Coming Home

  ‘Yes,’ said Judith, who didn't. ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘Least said, soonest mended, I always say.’

  ‘You are a good friend, Mrs Dagg.’

  ‘Oh, that's rubbish talk.’ Mrs Dagg was just about herself again. She picked up her cup, took a mouthful of tea and instantly screwed up her face. ‘Disgusting. Stone cold.’ She sprang to her feet and flung the contents of the cup into the sink.

  ‘Make another pot, Mrs Dagg, and I'll join you.’

  ‘Won't get my housework done at this speed.’

  Judith said, ‘Oh, damn the housework.’

  In Cornwall, the first welcome warmth of the summer had already come. The heat of the sun was tempered by a refreshing breeze that smelt of the sea, and all the countryside was dressed in the sweet, soft colours of May: the fresh green of young leaves and new grass, the creamy candles of chestnut flowers, the pink of rhododendron, the white of hawthorn, and the dusty mauve of lilac spears nodding their heads over garden walls. The sea, tranquil beneath a cloudless sky, appeared luminous, streaked with aquamarine and hyacinth-blue, and in the early mornings a haze lay upon the horizon, to be later burnt away by the warmth of the sun.

  In Penzance, the busy streets were washed with light and shadow. Judith came out of The Mitre Hotel and walked up Chapel Street and into the Greenmarket just as the bank clock chimed half past twelve. It was very warm, and she wore a cotton dress and sandals, and her legs were bare. Shop doors stood open, and awnings were out, and crates of fruit and earthy vegetables were stacked outdoors, on pavements. The fishmonger's marble slab was a sea of crushed ice, where lay, displayed, with dead eyes staring, whole cod and pilchards and shoals of glittering mackerel. The newsagent's placards were black with the morning's news — GERMANS REACH THE BELGIAN COAST — and yet, by his door, was the usual innocent, seasonal display of wooden spades and tin buckets, cotton sun-hats, shrimping nets and beach belts, smelling rubbery in the sun. There were even a few visitors about, come from London or Reading or Swindon; young mothers with little children, and old grannies with their ankles already swelling over newly acquired sand-shoes.

  She passed through the Greenmarket and so into Alverton, where stood the small, desirable Georgian house that housed the offices of Tregarthen, Opie & Baines. Inside the fan-lighted door, the hallway was flooded with light from the stair window, and in an office, screened from visitors by a small aperture like a ticket-booth, sat the receptionist. There was a bell to ring, so Judith did, ping, and the receptionist got up from her typewriter and came to deal with the newcomer.

  ‘Morning.’ She had a neat, grey perm and rimless spectacles.

  ‘I've come to see Mr Baines. Judith Dunbar.’

  ‘He's expecting you. Can you go up? Know the way? First door on the right at the top of the stairs.’

  Judith went. The stairs had a Turkey carpet, and on the landing were portraits of former partners of the firm, whiskery and watch-chained. The door on the right had a brass plaque upon it, with his name: ‘Mr Roger Baines.’ She knocked and he called ‘Come in,’ and she opened the door.

  From behind his desk, he stood. ‘Judith.’

  ‘Here I am.’

  ‘Right on time, too. What a prompt girl. Come and sit down. How summery you're looking.’

  ‘Well, it's a summer's day.’

  ‘When did you get here?’

  ‘About an hour ago. We left Upper Bickley straight after an early breakfast. There wasn't much traffic on the road.’

  ‘Is Mrs Somerville with you?’

  ‘Yes, and the dog. We're all settled in at the Mitre. She's taken Morag for a little run on the beach, but I said I'd be back for the late lunch.’

  ‘What a good idea to bring her.’

  ‘I thought she mightn't want to come, but she jumped at the idea. To tell the truth, I think a bit of a change was exactly what she needed. Besides, she's as excited about The Dower House as I am, and she's looking forward to being shown around.’

  ‘How long can you stay?’

  ‘As long as we want, really. We've shut her house up, and the Daggs are going to keep an eye on everything.’

  ‘Well, that's all very satisfactory. And the weather is delightful. So let's not waste any time, and get down to business…’

  It didn't take very long. Some papers to be signed (Miss Curtis, the receptionist, was summoned to witness these), and the cheque to be written. Judith had never, in all her life, imagined that she would ever write a cheque for such an enormous amount. ‘Three thousand pounds.’ But she wrote it, and signed it, and pushed it across the desk, and Mr Baines, with a paper clip, attached it neatly to the rest of the documents.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That's all. Except for one or two small but necessary points that have to be discussed.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘The Dower House is, actually, ready for habitation. Isobel leaves this afternoon. At five o'clock, her brother is coming in his motor car to pick her up and bear her away to live with him.’

  ‘Is she terribly distressed?’

  ‘No. In truth, I think she's quite excited starting out on her new life at the age of seventy-eight. And she has spent the last two weeks scouring every nook and cranny, determined that you will find neither a speck of dust nor an unpolished tap.’ He smiled. ‘Where she gets the energy from I don't know, but the daily help's been in to give her a hand, so with a bit of luck she won't, immediately, die of a heart attack.’

  ‘I'd like to see her before she goes.’

  ‘We'll go to Rosemullion after lunch. Then she can hand over all the keys and give you your final instructions.’

  ‘What about the furniture?’

  ‘That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. The furniture was all left, by Mrs Boscawen, to Colonel Carey-Lewis, for himself and his family. But, as you know, Nancherrow is already fully furnished, and none of the children, at this particular point in time, have their own homes. So what has happened is this. A few special items have been removed, in order that each member of the family shall have his or her own small memento of Mrs Boscawen. The rest, the bulk of it, stays where it is, at The Dower House, and the Carey-Lewises want you to have it.’

  ‘Oh, but—’

  Mr Baines overrode Judith's protestations. ‘…none of it is particularly valuable, nor even in very good order. But, for the time being, it is perfectly usable and will do splendidly until you have the time and the opportunity to acquire some bits and pieces for yourself.’

  ‘How can they be so kind?’

  ‘I think they're quite relieved not to have to deal with the problem, and as Mrs Carey-Lewis pointed out to me, if it was all put into a sale-room, it would probably fetch next to nothing. There are also one or two other impediments. Mrs Carey-Lewis and Isobel have disposed of Mrs Boscawen's clothes and her more personal effects, and the Colonel has retrieved from her desk any paper he considered of importance, but otherwise nothing else has been cleared out. So there are drawers filled with old letters and photograph albums, and all the accumulated memories of a lifetime which will have to be sifted through. I'm afraid this task will fall to you, but there is no immediate pressure, and anything you find that might be of interest to the Carey-Lewis family you can set aside and give to them. But I am pretty sure that most of it can be consigned to a bonfire.’

  The word ‘bonfire’ brought up the subject of the green-suited gardener. ‘What's happening to him? Is he retiring as well?’

  ‘I did have a word with him. He says the entire garden is getting a bit much for him, but he lives in Rosemullion and I'm sure he'd come up the hill a couple of days a week and keep the grass cut and the weeds down. That is, if you want him.’

  ‘I'd hate the garden to go to rack and ruin.’

  ‘Yes. It would be a shame. But I think before long, we should try and find someone a little younger and more permanent. It might even be worthwhile buying a cottage…a gardener's house nearby could do nothing but improve the value o
f the property…’

  He talked on, suggesting other various small improvements which could, in the fullness of time, be made, and Judith sat and listened, and decided that it was enormously reassuring just to hear him, in his level voice, coming out with ideas for a future which, right now, seemed so distant, unlikely, and infinitely precarious. The Germans had reached the Belgian coast, the English Channel was threatened, and so was the British Expeditionary Force somewhere in France; old men and boys were volunteering for local defence, and it seemed that the invasion could take place at any day. And yet the sun streamed down, and children splashed in the swimming pool, and the newsagent was selling shrimping nets and rubber beach balls. And here she sat, in the old-fashioned solicitor's office, unchanged probably for a hundred years, with Mr Baines, in his traditional tweed, discussing, dispassionately, the possibility of an extra bathroom at The Dower House, new guttering, and the eventual refurbishment of the antique kitchens. It felt like being caught between two worlds, a secure yesterday and a potentially terrifying tomorrow, and for a moment she found herself in a state of confusion, uncertain which was the most real.

  She realised that he had stopped talking, just as she had stopped paying attention to what he said. For a moment, a pause lay between them. And then he said, ‘…but that is all for a future date.’

  Judith sighed. ‘You seem so certain that there's going to be a future.’ Which made him frown. ‘I mean, everything seems to be going so badly for us. The news, I mean. Suppose we don't win the war.’

  ‘Judith.’ He sounded genuinely astonished, even a little shocked.

  ‘Well, admit, nothing looks very hopeful.’

  ‘Losing a battle doesn't mean you've lost the war. There are bound to be setbacks. We're fighting a ferociously efficient and well-prepared army. But we won't be beaten. At the end of the day, we'll come through. It may take a little time, but the alternative is not possible. Unthinkable. So never, for a moment, consider the possibility of any other outcome.’

  ‘You sound so sure,’ Judith told him wistfully.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘A gut sensation. Like old people who say, “I can feel it in my bones”. A certain, unshakable conviction. As well, I suppose I think of this war as something of a crusade.’

  ‘You mean, Good versus Evil?’

  ‘Or George and the Dragon. You mustn't waver. Nor ever lose your nerve.’

  He was neither flag-waving, nor rattling a spear. And he had a wife and three young children of his own, but yet remained so clearly calm and resolute that Judith stopped feeling uncertain and tremulous. Life had to go on, and there would be a future. It would probably be quite a long time before it arrived, and there would undoubtedly be stomach-churning moments of fear and horror to contend with, but defeatism was a useless exercise, and if Mr Baines, with all his experience of life, could remain so cool and certain, then surely Judith could as well.

  She smiled. ‘No, I won't. At least, I'll try not to.’ She felt, all at once, quite different, relieved of a load, reckless and almost carefree. ‘Thank you. I'm sorry. I just needed somebody to talk to.’

  ‘What a good thing you chose me.’

  ‘Are you going to join the LDV?’

  ‘I already have done so. I haven't been issued with a gun yet, nor a uniform, but I have an armband. This evening I am going to the Drill Hall to learn, I imagine, how to present arms with a broom handle.’

  This image, and his dry voice, made Judith laugh, as they were meant to. Satisfied that all was back to normal, he rose to his feet. ‘It's a quarter past one. Let us make our way back to the Mitre, for a celebratory lunch with Mrs Somerville, and then we shall all drive to Rosemullion and you shall take possession of your house.’

  She had been apprehensive that she would feel like an intruder. That Aunt Lavinia's presence would still haunt The Dower House, rendering Judith reluctant to enter, to open doors without knocking, and make her way through rooms that were the private domain of another person. But, thankfully, it did not feel like that at all, perhaps because it was all so neat, and scoured and clean, as though every vestige of its past owner had been scrubbed, by Isobel, away. There were no flowers; cushions sat fat, uncreased by an occupant. Books and magazines had been tidied away, and no work-bags or spectacles or half-finished tapestries lay on the table beside Aunt Lavinia's chair. As well, certain items were gone, rightly claimed by the Carey-Lewises, but leaving empty gaps, instantly obvious as missing teeth. A corner cupboard filled with Rockingham china, the Venetian mirror over the drawing-room fireplace. The Chinese porcelain bowl, always brimming with pot-pourri, the portrait of Aunt Lavinia as a child that had hung on the landing wall outside her bedroom. In her bedroom, the Queen Anne work-table that served as a bedside table, repository for pills and prayer book, had also gone, and many of her photographs, sepia-brown and framed in silver. Where these had stood, or hung, all that remained were bare table-tops and dark patches of unfaded wallpaper.

  None of this mattered. None of it made any difference. The house was no longer Aunt Lavinia's but her own.

  After a cheerful and sociable luncheon at the Mitre (roast mutton and caper sauce, and Biddy clearly enjoying the company of a new and solicitous male presence), they had all got into Mr Baines' car and set off for Rosemullion. Morag, because there was no person with whom to leave her, came too. Biddy sat in the front with Mr Baines and Judith and Morag sat in the back, and Judith opened the window so that Morag could stick out her piebald face and let the wind blow flat her ears.

  ‘What shall we do with her when we get to The Dower House?’ Judith asked. ‘Isobel won't want her making paw-marks all over the polish, or shedding hairs.’

  ‘We'll leave her in the car. Park it in the shade and leave the windows open. Once Isobel's departed, we can turn her loose.’

  Isobel was waiting for them when they arrived, dressed in her best black coat and skirt, and wearing a straw-hat decorated with cherries, that had seen the light of countless summer Sundays. Her two small suitcases stood at the bottom of the staircase, with her large, capable handbag alongside. She was all ready for departure, but there was plenty of time for her to take them around, from kitchen to attics, and to bask modestly in their loud admiration for the amount of hard labour she had put in, washing curtains, polishing floors, starching bedcovers, shining brass, cleaning windows.

  As they processed, she dropped instructions like favours. The keys are all on these hooks, at the side of the dresser. Front door, back door, garage, tool-shed, garden door, the Hut. The range has to be riddled, night and morning. Best silver's gone back to Nancherrow, but I set out the second best in these drawers. Linen cupboard here, and the laundry van comes on Tuesday. Mind the hot-water tap, because it rushes out, scalding.

  Room by room, they passed through the house, from kitchens to dining-room and drawing-room. Upstairs they were shown the little bathroom, Aunt Lavinia's bedroom, the spare room. Up again to the attics; the bedroom where Isobel had slept, in a white iron bedstead, and opposite this, the other loft where still were stacked the old boxes and cabin trunks, dressmakers' dummies, bundles of magazines tied with string, defunct sewing machines, rolled scraps of carpet and linoleum, and four empty picture frames.

  Isobel said, ‘I'd have cleared this out but I didn't know what to do with all the rubbish, it not being mine. And Mrs Carey-Lewis said to leave it. The cabin trunk's full of old letters and photographs…’

  ‘Don't worry,’ Judith told her. ‘You've done so much, and this can all be gone through and tidied up at any time…’

  ‘I gave the floor a sweep, and got rid of a few cobwebs. It's a nice room, with a window and everything. I always thought it would make a lovely bedroom, but then where would we have put all this…?’

  Biddy, all this time, hadn't spoken much. But now she crossed the floor and stood under the pitched roof of the dormer window, and gazed out at the view. She said, ‘You're right, Isob
el. It would make a perfect bedroom. You can see the sea. And today, it's so blue.’ She turned back to smile at Isobel. ‘Won't you miss the view?’

  Isobel tossed her head, and the cherries on her hat rattled against each other. ‘There's a time for everything, Mrs Somerville. For me, it's not the same without Mrs Boscawen. And my brother's house has got a lovely view. Not the same as this, mind, but lovely. Right across the fields to the cream factory.’

  She had, clearly, got over her grieving, perhaps worked it out of her system in that orgy of spring-cleaning. Now, she was ready, in every sense of the word, to leave. They went out of the attic and downstairs again, and as Isobel descended into the hall, they heard the sound of a car's engine, and in a moment a Baby Austin rattled up the gravel and drew to a halt beyond the open front door. Isobel's brother, come to bear her away.

  It all took a bit of time. Isobel all at once became a bit flustered, remembering things she had forgotten to tell. And what had she done with her insurance book? It was found in her handbag. And there were six clean dusters out on the washing-line that had to be brought in. And if they wanted a cup of tea, there was tea in the caddy and a jug of milk on the slab in the larder…

  But finally Mr Baines calmed her down, assured her that everything was in apple-pie order and perhaps she shouldn't keep her brother waiting? The little car was loaded, Isobel shook hands with all three of them, was inserted into the passenger seat, and finally driven away without, as Mr Baines observed, so much as a backward glance.

  ‘I'm glad,’ said Judith, as they stood dutifully waving until the Baby Austin was out of sight. ‘Wouldn't it have been awful if she'd got all emotional? I'd have felt as though I was throwing her out.’

  ‘And she's going to have a lovely view of the cream factory. What do you want to do now?’

  ‘Have you got to get back to the office?’

  ‘No. My whole day is yours.’

  ‘Oh, good. Let's stay for a bit. I'll free Morag and give her some water, and then I'll put the kettle on and we can all have a cup of tea.’