She walked on along the sandy farm road, stopping when she came to the oast house. A trailer of filled-to-the-brim hop-pokes was being unloaded, carried in one by one for the hops to be dried in the kiln before being packed in pokes once again and sent to the breweries. The “reek”—a pungent aroma of fresh and drying hops mixed with sulfur—filled the air, and Maisie watched for a few minutes before calling to one of the men.
“Excuse me, but can you direct me to the hop-gardens being picked now?”
The man stretched his back as he answered, taking off his flat cap and wiping his brow with a hop-stained handkerchief. “They’re in Railway and Folly—all the hop-gardens have names. Railway runs alongside the railway lines, as you might have thought. Follow this road on for another half a mile, walk through the unpicked garden on your left, and you’ll find it. Folly is on the other side of this road. Pass two hop-gardens on your right, and it’s the third one you come to.” He replaced his cap while taking her measure as he continued. “Looking for anyone in partic’lar?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. and Mrs. Beale and their family—Billy Beale.”
“Fair-headed going on ginger? Got a bit of a gammy leg?”
“That’s him.”
“Railway. He’s working there with some other Londoners at the top. Gyppos are at the bottom working their way up, so mind where you go.”
Maisie was about to speak but, reflecting upon yesterday’s meeting with Priscilla, thought better of it, adding, “I have nothing to fear—and thank you. I am sure I shall find Mr. and Mrs. Beale with no trouble at all.”
The man shrugged and shook his head as she walked on, raising her face to the sun to feel the soft warmth on her skin. The hop-garden named for the railway was easy to locate, helped, in this instance, by a train passing. Puffs of coal-laced steam bursting up through the trees provided a marker for Maisie to follow, and soon she was walking along a row of hop-pickers, whole families gathered around a stretcher-length bin made of wood and sacking that could be moved on as they picked. Normally, she would expect to hear laughter, the odd voice calling out, “What about this one?” and the sing-song that followed to pass the day.
She remembered her father’s stories of his boyhood, often told as they sat next to the cast-iron kitchen stove on her afternoon off from work, the warmth of both his voice and the coals soothing her. These were the stories he shared in the months following her mother’s death, and she wondered, now, if in speaking of his childhood he had been anchored in some way, or perhaps he wanted to draw out her own years of innocence, now that at the age of thirteen she was working long days below stairs at the Ebury Place mansion of Lord Julian Compton and his wife, Lady Rowan. Frankie Dobbs had told of the jokes shared while picking and laughed when recounting the way opinions on the way of the world were exchanged or a jocular back-and-forth interrupted when a wail signaling that a small child—put down to nap on a coat draped across a pile of old hop-bines—had woken from sleep.
Today, though, the temper of the folk picking hops was subdued. For several moments Maisie stood at the edge of the hop-garden, watching, wondering, gauging, for she felt their anger touch her as if their depression were solid, a rain cloud formed of concrete. She continued on; twice she stopped to ask for Billy, each time to be told she was nearly there, he was just along the row, and a hop-stained finger would be pointed in his direction.
Finally, she saw them: Billy and Doreen leaning over the bin picking hops with speed and dexterity, and Billy’s aging mother, her arthritis-gnarled fingers taking leaves off a sprig of hops, then using a hand to shuck the clean hops into the bin. The boys, Billy and Bobby, picked into an old laundry basket, which, when full, would be tipped into the bin. Every little bit helped, especially with piecework. Billy drew back his sleeve and checked his watch, then spoke to his wife, who looked around. As Maisie approached them, she heard a deep voice call across the hop-garden, “Get yer ’ops ready!” And each family picked with greater speed, the children being called to pull leaves from the bin, for the farmer wouldn’t accept hops that weren’t clean.
“Miss!” Billy looked up as Maisie approached. “Just give me a minute, the tallyman’s on ’is way and these boys’ve put in more leaves than they’ve taken out, I should say.”
“I’ll help,” said Maisie, setting down her knapsack and rolling up her sleeves. She greeted Doreen with a smile and rested a hand on her arm for a second, mindful of the bond formed between them when little Lizzie died. Then she set to work. There were six pairs of arms in the bin now, with hands seeking out the rough, prickly leaves for which the farmer would issue a reprimand.
With the tallyman only two bins away, Billy said, “Right, that’s it. I reckon we’ve got ’em all out,” and leaned away to look along the row, his lips silently following the counting. Maisie inspected her hands, already stained after only a few minutes, then watched the tallyman at work.
“And-a-one . . . and-a-two . . . and-a-three. . . .” He would plunge his measuring basket into the bin and out would come a frothy bushel of fresh green hops, which he slung into a hop poke held at the ready by another man; then in went the basket again. “And-a-four . . . and-a-five. . . .”
Maisie saw that as the tallyman approached it wasn’t just Billy—everyone was watching, counting along with the counting, making sure that no one was shorted, that the tallyman not only counted without favoring some with a less-than-full basket but that the correct number was entered in the picker’s book. And then he moved on. When he reached Billy’s bin, Maisie closed her eyes, the full peppery smell of hops enveloping her as the counting began, stirring up pollen and dust and almost banishing the mood that had seeped up under her skin when she walked into the hop-garden.
“Nice lot today, Mr. Beale. Nice picking indeed.” The tallyman handed Billy’s book back to him and moved on, parting the wave of workers as he approached the next bin. “And-a-one . . . and-a-two. . . .”
“Right, Miss, let’s go and brew up a cuppa. Got someone I want you to meet on the way.” He nodded to Doreen, who returned his gesture, and then moved on through the rows of pickers. Maisie followed, her knapsack across her shoulder. Billy stopped at a bin close to the edge of the hop-garden, calling across to the man of the family, “George, over ’ere. Come and ’ave a chat with Miss Dobbs, the lady I was tellin’ you about.”
George touched the peak of his cap. “Right you are.”
Maisie noticed the shadows under the man’s eyes, at a time when he should have seemed a little more carefree. He reminded her of her father, with his shirtsleeves rolled up above the elbow, a jaunty waistcoat, and a red kerchief tied at the neck. But his demeanor revealed concern, worry, and—-she hated to see such an emotion—a melancholy that suggested defeat.
Introductions were made, and the trio walked toward the hopper huts, where Billy started a paraffin stove and set a kettle on to boil. As she waited, seated outside on an old chair, Maisie looked into the hut. It comprised one small room, a bed at the far end and another along one side. She suspected that the younger boy, Bobby, slept with Billy and Doreen, and the elder with Billy’s mother. Opposite the second bed, a washstand held an enamel ewer and bowl, and in the middle a whitewashed table was set with an embroidered cloth and a vase of Michaelmas daisies. The inside of the hut was neat and clean, with the hopping furniture brought from the Beales’ cellar and painted each year before the family left London for Kent.