by Emma Davies
It was at that point she realised how cold she was. And that the fine drizzle she had hardly noticed as she left the house had nonetheless managed to soak through the thin cotton of her pyjamas. She pulled the oilskin tighter around her and turned her face to the sky. What on earth was she doing here, in the middle of the night, in a dark, cold, muddy chicken coop? The few stars not covered by cloud winked back, but they had no answers for her and after a few more seconds she carefully secured the door to the coop and walked slowly back to the yard.
She paused for a moment and turned off the torch so she was standing in complete and utter darkness. It was hardly any more disorientating than the rest of the day had been. How had her world turned so completely upside down in such a short space of time? The morning had started off with promise as she had sat immersed in her artwork enjoying the glimmer of hope that her life at the farm was beginning to settle; there was routine and familiarity, she was with people she cared for, doing things she loved. But from there the day had rapidly disintegrated into chaos and she felt caught in a tide of things far beyond her control. And now, here she was, standing in the dark in the middle of the night, far from anything she could call home. How ironic that she had come to live at the house at Hope Corner when all hers seemed to have been well and truly dashed. She glanced back up to the sky, hoping for a glimpse of the moon, but that too was hidden from view. She could certainly do with some hope right now…
And then she thought of Ned, alone in their room, and she had a sudden overwhelming need to be back beside him. To feel his warm body against hers banishing the cold and doubt. As if reading her thoughts, Brodie shoved his wet nose against her hand, and together they hurried back to the house. She stripped off her wet things and left them beside the washing machine, padding naked through the still house until eventually she was able to crawl into the warm space that Ned had created, snuggling up against him.
‘Are you asleep?’ she whispered.
There was a soft sigh. ‘No… not yet.’ He turned over, pulling her into his arms. ‘Where have you been, you’re freezing?’ he murmured into her hair, not flinching at her cold limbs but instead enfolding his skin around hers.
‘I went to check on the hens,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d all been killed…’
‘Oh, Flora,’ was all he said, holding her tighter, and then the pair of them lay soundlessly waiting out the remaining few hours of the night.
Hannah apologised for her outburst in the morning. It was the first thing she said as she entered the kitchen.
‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she said. ‘I’m so embarrassed. What was I thinking?’
Flora crossed the room to stand in front of her, unsure whether to hug her or not. Although very caring, Hannah wasn’t a particularly demonstrative person, not like Flora’s family, who all threw their arms around each other at the drop of a hat. British reserve, that’s what it was, but she looked so small this morning, so much less of herself than normal. Flora put out a hand tentatively, but ended up stroking Hannah’s arm a little awkwardly when she made no move in response.
‘I don’t think any of us were thinking straight last night,’ said Flora. ‘It’s been a massive shock for everyone.’ She motioned to the table. ‘Come and sit down and I’ll get you a drink.’
‘But the hens…?’ Hannah’s eyes darted towards the door.
‘Are fine,’ replied Flora, smiling in a reassuring way. ‘I checked on them last night after you’d gone to bed,’ she explained. ‘Scared myself silly out there in the dark, but everything was okay. I had convinced myself I’d find them all ripped apart…’ She trailed off, realising that Hannah probably wouldn’t appreciate her graphic flights of imagination. ‘Anyway, they weren’t.’
Hannah sat down. ‘You went out last night?’ she asked. ‘On your own?’ Clearly it was not something she would have contemplated.
‘Well, I took Brodie…’ Flora nodded. ‘Ned was already in bed.’
She turned back to the Aga, lifting the kettle as it came to the boil. ‘I’ll go and feed them in a bit, make sure they’re none the worse for their nocturnal visitor, even if it was only me.’ She smiled, but Hannah still looked rather uncomfortable.
‘I don’t know what to say…’ she said. ‘Except thank you, that was a very thoughtful thing to do.’
Her words were a little stilted and Flora moved swiftly on, recognising the embarrassment that Hannah must be feeling. ‘Now, one cup of tea coming up and how about some breakfast? A bit of toast, or something a bit more substantial?’
Hannah stared at her in horror and then looked around her as if only just realising where she was. ‘Where’s Ned?’
Flora looked at her watch. ‘Milking,’ she replied. ‘He went out a little earlier this morning,’ she said gently. It was seven o’clock and Ned had already been gone for several hours.
‘But what are we going to do?’ Hannah’s voice was beginning to rise a little. Flora had been thinking much the same thing, and so had Ned. In fact, as they took their first cup of tea together a little after four this morning, the conversation had centred on little else. But they had come up with a plan…
She poured the boiling water into the teapot and brought it to the table where two mugs were already waiting. Then she sat down, opposite Hannah, and tried to relax, hoping that her posture might communicate itself across the space between them. Hannah looked crumpled. Her normally smooth hair was unbrushed and there was a large greasy smudge right in the centre of her glasses, which Flora thought must be incredibly annoying. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes too.
‘Ned and I have been chatting,’ Flora began. ‘And I’ve already rung the hospital so firstly, you needn’t worry. Fraser had a good night and is quite comfortable.’ She wasn’t quite sure what Hannah’s expectations were about the day, but Ned had suggested that it might be better to have certain things put into place. That way Hannah might be less inclined to fret… ‘The nurse explained that he will have a couple more tests this morning and will then see the consultant around eleven who will be the one to decide what happens next. Apparently we won’t get any more information until then.’ She picked up a spoon and gave the tea a stir.
‘I see,’ said Hannah. ‘That doesn’t sound very good. Why doesn’t anyone want to act with any urgency? It was the same last night.’
‘I think perhaps that’s a good thing…? He isn’t considered an emergency, you see.’
‘But he is an emergency. To me he is!’
Flora smiled. ‘I know he is, Hannah, I know. And we can go and see him just as soon as you want to. There’s open visiting on the ward he’s on, but the nurse did say that there’s really little point until later on this morning, after the consultant’s been,’ she repeated. ‘I’m sure he’s in safe hands.’
‘Well, I’m not.’ Hannah made a grab for the teapot and then held it in mid-air looking at it for several seconds. She returned it to the table.
‘I meant, what are we going to do?’ she repeated, more forcefully this time. ‘About the farm? The work? It’s hard enough with just the two of them, but we simply can’t afford to pay anyone else and Ned can’t do it all on his own. We’ll get even further behind… And then there’s the house, and jobs around the yard and the garden – I can’t look after Fraser and be expected to do everything else as well. He’s going to need round-the-clock nursing and—’ She broke off abruptly, staring at Flora, who took a deep breath and then let it out slowly.
She nudged the mugs closer to the teapot and carefully poured out the tea, trying to give herself a little time to think. There were lots of things to think about, that much was true, but Flora could sense that Hannah could quite easily work herself up into a real lather given half the chance and, apart from the fact that Flora wasn’t sure she could cope with that by herself, it wouldn’t help the situation at all. Better to try and stay calm and rational.
‘I think we need to wait and see how Fraser is first,’ she replied.
‘Before jumping to any conclusions. Ned and I soon realised that it was hard to decide what we should do because we haven’t got a clue what’s going to happen next. Until we do, there’s little point in speculating, so…’ Flora looked anxiously at Hannah to see if she had noticed how rehearsed how her words were, but Hannah’s face was impassive so she carried on quickly before that changed. ‘So… We thought that I could take you to the hospital today while Ned gets on with business as usual. Hopefully we’ll hear some good news. They might even be able to give us an idea of when Fraser can come home.’
Hannah looked up. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I think what we have to remember,’ said Flora carefully, ‘is that, to us, all this is scary and completely alien, but to the hospital it’s just routine. I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter,’ she added quickly, ‘but that they deal with patients who’ve had heart attacks every day. They know what to expect and what the procedures are for every step of the way.’
‘I know you’re right…’ Hannah got to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Flora. I just feel so…’
‘Helpless?’ suggested Flora.
‘And completely frustrated too,’ she added, nodding. ‘I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel.’ She paced around the table. ‘One minute I think Fraser’s going to die and…’ She shuddered. ‘And the next I think it will all be something or nothing and he’ll be home in a day or two as if nothing has happened.’ She stopped by her chair. ‘I just want things to stay the same, for heaven’s sake. Is that too much to ask?’
‘No,’ said Flora gently. ‘But I think we have to understand that they probably can’t…’ There was no point trying to dress it up. ‘Look, why don’t we have a cup of tea, and a bit of something to eat, and then decide what to do next. There’s still a few hours before we can go to the hospital, and we probably ought to do something to keep ourselves busy, otherwise we’ll just go mad.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I am at your service, Hannah, and I’m even prepared to scrub the floors, or clean out cupboards. You name it, and I’ll do it.’
For the first time that morning Hannah smiled. A proper smile that lit up her eyes, bringing out the creases that gathered there. ‘I was going to make marmalade today,’ she said. ‘So we could do that if you like? It’s Fraser’s favourite and stocks are somewhat low at the moment.’
‘Marmalade it is then,’ said Flora, grinning. ‘But first, let’s have some breakfast. Toast or cereal?’
Chapter Ten
‘Oh my goodness, I came over as soon as I heard!’
The scullery door crashed open, and suddenly Caroline was in the kitchen, striding across the room and crushing Hannah in a fierce embrace.
Despite the abruptness of her arrival, there wasn’t a hair out of place and Flora wondered what it would take to make her look even a tiny bit flustered.
Caroline pulled away from Hannah to look at her, still clutching both her arms. ‘Oh, poor you. How dreadful. You must be feeling absolutely awful.’ She stopped then as she suddenly realised what was going on around her. ‘Whatever are you doing?’
‘Making marmalade,’ replied Flora. ‘Morning, Caroline.’
‘But I thought…’ She trailed off, looking around her. ‘I thought Fraser had had a heart attack?’
‘Yes, dear.’ Hannah’s eyes narrowed. ‘And which little bird told you, I wonder. Aren’t you here a little early for breakfast?’
Caroline glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, I just popped round to ask Ned something. I wasn’t necessarily planning on having breakfast, but naturally he told me…’
‘Was it the same question as yesterday?’ asked Flora. ‘Only we haven’t had a chance to discuss that yet… obviously.’ For some reason she felt intensely irritated by Caroline’s presence.
‘No, quite…’ Caroline looked a little disconcerted for a moment. ‘Oh, but that doesn’t matter now anyway… What on earth has happened? Is Fraser all right?’
Hannah wiped her hands on a tea towel. She had just removed the softened oranges from the enormous preserving pan full of simmering water and they were sticky with juice. She looked at Flora. ‘Did you put those plates to cool in the freezer, dear?’ she asked.
Flora nodded.
‘Thank you.’ She nodded at the oranges lined up on a chopping board. ‘Now we need to leave these to cool and then we’ll halve them, scoop out all the flesh, pips and pith to leave just the peel, which we’ll shred.’ She smiled. ‘Fraser likes it nice and fine.’ Then she turned to Caroline. ‘Fraser is as well as can be expected; I think that’s the expression, isn’t it? He has had a heart attack, but we don’t know any more than that at the moment. I expect we’ll find out more once we get to the hospital.’
It had been a good plan, putting Hannah in charge of something, particularly something where she had to show Flora the ropes. It had allowed her to recover her composure.
‘Oh, but then I’ll take you…’
Hannah shook her head briefly. ‘No need, thank you, Caroline. Flora has already offered.’
‘But I really don’t mind,’ she replied. ‘You must have things you need to do, Flora.’
‘I do indeed. And taking Hannah to the hospital is one of them. It’s very kind of you to offer though.’
Their eyes locked and, for a moment, Flora thought she was about to argue again, but then Caroline smiled. ‘Well then, at least let me help you finish the marmalade. I can’t believe Hannah wants to be bothered with it at a time like this. I mean, I don’t suppose any of you got much sleep last night and, while it’s totally understandable under the circumstances, if you don’t mind my saying, you do look a little peaky, Hannah. Why don’t you go and put your feet up for a bit? I can look after things here.’
Hannah’s eyebrows shot through her hairline. ‘And why would I want to do that?’ she asked. ‘It’s only being busy that’s keeping me from fretting about Fraser,’ she said. ‘Flora very sensibly suggested it might be a good idea, and it has been as it happens. I might look peaky, Caroline, but I feel absolutely fine.’
Caroline paled slightly. ‘Oh, of course… Gosh, we’re all different, aren’t we? You never know quite how you’re going to react in a crisis until one is thrust upon you.’
‘I don’t think we’re quite at crisis point yet, dear, but I’ll be sure to alert you if that happens. We may have need of your help then.’
There really wasn’t anywhere for the conversation to go after that and Caroline left soon after, promising to ring later in the day to see how things were. Flora would have liked to hug Hannah again but she didn’t quite have the nerve.
‘Now then, the marmalade,’ asserted Hannah. ‘I’ve quite lost my train of thought. Where did we get to?’
Flora reminded her and, once the oranges had cooled enough to handle, Hannah passed half of them across to Flora and showed her how to remove everything except for the peel, which was now nice and soft.
‘Peaky indeed,’ tutted Hannah. ‘And what was the burning question she needed answered anyway?’
Flora smiled to herself. She clearly wasn’t the only one that Caroline had managed to irritate.
‘A conversation about an engagement party, I think,’ replied Flora. ‘Which under the circumstances can wait.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Oh, is that all? I didn’t realise you were even going to have an engagement party.’
‘We’re not, as far as I know…’ she replied, anxious to change the subject. ‘Am I doing this right?’ she asked, pointing at the chopping board in front of her.
‘Perfect,’ replied Hannah. ‘Just the way Fraser likes it.’
After chopping the peel between them, the orange ‘innards’ were scooped into a muslin cloth, tied at the top and then lowered back into the cooking water together with the thin shreds that gave the marmalade its distinctive flavour. A ton of sugar went in last and then the whole lot was set to boil.
‘This next bit is supposed to be the tricky part,’ remarked Hannah, ‘although I’ve never
yet had a problem getting my marmalade to set.’
‘Is this one of those things, you know, like horses?’ quipped Flora. ‘Where you never show your fear?’ If it was, Flora might have a rather sticky problem on her hands.
Hannah frowned. ‘I’m not sure it works quite like that, but I think it’s the same with most things in the kitchen. A little confidence goes a long way.’ But she darted Flora a small smile. ‘That, and buy decent oranges in the first place.’
They stood watching the boiling liquid for a while; periodically Hannah took a metal spoon and lifted the frothy scum from the top to discard it.
‘If you don’t take this off, the resulting marmalade won’t be very clear or have that lovely glossy finish to it.’
Flora nodded, watching the fat bubbles rolling around the pan. It was almost mesmerising. Breadmaking still held a weird fascination for her, a very strange alchemy indeed, but this was right up there. A bit of fruit and sugar boiled up together, who would have thought it? She wondered idly who had come up with the idea in the first place – Mrs Beeton perhaps. No, probably way earlier than that. And then she caught herself grinning. Flora Dunbar, what are you doing, thinking about stuff like this? For goodness’ sake, this is the epitome of domesticity and you are not a domestic goddess, nor do you aspire to be. Stop it this instant.
‘What’s the smile for?’ asked Hannah, holding the spoon aloft.
‘Oh, I was just thinking,’ replied Flora. ‘I’ve never made anything like this before, and I can see the attraction of it… But at the same time I can’t help wondering if it’s all worth it, when a jar of marmalade only costs a couple of pounds at most.’
‘Does it…?’ Hannah paused. ‘Do you know, I’ve never really thought about it before; I’ve just always made my own.’ She looked across at Flora, her brow furrowed. ‘Well now… we’ll have a dozen jars by the time we’re finished and the cost of the oranges is about a fiver, the sugar a couple of pounds, so… seven pounds…’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I can’t work that out, but it’s less than a pound a jar…’
