Only by Chance

by Betty Neels

  She bent to stroke him. ‘He’s lovely—I’ve never had a dog... Does he mind Dickens and Ollie?’

  He led her indoors. ‘He’s been a father to them. Come and see them; they’ll be in the kitchen.’ He paused to greet Mrs Patch, who had come into the hall.

  ‘Henrietta, this is Mrs Patch, who looks after me wonderfully well. Mrs Patch, this is Henrietta Cowper, come to collect her cats.’

  Henrietta offered a hand, and Mrs Patch shook it firmly and smiled. ‘I’ll miss them and no mistake; they’ve not given me a moment’s trouble.’

  ‘I am glad; it’s so very kind of you to have looked after them, Mrs Patch.’

  ‘There’s coffee waiting, sir,’ said Mrs Patch. ‘I’ll bring it to the drawing room right away.’

  ‘Excellent. Henrietta, let me take your jacket.’ Which gave him a chance to see the skirt and the more sober of the woollies. Adept at concealing his thoughts, he didn’t allow her to see what he thought of her appearance; his face remained friendly and faintly aloof and she felt reassured; he was, she decided, a man who didn’t notice things like clothes.

  Relieved by this mistaken assumption, she sat down in one of the easy chairs as Mrs Patch came back with a tray and, trotting behind her, Dickens and Ollie.

  ‘Good as gold,’ said Mrs Patch smugly, ‘and they know you’re here, miss.’

  Henrietta had got out of her chair and was on her knees, Ollie tucked under one arm while she stroked Dickens. ‘Oh, they look so fat and well.’ She looked up at Mr Ross-Pitt, politely standing. ‘I can never thank you and Mrs Patch enough; you’ve been so kind.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. It is Mrs Patch who has had far more to do with them than I. Come and sit down and drink your coffee.’ He watched his housekeeper pour, and went on casually, ‘We found two cat-baskets, but I dare say one is sufficient, for Ollie is still very small. I think it may be best if we leave them in the car while you meet Lady Hensen, and then I will take you down to the lodge where you are to live.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course, Mr Ross-Pitt.’ Henrietta decided that he was impatient to see the last of her, and no wonder. She drank her coffee, refused a sandwich from the plate that Mrs Patch offered and declared herself ready to go.

  No time was wasted. The basket was fetched and Dickens and Ollie settled into it with a bit of old blanket while Henrietta reiterated her thanks to Mrs Patch, trying not to look at the sandwiches. She was hungry; they had left Miss Lodge’s house before high tea, and lunch had been a sketchy affair, but to keep Mr Ross-Pitt waiting was unthinkable after all he had done for her.

  He settled her and the cats in the car, aware of relief at the thought that she would now be settled and he could forget her and get on with his life.

  It was surprising how large she had loomed during the last few days. He supposed that that was because he felt responsible for her. That was ridiculous, he reflected as he drove back through the village and in through the Hensen’s park gates. She was a young woman who had obviously become used to fending for herself; probably she would have been perfectly all right if he hadn’t interfered...

  He stopped the car outside the imposing entrance and got out to open her door. ‘The south lodge is about five minutes’ walk from here; I’ll drive you there, presently. Come along.’

  He hadn’t meant to sound brusque, but she hurried beside him, all at once a bundle of nerves. How awful if, after all his trouble, she should prove unsuitable.

  The butler who admitted them looked kind; he bade Mr Ross-Pitt good evening, smiled at her and said, ‘Lady Hensen will see you straight away, miss. If you will come with me.’ He glanced at Mr Ross-Pitt. ‘If you would like to wait in the morning room, sir, there’s a fire there.’

  Mr Ross-Pitt put a hand on Henrietta’s shoulder. ‘It’s better if you’re on your own. I’ll wait.’

  He watched her lift her chin and put back her shoulders as she followed the butler across the hall.

  She hadn’t known what to expect. The relief at the sight of Lady Hensen’s kind face was so great that she felt quite dizzy.

  ‘Come here, Miss Cowper, and sit down. We’ll have a little talk and then Adam can take you down to the lodge. He has spoken so highly of you that I feel I know quite a lot about you already. I’m sorry you’ve been ill—you do feel up to working?’ Henrietta nodded.

  ‘To start with, I’m afraid, you will be doing all the odd jobs no one else has time for, but later, when you know the place and have settled down, I think you might be suitable as a guide. They’re all part-time, fitting in whenever and wherever they can, so you will be most useful.

  ‘You will have Sunday mornings free until one o’clock, and every Tuesday for the whole day. I should want you to start work at eight o’clock each morning, after breakfast at the lodge with Mrs Pettifer, then a short break for coffee mid-morning, your midday dinner at twelve o’clock and supper at half past six. Sometimes these times are altered—if we are away, or have guests or some special event.

  ‘Did Adam tell you what your wages would be? Fifty pounds a week and your board and lodging—not very highly paid for a fifty-three hour week, but we will look after you and treat you fairly.’

  ‘I’m very grateful to be given the opportunity to work for you, Lady Hensen, and I’m quite content with the wages and the hours. Thank you for letting me have Dickens and Ollie here too.’

  The door opened then, and Sir Peter came in and Henrietta got to her feet. He was a short, stout man in early middle age, with a round, merry face and twinkling eyes. ‘I’ve just been talking to Adam. So this is Miss Cowper—what’s your name, my dear?’

  ‘Henrietta.’

  ‘That’s better. Coming to work with us, are you? We can do with an extra pair of hands. My wife will tell you everything you need to know.’ He went to the door. ‘I’ll see you around tomorrow morning, I dare say.’

  He had gone, and his wife said, ‘Sir Peter is devoted to this house; it has been in his family for a very long time. Now, I won’t keep you any longer; you’ll want your supper and bed.’ She pulled the bell rope by the fireplace. ‘Feathers, take Henrietta back to Mr Ross-Pitt, please, and ask him to come and see us on his way home.’

  Henrietta said goodnight and followed the butler back to the hall, where she was told to wait while Mr Ross-Pitt was fetched.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he wanted to know, and hardly waited for her answer. ‘Let’s get you down to the south lodge...’

  The lodge was at the bottom of a second drive—a small picturesque cottage beside the big wrought-iron gates—and its small door was opened as he stopped the car, got out, helped Henrietta out and collected the cat-basket.

  Urged forward by his hand between her shoulders, Henrietta paused in the doorway. Mrs Pettifer was there, and so unlike her imagining that she was dumb. She had expected a country woman, small and stout, possibly in an apron and possibly resentful of having to share her home, but Mrs Pettifer was none of these things.

  She was tall and thin, with sharp features, spectacles on a high-bridged nose and an immaculate hair-do. She was well dressed, too, but her voice when she spoke was pleasant and welcoming.

  ‘Henrietta Cowper, how very nice to have company. Come along in, and you too, Mr Ross-Pitt. You have the cats with you? Good. You’ll be wanting your supper and bed?’ She led the way from the minute lobby into the sitting room, small and rather crowded with furniture, but there was a bright fire burning and the lampshades were very pretty.

  ‘Time for a drink?’ Mrs Pettifer asked Mr Ross-Pitt, and when he said that he was going back to the house she nodded. ‘Of course. We won’t keep you.’

  ‘I’ll get Henrietta’s case.’ He put it down in the lobby and turned to her. ‘I’m sure you’re going to be very happy here; I expect I shall hear great things of you.’

  She offered a hand
and said quietly, ‘I shall do my best, and thank you again for your help. Goodbye, Mr Ross-Pitt.’

  He took her hand in his large, firm grasp and she wished that he would never let it go—a wild thought that she instantly dismissed. He said goodbye to Mrs Pettifer then, and drove away. It was like losing a slice of her life, thought Henrietta.

  Mrs Pettifer cast her a sharp glance. ‘Come and see your room,’ she suggested. ‘You can take off your coat and then we’ll have supper and I’ll give you some idea of your day’s work. Shall we let the cats out in the kitchen? I got a few tins of cat food, but I see Mr Ross-Pitt has left some too. Through here...’

  The kitchen was small but nicely equipped, with a table and two chairs up against one wall and a dresser built into a recess by the stove. The stove was warm, and when Henrietta undid the basket Dickens and Ollie crept towards it.

  ‘I’ll leave their saucers here—and I’ve provided for their needs...’ Mrs Pettifer waved towards a large tray just inside the open door of what looked like a lean-to.

  ‘The bathroom’s here.’ She opened another door and showed a miniscule room. ‘And my room is opposite the sitting room. The other bedroom is upstairs. It is small but I hope you will like it. You’ll share the place with me—treat it as your home. I really am glad to have company; it can be lonely here in the evenings.’

  Henrietta followed her up the narrow stairs to a room built into the roof. It had dormer windows and sloping walls, but the wallpaper was pretty and the narrow bed against one wall was covered by a thick quilt. There was a chest of drawers with a mirror on it, a small chair and a bedside table and a row of hooks along one wall.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Henrietta. After her attic it was a small, cosy heaven.

  Mrs Pettifer looked pleased. ‘Good. Come down and eat your supper; you must be famished.’

  Supper was a casserole, with baked apples and cream for afters. Henrietta ate everything put before her, helped with the washing-up and then sat opposite Mrs Pettifer in the sitting room, Dickens and Ollie crowded onto her lap, while that lady outlined her duties. ‘Plenty for you to get on with,’ she observed drily. ‘I don’t suppose you can sew?’

  ‘Well, yes—not dressmaking, but mending and darning and hemming sheets.’

  ‘Hemming sheets! Good Lord, Henrietta, you sound like someone from a Victorian orphanage.’

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Henrietta. ‘I mean I was sent to a children’s home when I was six and I stayed there until I was twenty-one. That’s years longer than is really allowed, but I taught the little ones...’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Pettifer. ‘I can see that Mrs Dale, who’s in charge of the repairs—curtains and covers and so on—will welcome you with open arms. Now, go to bed, my dear. Have you a clock? No? Then I’ll give you a call at half past six.’

  So Henrietta bade her goodnight, settled Dickens and Ollie in a cardboard box in the kitchen and went up the narrow stairs, to creep down again presently to have a bath. Mrs Pettifer, still sitting by the fire, didn’t appear to see her, though her sharp eyes had seen Henrietta’s coat over her nightie.

  If anyone needed the job, she reflected, Henrietta did. Even if it were only to allow herself to get a dressing gown.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  REFLECTING ON HER first day as she settled into bed the following evening, Henrietta decided sleepily that she had enjoyed every hard-working minute of it. Fortified by Mrs Pettifer’s sensible breakfast of porridge, boiled egg and toast, washed down with strong tea, she had accompanied her to the house.

  Ushered in through the side-door, she had been introduced to the domestic staff—the cook, the butler, the housekeeper, two housemaids, the kitchen maid and someone called Mrs Croke, in a sacking pinny and wearing a felt hat, who came each day from the village, and had told her that she ‘did’ for Lady Hensen.

  Henrietta had shaken them all by the hand and, told by Mrs Pettifer to go with Addy, one of the maids, had gone. They had dusted and vacuumed the dining room and she had found time to look around her as she worked. It was a magnificent room, panelled with some dark wood, furnished with an enormous sideboard and a vast dining table.

  From there they had gone to the drawing room, where she had vacuumed while Addy cleaned the grate and laid a fire. Then they went upstairs to make beds and tidy bedrooms while Sir Peter and his lady breakfasted, and by the time they had finished and returned to the kitchen their coffee was ready. There had been thick slices of bread and butter too...

  After that the cook had sent her out to the head gardener down at the greenhouse to fetch rhubarb. ‘There’s plenty of jackets by the back door,’ Cook had said. ‘Be sure and take one, and a pair of boots...’

  The head gardener was a crusty old man, with whiskers and hands crooked with arthritis, but he had been kind to her, and when she had admired the clumps of violets tucked away in one corner of the greenhouse he had told her gruffly that they would be brought to the house and potted in time for Lady Hensen’s birthday. ‘Fancies a nice violet,’ he had added. ‘Like ’em do you?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She had turned a happy face to him. ‘You see, I’ve never really seen flowers growing—only bunches on market stalls.’

  She had hurried back with the rhubarb and been told to take a tin of beeswax and a pile of dusters to Mrs Pettifer. ‘In the ballroom,’ the butler had said. ‘Go into the hall and down the passage to the right of the dining room.’

  Mrs Pettifer had been on a stepladder, dismantling a pair of ormolu wall-lights. ‘Put them down, Henrietta; thank you. Come here and take these as I hand them to you.’

  Henrietta had stayed with her until they’d been bidden to their midday dinner—stewed beef and dumplings and a jam roly-poly pudding for afters...

  Henrietta, now half-asleep, came awake again at the mere delicious memory.

  She had been kept busy for the rest of the day, and when she’d got back to the lodge she and Mrs Pettifer had tidied up the little place, lighted the fire, fed Dickens and Ollie and had a pot of tea between them. When she had gone upstairs to bed Mrs Pettifer had told her that if she liked to keep her door open she might have Dickens and Ollie with her. ‘We can try and see what happens. Of course, if they disturb us in the night then they will have to stay in the kitchen.’

  Henrietta put out a hand in the dark and felt their furry bodies pressed against her, and was instantly asleep.

  * * *

  AFTER THE FIRST day the next few went rapidly. She had been given, as it were, a taste of everything—helping the cook, polishing the furniture, hanging out the washing, running to and fro saving Mrs Dale the housekeeper’s legs. She hadn’t seen either Sir Peter or Lady Hensen; the butler and one of the maids waited at table, carried in trays and answered the front door.

  Once or twice she had thought about Mr Ross-Pitt. It would have been nice to see him again, but since that was unlikely she didn’t waste time on that except to reiterate in her mind her gratitude towards him.

  She still couldn’t quite believe that she had such a splendid job, that she was saving money—or would be soon—and that Dickens and Ollie were happy and safe. They had quickly made themselves unobtrusively at home and even, after that first day, ventured into the tiny patch of garden behind the lodge, thereby earning Mrs Pettifer’s approval.

  Of course, she didn’t know what to do with her free day. She got up as usual and had breakfast with Mrs Pettifer, who told her that she could go to the house for her dinner if she wanted to. ‘Or go into Thaxted,’ she suggested. ‘It’s a nice little place, with some quite good shops.’

  She didn’t say any more, for she had seen the look on Henrietta’s face. Of course, the girl probably had no money to spend. ‘Why not go for a walk and get your bearings?’ she suggested kindly, and that was what Henrietta did.

  The village was small, cosily arranged
around the church, with a prosperous-looking pub opposite and a war memorial on the green. There was a village shop and post office and, by taking a roundabout way, she was able to get a good look at Mr Ross-Pitt’s house.

  It was larger than she had thought, and when she went down a narrow lane leading away from the main street she found that it led to the fields beyond, from where she had a splendid view of the back of the house. It rambled without rhyme or reason under its tiled roof, small windows in its gables, its walled garden bounded by a little stream.

  She stood and looked at it for a long time, imagining him coming home to its peacefulness each evening, taking Watson for a walk, eating the meals his housekeeper cooked for him. ‘A bachelor,’ she mused out loud. ‘I suppose he’s so wrapped up in his work that he hasn’t found the time to marry.’

  She wandered on, happy to be free, but feeling hungry. She could, she supposed, go to the pub in the village, but she felt shy at going there alone.

  It was a stroke of luck that presently she reached a second lane which led to a cluster of cottages, one of which had a sign hanging above its door with ‘Teas’ written on it. It was early for tea, but perhaps at this time of year that wouldn’t matter. A pot of tea and a bun, thought Henrietta, fingering the money in her purse.

  She was warmly welcomed; customers were few and far between so early in the year. She had her pot of tea and a plate of buttered toast and the owner lingered to talk.

  ‘New around here, aren’t you?’ she asked in a friendly way. ‘We don’t see many strangers at this time of year. Staying roundabouts, are you?’

  Henrietta explained that she was working for Sir Peter Hensen. ‘I’ve only just started, but I like the job very much.’

  ‘They’re well liked,’ agreed her companion. ‘The family’s been there since I don’t know when.’ She chuckled. ‘Well, you might say half the village is lived in by folks whose ancestors were here hundreds of years ago. Look at that Mr Ross-Pitt—his family have been living in that house of his for I don’t know how long. Know him, do you?’ She didn’t wait for Henrietta to answer. ‘You won’t have had time to meet him yet, and he’s away in London most days. By way of being highly thought of, so I’ve heard.’