by Sheila Burns
‘He has invested some money in the States, and I gather it has gone wrong, he seems to be worried to death, but won’t tell me about it. He enjoys investing, but always says that certain capital is reserved for ever, so it can’t be too serious.’
‘He must be somewhere about?’
‘Unless as you say he has fallen down somehow and he is hurt.’
‘I’m sure he isn’t. He knows this countryside well, and obviously knows that earth cliffs give way. I’m sure that he is all right, but of course he has got to be found.’
Her practical calm was a help. Joan sat there with complete serenity, much as she sat on the Bench, so Lindy would imagine.
‘I’ll get you some hot coffee,’ and she rang the bell. When the door opened, it was Simon who walked in, not Davies, which was perhaps one of the biggest surprises Lindy had ever had. When she could speak she asked, ‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘I went for a walk.’
‘It was a pretty long walk, and unfair on other people,’ said Joan with a certain sternness. ‘What about breakfast?’
‘I had it at the Oak Tree, it’s a small pub on the estuary, they don’t mind dogs there, and do you fine. I enjoyed every moment of it. Don’t tell me you were worried?’
It was Joan who answered, for the relief of the moment had been too much for Lindy, and she was in tears. ‘Of course she was agonised. You should not do this sort of thing, Simon, it is so grossly unfair of you. You may want to be alone and have a nice think all to yourself, but what about the girl who is scared that something has happened?’
He went to Lindy’s side, and he was his kind sweet self, not the man behind the curtain any more. He fondled her hand with a possessive quality which had charm. He stroked that flat red hair of hers with affection. ‘You poor kid! It all comes of this wretched cook business, it’s upsetting. I ‒ I only wanted to be alone.’
Joan Headley spoke up. ‘That may be so but you must outgrow the habit. It’s not funny any more.’
‘Sorry. I was always this way. I had a bit of bother over a certain speculation in the States, and it went dead wrong.’
Joan lit another cigarette. ‘You’re not bankrupt?’
He turned and laughed at her. He flung back his handsome head with gay exuberance, as if he had never heard such a good joke before. ‘No, of course not! I only dabble with money set aside for fun and games, it’s just that nobody likes losing, do they?’
‘Then don’t invest in future. Your poor wife looks quite peaky. Mend your ways, Simon, and stop living life all for yourself.’ She said it gaily enough, but there was sense behind it. ‘Do think for Lindy, the girl looks quite ill.’
She got up then. As far as she was concerned she had done the job here and the worry was over for the moment, and for ever if Simon took her advice. She trusted that he would. She walked out of Fiddler’s Hill and into the lane beyond. She would feel a great deal happier if she could be sure, but she had a feeling that she must not hope for that ‒ yet.
Left to themselves, Lindy and Simon fell into each other’s arms. He was deeply sorry and ashamed it had happened, because he had never thought that she would be upset.
Lindy went upstairs to rest, for she felt quite ill with this and rather sick. It was unlike her to turn sick, but somehow it happened. At teatime Simon took her for a drive along the Suffolk coast, and as they drove he held her hand and was sweetly comforting.
They went to Southwold with the strange figureheads leaning across the little streets, untouched by time; perhaps they still felt they leant over the sea. They bought some bloaters in Lowestoft, and watched the trawlers coming and going; then they dined out and returned late. Now nothing mattered. It was one of those evenings when even yesterday did not matter, and tomorrow could not hurt her, because now Lindy was so happy again.
But she had a bad night, and was sick again, with the result that Simon sent for Felix Archer.
When Felix came he was extremely kind, perhaps realising that she did not want him to know what had really happened, though Simon had already told him. Nothing would have made her involve Simon, she loved him too much for that, and Felix was very good about it.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you’ll find it most awfully difficult to change people’s natures, and I doubt if you will ever cure him. Why not just let him do it, and trust to fate to send him back? I bet he always does come back.’
‘Yes, but one does worry.’
‘Simon has had too much money. He expects the world to go with him and give him everything he wants, and I bet he is furious that he is having cook trouble. You’ll get a cook in time, of course, and then it’ll change.’
‘I wonder.’
‘About the cook, or about Simon?’ and he twinkled.
‘About both,’ she said with truth.
Somehow or other she did not get better. The incident had upset her far more than she had supposed. Felix had given her a tonic, and she was to have breakfast in bed for a bit, and a sleeping pill at night because she was finding sleeping difficult.
Joan had searched the neighbourhood and had found a temporary cook who could help them for the time being. She was the vicar’s daughter from Little Bickley on the estuary, and she was home for a holiday. She had done the Cordon Bleu course, and was prepared to cook their dinner every night for a month, provided she could be fetched and returned afterwards. She had nothing but a bike and it was quite a way.
‘This is it!’ said Simon triumphantly.
It almost seemed as though for the moment they were through with the worst of the trouble. When Emma Hadley arrived, she was about twenty-five and a very nice girl. She explained that she had no brain at all, and although her father had been crazy for her to take her B.A., she knew there wasn’t a single hope for this. Failure to matriculate ended the career and she had turned to cooking, for a good cook can always make money, and she was a good cook.
She used far less materials than Mrs. Baker had done, who privately had taken a lot of this and that home with her for her old man, covering it under the name of ‘perks’. Emma turned out the sort of meals people dream about but never have, and when she left each night she put a note on the dresser listing her requirements for the morrow.
Davies drove her home. He was willing to take her to and fro, though not too pleased when her clerical father offered him a cup of cocoa one chilly night for his pains. He drove well, and was not one of those men who shoot through towns regardless, as one half expected he might have been.
‘At last we are out of that worry,’ said Lindy, but wished that she felt better.
Perhaps she was finding marriage altogether too much for her. Everything had happened too quickly, they had rushed into it, and then she had come down here not realising what the big house would mean. Simon was not always the gay charmer with whom she had fallen in love. He could be aloof and one never knew when this strange mood was coming. He had been better since dear Joan Headley had talked to him, but further trouble with the money in America worried him. When she asked about it he said:
‘Leave everything to me, it’s going to be okay,’ but he still looked worried.
Then one day he said eagerly, ‘Let’s go back for a week to the other Fiddler’s Hill? It would be such fun and scare old Ma Burman stiff! Let’s go there?’
The suddenness of it inspired her. ‘Oh Simon, do let’s go, it would be quite lovely.’
‘This week-end?’
‘This week-end,’ she agreed, and felt happier than she had done for days.
Chapter Thirteen
They went off to the hotel they always called ‘the other Fiddler’s Hill’; both of them looked on this as a gay adventure, which would delight them. There was a childish joy in facing Mrs. Burman again, Miss Herman would be back, and would the old permanencies be there? Lady Hutchings with Toots, for ever seeking longer grass? The Inkerman family, so kind and warm-hearted, but with continuous quarrels amongst themselves, which could at times
threaten the whole establishment? And had they missed the white coats which Davies had brought away with him? Lindy tittered over that.
They were stepping back to the stage when they had fallen in love and had been so happily responsive. As they drove Lindy thought how much she had learnt from marriage; she loved him more now, and within her there was the almost maternal desire to protect him from himself in a way she had never thought she could feel for him. To share his depths of emotion and to understand the quiet times when he walked out of her life. She was growing wiser about it all. She was learning.
Approaching Hindhead, the whole of the scenery became once more familiar, and they turned round the corner where the hotel was first signposted: Fiddler’s Hill Hotel.
They came to the hotel standing just below the road, with the long curve to it, and tea was being taken on the lawn. People seemed to be everywhere. There was Lady Hutchings with Toots making for the far ditch, apparently a pet spot. There was the entire Inkerman family, always sending back for more cakes, each of them with a profound appetite.
Simon drew up the car, but no porter met them and already they missed Davies. ‘But we’ve got him, and we’ve got the laugh there!’ he said as he got out, and he went inside.
It was one of those afternoons when there was difficulty about a replacement at the reception desk, so Mrs. Burman sat there herself. She was perched on a high stool, and she had open before her the big ledger. She looked up. It was plain that for a moment she could not believe her eyes; Simon had given a pseudonym.
‘I have a room booked for myself and my wife,’ said he.
The maddening thing was that she played up to it. She dropped that mask of hers and became entirely the grand manageress all in a moment. She put her finger down the bookings.
‘Certainly. No. 14 with bath. I’ll ring for the porter to take the luggage up,’ and she rang the bell. You would have thought that she had never set eyes on them before.
The man who came was oldish with a gammy leg which he dragged after him. He got the luggage and led the way. They went upstairs. They walked along the corridor to the far corner and the man opened the door. Simon went inside. The big room overlooked the lawns and the far trees clustering together, with Fiddler’s Hill rising to the left. There was the pale blue bathroom through the half open door.
‘Dinner is at seven-thirty, sir,’ said the man.
‘Thanks, we know that.’
‘There are other bathrooms at the far end of the corridor.’
‘We know that too, thank you.’
The man blinked hard. ‘You’ve been here before, sir?’
‘Yes. Her ladyship worked here, it was where we met,’ and Simon smiled.
All the world loves a lover, and the man grinned amiably, took the tip and limped off. They unpacked, not hurrying, then went downstairs for an aperitif. It was quite strange how pleased the old residents were to see Lindy, she would never have believed that she had been so popular. She looked different, of course, in an expensive dress, slender as a willow, her hair red against the blue of her frock. She had felt a lot better for coming here and that made her happy again. How charming were the Inkermans, how sweet was old Lady Hutchings, even Toots licked her hand! But Mrs. Burman never thawed.
The dinner was not good, and the coffee cold. It happened again at breakfast, and for a second time Simon sent it back. But lunch was superb, Lindy could not think how they had contrived that orange mousse which they produced, and even if Mrs. Burman was behaving as if they had never met before, nothing was better than to be away from household cares and relax. It was something to sit back for a meal without Edna’s eyes watching her.
After dinner Mrs. Inkerman came across and talked to her. Like all Jewish people she was warm-hearted and loved love. She wanted to know more about the home which had the same name as the hotel. And they’d got Davies, too? How much had they lost as a result?
‘Nothing yet, but that is to come, we expect!’ Lindy laughed.
She confided that her bother was the cooking, and went into the tragic details of Mrs. Baker’s departure. She had hunted everywhere for help, and all those whom she had tried so far had been disastrous in one way or another. Mrs. Inkerman listened gravely.
‘Perhaps I can help,’ she said at last, and her warm eyes glowed. ‘I have a friend who wants a good job like that. She is very nice. She came to my London flat as a temporary cook for a time, she cooks excellently. She is not very pretty, she had a bad car accident in which her husband was killed. She ought to have died, but they do such clever things these days.’
‘How old is she?’
Mrs. Inkerman sighed. ‘One never asks that, of course. I should think in the thirties, but she looks older because her hair went grey with shock. She does not bother with it, and it is untidy. She has no self-pride. She has a bad scar down her face and into her throat, for her throat was injured and her voice is a little strange. You can understand her, but it is like a whisper. She wears dark glasses. Her appearance makes her reserved. You have other maids?’
‘Only two dailies, and Davies. Nobody else living in.’
‘She would like that. Looking strange, she keeps very much to herself as you can understand, but she cooks most beautifully. She might be worth trying.’
‘Can you give me her address?’
‘Her name is Waterford, Mrs. Judy Waterford, and if she will come to you I am sure you would be enchanted. She has had such bad luck, you see. I would like to help her.’
They drank coffee together. A year ago Lindy had never heard of the words Fiddler’s Hill, and now how much they meant to her! I needed this rest, she thought. She and Simon walked across the golf links that evening. It was pastoral country with marguerites in the grass, very different from their wild land and the gleam of the estuary. On this soft ground there were no straggling gorse bushes, no smell of gorse, but of honeysuckle and June flowers.
He put his arm round her, and she got the impression that they were closer together than they had ever been before. Maybe they knew each other better.
‘I love you so much,’ he said fondly.
‘I adore you, Simon,’ for he was in one of those moods when he could talk, a mood without restrictions. ‘Never leave me.’
‘Take me as I am, sweetheart, believe in me, and love me. Know that I am difficult, but that I always care for you. Know that I am moody, but that one day I’ll outgrow all these stupid emotions.’
A cow lowed in the distance almost as if in mockery. They walked back to the hotel with Mrs. Burman sitting alone at the reception desk, plainly she was short-staffed and having trouble with the girls whom she employed. She said nothing. Lindy disliked that entirely expressionless face.
She said, ‘Good night’ and they went up the stairs together.
‘She hates us,’ Lindy said.
‘Well, what do you expect? She detests my uncle being the chairman, and so should I in her shoes. She did behave badly to you, she knows that too. She also knows that I know.’
‘But we are here.’
‘And loving it.’
‘Absolutely,’ she said.
It was a wonderful week, one of those happy times when nothing went wrong. Mrs. Inkerman was as good as her word. She got in touch with Mrs. Waterford, found that she was staying in Coggeshall. In her letter to Mrs. Inkerman she confessed that she badly needed work, for this Coggeshall job was not what she had hoped it would be, and she was leaving the moment she could. But she could not afford to be out of work. Lindy took up the references, and they were excellent. It would seem that she was ideal for them.
‘I never thought that Mrs. Inkerman could be such a help,’ Lindy told her husband, ‘and we ought to close with Mrs. Waterford.’
Matters were strengthened by a telephone conversation with Davies. Mrs. Baker’s husband had died three days back, and he had gone round to commiserate, but really with the idea of seeing if she would return to them. Oh no, nothing of the kind. She now in
tended to live with a married daughter in Ipswich, where there were ever such nice shops, and she thought she would enjoy herself.
‘Then we must try Mrs. Waterford, and are lucky to have the chance,’ Lindy said.
So she closed with Mrs. Waterford.
The week at Fiddler’s Hill was a success. It was delightful not having to bother about meals, but just see them arrive. Nice that Mrs. Burman made no attempt to meet them half-way, but to the end maintained that they were strangers to her. It was pleasant to mix with the visitors, and to go out in the car with Simon, no time to stick to, and always to do as they wished. Nicer still to know that at last she had escaped the wearying search for a cook. However awful Mrs. Waterford looked, it did not matter. She at least appeared to be willing.
‘I think you ought to have seen her first,’ Simon said as they drove home.
‘What? And then not like her?’
‘Almost better to find that out before you got involved rather than after.’
‘I really don’t care what she looks like, do you?’
‘Not at all. I want to sit down to a meal in peace, and have you feeling better.’ He fondled her hand tenderly. ‘I am sure this holiday has done good, and we’ve got a cook.’
‘I know. We’ve got a cook!’
‘Life always is kind to you if you wait for it.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ Lindy told him.
They drove on. The first smell of the sea came to them and that hazy line in the distance which speaks of water. They were coming home. She told herself that she hadn’t felt sick for a whole week, wasn’t it wonderful?
I’m lucky, she thought.
Chapter Fourteen
The year had come to late June, and now there were very few cards advertising VACANCIES in the windows of the houses along the front at Alderson Point, and the boarding houses were filling up.
It was comforting to feel that the bad weather was behind them, the summer really here, when they could hope for long hot days which would be utterly lovely at Fiddler’s Hill. It was almost too hot.