They’d posed for photos in the church itself. Dr Harris had taken them, and now they were home and he’d seen them he knew it really had happened.
‘Sylvia, where are you love?’
‘In here, have you seen Jimmy?’ Willie found her in their little kitchen just beginning to make their evening meal.
‘Yes, he’s thrilled to bits, he wants to know if we’d like to go over there for a meal in Bryn’s new dining room to celebrate with him.’
‘That would be lovely. Right now? Tonight you mean?’
‘Yes. They all know, love, about us.’ He stood behind her and linked his hands around her waist.
‘How did they find out?’
‘I told ’em.’ Willie kissed her ear.
‘Willie!’
‘Why not? I’m that proud of yer. They’re all gobsmacked and not half. All the village will know by morning.’
‘And why not? Shall I get changed?’
‘No, yer lovely as you are. Come on, love, I’m starving. We can take the wedding photos round to Ralph and Muriel on Monday, I’ll be too busy tomorrow with it being Sunday. Come on then, put that down. Let’s be off.’
Chapter 4
Sir Ralph was just finishing his breakfast and enjoying the whole experience of being looked after by his adoring wife when they heard the postman at the door. Muriel never could resist seeing what he had brought the moment it came, so she’d left the breakfast table to pick it up from the mat. Pericles, his black nose shining bright against his white coat, yapped as vigorously as his age permitted, and stood on the letters. Muriel pushed him off and as she bent down, there came loud, urgent banging on the front door. It made Muriel jump. She opened the door to find Willie Biggs standing there.
‘Oh it’s you, Willie, you made me jump. Good morning, how are you?’
‘Very well, thank you, and you?’
‘Very well, thank you.’
‘I know I’m early but I’ve a lot on this morning with being away. I’ve brought our wedding photos. Sylvia and I would like you to choose what you want and let me know and then we’ll have them done as a gift to you and Ralph.’
‘There’s no need . . .’
‘Absolutely, I insist. It’s not every day a man gets married.’
‘No, that’s right. Well, thank you, thank you very much. I’m really looking forward to seeing them. Goodbye Willie.’
‘Good morning.’ He stepped briskly away. Muriel returned to the dining room.
‘Look, Ralph dear, the wedding photos. I can’t wait to look. Let’s clear a space, we mustn’t get them messy.’ Muriel smiled at Ralph and his heart turned over. He never quite got over the delight of being with her again after all their years apart. Coming back to the village and finding her and persuading her to marry him had been the best day’s work he’d ever done. He smiled back and then moved his plate to make room. Caroline’s photographs had come out excellently and they were delighted with them.
‘Oh! Look at this one, Ralph, you do look serious.’
‘It’s a serious business giving away a bride, and being best man too. This one of you is good, very good indeed. We must have that one. Look at this one, Willie’s grinning like a cat that’s been at the cream! That one of Sylvia and me is good.’
‘Let’s have another look later on and decide which we want. We mustn’t ask for too many, they’re not that well off. You’ve a lot of post this morning, Ralph. Shall I put it in your study?’
‘Yes, please, my dear. I’ve nearly finished. Is there another slice of toast?’
‘Of course, as many as you like.’
Muriel took Ralph’s extra slice in to him and as she handed it to him she kissed the top of his head. She stroked his white hair, kissed him again and said, ‘Your hair needs cutting.’
‘Yes. I know, that’s on my agenda for this week. In fact, I think I’ll go up to town to get it cut.’
‘Up to town? Don’t you mean Culworth?’
‘No. Town. Come with me and we’ll go to the theatre, or the opera if you prefer, and you can do some shopping. I have a few business matters I need to attend to, so you could shop while I . . .’
‘Ralph! I’d love that, except I shall go sightseeing instead of shopping. Yes, definitely I’ll come. Have you finished, dear?’
‘Yes, thank you. That marmalade is excellent, you must compliment Jimbo on it the next time you go in the Store. Tomorrow it is then. Look in The Times and choose a couple of theatres and we’ll leave tomorrow morning first thing. I’m sure Ron and Sheila will have Pericles for you at short notice. I’ll open my post while you do that.’
‘I’ll clear the table first and tidy the kitchen and then I’ll look.’ Muriel busied herself clearing away and putting her kitchen to rights. Moving to this bigger house had been a wrench at first but now she wondered how she had ever managed in such a small house as Glebe Cottage. London, how she loved it. They’d been to the South of France and Ralph was planning for them to go to New York later in the year, and she’d seen masses of places in Australia when they’d had their honeymoon there, but London she loved best of all. Her heritage she called it, and Ralph always smiled when she said that.
Muriel was putting the bread knife in the dishwasher and giving her kitchen a final inspection before switching it on, when Ralph shouted: ‘MURIEL!!!’ She jumped so much she dropped the bread knife and it crashed to the floor. She clutched her heart and said, ‘Oh, Ralph, whatever is it?’ She rushed into the study expecting to find him taken ill.
Ralph was sitting at his desk holding a letter in his hand, his face, his handsome face, red with excitement. As soon as he caught sight of her he said, ‘Had you heard that the Methodist chapel is closing?’
‘Closing? No, is it?’
‘Well apparently, yes. They are closing this one and building a large extension to their church in Little Derehams. They’ve always been a funny lot in Little Derehams.’
‘Ralph! Really.’
‘Well, you know what I mean.’
‘Why should the Methodist chapel closing be so important to you? You’ve never attended there.’
‘No, my dear, I haven’t. This letter is from the council telling me all about it.’
Muriel sat down on a chair and decided to await Ralph’s explanation. He turned over the page and continued reading. Muriel sat admiring him while he did so. In fact she never tired of admiring him, and to think that at one time, to her shame, she didn’t fancy the idea of his lovely aristocratic profile being beside her on the pillow each morning. What a foolish, misguided person she’d been. The Methodist chapel closing. Well. It had been there, on the spare land, for something like one hundred and forty years.
Ralph put down the letter and said, ‘The spare land, as everyone calls it, belonged to my family. It was my great-great-grandfather who gave permission for the Methodists to build their chapel, on a kind of token rent basis. One florin each New Year’s Day, it was. I remember them coming up to the Big House to pay my father for it. I always understood that my mother sold the entire estate to the council after my father was killed, including that piece called the spare land. But they can’t find the deeds for it in the archives and have discovered that though the council assumed they’d bought the spare land at the time they bought the estate, they now find that the land was never legally transferred to them. So-o-o, I still own all the land surrounding Turnham Beck, would you believe. What I need to do is to find the deeds for it.’
‘But what use is it to you, Ralph? It’s all rough scrub land. Though the trees are beautiful, I always love the beeches in the spring, their leaves look so fresh and most especially green then, and the willows with their twigs dabbling in the beck, and I do look forward to the ducklings in the spring.’
‘Use to me? If it is proved that the council have never in fact owned it and it has been mine all these years without me knowing it, then I shall be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do and provide houses for village people to re
nt.’
Muriel jumped up, horrified. ‘Houses on it? Oh Ralph, how could you?’
‘But don’t you want villagers to be able to stay in the village? Young married people can’t afford to buy the houses now. If they could rent they would stay, if not the village will die.’
‘But the beech trees Ralph, they’ll all be chopped down. And the lovely beck! Pericles loves sniffing about down there and paddling in the water. It would be dreadful to destroy it. Quite dreadful.’ As though on cue Pericles came trotting in to the study, reminding Muriel it was time for his walk. She bent down to pat him.
‘Muriel, my dear, just because I am proposing to build houses it doesn’t mean I shall get rid of the beck, where on earth would all the water go if I did? No, it would be incorporated in the design, and you’d still be able to walk Pericles there because it’s a public footpath right from ancient times and would have to be preserved.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am.’ Ralph firmly nodded his head and then said, ‘Anyway it isn’t definite yet. When you come back we’ll go in the attic and get down that old trunk from the Big House and go through the papers in there to see if we can find anything to throw light on the matter.’ He stood up, took her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘Don’t let yourself become distressed my dear, and don’t tell anyone of our conversation this morning. Not a word.’ Ralph pressed a finger to her lips and smiled. Muriel smiled faintly at him and then retreated to find her coat and gloves and Pericles’ lead.
Apart from their disagreement about Jimmy and him snaring rabbits, Muriel decided this was the biggest conflict they had had to face since they got married. As she unclipped Pericles’ lead and watched him scamper off, how did he manage at his age, she paused to enjoy the trees and the sound of the beck running along. Houses here on this lovely piece of land. Even though spring had not yet come, with all the rain they’d had, the grass and the trees were looking quite fresh, and just here and there were the first signs of new life rising in the trees; tiny buds coming on the twigs and the grass looking perkier after the long winter. She stood on the little footbridge which the council had constructed over the beck and leant on the rail to watch the water dashing over the pebbles. Pericles leapt in and paddled under the bridge. She called to him and as he appeared from underneath he looked up and wagged his tail. She tried to imagine houses, houses, houses. Fences and garages, lawns and herbacious borders, bicycles abandoned on the footpaths, children’s slides peering over the tops of the fences . . . Oh no, Ralph, it simply wouldn’t do.
When she and Pericles got home Ralph was not downstairs. She called his name but got no response. Then she heard loud thuddings coming from the attic, where she found Ralph already struggling with the trunk.
‘You’re back, my dear. Shall we get the trunk down the stairs or shall we look at the papers up here?’
‘Ralph, I don’t want you to build houses on that land.’
He looked at her with surprise. ‘Look at it another way, Muriel. Already three of the village cottages are in the hands of weekenders. In addition your cottage is sold to someone who is only here from time to time. Toria Clark’s old cottage is going the same way because Dickie and Bel Tutt are never here. Let’s suppose some young couple from the village want to live here and bring up their family. Where would they live? Nowhere. And that means that the school numbers will slowly get so small it won’t be worth keeping it open. Then there will be an even bigger decline because we shan’t be able to attract people to live here if they have a family. They won’t want to be bussing their little children into Culworth every day, will they? Jimbo’s store would suffer, the church would suffer and The Royal Oak would suffer . . .’
Muriel couldn’t help smiling. ‘That mightn’t be a bad thing after Saturday night’s rumpus!’
Ralph laughed. They still hadn’t got over watching half the village doing a conga round the green after closing time, led by Jimmy who must have had the hangover of all time the following morning. ‘Still, he did have something to celebrate, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did. I do see your point, Ralph, about the school. Michael Palmer was talking to me about it only the other day, he said if there were any more cuts in education, closing the school will be one of their next economies. Let’s take the trunk downstairs and have a coffee in front of the fire and look through the papers. It could take us all day, but never mind, we’ve nothing else on our agenda today.’
They had both coffee and lunch sitting by the fire sorting out the trunk. Ralph kept getting waylaid by reading the papers and reminiscing about the old life. He even found some old estate account books in which Muriel’s father’s name as head gardener appeared. ‘Look, Muriel, Henry Hipkin £4. Again here the following week, Henry Hipkin £4. That was before you were born. He was quite well paid for those times, wasn’t he? Because he’d have the house and all the fruit and vegetables he could eat. Possibly they’d even provide him with meat when they slaughtered a pig or a sheep.’ Muriel despite her reluctance about the whole project became quite excited, and delved into the trunk with delighted cries when she found something of interest. Then, as she went to take their lunch tray into the kitchen, Ralph gave a triumphant shout. ‘Here we are, I’ve found the deeds.’ To Muriel it sounded like a death knell.
When they set off the next morning for London Ralph had the deeds in his briefcase, along with the letters which had been exchanged when the estate was sold.
That morning Linda arrived at the Store buzzing with news. Last minute as usual, she was hurriedly unlocking the post office grille and setting herself up for business and at the same time telling Jimbo what her cousin Key had said.
‘So-o-o our Kev knows all about it because he works in the planning department, you see. That’ll be one twenty-five, Mrs Goddard. Lovely day isn’t it? Thank you. Next! Twenty-five pence first class, right thank you. Where was I? Oh yes, so he says that the spare land where the Methodist chapel is or was as you might say because they’re leaving, did you know? Anyway they are, and I shouldn’t be telling you this but I can’t keep it to myself, he says the spare land all these years has belonged to Sir Ralph and not to the council. And there they’ve been building the footbridge, putting the wastebins there, cutting the trees down when all the time it wasn’t theirs in the first place, and letting it to the fair each Stocks Day and keeping the rent. I bet Sir Ralph could claim all that money back. Nice little packet for him and no mistake, don’t you think Mr Charter-Plackett?’
‘I don’t think the rent from the fair would amount to enough for Sir Ralph to make a fuss about. Linda, can it keep, if it’s top secret this isn’t the place to be discussing it, is it?’
‘Sorry Mr Charter-Plackett, I’ll tell you the rest in my coffee break.’
Jimbo didn’t have to wait until Linda’s coffee break, because the very next customer who came in launched herself into the latest piece of gossip.
‘Have you heard, Mr Charter-Plackett, that the council’s building a hundred houses on the spare land when the chapel goes? Doesn’t seem right, does it?’
‘A hundred houses? They couldn’t surely, it isn’t big enough.’
‘Well, that’s what the council’s going to do. Scandalous isn’t it? Downright scandalous. I bet Sir Ralph won’t like that at all. He’ll want to keep the village like it’s always been. We’ll have to get a campaign up. It’ll carry some weight though with a titled person leading it.’
‘Where did you learn this?’
‘From my niece, she works in the council offices doing the tea trolley. She hears everything that goes on there, believe me. And there’s certainly plenty going on. The management there ’as wild parties, you’d be surprised at what they get up to. Oh, yes! Disgusting! They do say’ – Jimbo’s customer leant closer and whispered in his ear – ‘they do wife swapping at their parties!’
Jimbo got a piece of paper and a pen from behind the till and said, ‘Give me the telephone number and
I’ll see if Harriet and I can get invited.’
For a moment the customer took him seriously and then realised his eyes were twinkling. ‘Oh, Mr Charter-Plackett, you nearly caught me there. Anyway I’ll keep you informed.’ She winked at him, picked up her groceries and left.
Jimbo contemplated the idea of one hundred houses and what it would do to his turnover. Magnificent. A completely magnificent idea. Still, if the land belonged to Ralph like Linda said it did, there wouldn’t be a hope in hell of houses being built on it. Someone had got their wires crossed. Still, a hundred houses. With all those new customers the Store would thrive, with his outsider catering flourishing like it always did, the mail-order business coming along nicely under his mother-in-law’s eagle eye and with the contract for the catering at the Big House already in the bag, they’d really be in the money. Jimbo rubbed his hands together at the prospect.
‘And why is the proprietor of the Turnham Malpas Village Store rubbing his hands with such glee?’
Jimbo swung round and saw Harriet. ‘Darling! Where did you spring from?’
Village Matters Page 4
