Down an English Lane (43 page)

‘Maisie…yes, I remember.’ Miss Thomson sniffed, a little disapprovingly. She and Maisie had crossed swords right at the beginning of the war when the little girl had stood up for her friend and, Audrey recalled, had referred to her as a ‘nasty old woman’. And after that, ‘Old Amelia’ had never really warmed to Maisie as everyone else had seemed to do, believing that the child was cheeky and too forward by half. ‘She’s working in a travel agency, isn’t she? In charge of it, so I’ve heard.’ There was clearly not much wrong with the woman’s grasp of the facts. ‘That should suit her down to the ground; she always had a lot to say for herself, that one… And what about you, Audrey? You’re still at that college are you, training to be a teacher?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I finish though, at the end of June.’

‘So you’ll be coming to teach here, I suppose, at the village school?’

‘Oh no, I don’t think so,’ replied Audrey. The possibility of that had not occurred to her; she was not sure that she would want to teach in her own town. And under the circumstances it would be impossible. Just for the moment she had almost forgotten her predicament, at least it had receded to the back of her mind; but now the awfulness of it all was taking hold of her again. ‘No…’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea. I’m not sure what I shall do. I’ll probably get a post…somewhere else.’

Amelia was looking at her keenly. ‘I can see you in charge of our village school one of these days.’ She nodded sagely and smiled. ‘You were always such a clever little girl, and so sensible…’

Audrey began to feel confused and anxious again. Whatever would the old lady say when she discovered the truth? What would they all say? The enormity of it was threatening to overwhelm her, and she had thought she was coping so well after unburdening herself to her parents. She could feel her hands starting to tremble and she clasped them together, staring down at the carpet. Change the subject, please, please…she said silently. You don’t know what I’m like; I’m not sensible at all…

Her eyes lit on the bag at the side of her chair and she grabbed hold of it. ‘My mum has sent you some jam,’ she said, ‘and a cake. She says she hopes you’ll enjoy them.’

‘Thank you, dear; how very kind of her,’ said Miss Thomson. ‘I don’t bake any more now, so that
will be a real treat. Mrs Kitson does some baking for me now and again. You remember Mrs Kitson, don’t you, Audrey; Daisy’s mother? She cleans for me a few mornings a week and does my washing and ironing, and the baking occasionally. People keep telling me I should have somebody to live with me, but I like my independence. I do my own shopping, although it takes me longer than it used to do.’

Audrey recalled that it was always Daisy who had done the shopping, along with all the other jobs, but the war had forced everyone, even genteel old ladies like Miss Thomson, to do more for themselves.

‘How is Daisy?’ she asked now. ‘Do you hear from her?’ Her moment of panic was passing, but she knew she must steer the conversation to other people and away from herself. She might have realised, though, that Miss Thomson would ask questions about what she was doing; old ladies were always nosey.

‘Oh yes, Daisy keeps in touch with me now and again. She and her husband – Andy, isn’t it? – they went to manage a farm in Worcestershire. They have two children, a boy and girl. She always sends me a Christmas card…’

Audrey refused the offer of a cup of tea, knowing that that would force her to stay a good deal longer. For the next half hour or so they chatted about this and that; about the work that was going on at
Arthur Rawcliffe’s new restaurant; the numerous market stalls that had sprung up in the last year or so, all selling the same sort of produce; ‘new brooms’ on the church council who wanted to change everything…

When there was a lull in the conversation Audrey decided to take her leave. What would be Miss Thomson’s reaction to her the next time they met, she wondered? Luke had said she must hold her head up high, but it was not going to be easy.

She was glad of Maisie’s company on the journey back to Leeds. They chattered away in the back of the car – although it was Maisie who was doing most of the talking – leaving Luke to concentrate on the road ahead. He had acquired the second-hand Ford Anglia a couple of years before, to assist him in his parish work and his visits to his bishop and rural dean.

They stopped at Maisie’s flat, and she departed with a cheery smile and a wave. ‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘It’ll all be OK, you’ll see. Thanks for the lift, Luke, Be seeing you…’

How confident she always is, thought Audrey; she could not imagine her friend getting into this sort of a predicament. She was starting to feel nervous again; scared stiff, in fact. However would she be able to face Miss Montague and Miss Peabody and everybody?

‘Come and sit at the front with me now,’ said Luke. He looked at her anxious face and smiled
confidently at her. ‘Be strong and of a good courage,’ he said. ‘All will be well. We’ll face this together, you and I…’

The words of one of Luke’s favourite hymns flashed into her mind.

Yes, it would be all right. Luke had always been able to make things right…

Chapter Twenty-Three

M
aisie was surprised to see Henry Galloway entering the Leeds office late one afternoon, towards the end of May. She smiled and nodded at him, then carried on with the booking she was engaged upon whilst he spoke to Barry and Olwen. They were not in awe of their boss, knowing that he trusted them all to run the office competently.

Galaxy was still primarily a family firm with Henry as the managing director, but there were now other shareholders as well as family members, and Maisie was proud to be one of them. Henry had presented her with the shares as a reward for her loyalty and ability, and for the hard work she had done for the company. And when she turned twenty-one in the May of next year he intended to give her a place on the board.

‘Hello there, Henry,’ she said when the wealthy lady, one of their best clients who had been booking
an airline ticket to New York, had departed. ‘Checking up on us, are you?’ She grinned at him. ‘It’s a while since we saw you in our neck of the woods.’

‘No, I know I don’t need to do that.’ He looked round appreciatively. ‘Everything appears to be running very smoothly. No problems?’

‘No, none at all. And we are having a good season. Bookings are well up on this time last year.’

‘Good, good… Actually, Maisie, I’ve come to ask you a big favour. I would have rung you, but I thought it might be best if I talked with you, face to face… Olwen, could you make us a cup of tea, please, there’s a love?’

‘Certainly, Mr Galloway…’ Olwen disappeared into the room behind the office, and Henry drew up a chair.

‘Sit yourself down and I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind, Maisie. You don’t have to say yes, but I’d like you to at least consider it, as a temporary measure…’

‘You’re transferring me to Timbuktu,’ she laughed.

‘No…no, not quite; we haven’t got so far yet. But we will, one of these days, we will…’ He nodded, steepling his fingers and tapping them together. ‘What I was wondering is this… Would you act as a courier for us for the next few weeks? On what we call the “cultural” tours; you know, of course, you’ve done them before. The fact is, Thelma has
been forced to give up much sooner than we expected. She’s pregnant – you probably know that – and she would be leaving us at the end of the summer anyway, but she’s been suffering with high blood pressure and she has to stop work immediately…’

‘So you want me to take over…? Mmm…yes, of course I’d love to.’ Maisie knew without any hesitation that she wanted to do so. ‘But…what about my position here? I’m not suggesting I can’t be replaced; I know I can, but I thought that this was what you wanted me to concentrate on; running an office rather than doing the courier’s job. I used to love doing it, of course, but I thought you wanted me to stay here.’

‘The thing is, Maisie, that you are a veritable Jack of all trades…’

‘And master of none?’ she smiled.

‘Oh no, not at all. You are the master of whatever you set your mind to… Thank you, Olwen.’ Henry broke off as the tea arrived. ‘Come and have a cup with us, Olwen, and you too, Barry. I don’t think you will have any more customers today.’ He checked his watch. ‘Five minutes off closing time. You have my permission to turn the sign round to Closed. Then you can listen to what I have to say to Maisie. It will affect you both, of course…’

Galaxy ran three cultural tours now for the ‘more discerning travellers’, those who wanted to
learn something of the history, environment and culture of the places they were visiting. These were a five-day tour to London; another five-day tour to Stratford-upon-Avon; and a seven-day tour visiting the city of Edinburgh for three nights, followed by three nights in Callander. These tours ran alternately, each one taking place every three weeks or so. Galaxy’s fleet of coaches was gradually being enlarged, but was insufficient to run every tour on a weekly basis, as some of the larger coach companies did. The tours to seaside resorts, which required only a driver and not a courier, had been extended to include places further afield, in Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, in addition to the old favourites such as Bournemouth, Torquay and Eastbourne.

‘Believe me, you are the best person for the job,’ said Henry. ‘We don’t employ many couriers, just Thelma and Sheila; she only started this year and is still learning the job. We know we will have to advertise Thelma’s post, and maybe we will be able to replace her quite soon…but in the meantime, if you could see your way to helping us out, Maisie?’

She smiled. ‘You have twisted my arm…’ Although she had not needed much persuasion. ‘When do you want me to start?’

‘The next tour – it’s the Scottish one – goes on Sunday, the fourth of June. Is that OK?’

‘And now it’s… May the thirtieth. Less than a week! Not much time… I’ll have to swot up on my
history of Edinburgh; and Stirling Castle as well now, and Callander…’ The last time she had done the Scottish tour it had been only five days to Edinburgh, but now it included the resort of Callander, near to Loch Katrine, the setting for
The Lady of the Lake.
‘And I’d better take a look at Sir Walter Scott again…’ Already she could feel the excitement starting to bubble up inside her.

‘You’ll be fine, I know you will.’ Henry smiled confidently at her. ‘You’ll be back from Scotland on the Saturday, so you will be able to have the weekend at home before the next five-day tour starts; that’s on Monday, June the twelfth. That’s the one to Stratford-upon-Avon, so you had better start brushing up on your Shakespeare as well!’

‘What! I thought it was just Edinburgh you wanted me to do…’

‘No… I did say for the next few weeks; Edinburgh, Stratford, and then – possibly – the five days to London. By that time we might have found a full-time replacement for Thelma. And in the meantime Colin will be coming to take over here in your absence. You worked with Colin in the York office, didn’t you, Maisie?’

‘Yes…so I did.’

‘He’s a good bloke, is Colin. He’s working as a relief manager at the moment, but I hope to be able to fix him up with a permanent position before long. Now, Maisie, when you’ve locked up we’ll go and have a bite to eat, you and I, before I head off
back to York. There’s a Hagenbach’s café not far from here, isn’t there?’

‘Yes, that will be lovely, thank you…’

‘And I can give you all the gen about the tours. You will have stayed at the Edinburgh hotel before, and the London one, but the hotel in Callander will be new to you – a very comfortable hospitable place from all the reports we’ve had – and the one in Stratford is new as well. But you don’t find it difficult to fit in anywhere, do you, Maisie…?’

The central starting-off point for the tours was in Leeds, at the bus station on Wellington Street, so Maisie did not have far to travel on the following Sunday morning. She took a taxi in order to arrive there well before the appointed tour departure time of ten forty-five. This was to allow time for passengers from York, Manchester, Liverpool and the other northern towns and cities to arrive, brought there by a team of part-time relief drivers. The coach drivers who were taking out tours that morning – to Torquay, Bournemouth, Weymouth and the Scottish tour – were already congregated in the snack bar enjoying mugs of strong tea and toast, and in one case, bacon and egg. His breakfast? wondered Maisie, or maybe it was his second one of the morning.

‘Hi there,’ she said, joining them after collecting a mug of coffee from the counter. She had met them
all before, some only briefly, but they greeted her warmly.

‘You’re with me, I believe,’ said Bob, a cheerful round-faced man – the one who was tucking into the bacon and egg. It was well known that Bob enjoyed his food, as his ample waistline proved. ‘Well, I know you’re with me, ’cause I’m the only one with a courier, aren’t I?’ The other three tours, to the south of England, were simply holidays with excursions that did not require a courier’s special knowledge, although the drivers were expected to find out a few facts and interesting points about the places they were visiting.

‘Good tour this one, Maisie,’ he went on. ‘You’ll enjoy it. And the food! By the heck, I’ll bet you’ve never tasted such roast beef as they serve up there in Callander. It’s making me mouth water just thinking about it!’

‘D’you ever think of ’owt else but yer belly?’ quipped one of his mates. ‘Trust you to land the Scottish tour again!’

‘Aye, an’ I’m not likely to let go of it neither,’ laughed Bob. ‘It’s a pity it’s only once every three weeks.’

By and large, the coach drivers kept to their own tours, possibly alternating between two or three, as none of the tours left every single week. But as Galaxy had a reputation for comfortable hotels and good food none of them ever complained about their diet whilst they were away from home. Indeed,
Bob was not the only one who was more than a little corpulent. Long hours behind the wheel, which resulted in a sedentary lifestyle, plus a three-course cooked meal every evening was an occupational hazard!

The drivers were all smartly attired in their regulation dark green blazers with a green and white striped tie. Maisie’s blazer was bright red, so that she could be spotted easily in a crowd, and she wore a red and white candy-striped blouse and a badge which stated, MAISIE, GALAXY COURIER. They did not bother overmuch with surnames, but the Christian names of both the courier and the driver would be one of the first things the customers would learn, and would then use endlessly for the rest of the week!

The coaches were painted in dark green with GALAXY TOURS written boldly in white. At first their insignia had sported only the white rose of Yorkshire, but it had recently been altered to include the red rose of Lancashire, as many of their clients were from across the Pennine border. This symbol was on the pockets of the drivers’ blazers, and on Maisie’s as well.

By ten-thirty all the travellers had assembled and Maisie helped many of them, not just her own passengers, to locate the right coach. She felt excited; it was always so at the beginning of a tour; the anticipation of the pleasures – and sometimes the worries, too – of the week that lay ahead.
Thirty-six new people to get to know; that was always the hardest job. You had to get a mental picture of each one firmly fixed in your mind as soon as possible just in case – God forbid! – one of them should stray away and get lost.

As soon as they had left the city of Leeds behind and were heading through the open countryside she stood at the front of the coach, her microphone in her hand.

‘Good morning, everyone…’ she said brightly and, she hoped, confidently.

There was a murmured response of ‘Good morning…’ from some of the seats, but Maisie did not exhort them to ‘Speak up; I can’t hear you!’, as some jolly couriers were wont to do. She knew they would lose their inhibitions before they had been very long on the road. ‘My name is Maisie and I am your courier, and this is Bob, our very competent and experienced driver. It is our job to look after you all this week, and I can assure you we are going to have a most enjoyable time together. Anything at all you want to know, any problems, be sure to come and ask me. I will tell you more as the day goes on, but for now…just enjoy the scenery, or catch up with your beauty sleep if you wish!’

There was polite laughter, and she was gratified to see nearly all smiling faces looking back at her. They were mostly middle-aged couples, husbands and wives or, in some cases, two ladies sitting together. They appeared quite elderly, very few
under forty…or so it seemed at a first glance. But that was usually the case. They were quite subdued now, but after a day or two in one another’s company they would be talking and laughing together as though they had known one another for ages.

They stopped soon after midday at the little town of Moffat in the centre of the Lowland sheep-farming area. Lunch had been pre-booked at an hotel on the main street as it was difficult to find places open on a Sunday. It was when they left the town behind and were heading northwards through the lovely scenery of Annandale that Maisie was able to impart to her captive audience her first gem of information.