It was through her garden that she met, inevitably, her neighbours. On the right-hand side lived the Mitchells, an elderly, retired couple. They chatted over the garden wall, and one day Mrs. Mitchell invited Miss Cameron for supper and a game of bridge. Cautiously, they became Miss Cameron’s friends, but they were old-fashioned and formal people, and did not suggest that Miss Cameron call them by their Christian names, and she was too reserved to suggest the idea herself. Thinking about it, she realised that now the only person who called her by her Christian name was Dorothy. It was sad when people stopped realising that you had a Christian name. It meant that you were growing old.
However, the neighbours on the left-hand side of Miss Cameron’s house were a different kettle of fish altogether. In the first place, they did not live permanently in their house, but used it only at weekends and for holidays.
“They’re called Ashley,” Mrs. Mitchell had volunteered over the supper table, when Miss Cameron had made one or two discreet enquiries about the closed and shuttered house on the other side of her garden. “He’s an architect with a practice in Edinburgh. I’m surprised you’ve not heard of him, living there all your life, as you have. Ambrose Ashley. He married a girl much younger than himself … she was a painter, I think … and they have a daughter. She seems a nice little girl … Now have a little more quiche, Miss Cameron, or perhaps some salad?”
It was Easter when the Ashleys appeared. Good Friday was cold and bright, and when Miss Cameron went out into her garden, she heard the voices from over the wall, and she looked at the house and saw the shutters down and the windows open. A pink curtain fluttered in the breeze. Then a girl appeared at the upstairs window, and she and Miss Cameron, for a second, gazed into each other’s faces. Miss Cameron was embarrassed. She turned and hurried indoors. How terrible if they thought she was prying.
But later in the day, while she was weeding, she heard her name being called, and there was the same girl, looking at her over the top of the wall. She had a round and freckled face, dark brown eyes, and reddish hair, abundant and thick and windblown.
Miss Cameron got up off her knees and crossed the lawn, pulling off her gardening gloves.
“I’m Frances Ashley…” Over the wall, they shook hands. Close to, Miss Cameron realised that she was not as young as she had at first appeared. There were lines around her eyes and mouth, and perhaps that blaze of hair wasn’t entirely natural, but her expression was so open, and she gave off such an aura of vitality, that Miss Cameron lost some of her shyness, and felt, almost at once, at ease.
The dark eyes travelled over Miss Cameron’s garden. “Goodness, how hard you must have worked. You’ve made it all so neat and pretty. Are you doing anything on Sunday? Easter Sunday? Because we’re having a barbecue in the garden, provided it doesn’t pour with rain. Do come, if you don’t mind joining in a picnic.”
“Oh. How kind.” Miss Cameron had never been invited to a barbecue. “I … think I’d like to come very much.”
“About a quarter to one. You can come by the sea wall.”
“I shall look forward to that very much.”
* * *
During the next couple of days, she realised that life with the Ashleys in residence next door was very different from life without them. For one thing, there was much more noise, but it was a pleasant noise. Voices calling and laughter and music that floated out through the open windows. Miss Cameron, steeling herself for “hard rock,” or whatever it was, recognised Vivaldi and was filled with pleasure. She caught glimpses of the remainder of the little family. The father, very tall and thin and distinguished, with a head of silver hair, and the daughter, who was as red-headed as her mother and had legs that looked endless in faded jeans. They had friends to stay as well (Miss Cameron wondered how they were packing them all in) and in the afternoons they would all surge down the garden and invade the beach, playing ridiculous ball games, the red-headed mother and daughter looking like sisters as they raced, bare-footed, across the sands.
* * *
Easter Sunday dawned bright and sunny, although the wind was keen and cold and there was still a scrap of snow to be seen, clinging to the crest of the Lammermuirs across the water. Miss Cameron went to church, then came home to change out of her Sunday coat and skirt and to put on something more suitable for a picnic. She had never owned a pair of trousers, but she found a comfortable skirt, a warm sweater, and a windproof anorak, then locked her front door and went out of the house, through the garden, along the sea wall, and in through the gate of the Ashleys’ garden. Smoke was blowing from the newly lighted barbecue and the little lawn was already crowded with people of every age, some sitting on garden chairs or camped on rugs. Everybody seemed very jolly and as though they all knew one another very well, and for a second Miss Cameron was overcome with shyness and wished that she hadn’t come. But then Ambrose Ashley materialised at her side, towering over her and holding a toasting fork with a burnt sausage skewered to its end.
“Miss Cameron. How splendid to meet you. And how good of you to come. Happy Easter. Now come and meet everybody. Frances! Here’s Miss Cameron. We’ve invited the Mitchells, too, but they haven’t arrived yet. Frances, how do we stop the fire from smoking? I can’t give this sausage to anyone but a dog.”
Frances laughed. “Then find a dog and give it to him, and then start again…” and suddenly Miss Cameron was laughing too, because he did look marvellously comic, with his straight face and his burnt sausage. Then somebody found her a chair and somebody else gave her a tumbler of wine. She was about to tell this person who she was and where she lived when she was interrupted by a plateful of food being handed to her. She looked up and into the face of the Ashley daughter. The dark eyes were her mother’s, but the smile was her father’s engaging grin. She could not have been more than twelve, but Miss Cameron, who had watched countless girls grow up during her years of teaching, knew at once that this child was going to be a beauty.
“Would you like something to eat?”
“I’d love something to eat.” She looked about her for somewhere to put her glass, then set it on the grass. She took the plate, the paper napkin, the knife and fork. “Thank you. I don’t think I know your name?”
“I’m Bryony. I hope you like steaks pink in the middle, because that’s what this one is.”
“Delicious,” said Miss Cameron, who liked her steaks very well done.
“And there’s butter on the baked potato. I put it there so that you wouldn’t have to get up.” She smiled and moved away, back to help her mother.
Miss Cameron, trying to organise her knife and fork, turned back to her neighbour. “What a pretty child.”
“Yes, she’s a darling. Now I’m going to get you another glass of wine, and then you must go on telling me all about that fascinating house.”
* * *
It was a wonderful party and did not finish until six. When it was time to go, the tide was so high that Miss Cameron did not relish walking along the sea wall, and so returned to her own house the conventional way, via front doors and the pavement. Ambrose Ashley came with her. When she had opened her door, she turned to thank him.
“Such a lovely party. I did enjoy it. I feel quite Bohemian, drinking all that wine in the middle of the day. And I hope, when you next come, you will all come and have a meal with me. Luncheon, perhaps.”
“We’d love it, but we won’t be coming back for a bit. I’ve got a teaching job at a university in Texas. We’re going out in July, having a bit of a holiday first, and then I start work in the fall. It’s a sort of sabbatical. Bryony’s coming too. She’ll have to go to school in the States, but we don’t want to leave her behind.”
“What a marvellous experience for you all!” He smiled down at her, and she said, with truth, “You will be missed.”
* * *
The seasons passed. Spring turned to summer, to autumn, to winter. There were storms and the Ashleys’ escallonia was blown from the wall, so Miss Ca
meron took herself next door with garden wire and cutters and tied it up. It was Easter again, it was summer, but still the Ashleys did not reappear. It was not until the end of August that they came back. Miss Cameron had been shopping and changing her library book. She came round the corner at the end of the street and saw their car parked by their door, and her heart gave a ridiculous leap. She let herself into her house, put her basket onto the kitchen table, and went straight out into the garden. And there, over the wall, was Mr. Ashley, trying to cut down the ragged, overgrown grass with a scythe. He looked up and saw her, and stopped in the middle of a sweep. “Miss Cameron.” He laid down the scythe and came over to shake her hand.
“You’re back.” She could scarcely contain her pleasure.
“Yes. We stayed longer than we had intended. We made so many friends and there was so much to see, and so much to do. It was a wonderful experience for all of us. But now we’re back in Edinburgh, and I’m back in harness.”
“How long are you staying here?”
“Just a couple of nights, I’m afraid. It’s going to take me all that time to get rid of the grass…”
But Miss Cameron’s attention had wandered. A movement from the house caught her eye. The door opened and Frances Ashley came out, and down the steps towards them. After a second’s hesitation, Miss Cameron smiled, and said, “Welcome back. I’m so pleased to see you both again.”
She hoped so much that they had not noticed the hesitation. She would not for all the world have wanted them to even guess at her shock and astonishment. For Frances Ashley had returned from America marvellously, obviously, pregnant.
* * *
“She’s having another baby,” said Mrs. Mitchell. “After all this time. She’s having another baby.”
“Well, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t have another baby,” said Miss Cameron faintly. “I mean, if she wants to.”
“But Bryony must be fourteen.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“No, I know it doesn’t matter … it’s just … well, rather unusual.”
The two ladies were silent for a moment, agreeing on this.
After a little, “It’s not,” said Mrs. Mitchell delicately, “as though she was as young as she used to be.”
“She looks very young,” said Miss Cameron.
“Yes, she does look young, but she must be thirty-eight at least. I mean, I know that is young, when you’re getting on in years like we are. But it’s not young to have a baby.”
Miss Cameron had not realised that Mrs. Ashley was thirty-eight. Sometimes, when she was out on the sands with her leggy daughter, they looked the same age. She said, “I’m sure it will be all right,” but even to herself, she didn’t sound sure.
“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Mitchell. They met each other’s eyes, and then, quickly, both looked away.
* * *
And now it was midwinter, and Christmas again, and Miss Cameron was alone. If the Mitchells had been here, she might have asked them over for lunch tomorrow, but they had taken themselves off to spend Christmas in Dorset with a married daughter. So, their house stood empty. On the other hand, the Ashleys’ house was occupied. They had arrived from Edinburgh a day or two ago, but Miss Cameron had not spoken to them. She felt that she should, but for some obscure reason it was more difficult to make contact in the wintertime. There could be no casual chat over the garden wall when people stayed indoors with fires lighted and curtains drawn. And she was too diffident to find some reason for contact and go knocking at their door. If she had known them better, she would have bought them Christmas presents, but if they then had nothing for her, it would be embarrassing. As well, there was the complication of Mrs. Ashley’s pregnancy. Yesterday Miss Cameron had spied her, hanging out a line of washing, and it appeared as if the baby might arrive at any moment.
In the afternoon Mrs. Ashley and Bryony set out for a walk across the beach. They went slowly, not running and racing as they usually did. Mrs. Ashley wore wellingtons and trod tiredly, heavily, as though weighed down not simply by the bulk of the baby, but by all the anxieties of the world. Even the bounce seemed to have gone from her russet hair. Bryony slowed her pace to match her mother’s, and when they returned from their little excursion, she had her hand under her mother’s elbow, helping her along.
I mustn’t think about them, Miss Cameron told herself briskly. I mustn’t turn into the sort of meddling old lady who watches the neighbours and makes up stories about them. It is nothing to do with me.
Christmas Eve. Determined to be festive, Miss Cameron arranged her cards on the mantelpiece and filled a bowl with holly; brought in logs and cleaned the house, and in the afternoon went for a long walk across the beach. By the time she got home, it was dark, a strange, cloudy evening with a blustery wind blowing from the west. She drew the curtains and made tea. She was just sitting down to this, her knees close to the blazing fire, when the telephone rang. She got up and went to answer it, and was amazed to hear a man’s voice. It was Ambrose Ashley from next door.
He said, “You’re there.”
“Of course.”
“I’m coming round.”
He rang off. An instant later her front door bell pealed and she went to answer it. He stood on the pavement, looking ashen, fleshless as a skeleton.
She said at once, “What’s wrong?”
“I have to take Frances to Edinburgh, to the hospital.”
“Has the baby started?”
“I don’t know. But she’s been feeling unwell for a day or two. I’m scared. I’ve rung our doctor, and he says to bring her in right away.”
“What can I do to help?”
“That’s why I’m here. Could you come across and stay with Bryony? She wants to come with us, but I’d rather not take her and I don’t want to leave her on her own.”
“Of course.” Despite her anxiety, a warmth filled Miss Cameron. They needed her help. They had come to her. “But I think it would be better if she came to me. It might be easier for her.”
“You’re an angel.”
He went back to his own house. A moment later, he emerged, with his arm around his wife. They crossed the pavement, and he gently eased her into the car. Bryony followed with her mother’s suitcase. She wore her jeans and a thick white pullover, and as she leaned into the car to hug her mother and give her a kiss, Miss Cameron felt a lump come into her throat. Fourteen, she knew of old, could be an impossible age. Old enough to understand, but not old enough to be of practical help. She had a mental picture of Bryony and her mother running off across the sands together, and her heart bled for the child.
The car doors were shut. Mr. Ashley gave his daughter a quick kiss. “I’ll call you,” he told them both, and then got behind the driving wheel. Minutes later, the car had gone, the red rear light swallowed into the darkness. Miss Cameron and Bryony were left there, on the pavement, in the dark wind.
Bryony had grown. She was now nearly as tall as Miss Cameron, and it was she who spoke first. “Do you mind me coming through to be with you?” Her voice was controlled and cool.
Miss Cameron decided to follow her example. “Not at all,” she told her.
“I’ll just lock up the house and put a guard on the fire.”
“You do that. I’ll be waiting for you.”
When she came, Miss Cameron had put more logs on the fire, made a fresh pot of tea, found another cup and saucer, and a packet of chocolate biscuits. Bryony sat on the hearthrug with her thin knees drawn up to her chin, and held her teacup with her long fingers wrapped about it, as though hungry for warmth.
Miss Cameron said, “You must try not to worry. I’m sure everything will be all right.”
Bryony said, “She didn’t really want this baby. When it started, when we were in America, she said that she was too old for little babies. But then she got used to the idea and got quite excited about it, and we bought clothes in New York and things like that. But the last month, it’s all changed
again. She seems so tired, and … frightened, almost.”
“I’ve never had a baby,” said Miss Cameron, “so I don’t know how people feel. But I imagine it is rather an emotional time. And you can’t help how you feel. It’s no good people telling you not to be depressed.”
“She says she’s too old. She’s nearly forty.”
“My mother was forty before I was born, and I was her first and only child. And there’s nothing wrong with me and there was nothing wrong with my mother.”
Bryony looked up, her attention caught by this revelation. “Was she really? Did you mind, about her being so old?”
Miss Cameron decided that this was one time when the whole truth went out the window. “No, not at all. And for your baby it will be different, because you’ll be there. I can’t think of anything nicer than having a sister fourteen years older than oneself. Just like having the very best sort of aunt.”
“The awful thing is,” said Bryony, “I wouldn’t mind so much if something happened to the baby. But I couldn’t bear anything to happen to my mother.”
Miss Cameron leaned forward and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “It won’t. Don’t think about it. The doctors will take every care of her.” It seemed time to try to talk about something else. “Now. It’s Christmas Eve. There are carols on television. Would you like to listen to them?”
“No, if you don’t awfully mind. I don’t want to think about Christmas, and I don’t want to watch television.”
“Then what would you like to do?”
“I think I’d just like to talk.”
Miss Cameron’s heart sank. “Talk. What shall we talk about?”
“Perhaps we could talk about you.”
“Me?” Despite herself she had to laugh. “My goodness, what a boring subject. An old maiden lady, practically in her dotage!”
“How old are you?” asked Bryony with such simplicity that Miss Cameron told her. “But fifty-eight’s not old! That’s only a year or two older than my father and he’s young. At least, I always think he is.”
The Blue Bedroom: & Other Stories Page 7
