A Village in Jeopardy (Turnham Malpas 16)

by Shaw, Rebecca

  ‘Say it all works out and they say you can start all over again next October; what will you do in the meantime?’

  Beth sighed. ‘I wondered when that was coming.’

  ‘I’m bound to be concerned.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be my mum if you weren’t. I haven’t thought, but I do know Cambridge is not right for me at this moment. Something will come up.’

  ‘In some ways it doesn’t matter what it is, so long as you enjoy it.’

  ‘Exactly! I can hear Dad coming. Do you ever get bored with boiling two eggs for him every morning?’

  ‘No, it’s about the only boring thing about him.’

  Peter arrived in the kitchen, pulled out his chair and said, ‘What could be better than breakfast with my two favourite women?’

  ‘Thanks, Dad, for not being cross with me. You’ve every right to be.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be sitting here this morning with your mum and me if you were happy at Cambridge, now would you?’

  ‘No. Quite right.’

  The egg timer pinged and Caroline carried his eggs to the table, put them in his double egg cup and kissed the top of his head. ‘That’s for being a lovely dad.’

  ‘I try my best.’ Peter put a sanctimonious look on his face and then grinned at them both.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned you do all right, Dad. Shall we go tomorrow? Will you be free?’

  ‘When I’ve had breakfast come to my study and we’ll discuss it.’

  Beth finished her cup of tea. ‘I find myself listening for Dottie arriving, but she won’t be, will she?’

  ‘No, darling, she won’t.’

  ‘I miss her. She’s so good to talk to. I don’t have to tiptoe around her, you see; she understands all the ordinary things of life and doesn’t try to do as she thinks she ought to. She’s just herself, and that’s so rare nowadays.’

  ‘How right you are.’ Peter reached across and planted a kiss on Beth’s forehead.

  ‘I know she was a prostitute when she was younger and all the wrinklies look down on her, but she’s a treasure really.’

  ‘That’s important, darling.’ Caroline felt as though she’d let Beth down so very badly when she needed her most after they came back from Africa.

  ‘In fact after we’ve had our talk, Dad, I shall go this very day to see Gilbert, see if he has any use for someone who is willing to work for him, for no pay if necessary. That way I’d find out for definite if archaeology is my thing.’

  Peter looked up surprised. ‘I thought you knew it was.’

  ‘I do, but just to make absolutely sure. I heard the postman.’ Beth leaped to her feet and rushed to the front door. She quickly sifted through the pile of post and found, as she hoped, a letter in an unknown hand addressed to Miss Elizabeth C. Harris.

  Dumping the rest of the post on the hall table, Beth tore her letter open.

  Dearest Beth. Thank you for your lovely letter. In view of what you say I shall come home immeediatly because you are home and shuldn’t be. You can tell me all about not being at Cambridge and we’ll sort it out between the two of us. I shall come on the late train tomorrow, come for a cup of tea the day after about half past ten. That will give me time to dust the house and tidy up.

  Lots of love, Dottie Foskett.

  Beth tucked the letter in her skirt pocket and took the other post into the kitchen. She didn’t tell her mother about Dottie’s letter because she knew that her reliance on Dottie caused her mother pain, but the fact remained that her mother hurt when things went wrong for her, whereas Dottie took it all in her stride. She kissed her mother’s cheek, saying, ‘I’m off into Culworth to see Gilbert,’ and disappeared upstairs.

  ‘I guess she’s had a letter this morning. It’ll be from Dottie, I expect,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart, darling. I know it seems odd but . . .’

  ‘Well?

  ‘It’s because Dottie doesn’t hurt like you do when things go wrong for Beth, and she hates to upset you. All she’s doing is shielding you from it, because she loves you so much.’

  ‘It hurts when I come second to a . . . prostitute.’

  ‘Caroline! What a thing to say; that’s not like you! You know full well you don’t come second with her! Anyway it may not be from Dottie. It could be a school friend or someone; you don’t know.’

  ‘If it was she’d have come in here to read it. Oh! my God! look at the time. I’m going to be late.’

  Shortly after her mother left for the clinic in Culworth, Beth too went to Culworth, parked in the multi-storey so loathed by everyone, and went to find Gilbert in his office in the archaeology department. She was well aware that every woman in the neighbourhood found Gilbert very attractive and she determined she would not get embarrassed when he greeted her.

  As she walked up the steps to his office she was overwhelmed by doubt. What if she realised she didn’t like archaeology after all? What would she do then? Still best to find out now, because she’d already wasted enough time at Cambridge.

  Beth found a door with Gilbert’s name on it and knocked. She heard his voice shouting ‘Come!’ from inside and opened the door. The delight that spread across his face encouraged her.

  ‘Why, Beth! What a lovely surprise!’

  ‘Are you incredibly busy?’

  ‘Short answer, yes, but always got time for you. How can I help?’

  ‘I’m taking a gap year, I hope. Not done the right thing going straight from school to university. I have to confess to being desperately unhappy there so I’ve faced facts and postponed my first year. Well at least I hope so – not done the official paperwork yet. So-o-o-o I wondered if you could give me unpaid employment for a while, just being around running errands, going to the post office, generally helping, making the tea, washing up the mugs, anything to bring me in contact with the archaeology world as much as possible.’

  The smile on her face was tremulous and Gilbert sensed her underlying unhappiness. He fiddled with his letter opener, straightened a few papers on his chaotic desk and then looked up smiling. ‘As you see from my desk I am greatly in need of someone like you. My assistant had a bad fall from her horse last weekend and has to rest because of a cracked vertebra so she won’t be back for quite a while. She keeps me neat and tidy and files all these wretched papers for which I have neither the time nor the patience.’

  ‘Really? Would you take me on then? Unpaid like I said.’

  ‘Agreed.’ He reached out to shake hands.

  ‘Shall I begin now? I can do today but tomorrow Dad’s going with me to Cambridge to sort things out and bring my stuff home, so I shan’t be able to come. If that’s all right, that is.’

  ‘Of course. The sooner the better, and the odd day missed for very good reasons is no problem to me.’ Gilbert had no idea how good she would be at lightening his burden, but for her sake it was worth a try. ‘Anything to do with a dig in Chapel Street in Culworth is immediate and needs to stay on my desk; everything else needs putting in the correct file in these cabinets here. I’ll be out most of the morning. The kitchen is the second door down the corridor. Charges for coffee etc., are on the notice above the sink and put the money in the tin in the drawer next to the fridge. An hour for lunch – take it when you need – see you about two.’

  Gilbert paused by the open door for a moment. ‘I’ll enjoy your company, Beth. I’m happier out in the field, so to speak, not keen on being tied to a desk. If you’re very good –’ he grinned – ‘I shall take you out to a dig one day. We’re starting over Brocken High Barrow; you’d enjoy that. Walking boots are best, no matter the weather.’ He bellowed to someone who must have been at least a mile away, his voice was so loud, and whoever he was came running down the corridor and rushed down the stairs after him, his anorak trailing on the steps behind him as he ran.

  Beth laughed and turned to look out of the office window to see Gilbert leap into his four-by-four and race out of the car park with his member of staff
still dragging a leg in so he could get the door shut, leaving Beth to spend the best day she’d had in weeks: sorting out Gilbert’s office and inspecting a tray of artefacts from a dig.

  She had a perfectly splendid day and wondered why she had allowed herself to go straight to Cambridge, because being practical and busy in a relatively peaceful atmosphere felt wonderful. Towards the end of the afternoon Gilbert still hadn’t returned, which was a mite disappointing, but she overcame that. The telephone rang several times and as she hadn’t the faintest idea of the name of the office she was working in she simply replied, ‘Gilbert Johns’s phone. How may I help?’ and made notes for Gilbert when he returned.

  She wrote a note reminding him that she wouldn’t be there the next day, but would be in later the following day, and she left hugging to herself the thought of seeing Dottie the day after tomorrow, when she’d get her thinking sorted out and get Dottie back housekeeping at the Rectory.

  Two days later, Beth went down to see Dottie in her lovely old cottage at the bottom of Shepherd’s Hill, as requested in Dottie’s letter. Inside herself she was in turmoil; outwardly she appeared to be her usual happy self.

  She knocked on the door and opened it as she usually did and there stood Dottie in the kitchen: thinner, she thought, but still that same welcoming Dottie as she always had been.

  ‘Shall we have a hug, love?’

  ‘Yes!’ and Beth ran straight into her arms and was hugged. ‘I’m so glad you’re back. Can I ask? Are you back for good?’

  ‘I think so. Go sit yourself down and I’ll bring the coffee in. Still the same, milk no sugar?’

  Beth nodded.

  Dottie followed her into the sitting room carrying two stylish mugs. ‘I’ve lit the fire. The house seemed so cold last night, thought I’d warm it up a bit.’ So they sat in front of the huge inglenook fireplace, almost too large for a cottage of this size, but the warmth felt comforting and Beth relaxed.

  Dottie explained her new mugs. ‘New mugs: me cousin made me buy ’em; she thought they’d suit my cottage.’

  ‘Oh! They do. The roses are just like the ones round the back door. Exactly the same.’

  ‘Now then, what’s all this about you home from Cambridge? Eh! I thought we’d seen the back of you for a while.’ She grinned as she said it. ‘I need to know why. I also need to know what your dad thinks.’

  ‘I’m not ready for it. I’m too lonely, too young and miserable. I haven’t made friends very easily and I don’t know why, because I was OK at school, lots of friends, you know. It’s not the studying; I’m pretty disciplined about that. It’s just that I miss home, which seems awfully childish of me, but it’s how it is. Dad’s all right about it and we went yesterday to collect my things and see Alex and get the whole thing thrashed out. Officially I’m taking a gap year and going back in September next year to start all over again.’

  ‘I see. What does Alex think?’

  ‘He’s all right about it. He’s been homesick too, but he’s met up with a really great set of friends and it’s all worked out OK for him. I’m glad for him. But I’m home where I want to be, for now. Do you think I’m being silly?’

  Dottie answered her in her own good time. ‘Well, I think . . . I think you’ve done the right thing, except when you go back a second time then you’ve got to stay else you will feel really stupid, and it’ll affect you all your life and you won’t half regret not getting that degree, and you don’t want to live with regret. That really would be making a mess of things. So spend this year out growing up.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. I’ve always been so well looked after, with Mum and Dad loving me to bits all my life and Alex fighting my corner for me too. I knew you would talk sense to me. Thanks, Dottie. And you? Are you home where you want to be?’

  Dottie placed her mug on the corner of the hearth, but sat, hands clasped, looking anywhere but at Beth.

  The silence was a companionable one but Beth was impatient to talk about Dottie’s problems and couldn’t wait for her to speak. ‘Mum wants you back. She says no one cleans her house as well as you do and she can’t wait to hear you at the door, saying, “It’s only me.” She misses you; we all do. Well?’

  When Dottie looked at her Beth was amazed to see tears in her eyes. ‘She means it, doesn’t she, your mum?’

  ‘Of course she does, otherwise she wouldn’t say it.’

  ‘And your dad? The reverend? What does that lovely, lovely man have to say about me?’

  ‘The same. He holds no opinion about the past, yours or anyone else’s. If coming back to work at the Rectory is all right with you, it certainly is all right with him.’ A wicked glint came in Beth’s eyes. ‘He claims your coffee is better than Mum’s anyway.’

  ‘No-o-o . . . is that true?’

  ‘Yes, he’s always telling her, but she just laughs.’

  ‘You are so lucky having lovely parents like you’ve got. I never knew my dad, and my mother was crazy in the head, you know. It wasn’t much of a start for me, especially being an only child, and when Willie said what he said, it brought all that back and I felt like dirt. Which I was.’

  ‘Dottie! Don’t say that. You’re not, not in my eyes. All that is long gone and I want to hear that you’ve been to the pub tonight and shown them what you’re made of. I know for a fact Willie does regret terribly what he said—’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I’ve been to see him about it and he told me, and he meant it. Sylvia is mortified about it and won’t let him forget. He’s right in the dog house, believe me.’

  They both heard three sharp barks at the front door. ‘That’ll be Sykes,’ Beth said. ‘He must have followed me down here. He’s a dear little dog, but he is so bossy. Would you mind if he came in to wait?’

  ‘Go let him in. I like Sykes; he’s a good friend to me when I’m cleaning.’

  So they sat together drinking another mug of coffee, talking and reminiscing with Sykes comfortably placed first beside Dottie, after giving her a big welcome, and then beside Beth, looking at her expectantly as though saying, ‘When are we going home?’

  ‘So do I have your promise about going in the pub tonight and coming to the Rectory to clean tomorrow? I shan’t be there – I’m helping Gilbert to keep his office tidy.’

  ‘That won’t be easy, I guess.’ Dottie laughed when she’d said this and she sounded comfortingly like the old Dottie. ‘I’ll definitely be at the Rectory tomorrow, but about the pub, I’m none too sure.’

  Beth stood up. ‘In that case I shall go in there myself, and if you’re not there I shall come down here in my car and drag you there. You can’t spend the rest of your life not going to the pub, now, can you? You know you love the company, to say nothing of the gossip.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I can avoid it, but it’ll be hard.’

  ‘In any case, the embroidery group is complaining that you’re getting behind with your stitching and they say no one does background as beautifully as you do.’

  ‘Have they really said that?’

  ‘Dad said so; he’s been to see them. Apparently Sheila Bissett had a go at the background but it wasn’t nearly as beautifully done as you do it and Evie had to pull it all out.’

  ‘In that case then I’d better pull myself together and get back to work. Can’t have the tapestry for that medieval hall in Abbey Gate held up else we’ll get a bad name. I’m that proud we were asked to do it.’

  Beth stood up, leaned over Dottie and kissed her. ‘I’m off, Dottie. Thanks for the coffee and talking to me; you always do me good.’

  ‘Thanks for my pep talk. Bye, love, bye, Sykes.’ Sykes wagged his tail at her as he ran for the front door.

  The news of Beth helping Gilbert in his office reached the old table in the bar at the Royal Oak in no time at all and as fascinating topics of conversation were few and far between at the moment they were glad to have something to talk about.

  Sylvia, her days as house
keeper at the Rectory now long gone, remembered sitting either side of the Aga helping Caroline to bottle feed the twins all those years ago. ‘Well, if she isn’t enjoying herself then she did right to come back home.’

  Willie, however, had a different spin on the matter which he voiced in firm tones. ‘Got the chance for a place at Cambridge and throws it away ’cos she’s homesick. Plain daft that is. She should have stuck it out and made a go of it.’ He slapped down his tankard and looked round for approval.

  Surprisingly there were no approving nods.

  ‘Frankly, what’s the point of her being miserable?’ Vince remarked.

  Marie spoke up, saying, ‘Maybe she just wasn’t ready for it.’

  Willie scoffed at their sympathy. ‘She’s got Alex there, hasn’t she? Always go see him if she’s miserable. Though, why they’ve gone to different colleges, I’ll never know.’

  ‘Sick of relying on each other, I suppose. They’ve got to grow up some time and manage without each other.’

  This remark of Sylvia’s angered Willie even more. ‘We all know how much the girl relies on Alex; he’s a tower of strength, just like the rector. I’ve known the day when—’

  Marie interrupted him. ‘So what you’re saying is if she ever gets married Alex will have to move in with her and her husband?’

  Scathingly Willie replied, ‘I’m not that daft. What I am saying is she’s given up a marvellous opportunity. Cambridge on your references – what’s better than that, eh?’ He looked round and saw approval, even on Don’s normally expressionless face.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Don, ‘I just wish Dottie was here. She’d know about it and what’s going to happen.’

  ‘She would indeed,’ muttered Sylvia, ‘wouldn’t she, Willie?’

  It seemed to Willie that Sylvia could make absolutely any topic of conversation relevant to him being the cause of Dottie’s sudden departure.