The Empty House

  Carrying the armful of clothes, she went downstairs and washed them in the tiny sink. When she took these outside to peg them crookedly on to the knotted clothes-line, she found only Nicholas, alone, playing with his red tractor and a few pebbles and bits of grass. He wore his new navy-blue Guernsey and was already scarlet in the face with heat, but Virginia knew better than to suggest that it might be a good idea if he took the sweater off.

  “What are you playing?”

  “Nothing much…”

  “Is the grass straw?”

  “Sort of.”

  Virginia pegged out the last pair of pants. “Where’s Cara?”

  “She’s inside.”

  “Reading, I expect,” said Virginia and went in to find her. But Cara was not reading; she was in the Tower Room, sitting by the window staring sightlessly out across the fields to the sea. When Virginia appeared at the door, she turned her head slowly, bemused, unrecognizing.

  “Cara…”

  Her eyes behind the spectacles came into focus. She smiled. “Hallo. Is it time to go…?”

  “I’m ready when you are.” She sat beside Cara. “What are you doing? Thinking, or looking at the view.”

  “Both, really.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “I was really wondering how long we were going to stay here…”

  “Oh—I suppose about a month. I’ve taken it for a month.”

  “But we’ll have to go back to Scotland, won’t we? We’ll have to go back to Kirkton.”

  “Yes, we’ll have to go back. There’s your school for one thing.” She waited. “Don’t you want to go?”

  “Isn’t Nanny coming with us?”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “It’ll be funny, won’t it, Kirkton, without Daddy or Nanny? It’s so big for just the three of us. I think that’s why I like this house. It’s just the right size.”

  “I thought perhaps you wouldn’t like it.”

  “I love it. And I love this room. I’ve never seen a room like it, with the stairs going down in the middle of the floor and all the windows and the sky.” She was obviously not bothered by spooky sensations. “Why isn’t there any furniture, though?”

  “I think it was built as a study, a workroom. There was a man who lived here, about fifty years ago. He wrote books and he was very famous.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose he had a beard, and perhaps he was rather untidy and forgot to do up his sock suspenders, and buttoned his suit all wrong. Writers are often very absentminded.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Aubrey Crane.”

  “I’m sure he was nice,” said Cara, “to have made such a pretty room. You can just sit and see everything that happens.”

  “Yes,” said Virginia, and together they gazed out at the patchwork fields, where peaceful cows grazed, and the grass was emerald green after the rain, and stone walls and leaning gate posts were tangled with brambles which, in just a month or two, would be sweet and heavy with black fruit. Away to the west a tractor hummed. She turned her head, pressing her forehead against the window and saw the patch of scarlet, bright as a pillar-box, and the man sitting up behind the wheel, wearing a shirt as blue as the sky.

  “Who’s that?” asked Cara.

  “That’s Eustace Philips.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yes. He farms Penfolda.”

  “Are these all his fields?”

  “I expect so.”

  “When did you know him?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “I expect he’ll come for a drink or something.”

  Virginia smiled. “Yes, perhaps he will. Now come and comb your hair and get ready. We’re going to see Alice Lingard.”

  “Shall I put in my bathing things? Can we swim in her pool?”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I wish we had a swimming pool.”

  “What, here? There wouldn’t be room in the garden.”

  “No, not here. At Kirkton.”

  “Well, we could,” said Virginia, without thinking. “If you really wanted one. But do let’s go, otherwise it’ll be lunchtime, and we shall have done nothing but sit here and talk.”

  But when they got to Wheal House, they found only Mrs. Jilkes at home. Virginia had rung the bell but only as a formality, immediately opening the door and stepping into the hall with the children at her heels. She waited for the dog to start barking, for Alice’s voice to say “Who is it” and Alice to appear through the drawing-room door. But she was met only by silence, broken by the slow ticking of the grandfather clock which stood by the fireplace.

  “Alice?”

  Somewhere a door opened and shut. And then Mrs. Jilkes came up the kitchen passage, like a ship in full sail with her starched white apron. “Who is it?” She sounded quite cross until she saw Virginia standing there with the children beside her.

  Then she smiled. “Oh, Mrs. Keile, you did surprise me, I couldn’t think who you were, standing there. And these are your children. My, aren’t they lovely? Aren’t you lovely?” she inquired conversationally of Cara, who had never been asked such a question before. She wondered if she would say “no” because she knew that she wasn’t lovely, but she was too shy to say anything. She simply stared at Mrs. Jilkes.

  “Cara, isn’t it? And Nicholas. Brought your swimming things, too, I can see. Going to go and have a dip in the pond?” She turned back to Virginia. “Mrs. Lingard’s not here.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Been away she has, ever since you went. Mr. Lingard had to go to some big dinner in London, so Mrs. Lingard suddenly decided she’d go too. Said she hadn’t been up for a bit. She’ll be home this evening, though.”

  Virginia worked this out. “You mean, she’s been away since Thursday?”

  “Thursday afternoon she went.”

  “But … Bosithick … A fire had been lighted when we got there, and it was all clean and there were eggs and milk waiting for us … I thought it was Mrs. Lingard.”

  Mrs. Jilkes looked coy.

  “No. But I’ll tell you who it was, though.”

  “Who was it?”

  “It was Eustace Philips.”

  “Eustace?”

  “Well, don’t sound so shocked, it’s not as though he’s done anything wrong.”

  “But how do you know it was Eustace?”

  “Because he telephoned me,” Mrs. Jilkes said, importantly. “Least, he telephoned Mrs. Lingard, but her being in London I spoke to him instead. And he said was anybody doing anything about you coming back to Bosithick with those children, and I said I didn’t know, and told him Mrs. Lingard was away, and he said, ‘Well, never mind, I’ll look after it,’ and that was it. Make a good job, did he?”

  “You mean he came in and did all that house-cleaning?”

  “Oh no. Eustace wouldn’t know one end of a duster from the other. That would have been Mrs. Thomas. She’d scrub the flags off the floor if you’d give her half a chance.”

  Cara put her hand into Virginia’s. “Is that the man on the tractor we saw this morning?”

  “Yes,” said Virginia, distracted.

  “But won’t he think we’re terribly rude? We haven’t said thank you.”

  “No, I know. We’ll have to go this afternoon. When we get back, we’ll go down to Penfolda and explain.”

  Nicholas was furious. “But you said I could dig on the beach with my bucket and spade!”

  Mrs. Jilkes knew a rebellious voice when she heard one. She stooped towards Nicholas, hands on her knees, her face close to his, her voice seductive.

  “Why don’t you go and have a lovely swim? And when you come out you and your Mummy and your sister can come and eat shepherd’s pie, in the kitchen with Mrs. Jilkes…”

  “Oh, but Mrs. Jilkes…”

  “N
o.” Mrs. Jilkes shook her head at Virginia’s interruption. “It’s no trouble. All waiting to be eaten it is. And I was just beginning to think that the house was somehow empty, and me rattling around in it like a pea in a drum.” She beamed at Cara. “You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you, my lovely?”

  She was so kind that Cara’s icy shyness thawed. She said, “Yes, please.”

  That warm Sunday afternoon they walked across the fields to Penfolda, across the stubble fields where, only a week ago, Virginia had watched the harvesters at work; across the grassy meadows, going from field to field by stiles made of granite steps laid across the open ditches. As they approached the farm, they saw the dutch barns, the gates, the concrete cattle court, the milking parlours. Cautiously opening and shutting the gates behind them they crossed the court and came out in the old cobbled farmyard. There was the sound of scrubbing, wet bristles on stone, and Virginia went to an open door of what looked like stables, with loose boxes, and found a man, who was not Eustace, cleaning the place out. He wore a faded navy-blue beret on the back of his curly grey head, and old-fashioned dungarees with braces.

  He saw her and stopped sweeping. Virginia said, “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Mr. Philips…”

  “’E’s around somewhere … up at the back of the house…”

  “We’ll see if we can find him.”

  They went through a gate, and along a path that led between the farmhouse and the tangled little garden where she and Eustace had shared the pasty. A tabby cat sat on the doorstep in a warm patch of sun. Cara squatted to pet it and Virginia knocked on the door. There were footsteps and the door opened, and a little round woman stood there, cosy as an arm-chair, upholstered in a black dress and loose-covered with a print apron. From behind her, from the kitchen, came a good smell, the memory of a hearty Sunday dinner.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Virginia Keile … from Bosithick…”

  “Oh yes…”

  A smile creased the rosy face, pushing up her cheeks into two little bunches.

  “You must be Mrs. Thomas.”

  “That’s right … and these your children, are they?”

  “Yes. Cara and Nicholas. We feel so bad because we never came down to thank you. For cleaning the house I mean, and leaving the eggs and the milk and the firewood and everything.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t me. I just cleaned the place up a bit, opened a few windows. It was Eustace who got the logs there, took up a load on the back of the tractor … left the milk and the eggs at the same time. We thought you wouldn’t have had time to do much before you went to London … dismal it is coming home to a dirty house; couldn’t let you do that.”

  “We’d have come before, but we thought it was Mrs. Lingard…”

  “Want to see Eustace, do you? He’s up in the vegetable garden at the back, digging me a bucket of potatoes.” She smiled down at Cara. “Do you like the little pussy cat?”

  “Yes, she’s sweet.”

  “She’s got kittens in the barn. Do you want to go and see them?”

  “Will she mind?”

  “She won’t mind. Come along, Mrs. Thomas will show you where to find them.”

  She made for the barn, with the children at her heels; not a backward glance did they spare for their mother, so intent were they on seeing the kittens. Left alone, Virginia went up on the garden path, through a wicket gate, arched in ivy. Eustace’s blue shirt could be glimpsed beyond the pea-vines, and she made her way towards this and found him forking up a drill of potatoes. Round and white and smooth as sea pebbles, they were, caked in earth the same colour and consistency as rich, dark chocolate cake.

  “Eustace.”

  He looked over his shoulder and saw her. She waited for him to smile, but he did not. She wondered if he had taken offence. He straightened up, leaning on the handle of the spade.

  “Hallo,” he said, as though it were a surprise to see her there.

  “I’ve come to say thank you. And I’m sorry.”

  He shifted the spade from one hand to another. “What have you got to be sorry for?”

  “I didn’t realize it was you who’d brought the wood and lit the fire and everything. I thought it was Alice Lingard. That’s why we haven’t been down before.”

  “Oh, that,” said Eustace and she wondered if there was something else she should be sorry about.

  “It was terribly kind. The milk and the eggs and everything. It just made all the difference.” She stopped, terrified of sounding insincere. “But how did you get into the house?”

  Eustace drove the prongs of the fork into the ground, and started towards her. “There’s a key here. When my mother was first married, she used to go over sometimes, do a bit of work for old Mr. Crane. His wife was ailing, my mother used to clean the place up. He gave her a key to hang on the dresser and it’s been there ever since.”

  He reached her side, and stood, looking down at her, then he suddenly smiled, his blue eyes crinkled with amusement and she knew that her fears were unjustified, and that he bore no grudge. He said, “So you decided to take the house after all.”

  Ruefully, Virginia said, “Yes.”

  “I felt badly, saying those things, and you so upset about everything. I lost my temper, but I shouldn’t have.”

  “You were right. It was all I needed to make me make up my own mind.”

  “That’s why I brought up the logs and stuff … I thought it was the least I could do. You’ll be wanting more milk…”

  “Could you let us have it every day?”

  “If someone comes and fetches it.”

  “I could, or one of the children. I hadn’t realized, but over the fields and the stiles it’s no distance at all.”

  They had begun to walk back towards the gate.

  “Are your children here?”

  “They’ve gone with Mrs. Thomas to see some kittens.”

  Eustace laughed. “They’ll fall in love with them, so be warned. That little tabby got caught by a Siamese up the road, and you’ve never seen such pretty kittens.” He opened the gate for Virginia to go through. “Blue eyes they’ve got and…”

  He stopped, watching over her head as Cara and Nicholas came, slowly, carefully, out of the barn, their cupped hands held cradled to their chests, their heads bent in adoration. “What did I tell you?” said Eustace and shut the gate behind them.

  The children came up the slope of the lawn, ankle deep, knee deep, in plantains and great white daisies. And all at once Virginia saw them with fresh eyes, with Eustace’s eyes, as though she were seeing them for the first time. The fair head and the dark, the blue eyes and the brown. And the sun blinked on to Cara’s spectacles so that they flashed like the headlights of a little car, and their new jeans, bought too big, slipped down over their hips and Nicholas’s shirt-tail hung out over his firm, round little bottom.

  A love-like pain caught at Virginia’s throat, unshed tears prickled at the back of her eyes. They were so defenceless, so vulnerable, and for some reason it mattered so much that they should make a good impression on Eustace.

  Nicholas caught sight of her. “Look what we’ve got, Mummy; Mrs. Thomas said that we could bring them out.”

  “Yes,” said Cara, “and they’re tiny and they’ve got their eyes…” She saw Eustace, behind her mother, and stopped dead, where she was standing, her face closed up, her eyes watching him from behind her glasses.

  But Nicholas came on … “Look, Mummy you’ve got to look. It’s all furry and it’s got tiny claws. But I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl. Mrs. Thomas says she can’t tell.” He looked up and saw Eustace and smiled engagingly into his face. “They’ve stopped sucking their mother, Mrs. Thomas says, she was getting too thin, and she’s put a little saucer of milk out for them, and they lap and their tongues are tiny,” he told Eustace.

  Eustace put out a long brown finger and scratched the top of the kitten’s head. Virginia said, “Nicholas, this is Mr. Philips, you’re meant to say how do yo
u do.”

  “How do you do. Mrs. Thomas said that if we wanted one we could have one but we had to ask you, but you wouldn’t mind, would you, Mummy? It’s so little and it could sleep on my bed and I’d look after it.”

  Virginia found herself coming out with all the classic arguments produced by the parents of children, in the same situation as herself. Too young to be taken from its mother yet. Still needs her to keep him warm. Only at Bosithick for the holidays, and think how he’d hate the train journey back to Scotland.

  Eustace had put down the bucket of potatoes and now went over to where Cara stood, clutching her kitten. Virginia, in agony for her, saw Eustace squat to Cara’s height, loosen her fingers gently with his own. “You don’t want to hold him too tight, otherwise he won’t be able to breathe.”

  “I’m frightened of dropping him.”

  “You won’t drop him. He wants to look out and see what’s happening in the world. He’s never seen sun as bright as that.” He smiled at the kitten, at Cara. After a little, slowly, she smiled back, and you forgot the ugly spectacles and the bumpy forehead and the straight hair, and saw only the marvellous sweetness of her expression.

  After a little he sent them to put the kittens back, and, telling Virginia to stay outside in the sunshine, went into the house with the potatoes for Mrs. Thomas, only to emerge a moment or so later with a packet of cigarettes and a bar of chocolate. They lay where they had lain before, in the long grass, and were joined there by the children.

  He gave them the chocolate but talked to them like adults. What have you been doing? What did you do yesterday in all that rain? Have you been swimming yet?

  They told him, voices chiming against each other, Cara, her shyness over, as eager to impart information as Nicholas.

  “We bought raincoats, and we got drenched. And Mummy had to go to the bank to get more money, and Nicholas got a bucket and spade.”

  “But I haven’t been to the beach to dig yet!”

  “And we swam this morning at Mrs. Lingard’s. We swam in her pool. But we haven’t swum in the sea yet.”