The House on the Cliff

by D. E. Stevenson

  “Is Judy your daughter?”

  Mrs. Chowne nodded. “Judith is her proper name; she’s forever telling us to call her Judith but it’s difficult to remember. I’d like to come and go with you, Miss Elfrida. That’s to say supposing you’ve got visitors I’ll do more and when you’re alone I’ll do less. I like to take a run down to the village now and then, to see Judy and the boy . . . and you won’t mind us going to the pictures once a week, will you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “And another thing: Ernie said to tell you about the parent. It’s a nuisance having to go over to Cherleigh—’specially in bad weather—but the parent takes the huff very easily.”

  “Chowne’s mother?” asked Elfrida.

  “His father,” replied Mrs. Chowne. “Between you and me, Miss Elfrida, he’s got a nice bit of money saved. He’s ninety-one and Ernie is his only child, so it would be a pity if it went to a cat’s home. That’s what he says when he takes the huff.”

  “I don’t suppose he really means it.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Chowne thoughtfully. “He takes the huff very easily if he thinks we’re neglecting him.”

  “You must go over and see him whenever you like.”

  Mrs. Chowne smiled happily. “You and me are going to get on like a house on fire. I’ll make you cakes for tea and nice little suppers and I’ll give you breakfast in bed. You’ll soon fill out and put on weight.”

  “I see you’re going to spoil me frightfully,” declared Elfrida, laughing.

  They had finished their “elevenses” by this time so Mrs. Chowne showed Elfrida the other rooms in the flat: one good-sized double bedroom and two single bedrooms, all comfortably furnished. She explained that one of the smaller rooms was Judy’s before she was married and the other was “for a visitor!” There was also a good bathroom and a wash-house. As they returned through the kitchen Elfrida admired the row of gleaming dish covers and asked if they were ever used nowadays.

  “Oh, they’re just for ornament; Ernie likes them,” replied Mrs. Chowne. “They remind him of when he was boot-boy in a big house near Bath. The butler was nasty and Ernie was very unhappy; that’s why he likes being reminded.”

  This was a new point of view to Elfrida and she said so.

  “Because he’s happy now,” explained Mrs. Chowne.

  “Oh, I see! But it must be a big job cleaning them.”

  “He does it. He fetches in the ladder and goes up and cleans them himself . . . I’m not allowed to lay a finger on them.” She gave one of her wild hoots and trotted across the kitchen to answer the back-door bell.

  Elfrida had been on the point of asking whether the bells were in working order, or were “just for ornament” like the dish covers and the old range, but now there was no need to ask; the bell was wagging violently and making a terrific din.

  The rest of the morning was spent going round the house with Ronnie, opening drawers and turning out cupboards. During the search she happened to mention that she had not much money.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” replied Ronnie. “Uncle Bob can easily send you a couple of hundred to tide you over until Mrs. Ware’s estate has been settled up. Will that be enough?”

  To Elfrida it sounded like riches.

  *

  9

  Ronnie went off directly after lunch . . . Elfrida stood at the door and waved until the car vanished round a bend in the avenue with a spurt of loose gravel from beneath its wheels. She had told him not to drive too fast, whereupon he had grinned mischievously and replied, “It depends what you call ‘too fast,’ doesn’t it?”

  She sighed—she was sure he would drive too fast—and turned back into the house. For some reason she felt a little depressed.

  “Why don’t you go up to the farm and see Pansy?” asked Mrs. Chowne, appearing suddenly from the back premises.

  The idea pleased Elfrida; she put on her brown shoes and a chunky cardigan and, taking a blackthorn stick from the stand in the hall, set forth to view her property. The path led downhill at first; she came to a high wall with a green door in it. This was the garden, of course, so she opened the door and went in. There were fruit trees here, and bushes and a tangle of vegetation; on the left, there was an unsightly pool of water covered with green slime. At the far end of the garden was an open space where a man was digging industriously.

  Chowne, of course! Elfrida hesitated, wondering whether to go and speak to him. So far she had not spoken to him at all and she was a little nervous about it—how awful it would be if he said something and she could not understand!

  Elfrida shut the door quietly and went on up the hill to the farm. A five-barred gate led into the yard, she opened it and went in and looked about. There was no sign of Pansy; in fact the whole place was empty. Elfrida found stables and a coach-house and two large barns . . . all these buildings were in good repair but obviously had not been used for years. In the bigger barn there was a pile of straw and a rope dangling from a cross beam in the roof. The afternoon sun streamed in through the skylights.

  She was standing there, gazing round, when a husky voice behind her said, “Pigs.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, turning quickly.

  It was Chowne. He must have followed her up the hill. For a moment or two she hesitated; she was almost sure he had said “Pigs.” Perhaps he meant that in days gone by the barn had been used for pigs—but it was so clean and fresh that this seemed unlikely. Unfortunately she could not ask him what he meant; Mrs. Chowne had told her to talk to him but not to ask him anything. The silence seemed to have lasted too long so she pulled herself together and said, “It’s a lovely afternoon for a walk. Mrs. Chowne told me about Pansy and I thought I’d like to see her.”

  Chowne nodded understandingly; he led her across the yard to another gate and opened it for her. She found herself in a paddock, enclosed by high banks with hedges on the top of them . . . a brown cow with white patches was lying down in the far corner, she rose slowly and came towards them across the grass.

  “Oh, what a darling!” exclaimed Elfrida.

  Pansy was a friendly cow; she allowed her new owner to admire her and to stroke her soft brown nose and then followed Chowne across the yard. It was milking time.

  The process interested Elfrida—she had never before seen a cow being milked—and she decided to learn how to do it herself. Also, she was interested in Chowne. He was intent upon his task so she was able to look at him properly. He was tall and thin with large hands and feet; his hair was plentiful, almost white, and had been cut by an unskilled hand. His eyes were dark brown, deeply sunk beneath jutting brows; his face was sad—it was easy to see he had suffered. His wife had said he was happy now, she wondered if it were true.

  Elfrida walked on up the hill; she went through a field and found herself in a narrow lane with high banks on each side; on the top of the banks were bushes of blackthorn, their spiky black twigs covered with delicate blossoms. The banks were so high that there was no view of the country. In one place, however, where the bank was lower and blackthorn bushes had given way to hazel trees with little necklaces of yellow catkins hanging upon them, Elfrida scrambled up and had a good look round. There was a field with cows in it; beyond was a hill with rocks and tufty grass and sheep. It would have been fun to go up there, but the cows in the field had horns and had raised their heads from the monotonous business of eating grass and were looking at her with interest—rather too much interest, thought Elfrida—so she jumped down into the lane and went on her way. The lane wandered this way and that, in what seemed an aimless manner; then suddenly took a sharp turn downhill and became even deeper than before. On one side ran a little stream, fringed with tiny ferns; on the other side there were big flat stones which overlapped to make a causeway. It was very quiet here and so sheltered that the banks were full of primroses—great cushions of little yellow flowers—and there were bushes of pink blossoms which were sticky to the touch. In one place there was a
large clump of violets with a delicious scent.

  Elfrida was tired by this time, she was unused to walking, so she sat down upon the bank near the violets. How amazing it was to think that two days ago she had been in London! Even more amazing to think that only a week ago Mountain Cros had been a sort of fairy tale! She had never expected to see it, far less come here to live. She wished that all this had happened six months ago, before her mother was ill, so that they could have come to Mountain Cross together. How happy we would have been! thought Elfrida. How she would have loved showing me her home! Oh, dear, if only we had known that the door was open . . .

  The bond between mother and daughter had been unusually strong. Marjory was mother, father, sister and dear companion to her child; they had shared joys and sorrows and difficulties. They had always loved each other dearly but it was only afterwards, when Elfrida was alone, that she realised the fullness of her loss; realised, too, that she was a part of her mother and owed all she possessed to her mother’s care and companionship.

  In spite of their anxieties and lack of money they had managed to enjoy life in a quiet way. One of their chief pleasures was to take a bus to the country and to spend a long day walking together through fields and woods; talking to country people, who were friendly and kind, and admiring the flowers in cottage gardens. Marjory loved flowers, but she never picked wild flowers . . . she said they should be left to grow in wild places; they faded so soon if you picked them. If there happened to be a little money to spare she liked to buy a few flowers from a boy who came to the door once a week.

  Marjory’s illness ended these pleasures; there could be no more expeditions, there was no money for flowers. At first it was “just a cold,” nothing to worry about, but as the days passed her strength failed. Gradually she became too weak to sew or knit—or even to read—and she would lie for hours in the dull little room with nothing but her thoughts to keep her happy. The strange thing was that she had been happy—Elfrida could not understand it. How was it possible to be happy, lying there alone all day, doing nothing and seeing nobody?

  “But I’m not alone,” Marjory had said, taking Elfrida’s hand and holding it against her thin white cheek. “God is everywhere—even in this dull little room—so you needn’t worry about me.”

  One day on her way home from a rehearsal Elfrida had bought a bunch of violets from an old flower-woman in Piccadilly Circus and had run upstairs and burst into her mother’s room in breathless haste.

  “Darling, is something the matter?” asked Marjory in alarm.

  “Nothing wrong—just a surprise—shut your eyes, Mother.”

  So Marjory had shut her eyes and, when told to sniff, had sniffed. “Violets!” she had said . . . and suddenly tears of weakness ran down her cheeks.

  Elfrida culd never forget that moment for it was then she realised that her mother was hopelessly ill . . . and it was that night, when supper was over and Elfrida had cleared it away, that Marjory had begun to talk about Mountain Cross. She talked about the old house which had stood upon the cliff for hundreds of years; about the garden and the orchard and the farm and the dapple-grey pony which she had driven in a little cart through high-banked lanes; about the woods carpeted with bluebells—so blue that it looked as if bits of the summer sky had fallen—but most of all about the sea and the waves breaking on the shore and the fresh breezes. It was then that she had said in her husky whisper, “If I could see it just once—and breathe that lovely air—I’d get well quite quickly.”

  “You’ll soon be well,” Elfrida told her. “I shall make a lot of money and we’ll go to the seaside for a long holiday. There are other places besides Mountain Cross.”

  “Yes, of course,” agreed Marjory, smiling. “Let’s decide where to go.”

  “We’ll go to the Western Isles,” Elfrida told her. “There’s a railway poster of the Western Isles in the underground station; I saw it this afternoon. There’s green grass, blue sea and white sands and seagulls. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  “It sounds heavenly . . . and it’s such a lovely name: The Western Isles.”

  “That’s where we’ll go when I’m a star and I’ve made lots of money.”

  Alas, they both knew they were building a castle in the air.

  Elfrida was still sitting on the bank beside the clump of violets but her thoughts had travelled a long, long way and her eyes were full of tears. The castle had not been “in the air”; it had been here all the time, waiting for them to come. If only they had known . . .

  It was late when at last Elfrida found her way home; she had got thoroughly lost amongst the winding lanes.

  Mrs. Chowne prepared her supper and brought it into the parlour on a tray. The meal consisted of bread-and-butter pudding and a baked apple. Bread-and-butter puddings are often soggy and tasteless but Mrs. Chowne’s version was delicious; crisp on the top and creamy underneath. The apple was large and stuffed with dates and was accompanied by a jug of cream.

  After this delectable meal Elfrida sat by the fire and tried to read a book about Sir Francis Drake, which she had found in her grandfather’s library; it was an interesting book but her day had been tiring and she was so full of fresh air and bread-and-butter pudding that she could not keep her eyes open.

  She was awakened by Mrs. Chowne who came in to tell her that Mr. Cobley had called about the copse.

  “What did you say?” asked Elfrida, struggling out of a dream.

  “Mr. Cobley . . . about the copse. Shall I let him in?”

  “Oh, yes, of course!” Elfrida exclaimed. She was still half asleep and was under the impression that her unexpected visitor must be connected with Scotland Yard but this somewhat alarming idea vanished when she saw him.

  Mr. Cobley was a chubby man—a true countryman—with a round pink face, cleanly shaved, and pale blue eyes. His hair was brown and very thick except for a round bald patch on his crown . . . Elfrida would have cast him as Friar Tuck without the slightest hesitation.

  “It’s about the copse,” said Mr. Cobley. “It’s an eyesore—that’s what it is. I walked up there on Sunday and took a look round. It used to be a nice little wood but it’s been neglected—wants tidying up. I thought I’d just call in and mention the subject.”

  “Oh, I see!” Elfrida was sitting upright in her chair and trying to look intelligent. “Yes, Mr. Leighton said something about it. I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “It wants tidying up.”

  “I know, but I’m afraid it’s out of the question. It would cost a lot of money.”

  “Now, that’s where you’re wrong, Miss Ware. Of course it’s natural that a lady like you don’t understand copses. It takes a man that knows about wood. I’ve been in wood since I was a kid. What with Father being a carpenter and me being in forestry for a bit you might say I know about wood from A to Z.” He gave her a beaming smile and added, “I dare say you could act Romeo and Juliet to the life but copses is a different matter.”

  “Quite different,” agreed Elfrida, stifling an involuntary giggle.

  “It isn’t much good explaining,” he continued. “The best thing would be for you to walk up the ’ill some morning—say Saturday, I’m not so busy on a Saturday—and I’d meet you there and take you round. In ’arf an hour you’d see for yourself. You’d see that some of the trees ’ave been blown down—it was that gale we ’ad last winter—and some of the trees ’ave been rooted up and blown against other trees. It’s a mess.”

  ‘It sounds dreadful, but I couldn’t afford——”

  “But it wouldn’t cost you nothing! Ernie Chowne and me and Tom Parkins—if we can get ’im—could do the job. It’ll take some time, of course, but there isn’t any ’urry.”

  “I don’t understand, Mr. Cobley. You say it wouldn’t cost me anything but surely you’d want to be paid for your time and trouble?”

  “There’s good wood there and I’d give you a good price for it, see?”

  Elfrida saw. She said, “I don’t
like the idea of cutting down trees.”

  “Nobody does,” agreed Mr. Cobley. “Trees take a long time to grow and they’re very pretty; I’m fond of trees. It’s just because I’m fond of them that I don’t like to see them in a mess. When they’re getting past their prime and being torn up and blown down in every gale it’s a mistake to let them lie and rot. You’d be better getting good money for them, wouldn’t you?”

  Mr. Cobley went on talking; he was very persuasive and Elfrida liked him—so she agreed to meet him in the copse on Saturday morning at ten o’clock.

  *

  10

  Various arrangements had been made with Mrs. Chowne; it had been agreed that Elfrida should look after her own bedroom and bathroom so she set to work immediately after breakfast. She was astonished at the cleanliness—no smuts!—and the task did not take her long to complete. Yesterday she had gone inland and walked through the lanes; to-day she decided to walk by the sea, but first she went into the parlour where she found an old-fashioned and somewhat clumsy pair of field-glasses in a black leather case and swung it over her shoulder.

  There was a side-door at the end of the passage, Elfrida unlocked it and went out. The wind caught it from her hand and slammed it behind her . . . three steps led down to a stretch of bright green turf which sloped gently to the edge of the cliff. The wind was boisterous, it tore at her skirts and ruffled her hair but Elfrida enjoyed the sensation; she stood there for several minutes, breathing deeply. Then she went down the slope to the edge of the cliff and looked over. Below her was a little bay, sheltered from the west by a promontory of rock which stretched out into the sea.

  This was the bay of which her mother had spoken: “Such a lovely place to bathe . . . but you have to be careful, of course. The path down the cliff is rather steep . . . and the current is dangerous at ebb-tide.”

  Elfrida could hear her mother saying it, but being a town dweller she did not understand. She could see the remains of a path down the cliff; there were rough steps and a piece of wooden railing, hanging crookedly; in other places there seemed to be no path . . . but her mother had used this path so it must be all right, thought Elfrida.