The Tender Flame

by Anne Saunders

  ‘I may have done on your behalf. I told your parents they’d be welcome any time.’

  He was wearing a big ‘Didn’t I do well?’ grin. She matched it.

  ‘Thank you, David. That was most thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it? It won’t have done you any harm to strike out on your own, but until I met your father I didn’t appreciate his feelings. Parental caring doesn’t cease where independence begins. I like to think my impromptu visit sorted out any doubts yours may have been having.’

  Jan was confident that it would have sorted out the existing doubts, but she thought it might have given rise to new ones.

  She pulled a face at him for sounding pompous, kept her own surmises to herself, and was glad they were back on the old familiar footing.

  Stephanie was playing in the sandpit. Taking a chance that she would be all right without supervision for a while longer, Jan said: ‘Let’s see what you’ve achieved, then.’

  She knew that Mrs. Weaver had made alterations to the outbuilding to give extra accommodation to repay the hospitality of her large family, but she hadn’t realised what a self-contained nest it made. It was divided into two main rooms, one for sleeping, the other for living in, and a separate room that was just big enough to take a washbasin and a shower unit. He’d taken some pieces of furniture from the house, the desk in particular looked good against the newly painted walls, but most of it he had been out and bought new. The deep, man-sized leather chair looked just the job for relaxing in at the end of the day.

  ‘You’ve been busy with a paintbrush,’ she said, and added with open admiration: ‘How did you manage the curtains?’

  ‘I cheated there. I wasn’t up to tackling the sewing machine, so I went into Didsford and found a shop that made them up for me.’

  ‘I call that using your ingenuity.’ She remembered there was also a shop in Didsford, which was less than ten miles away and connected by a good bus service, that sold plaques with house names on them. She must make a point of going there and buying one with the name ‘The Retreat’ on it.

  ‘You wouldn’t like a nice blue vase, would you? It would look a treat on that table.’

  ‘A treat I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of.’

  ‘It was a good try, anyway,’ said Jan. ‘You’ll still be taking your meals at the cottage?’ she enquired a little anxiously.

  ‘Of course. You’re not getting rid of me altogether. And I’d also appreciate it if you’d come in now and again and keep the place looking a bit something like.’

  Now it was Jan’s turn to say, ‘Of course.’

  ‘If you feel I’m putting on you, you can get a woman to come in and give you a hand.’

  He must know he was not putting on her. When Annabel was alive she’d had her hands full, but the cottage itself was so easily run that nowadays she didn’t have enough to do. When Stephanie resumed play-school (their visit to Linda and Hugh’s had given her a short break) she thought she might fill her time by taking a bigger interest in the garden.

  That evening, after supper, in the lull while drinking her coffee and before clearing away, Jan asked: ‘You do think it’s a good idea for Stephanie to keep on at play-school? Before—’ Blast! She’d studiously avoided bringing Annabel into the conversation, but in this instance it was unavoidable. ‘That is to say, when her mother was alive, more especially towards the end, I couldn’t have coped with her all day. At the same time, it wasn’t a case of farming her out. It was felt that the company of other children was good for her.’

  ‘I agree wholeheartedly. Play-school is the best thing out for a child who hasn’t got brothers and sisters to knock off the rough spots.’

  Was he thinking that by now Stephanie should have had a brother or a sister, and regretting the circumstances that prevented it? Did he sometimes think that but for the car accident, Annabel, perfect in limb and vitally alive, might be sitting across from him now, laughter on her lips and love for him in her eyes? Poor, beautiful, tragic Annabel. Poor David. What should have been the happiest day of his life turned out to be the saddest when the car taking him and his bride from the church to the reception crashed. His best friend died outright, his bride was cruelly injured. It must have seemed like a bitter miracle when he stepped out of the wreckage unhurt.

  And then—the facts were unarguable—David had left his bride-wife, and it could only be because he couldn’t bear the thought of living with a cripple. Now that she knew him so much better she found it difficult to reconcile this callous act with the just, caring man she had found him to be. Perhaps the tragedy of it all had unhinged him for a little while. He must have loved Annabel deeply once. They had been everything to each other. Stephanie’s existence proved that.

  ‘I wonder what sad thoughts are behind that sad face,’ David said suddenly.

  She didn’t reply. She couldn’t.

  His expression was ponderous. ‘Tact isn’t always the thoughtfully chosen word. Sometimes tact is saying nothing at all.’

  His sapient words told her that he knew exactly where her thoughts had been. She didn’t dissemble, but merely said: ‘You are very astute, David.’

  ‘And you are very curious.’

  ‘They say a child endowed at birth with curiosity has been given a most useful gift. I suppose because curiosity is the source of all learning. I know it can also be a blight.’

  ‘Poor Jan. Let’s opt for a change of subject. You choose.’

  ‘I was going to ask you about that French girl we saw last night,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Danielle?’ He looked slightly taken aback.

  ‘Yes. She left such a deep impression on me that I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind. There’s something . . .’ ‘haunting’ she had been going to say, which wouldn’t do at all. Remembering his version of tact, that sometimes tact is saying nothing at all, she improved on it slightly to meet her own use. On the lines that tact is the unsaid part of what you really think, she recovered in time to abbreviate it to, ‘There’s something about her. She called you and Linda and Hugh by first name. Is it because you’re all old friends, or because you’ve been so often?’

  ‘The one led to the other. At first I went, and presumably Linda and Hugh did too, because she was a friend and I wanted to give my support to her new venture. Now that she’s established I go for the good food and entertainment. Danielle hasn’t got much of a voice, but she makes the best of what she’s got, and the same can be said of her looks.’

  ‘There might be grounds for criticism about her voice, but you’re being unfair about her looks.’ Perhaps he didn’t like petite, waif-like blondes. Remembering Annabel, a blue-eyed seductress with clouds of black hair, probably Danielle wouldn’t be to his taste. ‘I think Danielle has got an angelic beauty and a superb figure. I think something bad must have happened to her. There’s a crying sadness behind her smile.’

  ‘Couldn’t that have been the style of song she was singing? Songstresses have to be actresses these days.’

  ‘No. She’s crying all the time inside.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. How observant of you.’

  ‘I’m not being nosey. You don’t have to tell me.’

  ‘I think I do. I have to tell you because, on reflection, I think it would be a wise precaution, and not to satisfy your morbid curiosity.’

  She supposed he had a point there. She did seem to have this knack of saying the wrong thing. But she felt, unhappily, as if she was prizing a confidence from him.

  ‘Danielle was perfectly happy in her native country and had no thoughts of coming to England. But then she met an Englishman who was on holiday in France. Tall, dashing, a brilliant conversationalist, and apparently as knocked off his feet by Danielle as she was by him. She gave up her home and her family, and came to England with her fascinating Englishman. It was’t all one-sided. In turn he gave her an engagement ring and introduced her to his widowed mother and his friends as his fiancée. It see
med all set for a fairy-tale ending, but then he died.’

  Jan hadn’t imagined it would be anything as bad as this. She thought of Danielle, so sweet, so breakably tiny, and she could have wept for her. What did she mean she could have wept? Her eyes felt suspiciously wet.

  ‘How . . . awful.’

  ‘It was bad for her. Danielle was the hardest hit of all of us.’

  ‘Of all of you?’

  ‘Poor Jan. You weren’t to know. You didn’t opt for a change of subject, after all. Danielle’s Englishman was Stephen, the friend who died in the car crash that injured Annabel.’

  Inadequacy is the torment of the soul, she thought, wishing she could take his proud hurt in her gentle hands, when all she was permitted to do was say, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t distress yourself, Jan. It happened a long time ago now, and yet . . .’

  She had an idea he hadn’t meant to add that rider and finished it off for him. ‘It’s as vivid as yesterday.’

  ‘Perhaps it is. But that isn’t what I was going to say. I was going to say the repercussions are still having effect. I don’t think it’s ever going to let me go.’

  She was biting hard on her lip.

  He said: ‘You can take that look off your face. It doesn’t fit in with your role in life. Little girls are born to be protected, not to protect. Men are conditioned to turn their faces to the wall and get on with it alone.’

  Did it have to be so? Did David have to stand so alone? Didn’t he know that she was here? She knew he could never love her as he had loved Annabel, but if only he could accept her comfort she could love him enough for both of them.

  She felt her chin being suddenly taken and tilted. ‘Tears? I don’t think anybody has ever cried for me before.’

  Not for all the tea in China would she tell him that she wasn’t crying for him. She was crying for pity of herself.

  It wasn’t until much later that she thought, something is wrong. It could be she wasn’t in possession of all the facts, or if she was she’d constructed them wrongly in her mind. Something wasn’t adding up.

  * * *

  David had gone back to work. Stephanie would have resumed play-school, but an outbreak of measles had closed it down for the time being. When Mrs. Grant, of Manor House, phoned to invite her and Stephanie to tea, Jan welcomed the diversion of this unexpected treat, and accepted readily.

  While Annabel was alive, it had been the norm to take tea regularly at Manor House. Jan didn’t know why, but it had been in her mind that this pleasant ritual would drop now that Annabel was no longer here.

  Mrs. Grant had always sent a car for Annabel. Jan hadn’t liked to ask if this V.I.P. treatment would be extended to her. She decided to wait on the off-chance of the car turning up, and if it didn’t they would make up the time lost by taking the short-cut through the woods and round the back of the church.

  Palmer, Mrs. Grant’s chauffeur, perhaps anticipating Jan’s dilemma, arrived early, and killed the waiting time with a can of beer in the kitchen of Larkspur Cottage.

  The three of them, plus one very tatty toy bear which Jan would dearly have liked to leave at home, trooped out to the car.

  ‘Little ’un’s in a frisky mood,’ Palmer observed, his weathered face crinkling into a smile that told of his affection for Stephanie.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Jan said glumly. It was Stephanie’s mischievous mood that had decided Jan to keep quiet on the subject of not bringing Tatty Bear. Hopefully, Stephanie would be too busy explaining to Tatty Bear exactly what was going on to get up to any high spirited jinks.

  Palmer’s easier manner relaxed her. As he drove carefully through the winding lanes, skirting the edge of the woods, he continued to be talkative and friendly, something he’d never been in Annabel’s presence. He had always been very formal and correct with Annabel. He had awarded her the deference she demanded, but Jan had long ago formed the opinion that he had never really liked her. He was the only person she knew who hadn’t been fascinated and charmed by the wit and beauty of Annabel.

  ‘I hope you don’t think it impertinent of me to ask, missy, but how is Mr. David going on these days?’

  ‘He’s keeping well, Palmer, but I don’t think it’s his health you’re asking after, is it?’

  ‘No, t’wouldn’t be that, missy.’

  ‘He’s working very hard again, so I suppose that’s a good sign. He’s almost too busy to mourn.’

  ‘I’m right glad to hear that. Mr. Stephen used to bring him to the house quite a lot. He always had a friendly word for me. I right took to him.’

  ‘So have I, Palmer. But we’re in a minority group.’

  ‘Reckon we are at that. They don’t know what’s what.’

  ‘I don’t either. I bet you could tell me, only you won’t. And not because little pitchers have big ears.’ Reference to Stephanie who was being unusually quiet.

  ‘Reckon I don’t have to. All the parts are there, like in a construction kit. It’s only a matter of clicking them together. If you’ll permit the liberty of my saying so, you’re a bright girl. You’ll figure it out for yourself afore so long.’ Having stoked up her curiosity, he slammed in the damper against further questions by attracting Stephanie’s attention. ‘Did you see that squirrel, little missy? It ran right into the woods.’

  ‘There are bears in the woods,’ said Stephanie. ‘Not Tatty Bears, great big growly bears. They go grrrrrrr . . .’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I do know there are badgers and deer and bats and owls. My little grandson plagued the life out of me to take him on a badger watch, until I finally gave in. We went at dusk to get settled like, afore the moon rose. Never again, I can tell you. We were frozen into balls of terror with all the strange carryings on, the moanings and the chitterings and the chatterings. T’were a right to-do. First it was the birds, the air was astir with all these black shapes pouring in their hundreds into the trees all around us. You should have heard the whirrings and the whistling and the piping and the whickerings. Sounds a daft thing to say, but the woods became alive with the sound of the birds and the animals settling down for the night. Didn’t see no badgers, but we saw two small deer. Buck following a doe. Stepped as dainty as can be into the circle of the moon and just stood for a moment, absolutely motionless, like figures cut out of black paper. They got the sniff of us, I could tell by his twitching ears and her slender arching neck angling to peer into the dangerous shadows. Reckon he’d have stood the ground he was pawing with his forefoot, but she was uneasy like, and they disappeared in a flash, swallowed up by the undergrowth and the shivering darkness. And it wasn’t only the darkness that shivered, I can tell you.’

  Stephanie’s eyes were round and entranced. ‘Oh please, will you take me?’

  ‘I wish I could, little missy,’ he said, winking broadly at Jan, ‘but my rheumatism has been playing me up something awful. You’ll have to ask your daddy.’

  Jan didn’t think Stephanie would let it go at that, but she caught sight of the big black gates, and this effectively turned her attention.

  Her nose flattened against the car window. ‘Look, Tatty Bear, we’re here. That’s the fish pond which you haven’t to fall into. And you mustn’t push your sandwich down the side of the sofa because that’s naughty, isn’t it Jan? Jan, will there be cake with pink icing on it for tea?’

  The symptoms of an ‘interesting’ afternoon were well in evidence.

  Jan and Stephanie-and-Tatty-Bear got out of the car. Jan walked sedately towards the door, Stephanie and accomplice danced by her side. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Palmer drive the car away, either to garage it or turn it round ready for the homeward journey, with the distinct feeling of having lost a crutch.

  Mrs. Palmer, Palmer’s wife who was Mrs. Grant’s housekeeper, opened the door to them. Her smile of welcome was as warm as Palmer’s. By the time she’d chucked Stephanie under the chin and declared that she got prettier every day, Mrs. Grant was coming
forward to greet them, looking every inch the gracious lady in a purple silk dress patterned with grey flowers, with pearls round her neck and dangling on fine gold wire from the lobes of her ears.

  Neither her husband nor her son had been wise about money matters. Since their deaths certain financial disclosures had come to light which made it necessary for her to change her lifestyle quite drastically. She was a very proud old lady, adhering as best she could to the old standards and maintaining the dignity she felt her position called for, at the same time making no pretence to riches no longer in her possession. The paintings in the hall and throughout the house were copies. The originals had been periodically sold off to keep the place in a reasonable state of repair, but even that was beginning to prove a losing battle. A small army of servants had once been at her beck and call, but only the faithful Palmers remained.

  ‘We are having tea in here,’ Mrs. Grant said, throwing open a door and ushering her guests into a charming room with an Adam fireplace and sunshine falling in at the tall french windows. The kettle must have been on the boil because Mrs. Palmer followed them in almost directly. She put the tea pot and the hot water jug down on the table, and looked to Mrs. Grant for instructions.

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs. Palmer. Jan will pour, won’t you dear? My hands aren’t too steady these days,’ she explained matter-of-factly, and not to seek sympathy.

  ‘Of course,’ said Jan, sitting forward. She turned her cup in her fingers, admiring the delicacy of the china and the tiny blue flower motif. ‘What a beautiful tea service.’

  ‘Yes, the forget-me-not was always my favourite.’

  ‘Actually I’m a little apprehensive. Do you think Stephanie should have a mug?’

  ‘Thank you for your thoughtfulness, but no. I value people more than possessions. I’ve always used my things, and I’m too old to break the habit of a lifetime. When my mother-in-law died, her wedding present china was intact because it was never put to daily use. I thought it was so sad. I prefer my way, even with the risk of breakages. My dear husband used to tease me and say I’d change my mind when I had butter-fingered grandchildren to cope with, but I knew I wouldn’t.’ She looked at Stephanie with affection in the smile that curved her lips. It was impossible to see what her eyes were doing behind the tinted lenses of her spectacles, but the handkerchief pressed daintily to her nose was a clue. Was she thinking that had her son, Stephen, lived, she might well have been entertaining her own grandchild to tea instead of Stephanie?