Sweet Sanctuary (6 page)

Gently, Kate asked, "Must there be any fighting? Why not accept the situation?"

"I couldn't bear to see that creature mistress of Sanctuary!"

"Couldn't you put Nick first, and forget the house? What's a pile of bricks and mortar beside human happiness?"

"Shrewd, very shrewd," said Nick sardonically, and she spun, flushing.

He sauntered into the room, eyeing his aunt with mockery, "The child has a discerning mind. Well, Aunt Elaine? Answer her!"

"The casserole will be ruined if you don't hurry up," she snapped in return. "Go and wash at once, both of you!"

Nick winked at Kate as they both obeyed, but she found it hard to smile back at him. It seemed so stupid and pointless that two sensible human beings should engage in such warfare over the ownership of a house. She felt sympathy for both sides, saw both points of view. How could she stay here, feeling as she did?

She was quite relieved to fall in with the household hours, and go to bed very early, since her walk before dinner had made her sleepy, and after an hour helping Mrs. Butler wash up and tidy the kitchen she was quite ready for her bed. Next day she helped to feed the horses, laughing as they gently nosed her pockets for sugar or apples. One was slightly lame, a tall, rawboned bay with a white blaze on his forehead and one muddy white sock on his left forefoot.

"He has rheumatism, poor old chap. He always gets it when it's going to rain," Mrs. Butler patted his nose.

Kate looked up incredulously at the clear blue sky. There was not a cloud to be seen.

Mrs. Butler smiled. "Wait and see—Hercules is never wrong!"

Sure enough, in the afternoon the rain began slowly, spitting across the windows before settling down to a steady downpour. It rained for an hour. The horses sheltered down by the thickest cover, a clump of elms which, by some miracle, had escaped elm disease when some of the others on the estate contracted it. Mrs. Butler had already bewailed their fate to Kate, pointing out blackened stumps where once a great elm had raised its boughs to the sky.

When Kate went into the kitchen for tea she found a small, thin woman in a blue overall polishing the tiled floor, her arms vigorously circling. She looked up and smiled as Kate halted in the doorway. "Come on in, love—I'm just finishing."

"Will I spoil your lovely shine?" Kate admired the floor with a smile. "You have brought up a polish on it!"

"A floor is for walking on," said the woman sturdily. "Take no notice of the shine." She stood up. "There, that's done for this week. You must be the secretary. I've heard about you from Mrs. Butler."

"I'm Kate," she smiled. "Kate Fox." She held out her hand and the other woman, wiping her own hand on her overall, shook it.

"I'm Mrs. Pepper. I come in four times a week to do a few hours."

Kate smiled at her. "You must work very hard, then, because I'd noticed how spick and span everything is!"

"Pays a bit of work, does this house," Mrs. Pepper said with pride. "I like to do a job worth doing. I can do my own house in half an hour. Whisk round with the vacuum, flick of the duster, and it's done. But a house like this is a real pleasure to keep nice. You feel you've really done something. Old things always gives me that feeling. I collect them, in a small way."

"Do you mean antiques?" Kate looked at her in astonishment.

The thin face creased with amusement. "Oh, not the expensive kind. I can't afford them. I buy old keepsakes… souvenirs. China or glass. I like to have pretty things—and if you go to country auctions you can still pick them up quite cheap now and then."

"What a fascinating hobby!"

"It gives me an interest," Mrs. Pepper agreed.

"Would you like some tea, Mrs. Pepper?" Kate put the kettle on the range. "I'm going to have some."

"I won't say no," Mrs. Pepper nodded, taking off her overall and revealing a home-knitted brown tweed skirt and jumper.

"Is that another of your interests? Knitting?" Kate indicated the clothes.

"Yes, I do that in the evenings. Can't abide to be doing nothing. I knit while I watch the television. My husband can't understand how I do it. How do you watch television and knit? he asks me. You can't do both, he says. Oh, can't I? I say. And I just go on knitting. You wear what I knit, don't you, I say. And he can't think of an answer to that."

Kate made the tea and sat down opposite her. Mrs. Pepper talked on, retailing village gossip, family history and the last comma and full stop of every conversation she had ever had with her husband. Kate listened, offered home-made scones and jam, poured tea and sipped it. She felt as though, unawares, she had slipped into the path of a huge tidal wave. Her mind was battered to and fro under the impact of Mrs. Pepper.

Mrs. Butler returned from her ministrations to the newcomer in the stable, an old riding school pony which had been sold when the owner died and was to have ended as horsemeat if a kindly neighbour had not stepped in to save it, and looked at them in amusement.

"Any tea left for me? Then you must come out with me to milk the goats, Kate. You'll soon learn how to do it."

"How is the pony?" Kate asked.

Mrs. Pepper smiled at them both and removed herself to do some more work upstairs. Kate sighed as the door closed behind her.

Mrs. Butler laughed. "Mrs. Pepper is quite an experience, isn't she? The pony is cheering up. He'll have to stay indoors for a few days until he's settled in with us. Poor chap, he had a near miss with the slaughterhouse!"

Kate went out to learn how to milk the goats that afternoon. Mrs. Butler was a patient teacher, and Kate's uneasy clumsiness amused her. When the goat kicked over Kate's bucket for the third time, Kate groaned, but Mrs. Butler laughed.

"That's enough for today. You'll have sore wrists tomorrow. Milking is like riding a bike—once learnt you never forget, but it may take a while to pick up the knack. That's all it is—a knack. You'll learn, my dear."

"What shall I do now? I don't feel I'm earning my keep, Mrs. Butler. I seem to have so little to do."

"You can take the dogs for a long walk. They need exercise."

"Could I do some of the cooking for you now and then? I would enjoy that, and it would leave you more free time for yourself."

Mrs. Butler looked at her sideways. "You mustn't feel you have to work yourself to death, Kate. I'm more than happy with the way you're working."

Kate went to fetch the dogs with a feeling of uneasiness which lay heavily over her heart. If she could have felt really useful in the household she would not have felt so guilty, but she suspected that Mrs. Butler could well manage without her. Her presence was not dictated by any need for assistance with the work. Mrs. Butler had only wanted her as an ally in the war against Sylvia, and Kate had a furtive feeling that the full extent of Mrs. Butler's plot had not yet been revealed, and that, when it was clear, she would find it both distasteful and personally wounding.

So involved with her thoughts was she that she barely noticed where she walked, and was surprised to find herself approaching the far side of the park, where the flint wall was crumbling away, under the impact of weather and age. The stones shone with a blueish tint, where water had run down earlier and been caught in crevices and cracks. The grass was slippery underfoot from the rain. The sky had cleared. The livid hue had gone, leaving a washed blue, shimmering faintly, but illuminating the landscape with a gentle radiance.

The dogs snuffled eagerly forward, paws scrabbling on the ground. Kate saw that there was a gate, narrow and ancient, set in the wall. It hung open on a broken hinge. She pushed it further open. The dogs rushed through, excitedly puffing, and she followed.

She stood in a sloping green pasture. Cows grazed on the other side of the meadow. A few trees offered shade. Beyond lay a field of freshly ploughed and planted crop. It ran on for some distance, fenced in by a well-tended hedge, newly burgeoning with bright green. The ditches were well defined and cleared. Kate had grown up on the edge of the sea, with the country always within walking distance, and she could see at a glance that the farm was well managed. It had a neat, prosperous air.

The farmhouse stood half a mile away, in a square half acre of yards, with clean, well-painted outbuildings. They had been freshly whitewashed lately, she saw, from the way the light struck a dazzle from them. Well-kept machinery stood under cover in open sheds. The haystacks were covered, too, and protected from the weather.

While she stood there, staring with appreciation around her, she suddenly saw a young man coming across the meadow towards her. He was very tall, with light brown hair tumbled across his thin face, and he walked fast, with an easy swing.

His jeans were muddy. His blue shirt flapped open at the neck. On one thin arm he wore a broad wrist watch.

When he was within earshot he called, "Hi. Come on over to the house for tea!"

Kate stood, uncertainly, smiling back at him, while the dogs tumbled over each other, barking, in order to show their welcome for him.

He reached her side and looked her over with interest. "I know who you are, you know. You're Aunt Elaine's new protégée. Right?"

She laughed. "Right. Kate Fox," and held out her hand.

He solemnly took it and held it, grinning after a moment. "I didn't think you were Dr. Livingstone. I'm Jimmy Whitney. My old man farms here."

"I've heard about him from Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Pepper," she nodded. "It's a very neat farm."

Jimmy laughed loudly. "Tell the old man that— he'll be thrilled. He'd have me painting the hens white if they stood still long enough! One thing that drives him mad is to see a dirty farmyard. I tell him he's got a complex about it."

"I expect it pays in the long run. Less disease, less waste."

Jimmy stared at her. "Do you come from a farming family, by any chance?"

"My father was a vet," she explained. "When I was little I went out with him to visit farms in the countryside where we lived. I suppose I took an interest."

"Well, come and take an interest in us," he said. "It isn't often that I get the chance to meet a girl as pretty as you."

She blushed. "Thank you, but have you never seen Sylvia?"

He grimaced. "Oh, I've seen her. She never sees me, though. Looks straight through me as if I were a pane of glass. You didn't know I was the invisible man, did you? Well, I am. Anyone who earns less than ten thousand a year is invisible to Miss Sylvia,"

"Does Nicholas earn that much?" Kate stared, open-mouthed.

Jimmy laughed. "No, I don't suppose so, but then he has Sanctuary, hasn't he? He doesn't need to earn so much. He owns all this…" He threw his arm in a grand sweep around the dreaming countryside, over green fields and flat, well-drained acres of good arable land. The countryside was a perfect example of the domestic landscape, patched into odd shapes by trimmed hedges and meandering ditches, punctuated by the occasional elm or oak to give variety to the eye.

"It is lovely," she sighed.

"Isn't it just?" Jimmy nodded. "My old man would give his eye teeth to buy this land, but with Nick earning a fair old crust at his job, he has no need to sell land, and of course, Aunt Elaine will see to it that Nick never feels the urge to so much as sell one acre of Sanctuary estate."

"She loves the place, doesn't she?" Jimmy looked at her with interest. "I've always thought that Aunt Elaine feels far more loyalty towards the place than Nick because he was born to it, and familiarity breeds… if not contempt, at least a sort of blindness. While she is only related by marriage, and she always seemed twice as keen as the rest of the family."

"Like a convert to a religion, you mean, being more fervent than someone born in it?"

"That's it exactly," Jimmy agreed.

They walked down towards the farmhouse, the dogs eagerly scouting the surrounding land. The cows lifted lazy heads to stare, but seemed indifferent to the dogs.

"The cows don't mind dogs?" she asked Jimmy, and he laughed. "They know these are harmless."

In the farmyard they found Jimmy's father, slouching across the swept concrete with his old green felt hat pulled down low and the elbows out of his old green jersey.

"You disgusting object, you," Jimmy said with affectionate scorn. "Here am I, bringing a pretty young lady to tea, and we find you wearing your jumble sale clothes!"

Old James turned, grinning cheerfully. "This is a pleasant surprise. Perhaps the young lady darns?"

Kate answered his smile as she shook hands. "I'll be glad to mend your jersey for you."

"It comes of having no woman in the house," he said. "I can't tend to the farm and play housewife at the same time."

"Mrs. Cooper is waiting for the call, Dad," Jimmy murmured teasingly.

His father's rosy features drew together in a scowl. "God bless my soul, boy! That woman…"

Jimmy gave Kate a grin of proffered conspiracy. "Dad knows very well that Mrs. Cooper would step in at a moment's notice—she's always made it quite clear that she's willing to cheer his later years, shed sunshine on his life's downward slope…"

Old James threw a handful of straw at him and stamped away, shaking his head, muttering, "Impudence!"

"I can't really stay for tea," Kate told Jimmy. "I didn't think you were serious. I have to walk back now. Mrs. Butler will wonder where I am."

"We have a telephone—ring her."

"No, I couldn't do that. I work for her. I'm not a guest in the house."

"Surely you have some time off?"

Kate looked blank. "I'd never thought of it. I have so little to do even when I am working that I hadn't thought of asking for time off."

"Disgraceful! The union would have something to say about that! You must do something about it as soon as possible, then I can take you into Maiden to the pictures."

"I haven't been to the cinema for ages," she exclaimed.

"High time you did, then! Will you do that? Tell Aunt Elaine I want to date you." Kate blushed. "Well, thank you, but…"

He groaned. "Oh, come on… don't be cruel! If you knew how empty my life would be, if you said no, you couldn't refuse!"