‘I expect she will,’ agreed Charlotte. ‘I’ll have a book of stamps, please, Nancy.’
‘Ooh! Writing lots of letters, are you? I love getting letters, don’t you? Something exciting or unexpected coming in through your letter box.’
Clearly Nancy was hoping to hear to whom Charlotte was writing, but Charlotte didn’t enlighten her. She simply smiled and called Johnny away from the window.
‘But, Mummy,’ he said, ‘there’s Auntie Caro.’
Charlotte looked out and saw Caroline Morrison crossing the green from the vicarage, where she was staying until her marriage with Dr Masters in ten days’ time.
‘So she is,’ said Charlotte. ‘Let’s go and say hallo to her, shall we? Bye, Nancy.’
Outside, she found Caroline cooing to baby Edie, who was tucked up in her pram.
‘Caroline,’ called Charlotte as she came out into the street. ‘Lovely morning!’
‘Hallo, Charlotte, just saying good morning to my goddaughter.’ She turned to Johnny who was pulling at her skirt. ‘And hallo to you, young monster,’ she said and bent to give him a hug.
‘I not a monster,’ Johnny informed her. ‘I’m a hunter!’
‘Are you indeed?’ laughed Caroline, before turning to Charlotte and saying, ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea at Sally’s?’
‘Of course,’ said Charlotte, ‘that’d be lovely. Come on, Johnny, if you’re good you can have some milk and a sticky bun.’
Together they walked across the green to Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. There was nothing ‘olde’ about this tea shop. It was a new venture of Sally Prynne’s. Since her daughter, Sandra, had married and moved to Weston-super-Mare, she’d found herself with nothing to do. She persuaded her husband, Arthur, that she should use the front room of their cottage as a tea room.
‘There isn’t nowhere for anyone to get a cup of tea and have a chat in this village,’ she said. ‘I’m going to give it a go.’
‘There’s the Magpie,’ said Arthur.
‘That’s a pub, not a tea room. What this village needs is a nice little caff where you can take the weight off your feet, have a cup of tea, a piece of cake an’ a chat.’
‘Suit yourself, girl,’ Arthur said. ‘Can’t do no harm to try, like.’
He painted a sign to hang over their front door, though anything less like ‘an olde tea shoppe’ than Sally Prynne’s front room, Billy’d said when he first saw it, would be hard to imagine. But surprisingly it had taken off and most mornings Sally had customers sitting at one of the two tables in her front room, drinking tea and exchanging gossip.
Johnny was given his promised milk and sticky bun and then sent out to play in the Prynnes’ backyard.
‘It’s very sad about Peter Bellinger, isn’t it?’ said Caroline as she poured the tea. ‘Avril told me that it was you who raised the alarm.’
‘Well, I ran for Dr Masters...’
‘And we weren’t there. We’d gone to Bristol to collect Henry’s wedding suit from the tailor’s. Poor Henry, he felt awful that he wasn’t there to render first aid.’
‘I don’t think it would have made any difference,’ Charlotte said. ‘The major hadn’t moved again when the ambulance came.’
‘I hear the funeral’s on Friday,’ Caroline said. ‘David went round there this morning.’
‘You are up with the news,’ Charlotte laughed, ‘and I bet it’ll be just the same when you’re Mrs Doctor!’
‘Actually, Charlotte, I do have a piece of news that may interest you. You remember Matron at St Michael’s and Livingston Road?’
‘Of course I do,’ replied Charlotte. ‘I’m never likely to forget anyone who looked after me. What about her?’
‘Well, I had a letter from her yesterday.’
‘Did you? Is she keeping well? Is she still at Livingston Road?’
‘Yes to both those questions,’ Caroline said. ‘But more important, she wrote to me about you.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘Apparently someone came looking for you last week and Mrs Burton remembered him well.’
Charlotte’s eyes opened wide. ‘Harry?’
Caroline nodded. ‘Harry.’
‘Did she tell him where I am?’
‘No. He spoke to the new supervisor, Mrs Acton, and of course she’d never heard of you. She insisted that whoever you were, if you had been there during the war, you weren’t any more. Harry was still at the gate and Mrs Burton saw him. At first she didn’t recognise him, but when she heard his name was Harry, she knew exactly who he was. She’s written to me to warn you that he’s looking for you. He may never find you, but she thought you ought to know.’
Charlotte took a sip of her tea and then put down her cup and looked earnestly at Caroline.
‘I think he will find me.’
‘Do you? Why?’
‘I had a letter this morning. From Aunt Naomi.’
‘And?’
‘And somehow, Harry had found her. He just turned up on her doorstep and asked if I was there.’
‘And she told him where you are?’ Caroline sounded surprised. All Charlotte’s friends knew how casual Harry had been about his friendship with Charlotte, or Lisa as he still called her, and few of them would have wanted her to revive a contact that had caused her so much sadness in the past.
‘Not exactly. She knows that Billy doesn’t like him and so she’d decided to say she didn’t know. Trouble is, young Nicky came home from school for his dinner. She told him Harry was an old friend of mine and Nicky told Harry how they had been to Wynsdown to baby Edie’s christening. She didn’t enlarge on what Nicky had said, but she thinks the damage was done.’
‘So you think he’ll turn up here?’
Charlotte shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Aunt Naomi said that he’s been in Australia ever since the end of the war. Remember, he wanted me to go with him?’
Caroline nodded. ‘I remember.’
‘Well, Aunt Naomi says that he’s going back, but he’d hoped to see me again before he went. He sent me his love.’
‘Hmm,’ Caroline gave a sigh, ‘he’s certainly been looking for you. Do you want to see him?’
‘I don’t know. Yes. I s’pose so. I know Billy won’t like it if he turns up, but, well, Harry has always been sort of special, you know?’
Caroline nodded, she did know Harry was special, even though she wished he weren’t. ‘So,’ she said, ‘are you going to warn Billy that he might just appear?’
‘I don’t know.’ Charlotte looked confused. ‘He won’t like it if he does, but if I say he might and then he doesn’t, well, I’ll have upset Billy for nothing. Aunt Naomi says she doesn’t think he will come. He doesn’t have an actual address.’
‘Do you think that will stop him? We’re talking about Harry, remember.’
‘I don’t know,’ cried Charlotte, an edge of panic to her voice. ‘And I don’t know what to do. What do you think? Wouldn’t it be better to say nothing for the time being? No need to rock any boats needlessly?’
Caroline, remembering how her interference in things between Harry and Charlotte had caused trouble before, said, ‘It’s a decision you’ve got to make for yourself, Charlotte. I can’t tell you what to do.’
Silence rested between them for a moment and then Caroline said, ‘Billy has nothing to fear from Harry, has he, Charlotte?’
‘No!’ responded Charlotte fiercely. ‘Of course he hasn’t.’
‘Then maybe you should tell him about your aunt Naomi’s letter. Show it to him. I mean, if you don’t and then Harry does appear, and Billy thinks you knew he was coming, well, then he might feel you’d been hiding it from him for a reason. That there was something to hide.’
Charlotte looked at her with mute appeal and Caroline reached forward and took her hand. ‘Only you can make the decision, Charlotte. I shall say nothing about the letter from Mrs Burton to anyone else, I promise, so if you decided to say nothing there’s no reason for anyone else to know.’
/> At that moment, Johnny appeared in tears. ‘I felled over,’ he said, ‘and my leg’s hurt.’ He displayed a graze on his knee, and when suitable sympathy had been shown, he allowed Charlotte to take him into Sally’s kitchen to bathe the knee.
‘It doesn’t need a plaster,’ she told him as she patted the knee dry.
‘It does!’ Johnny assured her earnestly. ‘It does, there’s blood. Blood needs a plaster.’
‘Well, we haven’t got one here, so we’d better go home and find one, hadn’t we?’
‘Don’t worry about Harry,’ Caroline said as they stood together on the green. ‘If he does turn up, well, sufficient unto the day...’
Charlotte walked home with the children and when the plaster had been applied, lunch had been eaten and they were both in their beds for their afternoon nap, she sat down in the kitchen with another cup of tea and reread Naomi’s letter.
Ivy Cottage
Feneton
Suffolk
Dearest Lisa
How are you all down there in Wynsdown? I hope you’re all keeping well as we are here. We have moved into our new home now, I’ve put the address at the top, and are very happy here. It’s ever so nice having our own home again. A place just for us where we can shut the door on the world outside. Dan was real chuffed when you asked him to be little Edie’s godfather. We all wish you were living a bit closer so we could see you more often. Still, never mind, eh?
I thought you might like to know that that lad what you used to know in the war, Harry Black, turned up here the other day. He said he was trying to find you and was you living here with us? I told him no, so then he asked where you was living. I wasn’t going to tell him without asking you first because I know your Billy ain’t too keen on him. Anyhow Harry said he’d been in Australia and was home in London on business and wanted to see you. I think he’s been looking for you at Livingston House and Kemble Street which was how he found us. That nosy cow Shirley from across the road, told him where we’d moved to, and so he’d come looking.
I wasn’t going to tell him where you was but then young Nick come home from school for his dinner and he spilled the beans. Said we’d been to see you in Wynsdown for Edie’s Christening. I don’t know if Harry knows where Wynsdown is, but I thought I ought to warn you that he’s looking for you and he might show up. He told me he was going back to Australia soon, so he may not have time. I hope he goes there for good. He may have looked after you at school, but you’ve got your Billy to look after you now.
Do write me a line sometime soon and let us know how you’re going on. I bet young Johnny is shooting up. It won’t be long before he goes to school, will it?
Uncle Dan’s at work just now, but if he was here I know he’d send you all his love and a special kiss for little Edie.
Love from Aunt Naomi.
Dear Aunt Naomi, thought Charlotte, still trying to look after me. I wish they lived nearer, too.
She sighed and folding the letter again, put it back in its envelope and slipping it into the dresser drawer turned her attention to preparing the vegetables for supper.
14
Felix had considered discussing the financial difficulties he’d discovered with his mother, but decided that he would wait until he’d had his meeting with Mr Thompson. He didn’t know how much his mother knew about the state of affairs he was faced with, and with her grief still so raw, he didn’t want to add to her misery. He said nothing to Daphne, either. He knew that she was finding it difficult here in the house. There was little she could do for Marjorie, little she could do for him, and the kitchen was in the hands of the redoubtable Mrs Darby. When they’d retired to their bedroom that night he’d put his arms round her, folding himself into the warm curves of her body.
‘At least it was quick,’ Daphne murmured by way of consolation. ‘He didn’t know nothing, anything, about it. He didn’t suffer.’
No, his father probably hadn’t suffered, but those he’d left behind were; suffering from shock, from grief, from the emptiness of his going.
Felix had lain awake long after Daphne had fallen asleep, his mind churning with what he’d discovered. What was he going to do? What could he do?
Eventually, he, too, had drifted off into an uneasy sleep, to wake in the early morning, unrested and with no solution to his problems.
Mr Thompson arrived punctually and when he’d given his condolences to Marjorie, Felix led him into the study and shut the door. Together they sat down at the work table in the window, and Mr Thompson opened his briefcase.
‘I assume you’ve looked at the will,’ he said.
Felix shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t.’
‘Isn’t there a copy among the major’s papers?’
‘Yes, there is,’ Felix replied, ‘but in the same envelope was a letter addressed to me.’ He picked it up from the desk and handed it to the solicitor. Mr Thompson put on his glasses and read it through.
‘Well,’ he said as he handed it back, ‘that pretty much sums up the situation.’
‘The house belongs to my mother?’
‘It does, as does Eden Lodge.’
‘Eden Lodge?’ Felix looked puzzled. ‘You mean the Miss Mertons’ house?’
‘Yes, your maternal grandfather owned it and left it to your mother when he died. It’s been rented to the Miss Mertons ever since their father died in the 1930s. Of course, Miss Rose died during the war, but Miss Violet is still there.’
‘So, Mother has some income from that?’
‘She has,’ answered Mr Thompson, ‘but not much. The rent has been the same since the doctor died.’
‘It’s never been increased?’
‘Your mother always said she didn’t need the money and the Mertons couldn’t afford to pay any more.’
‘Well she’s going to need the money now,’ said Felix. ‘It may be her only income.’
‘It’s certainly something we can look at,’ agreed the solicitor.
‘In his letter, my father mentioned he was considering selling off the farms. How far did he get with that?’
‘He’s spoken to Mr Shepherd and Mr Deelish, but there has been no agreement as yet.’
‘And if we did that...?’
‘It would mean you still owned, or rather that your mother still owned the house and garden. You’d own all the land that belongs to Home Farm, which includes the paddock and the twenty-acre field. Also Havering Farm, which as your father has pointed out brings in a small but regular income. Mr Flower has already written his determination to give up the tenancy next Lady Day. The major apprised me of Mr Flower’s intention though I haven’t seen the actual letter. I assume you’ll find it somewhere among your father’s papers. If you’re in agreement with your father’s wishes, that tenancy can then be offered to Malcom Flint.’ He pulled an envelope from his briefcase and extracted a document which he passed over to Felix. ‘Here’s your father’s will. I can read it formally on Friday after the funeral if you wish, but you need to know the contents now.’
Felix took the will, the last will and testament of Peter Michael Bellinger, dated 1 April 1949. Felix glanced up at Mr Thompson.
‘This is a very recent will,’ he said as he glanced at it. ‘Tell me the main points.’
‘The major decided to remake his will in the light of all the financial arrangements he was making. It is relatively simple. Your mother already has the house. The estate, such as it is, is left to you. The shares in the portfolio will be transferred to you, but he asks that any dividends will be hers until she dies. This is a request, not a legal requirement. There is a life policy which pays out on your father’s death, the beneficiary being your mother, which should supply her with sufficient funds to continue living here for the foreseeable future. He reiterates his wish that Malcolm Flint should be offered the tenancy of Havering Farm, but this is also only a stated wish and is not legally binding upon you as heir to the estate.’ The solicitor looked over his spectacles at Feli
x. ‘Your father has left you with a good deal of discretion here. He told me that he had implicit trust in you to do as he asked.’
‘All this has come as a complete surprise,’ Felix said. ‘I had no idea of the financial problems he was facing.’
‘I have to say, I did encourage him to discuss these things with you some time ago,’ Mr Thompson said, ‘and I understood that he intended to do so. Perhaps he had no opportunity.’ There was no criticism in the solicitor’s voice, but Felix knew it was his fault. The infrequency of his visits to his parents in recent years was the reason no opportunity had occurred. ‘I suggest,’ Mr Thompson went on, ‘that when the funeral is over and things have settled down again, you discuss everything with your mother. She’s an extremely sensible woman and she may have suggestions to contribute as to the way forward. I’m here and happy to deal with any legal matters that may arise, but for the moment, I suggest that you do nothing. The aftermath of a sudden death is never the time to make hasty decisions.’
*
The church was overflowing for Peter Bellinger’s funeral. Almost the whole village had turned out to see the squire laid to rest. Though thought, by some, to be rather aloof, he was generally acknowledged to be a kind man and a generous employer. There was a whispering and a rustling as the congregation waited for the arrival of the coffin. Heads were turned when the major’s brother and his wife walked in and took their places in the reserved pew at the front. James Bellinger was dressed in a dark suit, his shirt a startling white against his carefully knotted black tie. His wife, wearing a black coat and skirt and a smart black hat, was of particular interest to many of the village ladies. They hadn’t see ‘Mrs James’ for several years now and were interested to see her dressed in the latest London fashion.
David Swanson was at the church door to greet Marjorie and her son and daughter-in-law while they waited for the coffin to be unloaded from the hearse, only going into the church himself moments before it was carried in. Marjorie insisted on walking behind the coffin alone, leaving Felix and his bride to follow slowly up the aisle in her wake as, led by the choir, the congregation sang ‘Abide with Me’.
The Married Girls Page 15