Elizabeth Elgin - One Summer at Deer’s Leap

‘Y’know, this shouldn’t be allowed. It’s positively antisocial to have a view like this all to yourself. I wonder what they’ll ask for this place, once it goes on the market?’

‘Haven’t a clue. I’m used to London prices,’ Jeannie shrugged. ‘But I suppose that even though it mightn’t be everybody’s cup of tea, it won’t go cheap. Like you say, the view is really something and position counts for a lot.’

‘If you like out-of-the-way places,’ I said.

‘The old ones knew where to build, didn’t they?’

‘Before planning permission came in, you mean, when they could choose their plot and just start building?’

‘Sort of, but they’d have to do their homework first. The most important thing when Deer’s Leap was built would be the availability of water, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Danny said there was once a stream, just beyond the paddock wall.’

‘Well, that would’ve been all right for livestock and clothes washing, but they’d have needed drinking water too. Mind, that ornamental well at the back near the conservatory was once the real thing. I believe they only got mains water here after the war. And they still don’t have sewers. That’s why we shouldn’t use too many disinfectants and upset the natural workings of the septic tank.’

‘They were very self-sufficient, though.’ My mind jumped the centuries to the man and woman who built this house. Their initials were above the front door: W. D. & M. D. 1592 . ‘Do you realize Elizabeth Tudor was still alive when W. D. brought his bride here? Wonder what they were called – and how many children they had.’

‘William and Mary Doe,’ Jeannie said, off the top of her head, ‘and they probably had ten children and would count themselves lucky to rear half of them!’

‘A bit nearer home,’ I said cautiously, ‘I wonder who lived here in the war, and how they managed. Petrol was rationed, I believe. How did they get about?’

‘On bikes, most likely. Or maybe they’d go shopping once a week on the farm tractor. Who knows? And anyway, who’s interested?’

‘Me, for one.’ I looked straight ahead, pretending it didn’t really matter. ‘Well – I’m an author. I can’t help being curious and it would all be grist to the mill – if we found out, that is …’

‘If it’s so important, why don’t we go down to the Rose, tonight? They don’t get a lot in there, especially since drink-drive came in. I could introduce you to Bill Jarvis, if he’s in. Bill knows most people’s business around here, past and present. Maybe he could tell you.’

‘It isn’t that important,’ I hedged. ‘It’s just that I keep wondering what it was like here when it was a working farm and before somebody tarted up the buildings at the back, and when there were animals around the place, and manure heaps.’

‘Then we’ll go to the village, like I said. The beer is good there. The further north you get from London, people say, the better the ale. I fancy a couple of pints!’

‘So who’s going to drive?’

‘You, Cassie. It’s your car.’

‘And drink Coke and orange juice all night?’

‘OK! There are loads of bikes in the stable. What say we pick out a couple, put some air in the tyres, and go supping in style?’

‘Can you get done for being drunk in charge of a bike?’ I giggled.

‘I don’t know. It depends how well you can ride one, I suppose.’

We decided to have an early tea. Fresh brown eggs, boiled, and crusty bread, then a huge dollop of the home-baked parkin Mum had slipped into the boot just as I was leaving. After which, Jeannie said she’d better have a dummy run, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten how to ride.

It was all so lovely and free and easy. We were like a couple of kids let early out of school, and in a way I was a bit sad about it because next August, when I was writing book three and on the way to becoming a real , time-served novelist, I would look back to how it had been that summer at Deer’s Leap, and wonder who had bought the house and if they loved it as much as I did. And I knew they wouldn’t, couldn’t.

We wore leggings, the better to ride in, and shirts. Then we stuffed cardies in the saddlebags in case it was cold riding home. We pushed the bikes along the dirt road, neither of us being confident enough to brave the potholes.

When we got to the crossroads I said, ‘If we meet anything on the road, I’ll ride ahead, OK?’

‘If we meet anything on this narrow lane, I shall get off and stand on the verge! But there’s hardly any traffic hereabouts. What are you expecting – a furniture van?’

I almost said, ‘No – a flock of sheep,’ but I didn’t and we managed, after a couple of false starts and a few wobbles, to get going.

‘Don’t look down at your front wheel, Jeannie! Look at the road ahead. Y’know, I could get to like this. They say you never forget how to ride a bike.’

Jeannie soon got the hang of it and went ahead just at the spot I’d first seen the airman. I slowed and had a good look around, then told myself not to be greedy; that one sighting a day was all I could hope for.

‘Hey! Wait for me, show-off!’ I called, then pedalled like mad to catch her up.

The Red Rose wasn’t too crowded and we got a table beside an open window. Jeannie said she would get the first round and asked me what I was drinking.

‘Bitter, please. A half.’

She returned with two pint glasses, then asked me how I liked the Rose.

‘It’s ages old, isn’t it?’ The ceiling was very low, and beamed; the lounge end of the one long room had better seats in it than the other end, where there was a dartboard but not a slot machine in sight.

‘I could get to like this place,’ I said, lifting my glass. ‘Cheers!’

‘We’re in luck.’ Jeannie took a long drink from her glass. ‘Bill Jarvis is in the far corner. Would you like to meet him?’

‘You know I would! Are you going to ask him to join us?’

‘I’ll take him a pint and tell him it’s from a young lady who would like to talk to him.

‘He’s scoring for the darts, but he’ll be over in about five minutes,’ she said when she came back alone. ‘He said thanks for the beer, by the way.’

‘This is a lovely old pub. I’m glad they haven’t modernized it – made it into a gin palace.’

‘There’s no fear of that happening.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling, which was pale khaki. ‘The last time it got a lick of paint was for the Coronation. When it was first built, in the early fourteen hundreds, it was the churchwarden’s house, and I don’t think it’s changed a lot since – apart from flush toilets outside.’

‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘that at the time of the Wars of the Roses, a churchwarden was quite an important man, in the village.’

‘Mm. He held one of the three keys to the parish chest – y’know, social security, medieval style. The other two keyholders would be the priest and the local squire. The parish chest is still in the church, but there’s nothing in it. You must go and see it before you go back.’

She was already halfway down her glass. My dad, I thought, would approve of Jeannie McFadden.

‘There’s a lot of things I must see and do,’ I said obliquely, ‘before I go back. But I think your friend is coming over …’

An elderly man made his way to our table, puffing out clouds of tobacco smoke that made me glad of the open window.

‘Now then, lass,’ he said to Jeannie, ignoring me completely, ‘what was it you wanted to know?’

‘It’s my friend, actually, Bill. She’s taken a liking to Deer’s Leap and wants to know all about it. She’s a writer,’ she added.