Too Close to the Sun (28 page)

‘Well, that’s done,’ Miss Lewin said, and gave a little sigh, as if she had accomplished a feat. ‘Now we can relax.’ Taking off her gloves, she addressed Sophie. ‘And if your papa doesn’t take too long he might get back to have a cup of tea before it gets cold.’ Putting a slim hand up to check on her hat and hair, she looked around the crowded interior of the teashop. ‘Well,’ she said, lowering her voice to a murmur, ‘what a quaint little place.’ Then she added, ‘And how – unusual. I have to say that I’ve been here in Corster a few days now, but I’m sure if I stayed a lifetime I’d never get used to living in such a place.’ She turned to Sophie. ‘Do
you like living here, Sophie? Right down here in the country?’

‘Oh, yes, I do, miss,’ Sophie replied. ‘It’s very different from Kensington, but it’s lovely. There’s so much to see. There are foxes and squirrels and rabbits and – oh, all kinds of creatures. The other day when we were out with Papa we bought some birds in cages, a song thrush and –’ Here she quickly turned to Grace. ‘What were the other two, miss? I’ve forgotten their names.’

‘One was an oriole, a golden oriole,’ Grace said. ‘The other was a skylark.’

‘That’s right – a golden oriole, a skylark and a thrush. Oh, they were lovely.’

‘Oh, caged birds can look beautiful in the right setting,’ Miss Lewin said, ‘though I don’t think of thrushes and skylarks as being particularly attractive. They might have a nice song, but I don’t think they’d set off a room to any great advantage. Give me a pretty little parakeet or bird of paradise any day. They might not be able to sing, but they look beautiful. I’m rather surprised at your papa buying such dreary-looking creatures. I should have been with him; I’d have talked him out of the purchase.’

‘Oh, but we didn’t buy them to keep,’ Sophie said. ‘We bought them to set free.’

‘You did what?’ Clearly Miss Lewin did not understand. ‘You bought them to set free?’

‘Yes.’ Sophie giggled, still thrilled at the memory. ‘Papa bought them from the gypsy woman, and we opened the cages and let the birds fly away.’

‘You opened the cages and let the birds fly away.’ Miss Lewin repeated the words with some deliberation, as if weighing them up. ‘How very bizarre.’

‘Oh, Miss Lewin, it was lovely,’ Sophie said. ‘We watched them fly up into the trees. They were gone in a trice.’

‘Is this so?’ Miss Lewin turned to Grace with the raising of a finely arched brow. ‘I’m sure Sophie wouldn’t – couldn’t – invent such a thing – but it just seems so very odd.’ There was no humour in the rather perplexed smile that touched at her pink lips.

‘Yes, it’s just as Sophie says,’ Grace said, and added, smiling, ‘It was a wonderful moment. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’

‘No, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, either,’ Sophie said, happy to agree with Grace. ‘It was wonderful.’

‘Wonderful, eh? Well –’ Miss Lewin gave a little shrugging smile, ‘to each his own.’ And now she gave a little laugh. ‘I can see that your papa has let the country air go to his head.’ She paused a moment, and the smile on her mouth became one of indulgence. She put her hand across the table and briefly touched Sophie on the tip of her nose. ‘I think it’s splendid that you’ve taken to country life so well. And you deserve to have some pleasure, you dear thing.’

Sophie said, ‘When we move into our house Papa’s going to buy me a pony.’

‘Ah, when you move into your new house. Yes, your papa told me of it. And he’s taking me to see it tomorrow. D’you think I shall like it?’

Sophie nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh, yes, it’s a lovely house. It’s right in the country – with only trees and meadows around. You’ll love it.’

‘Shall I indeed?’ Miss Lewin’s light little laugh came again. ‘I’m not at all sure that I’m suited for a life in the country.’

‘Oh, yes, miss, yes! You could be,’ Sophie said. ‘You just haven’t been here long enough yet.’

Miss Lewin gave a little nod and a smile. ‘Well, perhaps. Perhaps the place could grow on me, though at the moment it doesn’t feel so much like a hundred and twenty miles
from London, but more like a thousand. It’s like a different country.’

‘Don’t you care for Corster?’ asked Grace. She herself had never thought to question anything about the place. It was there, and that was that. Like the Rock of Gibraltar, she might have said, or the Sahara Desert, some things are as they are; they are to be accepted and cannot possibly be changed. And being so it was more or less fruitless even to name a place’s values or lack of values.

‘Oh, it’s not that I don’t care for it,’ Miss Lewin said. ‘It’s just that, as I say, it’s so very different. This place, this little teashop,’ she waved a hand, taking in the crowded interior with its patronage of the usual townspeople, ‘it’s so – quaint. And the shops here in the town. I tell you, I brought money with me in the expectation of perhaps buying a new gown, but after seeing what’s on offer here I shall save my money till I get back to Bond Street. There’s nothing here that’s been fashionable in the last ten years.’

Grace could not help but feel a little affronted at the criticism of a place that was so close to her. ‘But if you went to Redbury,’ she said, ‘you would find fashionable shops. I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find high fashion in a market town. I doubt the townspeople would expect to find it either. In any case it suits them the way things are.’

‘Oh, it’s not only the lack of fashionable shops and stores in such a place,’ Miss Lewin said. ‘That’s just a part of it. It’s just all so –’ and here she dropped her voice almost to a whisper ‘ – parochial. I mean – wandering around this town centre. One can get all dressed up to make the excursion – but for what purpose? There’s so little to see that it’s all over in fifteen minutes. One’s covered the whole place before one’s taken a second breath.’ Here she lifted her hand and touched at the tip of her nose with the back of her forefinger. ‘And I have no wish to be indelicate – but the smell when one goes anywhere near the livestock – ! Dear God,
I’ve never known anything like it. And I should never forget it, I can assure you of that. Oh, dear, no. And as for walking –’ she laughed again here, a gentle little sound amid the hum of voices and the chink of the china, ‘well, I’ve never before had to be so careful of where I tread.’ She shook her head. ‘You can’t tell me that you find such a thing attractive, surely?’

‘Well, of course not,’ Grace said. ‘But it’s a part of life here. It’s a market town, after all. Wiltshire is rural. This is what you get in a market town.’

‘But the smell. Is it like that all the time? Surely not.’

Grace allowed herself a little smile. ‘No. Only on market days. But as I said, it’s a part of it. One accepts it.’

Miss Lewin put her head a little on one side now, looking curiously at Grace, as if Grace had said something quietly outrageous. ‘You accept it. I see. Well, rather you than me.’

Grace said nothing to this. She did not know what to say. She had never met anyone quite like Miss Lewin before, and although there was no denying that the young woman was beautiful, Grace also found her very proud and not a little unsympathetic and – and foreign.

Miss Lewin turned in her seat and with a frown gave an impatient glance over towards the door leading to the kitchens. ‘I wonder how long it takes people to make a pot of tea,’ she said. ‘I should have told the girl I’m only here till Saturday.’ Then, turning back, she said to Grace with a little sigh, as if putting behind her a rather dispiriting subject, ‘But anyway, enough of all that … How do you enjoy teaching our dear Sophie?’

Grace was on firmer ground here and she said without hesitation, ‘Oh, excellently. I enjoy it very much. In fact, if I told you how much I enjoyed it, Sophie might get a swelled head.’

‘You hear that, Sophie?’ Miss Lewin said to the child. ‘We wouldn’t want that, would we?’

Sophie laughed and shook her head, her straw hat shifting on her curls.

‘And have you been teaching long?’ Miss Lewin asked.

‘For several years now,’ Grace said. ‘Until last summer I spent some time teaching two little boys, the sons of a doctor in Green Shipton, the village where I was born, and where I lived before I moved to Berron Wick. Before that I was teaching a little boy who –’

‘Well, indeed you have been busy,’ Miss Lewin cut in, then added, ‘I can’t imagine the life of a governess. I’m sure it must be very trying at times, particularly if you have the wrong pupil. I have to say, I do sincerely admire you for it.’

Grace was not sure how to take this, but she was saved having to think of a response, for Sophie cried, ‘Oh, here comes Papa,’ and turning, Grace saw Mr Fairman coming in at the door. Weaving between the tables, he came across the room towards them.

‘Well,’ he said as he took off his hat and sat down next to Miss Lewin, ‘that didn’t take long, I’m glad to say,’ then added, looking at the empty table, ‘I thought you’d be halfway through your tea by now.’

‘Oh, don’t talk about it,’ Miss Lewin said with a weary air, rolling her eyes. ‘The service is impossible.’

‘Not to worry,’ Mr Fairman said, ‘she’s busy, poor girl. Market day and all that.’

‘It just needs management,’ Miss Lewin said. ‘After all, they know that market day is coming. If it comes every week, it hardly takes them by surprise.’

Just then the waitress appeared again and now approached them with her laden tray, and in just a few moments, with little breathed excuses for the delay, was setting down the tea things. She placed in front of Sophie one of the plates holding the sponge cake, and held the other in her hand, looking from one to the other of the adults. ‘Oh, it’s for the lady here,’ Miss Lewin said with a
smile, indicating Grace, and the plate was dutifully set down.

The waitress went away, and while Sophie wasted no time in starting to make inroads on her cake and lemonade, Miss Lewin poured the tea.

The tea was handed around, and Grace had made no attempt to start on her cake. Miss Lewin was not slow to notice this, and said with a little note of urgency, ‘Oh, do eat, Miss Harper. Don’t stand on ceremony.’

Grace felt her cheeks burning, at the same time sensing the eyes of Miss Lewin and Mr Fairman upon her. The slice of cake was quite large. Of a soft, airy, yellow-coloured sponge, it was in two parts like a sandwich, its filling made of some white creamy substance. Its surface was covered with a deep, light-textured cream decorated with half-sections of glacé cherries. It was the last thing on earth that Grace wanted to eat.

She took a sip of her tea, took off her gloves, and then, taking up her fork, dug it into the cake and began to eat.

‘Did your business go all right?’ Miss Lewin said to Mr Fairman over her teacup. ‘It didn’t take you long.’

‘No, I didn’t expect it to,’ he said. ‘And yes, it was fine. I merely wished to pay a bill. And people never take long about it if you’re offering them money.’

Miss Lewin smiled. ‘Well, I might say that I’ve been learning quite a lot in the little time you were away.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I’ve been learning what it’s like to live in a country town. And learning just what adjustment is needed. And apparently you have a feeling for wild creatures.’

He frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sophie and her teacher here were telling me about your buying the birds and releasing them,’ Miss Lewin said. ‘Oh, dear, Kester, I did wonder if the country air might have
gone to your head. I do hope not. Tell me there’s hope for you yet.’

Grace, eating her cake, registered the sound of his name. Kester. An old name, a derivation of the older name Christopher, she had not heard it in many years. She did not look up but continued to nibble at her cake.

Miss Lewin went on, ‘I’ve been rather hard on your new home town, I fear.’ Here she turned to Sophie. ‘Is that true, Sophie? You’re going to tell your papa that I’ve been a little over-critical, is that so?’ Without waiting for an answer she added, ‘Well, you must excuse it if I have been.’ She chuckled. ‘I’m new in town and one has to make allowances.’ She set down her teacup and, gently laying one small hand over Mr Fairman’s large one as it rested on the cloth, gave it a pat and a gentle squeeze. ‘But I can learn,’ she said, ‘in time. One is never too old to learn.’

Grace watched as Miss Lewin’s hand moved from Mr Fairman’s and settled again beside her cup. And then came Miss Lewin’s voice again, this time directed at Grace.

‘Miss Harper,’ she said, ‘you’ve dropped cream down the bodice of your dress. Oh, you poor thing.’

Grace, feeling so self-conscious, abruptly leaned back from the table in order to see the damage caused, and in the process sent her fork clattering to the floor.

‘Oh, dear – there goes your fork too,’ Miss Lewin said – as if Grace were already not well enough aware. And with a little laugh: ‘What on earth shall we do with you?’

Hot with humiliation, Grace had frozen; her fork was on the floor, a little drop of cream was on the bodice of her dress. What more could go wrong? With a murmured ‘Excuse me,’ she took her handkerchief and wiped off the cream. At the same time the young waitress came by and, stooping, picked up the fork.

‘I’ll get you another one, miss,’ she said.

But Grace had had enough. With as much dignity as she
could summon, she gently pushed away the plate holding the half-eaten cake. ‘Please don’t bother,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any more.’

How Grace sat through the remaining time in the teashop she could hardly have described. If they were twenty minutes in number then they seemed more like so many hours. She had thought they would never end. But at last the bill was paid and the four of them were trooping out into the street again. Once there, Mr Fairman asked Grace if she would care to accompany them to their lodgings, telling her that he would get a cab to take her back to Asterleigh. She thanked him but declined, saying that she was happy to take the train, and in any case had to get back without too much further delay.

And so she said goodbye to Mr Fairman and Sophie. And also to Miss Lewin, who, clasping her hands in front of her, said what a pleasure it had been to meet Sophie’s teacher, and how she hoped that one day in the future they would have the opportunity to meet again.