Elizabeth Elgin - The Linden Walk

She laid down her pen again. This was not a letter from a young woman crazy with joy, because there was no joyousness in her words. Relief, more like, and gratitude, yet overshadowed by the niggling remembering he had said those words before to Kitty, and that he said, ‘Marry me, Lyn’ without saying he loved her.

‘Bed!’ she said out loud. She was weary for sleep. Today had started early with the five o’clock jangling of the alarm and she had travelled home by train then hurried to the hotel to take her smiling place behind the reception desk. It was past eleven, now; had been dark these past two hours. Her eyes pricked with tiredness. Very soon, her cablegram would arrive in Kenya. The letter could wait until tomorrow. One day more would make little difference.

She got to her feet, placed the guard over the fire, checked the front and back doors, then walked slowly upstairs to the little room with the sloping ceiling and the fat feather mattress that called her.

She slipped out of her clothes, leaving them to lie where they fell and wriggled into her nightdress. Then, without washing her face, even, she pulled back the cover to slip into bed.

And next morning when she awoke, she could not remember switching off the bedside lamp. Nor whispering goodnight to Drew.

‘Of course, Tilda,’ Mary Stubbs remarked, ‘Mr Catchpole is sure to do the florals – for the wedding, I mean.’

‘Well, of course,’ Mrs Sidney Willis, nee Tilda Tewk, conceded. ‘I grant you there’s no one in the Riding to touch Jack Catchpole when it comes to bouquets and sprays and buttonholes.’ She almost included floral tributes, but decided against wreaths when weddings were the topic under discussion. ‘My Sidney would be the first to acknowledge it, him being Parks and Gardens before he took over at Rowangarth. But he is an expert on orchids and will see to it that all’s well in the orchid house in time for the wedding.’

Rowangarth’s famed collection of orchids was back to its pre-war glory now it was no longer considered unpatriotic to heat the orchid house, which they had done with unrationed logs and a sneaky shovel or two of craftily acquired coke, when no one was looking.

‘There’ll be Tatiana’s wedding to consider, an’ all,’ Mary reminded. ‘Quiet wedding or not, the lass will want her bouquet and the guests,’ such as there would be, she thought not a little ungraciously, ‘are going to want sprays and buttonholes.’

‘Sidney has the matter in hand. He says there’ll be chrysanths in plenty, but little else for Mr Catchpole to work with. Mind, the church’ll be decorated for Christmas.’

What would be lacking in florals, Tilda considered, would be more than compensated for with holly and ivy.

‘But Tatiana isn’t having the church. She wants the Lady Chapel,’ Mary felt bound to point out.

‘My husband is well aware of the fact. He’ll be decorating the chapel for Christmas, an’ all. I shouldn’t wonder if he doesn’t pot up a little spruce – for Tatiana, I mean. Would be nice for her to have a tiny tree, he said. Tastefully decorated, mind.’

‘I wonder why the lass wants such a quiet do. It isn’t as if she has to get wed,’ Mary frowned.

‘As long as her Uncle Nathan says the words over them, Tatty won’t care what she’s wearing or that the chapel will be as cold as charity and there’ll be few presents.’

‘I’m bound to agree with you there,’ Mary conceded, she rarely agreeing with Tilda on debatable points if only to remind that she was Rowangarth’s parlour maid when Tilda had been but a kitchen maid. ‘But the lass has money enough in her own right, so her won’t worry overmuch about wedding presents. Her grandfather saw to it she wasn’t left short. And that grandmother of hers left Denniston House to her don’t forget, and the contents, though what made the old cat do such a thing I’ll never know.’

The late Clementina Sutton of Pendenys was never noted for her generosity; rarely made a kindly gesture.

‘Probably did it when she was half sozzled. She hit the bottle hard after her precious Elliot died. Folk reckoned he’d had a drink or two an’ all when he crashed his car and went up in smoke. Was seen in the Coach and Horses in Creesby with a woman who wasn’t his wife, though talk had it he left alone, later, an’ him so fuddled with drink that he couldn’t crank up his car.’

‘Well, he’s gone now, so don’t speak ill of the dead in my kitchen, dear.’ Tilda felt it necessary to remind Mary from time to time that she was now Rowangarth’s cook, and happily – thankfully – married to Rowangarth’s head gardener.

‘Wasn’t speaking nothing but fact.’ Undaunted, Mary set the kettle to boil. All Creesby and his wife knew what a wrong ’un Elliot Sutton had been. Indulged by his mother until he thought he could do no wrong. And when his wrongdoings sometimes surfaced, the foolish Clementina straightened things out, because most folk – even those badly done to – had their price. ‘They won’t be wanting tea upstairs. The Reverend has gone to see the Bishop and Miss Julia is at Keeper’s – talking weddings, no doubt. Her went to the bank, yesterday, and we all know what about. Drew’s girl will be choosing a ring, I should think. I’ve often wondered, Tilda, what became of Kitty’s ring. Opals and pearls, she chose, and may I never move from this spot again if I didn’t think at the time that opals were bad luck and pearls brought tears.’

‘I reckon it went with her to her grave. Miss Julia wouldn’t want it back – not if every time she opened that box and saw it, it reminded her of Kitty. She loved that lass.’

‘A right little minx, but no one could help loving her. And so beautiful. Her and Drew would have had lovely bairns.’

‘Lyndis is beautiful, an’ all. Kitty’s opposite, in fact. Maybe as well,’ Tilda sighed. ‘And there’s cherry scones left over from the christening in the small tin. They’ll be past their best if we don’t eat them soon.’

Tilda sat in the kitchen rocker and closed her eyes and thought about how it had once been in Lady Helen’s time when that lovely lady, God rest her, came out of mourning for her husband and gave her first dinner party in three years. A simple meal, yet Mrs Shaw – once Rowangarth’s cook and God rest her , too – had been days and days preparing and cooking and garnishing so that everything might go well at her ladyship’s first timid footsteps back into society.

Well, now there would be Drew’s wedding, and with food not nearly so hard to come by Tilda Willis would be able to show the folk hereabouts how well Mrs Shaw had trained her up to the status of cook. Mrs Shaw’s standards, Tilda thought smugly, would be maintained as that dear lady would have expected.

‘Butter on your scone, or jam?’ Mary interrupted the reverie.

‘I think it might run to butter – though only a scraping, mind.’ Butter was still rationed. ‘And I’ll have the first pouring, please.’ Rowangarth’s cook did not like her tea strong. ‘And don’t forget Miss Clitherow. Jam and butter on hers.’

‘Very well.’ Miss Clitherow had come to Rowangarth as housekeeper when Helen Stormont married Sir John. Old, now, she spent her days in a ground-floor room, dozing and remembering – and being grateful to Miss Julia and young Sir Andrew for letting her live out her time with the family she had served through good times and bad. And through two terrible wars, an’ all. ‘Jam and butter it is, poor old lass.’

Yet she still had her wits about her, Mary was forced to concede, in spite of being nearer ninety than eighty and a little unsteady on her feet.

‘And there’s Drew, an’ all,’ Tilda reminded.