by Annie Murray
‘Are you the chap who’s come to rescue me from this blasted house?’ she said, advancing closer with the mule in tow. The spaniels dashed here and there around her. She extended her hand towards him, then withdrew it for a moment to examine her palm before holding it out again. ‘It’s all right. Safe to shake. Dr Hargreaves.’
Dazed, George felt his hand clasped in a strong grip. During this bracing handshake he admitted to being George Baxter who had come about the house sale.
‘I don’t quite . . .’ He stumbled on. ‘You mean, you’re Dr Hargreaves? My manager gave me to understand that . . .’
‘I was a chap? Not to worry – happens all the time. The secretary rang from the practice in Basingstoke. You find that however much she says “she” people still hear “he” when they think of a doctor. Anyway . . .’ She turned to the house. ‘This was all my mother’s. She died a little while back. Good sort in her way, but a complete crank, especially after she was widowed. It takes some women that way. She’s been rescuing donkeys lately – there’s a field full of the little buggers behind there.’
George followed the gesture of an impressively sculpted arm, as did the spaniels, seeming hopeful that she was throwing something for them. They looked mildly cheated as she lowered it again.
‘She started taking on the poor little beasts of burden and gradually people got to know. They send them to her. But now – what in heaven’s name am I supposed to do with eleven donkeys at my time of life? Well, at any time, come to that.’ She was beginning to sound heated. ‘Never mind all the rest of the clutter in there.’ She patted the creature beside her. ‘Minnie’s the only mule.’ George felt her eyeing him with amused curiosity. ‘You seem rather taken with her. Who’s Lottie?’
‘I was placed with a mule train during the war – just for a short time. Monte Cassino.’ He explained what had happened to Lottie. To his surprise, the words fell out of him with ease. But even speaking about it in brief like that, he felt a raw tightness at the back of his throat, as if every grief and longing in him must come pouring out and for which this glorious woman, who he had only just met, must be the receptacle.
Dr Hargreaves listened. Her eyes filled with a sympathy that softened her face.
‘Brutal,’ she said. ‘Brutal times.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘And these innocent creatures in the middle of it.’ He stroked Minnie’s nose, its warm softness a memory, vivid and comforting.
‘Oh I’m not sure she’s that innocent.’ Dr Hargreaves patted the mule’s neck. ‘She’s got a naughty sense of humour this one. Now look,’ she went on, business-like. ‘I can give you a quick walk round in the house but we can’t possibly settle everything today. There’s a lot of stuff. I don’t know about you, but I’m gasping for a cup of tea. How about we have one before we get started? We might as well stay out here. The house is demoralizing. I’ll just go and return Minnie to the paddock as you’re here – thought I’d groom her but it can wait. Then I’ll get the kettle on.’
George gave Minnie a farewell pat, then stood watching, hands in pockets. The mule held her ears at a relaxed half-mast now as she walked beside this powerfully built woman. After a moment George realized he was standing there with his mouth open.
Inspiration seized him as Dr Hargreaves returned from the paddock and strode back into the house, the dogs at her heels. Hurrying to the Morris, he let the back down and pulled out two of the spare rolled offcuts of carpet that he carried to cushion furniture stacked in the back. He laid them side by crimson side over the clearest patch of ground he could find in the sunlit yard, stamping them flat. He was impishly excited now. Moving at speed, he jumped up into the back, thanking high heaven he had bought the Armada chest first rather than last so that it was not in the way, and lugged out the two sections of table. He felt a great surge of energy.
My strength is as the strength of ten . . . Schoolroom poetry floated across his mind. Because . . . My heart is pure? No – he was no Sir Galahad. He felt strong because of her.
Her!
By the time his unexpected hostess emerged from the house carrying a tray, George was settled with a nonchalant air (though quietly sweating) on one of two Chippendale dining chairs which he had carried, half running, to set on the carpet beside the mahogany dining table, its two ends now bracketed together. On the table, carefully spaced, were the two bronze and ormolu candlesticks, at the base of each, a bronze sphinx.
Dr Hargreaves was already walking at speed when she left the house, surrounded by spaniels. He watched her face register the scene before her. She stopped; her feet, in their heavy leather boots, firmly side by side.
‘What on earth?’
She put her head back and loud, unrestrained, and from George’s point of view highly appealing gurgles of laughter tumbled out of her. She straightened up, took another look and started laughing again.
‘What a marvellous surprise,’ she said, bringing the tray over. She laid it on the table: a big crock teapot under a yellow knitted cosy, white mugs and a slab of dark, treacly cake. ‘It’s all right – there’s a mat under the pot, won’t do any harm,’ she said. ‘What a lunatic, mad hatter’s tea party!’
George beamed at her. He loved having caused such delight.
She stood back and chuckled again, cheeks round and pink, her face more alive, George thought, than any he had ever seen. Oh this woman – what a woman! He was seized by an excitement he had never felt before.
‘Do you always dine in style like this when you’re on the road?’ she asked, chuckling again as she sat down on the other chair. Her khaki-encased thighs spread across the seat.
George tried not to stare. She was a mess; filthy, dishevelled and utterly entrancing.
‘No.’ He chuckled. ‘Not often anyway. I thought we might as well be comfortable.’
‘I can’t tell you how welcome this is,’ she said, lifting the lid of the teapot to stir its insides. ‘The house is . . .’ She put the lid back on and sighed. ‘It’s a tip – but so austere as well. My mother lived like a Puritan. Even the mattresses seem to be purgatorially thin. She was completely outward directed, never thought of her own comfort at all. Which sounds unselfish but that’s not quite how it was – not if you were in her family. Sorry – mustn’t start. But she was thoroughly exasperating at times.’ She frowned, pouring the tea and handed him a cup and saucer, white with a silver rim.
George held it up. ‘Is this . . . ?’ He peered under the saucer. ‘Lenox?’
‘Is it?’ Dr Hargreaves said. He thought she looked impressed. ‘No idea. I know it’s American. Wedding present I think, originally.’
‘Ah,’ George said, thinking, 1920s.
‘Sugar, Mr . . . ?’
He reached to take the sugar bowl from her. ‘Thanks. Baxter – but do call me George.’
‘Yes of course. And my name’s Elizabeth. Cake? Shop I’m afraid – ginger, I think. I don’t really bake. Never seem to have time.’
‘I don’t suppose you do,’ he said, though barely able to imagine her life.
He sat back, an arm hanging down, relaxed. One of the dogs pushed its nose into his half-curled hand.
‘Hello.’ He patted it. ‘These your mother’s as well?’
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Good job I didn’t bring my dog.’
‘Which is?’
‘Basset hound. A large male.’
‘Ah – very entertaining.’
‘Yes – he’s a good old boy.’
Elizabeth Hargreaves gave him one of her direct looks for a moment, as if sizing him up. She was forthright even in the way she looked at you with those lively grey eyes. George wondered if he ought to find her terrifying, but did not, somehow. She sank back into her chair.
‘These are comfortable, for upright chairs,’ she said.
‘Yes. Nicely designed,’ he agreed.
The dogs all hovered close by, alert to the presence of cake. The way he had arranged the table
meant they were facing the house. George tried to concentrate on the view before him. Glimpses of Elizabeth were so diverting that for caution’s sake, he realized he would be better off looking elsewhere. She took several gulps of tea and a bite of cake, seemed to relax even further and gave a satisfied sigh.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘This is definitely the most high-class picnic I’ve ever had.’
4.
Much later he drove home in the balmy night. There was a half-moon hanging. Chalk tracks leading off the road glowed white against the darker vegetation. There was a still, expectant feel to the air as if something was due to happen, as on Christmas Eve.
Vera would have fed Monty, he knew. He had had no supper himself, nothing since that sticky chunk of cake. But at this moment he was in such a state of bejanglement that he felt he would never need to eat again.
He had spent four hours in the company of Elizabeth Hargreaves, only the last part, briefly, engaged in the original purpose of the visit – looking round the house. He knew two things for certain. One was that he was well advanced in the process of being utterly, overwhelmingly, bowled over.
The other was that Elizabeth, unmarried – ‘I’ve never turned out to be the marrying kind’ – difficult (according to ‘Mother’, RIP) and touchily independent, had cleared away the teacups and brought out a bottle of red wine and two glasses and had been in no apparent hurry for him to leave.
‘Oh – I tell you what there is in the house . . .’ She set the glasses down, ran in, then out again with two candles and a box of matches. ‘All right to use those?’ She nodded at the candlesticks.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That’s what they’re for.’
The wicks lit easily, flames tall in the still evening. George watched her face as they talked. Elizabeth was not young. He would not kid himself again. There was grey in her hair, deep laughter lines round her eyes, he could see. But there was such energy. There was life in abundance.
‘I’ve got this two-week break,’ she said, pouring wine. ‘To sort this place out so far as I can. And then I’ll be back at work. But at least I can try and make it some sort of a holiday. Here we are – cheers!’
Conversation had flowed from the start. It was extraordinary, he thought. Elizabeth had said, ‘So, do tell me about yourself.’ The first thing he had come out with was, ‘Well – my mother died when I was four years old.’ The rose looked back at him through the latticed school window just for a second, the kind, pink watchfulness of it, his infant consolation. As the sun sank and the light turned orange then edged into grey, he talked about his childhood, the school and the war and Win. Elizabeth listened. She did not make him feel he was talking too much, though now, he thought, surely he had been. Why had he said all those things? Why plunge in like that?
He had forgotten to be in awe of her because of the way she listened as if it was important. In the dusk, she told him that her father had been a vicar, ‘a decent soul’, as she put it. Her elder brother was killed at Anzio and the other was a vet who lived in Orkney.
‘So there’s no one else to see to all this.’ She waved a hand towards the farmhouse. ‘My mother wasn’t easy.’ Her tone stiffened as she spoke of her. ‘She had what I think of as vicar’s wife syndrome – a compulsion to keep trying to do good even when it drives everyone else round the bend. In fact I think –’ She considered for a moment. ‘I don’t think she liked herself very much, underneath it all. It was a way of trying to compensate, to prove she was useful in some way.’ Elizabeth took a sip of wine. ‘All I can say is, Lord protect us from people who try too hard to be good!’
‘Isn’t that what you do – good?’
Elizabeth twisted her wine glass back and forth by its stem as it rested on the table. She spoke without looking at him.
‘I was in London through the war. I didn’t qualify until part way through. Then, when I’d trained to be a GP and they were asking for people to work in the so-called overspill towns, I thought, that’s where I’ll go. It’s unfashionable, but my goodness – necessary. There aren’t nearly enough women doctors. Some of the chaps are very good, of course. But others are patronizing and obtuse beyond belief. A patient from our practice died recently of cancer. One of my colleagues had told her she was imagining the symptoms. You know – the way you do go round imagining that you’re in extreme pain.’
The anger was unmistakable, despite her measured tone. He could listen to her forever, he thought. Her voice was smooth, strong. Time picked up speed and charged past. Darkness fell, bringing night smells, the half-moon, the flit of bats between the house and barns. One of the donkeys let out a creaking bray, just once, and they laughed.
As they finally made their way inside to take a now rather tipsy look at the house and its contents, Elizabeth said, ‘So – do you always go out equipped to set up an impromptu dining room wherever you go?’
George laughed. He was full of a sense of carefree euphoria. He did not care if he stayed out all night. Even walking beside this tall, rumly dressed, deliciously shaped woman in the pale silver light felt like one of the most exciting things he had ever done.
‘I’d been out buying – around the area. It’s something I do, every week or two.’
‘How fascinating,’ she said. ‘And how lovely, to spend your life surrounded by beautiful things.’
‘Your mother had beautiful things.’
Elizabeth considered. ‘Well a few, yes she did – but she was faddy. She was making a collection of antiques at one time. As soon as she got involved with the donkeys, she dropped all that – hardly seemed to give it a thought later on.’ She looked into his face. ‘I should love to come and see your business.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You must.’ He hoped he spoke with more restraint than he felt.
By the time he had walked round the interior of the old farmhouse, a turmoil of papery clutter and general neglect amidst which he spotted one or two pieces of furniture of genuine value, he knew he had to see this woman again, had to. As soon as possible. He would come back tomorrow, he promised. Then he could make a proper valuation in daylight.
‘Well there’s no mad rush,’ she said. ‘As I say, I shall be here for two weeks . . .’
That night, he could barely be bothered to sleep.
5.
‘I thought you sorted all that out yesterday?’ Vera said, when he announced that he would have to spend a few hours at Toke’s Farm.
‘I made a start.’ He was opening and closing drawers in the office desk as if distractedly in search of something but in fact to avoid Vera’s gimlet eye. ‘It’s chaos over there.’
‘What’re you looking for?’ Vera asked, with an edge of severity.
‘I . . . er . . .’ He fumbled in the top drawer before closing it again.
‘Kevin’s keeping on about those boxes,’ she said. ‘Did you say you wanted him to sort them out?’
‘I . . . Yes.’ He was already going out of the door. ‘Not today. We’ll get round to it. Must be off.’
This time he took the car. The springer spaniels greeted him like an old friend. Looking round Toke’s farmyard as he walked to the house, it seemed even more neglected and mouldering in hard, revealing daylight. A good many tiles were missing from the various roofs.
He paused at the door for a moment, felt the movement of his blood. Like a stag, he thought. A stallion. Manly blood. Oh for heaven’s sake, man, just get on with it.
He rapped on the door. Now she’ll come. Now: her footsteps behind the door, her face, her arms, the whole of her . . .
The door swung back. Her smile went through him. She was more than he remembered, and taller.
She was wearing a frock; primrose yellow dotted with blue flower sprigs. The belted waist emphasized her magnificent proportions. On her wide, strong-looking feet were brown leather sandals. She exuded health and capability.
‘You’re very prompt.’
‘Yes . . .’ He remembered to inhale. ‘I . . .’
/> She was already turning away.
‘Cup of coffee?’
They spent so long talking over coffee and biscuits – she was as intrigued by his expertise as he was by hers – that it was a good while before they got started.
‘Come on,’ she said at last. ‘We’d better get on with something. The dresser in the dining room, you said?’
It was an enormous thing, oak, intricately carved. It was also stuffed full and piled with books, papers, framed photographs, all of which so far as he could see were of landscapes, not people, except one that was of a black Labrador.
‘It’ll take me the best part of a fortnight just to clear this thing out,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I mean look at it!’
‘Umm . . .’ George pretended to consider it seriously. ‘For all you know, there might be a whole family of passing pedlars living in there.’
Elizabeth glanced at him. She laughed. He loved the unrestrained gurgle of it.
‘Joke not – anything’s possible in this place.’
‘Look – I’ll take that once you’ve emptied it. I can sell it for you. Let me go and look at the other things. There was that desk upstairs.’
There were not many items of any real value, he realized, seeing the furniture in daylight now. A mahogany kneehole desk, the surface of which would need a lot of succour from Clarence and a plain oak commode with the ceramic bowl still in place. He wanted to find more things, to help Elizabeth, but the other furniture was mostly late Victorian and of no use to him.
However, poking about in one of the back rooms downstairs, its filthy window making what was in fact a day of cheery sunlight seem one of thin grey cloud, he saw something draped with a blue chenille cloth. On top was a rough wooden box containing clothes pegs. Pegs and cloth removed, he bent over. This was more like it.