The Proposal (15 page)

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sybil with obvious panic.

‘Mrs Hamilton, I need to speak to Miss Estella as soon as possible.’

‘She was at our table a minute ago,’ said Georgia, trying to locate her. ‘Why do you need her?’

Mrs Bryant looked down, then back at Georgia.

‘A phone call came through to the house. A phone call from Devon. Something terrible has happened, Miss Georgia. The farm, your farm in Devon. I’m afraid it’s burnt down.’

Arthur didn’t look right. As the train pulled into the station in a hiss of steam, Georgia could see the big man standing on the platform, twisting his cap between his huge hands as though he was wringing it out. He saw Estella leaning out of the open window and waved, but there was no smile to accompany it. Georgia’s heart sank. Seeing Arthur Hands without a grin was like seeing roses in winter: ragged and bare. The ruddy-cheeked farmer and his wife had been running Moonraker Farm on behalf of the Hamiltons for as long as Georgia could remember, and to her Arthur was as much a part of the Devon countryside as the rocks or the oaks, and every bit as solid and strong. Yet here he was, his head bowed, his eyes red. Georgia knew in that moment that it was worse than she had imagined.

‘Miss Estella, Miss Georgia,’ said Arthur humbly. ‘Wish I could say it’s good to see you.’

Estella didn’t speak; instead she threw her arms around the big man and squeezed. ‘Oh Arthur, what’s to become of us?’ she whispered. They stood there for a long moment, then Estella broke away and took a deep breath, suddenly brisk and businesslike.

‘Now tell me, how are you and Marjorie?’ she said. ‘Here we are sobbing away when you have lost your home too.’

‘Oh, we’re fine,’ said Arthur, his hands working on his cap again. ‘Good job Marjorie woke up in the middle of the night; all parched she was, s’pose it was the smoke. Well, she elbowed me and I smelt the burning straight off, otherwise . . .’ He shook his huge head. ‘It ripped through those buildings like tinder. We’d never have stood a chance.’

Georgia and her mother exchanged a glance. She knew they were both thinking the same thing: if they hadn’t been away in London, they could have gone up with the farm too.

Estella squared her shoulders and looked up at Arthur.

‘How bad is it?’ she said.

Arthur winced.

‘Bad. I ain’t gonna lie, Miss Estella. It’s bad.’

Georgia felt a swell of anger as she watched her mother trying not to cry. How could he have let it happen? Wasn’t that why the Handses were there – to look after the bloody farm?

‘Does anyone know how it happened?’

‘Not sure, Miss Georgia. We might never know, the fire officer says. He’s been there all morning. They think it might have started in the studio.’

‘But I don’t understand, Arthur,’ said Georgia, unable to hide her anguish any longer. ‘I mean, fires don’t just magically start, do they? Was something left on? A candle, a light, a cigarette or something?’

Arthur looked at her with hurt in his eyes. He hadn’t missed the accusation and Georgia immediately felt bad. After all, Estella was right, the Handses had lost their home too.

‘We never go smoking in your house, Miss Georgia,’ he said. ‘Honest, we didn’t do anything wrong. We only went in to water them plants of yours. Marjorie said some of them was looking a bit droopy.’

He looked at Estella, his face creased.

‘Perhaps it was the electrics. Old wiring and that.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Estella, glancing at Georgia. ‘No one is suggesting you did anything wrong. On the contrary, I can’t imagine there’d be a stick left standing if you hadn’t raised the alarm.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Arthur quietly. He was looking down at the ground, but Georgia could tell that it was worse than either of them had supposed. From the farmer’s expression, she doubted there
was
a stick left standing at Moonraker.

It was a twenty-five-minute drive to the village. Georgia usually loved trundling along the country roads in Arthur’s bright red Morris Minor, the radio turned up loud, the windows wound right down, but not today. Every yard, every turn of the wheel was bringing her closer and closer to something she wasn’t sure she could bear to see. With silent shame, she recalled the countless times over the past few months she had dismissed the farm as old, backward and unforgivably dull. She could vividly remember strolling along the Seine’s Left Bank with her chic metropolitan friends, mocking the farm with its run-down hen coops and muddy streams. How they had all laughed at the ridiculously out-of-touch farmers and their tiny cottages. But now? Now Georgia would have given anything to see that tumbledown house standing proudly in its yard, the chickens pecking and scratching in the dirt. She wanted to be able to look out of the kitchen window at the distant copse, or lie on her creaky four-poster bed and listen to the sound of the pipes groaning as the old iron bath filled next door. But as they turned into the lane, she knew that she would never do any of those things again. The farm had gone. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

The fire hadn’t just charred the beams and left smoke marks up the chimney; it had completely consumed the house. The brick walls were still standing, but where the shuttered windows and the cheery yellow door had been were gaping holes, like pulled teeth, while the roof was nothing but blackened rafters twisted and cracked by the heat, poking up into the sky like a witch’s fingers.

They climbed out of the car in a trance. ‘It’s gone,’ whispered Estella. ‘It’s all gone.’

‘We can save some of it,’ said Arthur. ‘Them walls is still . . .’ He trailed off.

‘No, Arthur,’ said Estella, shaking her head. ‘Look at it. Everything’s gone.’

A squat woman with a tear-stained face ran over and embraced Arthur. Marjorie Hands looked terrible, white and exhausted, and she seemed to disappear as Arthur put his arms around her.

‘Marjorie,’ said Estella sternly. ‘Have you slept at all?’

The woman shook her head.

‘Then we must find you a bed as a matter of urgency.’

Georgia looked at her mother with surprise. This was a woman who could have a meltdown if she couldn’t find her favourite painting smock, but now, in the midst of all this chaos, she seemed to be rising to the challenge.

‘We were going to go and stay with my sister,’ said Arthur.

‘The sister who lives in Minehead? Heavens, Arthur, that’s two hours’ drive from here. No, you must stay at the Feathers.’

Arthur looked awkward.

‘Actually, I’ve already spoken to Phil at the bar, arranged for you and Miss Georgia to stay there.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Estella firmly. ‘There is only one room at the Feathers; you must take it.’

‘Mum . . .’ said Georgia.

‘No, darling, Marjorie’s need is greater than ours. I’m sure we can make do here. Please, Arthur, be so good as to take her there straight away.’

Georgia watched longingly as the couple silently got into the car and turned back on to the road. There was still a fire engine parked some distance away from the main building, and a cluster of firemen standing by the barn. She pulled her mother to one side, out of earshot of the men.

‘Mum, how are we supposed to “make do” here?’ she said urgently. ‘Look at it, there’s nothing left.’

‘There’s the potting shed, that’s still standing,’ said Estella. ‘And I believe it’s well stocked with horse blankets.’

‘We can’t sleep in the potting shed,’ said Georgia, wide-eyed. Was her mother serious?

‘Well, we’re going to have to start lowering our expectations now, Georgia,’ said Estella.

‘The Feathers is hardly the Ritz.’

‘Now don’t be uncharitable. We are responsible for the Handses, don’t forget. Besides, we are younger and more robust than them. We will be fine.’

She might have been younger than Arthur Hands, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone more delicate or highly strung than Estella Hamilton. The fact that she was seriously contemplating sleeping under horse blankets made Georgia look more closely at her mother. Perhaps the shock had been too much for her. She was about to say something more when a tall man in uniform approached. ‘Mrs Hamilton? I’m Geoffrey Marks, the chief fire officer. I’m sorry to meet under these circumstances.’

Estella offered a dainty hand.

‘Not at all, Mr Marks, it’s kind of you to be here. What can you tell us?’

‘The buildings are too precarious to examine at the moment,’ he said, looking across at the still-smoking ruins. ‘So I could only hazard a guess as to the cause. But I can say the fire seemed to begin over there.’ He pointed towards the studio – or rather, what little was left of it: a chimney breast and a pile of black timber. ‘It then spread to the main farmhouse and across to the annexe where I believe Mr and Mrs Hands live. They were very lucky, I have to say. By the time they woke up, the heat must have been fierce.’

He took them around the farm, taking care not to get too close, and it was only then that Georgia could see the true extent of the destruction. There was literally nothing left. Paintings, carpets, curtains, even that creaky four-poster bed, all reduced to ashes.

‘When I go back to the station, I’ll make a few calls,’ said Mr Marks. ‘I’m sure we can find you temporary digs. You can stay with me and my family if needs be.’

Georgia almost smiled at that. She was sure that no one she knew in London, even with their huge houses, would have offered to personally put them up.
And to think I was mocking the country
, she thought, her face flushing.

They stood there alone and watched as the fire engine turned back into the lane and disappeared.

‘Oh Georgia,’ whispered Estella.

Georgia held her mother as she sobbed into her shoulder. It was as if she had been holding herself together while other people were there – that British stiff upper lip – but now that they were alone, all her anguish, all her heartbreak was pouring out.

‘Come on, it’s not that bad,’ said Georgia uncertainly. ‘Look, there are still walls. We can rebuild it.’

‘What with?’ asked her mother. ‘How will we pay for it? There was no insurance. And everything we owned was inside those buildings.’

Her voice was trembling now, her earlier stoicism replaced by open distress, her body shaking.

‘Then we will do it ourselves.’

‘How? I don’t even possess a paintbrush any more.’

‘I have my savings from the coffee shop,’ said Georgia. ‘Almost forty pounds.’

‘That’s sweet, darling. But how far do you think that is going to get us? Will it pay to rebuild the farm? Will it pay for a new apartment when Peter’s friend returns from Cairo in the autumn and wants his place back? The war widow’s pension isn’t very much, believe me. I just don’t see how we’re going to get by.’

‘We will,’ said Georgia firmly, squeezing her mother’s slim shoulders. ‘And remember, we’ve got each other, that’s the most important thing.’

‘I suppose,’ said Estella, but she didn’t sound convinced.

‘Besides,’ said Georgia, determined to look on the bright side, ‘we didn’t lose everything in the fire. We have all our things in London. And you still have those paintings you did for the exhibition last Christmas.’

‘You mean the paintings that didn’t sell.’

Estella looked towards the black pile of the farm.

‘There’s nothing left of him,’ she said in a whisper.

Georgia knew what she was talking about. Him: her father. Everything they had owned of James Hamilton had been stored in three large trunks and scattered around the house here and there: photographs, mementoes, letters, clothes, all the things that could not be replaced even if they had bucketloads of money. Every last scrap of paper, every last hint of him had gone in the fire. It was as if he had been wiped from history.

Georgia hugged her mother again. There was nothing else she could say. Finally she stepped back and took a deep breath.

‘Right, I’m going for a walk.’

‘Where to?’ frowned Estella.

‘There are three pubs and a guest house between here and Dartmouth. One of them is bound to have vacancies. I’m not convinced the potting shed will be very comfortable.’

‘Darling, it’s almost four o’clock. It will be getting dark by the time you’ve walked to Dartmouth and back.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, swinging her bag over her hip. ‘Why don’t you stroll down to the Feathers and check on the Handses? Perhaps Arthur has some ideas about rebuilding the farm.’

Georgia felt better as she tramped across the meadow. She felt less helpless now she had a purpose, plus she needed to get away from that horrible burnt-out shell and everything it represented. In front of her were fields and a glimmer of the sea. Behind her was a life she couldn’t go back to even if she wanted to.

She breathed in the warm air, smelling the cut grass and the meadow flowers, the constant buzz of bees everywhere.

If only we could just build a cosy nest out of nothing, like the bees do
, she thought.

As she walked, her mind drifted to her friend Flip, the only girl from school she had invited home during the holidays. Flip was a quiet girl, but she had a big heart, unlike many of the catty pupils at Sacred Hearts Convent School. Georgia had been aware that Flip was rather nervy at school – so obsessed with cleanliness she had to wipe down the loo seats with surgical spirit. She had worried that her friend would despair at the tip they lived in – Estella had never been particularly concerned with tidiness or indeed any sort of order. But Flip had thrived during her week with the Hamiltons. The girls had gone walking in the Dart Valley, shrimping along the beaches of Blackpool Sands, getting scrapes on their knees, sand in their shoes and dirt under their fingernails. Estella had declared that they looked like little wild girls, with twigs in their hair, and Flip had told Georgia that Moonraker Farm was her idea of paradise. Perhaps she was right. The South Hams looked particularly glorious today. The fields were a patchwork of colours – from the palest yellow to the deepest and most luscious green. To her left was a field of corn with tall yellow flowers punctuated by a rash of scarlet poppies, and every now and then she would get a flash of the distant sea, glinting in the sun.