Rose Cottage

by Mary Stewart

  ‘She could easily take it that way. If my folks had been at home she might have come to our house, and saved us a deal of trouble.’ A short laugh. ‘But they weren’t, and your Mum maybe didn’t want to show her face in the village yet, so she stayed in the car and he did the asking, and got put on the wrong tack by Lil Ashby.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we got one thing right – she’d never have taken flowers for Aunt Betsy.’

  ‘I doubt if she’ll ever get any now after this. But she did get a bit of what she deserved, if you think about it.’

  ‘What? You mean that my mother got married to a respectable gentleman in the end?’

  ‘That he was rich,’ said Davey briefly. ‘She says so, doesn’t she, in one of those letters?’

  ‘So she does. My poor Mum, she can’t be very happy right this minute, coming back here after all this time, and thinking her mother’s died.’

  ‘All the better, when she finds the bad news isn’t true after all,’ he said cheerfully. ‘So there’s the story, all but the end. They came down here from the vicarage, and cleared the safe out – she’d know where your Gran kept the key – and then they got some flowers for what they thought was your Gran’s grave—’

  ‘And dug up one of Granddad’s roses,’ I said, and told him about it.

  ‘With the coal shovel,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Her rich American gentleman. I’d have liked to have seen that! But hang on a minute. If they robbed the safe – it must have been them – they didn’t do that till Monday. Why not?’

  ‘Because “Davey Pascoe has got your Granddad’s tools.” I quote. I’ve been told that every ten minutes since I got home.’

  ‘And they couldn’t cut the plaster without them. Right. So they went and got something to do the job with, and came back next evening. Yes. That’s it.’ He paused, seemed about to say something else, then repeated, ‘Well, that’s it.’

  I sat down by the table and stared at him over the litter of stuff from the sideboard drawer that I had tipped there. Shock, amazement, relief, anxiety and a cautious happiness – a rush of contrasting emotions had left me confused and exhausted.

  ‘And now they’ve gone. How do we find them again? What do we do?’

  ‘Wait,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘What else? Wait here. There’s still you. You can’t tell me she’ll give up without trying to find you. And Todhall’s the only starting point she has. What’s the betting that if you sit tight here she’ll be back again?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, of course. I – I can’t grasp it, Davey. I – if she comes back here … And then there’s Gran. We’d better not say anything to Gran yet, till we know for sure.’ I shook my head as if to shake my brain back into action. ‘Oh, heavens alive, if it is true, how on earth do I tell Gran?’

  ‘If I was you,’ he said, ‘I’d stop thinking about it and get myself some supper. Have you got some food, or will I take you home again?’

  ‘No. There’s plenty. We had a chicken for lunch. Davey—’ I hesitated.

  ‘I know. You want a bit of time to yourself. That’s okay. Just remember, this kind of news doesn’t kill. Your Gran’ll be out of her bed and skipping like a spring lamb, just like you’ll be yourself once it’s sunk in. But till We’re sure, say nowt. Don’t worry, I’ll not tell Mum and Dad yet … Well, if you’re sure you’re all right, I’ll get along. Okay?’

  ‘Yes. But Davey—’

  He turned in the doorway. ‘What?’

  ‘Thanks for everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ he said. At least, that is what I thought he said, and I thought he added ‘Love’, as he wheeled abruptly away and went down the path. The gate creaked shut. The van door slammed. The engine coughed into life and the van moved off.

  I went to cut myself some of the cold chicken for supper.

  22

  The cottage felt very empty after Davey had gone. It seemed to give off an echo like that in a long-deserted house.

  Well, I thought, as I finished my solitary supper and washed the dishes, what now? Prissy had been adamant in urging me to go back to London, to ‘life’ as she called it, as soon as the furniture removers had been, but now, of course, I would have to stay. If Davey and I were right about the mystery, and my mother was really still alive and somewhere in the vicinity, she would surely come back to Rose Cottage again.

  Part of me longed for her coming, with a kind of uncertain excitement, but another part was afraid. Afraid of time, of change, of what had happened to us both in the lost years. And, however joyfully the news of her daughter’s reappearance must come to Gran, I did not know how to break it to an ailing old woman, especially when it involved telling her about her sister’s part in the tragic years of bereavement.

  Aunt Betsy. That, as well. There were too many people who had been touched by the tragedy of her making. Lilias, too, must believe herself bereaved, that her mother was dead, and buried in the cemetery here. I sat down at the still cluttered table, and tried to think.

  If Davey’s and my guess at what had happened was correct, then what would Lilias (I thought of her by name, as Gran had always spoken of her, rather than as the Mum of my childish memory) what would Lilias and her husband have done next, after their visit to what they thought of as Gran’s grave? Gone back to wherever they were staying, and let Lilias take time to absorb the shock of her mother’s death? Gone back to Iowa? Whichever, I had no way of tracing them. I leafed hurriedly through those pathetic letters again; there must originally have been an address, the one Aunt Betsy would have written to, but in the irritating American way, there was no heading to the letters, and the envelopes – deliberately destroyed, perhaps? – were not there. So, no direction except ‘Ioa’; no mention, even, of the respectable gentleman’s surname. No way, in fact, for me to trace my mother.

  What I suppose I hadn’t sufficiently taken into account was that I, too, had suffered a shock. The events of the past two or three days, the confusion of the mystery, the sudden throwback into a forgotten way of life that nevertheless seemed to enfold me like a comfortable old coat, all these, I thought suddenly, must have addled what brains I had. Davey had seen it. I had only to think myself into Lilias’s place, and it was obvious what she would do next.

  She would look for me.

  I found I was staring at the Unseen Guest. Or rather, clear through the picture and the metal door behind it, at what had apparently been the contents of Gran’s safe. If in fact Lilias had taken the papers from the safe, had there been anything there from which she could get my London addresses – Jon’s flat, or my place of work? I thought not. Gran, with the super-accurate memory of the semi-literate, would never have troubled to write them down, and my marriage lines were in London. With a twist of wry amusement I realised that my mother was in the same boat as I was; she did not know my married name; could not, even, know that I had been married. She herself had spoken to no one in the village, and since I had arrived here after she and her husband had left, she must have no idea that I was due to come to Rose Cottage.

  So what would she do? Come back to have another look at the cottage, to see if a more determined search would turn up a clue to her daughter’s whereabouts? Possibly. It was more likely that she would try again to see the Pascoes. Even if, as it seemed, Aunt Betsy’s letter had persuaded her that they had joined with the village in their condemnation of her, she might approach them now, with her husband’s support, if her need to find me was strong enough. And so she would find out that I was here.

  For the time being, then, I would have to stay. But as I put Lilias’s letters back into the safe I wondered if, come morning, I would find myself wanting to dodge the issue. How in the world did one face a situation like this? The only precedents were on the stage, and even there domestic melodrama had been out of date for a long time, and had never had much connection with real life. There were no precedents. In actual fact, I thought, as I busied myself clearing the last
of Gran’s things off the table and packing them into the sideboard drawers ready for the removers in the morning – in actual fact there was as much sheer embarrassment as joy in the idea of such a meeting. What did one say? How act? For both of us, the eighteen years would be a yawning gap, a gulf, both of years and experience.

  There was a coward’s way open to me. I would of course have to wait for the removers, but once the cottage was cleared I would be free to leave. Would it help both Lilias and me over a difficult moment if I just went? I could write to her, leave a letter here to break the news about the grave in the cemetery, and tell her of Gran’s present whereabouts, and that we would both be waiting for her there at Strathbeg. I could send my heavy case back north with the removers, and, once they had gone, walk to the station and catch the five-fourteen train. With any luck I might be at Strathbeg before Gran’s things got there …

  Which was nonsense. A cowardly fantasy, dreamed up in the aftermath of shock. To do any such thing would be both stupid and cruel. Stupid, because even if I dodged the meeting here, I would have a possibly even more difficult one to face with Gran. And cruel to allow Lilias, who had come home to an empty house and (as she thought) the news of her mother’s death, to come home a second time and find the cottage empty and stripped of furniture, and nothing but a note from the daughter who apparently did not want to meet her.

  Telling myself sharply that I should be ashamed of even thinking about it, I wrapped up the last of the brass candlesticks, tucked it neatly into the drawer, and slid the latter back into place. It was no use trying to think what to do, what to say. Take the time instead to think what this meant to Gran, and what it would certainly mean to me. Take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs. I had had my weeping time; this was a gift, take it as such, and take it easily.

  I was half way up the stairs to bed before I remembered the other mystery that had been in the background all my life. The one person who would surely know the answer to that would be Lilias herself.

  I went down and unlocked the front door, leaving it on the latch in case my mother should come home.

  No one came.

  No one, that is, until the morning brought Mr Blaney and Rosy with the milk, and the information that the removal van was already there, and waiting at the head of the lane till he was clear of it.

  ‘You manage to get everything ready, did you?’

  ‘Yes, just! I’ll see you on Monday anyway, Mr Blaney, and I may be staying on a day or two after that. I’m still not sure of my plans.’

  He beamed. ‘There now! Wasn’t I just saying the same thing to the missus? Once she’s back here with her own folks, I said, she’ll likely stay a bit longer than she thought to. So if you’re to bide for a bit, you’d like a couple of eggs again Monday?’

  ‘I’d love them, thanks. Here’s Rosy’s biscuit. Oh, and the chicken was lovely. Would you tell Mrs Blaney?’

  ‘I will, and you’re welcome. She was saying it was good to have you home.’

  Rosy whirled him smartly up the lane, with the word almost echoing in her wake. Home.

  The echo was dispersed, promptly and noisily, by the removers. They were cheerful, quick and reasonably tidy. Shortly before noon the big van backed cautiously away up the lane, and I heard the gears grind as she turned into the road and trundled off. I went back into the cottage and looked about me.

  Home. A different echo now. The table was still there, and the four upright chairs, but the rocking chair had gone, and Gran’s fireside chair, and where the sideboard had stood there was its ghostly shape outlined in unfaded wallpaper festooned with dusty cobwebs. The mantelpiece was bare of its ornaments, but the fender was still there, and the fire-irons, and the cracket – the stool that had been my fireside seat as a child. The rug had gone, and the exposed edge of the lino in front of the fender was frayed and ugly. On the bare wall the shapes of the flying china ducks were like little ghosts.

  Even a very minor move is somehow drastic. The place looked dead, and though I had done little through the morning except check with Gran’s list and tell the men where to find the items that Davey had marked with the coloured stickers, I felt drained and depressed. At least, I thought, staring round me at the desolate remains of my home, it gave me something to do, a way to fill the waiting time. For my own comfort, as well as for Lilias’s sake, I would do my best to get the place clean again, and at least reasonably comfortable.

  But first, lunch. (Call it dinner, Kathy, you’re home now.) Whatever it was called, it was a good meal, cold chicken and a tomato, with bread and butter and one of Prissy’s peaches. I took my cup of coffee out into the sunshine and drank it sitting on the seat under the kitchen window. The scent of Granddad’s roses filled the air, and the beck ran sweetly over its washed stones. Birds were singing everywhere. It was very peaceful.

  No one came.

  I went in and started work.

  At half past four I stopped for tea, reasonably satisfied. The floors were clean, the fire relaid, the exposed walls and skirting swept clear of cobwebs, and the windows bright. I went up to my bedroom, brought the bedside rug downstairs, and laid it in front of the fireplace. It was too small, and the colours had faded and worn to various shades of grey, but it covered the frayed edge of the lino, and was a distinct improvement. Even so, the room looked deserted and pathetic, with its bare walls and empty mantelpiece. I supposed that pictures and ornaments, even things like the brass candlesticks and the china ducks, gave life and spirit to the place, because they were someone’s choice, they were loved. The Unseen Guest, which was still there, did very little to help. Home is where the heart is, and the heart had gone out of Rose Cottage. Soon, now, it would be a shell of its old self, waiting for the builders to ‘improve’ it ready for its new tenants.

  I still don’t know what made me, at that moment, do what I did. There on the table beside me lay my pen and the writing pad with the list for the removers. I tore the list off and threw it into the fireplace, then sat down and started to write a letter.

  Not to my mother. To Lady Brandon. To ask if she would reconsider her plans for the cottage, and would either let it or sell it to me. I was still not too sure of my plans, I told her, but since coming back here I had realised that I would very much like to keep my old home. If she preferred to let it to me, I would do my best to put it in good order and keep it so, but I would really like to buy it. I would be very happy to let her see any plans I made for its improvement … and so on. I had not yet, I wrote, mentioned this to my grandmother, but I would be coming back to Strathbeg soon and would, if her ladyship would like me to, come and talk to her and Sir James about it. I did very much hope that they would see their way to letting me have the cottage. I was …

  I hesitated. I would normally have been theirs sincerely, Kate Herrick, but somehow the words weren’t there. I finished the letter as I might have finished it ten years ago: Yours faithfully, Kathy. (Mrs Herrick.)

  The signature was in its way an omen. I was a cottager again.

  I looked up from addressing the envelope, my heart jumping. The garden gate had creaked.

  Someone was coming up the path.

  23

  Not Lilias. Just Mrs Pascoe, coming in a hurry, carrier bag in hand.

  ‘Oh, Kathy! You’ve never been and done it all yourself! I meant all along to come and help clear after they’d gone, but I didn’t think they’d be here so early. Ted Blaney said they nearly beat him to it.’

  ‘It’s sweet of you, but there wasn’t a lot to do. They were pretty good. There was only Aunt Betsy’s room to clear upstairs. I shut the door on the others.’ I was watching for an indication that Davey had changed his mind and told her about our findings, but she gave no sign of it. She dumped the carrier bag on the table and looked about her.

  ‘Looks funny without the sideboard, doesn’t it? She’ll be glad to have her things round her again, though. She was always fond of that sideboard. Did you pack her tea set, the one with the r
osebuds?’

  ‘Yes. Everything I thought she’d like, whether it was on the list or not. Did you come over from the Hall?’

  ‘Yes. The men are real busy today. The plumbers have come – and not before time – and there’s a lot to get sorted. Jim had to come home to pick something up, so I got a lift back with the van. They won’t get home for their tea till late, so if there’s any more clearing up to be done, I’ll give you a hand. I brought my apron along.’

  ‘Thanks very much, but I’ve done all I mean to do, for the time being anyway. There’s only Aunt Betsy’s room to do upstairs, and I’ve shut the door on that, too. I was just knocking off for a cup of tea, if you’d like one?’

  ‘Never refuse a good offer,’ said Mrs Pascoe comfortably, ‘and here was I hoping you’d say just that. Here,’ fishing in the carrier bag, ‘I’ve been baking, and I brought you some gingerbread. I mind how you always liked my gingerbread. And after tea, if you like, I’ll turn your Aunt Betsy’s room out for you.’

  ‘Well, thanks, that’d be great. Pretty nearly everything’s gone from there.’

  ‘Your own room’s all right? Davey did say you’d got all you need, but you know you’re welcome to come up to us if it’s more comfortable for you.’

  ‘Yes, he did ask me, but thanks all the same, I’ll be fine here.’

  ‘You’re staying on for a bit, Ted Blaney says?’

  Ted Blaney seemed to have said rather a lot. ‘Yes. One or two more days, perhaps. I’ve no definite plans yet.’ I poured tea. ‘The gingerbread looks gorgeous. Fancy you remembering that.’

  ‘There’s not much I could forget about you, nor about your poor mother either.’ She looked round the bare little room, and to my discomfort I saw her eyes brim with tears. She sniffed, smiled, and batted the back of a hand against her eyes. ‘There I am for an old fool. It’s seeing the place like this, when it’s been a friend’s home for longer than I can remember.’ She drank tea, her eyes seeming to follow the flight of the shadowy ducks up the wall. ‘You’re young yet, but you’ll find it. You go through your life thinking things never will come to an end, but they do. It may be a comfort to those in pain, but it’s a sore thing to know that things you’ve loved will be gone before you are.’