Katie Oliver - The Trouble With Emma

“I’m coming,” her sister retorted as she appeared at the top of the stairs in shorts and a T-shirt. “No need to shout, I only just got up.”

“You wanted a dog,” Emma said grimly. “Take care of him, as you promised, because I promise you, I will not .” She turned on her heel and returned to her plate of rapidly cooling pancakes.

“God, you’re such a cow.”

As Charli followed her into the kitchen, glaring at her as she got herself a cup of coffee, Emma returned her attention to Mr Bennet. “I was thinking. Why don’t we have a bake sale here at Litchfield Manor, and raise money towards repairing the roof? You could make scones, and Martine could help with the pies and fairy cakes. I can bake cookies.” She warmed to the idea. “And perhaps I can persuade Boz to contribute a few dozen doughnuts or cream horns. We could have an auction –”

“No.”

She looked at him in surprise. “No? But…why not? Even a hundred pounds would go some way towards fixing the roof.”

He sipped his coffee and set the cup back down. “Raising money for the church is one thing, Emma. But doing so for personal gain, to make improvements to my own home? It’s not appropriate.”

“But this is the former vicarage,” she pointed out, refusing to yield. “And it has historical value.”

“Yes, perhaps. But it’s our home now. And I will not – ” he paused to fix a reproving gaze on her. “I will not solicit our neighbours for money to pay for repairs to my own house. And there’s an end to it.”

Charlotte, who’d just let Elton back inside, smirked at her sister. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

“What’s that?” Emma retorted.

“You didn’t get your way, for once.” She scooped kibble into the pug’s dish.

“The leaking roof affects you as well as me,” Emma pointed out. “You might think about that the next time it rains and drips water on your dressing table, or ruins the clothes in your closet.”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t,” Emma snapped.

“Girls, please,” Mr Bennet sighed. “Might we have one – just one – peaceful Sunday breakfast?”

“More coffee, daddy?” Charlotte asked, and brought the pot to the table.

“Yes, I will, thank you.”

“I might have another way to raise money to pay for a new roof for Litchfield Manor.” Emma toyed with her spoon as she glanced at her father. “A way that doesn’t involve seeking money from our neighbours.”

“Oh?” He spooned sugar into his cup. “What’s that?”

“ Mind Your Manors .”

He paused, cup halfway to his lips. “I thought I was.”

“It’s a TV programme, daddy,” Charlotte cut in as she refilled her sister’s cup, “where they go to old manor houses and help do them up into spas or hotels or something.”|

“Really? I can’t see anyone willing to pay to stay here at Litchfield Manor.” He chuckled. “Can you imagine? Instead of chocolates on the pillows, our guests would find damp spots from the leaking roof. Dog wee on the floor. Things that go bump in the night – our old boiler, for instance.”

“I’m glad you find it so amusing.” Emma set her cup down with a crack. “But we need to do something , daddy, before this entire place collapses on our heads.”

“I doubt those telly people would consider coming here,” Charli scoffed. “Litchfield Manor isn’t a ginormous, multi-chimneyed house like the ones on the programme, and it isn’t even grade-I or II listed. It isn’t even all that old.”

“I don’t agree. I think they would consider coming here. I think we stand as much chance to be chosen as anyone else.” Emma spoke with a conviction she didn’t, truthfully, feel. She knew her sister and father were both probably right but she refused to admit it.

“Well,” Mr Bennet allowed as rain began to fall outside, “I suppose there’s no harm in it. Go ahead and apply, or petition, or whatever it is one must do to be considered for the programme. Because the likelihood of Litchfield Manor actually being chosen is laughably small.”

He’d barely finished speaking when the rain began pelting down, rushing down the gutters and drumming on the roof.

“Good thing Elton’s already been let out,” Emma said, and gave Charli a pointed look as she carried her dishes to the sink. She gazed out the window at the already-sodden ground. “Otherwise he’d be soaked and we’d have muddy paw prints everywhere.”

“Honestly, Emma,” Charlotte snapped, “can’t you do anything but criticise and find fault –?”

“Blast!” Mr Bennet grimaced and pushed himself to his feet. He rubbed his neck and stared as his hand came away wet.

Rain, in steady drips, leaked from the ceiling onto the seat he’d just abandoned. “Well! It seems we’ve sprung a new leak,” he muttered, and took the pot Emma handed him and placed it on his chair. “Perhaps you’re right, Em. I think we really do need to do something about this roof.”

Chapter 8

On Monday, Martine appeared at Litchfield Manor with her mother, Mrs Davies. Together they set about scrubbing, polishing, Hoovering and dusting until, despite the rain that continued to fall and the leaks that dripped noisily into the various pots and bowls set out, the house began to sparkle.

“I can’t thank you enough, Mrs Davies.” Emma carried in the tea tray and set it down in the sitting room. “The house is transformed. Please, help yourselves to tea and biscuits.”

“Many thanks, miss. Don’t mind if I do.” Martine’s mother laid her dust cloth aside and came over to inspect the tray. “Ooh, Bourbon biscuits! Them’s my favourite.” She reached out for a napkin and placed two inside and thrust it in her pocket. “I’ll save ’em for later, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Emma smiled politely and retreated to the kitchen.

Like her daughter, Mrs Davies was cheery and possessed of unflagging energy, cleaning and clearing and tidying like a dervish. She accomplished more in three hours than Emma could’ve managed in three days.

She stood now before the curtains Mrs Davies had stitched up for the kitchen window. They were lovely – blue gingham café curtains with coordinating blue and white triangles draped in a pennant across the top.

“Let me pay you, please,” Emma told her as she’d admired the woman’s efforts. “These curtains are as pretty – prettier! – than anything I’ve seen in the shops.”

But Mrs Davies wouldn’t hear of it. “I got the fabric on the cheap – practically free. I stitched it up in a day and a ’alf.” She shrugged. “I can make them curtains in my sleep. Besides,” she added, “you and Mr Bennet done so much for us, givin’ Martine clothes and shoes and sending ’er home with those wonderful pies, it’s the least I can do. I don’t know what we would’ve done without your help after Mr Davies died. At the very least, we’d of lost our house, and no mistake.”

Emma bit her lip. She felt a pinprick of shame for her uncharitable thought of the week before: Things have surely reached the lowest of points when one is obliged to accept charity from one’s very own housemaid .

She remembered well how Mr Bennet – Father Bennet, because he was Litchfield’s vicar at the time – raised a church collection for Martine and her mother after Mr Davies’s untimely death, and added a sum of his own…enough to enable them to keep their terraced house.

“Do you really like them?” Martine asked now, keeping her voice low as she joined Emma in front of the window. “The curtains, I mean? I told mum you might want somethin’ a bit plainer.”