by Betty Neels
They left on a chilly damp morning—a day winter had forgotten and left behind. Emma locked the front door, put the key through the letterbox and got into the elderly Rover they had been allowed to keep until, once at Salcombe, it was to be handed over to the receivers. Her father’s Bentley had gone, with everything else.
She didn’t look back, for if she had she might have cried and driving through London’s traffic didn’t allow for tears. Mrs Dawson cried. She cried for most of their long journey, pausing only to accuse Emma of being a hard-hearted girl with no feelings when she suggested that they might stop for coffee.
They reached Salcombe in the late afternoon and, as it always did, the sight of the beautiful estuary with the wide sweep of the sea beyond lifted Emma’s spirits. They hadn’t been to the cottage for some time but nothing had changed; the little house stood at the end of a row of similar houses, their front gardens opening onto a narrow path along the edge of the water, crowded with small boats and yachts, a few minutes’ walk from the main street of the little town, yet isolated in its own peace and quiet.
There was nowhere to park the car, of course. Emma stopped in the narrow street close by and they walked along the path, opened the garden gate and unlocked the door. For years there had been a local woman who had kept an eye on the place. Emma had written to her and now, as they went inside, it was to find the place cleaned and dusted and groceries and milk in the small fridge.
Mrs Dawson paused on the doorstep. ‘It’s so small,’ she said in a hopeless kind of voice, but Emma looked around her with pleasure and relief. Here was home: a small sitting room, with the front door and windows overlooking the garden, a smaller kitchen beyond and then a minute back yard, and, up the narrow staircase, two bedrooms with a bathroom between them. The furniture was simple but comfortable, the curtains a pretty chintz and there was a small open fireplace.
She put her arm round her mother. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea and then I’ll get the rest of the luggage and see if the pub will let me put the car in their garage until I can hand it over.’
She was tired when she went to bed that night; she had seen to the luggage and the car, lighted a small log fire and made a light supper before seeing her mother to her bed. It had been a long day, she reflected, curled up in her small bedroom, but they were here at last in the cottage, not owing a farthing to anyone and with a little money in the bank. Mr Trump had been an elderly shoulder to lean on, which was more than she could say for Derek. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ said Emma aloud.
All the same she had been hurt.
In the morning she went to the pub and persuaded the landlord to let her leave the car there until she could hand it over, and then went into the main street to do the shopping. Her mother had declared herself exhausted after their long drive on the previous day and Emma had left her listlessly unpacking her clothes. Not a very good start to the day, but it was a fine morning and the little town sparkled in the sunshine.
Almost all the shops were open, hopeful of early visitors, and she didn’t hurry with her shopping, stopping to look in the elegant windows of the small boutiques, going to the library to enrol for the pair of them, arranging for milk to be delivered, ordering a paper too, and at the same time studying the advertisements in the shop window. There were several likely jobs on offer. She bought chops from the butcher, who remembered her from previous visits, and crossed the road to the greengrocer. He remembered her too, so that she felt quite light-hearted as she made her last purchase in the baker’s.
The delicious smell of newly baked bread made her nose quiver. And there were rolls and pasties, currant buns and doughnuts. She was hesitating as to which to buy when someone else came into the shop. She turned round to look and encountered a stare from pale blue eyes so intent that she blushed, annoyed with herself for doing that just because this large man was staring. He was good-looking too, in a rugged kind of way, with a high-bridged nose and a thin mouth. He was wearing an elderly jersey and cords and his hair needed a good brush…
He stopped staring, leaned over her, took two pasties off the counter and waved them at the baker’s wife. And now the thin mouth broke into a smile. ‘Put it on the bill, Mrs Trott,’ he said, and was gone.
Emma, about to ask who he was, sensed that Mrs Trott wasn’t going to tell her and prudently held her tongue. He must live in the town for he had a bill. He didn’t look like a fisherman or a farm worker and he wouldn’t own a shop, not dressed like that, and besides he didn’t look like any of those. He had been rude, staring like that; she had no wish to meet him again but it would be interesting to know just who he was.
She went back to the cottage and found a man waiting impatiently to collect the car and, what with one thing and another, she soon forgot the man at the baker’s.
It was imperative to find work but she wasn’t going to rush into the first job that was vacant. With a little wangling she thought that she could manage two part-time jobs. They would cease at the end of the summer and even one part-time job might be hard to find after that.
‘I must just make hay while the sun shines,’ said Emma, and over the next few days scanned the local newspapers. She went from one end of the town to the other, sizing up what was on offer. Waitresses were wanted, an improver was needed at the hairdressers—but what was an improver? Chambermaids at the various hotels, an assistant in an arts and crafts shop, someone to clean holiday cottages between lets, and an educated lady to assist the librarian at the public library on two evenings a week…
It was providential that while out shopping with her mother they were accosted by an elderly lady who greeted them with obvious pleasure.
‘Mrs Dawson—and Emma, isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t remember me. You came to the hotel to play bridge. I live at the hotel now that my husband has died and I’m delighted to see a face I know…’ She added eagerly, ‘Let’s go and have coffee together and a chat. Is your husband with you?’
‘I am also a widow—it’s Mrs Craig, isn’t it? I do remember now; we had some pleasant afternoons at bridge. My husband died very recently, and Emma and I have come to live here.’
‘I’m so very sorry. Of course you would want to get away from Richmond for a time. Perhaps we could meet soon and then arrange a game of bridge later?’
Mrs Dawson brightened. ‘That would be delightful…’
‘Then you must come and have tea with me sometimes at the hotel.’ Mrs Craig added kindly, ‘You need to have a few distractions, you know.’ She smiled at Emma. ‘I’m sure you have several young friends from earlier visits?’
Emma said cheerfully, ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ and added, ‘I’ve one or two calls to make now, while you have coffee. It is so nice to meet you again, Mrs Craig.’ She looked at her mother. ‘I’ll see you at home, Mother.’
She raced away. The rest of the shopping could wait. Here was the opportunity to go to the library…
The library was at the back of the town, and only a handful of people were wandering round the bookshelves. There were two people behind the desk: one a severe-looking lady with a no-nonsense hair style, her companion a girl with a good deal of blonde hair, fashionably tousled, and with too much make-up on her pretty face. She looked up from the pile of books she was arranging and grinned at Emma as she came to a halt and addressed the severe lady.
‘Good morning,’ said Emma. ‘You are advertising for an assistant for two evenings a week. I should like to apply for the job.’
The severe lady eyed her. She said shortly, ‘My name is Miss Johnson. Are you experienced?’
‘No, Miss Johnson, but I like books. I have A levels in English Literature, French, Modern Art and Maths. I am twenty-seven years old and I have lived at home since I left school. I have come here to live with my mother and I need a job.’
‘Two sessions a week, six hours, at just under five pounds an hour.’ Miss Johnson didn’t sound encouraging. ‘Five o’clock until eight on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Occasionally ex
tra hours, if there is sickness or one of us is on holiday.’ She gave what might be called a ladylike sniff. ‘You seem sensible. I don’t want some giddy girl leaving at the end of a week…’
‘I should like to work here if you will have me,’ said Emma. ‘You will want references…?’
‘Of course, and as soon as possible. If they are satisfactory you can come on a week’s trial.’
Emma wrote down Mr Trump’s address and phone number and then Dr Jakes’s who had known her for years. ‘Will you let me know or would you prefer me to call back? We aren’t on the phone yet. It’s being fitted shortly.’
‘You’re in rooms or a flat?’
‘No, we live at Waterside Cottage, the end one along Victoria Quay.’
Miss Johnson looked slightly less severe. ‘You are staying there? Renting the cottage for the summer?’
‘No, it belongs to my mother.’
The job, Emma could see, was hers.
She bade Miss Johnson a polite goodbye and went back into the main street; she turned into a narrow lane running uphill, lined by small pretty cottages. The last cottage at the top of the hill was larger than the rest and she knocked on the door.
The woman who answered the door was still young, slim and tall and dressed a little too fashionably for Salcombe. Her hair was immaculate and so was her make-up.
She looked Emma up and down and said, ‘Yes?’
‘You are advertising for someone to clean holiday cottages…’
‘Come in.’ She led Emma into a well-furnished sitting room.
‘I doubt if you’d do. It’s hard work—Wednesdays and Saturdays, cleaning up the cottages and getting them ready for the next lot. And a fine mess some of them are in, I can tell you. I need someone for those two days. From ten o’clock in the morning and everything ready by four o’clock when the next lot come.’
She waved Emma to a chair. ‘Beds, bathroom, loo, Hoovering. Kitchen spotless—and that means cupboards too. You come here and collect the cleaning stuff and bedlinen and hand in the used stuff before you leave. Six hours’ work a day, five pounds an hour, and tips if anyone leaves them.’
‘For two days?’
‘That’s what I said. I’ll want references. Local, are you? Haven’t seen you around. Can’t stand the place myself. The cottages belonged to my father and I’ve taken them over for a year or two. I’m fully booked for the season.’
She crossed one elegantly shod foot over the other. ‘Week’s notice on either side?’
‘I live here,’ said Emma, ‘and I need a job. I’d like to come if you are satisfied with my references.’
‘Please yourself, though I’d be glad to take you on. It isn’t a job that appeals to the girls around here.’
It didn’t appeal all that much to Emma, but sixty pounds a week did…
She gave her references once more, and was told she’d be told in two days’ time. ‘If I take you on you’ll need to be shown round. There’s another girl cleans the other two cottages across the road.’
Emma went home, got the lunch and listened to her mother’s account of her morning with Mrs Craig. ‘She has asked me to go to the hotel one afternoon for a rubber of bridge.’ She hesitated. ‘They play for money—quite small stakes…’
‘Well,’ said Emma, ‘you’re good at the game, aren’t you? I dare say you won’t be out of pocket. Nice to have found a friend, and I’m sure you’ll make more once the season starts.’
Two days later there was a note in the post. Her references for the cleaning job were satisfactory, she could begin work on the following Saturday and in the meantime call that morning to be shown her work. It was signed Dulcie Brooke-Tigh. Emma considered that the name suited the lady very well.
She went to the library that afternoon and Miss Johnson told her unsmilingly that her references were satisfactory and she could start work on Tuesday. ‘A week’s notice and you will be paid each Thursday evening.’
Emma, walking on air, laid out rather more money than she should have done at the butchers, and on Sunday went to church with her mother and said her prayers with child-like gratitude.
The cleaning job was going to be hard work. Mrs Brooke-Tigh, for all her languid appearance, was a hard-headed businesswoman, intent on making money. There was enough work for two people in the cottages, but as long as she could get a girl anxious for the job she wasn’t bothered. She had led Emma round the two cottages she would be responsible for, told her to start work punctually and then had gone back into her own cottage and shut the door. She didn’t like living at Salcombe, but the holiday cottages were money-spinners…
The library was surprisingly full when Emma, punctual to the minute, presented herself at the desk.
Miss Johnson wasted no time on friendly chat. ‘Phoebe will show you the shelves, then come back here and I will show you how to stamp the books. If I am busy take that trolley of returned books and put them back on the shelves. And do it carefully; I will not tolerate slovenly work.’
Which wasn’t very encouraging, but Phoebe’s cheerful wink was friendly. The work wasn’t difficult or tiring, and Emma, who loved books, found the three hours had passed almost too quickly. And Miss Johnson, despite her austere goodnight, had not complained.
Emma went back to the cottage to eat a late supper and then sit down to do her sums. Her mother had her pension, of course, and that plus the money from the two jobs would suffice to keep them in tolerable comfort. There wouldn’t be much over, but they had the kind of expensive, understated clothes which would last for several years… She explained it all to her mother, who told her rather impatiently to take over their finances. ‘I quite realise that I must give up some of my pension, dear, but I suppose I may have enough for the hairdresser and small expenses?’
Emma did some sums in her head and offered a generous slice of the pension—more than she could spare. But her mother’s happiness and peace of mind were her first concern; after years of living in comfort, and being used to having everything she wanted within reason, she could hardly be expected to adapt easily to their more frugal way of living.
On Saturday morning she went to the cottages. She had told her mother that she had two jobs, glossing over the cleaning and enlarging on the library, and, since Mrs Dawson was meeting Mrs Craig for coffee, Emma had said that she would do the shopping and that her mother wasn’t to wait lunch if she wasn’t home.
She had known it was going to be hard work and it was, for the previous week’s tenants had made no effort to leave the cottage tidy, let alone clean. Emma cleaned and scoured, then Hoovered and made beds and tidied cupboards, cleaned the cooker and the bath, and at the end of it was rewarded by Mrs Brooke-Tigh’s nod of approval and, even better than that, the tip she had found in the bedroom—a small sum, but it swelled the thirty pounds she was paid as she left.
‘Wednesday at ten o’clock,’ said Mrs Brooke-Tigh.
Emma walked down the lane with the girl who cleaned the other two cottages.
‘Mean old bag,’ said the girl. ‘Doesn’t even give us a cup of coffee. Think you’ll stay?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Emma.
The future, while not rosy, promised security just so long as people like Mrs Brooke-Tigh needed her services.
When she got home her mother told her that Mrs Craig had met a friend while they were having their coffee and they had gone to the little restaurant behind the boutique and had lunch. ‘I was a guest, dear, and I must say I enjoyed myself.’ She smiled. ‘I seem to be making friends. You must do the same, dear.’
Emma said, ‘Yes, Mother,’ and wondered if she would have time to look for friends. Young women of her own age? Men? The thought crossed her mind that the only person she would like to see again was the man in the baker’s shop.
CHAPTER TWO
EMMA welcomed the quiet of Sunday. It had been a busy week, with its doubts and worries and the uncertainty of coping with her jobs. But she had managed. There was money in the household
purse and she would soon do even better. She went with her mother to church and was glad to see that one or two of the ladies in the congregation smiled their good mornings to her mother. If her mother could settle down and have the social life she had always enjoyed things would be a lot easier. I might even join some kind of evening classes during the winter, thought Emma, and meet people…
She spent Monday cleaning the cottage, shopping and hanging the wash in the little back yard, while her mother went to the library to choose a book. On the way back she had stopped to look at the shops and found a charming little scarf, just what she needed to cheer up her grey dress. ‘It was rather more than I wanted to spend, dear,’ she explained, ‘but exactly what I like, and I get my pension on Thursday…’
The library was half empty when Emma got there on Tuesday evening.
‘WI meeting,’ said Miss Johnson. ‘There will be a rush after seven o’clock.’
She nodded to a trolley loaded with books. ‘Get those back onto the shelves as quickly as you can. Phoebe is looking up something for a visitor.’
Sure enough after an hour the library filled up with ladies from the WI, intent on finding something pleasant to read, and Emma, intent on doing her best, was surprised when Miss Johnson sent Phoebe to the doors to put up the ‘Closed’ sign and usher the dawdlers out.
Emma was on her knees, collecting up some books someone had dropped on the floor, when there was a sudden commotion at the door and the man from the baker’s shop strode in.
Miss Johnson looked up. She said severely, ‘We are closed, Doctor,’ but she smiled as she spoke.
‘Rupert Bear—have you a copy? The bookshop’s closed and small William next door won’t go to sleep until he’s read to. It must be Rupert Bear.’ He smiled at Miss Johnson, and Emma, watching from the floor, could see Miss Johnson melting under it.
‘Emma, fetch Rupert Bear from the last shelf in the children’s section.’
As Emma got to her feet he turned and looked at her.
