by Sue Peters
He turned the Land Rover out of the village, and they ran for half a mile or so along the lanes before they came to a short row of cottages. The vet pulled up in front of the end lane, and handed the kitten down to Rob.
"There's no need for you to hurry away from here, if she wants to keep you talking for a while," he told her gruffly. "She lives on her own. . ."
"Won't you mind ?" began Rob, diffident about the staying power of his newly found good humour.
"I've got my pipe, and Red to keep me company," he assured her, leaning back and beginning to search in his pockets for his tobacco box. .
She left him striking endless matches, and he was still smoking with every appearance of contentment when she returned, not quite half an hour later, having installed the kitten with its delighted new owner, inspected a rainbow-hued knitted blanket that she had made for the new arrival, and helped to decide on a name for it.
"We eventually christened it Jet," she announced, returning empty-handed to her seat, to the evident satisfaction of the setter, who inspected her palms to make quite sure that she had not hidden the kitten to tease him.
"You can tell that to Verity," commented the vet. "I want to stop at Wade Hollow on the way back. That is, if you don't mind ?"
Rob shook her head, surprised that he had bothered to ask. A few hours ago he probably would not have done.
"How is the cow?" she asked.
"Pulling through nicely now, though I shall keep a close eye on her for a while. Things got a bit sticky first thing this morning," he admitted. "That's why I had to leave you to cope with surgery on your own. Bill Wade—he's the farmer—is building up a pedigree herd, and it would have been a bad setback to him to lose one of his best cows."
"What about the calf ?"
"A bull, unfortunately."
The vet pulled the Land Rover up at the gate with the notice 'Wade Hollow' that Rob had passed yesterday, and ran the rails free of the track.
"Let me close it for you," offered Rob, when he had driven through.
"No, sit where you are," retorted her companion. "The track is very rough, and it would spoil your sandals. They're too pretty to ruin," he said, unexpectedly.
Rob raised mental eyebrows, but did as she was told. The track was indeed rough, unfit for high heels, and it carried on for a bone-shaking length of five fields before they jolted to smoother going round the dense belt of trees that she had seen from the hill yesterday, and ran across a smooth, gravelled approach
towards one of the loveliest old buildings that Rob had ever seen. What had Mr Wade said? It had been a castle, then a monastery, then a manor house. It had certainly retained a great deal of the charm of each.
A sunken garden, circling the side of what had obviously been an old keep, revealed the one-time presence of a moat, now put to colourful use, and the worked stone cross above the main doorway, flanked by an arch still supporting a bell used long ago for summoning the faithful to prayer, spoke eloquently of the castle's more peaceful successors. Even now, the graceful mullioned windows and bared wall beams spoke more of manor than farmhouse. Hallam Rand glanced at Rob's rapt face.
"You like old buildings, then, Rob ?"
"Oh yes," she breathed, "and this one is—lovely."
"I know." He nodded, as if he understood, and shared, her feelings. "This one is mentioned in the Domesday Book, I believe."
"Yes, so Mr Wade said."
"I didn't know you knew Bill Wade?" The vet's eyebrows described an enquiring arc.
"Hardly 'know'," corrected Rob, "he was good enough to—er--set me right on the way here yesterday," she qualified. She saw no reason to enlarge to her employer on the assistance the farmer had given her. Doubtless the vet would only regard the incident as yet another example of female incompetence.
The appearance of Verity Wade, preceded by a gruffly vocal Mel, saved her from the obvious question in the vet's eyes, and she slipped down from her seat,
glad of the opportunity to thank the fair-haired girl for the kitten.
"Have another," offered the farmer, appearing behind his daughter. "In fact, have the whole litter," he said generously. "We've got kittens under our feet morning, noon and night here. Verity will play with them in the house," he grumbled goodnaturedly.
"Red might not like it," Rob declined hastily, sure in her own mind, that Red's master would not either. She did not feel sufficiently at home at Mill House to introduce a pet of her own, and her stay, in any case, looked like being a short one.
"I thought Red wasn't going to let you out of the Land Rover," laughed Verity. "It seemed ages before you appeared."
"Rob was admiring the house," explained Hallam Rand.
Verity glanced from the vet to his assistant, and Rob saw her eyebrows raise at his use of her Christian name.
"It's wonderfully preserved," enthused Rob hastily, wondering if Verity was jealous. She need not worry, she thought wryly; her present relationship with the vet was more like an armed truce than the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"You must let me show you round."
A plump, motherly-looking woman, her dark hair going grey, put her arm through that of the farmer, and regarded Rob with a smile.
"Bill told me he helped you on your way yesterday," she said, the smile broadening. "We were hoping you
would call. Bill said you were interested in old buildings.''
"Oh, I am. You're very lucky to live in one like this," replied Rob, her voice betraying her enthusiasm.
The owners looked pleased, obviously relishing any praise of the home they were so proud of.
"You two go and see the cow." Mrs Wade lumped her daughter and the vet together. "I'll take—er—?" "Miss Fenton," said Hallam Rand.
"Rob," said Rob.
"I'll take Rob on a grand tour," she promised. "Bring Hal back when you've finished in the sheds, Verity," she instructed her daughter. "I'll have a cup of tea ready in half an hour."
"That means I'd better make it," teased the farmer. "I've never known my wife to get through a tour of inspection in half an hour yet," he warned Rob.
His accusation gained a general laugh from the others, including Verity, who linked her arm through the vet's, and together they made off towards a group of cowsheds on the other side of the farmyard.
Rob turned and accompanied the farmer and his wife indoors, where she spent an absorbed hour going from room to room with her hostess. She was fascinated by the skilful blending of ancient and modern, the clever pressing into service of almost priceless furniture and fittings, so that their beauty was a thing of daily joy to their owners, not relegated to a redundant, museum-like existence, but moulded into an harmonious whole by the tasteful addition of modern pieces,
that turned the ancient house into an extremely comfortable home.
"The older things, of course, belonged to my husband's forebears," the farmer's wife told her serenely, "so of course we like to use them for sentimental reasons, as well as for our own convenience. The modern bits and pieces we've added ourselves, but we've been careful to choose only those that could make friends with what we already had," she added with a smile.
Rob appreciated her point. Her comment about furniture 'making friends' revealed a woman with a deep love of her home, and a wish to retain its charm that had been wonderfully fulfilled. The 'bits and pieces', as she called them, also revealed evidence of the wherewithal to indulge that wish, for the additions had been made with more regard to their harmony than their cost.
Rob leaned on an old settle and gazed out of a leaded window that was deeply set into walls nearly two feet thick. The view was superb, looking out straight across the old moat that was now a garden, and filled to the brim with flowers like a huge, circular posy bowl. It made a complete wreath of brilliant colour round the entire house, lending a vivid light to the old walls, and she gave a gasp of sheer delight. Her hostess joined her at the window, her face alight with enthusiasm.
"It's my special h
obby," she told Rob. "Before you go, I'll pick you a bunch of flowers for your room. As soon as Verity and Hal come back we'll have a cup of
tea, and then you can come and pick where you like. Oh, there they are, just coming now."
Rob followed her pointing finger, and saw the fair-haired girl and her employer emerge from the door of one of the cowsheds. Hallam Rand turned to shut it behind him, and the clack of wood against wood sounded sharply through the open window. Verity turned, waiting for him. She said something, and the vet laughed. He flung his arm across her shoulders, and they strode towards the house, the tall, straight-limbed girl matching her stride easily to his.
"They make a fine couple," thought Rob involuntarily.
Suddenly she felt depressed, curiously isolated in this small, close-knit community, in which she would soon have no part. Like a stone thrown in a pool, that rippled the surface for a while, and then the ripples were gone, and the surface of the water becalmed as if they had never been.
Verity's mother pulled the big window to, leaving a small transom open at the top, shutting out the heady perfume of orange blossom that rose like incense from the sun-warmed garland that caressed the walls. They descended the staircase, built wide enough to accommodate a crinoline, and found the farmer put, ting the receiver down on the telephone in the hall.
"Who is it, Bill ?"
"That fellow from the County Council," retorted her husband, his face grim. "Is Hal back yet?"
"Just coming," the vet called, hearing his name. He appeared through the outer door with Verity. As soon
as they were inside he dropped his arms from about her shoulders, and gave her a light spank.
"Go and pour out, it looks as if your father wants to talk shop."
"Not really, we can do it over our cup of tea." Bill Wade ushered him into a side room along with the others, and waited until they were all settled before he satisfied the vet's evident curiosity. "That call was as much for you as for me, Hal. You heard who it was from. Apparently he'd tried to get you at Mill House, and Mrs Main said you would probably be over here."
Martha evidently knew where to find the vet when he went missing, thought Rob. She had said that he practically lived at Wade Hollow.
"You said it was from the County Council."
"Yes, although of course the man was ringing from
home at this time in the evening. He guessed he
wouldn't be able to get either of us during the day." "Was the news good?"
"No," returned the fanner shortly, and the vet's face clouded.
"These two are trying to change the law," explained Verity to Rob, settling on the arm of Hallam Rand's chair. "Help yourself," she bade her, passing a plate of feathery-looking sponge across. "It's no use waiting for them to begin when they start riding their particular hobbyhorse."
"What hobbyhorse is that ?"
"Bulls in footpath fields," her father answered for her. "You know I told you yesterday that it wasn't
against the law in Baxshire to run a bull in a field where there's a footpath ?"
The vet raised his eyebrows, and Rob felt a momentary vexation. It made it sound as if she had had a lengthy debate over the question, when all she had told the vet was that Bill Wade had set her right on the way to Mill House. Oh well, if he liked to misunderstand, it was up to him. It seemed to be an ingrained habit of his to get hold of the wrong end of the stick, and then belabour her with the other.
"What we're up against," the farmer continued, his tone forceful, "is an ostrich-like County Council. They know the danger of such a ruling, they're all of them country people, some of them landowners themselves, but they either can't or won't put a move on to do something positive about it," he finished bitterly.
"But surely," protested Rob, "no one would be so senseless as to run a bull in a field where there's a public footpath. It's asking for a tragedy !" she cried indignantly.
"If anyone was sensible, the law wouldn't matter," growled the vet. "But there's one fanner in this area who deliberately runs his beast in a frequently used footpath field, simply to be awkward. And someone nearly did get killed, as a result."
"The man wants locking up," the fanner butted in angrily. "And until this senseless law is altered, he'll continue to run the animal there as and when it suits him, knowing that we can't do a thing about it."
Rob raised startled eyes to Verity, hardly able to credit the sense of what she had heard.
"Oh, it's true," the other girl assured her. "One of the people from the village got chased a little while back. If it hadn't been for his dog he might have been badly hurt. As it was, the dog was gored. That's what brought Hal into it, and he and my father have been campaigning ever since to get the law altered. They tried to talk sense to the farmer, but he's the pigheaded type who delights in being awkward, and intends to be a law unto himself. He's a newcomer to the district," said the girl disgustedly, "and he's one that we could well do without."
"And he is ?"
"Lewis Ford. He farms a holding on the other side of the village from us," said Bill Wade.
"I shouldn't think many of the villagers use the footpath, if that's what he does."
"Not since the one was chased, they don't. But the trouble is, it's a short cut into the village for any number of people, and of course being by the river it's a pleasant evening walk. Not that it's used any more, unless the walkers have got a nimble pair of heels."
"He doesn't sound a very accommodating type, this Lewis Ford," murmured Rob to Verity, and the girl grimaced.
"He's accommodating all right, in the wrong way," she snapped viciously. "Take my tip, and give him as wide a berth as you would his wretched bull."
Her father scowled.
"Vee had to slap his ears for him when he first came to the village a couple of years ago," he said. "He's steered clear of us at Wade Hollow ever since."
Hallam Rand's face darkened.
"Rob needn't go to his farm at all," he said firmly. "If she gets a call from there, it can be left until I return home. Which we'd better do now," he added, "or Martha, will think we've gone missing."
Rob rose instantly, and brought an immediate protest from her hostess.
"You can't go without your flowers. I promised you a bunch for your room."
"Go out on the other side of the house, and walk through the garden to the Land Rover," suggested the farmer. "It's worth seeing," he told Rob proudly. "It's my wife's pride and joy, and it's just at its loveliest now."
"She's seen a lot of it from the windows." Still talking happily about gardening, the farmer's wife led the way, and Rob perforce had to follow, hoping that the vet would not be too put out about the delay. But still, it would give him a few more minutes with Verity; he could not blame her for that.
The garden was indeed a delight. Someone had gentled the sides of the moat so that they were not too steep, and the whole was a living carpet of colour and perfume. A crazy paving path meandered from the bottom to the top of the slope and back again, twisting and turning round clumps of shrubs and herbaceous plants, colourful annuals, summer bulbs, and a riot of pansies and violas that looked as if they had seeded themselves into every odd corner they could find, and grew unchecked, their tiny faces unturned to catch the last of the evening sun, glorying in their own loveliness.
Rob picked her way across the path, trying to avoid stepping on the tiny plants that peeped through the crevices. Inadvertently her foot caught one, and the sharp tang of thyme came to her nostrils.
"Ah ! Christmas dinner !"
The farmer's remark evoked a rebuke from his wife.
"He's always thinking of his meals ! I'm trying to reduce his waistline, but you'll see I haven't had much success."
"You shouldn't be such a good cook," he defended himself. "Here, let me do that for you."
He reached up to help her with a spray of honeysuckle that she was trying to snap off to add to the bouquet she had already picked for Rob while they wander
ed. Rob protested that she had already picked enough, and the farmer smiled at his wife.
"She won't believe that anyone can have enough flowers," he teased fondly. "But you've got the Land Rover to take these back in, so don't worry if they're an armful instead of a bunch." He snapped off a spray of double orange blossom, heady with perfume. "There, that will make your room smell nice, that and the honeysuckle."
"What a glorious perfume !" Rob sniffed ecstatically, her enjoyment obvious.
"Verity loves flowers, too," her mother said. "She wants orange blossom for her wedding bouquet. She always said she wanted her flowers to come from the garden at home, rather than from a florist. I think it's a nice idea, don't you ?"
"Oh yes," agreed Rob, looking about her. "And she'll have enough to choose from, whatever colour her bridesmaids wear."
She glanced to where Verity and Hallam Rand strolled in front of them. The girl stopped and stooped down, and Rob saw her turn with something in her hand, and tuck it into the lapel of the vet's coat. He reached up and pulled a strand of her hair, gently, teasingly, and they laughed together, and walked on. They were still laughing companionably when Rob joined them by the Land Rover, and turned to thank the girl and her parents for showing her round the old house.
"Come again !"
The invitation came instantly from all three, and with obvious sincerity. Rob did not think there would be much opportunity to accept their invitation, much as she would have liked to, but she kept her forebodings to herself. She only had a month at Mill House, and then.... She saw that Verity had picked a carnation for Hallam Rand's buttonhole. It was a clear lemon yellow, its petals making a vivid contrast to the vet's dark jacket. The carnation that he wore at their wedding would be white, thought Rob, and wondered why the perfume of the single acid-coloured bloom should seem to fill the Land Rover, to the exclusion of the armful of flowers that Mrs Wade had given her, and that now rested in the back of the vehicle beside Red.
