A Girl to Love

‘What about you?’ he asked as he sat down, ‘or have you already had yours?’

‘Yes, thank you, I have. If you want more of anything will you call? I shall be in the kitchen.’ At the door she paused. ‘Would you like your supper at any particular time, Mr Trentham?’

He spread her home-made jam on a scone and took a bite. ‘Did you make these?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Wild strawberry jam,’ he observed to no one in particular, ‘I haven’t tasted it since I was a boy. You made it?’

‘Yes.’ She tried again. ‘Your supper, Mr Trentham?’

‘Oh, any time,’ he told her carelessly. ‘I’ll unpack a few things and get my books put away. Where have you put my desk?’

‘In the other room. If you wouldn’t mind having your meals in here, you could use the dining room to work in.’

He nodded. ‘That sounds all right. Whose cat is that, staring at me from under the table?’

‘Oh, that’s Tom—he’s mine. I did ask about him, and you said you wouldn’t mind…’

‘So I did.’ He buttered another scone. ‘Don’t let me keep you from whatever you’re doing.’

She went out closing the door soundlessly. The kitchen was warm and smelt deliciously of food. She put the custardy part of the Queen of Puddings into the oven and began to whip the egg whites. Her future was tumbling about her ears, but that was no reason to present him with a badly cooked meal. When she heard him go into the hall she opened the kitchen door to tell him: ‘Your bedroom is the one on the right at the top of the stairs. Would you like any more tea, Mr Trentham?’

He paused, his arms full of books. ‘No, thanks. It was the best tea I’ve had in years. In fact I don’t normally have tea, I can see that I shall have to get into the habit again. Did you make that cake too?’

‘Yes.’ She went past him up the stairs and switched on the light in the bedroom and pulled the curtains. It looked very pleasant in a shabby kind of way but a bit chilly, she was glad she’d put hot water bottles in the bed.

‘You can come in here and help,’ he called as she went downstairs, and she spent the next half hour handing him books from the two big cases he had brought with him, while he arranged them on the bookshelves she had luckily cleared. He had a powerful desk lamp too and a typewriter, and a mass of papers and folders which he told her quite sharply to leave alone. Finally he said: ‘That’s enough for this evening.’ He gave her his lazy smile again. ‘Thanks for helping.’

He went outside again presently to the car parked in the lane and came back with a case of bottles which he arranged on the floor in a corner of the sitting room, an arrangement which Sadie didn’t care for at all. There was a small table in one of the empty bedrooms; she would bring it down in the morning and put the bottles on it. She collected the tea tray and started to lay supper at one end of the table, and he asked for a glass.

Granny’s corner cupboard was one of the nicest pieces of furniture in the cottage. Sadie opened its door now and invited him to take what he wanted. He chose a heavy crystal tumbler and held it up to the light.

‘Very nice too—old—Waterford, I believe.’

‘Yes, everything there is mostly Waterford, but there are one or two glasses made by Caspar Wistar. My grandmother had them from her grandmother. I’m not sure how they came into the family.’

‘They’re rare and valuable.’

She closed the cupboard door carefully. ‘I don’t know if you bought them with the cottage. Mr Banks is going to send me a list…’

He had picked up a bottle of whisky and was pouring it. ‘No, I haven’t bought them, and if you think of selling them I should get a very reliable firm to value them first.’

‘Sell them?’ She looked at him quite blankly. ‘But I couldn’t do that!’

He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘No, probably you couldn’t,’ he agreed goodnaturedly. ‘Something smells good,’ he added.

‘It will be ready in ten minutes,’ she told him, and went back to the kitchen.

Washing up in the old-fashioned scullery later, Sadie wondered what her chances of staying were. Undoubtedly, when they had met, Mr Trentham had made up his mind instantly that she wouldn’t do, but now, since making inroads into the splendid supper she had put before him, she had seen his eyes, thoughtful and a little doubtful, resting upon her as she had cleared the table. She hadn’t said a word, just taken in the coffee and put it silently on the table by the fire, then taken herself off to the kitchen, where she and Tom demolished the rest of the steak and kidney pudding and the afters before setting the kitchen to rights again. It was bedtime before she had finished. She refilled the hot water bottle, switched on the bedside light and went downstairs again to tap on the sitting room door and go in.

‘There’s plenty of hot water if you would like a bath,’ she told him, ‘and it will be warm enough by eight o’clock in the morning if you’d prefer one then.’

He looked up from the book he was reading. ‘Oh, the morning, I think.’

‘If you’d put the guard in front of the fire?’ she suggested. ‘I hope you’ll sleep well, Mr Trentham.’

He smiled at her. ‘No doubt of that,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve been sitting here listening for the proverbial pin to drop. I’d forgotten just how quiet it can be in the country.’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Goodnight, Mr Trentham.’

‘Goodnight, Sadie.’

She went up the narrow stairs, Tom plodding behind her to climb on to her bed and make himself comfortable while she had a bath and got ready for the night. She was almost asleep when she heard Mr Trentham come upstairs. He came with careful stealth, trying to be quiet, but he was a big man and probably not used to considering others all that much. He was nice, though, she thought sleepily, used to doing as he pleased, no doubt, but then according to Charlie, who read the TV Times and watched the box whenever he had a moment to spare, he was an important man in his own particular field. She heard his door on the other side of the landing close quietly and then silence, broken by a subdued bellow of laughter.

She was too tired to wonder about that.

She was up before seven o’clock, creeping downstairs to clear out the ashes and light the fires in both rooms as well as the boiler and then to get dressed before going down to the kitchen to cook the breakfast—porridge and eggs and bacon and toast. By the time Mr Trentham got down the table was laid and the fire was burning brightly. She wished him a sedate good morning and added: ‘Tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee, please. God, I haven’t had a night like that in years!’

There seemed no answer to that. Sadie retired to the kitchen, made the coffee and took it in with a bowl of porridge.

‘I never eat the stuff,’ declared Mr Trentham, and then at the sight of her downcast face: ‘Oh, all right, I’ll try it.’

She had the satisfaction of seeing a bowl scraped clean when she took in the eggs and bacon. He demolished those too before polishing off the toast and marmalade.

‘It goes without saying that you made the marmalade as well,’ he observed as she cleared the table.

‘Well, yes, of course. Everyone does.’ She gave him a brief smile and went back to the kitchen, where she ate her breakfast with Tom for company until Charlie interrupted her with a pile of letters.

‘Brought a bit o’ custom to the village,’ he volunteered cheerfully. ‘That’s a posh car outside, all right.’

Sadie gobbled up the last of her bacon, offered a mug of tea and took the letters. Mr Trentham wasn’t in the sitting room and she could hear the typewriter going without pause. She didn’t fancy disturbing him, not after all his remarks about peace and quiet, but she saw no way out of it. She tapped on the door and getting no answer, went in, laid the post down on the edge of the desk and went out again. She rather doubted if he had seen her.

She whisked round the cottage, not finding much to do, for everything had been so scrubbed and polished it had had no time to get even a thin film of dust. And then, since the typewriter was still being pounded without pause, she went silently in with coffee. Without looking up, Mr Trentham said: ‘Open the post for me, Sadie, will you? Do it here.’

She thought of her own coffee cooling in the kitchen and picked up a paper knife on the desk. There were nine letters. Three of them were in handwriting and began Dear Oliver, and she laid them on top of the others—bills and what appeared to be business letters. Having done so she made silently for the door, to be stopped by Mr Trentham’s voice.

‘Where’s your coffee?’

‘In the kitchen.’ She put a hand on the door knob.

‘Fetch it and come back here, I want to have a talk with you.’ He sounded so noncommittal that she guessed that he was going to tell her that she must go. And where to? she asked herself, rejoining him, her tranquil face showing nothing of the panic she was in.

‘Mr Banks was quite right,’ he began. ‘He described you as a sensible countrywoman, and it seems to me you are. What my mother would have called an old head on young shoulders…I think we may suit each other very well, Sadie, but several adjustments must be made. We’ll take our meals together—it’s ridiculous that you should eat in the kitchen of your own home. You will share the sitting room as you wish, all I ask is that I should be left to myself in this room. You will refrain from lugging logs and coals into the house, I’ll do that each morning or if you prefer, each night. And you’re not to wear that depressing overall. We’ll go to Bridport and purchase something more in keeping with your age. What is your age, by the way?’

‘I’m twenty-three.’