Summertime

by Charlotte Bingham

  It seemed he was famed in the villages for the perfection of his whistling, and had even been written up in the local paper. Now, Trilby was determined that it was not just the whistling that she would appreciate, but the milk that went from the churns into the bottles on the back of the whistler’s cart.

  It was five o’clock in the morning and it was raining, but Piers had bought her a pair of Wellington boots and a thick, serviceable mackintosh, such as cowmen wear. The boots were a little big, but she had borrowed a couple of pairs of Piers’s socks, and what with some newspaper in the bottom they were now a snug fit, for which, seeing how wet the milking sheds were going to be, she could only be grateful.

  ‘Very well, my dear,’ Harold said, affably, ‘follow me. You like milk, do you?’

  Trilby found this innocent question difficult to answer. She looked up into Harold’s dark brown eyes, noting his West Country complexion, like that of a healthy baby, round, smooth, pink and white and fresh as a daisy just opening in the summer sunshine. What could she say? She actually hated milk, and the idea of drinking it warm from a cow was purgatory to her. Now she realised that, long before breakfast, she was about to watch gallons and gallons of the sacred liquid being taken from the cows and along the airlines into containers.

  ‘I love butter and cream, and frothy milk in coffee,’ she told him, carefully sidestepping the issue.

  Happily, despite having asked the question, Harold did not seem at all interested in what Trilby liked, but strode ahead of her a little, his own long boots making a firm impact on the path that led up to the sheds.

  ‘We have a mixed herd here, with some Ayrshires added which Mr Piers goes to Scotland to buy, as many folk in Somerset do, you will find. Ayrshires are less rich in their milk, see, better for babies and children, the doctors say. Mr Piers, he goes regularly to Scotland for them, and as you see’ – having arrived in the sheds Harold was able to pat the rump of one of the cows, the look on his face one of fleeting affection – ‘they are a fine and neat cow. Now this is Katie. She is an Ayrshire, with nice udders, kept well off the ground. They don’t trail, so that is why Mr Piers and I, we particularly like her type, it’s her neatness, do you see?’ Harold gave the cow another affectionate pat and it turned a dreamy gaze on him. ‘Now cows, Miss Trilby, are a nice sort of creature, but they can never be taken for granted.’

  Harold paused and lit an acrid-smelling self-rolled cigarette, and for a second Trilby and he watched the smoke rising from it with brief interest.

  ‘Yes, they are a nice sort of creature, but you can never, ever take a cow for granted, Miss Trilby,’ he repeated. ‘Not ever. See Pauline over there, well her ways are her own, I will tell you that. Of a morning, if you don’t take care of yourself, Pauline will lean on you hard with her rump – might be against you, or it might be against your hand, but she will always be looking out for you, won’t you, my dear? Now, let’s start, shall we, Miss Trilby? First, watch me now, you smear the cows’ quarters with salve, then you fix each of these’ – he held up the rubber teats attached to the milking lines – ‘you fix ’em to their quarters, and then you wait for the milk to fill up there.’ He pointed to a vast clear vat on the wall.

  Milk, milk and more milk! And what with four teats to an udder, and the fact that when she tried to fix them on the cows’ quarters, as Harold called them, the rubber teats seemed quite determined to pop off, by the end of helping to milk eighty cows Trilby could have willingly climbed back into bed and fallen asleep.

  But that was only the beginning, for the next task, for which they were joined by Mabel and her sister, was to fill all the milk bottles by hand, each bottle having to be stopped, also by hand, with cardboard stoppers, not to mention a whole set of different sized bottles for the school milk round.

  Because, as Harold said, ‘No-one asked us farmers when they decided that they would give a third of a pint of free milk to the children. They looked at the cost, but not at the inconvenience to the farmer, didn’t they? No-one thought that the milk bottles for school would be a different size to the rest, so it would take half the amount of time again to fill them and stop them! But then the government only gave us tractors when the war came and they suddenly realised that if they didn’t the country would starve! War’s about the only time that politicians appreciate farmers, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘I reckon we beat the Nazis single-handed we did,’ Mabel went on, taking up the story. ‘How we did it, us farmers, I will never know. We worked twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, doubled our output, we did, but now the war’s over, you watch – they’ll soon find a reason to forget all that.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Trilby said, standing back and eyeing the rows of filled milk bottles with some satisfaction. ‘An island people is lost without farming, I should have thought.’

  All at once, the monumental task of milking every cow in the herd was over, and in the thankful pause that followed Harold cocked his head, and smiled suddenly, his large brown eyes taking on a satisfied look. ‘There he is, Mother!’

  And sure enough in the quiet of the still-early morning could be heard, in the far, far distance, not just the sound of a pony’s hooves on the old country road and the rattle of a cart, but soaring above that sound, over and above the noise of the rain falling over the milking sheds, a clear, piping whistle.

  ‘What’s it this morning, Mabel?’

  ‘“Bye Bye Blackbird”,’ Mabel said with some satisfaction. ‘He always does it justice, I will say that for him. Better’n a recording on the wireless.’

  Shortly after the impromptu solo, round the corner came a pony and cart driven by a handsome, middle-aged man, cap on straight, pony in shining harness, the cart behind him empty. The whistle continued until the moment he pulled the pony up in front of the farm buildings, at which point Harold and Mabel hurried forward as he began to back the pony in the direction of the milking sheds.

  ‘Good morning, Jack,’ Mabel called.

  ‘Morning, my dear. And a right good morning it’s turning out to be.’

  The rain having stopped, he climbed down from the cart and shook himself, his outer clothing shedding the wet as satisfyingly as a dog’s coat.

  They loaded up the cart with the milk bottles and those of the milk churns that were to be left at the station for the train, and Trilby, having thanked Harold for her lesson, walked happily back to the house, breakfast foremost in her mind.

  ‘No wonder Harold and Mabel have always laughed at me for being a Londoner – until this morning I had no idea of the awful effort that went into a jug of milk! I shall never look at one again without seeing it for what it is, a truly great achievement.’

  Piers smiled, and turning from the Aga placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. ‘And that is all before we turn to keeping hens and pigs,’ he said, gaily waving the wire basket that made such perfect Aga toast to accompany a strong cup of coffee.

  After two hours in the milking sheds Trilby’s breakfast tasted like a meal in a million. Just as she was pushing her toast around her plate, mopping up the last of the perfectly fried egg, the telephone rang.

  They both stared first at it and then at each other. Half past seven in the morning was not a time when the telephone at Charlton normally rang, unless Piers had had to ring the vet and was waiting for him to ring back with his time of arrival. He had not rung the vet, and they both knew it. Cautiously Piers picked up the old black pre-war telephone.

  It was Aunt Laura. Piers looked across at Trilby as they both registered her voice piping down the line from London, knowing at once that it had to be – as Trilby had predicted to Mary Louise the night before – time for her to move on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Trilby had always known that Lewis would catch up with her, that very soon the sinking feeling that accompanied just the thought of his name would become part of a much larger emotion. She also knew that she should have left Charlton days before. That she had not was because she had
found herself to be truly happy for the first time in her life.

  Of course Aunt Laura, having done what she could to distract Lola de Ribes, sending her on some wild goose chase to Berry and Molly’s hideout in the Yorkshire Dales, could not be counted on to do any more than she had done. Now it was up to Trilby herself to disappear. But where could she go?

  ‘You’re not going abroad.’ Piers looked at her, the expression on his face unusually adamant.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For the good reason that if you go abroad you will be more – let us say vulnerable in every way. About the only place people can hide effectively is Africa, or South America, and even then a white woman, particularly one as pretty as you, soon becomes the talk of the village, and the cat is well and truly out of the bag. No, the place to hide a book is in a library. You are an English girl. You must hide in England until we can sort something out.’

  ‘You must understand that Lewis, being Lewis, really does feel that he can do what he wants with his wife. I keep telling you – you have no idea what he is like. If he finds me, I know he will try and make me go back to him.’

  Piers was on the point of asking the one question that he had wanted to ask all along when Mabel, having barely knocked on the sitting room door, ambled into the room. Piers let go of Trilby’s hands, and Trilby herself sought refuge in the window, suddenly embarrassed for them both. Where before she had felt no embarrassment at being in love with Piers, at loving him quite openly, now, in the realisation that she was going to have to leave him and Charlton, that their short idyll was over, the fact that she was a married woman and he was a bachelor, that they were in effect living in sin, seemed stark and real, and somehow tawdry.

  ‘Mr Piers.’ Mabel looked sympathetically at them both, knowing that their situation was not as it had been, but obviously not quite knowing why. ‘Mr Piers, there is a man at the door. Quite smart he is, I will say that. He, well, he looks to me like he might be the new vet come to introduce himself, but I think you should see for yourself.’

  Piers went into the hall, assuming as casual an expression as he could and opened one of the pair of half-glassed front doors.

  ‘Mr Montague?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t know me, sir, but I am a friend of David Micklethwaite’s. He sent me to see you. On behalf of Mr James. Wanted to know if Mrs James might be about? Or at least whether you might know of her whereabouts?’

  ‘I am sorry, could you repeat that question?’

  ‘Mrs James, sir. Might she be available?’

  ‘I don’t know a Mrs James. I know a Mrs Jameson. I know Mrs Lynda Jameson, great point-to-point rider, won the ladies’ race last year. I had a fiver on her as a matter of fact.’

  ‘No, sir. This is Mrs Lewis James, sir.’

  ‘Jimmy James, know him. Lives near Frome, used to be a printer, but he’s retired now. Oh, by the way, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you announce yourself as the vet?’

  ‘I didn’t, sir. It was your housekeeper. She said, “Oh, you’ll be the new vet.” I never said anything.’

  ‘Well, since you’re not the new vet, and I don’t know of any Mrs James, I don’t expect you’ll mind going away, old love, and leaving me to cook my breakfast?’

  Piers went to close the front door but the man stopped it with his foot. ‘If you don’t know Mrs James, how about Miss Smythson, sir, Miss Trilby Smythson?’

  ‘Oh yes indeed, yes, of course. I met Miss Smythson in London. Yes, I know her. But she is in Yorkshire, I believe. My aunt rang me this morning, as a matter of fact, and said Miss Smythson was in Yorkshire with friends. You can give her a ring.’ Piers scribbled Aunt Laura’s number down on a piece of paper. ‘I would know if Miss Smythson was here, I think.’

  ‘No-one staying here, then, sir?’

  The man’s eyes travelled to the flowers with which Trilby had filled the hall the day before. To the sewing basket, left out on one of the hall chairs, and to a pair of unmistakably feminine shoes tucked underneath it.

  ‘Oh, yes. Miss Ardisonne, an interior decorator, is staying here for a few days. Why? Are you in need of one, or should I ask is Mrs, er, in need of one? She’s very good is our Miss Ardisonne, a dab hand at finding the old antiques and suchlike. Yes, and as for colour, her eye – well, she really does have the eye, does Miss Ardisonne. I’ll call her if you like. Fancy her doing up your sitting room, do you?’

  Trilby could hear Piers sounding more and more flippant and effeminate. They had after all hugely enjoyed it when Aunt Laura had proudly revealed that she thought she had put Lewis’s people off by telling them that Piers was a confirmed bachelor.

  ‘No, no, thank you, sir. I am only a reporter from the local paper, owned by the James Group. Can hardly afford a pot of paint on my salary, let alone an interior decorator.’ It was his turn to give a short cynical laugh, and at the same time he turned away, obviously put off by the squire of Charlton’s suddenly open, warm and far from masculine manner. He backed off down the drive.

  Piers called after him, ‘If I can be of any help in the future please don’t hesitate to call me, I would love to put you two in touch. Miss Ardisonne really does have the eye.’ He watched him climb into a pre-war Riley and chug off down the drive, and then he shut the front door and turned towards the sitting room. Trilby must leave now, without any question, and of a sudden he knew exactly where she should go.

  ‘Go and pack a suitcase as quick as you can,’ he told her. ‘I am going to load up the horse box, drive it round the back, and back it up to the old garden gate by the wall, you know where I mean?’

  Trilby nodded, silent. She had heard everything of the conversation in the hall, and knew as well as Piers that she had to leave at that moment, immediately, and even now it might be too late.

  To lend credulity to the whole operation Piers quickly loaded up his old hunter and his companion goat. Harold helped him.

  ‘Trouble, eh, Mr Piers?’ Harold looked sympathetic.

  ‘Like you’ve never known,’ Piers agreed, and jumping into the driver’s seat he drove round to the back gate that led to the road. He beckoned to Trilby, who shot into the horse box and crouched down beside the goat. For a second both animals turned to look at her, but then perhaps because they knew her, they soon turned back to their hay and continued to munch at it, looking pleasantly surprised by the undoubted bonus of an extra feed.

  ‘Off we go,’ Piers called back to her.

  Trilby wanted to call back ‘Where?’ but the sound of the horse box was too noisy and she was afraid that she might frighten the animals.

  Her dread of the past days had become an awful reality, and when at last the horse box stopped, and Piers climbed down to let her out of the back, she found that she was shivering, not from the breeze that was moving the old trees amongst which they stood, but from fear.

  ‘I thought I had a bit more esprit de corps than this,’ she lamented as, clutching her suitcase, teeth chattering from the suddenness of the whole operation, she followed Piers up to a small, tumbledown cottage. ‘Where are we, by the way?’

  She looked around briefly. From the number of trees that surrounded the small clearing she imagined that this out of the way dwelling must be a wood burner’s cottage, or that of a forestry worker of some kind.

  ‘You are right in the middle of Charlie’s land,’ Piers told her, and as he looked down at Trilby his heart turned over because of a sudden she looked so young and so vulnerable.

  He tried not to remember her dancing on the lawn in the dress that he had bought her, tried not to remember her drawing by the fireside in the evening. He tried not to remember trying to teach her to play nap, the farmer’s favourite Saturday night card game – a game whose rules seemed to change by the minute, once Trilby took it up. He tried not to remember any of those things as he pushed open the old oak front door that had neither lock nor key.

  ‘You’ll be all right here,’ he told her, but even he knew that
he did not sound as convincing as he would have liked.

  If only they had had more time to think. If only they had not been so in love, so intent on their own happiness. He should have taken her abroad. He should have run off with her days before.

  ‘Charlie and Mary Louise will come and see you. And here – I am leaving you my old air rifle, just in case. So comforting. I will come and see you this evening.’

  Piers walked ahead of Trilby into the cottage, pushing open the front door by merely turning the handle. The whole place smelt of damp, and there were cobwebs hanging from the light.

  ‘It’s not on anything like mains or electricity. But we can make up a bed for you.’

  Trilby nodded. ‘It will be fine.’

  But Piers could hear from her voice that he was not the only person who needed convincing.

  ‘Remember you are quite alone in the middle of eight hundred acres. No-one comes this way, except the hunt, and then only occasionally. No-one comes near this cottage, and has not done so for years.’

  He kissed her briefly, casually, hoping that by doing so he was reassuring her that she was in no real danger now, just as by giving a brief but cheerful wave he was hoping to give the same impression.

  Trilby waved back to Piers, and then, taking the old air rifle that Piers had left propped against the front door, she went back into the cottage and stood staring around her, unsure of what to do next.

  Piers had not been gone long before she heard twigs snapping with what seemed in the silence to be a deafening report behind the old stone cottage. Trilby straightened her shoulders and looked around for Piers’s old rifle once more. Then she crept across the old brick-lined floor and flung open the weathered oak door.

  ‘My dear!’ Mary Louise put up her hands in mock surrender. ‘Don’t shoot me until I have unwrapped the picnic, will you?’

  ‘Oh, Marilu, thank God, it’s you.’

  ‘You’re a poet though you don’t know it,’ Mary Louise trilled, walking past Trilby into the dim, dark cottage with its strong smell of damp and its aura of total neglect. ‘My dear! What a dreadful little place. I’ve only ever ridden by here, never come in, and now I can see why. Now sit down while I unwrap all my goodies and pour us both something very strong, because I know you have lots to tell me.’