The snowdrops were in bloom so I had picked some and was arranging a bowl for grandmama when the door of the flower-room opened and Janet appeared with a face like a thunder-cloud.
“Can I speak to you, Mrs Reede?” she inquired. Then, before I could answer, she continued, “It’s that Minnie Dell! I was pleased enough to have her tempor’y, when the house was full, but she’s getting her horns out now. She takes too much on hersel’—that’s the truth. I’ll not have her—nor anybody—poking her nose into my cupboard and taking things that she’s got no right to; I’ll not have her washing her apron in my sink and I’ll not have her using my iron neether! I’d just like to know how long it’s to go on for, Mrs Reede.”
“Oh Janet, I thought it was a help to have Minnie!”
“I’d as lief be on my own—or have some other body. Her and me have never been very chief and I’m just about through with her,” declared Janet in uncompromising tones. She added, “And yon Miss Campbell is mair bother than she’s worth.”
“A bother? Miss Campbell is very useful.”
“She’s nosy, that’s what she is! There’s no need for her to come down the stairs and poke about in my larder . . . yesterday, when I was out, she took a bottle of milk from my fridge and carried it away with her.”
“I expect she wanted it for Mrs Maitland’s tea.”
“There’s nobody has leave to go into my fridge, Mrs Reede,” declared Janet. “And, anyway, we’re not wanting strangers here. I used to do for Mrs Maitland mysel’, making her tea and helping her to bed if she wasn’t feeling just the thing. I’ve been at Craignethan thirty years and I’m not one for changes.”
“But there must be changes, Janet! Mrs Maitland needs somebody to look after her.”
“What’s to hinder you looking after her yoursel’?” muttered Janet.
I pretended not to have heard this piece of insolence (she had been at Craignethan for thirty years!) “There must be changes,” I repeated. “For one thing we’re all getting older——”
“Are you saying I’m too old for my wurrk?”
“No, of course not! I just meant . . .” but I didn’t know what I had meant!
“They’ll both need to go; that’s all about it,” declared Janet.
“Well,” I said doubtfully. “Well, Janet, I’ll speak to Mrs Maitland and see what——”
“I’ll speak to Mrs Maitland mysel’,” interrupted Janet. “Mrs Maitland and me understand each other; she knows my ways and all the wurrk I do. There was never any trouble when Mrs Maitland was the mistress. I’m not liking the changes, and that’s the truth.”
The implication was obvious: she objected not only to Minnie and Miss Campbell but also to me. “Oh Janet—I’m sorry—I had no idea——” I began unhappily.
Janet didn’t wait to hear my apology; she flounced out of the flower-room and banged the door.
It had been my intention to keep grandmama free from domestic problems and worries, but there was nothing for it but to ask her advice. So, after a few moments’ hesitation, I went upstairs to her room and reported the conversation.
“Poor Janet,” said grandmama. “She’s jealous, that’s all.”
“Yes, I know, but what——”
“She’ll have to go, of course.”
“Janet will have to go?” I asked incredulously.
Grandmama chuckled. “It’s either Janet or you, Sarah.”
“But I could try to—to get to the bottom of the trouble. I mean. You don’t want to part with Janet, do you?”
“I’d rather part with Janet than be left here, alone in the house with her . . . which seems the only alternative.”
“But seriously, Grandmama——”
“Seriously, Sarah; she wants to get rid of Minnie and Miss Campbell. Could she carry on with nobody but her niece to help her? Could she do the cooking and look after me as well? I’m fond of Moira, she suits me and she’s absolutely trustworthy.”
“Yes, but perhaps——”
“I’m not going to have you toiling and moiling for me all day long,” declared grandmama emphatically. “If Moira were not here you would never go out and leave me.”
I was silent.
“Would you, Sarah?”
“No, but—but it seems awful. Janet has been here for thirty years!”
“Twenty-five, I think,” said grandmama, frowning thoughtfully. “Anyway it’s time she retired. It has always been a worry finding somebody to help her—and she’s getting more and more difficult. Everybody in Ryddelton knows what an old dragon she is, so it’s almost impossible to find anybody willing to come. That poor niece is as soft as butter but even she is feeling the strain. Oh, I shall give Janet a pension, of course. With that, and her old age pension, she’ll be very comfortable. We shall have to find her a little house in the town; she could never live with any of her relations. She would drive them mad.”
I gazed at grandmama in dismay. It would be my duty to inform Janet of these arrangements!
“Don’t worry, dear,” said grandmama cheerfully. “It’s high time we made a change. The house will be much more peaceful with Minnie in charge. It will suit Minnie to come and live at Craignethan, now that Maggie is going to be married.”
“Maggie is going to be married!”
“Didn’t you know?”
I shook my head.
“It was Dell who told me,” explained grandmama. “Apparently the whole Dell family is tremendously excited about the match. George Brown has been ‘wanting Maggie’ for years and at last he has ‘got her’ . . . so Dell informed me! The marriage is to be celebrated next month and there’s to be a grand party at the Ryddelton Arms. I’m surprised Minnie didn’t tell you.”
I, too, was surprised . . . and then, when I had thought it over, I realised that it was characteristic of Minnie to keep her troubles to herself. Poor Minnie was unhappy about her own future.
There was no need to be “careful” with Minnie (although she was a chatterbox she was sensible and discreet), so the next morning I walked down the drive a little before nine o’clock and met her coming up, wheeling her old bicycle.
“Yes, she’s taken him at last,” said Minnie. “He was that persistent she’s had to give in. I just hope she’ll be happy. She’ll have a fine house, anyway, and a car to drive about in. Aunt Jeanie at Brighton is wanting me to live with her. There’s lots of hotels at Brighton where I can get cooking to do . . . and Janet’ll be glad to be rid of me. Janet is that grumpety, there’s no pleasing her. I’ll need to leave whether I go to Brighton or some other place. Whatever I say is wrong and, if I keep my mouth shut, that’s not right eether. Yesterday when she was out and I took a tin of polish out of the cupboard for Mr Reede’s brown shoes you’d have thought I’d robbed the Mint! I can’t get leave to wash my apron nor hang it on the pulley. It’s getting me down. I don’t know how Lily stands it.”
“Minnie, listen——”
“I’d have told you before, Miss Sarah, but I wasn’t wanting to bother you, with Mrs Maitland ill and all the trouble you’ve had. I’ll not go till you’re suited; I’ll put up with it till you can get somebody else. It’ll not be easy, of course, for every soul in Ryddelton knows what like she is, but maybe if you were to advertise——”
“Minnie, you needn’t go! I’ll tell you all about——”
“I can’t stay, Miss Sarah,” interrupted Minnie in trembling tones. “I never thought I’d be giving you my notice, for I’ve known you since you were a wee girl, coming into the kitchen at Fairfield and asking for a sugar-cookie—and all this time not a cross word!—I’m gey fond of Mrs Maitland, too, and Mr Reede is a real gentleman, but it’s more than flesh and blood can put up with, that’s the truth! I’ll be late if I don’t make haste now, and that’ll be another——”
“Will you listen, Minnie!” I cried, taking her arm and giving it a good shake.
That silenced her. She gazed at me wide-eyed while I told her the whole story: what Janet had
said to me and what I had told grandmama and what grandmama had said about Janet.
“Maircy!” exclaimed Minnie. “But she’s been here thirty years! She’s been telling me that two or three times a day!”
“Mrs Maitland says it’s twenty-five years.”
“All the same, it’s a long time.”
“Mrs Maitland will give her a pension and a little cottage in the town so she’ll be quite happy and comfortable.”
“She will not! She’ll be just miserable! She thinks Craignethan belongs to her.”
“That’s why she must go.”
“No, no! It would never do, Miss Sarah! She’d have my blood! I’ll be better to go to Brighton and stay with——”
“Minnie, listen! It has nothing to do with you; it’s because we must have peace at Craignethan.”
“You’ll never get peace with Janet there!”
“I know—and Mrs Maitland knows. That’s why we’ve got to make a change.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing, Minnie. Just wait and be as patient as you can. Of course if you want to go to Brighton I can’t prevent you; but—but—oh, Minnie, please don’t leave me to bear all the worry alone! I’m not looking forward to telling Janet!”
“She’ll murder you, Miss Sarah!”
“Hard words break no bones,” I said . . . but I said it without conviction for my bones were extremely vulnerable to hard words and I wasn’t feeling very strong this morning, having spent most of the night composing little speeches in which to inform Janet of her fate.
“When are you going to ‘speak’?” asked Minnie apprehensively.
“Now,” I said firmly. “The sooner I get it over the better.”
“Oh, maircy! Well, I’ll not leave you—not for a dozen Janets,” declared Minnie, dissolving into tears.
When Minnie had recovered and all was settled we walked up the avenue together. It was now a quarter to ten so I took Minnie into the house by the front door and she started to turn out the dining-room. Janet would never know that she hadn’t been here, turning out the dining-room, since nine o’clock!
Then I pulled myself together and marched bravely through the baize door which led to the kitchen premises, muttering to myself, “Janet, Mrs Maitland thinks . . . Janet, Mrs Maitland and I have been talking it over . . . Janet, don’t you think it would be a good plan . . .”
I opened the kitchen door, and was about to go in, when I saw grandmama, fully dressed, seated at the table in earnest conversation with the dragon . . . grandmama, who should have been lying peacefully in bed!
There was nothing to be done except beat a stealthy retreat and shut the door behind me.
Moira met me in the hall. “Oh, Mrs Reede!” she exclaimed in agonised tones. “I did my best to prevent her but she would do it! She was up and dressed when I took in her breakfast. She was so determined that nothing I could say was any use . . . and I didn’t know where you had gone!”
I didn’t blame Moira—I knew what grandmama was like when she had made up her mind to a course of action—but I was very much alarmed. Mark had warned us that excitement was the worst thing possible.
Fortunately our alarm was unnecessary; grandmama emerged from the kitchen a little flushed but quite undaunted.
“Poor Janet,” said grandmama. “She’s getting too old for so much hard work. She will be very comfortable in a nice little cottage in Ryddelton, where she can have her sister to stay with her now and then, and ask her friends in for a cup of tea and go to the pictures in the evening. She didn’t like the idea at first but when I had explained it to her she came round to my way of thinking and is quite looking forward to it.”
*
What with one thing and another I had been so busy that I hadn’t seen Debbie for weeks so I decided to go over to Timperton and “drop in” for tea. I was using grandpapa’s old car for shopping and going to church and anything else I wanted—it was still quite serviceable for short runs.
Debbie welcomed me as warmly as ever and we had tea together in her pretty drawing-room.
At first we talked about Beric; he was now at Barstow—a public school where Lewis and Willy had been educated—and was working for his Naval examinations.
“You must give me your advice,” said Debbie. “Mark and I are going south for Beric’s half-term week-end. Do you think your sister would mind if we fetched Freddie from St Elizabeth’s and took her out to lunch? Beric says that he and Freddie have ‘fixed it up,’ but we can’t take her without her mother’s permission . . . and I don’t know Lady Hudson.”
“You can write and ask Lottie if you like, but I really don’t think it will be necessary. Lottie is always so ‘busy’ that she scarcely ever bothers to take Freddie out.”
“That’s what Beric says,” declared Debbie with a sigh. “It seems most extraordinary to me.”
There was a little silence while Debbie poured out tea. Then she said, “How do you like living at Craignethan? Do you regret your dear little made-to-measure house?”
“Not really. Craignethan is a happy house and it will be even happier when Janet has gone.”
“Oh, Sarah! Before I forget!” exclaimed Debbie. “Mark told me to ask you about Mrs Maitland. He’s amazed and delighted with the improvement in her condition and he would like to know the reason for it. You’ve been looking after her very carefully, of course, but Mark thinks there must be something else as well.”
“Yes, I’ve been wondering about it myself. I think there are several reasons, Debbie. For years grandmama has been living under a strain: grandpapa was a darling—they were devoted to each other—but he was so full of vigour that it was a strain to ‘play up’ to him; it was a strain for grandmama to be cheerful and bright and to hide her serious heart condition—and she was worrying all the time about what would happen to him when she had gone. Now the strain is over. There’s no need for her to be ‘bright’ if she doesn’t feel like it . . . and, if she’s a little off-colour, she can have a day in bed without feeling that grandpapa is fussing or that he may be lonely having his meals by himself. She has no more responsibilities. Her work is done.”
“Her work is done,” repeated Debbie, nodding thoughtfully. “Wonderful woman! We struggle and pray for the things we want but, so often, they aren’t the right things. If only we had enough faith how much easier life would be! Is she happy, Sarah?”
“Yes, happy and peaceful. She isn’t worrying about anything; she’s quite content to rest. It’s like having an angel in the house.”
After a little silence Debbie said, “Yes, that’s why she’s so much better.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
My transcription of Charles’s manuscript had been put aside (I hadn’t looked at it for months) and it was not until Janet had left Craignethan and Minnie had been installed, with Mr Brown’s niece coming daily to help her, that I had peace to breathe freely. By that time Maggie’s marriage to “Geordie Brown” had taken place, followed by a grand party at the Ryddelton Arms Hotel, and the happy couple had departed in a shower of confetti for an unknown destination.
“It’s Seville, Miss Sarah,” Minnie confided to me in secret. “It’s Seville where the oranges come from. The tickets fell from Geordie’s pocket when he was helping Maggie to cut the cake and I picked them up for him. Oh dear, it does seem funny! Maggie’s never wanted to see the world . . . and she’s away to Seville! Maybe she’ll go to a bull-fight,” added Minnie with a sigh.
With Minnie’s advent peace descended upon Craignethan and it was time for me to get to work on the “Rainbow.” I took Minnie into my confidence and explained that I wanted a quiet room in which I could do some writing.
There was a small room at the end of the passage which was never used; at one time it had been a sewing-room but it had degenerated into a dump for all sorts of odds and ends which nobody wanted. Minnie helped me to remove the junk to a spare bedroom: two rolls of carpet, a baby’s cot, a very old treadle
sewing-machine, a wicker table, a chaise-longue and several enlarged photographs in ornate frames. There remained two carved mahogany chairs with padded seats and a large solid knee-hole table with drawers. The table was old and battered but all the same it would be useful. A lay figure, with a well-developed bust and an improbably small waist, was relegated to a corner and remained there, a silent observer of my labours. When this room had been thoroughly cleaned it made a pleasant little writing-room. To make sure of secrecy Minnie oiled the look of the door with a feather and I put the key in my pocket.
It was delightful to have a private place of my own. Instead of bundling away all the papers into a suitcase I could leave them on the table and, when I was able to steal a few hours in the early morning (or when Charles was out), I could return to my work and find everything ready to hand.
*
It was June now. The garden was looking beautiful and the roses were at their best; grandmama was so much stronger that she had been out for a little walk and had gone to bed for a rest—and Charles was fishing with Bob Loudon—so the coast was clear for me to put in a good two hours’ work on the “Rainbow.” I had got down to it in earnest when there was a gentle tap on the door and a voice said, “It’s only me, Miss Sarah.”
I got up and unlocked the door; it was not often that Minnie disturbed me.
“I’m sorry, Miss Sarah, but it’s a foreign gentleman wanting to speak to Mr Reede.”
“A foreign gentleman?”
She nodded. “Rob Saunders brought him up from the station in his taxi.”
“Minnie, how strange! What does he want with Mr Reede?”
“It’s not easy to make out what he’s saying.”
“Is he an old gentleman?”
“He’s not old and he’s not young,” replied Minnie. “He’s stout and a bit bald and he’s got a long nose.”
Sarah's Cottage (Sarah Morris Book 2) Page 22
