"Ah, Joan, wait! I brought you out here on purpose to say something to you. Not about Hampton Court——"
"No; that's all over," I assured him, meaning more than just one picnic.
"But I want to talk about you. How long d'you mean to go on with this farm-business?"
"I signed on for a year. Why?"
"What d'you suppose you'll do after that year?"
I pulled a mauve-and-purple sweetpea out of the hedge as we passed. "Who knows? Perhaps stay on the Land for good."
"A girl like you?"
"Or I might transfer into the Women's Forestry Corps later on. They'll want people for replanting the timber where all the lovely woods have been cut down. The Forester here says girls are particularly good for nursery-work; they're quick and light-footed, and don't trample down the young plants."
Harry seemed to care little about that question, though he'd surprised me by his sudden interest in my own career. This after months of forgetting my existence!
"It's all very well for you to do this in War-time," he told me. "The War, though, will be over before we're old, I hope. You can't go on tramping round filthy turnip-fields and feeding pigs and pigging it yourself in a wooden shanty with Heaven knows who!"