A Summer Promise (4 page)

Maddy looked with concern at her grandmother’s face, noticing for the first time how pale she was, save for two bright spots of colour in either cheek. ‘Look, Gran, I have a feeling that ankle would be best raised up. You’ll probably make it worse if you keep walking on it. I’ll help you through to the parlour so you can lie on the sofa, then I’ll go straight down to the orchard, pick some plums, and come back as soon as I’ve sold our stuff in the market. What am I to buy with the money? What do we need most?’

As she spoke she was trying to help her grandmother to her feet, but as soon as Gran tried to put weight on her left foot an anguished groan was torn from her lips, and the look which accompanied the groan made Maddy glad she had not yet picked up the old woman’s stick. But to her surprise Gran heaved in a breath and then, for the second time that morning, smiled at Maddy. ‘I’m a cross-grained old woman and I’m beginning to think I don’t deserve such a kind little granddaughter,’ she said. ‘You can give me my stick now. With that on one side and you on t’other, I’ll get to the parlour somehow, ’cos you’re right, my leg should be kept up.’

Between Maddy and the stick Gran was soon established on the sofa with a large enamel mug of tea on a small stool by her side. She was still pale, and Maddy realised that she was reluctant to leave her. In normal circumstances Gran would have told her to fetch her knitting or some other homely task which would not tax her strength, but today she simply asked in a small voice if Maddy could bring down a blanket and pillow from her bed before she left the house.

As she ran up the stairs to fetch the required items Maddy wondered whether she ought to call the doctor. Normally Gran scoffed when Maddy mentioned any sort of outside help, reminding her granddaughter that they had no money to spare for such things, but today, her mood softened by her injury, Maddy thought that she might agree to a visit from Dr Carlton. He was a small, sharp little man whom Maddy had known for years, but when she went back down to the parlour and suggested they might ask him to pop in the idea seemed to give Gran back some of her strength. She had been settling the blanket around her legs but at Maddy’s words she looked up, giving a snort of disgust.

‘What’s a sprained ankle?’ she asked derisively. ‘He’ll maybe charge me five shillings just to look at it and tell me what I already know, that I mustn’t try to walk until the swelling goes down. If it doesn’t clear up in a day or so . . . but it will, such things always do. And in the meantime, I’ve got a good little granddaughter who’ll take care of me and see I don’t starve.’

Maddy sighed. She would have liked to ignore Gran’s wishes and ask the doctor to call anyway, but she knew this might make for ill feeling, whereas at the moment Gran actually seemed to appreciate that Maddy did her best. She decided to leave things as they were for the time being, but when she would have closed the parlour door her grandmother stopped her.

‘Don’t shut the door; the kitchen’s where folk expect to find me and I need to keep an eye on you,’ she said. ‘Tell you what, I’ll make you a bargain. If you’ll promise not to leave me I’ll promise to use my stick to help me to walk, not to slap legs. Is that fair?’

‘Gran, I wouldn’t leave you. Where would I go?’ Maddy asked, totally astonished. ‘When there’s only two of you, you depend on each other. And if I don’t get those plums soon I’ll be late for the market. We’re running very low on tea; shall I buy two ounces of that with the money?’

Gran agreed, and suggested that Maddy might see if the change would run to a bag of sugar since they had used the last of their stock. ‘And anything else you fancy with what’s left over. You’re a good girl, Maddy Hebditch,’ she added in a frail voice, quite unlike her own. ‘You won’t be long?’

Maddy promised to be as quick as she could, and very soon she was at the market place and slipping into her usual position. Alice was helping her to display the eggs and plums to their best advantage when Mrs Grundy came over from the next stall. ‘Eh up, flower,’ she said jovially, peering into Maddy’s basket. ‘They look champion. How’s your gran?’

Maddy hesitated. She knew Gran liked to give the impression that she was still as capable and businesslike as she had always been, but she knew most of the people at the market must have guessed the truth. She was beginning to say that everything was fine when Alice cut in. ‘Her gran’s had a fall; slipped whilst cooking. She’s awfully old, you know – I’ve never met her, but from what Maddy tells me I should think she must be at least a hundred.’

There was general laughter but Mrs Grundy shook her head at Alice. ‘Aha, you young ’uns are all alike; you think anyone who b’ain’t young must be old as hills,’ she said sagely. She wagged a finger at Maddy. ‘A fall’s nasty even if you b’ain’t a hundred. You should get Dr Carlton to call.’

‘It wasn’t a fall, it was a slip, and Gran’s going to rest all day on the sofa,’ Maddy said quickly. ‘She doesn’t want a doctor, and she doesn’t want people to think . . .’

Perhaps fortunately, before she could explain more fully, a customer claimed Mrs Grundy’s attention, and when presently Maddy had sold the last of her plums she suggested that she and Alice should do their shopping and then go home. ‘I can’t read
The Water Babies
today – I have to get back to Gran. But why don’t you come with me? You could stay for lunch, though it will only be bread and scrape, I’m afraid.’

Mrs Grundy, overhearing, picked up a small square wrapped up in greaseproof paper and thrust it into Maddy’s hands.

‘Piece of me best cheese for the old lady,’ she said, patting Maddy’s cheek. ‘There’s a heap of things you can make with cheese what’s soft enough for an old lady to chaw on. Give her my regards and tell her I’d be happy to bake her a couple of loaves while she’s laid up. I’ll bring them to market next Saturday.’ She reached across and dug Alice in the ribs. ‘We stick together, you know, help each other out.’ She sighed reminiscently. ‘Though you may find it difficult to believe, m’dear, Mrs Hebditch were a fine figure of a woman once, running her side of farm like clockwork.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Ah, well, age changes all of us.’ Another customer approached and she smiled apologetically before greeting the other woman warmly. ‘Good morning. You’ll be wanting me best cheese if I know you! And some of me unsalted butter . . .’

WHEN THE TWO
girls reached Larkspur Farm Maddy half expected to find Gran on her feet grumbling away and ready to criticise everything she had bought. Consequently she entered the kitchen with a degree of caution and was disproportionately astonished to find the room empty, the door still propped open and Gran on the sofa in the parlour snoring loudly.

Maddy tiptoed across the room as quietly as she could, followed closely by Snoops, whose nose was pressed almost on the back of her legs. He was a large and shaggy dog, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but despite his size and friendly nature he was a timid animal and Maddy guessed that finding Gran no longer in command of the kitchen was worrying him more than a little, so she patted his head and rubbed his pricked ears and told him in a low whisper not to bark. ‘For that would wake Gran, and sleeping will be doing her good,’ she told him, approaching the sofa. The mug of tea, she saw, had been drained even though she had not been able to sweeten it. Gran liked her tea strong and sweet, and the fact that she had made do with what Maddy had provided was a good indication that she had not got off the sofa. Maddy found herself wishing that she had popped into the surgery after all and asked the doctor to visit. Still, if the pain was still persisting in a day or two the idea of consulting the doctor might be more acceptable.

For a moment Maddy stayed by the sofa looking doubtfully down at the sleeping woman. However, she couldn’t stand here like a stock; she had left Alice outside the back door, knowing that Gran would want to be up and properly dressed before she saw anyone save her granddaughter. She decided she would let Alice in and then shut the parlour door very, very gently before starting the preparations for a light lunch, which was all she and Gran ever had.

But unfortunately Snoops saw fit to bark the moment Alice came into the kitchen, and Maddy, in the very act of closing the parlour door, hastily opened it again. Her grandmother was looking wildly round her as though she could not recognise the room in which she lay, so Maddy crossed the floor, perched on the end of the sofa and addressed the old woman gently.

‘Hello, Gran. It’s only me, Maddy, and my friend Alice is in the kitchen. We’re making ourselves a bite to eat. Mrs Grundy gave us some lovely cheese, and Alice is cutting a couple of slices off the loaf; she’ll cut three, if you’re hungry. Then there are the pickled onions you and I made last year and a few apples from the orchard.’ She smiled encouragingly at her grandmother. ‘It’s a feast! Do say you’ll eat your share, Gran.’

‘What?’ Gran said vaguely. ‘Help me up!’

Maddy shook a chiding head. ‘You mustn’t get up. You sprained your ankle, don’t you remember? You told me not to call the doctor, and the market folk agree the best cure for a sprained ankle is to keep it up. So just you stay there.’

Gran heaved an enormous sigh, and fixed Maddy with a basilisk glare. ‘I want to pee,’ she said loudly, and Maddy trembled for fear Alice would get the giggles and Gran might think herself mocked. ‘Fetch me the perishing chamber pot, girl!’ Poor Maddy’s mind whirled. She could not imagine that Gran would find it easy to perch on the large chamber pot which adorned the old woman’s bedroom, and eyed her grandmother’s bulk doubtfully. Gran looked puzzled. ‘I want to pee,’ she repeated insistently. ‘What’s the matter with you, girl? Catchin’ flies, are you? Don’t you know a body has to pee after drinking a full mug of tea? And who’s this Alice?’

Maddy, thoroughly confused, began to explain that Alice was her friend, that they had been at the market together, but she got no further. ‘Oh,
that
Alice. She’s the new nursery maid, isn’t she?’ Gran moved on the sofa, trying to rid herself of the blanket which Maddy had tucked around her, and gave an impatient sigh. ‘Get this bloody thing off me,’ she commanded. ‘And call the nursery maid; if the pair of you give me a hand I dare say I could reach the privy in the yard easier than I could balance me bum on that old jeremiah.’

‘Right,’ Maddy said. What on earth made Gran think Alice was a nursery maid? But she ran across the parlour and beckoned to her friend, who was sitting in one of the old kitchen chairs with Talon, the cat, on her lap. ‘Can you come?’ she asked urgently. ‘Gran wants to have a widdle and I can’t lift her by myself. We need to help her out to the privy in the garden. Are you game to take her left side whilst I cope with the right?’

Alice looked scared. She removed the cat from her lap with obvious reluctance and stood up, shaking the creases out of her beautiful smock. ‘All right, I’ll have a go,’ she said.

Back in the parlour the old lady had already heaved herself up and was disentangling her legs from the blanket whilst muttering curses too low, Maddy hoped, for Alice to catch. She smiled tentatively at Gran as she darted forward to take the old woman’s weight, gesturing for Alice to do the same.

Alice essayed a bright smile, though Maddy saw that it was a bit wobbly. ‘Good morning, Mrs Hebditch, or should I say afternoon?’ Alice said in a small voice which she clearly strove to make pleasant. ‘I’ve come to give Maddy a hand, so you must lean on me and I’ll do my best to help you.’

Gran, now upright and balancing on one foot, sniffed. ‘If you’re the nursery maid then it ought to be you holding me up,’ she said disagreeably. ‘Come along, come along, let’s be having you!’

Alice giggled and Maddy realised she had probably never been spoken to in such a manner before. But she did not comment and presently the three of them crossed the parlour and were actually in the yard when, as Maddy put it to herself, their journey became unnecessary. Gran had held on as long as she possibly could, and when at last she lost the battle a positive river splashed around her bare and dirty feet.

Instincts cannot be helped, perhaps. Both girls leapt back and Gran teetered, shrieked and fell. The girls began to try to heave her to her feet, and Maddy realised that despite her efforts Alice could not prevent a stifled giggle or two from emerging. Maddy herself, on the other hand, was not amused, or at least not to the extent of laughing, particularly when she realised that they did not have the strength to get Gran back into the house. But she had not allowed for the steely determination which would not let Gran give way. ‘Roll me over on to my knees and bring a kitchen chair out here,’ she demanded. She gave her granddaughter a baleful glare. ‘And take this silly, giggling girl away with you. You and me and the chair will manage just fine.’

Gran’s criticism had brought a blush to Alice’s cheeks, but though her offer of help was received with a sniff, she persisted. When at last Gran was seated in the old basket chair, it was clear to Maddy that she was beginning to feel more like her old self. She sent Maddy into the parlour to fetch the blanket, and beneath its capacious folds she shed her wet things and allowed Maddy to help her into her winceyette nightdress. Then she looked very hard at Alice. ‘Who
are
you?’ she demanded, and this time there was no aggression in her tone but merely curiosity. ‘You aren’t the nursery maid, because I remember she was . . . oh, well, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Nor it does; matter, I mean,’ Maddy said briskly. ‘Alice is the friend I’ve told you about, and she won’t be here much longer because I’m going to ask her if she’ll go into the village and pop into the surgery to see if Dr Carlton can spare us a few minutes.’ She saw her grandmother’s mouth open, saw the frown begin to descend, and went on quickly, ‘It’s no use, Gran, it’ll be money well spent because you must know I have to go to school on Monday. And – and you did have a funny turn when Alice and I came in. I need advice, and the doctor’s the one to give it, so don’t you start arguing and throwing your weight about. Just lie back in that chair until I can give you a hand through to the parlour, and once Dr Carlton has told us what the right treatment should be we’ll soon have you trotting round again.’