The Caxley Chronicles (12 page)

'Well, he's safely inside for twelve months,' replied Bender, 'and we're all a sight better off without the rascal. But North's will have to go, as far as I can see, and perhaps it's as well. I shall still be able to work here, and not have the responsibility. I tell you frankly, Bertie, I shouldn't like to go through the last year or so again.'

'You'll miss the garden,' said Bertie, looking out at the wet evening.

'There'll be another on the hill,' said Bender robustly. 'And I'm glad for your mother's sake we're making the move. It means a lot to her.'

He clapped his son on the shoulder in a dismissive way.

'Glad to have told you, Bertie. You've taken it very well.
There's times I've felt I've let you all down. This used to be a real warm business, as you know. I've been a bit of a bungler, it seems to me.'

'You can put that idea out of your head,' replied Bertie. 'It's just the way things have fallen out. I, for one, won't miss the business. My heart's never been in it, as you well know.'

He made his way up to his room to change. His spirits rose as he mounted the stairs, for he was going to the Howards' and would spend the evening in Kathy's company.

He stood at the window looking down upon the glistening market square, and, for the first time since hearing the news, he felt a sudden pang.

This he would miss. He had not realized quite how much it meant to him. He could not imagine living in another house which did not look upon the market square. This scene had been the background to his entire life. He could remember being held in Vera's arms, clad in his scratchy flannel nightshirt, to watch the pigeons wheeling across the striped awnings of the market stalls. He had stood at that window in tears of fury after being banished from below for some misdemeanour. He had stood there, in quiet contemplation, soothed by the familiar shapes of the clustered buildings and the comings and goings of well-known Caxley folk. His fears and doubts, his hopes and joys, had been experienced here in the market square. Here were his roots, here was his entire past. How would he live without the market place around him, its sights and sounds, and its bustle of people?

He looked across at Howard's bakery. How could he live so far from Kathy? The thought was insupportable. He flung
away from the window and tore off his working jacket in near panic. Then he recovered his control.

He was behaving like a child. He would still be living in Caxley. Kathy would still be there, lovely and loving. Who knows? One day he might come back to live in the market square, in a house of his own, with Kathy to share it.

The news that the North family was leaving the market place came as a great shock to Caxley. The business had been there for three generations, and Bender was popular. It was sad to think of that vast figure filling a doorway no longer his own. A few self-righteous and mean-spirited citizens announced that Bender had brought this humiliation upon himself by slackness and indolence. But Bender's friends rose to his support, and cried them down.

The move was a leisurely one, much to Hilda's exasperation. She would have liked to pack up and go immediately, once the decision was made, but it was not to be. Tenby's had much to arrange with Bender, and Hilda had to content herself with daily trips up the hill to supervise the painting and decorating which went on in the red-brick villa so soon to be the family home.

As usual, on these occasions, nothing in the old house seemed to fit the new one. The curtains and carpets were either too small, too large, or too shabby. Hilda nobly did her best to keep expenses down, knowing now the truth of their financial circumstances, but she fought a losing battle. Colours clashed, walnut warred with oak, the vast mahogany dining table had to be left behind because it would not go through any door
or window, and a new one bought. New chintz covers became a necessity, shrouding odd chairs in a more pleasing harmony. Two fireplaces had to be replaced, and it was deemed necessary to overhaul the gas system from the attics to the cellars. Bender began to wonder if the tidy sum from Tenby's would be enough to cover the cost of the new villa, let alone leaving him a nest egg in the bank.

His own time was occupied in clearing out the main part of the premises for Tenby's agricultural equipment. A mammoth sale of kitchen hardware took place and was long remembered in Caxley in the years to come. Many a stout bread crock or set of saucepans became known in cottage homes in the Caxley district as 'one of North's last bargains'.

Most of Tenby's men were local fellows, well known to Bender, and he found no difficulty in getting on with them in the weeks that followed. Tenby himself he disliked. He was a shrewd business man, originally from the north, and thought far more quickly than Bender ever could. His beady dark eyes ran over the possibilities of the old house, and Bender could not help feeling a qualm when he heard him discussing the advantages of ripping out the first floor walls to make one large showroom above the shop. His grey and white striped drawing-room, now standing empty, seemed to breathe a mute appeal. Where now were the red velvet chairs, the wall brackets bearing sea-lavender, and all the other familiar furnishings of his best-loved room? Bender had to admit that the new house gave him small satisfaction compared with the spacious shabby comfort of the old premises. It would be sad to see the place so altered.

It made him sadder still when he discovered that later on the
firm proposed to flatten his beautiful little garden, cement it over, and to erect an enormous structure on the site to house new tractors and other large pieces of equipment. Bender could hardly bear to think about it. The pinks bordering the river bank were particularly fine in the summer of 1914, and their heady fragrance held a doomed poignancy which Bender never forgot. What had he done when he had parted with his heritage? Was it all to be destroyed?

The family was now installed on the hill. The new house was called 'Rose Lodge' which Hilda felt was refined. It took Bender years before he could write it automatically at the head of his rare letters. Somehow he always put 15
The Market Square,
before remembering the change of address.

The top two floors of the old premises were to be refurbished, 'for future staff use', as Jack Tenby said. Meanwhile, they stood empty. Sometimes Bender climbed the stairs and had a look at the bare dusty rooms. Against the walls were marks where furniture had stood for years. Here the paper had peeled where young Mary's prying fingers had been busy through the bars of her cot. There was the pale circle on the wall where Winnie's mirror had hung. And there on the corner pane were Bertie's initials, cut with his mother's diamond ring. That little escapade had earned the young ten-year-old a severe spanking, Bender recalled.

There was something infinitely pathetic in the ghostly rooms. They were full of memories. Every creak of the floorboards, every rattle of the windows, was familiar to Bender. He had not realized how tightly the old house had entwined them all, until he had cut the bonds, only to find himself still imprisoned in memories. He threw himself into the work of
supervising the changes in the shop, glad to be able to forget the silence above in the hubbub of activity below.

It was not easy, as Bender discovered, as the summer slipped by. For one thing, it was excessively hot. The market place basked in one golden day after another. The Cax seemed the only cool spot in the town, and was besieged by boys and girls swimming and paddling in the evenings. For a man of Bender's weight, the weather seemed torrid, however much the younger ones might revel in it. He took to slipping out into the doomed garden to enjoy the air and to gain refreshment from the sight of the cool water rippling by. But again the pleasure was tempered by the oppressive knowledge that this might well be the last summer in which the garden would enchant him.

It was towards the end of July that the first blow came. Bender's managership had been tacitly understood, and for three months now he had done his best to get things working smoothly, under the eye of Jack Tenby, and one or two other directors of the firm, who called in from time to time to see how things were shaping.

One morning, Bender found a letter waiting for him at the office, and he read it with mounting indignation. It said that the firm had now had a chance to make plans and were reorganising their business, both in Caxley and elsewhere. Their young Mr Parker, of Trowbridge, who had been with the firm since leaving school, would be transferred to the agricultural department of the Caxley firm and would take up residence on the premises, as soon as possible. He would be in charge of the department, and they felt sure that Mr North would give him all the co-operation he had so readily shown to the firm in the
last few months. They would be pleased to maintain Mr North's present rate of pay, and hoped to have the advantage of his experience for many years to come. They were 'his faithfully'.

'Faithfully!' snorted Bender, in the privacy of the shop parlour. Was this faith? Was this trust? Was it plain honesty? The truth was that it was a dam' dirty trick, to foist a young man over him in his own shop.

'His own shop.' The words echoed in his ears. Oh, the misery of it all, thought Bender! He ground one gigantic fist into the palm of the other hand, as he read the letter anew.

This was treachery. He would have it out with Jack Tenby. They should not treat Bender North like this. For two pins he would chuck the job in and let them muddle on without his help! That would show them!

But would it? Is that what they wanted? Was he simply a nuisance to be got rid of? And if he threw up this job, where would he get another? There was the family to consider. The new house was still running away with the money at an alarming rate. Dammit all, Bender groaned, ramming the letter back into its envelope, he must try and face the stark and unpleasant fact that he was no longer his own master. It was a bitter pill to swallow at any age. At forty-eight, it was doubly bitter, Bender mourned.

All that day, Bender went mechanically about his affairs in a daze. He decided not to mention the matter to Hilda until his mind was calmer. He felt that he could not bear Hilda's protestations on his behalf, her hurt pride and her ready tears. It was a day or two later, that the second unpleasant happening occurred.

Bender was adding up figures in the shop parlour with the door open into the shop. Near by, Miss Taggerty, and another woman assistant, Miss Chapman, dusted shelves and gossiped together, imagining that they were unheard.

Miss Taggerty, still faithful to the imprisoned Bob, was as plain as ever. The increasing years and private grief had speckled her sandy hair with grey, but had not added discretion to her virtues. She rattled on, blissfully unconscious of Bender's presence so close at hand, telling of scandals past and present. Bender, used to this sort of thing, let it flow over him, until a familiar name caught his attention.

'Of course it's Les Howard's! Why should the girl say it is if it isn't? A lovely boy, old Ma Tucker told my pa. Weighed nigh on ten pounds at birth, and the spitting image of Leslie—same dark eyes and all.'

'But it might be her husband's surely?' objected Miss Chapman. 'He's dark too.'

'Not
this
dark!' pronounced Miss Taggerty triumphantly. 'And it's common knowledge that Les Howard spends far too much time there on the rounds. It's pretty lonely up Bent way. I bet she was glad of a bit of company.'

'But there's not another house in sight!' protested Miss Chapman. 'How do people know Les Howard went in?'

'There's such people as hedgers-and-ditchers, and plough-men, and the like,' retorted Miss Taggerty. 'And they've got eyes in their heads, and wasn't born yesterday, for that matter. Besides, as I told you, the girl swears it's Leslie's and the husband swears he's going to take him to court over it.'

Bender felt it was time he made his presence known. He
dropped a heavy ledger on the floor, swore and picked it up. The clear voices stopped abruptly, to be replaced by some agitated whispering, and a muffled giggle. He heard no more of the matter, but he thought about it a great deal. If this were true, then it was time his Winnie dropped the young man pretty quickly.

In the next two days he heard the same rumour from other sources. There seemed to be some foundation for the story, and Bender's worries increased. He had half a mind to have a word with Sep about the matter, but decided to let the matter rest for a few days until he was surer of his facts.

As it happened, things came to a head precipitately within the next day or two. Although Winnie and Leslie sought each other's company still, Bender had fancied that they had seen rather less of each other since the move, and hoped that the affair might be dying a natural death. Winnie was extra busy these days at the local hospital where she was doing very well as a nurse. Her free time was scarce, and quite often she spent it lying on her bed to rest her aching legs, in the unusually hot weather.

It was now August, and as close as ever. Hilda and Bender sat in their new drawing-room with all the windows open. A pale yellow moth fluttered round the gas bracket, its wings tap-tapping on the glass globe. Bender found the noise distracting.

He was still mightily aggravated by the letter from Tenby's, and had come to realize that he was in no position to protest. Naturally, this added to his fury. He wondered, as he listened to the moth and turned the newspaper in his hands, if this were the right time to tell Hilda what had occurred. She would
have to know some time about 'our young Mr Parker from Trowbridge'.

At the memory, Bender grew hotter than ever. The room seemed stifling. He undid the top button of his shirt, and turned his attention once more—to the newspaper. He'd tell Hilda tomorrow. It was late. She might not sleep if he broke the news now.

There seemed mighty little comfort to be had in the paper, he reflected. All this trouble in Europe! Germany at war with Russia, and the ambassador recalled from Petersburg, and the Frenchies getting the wind up and looking to us for help! Not likely, thought Bender! Let them all get on with their squabbling safely on the other side of the English Channel!