Too Close to the Sun (16 page)

Grace took her leave of the woman and, promising to let her know her decision very soon, left the room.

Billy was sitting in the chair beside the door, and he got up and together he and Grace moved through the hall towards the rear of the house.

Outside in the yard they found Rhind waiting beside the pony and trap, and without a word and without making eye contact he helped them up into the vehicle. He spoke briefly, just saying, ‘Back to Green Shipton, yes?’ and Grace said, ‘Yes, thank you,’ and he swung himself up into the driver’s seat and the next moment they were moving away.

Grace and Billy barely spoke on the journey back home – their silence due mostly to the intimidating presence of the driver of the trap. He ignored them totally.

Then at last, after what seemed an age, the trap was pulling to a halt outside Bramble House and Rhind was turning in his seat and saying to Grace, only meeting her eyes for the briefest moment, ‘Will this do you, miss?’

‘Yes, it’s fine, thank you.’

With the man making no move to help her down, Grace gathered up her skirts and climbed down onto the road, Billy following. She turned then to Rhind, making one last effort: ‘Thank you – very much.’ And he gave a nod, with
the faintest semblance of a smile touching his mouth. ‘Miss,’ he murmured, then looked ahead, touched his hat and flapped at the reins. A second later he was driving away.

‘Do you like that man?’ Billy asked as he and Grace stepped into the yard.

Grace, avoiding answering the question, said, ‘Well, we don’t really know him, do we?’

‘No, but – only he never speaks in a friendly way.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ Grace agreed. ‘But maybe that’s just how he is.’

They reached the rear door and went through into the kitchen where Grace filled the kettle and put it on to boil. ‘You’re probably hungry, are you?’ she said to Billy, and he agreed that he was.

Grace began to busy herself getting food for their midday dinner. As she washed lettuce in a bowl she said to Billy, ‘Tell me, what did Mrs Spencer have to say to you? You were with her some time. What did you talk about?’

He had just washed his hands and was now drying them on an old towel. ‘She asked me lots of questions,’ he said. ‘Questions about school and that kind of thing. She asked what lessons I liked best. She asked me how I hurt my leg. And she asked me if I was sad at having to leave here, and I said yes. Then she asked me if I’d like to live at her house.’

‘Oh, she did. And what did you say?’

‘I said to her, “Yes, ma’am.” And she said, “Well, we’d have to see about it.”’ He paused. ‘Are we going there, Grace? Are we going there to live?’

Grace did not answer him at once. She would have to come to a decision at some time. And there was little time left. She thought again of the house. It was such an enormous place. What must it be like to live in such a house? And to have no more financial cares, to be able to
spend one’s day without stress? And what would her work consist of? – accompanying Mrs Spencer on her painting expeditions and to museums – and being a general companion and helper where she could. There was no doubt that Mrs Spencer now seemed so much more approachable. After all the stress and pressures of the last months, Grace thought, such a move could bring so much relief.

But she could not at the same time put out of her mind her reservations, her fears. And for the most part they concerned Mr Spencer. And she thought of him again, and his hand upon her arm, upon her own hand, the lingering glance as his eyes fell upon hers.

‘I don’t think so, Billy,’ she said. ‘But we’ll be all right. I’ll find a good job soon, and we’ll be comfortable at Mrs Packerman’s until we find a better and more permanent place to stay.’

All the previous day the bonfire had been burning, but now, early on Friday morning, the flames were out, and not even a thread of smoke rose up from the pile of ash. Grace stood before the bonfire’s remains. So much had been consumed. She and Billy had fed it for hours, throwing onto it all the things that they would no longer need, and which were not to be bought by Mr Clemmer the house-clearer. So old shoes, old clothes, papers, useless bits of her father’s timber, it had all gone to feed the flames. Now, in the house, in the hall, stood a box, a small trunk and a suitcase – all the effects that Grace and Billy would keep, and which would be travelling with them to Mrs Packerman’s lodging house. All the rest of the house and workshop’s effects were waiting to be collected and loaded onto a wagon by Mr Clemmer. The day before, Grace had said her goodbyes to Mrs Tanner. The woman had gone off in tears, and Grace herself had wept again.

Moving from room to room, after they had filtered out
the things for burning, Grace had again felt tears on her cheek. The reality of the change was coming through to her: soon she and Billy would be gone, would have left the house for ever. It hardly seemed like their home any more. In the bedrooms on the beds the bolsters and the mattresses had been rolled up, the sheets and blankets neatly folded. In the parlour the ornaments and pictures were neatly stacked, and in the kitchen the pots and pans and china and cutlery had been laid upon the bare table, ready to be packed away by Mr Clemmer and his helpers.

Some things had remained the same, however. Grace had still got nowhere in her search for a position. Two days earlier she had had the second of two interviews following responses to advertisements in the newspaper columns. The first was with the mother of two small boys of seven and eight, and it would have been promising had the family not been living in the village of Collerway, which proved to be so difficult to get to that Grace was sure that she would be spending all of her wages on cab fares. The second had been in Harbrook, but the house into which she had been invited had had such a filthy appearance, and the two girls for whom the teacher was required had been so loud and coarse that Grace knew that it would never work. Which left her exactly back where she had started – and she must begin looking all over again.

Now, standing before the bonfire’s grey ashes, she knew that only minutes remained before Mr Clemmer would be there. And even as the thought went through her head she heard the sound of a wagon and horses pulling into the yard and then Billy was there, running to her, telling her that the man had arrived.

Mr Clemmer appeared, driving a wagon pulled by two hefty mares, and accompanied by two of his sons, both
freckled, powerful-looking young men, who were leaping down from the wagon even before it came to a halt.

It was three o’clock before Clemmer and his helpers had finished. And during the hours they had sorted and packed, piling everything from the small house and the workshop onto the wagon until in the end both house and workshop were bare and every square inch of the wagon was packed. Throughout the whole process Grace and Billy had sat on one side on the old bench in the yard, watching as the men moved back and forth. And then at last Mr Clemmer had come to her and, taking out his purse, counted out coins into her palm, the amount agreed between them. She put the money into her own purse alongside that given to her by Mr Timmins and Mr Spencer. As small as the total sum was, she had never had so much money in her life before. Not that it was all hers; an equal part belonged to Billy, and in time he must have his share.

And then she and Billy were standing side by side on the cobbles watching as the effects of the only home they had known in their lives was borne away.

When the wagon had turned the corner out of sight, Grace gave a deep sigh and, with some trepidation, entered the cottage. She was fearful of seeing it without all those things that had given it meaning. And followed by Billy she went from room to room. Everything was bare. The floors were bare, the walls were bare, and in the rooms their hushed voices echoed, and their footsteps rang in the hollow spaces. A few minutes and it was enough. The place was not their home any more.

‘Billy,’ she said, turning to her brother who stood beside her looking around with a tearful, wide-eyed, bewildered expression, ‘let’s go and get the fly and leave.’

Leaving their belongings in the hall, Grace and Billy left the cottage to walk to the far side of the village – only a short
distance away – to the stables of the fly proprietor, Mr Hammond. He was out on a call when they arrived, but his wife said that he was expected back very soon. So the two waited together until, after some fifteen minutes, the cab came into the yard. Two minutes later, Grace and Billy were on board and being driven back to Bramble House.

On arrival Mr Hammond helped load on board the pair’s trunk, suitcase and box, and then, with the doors of the house securely locked behind them, Grace climbed up into the fly beside her brother.

On the way through the village Grace had the fly stop for five minutes at the churchyard while she and Billy went inside. There, standing beside the graves of their mother and father, the two said their goodbyes, Grace bending low over the earth to whisper, ‘We don’t know, Pappy, when we’ll ever be round this way again.’

And then they were climbing back into the cab once more, and the cab was setting off. It was no good looking back, Grace said to herself as they left the village; that part of her life was over.

In Corster the fly waited outside Mr Grennell’s office while Grace knocked and went in. Grennell was, as before, sitting behind his desk, and Grace noticed that he could hardly bring himself to meet her eyes as she opened her bag and took out the keys to the house. She placed them on the desk before him. ‘I would like a receipt, please,’ she said, and he nodded, and said at once, ‘Ah, yes, of course.’ And straight away he took up a sheet of paper and began to write out a receipt for the keys. As he blotted the ink he said, looking up at her, a solicitous note in his voice:

‘Will you be all right?’

‘Will I be all right?’ Grace frowned. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.’

He held out the receipt and Grace took it from him. ‘You have somewhere to go, have you?’ he said.

A small ironic smile touched her mouth. ‘Whether I have or have not, Mr Grennell,’ she folded the receipt and placed it carefully in her bag, ‘ – I can’t see that it can matter at all to you.’

He flushed, the colour rising in his pink face. ‘Well, I – I would not wish to see you turned out onto the street …’

‘The thought didn’t bother you before, sir,’ Grace said, ‘and I don’t see why you should concern yourself with it now.’ She turned and moved to the door. In the doorway she turned. ‘I shall not starve, Mr Grennell. And neither will my brother. And neither will we go without a roof over our heads. Rest assured on that. And as we shall not meet again you may also rest assured that I shall never again make the mistake of asking you for anything.’ With her words she turned and stepped out again into the sunshine.

Back in the fly she gave the driver the address of Mrs Packerman’s lodging house and they set off once more.

They were hot and perspiring when they finally sat down in the room at the lodging house, and they were grateful and relieved to see the last of travelling for a while. It seemed to Grace that they had constantly, since that morning, been on the move. But now Mrs Packerman’s handyman had brought up their box, trunk and suitcase, wheezing asthmatically as he did so, and after lingering in the room for a gratuity when the job was done, had left her and Billy alone.

‘Well,’ Grace said, falling into a rickety chair by the window, ‘we’re here at last.’

She looked at Billy as he sat on the bed. There appeared to be no relief or gladness in his face. Getting up, she went over to him and sat beside him.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. She bent her head, trying to look into his lowered eyes.

‘Yes.’ He nodded.

‘It will be all right,’ she said. ‘Truly it will.’

‘I just wish we could go home.’

She was silent at this. They could never go home again. There was no longer any home to go to. But he would accept this in time. Together they would make a new life, and they would be happy.

There came a knock on the door, and the next moment Mrs Packerman was pushing open the door and stepping over the threshold. She had merely, she said, wished to check that they were comfortable and had what they needed. Grace assured her that they were fine, and were, thankfully, now starting to relax.

‘There is just one other thing,’ Mrs Packerman said, ‘ – the matter of the rest of the month’s rent. As I told you, if you remember, payment’s due a month in advance.’

Grace had not forgotten, and from her purse she carefully counted out the sum and placed it in the woman’s hand.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ Mrs Packerman said, ‘it’s as well to get these things out of the way. When I go downstairs I’ll write you out a receipt.’ She paused, smiling a wide smile with lips closed. ‘And another thing to mention is that I don’t allow food up in the rooms.’ She shook her head. ‘Can’t afford to do it, dear. Start that and you run the risk of attracting the rats, and I like to keep a clean house, as you’ll appreciate.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Though that doesn’t mean you’ve got to starve, does it? So what about something to eat, my dears? It’s after six o’clock. Have you eaten today?’

Billy had eaten a pie bought from a shop in the town earlier on, but Grace had eaten nothing since breakfast. Well, they would certainly be needing to eat something before too long, Grace said. Mrs Packerman then suggested
that she provide them with supper, which she could have ready for them in an hour, for very little extra payment.

So it was that just after seven o’clock Grace and Billy found themselves sitting side by side at a long table in Mrs Packerman’s dining room, eating a meat stew and vegetables. The meat was stringy and Mrs Packerman hadn’t spared the gristle, but the vegetables were acceptable, and Grace and Billy managed to eat their fill.

Later, in their room, Billy lay back on the bed, fully dressed, while Grace sat at his side on the bedside chair.

In the light that filtered in from the lowering sun Grace looked at her brother’s face. He lay with his eyes closed, saying nothing.