Free The Farmer's Daughter by Mary Nichols Page A

haven’t noticed you going slow though. You keep up with Jean and she’s no slouch.’
    â€˜Slouch?’ he queried.
    â€˜Slow-working,’ Jean explained.
    â€˜No, you are certainly not that.’
    As soon as they had finished their drinks, Jean left him with her grandmother. ‘I’ll call in on the way back,’ she told Karl.
    â€˜I’ll have some soup ready for you,’ Elizabeth told her.
    As soon as she had gone, Karl went outside to start on the window. Elizabeth came out to watch him. ‘I’m glad you have come to help Jean,’ she said, standing with her hands thrust intoher apron pockets. ‘It was all getting too much for her. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea at first, you being a German. We hear such tales …’ She stopped and shrugged. ‘But you have been a blessing.’
    â€˜I am glad to be of service.’
    â€˜You don’t mind doing it?’
    â€˜No, it is better than being shut up in camp. It is work I am used to. At home I would be doing the same things as I do here.’
    â€˜Jean tells me you have a fiancée.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Tell me about her.’
    While he worked he talked of home and Heidi and his parents and what their farm was like, answering when she interrupted with questions.
    â€˜You are not really so very different from us, are you?’ she said when he paused to stand back and look at his handiwork.
    â€˜No, Mrs Sanderson. Hardly different at all.’
    â€˜I hope they don’t send you away somewhere else …’
    â€˜If that happened I would have no choice,’ he said, thinking of the escape plans. ‘Nor any warning.’
    â€˜Then I shall speak to Colonel Williamson. I know him well. He will make sure you stay with us.’
    â€˜Other men could do the same work.’
    â€˜I don’t think so, not if they are anything like that friend of yours. He was not a nice man at all.’
    â€˜He is sad at being separated from his family, Mrs Sanderson, and he speaks no English so it is doubly difficult for him.’
    â€˜I think he is a Nazi.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t know about that.’
    â€˜Are you a Nazi?’
    â€˜No. Not all Germans are, you know.’
    â€˜I didn’t think you were. Proper gentleman, you are.’
    He chuckled. ‘Thank you. I don’t think anyone has said that to me before.’
    â€˜Unless I go up to the farm, I don’t have many people to talk to and, though I can help Doris, I don’t always want to be on their doorstep. I lost my husband six years ago, but I still miss him.’
    â€˜I am sure you do.’
    â€˜Do you have grandparents?’
    â€˜My grandmother, that is my father’s mother, died of influenza at the end of the last war and it affected my grandfather badly. He didn’t seem able to go on without her. He died two years later. I never knew my other grandparents.’
    â€˜That flu was terrible, so many people died. Thank goodness we all escaped, but now my son-in-law is struck down with a stroke and the burden of the farm has fallen on Doris and Jean.’ She paused. He had almost finished. ‘I’m going indoors to put some soup on. Jean will be hungry when she comes back.’ With that she left him.
    He finished what he was doing, smiling to himself. He had told the old lady more than he had told anyone about his past life; she was easy to talk to, and, he suspected, easy to deceive. On the pretext of going back to the farm, he could explore the village. It was what Otto would expect him to do. He took the paint and brush and knocked on the door. ‘I need to clean the brush,’ he said.
    â€˜I’ll find a jam jar of water. You can leave it in that for the moment. Come in. I’ve made enough soup for you, too.’
    He thought about the dog he was carving and stepped inside.
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    â€˜I believe it is your birthday today,’ Karl said, a