by Sue Peters
Home ...
It suddenly seemed a long way away, and an unaccustomed lump stopped Rob's throat.
"Silly !" she chided herself. "It isn't as if you've never been away from home before."
She thought of her period at veterinary college. Years of study, and hard, grinding work, and then the thrill of qualifying. Her parents had been so proud.
Since then she had spent the intervening six months helping out in the surgery of the local vet. He was a friend of her father, and was willing to let her work under his eye until she obtained a post to suit her. It was an ideal set-up from Rob's point of view, giving her the time she needed to look around. A city practice did not appeal to her. She was used to the freedom of the countryside, views unrestricted by bricks and mortar, and winds that blew clean, untainted by industrial smoke and grime. She did not consider it any sacrifice to turn her back on the life that a town practice might offer, and which had seemed so important to many of the students with whom she had worked.
Hallam Rand's advertisement had caught her eye almost by chance.
"Assistant required for established country veterinary practice. Some experience desirable, but not essential." The address was given as Mill House, Martyr's Green, Barshire.
"Where on earth is Martyr's Green ?" asked her mother plaintively, when Rob broached the subject rather carefully at the breakfast table one morning. Her parent's expression suggested that it was at the
other end of the world, and did more than suggest that the idea of her daughter forsaking the parental nest, and taking off to places unknown—and so far as she was concerned, unmapped—did not appeal to her.
"I don't know Martyr's Green, but Barshire as a county is pleasant enough," said Rob's father, emerging from behind his morning paper. "Farming county. Mildly hilly." There spoke a Devon man, accustomed to the drastic ups and downs of his native heath. "There wasn't much development there, the last time I drove through. Plenty of space. It's up north, of course, and nowhere near the coast."
North, to her father, started where Somerset ended, and he tried not to sound condemning that Barshire had no coastline. Rob already knew, for she had looked it up on the map, that Barshire was no farther north than the Severn, and the way the advertisement was worded as being a country practice sounded attractive. The word 'country' struck almost a note of warning, she thought, as if the man who put it in had advertised before, and found applicants unwilling to settle in rural surroundings.
So Rob wrote, and to her delight she received back a very pleasant letter from Hallam Rand, offering accommodation at the Mill House, a modest salary, and plenty of hard work, which he disguised tactfully under the description 'varied experience'.
The letter had started 'Dear Rob', which somewhat surprised her, and ended 'Yours sincerely', and the way in which it was couched, in businesslike but
friendly terms, made Rob look forward eagerly to her new post.
Her rescuer at the top of the hill had mentioned a housekeeper. A Martha somebody, so the practice must pay well, Rob thought, if his wife could afford to pay a housekeeper. That is, if he had a wife.
"It's funny," she mused, "I don't even know if he is married, or has a family, or anything. Of course, they might be grownup by now. Maybe he's getting on in years. Perhaps that's why he wanted an assistant. Oh well," she stirred herself out of her reverie, and adjusted her back again to the lumps in the car's front seat, "married or single, young or old, I know for a fact that he's got a housekeeper who serves up fine tea and scones, and I could do with lots of both," she thought hungrily.
She tore her eyes resolutely away from the picture postcard scene on the other side of the windscreen, and slipped Hoppy into gear.
"Come on, old girl. Tea and a tub. I shall feel more human after . . . oh, be careful !" she exclaimed aloud.
One of the fat white Aylesburys got up from the pond with unexpected speed, and took off on clumsy wings across her bows. Hurriedly, Rob stamped on the brake. The duck swerved clear, with inches to spare, but a loud crunch from her offside rear wing stated unmistakably that someone else had not been so lucky.
Rob reached for the door handle, and applied her shoulder rather cautiously to the door. It stuck. She braced herself for a heave, but a brown, fine-boned hand forestalled her. Long fingers gripped the door
handle, and twisted, and unable to stop herself, Rob hurtled for the second time that afternoon straight through the car door and into the arms of a strange man. Only this time the arms were not friendly. They dumped her unceremoniously on to her feet, and there was no smile in the grey eyes that regarded her with disfavour from nearly a foot above her head. In fact, the scowl that marred the forehead of the thin, ascetic-looking face was almost as black as his hair. One thick wave fell across his forehead, tumbled out of place by the jolt, and he brushed it back impatiently.
"If you must gaze at the scenery, it's safer to do so from your feet than from behind the wheel of a vehicle."
His disparaging glance denied Hoppy even the title of car, and Rob's temper rose.
"I was avoiding one of the ducks," she said coldly. "And anyway. . ."
"It would have been cheaper for you to have run over the duck, and taken it home for the pot," he interrupted callously, not allowing her to finish her accusation that he had been too close. "You'd better come and see what it's done to your rear wing."
He cupped an imperious hand under her elbow, and without more ado marched her round to the rear of her car. Too surprised to resist, Rob went with him, acutely conscious of the electric tremor of impatience vibrating through the slim, brown fingers curled round her jacket sleeve.
His own vehicle, a sturdy-looking Land Rover, stood behind the Austin, swerved outwards where he had
swung his wheel to avoid her. His bumper had caught her rear wing a glancing blow, inflicting an impressive-looking dent.
Rob cast an apprehensive look towards the Land Rover. If it had done that to Hoppy, what on earth must it have done to the chrome on his bumper? She visualised her no-claim bonus receding rapidly.
"It hasn't harmed my vehicle, if that's what you're worried about," commented its owner grimly. "It's built to stand knocks. From the look of it," he added sourly, "your car seems to be accustomed to them," with a pointed look at the Austin's rear mudguard, which showed evidence of hard contact with an unfriendly object—actually, a car which a holidaymaker, unused to the Devon hills, had incautiously left only -half braked in the shopping centre of Rob's home town. Hoppy, being the nearest immovable object, parked outside the shops, had stopped the runaway and received a dent in return. That had been last Saturday, and there had been no time to get it repaired before Rob came away.
"That wasn't my fault," she retorted angrily.
"It never is, with a woman driver," returned the dark-haired stranger, with the flicker of a smile in his eyes that Rob was by now too angry to notice.
"It wasn't. ..."
"Oh, come ! I don't care whose fault it was." His
grey eyes glinted. "I have to get away." He glanced
at his watch impatiently. "Have a look to see if that
dent fouls your wheel, in case you need garage help."
He jack-knifed his slender form down beside the
rear wing, without waiting for Rob to answer, and swiftly, her eyes flashing, she knelt beside him.
"I can manage for myself."
"No, you can't. The steel touches the tyre, here. It will rub it bald within a mile if it isn't bent back out of the way. I'll see if I can spring it back for you." He grasped the wing with both hands, probing underneath with long fingers, his eyes remote as he concentrated on his task.
Rob watched him silently, her anger evaporating at his obvious concern to get her on the road again. "Though he probably only wants to get rid of me," she thought ruefully, feeling again the impatience generated by the fingers round her arm.
She hazarded a guess at his profession. A musician, perhaps. Or maybe
a doctor. No, not a musician. He did not look old enough, and his neat black head did not look the part. Rob's conception of a professional musician included flowing grey locks. This man did not look a day over twenty-eight. He was probably the local doctor. His hands were those of a professional man, slender, and well cared for. The hands in question moved swiftly on to the edge of the wing, and gave a sharp tug. For a second the steel resisted, then with a clank it unbent itself and sprang back into place with a suddenness that caught the man unawares and trapped his fingers between the over-rider and the edge of the steel.
"Blast !"
Sharply he pulled his hand away, and Rob stood up, quick concern in her eyes.
"You've cut your finger. . . ."
"It's only a graze," he returned curtly, his lips a straight line of barely controlled impatience. "Your car should be movable now, and for heaven's sake exercise a little more care !"
Abruptly he swung himself up into the driving seat of his Land Rover, and with a curt nod started the engine into life, backed off the Austin's bumper, and with an expert swing of the wheel judged his distance to a nicety, rounded the obstruction that was Hoppy, and drove swiftly away.
"Of all the boorish, bad-mannered. . .."
"Having trouble, miss?"
Rob turned to see a large individual strolling towards her via the edge of the duckpond. His round, brick-red face was topped by a policeman's helmet, made comfortably informal by his jacketless state, and a pair of neat, rolled-up shirt sleeves surmounting muscular arms more befitting of a smith than a policeman.
When she was driving, Rob's normal reaction on being confronted by the law was to feel guilty, whether she had infringed the parking regulations or not but she warmed at once to his cheery approach, so different from the stormy encounter that was just over.
"Not really. More of a misunderstanding," she smiled back.
"I thought as much. That's why I kept inside." He
waved to one of the thatched cottages, with the regulation 'Police' notice shakily tacked to the bulging wall.
"Actually, I'm on my way to Mill House. Now
you're here, perhaps you can direct me ?" asked Rob hopefully.
"The vet's place ?"
"That's right. I'm going to work for the vet, as his assistant," she explained. If this was the village policeman, he would soon get to know who she was anyway, and as he seemed inclined to be friendly Rob thought she might as well meet him half way. She had every motorist's urgent desire to remain friendly with the law.
"Well, I'm blessed ! You haven't started off very well, have you ?" said the policeman sympathetically.
"By getting my car bumped, you mean? Oh well, not everyone can be as bad-tempered as the Land Rover driver was," smiled Rob optimistically.
"Eh ? Oh, I see what you mean." An odd look of caution came over his rubicund face, and he eyed Rob strangely. "So you're going to work for the vet, at Mill House? You do mean Hallam Rand, I take it?"
"Yes, that's right," nodded Rob. "He needs an extra pair of hands in the practice, it seems, and I'm here to supply them."
"He needs that, all right," confirmed the policeman. "There's a lot of work in a farming community like this, and he's the only vet between here and Barhill. That's our market town, and it's twelve miles away," he added thankfully.
"I'll find my way there one day soon," said Rob, "but in the meantime, I've got to find Mill House," she hinted.
"Oh yes, of course. Well, you can't miss it," her
companion said, with the classic assurance of a local who knows every inch of the ground. "Go along the main street here, over the river bridge, then turn sharp right along the course of the river. You'll see Mill House on the bank."
"It really is a mill, then ? I didn't know you had a river so close ?"
"Oh yes, the Bar is a fair-sized stretch of water. Good for trout." So the village policeman was also a fishing enthusiast. "You must have come in from the other side of the village. You wouldn't see it from there."
"Because of the trees, I expect," laughed Rob, familiar by now with at least one local drawback.
"That's right." The policeman did not seem to see anything amusing about the foliage, and Rob straightened her face dutifully. "It runs from the other side of the village, through the land at Norton End Farm —that's the holding at the back of the Martyr's Arms here—and cuts across the side of the village. As I said, you can't miss Mill House."
Hoping fervently that he was not being literal, Rob thanked him and resumed her seat in the car. Soon she came to the bridge over the Bar. As the policeman had said, it was a good-sized stream, and looked deep. She turned right as he directed, and a couple of hundred yards in front she saw the stark outlines of a millwheel, black against the sky, lazily throwing up bright drops that sparkled in the sunshine as it turned at the behest of the current underneath.
With a sigh of relief Rob switched off the engine
and relaxed, tiredness sweeping over her in a wave now that the day's drive was done. The Mill House looked old, and its warm-coloured walls invitingly friendly, squatting low beside the water. She reached for her case and mounted the two shallow steps to the studded door. The bell was of the old-fashioned, rope-pull kind, and it gave an unexpectedly harsh clang which brought an immediate response from inside.
The woman who confronted her across the step was amply proportioned, and elderly. "Comfortable," thought Rob, with relief. Not one of these smart housekeepers." A pair of bright blue eyes under a silvery knot of hair, scraped back into an old-fashioned bun, regarded Rob with enquiry.
"I'm Rob Fenton," she introduced herself. "I've come to work for Mr Rand. I take it that you're Mrs Main?"
She held out her hand. For a brief second the older woman seemed to hesitate, then she pulled herself together and took Rob's hand rather uncertainly.
"You're Rob Fenton?" She eyed Rob's slight figure with a look of disbelief in her eyes that puzzled the girl. The housekeeper did not seem unfriendly, but she certainly looked taken aback.
"Perhaps she doesn't approve of trouser suits," thought Rob, and wished that she had travelled down in a dress instead.
"Well, come in, my dear, come in. What am I doing, keeping you here at the door like this?" The housekeeper looked flustered.
"I wrote to say I was coming today. Did Mr Rand
not get my letter ?" asked Rob. She had given it to her father to post, and if he had left it in his jacket pocket. .
"Oh yes, he got your letter. Everything is ready for you, but. . . Oh well, you must be tired after your long journey. Come away in, and have a cup of tea. Dinner won't be for another hour, depending on when Mr Rand gets in."
"Is he out on a call?"
"Yes, he's had to go out to a cow that's having difficulty in calving. He'll be back in time for dinner, though, I imagine. He usually is."
The housekeeper led the way through a cool, panelled hall, bright with flowers. The heady scent of roses wafted through an open window, and Rob caught a glimpse of colourful borders lining a smooth lawn, and the glitter of water beyond. There was little sound in here from the river, only an occasional rumbling noise that she assumed came from the mill wheel.
"Come up to your room and, get rid of your case, then when you've had time to freshen up you can put your car away."
"Oh yes, please. Hoppy will be as glad of a rest as I shall."
"Hoppy, is it? Well, I hope she behaved on the journey here." The elderly woman led the way up a wide staircase, and opened the door of a room leading from the landing at the top. "I've put you in here. If there's anything you want, just call me. You'll see where the garage is, at the back, from your window. Then when you're ready I'll set you some tea in the
study, unless you would like to come into the kitchen and have yours with me? I'd just put the kettle on when you rang."
"Oh yes, please. I would much rather." Rob warmed to the kindly smile and the soft, Barshire voice. "I'll be with you in a few minutes."
She crossed to the wash basin, and splashed water over her hot face. It was beautifully soft, and she reached for the soap, a little surprised to find it was plain carbolic. Perhaps they were old-fashioned, but she did not mind that; she could always buy some of her favourite toilet soap later on. Her room looked comfortable, anyway. It was very plainly furnished, but an experimental bounce on the bed confirmed that it was soft, and the windows looked straight out on to the river. The quiet murmur of the wheel filled the room, and she smiled. If the job was going to be as pleasant as the living quarters, she would enjoy her stay at Mill House.
She berthed Hoppy in an ample little shed at the back of the house, left open for her by Martha Main, and sought the housekeeper in her kitchen. A yeasty smell of baking guided her to the right door, and Martha's bright smile welcomed her in. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the scrubbed table, happily adorned with a large plate of buttered scones, hot from the oven, and an equally large pot of tea.
"If you would rather have yours in the study, Miss Fenton ?"
"Oh no, it's much nicer having it in here with you," smiled Rob, "and please call me Rob. It will be
friendlier now that I'm to work here."
The smile on the other's face widened.
"And you must call me Martha. But. .. ." Again the hesitation, and the puzzled look.
"But what ?" Rob smiled encouragingly.
"Well, I don't want to seem rude, but isn't yours rather an unusual name for a girl?" said the other hesitantly.
"Oh, that. It's Roberta, really," explained Rob. "When my parents knew that I was on the way, they prepared for a boy. When I arrived, they had to think again. They'd chosen Robert, so they just added an 'a'," she mumbled, her mouth full of scone. "These are delicious, Martha. I was so hungry." She sighed contentedly.
"Have another one, do."
"Not another crumb, or I shan't have enough room for dinner." But she accepted a second cup of tea, and sipped it happily.
