‘Yes. She came just a few minutes ago.’
‘Oh, you’ve got company.’ That was Miss Agatha, looking past me, as Miss Linsey had done, at the thronged kitchen. ‘There, you see, Millie, I told you it would be all right. There really was no need to fuss.’
I must have looked puzzled, because Miss Mildred hurried to explain. ‘The thing is, my dear, Bella’s been rather tiresome today, going on and on about things, you know how she does, and then she said she was coming down to see you again. Well, I thought you were on your own, and I was afraid she would upset you, even though you said it didn’t bother you, all her talk, so I thought I’d come and see.’
‘I told her you had too much sense to let Bella’s nonsense upset you,’ said Miss Agatha, ‘but she insisted, so in the end I came with her—’
‘But with all these people here—’ added Miss Mildred.
‘It was quite unnecessary after all,’ finished Miss Agatha.’
I said warmly, ‘It was sweet of you, Miss Mildred. Both of you. But everything’s fine. More than fine. Won’t you come in? There’s somebody here who’d love to see you again.’
27
It was Mrs Pascoe who saved the situation from getting completely out of hand. Pushing Davey and me in front of her, she herded us into the back kitchen.
‘Now, Kathy, I know what’s bothering you, and you needn’t worry, nobody’s going to say anything they shouldn’t in front of Mr Van Holden. Whatever you may think of those ladies, they are ladies, and it’s not likely they’ll say anything that might give Lil a red face. So that’s that. Now, where’s the wine, Davey? I knew you wouldn’t have any here, Kathy, so I brought a bottle along, to celebrate. It’s my own elderflower champagne, and this was a real good batch. If Davey’ll get it open, we can give them a glass each, and then we’ll drive them home. That’ll get rid of them with no hard feelings. I think you and Lil have about had enough.’
‘Good idea,’ said Davey, producing the bottle. ‘Okay, Mum, this should fettle them. Get the glasses, Kathy.’
‘No glasses,’ I said, rather shakily.
‘There’s some jam jars out in the toolshed. I saw them when I stole the tools.’
‘Behave yourself, Davey,’ said his mother. ‘Take no notice of him, Kathy. Come on, I’ll help you rinse the cups out.’
‘Hold up, love,’ said Davey, to me. ‘No, don’t tell me, you haven’t got a corkscrew?’
‘You wrong me, every way you wrong me, Brutus. That’s one thing I have got.’ I had kept one back for Prissy. That pleasantly civilised lunch seemed a very long time ago. I routed it out, and while Davey wrestled with the cork Mrs Pascoe and I hurriedly rinsed out the tea cups. We did not quite have to descend to jam jars, as Larry, still clutching the kitten to him, quietly materialised beside us with a couple of elegant tumblers from the picnic basket in his car. These, with my tooth glass, almost made up the quota, and Davey made do with a small, and it was to be hoped clean, jar that had once held fish paste.
I saw that my mother, abandoning hope, had gone down under a wave of delighted chatter from Witches’ Corner. If she had been afraid of some drawing aside of skirts among the Todhall neighbours she need not have worried. All parties seemed to have plenty to say, and said it at length, and all at the same time. Davey determinedly broke it up, wading in with the wine, which was received with pleasure, and then Larry, tea cup in hand and kitten on shoulder, somehow got silence, and, standing there in front of the dying fire, prepared to make a speech.
‘Well, now, ladies – and you, Dave – I am not going to make a speech. I am only going to say – Dear God!’
A fascinated pause as the kitten launched itself from his shoulder to the mantelpiece, by way of the top of the Unseen Guest. Larry, to the intense admiration of everyone present, simply reached a long arm, retrieved it, and held it to him while he went calmly on not making a speech.
‘I would like to say,’ he said, ‘how very much my wife and I appreciate the welcome we have gotten here in Todhall. We have had the most warm and loving welcome from our lovely daughter, and now from all of you here tonight. It has been a great pleasure for me to meet you all, a very great pleasure. It’s getting late, and Lilias and I will have to be going soon, but we’ll be back here, never fear, and we’ll hope to see you all when we visit again, as we certainly have plans to do. This darned cat has about sixteen claws to each foot. What are you going to do with it, Kathy?’
‘Keep it, of course.’
‘But if you’re coming with us tomorrow—’ began my mother.
‘We’ll look after it for Kathy till she comes home,’ said Mrs Pascoe. I saw Lilias glance quickly at her, then at me, but she said nothing.
‘You’ll really keep him, then?’ said Miss Linsey. ‘I’m so pleased. I do love them to get a good home. What will you call him, Kathy?’
I smiled at them all. My mother and her dear respectable gentleman; Miss Linsey, the true prophetess who had seen what I knew to be the future; the other witches, beaming kindly at me over Larry’s picnic tumblers; Mrs Pascoe, who shared my secret. And Davey. With a sudden lift of the heart, I raised my tooth glass in the toast.
‘I’ll call him George. Here’s to George!’
‘To George!’ echoed everyone, and drank their wine down. My mother was smiling mistily, looking very happy and, though I could see she was exhausted, as pretty as a picture.
Then one saw how she managed it. After one long, assessing look at her, Larry took charge. He handed the kitten over to me, then somehow, without seeming to hurry them at all, he had the three witches, taking cheerful farewells of me and the Pascoes, shepherded out of the kitchen and down the path towards the big car. My mother hung back, with a whispered word to Mrs Pascoe, then turned to say goodnight to me.
‘Till tomorrow, then, sweetie. Isn’t that wonderful? Till tomorrow.’
A few more words and a kiss, and then she went, but slowly, to stop half way down the path and look back, as if to commit the scene to memory, the dim garden, the ghost of the white lilac, the shadowy bulk of the cottage with me standing in the lighted doorway. Then she went, and the gate creaked shut behind her.
As Larry settled her in the car Mrs Pascoe said, ‘We’ll have to go too. The van’s in their way. You’ll have to back it up, Davey.’ Then to me, ‘You know that letter you gave me to post?’
‘Yes.’
‘I brought it back. It’s in my bag here. I thought, if you’re going up to Strathbeg yourself, maybe you’d rather talk to Lady Brandon when you get there? She was on the phone just before we came down, and it was to tell me that they’d had an offer for Rose Cottage.’
‘Did she?’ That was Davey. ‘Were they planning to accept it?’
‘What’s it to do with you?’ His mother was dismissive. ‘Go and shift the van, Davey. He’s got the car turned already.’
‘An offer for Rose Cottage?’ I was surprised at the force of my dismay. So short a time it seemed since my own hopeful net had been cast into the void. ‘But surely she’d never sell without telling us? Did she say if Gran knew?’
‘Yes. She approved.’
‘But who on earth would Gran approve?’
‘Me,’ said Davey.
We both turned to stare at him. His mother’s hand went to her mouth, and she said nothing. He smiled at me.
‘So you see it’s got quite a lot to do with me. I was going to ask you about it, Kathy, but I didn’t reckon on being rushed into it like this with half the village looking on and Mum rabbiting on about moving the van.’ He put out a hand and touched, not me, but the kitten, so that it purred and clung and butted its head into my neck. ‘I’ll have to go. But I’ll be down here early, before they come for you, and – maybe I can ask you then?’
‘I’ll be here,’ I said.
* * *
They had gone. Silence came back, broken only by the sound of the stream and the purring of the kitten in my arms as I walked down to the gate. The scent of Granddad?
??s roses filled the air. An owl called from among the trees in the Hall grounds. Another answered, breathily, from somewhere in Gipsy Lonnen.
Gipsy Lonnen, where it had all begun.
Well, I knew now. As much as I would ever know. As much as I wanted to know.
Take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree.
I would try. The quest, in the end, had been for myself, and I had been answered. It isn’t the roots that matter to life, it’s the flower. No more questions, no more looking back. I had found myself, and I knew where I belonged. I was part of this place, and it was part of me. It was home.
I still had the tooth glass in my hand, with a little wine left in it. I raised it towards the dim looming of the treetops at the head of Gipsy Lonnen.
‘Whoever you were, and wherever you are, may God bless you, George,’ I said.
The kitten, no doubt assuming that I meant him, purred.
Mary Stewart, one of the most popular novelists, was born in Sunderland, County Durham and lives in the West Highlands. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? was published in 1955 and marked the beginning of a long and acclaimed writing career. All her novels have been bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was made a Doctor of Literature by Durham University in 2009.
Also by Mary Stewart
Madam, Will You Talk?
Wildfire at Midnight
Thunder on the Right
Nine Coaches Waiting
My Brother Michael
The Ivy Tree
The Moonspinners
This Rough Magic
Airs Above the Ground
The Gabriel Hounds
Touch Not the Cat
Thornyhold
Stormy Petrel
THE ARTHURIAN NOVELS
The Crystal Cave
The Hollow Hills
The Last Enchantment
The Wicked Day
The Prince and the Pilgrim
POEMS
Frost on the Window
FOR CHILDREN
The Little Broomstick
Ludo and the Star Horse
A Walk in Wolf Wood
Mary Stewart, Rose Cottage
(Series: # )
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