A Summer Idyll

She would miss them too, she thought, sitting in the train, gazing out at the flat Essex countryside, but perhaps she would make new friends in the village. It was quite a long journey, and by the time the train reached Stowmarket, she was famished. She put her two cases in the left luggage at the station, then went into a nearby café and had a meal of sorts before collecting her luggage once more and crossing the square to board the bus for Woolpit. It was a five-mile ride and Phoebe sat in the almost empty bus, watching the first signs of spring with delight. London’s parks were all very well, but they couldn’t compete with primroses and the bread-and-cheese in the hedges under a thin sunshine from a pale blue sky. The bus turned off the by pass, rattled down the narrow road to the village and stopped at one side of the village green. Aunt Kate’s house was on the other side, beyond the village pump, a nice old house with sash windows and tall Tudor chimneys. Phoebe said goodbye to the driver and carried her cases across the green, put them down in the porch which sheltered the white wood door, and thumped the knocker. The Tartar had told her that she would telephone the doctor to say that Phoebe was coming at once, but she doubted if she was expected quite as soon.

The door opened cautiously and a girl of sixteen peered round it.

‘Hullo,’ said Phoebe, ‘I’ve come to look after Miss Mason. May I come in? I’m expected.’

The girl smiled then. She opened the door wide, took one of Phoebe’s cases from her and said breathlessly: ‘Oh, miss, come in, do. I said I’d stay until you got ’ere, ’e said I was to, but now I can go ’ome.’

‘Do you come each day?’ asked Phoebe quickly. ‘And what’s your name?’

‘Susan, and I come mornings, to clean and that—there’s been a nurse, but she won’t come no more—couldn’t manage with Miss Mason’s ways. Went this morning, early she did.’

Hence the urgency, thought Phoebe. The doctor, whoever he might be, must think of her as a gift from heaven. She could imagine his relief; being a niece of his troublesome patient, she could hardly pack her bags and leave.

‘Well, I’m here now,’ said Phoebe hearteningly. ‘Just show me where my room is and where you keep everything. Is my aunt in bed? Asleep?’

Susan nodded. ‘She usually has a nap till tea.’ She added anxiously. ‘We could be quiet like.’

Phoebe nodded in wholehearted agreement. Let her just have time to look around her and make a cup of tea, she prayed hopefully, and followed Susan down the hall.

She remembered the house well enough. The kitchen was at the right of the passage at the back, a roomy old-fashioned place, its only concession to modern times being the gas stove. Aunt Kate had never seen the sense in spending money on washing machines and the like when she could get a young local girl to do the chores for a small wage. All the same, it was a pleasant place as well as old-fashioned, and it was clean. Phoebe nodded understanding at Susan’s pointing finger; the larder, the sink, the various drawers and the old-fashioned dresser. They went quietly out again and disregarded the sitting room and dining room doors, then crept up the stairs beside the back door. The landing was roomy and had four doors leading from it as well as a narrow stair leading to the attics. One door was closed; and they listened long enough to hear the snores from behind it and then crossed to one of the rooms at the front of the house. It was rather sparsely furnished and the curtains and bed spread were a depressingly dull green, but it overlooked the street and the pale sun made it cheerful. A vase of flowers, thought Phoebe, and her few bits and pieces scattered around, would make all the difference. She nodded to Susan, took off her coat and left it on the bed and accompanied her silently downstairs again.

‘Tomorrow?’ she asked.

Susan nodded. ‘Ar past eight, miss, till ’ar past twelve.’ She was putting on her coat. ‘There’s things for supper in the larder—eggs and that.’

Phoebe opened the door, wished her goodbye and closed it quietly. Tea first, she decided, and something to eat. She was famished again, and once Aunt Kate woke she would probably be kept busy.

She put the kettle on, found teapot, tea, a bottle of milk and the sugar bowl and half a packet of digestive biscuits, and presently sat down at the table. It wasn’t much of a meal, but she felt all the better for it and after she had tidied up she poked her head into the larder and assessed its contents. Eggs, some fish on a plate—but only enough for one—bread in the bin, butter, some old cheese and nothing much else. She wondered what the nurse had had to eat, and what, for that matter, she was to eat herself. The cupboards yielded a good supply of flour and oats and rice and sugar though; given time she should be able to whip up some sort of meal for the invalid. She found a tray and put it ready in case Aunt Kate should wake. It was well after four o’clock and perhaps she should take a look.

There was no need, a bell tinkled urgently and Phoebe hurried up the stairs, tapped on her aunt’s door and went in.

Aunt Kate was propped up in bed, swathed in a thick shawl and by no means in a good temper. ‘So there you are,’ she snapped between coughs. ‘And high time too—when a body can’t depend on her own kith and kin taking care of her it’s a poor state of affairs. I don’t know what the world’s coming to!’

Phoebe didn’t know either, and since Aunt Kate’s remarks were exactly the same as the last time they had met, she said merely: ‘I came as soon as the hospital had your message, Aunt Kate, I’m sorry you are ill.’

‘Pooh,’ said Aunt Kate strongly. ‘Fiddlesticks—and don’t think you’ll get a penny piece from me, my girl— I’ve better ways of leaving my money.’ She added quickly: ‘Not that I have any money, living here on my own with no one to bother about me.’

‘The nurse?’ asked Phoebe.

‘Bah—stupid woman, all she could think of was her meals.’ She shot Phoebe a grumpy look, her dark little eyes half closed. ‘Do you eat a lot?’

‘Yes,’ said Phoebe simply. ‘Would you like your tea now?’

Aunt Kate had a fit of coughing. ‘Yes—thin bread and butter with it. When I’ve had it I’ll talk to you.’

It was hard to be sorry for the old lady; she was ill and crippled with arthritis, and Phoebe did her best to pity her as she went back to the kitchen. She made the tea, cut paper-thin bread and butter and at the same time made jam sandwiches for herself, since she was still hungry, and having settled her aunt against her pillows with the tea tray on the bed table, went down again to make another pot of tea to accompany the sandwiches. She had just finished the last of them when Aunt Kate rang the bell.

‘You’ll stay of course,’ she began without preamble. ‘You’re my niece, my great-niece, and it’s your duty.’

‘I’ve been training as a nurse,’ observed Phoebe mildly.

‘Time enough for that after I’ve gone. I’ll not last long that Dr Pritchard says I’m good for a few more years yet, but I know better.’

‘What happened to Dr Bennett?’ asked Phoebe, vaguely remembering a small neat man with a goatee beard who called Aunt Kate ‘dear lady’ and sometimes had stayed for tea.

‘Retired, drat him. Now I have to bear with this little whipper-snapper who takes no notice of me whatsoever.’ Aunt Kate pushed the bed table away impatiently. ‘You can take this; I’ll have a bit of fish for my supper—done in milk, mind—and an egg custard.’

Phoebe took the bed table away and picked up the tray. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said with firm gentleness, ‘perhaps you will give me some money and I’ll buy some food. There’s almost nothing to eat in the house.’

‘My appetite’s poor,’ snapped Aunt Kate.

‘I expect so, but mine isn’t. If I’m to stay, Aunt Kate, then I shall want to be fed, and since I’ve no money of my own, I’m afraid you’ll have to pay me a salary.’

The old lady’s eyes snapped. ‘My own niece demanding a salary?’

‘That’s right. After all, you had to pay the nurse, didn’t you? Private nurses are very expensive.’

Aunt Kate mumbled something in a cross voice and Phoebe was given to understand that she would be given pocket money—the sum mentioned would buy toothpaste and shampoo and tights, but precious little else, but Phoebe was satisfied. It was, after all, a small declaration of independence; if she hadn’t taken a stand then and there, she would have become a doormat.

She took the tea tray downstairs and went back again to wash her aunt’s face and hands and make her bed, chatting cheerfully as she did so. The doctor, her aunt told her grudgingly, came in the morning after surgery; it was he who had insisted on her having a nurse after calling unexpectedly one afternoon and finding her out of bed and struggling to get downstairs to get herself a meal.

‘Why not the district nurse?’ asked Phoebe.

‘Won’t have her near me,’ declared Aunt Kate, and Phoebe sighed; the old lady took fierce dislikes to some people and no amount of inconvenience to other people would alter that. ‘Nothing more than a baggage, that nurse Dr Pritchard made me have. Always looking at herself in the glass, wanting time off, if you please, said she needed recreation.’ Aunt Kate gave a weary little snort. ‘As though she had anything to do here! Susan cleans the house.’

Phoebe held her tongue and then asked what time she wanted her supper.

‘Half past seven, and no later. And mind you do that fish in milk.’

Phoebe left a bedside light on, laid spectacles, book, handkerchief and bell within reach and took herself off to the kitchen. The fish looked unappetising; a morsel of creamed potato might brighten it up a bit, and she could purée a few carrots.

She had just set the egg custard in its pan of warm water when the front door was opened. Susan couldn’t have closed it properly and she hadn’t bothered to look herself. It might be a neighbour, but she doubted that; Aunt Kate didn’t encourage neighbours; she ought to go into the hall and see who it was, but if she did the custard might spoil if she didn’t get it into the oven at once.

Her decision was made for her. The kitchen door, half open, was flung wide and a large man came in. He was tall as well as broad with fair hair, cut short; a handsome face and a decidedly brisk manner.

‘So you got here,’ he stated with satisfaction. ‘Thought I’d make sure you had arrived, otherwise it would have been the district nurse and fireworks. What’s your name?’

‘Phoebe Creswell.’ Phoebe frowned. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Pritchard, George.’ He held out a hand and smiled and she didn’t feel put out any more; he had a smile which was nice, friendly and reassuring. ‘I hope your aunt is pleased to see you.’

Phoebe closed the door gently on the custard. ‘Well, yes, I think on the whole she is.’

He nodded. ‘Good. She’s ill, you know that.’ His gaze swept round the kitchen and stayed on the fish. ‘Her supper?’ he wanted to know. ‘What about you?’

She was touched that he had thought of that. ‘Well, there’s nothing much in the house—I can’t think what the nurse had to eat. I’ll make some toasted cheese.’ The small nose twitched; she was hungry again. After all, she hadn’t had much to eat all day—a good cooked dinner. Her mouth watered at the thought.

‘I’m on the other side of the green. When I’ve done my rounds I’ll send my housekeeper over to sit here while you have supper with me. No, don’t argue, it’ll give me a chance to explain your aunt’s case to you and discuss medicines and so on.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘About eight o’clock. Right?’