by Betty Neels
Sadie shut the kitchen door; she felt sure that one of the things would be her. She thought with regret of the Miss Murch she had imagined and wondered how she would be able to bear the real Miss Murch’s company until after Christmas. Not company, exactly, she corrected herself, Miss Murch obviously didn’t consider her a social equal. She went to a drawer in the kitchen table and took out a pack of cards. ‘Does anyone here play Snap?’ she wanted to know, and was appalled to find that they didn’t.
It took them about ten minutes to master the game. They were having the time of their lives when the door opened again and both Miss Murch and Mr Trentham came in.
‘Oh, my dears!’ cried Miss Murch. ‘You shouldn’t be sitting in this kitchen—come by the nice warm fire.’
Sadie hadn’t been aware that she had a nasty side to her character; she had never had occasion to show it. Now it took over with a vengeance. She said gently: ‘But, Miss Murch, you asked me to keep them here in the kitchen with me so that you could have a rest. We’ve been quite happy.’
Miss Murch’s delicately tinted face became mottled. ‘We’ll go and unpack.’ And the children got up and went obediently after her up the stairs. Mr Trentham hadn’t said a word; now he closed the door very gently.
‘I wonder if I have done the right thing, having the children down here.’ He spoke with a deceptive blandness which she mistrusted.
‘They’ll love it once they’re used to it. I daresay the cottage is different from your home in London.’
‘Miss Murch seems to think so. She’s appalled that there’s no central heating.’
‘Oh dear, but I put a hot water bottle in her bed, and the children’s.’
‘Not mine?’ She thought he was laughing at her.
‘It’s too early for yours,’ she told him. ‘What time would you like supper, Mr Trentham?’
‘As soon as possible. I lunched with a friend and everything seemed to be covered in sauce—I’m not sure what I ate.’
‘Well, it’s steak and kidney pudding for supper with Brussels sprouts and buttered parsnips and potatoes in their jackets, and I made a trifle for pudding—I thought the little girls might like that.’
‘I’ll like it too. Is there any sherry in it?’
‘A tablespoonful.’ She looked at him guiltily. ‘I took it from the dining room—you weren’t here to ask. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t mind—I should have minded if you’d given me a trifle without sherry, though.’ He looked round the kitchen. ‘Are you sure you can manage, Sadie?’
She gave him a surprised look. ‘Of course,’ she smiled suddenly, ‘especially if I’m going to have help with the washing up.’
Supper was a difficult meal. The food got eaten, of course, every last crumb, although Miss Murch refused the steak and kidney and had vegetables and biscuits and cheese instead of trifle, but the little girls gobbled up their portions with heartwarming gusto and Mr Trentham, as usual, enjoyed a good second helping. He had opened a bottle of claret too, but it hadn’t done much to loosen their tongues. Miss Murch carried on a genteel monologue, name-dropping with every second breath and constantly reminding Mr Trentham about this or that distinguished person they had met. That he replied either not at all or with a grunt did nothing to stop her; after a little while Sadie stopped listening and planned the meals for the next day. The little girls hardly spoke and then only in whispers; it puzzled Sadie that they looked at their father with such adoring eyes and at the same time shied away from him like frightened ponies.
Mr Trentham spooned the last of the trifle. ‘It’s time you were in bed, my dears,’ he said, cutting ruthlessly into Miss Murch’s account of how she had coped with all the difficulties of the train journey that day. So they slid from their chairs and kissed him rather shyly and then, almost without hesitation, went and kissed Sadie too. She hugged them with a lack of selfconsciousness, which made Mr Trentham look thoughtfully at her. ‘Goodnight, darlings,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if it snowed tomorrow! We could make a snowman.’
Miss Murch was too ladylike to sniff, but she registered disapproval. When she had gone, Sadie said: ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that about snowmen—I didn’t mean to encroach on Miss Murch’s ground.’
Mr Trentham leaned back in his chair and stared at her. ‘They like you,’ he observed. ‘Probably it’s all those cakes for tea. I’m afraid Miss Murch doesn’t approve of you, though.’ His face was dead-pan. ‘They ate cake for tea and sat in the kitchen and played with Tom. I understand that cats are dirty animals.’
Sadie rose to the bait. ‘What utter nonsense! Tom is cleaner than any of us—all cats are clean…’ She stopped abruptly, biting her lip. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll keep out of their way as much as I can.’
‘I think we might exempt Tom.’ He got to his feet and started collecting plates.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Sadie, astonished.
‘I suspect that my education has been neglected. I’m going to wash up!’
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS STILL quite dark when Sadie got up the next morning, but it had turned colder still during the night and the frost lay thick on the ground. She showered and dressed and crept downstairs, and made a cup of tea for herself before starting on the fires. She had become adept at doing this silently by now, just as she laid the table for breakfast with no sound at all before going into the kitchen to put on the porridge and put the frying pan on to heat up. By now there was a good deal of movement upstairs and presently Mr Trentham came down, poked his head round the kitchen door, demanded tea and went into the dining room; he was certainly a glutton for work. Sadie took in the tea and started on the bacon and was slicing bread when Anna and Julie came in. They wished her good morning in polite wooden little voices and then went to Tom, waiting for his breakfast.
‘Would you like to put some milk in Tom’s saucer?’ asked Sadie. ‘It’s under the table there, so he can have his milk first and then a little bowl of porridge. Do you like porridge?’
They looked blank. ‘It’s nice,’ she went on, ‘we have it every morning with lots of sugar and milk, and do you like bacon?’
They professed themselves willing to try anything and stood without making a sound while she ladled the porridge into bowls and carried the tray into the sitting room. ‘Come and sit at the table,’ she suggested. ‘Your father will be here in a moment.’
She tapped on the door as she went past and he came out at once, kissed his children, enquired after their night and sat down to his breakfast. The porridge dealt with, Sadie fetched in bacon and eggs and the crisp fried bread that went well with it, and it was as he was serving this that he enquired where Miss Murch was.
‘She said she couldn’t get up until she’d had a cup of tea,’ Anna gulped. ‘She said Sadie was to take it up, only I forgot…’
Her father smiled at her. ‘Never mind, poppet, it doesn’t matter.’ He got up from the table and went into the hall. ‘Come down to breakfast, Miss Murch!’ he bellowed. ‘You’ll need it—the children want to go for a walk and we’ve almost finished!’
Miss Murch appeared some twenty minutes later, elegant and well made up and in a cold fury. She wished Mr Trentham a chilly good morning, frowned at the children and ignored Sadie. ‘Toast will do for me.’ She sat down and poured herself a cup of coffee from Mr Trentham’s pot.
‘And when you’ve eaten it,’ said Mr Trentham crisply, ‘be good enough to come and see me in the dining room.’
He stalked out, and Sadie’s heart sank; it wasn’t going to be a success, this holiday. His routine which she had so carefully followed was being disorganised; worse, his very own coffee pot had been emptied by Miss Murch. She looked at the little girls and saw their forlorn faces. Living with Miss Murch couldn’t be much fun for them, and she wondered if they were happy living with her in London. It was really too bad of Mr Trentham to ignore them: she wondered why. Perhaps he was so busy making a name for himself and lot
s of money that he had no time for them. But he already had a name for himself, and more than enough money… They were dear little girls too. She smiled at them and said: ‘I saw a fox this morning, going up the hill behind the cottage.’
‘What’s a fox?’ asked Julie, and when Sadie explained Miss Murch said crossly:
‘It’s all so primitive. Supposing I need to buy something, where do I go?’
‘There’s a shop in the village,’ suggested Sadie, stubbornly friendly.
Miss Murch cast her a look of dislike. ‘Not that kind of shop—I always go to Harrods.’
Unanswerable, thought Sadie, and left alone with the children after Miss Murch had crossed the hall on her high heels and tapped on the dining room door, suggested that they should all wash up. They were almost through, giggling and laughing and talking to Tom, when Miss Murch opened the door. ‘You seem very anxious for the children to do the housework,’ she said sourly. ‘I must forbid them to come into the kitchen. You hear me, Anna, Julie? You are not to come in here with the housekeeper. Now come with me and we shall all go for a walk.’
The children looked imploringly at Sadie, but she said: ‘You must do as Miss Murch asks, my dears, and you’ll enjoy a walk.’ She smiled brightly at them, Miss Murch included, but when they had gone the smile faded. It was going to be worse than she had imagined; Miss Murch was a petty tyrant, the children were milk and water shadows of what children should be and they didn’t look happy. For the first time since she had met him, she allowed herself to be annoyed with Mr Trentham.
He came out for his coffee presently, coming into the kitchen and sitting at the table while she poured it out. ‘Children gone out?’ he wanted to know, and at her wordless nod: ‘Why do you look like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘As cross as two sticks. Have you and Miss Murch been having words? She’s a bit put out this morning: I daresay she finds it rather different from the house at Highgate. She’ll settle down, I daresay.’
Sadie doubted that, but she wasn’t going to say so, probably Miss Murch was a very good governess and he set great store by her. She stood at the sink peeling potatoes, saying nothing. It was Mr Trentham who did all the talking. His writing was going well, it seemed, he would have it finished in the next ten days. He was thinking of taking a short holiday before starting on a documentary for BBC 2. ‘Somewhere warm,’ he observed. ‘Greece, or Corsica.’ He added: ‘I detest the weeks after Christmas.’
‘We get snowdrops here in January,’ said Sadie, and he laughed. ‘Is that an inducement for me to stay here? What else?’
‘Lambs—and the annual whist drive at the Vicarage, and the sales…’
‘I don’t think that I find any of those things very interesting.’
‘No, I didn’t think you would. I expect this cottage is fine for you when you’re working, but in between you want to get back to your normal kind of life.’
He was watching her with a half smile. ‘And what would that be, Sadie?’
‘Oh, meeting interesting people—actresses and novelists and publishers—and going to the theatre and out to dinner in big restaurants and shopping at Harrods.’
‘Harrods? I never go there. What should I buy there, in heaven’s name? I’ve been going to Turnbull and Asser for years.’
Sadie had never heard of them. She said wistfully: ‘There must be some gorgeous shops…’
‘You’ve been in London, surely?’
‘Oh, yes, Granny and I went with the WI about five years ago, but we didn’t get further than Oxford Street.’
He said gently: ‘Well, you must go again one day, but it’s very noisy and crowded and you can’t hear a bird sing, let alone a sparrow chirping.’
She said, almost defiantly: ‘I’m happy here, but it would be nice just to see…I wouldn’t want to live in London.’
‘Do you know, I’m beginning to think that too.’
She waited for him to say more and was frustrated by the return of the walkers, none of whom were in a good humour. The little girls were cold, and their legs, encased in thin tights, were cold too. They were wearing all the wrong clothing—smart double-breasted cloth coats and velvet tammies: just right for Highgate, probably, but not much use in Chelcombe. And Miss Murch had fared even worse, for she wore high-heeled suede boots, spattered with icy mud, and her coat, although elegant, just didn’t suit her environment. She told the children sharply to take off their things and disappeared upstairs to her room, where she stayed, only coming down for coffee when Sadie had made hot cocoa for the little girls and given them a biscuit each. Their father, to Sadie’s surprise, had stayed in the kitchen, reading the paper and drinking more coffee, and exchanging a goodnatured, desultory conversation with his daughters. He was still there when Miss Murch opened the door. ‘Come out of the kitchen at once!’ she ordered the children, not seeing Mr Trentham for the moment. ‘And bring me my coffee in the sitting room—and mind it’s hot!’
Mr Trentham looked up from his paper. ‘The children may stay here as long as they wish,’ he said gently, ‘and there’s plenty of hot coffee on the stove. Help yourself, Miss Murch.’
Which she did, with an ill grace and a nasty look at Sadie, who, busy making pastry for an apple pie, didn’t notice.
‘Father Christmas is coming to Bridport in two days’ time,’ she told the children, and cut off the edges of pastry and divided them fairly into two. ‘Here, make a pie each.’
‘May we—real pies?’
‘Why not? I’m sure your father will enjoy them.’ She handed over a pot of mincemeat. ‘There are two patty pans in that drawer, you can each make a mince pie.’
Julie had begun to roll her bit of pastry. ‘Will Father Christmas come here? He goes to Harrods, I saw him last year.’
‘Not here, in the village. He couldn’t possibly visit every little village in the country.’
‘So may we go to Bridport and see him?’
‘Ask your Father,’ suggested Sadie, and watched the newspaper being lowered to expose a cross face.
‘I’m a busy man,’ he objected, ‘how can I possibly get my work done if I have to traipse after Father Christmas whenever I’m asked?’
‘Just once,’ wheedled Sadie. ‘But of course—I’d forgotten your work. Luckily there’s a bus going to Bridport just before noon, would you mind if I took Julie and Anna? We could come back on the afternoon bus and be back in time to get your tea. Perhaps Miss Murch would like to come too.’
‘I doubt it.’ His voice was dry. He gathered up the paper and got to his feet. ‘If I’m left in peace for the rest of the day, then I’ll drive you in—but mind, we’re coming straight back the moment you’ve seen Father Christmas.’
The little girls rushed at him. ‘Daddy, Daddy, will you really? When shall we go?’
‘We’ll be at the Town Hall at twelve o’clock sharp,’ said Sadie. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to see him and be back for lunch—hot soup and pasties. I’ll have it on the table waiting to be eaten.’
‘No, you won’t. You started on this, you’re coming too.’ Mr Trentham went through the door without another word or anyone having a chance to say anything.
It grew steadily colder during the day and the next day it snowed. Miss Murch roundly refused to take the children for a walk ‘They’ll catch their deaths of cold,’ she observed, and made herself comfortable close to the sitting room fire as she could manage, leaving the children to amuse themselves. Naturally before long they were quarrelling and bored, and with the prospect of Mr Trentham’s furious face appearing round the door at any moment, Sadie left her chores, put on her old coat and her wellies and got the children’s coats and shoes. Probably they would be ruined and certainly wet, but anything was better than Mr Trentham’s wrath. Without saying a word to Miss Murch, she stole out of the kitchen door, the two children creeping like mice behind her, and led them to the little patch of grass where she hung the washing, now nicely blanketed in snow.
&nb
sp; They had never made a snowman. Breathless with excitement and the pleasure of being out of doors, they slavishly followed Sadie’s instructions and before long had a rather lopsided figure more or less ready. Sadie was fashioning a nose when she dropped her handful of snow and spun round at Mr Trentham’s voice.
‘I distinctly heard Miss Murch say that the children weren’t to go outside!’ he snapped. He spoke pleasantly enough, but he looked like a thunder-cloud.
Sadie glanced guiltily at their snow-covered shoes and the telltale splashes where a snowball had found its mark on their coats, and then she looked at the two rosy faces. ‘Yes, you did, Mr Trentham, but they got bored—they’re children and they need to play; just imagine, they’d never had the chance to make a snowman before. I’m sorry if you’re angry, but it’s done them good.’
He stood looking at her, not saying a word, although she expected to be given her notice out of hand; she was only the housekeeper, easily replaced, whereas Miss Murch was probably a paragon among governesses.
He came through the door, still staring at her in an unnerving manner, and she braced herself and then let all her pent-up breath out as Miss Murch sailed majestically out of the kitchen. She was angry, so angry that she actually pushed Mr Trentham aside. ‘How dare you!’ she began. ‘How dare you, a mere servant, deliberately disobey my orders? I’ll have you dismissed…’
‘A slight misunderstanding, Miss Murch,’ said Mr Trentham softly. ‘I gave permission for Julie and Anna to come out here with Sadie, and may I remind you that any dismissing that might be done will be done by me?’
He went back into the house and Miss Murch, giving Sadie a dagger glance, went after him. Sadie swallowed. She was going to be sacked when it was convenient to Mr Trentham to do so, in the meantime she would have to behave as usual. She said cheerfully: ‘Let’s finish his face, my dears, and then we’ll find an old hat and a scarf—I’m sure there’s something in the shed that will do.’