Part of the Furniture

by Mary Wesley

  Juno told herself there was no need to be afraid, she had offered to help and her offer had been accepted, but she felt uncertain as she walked towards the cowshed. Bert watched her approach, making her sharply aware that she was treading on his territory.

  Walking towards the man, she wished she had not parted so abruptly from Robert, long-legged and comforting with a nice rumbling voice; a person she might, unlike her mother, be able to talk to without fear of verbal reprisal. But now here was Bert. He was short and broad and bow-legged. He wore corduroy trousers and heavy boots; his collarless shirt was fastened at the neck by a stud. Above the stud a large adam’s apple worked up and down his weathered throat and his half-open mouth showed yellow teeth.

  My mother, Juno thought, would make him an appointment with the dentist, she being a stickler for teeth. A stickler for health in general, if it came to that, taking immense care of all that was physical but leaving the spirit to fend for itself. Perhaps if she had not cared so well for my hair and teeth, Juno found herself thinking, I might have been able to confide?

  This improbable idea made Juno smile. Bert did not smile in return but continued to watch her, small eyes of blueish grey peering from under a ridge of eyebrow.

  Juno said, ‘So here I am, tell me what to do. I had better hang this up,’ she added, taking off her coat. ‘Ann has very kindly lent me an overall.’

  Bert did not answer but took a pail from its hook and handed it to her. Unlike his teeth, the pail gleamed spotless; the cowshed too was swept and clean, smelling sweetly of warm cows and hay. Bert said, ‘Start there with that one,’ pointing. ‘Stool’s hanging there.’

  Juno put on Ann’s overall, took the stool, set it beside the cow Bert indicated, sat, leaned her forehead against the beast’s flank and began to milk.

  FOURTEEN

  THE SOUND OF MILK squirting into the pail was rhythmic. Juno leaned her forehead against the cow’s flank and worked in time with her chewing the cud. The warm smell of cow, the rustle of hay tweaked from the rack, the shifting of hooves on concrete, engendered peace.

  Once, at the Johnsons’s, when learning to milk, she had tried to play a tune, varying the sound, angling the cow’s teats, directing the flow to hit the sides of the pail at different angles. The cowman had asked what the hell she thought she was doing, told her to stop mucking about, not to upset the cow.

  Across the shed with his back to her Bert was milking, too. From time to time he growled at the cow he was milking, ‘Stand still, can’t ’ee?’, whether she moved or not, and scraped his stool roughly along the concrete floor, ‘Ar-r-r.’

  When the cow’s udder was empty, Juno stood, eased her back, stroked the animal’s throat, patted her flank and carried the pail to the dairy to pour its contents into the receptacle Bert indicated with a jerk of his head. Then she went to the cow next in line and repeated the process until between them they had milked seven cows. The eighth, housed with her calf in a separate stall, rolled her eyes when Juno peered over the partition and, lowering her head, displayed her horns, protecting the calf lying in the straw. Juno blew gently, puffing her breath towards the cow, who raised her head and stared. Sensing Bert behind her Juno, without turning round, asked, ‘What time do you milk evenings?’

  ‘You coming again, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Four-thirty, then.’

  ‘Shall I sweep the stalls?’

  ‘You leave ’un be.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Can ’ee make butter?’

  ‘I can learn.’

  ‘Will ’ee be staying, then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘See you at four-thirty, then.’ Juno hung her overall on a hook. She was resolved not to smile, would not say that she would love to stay or how much she had enjoyed herself.

  ‘Can ’ee carry the house milk up to Ann?’

  ‘I might just manage.’

  Bert handed her a covered can. ‘Don’t spill ’ur.’ There was no word of thanks.

  Juno took the can and, leaving the farmyard, headed up the hill. As she walked she flexed the muscles of her free hand to ease the ache of unaccustomed use and, doing so, remembered how much her hands had hurt when she learned to milk as a child. Now she enjoyed the slight stiffness. As she walked she looked up to the house, noting how neatly it tucked into the moor and the hill behind, how protectively the walled gardens swept round the building and how, skirting the gardens, tumbling from point to point of rock until reaching the fields, the stream, increasing in size towards the farm, swelled out into the pond then carried on across several fields to disappear into the woods. It would be weeks later that she would discover that, turning on itself like a buttonhook, it circled the hill behind the house to charge down a narrow valley and fan out across a sandy cove into the sea.

  As she came up to the house there was a commotion. Robert Copplestone was hurrying across the yard. He had changed into a dark suit and was humping himself into an overcoat, one arm sleeved, the other groping. Ann bustled behind, carrying a bowler hat and a small case. Garage doors stood open, a car ready.

  ‘How did it go?’ Catching sight of her, Robert looked anxious but amused. ‘The milking?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Bert has a heart under his—er—his—er—’

  ‘Masculine, superior, proprietorial manner.’

  ‘Oh God! Was he rude?’

  ‘Just grumpy, guarded.’

  ‘Was that all? You must have made a hit.’ Robert exploded with laughter. ‘He was absolutely terrible to that poor landgirl I tried, reduced her to tears. Here, let me take that can. Oh. He trusted you with that? That’s a great compliment, his own special can.’

  ‘Are you catching that train or not?’ Ann reached behind her employer to ease his arm into the coat sleeve. ‘Thought you was in a hurry.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And don’t forget your hat.’ Ann handed him the bowler.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Robert exclaimed. ‘All this respectability! Do you think for one second the dead mind?’

  ‘You’ll miss the train, you’ll miss the funeral.’ Ann pushed him towards the car.

  Juno said, ‘The undertakers mind.’

  ‘Oh! Bright girl. Yes, of course.’ Robert hurried towards the car, got in, pressed the starter, slammed the door shut, caught his coat in it, opened it, slammed it again. ‘Be here when I get back,’ he shouted as the engine started. ‘Don’t go, don’t disappear. Promise?’ He leaned out.

  Juno shouted, ‘I said I’d help with the afternoon milking.’

  ‘But you will be here when I get back?’

  Doubled up with laughter, Juno shouted, ‘Yes.’ Then, as the car sped down the hill, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘A friend’s daughter has been killed in an air raid. Her father rang up, asked him to come to her funeral.’

  Juno looked at Ann, ‘Not the Café de Paris?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘People were talking about it in the train. Oh, how horrible.’

  Ann said, ‘Yes, it is. His son’s funeral yesterday and now this, it’s all too much. She was a nice girl, and pretty—’

  Juno thought, one of the girls in the basement? One of the girls so eager to go dancing? The girl in evening dress drinking wine? Was that the one? She had seemed so grown up, so alive. What should I say? But Ann was talking, ‘Here, give me that can. Come in out of the cold, you shouldn’t be standing about. You are only just out of bed.’ And, as she bustled Juno indoors, she said, ‘I bet the old devil never thanked you.’

  Juno said, ‘But he did, he trusted me with the can,’ and the opportunity to say something about the girl was missed. What in any case could she have said? She had not spoken to her and hardly at all to Evelyn.

  Ann was still talking. ‘Are you really going on with the milking? Helping Bert?’

  ‘Yes, if it’s of help, I’d like to, I enjoy it, he takes my mind off things.’


  ‘Does he indeed? Here we have a new role for Bert.’ Ann spoke dryly.

  Diffidently Juno said, ‘Mr Copplestone said that Bert is your husband.’ She had no wish to be reminded of the things Bert and the cows’ company had made her forget.

  ‘Oh, did he!’ Ann sniffed as she led the way to the kitchen and sniffed again as she filled a kettle and set it to boil. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘in a manner of speaking, he’s right.’

  Juno sneezed and sneezed again, blew her nose and heard Ann say, ‘We went through the formalities, but I didn’t take to what goes with them. I left Bert on the farm and came back to the house. Bert and I cleave in different ways. Cleave is one of the words in the marriage ceremony, “cleave unto”, that’s what it says, but if you add a letter you get “cleaver”, a thing which splits. That’s what happened to us, we split.’

  Juno said, ‘Oh,’ assimilating this information.

  Ann said, ‘He will be eating out of your hand if you go back and go on helping, he will be cleaving to you.’ She sounded amused.

  Not particularly enjoying the prospect, Juno said nothing.

  Ann said, ‘You’ve still got a nasty cold. I wonder where you caught it?’

  Juno said, ‘I’ve no idea,’ but she knew quite well where she had caught it, in Evelyn Copplestone’s kitchen, from the man who had said, ‘I’ve got the most God-awful cold.’ Was he too among those killed in the Café de Paris? Not wanting to think of it, she said, ‘Is Mr Copplestone married? Is there a Mrs Copplestone?’

  ‘Didn’t Evelyn tell you? No,’ Ann answered herself, ‘he wouldn’t. His mother died when he was tiny, he never knew her.’ She was spooning tea into the pot. ‘They were so young,’ she said. ‘Like it strong?’

  ‘Yes, please. Who were so young?’

  Ann reached for cups hanging on the dresser. ‘Evelyn’s parents. It’s history now. It caused surprise at the time, there are still people who talk of shotguns, but it wasn’t like that.’

  Juno remained mute. Ann poured tea. ‘Sit down, you must be tired.’ Juno sat, waited. Ann passed her her cup. Juno sipped. Ann said, ‘In that Shakespeare play they were even younger.’

  Juno said, ‘Twelve?’

  ‘That so? I’d forgotten. Been told, never read it. These two were seventeen. Of course in those days, in nineteen hundred, girls who got pregnant married, unless the fellow deserted them. Not many wanted to stand by, but he did, gladly.’

  ‘Mr Copplestone?’

  ‘Yes. Both of them seventeen. How old are you?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  Ann said, ‘More tea? Do your cold good. No need to go back and milk if you are feeling rough.’

  ‘But I am going back.’

  Ann refilled her own cup and drank, glancing sidelong at Juno, sizing her up.

  Juno said, ‘What did their families think?’

  ‘Said they were too young, of course, but they were glad to see them happy. I don’t remember any great fuss.’

  ‘Perhaps Evelyn’s mother was a suitable girl.’

  Ann grinned. ‘I’ve heard it said the marriage was what both families wanted, though not so soon. She was to have had a season, and he was to go to university.’

  ‘So on the whole they were pleased?’ (How unlike the Johnsons and Murrays.) ‘I suppose she was rich?’

  ‘No, no, no. Money had no bearing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No bearing at all.’ Ann sounded censorious. ‘Her family were Fabians, whatever that means, high-minded, something to do with not being in a hurry, but the young ones were.’ Ann put her cup down. ‘More tea?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Juno watched the older woman. ‘How old were you when you came here?’

  ‘Sixteen. My father was gamekeeper to her, to Evelyn’s mother’s father. I started in the kitchen.’

  ‘Then Mr Copplestone can’t be more than eighteen years older than Evelyn—’

  ‘Good with figures! Less. He boasts the child was conceived on his seventeenth birthday.’

  Juno visualized Robert Copplestone at seventeen, comparing him with Francis and Jonty at the same age, noisy, high-spirited, godlike figures to a child of ten. In a similar situation would the Johnsons and Murrays have been ‘high-minded’ and ‘pleased’? She thought not. She could see the scenario, could see her mother standing with the Johnsons and Murrays, could see Aunt Violet and her lodgers, could see Jack Sonntag. There would be no listening to her father, tainted by prison, no advice sought from disreputable Lord Russell, no raised voices or light remarks, but a stiffening of lips, a closing of ranks, a calm and sensible solution to an awkward aberration, a ripple in otherwise well-ordered lives. She said, ‘Gosh, he was lucky.’

  Ann got up and carried her cup to the sink. ‘Sometimes you’d think he never grew up, but that’s men.’

  ‘Were they happy?’

  ‘They certainly were. A joyful pair.’

  Juno murmured, ‘And then she died.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ann dried her cup and saucer and, abruptly changing tone, asked, ‘Have you brought your ration book? If you’re staying, I shall need it.’

  Startled, Juno said, ‘Yes, it’s in my bag.’

  ‘And clothes coupons? You don’t seem to have much in the way of clothes. Those boots of mine are too big for you—’

  With her heart sinking into metaphorical footware, Juno said, ‘But perhaps I should move on—I—’

  The older woman, standing with her back to Juno, said matter-of-factly, ‘You promised him you’d stay and help,’ and then, as Jessie came pattering into the room, ‘and for starters you can mix the dog’s dinner. We can’t keep that one waiting, she has a family to feed.’

  FIFTEEN

  DRIVING SLOWLY UP THE hill so as not to overtax her old Morris, Priscilla Villiers noted a female figure crossing Robert Copplestone’s farmyard. ‘Who’s that?’ she called over her shoulder to a young man on the back seat. ‘You never told me Robert had got himself another landgirl.’

  The young man, whose name was Anthony Smith, said, ‘I didn’t know he had,’ his tone indicating that neither did he care.

  ‘I bet she’s another of Evelyn’s girls,’ said Priscilla Villiers, craning her neck to catch a last glimpse into the yard. ‘What an amazing coat, she looks like a Cossack. I wouldn’t call that suitable for a farm.’

  ‘Looks elegant.’ Anthony also noted the coat. ‘Did Evelyn have a lot of girls? Why didn’t he marry?’

  ‘He did not think it would be fair, his health being what it was, and now he’s dead he is proved right.’

  ‘But while alive there was a brisk turnover?’

  ‘Not as brisk as all that, but there were girls—of course there were.’

  ‘And his father, Robert, why didn’t he marry again? I know he was widowed at eighteen or something, but you’d think he’d have another bash. Why didn’t you marry him?’ Priscilla laughed. ‘Did you want to? Did you ask him?’ Anthony persisted. ‘He must have been jolly attractive.’

  ‘Still is,’ said Priscilla. ‘In my day girls waited to be asked, and anyway I married John and I do not think it would have worked with Robert.’

  ‘So you did want to marry him,’ Anthony persisted. ‘Why wouldn’t it have worked?’

  ‘I have always supposed that at the time Robert found me too bossy.’ Priscilla crunched the gears as the hill grew steeper.

  ‘As you still are,’—Anthony was jerked backwards as the car accelerated—‘Mrs Villiers.’

  ‘You are not still resenting sitting in the back?’ Aware of her passenger’s mood, Priscilla noted with amusement that he did not call her Priss as he occasionally had during the past two weeks. ‘You know,’ she said as she changed gear again, ‘that if you sat in the front with me Mosley would howl all the way and slobber down the back of your neck. Wouldn’t you, my lovely boy?’ She reached to stroke the head of a cross-bred dog perched on the seat beside her. The young man on the back seat grunted. ‘On the way home I shall freewheel do
wnhill to save petrol, and Mosley can run behind. Uphill he might strain his dear heart.’

  ‘Really?’ Anthony’s tone indicated that this might not be a bad thing. But because they were nearly at their destination and he had no wish to be on bad terms, he asked, ‘Why did you call him Mosley?’

  ‘That was my late husband’s joke; because he is black and because he has always been game when he met a bitch.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘But he is not the father of Robert’s Jessie’s puppies. I gather from Ann that they were born on the sofa in the spare room. Some people spoil their dogs.’

  ‘Some people do.’

  ‘Now then, Anthony, do not mock.’

  ‘Certainly not, Mrs Villiers.’

  ‘I bet that was one of Evelyn’s girls.’ Priscilla craned her neck to get a last look downhill. ‘What an extraordinary get-up, she looked like a Cossack. I wouldn’t call that suitable.’

  ‘… to work on a farm. You are repeating yourself, Priss.’

  ‘You mean I am growing old.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Anthony was pained to have hurt. ‘I do not.’ But he had thought her old; in his twenties, fifty was a lifetime ahead.

  Priscilla drove the last stretch of road in silence, and brought the car to a stop outside the house, saying, ‘Well, here we are. I’ll just turn the car round so that when we leave a push will start us downhill.’

  ‘And that way you will save at least a teaspoonful of precious petrol,’ murmured Anthony.

  ‘Now you are making fun of me.’

  ‘And freewheeling is illegal, Priss.’

  ‘What a stickler you are.’ Priscilla turned the car to face downhill. ‘A stickler and a gossip, but, Anthony, I really am hugely grateful for your work in the garden. I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘But I have enjoyed it.’ Anthony got out of the car. ‘Loved it, fresh air, country, kind company. Have you put the brakes on?’