He wanted to help everybody who came to him with their problems and enjoyed doing so.
He would listen for hours, which she knew was something her uncle would never do, to the complaints of some poor old woman about her health or to a farmer who was having difficulties with his crops.
If a young man found himself in trouble and did not know how to get out of it, her father would advise and help him, often financially.
“I never realised until I took Holy Orders,” he had said once, “how many dramas take place in even the smallest village. If I was a writer, I could fill a book with the stories that I listen to every day and sometimes that is what I think I will do.”
“A very good idea, darling,” his wife answered, “but, as you spend all your free time at the moment riding, I think you will have to wait until you are too old to get on a horse before you start using your pen!”
The great joy of her father, apart from being at home with his wife and family, was to ride his brother’s horses and hunt them in the winter.
The Earl was far more generous than his wife and it was the Countess who made it difficult, after Hermia had ceased to have lessons with Marilyn, for her to borrow the horses that filled the ample stables at The Hall and were usually under-exercised.
Her aunt was a plain woman and that partly accounted for her policy of more or less ostracising her husband’s niece, besides her desire to protect her daughter from what she privately thought of as undesirable competition.
As it happened, Marilyn was quite pretty in a conventional way.
In fact, wearing gowns made by the most expensive dressmakers in Bond Street and having her hair arranged by a very competent lady’s maid, she would have stood out in any ballroom if her cousin had not been present.
It was therefore, as the Countess of Millbrooke saw only too clearly, unlikely that Marilyn would receive the compliments that were her due if Hermia was present.
The first time Hermia realised that she was not to be asked to a ball that was to be given at the hall and to which she had looked forward excitedly, she wept bitterly.
“How can Marilyn leave me out, Mama?” she had sobbed. “We used to talk about what would happen when we were grown up and how we would share a ball together.”
She had given a little sob as she said,
“It all sounded such – fun and we told each other how we would – count our – conquests and s-see who was the w-winner.”
Her mother had put her arms around her and held her close.
“Now listen, my darling,” she said. “You have to face the truth as I had to do when I married your father.”
Hermia checked her tears and listened as her mother went on,
“You may have wondered sometimes,” she began, “why your Aunt Edith, and sometimes even your Uncle John, are so condescending to me.”
“I had noticed that they give themselves airs and graces, Mama.”
“That is because your grandfather had planned that your father should marry a very rich young woman,” her mother explained, “who lived near The Hall in those days and who had made it very clear that she loved your father.”
Hermia smiled.
“That is not surprising, Mama! He is so good-looking that I can understand any woman thinking him fascinating.”
“That is what I found,” her mother said. “To me he is the most attractive and charming man in the whole world.”
She spoke very softly and her eyes were tender as she continued,
“But I was the daughter of a General who had spent his life serving his country and retired with only a small pension which left him very little money for his children.”
Hermia sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Now I understand, Mama,” she said. “Papa married you because he loved you and he was not interested in the girl with lots of money.”
“That is exactly what happened,” her mother said. “Your grandmother and your uncle pleaded with him to be sensible and think of the future, but he told them that was exactly what he was going to do!”
“So you were married and lived happily ever afterward,” Hermia said, her eyes shining.
“Very very happy,” her mother replied. “At the same time, darling, you have had to suffer for it, not only because you are my daughter but also because you are very lovely.”
Hermia was startled. It was something her mother had never said to her before.
“I am telling you the truth and not paying you a compliment,” her mother said. “I believe it was because your father and I were so happy and so very much in love that both our children not only have beautiful faces but beautiful characters as well.”
That was certainly true of Peter, Hermia thought.
He was outstandingly handsome and, because she resembled her mother, she was aware that she was very pretty.
When there had been any sort of parties at The Hall, all the male guests whatever their ages had always seemed to want to talk to her.
“You know,” her mother had gone on reflectively, “we always have to pay for everything in life. Nothing is free and you, darling, while you may find it a great advantage to be beautiful, will have to pay for it by knowing that other women will be jealous of you and will often make your life difficult in consequence.”
That was exactly what Marilyn had done, Hermia thought, when the invitations no longer came from The Hall and her aunt looked at her with an expression of hostility even when they were in Church.
Peter had come down from Oxford – they had made great sacrifices to send him there – and talked not only of the exciting things he did as a student but also of the visits he made to London with some of his friends.
When he was alone with Hermia, he told her how much he resented not being able to afford the clothes his friends had from the best tailors.
“The horses they own,” he went on, “are so exceptional that I will never be able to own anything to equal them!”
He, like his father, was allowed to ride the horses in the Earl’s stables, but he could not take one away with him and all he had at Oxford was what he could borrow from his friends or hire from some livery stable.
“How I hate being poor!” he said angrily the last time he had been at home.
“Don’t say that to Papa and Mama,” Hermia warned quickly. “It would hurt them.”
“I know it would,” Peter replied, “but when I go up to The Hall and find William, with all the money in the world, sniping at me not only behind my back but to my face and making disparaging remarks about me to my friends, I want to even things up by giving him a good hiding!”
Hermia gave a cry of horror.
“You must not do that! If would infuriate Uncle John and he might no longer allow both you and Papa to ride his horses in future and you know that I have been banned from The Hall.”
“Papa told me,” Peter replied, “but it’s your own fault for being so ridiculously pretty!”
Hermia laughed.
“Are you paying me a compliment?”
“Of course I am!” Peter replied. “If you were dressed decently and allowed to go to London for a Season, you would be the toast of St. James’s and I would be very proud of you!”
He was not only thinking of her, Hermia knew, but, knowing that his richer friends and especially his cousin William, condescended to him and made it quite clear that he was ‘the poor man at their gates!’.
Then because Peter was very like their father he said suddenly,
“To Hell with it! Why should I care? I intend to get the best out of life and mark my words, Hermia, by hook or by crook, sooner or later I will have everything I want!”
“I believe you,” Hermia replied, “if no one else does!”
Laughing, they walked down the stairs together hand-in-hand to eat the well-cooked but plain supper which was all their mother could afford from her housekeeping allowance, which was a very modest one.
Now, as Hermia walked in t
hrough the front door of the Vicarage, she heard the clatter of pots and pans coming from the kitchen.
This meant that Nanny, who had looked after her when she was a child and now did the cooking, would be annoyed because she had taken so long in fetching the eggs.
She wondered if she should tell her the real reason, then, as she walked in through the kitchen door, Nanny said,
“It’s about time! I suppose you’ve been daydreaming as usual, and here am I trying to have a meal ready for your father before he sets out to see that Mrs. Grainger, who’s sent for him!”
“I am sorry if I have been a long time, Nanny,” Hermia said.
“Your head’s always in the clouds!” Nanny snapped. “One of these days you’ll forget your way home, that’s what you’ll do!”
She took the basket from Hermia, put it on the table and started to break several eggs into a bowl ready to make an omelette.
“Why does Mrs. Grainger want to see Papa?” Hermia asked curiously.
“I expect she thinks she’s dying again!” Nanny replied tartly. “Any excuse to have the Vicar holding her hand and telling her God’s waiting for her with all His angels. I should have thought myself that He had something better to do!”
Hermia laughed.
Nanny’s caustic remarks were always different from what anybody else would say, but she knew it was because the old woman loved them all and resented their father, as she considered it, being ‘put upon’.
“Now, go and lay the table, please, Miss Hermia,” she said. “I’m not letting your father out of this house with an empty stomach, whatever he may say!”
Hermia ran to obey orders and she had just laid the table in the dining room for the three of them when she heard her mother come back from the village.
It always seemed extraordinary in such a small place that there was so much to do and so many people who wanted either her mother or her father to help them.
It resulted in there hardly being an hour in the day when they were all at home together.
Now, as Mrs. Brooke came in through the front door and saw her daughter in the dining room, she exclaimed,
“Oh, darling, I am glad you are here! I have had such a difficult time with poor Mrs. Buries and I promised I would send her some of my special cough mixture. I wonder if, after luncheon, you would take it to her.”
“Of course, Mama,” Hermia agreed.
Her mother paused at the open door and said,
“Did you fetch the eggs from Honeysuckle Farm? And has Mrs. Johnson any news of her son?”
“No, she has not heard from him,” Hermia replied.
Her mother looked sad and for the first time Hermia wondered how many people would take so much interest in the trouble and difficulties of those around them as her father and mother did.
If somebody’s child was ill, an old person died or there was no news of a boy in one of the Services, it became a personal problem to them.
In fact Hermia often thought that the villagers’ joy was their joy, their grief their grief.
It was like being part of an enormous family, she told herself, and knew that life was very different for other people who like her aunt and uncle were surrounded by a number of acquaintances, none of whom were really of any consequence to them.
Then she could not help feeling a little ache in her heart because Marilyn was no longer her friend, but only a relation who had no wish to see her any more.
It had been very different when they were children and competed with one another at their lessons. They had found innumerable things to do, both within the huge rambling old house which had been in the Brooke family for generations and outside in the well-kept gardens, but most of all in the stables.
The Earl had not married until he was older than was usual with the result that his younger brother had a daughter almost the same age as his own, so that it was natural that the first cousins should be more or less brought up together.
This had been a great advantage to Hermia’s mother and father.
At the same time, she thought, it had made her acutely conscious of the difference there was between her uncle’s position and their own.
She was not very old, however, before she realised that the most important difference lay in the happiness that seemed to make the small Vicarage always full of sunshine, while at The Hall she was aware of an atmosphere that was gloomy and often oppressive.
A few years later she understood that her uncle and aunt did not get on together.
In public they put a very good face on it and, when entertaining guests, referred to each other politely and in a manner that only somebody perceptive would have been aware was insincere.
But, when there was nobody there except for Marilyn and herself, it was quite obvious that the Countess found her husband extremely exasperating, while he, who was on the whole an easy-going man, disliked almost everything his wife suggested.
This meant there was a tension between them that was very obvious to anybody as sensitive and perceptive as Hermia.
When there were no guests in the house, the two girls had luncheon downstairs.
But often Hermia would much rather have been at home eating the simple food that Nanny prepared rather than the rich exotic dishes that were served by a butler and three footmen at The hall.
Then, when she reached home in the evening, Hermia would fling her arms round her mother’s neck and say with the spontaneity of a child,
“I love you, Mama, I love being with you and I love this small warm house when we are all here together.”
Because Mrs. Brooke understood what her daughter was feeling, she went out of her way to explain how important it was that Hermia should study and learn everything she could from the experienced and expensive Governesses her uncle had engaged.
“I am afraid, darling,” she said, “if you did not go to The Hall for lessons, you would have to be taught some subjects by Papa, which would be very spasmodic because he would either forget or be too busy!”
Hermia laughed knowing that this was true.
“Or,” her mother continued, “we should have to persuade poor old Miss Cunningham, who was a Governess once, but is now almost blind, to help you with the other subjects you must learn.”
“I understand what you are saying to me, Mama,” Hermia had replied, when she was fourteen, “and I am very grateful for everything Miss Wade can teach me. At the same time I know it is more important even than my lessons that I am allowed to use the library at The Hall.”
She gave a little laugh before she added,
“Uncle John’s Curator said that nobody else is interested in the books except me and when he makes a list of what is required for the library I am sure he includes books that he knows I will enjoy.”
“Then you are very very lucky,” Mrs. Brooke smiled.
It was another privilege of Hermia’s that had been taken away.
It would not have been difficult for her to go to the library, especially when her uncle and aunt were away, but she felt it was wrong to make use of their books if they did not want her personally.
She told herself proudly that somehow she would manage, as Peter was going to do, to obtain what she wanted without relying on her relatives.
When luncheon was finished, her father hurried off to keep his appointment, driving an old-fashioned gig, having between the shafts a spirited young horse he had recently bought cheaply from one of the farmers.
Hermia picked up the bottle of cough mixture her mother had made and started to walk to the cottage where Mrs. Buries lived.
Her mother’s healing herbs which she made into salves and lotions were famous in the village.
But Hermia suspected that the old gossips who talked about the Devil’s revelries in the woods were sure that the Vicar’s wife was a White Witch.
“Your mother’s a miracle worker,” one of the villagers had said to Hermia last week, “or else she’s got some special magic of her own!”
She had looked at Hermia with an expression in her eyes as she spoke which told her exactly what she was thinking.
“Mama believes that God gave us the cure for every ill in nature,” she said firmly. “Just as a nettle stings us, so He made the dock leaf to take away the pain.”
It was an argument she had used before, but she knew that the woman she was speaking to did not want to hear it.
“Magic, that’s what your mother has,” she insisted, “and when I puts the salve she sent me on the burn I had on me hand, and very ugly it were, it disappeared overnight!”
Hermia smiled.
“I think you can thank the bees for that,” she said, “because there was honey in the salve.”
She knew even as she spoke what the woman was thinking and nothing she could say would dispel the idea that it was supernatural magic that had cured her burn.
It was not surprising, Hermia told herself, that the people living in the small thatched cottages with their tiny gardens had nothing better to talk about.
The village green with the pond in the centre of it, the black and white inn with its ancient clients drinking ale in pewter mugs, were the only centres of activity except for the small grey stone Church.
Nothing ever happened in Little Brookfield, which of course had been named after the Brooke family who lived at the ‘Big House’.
The Earl owned the land, the farms and the cottages, employed the young and healthy and, of course, paid the stipend of the Vicar who ministered to their spiritual needs.
‘They want to believe in the supernatural,’ Hermia told herself.
If she was honest, she herself believed in the fairies, goblins, nymphs and elves that had all been part of the stories her mother had told her when she was a child.
She still thought about them, because they seemed so real and so much part of the countryside.
When she was in the great woods it was easy to think there were elves and goblins burrowing under the trees and she was sure that there were nymphs like the morning mist rising from the dark pond in the centre of one wood where she would often go when she wanted to be alone and think.
In the spring there would be a vision of bluebells that were so lovely that she would feel they were enchanted and after the bluebells would come primroses and violets.
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