Vittoria Cottage (Drumberley Book 1)

by D. E. Stevenson

“Everything. You’d be surprised how much I know about you.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Caroline had a definite impression of a shadow flitting across his face; the shadow was gone in a moment but the impression remained.

  “It isn’t really idle curiosity,” she said quickly. “People are interested, that’s all. They haven’t much to talk about, so it’s an event when a stranger comes to Ashbridge.”

  “Yes, of course,” he agreed.

  “They’re kind-hearted, you know. For instance if I were to sneeze violently in the High Street every one in the village would hear about it and people would call and bring blackcurrant cordial for me. It’s the same sort of thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course,” he repeated.

  “Won’t you sit down?” she continued. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you some tea but I seem to have drunk every drop. You had better sit on my coat in case you get dirty.”

  He sat down beside her at once, refusing the coat.

  “Of course, it works both ways,” continued Caroline as she finished the last crumbs of her sandwich. “I mean if you want to know about any one in Ashbridge you have only to ask; In fact you needn’t even ask, all you need do is to listen … but perhaps you aren’t interested.”

  “I might be,” he said thoughtfully. “Suppose you begin to enlighten me. What’s that big house over there amongst the trees?”

  “Ash House,” Caroline told him. “It belongs to Sir Michael Ware. He was an admiral, but he’s retired now. He owns most of the land round Ashbridge and he’s very kind about letting people walk over his property, so if you’re fond of walking you can go practically anywhere you like. My daughters have gone to Ash House this afternoon to play tennis. Derek Ware is at Oxford, studying law, and Rhoda is at the School of Art in London. They’re both here for the week-end — hence the tennis party.”

  “Go on,” said Mr. Shepperton, smiling.

  “Well, what else?” said Caroline, laughing and tossing back her hair. “Sir Michael is a widower. I liked Lady Ware immensely, she was a real person — if you know what I mean — very sincere and straightforward and warm-hearted but not terribly tactful and for that reason not terribly popular. Sir Michael is big — big in every way — rather like a bull. If you go to church to-morrow you’ll hear him read the lessons.”

  Mr. Shepperton laughed. It was a very pleasant laugh and it made him look younger. Caroline had thought him a good deal older than herself but now she was not so sure.

  “Have you been ill?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  There was a short silence.

  “Then there are the Meldrums, of course,” continued Caroline. “You can’t see their house; it’s the other side of Ashbridge. Mr. Meldrum is a lawyer, very clever and rather dry. Mrs. Meldrum is on the committee of the Women’s Institute.”

  “You don’t like her?”

  “How did you know?” exclaimed Caroline in surprise.

  “It wasn’t very difficult,” replied Mr. Shepperton, smiling.

  “Oh dear — of course I ought to like her, and honestly I do try. I remind myself of all the kind things she does but the fact is we seem to disagree on so many subjects that I find it difficult. It’s quite enough for Mrs. Meldrum to say one thing — I immediately find myself thinking the opposite,” declared Caroline with a sigh.

  “Very trying,” said Mr. Shepperton, sympathetically. “Has this lady any family?”

  “Two daughters. Joan is pretty and pampered, the joy of her mother’s heart — Margaret is rather plain, but much nicer and more interesting. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this …”

  “Tell me more,” said Mr. Shepperton. “I passed a very attractive little house on the way up. There were lovely flowers in the garden. Who does that belong to?”

  “Me,” said Caroline. “I’m so glad you liked my flowers. Sometimes when I’m working in the garden people stop and look over the gate and then I pick a little bunch of flowers and give it to them, but usually it’s a waste. Quite often they carry the flowers for a little and then drop them in the road. I’ve found them lying there so I know … but I can’t resist it.”

  “Why should you resist it?” inquired her companion.

  “Because.” said Caroline slowly. “Because it’s wrong to drop flowers in the road and leave them to die — at least I think so — and by giving people flowers which they don’t want, I’m encouraging them to do something that I think is wrong.”

  Mr. Shepperton considered the matter gravely. “But there must be a few people who like them,” he pointed out. “There must be a few who carry them home and put them in water and enjoy them — enjoy them not only for their own sake but also for the graceful gesture — and those few are the important ones. The others matter less.”

  “I’m glad you don’t think it silly,” said Caroline thoughtfully. She rose as she spoke and picked up her basket and the thermos flask, but Mr. Shepperton took the basket and signified his intention of carrying it home for her.

  “You’ve picked a lot,” he said.

  “Not enough. I shall have to come again. It takes longer when you’ve nobody to help you, but I don’t really mind. The girls hate picking blackberries and, of course, you can’t blame them; clothes are clothes, nowadays.”

  “But they eat them, I suppose,” murmured Mr. Shepperton.

  “We make jelly,” replied Caroline, missing the point. “I want to make lots of jelly because James may be coming home in the spring. James is my son, he’s been in Malaya for three years.”

  “You don’t look old enough!” exclaimed her new friend. “Oh, I’m quite old,” said Caroline seriously.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE GIRLS had returned from their tennis-party when Caroline got home. Leda was laying the table for supper and Bobbie clattering about with pots and pans in the kitchen. Caroline decided to wash and change before confronting her daughters so she left her basket in the hall and crept upstairs. You couldn’t pick blackberries without getting torn and dirty, but still …

  She washed and changed and brushed her hair vigorously; it was light brown hair with a light natural curl and was still bright and glossy. Her face had got a little sunburnt, her cheeks were flushed and her dark-blue eyes very bright with the exercise and the fresh air and sunshine. I’m still quite nice-looking thought Caroline in surprise as she regarded her image in the mirror. The reflection was a pleasant one and she went downstairs feeling quite pleased with herself.

  “Did you weigh the basket?” she inquired as they sat down to supper.

  “Yes,” replied Bobbie. “Your harvest is five and a quarter pounds of fruit and a gent’s chamois-leather glove, almost new. It was on the top of the fruit under your coat.”

  “What a pity you didn’t find the other one!” Leda exclaimed.

  “But I didn’t find it!” cried Caroline.

  The girls looked at her in surprise.

  “It’s his, of course,” continued Caroline thoughtfully. “I suppose he must have put it in the basket and forgotten about it.”

  The glove was lying on the table; it was almost new — as Bobbie had said — but already it had taken on the shape of its owner’s hand, rather a large hand with long fingers.

  “Exhibit ‘A,’” said Bobbie, pointing to it dramatically. “Whose glove? That’s what we want to know.”

  Leda said nothing, she seemed uninterested. Leda was very pretty, slim and fair with neat features. She was like Arnold, of course, thought Caroline looking at her. Bobbie was like — like a puppy, unformed as yet, plump and mischievous. (Having discovered that she, herself, was still not without a certain charm Caroline was in the mood to look at her daughters objectively.)

  Bobbie had dissolved into helpless giggles. “Come on, Mummy,” she gasped. “Who was he? Where did he appear from? Why did he put his glove in the basket?”

  “I expect he put it there to prevent it getting lost,” said Caroline, smiling at her.r />
  “Did he help you to pick?”

  “Goodness, no! He looked more like Bond Street than blackberrying.”

  “It was Mr. Shepperton, I suppose,” Leda said.

  Caroline felt a trifle deflated. The joke had been rather amusing … but, of course, the mysterious gentleman could have been nobody else. The Vicar never looked like Bond Street, nor did he wear gloves (except for gardening and this definitely was not a gardening glove) and these objections ruled out practically all the male inhabitants of the district.

  “Comfort said his clothes were all new,” added Leda. “Everything belonging to him.”

  “That’s funny, isn’t it?” said Bobbie. “I mean most people’s clothes are old and shabby. Wherever could he have got all the coupons!”

  “Black Market,” said Leda, helping herself to stewed plums.

  Caroline found she wanted to disagree with this solution of the mystery but as she had no other solution to offer she held her peace. Fortunately the telephone began to ring madly so the subject could be dropped.

  “It will be for me!” exclaimed Leda, making for the door.

  “Derek, I expect,” remarked Bobbie. “Do you think they’re going to get married?”

  This was the first time the idea had been put into words and Caroline’s hand trembled suddenly as she poured out the coffee. She had wondered, of course, but Leda was very reserved and not in the habit of giving confidences. Now that she considered the matter squarely Caroline was troubled, she saw difficulties ahead. Sir Michael might object, he might want a better match for his only son.

  “Do you?” urged Bobbie. “I mean, he’s always here, isn’t he?”

  “He always liked coming here,” Caroline pointed out.

  “Yes, but he used to come to play with James, or just because he liked coming here. Now he comes to talk to Leda.”

  “Leda hasn’t said anything, has she?”

  “Leda never says anything. Oh, well,” added Bobbie with a sigh. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and bear it. People in love are awfully silly, aren’t they? So cross and disagreeable. I hope I shan’t ever fall in love!”

  There was no time to say more. Leda returned; and Caroline, looking at her with new eyes, was obliged to admit that Bobbie’s stricture was true. Her expression was sulky. She had expected to hear Derek’s voice when she lifted the receiver and was disappointed.

  “It was a wrong number,” said Leda as she sat down.

  “All that time for a wrong number!” exclaimed Bobbie in surprise.

  “No,” replied Leda. “I rang up the Cock and Bull and said we had Mr. Shepperton’s glove. Mrs. Herbert promised to tell him.”

  “Oh, thank you,” murmured Caroline. She had intended to ring up Mr. Shepperton herself but Leda’s action had made this unnecessary.

  Mr. Shepperton was in church the following morning. He was sitting in one of the front pews beneath the lectern. Caroline could see the back of his neatly-brushed head and his broad shoulders in perfectly-tailored brown worsted suiting. It was unnecessary for her to draw her daughters’ attention to Mr. Shepperton, they had seen him, of course. Bobbie whispered, “We ought to have brought his glove,” and Caroline nodded. They had left the glove lying upon the hall-chest.

  Caroline’s thoughts were always somewhat obstreperous in church, no matter how hard she tried to discipline them, and when the Admiral went up to read the lessons she could not help wondering if Mr. Shepperton thought he was like a bull. Perhaps she should not have said it, but she had not meant it unkindly. He was like a bull, thick-necked and shaggy looking, with strong, rather blunt features. Most people resembled an animal or a fish or a bird. Mr. Severn, the vicar, was like a cherub. He was exactly like one of the cherubs in the stained-glass window which Sir Michael Ware had donated in memory of his wife. Caroline had noticed this when the window was dedicated and before she had time to discipline her unruly thoughts she had imagined the cherub in a little crib in the vicarage nursery and old Mrs. Podbury looking at it with admiration and exclaiming, “There now, ain’t ’e like ’is Dad!” Caroline was all the more ashamed of herself because she ought to have been thinking sorrowfully of Alice Ware, whom she had liked immensely and missed intensely (especially on the committee of the Women’s Institute where they had had fun and games together) and because she knew that it was a grief and disappointment to the Severns that they had not managed to produce a son. Altogether it had been most regrettable and Caroline had suffered considerably from remorse.

  There was usually a good deal of conversation in the churchyard after the service. People from outlying districts, having obtained petrol to come to church, seized the opportunity to talk to their friends and exchange family news. Caroline spoke to several people and then approached Mr. Shepperton, who was chatting to the vicar. She was just in time to hear Mr. Shepperton accept an invitation to tea at the vicarage on Wednesday afternoon.

  “You got the message,” Caroline said. “Your glove is safe, but it is rather dejected without its friend.”

  Mr. Shepperton smiled and replied that its friend was looking forward eagerly to the reunion. Having said as much as it was necessary to explain to Mr. Severn what had happened.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Severn, nodding. “A glove is a miserable object without its partner … which reminds me of rather an amusing incident. Some years ago I was in the train, travelling to London. The only other passenger in the compartment was a very well-dressed gentleman with a somewhat cantankerous expression. He was in possession of the compartment when I got in and obviously resented my intrusion. I remarked that the day was fine but he growled and buried himself in his newspaper.”

  “A boor!” commented Mr. Shepperton.

  “Oh, definitely,” agreed the vicar. “Definitely a boor — and choleric. I said no more, of course, and the journey was accomplished in silence. When we approached London and he began to collect his belongings he discovered he had only one glove. He looked around the compartment, he looked under the seat, the other glove had vanished. I noticed that the glove which remained to him was almost new, an exceedingly nice brown kid glove with a press fastening. Its owner looked at it in disgust and then, opening the window with a crash, he pitched it on to the line. A moment later he put his hand into his overcoat pocket and discovered the other one.”

  The vicar’s stories were always amusing and this was no exception to the rule. Its hearers laughed heartily.

  “I wonder what you did,” said Mr. Shepperton.

  “I left the compartment hastily and sought refuge in the corridor,” replied the vicar. “It was the only thing to do; not only because I could not refrain from laughing but also because I was afraid the old gentleman would burst unless he gave vent to his feelings.”

  “Which he could hardly do in the presence of a clergyman!”

  “Exactly,” said Mr, Severn, chuckling. “Exactly.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  COMFORT PODBURY came to Vittoria Cottage every day except Sundays to do the housework, wash up the dishes and help Caroline with the cooking. Caroline was so well-liked in the village that she could have had her pick of the women who went out to work, but she stuck to Comfort; she was fond of Comfort, and, what was even more important, she knew Comfort was fond of her. It was true that Comfort was slow rather — she was so fat that she could not get about quickly — and she was not a very good cook. But Caroline, to her amazement, had discovered that she herself was an excellent cook and could teach Comfort to do things properly. Out of the meagre ersatz rations Caroline made stews that tasted quite different from ordinary stews; the meat tender, the gravy brown and smooth and savoury. Her puddings melted in the mouth. “Isn’t it funny,” she would say, “I never cooked a potato before the war. I was utterly dependent upon my cook — utterly. I thought cooking was difficult. I thought you had to learn.” And she would take a white-scrubbed wooden spoon out of the kitchen drawer and beat her mixture earnestly, beat it within an inch of its life. �
�You just have to do what it says in the book, that’s all,” Caroline would say.

  It was important to Caroline to do things right, to do whatever she did to the best of her ability. She saw beauty in ordinary little things and took pleasure in it (and this was just as well because she had had very little pleasure in her life). She took pleasure in a well-made cake, a smoothly-ironed napkin, a pretty blouse, laundered and pressed; she liked to see the garden well dug, the rich soil brown and gravid; she loved her flowers. When you are young you are too busy with yourself — so Caroline thought — you haven’t time for ordinary little things, but, when you leave youth behind, your eyes open and you see magic and mystery all around you: magic in the flight of a bird, the shape of a leaf, the bold arch of a bridge against the sky, footsteps at night and a voice calling in the darkness, the moment in a theatre before the curtain rises, the wind in the trees, or (in winter) an apple-branch clothed with pure white snow and icicles hanging from a stone and sparkling with rainbow colours.

  Caroline’s daughters did not know her of course. They loved her but they had no idea what she was like. She was their mother. She had always been the same and always would be. They accepted the fact that she was interested in their affairs, but it had never occurred to them that she might be interested in herself or that they might be interested in her. They had grown up from babyhood with her image before them so they never looked at it. Comfort knew more about her. Comfort adored Mrs. Dering — there was nothing she wouldn’t have done for Mrs. Dering, literally nothing.

  Sometimes, as she worked about the house, Comfort made up stories about Mrs. Dering and held long imaginary conversations with her. Mrs. Dering would say, “Comfort, I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’ve lost all my money. I haven’t a penny to pay the bills.” And Comfort would go to the post-office and draw out her thirty pounds — her post-office savings — and give it to Mrs. Dering. ‘‘There, don’t worry,” she would say. “You pay the bills with that.” Or Mrs. Dering would get ill and Comfort would nurse her night and day — it was scarlet fever, of course, so the young ladies wouldn’t be allowed inside the room — and then at last the doctor would say, “Well, Comfort, she’s getting better now. We’d never have pulled her round if it hadn’t been for you.” Or the house would go on fire and everybody would rush out except Mrs. Dering, who was lying insensible in the drawing-room, and Comfort would make her way in through the raging flames and carry her into safety. Comfort would be terribly burned, of course, and Mrs. Dering would come to the hospital and visit her. She would take Comfort’s hand and with tears in her eyes she would say: “Oh, Comfort, you saved my life. You must get better for my sake; I can’t do without you.” Usually Comfort would get better, but sometimes not. Sometimes Comfort would die and there would be a marvellous funeral with wreaths of flowers. Everybody would be there. Everybody would forget she was fat and slow and ugly; they would remember only that she was brave and had saved Mrs. Dering’s life … and Mrs. Dering would walk over to the cemetery on a fine Sunday afternoon and put a sheaf of lilies on Comfort’s grave.