Emma Page - Last Walk Home

‘Jill’s not in my class,’ Janet pointed out.

‘I know that but I don’t like to ask Mr Lloyd, he’s got a lot on his plate. And Parkwood’s a good mile and a half away, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as handy for Jill. I’m sure Mr Lloyd wouldn’t mind you coaching her.’ He saw her hesitate. ‘Think about it,’ he urged. ‘You’ve no need to give me an answer right away, I’ll mention it to you again later.’ He went off down to his cottage, whistling.

As Janet passed the open front of the turkey sheds the young resident farmworker, Neil Fleming, came out of one of the sheds. He’d already changed out of his white overalls and was shrugging on a drill jacket.

‘Hello there!’ He gave her a friendly smile. He’d given her the eye, bowled over by her looks, when she first came to Longmead back in the spring, not many months after his own arrival at Mayfield, but it had taken him very little time to realize she wasn’t interested.

He walked with her towards the dairy on his way to the farmhouse. ‘I’ve got quite fond of goat’s milk myself since I’ve been here,’ he told her with a grin. ‘I’d never drunk it before, never fancied it. I always thought it’d have a rank taste but now I’d sooner have it than cow’s milk.’

He was a pleasant-looking lad with a fresh open face, curling sandy hair and a thickly freckled skin. He had a very full lower lip and his grin showed a milk tooth surviving in the front of his mouth. It gave him a touching, boyish air. He was twenty-five years old, studying and saving in the hope of getting into farm management; he felt there was precious little chance of ever owning a place himself.

He went on through the rear entrance of the farm­house, a large old dwelling of mixed period and considerable charm, while Janet turned aside into the dairy, fresh and cool, lined with white tiles.

Mrs Slater was standing by a window, carefully setting a shallow pan of milk down on a slabbed surface. She glanced briefly up as Janet came in and gave her a friendly nod, then she gently settled the pan into place. She straightened up and wiped her hands on a towel. She drew a long breath and moved her shoulders, easing them.

She was a small slim woman in her middle thirties with a clear, fine skin and short light brown hair simply cut. Her lips were curved in a faint habitual smile and her customary look was one of amiable reserve. Over her freshly laundered dress of flowered cotton she wore a white overall with the sleeves rolled up, showing her pretty arms, smooth and rounded, with delicately tanned skin.

‘It’s the end of term on Friday, isn’t it?’ she said as she poured the milk for Janet. ‘I’m sure you’re looking forward to the holidays, it must be tiring dealing with youngsters all the time.’ The Slaters had no children. ‘Have you made up your mind yet if you’re going away?’ She stood chatting for a few minutes.

Margaret Slater wasn’t a native of Longmead, she came from Stanbourne. After eighteen years of marriage she was still looked on by the village – and still looked on herself – as an incomer. Not that anyone in Longmead disliked or resented her but she wasn’t Longmead born and bred and never could be.

She had come to Mayfield Farm as a girl of sixteen, when Oswald Slater’s mother was still alive. The old lady had begun to ail and had been ordered goat’s milk by her doctor. ‘I’ve been thinking of getting someone to live in, to give me a hand with the housework and cooking,’ she told Oswald. ‘If I can find a sensible girl who also knows something about livestock, we could buy a goat and she could look after it as well as helping in the house.’

Within a short time she found Margaret, neat, capable and well-mannered, the daughter of a Stanbourne small­holder. Margaret had kept goats since she was eight, and regularly took prizes at shows. She also reared turkeys and was doing well with them on a small scale.

Twelve months later old Mrs Slater died and shortly afterwards Oswald asked Margaret to marry him. She was hard-working, easy to get on with and accustomed by now to Mayfield ways. Above all she was there. No need for him to go to all the trouble of putting on his best clothes and embarking on the long and tedious business of running round the countryside trying to locate a suitable bride.

Oswald was thirty-seven at the time of his mother’s death and had never had much time or inclination for courting. He was a powerfully built man of medium height, with large hands and little small talk.

He consulted Margaret’s parents before speaking to the girl and they in turn had a long chat with their daughter when she rode over on her bicycle for tea the following Sunday afternoon. It was agreed all round that it would be a fine match for her. She was happy to agree, she liked living at Mayfield and saw her future there as peaceful and secure. The marriage was settled and took place without delay.

Shortly afterwards Margaret suggested that she might introduce turkey-breeding to Mayfield and Oswald was rather taken with the idea. ‘But I’ll have to go into the costs,’ he said cautiously. The costs proved reasonable and he approved the plan which Margaret promptly put into operation, overseeing the whole enterprise and subsequently managing it; it had prospered well, expanding over the years.

Now she wiped over the surface of the table as Janet picked up her milk. ‘You’re not going away yourself?’ Janet asked her.

Mrs Slater shook her head. She’d never been brought up to holidays, had never formed the habit and certainly never felt the need. And Oswald Slater wasn’t a man to encourage such flighty notions.

‘I wouldn’t know what to do with all that free time,’ she said with her little smile. ‘And what about my goats? I couldn’t leave them to someone else to look after.’

As Janet walked down the field back to her cottage she glanced over at the school. The window of the head­master’s office overlooked the field but the building was empty now. Mrs Abell had finished her cleaning and locked up for the night.

I think I’ll put in an hour on the vegetable patch, Janet decided as she opened the wicket gate leading into her garden. The ground had been long neglected when she came to Rose Cottage but she’d wasted no time in getting to work on it. Now there were lettuces and peas to pick, radishes to thin out, scarlet runners to inspect. There was still a fair-sized stretch to clear and dig, as well as the regular chores of weeding and hoeing, but they were all tasks she enjoyed.

She let herself in at the back door. Flickering shafts of sunlight strayed into the living-room through the branches of an apple tree, there was a light pervasive scent of roses. She hummed a tune as she put the goat’s milk away in the fridge.

Early on Friday morning, when the horizon was streaked with rose and gold, the first blackbird uttered a soft whistle in the Brookside garden, followed a moment later by a missel thrush. In his narrow bed George Pickthorn heard the sounds in his sleep and smiled with pleasure. In his dream he was running over the common – the old common, the common of his childhood – with his little Jack Russell terrier, dead these sixty years. Some part of George’s waking adult mind leaned into the dream and formulated the thought: I could get a little dog, a Jack Russell, no reason why I shouldn’t have one now, why didn’t I think of it before? I’ll start looking out for one right away.

Along the lane at Rose Cottage, Janet Marshall lay sound asleep in her little bedroom, dreaming she was shut tight inside a box. Outside the box something breathed and panted, trying to get in at her, scratching and tearing at the wooden sides, but she felt no fear, knowing herself safe and snug in her stout little nest.