Nell felt sorry for her mother, but sorrier for herself, because if Mummy did manage to get rid of Mrs Clifton Dan would leave as well and that would be unbearable. Lately she had relied heavily on Dan for companionship because Mummy was always busy and Daddy was harvesting, working harder than ever because Dewi had broken a leg falling out of the hayloft. Not knowing how to get all the work done had made Matthew moody and quick to anger, and he had always been the quiet, patient one, who deflected Hester’s bursts of ill-temper from their small daughter and kept life in the lodge on an even keel.
There was something wrong besides Daddy’s work though, Nell knew, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Perhaps it was because Daddy had refused to try to get another job, away from here. She had been so glad and happy, but she could tell that Mummy had been glad in one way but cross in another.
‘Remember I asked you, Matt,’ she said with ominous quiet when Matthew had finally said, sullenly, that he was happy enough where he was and why on earth couldn’t she be happy, too? ‘Remember I wanted us to go away from here.’
‘You dunna, not really,’ Matthew had growled. ‘But sayin’ you do meks you feel better.’
Interpreting the startled look in her mother’s dark eyes, Nell thought that daddy was right and Mummy knew it, so why say she wanted to move? The strangeness of adults was beyond belief, certainly beyond the understanding of a seven-year-old, so Nell decided to put it out of her mind and get on with her own life, which had all the usual children’s excitements and dangers, even if at least half of them were imaginary.
Slicing beans for the winter, which was only just around the corner, or so Hester said, ignoring the late August sunshine, was not an exciting pastime however. So when
the kitchen door opened both children turned to see who had come in, hoping for a diversion. It was Mr Geraint, holding a sheaf of papers. He nodded to them, then addressed Hester.
‘Busy, Mrs Coburn? I’ve popped in to tell you that I intend to take the children off your hands tomorrow. I’ve got a parcel to send off to London and Dan’s been here a while and not visited the shore yet, so I thought I’d ask you to make us a picnic lunch – something fairly substantial – and to pack a couple of towels and a flask of coffee. If Nell has a swimming suit then pack it, too. We’ll leave early in the morning, deliver my parcel to the post office and then Matthew can drive us to a good stretch of beach and abandon us for a few hours. It will do us all good.’
Hester turned from the sink and began to dry her hands on a small piece of towelling. She looked confused, almost as though Mr Geraint had been unpleasant to her, whereas he had been at his most friendly.
‘A picnic? I see. And is Mrs Clifton to accompany you?’
Mr Geraint smiled. ‘No, I don’t think Mrs Clifton would care for such an expedition, but I’m sure the children will enjoy it, and it will give you some time to yourself. Would you ask Matthew to pick us up in the Lagonda no later than ten, please?’
He left the room. The children, bright-eyed, began to talk about the seaside, the strange creatures to be found on the shore, the birds, the fish, the seaweed which flourished on the rocks. They were still talking when Matthew and the others came in for their midday meal.
Hester, serving piles of potatoes, fish cakes and cabbage, told Matthew rather stiffly that she wanted a word when the meal was finished, so after Willi had left Matthew helped Nell to clear and stood for a moment by the back door.
‘What is it, Hes?’ he asked. ‘Mustn’t linger too long, the weather’s too good to waste; besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if it broke, later in the week. That’s the way of it, in high summer.’
‘It’s the old man; he wants to take the kids to the seaside tomorrow and I’m none too keen, he’s never taken them anywhere before,’ Hester said. ‘Why does he suddenly want to take our Nell on the spree? He never did anything without a good reason, you’ve said it yourself, Matt. I’m going to tell him she can’t go.’
It had been a brilliantly hot day with almost no breeze, the sort of day farmers long for and then grumble about because it makes the workers tire quickly and slow down in their work. Matthew stood in the doorway to catch what breeze there was and looked impatiently at his wife, working at the sink.
‘What’s wrong wi’ a trip to the beach, if the weather ’olds?’ he asked reasonably. ‘The kids will ’ave fun and likely the old man will ’ave fun, too. I’m to take ’em down, am I? Well, I’ll see our Nell don’t come to no harm.’
‘Well, in that case,’ Hester said grudgingly, ‘there isn’t much I can say. Only it seems strange to me, this sudden interest.’
Matthew left and Nell was given a basket of fruit to peel. Dan, who had his midday meal with his mother and Mr Geraint, came through to ask if Nell might go berrying with him.
‘Mr Geraint said if we did you might make blackberry and apple jam, and some pies,’ he said craftily, joining Nell in her task of peeling tiny, bright red crab apples which Hester would make into jelly. ‘We’re going to give the men a hand with stripping the orchard as the fruit ripens, aren’t we, Nell?’
Hester approved of apple-picking and usually of blackberry-picking too, but now she went to the door and
looked out at the brilliant blue sky as though she expected it to shower them with snow at any moment.
‘It’s too hot for berrying; besides, I need Nell to take tea down to the harvest field,’ she said. ‘I suppose you were going out through the woods and up to the moor? Well, why not pick in the lane this afternoon? Then you’ll be able to get back to carry the tea-jugs down.’
‘There are better berries up on the moor. I thought you could come, too,’ Dan said hopefully. ‘Couldn’t Matthew come back for the tea-jugs? We could take our teas with us. We’re having a picnic with Uncle Geraint tomorrow, so why not have one with you today, Mrs Coburn?’
Hester laughed but shook her head. Her hands went behind her and untied the big apron she wore for kitchen work.
‘You’re not getting round me like that, young Dan,’ she said. ‘Get some berries in the lane, then come back in time for tea. I’m just going to have a word with Mr Geraint about this trip to the seaside. It’s not that I want to spoil your fun, I just want to know why, after weeks and weeks of ignoring the pair of you, he’s suddenly decided to treat you to a day out.’
‘Uncle’s working. I thought no one was supposed to disturb him when he’s working,’ Dan said.
Because of the heat, he and Nell had sat themselves down on the back door step to peel the tiny, fiddling fruit, and they had to move to one side to let Hester squeeze past. ‘You’ll catch it if you go up there, Mrs Coburn!’
Hester snorted. ‘Working, is he? Well, he’ll have to stop for a moment,’ she said grimly. ‘I want to know what all this is about!’
‘Let’s go and listen outside the door,’ Dan suggested, when the crab apples had been peeled and floated in a bucket of water. ‘Or we could go berrying; your mother said we could if we went in the lane, and we could easily
wander too far by accident and find ourselves up on the moors. It’s not fair that we should have to cart jugs of tea about, we’re only kids.’
‘You may only be a kid; I have to help,’ Nell said loftily. She picked up the bucket of apples and carried it over to the sink, then put the bucket down with a thump. She glanced at the kitchen clock above the dresser. ‘We’d better wait, hadn’t we? It’ll be teatime in an hour and Mummy’s been gone ages already. I suppose we ought to start getting things ready if she doesn’t come back soon. Or we could go down the lane, like she said.’
‘I’d love to know what your mum’s saying to my uncle,’ Dan said longingly. ‘He can be horrible when he likes; he’s probably being horrible to her right this minute.’
Nell could tell that Dan would have enjoyed hearing Hester taken down a peg; Hester was fond of saying, in Dan’s hearing, that she could not understand a boy of ten being satisfied with the company of a girl three years younger, and of course this made Dan feel that perhaps he ought to find a friend nearer his own age. However, Nell could imagine what would happen to them if they sneaked up the stone stair and were caught at the top: heads would ring and punishments would be handed out wholesale, for eavesdropping was a serious offence. They wouldn’t get a sniff of the seaside if they were found listening at doors.
‘No, don’t let’s. We’ll get caught,’ she said. ‘Let’s raid the biscuit tin and go berrying.’
Dan agreed, though he made it plain he thought her a little ninny. They crunched Hester’s new-baked oaties with naughty delight, then dashed into the little lane which led up into the hills, intending to pick some berries. The trouble was that Willi came along, leading Bess the Clydesdale mare and reminded them sharply that harvesting was thirsty work. Conscience-stricken, Nell insisted on returning to the kitchen where, in Hester’s absence,
she boiled the two huge blackened kettles, made tea in the blue and white enamel jugs and buttered a number of her mother’s scones. Dan helped, but they had their work cut out to get everything up to the harvest field, though Matthew and the other men were full of praise when they did arrive.
Dan started to say that they’d not only delivered the tea, they’d made it as well, but Nell managed to shut him up and the two of them hurried back to the kitchen to make afternoon tea for the family.
‘Matthew wouldn’t have minded if I’d said we’d made the tea,’ Dan observed as they put the kettle on a second time. ‘He often says your mum works far too hard.’
‘Ye-es, only I don’t think he’d like her arguing with Mr Geraint,’ Nell explained. ‘He’s the boss. The lodge is his house. Anyway, I thought it better not.’
‘I think it’s time your mother came back and did her work,’ Dan said severely, getting out the tea service with the rosebuds and beginning to set the cups and saucers out on the walnut-wood trolley. ‘I’m not a housemaid.’
Nell giggled. ‘Nor am I, but I don’t mind helping out. I just hope Mr Geraint isn’t being as horrible to Mummy as you said. Can you pass me the tea-caddy, please?’
Nell made tea in the Georgian silver teapot, cut some rather hefty cucumber sandwiches, buttered the oat-cakes and waited for Hester to return and praise their forethought. Above the children’s heads the clock ticked out its message that four o’clock teatime was long past and Nell began to fear for the welfare of the jug of milk in the hot kitchen, but still Hester did not return.
‘We’d better take the trolley through; but don’t blame me if my Mum says something,’ Dan said at ten to five. ‘She won’t think much of me being turned into a housemaid either, you know.’
Nell giggled again, but she did wonder why her mother
was so long and, having a good share of her mother’s vivid imagination, remarked as they wheeled the trolley down the long corridor and across the hall, that she hoped Mr Geraint hadn’t throttled Hester and thrown her down the old well, which was situated handily for the room over the arch.
‘He’s likelier to throttle my mother if he throttles anyone,’ Dan observed, guiding the trolley over a patch of missing tile. ‘When she wants him to do something she puts on a silly little voice. He gets mad, I know he does, though he never says so. And she’s got some woman to tea today, she sounds even sillier than my mother does when she talks to Uncle Geraint.’
‘I hope mother isn’t persuading Mr Geraint not to take us to the seaside,’ Nell said fervently. ‘I do want to go, Dan! Other kids go to the beach often and when we’re older we’ll be able to go on our own, but now we have to wait for a grown-up to take us!’
‘When we’re older? When I’m older I shan’t be here, I don’t suppose,’ Dan said, not sounding too sad about it. ‘Anyway, it’s back to school in a week and once I get there …”
They reached the drawing-room door and their conversation was suspended as they steered the trolley unskilfully across the threshold. Mrs Clifton and her friend, a goggle-eyed blonde wearing an elaborate tea-gown in pale peach with tassels in coffee-brown silk, were bent over a book, opened out on the occasional table.
Mrs Clifton turned at the sound of the door opening and gave them her practised, lash-fluttering smile.
‘Tea? So soon?’ Mrs Clifton consulted the small gold watch on a fine gold chain at her waist. ‘Oh, it isn’t so soon, I see, it’s quite late. Where’s Hester?’
‘She’s busy,’ Nell said shortly. Every instinct told her that to admit her mother had gone to see Mr Geraint and not yet returned would make trouble for everyone. She
checked that everything on the trolley was as it should be, then left the room, closing the door thankfully behind her. ‘Let’s go out the front door and see if Mum’s still in the room over the arch,’ she whispered. ‘There’s no harm in
looking
. They might be arguing, though I don’t think Mummy likes to argue – not with Mr Geraint, at any rate,’ she added, remembering occasions when Hester had seemed only too keen to argue with Matthew.
‘I’m game,’ Dan said promptly. ‘Come on!’
But no sooner had they set foot on the paving than the geese arrived, waddling and hissing, and by the time they had kicked and shoved their way through the flock Hester was coming down the narrow stone staircase, not looking as though she had been arguing with anyone, Nell noted. Her mother looked flushed and happy, not at all like someone who had failed to get tea twice over.
‘We took the tea through,’ Nell called as her mother pushed through the cackling geese. ‘We took the jugs out to the men in the harvest field and then we did afternoon tea for the drawing-room. We made the sandwiches and everything!’
‘Good girl,’ Hester said, mopping her brow. ‘It’s very hot still, isn’t it? Thanks very much for helping her, Dan. I really am grateful to you both. And now how about getting those blackberries? I’ll start dinner now, and clear tea later. You have some fun.’
She sounded breathless, happy, quite different from the grim-faced woman who had stormed up to Mr Geraint’s room two hours earlier.
‘We’ll have our tea first, then,’ Dan said. ‘I’m parched, I am.’
Hester laughed. ‘Fair enough. I’ll make you pancakes with sugar and lemon, and you can have some of that lemon barley I made instead of tea.’