A Good Wife

‘A walk? And am I to be left alone in the house?’

‘Well, when I go to the shops you’re alone, aren’t you? The phone is by the bed, and you can get up if you want and go downstairs for a change.’

She reached the door. ‘I’ll be back for coffee,’ she told him.

She fetched a jacket—an elderly garment she kept for gardening—found stout shoes, put a handful of biscuits into a pocket and left the house. Barrow Hill looked nearer than it was, but it was still early. She turned away from the road leading down to the village, climbed a stile and took the footpath beside a field of winter wheat.

It was a gentle climb to start with, and she didn’t hurry. The trees and hedges were in leaf, there were lambs bleating and birds singing and the sky was blue, a washed-out blue, dotted with small woolly clouds. She stopped to stare up at it; it was indeed a beautiful morning, and she was glad that she had rebelled against the routine of housework and cooking. No doubt her father would be coldly angry when she got back, but nothing he could say would spoil her pleasure now.

The last bit of Barrow Hill was quite steep, along a path bordered by thick undergrowth, but presently it opened out onto rough ground covered in coarse grass and strewn with rocks, offering a splendid view of the surrounding countryside. It was a solitary spot, but she saw that today she was going to have to share it with someone else. A man was sitting very much at ease on one of the larger rocks—the one, she noticed crossly, which she considered her own.

He had turned round at the sound of her careful progress through the stones and grass tufts, and now he stood up. A very tall man, with immensely broad shoulders, wearing casual tweeds. As she went towards him she saw that he was a handsome man too, but past his first youth. Nearer forty than thirty, she reflected as she wished him good morning, casting a look at her rock as she did so.

His ‘Good morning,’ was cheerful. ‘Am I trespassing on your rock?’

She was rather taken aback. ‘Well, it’s not my rock, but whenever I come up here I sit on it.’

He smiled, and she found herself smiling back. He had a nice smile and it was unexpected, for his features were forbidding in repose—a powerful nose, heavy-lidded blue eyes and a thin mouth above the decidedly firm chin. Not a man to treat lightly, she thought.

She sat down without fuss on the rock, and he sat on a tree stump some yards away. He said easily, ‘I didn’t expect to find anyone here. It’s quite a climb…’

‘Not many people come up here for that reason, and, of course, those living in the village mostly go to Yeovil to work each day. In the summer sometimes people come and picnic. Not often, though, for they can’t bring a car near enough…’

‘So you have it to yourself?’

She nodded. ‘But I don’t come as often as I would like to…’

‘You work in Yeovil too?’

He asked the question so gently that she answered, ‘Oh, no. I live at home.’

He glanced at her hands, lying idly in her lap. Small hands, roughened by work, not the hands of a lady of leisure. She caught his glance and said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘I look after my father and run the house.’

‘And you have escaped? Just for a while?’

‘Well, yes. You see, it’s my birthday…’

‘Then I must wish you a very happy day.’ When she didn’t reply, he added, ‘I expect you will be celebrating this evening? A party? Family?’

‘No. My brothers and their families don’t live very close to us.’

‘Ah, well—but there is always the excitement of the postman, isn’t there?’

She agreed so bleakly that he began to talk about the country around them; a gentle flow of conversation which soothed her, so that presently she was able to tell him some of the local history and point out the landmarks.

But a glance at her watch set her on her feet. ‘I must go.’ She smiled at him. ‘I enjoyed talking to you. I do hope you will enjoy your stay here.’

He got up and wished her a pleasant goodbye, and if she had half hoped that he would suggest going back to the village with her she was disappointed.

It had been pleasant, she reflected, going hurriedly back along the path. He had seemed like an old friend, and she suspected that she had talked too much. But that wouldn’t matter; she wasn’t likely to see him again. He had told her casually that he was a visitor. And now she came to think of it he hadn’t sounded quite English…

She reached the house a little out of breath; her father had his coffee at eleven o’clock each morning and it was five minutes to the hour. She put the kettle on, still in her jacket, and ground the beans, then kicked off her shoes, smoothed her hair, laid a tray and, once more her quiet self, went up to her father’s room.

He was sitting in his great armchair by the window, reading. He looked up as she went in. ‘There you are. Gregory telephoned. He has a great deal of work. He hopes to see you at the weekend.’

‘Did he wish me a happy birthday?’ She put down the tray and waited hopefully.

‘No. He is a busy man, Serena. I think that you sometimes forget that.’ He picked up his book. ‘I fancy an omelette for lunch.’ He added reprovingly, ‘My bed is not yet made; I shall probably need to rest after I have eaten.’

Serena went back downstairs, reminding herself that she had had a few hours of pure pleasure on Barrow Hill; it would be something to think about. She supposed that it was because it was her birthday that she had been so chatty with the stranger there. She blushed at the thought.

‘Not that it matters,’ she told Puss, offering the small beast sardines from the tin she had opened. ‘He doesn’t know me from Adam, and I don’t know him, though I think he’d be rather a nice person to know. He’ll have forgotten all about me…’

However, he hadn’t. He walked back to Dr Bowring’s house, thinking about her. He had known the doctor and his wife for many years—they had been medical students and she a nurse—creating an easy friendship which had lasted, despite the fact that he lived and worked in Holland. On his occasional visits to England he contrived to see them, although this was the first time he had visited them in Somerset. At lunch he told them of his walk up Barrow Hill.

‘And I met a girl there—rather shabby clothes, round face, brown hair—very untidy, nice voice. Said she looked after her father but she’d escaped for an hour or two because it was her birthday.’

‘Serena Lightfoot,’ chorused his companions. ‘A perfect darling,’ said Mrs Bowring. ‘Her father’s the horridest old man I’ve ever met. Threw George out, didn’t he, darling?’

The doctor nodded. ‘He’s perfectly fit, but has decided to be an invalid for the rest of his life. I’m not allowed in the house, but from what I can glean from the village gossip he spends his days sitting around or lying in bed, enjoying ill health. When his wife died he sacked the housekeeper, and now Serena runs the place with old Mrs Pike going there twice a week. No life for a girl.’

‘So why doesn’t she leave? She’s old enough and wise enough, surely?’

‘I’ve done my best to persuade her to get a job away from home—so has the rector—but it seems that she promised her mother that she would look after him. It’s not all gloom and doom though. It’s an open secret in the village that Gregory Pratt intends to marry her. He’s a partner in a law firm in Sherborne. A prudent man, with an eye on Mr Lightfoot’s not inconsiderable financial status and the house—both of which it is presumed he will leave to Serena. She has two brothers, both with incomes of their own and steady positions, but neither of them see much of her or their father, and have let it be known that they neither expect nor want anything when he dies.’

‘So is Serena by way of being an heiress?’

‘It seems so. Neither her father nor her brothers seem to have mentioned it to her, but I have heard that Gregory is aware of it.’

‘So he would have told her, surely?’

‘Oh, no. That might give her the idea that he only wants to marry her for her money and the house.’

The Dutchman raised heavy brows. ‘And does he?’

‘Of course. My dear Ivo! He’s not in love with her, I feel sure, and I doubt very much if she is with him, but he’s always very attentive if they should go out together, which isn’t often, and I think she likes him well enough. She’s a sensible girl; she knows she hasn’t much in the way of looks, and very little chance of leaving home unless her father dies. Even then she has had little chance to go out into the world and meet people.’

‘It’s a shame,’ said Mrs Bowring, ‘for she’s great fun and so kind and gentle; she must long for pretty clothes and a chance to meet people of her own age. You’ve no idea what a job it is to get her here for drinks or dinner. Her wretched father manages to feel ill at the last minute, or he telephones just as we’re sitting down to dinner and demands her back home because he’s dying.’

They began to talk of other things then, and Serena wasn’t spoken of again. Two days later Mr van Doelen drove himself back to London and shortly after, back to Holland.

It was the following Saturday when Gregory called to see Serena, although after greeting her in a somewhat perfunctory fashion he went upstairs to see her father. A man who knew on which side his bread was buttered, and intending to have jam on it too, he lost no opportunity of keeping on good terms with Mr Lightfoot. He spent half an hour or so discussing the stockmarket, and listening with every appearance of serious attention to Mr Lightfoot’s pithy remarks about the government, before going back downstairs to the sitting room to find Serena sitting on the floor, doing the Telegraph crossword puzzle.

He sat down in one of the old-fashioned armchairs. ‘Would you not be more comfortable in a chair, Serena?’

‘Do you suppose an etui is the same thing as a small workbag, Gregory?’

He frowned. ‘Really, my dear, you ask the most stupid questions.’