The Tulip Girl

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Right, lass, now we have to tamp it,’ Frank said and then, one at each end, they picked up a long wooden board and smoothed out the concrete with the edge of it, level with the top of the shuttering. The lumpy gravel sank into the mixture and the top was skimmed with the wet cement and left to dry into a smooth surface.

  It was as the last load was tipped in that Maddie jumped to hear Mr Theo’s voice just behind her. She had not seen him arrive nor heard him above the noise of the mixer.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at once as she turned around swiftly, her lips parted in a startled gasp.

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ she shouted above the clatter, but at that moment Michael turned the engine off and the noise died away. He came towards them and Maddie noticed that the two young men smiled at each other.

  ‘Mr Theo. It’s good to see you. Sorry I can’t shake hands.’ He spread his hands to show their dirty state. Theo laughed and stepped back a pace, but it was obvious that his action was only in jest.

  ‘How are you, Michael?’

  ‘We’re fine, thank you.’ He nodded down at the foundations. ‘This is for a greenhouse.’

  ‘A greenhouse?’ Theo’s glance appraised the size of the proposed structure. He watched as Frank and Maddie bent to their task to level out the last of the concrete.

  Standing up and easing his aching back, Frank said, ‘We’ve picked one up from old Weatherall’s place, sir. We’ve already taken it down and brought it here in sections. We’ve even managed to salvage most of the glass too.’

  ‘The woodwork needs painting, of course,’ Michael put in, ‘but it’ll be a good start for us.’

  Theo’s eyes were still upon the wet cement and he tapped his lips with the tip of his riding crop, deep in thought. Then he glanced around him assessing where they had positioned the greenhouse alongside the hen-house, next to the crewyard.

  ‘You didn’t think of taking that old barn down, then, and building it there?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ Frank was hesitant. ‘I didn’t like to without your permission.’

  ‘This is nearer the boiler house, sir,’ Michael pointed to the corner building in the crewyard where the boiler house was situated. ‘It’ll be easy to run the pipes from there to the greenhouse to heat it. Like we do the hen-house.’

  ‘Mm.’ Theo’s attention turned to the barn. He walked slowly towards it and stood looking up at it. Then he turned and wandered across towards the crewyard and the hen-house and even walked round the rear of the buildings. While he was gone from their sight for a few moments, Michael glanced at his father and asked in a low voice, ‘What’s he up to?’

  Frank shrugged, ‘I don’t know,’ and then they both turned to face Theo as he emerged from the nettles and thistles at the back of the hen-house. Still saying nothing, he walked past them once more and went towards the house, looking over the gate leading into the fenced garden at the front of the house.

  ‘I just wondered,’ he said, as he came back to them once more, ‘if you wanted another greenhouse. We’ve got one that we’re taking down, but it’s a lean-to. It was on the outside of a walled garden. Never used. Allowed to fall into ruin and it’s become an eyesore. I’ve instructed Talbot . . .’ Theo referred to the Head Gardener at Mayfield Park, ‘to take it down. If you can do anything with it, Mr Brackenbury, you’re very welcome to it. But you’d need a suitable wall to put it against. There’s no point in putting it behind there.’ He gestured towards the hen-house. ‘It wouldn’t get enough sun. The best place . . .’ he pointed with his crop, ‘appears to be the house wall overlooking your garden. It would catch all the sun there. The greenhouse isn’t worth very much, so I wouldn’t charge you anything. Talbot was just going to scrap it. And whilst we’re on the subject,’ again he pointed with his riding crop, ‘if you should want to, for any reason, you have my permission to take down the barn. And another thing . . .’ Even yet, Theo wasn’t finished, ‘How about covering in the whole of the crewyard?’

  ‘What?’ Frank’s mouth almost dropped open.

  Theo smiled. ‘Yes, I know it would be a huge building. But that’s exactly what you’re going to need. I suggest you leave the outbuildings just as they are . . .’ He pointed with his whip. ‘You’ll need all sorts of places – a cold store, ordinary storage, cool and airy, for bulbs for replanting in the fields . . .’

  Maddie was listening intently, soaking up the knowledge.

  ‘. . . And,’ Theo went on. ‘Plenty of space for packing cut flowers, cleaning and grading bulbs and so on . . .’ His keen eye was running over the whole area. ‘Yes, the more I think about it, the better I like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t . . .’ Frank began but Michael cut in. ‘Oh Dad, it’s a marvellous idea.’

  ‘I know. I know it is, but . . .’

  Theo held up his hand. ‘Of course all the costs would be met by the estate, Mr Brackenbury. I would never expect a tenant to undertake such an expense. After all, to my mind, it’ll improve the value of the property.’ He gave them all a broad wink. ‘Well, at least that’ll be my argument when I have to justify the expense to my father.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Frank seemed almost overcome with emotion. ‘That’s very kind of you, sir. We’d certainly be able to make very good use of a big barn like that, and yes, we’d like to come and take a look at the greenhouse, if we may?’

  ‘Of course. Any time.’ Maddie felt his glance come to rest on her as he said again, softly, ‘Any time.’

  ‘We’ll come over tomorrow afternoon, Mr Theo,’ Michael said as he moved to stand beside Maddie.

  She noticed Theo’s glance move from her to Michael and then back again and she knew that he had sensed that there was something between her and Michael.

  Theo gave a nod and touched his riding hat. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’ He turned away and walked back to his horse tethered at the gate.

  ‘He’s a nice young man,’ Frank said. ‘And generous too. A mite more generous than his father.’

  Maddie turned in surprise. For one who had had it drilled into her the whole of her life that she owed everything to the kind benevolence of Sir Peter, it came as a shock to hear that he was not universally regarded as being so. It was only now that she was outside the walls of the Home and she could see how other people lived and conducted their lives that she could begin to make any sort of comparison.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as Ben came bounding across the yard and paddled straight across the newly smoothed concrete.

  ‘Oh Ben!’

  ‘You bad dog!’

  ‘Get away, animal.’

  Poor Ben, thoroughly chastened though not understanding what he had done that was so dreadful, ran away into the lane whilst, laughing now, Frank and Maddie once more picked up the tamping board to smooth out his paw marks.

  Later that night, when supper was over and everyone was about to go to bed, Michael said, ‘Come on, Maddie, we’d better go and look if anyone else has decided to leave their mark on our handiwork.’

  They stepped out into the clear night and walked across the yard. Michael slipped his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’ve being trying to think of a way to get you to myself for a few minutes. And now I have the perfect excuse.’

  Maddie giggled and put her arm about his waist. As they stood looking down at the concrete foundations, Michael moved to one corner and touched it with his finger. ‘As I hoped, it’s not quite dry yet. Still soft enough to leave a mark.’

  ‘As you hoped? Oh you mean, we’ve got to stand guard all night?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that, although that’s a very good idea, my little Tulip.’ His lowered his voice to teasing wickedness. ‘Are you game?’

  Maddie stifled her laughter that sounded so loud in the night air.

  ‘Come here,’ Michael whispered. She stepped towards him and squatted down beside him.

  He shone his torch on to the wet cement. ‘Press your hand into it. Right here, in the corner.’

&nbs
p; ‘But your Dad . . .?’

  ‘He won’t mind. He was annoyed at Ben, of course, because he went prancing about all over it. But just here, no one will notice it when the building’s finished because it’ll be under all the trays of bulbs, won’t it? Let’s leave our mark, Tulip. Yours and mine.’

  The idea appealed to her. The imprint of their hands set in concrete, side by side for ever.

  ‘All right then.’ She rolled up her sleeve and placed her right hand flat on the soft cement, pressing until it squelched through her fingers. ‘It’s setting already, isn’t it?’

  Carefully she lifted her hand away to see that she had left a perfect impression.

  ‘Now you,’ she whispered.

  Michael’s hand hovered over her mark as he turned his left hand to the position he wanted and pressed it down. When he lifted his hand away, she saw that his imprint had overlapped hers a little so that it looked as if their two smallest fingers were entwined.

  ‘Hold the torch for me,’ he said as he pulled a screwdriver from his pocket. With the sharp end he drew in the cement the shape of a long-stemmed tulip curving around their two hand imprints. Underneath he wrote the year – 1947.

  ‘There. Now that’s there for our children and our grandchildren and even for their children to see.’

  ‘Oh Michael.’

  He leant towards her and in the cold night air, his lips were warm upon hers. ‘Come on,’ he murmured, ‘we’d better go in, else I’ll want to take you into the hay shed again.’

  ‘Well,’ she said boldly, ‘why don’t we?’

  He stood up. ‘Little hussy!’ But he was laughing softly as he said it. ‘My father warned me about girls like you.’

  Maddie rose too and faced him in the darkness. But she was not laughing. She was very serious as she said, ‘Did he? Did he really?’

  He put his arm about her shoulder and began to lead her back towards the house. ‘Yes, he did. He said, “One day, a lovely girl will come along and steal your heart and you’ll have eyes for no one else after that.” And do you know something, my darling little Tulip Girl?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, hardly daring to breathe in case she woke and found she was dreaming. ‘What?’

  ‘He’s right. I haven’t. I haven’t eyes for anyone else in the world now except you.’

  Twenty-Five

  ‘Do you know,’ Michael said one evening at supper, ‘I’ve just realized something.’

  The summer had passed in a blur of hard work. They all still rose as early as they always had done and worked until the light faded in the evening. Some nights, Maddie almost fell asleep at the supper table. Then she would climb the stairs to fall into bed and wake the next morning feeling as if she hadn’t been there five minutes. But once out in the yard or the fields, the thought of field after field of glorious tulips the following April spurred her on and her weariness would disappear. They harnessed Rajah to plough up the meadows. There were so many stones and roots that had to be picked out by hand that Maddie felt she would never stand upright again.

  But all of them were working happily together. Frank seemed to have taken on a new lease of life and Nick looked healthier than Maddie had ever known him. His skin became tanned in the hot summer of that year and his rather mousey-coloured hair was streaked blond by the sun. Even his mother lost some of her sourness and brought their dinners out to the field where they sat under the shade of a tree to eat cheese and pickle with soft, crusty bread followed by her freshly-baked apple pasties.

  ‘Why does food always taste so much nicer out of doors?’ Michael would say, and then gallantly add, ‘not that yours doesn’t taste wonderful wherever we eat it, Mrs T.’

  ‘Oh, you and your flattery, Michael Brackenbury.’

  And in the warm, soft nights Michael and Maddie would sometimes sneak out to the fields again, their arms about each other to stand together and dream of their golden future.

  And now it was September and the greenhouses were both ready for the very first bulbs and the ground in the field too, was prepared.

  ‘What’s that, son?’ Frank wanted to know in response to Michael’s statement. Even though the anxiety was sometimes still in his eyes as to whether this venture would work, most of the time he worked so hard now that he had neither time nor energy left to worry. Whatever happened, it wouldn’t be for the want of trying. Everyone in the household was doing their bit towards making it work.

  ‘Maddie’s been here almost eighteen months and she’s never had a birthday.’ Michael’s own birthday was on the seventh of September in a few days’ time.

  ‘I haven’t really got one,’ she said glancing at Harriet and remembering vividly standing beneath her scrutiny whilst she and Mrs Potter discussed her. ‘Only the date the Home gave me.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Michael said.

  ‘I was abandoned outside the door of the Home in March so they just gave me that date as my birthday. They thought I was about a month old.’

  She heard Harriet’s familiar sniff. ‘That’s why she’s got such a fancy name,’ the housekeeper put in, talking again about her as if she was not present, ‘Madeleine indeed.’

  There was a silence around the table, then Maddie said, ‘Jen was left outside the door too. In the September and they thought she was newborn, so her birthday’s the tenth of this month.’

  Michael’s smile widened. ‘We’ll have a party then, on the tenth. For Jenny, me and a rather late one for you, Maddie. What about it, Dad?’

  Maddie saw Frank glance at Harriet, but before he could speak, Maddie cut in, ‘No, it’d be too much work and we’re all far too busy.’ Then she added hastily as she smiled her thanks across the table, ‘But it’s very kind of you to think of it.’

  ‘I don’t see why we couldn’t do something,’ Frank said. ‘What do you say, Harriet?’

  Maddie almost laughed aloud as she saw the housekeeper’s dilemma. Her glance went from Michael to Maddie and back again. How she would love to throw a party for her favourite’s birthday, but if Maddie and the other little waif and stray were to be linked, then enthusiasm for the idea stuck in Harriet’s throat.

  Tight-lipped, Harriet said at last, ‘Whatever you say, Mr Frank. But might I suggest it would be better on your birthday, Michael, as it’s a Sunday.’

  ‘All right, then. I was only thinking of having it on little Jen’s birthday. Make it special for her, you know.’

  Maddie, powerless to stop it, felt the sudden thrust of jealousy once more, despite her vow to quell it. She swallowed and forced herself to say, ‘Can I help you, Mrs Trowbridge?’

  Rising from her chair and beginning to gather the dishes together, Harriet said, ‘I’m sure I can manage a few jellies and blancmanges without your interference, thank you.’

  As fragile as a gossamer dandelion in seed, the housekeeper’s good humour was blown away in a few seconds.

  Beside her, Maddie heard Frank’s sigh.

  It was like the Christmas they should have enjoyed and birthday celebrations all rolled into one. Jenny arrived mid-afternoon on the following Sunday, her face pink with excitement. Shyly, she handed out the gifts she had brought, not only a tie for Michael and soaps for Maddie, but a small box of chocolates as a ‘thank you’ to Harriet and three white men’s handkerchiefs for Frank, but also – and Maddie shrewdly guessed most important of all – she had brought a present for Nick, too.

  ‘It’s not my birthday ’til next month,’ he said as he took it, but Maddie could see the pleasure in his eyes, his cheeks creasing in a wide smile. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Open it and see.’

  Nick pulled off the wrapping paper. ‘Oh! Oh!’ His face was pink with delighted surprise. ‘Thank you, Jen. It’s great.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s not new, but it is in good condition.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s hardly been used. It’s great,’ he said as he opened the book on engines and lovingly turned the pages.

  ‘Maddie told me once how
you like car engines and things.’

  ‘Fancy you remembering that,’ he murmured. Already the giver of the gift was rapidly losing his attention. But Jenny was quite content to sit and watch him poring over the book she had brought him. It was thanks enough for her.

  They had a wonderful party. Even Harriet seemed to unbend a little when Frank kept refilling her glass with elderflower wine.

  ‘You’ll have me tipsy, Mr Frank,’ she actually giggled protestingly, but Maddie noticed that she still held out her glass for more.

  As yet another game of blind man’s buff ended, Frank glanced at the clock. ‘Nine o’clock already. I hate to break up the jollifications, but I think we’d better see Jenny back home.’

  Maddie saw her glance hopefully at Nick. A walk in the moonlight with him would be the perfect end of a perfect day for Jenny. But Nick had already picked up his book and settled himself in the depths of an armchair.

  ‘We’ll walk you home,’ Michael said. ‘Me and Maddie.’

  Maddie held her breath, waiting for Harriet’s disapproval, but the housekeeper was lying back in her armchair, her gaze intent on the swirling pale liquid in her glass, a small smile on her mouth.

  ‘Off you go then, else Mrs Grange will be locking you out.’

  Goodbyes and thank yous were said all round and then they were out in the night air that already had the hint of autumn in it.

  Maddie positioned herself between the other two and linked arms.

  ‘It was nice to have a bit of fun,’ Michael said, ‘because from now on, it’s going to be work, work and more work.’

  Maddie laughed. ‘It’s been like that for months.’

  ‘I know, but it’ll get worse.’