Up, Back, and Away

by K. Velk

  “Fine, I think. I’m not sure Mrs. Peppermore approves of me. I never learned much about religion.”

  “Funny, I thought all you Americans were religious maniacs. Sort of the point of the place, isn’t it? Well never mind too much about that. Once you’ve persuaded her of your general decency, you’ll have a champion in her forever. Tell me, what do you think of Susannah?”

  “She’s very nice – and very pretty.”

  “Ah, yes. Clearly that blow to your head hasn’t knocked you out your senses.” The Doctor looked as though he had something to add, but stopped himself.

  “Anyway, I think you might be well enough day after tomorrow to go with me to Tipton. We’ll get your noble steed back up and running. Meanwhile, just rest. Susannah is a fine talker. I’m sure she would welcome some friendly conversation. You can have a bit of a holiday now before you start work, fingers crossed, and a little stay here will give you a chance to get used to our English ways. No better place to learn the best of those than Peppermores’ cottage.”

  11. Cottage Life

  Weekdays at Peppermore cottage were regulated by one major housekeeping task for each day. Monday was washday. Tuesday was for ironing, gardening and cleaning the sheds, Wednesday for baking, Thursday for bedrooms, Friday for downstairs, Saturday for windows. Sunday, of course, was for rest and only such chores as were “needful,” as Mrs. Peppermore put it.

  She told Miles that she knew this was quite an “old-fashioned way to organize a house,” but that it was the way she had been brought up, as had her mother before her, and that she could no more change her ways than she could change her eye color.

  After watching Susannah work her way down the steep stairs with an armload of bedding – the bedding he had so recently vacated – it occurred to Miles that perhaps he should offer to help. At home, all the housework was Consuela’s job and hers alone. Even if he had ever thought to offer to help Consuela, he felt sure she wouldn’t want him to. She had her own way of doing things and she was very particular. It clearly irritated Consuela to find that the laundry had been folded or put away by someone else.

  Here, though, things were different. Miles had shyly paid Mrs. Peppermore the two crowns for his planned stay, as the Doctor had suggested. She had received the money with some surprise, and a moment of protest that turned quickly to acceptance with gratitude. Still, two small coins could not really be enough to pay them for all they had done for him already – much less for the week that still stretched ahead. Mrs. Peppermore had made it clear that he wasn’t to think of adding to the sum – but he had the uncomfortable feeling that he should help if he could.

  An hour after Dr. Slade departed, Miles hopped from the kitchen chair where he had been sitting and asked if he could carry a bundle of wet blankets that Susannah was hauling through the kitchen. She wheeled away as if he had thrust a spider at her.

  “Miles, you’re supposed to be resting! And thank you, but we can manage quite well.”

  “And we can’t have a young man doing washing! It’s women’s work!” Mrs. Peppermore said without the hint of a smile.

  Miles’ jaw dropped. He wondered what Mrs. Peppermore would make of his mother, an electrical engineer who was vice president of an international telecom company and who never did laundry.

  Still, the order to do nothing was an order so he took a seat on the rocking chair and tried to read David Copperfield. He found the old-fashioned language difficult and the busy women splashing and wringing out wet things distracted him. At one point Mrs. Peppermore asked Susannah for the “bluing” and Miles almost asked why they would add blue to their wash but stopped himself in the nick of time. Probably this was something everyone knew about in 1928.

  After the washing was done and hung up to dry, about mid-day, Mrs. Peppermore took a dish from the big oven. A good smell had been coming from there for an hour. The source was now revealed to be shepherd’s pie. They sat down to what Mrs. Peppermore called “dinner” and this time she said grace, one quite a bit longer than the one Jack had offered the night before. Miles’ stomach growled loudly in the middle of the prayer. The growling stopped a moment then began again. Susannah’s effort to keep a prayerful attitude buckled and then broke. The laugh she tried to strangle escaped as a snort, bringing a sideways glance of disapproval from her mother, but also a quick “Amen.”

  Afternoons at the Peppermore’s, Miles was informed, were given over to work for money, if any were available, or to errand running. Today, Mrs. Peppermore was going to the butcher’s while Susannah would be “workin’ on her chairs.”

  “You could sit with me if you like, Miles,” Susannah said. She was wearing a flowered dress, rather sun-faded, and had pulled her long hair back in bun. He thought she looked even prettier than she had in her fancier Sunday clothes. “If you’re feeling up to it. It would be very pleasant to have your company.”

  “Sure,” Miles said. Really, at the moment he couldn’t think of anything he would rather do.

  12. Susannah’s Story

  The workroom was in a lean-to at the back of the cottage. Hoops of reed hung on the wall. A group of straight-back chairs, all but one needing new seats, was lined neatly along the same wall. There was also a long wooden table on which a set of metal tools, pliers and poky things, rested in a neat row. Susannah pulled a leather apron from a hook on the back of the door and asked Miles to hand down one of the rolls of reed.

  “It’s so nice to have someone to talk with,” she said, pulling out the one chair that already had a new seat and indicating that Miles should sit. “Don’t tell Jack I said so, but it gets lonely here without him. If you find it a strain to sit with me, though, just say so. No need to be polite.”

  Miles grinned. “I’m not tired at all. I’d love to watch you work. It’s amazing, by the way, how you find your way around.” Was that a rude thing to say? Did you mention blindness to a blind person?

  “Yes, well, it’s home, after all,” she said, not seeming offended. “Funny, I don’t even think about it now. I suppose with a guest to stay I’ll have to mind if you move a table or something.”

  “I won’t, I wouldn’t!” It was a horrifying suggestion.

  “I was only joking. You must never take me too seriously. One’s sense of humor may survive where one’s sight has not – although it may also darken. I’m afraid mine has, but a sense of humor, even a black one, helps a blind girl make her way through.” She sighed and pulled a length of reed from the back to the front rail of a chair. “I would never do for one of Mr. Dickens’ heroines. They’re all so wonderfully sweet, whatever befalls.”

  “We read Tale of Two Cities last year,” Miles said, ransacking his brain for anything at all about Charles Dickens, other than his recent failure to get anywhere in David Copperfield. He almost blurted out that he had seen “A Christmas Carol” on TV many times and the IMAX 3-D version as well, but bit his tongue in time. “I don’t remember much about A Tale of Two Cities – just the evil lady who knits all the time and the guy at the end getting his head chopped off.”

  “Yes, well, those are memorable features, but the point, of course, is that Sidney Carton goes to the guillotine for the sake of Lucie Manette, the blameless heroine of that particular novel.”

  “Oh. OK. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention. I’m in trouble a lot at school for not paying attention.”

  “Oh dear. Well, I wasn’t meaning to turn our visit into a lesson. The problem for you, as for so many people who innocently engage in conversation with me, is that English literature was my favorite subject at school. I might have become an English teacher. Probably I’d have been the one that all the pupils dreaded and called by some horrible nickname. But enough about me. I’m longing to hear about your life in America.”

  He hesitated. A closed mouth was his best bet: “when you’re not sure what to say…”

  “Of course, if you don’t want to talk about it,” she added.

  Clearly she didn’t want to o
pen up any painful subjects. Miles again felt a pang of guilt about his cover story and for getting Susannah’s sympathy under false pretenses.

  “No. It’s all right. What did you want to know?”

  “Let’s see. Well, don’t tell mother I told you so, but she’s a bit worried that we must seem terribly backward to you, in this old house.”

  “I wouldn’t say that…”

  “Oh, now you’re being polite, aren’t you? Tell me. Did you have electric service at your house in America?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And an indoor toilet?”

  “Uhm. Yes.” Miles was a little shocked at her use of the word “toilet”. And was it possible that this would count as a luxury, even in 1928?

  “And a telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And a wireless?”

  “A radio, you mean?”

  “Yes. That is what they call it in America, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. We have radios.”

  “More than one? My heavens. And a gramophone?”

  “Gramophone? That’s a record player, right?”

  “Yes. Charming phrase, a ‘record player.’”

  “In fact, we just got one, not long before I lost my parents that is…” Miles’ father had recently been persuaded by Dane Hill, who was a client, a friend, and a famous music producer, that some music just had to be played on vinyl records. Chuck McTavish had duly ordered, from Germany, a beautiful turntable. Miles didn’t think it had been used once, although it looked nice in the media cabinet and Consuela dusted it dutifully.

  “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, really,” Susannah mused. “Jack said this morning he had seen right away that you came from a posh sort of a family.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “Oh, please don’t take offense. I just meant that your family must be like the rich Americans in the films and such.”

  “None of those things you mentioned are signs that a person is rich in America. Everybody has them.”

  The cold fact was that the McTavishes were rich, by almost any standard, even in his own day. Still, he thought that what he was saying, about having indoor plumbing and owning a radio or a “gramophone,” was true. Everyone had those things.

  Susannah looked doubtful.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of work did your father do?”

  “He, works, I mean, he worked in a bank.”

  “Handing money over a counter, or in an office?”

  “In an office.”

  “As I suspected. And your mother, did she have a maid?”

  “Well, my mother worked too, so we had to have a housekeeper. We didn’t think of her as a maid.”

  “Your mother worked? How modern. How interesting. I am not sure I understand the distinction you’re making, though. Does, did, the ‘housekeeper’ look after your mother’s wardrobe and such?”

  “Well, I guess, yes – among other things.” Consuela did the laundry and picked up the dry-cleaning…

  “All right, here we would call that a ‘lady’s maid.’ A housekeeper is in charge of the female domestic staff and domestic supplies and such. Now, what about a gardener?”

  “No, no gardener – well, some landscapers come.”

  “Do these ‘landscapers’ tend your garden?”

  Twice a week, a trio of uncommunicative Mexican men had come to pull weeds and cut grass and blow leaves off the pathway and porches and the deck of the pool of the McTavish’s house. He thought he had better not mention the pool and the pool men.

  “Well, yes, I suppose. I mean we don’t really have a garden, didn’t have one. Just some flowers and bushes and trees and stuff near the door, and a yard.”

  “A yard?”

  “Yeah, you know, where the grass grows. The landscapers come and cut the grass.”

  “Oh, then it is a garden. In England a ‘yard’ is a place where animals are slaughtered or bricks are stored and things of that nature. You mustn’t call people’s gardens “yards” here or they will think you are being insulting.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.”

  “All right, so we’ve a rich American who’s come to stay. Really, it’s wonderful. Totally unlooked for and terribly interesting.”

  “But I’m not rich!” Miles protested. “Well. I suppose, maybe we were kinda rich back in Texas. But now, I have nothing – even my bike is broken. If I don’t get work at Quarter Sessions, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  A wave of self-pity forced a little break in his voice at the end of this speech. He regretted it instantly, but too late.

  Susannah stopped weaving. “Oh Miles, I am sorry. I know you’ve suffered terrible losses. I am such a clod.”

  “It’s all right,” he managed. Jack had told him that Susannah had begun losing her sight when she was fifteen, his age now. And he was the one feeling sorry for himself?

  “Not to change the subject,” Miles said, wanting very much to change the subject, “but you said a while back that Jack thought I came from a ‘posh’ family. What gave him that idea?”

  “Oh no. I should probably just keep quiet now. I’ve been such an Ox…”

  “No, tell me, please. I really want to know.”

  “Well, now, don’t take offense – none is meant, certainly. Jack noticed right away that your hands were not the hands of a working boy. And last night, after you’d gone up to bed, Mother brushed your boots. She said they were wonderfully made, practically new and very exotic. ‘Made in China,’ she said.”

  Miles’ stomach fluttered.

  “Uh, actually, in the U.S. lots of stuff from China is cheap. I got those because they were especially cheap. Actually a family friend bought them, for my trip here.”

  “Cheap shoes from as far away as China? Really? Of course I don’t get to read newspapers anymore,” Susannah sighed. “Lots must be getting by me.”

  Now he had made her feel depressed as well as guilty.

  “What sort of work are you going to be looking for at Quarter Sessions?” she asked, turning the tide of conversation to a safer shore.

  “I have been wondering, worrying, about that, actually,” Miles replied. “It’s true that I haven’t really had to earn my own money before.”

  “Jack’s working in the kennels, you know. It may not sound very exalted, but the kennels at Sessions are in a class of their own, as he probably told you. These days the kennels are Jack’s favorite – no – his only subject.”

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk about his work, with my bloody head and everything,” Miles said. “I like dogs, but I’ve never had one of my own. I like them even better now that Molly pretty much saved my life. I think one day I’ll get a beagle of my own.”

  “Oh dear. Maybe we shall have a lesson after all. Your knowledge of Dickens won’t feature much in your efforts to get work at Sessions, but it will be important for you to know a foxhound when you see one.”

  “Oh. I thought she was kind of big, for a beagle.”

  “I suppose I could see how you might be confused. Her coloring is like a beagle’s, but she is most definitely a foxhound – more than that, she is one of the Quarter Sessions hounds, famous throughout the country as the pack of the Sessions Hunt.”

  “You mean she isn’t your dog?”

  Susannah laughed. “Oh no! We are walking her this year. We walk a Sessions puppy just about every year. Besides, she’s quite a valuable piece of property. If Molly were ours she would be in peril of being cashiered in favor of that wireless we’ve been coveting – we’re to have the electric put in soon you know.”

  “You mean you just take her for walks? I thought she lived here.”

  “Well, we do take her for walks, but “walker” is just an expression. There’s more to it than that. We’re responsible for her until next spring when she’ll be returned to the kennels to learn to hunt. We teach her a few manners, a few commands, to be a quick eater, that’s important for a fo
xhound. She’s not a pet, you must understand, but a working dog.”

  “God. It’s hopeless. I don’t know a foxhound from a beagle and I don’t know anything at all about horses.”

  “Well, you may not want to, shall we say, accentuate that fact when the time comes. But cheer up. I think your prospects are excellent. Jack will help you with Mr. Hardy. And of course, you have a foot in the door already. Jack told us about your Professor friend who was such a favorite of Lady Fisher’s. I believe, even if you had to lean against a wall all day she would give you a job doing that, if she thought it might be a help to a friend.”

  “I hope you’re right. I’ll keep ‘leaning against the wall’ in mind in case she asks what I can do.”

  The prospect of asking for a job at the great estate was almost as frightening as staring down the English Boy trail had been. Truth be told, he had no skills and wasn’t particularly good at anything, assuming model railroading and being good at movie and music trivia of his own day were not much in demand here. The only job he had ever had was his internship last summer working with the Professor at the Britannic Wheelman, and the main lesson he had learned there was that he was not cut out to be a mechanic of any kind, or a shopkeeper.

  Well, maybe the girl and the secret would be revealed before he had to make his next move. If not, he supposed he could feed a dog as well as any boy. At least he hoped so.

  13. Settling In

  By his third day with the Peppermores, Miles couldn’t bear to sit just watching the women work any longer. He felt shy about asking if there was anything he could do, but he noticed that Mrs. Peppermore was wincing a little each time she bore down on the huge lump of dough that she was kneading.