Autumn Softly Fell (15 page)

Dorothea very much wondered where her uncle’s newfound interest in motors would take him.

‘Miss Dorothea!’

‘Ready, Nora! On my way!’

It was Nora’s half day. She was off home. And – such excitement, such a treat! – Dorothea was to go with her, to take tea at the Turners’!

‘Dad and Billy will be at work, of course,’ said Nora, taking Dorothea’s hand as they walked down the long drive, leaving the motor enthusiasts to their own devices. ‘And our Daisy will likely be out in the fields helping to look after the youngsters. So it will be just you and me and Mother.’

But it did not turn out that way. When they reached the little cottage in Back Lane, old Noah Lee was there too, sitting at the gate-leg table with his white whiskers and beady eyes.

‘Hello, Grandpa! This is a surprise! What are you doing here?’

‘Come to see your mother, of course. Is there a law against it?’

Nora laughed. ‘Come to inspect our guest, more like.’

‘And why not? ’Tis not often someone from the big house comes calling.’

Dorothea was not at all sure that she wanted to be inspected by Noah Lee but she was determined that nothing would spoil her
afternoon
. The Turners’ cottage was clean and tidy but rather small – small, that is, when compared to what Noah Lee called
the big house.
Next to the crowded rooms in the courts off Stepnall Street, the cottage was the lap of luxury. The gate-leg table was set by the front window. Geraniums grew in a pot on the sill. There were Windsor chairs either side of the hearth and a wooden staircase leading to the upper rooms. There were two rooms upstairs, Dorothea knew – one for Mr and Mrs Turner, and one that Nora shared with her little sister Daisy. Nora’s brother Billy mostly slept up at the big house, above the stables where he worked. ‘I could have had a bed at Clifton, too, miss. I think Mrs Bourne would prefer it, to keep an eye on me. But I knew I’d miss home too much. Our Billy doesn’t bother about things like that, he’s a boy. Not that he isn’t always in and out at home, and he still gives his wages to Mother.’

The back door of the cottage was open, giving a glimpse of the garden bathed in sunshine and of Seed Meadow beyond. It had been dark and terrifying on the night of the fire, now it was entirely green and peaceful.

Mrs Turner was all smiles, a plump woman with rosy cheeks and a clean apron. ‘Now sit yourself down, miss. Tea will be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I’m so glad you’ve come,’ she continued, taking Dorothea’s hat, nudging a stool towards her with her knee, setting the kettle to boil, laying the table. ‘We wanted the chance to thank you for all you did on the night of the Great Fire.’

‘It was her uncle who did all the work,’ Noah Lee put in. ‘I’ve never had much to do with Master Brannan afore. He’s not from round these parts. But I speak as I find, and he stopped to help when he could easily have passed on by. That’s what I call neighbourly. That’s what I call being a good Samaritan. There’s others I could mention who wouldn’t so much as give you the drippings off their nose.’

‘It wasn’t all Mr Brannan,’ said Mrs Turner, placing bowls of lettuce and radishes on the table, and a jar of homemade raspberry jam. ‘Heaven knows what would have happened to our Jem’s Pippa if Miss Dorothea hadn’t been there! But all’s well that ends well, and the baby’s thriving now. They’re going to call him Richard, miss, as you suggested. They liked the name. But I’m sure Nora’s told you. You’ll be coming to the christening, too, I hope, miss?’

‘I shall call the lad Dick, like Dick Turpin,’ said Noah Lee, reaching for some bread and butter. ‘My second great-grandson, he is. And I’ve three grandsons. But I never had a son of my own. Two daughters, I had, but no sons. Famous beauties they were, my daughters – though you wouldn’t think it to look on her now.’

Mrs Turner laughed as she poured tea. ‘I’ve no need of beauty at my time of life! Now, miss, here’s your tea. And have some lettuce and a radish or two. It’s all from our own garden.’

‘Moll here is my younger daughter,’ Noah Lee continued, biting into his bread. ‘Meg was the elder. She’s at peace now, God rest her. She married a Cardwell. Used to be a lot of Cardwells in the village at one time. Bred like rabbits, they did.’

‘Grandpa, really! That’s no way to talk in front of Miss Dorothea!’

‘Get on with you. The girl’s not stupid. Not stupid, are you? No. No. I thought not.’ Noah Lee turned his back on Nora, addressed Dorothea. ‘Now I never did take to them Cardwells. Thought
themselves
a cut above, they did. But they weren’t, most of ’em. And they’s all but extinct now. There’s just my Meg’s widower – he’s the shopkeeper, if you know who I mean – and his son David: my grandson, that is to say. There’s a few of the womenfolk left. The blacksmith’s wife, she’s a Cardwell, and the mistress at the Barley Mow, and them two old maids at the Post Office. And then there’s that girl what lives with ’em. Mercy Bates, they call her. Came by the light of the moon, so they say but she’s a Cardwell or I’m a Dutchman. Her father was Ted Cardwell, like as not. A black sheep, was Ted Cardwell. Went off to Broadstone, if you can believe it, went and lived in Broadstone.’

He spoke of Broadstone as if it was the ends of the earth, but Dorothea remembered talk of cycling there one day so it couldn’t be that far. Roderick, in fact, claimed to have cycled there already on more than one occasion but what Roderick hadn’t done wasn’t worth knowing about.

‘Now this Ted Cardwell,’ said Noah Lee, tapping the table to get her attention. ‘There’s some right old stories I could tell you about him – things that would make you hair curl!’

‘That’s enough, Dad!’ Mrs Turner interrupted. ‘You’ll talk poor Miss Dorothea to death. And why should she be interested in the Cardwells? She don’t know them from Adam. Well, now, miss, will you have another cup of tea? And how about some more bread and jam?’

But Noah Lee wasn’t to be silenced so easily, even if he did steer clear of Ted Cardwell. Dorothea didn’t really mind. She liked hearing about the village and its inhabitants, although she soon got lost amongst all the different names. After a time, however, Noah Lee turned his attention to ‘the goings-on up at the big house’. He hadn’t been up there for a good while, he said, not since the days of that ‘old villain’ Mr Rycroft. Could this
old villain
, Dorothea
wondered, really be the same Mr Rycroft that Becket had told her about, the one who had been Aunt Eloise’s father and had kept the gardens spic and span?
A proper gentleman
, Becket had called him, but he’d been by way of a tyrant, according to Noah Lee, putting the rents up, persecuting the poachers, ‘and carrying on like he owned the place’.

‘That’s because he did own the place,’ Mrs Turner put in. ‘Or most of it, leastways.’

‘Stole it, you mean. And what about that there common land? Belonged to everybody, that did, but he just took it and cut it up into fields.’

‘Get away with you, Dad! That weren’t old Mr Rycroft! That happened long since!’

Noah Lee cast a sour look at his daughter. He obviously did not care to be contradicted. But Mrs Turner seemed immune to his ire, gathering up the plates and bowls, singing under her breath.

‘You don’t say much, do you?’ Noah Lee poked Dorothea’s arm. ‘What’s
your
news, then? What have you got to tell us? What about that boy up there at the big house, the cripple? Is he living still? They say he’s the heir and all that, but I heard as he’s kept locked up in the attic.’

Nora scoffed. ‘Where do you get such ideas, Grandpa? Master Richard isn’t locked up anywhere. You ask Miss Dorothea if you don’t believe me!’

All too soon it was time to go. Dorothea thanked Mrs Turner for having her, and Mrs Turner said she was most welcome and must come again any time.

‘Don’t take no notice of Grandpa,’ Nora said, as she led the way down the garden path and into the street. ‘He likes the sound of his own voice, that’s all. And he thinks he knows everything – as I’m sure you worked out for yourself.’

But Dorothea was, in a way, rather taken with Noah Lee, although she was still a little afraid of him. He treated her as if she was just anyone, made no allowances either for her age or because she came from the big house. She liked that.

Nora was pointing across the street. ‘Look, miss, that cottage
there is where the Carters are living now. They were lucky it was empty – though, of course, they wouldn’t have been able to afford it before. It’s all thanks to Mr Brannan that they can afford it now.’

That was something else Uncle Albert had been busy with this last week. Not charity, he’d said, merely a helping hand. There was nothing wrong, he’d insisted, in helping those who wanted to help themselves. And so he had helped the Carters into their new home and taken Nibs on as gardeners’ boy (help, at long last, for Becket), and one of Nibs’s sisters was to work in the kitchens. As for Arnie Carter, the eldest brother, he had been given a position in Uncle Albert’s bicycle factory. The only drawback was that Arnie would now have to spend most of his time in Coventry. This had come as rather a bitter blow to Nora. Though she now had the Carters living opposite her, the one Carter she most wanted to see was the one least at home. Not, of course, that Nora would ever have admitted to having a soft spot for Arnie Carter.

Nora said her farewell on the Lawham Road and Dorothea walked the last lap on her own. She felt very grown-up, proud of herself too, as she turned up the driveway between the tall
evergreens
swaying in the breeze. Denizen of Clifton Park, habitué of the village, she had the whole world at her feet – all of the world that mattered, anyway.

Much was made of the ruined hat. Nibs had brought it all the way up from the village, Uncle Albert had promised a replacement, and now Henry was taking her to Lawham especially to choose the new one.

‘Such a to-do,’ said Dorothea, ‘over a hat.’

Mlle Lacroix had smiled. ‘The hat is of no consequence,
ma petite.
People wish to oblige you. Monsieur Henri wishes to oblige you. That is what is important, rather than the hat.’

Bernadette was swooping now bright and early along the Lawham Road. Gleaners were at work in the fields. The canal
glittered
like silver under the morning sun. Secret shadows nestled under the beech trees of Ingleby Wood. Watching the world swing
by, Dorothea mulled over the governess’s words and wondered why people should wish to
oblige
her. She could only think that everyone was much nicer than you might think. Roderick would pooh-pooh such an idea – but even he had
obliged
her after a fashion by making peace with Nibs. The two boys had shaken hands, albeit reluctantly. But she had brooked no argument. She had wanted it settled once and for all. It was important now that Nibs was coming to work at Clifton.

‘I will shake hands if I must,’ Roderick had said sulkily, ‘but you can’t expect
everyone
to be friends
all
the time.’

But what did he know? Precious little, she felt. She wondered what on earth they taught him at that school of his. Nothing of consequence, obviously. Nothing about the significance of hats and all that hats stood for.

Henry was his usual garrulous self this morning and was still cock-a-hoop about the recent visit to Clifton of a Mr Stanley Smith – none other than the man Uncle Albert had met on the train. Mr Smith had brought with him his design for a new type of autocar – a
light car,
Henry called it. The design had yet to get off the drawing board.

‘That’s because Mr Smith is a humbug,’ Roderick had said with a superior sneer.

‘Mr Smith is
not
a humbug! Uncle Albert would never invite a
humbug
! Why must you always think the worst of people?’

‘And why must you be so gullible?’ (
Gullible
was Roderick’s new word, brought home with him from school. By now – August – Dorothea was heartily sick of it.)

Mr Smith hadn’t
looked
like a humbug, whatever Roderick might say, but then he hadn’t looked like anything much – certainly not like a thwarted genius. With his greying hair and greying moustache, he was rather like a watered-down version of Uncle Albert himself. He had come to tea, along with Henry and Henry’s friend Mr Giles Milton (another motor enthusiast). Together with Uncle Albert, they had sat round and discussed Mr Smith’s design.

Dorothea had longed to be a fly on the wall. She had not been able to think about anything else, sitting in the day room wondering
how things were progressing downstairs. ‘Egg sandwiches, pate sandwiches,’ she had murmured. ‘Cucumber sandwiches, toast, brioches….’

Roderick had looked at her as if she was mad. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘It’s all the things that Cook has prepared for tea. I know, because I helped her. There’s chocolate cake, coffee cake, scones—’

Roderick had mocked her. ‘You oughtn’t to be so gullible as to do Cook’s job for her. Servants are there to work.’

‘Did Aunt Eloise teach you to say that?’ It was the sort of thing Dorothea imagined Aunt Eloise
would
say.

‘I
can
think for myself, you know, and I never take any notice of Mother, in any case. I am not a
mummy’s boy
like your precious Henry.’

‘Henry is not a mummy’s boy!’ She had felt like stamping her foot. Roderick was so infuriating. ‘Why must you be so
horrible
? I shall be glad when you’ve gone back to school!’

He had turned away then, hiding his face, and she’d been afraid that she’d hurt his feelings.

‘I didn’t mean it, Roddy. I’m sorry. I wish you
didn’t
have to go to school, I really do.’

But he had turned back to face her, grinning from ear to ear in the most maddening way. ‘It would take more to upset me than
you
. Your trouble is, you are just too, too
gullible
!’

Listening to Henry now talking about Mr Smith and his design as Bernadette dived under the railway bridge and then up, up, so that the distant spire of Lawham church swung into view, Dorothea could not help but wonder if Roderick was so totally wrong. Others beside him might have called Henry a
mummy’s boy
. And what if Mr Smith really was a humbug? But mummy’s boy or not, Henry was worth a dozen Rodericks and although Henry might get carried away in his enthusiasm for motor cars, Uncle Albert was not someone who would get taken in by a humbug. By all accounts, Uncle Albert had been impressed by Mr Smith’s matter-of-fact
attitude
to his work.