by Anne Morice
‘How did you and Pelham meet, by the way?’
‘Through my room mate, Else. I was in school in Southern California; college, I guess you’d call it. I majored in biology. Else’s parents had this place out at Santa Barbara. She and I were vacationing out there one weekend and Pelham came for dinner. He was a business colleague of Else’s father. Soon as I graduated we got married. The story of my life.’
‘Well, it’s only just begun,’ I reminded her, ‘and, furthermore you may change your mind about coming to live here when you get to know it better. Sometimes the English countryside gets a grip on people after a while. Look at old Jake.’
‘His age, you can understand it,’ she said, throwing away the mangled blade of grass with a somewhat symbolic gesture. ‘Me, I’ve still got places to go, things to do. You know?’
‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘Let me take you by the hand and I’ll show you something to make you change your mind.’
I stood up and, following the path a little further, led her through the green door into the walled kitchen garden. The late afternoon sun had turned the bricks to a rosy pink and the ripening pears to a golden yellow. Every conceivable variety of fruit and vegetable seemed to be flourishing in this mellow and peaceful enclosure, each in its own straight, pristine row. The tomatoes were warm to the touch and the scent of lavender and sweet peas, bordering the gravel walks hung on the air. The only sound was the hum of bees and there was even an eighteenth-century yokel type bent double among the gooseberry bushes, in breeches and a round felt hat, to add to the timeless quality. It was a scene to awaken the acquisitive spirit in anyone and I said:
‘I think I’d even put up with that monstrosity of a house, if they’d throw this in.’
‘Sure! Dig it up and make a pool. Who eats all this stuff, anyway?’
‘Funnily enough, I never thought of that. I have no idea.’
‘Well, I’m just a lousy Philistine, you see. No soul.’
‘I must ask Serena, or Pelham perhaps. No, on second thoughts, we’d better not remind Pelham about this particular corner of his property. I am sure it must be full of nostalgic memories and it might start tugging at the heartstrings.’
Lindy shook her head: ‘Uh uh. He’s immune now. Honestly, Tessa, please believe me, if he really felt he belonged here I wouldn’t stand in his way, but he doesn’t. It all happened too long ago and he’s made a new life now.’
‘Then we’ll ask him what happens to all his produce. I’d really be fascinated to know.’
‘Most of it is sold, as a matter of fact,’ the yokel figure said, emerging from the gooseberry bushes and revealing itself to be Primrose. ‘Jake has first pickings and Mum takes what she needs, when she remembers to ask for it. The outdoor staff get their whack and the rest goes to market twice a week. Satisfied?’
‘More than. I thought you were in Newmarket?’
‘I was. Went over to look at a five-year-old Jake’s trainer brought back from Ireland. Got back about an hour ago. I thought Mum might be able to use a few gooseberries, as she’s got such a houseful. Jake can’t touch ’em. They don’t go with his diabetes.’
Her face was brick red and dampish, under the dirty old felt hat, her hands swollen and scratched and her manner as abrasive as ever. She looked even clumsier and more ungainly than usual beside the elf-like Lindy and yet, so far from manifesting the usual symptoms of inferiority, there was a confidence, even a hint of suppressed excitement about her. Her right thumb had started to bleed and she kept sucking it, with an air of secretive relish, as though actually enjoying the exercise.
‘You going back to the Lodge now?’ she enquired, giving the thumb a rest. ‘If so, you can take these, if you like. Save me a journey.’
‘Okay. How about you, though? Won’t you be home this evening?’
‘Oh, I’ve masses of jobs to get through before I can knock off. Just scrape home in time for dinner, if I’m lucky. Tell Mum not to wait for me.’
Lindy went straight upstairs, colliding on the half landing with Pelham, who came bounding down from the floor above. He clasped her round the waist, swung her into the air and then stood watching, with a complacent smile on his face, as she tripped away.
‘Oh, yum yum, lovely goosegogs!’ he said, having torn his eyes away from this vision and joined me in the hall. ‘Are they for my dins?’
‘Could be, if anyone has time to top and tail. Do you like them?’
‘Adore them,’ he said, picking up a handful of the shiny green berries and letting them fall through his fingers, ‘worship the ground they grow on. Goosegogs! Isn’t that a marvellous word? Nan’s just been bullying me all over again about the times when I used to escape from her clutches and hide out in the kitchen garden, making an absolute pig of myself. What happened to the kitchen garden, by the way? I hope that fellow, Jake, hasn’t dug it up and made a swimming pool?’
‘No, it’s still there.’
‘And just the same?’
‘Exactly the same.’
‘What bliss! Lovely to know that a few things don’t change, isn’t it, my pretty one?’ he asked, pausing only to ruffle my hair before galloping out of the house, as though intent on verifying the matter for himself with the least possible delay.
I walked on to the kitchen, wondering whether it was he or his wife who had mis-read the script.
‘Didn’t Mrs Thorne turn up, after all?’ I asked, placing the basket on the deal topped table. Serena was at the other end of it, rolling out pastry on a marble slab.
‘Indeed she did, and she’s laying the table for me, which is a job I hate. I must say, it’s marvellous to have her back. She’s not the world’s most inspired cook, but wonderfully thorough and conscientious and she’ll turn her hand to anything. I have great hopes of Alice; Mrs Thorne, rather. I really must try to remember not to call her Alice. For some reason she feels it’s demeaning, so do remember too, won’t you? The last thing we want is to upset her.’
‘She used to work for you before, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, before she lost her little boy.’
‘Which must be what? Ten or twelve years ago?’
‘More than that. Primrose was only six at the time, which is why we thought we could hide it from her. We told her that Alan had gone to visit his grandmother in Scotland. Great mistake, of course. You can’t conceal things in a close little community like this, where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Primrose soon got hold of the truth, or part of it, which was even worse. I think if we’d explained it to her tactfully it wouldn’t have been half so bad in the end. It was piecing together the bits of gossip and filling in the gaps with her own imagination which did the real harm. She used to get the most terrible nightmares and it was months before she could be persuaded to go anywhere near that side of the park.’
‘Has Mrs Thorne got over it now?’
‘No, I don’t think one ever would, do you? Alan was her only child and they never had any more. She was half insane, poor dear, for a year or two, but of course she’s got through that stage now. All the same, I don’t believe such scars could ever heal completely. She may not suffer any more, but that’s only because she’s numbed. This must sound callous, Tess, but it’s one reason why, apart from being so hardworking and efficient, I feel she could be such a boon to me.’
‘I don’t know whether it’s callous or not, but it’s certainly mystifying.’
‘Well, you see, even when Nan does find out that Alice, Mrs Thorne, I mean, is working here again, I don’t think she’ll find it so easy to spoil things. You can’t touch nerves on the raw when they’ve already been blunted.’
‘You think she’ll have a damn good try, though?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. She’s so dreadfully jealous and possessive, you see. It almost amounts to a disease; and unfortunately she’s particularly set against anyone who comes to work here. I tried several different women after Alice left me, but not one of them was able to stick it for more
than a few months.’
‘But surely, Serena, if you explained that she’s senile, they’d understand and just ignore her?’
‘The trouble is that she’s very clever at finding out people’s sensitive spots and jabbing away at them; and I suppose I was weak minded and let her get away with things in the beginning, instead of putting my foot down. It didn’t matter so much, you see, in the early days, when she could pull her weight and do all the washing and ironing and so on, but she’s long past that now. In fact, it’s the other way round and she’s the one who makes most work of all. Now that I can afford it at last, it would be nice at my age to have some regular help. This is not a big house, as you know, but we’re a long way from the shops and there’s an awful lot to do, with three of us living here all the time. Sometimes I feel quite worn out.’
‘I can imagine and I think it’s far too much for you to cope with on your own. Let’s hope that Mrs Thorne provides the answer.’
‘I pray she will too, and the signs are quite promising. She’s been doing little errands for me and odd jobs at home, ever since Pelham and Lindy turned up, and she’s promised to come and lend a hand over the weekend, so one must just carry on from day to day and hope for the best. Ah, there you are, Mrs Thorne dear!’ she added, raising her voice and enunciating more clearly, ‘and I was just saying how nice it was to have you back with us again. You remember Mrs Price, don’t you? Miss Tessa as was?’
She was a straight backed, bloodless looking woman, probably no older than Serena, but looking at least sixty, with thin lips and a forbidding expression. However, she smiled and shook my hand, saying that indeed she did remember and that it was a funny thing but someone had mentioned seeing me in a film only the other day. Then, as though grasping every opportunity to be amiable, she began to praise the gooseberries.
‘Not that I can touch them myself,’ she added, in the tone of one with whom looking on the dark side had become a habit, ‘too acid for me.’
‘These are beauties, though, aren’t they?’ Serena said. ‘If you get time you might put them in the tart, instead of the apples. Did you pick all that lot yourself, Tessa?’
‘No, Primrose did and she asked me to deliver them. She’s back, by the way. I forgot to tell you. She’s back and she hopes to scrape home in time for dinner. Her own words.’
‘Oh dear, that sounds ominous! I do hope she’ll be back in time to change. It rather puts people off their food to have her sitting there smelling of the stables, and I’m sure Pelham hates that sort of thing. Which reminds me, it’s time I went and had a bath myself. I’m sure Mrs Thorne has made the table look so nice, and we mustn’t let her down. Use my bathroom when I’m out, will you, Tessa? That will leave the nursery one free for Primrose, so at least she won’t have that excuse.’
‘Would you like me to top and tail these for you, while I’m waiting?’ I asked, when Serena had gone.
‘No, don’t you bother, Miss. I’m in plenty of time.’
She was walking away from me as she spoke, making for the larder, a vast stone floored cave leading off the kitchen, which had started life as a dairy. However, something in her tone gave me the impression that I had not yet been dismissed and, sure enough, when she emerged a few seconds later, bearing a handsome looking joint of beef on a white dish, she said:
‘I was wondering what you thought about this? It’s some time since I cooked one this size and I want to get it just right for her, if I can. How long would you leave it in, if it was you?’
‘Well, I’m no expert, I have to tell you. I usually stick to the formula of fifteen minutes per pound and fifteen extra for the pot.’
‘Yes, that’s my method, as a rule, but they’re tricky things, these sirloins, and there’s all this bone to be taken into account,’ she said, prodding it with her finger. ‘It must have cost her a pretty penny and I wouldn’t like it to get spoilt in the cooking.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll manage it perfectly, and there’s one thing I can tell you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If anything should go wrong, Mrs Hargrave would never dream of blaming you for it.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘No one better. I’ve never had so much as a sharp word in all the years I’ve known her, and she was goodness itself to me when I had my trouble. There’s not a mortal thing I wouldn’t do for her, if it lay in my power.’
She was regarding me so earnestly and speaking with such great intensity that I wondered if, perhaps too shy and inarticulate to express these sentiments openly, she was depending on me to pass them on. One thing I became convinced of, as I climbed the stairs to my little apricot box, was that in describing Mrs Thorne as a woman now drained of emotion and with all passion spent, Serena had made a grave error of judgement, and one which did not bode well for future domestic harmony.
With this thought in mind, and considering it to be as good a moment as any to pay my duty call, I did not go directly to my room, but stopped outside the nursery door and, having knocked and identified myself, obeyed the command to step inside.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
It was like straying on to a set for a family comedy of the thirties. The Peter Pan motif of the wallpaper was repeated in the shade on the ceiling lamp above the circular table, which was covered by a red woollen cloth and had a jam jar crammed with wild flowers standing near the edge of it. The cork floor was painted blue and scattered with faded nursery rhyme rugs, and there were Christmas annuals and school stories between book ends on top of the low white cupboard and, beside them, a vast collection of bottles and tins, including prickly heat powder, milk of magnesia and syrup of figs, among other kindred delights. There was even an old-fashioned portable gramophone, and only the absence of a cot and of tiny garments airing on the iron guard round the Victorian fireplace indicated that the room was no longer inhabited by a child.
Seated in her cane rocking chair beside the fireplace, Nannie looked as though she were waiting for the next replacement to arrive, her ample lap making do with a bundle of dark green knitting during the enforced delay.
She was a Buddha-like figure, immensely stout and with malevolent, boot button eyes, and she wore a white bibbed apron over a grey overall, grey stockings and fur trimmed bedroom slippers.
‘How are you, Nannie? Looking fine, I see,’ I said, in the somewhat sycophantic tone I invariably found myself adopting in her presence.
‘You’ve taken your time,’ she said, glaring at me accusingly. ‘Mummie told me you got here just before three.’
‘Well, you see, I had tea and then I went for a walk and then I came straight here.’
‘Well, come in and shut the door, there’s a good girl. These draughts are no good for my rheumatism.’
I had been hoping to limit my visit to a few minutes’ hover round the open door, but there was no withstanding the voice which had moulded and scolded two generations and I obeyed, seating myself on the chair opposite her.
‘And how does it feel to have Pelham back? Has he changed much?’
‘Be funny if he hadn’t, wouldn’t it?’ she snapped, throwing my own words back at me, and then adding more thoughtfully:
‘No, if I speak the truth, he hasn’t changed all that much. Not in his ways, that is. Still the same young scamp as he always was, bless him! Have you met that wife of his?’
‘Yes, rather sweet, don’t you think?’
‘Not what I’d call sweet, and not the one I’d have chosen for my boy. I can’t stand these yankee voices and goodness knows where she was dragged up, nosey parkering her way into everything. Didn’t much fancy what she saw, by the looks of it. Real little fidgety Phil. Pelham brought her up to be introduced to his poor old Nan, but she’s never bothered to come back since.’
‘She’s shy, I expect. Pretty, though; you must admit that.’
‘Couldn’t say. These poor old eyes of mine don’t see much these days. Sitting where you are, you’re nothing but
a blur to me, did you know that?’
‘No, but it doesn’t particularly surprise me. Most of the time I’m nothing but a blur to myself.’
‘So sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these fine days, I shouldn’t wonder. Oh, I can see to do this knitting all right,’ she went on, answering the unspoken question. ‘Made so many in my time, I could do them in my sleep. I’d like to know what’s become of my glasses though. Some fool of a woman Mummie got in to do the cleaning must have broken them and didn’t dare own up, very likely. Not that it matters, I suppose. I know where to put my hand on everything in this little room and these poor old legs are too full of rheumatism nowadays to move far outside it. As for my indigestion, well, you’d really pity me if I was to tell you about it.’
‘What is it you’re making?’ I asked, reluctant to be put to the test.
‘This? Oh, it’s another jersey for Rupert; Primrose, I should say. Don’t think much of the colour, do you? I prefer the pastel shades myself, but she says it’s got to be something that doesn’t show the dirt.’
‘I think she’s right. What I mean is, pastel shades are rather Out at the moment.’
‘Oh, are they? Well, you’d know, I suppose, gallivanting about like you do. Here, hold this up against yourself and see how it looks. You’ll swim in it, we know that, but you’re something of the same colouring as my great elephant of a girl.’
‘What do you think?’ I mumbled, gripping the needles with my chin.
‘Not bad. You are a skinny morsel though, aren’t you? There’s a long glass in the night nursery, if you want to have a proper look.’
When I returned she was heaving with silent mirth and wiping her eyes on the hem of her apron.
‘I couldn’t help laughing,’ she explained, taking charge of the knitting again. ‘It put me in mind of the time when one of the aunts, Mrs Jameson I suppose it must have been, took Rupert and Primrose up to Harrods – Oh, there I go again! Rupert and Pelham is what I should have said . . . up to Harrods to get them some new jerseys. You’ll see the funny side of this, you having such a sense of humour. About eight years old they must have been at the time, and proper little monkeys, I don’t mind telling you . . .’
