Part of the Furniture (8 page)

‘That’s good. Thank you, Ann. Ah, Jessie! Where were you?’ He put the glass aside, leaning down to pat and stroke his dog, who was lashing her tail and whimpering with joy. ‘Why weren’t you at the door? Are you grown deaf, my beauty? I’ve never known you not be there.’

‘Got better things to do.’

‘Oh, oh, I
see
! The pups have arrived! Clever girl. How many?’ He looked up at Ann.

‘Two. Drink the whisky while it’s hot.’

‘It’s scalding. Are they all right? Dogs or bitches?’ Obediently he gulped some whisky. ‘Just what I needed. Thank you, Ann.’

‘One of each.’

‘Any clue as to the father?’

‘One’s brindled and one’s black and white.’

‘Smooth-haired?’

‘Can’t tell as yet.’

‘Clever girl.’ He stroked the dog. ‘All right, all right, go back to them now.’ The dog was anxious, torn between loyalties, flattening her ears and glancing towards the door. ‘She won’t want to leave them, will she,’ he said to Ann, ‘not for long, not for more than a few minutes at first. I’ll come to the kitchen in a minute,’ he said to the dog, and to Ann, ‘When were they born?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Ah.’

‘And not in the kitchen.’

‘She didn’t have them in the kitchen? Did you move her basket?’ He frowned.

‘She had them in Mr Evelyn’s room …’

‘?’

‘On the
chaise longue
.’

Robert Copplestone looked bewildered.

‘She’s taken a fancy to the young lady.’

‘What young lady?’

‘Who brought the letter from Mr Evelyn.’

‘Explain.’

‘It’s on the hall table. I’ll get it.’ Ann left the room.

Robert drained the rest of his whisky. Ann returned with the envelope, carried so long in Juno’s bag. He took the letter, slit the envelope and read aloud, ‘Dear Father, Juno Marlowe needs your help. In my present state I can’t do much. I suspect you will find her rewarding, so over to you. Lovingly, Evelyn.’

Ann said, ‘So that’s her surname.’

‘Is she here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’ His voice rose.

‘I put her in Mr Evelyn’s room. It was the only room with the bed made up and fire laid ready.’

‘But—’

‘She’s ill, sir, temperature a hundred and three. I had to do something quickly.’

‘I must go and see—’ Robert made to rise from his chair.

‘Asleep.’ Ann pushed him back. ‘Been asleep on and off since I put her to bed, she couldn’t even finish her soup—’

‘But—’

‘You can’t see her now. Come and have something to eat or we’ll have you ill too.’

‘The doctor—’

‘Couldn’t get here in the snow. I telephoned. He said aspirin and hot drinks, keep her warm. As if I didn’t know.’

‘Ah.’

‘Soup?’

‘In a minute, Ann. In a minute.’ Robert Copplestone read his son’s letter again, quoting aloud, “… in my present state I can’t do much …” Ann, do you think he knew?’

‘We all knew, didn’t we?’

‘Yes. Yes, we did.’ Robert sighed. ‘But we did not
want
to know, did not want to admit. Oh god, Ann! The doctor in London said he died in his sleep, his heart just stopped. It has been touch and go for years, but when it happens—’

Ann said gently, ‘Surprise and shock,’ and whispered to herself, ‘That cursed gas.’

‘His next door neighbour found him. She had the key, used to take shelter with him, make soup, she said—she said, I think she said, he seemed very tired that night, exhausted—’

‘Come along, sir, have some hot soup now.’

‘Very well.’ Robert Copplestone got to his feet.

‘Your slippers.’ Ann held them out.

Absently Robert fumbled his feet into the slippers. ‘Aren’t these Evelyn’s?’ His voice was high with pain.

‘Very likely.’ Ann waited. Father and son had always interchanged shoes and slippers. ‘Come on,’ she cajoled.

He made an effort. ‘I’ll eat in the kitchen where it’s warm.’ (And where I won’t be alone.)

Ann said, ‘It’s game soup. I gave some to the girl but she couldn’t finish it.’

To please her, Robert said, ‘But I will finish mine, I am very hungry,’ too tired to have an appetite, but Ann was good, kind, had loved, did love Evelyn. He followed her to the kitchen, sat at the table where she laid a place.

He said, ‘The funeral was quiet and quick.’

‘He would have wanted no fuss.’

‘Fuss! What a word!’

She poured soup into a bowl. ‘Eat up.’ Under pressure she spoke as to a child. ‘It’s game soup, your favourite, just try—’

He picked up a spoon, tasted the soup. ‘It’s delicious.’ He spooned some more, laid the spoon down. ‘He did not want to be a nuisance, he left written instructions with our solicitor, he said the same thing to me some time ago.’

‘The same to me, sir, just the once, then no more mention.’

‘M-m.’

‘Eat it while it’s hot.’

‘What a bully you are,’ he said but he ate the soup.

‘And a nice little omelette.’ She was breaking eggs into a bowl.

‘I couldn’t—’

‘You could, and when that’s inside you, another hot toddy before bed.’

He watched her beat the eggs. ‘We could have some sort of service in the village after the war. What do you think?’

‘Yes.’ She poured the eggs into a pan. ‘When—’ she said but did not go on. How could she say, ‘When we are used to his loss’? She slid the omelette onto a plate. ‘Now eat that.’

Between mouthfuls he asked, ‘Hens bearing up, are they?’ trying to be normal, trying to respond to the woman’s courage.

‘Everything’s all right at the farm. Bert’s short-handed, of course, grumbling. Takes the lads being called up as a personal affront, as Mr Evelyn would say.’ She watched Evelyn’s father eating the omelette. We have to mention his name, she thought, it wouldn’t be natural to bottle it all up. Wish he would shed tears. She leaned her bottom against the stove, taking comfort from its warmth. ‘And there’s been a calf born,’ she said.

‘Bull calf?’

‘Heifer.’

‘Good.’ He had eaten the omelette. ‘Thank you, Ann, I feel a lot better.’

‘Hot toddy?’

‘If you will keep me company.’

She poured whisky into tumblers, added water from the kettle. We are used to doing without lemons, she thought, as we must get used to doing without Evelyn. Curse this war. She handed her employer his glass and stood sipping and watching him as he sat nursing the glass between his hands.

Outside the house the wind rose; there was a spatter of rain against the window. Robert Copplestone raised his head. ‘It’s thawing,’ he said, gulped down his drink and stood up. ‘I have kept you up late, Ann, you should go to bed.’

‘You too, sir.’ She rinsed the glasses at the sink. ‘You look,’ she said, ‘done in.’

Robert said, ‘Is the door—the door of Evelyn’s room open?’

‘Ajar so that Jessie can come and go—’

‘I’ll just peep in—’

‘You can see the puppies tomorrow.’

‘It’s not the puppies I want to see, you silly woman.’

‘Thought not, but all you’ll see is the top of her head—’

‘Let’s hope Evelyn was right.’

‘How, sir?’

‘Rewarding, he said.’

Dryly Ann said, ‘He was a good judge.’

‘Of blondes.’

They mounted the stair together, walked quietly along the corridor to peer through the open door of what so lately had been Robert’s son’s room. By the light of the fire it was just possible to discern a head on the pillow. Juno slept, her face turned away from the door. On the
chaise longue
the dog, Jessie, wagged her tail.

Robert whispered, ‘This one’s dark,’ and presently, as he undressed and got into bed, mulled over in his mind his son’s suggestion of reward.

W
AKING IN THE NIGHT
, Juno was aware of a change in the weather; wind, bitter and persistent bearer of snow, now gusted with the jollity which presages spring. She got out of bed, felt her way to the window, drew back the curtains and unlatched a shutter.

In later years it might occur to her that, seeing that view for the first time, she saw it without thought of Jonty or Francis and was entranced.

What she saw was a stretch of moor etched starkly by the moonlight above a wooded valley. To the left of the woods lay a pattern of silvery fields round a group of stone buildings. Barns? A farm? A glint of water zigzagged through the fields to a large pond, to reappear wider and swifter on its way through the woods, to a valley, to the sea, perhaps? It was difficult to judge distances. As it cut through the fields she felt a longing to follow.

The curve of the lane up which she had driven in the dark was delineated by high black hedges, but the moor, rising and dipping, hid the gate she had wrestled to hold for the taxi to pass through. In the distance hills rose steeply up, but nearer the house stood an avenue of beeches whose branches bowed to the wind and etched the sky.

Immediately under her window there was a stone terrace, beyond it a garden bounded by walls and over the walls a kitchen garden, walled also. Nose pressed to the glass, Juno tried to remember the name of the house she now found herself in. The address had been written on the envelope she had carried so long in her bag. The letter was addressed to Robert Copplestone. This she remembered, but the name of the house? The place? Village? Town?

The woman who had opened the door had taken the letter, laid it on the oak chest, this she remembered. She remembered, too, rehearsing her speech, ‘I brought this letter from your son Evelyn, Mr Copplestone, I—’

What more had she prepared to say? The speech was yet to be made and all she could remember was that the man Evelyn was dead, that she had felt horribly ill when trying to eat soup and that the woman had brought her to this room, put her into bed and that the sheets had been ice cold. Juno yawned, closed the shutter, drew the curtain. Should she try to find her way down the stairs, find the letter if it were still in the hall, find a light, read the address, discover where she was?

Feeling her way, she gripped a bedpost and her knee knocked against something upholstered. She heard a snuffle, a damp nose touched her hand and she remembered the dog who had been there on her arrival. Stroking it, her fingers encountered something else which squeaked and moved. A puppy. The bitch’s cold nose edged her hand away, warning her off. Circumnavigating the
chaise longue
she felt her way back to the bed, climbed in, snuggled down, slept.

When next she woke she sensed movement; the house was awake. Steps ran down the stairs, a door slammed; there were distant voices. Water gurgled in pipes. Outside there was the insistent and busy cawing of rooks, a cock crowed in the distance, a cow lowed; there was the sudden clatter of horses’ hooves and the crash of a tractor starting up. A man’s voice shouted above its din. It was time to get up. It was time to tell Mr Copplestone about the letter. She would feel morally able to make her speech if she could have a bath. She remembered the beautiful bathroom. She would have a bath, get dressed, nerve herself, tell Mr Copplestone about the letter. Be on her way.

Loud voices in the kitchen could be heard from the yard. Robert Copplestone unsaddled his horse, slipped off its bridle and opened the stable door. The horse clattered in, shuffled through the straw bedding and made for the hayrack. A sturdy Welsh pony poked her nose over from the adjacent box. Robert ran his hand along the horse’s back and, feeling it scarcely warm, congratulated himself that to save work he had not had the animal clipped out. He gave the horse an affectionate pat, checked that the water-bucket was full, hung bridle and saddle in the tack-room and, closing the doors, crossed the yard to the house, where a male voice in the kitchen was rising in plaintive crescendo mixed with mockery from deeper accents.

‘’Tis not as if I’d asked to go.’

‘Some has, silly buggers.’

‘’Tis too much, I say, for one man to be milking eight cows—’

‘Hah! ‘Tis a chance to see the world, I say.’

‘Give over, Bert, we all know you didna want to join up.’

‘Reserved occupation, I did think.’

‘Thought you was safe, did ’e?’

‘You ain’t and nor is I—’

‘Reserved occupation would ’ave got them cows milked an’ no trouble, an’ there’s the pigs an’ the tractor—’

‘Tractor needs milking now, does it!’

‘You can laugh, young John, but ’tis I be left on my own—’

‘Should ’ave been more polite, like, to the landgirl as was tried.’

‘She wain’t no good, even boss said so, and I say eight cows is too many for one man on his own and you boys gallivanting off to dress up as soldiers.’

Ann’s angry voice broke in, ‘It was not gallivanting when Mr Evelyn was gassed in the last lot, and Sir was in it too.’

‘We didn’t say they wasn’t, Ann, but ’twas up to Sir to get us reserved occupation status for this lot, same as Wally at Simpson the Butcher, he’s reserved occupation.’

‘Wally has a gammy leg as well you know,’ said Ann tartly. ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said as she caught sight of Robert.

Robert wiped his feet on the mat, ‘Good morning, Ann, and John, Bert. What’s up? Some sort of trouble?’

‘Come to say goodbye, sir. Dick and I are off tonight.’

‘Of course you are. Well, good luck, boys, try and keep out of trouble. We will hope to see you when you come home on leave—and Bert, is something wrong?’

‘Morning, sir, no sir. We was just considering the milking—’

‘Yes?’

‘Eight cows, sir—’

‘I can milk.’

Four men and Ann turned to stare at Juno, and Juno, doing a double take, was staring at Robert. So he wasn’t dead. He hadn’t died. He was here; something funny going on. Alive? Had he been asleep when she—no, this one was older, stronger, frighteningly like. She drew in her breath, she must try again. ‘I’m sorry, I could not help hearing. I’d like to help. I can milk a cow.’ She looked at the ring of faces.

‘You must be Juno Marlowe.’ Robert took her hand. ‘I hope you feel better.’ He was smiling.

‘Yes, absolutely. Thank you.’

‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘No, but please, I—’

‘Then we will have it together. There should be a fire in the library. I often eat there. That all right, Ann?’