Vittoria Cottage (Drumberley Book 1)

by D. E. Stevenson

“I’m afraid it’s beyond me,” declared Robert as he rose to go home. “I could never get them straight without pen and paper, but I’ve learnt one thing about them. Old Mr. Ebenezer Podbury had seventeen children and they all survived and settled in Ashbridge.”

  “That’s enough to go on with,” said Caroline, laughing. Robert had learnt one thing about the Podburys but he had also learnt something about himself which — though less important to Ashbridge — was more important to himself. He had realised quite suddenly that he was happy. He had lost Wanda and now he had lost Philip; he ought to be miserable … but he was not. Being honest with oneself is often a startling experience, and as Robert walked back to the Cock and Bull he tried to be completely honest with himself and was considerably startled at the result. He discovered that he had ceased to yearn for Wanda; he still grieved for her, of course, but the grief he felt was for her untimely death and not for his own loss. He had passed on from that part of his life and left it behind him. Life is transitory, thought Robert as he strolled along in the dark. Nothing in this world is permanent — neither sorrow nor joy — and only a foolish person would ask for permanence. We don’t stand still, thought Robert. We are travellers upon the path of life. No traveller can bathe twice in the same stream. He bathes and goes on his way and, if the road is dusty and hot, he may look back longingly and think of the clear cool water with regret … but presently he may come upon another stream, different of course, but equally delightful to bathe in.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  HARRIET ARRIVED at Vittoria Cottage the next day. Caroline and Bobbie were waiting for her, they had spent all morning clearing out the garage to make room for her little car. She drove it into the space allotted to her and got out.

  “Darling Aunt Harrie!” cried Bobbie, flinging herself upon her aunt and enveloping her in caresses.

  “You’re bigger than ever and much stronger,” declared Harriet when at last she could speak.

  “Not fatter, am I?” inquired Bobbie anxiously. “I don’t want to get like Comfort. I do exercises every morning and walk miles with Joss, but the worst of it is it makes me hungry. What do you think I ought to do?”

  “Live in London on one person’s rations,” said her aunt without hesitation.

  They went into the house together, talking and laughing.

  Caroline had been worried about Harriet (the failure of Eve’s Dilemma must have been a disappointment); she looked for signs of discouragement or dejection but none were visible. It was a great relief but also extremely puzzling, for Caroline judged others by herself and she knew that she would have felt disheartened if she had been in Harriet’s shoes.

  “It will be lovely to have you,” Bobbie was saying. “You’ll stay for ages, won’t you? You must meet Mr. Shepperton. I’ve told him all about you and he’s never known a real-live actress before.”

  “Who is Mr. Shepperton?”

  “Oh, a man,” replied Bobbie. “His house was bombed so he’s staying at the Cock and Bull and he likes stamps.”

  “A philatelist,” nodded Harriet.

  “No,” said Bobbie doubtfully. “At least I don’t think so — not specially — he’s quite sensible to talk to and he goes to church every Sunday morning.”

  “That proves it,” declared Harriet gravely. “I’ve known philatelists who were quite sensible to talk to — except about philately — but never one who went regularly to church.”

  She doesn’t mind a bit, thought Caroline, hiding a smile.

  It was a misty afternoon, and as time went on the mist closed down and thickened into a damp white fog, blanketing the country and dulling every sound. The Londoner was inured to fog, of course, but not to silence.

  “I feel as if I had suddenly gone deaf,” declared Harriet. “There’s something positively uncanny about it,” and she shuddered involuntarily.

  Her relations were sympathetic, especially Bobbie. “Poor Aunt Harrie!” Bobbie exclaimed. “Would it help if I went out to the garage and kept on blowing your horn? You’d feel more at home, wouldn’t you?”

  Harriet agreed that this might help quite a lot but refused the offer on account of her batteries.

  It was more comfortable when the curtains were drawn and the fog and the silence shut out, and Harriet soon recovered from her slight attack of depression and became her usual cheerful self. After supper she taught them Liar Dice (a game which is played with poker dice and which necessitates telling the most outrageous lies with an innocent expression); the Derings took to it like ducks to water and spent a noisy and hilarious evening. Caroline won quite easily — a circumstance which surprised herself and astonished her relations.

  “I don’t know how I did it,” she declared as she counted her chips.

  “Neither do I,” replied her sister. “You would make your fortune at one of Pinkie’s parties. Your talents are wasted in Ashbridge.”

  “It’s because nobody expects Mummy to tell lies,” said Bobbie as she put away the dice.

  “That certainly gives her an unfair advantage,” admitted Harriet

  The girls went up to bed and, as it was still quite early, Caroline made up the fire and she and Harriet sat down and prepared themselves for a good talk. It was an old-established habit for them to talk far into the night. You could talk more freely when you knew you ought to be in bed and asleep. Sometimes their talk was serious and sometimes extremely frivolous, depending upon their mood. They had not many childhood memories to share, for Harriet was a good deal younger than her sisters (she was only eight years old when Caroline was married), but the difference in age which had seemed so great had now ceased to matter, and to all intents and purposes they were contemporaries … in fact, Harriet felt older and wiser and more experienced than her elder sister, for she had had a more varied life and a wider view of the world.

  “Who and what is Mr. Shepperton?” Harriet asked.

  “A philatelist,” suggested Caroline, smiling.

  “Yes, I know all that … but honestly and seriously who is he? He sounds rather mysterious.”

  “Mysterious!” echoed Caroline, somewhat taken aback.

  “Definitely mysterious,” nodded Harriet. “Bobbie seems to dote on him and Leda hates him like poison. I wondered what your reactions were.”

  “Oh, I like him,” Caroline replied.

  “Mildly?” inquired Harriet in interested tones.

  Caroline hesitated. She and Harriet were so close, so devoted to one another, so much in harmony. Should she tell Harriet how much she liked Robert — almost too much for her peace of mind — and ask Harriet’s advice? There was still time to draw back from this increasing intimacy with Robert, she could draw back now if necessary, but if things went on as they were doing it would soon be too late. Harriet would know whether she ought to draw back, whether she was just being silly … at her age … with three grown-up children. All this passed through her mind in a flash and she was just leaning forward to speak when a log rolled out of the fire.

  “Let me!” cried Harriet, flinging herself on her knees and seizing the tongs. “I love your log-fires, they’re so nice to look at and so cosy. I can’t have fires in the flat except horrid electric ones.”

  The moment passed, and when Harriet looked up and demanded more information about the mysterious stranger, Caroline had changed her mind (not now, she thought, perhaps I’ll tell her some other time) and, instead of revealing her own personal feelings about Robert Shepperton, she merely gave Harriet an account of his misfortunes.

  It was long after midnight when Caroline suddenly saw the clock and decided that they really must go to bed. Harriet was less a slave of time and there was still talk in her, but she agreed that if you had to get up to breakfast it was better to be in bed before two.

  “You mustn’t get up,” Caroline told her. “We can easily bring you a tray, so don’t —”

  “What’s that!” cried Harriet in sudden alarm.

  “Did you hear som
ething?”

  “Yes, somebody walking about outside.”

  They stood still and listened. It was very quiet.

  “I can’t hear a sound,” declared Caroline.

  “Not now,” agreed Harriet in a low voice. “But I’m sure I heard steps on the path —” She stopped suddenly for somebody was tapping gently on the window-pane.

  Caroline turned. “Who can it be?” she said.

  “Don’t go. Don’t answer,” whispered Harriet.

  Somebody tapped again and then tried the handle of the french window, but it was locked.

  “I must see who it is,” said Caroline.

  “No,” whispered Harriet, catching her by the arm and holding her back. “No, it might be a tramp! It might be a burglar!”

  Caroline was surprised to find that her sister’s hand was trembling, for she had always thought Harriet as brave as a lion — “Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free” — who but a brave woman could stand upon a stage before the eyes of thousands without shaking in her shoes?

  “Burglars don’t tap on windows,” said Caroline reasonably.

  “They might —”

  The outsider tapped again more urgently and called out, “Mrs. Dering! Mrs. Dering, are you there?”

  “It isn’t a burglar,” said Caroline, trying to release her arm.

  “Don’t go,” whispered Harriet, clinging to her more tightly. “How do you know it isn’t a burglar? They’re up to all sorts of tricks. It’s a man … and there isn’t a man in the house.”

  “Nonsense!” said Caroline. She released herself, drew back the curtain and opened the french window.

  The light, shining out, disclosed a young man with a white face and staring eyes. He had no collar nor tie and his hair was straggling over his forehead … in fact, he looked so strange and disordered that it took Caroline a few moments to recognise him.

  “Widgeon — it’s you!” she exclaimed.

  “Yes,” said Widgeon. “Oh, Mrs. Dering, I am glad you ’aven’t gone to bed. I thought p’raps you’d gone off to bed an’ left the light on by mistake. It’s the baby, Mrs. Dering.”

  “The baby! But it isn’t due till next month, is it?”

  “She fell on the stairs,” said Widgeon miserably. “We was going up to bed. It didn’t seem much of a fall, but she gave ’erself a sort of twist or something. She’s awful bad, Mrs. Dering.”

  “You want to telephone to the doctor, of course,” exclaimed Caroline, opening the window wider.

  He came in and stood there, cap in hand. “It’s no use telephoning,” he said. “Nurse is in bed with flu an’ doctor’s gone to Chevis Green. Mrs. Smart says they can’t get ’im nohow.”

  “There’s another doctor, isn’t there?” Harriet said.

  “Not now,” replied Widgeon.

  “He’s left Ashbridge,” explained Caroline. “We’re only allowed one doctor under the new Health Insurance Scheme.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!” cried Harriet (for Harriet was a Londoner and was used to London amenities, including a doctor round the corner and several others in the next street). “It’s positively wicked. Do you mean to say there isn’t a doctor within hail?”

  “That’s right,” said Widgeon bitterly. “We’ve only one doctor now, an’ ’e can’t be in two places at once. The Gover’mint don’t care about Sue — don’t care if she dies — an’ it’s supposed to be a working-man’s Gover’mint. They don’t get me voting for them again, not if I knows it.”

  “There’s Dr. Wrench at Wandlebury,” said Caroline doubtfully. “I don’t know him, of course, but —”

  “Sue’s mortal bad,” said Widgeon, twisting his cap in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. That’s the truth.” He looked at Caroline with brown-spaniel eyes and added, “I thought you’d know, Mrs. Dering. I saw your light — so I came.”

  Caroline was not surprised at having the responsibility shifted on to her shoulders, for she was used to these country people and understood them pretty well. They were very independent when things were going smoothly, some of them affected the creed of Socialism and pretended to despise “the gentry,” but when they were in any sort of trouble they turned quite naturally to people like herself. (“I thought you’d know,” Widgeon had said. “I saw your light — so I came.” It was as simple as that.)

  “Yes,” said Caroline, accepting the responsibility. “Yes, Widgeon. This is what we’ll do: I’ll come with you myself, now, and my sister will ring up Dr. Wrench and see if he can help us.”

  Widgeon smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “Sue’ll be glad, Mrs. Dering.”

  Harriet went to the telephone at once and Caroline ran upstairs to get her coat and to collect a few things which might be useful. She had accepted the responsibility because there was nothing else to do, but she was anything but happy about it. She had helped Dr. Smart once or twice, so she knew just enough to know that she knew very little. If all went well she could manage, but it was most unlikely that all would go well. It was an eight-months’ baby … Sue’s cottage would be clean, that was one comfort.

  Caroline had wondered how Dr. Smart was going to manage the whole district single-handed. (It was not really a very large practice — in numbers — but it was widely scattered, embracing several villages and a dozen outlying farms.) She had spoken of her fears to Dr. Smart and he had shrugged his shoulders and replied that he would do his best, nobody could do more, but that if two babies elected to arrive at the same moment at opposite ends of his practice, one of them would have to arrive without his assistance. Fortunately, Nurse Petersham was reliable and experienced, they would have to manage somehow. Now, here they were, in exactly that predicament and Nurse Petersham was ill.

  Harriet was waiting in the hall. She had got hold of Dr. Wrench and he had said he would come — had said it quite cheerfully and without the slightest hesitation.

  “Doctors are wonderful people!” Caroline declared. She was thankful to hear he was coming … she realised that it might take him hours to come over from Wandlebury in the fog, and quite a lot might happen before he could get here, but the mere fact that help was on its way cheered her considerably.

  “Don’t wait up; I’ve got the key,” added Caroline as she followed Widgeon out of the french window.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE FOG was still quite thick and it was very dark. Caroline was never very good in the dark and, having just stepped out of a lighted room, her eyes were completely blinded, so she seized Widgeon’s arm and put her own through it. She was aware by the sudden stiffening of Widgeon’s arm that its owner was reluctant to lend her its support (he was shy, and it did not seem the correct thing to walk arm-in-arm with Mrs. Dering); but Mrs. Dering had no intention of relinquishing its support and clung to it firmly. She did not want to twist her ankle in a rut, nor to walk straight into a tree.

  “I can’t see anything at all,” she explained.

  “’Tis a bit dark,” he replied. “I did ought to ’ave brought a light, but there, I was so taken all of a ’eap, I never thought.”

  “But you can see, can’t you?” (It was obvious that he could see, for he was walking along quite confidently and guiding his blind companion round unseen obstacles.)

  Widgeon admitted he could see a bit. “I’m used to it,” he said. “It’s dark as pitch in the mornings when I go out to feed the beasts. I’ll be glad when Summer Time comes off — they ought to take it off sooner, but they never think of us, not them. It’s people in towns they think of.”

  Caroline agreed that “they” were inconsiderate, she was just as fed up with “them” as Widgeon and even more so than usual at the moment, because she had got into trouble over her hens. “They” had told her to GROW MORE FOOD, so she had increased her hennery to fifty birds and sent the eggs to the packing station to feed the henless … but occasionally she sent some eggs to Harriet. It had never occurred to her that any one could possibly object to her sending a few eggs to her sis
ter; in fact, her conscience was so clear, and she was so innocent of intent to deceive, that she sent the eggs by post in a box marked “Eggs With Care” in large black letters. Nobody was more surprised than Caroline when she discovered she had committed a crime.

  As they walked along through the darkness she revealed her troubles to Widgeon and found him sympathetic.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Widgeon said. “You keep less than twenty-five — then you can do as you please. You don’t need to send no eggs to the packing station then.”

  “You mean sell the other hens?”

  “No,” replied Widgeon. “That ’ud be a pity — such lovely ’ens they are! Just you send ’em up to my place, I’ll keep ’em for you, see? I can get corn from the farm an’ you can let me ’ave some of the eggs for my trouble, then we’ll both be pleased.”

  “But that would be against the law, wouldn’t it?”

  “Don’t you worry,” Widgeon told her. “They’d never know nothing about it.”

  Caroline was slightly taken aback (shocked would be much too strong a word to describe her feelings). It was difficult to know what to say to Widgeon. The whole affair seemed so topsy turvy, so typical of the topsy turvy conditions of modern life. She had tried to help her country by Growing More Food, and all she had got for the trouble involved was more trouble. She had received countless forms to fill up; she had been visited by inspectors who seemed to think it was within their province to be rude to her, and who treated her as if she were trying to defraud the authorities of their just and lawful due, and she had been fined quite heavily for doing something she did not know was wrong. Somewhat naturally Caroline felt annoyed and the opportunity to break the law without any risk at all tempted her considerably.

  “But I don’t think I could, Widgeon,” said Caroline at last.

  “Why not?” he urged. “What’s the ’arm? You wouldn’t be doing nobody no ’arm, you’d be doing a lot of good. You could give the eggs to people what needs ’em. You could let me ’ave eggs for Sue; she’ll need eggs an’ I can’t afford to buy ’ens — not good ones like you’ve got. I’d buy ’em from you if I could, but I’ve ’ad a lot of expenses lately an’ I ’aven’t got the money, so ’tisn’t any use saying I ’ave. You let me keep ’em for you, Mrs. Dering. You think about it.”