Great Meadow (3 page)

‘No. Lally. That's all. We couldn't say nanny when we were little so it got stuck at Lally. That's all she is.'

‘Your
nanny
? said Brian Scott Bromley, wiping his muddy shoes on a big clump of dock leaves. ‘How infinitely quaint.'

‘She
was
our nanny. Until we grew up,' I said.

He looked at me very strangely, and made a funny laughing noise. ‘I see. But what should I call her? I can't call her Lally, she's not
my
nanny. I never had one.'

‘Well,' said my sister. ‘Her mother and father are called Mr and Mrs Jane and I think her real name is Ellen, but I don't know. I heard Mrs Jane call her that once when she was cross about something. But usually it's just Lally.'

‘I'll call her Miss Jane. That would be perfectly correct, I'm certain.'

‘She'll be rather surprised if you do.'

‘Well, I mean, one has to be decent about this sort of thing. The woman has a name and it seems to me correct to use it. I don't know her familiarly, do I?'

‘I don't know,' I said, not knowing really, and being a bit worried by the grown-up sort of speaking.

‘Well, of course I don't. First time I clapped eyes on her was yesterday evening when we got in from the bus. She seems a decent sort of person, so I would like to behave correctly. I think it very demeaning not to give her her proper station.'

We walked up, crossed the road, pushed open the iron gate into Great Meadow and started the climb up to the cottage. But we didn't say very much, because we didn't really know what to say to Brian Scott Bromley. My sister crossed her eyes at me, when he wasn't looking, and put a finger to her head, meaning that she thought he was a bit wonky. Which I was beginning to think too. But I pretended not to notice what she was doing in case he
saw. And so she just clumped ahead singing any-sort-of-song and holding her khaki shorts up by pushing her hands into the pocket because they were too big really for her, and she had broken her snake-belt when she fell out of a tree when we were picking sloes.

Just as we got to the beginning of the gully, I said to Brian Thingummy that it might be quite interesting for him to see the smugglers' way to the cottage, instead of walking up Great Meadow, which was in the blazing sun, and the gully was shady and cool, and he said, ‘Very well.' So we slid down a chalky slope under the trees, and heard my sister scream out in the field on top.

It was quite a terrible scream, three very loud ‘Eeeee!' s.

‘What's the matter then?' I called out through the tangle of ivy and roots from the bottom of the gully.

‘You're vile!' she shrieked. So I knew she wasn't dead or bitten by an adder or something. Just furious. ‘How do you know the stallion isn't loose in the field? It may be, but you don't care. Oh no! Just leave me alone here and disappear down the gully. You're a stinking beast.'

‘What's the matter with her?' said Brian Thing, pushing in his shirt where it had come out all bumfley from his shorts because of sliding down the chalk slope, which was the only way you could get into the gully because it was so overgrown.

‘I think it's because of Aleford's stallion. She is frightened it might trample her to death or something.'

‘Most unlikely,' said Brian. ‘I mean, unless she provoked it.'

I didn't know what he really meant, so I didn't say anything, and anyway she was coming down the slope
and making a dreadful clattering noise scrabbling under the bramble and ivy.

‘Some people are so rotten' she said. ‘I could have easily been frightened to death up there, all alone. In a field full of stallions'

‘You don't know it's there,' I said.

‘You don't know it
isn't
there,' she said as we pushed through trailing old man's beard. ‘Don't you think this is very nice indeed, Brian?' she said, as if she had made the gully all by herself. So I quickly put that right – she was such a show-off.

‘The smugglers made it,' I said. ‘Years ago. And they used to smuggle brandy and all manner of things down from the little church at the top of Great Meadow. It was their secret way to the village, you see.' I felt quite pleased –
that
shut her up a bit.

But then he said, with that squinty smile, ‘I very much doubt it. I think it was just a downland track which went up from the main road to the windmill at the top, beyond your cottage. You showed it me last evening.'

‘Our mother fell through the floor once, in the cottage, and landed in a terrible spooky cave thing right under the house, and they said it was an old smugglers' cave and was part of a tunnel which came all the way from the church,' said my sister. ‘That's what they said. And they should know, they're grown up, after all.'

‘Quite a decent idea,' said Brian Beastly. ‘But I'd take it with a pinch of salt.'

‘It is the smallest church in England,' said my sister. ‘We'll take you there if you like? Unless you are an un-goddy sort of person. Are you?'

‘I don't think it
is
the smallest church. From what my
father told me it's only a fragment of a much larger building. And it's not the smallest in England. I rather believe
that
is in the north somewhere.'

We walked along in silence for a bit. I mean, he did rather put you off all the time and it was quite hard not to give him a good bonk on the nose, only he was a bit bigger than me, and wore glasses. So I thought I would just change the subject and asked him if he had managed all right in his room when he went to bed.

‘Managed what?' he said quite nicely, stooping under a huge tangle of bramble, which frightened a thrush so that it clattered off scolding.

‘Well, last evening. You know, with your po. Chamber pot,' I said, seeing he didn't seem to know.

And he laughed sort of and said, ‘Oh thanks, yes, managed all right. I didn't have to use the chamber pot thing.'

‘It's the Guest's one,' said my sister. ‘It's got a pheasant on the bottom.'

‘I just piddled out the window,' said Brian Thing.

‘Out the window?' I said.

‘Well . . . only once.'

‘The ginger beer,' said my sister. ‘But how rude to do it out of the window. Just suppose Lally had been walking underneath.'

‘It was quite late, and I heard her saying goodnight to you both from her room, so I was quite safe.'

‘And right into the apple trees! I'll never eat an apple off those trees ever again. And it'll stain the tiles, I bet.'

Brian looked very huffy, and his white face went quite red. ‘It didn't go anywhere near the wretched apple trees. They're miles away.'

‘Well . . . I do think it's very rude, especially when you've got your own po.'

We got to the end of the gully near the rubbish tip of old cans and bits of bedstead, and then we scrambled up the slope and the cottage was in front of us, all shimmering in the sun and behind it you could see the big clump of elm trees where the little church was.

‘If you don't believe in smugglers, we have a witch's house we could show you,' said my sister, feeling quite brave again now that she was so near the cottage and could see Lally in her pinafore walking down the path past the lean-to. ‘She's “gorn”, though, so you won't see her, but he' – she jerked her head at me as we started to climb over the rickety iron fence – ‘he could show you where she lived. It's very creepy, and there are millions of cats everywhere.'

Brian looked a bit startled and his shirt had come out again, so he tucked it back. But he didn't say anything, so you could see he was a bit impressed by the idea of a witch's house, even though it was just a caravan. But we didn't say that.

‘If you'd like to come and see it, I'll take you. It's not far from here. About two miles along the Downs.'

‘Very kind,' he said. But he was still looking at us in a peculiar way, as if we were dotty or something.

Really. People are funny.

‘Brian!' said Lally in surprise. ‘Where have they taken you? Your good shoes caked in mud! I declare, I can't turn my back on you two without you go and do something underhand. Give them to me. Come along, take them off, it's a fine summer's day, you'll come to no grief on the
grass in your socks. Give them to me and I'll clean them up in a trice, otherwise it cakes. Chalk does.'

She was being very bossy but you could see Brian didn't want a bit to take his shoes off, only he knew he had to, and you could see why when he did: there were huge holes in his socks. My sister was just about to say something about the holes – I mean, you could see that, and she had pointed – when Lally gave her a box on the ears, not very hard, and said, ‘Into the kitchen with you, Maddemoselle, and wash your hands . . . Fifteen minutes to lunch time.'

We walked behind her to the cottage.

‘What's for lunch, then?' I said, because there was a bit of a silence and I thought Brian Thing was a bit pale looking at all his toes. Almost.

‘Tea, toast and six eggs,' said Lally quite crossly and went into the kitchen with the shoes.

‘It isn't really that,' I said. ‘It's just what she always says when you ask tea, toast and six eggs. It's to put you off and stop you being a Nosey Parker, I think.'

But he didn't say anything, just looked rather uncomfortable, and suddenly Lally stuck her head out of the kitchen window. ‘Don't loll about there, you two, wash your hands and show Brian where. And, Brian? – why don't you take off your socks and go barefoot? It's such a hot day, and I'm doing my wash this afternoon. You're bound to have got them muddy . . . hurry along. And you two take off
your
sandals – I don't want you traipsing about my kitchen with mud everywhere, thank you very much. Lunch in ten minutes . . .'

Well, it was pretty silly telling us to take off our sandals because she never did before and they weren't even muddy,
but she did it just to make old Brian Thing feel at home, on account of he must have felt a bit silly sitting there on the grass in his holey socks. So we did and he did, and it was rather a nice feeling putting your feet into the grass and walking on the red bricks in the kitchen, and he seemed to quite cheer up. And so did I because it was my favourite lunch anyway: pressed tongue and pickled onions and damson tart for afterwards. It was quite funny really, because old Brian Thing quite forgot about his shoes and his holey socks, and he also forgot to say Miss Jane once. He just said Lally. Like we did.

In the end it really wasn't such a bad week. Well, as weeks go. It's always a bit mouldy if you have a Guest and have to be extra polite to him and do everything he wants to do and make him feel welcome. Even Family Hold Back on the pudding and so on, which was a bit irritating.

And Brian Thing got quite nice, well, as nice as anyone can who looks like that: all pale and speckled and wearing tin glasses. But Lally kept on saying, ‘Just you both remember he's got something to worry about with a new mother and all, and he's a well-educated boy and not used to people like you.' And that put us in our places, or so she jolly well thought. But anyway, we were all right to him and he wasn't bad. And he got better after the holey socks time, and especially after the next day when Lally came down with us all to the village – which was a bit funny because she never came down in the mornings and always told us to skedaddle from under her feet and find something to do or go for the messages while she whipped round the house, as she called it.

They were quite surprised in Wilde's, the grocer's, too. And bossy Miss Maltravers behind the post office counter-place said, ‘Well! Miss Jane. As I breathe! What a surprise. We don't often see you here of a morning.'

‘No more you don't,' said Lally. ‘Better things to do than traipsing about the shops, Miss Maltravers. Bit of elbow grease up at the top of the hill, that's what. But now and again I like to keep my eye on things, otherwise you get taken for granted, and as a matter of fact I want a shilling postal order if you please.' While Miss Maltravers was looking for it in her book, Lally said, really quite loudly in front of two or three people we didn't even know, ‘Mr Wilde, by the by, that Cheddar you sent up with the children last week was dry as dry. Australian, I shouldn't wonder, and made the journey all the way on the open deck by the look of it, and you know we always take English. So next time you haven't got it in, send up a nice piece of Leicester, will you. No fobbing off, Mr Wilde.' And he looked a bit grumpy and said he was very sorry he was sure. And then, looking up at the ceiling of the shop which was hung with legs of ham, kettles and lids, saucepans, wooden spoons in bundles and tin mugs with
Poland
printed on their bottoms, as well as lots of flypapers on account of all the flies and wasps which buzzed about because of the sugar and currants in the big wooden drawers behind the counter, Lally said, ‘I wonder if you have such a thing as a pair of plimsolls as'll fit this young gentleman here.' She put her hand on Brian Thing's head to show she didn't mean me. And Mr Wilde, who was wrapping up some bacon which he'd just sliced, said yes, he thought so, and they were ninepence ha' penny a pair.
What was funny was that she paid for them out of her own purse and not the housekeeping one, which was different and had a handle. It didn't leave very much in it, because when she paid Miss Maltravers for the postal order she did it with a sixpence and some coppers, and when she shook her little purse nothing rattled in it.

Anyway, Brian Thing got his plimsolls, which were better than his lace-ups in the country, and he seemed very pleased and asked if he could carry the red and black shopping-bag. That was really my job, but Lally said yes, so I couldn't say anything because he was a Guest and all. I felt it was a bit Teacher's Pet sort of thing but remembered about kith and kin and him only having half, if you know what I mean, with a new mother who told him to call her ‘Kathleen', he said.