A Summer Promise (14 page)

Mrs O’Halloran cleared her throat. She had been standing at the head of the table, ready to pour the tea, but the tirade seemed to have taken the wind out of her sails. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, and when she finally spoke her tone was almost apologetic. Maddy realised it must be the first time that Gran had shown the least pleasant side of her nature to the younger woman and Mrs O’Halloran did not know how to deal with it.

Maddy smiled to herself. It was better that the O’Hallorans should know what they were up against, so she did not immediately smooth Gran’s ruffled feathers. Instead, she added fuel to the fire. ‘What on earth are you going on about, Gran?’ she asked. ‘Did you think I would run all the way up the hill from the village just to get home five minutes sooner, with scarcely a breath left in my body? Because if so, you’ve got another think coming.’ She smiled sweetly at the old woman, then turned to Mrs O’Halloran. ‘But before I say another word I think we ought to give Gran her tea. I’ll have ginger beer, please; I’m that dry I could drain the beck.’ She turned to her grandmother. ‘Tea, Gran? Or would you rather have a glass of ginger beer?’

‘Tea,’ Gran snapped. ‘And you can stop trying to butter me up. Where did you go after school?’

Still with the praiseworthy intention of forewarning the O’Hallorans, Maddy sat down at the table and reached for the glass of ginger beer which Mrs O’Halloran was proffering. To annoy Gran more than anything else she took a long draught, wiped froth from her upper lip and heaved a sigh. ‘Gosh, that was good,’ she said, and then, seeing Gran was almost hopping with impatience, spoke rather more hurriedly than she would have liked. ‘I popped in to the schoolhouse. Miss Parrott has been so good, and of course she was very anxious to know how I got on. She understands what’s involved much better than you do.’

She had been watching Mrs O’Halloran’s face as she spoke, and now saw the woman’s eyes open in surprise; clearly, Mrs O’Halloran thought the remark provocative, as indeed it was meant to be. But Mr O’Halloran was handing round the cheese scones, so his wife hastily poured the tea, telling Gran that she was lucky, so she was, to have such a clever granddaughter.

‘Huh! I don’t know about that,’ Gran muttered. ‘Before this scholarship hullabaloo started we got along very nicely, me and the girl. And don’t forget I can still have the last word.’ She turned a face, already beginning to suffuse with temper, towards her granddaughter. ‘You know that, don’t you? I come first. If I feel poorly or need you here . . . why are you shaking your head? Answer me that, you uppity girl.’

‘I’m shaking my head because it’s you who’s got the wrong end of the stick,’ Maddy said calmly. ‘Why are the O’Hallorans living here with us? It’s so that you have someone at your beck and call all day. It’s so that the kitchen garden has someone to weed and sow and harvest it; it’s in order to get the shopping from the village, draw your pension . . .’

But at this outrageous suggestion Gran had had enough. With her colour dangerously heightened, she said sharply: ‘No one touches my pension but myself, understand? Nor my savings book, nor anything of that nature.’ She pointed an accusing forefinger at her granddaughter. ‘When money’s needed you will tell me and I shall take out whatever is necessary. Dr Carlton will bring his car right up to the back door, I shall get into it like a queen and he will drive me down to the post office to withdraw whatever’s necessary. Is that clear?’

‘As crystal,’ Maddy said rather thickly through a mouthful of cheese scone. ‘Now I have a bit of a problem which I’d be interested in your solving, if you can. Mr Browning couldn’t pick me up this morning, and when I got on the bus another new girl came and sat beside me . . .’

But though the three adults listened with interest, at the end of the recital, when Maddy said rather plaintively: ‘Well, what would you do if your old friend and your new one wouldn’t even try to get along?’ she received blank stares from all three.

Finally, it was Mrs O’Halloran who spoke, and she cast an anxious glance at Gran before she did so. ‘You could take turns to sit wit’ Alice and Marigold,’ she suggested diffidently. ‘Or you could sit on the back seat, where you can get five or six people if you squeeze up a little. ’Tis a knotty problem, but didn’t you say the girl from Windhover Hall offered you a car ride in both directions? Won’t that solve it?’

‘Ye-es,’ Maddy said slowly. ‘But I don’t want to be dependent on either Mr Browning or Alice. She’s grand, is Alice, and so’s Mr Browning, but if the car’s needed for some other purpose and Alice has to catch the bus . . . oh, I don’t know! Why can’t we all three be friends?’

‘It’ll work out,’ Gran said shortly, and Maddy saw that the old woman did not like losing the O’Hallorans’ attention. ‘And now you can stop gabbling, young woman, and pass me a slice of that fruit cake.’

Despite Marigold’s interest in Tom, Maddy did not introduce them until the schools were about to break up for the Christmas holidays. Tom was working towards his School Certificate, and though he did have some time to himself on Sundays he seemed disinclined to do anything but study, and the atmosphere between Alice and Marigold continued frosty.

A week before the end of term, Maddy and Marigold who had been working pretty hard themselves, decided that they ought to go down to the town centre after school one afternoon and see what they could find in the way of presents. They had been advised by one of the senior prefects to visit the Christmas market in the square by the war memorial, and were standing at the bus stop discussing which day they should go when Alice joined them. For once she did not take exception to Marigold’s presence, but said at once that she would accompany them on the next market day. ‘Because don’t forget, we all have to buy dip presents for the form bran tub,’ she explained. ‘Haven’t you heard? We each buy a gift costing around a shilling, wrap it nicely and pop it into the tub, and then on the last day of term everyone gets a dip. So we might as well go together and get any bargains going. Tom’s already broken up, so he’ll probably come with us too.’

Marigold’s eyes lit up. ‘Goodee!’ she exclaimed. ‘So I’m to meet the mysterious Mr Browning at long last.’ She grinned at Maddy. ‘You’ve done your best to keep us apart, but you couldn’t hide him for ever!’

Maddy giggled. ‘I’ve never tried to keep you and Tom apart,’ she protested. ‘It’s his being a weekly boarder that has prevented him spending time with me and Alice. Anyway, you’ll meet him now, and much good may it do you.’

At this point the bus arrived and in the usual scrimmage Maddy and Marigold got separated whilst Alice, who had eased Maddy’s problem by seldom travelling by bus, ran across the road, slung her satchel on to the back seat of the Daimler and climbed hurriedly in after it. Once settled she waved violently to the bus in general, not being able to pick Maddy out from the dozens of similarly uniformed girls, and settled back.

On the bus the conductor tinged the bell and the vehicle moved ponderously forward. Marigold, perched on the seat behind the one upon which Maddy sat, leaned forward and jabbed her friend between the shoulder blades.

‘That was a nasty moment,’ she observed. ‘I thought your posh friend was going to get on the bus for once and I wanted to ask you whether you thought she might unfreeze a bit if I bought her something really pretty for Christmas? I keep trying to make her like me and sometimes I think it’s working, but usually it doesn’t.’

Maddy smiled. ‘I don’t know, but she might. There’s a lot of niceness hidden beneath that touchy exterior; maybe she’ll loosen up a bit on Thursday. Let’s wait and see, shall we?’

It was a wonderful afternoon and all four of them, Maddy thought, were thoroughly enjoying it. The shops were lit up, their windows gay with decorations and tempting goodies, and everyone was in a holiday mood. As the prefect had predicted, the market traders were already lowering their prices, and the four of them bought penny cones from Mr Delamere’s Ice Cream Parlour and licked with enthusiasm whilst walking between the stalls.

Rather to Maddy’s surprise, as she was pondering over the purchase of a small bone-handled penknife for Tom, she saw Mr O’Halloran chaffing a fruiterer and then holding out his hand for what looked like a couple of notes, which he hastily thrust into his pocket. Though he could scarcely be blamed for selling off unwanted produce, at this time of year they needed everything they could grow. She was about to hail him when he turned away from the stall, taking the arm of a tall woman whom Maddy immediately recognised as Mrs O’Halloran. She would not normally have hesitated to hail either party, for over the weeks since they had moved in she had grown easy in their company and got on well with them both, but it did occur to her that on this occasion it might be tactless to greet them. Surely, though, they would not have left Gran alone in the house, particularly when Maddy had announced her intention of being late home herself? No, Dr Carlton must have popped in and promised to stay until they – or she – returned.

Fleetingly, she wondered why Gran had permitted them to come into town at all, but then she smiled to herself. Gran dearly loved Christmas, and any small gifts which came her way were greeted with enormous enthusiasm. She was particularly fond of chocolates; indeed, Maddy had already visited Skipton in order to stock up on a Claire’s Variety Box. No matter how short money was, ever since she had been old enough to earn a little extra she had saved up and bought Gran the small selection box, and had enjoyed her grandmother’s delight in the gift almost as much as the old woman had enjoyed the chocolates.

For the rest of the afternoon the four of them split up, examining and buying with care, for Alice was the only one with an apparently unlimited supply of money. Maddy still sold watercress and eggs and such so she had money for presents, but it was money hard earned and she did not intend to spend two pennies if one would do. At one stall her hand and someone else’s closed over the same object simultaneously, and Maddy, laughing, looked up to find that her rival for the prize – a small leather purse priced at the exact sum for a bran tub gift – was Alice. She expected her friend to remove her hand at once – she had enough money to buy up half the stall – but the other girl shook her head and hung on. ‘I don’t want it for the bran tub, I want it for
me
! I have to take dinner money to school every Monday so it would be very useful.’

‘But we aren’t shopping for ourselves, and that purse was to be my dip gift,’ Maddy exclaimed. ‘They have lots and lots of purses, but all the others are more expensive than this one.’

Alice must have read Maddy’s feelings in her reproachful glance, for she suddenly thrust the purse into Maddy’s hand. ‘I meant it for you anyway; I was going to tell you to pick the pink and white parcel out of the bran tub, and now you’ve spoiled my surprise,’ she said reproachfully. ‘Never mind, you have it anyway; I’ll think of something different for the tub.’

Maddy turned back, her faith in her friend restored. ‘I’m sorry to spoil your surprise,’ she said remorsefully, and it was only afterwards that she remembered Alice knew that she, Maddy, never brought money to school since her school dinners were free. And Alice had distinctly said that she wanted the purse for herself.

Oh, but she only said that to make sure the purse was a surprise, Maddy told herself, but the lingering suspicion that Alice had intended to keep the purse niggled away at the back of her mind until Tom appeared with four toffee apples. When they were all gathered together, he handed these round and said he thought they ought to be getting back to the steps of the town hall where they had arranged to meet Mr Browning, who was giving everyone a lift home.

Mr Browning’s first question was to ask if they had managed to finish their Christmas shopping. ‘I’ll be coming in again on Christmas Eve to pick up the turkey, a nice big ham and a sack of sprouts,’ he said, ‘so if any of you ladies want a lift, all you have to do is come up to the Hall right early. Around eight thirty would be best.’

Maddy and Marigold exchanged glances; they had both thoroughly enjoyed the shopping trip and had already arranged to meet on Christmas Eve to catch the bus into town and look around at their leisure. Maddy wanted to see the cathedral, and though Marigold pulled a face and said ‘dull stuff’, she agreed that if they were there for any length of time it would be interesting to visit such a landmark.

‘And next summer, when the long evenings arrive, we must come into town at nine o’clock and see the wakeman doing his stuff,’ Maddy told her now. ‘He’s dressed in very beautiful old-fashioned clothes and he carries a long horn thing, which he blows four times, once in each direction, I suppose, north, south, east and west. Then he does a lovely bow towards the house on the corner – I think it was where the mayor once lived – and he says “The watch is set, Mr Mayor.” He’s been doing it for over a thousand years.’

Marigold’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you trying to make me believe a man is a thousand years old?’ she said incredulously. ‘Pull the other one, Madeleine Hebditch.’

Maddy laughed. ‘No, of course not! It’s the ceremony that has been going on for a thousand years, with different wakemen of course. But you really should see it, because it’s very impressive and no other town in the whole of England has anything like it.’

Tom, seated on the passenger seat alongside his father, twisted round to grin at the three girls. ‘But what about Christmas Eve? If you’re all going with Dad I might join you, though I won’t be able to run to any more toffee apples; it’s only Alice who’s in what you might call affluent circumstances. You have pocket money, don’t you, Alice? I mean pocket money that you don’t have to earn. Does your father send it from India or does your uncle John simply shell out?’

‘Don’t know; never asked,’ Alice said through a mouthful of toffee apple. ‘But if you’re all going into town, I’m coming too; I’m not having you three ganging up against me.’

Tom looked a little taken aback, but at that moment the car drew up in front of Marigold’s lodgings and Mr Browning nudged his son. ‘Get out of the car and open the door for the lady,’ he said, giving him a wink. ‘It’s the done thing.’