A Girl to Love

He gave a grunting reply and a minute later she heard the typewriter. He was, she decided, a glutton for work.

It was cold and bright and frosty on Tuesday, and leaving Tom in charge curled up by the fire, they set out directly after breakfast. Sadie had on her best coat, bought several years earlier more with an eye to its warmth and durability than its fashion. She wore her hat too, a plain felt of the same mouse brown as the coat. Mr Trentham glanced at her and then away again quickly. The women he took out were smart, exquisitely turned out and very expensive. There was only one word for Sadie and that was dowdy. He felt suddenly very sorry for her, and then, taking another quick glance at her happy young face, realised that his pity was quite wasted.

They parked the car in the multi-storey car park and walked the short distance to the centre of the city, but before Sadie was allowed to look at shop windows they had coffee in an olde-worlde coffee shop near the Abbey, and only when they had done that did they start their shopping.

Sadie had supposed that he would arrange to meet her for lunch and go off on his own, but he showed no sign of doing this, instead he led the way towards Milsom Street shopping precinct where all the better shops were. ‘Blue or green,’ he told her, examining the models in the windows, ‘and don’t buy a hat, get a beret. How much money have you?’

She didn’t mind him being so dictatorial, it was like being taken out by an elder brother, she supposed. ‘Well, the salary you gave me, and I’ve some money in the bank…’

‘How much?’

‘Mr Banks isn’t quite sure, but at least two hundred pounds.’ She looked at him enquiringly. Not a muscle of his face moved, as he said gravely:

‘I should think you could safely spend half of that as well as your salary—you’ll only need a little money for odds and ends, won’t you?’

‘Well, I must get one or two Christmas presents.’

‘Probably the amount Mr Banks sends you will be more than he estimates.’

‘You think so? Then I’ll spend half of it.’ Then her face clouded. ‘Only I haven’t got it yet.’

‘I’ll let you have a hundred pounds and you can repay me when you get it.’

She hesitated. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘Not in the least. It would be highly inconvenient if I had to spend another day shopping.’ He added with the lazy good humour she was beginning to recognise: ‘So let’s enjoy ourselves today.’

It took her a little while to get started; she had never had so much money to spend before in her life and she was afraid to break into the wad of notes in her purse. They went from one shop to the next, and if Mr Trentham was bored he never said so. Sadie settled finally on a green tweed coat and a matching skirt with a beret to match it and, since they hadn’t cost a great deal, a sapphire blue wool dress, very simply cut. By then it was time for lunch. He took her to a restaurant called The Laden Table in George Street. It was fairly small but fashionable and Sadie wished with all her heart that she was wearing the new outfit, but she forgot that presently, made very much at her ease by Mr Trentham, who when he chose to exert himself could be an amusing companion. Besides, the food was delicious and the glass of sherry he offered her before they started their meal went to her head so that she forgot that she was by far the shabbiest woman in the room.

She spent the afternoon mostly by herself. Now that Mr Trentham had guided her away from the dreary colours which did nothing for her, he felt that he could safely leave her. ‘Get a pretty blouse or two,’ he suggested casually, ‘and a couple of sweaters—and no brown, mind. I’ll be at the coffee house at four o’clock, and mind you don’t keep me waiting.’

So she spent a long time in Marks and Spencer, and came out loaded, not only with the blouses and sweaters but with a pink quilted dressing gown and slippers and a pile of undies. There was precious little money left in her purse, but she didn’t care; she had all the things she had wanted most and she was content.

She got to the coffee house with a minute to spare and found him already there. She turned a radiant face to his and he took her parcels. ‘I’ve bought everything I ever wanted,’ she told him breathlessly, ‘well, almost everything. It’s been a lovely day.’

Over tea she asked him: ‘Did you get the presents for your little girls?’

He nodded. ‘I took your advice and got those workbaskets you liked. It seems a funny present for a little girl…’

‘No, it’s not; they like doing things, you know, and it isn’t like asking for a needle and cotton from a grown-up, everything in the basket’s theirs.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. If you’ve finished your tea we’d better go, Tom will be in despair.’

Sadie sat beside him in the car, enjoying the speed and his good driving. It was a cold dark evening now, but the car was warm and very comfortable, and since he didn’t want to talk, she thought about her new clothes and imagined herself wearing them. Mrs Durrant would no longer be able to look down her beaky nose at her on Sundays, and at Christmas she would wear the blue dress.

At the cottage, the car unloaded and the parcels on the kitchen table, Mr Trentham said briefly: ‘I’d like bacon and eggs for my supper,’ and stalked away to the dining room and presently she heard the clink of bottle and glass and sighed. He drank a little too much, she considered. To counteract the whisky, she would give him cocoa with his supper.

She fed Tom, made up the fire and went to take off her things. Unwrapping the parcels would have to come later; first Mr Trentham must have his eggs and bacon.

She set the table in the sitting room and called him when she had carried their meal in. He came at once and sat down without speaking. Only when he took a drink from his cup he put it down with a thump and a furious: ‘What the hell’s this I’m drinking?’

‘Cocoa,’ said Sadie mildly. Even in such a short time, she had got used to his sudden spurts of temper and took no notice of them.

Just for a moment she thought that he was going to fling it at her across the table. Instead he burst out laughing. ‘I haven’t had cocoa since I was a small boy.’ He stared at her for a long moment. ‘Now I’m a middle-aged man. How old do you think I am, Sadie?’

She was too honest to pretend that she hadn’t thought about it. ‘Well, it’s hard to say,’ she said carefully. ‘When you’re pleased about something you look about thirty-five.’

‘And when I’m not pleased?’

‘Oh, older, of course.’ She smiled at him. ‘Does it matter?’

‘I’m forty next birthday,’ he told her briefly. ‘Does that seem very old to you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s not even middle-aged. Besides, you’ve got your little daughters to keep you young.’

‘So I have.’ He sounded bitter and she wondered why, suddenly curious to know more about him. It was strange, the two of them living in the same house and knowing nothing about each other. She reminded herself that she worked for him, her life was so utterly different from what she imagined his to be when he wasn’t living at the cottage. Presumably he would finish whatever he was working on that so engrossed him, and tire of the peace and quiet and go back to London.

He went back to the dining room when he’d finished his supper, calling a careless goodnight as he went, and presently Sadie went up to bed. She tried on all the new clothes before she turned out the light. They still looked marvellous, but for some reason the first excitement at wearing them had gone. There was, after all, no one to notice them, least of all Mr Trentham.

CHAPTER THREE

SADIE SAW very little of Mr Trentham for the next two or three days. He appeared for his meals and ate them with evident enjoyment, but for the greater part of the day he was shut in the dining room with his typewriter and when he did emerge it was to put on his sheepskin jacket and go for a walk. On the fourth morning, however, he drove off in his car, saying that he wouldn’t be in for lunch, but hoped to be back for tea. Which gave Sadie a chance to rush through the cottage, making as much noise as she liked, polishing furniture and hoovering floors and cleaning windows. It took her all the morning, and after a quick lunch she sat down to write a list of all the things she would need to buy for Christmas. Mr Trentham had said spare no expense, and although she very much doubted if he would keep his plan to spend Christmas at the cottage, she would have to make all the preparations just the same.