‘No night to be standing on a step,’ added Mrs Dankers. ‘At least may we come in?’
They entered the house and were led to a large drawing-room. ‘Please wait,’ the man invited. ‘The fire is not entirely out. I’ll question the Marstons as you warm yourselves.’
The Dankerses did not speak. They stood where the man had left them, staring about the room. Their manner one to the other had an edge of hostility to it, as though they were as suspicious in this relationship as they were of the world beyond it.
‘I am Sir Giles Marston,’ said another old man. ‘You’ve sustained some travelling difficulty?’
‘Our car has let us down – due, I suppose, to some penetration of the weather. We left it by your gates. Sir Giles, we’re at your mercy. Dankers the name is. The lady is my good wife.’ Dankers stretched his arm towards his host in a manner that might have suggested to an onlooker that he, and not Sir Giles, was the welcomer.
‘Our need is simple,’ said Mrs Dankers. ‘A roof over our heads.’
‘Some outhouse maybe,’ Dankers hazarded, overplaying his part. He laughed. ‘Anywhere we can curl up for an hour or two. We cannot be choosers.’
‘I’d prefer a chair,’ his wife interceded sharply. ‘A chair and a rug would suit me nicely.’
‘I’m sure we can do better than that. Prepare two beds, Cronin; and light our guests a fire in their room.’
Sir Giles Marston moved into the centre of the room and in the greater light the Dankerses saw a small, hunched man, with a face like leather that has been stretched for a lifetime and is suddenly slackened; as lined as a map.
‘Oh, really,’ Dankers protested in his soft voice, ‘you mustn’t go to such trouble. It’s imposition enough to rouse you like this.’
‘We’ll need sheets,’ Cronin said. ‘Sheets and bedding: God knows where I shall find them, sir.’
‘Brandy,’ Sir Giles suggested. ‘Am I right, Mrs Dankers, in thinking that strong refreshment would partly answer the situation?’
Cronin left the room, speaking to himself. Sir Giles poured the brandy. ‘I’m ninety years of age,’ he told his guests, ‘But yet aware that inhospitality is a sin to be ashamed of. I bid you good-night.’
‘Who are they?’ Lady Marston asked in the morning, having heard the tale from her husband.
‘My dear, they are simply people. They bear some unpleasant name. More than that I do not really wish to know.’
‘It’s a sunny day by the look of it. Your guests will have breakfasted and gone by now. I’m sorry in a way, for I would welcome fresh faces and a different point of view. We live too quiet a life, Giles. We are too much thrown in upon each other. It’s hardly a healthy manner in which to prepare for our dying.’
Sir Giles, who was engaged in the drawing up of his trousers, smiled. ‘Had you seen these two, my dear, you would not have said they are the kind to make our going any easier. The man has a moustache of great proportions, the woman you would describe as smart.’
‘You’re intolerant, love. And so high-handed that you didn’t even discover the reason for this visit.’
‘They came because they could move in neither direction. Trouble with their motor-car.’
‘They’ve probably left with all our little bits and pieces. You’re a sitting bird for a confidence trick. Oh, Giles, Giles!’
Sir Giles departed, and in the breakfast-room below discovered the pair called Dankers still at table.
‘Your man has been most generous,’ Dankers said. ‘He’s fed us like trenchermen: porridge, coffee, bacon and eggs. Two for me, one for my good wife. And toast and marmalade. And this delicious butter.’
‘Are you trying to say that an essential commodity was lacking? If so, I fear you must be more precise. In this house we are now past subtlety.’
‘You’ve made a fool of yourself,’ Mrs Dankers said to her husband. ‘Who wishes to know what two strangers have recently digested?’
‘Pardon, pardon,’ murmured Dankers. ‘Sir Giles, forgive a rough diamond!’
‘Certainly. If you have finished, please don’t delay on my account. Doubtless you are anxious to be on your way.’
‘My husband will attend to the car. Probably it’s necessary to send for help to a garage. In the meantime I’ll keep you company if I may.’
Dankers left the room, passing on the threshold an elderly lady whom he did not address, wishing to appear uncertain in his mind as to her identity.
‘This is the woman who came in the night,’ Sir Giles said to his wife. ‘Her husband is seeing to their motor-car so that they may shortly be on their way. Mrs Dankers, my wife, Lady Marston.’
‘We’re more than grateful, Lady Marston. It looked as though we were in for a nasty night.’
‘I hope Cronin made you comfortable. I fear I slept through everything. “My dear, we have two guests,” my husband said to me this morning. You may imagine my surprise.’
Cronin entered and placed plates of food before Sir Giles and Lady Marston.
Conversationally, Mrs Dankers said: ‘You have a fine place here.’
‘It’s cold and big,’ Sir Giles replied.
The Marstons set about their breakfast, and Mrs Dankers, unable to think of something to say, sat in silence. The smoke from her cigarette was an irritation to her hosts, but they did not remark on it, since they accepted its presence as part of the woman herself. When he returned Dankers sat beside his wife again. He poured some coffee and said: ‘I am no mechanic, Sir Giles. I would like to use your phone to summon help.’
‘We are not on the telephone.’
‘Not?’ murmured Dankers in simulated surprise, for he knew the fact already. ‘How far in that case is the nearest village? And does it boast a garage?’
‘Three miles. As to the presence of a garage, I have had no cause to establish that point. But I imagine there is a telephone.’
‘Giles, introduce me please. Is this man Mrs Dankers’ husband?’
‘He claims it. Mr Dankers, my wife, Lady Marston.’
‘How d’you do?’ Dankers said, rising to shake the offered hand. ‘I’m afraid we’re in a pickle.’
‘You should walk it in an hour,’ Sir Giles reminded him.
‘There’s no way of forwarding a message?’
‘No.’
‘The postman?’
‘He hardly ever comes. And then brings only a circular or two.’
‘Perhaps your man?’
‘Cronin’s days as Hermes are over. You must see that surely for yourself?’
‘In that case there’s nothing for it but a tramp.’
This conclusion of Dankers’ was received in silence.
‘Walk, Mr Dankers,’ Lady Marston said eventually, and added to her husband’s dismay, ‘and return for lunch. Afterwards you can leave us at your leisure.’
‘How kind of you,’ the Dankerses said together. They smiled in unison too. They rose and left the room.
Cronin watched and listened to everything. ‘Prepare two beds,’ his master had said, and from that same moment Cronin had been on his guard. He had given them breakfast in the morning, and had hoped that once they had consumed it they would be on their way. He took them to be commercial travellers, since they had the air of people who were used to moving about and spending nights in places. ‘You have a fine place here,’ Mrs Dankers had said to the Marstons, and Cronin had narrowed his eyes, wondering why she had said it, wondering why she was sitting there, smoking a cigarette while the Marstons breakfasted. He had examined their motor-car and had thought it somehow typical of the people. They were people, thought Cronin, who would know what to do with all the knobs and gadgets on the motor-car’s dashboard; they would take to that dashboard like ducks to water.
For forty-eight years Cronin had lived in the house, serving the Marstons. Once, there had been other servants, and in his time he had watched over them and over the house itself. Now he contented himself with watching over the Marstons. ‘Some
outhouse maybe,’ Dankers had said, and Cronin had thought that Dankers was not a man who knew much about outhouses. He saw Dankers and Mrs Dankers sitting together in a café connected with a cinema, a place such as he had himself visited twenty-odd years ago and had not cared for. He heard Dankers asking the woman what she would take to eat, adding that he himself would have a mixed grill with chips, and a pot of strong tea, and sliced bread and butter. Cronin observed these people closely and memorized much of what they said.
‘Clearly,’ Dankers remarked at lunch, ‘we’re not in training. Or perhaps it was the fascination of your magnificent orchard.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t walk to the village?’ Sir Giles inquired, a trifle impatiently.
‘Forgive these city folk,’ cried Dankers loudly. ‘Quite frankly, we got no distance at all.’
‘What are you to do then? Shall you try again this afternoon? There are, of course, various houses on the route. One of them may have a telephone.’
‘Your orchard has greatly excited us. I’ve never seen such trees.’
‘They’re the finest in England.’
‘A pity,’ said Mrs Dankers, nibbling at fish on a fork, ‘to see it in such rack and ruin.’
Dankers blew upwards into his moustache and ended the activity with a smile. ‘It is worth some money, that orchard,’ he said.
Sir Giles eyed him coolly. ‘Yes, sir; it is worth some money. But time is passing and we are wasting it in conversation. You must see to the affair of your motor-car.’
The storm had brought the apples down. They lay in their thousands in the long grass, damp and glistening, like immense, unusual jewels in the afternoon sun. The Dankerses examined them closely, strolling through the orchard, noting the various trees and assessing their yield. For the purpose they had fetched Wellington boots from their car and had covered themselves in waterproof coats of an opaque plastic material. They did not speak, but occasionally, coming across a tree that pleased them, they nodded.
‘A lot could be done, you know,’ Dankers explained at dinner. ‘It is a great orchard and in a mere matter of weeks it could be set on the road to profit and glory.’
‘It has had its glory,’ replied Sir Giles, ‘and probably its profit too. Now it must accept its fate. I cannot keep it up.’
‘Oh, it’s a shame! A terrible shame to see it as it is. Why, you could make a fortune, Sir Giles.’
‘You didn’t get to the village?’ Lady Marston asked.
‘We could not pass the orchard!’
‘Which means,’ Sir Giles said, ‘that you’ll be with us for another night.’
‘Could you bear it?’ Mrs Dankers smiled a thin smile. ‘Could you bear to have us all over again?’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Lady Marston. ‘Perhaps tomorrow you’ll feel a little stronger. I understand your lethargy. It’s natural after an unpleasant experience.’
‘They have been through neither flood nor fire,’ her husband reminded her. ‘And the village will be no nearer tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps,’ Dankers began gently, ‘the postman will call in the morning –’
‘We have no living relatives,’ Sir Giles cut in, ‘and most of our friends are gone. The circulars come once a month or so.’
‘The groceries then?’
‘I have inquired of Cronin about the groceries. They came yesterday. They will come again next week.’
‘The daily milk is left at the foot of the avenue. Cronin walks to fetch it. You could leave a message there,’ Lady Marston suggested. ‘It is the arrangement we have for emergencies, such as summoning the doctor.’
‘The doctor? But surely by the time he got here –?’
‘In greater emergency one of the three of us would walk to the nearest house. We do not,’ Sir Giles added, ‘find it so difficult to pass one leg before the other. Senior though we may be.’
‘Perhaps the milk is an idea,’ Lady Marston said.
‘Oh no, we could never put anyone to so much trouble. It would be too absurd. No, tomorrow we shall have found our feet.’
But tomorrow when it came was a different kind of day, because with something that disagreed with him in his stomach Sir Giles died in the night. His heart was taxed by sharp little spasms of pain and in the end they were too much for it.
‘We’re going to see to you for a bit,’ Mrs Dankers said after the funeral. ‘We’ll pop you in your room, dear, and Cronin shall attend to all your needs. You can’t be left to suffer your loss alone; you’ve been so kind to us.’
Lady Marston moved her head up and down. The funeral had been rather much for her. Mrs Dankers led her by the arm to her room.
‘Well,’ said Dankers, speaking to Cronin with whom he was left, ‘so that’s that.’
‘I was his servant for forty-eight years, sir.’
‘Indeed, indeed. And you have Lady Marston, to whom you may devote your whole attention. Meals in her room, Cronin, and pause now and then for the occasional chat. The old lady’ll be lonely.’
‘I’ll be lonely myself, sir.’
‘Indeed. Then all the more reason to be good company. And you, more than I, understand the business of being elderly. You know by instinct what to say, how best to seem soothing.’
‘Your car is repaired, sir? At least it moved today. You’ll be on your way? Shall I pack some sandwiches?’
‘Come, come, Cronin, how could we leave two lonely people so easily in the lurch? Chance has sent us to your side in this hour of need: we’ll stay to do what we can. Besides, there are Sir Giles’s wishes.’
What’s this? thought Cronin, examining the eyes of the man who had come in the night and had stayed to see his master buried. They were eyes he would not care to possess himself, for fear of what went with them. He said:
‘His wishes, sir?’
‘That his orchard should again be put in use. The trees repaired and pruned. The fruit sold for its true value. An old man’s dying wish won’t go unheeded.’
‘But, sir, there’s so much work in it. The trees run into many hundreds –’
‘Quite right, Cronin. That’s observant of you. Many men are needed to straighten the confusion and waste. There’s much to do.’
‘Sir Giles wished this, sir?’ said Cronin, playing a part, knowing that Sir Giles could never have passed on to Dankers his dying wish. ‘It’s unlike him, sir, to think about his orchard. He watched it failing.’
‘He wished it, Cronin. He wished it, and a great deal else. You who have seen some changes in your time are in for a couple more. And now, my lad, a glass of that good brandy would not go down amiss. At a time like this one must try to keep one’s spirits up.’
Dankers sat by the fire in the drawing-room, sipping his brandy and writing industriously in a notebook. He was shortly joined by his wife, to whom he handed from time to time a leaf from this book so that she might share his plans. When midnight had passed they rose and walked through the house, measuring the rooms with a practised eye and noting their details on paper. They examined the kitchens and outhouses, and in the moonlight they walked the length of the gardens. Cronin watched them, peeping at them in all their activity.
‘There’s a pretty little room next to Cronin’s that is so much sunnier,’ Mrs Dankers said. ‘Cosier and warmer, dear. We’ll have your things moved there, I think. This one is dreary with memories. And you and Cronin will be company for one another.’
Lady Marston nodded, then changing her mind said: ‘I like this room. It’s big and beautiful and with a view. I’ve become used to it.’
‘Now, now, my dear, we mustn’t be morbid, must we? And we don’t always quite know what’s best. It’s good to be happy, dear, and you’ll be happier there.’
‘I’ll be happier, Mrs Dankers? Happier away from all my odds and ends, and Giles’s too?’
‘My dear, we’ll move them with you. Come, now, look on the bright side. There’s the future too, as well as the past.’
Cronin came,
and the things were moved. Not quite everything though, because the bed and the wardrobe and the heavy dressing-table would not fit into the new setting.
In the orchard half a dozen men set about creating order out of chaos. The trees were trimmed and then treated, paths restored, broken walls rebuilt. The sheds were cleared and filled with fruit-boxes in readiness for next year’s harvest.
‘There’s a wickedness here,’ Cronin reported to Lady Marston. ‘There’s a cook in the kitchen, and a man who waits on them. My only task, they tell me, is to carry your food and keep your room in order.’
‘And to see to yourself, Cronin, to take it easy and to watch your rheumatics. Fetch a pack of cards.’
Cronin recalled the house as it once had been, a place that was lively with weekend guests and was regularly wallpapered. Then there had come the years of decline and the drifting towards decay, and now there was a liveliness of a different order; while the days passed by, the liveliness established itself like a season. Mrs Dankers bustled from room to room, in tune with the altered world. Dankers said: ‘It’s good to see you seeming so sprightly, Cronin. The weather suits you, eh? And now that we’ve made these few little changes life is easier, I think.’ Cronin replied that it was certainly true that he had less to do. ‘So you should have less to do,’ said Dankers. ‘Face the facts: you cannot hope to undertake a young chap’s work.’ He smiled, to release the remark of its barb.
Cronin was worried about the passive attitude of Lady Marston. She had gone like a lamb to the small room, which now served as her sitting-room and bedroom combined. She had not stirred from the top of the house since the day of the move; she knew nothing save what he told her of all that was happening.
‘The builders are here,’ he had said; but quite often, midway through a game of cards, she would pause with her head a little to one side, listening to the distant sound of hammering. ‘It is the noise of the builders,’ he would remind her; and she would place a card on the table and say: ‘I did not know that Sir Giles had ordered the builders.’ In the mornings she was well aware of things, but as the day passed on she spoke more often of Sir Giles; of Sir Giles’s plans for the orchard and the house. Cronin feared that, day by day, Lady Marston was sinking into her dotage; the morning hours of her clarity were shrinking even as he thought about it.