by Betty Neels
‘Where are you all going?’ he roared.
‘For a walk.’ Sadie didn’t allow the roar to upset her; it was, after all, only a loud voice.
‘I’m going with you.’ He was already getting into his sheepskin jacket. ‘I need inspiration as well as exercise.’ He looked at Sadie, ‘that’s if you’ll have me?’
‘Well, of course we will. We thought we’d go to the top of the land and out across the field and go and see if Mrs Coffin has got any eggs.’
It was hardly a walk. They ran, and threw snowballs, and the children fell about laughing, behaving like normal children now. By the time they got to the top of the hill they had rosy cheeks and so had Sadie, and once in the field, they stopped to make a snowman, all four of them, making quite a good job of it. They were breathless as they reached Mrs Coffin’s gate and it was Mr Trentham who suggested that only Sadie should go in. ‘We’re rather a crowd,’ he pointed out.
‘She’ll be hurt if you don’t,’ Sadie pointed out. ‘You’re a celebrity in the village, and she’ll be able to boast to all her friends that you’ve been to see her.’
She was right, of course. Mrs Coffin welcomed them with delight and they all trooped into her small sitting room, leaving their boots in the porch, then sat in her old-fashioned plush-covered chairs and drank the cocoa she insisted on making for them. Presently the children were allowed to go up the garden to collect the eggs from the nesting boxes while Mr Trentham entertained his hostess with London gossip. He did it very nicely and Sadie’s heart warmed towards him; he was thoughtless and arbitrary and liked everything done the moment he said so, but he could be kind too.
Mrs Coffin’s old eyes sparkled. As they said goodbye she said happily: ‘I dunno when I’ve had such a day, not since the Queen Mum’s birthday and Mr Frobisher lent me his black and white telly.’
Which was funny but a bit pathetic too.
Christmas came rushing at them from snowy skies—the candlelit carol service; the children’s party at the Primary Church School to which Anna and Julie went, shy at first, and then joining in the games like all the other children. The carol singers, plodding up to the front door and being asked in to drink coffee and eat mince pies, the last-minute tying up of parcels and, for the first time in years, a great many Christmas cards. Mr Trentham had, it seemed, an inexhaustible number of friends and acquaintances.
And of course there were local dinner parties to which he went. Sadie was constantly washing and ironing dress shirts and offering black coffee in the morning as Mr Trentham’s temper frayed at its edges.
‘It’s as bad as town,’ he grumbled at her, on his way out for the third time in a row, ‘and some of the food is atrocious.’
But Sadie was pleased when he refused several invitations for Christmas Eve. The children were in such a state of excitement that she was hard put to it to keep them occupied, and it was with a sigh of relief that she saw the three of them starting off for a walk after their lunch. It gave her a chance to make her last-minute preparations for the next day and set out the small table in the sitting room with little dishes of sweets and nuts and fruit. The chains they had hung with Mr Trentham’s help a day or two earlier, and what with holly festooning the walls and Christmas candles on the mantelpiece and the tree in pride of place between the two windows, the room was more than comfortably full. The children had wanted to put the cards on every available surface too, but Sadie had persuaded them against that and instead had suggested that they should be pinned on to red paper streamers hanging down the walls of the hall. It had taken quite a time to hang them all up and she had got a little tired of the messages inside them. It seemed that Mr Trentham knew a great many girls who regarded him with the greatest possible affection. He had caught her reading some of them and had said blandly: ‘Safety in numbers, Sadie. It’s when there’s only one left that there’s danger.’
‘Danger?’ she had asked.
‘Of falling in love, Sadie.’
They had tea round the fire when the three of them got back and an early supper with the excuse that the sooner the children went to bed the sooner the morning when their presents would come. And when they were safely in bed, Sadie set about stuffing the presents into two old pillowcases, ready for Mr Trentham to tie on to the bedrails when he went to bed.
‘I had no idea what I’ve been missing,’ he observed, obediently picking up and packing the parcels away at her direction.
‘But you must have had Christmas…’
‘Not this kind of Christmas, Sadie. What time do you suppose those two will wake in the morning?’
‘Very early indeed; it’s the one morning in the year when no one’s going to tell them to go back to sleep.’
‘Luckily you’re an early riser,’ he pointed out dryly.
Sadie remembered that well when at six o’clock the next morning two small figures stole into her room, climbed into bed one each side of her, and began to open their presents in a state of excitement all the more intense for having to be quiet. All the same, the rustling of paper and the occasional badly suppressed squeal of delight sounded very loud to Sadie. Besides, the bed was crowded, for Tom had refused to budge before his usual getting up time and there wasn’t an inch to spare.
Surprisingly there was. Mr Trentham, coming in with a tea tray, took in the situation at a glance, swept the presents which littered the bed on to the floor, boomed a genial Merry Christmas at everyone and sat down on the bed too. The children screamed with delight. ‘Daddy, you never brought us tea when Miss Murch was with us,’ declared Julie, and: ‘Is it because you like Sadie?’ asked Anna.
Unlike Sadie, who had gone very red in the face, Mr Trentham remained calm. ‘That’s telling, but one of the reasons is the frightful din of rustling paper which had been going on for hours.’ He poured tea and handed it round, and without seeming to do so, took a good look at Sadie, sitting between his daughters, her hair hanging round her shoulders, in her sensible pink winceyette nightie. Of course he knew that such garments existed, but he’d never seen one at close quarters before. There was no glamour about it, but he deduced that it would be nice and warm. He drank the tea, received his daughters’ thanks for the charming little wrist watches he had given them and asked if Sadie had opened her presents yet, and when she shook her head, said: ‘Well, go ahead, we all want to see what you’ve got.’
The headscarf came first, wrapped in a great deal of paper, and was duly admired, tried on and declared just the nicest scarf Sadie had ever seen. She kissed each child in turn and opened her other parcels—hankies from Mrs Frobisher, more hankies from Mrs Coffin, and a pair of knitted gloves from Mrs Beamish. Sadie was trying them on when Mr Trentham went out of the room and came back with a large flat box. ‘Happy Christmas, Sadie,’ he said, and laid it across her knees.
It was an extravagant box, tied with bright cords, and when the lid was lifted, awash with tissue paper. Sadie pushed it gently aside to reveal amber silk. She paused for a moment and looked at Mr Trentham, comfortably settled on the bed again, and he smiled and nodded his head. ‘Go on, look at it.’
A crêpe-de-chine blouse and with it a matching skirt; she had never had anything like it before in her life. Its very simplicity spelt couture; its elegance was indisputable. Just looking at it made her feel beautiful.
‘Oh, thank you—thank you, Mr Trentham! It’s so beautiful, I can’t believe it!’ She held up the blouse against herself, hardly able to believe that it was hers. Dear kind Mr Trentham, giving her something so beautiful! She felt tears welling into her eyes and hung her head so that her face was hidden.
‘Why are you crying?’ asked Julie. ‘Don’t you like it? Sadie…?’
Sadie rubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand and put the blouse back carefully. ‘I’m not crying,’ she said in a wobbly voice. ‘I’ve never had such a lovely dress before, you see, and I’m very happy—people cry a bit when they’re very happy.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Julie. ‘Well, ki
ss Daddy thank you, then.’
It was quite obviously expected of her. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek shyly and said, ‘Thank you very much. Shall I wear it today?’
‘Of course.’ He looked so kind that she smiled widely at him and asked: ‘Have you opened your presents, Mr Trentham?’
He fetched them from where they had been piled neatly on the landing. The socks were perfect, he declared, and the tie exactly what he wanted, he would wear both that very day. He opened Sadie’s parcel without speaking and looked at the map for a long moment. ‘You know my tastes, Sadie,’ he said at length. ‘Thank you. I shall hang it in front of my desk so that I can look at it constantly.’
She half expected him to kiss her since he had kissed the two little girls, but he didn’t, only smiled warmly, collected up the tea tray and with the remark that he wanted his breakfast in half an hour’s time, went out of the room.
That night, in her bed, tired but very content, and with the new outfit on a coathanger on the wall so that she could feast her eyes on it, Sadie went over the day minute by minute. They had all gone to church in the morning, walking there because there had been a strong frost during the night and the snow was treacherous for a car. There had been almost the entire village there, and a great deal of laughing and talking as the congregation dispersed. Sadie, greeting all the people she knew, was cheered to hear Mr Trentham refusing invitations to drinks, to supper that evening, to lunch the next day, and although he hunted he refused to join the meet at Bridport on Boxing Day morning. Instead he invited quite a number of people for drinks on Boxing Night, casually mentioning it to Sadie as they walked home.
‘How many are coming?’ she asked, her mind already busy with sausage rolls and vol-au-vents.
‘My dear girl, how should I know? I suppose about twenty—a few more?’ He had turned to look at her. ‘Anna and Julie can help carry round the food,’ he suggested carelessly.
Just for a moment her mind boggled at producing a variety of bits and pieces for so many people. And the glasses would have to be got out and polished. She frowned and he said with a touch of impatience: ‘What are you frowning for? No frowns, today of all days.’
So she had put her small worries out of her head and smiled for the rest of the day; and it had been a success, she considered. The turkey had been tender and Mr Trentham had carved in a masterly fashion. The puddings had been pronounced first class and they had drunk claret and then port and cracked nuts, exactly as one should at Christmas. And in the afternoon the little girls had settled to undressing and dressing their dolls and Sadie, remembering, glowed with pleasure at Mr Trentham’s real surprise that she had made all the clothes herself.
They had tea quite late and soon after the children went to bed Sadie had gone back to the sitting room and sat opposite Mr Trentham until it was time to go to bed herself. He hadn’t noticed her, for he was absorbed in a book so she sat like a mouse, listening to the record player. Even when she said goodnight and thanked him for a lovely day, he barely answered her, although he had got up from his chair and opened the door and wished her a good night. But what else could she expect? She was only the housekeeper, wasn’t she?
She crept downstairs very early the next morning, put a clean apron over her dressing gown, and began on the pastry for the sausage rolls. It would have to be puff pastry because she had the vol-au-vents to make too. She was arranging knobs of butter on her dough for the second time when the door opened silently and Mr Trentham came in.
‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ he asked sourly.
‘Good morning, Mr Trentham,’ said Sadie politely. ‘I’m making things for this evening—I won’t have time during the day. I’ll make you a cup of tea in a moment, but I’m afraid I must just see to this first or it will spoil.’
For answer he filled the kettle and put it on the stove. ‘Sadie, I’m sorry, I had no idea—that’s what comes of living in a house where you pick up the phone and order food for a drinks party and don’t give it another thought. Can you manage? Is there anything I can do to help?’
Sadie, being Sadie, took him at his word. ‘Yes, please. Will you take the sausages out of the fridge and put them on that chopping board. And when you’ve done that make the tea.’
When he had done that: ‘What next?’
‘It’s a bit messy, I’d better do it.’
As she had hoped he said instantly: ‘I’m quite able to do whatever it is.’
‘There’s a sharp knife in that drawer. Cut the skin off each sausage and divide it into four.’
To her surprise he did it very neatly, looking at her with a grin when he’d finished and saying: ‘You didn’t think I could, did you?’
She began to shape the sausage bits into tiny rolls. ‘If I make eighty?’ she asked him, and stopped to drink her tea.
An hour later they were ready on the baking trays for the oven, so were the vol-au-vents, as well as cheese straws, and Mr Trentham was making another pot of tea.
‘There are olives,’ said Sadie out loud to herself, ‘and almonds and raisins and enough cream cheese to make stuffed celery…do you suppose that will do?’
He put another mug of tea into her hand. ‘Superb, Sadie—it will be a roaring success. I’ll take the children for a walk this morning and give you time to see to this lot.’
On his way out of the kitchen he turned to look at her. ‘My God, how I’ve changed!’ he told her.
Far more people came than he had told her. Sadie thanked heaven that she had made another batch of everything while he and the children had been out. The cottage bulged with gentry and villagers alike, and Sadie, so elegant in her new outfit that half her friends didn’t recognise her, watched her food disappear and the glasses being filled and refilled again and again. Mr Trentham was an excellent host, but beyond him filling her glass from time to time, she hardly saw him.
That the whole thing was a success was a certainty. People started to leave reluctantly long after nine o’clock and the last few didn’t go until almost an hour after that. As the door closed on them, Sadie whisked the little girls upstairs, whipped off their party dresses, popped them into their nighties and tucked them up. ‘Baths in the morning,’ she told them as she kissed them goodnight.
The chaos downstairs was almost more than she could face—glasses and plates and crumbs and paper serviettes screwed into balls, empty bottles in corners, and Tom voicing a loud protest because he hadn’t had his supper.
Sadie put on an apron, fed him and took a tray to the living room. There was no sign of Mr Trentham; probably he couldn’t face the mess, and she could hardly blame him. This, she told herself wearily as she collected glasses, was what he paid her for.
He came out of the dining room a few moments later and began to pick up the empties. ‘If I were to suggest leaving this until the morning you’d sling something at me, I suppose?’
‘Yes, I think I should. It won’t take me long. It was a lovely party.’ She yawned and he smiled at her.
‘A long day, Sadie. You looked charming.’
She paused to stare at him. ‘Did I—did I really? I feel quite different in this dress…’
‘You’ve been hiding your light under a bushel for too long, Sadie.’ He paused at the door. ‘Leave everything in the kitchen once you’ve tidied this place. I’ll wash up—and that’s an order. Oh, and by the way, we’re all going up to Highgate tomorrow afternoon, but we’ll talk about that in the morning. Now off to bed with you!’
He left her standing there, her mouth open with astonishment, bereft of words.
CHAPTER SIX
SADIE HAD GONE to bed with her head in a whirl. How could Mr Trentham expect them to leave the cottage at a moment’s notice like that? A silly question, she admitted to herself. He did expect it, and so they would get into the car and drive away at exactly the time he had in mind. She sat up in bed making a list of things to be done the next morning: too many for one, so she went down the list
allocating tasks to the children and Mr Trentham. He would probably be annoyed, but if he wanted to go after lunch he would jolly well have to give a hand!
Having sorted things out to her satisfaction, she went to sleep. She had prudently set her alarm for half past six and by the time the others were awake she had packed for herself, tidied the house downstairs, laid the table for breakfast and washed and dressed. She told the little girls of their father’s plans as she helped them dress, and by the time they sat down to breakfast they had been given their small chores to do during the morning and were agog to start. Mr Trentham, for once, came straight to the sitting room. Presumably he had finished whatever writing he was doing, or his muse wasn’t awake yet. His mood seemed genial enough, so Sadie got out her list. ‘If you’d be kind enough to take Tom down to Mrs Coffin just before lunch,’ she suggested as she filled his cup for a second time, ‘and then call at Mrs Beamish’s and ask her to stop the milk and the bread—oh, and get a form from the Post Office so that the letters can be forwarded…’
‘Anything else?’ asked Mr Trentham with a sarcasm she could have done without. And when she shook her head, ‘And what will you be doing, Sadie?’
She chose to take his question seriously. ‘Pack for the girls, store the food away, cover the potato clamp—it’s not earthed up enough if we get some bad frosts—turn off the water, clean the fires and lay them ready for our return, get coffee, get lunch…’
He held up a large hand. ‘All right, I asked for it! What about these two?’
‘They’re going to dust the whole house and then put out the clothes they’ll need and the toys they want to take with them. Then they’ll…’
‘Enough! I see that you’ve got the slaves fully occupied. We’ll leave at half past one.’
And they did! Sadie presented herself and the two little girls at one minute to the half hour, hatted and coated and ready to leave. Tom had been taken to Mrs Coffin, all the messages had been delivered, the cases packed, lunch eaten and cleared away and the cottage as pristine as possible in the time she had had. There had been no time to ask questions; she had no idea for how long they were going and Mr Trentham hadn’t seen fit to tell her. The little girls were put in the back of the car and she was told to get in beside him, then off they went.