He ran to the front door and dragged it open.
‘Dad! Love, are you all right? We’ve been phoning you all day. What’s the matter?’
Mary. His Mary, solid and handsome in her old green coat and a black fur hood, looking at him with anxious love. Behind her stood Yasuhiro, and beyond him Wilfred saw a car drawn up to the gate, with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel.
‘I’m all right – had a bit of a shock, that’s all,’ he said weakly, letting himself be kissed and shaken hands with. ‘They, Mr Taverner and Miss Dollette, they’ve gone . . . and Mrs Cornforth . . . worse, I’m afraid––’ he broke off.
‘Well! I liked them all right, but I always did think there was something a bit funny about them,’ said Mary. ‘Only they didn’t seem the sort that can’t pay the rent, did they––’
‘So are we going, Mr Davis?’ Yasuhiro struck in authoritatively. ‘To Japan? My great-grandfather,’ his face and voice lost all expression, ‘is dying, and wishes to see me before he joins the ancestors. They telephoned to me this morning at Rowena Road. Much to arrange, you know. Embassy book places for us on the plane. You will come with us of course too, won’t you?’
‘Now come on, love. No argy-bargy,’ said Mary, with precisely her mother’s tone. ‘You haven’t the ghost of an excuse now . . . What’s funny?’ staring. ‘I say, are you all right, Dad?’
‘Nothing – it’s nothing. Just the shock. Mrs Cornforth, too . . . dreadful. But my things . . .’
‘Where’ve you been, all day? We started phoning you almost as soon as Yasu got the news – that was about ten this morning. He came into the shop and whipped me off as if I were being hijacked. Here, you come upstairs with me.’
‘Must hurry, Mary,’ warned Yasuhiro.
She gave him a significant glance over her father’s shoulder, and, slipping her arm into Wilfred’s, began to lead him across the hall to the stairs.
He let himself be led. Following on that evening’s shocks, the comfort of leaning on these two young, strong, confident creatures was inexpressible; and he made no attempt to assert himself beyond muttering that of course he would go with them to Japan, and he was sorry to hear about the old gentleman’s illness, and . . .
‘H’m.’ Mary surveyed his stacked possessions. ‘Better phone Help the Aged in the morning. Didn’t Mum have some buddy who worked there? But we’ll take your clothes.’ She opened the cupboard and began piling them over her arm.
‘Yes, Shirley Bates. – Mary, don’t phone her – we’ll never hear the end of all this . . . and there’s poor Mrs Cornforth, too––’
He broke off. Truly, and if he stopped to think, Katherine was not poor at all.
‘All right, love. Whatever is up? But never mind now, you can tell me in the car. All right, then. Oxfam, not Help the Aged. You don’t want any of this old junk – any of this, do you? Here, I’ll take Mum’s photo.’
He shook his head, numbly looking his last on small objects he had loved for fifty years.
‘OK, then. Let’s go . . . here, don’t fall out! What’s so interesting out there?’ as he opened the window and leant out into the still, misty night.
He drew back into the room, seeing in his mind’s eye the Tor moving sluggishly six feet below, white cartons and scraps of newspaper glimmering unwholesomely in its defiled current.
Even that had gone. Even that.
Down the stairs, following Mary, for the last time. Across the hall where Kichijoten had presided. Lights switched out by Yasuhiro. The door shut. Shut on the Yellow House. For the last time.
He looked back, once; at the serene little columns on either side of the porch, the calm facade set with the dark eyes of windows. It was empty, now, the Yellow House, and he was going to Japan with his daughter and . . . his son. The car moved off, the chauffeur guiding it carefully over the uneven road.
‘We’re going to a hotel,’ Yasuhiro announced. ‘You must eat a good meal, Mr Davis, with wine. All this is a sudden shock for a man sitting in the shade.’
He smiled; his social smile, and Wilfred’s heart sank.
‘Imagine, Dad! Mrs Levy kept me for ten minutes this morning, with Yasu having fits in the car, while she tried to fix up some scheme for me sending over Japanese souvenirs that she could sell at cut price! Can you beat it?’
‘The mind of a peasant. They think only of the profits. Unfortunate situation for them, really,’ Yasuhiro said tolerantly.
‘Mrs Cadman sent you her kindest wishes and so did old Grant. You warm enough, love? Have a bit of blanket,’ and she leant forward to arrange a rug, with gentle care, over his knees.
He murmured something, unable for the moment to speak. He had not felt so loved, so taken care of, since his small hand had rested in the big warm one of his father, sixty years ago, on one of their rambles over the low hills visible from the cottage windows. Never see them again. A deep sadness swept over him.
Something made him glance up, and he met the gaze of Yasuhiro’s dark eyes. Slowly the beautiful haughty face softened, and warmed into a smile.
‘Yes,’ said Yasuhiro, ‘we must take good care of our father,’ and in his turn he leant forward and rearranged the rug. More symmetrically, Wilfred noticed. He also noticed that the rearrangement allowed a slight but noticeable draught to play about his knees, and felt a sudden instinct to laugh, and thought It mayn’t be so bad, after all.
He glanced out at the little streets of Torford going past, seeing them for the last time.
What a day it had been – what an evening – what a year . . . and now, at the end . . . what was the good of it all, all the mysterious happenings at the Yellow House? What was it all for?
‘Even the grass –’ It was Mr Taverner’s voice, coming to him inwardly and clearly above the low, luxurious humming of the car’s engine – ‘even the grass shall be saved.’
In the autumn of the following year, the wheatlands in that region of France called La Beauce lay reaping-ripe under the sun. A car could drive for a day without losing sight of their dark gold vastness, with the wind rippling over the miles of heavy, drooping heads – ‘the Corn-Rabbit walking’, as the mothers of the Old Europe used to say to their children.
Wheat and barley, rye and oats, and the great sky; the great sky, and wheat and oats, barley and rye . . . And the dry silky rustling that is the voice of the corn godlings talking.
On the outskirts of one of the small villages in the heart of this region, workmen were employed on a sunlit morning in covering the walls of an ancient, solidly built house with a wash of whitish-gold, as if the colour of the ripe wheat had been mixed with that of fresh milk.
The new owner leant leisurely on a gate, watching: a tall, lanky man, wearing a white raincoat.
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First published in Great Britain by Vintage Classics in 2016
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ISBN 9781784870287
Stella Gibbons, The Yellow Houses
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