by Betty Neels
So they finished their snowman, and the little girls, after a few minutes’ uneasiness, forgot all about the few moments’ unpleasantness and presently went back into the house, where Sadie took off their coats and shoes, and did the best she could to restore them to their pristine state. But even though she restored them she couldn’t restore Miss Murch’s temper. That lady refused to speak to her and during lunch carried on an animated conversation with Mr Trentham and afterwards swept the two little girls into the sitting room for a reading lesson. As for Mr Trentham, he didn’t speak to Sadie at all, except to tell her that he would be out for dinner that evening. She was laying the table for their supper when he came into the room, elegant in his black tie and more aloof in his manner than he had ever been. There was no doubt about it that he was going to give her the sack. She waited for the fatal words and was very taken aback when he asked her to sew a button on his jacket. It wasn’t off, only loose, but she tightened it neatly without saying a word, and when he thanked her and wished her goodnight, she said goodnight in a calm voice, although her insides were shaking. He would wait until the morning, she supposed.
She supposed wrong. Beyond greeting her at the breakfast table, he had nothing to say and the meal was eaten in a silence punctuated by Miss Murch’s frequent admonishments to the children. She had been worse than awful the previous evening. Sadie, a mild girl by nature, had longed to throw something at her, but mindful of the children, she had held her tongue and listened to her companion talking at her for the length of the meal. It was a great relief when the meal had been eaten and she had been able to retire to the kitchen and wash up and presently go to bed, leaving Miss Murch sitting cosily by the fire, a book in her hand and a glass of Mr Trentham’s port beside her.
But whatever had been decided about her own future, the trip to Bridport was still on. When she took in the coffee she was reminded to be ready to leave the house, and with Mr Trentham standing, as it were, with a stopwatch in his hand and making sure that everyone was on time, they all got into the car and were driven off rather faster than Sadie considered safe along the narrow country lanes, although she would never have dared to say so.
It was impossible not to be infected by the festive air which enveloped Bridport. Even Miss Murch’s muttered asides about yokels and their childish pleasures couldn’t spoil their fun. Sadie wormed her way well to the front of the people lining the main street and stood with a small hand in each of hers and cheered as loudly as the children round her when Father Christmas, standing in the back of an open car, drove slowly past.
Miss Murch looked the other way. Harrod’s Father Christmas was to be tolerated since he was patronised by the upper crust, but this country version, even if his white whiskers were his own, didn’t merit a glance. And as for Mr Trentham, he hardly noticed him; his eyes were resting thoughtfully upon Sadie’s face. It could of course be the new coat and the beret, but it seemed to him that she was quite a pretty girl, not to be compared with the elegant lovely young women he knew in London—but then none of them, as far as he knew, could cook so much as an egg.
The procession was quickly over and people started making their way back home or to finish the shopping. Miss Murch took the little girls’ hands and began to walk them impatiently to the car park down the street, but Mr Trentham said: ‘Not so fast, Miss Murch! I think we could all do with a hot drink,’ and led the way into the Greyhound Hotel behind them where they sat in its cosy, old-fashioned coffee room and the children chattered happily, so that the lack of conversation between the grown-ups hardly mattered. They included Sadie in their giggling talk, though, asking her any number of questions which she answered promptly, if not always quite truthfully, but Miss Murch would have nothing to do with such nonsense and presently began her own conversation with Mr Trentham, who answered her politely but mostly in words of one syllable which made it difficult to continue. On the whole, it was a relief when they had finished their coffee and cocoa and were ready to go home. There was a delay while the children begged to look at the shops, an idea quickly and far too sharply rejected by Miss Murch, and since Mr Trentham pointed out that he had a luncheon engagement at old Lady Benson’s house just outside the village, there was nothing for it but to get into the car. Sadie had toyed with the idea of asking if she and the children could stay in Bridport for lunch and an hour’s shopgazing and return on the afternoon bus, but Mr Trentham’s face looked so severe that she decided against it.
Lunch was an uncomfortable meal. Miss Murch was plainly in a very bad temper and determined to take it out on everyone near her. She found fault with the little girls and went on and on about the discomforts of living in an isolated village where there was no restaurant, no cinema even, and as far as she could ascertain, no theatre within miles. And as for shops…she raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I shall be glad when Christmas is over and we’re safely back at Highgate,’ she observed. ‘I miss my friends.’
Sadie, determined to keep friendly at all costs, asked: ‘Do the children have lots of friends? I expect they do…’ She smiled at the children and wished they would smile back. They were such dears but so ungetatable.
‘I am careful to choose suitable children for Julie and Anna to play with,’ said Miss Murch repressively. ‘I’ve seen no children around here.’
‘Dozens of them in the village,’ pointed out Sadie. ‘They’ll be on holiday in a day or two, there are sure to be one or two the children will like.’
‘I decide with whom they shall play,’ declared Miss Murch, ‘and now, if you will clear this table, Julie and Anna can get out their drawing books. There’s no need to go for a walk this afternoon, thank heavens.’
There was no sign of Mr Trentham, Sadie got the tea at the usual time and had cleared it away before he walked in, only to tell her that he had met the Durrants at Lady Benson’s and would be dining with them.
Sadie’s heart sank. The prospect of a long evening with Miss Murch for company appalled her. Later, she watched Mr Trentham leave the house once more and wished heartily that she could have crept into his coat pocket.
And it was every bit as bad as she had expected. The children were almost silent throughout supper and her own attempts to get someone to talk failed lamentably, and after the little girls had been taken up to bed she spent as long as possible in the kitchen, and after half an hour sharing the sitting room with a silent Miss Murch, she went to bed herself.
She didn’t go to sleep, though; it was much later when she heard the car and Mr Trentham’s firm steps up the garden path. He must have joined Miss Murch in the sitting room, for she could hear their voices, they were still talking when she finally fell asleep.
She wasn’t sure what woke her some hours later. She lay in bed trying to remember what kind of a sound it had been; that there was something she was sure, for Tom was sitting on the end of her bed with his ears on the alert. She got out of bed and put on her dressing gown and slippers and leaving the bedside light on, opened the door and crept downstairs.
It was a bright moonlight night and very cold so that the rooms downstairs were light enough. There was no one in the sitting room and the dining room door was shut, but the kitchen door was just a little open and she opened it wider. Julie was sitting in the old chair by the stove and Sadie slipped quickly inside and shut the door. ‘It’s all right, darling, it’s only me. Don’t you feel well?’ She had whispered to the child, anxious not to frighten her and still more anxious not to rouse Miss Murch. And when there was no answer: ‘I’m going to put on the light.’
Julie was crying, her face was blotched and wet and although the kitchen was still warm from the day’s cooking, she was wearing only a nightie and no slippers. Sadie picked her up and sat her on her lap. ‘Tell me all about it,’ she invited comfortably, and began to rub the icy little feet.
‘Daddy didn’t say goodnight.’
‘Well, love, he wasn’t here…’
‘He’s never here. Miss Murch told him
that she tucks us up at bedtime, but she never does—he think’s she’s as good as a mummy.’ A fresh stream of tears rushed. ‘She’s horrid! I hate her, so does Anna. I wish you were our mummy, Sadie, and we could live here with you and Daddy for ever and ever.’
‘But your daddy is a busy man, love, he has to work so that you can have clothes and nice things to eat.’
‘Miss Murch says we can’t live with him because we make too much noise. Sadie, will you ask him if we can stay here? We’ll be ever so good.’ Julie buried her face against Sadie’s shabby red dressing gown, so it was only Sadie who saw the door open and Miss Murch standing there.
‘I heard you!’ she hissed. ‘Turning the children against me, worming your way in! What are you after, I wonder? Getting them to like you and then setting your sights on their father, I shouldn’t wonder! You’re nothing but a fool—and a plain one too. Just you wait until the morning, my girl! Mr Trentham isn’t going to like it when I tell him how you got the child out of bed and brought her down here in the cold and made her cry!’
‘But that’s not true!’ cried Sadie. She was holding Julie tightly and the child had flung her arms round her neck.
‘Oh, it’ll sound true enough, and he listens to me.’ Miss Murch smiled with a curled lip. ‘I’ll tell him why you did it too—in the hope that he would hear you and come downstairs and find you looking so touchingly maternal.’ She tittered. ‘I’ll tell him that you confided in me, and I’ll be so sympathetic and point out that it would be kinder to give you the sack than to let you stay on here, mooning after him.’
‘Very ingenious, Miss Murch—what a pity I overheard you.’ Mr Trentham, still in the beautifully tailored grey suit he had worn that evening, was standing in the hall. ‘Be good enough to go to bed at once; I don’t want Anna disturbed. I’ll see you in the morning. Julie, I’m going to carry you up to bed, and we must be like mice so that we don’t wake Anna.’ His eyes studied Sadie in her dowdy dressing gown, her hair a fine curtain round her shoulders, her eyes huge in her pale face. ‘Go to bed, Sadie,’ he said, suddenly brisk.
Bed was cold, and Sadie picked up Tom and hugged him close. Mr Trentham had been angry, she knew the signs by now; he would give Miss Murch a good telling off in the morning and she herself would be told to go. He would be nice about it because he was fair enough to know that it hadn’t been her fault, but it was an undisputable fact that she and Miss Murch didn’t like each other, and the children had to be considered first. He might let her stay until after Christmas, but she doubted it. She wasn’t indispensable—after all, they had spent other Christmases in hotels and they could again. Such a waste, she thought unhappily; all those puddings she had been going to make, and the lovely crackers and carefully thought out menus. She wiped away tears with an angry hand; only little girls cried. She went to sleep finally and woke with a headache.
She crept downstairs at her usual time in the morning and set about her chores. Breakfast was almost ready and she was laying the table when Miss Murch came down. She was elegantly dressed as she always was and carefully made up, and she was smiling, although her eyes were as hard as stones.
She wished Sadie good morning and without waiting for an answer went on in a hushed voice: ‘I do apologise for the fuss I made last night. The truth is, I sleep so badly and waking suddenly and coming down here and finding Julie—the children are my first concern, you know. I’m sure we can come to some arrangement,’ she went on. ‘You can’t possibly be happy here. I know of several good families who would love a housekeeper—in London too. Think of the money you would earn and the clothes you could buy, and sooner or later you would meet some nice man and get married.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You don’t have to marry nowadays, of course, as long as you’re reasonably discreet.’ She came nearer to Sadie, who edged away. ‘Now, surely we can come to an agreement. Suppose you give in your notice? You can tell Mr Trentham you want to spread your wings a bit, see the bright lights… He’ll let you go, one housekeeper is very like another, you know. I’ll give you enough money to keep you going for a few weeks…’
‘You’re bribing me?’ said Sadie.
‘Oh, no, my dear, just offered to help.’
Mr Trentham, who had come downstairs early to do some work and had been in the hall listening to this conversation, thought it time to intervene. ‘I seem fated to overhear the most extraordinary conversations,’ he observed irritably. ‘Miss Murch, I must admire your ingenious plans, but I’m afraid they won’t do. I’ve given the matter some thought and I’ve decided to send the girls to school here. They seem to me to be singularly lacking in the usual childish pleasures, perhaps a few friends of their own age will remedy that. This being so, I’m sure you’ll be only too glad to return to London at once so that you can spend a civilised Christmas. Have your breakfast and come and see me, will you? I’ll give you a cheque and drive you to Crewkerne when you’re ready.’
Miss Murch had the glazed look of someone who had been hit on the head. ‘You can’t mean that, Mr Trentham!’
‘Indeed I do, Miss Murch. Sadie, bring me a cup of coffee in the dining room and go and help the children finish dressing. I’ll have breakfast with them later on.’
He went into the dining room and closed the door, and Sadie, quite speechless, carried in his coffee. He didn’t look up when she went in, nor did he speak. She went upstairs and brushed the little girls’ hair and helped them with zips and shoelaces, and when they went down presently, Miss Murch wasn’t there. From the thumpings and banging going on in her room she was packing.
Breakfast wasn’t nearly as bad as she had expected. Mr Trentham talked to his little daughters although he had very little to say to her, only when they had finished he said: ‘Leave these things, Sadie, and take the children down to the village, or for a walk, and don’t come back for a couple of hours.’
He didn’t smile at her, but she was relieved to see that he grinned at the children and bent to kiss them as he got up from the table.
It irked her very much to leave the dirty dishes, but she got the children into their hats and coats, fetched her own coat and a headscarf and started off for the village. It was lucky that there was a small amount of shopping to be done; they could spend a little time with Mrs Beamish.
The village shop might be small, but Mrs Beamish had stocked it well for Christmas. Sadie made her few purchases and then gave the children fifty pence each to spend. They had looked so surprised that she had explained: ‘It’s pocket money, my dears—I expect you get it every week, don’t you?’
They shook their heads, and Anna asked: ‘May we buy things, Sadie?’
‘Of course you may. Choose what you want as long as it doesn’t cost more than you’ve got.’
Which took quite a time, but presently, their cheeks bulging with toffee, they said goodbye to Mrs Beamish and followed Sadie down the steps and into the village street. ‘Which way?’ they asked.
‘Let’s go through the village and look at the duckpond and then we’ll peep into the church; they’ll be putting up the Christmas tree soon. If your father will allow it, I’ll take you to the carol service.’
She had thought at first that two hours was going to be a long time to fill in, but she need not have worried. They walked all round the pond, spent quite a time in the church and then called on Mrs Coffin to get another dozen eggs, and since Mrs Coffin didn’t have many visitors they stayed drinking cocoa in her stuffy sitting room while the children admired the dozens of china ornaments and then helped put the eggs carefully in Sadie’s basket. It was well past the two hours Mr Trentham had decreed by the time they got back to the cottage.
The door wasn’t locked and they went in cautiously. Perhaps Miss Murch hadn’t gone after all, thought Sadie; Mr Trentham might have had second thoughts. He hadn’t; he came out of the dining room as they stood in the hall. He said cheerfully, ‘There you are. Get your things off and come into the sitting room, we’re going to hold a serious discuss
ion.’
CHAPTER FIVE
SOMEONE HAD cleared the breakfast things off the table. The children scampered to their chairs and sat looking expectantly at their father as Sadie took a seat opposite him. She had no idea what he was going to say, but she had braced herself against the news. Mr Trentham liked utter quiet while he was working, an impossibility without a governess to look after his small daughters, which meant that they would go back to Highgate or, what was more likely, there would be another governess or even an au pair coming. Well, anyone would be better than Miss Murch.
‘May I have your undivided attention?’ asked Mr Trentham with impatient civility, so that she went a guilty pink and stammered: ‘Yes, yes, of course, Mr Trentham—so sorry…’
He didn’t smile at her, but he did at the children, which she took as a good sign, nor did he sit down, but began to pace up and down the room, flinging words at them from over his shoulder.
‘Miss Murch has returned to London. She will not be coming back; she found the country did not agree with her. I propose to send you, Anna, and you, Julie, to the village school for a year or so, and you will live here permanently, although it seems reasonable to suppose that we’ll spend the school holidays in Highgate. When you’ve outgrown the school here we’ll review the situation. But all this depends on Sadie.’ He paused in front of her and bent a frowning gaze upon her startled face.
‘Do I ask too much of you, I wonder? To run the cottage and look after Anna and Julie as well? Remember I shall still demand utter quiet while I’m working and you’ll have little leisure. I shall, of course, pay you more and we must come to some arrangement whereby you have a certain amount of free time each week, and some sort of stand-in must be arranged so that you can get any help you need.’
Sadie could hardly wait for him to finish. ‘Oh, I’d like that very much,’ she assured him, ‘that is if you think I’ll do and the children want me to stay.’