Alice's Girls Read Online Free Page B

Georgie will tell us whatever news there is when she’s ready.’ Rose, shocked by this irregular behaviour, yet thrilled to be privy to it, had allowed Alice to swear her to secrecy.
     
    It was several weeks before Georgina, whose Christmas leave from her base at White Waltham had been brief, visited Lower Post Stone, arriving one cold, sunny January morning, riding her brother’s motorcycle and wearing borrowed leathers which she stepped out of, emerging lithe and elegant, and draped over one of the kitchen chairs. She sat, warming her cold hands, watching Alice prepare the pie the land girls would eat that evening.
    ‘Good Christmas?’ Alice asked as innocently as she could, aware that Georgina’s clear, uncompromising eyes were scrutinising her, and that every inflection of her voiceor expression on her face which might confirm the girl’s suspicions was being noted.
    ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Georgina said, smiling. Alice was relieved by her light-heartedness. Georgina was, in fact, almost mocking her. ‘You and Mr Bayliss.’
    ‘Me and Mr Bayliss what?’ Alice asked, blushing. Georgina was laughing now, unable to control her amusement at Alice’s unconvincing attempt to conceal the obvious facts.
    ‘You and Mr Bayliss were in the forest on the night of the storm! You got as far as the fallen tree and you recognised the bike and you fled! Right?’
    Alice could not deny it. Absurdly embarrassing as it was, she remained in doubt about precisely what Georgina and Christopher had deduced or how they had interpreted what had happened.
    ‘We thought we heard the motor of some sort of vehicle above the noise of the gale,’ Georgina told her. ‘By morning the rain had washed away most of the tyre tracks. We guessed it was the farm truck but couldn’t work out why whoever it was had driven up. Then we twigged that it was someone who recognised my brother’s bike.’
    Alice dusted flour from her hands and sat, facing Georgina across the large circle of rolled pastry.
    ‘It was entirely my fault,’ she sighed. ‘We’d been to the Brewsters’ party and you know what Margery is like where alcohol is concerned. She’d laced the punch with God knows what and we all got a bit … well, mellow!Roger was not as bad as I was, but … Anyway, I got it into my head that he should insist on Christopher coming home for Christmas and, bless his heart, he agreed to drive me up to the cottage to fetch him …’ Georgina was staring, round-eyed. ‘I know, Georgie! It was madness – but actually rather fun at that stage … We had to use the truck, of course, and there was floodwater in the lanes and the forest track was half washed away! We got as far as the fallen tree, decided to walk the last bit and then saw the bike! I knew at once that it was Lionel’s. Your scarf was hanging out of the pannier, so I was certain you were there! Poor Roger … I insisted that we shouldn’t intrude on Christopher’s privacy or some such nonsense and dragged him away! He must have thought I was insane!’ Georgina was looking slightly more serious now.
    ‘You mean … Mr Bayliss didn’t know I was there?’
    ‘No! And he still doesn’t!’ Alice hesitated. ‘You see, I don’t know how Roger stands on moral issues. My own views have been, shall we say, broadened by some of the things you girls have got up to since I’ve been warden – but Roger’s … You have to remember, Georgie, that Queen Victoria was still on the throne when he was born and if you and Christopher … what I mean is … how would he react to the fact that his prospective daughter-in-law was … what do they call it …?’
    ‘Sleeping with his son is what they call it, Alice!’ The warden had suggested to Georgina, some months previously, that she might like to use her Christian name,but the ‘Mrs Todd’ habit, once established, had proved hard to shake and it was only now, perhaps because their relationship seemed to have subtly altered, that