A Gentle Awakening

‘Mrs Birch from the village, who looks after me while my wife is away, has gone to Wilton. So I’m alone, which is perhaps a good thing, for we can go round undisturbed.’

He led the way through the hall and into a very large room with a window at its end. There were more windows and an open door along one side. It was furnished with some handsome mahogany pieces, and a number of easy chairs, and there was a massive marble fireplace facing the windows. The admiral went across the room and bent down to roll back the carpet before the hearth.

‘I don’t know if the agent told you about this?’ He chuckled and stood back so that his visitors could see what he had laid bare. A thick glass panel in the floor, and under it a steady flow of water. ‘There used to be a mill wheel, but that’s gone. The water runs under this room…’ He led the way through the doors on to a wide patio and leaned over a stone balustrade. ‘It comes out here and runs through the garden into the fields beyond.’

The little girl caught her father’s hand. ‘Swans, Daddy!’ Her voice was a delighted squeak. ‘Do they live here, in this garden?’

‘Not quite in the garden,’ said the Admiral. ‘But they come for bread each day. You shall feed them presently, if you like.’

The kitchen wing was in the other side of the L-shape, a delightful mixture of old-fashioned pantries, with everything that any housewife could wish for. There were other rooms, too: a dining-room, a small sitting-room, a study lined with bookshelves. Upstairs, the rooms were light and airy; there were five of them and three bathrooms, as well as a great attic reached by a narrow little stair. ‘My playroom,’ whispered the little girl.

They went back to the drawing-room presently, and the Admiral fetched the coffee tray and bread for the swans. ‘I’ve been here for more than twenty years,’ he observed, ‘and we hate to leave it, but my wife has to live in a warm climate. She’s been in Italy for a couple of months and already she is greatly improved. May I ask where you come from, Sir William?’

‘London—Knightsbridge. I’m a paediatrician, consultant at several hospitals. I want Pauline to grow up in the country and, provided I can get help to run the house, I can drive up and down to town and stay overnight when I must. There’s a good school, I hear; Pauline can go by the day.’

‘Too far for her to cycle.’

‘Yes, whoever comes here to look after us will have to drive her in and fetch her each day. A problem I’ll deal with later.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘I should like to buy your house, Admiral. May our solicitors get to work on it?’

He sat back in his chair, very relaxed, a calm man who had made up his mind without fuss. ‘They’ll take three weeks if we bully them,’ he said. ‘May I come again with someone to advise me about cooking stoves and so on?’ He added, ‘I’m a widower, but I have plans to re-marry.’

‘Of course. I shall probably be ready to move out before the solicitors fix a date. Feel free to arrange for carpets and curtains and so forth. Wilton is small, but there are a couple of excellent furnishing firms.’

They finished their coffee in companionable silence; two men who arranged their lives without fuss.

Walking back through the village, presently, Sir William asked, ‘You’re pleased, darling? You’ll be happy here? I’ll get Nanny to come and live with us for a time…’

‘Until you marry Miss Fortesque?’ said Pauline in a sad voice, so that her father stopped to look down at her.

‘Look, darling, I know it’s a bit difficult for you to understand, but Wanda is very fond of you, and it’ll be nice for you to have someone to come home to and talk to…’

‘There’s you, Daddy…’

‘I shall be in town for several days in the week. Once Wanda’s here she will be able to get to know everyone about, and you’ll have lots of friends.’

Pauline’s small, firm mouth closed into an obstinate line. ‘I’d be quite happy with Nanny.’

‘Yes, love, but Nanny retired last year, she won’t want to start working all over again. If she comes for a few months…’

‘Until you get married?’

‘Until I get married,’ repeated her father gently, and then, ‘I thought you liked Wanda?’

Pauline shrugged her small shoulders. ‘She’s all right, but she’s not like a mother, is she? She fusses about her clothes!’

‘I imagine you’ll fuss about yours when you’re older. Now, what shall we do with the rest of our day?’

He drove her to Stourhead and they had lunch at the Spread Eagle pub. Then they wandered right round the lake, and on the way back in the afternoon they stopped in Shaftesbury and had a cream tea. It was well past six o’clock before they got back to the farm. It was a warm evening and the country was very beautiful; they wandered over the road to the bridge and leaned over to watch the river, waiting until their evening meal would be ready. The church clock struck seven as they left the bridge and strolled to the road. They had to wait a moment while a cyclist went by.

‘That’s the nice girl we saw yesterday,’ said Pauline.

‘Was she nice?’ asked Sir William in an uninterested manner.

Pauline nodded her head vigorously. ‘Oh, yes. When we live here I shall ask if I may be her friend.’

‘A bit old for you, darling?’ He had no idea of the girl’s age, and he wasn’t interested. ‘You must go to bed directly after supper. We’re going to make an early start in the morning.’

They were driving through Wilton when Pauline saw the small, ginger-haired figure getting off her bike as they passed the hotel. ‘Oh, there she is!’ she cried excitedly. ‘Daddy, do you suppose she works there?’

Sir William glanced sideways without slackening speed. ‘Very likely. I dare say you’ll see more of her when we come to live here.’

It was July when Admiral Riley left, and after that there was a constant coming and going of delivery vans, carpet layers, plumbers and painters. The village, via the Trout and Feathers, knew all that was going on and, naturally enough, Florina knew too. The new owner would move in in two weeks’ time, his small daughter was going to school in Wilton, and there was a housekeeper coming. Also, Mrs Datchett from Rose Cottage, and Mrs Deakin, whose husband was a farm worker, were to go to work there four times a week.

‘Disgraceful,’ grumbled Florina’s father. ‘That great house, with just a man and child in it…’

‘But there’s work for Mrs Datchett and Mrs Deakin, close to their own homes, as well as for old Mr Meek, who is seeing to the garden. And the tradespeople—it’s much better than leaving the house empty, Father.’

‘Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,’ snapped Mr Payne. ‘It’s bad enough that you go gallivanting off to work each day, leaving me to manage as best I can…’

Florina, laying the table for their meal, wasn’t listening. She had heard it all before. It was wicked, she supposed, not to love her father, but she had tried very hard and been rebuffed so often that she had given up. Once or twice she had questioned the amount of her wages which he told her were necessary to supplement his income, only to be told to mind her own business. And she had done so, under the impression that his health would suffer if she thwarted him. Now according to the doctor, there was no longer any fear of that.

She went into the kitchen to cook the liver and bacon. Moments later her father poked his head round the door and demanded to know if he was to get anything to eat. ‘I dare say you’d like to see me dead,’ he grumbled.

‘No, Father, just a bit more cheerful,’ said Florina. At the same time, she resolved to start looking for another job on the very next day.

As it happened, she had no need. She was getting on her bike the next morning when Mrs Datchett came out of Rose Cottage, just across the street, and accosted her.

‘Eh, love, can you spare a minute? You’ve heard I’m to go up to the Wheel House to work? Well, the housekeeper who took me on asked me if I knew of a good cook, and I thought of you. Lovely kitchen it is, too, and a cushy job as you might say, with that Sir William away most of the time and only the little girl and that housekeeper there. I don’t know what he’ll pay, but you’d not have that bike ride every day. Why don’t you have a go?’

Florina cycled to work, thinking hard. By the time she got there she had made her mind up to apply for the job; it could do no harm and it seemed to her that it was a direct sign from heaven that she should look for other work… To strengthen this argument, it was her half-day; usually spent in cleaning the house.

She got home about two o’clock and, instead of getting into an apron and getting out the vacuum cleaner, she went to her room, put on a clean blouse, brushed her blue skirt, did her hair in a severe style which did nothing for her looks, and went downstairs.

‘Why are you going out?’ enquired her father suspiciously.

‘Don’t worry, Father, I’ll be back to get you your tea.’ She skipped through the door before he could answer.

It was barely five minutes’ walk to the Wheel House and Florina didn’t give herself time to get nervous. She thumped the knocker, firmly, and then took several deep breaths. She had read somewhere that deep breathing helped if one felt nervous.

The door was opened and there was a tall, bony woman with grey hair and faded blue eyes. She looked stern and rather unwelcoming, so that Florina was glad of the deep breaths.

‘Good afternoon. Mrs Datchett told me this morning that you were wanting a cook…’

‘Sir William is wanting a cook. I’m the housekeeper. Do come in.’

She was led into a small sitting-room in the kitchen wing. ‘Why do you want to come?’

‘I work at a hotel in Wilton—I’ve been there for several years. I cycle there and back each day. I’d like to work on my own.’ Florina added, anxiously, ‘I’m a good cook, I can get references.’