josephine a generous slice of the cake. “I’ll wager George will tell you that at least three times before the cock crows.”

  “What am I being so predictable about?” The woman who stood at the kitchen door, scraping mud off her boots, was exactly like the Georgina Hartford-Wroe that Josephine had imagined—so much so that for
a fleeting moment she wondered if they had actually met. The founder of the college would have been a distinctive presence in any gathering just because of her height, but everything else about her carried a similar air of authority—her voice, her age, the confidence with which she entered a room—and Josephine stood up, understanding immediately why she commanded such respect from her students. She walked across the kitchen to put a trug of carrots and potatoes down on the table, and shook Josephine’s hand, covering it with soil. “Excellent to have you with us, Miss Tey,” she said. “You’ve arrived at a very exciting time for the college.” George was a little older than her friend, her fair hair already tinged with silver, and Josephine was intrigued by the contrast in their dispositions: one face animated by humor, the other inclined to earnestness, even when she smiled. “I expect you’ll be keen to look round.”

  Harriet laughed. “Give the poor girl a chance to settle in, George,” she said. “I’ve only just made some tea.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. Keep it hot for us.” She beckoned to Josephine, who hesitated, unable to decide which of her hosts it was ruder to ignore. In the end, her curiosity got the better of her, and she followed George out of the kitchen, with an apologetic glance over her shoulder.