by Jane Gardam
‘I’m sure that’s true. But I beseech you . . . ’
But Una had fled and the library sank back into its usual torpor, and Mrs. Brownley padded on, into Children’s Books, which were as usual being perused by several old-age pensioners.
‘Good morning, Miss Kipling,’ she said at the desk as an assistant stamped up Swallows and Amazons. ‘Was that Una? Such a clever little girl after all she’s had to bear.’ Old sour-puss, she said to herself. Cambridge isn’t the only saucer of cream.
‘I had a letter from that nice little Jewish girl,’ she said. ‘So friendly and refreshing. From America. Near Hollywood, somewhere. How they all do get about these days.’
From the top step outside she watched Una biking away in the opposite direction to her home.
Una was angry. Until seeing Miss Kipling she had been all for letting the Lake District weekend get forgotten. She hadn’t seen Ray since saying goodbye after High Dubbs, but she’d had a letter from him arranging dates for their next outing. The place was to be Rack Hanna Moss in Cumberland and the time 7 A.M. on the railway station, Shields East, bringing bikes and food for two days. They were to take trains as far as Penrith, on the edge of the Lakes, then ride forward and into the mountains.
But as the next fortnight passed, Ray had gone to ground and Una had put the whole thing out of her mind as she gorged on Tolstoy and Darwin and The Interpretation of Dreams. After returning the books, she pedalled about the town, seething. How dare the old bag talk about her getting pregnant! Even her mother never spelled things like that out.
On the Friday evening, although she had not heard from Ray, she packed her things for the weekend into her saddle-bag and hung about the house, not facing the reason why. She cleaned the windows of the salon, idly inspecting what was passing up and down the road. Nothing much. She washed down all the windowsills and rearranged the pinned-up notices about Marcel waving. No bike, no patient Ray with his argumentative sharp nose, balancing his foot against the kerb as he read his Daily Herald.
At about nine o’clock she decided to go and find him. She knew it was Muriel Street at the other end of the town and that he lived with his Mum. She didn’t know the number.
She had never been down Muriel Street. They were miserable houses there, front doors on to the pavement, yelling kids, women shouting on doorsteps, washing hung out across the street, no men in sight, for they were either gone off somewhere since the war or sitting in the back or in the pub. There were no bathrooms in Muriel Street and only one communal lavatory down the end. Kids there often had no shoes, even with the war finished, and they still looked sick even after all the orange juice.
The only traffic in Muriel Street tonight was the coal cart, which stood empty, the scrawny black horse munching from its coal-black nosebag. Black coal sacks lay tidily folded on the flat platform back, fastened down with ropes against thieves. The hoop over the top of the car swung a painted wooden sign in green and gold saying BLACK DIAMONDS. The coal cart was a feature of the town, as was the woman who drove it about, a grimy, smiling widow woman parcelled up front and back in sacking tied in the middle with string, a man’s cap back to front on her head. She had a smile and a wave of the horsewhip for everyone, a character of the town. Now she emerged from the one house in the street that looked freshly painted and hauled herself up on the cart, wagging her head at Una like an old pal.
‘Off to his shed,’ she said. ‘Are you after our Ray?’
‘Oh. Well. He lives round here somewhere, doesn’t he?’
‘Number nine is his and mine. Born and bred in it. Not that he’s at home except for bed. It’s work, work, work. Union and night-school. He’s a good boy. He’s away on some course this weekend.’
‘A course?’
‘Politics,’ she said. ‘But he’s a grand son.’
Una pedalled home again and unpacked her saddle-bag.
Her mother, returning from Snow White again, said, ‘So it’s all off?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Has he chickened out?’ and she began to make clucking noises and flutter about the kitchen.
Una tried to look haughty, but failed.
‘That’s better. Nice to see a smile. That Karl Marx wasn’t doing you any good. I’m glad it’s out of the house.’
‘I’m not smiling, I’m fairly furious.’
‘They’re all alike,’ said Mrs. Vane. ‘We’re the creative ones. We’re the productive ones. Cluck. Cluck,’ and she sat down in the rocking-chair, where a cat catapulted from beneath her. ‘Whoops,’ she said. ‘I’ve laid an egg.’
‘Oh, Ma. Please. Look, I may be going. It’s a point of principle because I suggested it. I don’t see why I shouldn’t go on my own if he doesn’t turn up, do you? We were going to Rack Hanna.’
‘Wherever’s that? It sounds like somebody’s carcass.’
‘It’s the Lake District. He was looking up all the trains—well, he knows them all by heart anyway. It’s a bit remote, so we were meeting up at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘And not a peep out of him? He’s probably scared. They do get scared. Well, I should just go your own self. Quite right.’
‘I haven’t worked out the trains. I mean, it’s his job. His mother says he’s overworking himself at night-school.’
‘I didn’t know you’d met his mother.’
‘Well, not formally.’
‘She has an original style in millinery,’ said Mrs. Vane. ‘I didn’t know you’d realised Black Diamond was his mother,’ and she put the tea-cosy on her head and twirled an imaginary whip.
‘I didn’t know. How did you?’
‘I know most things. I’ll tell you what, Una, I wish that Hetty would get herself home. I think there’s trouble there. I don’t know why, but I fear it. I saw Mr. Fallowes this morning. There’s something wrong.’
‘Should I just stay home? Perhaps Miss Fletcher could telephone her. Telephone the people she knows up there. She found her the place, after all.’
‘No. But you go. Have a nice fling. The only way to live life is by living.’
Not with any great pleasure, however, did Una set off at six-thirty next morning to the station, where, most unexpectedly, her heart gave a great leap as she saw Ray waiting for her. He was astride an enormous motorbike.
‘Put your bike int’ luggage office, I’ve got the key. Then get up ont’ back, and hold tight.’
‘Is it yours?’
‘Aye, it belongs to a fellow member. I’m beginning to need faster transport.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To Richmond, then Penrith on the A66. I’ve got the map. We could be on the track for Rack Hanna be five o’clock. Trains don’t fit: 7.35 Darlington, 9.35 Newcastle, overt’ top for Carlisle, and then there’s only 6.53 Workington, stopping 7.42 Cockermouth, then Keswick 8.13 and we’re still not on the mountain. Grab hold.’
‘Yes. All right.’
‘I’m cold,’ she shouted over his shoulder as they rounded Scotch Corner.
‘I’m freezing,’ she screamed over Bowes Moor.
They stopped and ate some dreadful food at a black inn on a black moor, looking westward into a rainy sky.
‘How much further?’
‘A fair way yet. Tek me woolly.’
‘Your what?’
‘Me woolly. Me Mam knit it.’
‘It’s very . . . ’ she nearly said ‘clean’. ‘It’s very bright.’
‘Our house is bright,’ he said. ‘It’s like the rainbow, our house. You never saw such polish as in our house.’
She thought, He’s making something clear.
‘You’ll be coming round?’ he said. ‘She’s taken a fancy to you.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
They reached the Lake District frozen but on time, found a billet for the bike
at an inn called The Fat Lamb and looked up the stony track of the mountain. Soon it grew gravelly, steep and rough, and it was a hard pull. They were not great walkers. Una’s seat was numb from the bike and her hands were blue with cold. Ray stamped forward.
‘Did you book us in?’
‘No,’ he called back. ‘No need this time of year. Season’s over now, and it’s the most remote youth hostel int’ British Isles, and the smallest. There’s no warden. It’s quite impressive to say you’ve even been here.’
‘Have you been, then?’
‘I’ve heard about it. It’ll be a better do than High Dubbs.’
‘How high is it?’
‘Oh, two thousand. Three thousand. D’you want a push?’ He stopped and waited for her and laid a hand against her back. The mountains rose ahead and around them like contemplative, moving creatures. As Una and Ray climbed higher, the mountains grew softer-coloured, and seemed more plastic, more mysterious, melting as evening came on.
‘See yon stars?’ he said. ‘Coming out? Wandering stars, they’re called, some of them. I guess you’ll be on with wandering stars at Cambridge. With Physics and that.’
She thought, He sounds rueful, and she felt surprise. She felt loving then and caught him up and took hold of his hand. ‘Will . . . we really be alone all night?’
‘I’d say so. It’s the end of summer. It closes down soon for winter—snow and that. It’s famous for loneliness and snow.’
‘I thought you’d forgotten,’ she said, as they rested their backs against a rock. The tiny fields below still glimmered white on the valley floor. ‘There’s a lake—look. Which one is it? It’s glassy still. Where does the light come from?’
‘That’ll be another thing for your Physics. You’ll be able to tell me by Christmas.’ They stood on, side by side, as the lake blackened and the stars came out. He said, ‘You’d do for my life, Una. You know that.’
‘We’d better get on,’ she said.
Round the next great gable-end of rock she said, ‘Hey. I can hear something, can you? Is it water running?’
‘I’d think, maybe. It sounds talkative. Water can sound talkative at night.’
‘There wouldn’t be that much water running up here. Ray, it’s people. It’s talk. There’s a light. It must be Rack Hanna. Oh! There’s somebody here.’
Slowly now, they drew nearer to the light and saw that it flowed out through three adjacent doors of a long shed on the fellside. There was the smell of cooking, a clash of cook-pans. Squeals and shouts, and Lancashire voices.
‘Eh, but it’s full up, lad,’ said a fat old man in shorts with a gleaming red face. There were five or six other people about. ‘Full up, lad. It only teks six and we’re eight.’
‘Is there an outhouse or something?’
‘There’s not. We book in here this week every year, this group. Yer out of luck. There’s places back down int’ valley, plenty of them.’
As they turned back down the mountain someone called, ‘You’ll get in anywhere down there; it’s not six o’clock yet.’
But it was slow going down, darkening and dangerous, and they felt very tired and hardly spoke.
They found the bike, climbed aboard again, the saddle horribly familiar, harder than before.
Ray said, ‘Sorry, Une. I should have booked. My fault, I’ve been busy.’
‘No. We’d not have got in. They booked last Christmas. Don’t people live funny lives?’
‘They could have let us sleep on a floor.’
‘I wouldn’t want to sleep anywhere near them,’ said Una.
‘Just because you don’t know someone—’
‘Oh Ray! To sleep on their floor! Hearing them coughing and making noises.’
‘Well, so where do we go? Do we go looking round this god-awful lake, then?’
‘Hetty’s round here somewhere. It would be wonderful if we could find her. It’s called Betty Bank. It’s a guesthouse. This is the lake. I know that. But there must be thousands of guesthouses.’
‘What’s it near?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think there’s even a village.’
‘We’ll coast about a bit.’
The motorbike attacked the nonchalance of the mountains and they roared off round the lake. There were no villages, though there seemed to be a railway line.
‘Here’s a station,’ said Una, ‘but it looks dead. Go on a bit further.’
The bike swung along the lane from the station and came to where it divided. The lane uphill to the left was marked by a wooden board and an arrow. It said TO BETTY BANK.
‘It’s it! It’s here! Oh Ray. Oh Ray, Ray—hurrah, we’ve found it. Oh, and we’ll see Hetty! She’ll drop dead.’
He let the bike nudge its way upwards until the lane turned back on itself along the higher level. The headlamp lit up trees on either side, and bramble bushes. The eyes of small animals were close on either side. They disturbed some young pheasants, pale as little ghosts, who made for the undergrowth with extended hysterical necks, making noises like gas-rattles. They stopped the bike and walked through the white gate to Betty Bank as the silence reassembled itself, and saw a grave woman standing in a lamplit window.
She was wearing a broad criss-cross white apron and seemed to be examining something in her hands. Steam came up around her from pots on a fire.
‘We’ve just one room free,’ she said, ‘and it’s a single only and not dry yet from the last guest who’s just gone. We’ve another owert’ byre, but that’s a single only, too. Yes, there’s plenty of supper. There’s always that. We’re full tonight with a party of six, they’re regulars at “Back-End”. You could both cram in one room at a pinch, but I’d have to see your marriage lines.’
‘The one that’s gone,’ said Una, ‘it’s not Hetty, is it?’
Mrs. Satterley was not one to look amazed but she stood now, looking at Una seriously. ‘It is Hetty,’ she said. ‘It is Hetty. She’s been here the month and left only this morning, the weekend. She’ll be back Monday before she goes home. She’s been no trouble, no side, and we’ll miss her. You can have her room if the young man will be happy with the cow-house.’
Ray said neither yes nor no.
‘Come in,’ said Mrs. Satterley. ‘I’ll find you your suppers, but there’s something here.’
‘Something?’
‘It’s just now arrived.’ She held a telegram out to them.
‘Delivered all the way from Ambleside. Just come. Addressed to Hetty. Do you think it should be opened? It’s providence you’ve come.’
Mr. Satterley materialised from beside the range and put his hand on Ray’s shoulder. ‘You look fashed, lad. I’ll get you some tea.’
‘We must open it,’ said Una. ‘I’ll take responsibility,’ and she tore open the orange envelope and read: YOUR MOTHER VERY ILL IN HOSPITAL SUGGEST IMMEDIATE RETURN FALLOWES TELEPHONE FLETCHER.
‘Where is she? Where’s she gone? Her mother’s in hospital.’
‘Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say? She knew what I felt. That Rupert is the death of happiness. She’s gone off with them from the Hall.’
‘What’s the Hall? Is there a telephone?’
‘Yes. The Hall’s beyond the lane. You go through the gap and down, but it’s difficult night-time. It’s quicker by road.’
‘We’ll go by the road,’ said Ray. ‘Left or right?’
She told him, ‘Avoid the lane, now.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Una. ‘I can’t say when we’ll be back. It shouldn’t take long, but perhaps you’d better not expect us. I must find Hetty. Though, oh—I can’t think we can go much further tonight.’
‘That you must. Find her and leave it all to Lady U. It doesn’t matter how late. Hetty’ll be in a right state. Well, she has been in a state—shredding letters and putting them in pots.�
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‘I am the friend of Hester Fallowes,’ Una announced to the funny old woman who was putting some turkeys to bed in a shed.
‘Wait a minute, my dear, while I see to the crowdie bucket. I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you exactly. What a splendid motor-bicycle.’
‘Hetty Fallowes. I am her friend. I have to find her. There’s been a telegram to Betty Bank, but she’s not there. Mrs. Satterley says she is away somewhere with some people from here.’
‘Oh my dear, yes. Little Valentine. She’s at my grandson’s house near the Solway Firth.’
‘Oh, please, is there a phone there? Her mother’s very ill. Oh, please, could you help?’
‘Of course there is a telephone both there and here. Come along.’ She passed Ray the bucket and led them to the house, and across the high saloon.
‘Hallo?’ said Una when the phone at length was answered in the castle. She turned back to Ursula and Ray and said, ‘But they say they don’t know her. They just rang off.’
‘Rubbish. That would be Patsie. She’s an introvert and still suffering from being in prison and because her cousin is about to go into a monastery.’
Ray suddenly dropped the crowdie bucket on the marble floor and left the room.
‘Ring again,’ said Ursula. ‘At once. Tell whoever answers the phone that I am on my way and Hetty is to be ready to come with me. I’ll put her on a train for Darlington from Carlisle. Yes. And do you know Hilda Fletcher? Girl Guide? Were you a Guide? Oh, splendid. Ring Hilda: the number’s on the pad. Say to be ready to hear what train to meet tonight depending what hospital it is—she will have to find out. I shall ring from the castle when I get there. Now, can you manage? I’ll just tell his lordship I’m leaving. It’s scarcely more than fifty miles. Now. Ask for Valentine in person, dear, and don’t be put off by anyone else who answers, especially if it’s Nanny, because she’s mad as a hare.’
‘Do you think I ought to tell her—tell Hetty—exactly what the telegram says?’
‘Most certainly. She is eighteen years old. Goodbye, my dear. Do tell your husband to get himself a whisky: he looks exhausted.’