(9/20) Tyler's Row

by Miss Read

  The clock said twenty-five past eight and Diana waited for the last quick gulp of coffee and the rolling of her husband's table napkin.

  He tossed the letter across to her, and lifted his cup.

  'What do you think of it? Shall we go and have a look?'

  'Fairacre,' said Diana slowly. 'Wouldn't it be rather far?'

  'Six miles or so. Not much more. And lovely country-good downland walks. High too. Wonderful air.'

  Peter Hale tucked his spectacles into their case, checked that he had his red marking pen safely in his inner pocket, his handkerchief in another and his wallet in the back pocket or his trousers. 'So much more convenient for the pickpockets', as Diana had told him once.

  'Must be off. I'll be late back. Staff meeting after school.'

  He gave her forehead a quick peck, and was gone.

  Diana poured a second cup of coffee and thought about this proposed move.

  She wasn't at all sure that she wanted to move anyway. They had lived in the present house for almost twenty years and she had grown very attached to it.

  It had been built early in the century, in common with many others, on the hill south of Caxley. Mostly they had been taken by professional and business people in the town, who wanted to move away from their working premises, yet did not want to be too far off.

  They were well-built, with ample gardens whose trees were now mature and formed a screen against the increased traffic in the road. Diana had worked hard in the garden, scrapping the enormous herbaceous border which had been the pride of a full-time gardener in earlier and more affluent times, and the dozen or so geometrically-shaped garden beds which had been so beautifully set out with wall-flowers, and then geraniums, in days gone by.

  The two long rose-beds were her own creation, and a new shrubbery, well planted with bulbs, gave her much satisfaction and less backbreaking work. She would hate to leave her handiwork to others.

  The house too, though originally built with accommodation for at least one resident maid, was easily managed. Here she and Peter had brought up their two sons, both now in the Navy, and the place was full of memories.

  And Caxley itself was dear to her. She enjoyed shopping in the town, meeting her friends for coffee, hearing the news of their sons and daughters, taking part in such innocent and agreeable activities as the Operatic Society and the Floral Club. Her nature made her averse to committee work. She lacked the drive and concentration needed, and had never been able to whip up the moral indignation she witnessed in some of her friends who were engaged in public works. She admired their zeal sincerely, but she knew she was incapable of emulating them.

  She knew so many people in the town. After all, Peter was now teaching the sons of his former pupils, and every family, it seemed, had some tie with the Grammar School. The young men in the banks, the shops and the offices of Caxley were almost all Old Boys, and knew her well. Wouldn't she feel lost at Fair acre?

  She told herself reasonably that she would still run into Caxley to shop and meet friends, but it would mean a second car. She knew that any buses from Fairacre would be few and far between. Had Peter considered this, she wondered, in his desire to get into the country?

  He had wanted to do this for years now. Circumstances had kept them in the town, the boys' schooling, the convenience of being within walking distance of his work, and Diana's obvious contentment with her way of life. But the boys were now out in the world. The house was really too large for them, and the garden, with no help available, was soon going to prove too much for them.

  'Now's the time to pull up our roots,' Peter had said, at least a year earlier. 'We're still young and active enough to settle into another place and to make friends. I'd like to get well dug in before I retire.'

  He looked at his wife's doubtful face.

  'If we don't go soon, we never will,' he said flatly. 'It's time we had a change of scene. Let's go and look at a few places anyway.'

  During the past few months they had visited a dozen or so properties, and each time they had returned thankfully to their own home.

  At this time, estate agents could laud their wares to the skies and many a 'desirable residence in charming surroundings' could have been more truthfully described as 'Four walls and a roof in a wilderness'. Sometimes, it was enough to read the agent's description, and the Hales did not bother to visit the establisment. Other factors weeded out the possibles from the impossibles. For instance, Peter Hale refused to have anything to do with a property advertised ''twixt' this and that, or as 'prestige'.

  'Listen to this,' he would snap crossly. '"'Twixt downs and salubrious golf course". And here's another, even worse. "A gem set 'twixt wood and weir." Well, they're out for a start! I'm not living 'twixt anything.'

  There would be further snorts of disgust.

  'It says here that "Four prestige houses are planned in Elderberry Lane". Such idiotic phrases! And pandering to the vanity of silly people! Who's going to be gulled into thinking Elderberry Lane's any catch, anyway, stuck down by the gas-works?'

  They knew the district well, after so many years, and Fairacre was one of the villages which attracted them. In open country leading to the downs, it remained relatively unspoilt, yet there were one or two useful shops, a Post Office, a fine church, and enough inhabitants to make life interesting.

  'This might be a possibility,' said Diana to herself, studying the glowing account of Tyler's Row attractions.

  'Suitable for conversion into one dignified residence', probably meant it was falling down and needed prompt support internally and externally.

  'Half an acre of mature garden' could be construed as two ancient plum trees, past bearing, standing among docks and stinging nettles, and 'leaded windows' would be the deuce to clean, thought Diana.

  But the price was unusually low. Why, she wondered? Was it even more dilapidated than she imagined?

  And then she saw the snag.

  'Two of the cottages at present occupied.'

  Hardly worth bothering to go and look then. They certainly wouldn't want neighbours at such close quarters.

  'Still,' thought Diana reasonably, 'it does mean that the cottages are capable of being lived in.'

  Perhaps they would run out to Fairacre after all.

  As it happened, the Hales did not visit Fairacre until the following week, for end of term was upon them, involving Sports Day, a tennis tournament arranged by the hard-working Parents' Association to raise funds for the school's swimming pool, a dinner for three of the staff who were retiring, as well as the usual end-of-term chores such as reports, last-minute advice to panicking school-leavers looking for jobs, and so on.

  'Well,' said Peter Hale, arriving home on the last day of term, with a broad smile, 'now we've broken up, and my peptic ulcers can recover gently.'

  He flopped into the settee, put up his feet and surveyed the ceiling blissfully.

  'Think of it—seven weeks of freedom. Time to do just as we like.'

  'If you still want to look at that place at Fairacre, perhaps we could drive out tomorrow,' suggested Diana.

  'Tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, any day you like, my dear. I'm a free man,' declared Peter rapturously.

  'If we leave it too long,' pointed out his wife, 'it will have been snapped up.'

  'So it might,' agreed her husband, coming abruptly to earth. 'Let's go tomorrow morning.'

  It was a perfect day to drive the six miles northward to Fairacre. They picked up the key as they drove through Caxley, and were soon out of the town, driving through leafy lanes, and rising steadily as they approached the downs.

  The sky was cloudless, and a blue haze shimmered over the wide fields. Honeysuckle and a few late wild roses embroidered the hedges, and when Peter stopped the car to fill his pipe, Diana heard a lark scattering its song from the sky. A blue butterfly, native of the chalk country, hovered over the purple knapweed on the bank. Nearby was a patch of yellow and cream toadflax, vivid in the sunshine, and e
verywhere was the scent of warm grass and leaves—the very essence of summertime.

  'Wonderful country,' said Peter dreamily, gazing into the blue distance, above the leaping match flame.

  'In this weather,' replied Diana. 'Could be pretty bleak in the winter. And lonely.'

  'You don't sound very enthusiastic,' said Peter, turning to look at her. 'Shall we go back?'

  'Not till we've seen Tyler's Row,' said Diana firmly. 'We'll know what to think then.'

  Peter started the engine and they made their way slowly through Beech Green and on to Fairacre, without speaking further, until they reached the Post Office in the centre of the village street.

  As it happened, Mr Lamb, the postmaster, was in his front garden cutting back rose suckers with a fierce-looking clasp knife.

  'Tyler's Row?' called Peter, winding down the car window.

  'Eh?' said Mr Lamb, startled.

  'Tyler's Row—Mr Bennett's property,' enlarged Peter, knowing that it is far better to name the owner than the house in rural parts.

  John Lamb, who had not heard Peter properly at first, was a trifle nettled at having Bennett's name brought in. He was postmaster, wasn't he? He knew Tyler's Row well enough, after all these years, without some foreigner trying to tell him his business!

  He answered rather shortly.

  'On your left. Matter of a hundred yards or so. You'll see the thatch over the hedge-top.'

  'Thanks very much,' said Peter, equally shortly. Diana turned her gentle smile upon John Lamb, to soften her husband's brusqueness.

  'Surly sort of devil,' commented Peter, eyes alert to the left.

  'I thought he looked rather a dear,' said Diana. 'Look, that's it!'

  They pulled up by the tall hawthorn hedge.

  'That archway's rather attractive,' said Diana. 'Shall we go in?'

  The gate was rickety and dragged on the ground. A semi-circle had been worn into the earth, and the pressure had caused some of the palings to hang loose.

  'Tut, tut!' clicked Peter, who was a tidy man. 'Only the hinge gone. Wouldn't have taken five minutes to replace.'

  They stood just inside the gate and surveyed Tyler's Row. The cottage nearest them had a fine yellow rose climbing over it. The dark foliage glittered in the sunshine as brightly as holly leaves. The windows were closely shut, despite the heat of the day, and Diana was positive that she saw a curtain twitch as though someone were watching them.

  They moved a few steps along the brick path. A bumble bee wandered lazily from rose to rose, his humming adding to the general air of languor.

  The two empty cottages, their windows blank and curtainless, looked forlorn and unloved. The paint peeled from the doors and window frames, and a long, skinny branch of japónica blew gently back and forth in the light breeze, scraping across the glass of an upstairs window with an irritating squeaking noise.

  'Turns your teeth to chalk, doesn't it?' remarked Peter. 'Like catching your finger-nail on the blackboard.'

  'Or wearing those crunchy nylon gloves,' added Diana.

  'I've been spared that,' said Peter, stepping forward and pressing his face to the glass.

  At that moment, a woman came out of the last cottage, flung a bucket of water across the garden bed, in a flashing arc, and stood, hand on hip, surveying the couple. Her face was grim, her eyes unwelcoming.

  'Can I help?' she asked tartly. It looked as though it were the last thing she wanted to do, but Diana answered her softly.

  'No, thank you. We'll try not to bother you. We have the key to look at these cottages.'

  At the same moment, the door of the other occupied cottage opened, and out stepped Sergeant Burnaby. His face was as yellow as his roses, but his bearing was still soldierly.

  'Yes, sir,' he said briskly. 'Anything I can do to help, sir?'

  'Nothing, thanks,' said Peter, with a smile. 'Just taking a look at the property.'

  'In a very poor way, sir. Very poor way indeed. My old friend Jim Bennett hadn't the wherewithal to keep it together. No discredit to him. Just circumstances, you understand. A fine man he was, sir. We served together for—'

  A violent snort from the woman at the end interrupted the old soldier's monologue, and Peter Hale took the opportunity of turning the key in the lock and opening the door of one of the cottages.

  'We mustn't keep you,' he said firmly, and ushering Diana inside, he closed the door upon' the two remaining tenants of Tyler's Row.

  Despite the summer heat which throbbed over the garden, the cottage interior was cold and damp. This was the Waites' old home, and had been empty now for a long time.

  Cobwebs draped the windows and a finger of ivy had crept inside and was feeling its way up the crack of the door. Diana could smell the bruised aromatic scent where the opening door had grazed it.

  The floor was of uneven bricks, and snails had left their silver trails across it. The old-fashioned kitchen range was mottled with rust, and some soot had spattered from the chimney to the hearth.

  But the room was unusually large, with a window back and front, and there were several fine oak beams across the low ceiling. There were two more doors. One opened upon a narrow staircase, and the other led to a smaller room.

  Above stairs were two fair-sized bedrooms, and the view at the back of the cottage was breath-taking. Mile upon mile, it seemed, of cornfields, just beginning to be tinged with gold, stretched away to the summit of the downs. A hawk hovered nearby, a motionless speck in the clear blue, and from everywhere, it seemed to Diana, came the sound of larks singing.

  She forced open one of the creaking windows, and the sweet air lifted her hair. Peter came behind her, and they gazed together in silence.

  Immediately below them lay the four long, narrow gardens. Sergeant Burnaby's had a row of runner beans growing in it, and a strip of bright annuals, poppies, cornflowers, marigolds and nasturtiums, growing higgledy-piggledy together near the back door.

  A ramshackle run containing half-a-dozen hens and a splendid cockerel completed Sergeant Burnaby's garden, with the exception of a stout wooden armchair, much weather beaten, that stood on the flag-stones in the shelter of the house.

  Mrs Fowler's garden had a concrete windmill, two stone ducks, a frog twice as large as the ducks, and a neat rose bed planted with a dozen standard roses. Beyond this stretched the kitchen garden, ruled neatly into rows of onions, beetroot, parsnips, carrots, and a positive sea of flourishing potato plants. A clothes-line, near the house, bore a row of fiercely white tea-towels and pillow-cases which Diana guessed, correctly, had been bleached within an inch of their lives.

  Between the two gardens lay the wide, neglected area of grass, docks and nettles which Diana had envisaged. There seemed to be a square of fruit bushes, almost shrouded in weeds, towards the end of one garden, and a rustic arch leant, like the Tower of Pisa, halfway down the other. It was a sad scene of desolation, but for some reason it did not depress Diana. Her gardener's heart was touched at the sight of so much neglect, but unaccountably she wanted to shout from the window to the beleagured plants, telling them to hang on, to cling to life, that help was coming, that she would save them. She was surprised, and slightly amused, at the vehemence of the feeling which shook her. She was becoming bewitched!

  Peter was now stamping on the ancient floorboards, which stood up to this onslaught sturdily. His eyes scrutinized the beams for woodworm, his finger-nails peeled a little of the damp wallpaper, and he sniffed the air, like a pointer, for any trace of dry rot.

  They went down the squeaking stairs and into the next cottage. It was a replica of the first, with another large room adjoining a small one, and two bedrooms above, but the staircase here was broken and dangerously splintered, and the dampness, if anything, more noticeable.

  'What do you think?' asked Diana.

  'Humph!' grunted her husband enigmatically.

  'Do you want to look at the other two? I suppose we can?'

  'Not now, anyway. I've seen enough, I think. Let
's go back and think about it.'

  There was no sign of Mrs Fowler or Sergeant Burnaby as they closed and locked the doors, but martial music was issuing loudly from the latter's radio set and competed with the humming of hundreds of insects enjoying the downland sunshine.

  They closed the broken gate carefully, and looked through the archway at the scene which had fascinated so many sight-seers before them.

  'It would never do, of course,' said Diana, at last. 'Although it's a heavenly spot—' Her voice trailed away.

  Despite her words, she had the odd feeling that the forlorn cottages and the smothered garden were beseeching her for help. Could she withstand that piteous cry?

  'I need my tea,' she said forcefully, turning her back upon Tyler's Row.

  She made her way, almost in panic, it seemed to her surprised husband, back to the haven of the car.

  3. Local Competitors

  THE Hales, of course, were not the only people to visit Tyler's Row, and as the village watched the callers, speculation grew animated.

  'One chap came from Lincolnshire,' said Mr Willett. 'Said he knew these parts from the fishing, and might retire here. I met him outside "The Beetle". Very civil-spoken, he was too, coming from so far away.'

  Mr Willet spoke as though this were extremely odd, as if Lincolnshire people might be expected to have their heads growing from their breasts, like the natives described by medieval travellers in distant lands.

  But most of the visitors came from Caxley or neighbouring villages. One indeed came from Fairacre itself, and he was Henry Mawne.