and stopped.

‘Let me go now, miss,’ he said gently. ‘You know how Her Ladyship will be if I don’t get back in time.’

Celia knew.

‘Promise me you’ll tell her how awful it is here! Promise me!! Tell her she has to come back and get me tomorrow!!’

Poor Blenkinsop. He was a kind man and had all sorts of private thoughts about his employers and how they treated their children. But he was a servant and not allowed anything private at all, especially not thoughts. In those days, servants were expected not to have any feelings at all but just to do as they were told and to do it immediately. I expect, because of that, Blenkinsop understood Celia and Cyril rather well. They weren’t allowed to express their feelings either. So Blenkinsop gave Celia a sad smile and simply said, ‘I’ll tell her, Miss Celia. I promise.’

And off he drove. The wheels of the Rolls skidded in the mud, thoroughly splattering Celia. As the noise of the engine died away she took in a huge breath. Cyril took evasive action and ran into the house. All the Greens rushed into the barn as Celia let out the biggest yell of all. Even Mrs Green heard it on her headlong rush down the lane to her work.

‘What on earth was that?’ she said to herself before running on, worrying.

g

g

The Diary 9

The goat is busy eating the set. Even the nettles are courtesy of the Art Department. The Call-Sheet (see Glossary) is plastered with increasingly plaintive sentences in capitals that read: ‘PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON’T STAND ON THE GRASS OR NETTLES OR FLOWERS OR ANY OF THE GREENERY. IT’S ALL ART DEPARTMENT’ and ‘ART DEPARTMENT HAVE GROWN ALL GREENERY FROM SCRATCH SO PLEASE DON’T SPOIL IT!! PLEASE!!! WE BEG YOU!!!!’ The goat can’t read, or, if it can, has not been given a call-sheet, or, if it has, has eaten it. Today we have the worst possible shooting conditions of all: rain and sun in succession so the light is always changing. Also, we are in the mud and we have all the children, most of the animals and a Rolls-Royce that keeps sliding about. Everyone is pretty cheerful under the circumstances, except me.

I can’t write in this WIND. Bloody weather (excuse my French). Damn and blast it all.

g

g

The Story 9

As I was saying, Mrs Green was worrying. Worrying about the cousins and about her darling Rory, worrying about the harvest and about not having any money to pay for the tractor hire, worrying about all sorts of things, none of them pleasant, when all of a sudden a man holding a big brown envelope jumped out in front of her, giving her a fright.

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep doing that, Phil!’ she said.

Phil was Mrs Green’s brother-in-law, Rory’s brother and the children’s uncle.

‘Sorry, Izzy,’ he said, unctuously. ‘Sorry. How’s my gorgeous sister-in-law, then, eh? Eh?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Green, walking past him.

‘No? No what?’ said Phil, falling into step beside her.

‘You know perfectly well what, Phil, so leave it.’

Mrs Green picked up her pace irritably. Phil picked up his pace too and waggled the envelope at her.

g

g

‘Izzy, listen; listen, Izzy. We need to sell the farm. You need to. You don’t have the money to pay the tractor hire and without the tractor you’ll lose the harvest, and if you lose the harvest the farm will fail, and if the farm fails you and the children will be out on the street –’

This litany of impending doom was cut off by Mrs Green stopping very suddenly, whipping the envelope out of Phil’s hands and smacking him with it.

‘Stop it, Phil. I won’t have this. I’ve enough on my plate without you making everything sound worse. We have got enough to pay for the tractor. Norman’s going to sell the piglets to Farmer Macreadie and that’ll tide us over till the harvest. If Rory’s still not back then, we’ll all have to work very, very hard, Phil, and that includes you!’

Phil edged away. He’d been edging away from the word ‘work’ all his life and so far it seemed to have done the trick. He’d never lifted a finger.

‘So take your blooming contract and push it up your chimney. I’m not selling.’

‘Izzy – have a heart – the farm is half mine –’

Oh dear. I suppose I should’ve told you about that. Yes. The farm belonged equally to Rory and to Phil even though Phil didn’t like farming or animals