Rose Cottage (15 page)

‘Horses?’ I said to Davey. ‘Who’s got horses here now?’

‘It’s a riding school, has been for nearly two years now, and the family thought it’d be a good idea to have riding here for the hotel. You remember Harry Coleman?’

I remembered Harry Coleman, a good looking boy a couple of years older than myself, who had been in the senior class at school. For one long blushful year I had been one of his worshipping admirers. One of the crowd. He went up to the secondary school two years before me, and was there, ready to receive our homage once more, when Prissy and I were enrolled. He was kind to us, unbending from the height of his achievements in the sports field, and our greatest privilege had been to travel back to Todhall with him in the same carriage, and carry his school bag to his home gate. Luckily his home gate had been very near the station. His father farmed Low Beck, which belonged to the Hall.

‘Handsome Harry?’ I said. ‘Running a riding place here?’

‘Aye. Doesn’t make much out of that yet. The schoolteacher goes there, and a couple of boys from Fishburn way, but he keeps horses there, at livery he calls it, for some of the locals – Mr Taylor’s got one, and Jim Sands, and the Blake girl from Deepings. They hunt with the South Durham. It was Harry thought of
it, and his Dad put the cash up, so the family let them have the stables. They reckon it’ll be an extra draw once the hotel gets going.’

‘I remember Harry was always keen, and his father kept a good horse for him. I was there when he won the cup at Sedgefield. He used to talk about Olympia, but of course there was the war. Did he ever get there?’

‘Not that I ever heard, and if he had we’d have all heard,’ said Davey drily. He swung down from the cab and turned to unlash the timber from the roof of the van. ‘I’ll get this stuff stacked in the coach-house under cover. D’you want to go into the house now? Here’s the key.’

‘Yes, I’d like to. How long will you be?’

‘Not long, but there’s no hurry. I’ll come and fetch you.’

He shouldered some of the timber and tramped off towards one of the coach-house archways. I made for the back door. It opened on a long passage floored with stone flags. There was evidence here, too, that work was being done, but when I reached the kitchen I found it much the same as I remembered it.

For a house built in the early nineteenth century, the kitchen was a good one. It was on ground level, and the big, barred windows, though they faced north, looked out over the walled kitchen garden. There were few concessions to modern living, so I supposed it was inevitable that, to make it viable as a hotel kitchen, the working premises would have to be stripped and totally rebuilt.

Why was it that one always regretted change?
Things were not made to stay fixed, preserved in amber. Perhaps the only acceptable amber was memory. I had ‘helped’ in this kitchen so many times. I could remember when the tabletops were above my eye level, and I shared the floor under the table with the dog, waiting, both of us, for the piece of cake or biscuit to be handed down and shared. The kitchen, the heart of the house, with its warmth and its wonderful smells of baking, or the delectable smell of roasting meat, and the sizzle and spit as the joint was speared and turned in the pan. The clashing of pots and dishes and the cheerful chatter of women’s voices. A whole world, once. And now changed, and soon to be changed again. And, surely, for the better? One had to believe that the world was changing for the better, or else why live? That, arguably, was one of the facets of what Christians called faith?

I left the empty kitchen and once again went through the green baize door that shut the servants’ quarters off from the main house. That first door led to the dining room, where sometimes I had helped Alice, the parlourmaid, to set the table. The big room was empty now, echoing, stripped and waiting for the contractors.

No stab of regret here, no memories. I shut the door on it and went along to the hall. This – the great hall, as we called it – was a room in itself. The front door opened into it, and there was a huge open fireplace to one side, usually protected by screens from the draughts that were everywhere. The main staircase was opposite the door, a wide flight rising to a landing, where it divided, the twin stairs leading to the two
wings of the house. The landing was lit, grudgingly, by a stained-glass window. The only time, Gran had said, that the hall had been habitable – in fact the only time I had ever been in it – was at Christmas, when we schoolchildren had come carol singing with the vicar, and there had been a fire in the vast fireplace, and a tree, and a mince pie and an orange for each child.

The drawing room lay on the south side of the hall. The big double doors were shut. I hesitated for a moment, then, feeling as guilty as if I were invading Bluebeard’s chamber, I pushed them open.

A blaze of light met me, from three big floor-length windows that threw sharp patterns of sunshine slanting across an acre or so of unpolished parquet floor. A pair of Chinese carpets, presumably restored from their place in the cellars, lay in front of the twin fireplaces, with chairs and sofas disposed here and there. There was a grand piano, covered and, it was to be hoped, undamaged. A writing desk. A big breakfront bookcase, empty of books. Not much else in the way of furniture, but pictures, lamps, and a couple of vast Chinese jars on carved pedestals, all back in place. It was a beautiful room still, a room that looked as if it had only been temporarily abandoned, and could be lived in, and loved, again. Even its owners were still there; above the fireplaces hung the portraits – done presumably soon after they took over the Hall – of Sir James and Lady Brandon.

I stood looking up at the portrait of the young Sir James.

Immaculate in riding clothes, he was pictured with
horse and dogs beside a tree in the park, but, I thought, put him in uniform and make him smile, and he could have sat for the photograph of his son Gilbert that I had seen in Lady Brandon’s sitting room at Strathbeg. It was the same boy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and handsome …

‘Changed a bit, hasn’t he?’ asked Davey, behind me.

‘Well, don’t we all? You have.’

‘And you,’ said Davey.

‘Yes. Well, it’s been a long time.’ I turned away towards a window. ‘I was just thinking how like him Gilbert was. Not that I saw him after he’d gone away to school – except at a distance, I mean – but there was a photo of him at Strathbeg, and it could be the same person. Poor Gilbert.’

‘It was a long war,’ he said, and then, with a hesitation that was unusual in him, ‘I didn’t like to say anything before, but, well, you getting married and then losing him like that. I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you. It – well, it seems a bit like another life now. I was lucky to have what I did. And you, Davey? I’m surprised you’re not married.’

‘Never got round to it. Never seemed to have the time.’

‘What sort of war did you have?’

‘Oh, joined up as soon as I was eighteen – the DLI, of course, you were allowed your choice then if you were a volunteer. You’d just gone to college in Durham. There were four of us from the village, Arthur Barton and Pete Brigstock and Sid Telfer and me. You knew about Sid?’

‘Yes.’

‘The four of us stayed together right through training, then we were drafted, and our battalion – the 16th, it was – was in Algiers by 1943. That’s where Sid got his, at Sedjenane.’

‘I remember the news from there. It was rough, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, it wasn’t a picnic. Pete got through it all without a scratch, and ended up in Italy, having a great time, according to him, en route to Greece.’ He laughed. ‘You should hear some of the things he has to tell, or come to think of it, maybe you shouldn’t! To hear him now, it makes me sorry I missed out on the Greek bit.’

‘So don’t miss out on what did happen. I know about Arthur. Do you mean you were wounded, too?’

‘Nothing much.’ He was dismissive. ‘I was back on active service in a matter of weeks, in time for D-Day. After that it was Normandy till the end of the war. Demobbed early this year. End of story.’

‘Yes. End of story.’ I was silent for a minute, remembering how lightly, almost, Davey and I had spoken of change. If the almost domestic traumas of my war had made something so different of me, what, then, of Davey? Back to Todhall and home and the old life? End of story?

I said, ‘Do you remember the shows Mr Lockwood used to put on in the village hall when we were little?’

‘The magic lantern? Yes. They were great – at least we thought so then. Why?’

‘I was remembering that slide he had, the kaleidoscope, where you turned a handle and all the bits of coloured glass got shaken up, and then fell into another pattern, a different one each time. Like the war. Shaking all our lives up into a different pattern, so different that we don’t quite know what the pattern means.’

He gave me a quick look I couldn’t interpret, then he smiled. ‘We got shook up, no mistake about that, but I wouldn’t worry too much about what the pattern is. Maybe it has changed a bit, but if you think about it, it’s the same bits of glass every time.’

‘And that’s a comfort?’

‘It’s meant to be, but take it or leave it.’

Feeling, for some reason, vaguely lightened, I looked around me again at the big, calm beautiful room. ‘At any rate, this is still here, even if this sort of thing’ – I lifted a hand – ‘is changing, too. Has changed already, everywhere.’

‘This sort of life, you mean? That’s true. But this room isn’t to be touched, just done up again. No change. Her ladyship’s made sure of that.’

‘I’m glad. It’s lovely, even though it’s so grand – and so neglected. Do you know, I’ve never seen it before. I was never allowed in, even to dust.’

‘I’m not supposed to be in here now,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Come on. It’s not worth going up into the south wing, it’s still just a mess, and you can’t really see what it’ll be like. We haven’t got much of a start yet. I’ll just go up and get Dad’s tool bag, and I’ll see you in
the courtyard, and get you back for your date with the vicar.’

We went back through the green baize door together.

As I went out into the sunshine of the courtyard, I heard the clatter of hoofs and the sound of a girl’s laugh.

A few moments later two riders came in under the clock tower arch, a man and a young woman. Neither of them, busy with their talk, noticed me, but I recognised the old flame of my childhood. Handsome Harry was still handsome, and his riding clothes, whipcord breeches and a yellow shirt with a silk cravat, suited him well. The girl was a good looking blonde, beautifully turned out, who sat her horse well. A match for her escort, I thought, in more ways than one; she had a sort of smooth polish to movement and manner that could easily deal with men more worldly than Handsome Harry.

Before he could get round to help her dismount, she had thrown her right leg forward over the pommel and slid competently to the ground. He bent to loosen the girth, with some remark in an undertone, but she
replied briefly and turned away, to see me sitting on the step of the mounting-block.

To my surprise, after a moment’s fixed staring, her face lit up. ‘Kathy? Kathy Welland? It is Kathy, isn’t it?’

I got to my feet. ‘Yes. But I’m afraid—?’

Laughing, she pulled off the peaked riding cap and ran a hand through the fair hair. Harry had turned when she spoke, but she took no notice of him other than to throw him the reins of her horse. ‘Well? Now do you know me?’

‘Prissy? It
is
Prissy? Oh my goodness me, where did you spring from?’

We flew together and kissed. The embrace was warmer than any we had exchanged in girlhood, but five years is five years, and there was a lot of time to make up. We clung to one another and laughed and asked questions and both talked at once while Harry, with the reins of both horses looped over one arm, hovered nearby, tapping his crop impatiently against a boot.

‘Kathy Welland? Hullo, there!’

‘Hi, Harry.’ I threw it over my shoulder with a smile. ‘Nice to see you! Davey told me you were running the place here. It looks great. But Prissy, what on earth are
you
doing here in Todhall?’

‘Just visiting, honey, just visiting! We’re staying near Bishop Auckland with friends of Gordon’s, and I don’t play golf, so when someone said that Harry had started the stable up here, I came over on spec. But you, I might ask the same of you! What in the world brings
you back here? I thought you’d shaken the dust off your feet years ago!’

I started to tell her, but at that moment Davey, with a tool bag slung over one shoulder, came into the yard and made for his van. He gave Harry a nod, then glanced across at me, hesitating.

‘He’s giving me a lift back,’ I said to Prissy. ‘It’s Davey Pascoe, you remember Davey?’

‘Of course I do. I was here on Tuesday and I saw him and Mr Pascoe then. Hullo, Davey, how’s it going?’

‘Slowly. The hotel’s supposed to open for Christmas, and dear knows if it will, but that’s not our problem, and our bit of the job should get done all right. Nice to see you again, Pris. D’you want a lift now, Kathy, or do you want to wait and get Pris to take you back?’