by Connie Monk
Soon she would have to start walking back to the station. Or ought she to stay here for the weekend, sleep in Violet’s bed and while she was in Gloucester on Monday morning go to one of the estate agents the solicitor had recommended? Yes, that’s what she would do. She would phone the office on Monday and explain, saying she would be back the next day. She could try to get the house clearance people to come on Monday afternoon, she decided, not anticipating any stumbling blocks. Just one day, that’s all she needed. So instead of going into that relaxing sitting room to start making a list of the furniture to be sold, she turned back into the workroom, again drawn to the window. The long view, the expanse of winter-pale sky, the distant sound of a cow lowing and the croaking of rooks high in nearby elm trees made this a different world from the hubbub of town.
It was a moment that would stay with her through the years, whatever the outcome of her sudden decision, a decision that took her by surprise and left her absolutely certain that what she was about to do was right. She wished she could tell Violet. But perhaps she knew; perhaps she had planned it when she wrote her will.
Hunting in the bureau, Louisa found a writing pad and envelopes then, drawing a chair to the table, she took her fountain pen from her bag and started to write.
With the envelope sealed and addressed, she took a book of stamps from her handbag and with habitual meticulous precision attached one to the top right-hand corner. There! It was done! The voice of conscience whispered that she was crazy. Her working environment was depressingly dull but it was safe and her future secure month after month, year after year.
She started to laugh, ‘Aunt Violet,’ the words tumbling out and mingling with laughter, ‘next thing you’ll have me turning cartwheels. And why not? Just look at it out there, the big clear winter sky, the stillness, no Saturday afternoon shoppers pushing along the crowded pavement in Broad Street looking as though they carried the cares of the world.’ She stopped speaking her thoughts aloud, but they still filled her mind. She’d show this male-dominated business world that she could work independently. For surely at the back of her discontent was the certainty that for her there would be no offer of a partnership in the firm, an established accountancy business where the partners named on the letter-headed paper were all male. Her qualifications were as high as any but she was a woman in a man’s world.
Perhaps so far out of town there wouldn’t be an evening collection from the post box she had noticed as she walked through the village but, even if her letter had to sit there until the next day, Sunday, or even the whole weekend, her decision was made, and never in her life had she experienced such a feeling of freedom. Was that the message Aunt Violet was sending her with her legacy?
Locking the front door behind her and standing back to survey the house, she saw it in a new light from when she’d arrived not much more than an hour before. In her contract she had to give three months’ notice so it would be late June before she could move. But there would be weekends; for now that this was where life was taking her it would be worth spending Saturday afternoon travelling here and Sunday evening returning. Three months in which to set the course for her future. After the end of June there would be no monthly salary cheque but she had always been prudent and over the last five years had managed to save. Add to that the money she was inheriting and she ought to be able to live and pay her household expenses as she built up a clientele. She saw no problems and if, somewhere deep in her mind, was the acceptance that her decision was foolhardy, she chose to ignore the warning voice. The Louisa Harding who had lived such a narrow, dull life and worked so hard for her qualifications would never leap before she looked. And that was what made what she intended to do all the more exciting and challenging. Her parents would never understand; in fact, that her plan had come about because she was moving into Violet’s home would make them prophesy doom. She chuckled, remembering her aunt. In truth, she couldn’t imagine her face; the memory of her went no further than what she was wearing – clothes so different from those of the women she was used to seeing. What was clear was more important than appearance: it was the spirit that told of a joy in living. And she would find that same joy; in fact, as she’d walked through the house she had felt it building in her even before she understood the message it was conveying.
So deep in her own thoughts was she that she opened the gate and stepped on to the narrow pavement hardly aware of what she did. The young girl walking past tried to avoid the collision but it was too late.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Louisa put out a hand to steady her as she almost lost her balance. ‘I was miles away. I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ What an enchantingly lovely girl she was, with her honey-brown hair framing a face of perfect symmetry. When she replied with a smile that lit her wide, dark blue eyes, a dimple appeared in each cheek.
‘No, I’m OK. I saw you earlier on when my husband and I were driving up to the farm. You were just opening the front door to go in. Are you from an estate agent or are you thinking of buying the house? I do hope you are. It would be so much nicer for Dad to have someone there, someone young and cheerful.’
‘Your father? Is he a neighbour?’
‘My husband’s father, Mr Carter. He owns Ridgeway Farm. They grow fruit and veg, not cows and things. The house you’ve just come from used to belong to it – one of the managers lived there, I think. But Dad got rid of it and the land that goes with it.’
‘Did you know the lady he sold it to?’
‘No, only that Leo said it was a woman on her own. It’s Dad I worry about because Leo and I live miles away. I love it here; perhaps that’s because it was where Leo was brought up. It’s one of those places where everyone knows everyone. Do you come from Gloucester, or are you from an estate agent nearer?’
They were both going in the same direction so they had automatically started to walk together.
‘No, I’m from Reading, but I’ve decided to move here. It’ll be a while before I can actually move in, and anyway, I have to give three months’ notice at work. This is it, this is my notice.’ She waved the envelope in front of them. ‘Decision made. I’m not giving myself the chance to have second thoughts.’ It surprised her to find herself talking so freely to the pretty stranger; it must be something to do with her new-found freedom.
‘That’s wonderful. When you meet Dad you’ll love him. It’s so sad for him now that he’s alone. Leo’s mum died quite suddenly very soon after we were married and they’d been together for ages. Leo is thirty-eight and his elder brother David is nearly forty so that shows you what a long time. When we arrived this afternoon Dad was so near to crying that he could hardly talk. I wish we were nearer but Leo works in the family business in Birmingham and it’s too far from here. We can’t keep coming every weekend when I get huge. I’m having a baby, you see. Do I show? Could you tell?’ She asked the question hopefully. What a child she seemed. Looking at her, Louisa would be amazed if she had yet reached twenty. It was hard to imagine she had a husband not far off forty. Then, leaping from one thing to the next, the girl chattered on: ‘You don’t wear a ring; I noticed when you came charging out of the gate, but you’re older than I am and must have had lots of experience. And it’s so good to have a woman to talk to. There was no one of my age in the boring office where I worked before I was married.’
What had happened to reserved, conventional Louisa? Perhaps her confidence had been given a jolt by her companion’s remark, giving her credit for having experience. For the truth was that at thirty years old she had never even had a boyfriend. Walking at the younger girl’s side, her five-foot-six-inch body made taller by the four-inch heels of her russet-coloured court shoes so right with her scarf and leather handbag, she was unaware of the elegant image she created. There was nothing new in the way she wore her tailored clothes, and partly it was her classically austere attire combined with her solitary lifestyle that had frightened off many when she’d been younger. Now, at thirty, even her work colleagues looked on her
as frigid and prim. A clever, humourless woman destined for spinsterhood was their unspoken opinion – with a rider that it was a good body wasted.
Her young companion’s easy chatter was a new experience. In ordinary circumstances she would have had no time for someone who gave an initial impression of being empty-headed and naïve. But today’s circumstances were anything but ordinary.
‘If you live so far away I suppose you haven’t any friends here?’ Louisa tried to sound more interested than she really was, for in truth it was as if she stood outside herself, heard herself speak, but her heart and mind weren’t quite with her.
‘No, but usually I’m with Leo and soon there’ll be the baby. I’ve left him to talk to his dad now. I thought Dad would like to have him to himself, and anyway I needed some exercise – we’d been in the car for what seemed like hours. I don’t really care for car journeys, although Leo is an excellent driver,’ she added in case her new friend got the wrong impression. ‘Now tell me about you. Do you work – well, you must do, I suppose, if you’re not married? And these days lots of married women work anyway. With a baby coming, of course, I don’t. But I’m lucky: Leo is in the family business with David, and I suppose it’s because of being older that David likes to think he’s King of the Castle. Not that Leo cares too much. He’s an engineer, and lots of the things they make for use on the farm are his design. Sometimes he decides not to go in to the works – Leo, I mean, not his brother. David gets very boot-faced, but that’s not fair because Leo always does a lot of work when he stays at home. What he would really like is to be using the implements he designs. But, you know, I think to David they are just a means to make money; he has his eye on the running of the factory – profits and losses are his interest – and I don’t think he would notice if they made bicycles instead of farm stuff. They’re not a bit alike, Leo and David. And, do you know, although they’re brothers and both in the business, I’m sure they don’t even like each other much. And I just know that David and Lily, his wife, think that when Leo married me he stooped and picked up nothing.’
‘It’s what Leo thinks that matters,’ Louisa said, feeling an unexpected stab of sympathy for her outspoken young companion.
‘Yes, of course,’ Bella answered, her confidence back in place. ‘And right from the start I could tell that his parents liked me. It was so sad, his mum dying like that. David can’t be all bad, I suppose; he was really cut up at her funeral. Leo said they’d always been very close, Mum and David. Leo and Dad are good pals, although since Mum died I can tell that Leo can’t get as close to him. Poor Dad, it’s as if there’s a wall of misery holding everyone away.’
‘If your husband would rather be using the machines he designs, doesn’t he consider coming to work on the farm here?’ Louisa instilled more interest into her voice than she felt. The truth was that, from what she had heard of the two brothers so far, she had a natural sympathy with David rather than Leo. What was the matter with the man? It sounded to her as if he was using the family business for an easy ride.
Bella chuckled as she answered. ‘I expect Leo and David are more alike than they seem: if he came home to the farm he and Dad would both want to be King of the Castle. They are ever so fond of each other – not that Leo ever says so, but you can always tell, can’t you? He’s been away from home for far too long to go back to not having his own place. He couldn’t be a farmer’s boy to his father. He got a degree in engineering and then there was his time in the army during the war, although he wouldn’t have been called up on account of growing food being so vital during the war. I expect what he ought to have done was to strike out on his own when he was demobbed, but somehow he went into the family business.’
‘Farmers have a pretty tough life and, from what one hears, there isn’t any great wealth to be made from a small farm.’
‘All one needs – don’t you think? – is to make enough to live on. Leo knows much more about the things they actually make than David does – or Dad either – but on paper Dad is top of the tree although, except for the Annual General Meeting, he only comes up to the factory once in a while and doesn’t actually do anything, so Leo says. Have you ever heard of Carters? In the farming world they are quite a big name. They make farm implements, things like muck spreaders, potato diggers, cultivators, mowers – that sort of thing, not huge machines. I’m getting to know quite a lot – I feel I ought to as it’s a family business. Dad went into it just like his own father, but in the beginning the things they made were much simpler; farming must have been achingly hard work. But I was about to tell you how Dad came to work away from the family business: he married Leo’s mum and stayed here on the farm. It had been in her family for simply years. But, like I said, he is officially the chairman of Carters’ now that he’s head of the clan. He’s not really keen on the business side of it, though, not like David is.’ Then, with a chuckle, ‘Dad and Leo are so alike. They both believe that life is for enjoying. That’s what Leo says.’ And if that’s what the perfect Leo says, then it must be right, her tone implied.
By Louisa’s standards he became less appealing by the minute, but her expression gave away none of her thoughts.
They had reached the post box. ‘Oh, good,’ Louisa said as she dropped her letter in, ‘there’s a Saturday collection at five o’clock. They’ll get that on Monday morning. I am taking a day’s leave and I have things to organize in Gloucester.’
‘What do you do?’ Bella seemed genuinely interested. ‘Are you a shorthand typist? No, I bet you’re someone’s personal secretary.’
‘I’m an accountant. I check figures for annual audit.’
‘Goodness!’ Clearly her young friend was impressed. ‘It sounds awfully important. I thought those sort of jobs were for men. You must have taken exams and all that. Goodness.’ Then, on a brighter and more confident note, ‘But it still keeps you cooped up. So you’re going to give it all up and be free.’
‘Yes and no. I’m going to leave the firm I’ve always worked for. I shall still do the same work once I can get established here working for myself. It’s not really dull work – it’s challenging.’
‘But the people in the village are quite ordinary; they wouldn’t have enough money to need someone to check their figures. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing giving up your job? Maybe the place has thrown fairy dust in your eyes. But that won’t pay the bills.’
Louisa looked at her afresh: a lovely girl, with the innocent candour that made her vulnerable, yes, but also with an unexpected streak of common sense.
‘I think fairy dust was what I needed. But right now what I need is some shopping. Can you wait while I go into that shop opposite? There’s nothing in the house; I must buy enough for the weekend.’
‘Are you allowed to do that? You’ve only been to look at it.’
‘It’ll be mine when all the paperwork is done. I promise you, no one is going to prevent me sleeping there. By the time I’ve worked my notice I shall be in honest possession.’
Soon they turned back towards home, saying very little as they walked. But the silence was easy. Two women, poles apart in lifestyle and ambition but, on that late afternoon, content to accept the difference and perhaps each draw something from the other. Still, Louisa told herself, we’re hardly likely to see each other very often, if at all. At the gate of The Retreat they parted company and it was only as Louisa went back into the house that she realized that neither of them had enquired the other’s name. Already her thoughts were running ahead of her; she was imagining herself becoming established in her profession, the little workroom becoming her office with its window facing the large empty space of field-like garden.
‘I’ve had a lovely time,’ Bella told Leo when she got back to the farm and found him with the bonnet of the car open, checking the water in the radiator. ‘Did you know, Leo, that the house at the end of the lane is sold? Well, it’s as good as sold. A nice woman is moving in. We walked to the village together.’ There wa
s a ring of pride in her voice as she went on, ‘She was on her way to post a letter quitting her job. She said she was taking some holiday and had things to arrange in Gloucester. But guess what she does for a living – no, you’ll never guess. She is an accountant, something to do with auditing; properly qualified – exams and all that. A woman! Have you ever heard of that before? By the time she’s worked her notice the house will be properly hers.’
‘Damn it,’ Leo said, screwing on the radiator cap. ‘Where is she staying, Bella? In the village somewhere?’
‘No, at the house. Just for the weekend, or maybe just tonight, I’m not sure.’
‘But she has no business to stay at the house until there’s completion on the sale.’