Too Close to the Sun

by Jess Foley

  And they continued to sit there while the shadows grew paler and the ugliness of the room became once more exposed. When the church clock struck eight, Grace nodded and got up.

  ‘I’ll go and get a cab,’ she said, ‘and bring it back. Then we shall be out of here for good.’

  On finding a cab Grace brought it back to the lodging house. She had had no wish to confront Mrs Packerman, but at the same time she was reluctant to lose all the rent she had paid in advance. So there was nothing for it but to speak to the woman. Not that Mrs Packerman had been hiding away. On the contrary, she was very much in evidence when Grace got the porter to carry their luggage downstairs.

  ‘Does this mean what I think it means?’ Mrs Packerman said to Grace, standing in the hall watching as the trunk was carried out to the waiting cab. ‘Are you leaving us so soon?’

  ‘We are indeed, Mrs Packerman,’ Grace replied, drawing herself up, while her heart was thumping. ‘And I should be greatly obliged to you if you could refund part of the rent we paid you in advance.’

  Ignoring this last request, the landlady said, her voice concerned, almost solicitous, ‘May I ask why you see fit to leave so soon after arriving? Wusn’t you comfortable? How come you’re in such a hurry?’

  ‘Yes, we are in a hurry,’ Grace countered. ‘And we’re leaving not a moment too soon if we are not to be bitten to death.’

  ‘Not to be –’ Now Mrs Packerman looked outraged. ‘What exactly are you suggesting, miss?’

  At this Grace turned to Billy and said, ‘You go and wait in the cab, Billy, and I’ll join you in a second.’ When, reluctantly, he had gone, casting uncertain glances from the woman to his sister, Grace turned back to the woman.

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mrs Packerman. I’m stating a fact. We’re leaving because we cannot stay. The mattress we slept on – or tried to sleep on – last night was crawling. It was alive. Perhaps your other houseguests might be prepared to put up with it, but we are not. We are accustomed to something better, and although times are a little hard we are not so desperate as you obviously imagine.’

  Mrs Packerman’s mouth now fell open in a kind of theatrical outrage, falling open and then stretching wide, wider in supposed amazed horror. ‘Are you suggesting that I keep a dirty house, miss? Are you suggesting that there are bugs in my beds?’

  Grace’s heart hammered in her breast. ‘Go and see for yourself,’ she said. ‘Or better yet, try sleeping in that bed. Though maybe you’re so used to it that you wouldn’t notice anything amiss.’

  ‘Get out!’ Mrs Packerman cried. ‘Get out! Get out!’ And then launched herself, arms flailing, at Grace.

  But though she flinched initially, Grace stood her ground, hands clenched at her sides. Mrs Packerman came to a stop.

  ‘Well,’ she blustered, ‘if you think you’re getting any repayment of your week’s rent in advance, you can think again.’

  ‘It was a month altogether,’ Grace said. ‘I paid you the remaining three weeks just yesterday, when we arrived.’

  ‘You must show me your receipt, then. You’re bound to have a receipt.’

  ‘I haven’t got one. You said you’d bring one to me – but you never did.’

  Mrs Packerman sniffed. ‘You’re wasting my time, miss. I don’t recall any extra three weeks rent. And I’d be grateful if you’d get off my property – this very minute.’

  And so Grace did. She had no choice. It was obvious to her that she would never get her money back. Angry and humiliated, she turned and marched out to the waiting cab, beside which the driver waited, having listened to every word of the exchange.

  So too, Grace found, when she got inside, had Billy. And having heard the angry voices, the woman’s hostility directed at Grace, he was in tears.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Grace said, putting her arms around him. ‘No harm’s done.’ She held him closer as he sniffed and wiped at his eyes. ‘But in any case, we’re leaving now, and we’ll never have to see this place again.’

  An hour and a half later they were being let down in the rear yard at Asterleigh House, and Grace was asking the driver to wait while she went inside. She just prayed that Mrs Spencer was at home.

  She was, and within minutes Grace was being shown into her studio where she was at work at her easel. In a few words Grace told her what had happened, ending by saying that if the offer was still open, she and Billy would be pleased to accept it. Very soon afterwards the cab driver had been paid and sent on his way, and Grace and Billy’s luggage was being brought into the house.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Are you all set?’ Grace asked. She and Billy were in his room that looked out over the yard. Thirty minutes earlier the two of them had breakfasted together, and now Grace had come to see that he was ready for school. She entered his room to find him making up his bed. It was Thursday, 5th April. Billy had now been going to the Culvercombe National school for five months.

  Five months, Grace said to herself as she observed him tidying up his bed. They had been there five months. The time had flown so fast, yet their first day in the house was as clear in her mind as if it had been yesterday.

  Fresh from their horrifying night at the lodging house and her humiliating encounter with Mrs Packerman, Grace had stood in trepidation at the door of Asterleigh House waiting to know whether Mrs Spencer would see her. And soon afterwards she was standing before Mrs Spencer, telling her what had happened at the lodging house, and asking if the offer to live and work at Asterleigh House was still open.

  ‘Why should it not be?’ Mrs Spencer had replied. ‘You had a perfect right to see if you could find something that suited you better, something in your chosen profession.’ And after a brief pause she had given a nod of the head and added, ‘And I doubt I’m wrong in saying that it’s not thoughts for yourself alone that have brought you here now. No, when you have responsibility for another, you cannot always do exactly as you would choose.’

  Grace and Billy had moved in that same day.

  In the intervening time they had settled well into the house and into their new lives. Within days of their moving in, Grace had taken Billy to the nearest National school, some three miles distant. And from Monday to Friday he made his way back and forth on foot. There had been times in the past, at Green Shipton, when he had been reluctant to go to school in the mornings, particularly following the death of their mother. So far, however, he had shown no such great reluctance at his new school. Grace was so relieved, so pleased. Even so, she must keep ever vigilant. She knew well that with his disability there was always the chance of some bully picking on him. She must be on the lookout for any signs, for if it should happen she would not allow it to continue.

  But he seemed happy. She had wondered if he would miss his work on Timmins’s farm, but he seemed not to; his whole life had changed and there was so much that was new for him to get accustomed to: new school, new surroundings, new people in his life. And he was not one to complain. His concerns, when they came, were practical. ‘How shall we get to the Green Shipton churchyard to see Mama and Pappy’s grave?’ he had once asked. ‘How can we when we’re so far away?’

  ‘We’ll get there,’ Grace had replied. ‘Not as often as before, but we’ll find the time to go.’

  ‘And what about the flowers? Now we haven’t got any of our own.’

  ‘Perhaps the gardener will give us a few from the garden. But don’t worry, everything will be fine.’

  For herself Grace felt she had done equally well. It had taken a little time to get used to the unaccustomed luxury around her in the large house, but now she was getting used to it, and as far as she could, she enjoyed her time there. And the hours she spent with Mrs Spencer were interesting and generally enjoyable. The two of them would paint or sketch together, sometimes in Mrs Spencer’s studio or in the conservatory – Billy occasionally joining them when he could. At other times Grace and her mistress would play chess or b
ezique; Grace would accompany her on little excursions to places of interest, museums, historic buildings. And now with spring in the air there was talk from Mrs Spencer of driving out to sketch out of doors.

  One particular interest of Mrs Spencer’s was in a portrait she had begun of Grace. It was on a large canvas, larger than any usually used by Mrs Spencer. She had Grace in her second-best dress of coffee and white, sitting in an old upright chair, and looking towards the window. After a time Mrs Spencer got a mirror and placed it carefully so that Grace could watch in it the progress of the painting. Grace was fascinated to see the picture grow beneath the older woman’s hands.

  Billy, now giving a last smooth to the bedcover, said, ‘I saw Mrs Spencer yesterday.’

  ‘To talk to?’ As he kept more or less to the servants’ part of the house – not only at Grace’s suggestion, but also by his own wish – he rarely crossed the path of his benefactress.

  ‘Yes.’ He straightened. ‘I was sitting on the back step, cleaning Mrs Sandiston’s boots, when Mrs Spencer came by from the stable. She asked me how I was, and how I was enjoying school, and I told her that I liked it all very well. Then she asked me –’ He came to a stop here, and Grace prompted him. ‘And then what? What else did she ask you?’

  ‘ – She asked me about my leg again. How I came to fall.’

  A little pause, then Grace said, ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘I just told her that I fell …’ He picked up his books. ‘Then she gave me a penny,’ he added.

  ‘That was kind of her.’

  ‘That’s the third time she’s given me money.’

  ‘Very kind.’ Grace turned and glanced towards the window. ‘It’s going to be another lovely day. What lessons will you be having?’

  He tapped his English primer. ‘First, English – and then we shall have arithmetic and English history. In history we’re learning about William the Conqueror and the Norman invasion.’

  ‘That’ll be interesting. Have you got your tuck?’

  ‘Mrs Sandiston gave me some bread and butter, a little ham, and an apple. Two apples.’

  ‘So you won’t starve. Since when could you eat two apples?’

  ‘I shall give one to Roland.’

  ‘Roland? Who is Roland?’

  ‘He’s my friend. He’s in my class. He lives in Culvercombe.’ He moved to the door. ‘Are you painting today?’

  ‘No, I’m going into Corster to get some things for Mrs Spencer – and maybe some items for Cook too. There’s to be a dinner party on Saturday.’

  ‘A party?’

  ‘A dinner party.’

  ‘Shall we be invited?’

  She laughed. ‘No, of course not. The guest is a friend of Mr and Mrs Spencer. What would we be doing there?’

  She bent, gave him a peck on the cheek and then he was gone, the sound of his feet echoing slightly on the back stairs.

  Moving to the window, she stood looking down into the yard and a few moments later saw him emerge from the house. Halfway across the yard he looked up at the window and gave a wave. She waved back and watched till he had gone out of her sight.

  Soon she must leave for the town to do the shopping for Mrs Spencer. She looked across the stable roof and the tall elms to the morning sky. The day was so far bright, though a few clouds were drifting on the breeze from the west.

  Her thoughts again returning to the time before she and Billy had moved to Asterleigh, she suddenly thought of Stephen, picturing him there in Bramble House, his body stiff and awkward as he had told her of his engagement to the young woman on the ship. She had heard nothing more of him since. He might well be married by now, she thought, though she had heard no murmur that he was. Would she ever see him again? she wondered. But no, it was unlikely that they would ever again meet. He was building a new life, a life in which she had no part; and as for her, she was building a new life too.

  Turning, she looked around her at the room, taking it in. It had been Billy’s room since the day they had arrived at Asterleigh House with their few belongings. And he had really made the room his own, she thought. But there, a room of his very own was a luxury he had never known in his life before. She looked at his neatly made bed, his towel hanging on the washstand. She could see his pride in it all. And being given the room it had not taken long for him to put his stamp upon it. When Mrs Sandiston, following directions from Mrs Spencer, had shown them into it, saying: ‘And this, young William, is to be your room,’ he had hardly been able to believe his ears or his eyes. The room had been somewhat bare at that time, just holding a bed with a small dresser beside it and a taller one in which to hang his few clothes. Now, with permission, he had hung a number of pictures. One of them was a watercolour by Grace herself, a study of primroses growing on the heath that she had executed one spring. Two others were framed prints given to him by Mrs Spencer, one of a schooner under full sail, artist unknown, and the second of a Venetian canal scene, seemingly by Canaletto. On the small chest of drawers stood a little model sailing ship that he had made from balsa wood and paper, its sails and figurehead painted in the most surprising detail. Also there was a large seashell, a present from Mr Spencer. It was a wonderful item, a thing of strange colours that gave the sound of the sea when held to the ear.

  Grace picked up from the dresser a little sketchbook that she had bought for him some time ago, and flicked through its pages. All the pages were full, some with several smaller sketches to a page, others with a single page bearing one large, detailed drawing. Although she had seen the drawings before, nevertheless his artistry never ceased to amaze her. It was evident on every page. There were sketches of buildings, the house, the village church, a small cluster of cottages in Berron Wick; there were studies of flowers and plants, dog roses in the hedgerows; and there were living creatures, birds, rabbits, three or four of the horses in the stables; and there were people: there was Mrs Sandiston, the cook-housekeeper, and Annie, the kitchen maid. The latter were not posed portraits such as might have been produced had the subject sat for the likeness, but quick sketches, made from life, of the person moving about, caught in the act of living. And although they were drawings made by a boy of nine years old, all the budding talent was there, all the promise of a great ability to come. And Grace could only wonder at what he might achieve in time. She herself had a certain ability in draughtsmanship, but it paled into insignificance next to Billy’s.

  And seeing his talent once again, becoming aware of it all over again, Grace was so glad. For she knew that it could be the saving of him. Several times since starting school he had spoken of drawing pictures for his classmates. His ability had set him apart, she could see. He might not be able to play football and cricket like the others, but he had a gift of his own, and they appreciated it, acknowledged it and admired it. His great talent it was, Grace surmised, that brought him acceptance among his peers.

  Grace let herself out of Billy’s room and moved along the landing to the door of her own room. There she went inside, closing the door behind her.

  Like Billy’s room, and those of the house servants, the room was in the west wing on the second floor. Grace’s room was considerably larger than Billy’s, and although in no way could it be termed luxurious, it was not quite so simply furnished as his. She rather had the feeling that Mrs Spencer had chosen it and its furnishings: the wardrobe, chiffonier, the decorative Japanese screen, to her eyes they had been put there with some thought; and at least once a week the maid put flowers in her room.

  Grace sat and did some mending for half an hour or so, then put her sewing basket away, put on her coat and hat and picked up her purse. Then, after looking out at the sky – were those clouds a little more threatening? – decided to take her umbrella. As she turned to leave the room the clock on the mantelpiece over the small fireplace showed the time to be just after 8.30. By arrangement made the previous day she went down to the breakfast room. She knocked on the door, and Mrs Spencer’s voice was heard, calli
ng to her to enter, and she went inside.

  Mrs Spencer sat at a small table near the window in the morning sun, eating her breakfast. She wore a lilac peignoir over her white nightdress, and a little cap on her braided hair.

  Grace wished her good morning, then said, ‘I’ve come for your list, Mrs Spencer. I shall be leaving soon.’

  Mrs Spencer nodded, took a swallow of coffee, put down her cup and picked up a small sheet of paper from the tablecloth beside her. As she handed it to Grace she said, ‘There are some silks – in the colours listed – to get from the haberdashers, and also a few tubes of oil paint from Mr Lowmarsh. You’d best also get a small bottle of linseed oil as well. I think we’re almost out of it.’

  As Grace went to put the paper into her purse Mrs Spencer added: ‘I tell you what, Grace, perhaps you could also get me a little drawing book. Nothing too large.’ She held up her hands, palms apart, to describe the required size. ‘Something so big …’

  ‘The kind you usually have, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, but this is not for me.’

  Grace nodded.

  ‘And,’ went on Mrs Spencer, ‘I’d like you to get an ounce of tobacco. Get it from Mr Hill, the tobacconist. Tell him it’s for my husband and he’ll know which brand. And also perhaps a little bottle of hair oil. Carman’s. Mr Spencer says he’ll have no truck with such things, but it won’t hurt him to pamper himself occasionally, don’t you agree?’

  Grace nodded her head. ‘Oh, indeed, ma’am.’ Taking a small stub of pencil from her bag, she wrote on the list the additional items.

  ‘Here, this should be enough …’ Mrs Spencer held out some coins and Grace took them and dropped them into her change purse.