A Drake at the Door (25 page)

Now when she came back, a year later, in reply to our invitation to stay at Minack for the Show, she brought with her the entries from the famous Tresco Gardens where she now worked. She was in sole charge of these entries. She had chosen the blooms herself and it was her job to prepare them, then arrange them on the stands. Five years after she first came to Minack, she was competing on her own with the best growers in Cornwall.

Jeannie met her in the Land Rover when the
Scillonian
docked at Penzance. It was a calm day of blue sky and innocence, and when Jane greeted Jeannie she described the trip across as the best she had ever made. So too had been her trip in the launch from Tresco to St Mary’s; and thus her boxes, several boxes of various daffodils and flowering shrubs, had received no buffeting. They now awaited Jane’s care and discretion as to how they would be presented in Penzance’s St John’s Hall the following day; for the exhibits, Jeannie’s also, of course, had to be staged by the exhibitors by ten o’clock on the Wednesday evening.

Jeannie welcomed Jane as an ally, for as usual my anxiety for material results was clashing with my desire to help the Show by exhibiting.

‘He’s just the same, Jane.’

Jane smiled.

‘Well, we’ve learned not to listen to him!’

It was, of course, imperative that Jane’s flowers should be put in water as quickly as possible; but there was also an added apprehension as far as flower show exhibitors are concerned. Would the blooms be in their full glory at the instant the judges passed by?

Jane had erred, if this is erring, in picking her blooms when they were truly fresh, when the buds were just bursting. Yet if the buds did not come into their perfection within thirty-six hours, her efforts would be ignored.

For the prize she was really aiming for, quite apart from the other entries she had planned, was the top accolade of Cornish and Scilly Isle growers, the Prince of Wales Cup.

Only the most illustrious names of growers had been inscribed as the winners. What were her chances?

‘The best thing to do, Jane,’ I said, ‘is to put them in the big greenhouse. The tomatoes we’ve planted are being kept at a temperature of fifty degrees, and that will bring out your daffodils at just the right speed. No forcing, just naturally.’

So the daffodils, on the Tuesday afternoon, were put there, carefully placed in pails by Jane. They were called Carbineer. An elegant yellow daffodil with a red cup, an aristocrat among the many others striving for the public’s attention.

That evening Jeannie, Jane and I went down to see Tommy and Hilda Bailey at the Lamorna Inn. These two, ever since we first came to Minack, had given us encouragement and advice; and if we had a gardening problem we usually sought Tommy’s opinion. He was an expert flower-grower.

‘Fifty degrees is the right temperature for Jane’s daffs, don’t you think, Tommy?’

‘Certainly. We always reckoned that temperature in the old days.’

Tommy looked at Jane. He had often come to Minack, and worked with Jane and ourselves. And he sensed her excitement.

‘Jane, my love,’ he said, ‘don’t you worry . . . you’re going to win.’

When we left Lamorna a wind was rushing up the valley, and as the headlights of the Land Rover stretched along the road, lighting up the swaying trees on either side, I felt concerned.

‘A gale’s blowing up,’ I said, as I turned the corner to Minack, ‘it’ll play havoc with the California unless it eases by morning.’

I went to bed and slept well, but I was awakened at six o’clock by Lama jumping on to the bed, and miaowing.

‘Shut up, Lama,’ I murmured, ‘you can’t go out yet.’

Then suddenly I was savaged from the comfort of my sleepiness by the roar of the wind. It was a sea wind, tearing in across Mount’s Bay.

‘Wake up, Jeannie! We must get the California in as quickly as possible. I’ll go ahead and start picking.’

How often we had raced against a gale to gather our daffodils before they were so bruised and damaged that they were fit only for the compost heap! How often I had bent down between the beds, blown sometimes off my balance, desperately clutching in one hand the stems I had struggled to pick with the other! Yet it was a task which provided much satisfaction once the basket had been carried safely into the flower-house . . . and when the gale continued to roar hour after hour reminding me every minute that a harvest had been saved. This is what was to happen that Wednesday.

I was followed down to the California meadow by Jeannie and then, a few minutes afterwards, by a dozy Jane. I had ruthlessly asked Jeannie to wake her up.

‘Sorry about this, Jane,’ I shouted into the wind. I was only politely sorry. I was, of course, thankful to see her once again in a Minack meadow.

And when within an hour the meadow was cleared and the daffodils were safe in the flower-house, I said to the two of them that we could now spend the rest of the day in peace. I had not guessed that we were about to experience the most ferocious gale in the Penzance area within living memory.

As soon as breakfast was over, Jeannie and I started to bunch the daffodils we would be sending by the afternoon flower train, while Jane began to sort out her various exhibits. There was a great deal of work for her to do. She was thus content to leave the Carbineer in the greenhouse, for she believed that another hour or two in the warmth would form the blooms to perfection. She needed twenty-four bunches, twelve blooms in each, to be packed in two boxes, as her entry for the Prince of Wales Cup. Also two perfect bunches to be placed in vases above the boxes.

‘I think I’m right, don’t you?’

‘It can’t do any harm, Jane.’

That was at nine o’clock.

At ten I said to Jeannie: ‘Am I imagining it or is it in fact blowing twice as hard as when we were picking the California?’

‘Frankly,’ she said, and she was smiling at me, ‘I’m terrified.’

‘What about you, Jane?’

‘It does sound a bit rough. I think I’ll get the Carbineer.’

They were in the big greenhouse in front of the cottage and so, when Jane collected them she had only to dash from the flower-house perhaps twenty yards there and back.

I opened the flower-house door for her. It swung viciously on its hinges so that a gust whipped inside.

‘Look out,’ called Jeannie, ‘those daffs are knocked over!’

The gust had indeed knocked over two jars of daffodils Jeannie was keeping for the Show. But, instead of sympathising with her, I was transfixed by a sight which I had never seen before and hope will never see again.

‘Jeannie!’ I called out, ‘The greenhouse is going!’

The greenhouse was swaying like a tree. A hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, it was lurching first to one side, then to the other; and I suddenly saw a terrible suction effect which made the glass roof appear to leap upwards. A pause; and then the whole massive structure began swaying again. And all the while there was the roar of the gale, so deafening, that although I was standing just outside the flower-house Jeannie could not hear my shouts. I went back inside.

‘Jane,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. The greenhouse will crash any second. You can’t possibly fetch your flowers.’

‘It’ll only take a minute!’

‘Jane,’ I repeated firmly, ‘you can’t do it. If you open the greenhouse door that will be the end.’

There was plenty of work inside the flower-house to keep us busy. Jane had her other exhibits to attend to, while Jeannie and I had to bunch the daffodils that filled the galvanised pails lining the shelves. Bunching can be a peaceful task that allows your thoughts to roam. You bunch automatically. You instinctively select the blooms, three to each row, then two rubber bands to hold the stems, and another bunch is done. A therapeutic task if you are not expecting to hear, at any second, the crash of breaking glass.

‘I’m going out to have a look at the mobiles.’

I could not pretend to be calm like Jeannie and Jane appeared to be. My nerves were too raw to cope with routine. I could not confine myself to the flower-house. I felt impelled to watch the destruction which seemed inevitable. I went outside and struggled up the lane to the mobiles; and for ten minutes watched uselessly and with fascination. Then I came back and stared at the big greenhouse. Through the glass I could see Jane’s Carbineer in their pails. Never, I thought, had daffodils that were scheduled for the Prince of Wales Cup been in such danger.

At lunchtime Jane said she thought the gale was easing.

‘You’re an optimist.’

‘I think it’s easing too,’ said Jeannie.

‘You’re both optimists.’

As the time passed there was, in fact, no pause in its violence. It thundered on and on. The noise was so terrible that sometimes I thought it was the collapse of the greenhouse that I had heard. Then I would look, and miraculously it was still intact.

At three o’clock I loaded the flower boxes destined for Covent Garden into the back of the Land Rover. I was thankful that action was required of me. I would now be doing something that demanded all my concentration and for an hour I would be relieved from watching the heaving, swaying greenhouses. I could balance my own fears by seeing what had happened to others.

I reached Newlyn Bridge and a policeman turned me left into the Coombe. The coast road was impassable. Great gaps had been ground from the sea wall. I joined the line of traffic that travelled up Alverton, through the town and to the station. On the platform the indefatigable George and Barry, who handled the flower cargoes, greeted me with the news that I was just in time. The evening tide, they reckoned, would flood Penzance station and cut the railway line which ran to Marazion parallel to the shore. It did.

When I got back to Minack an hour and a half later, I drove down the lane murmuring to myself that all I could expect to see was debris; and I found myself wondering what one did with heap upon heap of broken glass. But first I saw the Robinson mobiles were still there. Then the big greenhouse. I marvelled at our good fortune and my reaction as soon as I pulled up at the cottage was to find Jeannie so that I could share my pleasure.

The storm by now was reaching its peak. Seldom does a gale maintain its momentum for hour after hour, viciously hitting the innocent, as if it were a cruel boxer who was meeting no opposition. But as Wednesday afternoon turned into evening, and growers all over the area were desperately arranging their long-planned entries for the Show, the storm increased. By eight o’clock that evening it was diabolical.

I had got back and found Jane bunching her Carbineer.

‘Heavens, Jane, how did you get them?’

I knew it was an unnecessary question. Jane and Jeannie were in league together and as soon as I was out of the way they had proceeded to carry out what they had already planned. They watched the canvas hood of the Land Rover disappear. Then they acted. Within a few minutes, Jane had hopped into the greenhouse and brought out her flowers.

Of course, I was delighted she had done it. I had been spared any sense of responsibility, Jeannie’s support had been justified, and now we could all hope that Jane would win.

At nine o’clock the Land Rover was ready to go into Penzance again. There were seven entries from Jane and six entries from Jeannie, and they were placed in the well of the Land Rover as if they were jewels. Along with them went enthusiasm, tenacity and courage.

Knocker, successor to Hubert

Jane won the Prince of Wales Cup, the youngest competitor ever to do so.

She also won four other first prizes including three more cups. And when we came back to Minack after she had been presented with her trophies, we were given a welcome which belonged to the life Jane had lived with us.

Knocker, the gull, was on the roof; Lama was rolling on the path looking inviting; and Boris waddled towards us and followed us up to the door. The gale was over. They were all at ease again.

As for ourselves, we were bewildered by the strain and the success. We were all very quiet. I remember coming into the cottage and saying to Jane what a wonderful experience it had been for Jeannie and me that the schoolgirl who had once called on us for a job had won such a victory. The sound of the storm was still in my ears. I was still dazed.

Then suddenly I heard Jane’s soft voice; and what she said brought to the surface why, in fact, we were so quiet.

‘How Shelagh would have loved these past two days!’

Jane was sitting on the same chair where she sat the day she first came to Minack. Jeannie was sitting opposite her on the sofa. I picked up a pipe from my desk and began to fill it.

‘A year ago she was celebrating her prize for bunched violets. She was so pleased with that win,’ I said.

The gull was crying up on the roof.

‘What happened to Bingo?’ Jane asked.

‘The RSPCA found a good home for him . . . Spotty and Sooty were put to sleep when she left the caravan. They were ill.’

There was silence for a moment. Then I said: ‘She didn’t suffer. She was unconscious even when she fell off her bicycle. When she was a child she had been in hospital with heart trouble.’