Coming Home (83 page)

‘Did you see Mrs Carey-Lewis?’

‘Yes. She was awake. I've told my lie. It's all right. She didn't ask any questions…she just asked me to tell you that Pekoe needs to be taken out to do wees, and she wondered if you'd be a saint and take her a cup of tea.’

Mary smiled wryly. ‘Never ends, does it?’

‘I would have felt really guilty, leaving without saying goodbye to her.’

‘No. It wouldn't have done. So. That's it. Now. Time to be off. I'll come and see you away…’

But Judith stopped her. ‘No. Please don't. I couldn't bear it. I'll just start crying again.’

‘You're sure?’

‘Certain.’

‘Well. Goodbye then.’ They embraced, hugging enormously. ‘It's just for a little while, mind. We'll see you soon. Keep in touch. Drive safely now.’

‘Of course.’

‘Got enough petrol, have you? There's a garage in Penzance, near the station, open all Sundays.’

‘I'll fill up there.’

‘And money? Got plenty of cash?’

‘Ten pounds. That's more than enough.’

‘Don't grieve for Edward,’ Mary told her. ‘Don't look back, nor let your heart be broken. You're too young and too lovely for that.’

‘I'll be all right.’

She left Mary, standing alone and at something of a loss, in the middle of her nursery. She went along the passage and ran downstairs. She had already fetched her car from the garage, and Mary had stowed her suitcase on the back seat. She got in behind the wheel and started the engine and put the car into gear. The wheels rolled forward across the gravel. It was agony not crying, but she managed not to.

She told herself, ‘It's not forever,’ but it felt like that. And out of nowhere, the words of a poem sprang into her head, and she remembered her mother, reading aloud, long ago, when she was just a little child in Colombo.

To house and garden, field and lawn

The meadow-gates we swang upon

She looked in her wing mirror and saw there, framed, the miniature reflection of Nancherrow, washed in sunlight, receding away, all the time becoming smaller,

To pump and stable, tree and swing,

Goodbye, goodbye, to everything.

And she remembered coming for the first time, in Diana's Bentley, and seeing the house and the gardens and the distant sea, and being instantly captivated, falling in love. And she knew that she would come back, but knew too that Nancherrow as she had known it would never, ever, be quite the same again.

And then she was into the trees, and it was gone, and Edward was gone, and once again she was on her own.

B
iddy Somerville's house, perched on the hill above the little town of Bovey Tracey, was called Upper Bickley. Its date was carved into the lintel over the front door, 1820, so it was quite old, solidly built of stone which had been plastered and whitewashed, and with a slated roof and tall chimneys. Indoors the ceilings were low, and floors sometimes crooked. Doors, closed, did not always stay closed. On the ground floor were kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and hall. A large cupboard had been converted to a downstairs lavatory, where coats were hung and rubber boots jostled for space with a selection of guns and fishing-rods, game-bags and gaffs. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a bath, and up again, a musty loft packed with sea-chests, old photographs, various items of moth-eaten naval uniform, and Ned's toy trains and jigsaw puzzles, long since forgotten and abandoned but which Biddy could never bring herself to throw away.

The house was reached by a steep, narrow, winding Devon lane, a hazard in itself, and impassable in snow — and the entrance was a farm gate which always stood open.

Beyond the gate, a pebbled approach led to the main door, which was at the back of the house. The garden was not large. Some grass at the front, and unambitious flower-beds, and beyond a few useful outbuildings, a small vegetable plot, and a green for hanging out the washing. Then, sloping up the hill, a paddock where some former owner had kept his ponies. At the top of this stood a copse of stringy pine trees, and a stone boundary wall, and over the wall was the beginning of Dartmoor — a sweep of turf and bracken and heather and bog leaning up to the distant skyline, crowned by brooding tors. In wintertime, the wild ponies, searching for fodder, sometimes made their way down as far as the wall, and Biddy would take pity on the dear shaggy creatures and feed them hay. In wintertime, the wind blew a good deal of the time and the coast was shrouded in rain, but in summer and on clear days, there was a spectacular south-western view, over the clustered grey roofs of the little town, to green fields and the hedgerows of farmland, to Torbay and the twinkling sea of the English Channel.

The Somervilles, with a certain amount of courage, had bought Upper Bickley in a state of some dilapidation. It had stood empty for four years, following the demise of the old lady who had lived there for half a century, because her four grown-up children, squabbling and feuding, could not decide what to do with the property. Eventually, an exasperated and honest lawyer intervened, told the sullen family to stop wasting his time, take their fingers out and pull themselves together, and at last got them to agree to putting the house on the market. The Somervilles drove from Plymouth to look it over, realised that the asking price was ridiculously low, and snapped it up. There followed the inevitable hiatus of refurbishment. Builders, electricians, plumbers, plasterers, and carpenters trod their booted way through the old rooms, forgot vital pieces of equipment, hammered enormous masonry nails through hidden pipes, hung wallpaper upside down, and put the end of a ladder through the glass panes of the arched staircase window. Biddy spent her time bullying and coaxing them along, alternately giving them cups of tea and pieces of her mind. Finally, however, Bob pronounced Upper Bickley more or less shipshape, the rattling lorries and vans drove out of the gate for the last time, and Biddy moved in.

It was the first house she had ever owned, and it was so very different from living in naval quarters that the novelty took some time to wear off. She had never been much of a housekeeper or a homemaker, and both Mrs Cleese and Hobbs — those stalwarts of the Keyham Terrace days — were gone. Mrs Cleese had left because she didn't like the country, greatly distrusted cows, and wanted to stay in Plymouth. And Hobbs was gone because, reaching a certain age, he had been forcibly retired by Their Lordships, and almost immediately died. Biddy, dutifully attending his funeral, swore she heard his creaking boots as he passed on to the great Corporal's Mess in the sky.

Other help had to be found. There was no space in Upper Bickley for a living-in domestic, and anyway, Biddy didn't want a liver-in. Instead, she engaged the services of two local ladies who came each day, one to cook and one to clean. They arrived in tandem, at eight in the morning, and left at twelve. Mrs Lapford was the cook, and Mrs Dagg the housemaid. Mrs Dagg's husband, Bill, was a ploughman and worked with heavy horses on a nearby farm, but turned up, on Saturdays and summer evenings, to do a bit of labouring in Biddy's garden. It was hard to say which of them knew less about growing flowers and vegetables, but Bill was quite good at digging, and of course always able to lay his hands on copious quantities of horse manure. In his care the roses, if nothing much else, flourished.

With domestic problems out of the way, Biddy cast about for social stimulation. She had no intention of spending her days arranging flowers, making jam, knitting socks, or going on bus trips with the local Women's Institute, but finding other diversions proved no problem at all. She already had a wide circle of naval friends living well within reach, and before long made the acquaintance of, and was taken up by, a number of county families residing in impressively old inherited establishments surrounded by acres of land. Newcomers did not always slip easily through the doors of these great houses, but the Royal Navy made one automatically persona grata, and hospitality was generous. Biddy was invited to ladies' luncheons, with an afternoon of bridge or mah-jongg to follow. Bob was asked to shoot pheasants, or offered excellent fishing. Together, they attended immensely formal dinner parties, slightly less formal race-meetings, and cheerful, family-orientated tennis afternoons. Gregarious and amusing, they were also meticulous and open-handed about returning hospitality, and so, with one thing and another, in no time at all they found themselves home and dry; accepted.

August 1939, and Biddy was content. The only cloud on her horizon, and it was a great one, was the darkening threat of war.

Sunday evening; half past nine now, and Biddy sat by the open window of her sitting-room, watching the dusky shadows gather across the garden and the light fade from the sky. She was waiting for Judith. Bob had been home for the weekend, but after tea had set off in his car, back to Devonport. He did not have to go but, in these tense times, he became edgy if away from his office for more than a day, needing to be on duty in case some vital signal should come through demanding his immediate attention and consequent action.

And so she was alone. But not alone, because she had a dog lying at her feet. The dog was a Border collie, irregularly patched and with an engaging face that was half black and half white. Her coat was deep and thick, her tail a plume, and her name was Morag. She was Ned's dog, a stray which he had found wandering around the dockside at Scapa Flow, filthy dirty and painfully thin, scavenging the dustbins for scraps of food. Much shocked, Ned had tied a bit of rope around her neck and led her off to the local police station, but nobody had reported a lost dog, and he hadn't the heart to leave her there, so walked out again, the collie still at his side, attached to its makeshift lead. With time running out — he had only an hour before he had to be back on board and reporting for duty — Ned found a taxi, loaded himself and the dog into it, and asked to be taken to the nearest veterinary surgeon. The vet was a kindly man, and agreed to take the dog for a night, with a bath and a good meal thrown in, and Ned left her there, got back into his taxi, and returned in the nick of time to his ship, galloping up the gangway like a steeplechaser and just about knocking the Officer of the Watch off his feet.

The next day, after some thought, Ned applied for a long weekend, and rather to his astonishment, was allowed it. He then telephoned the vet, who agreed to keep the dog for another two days. On the Friday, as soon as he was free, Ned reclaimed the collie, and together they caught the ferry across the Pentland Firth and, at Thurso, boarded the night train south.

The following morning at about eleven o'clock, he turned up at his parents' house, unexpected, unannounced and unshaven, with the Border collie still in tow.

‘She's called Morag,’ he told Biddy over a fry-up of bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, and eggs. ‘She's a Scottish dog, so she's got a Scottish name. I thought she could live with you.’

‘But, darling, I've never had a dog.’

‘Time you started. She'll keep you company when Dad's away. Where is Dad, by the way?’

‘Shooting pheasants.’

‘When'll he be back?’

‘About five.’

‘Good, I'll see him. I don't have to leave until tomorrow morning.’