A Summer in the Country (5 page)

In possession of her hired car, and with Brigid and Frummie on their way to their lunch with Jemima, Louise felt a sudden surge of independence. Alone, free to go where she chose, the holiday was now truly begun. It was not until she found herself on a quiet road, however, that she stopped the car and started to make it her own. She and Martin agreed that it was unnecessary to have two cars in London, that it was sensible to hire a small economical car whilst she was in Devon. Nevertheless she needed to feel at home in this small Citroen. Rootling in her big carpet bag, she put her road map on the passenger seat, filled the cassette holder with her favourite music and found her sunhat, dark specs and a small plastic pot which contained change for car-park machines. Later she'd put her walking boots, a light rucksack and a rug in the small boot but, just for now, the car had already assumed a more personal look.

Settling herself behind the wheel Louise paused, luxuriating in a moment's escapism. For a brief tune nothing mattered but this holiday mood. The warm May day unrolled gently before her and she sat quiedy, the sun pouring through the car window, deciding what she might do. Unlike Brigid, Louise was not a cat who liked to walk by herself—although she chose her close companions with care. However, she totally sympathised with Brigid's need to commune with nature and understood her disappointment in Humphrey's utter lack of observation: his unawareness of the minutiae, his indifference to the majesty and grandeur amongst which they lived. For choice, Louise would have preferred a companion who was empathic, who could rejoice over a butterfly sunning itself on a patch of bell heather or would pause at the summit of a hill to gaze with silent reverence at some new vista. During that first holiday, walking with Brigid, it had needed only a touch on the arm, a nod of the head, to transport them both into some delight caused by a new foal, leggy and uncertain, nuzzling its mother, a dipper bobbing on a rock in turbulent white water, a crow riding insouciantly on a sheep's back. Their pleasure was communicated silendy and conversation was kept to a minimum. Such companions were very rare and if one could not find them then it was better to be alone. When it came to eating or shopping, however, Louise preferred to go to shops and hostelries where she was known. She liked to see a welcoming smile, to hear a friendly greeting: “Hul/0. Nice to see you back again. Well, doesn't time fly…?”

So where to go first? She wouldn't venture too far a field, not on the first day, especially as she had to go back to Foxhole first to unload her shopping and collect her walking boots; she'd stay on the moor. So where to go? Not to the Church House Inn at Holne; not with the family foregathering there. The Ring o' Bells at Chagford? Perhaps a litde too far to be comfortably in time for lunch. The Roundhouse at Buckland? It was always fun to see the Perrymans: to share in the warmth of their boisterous family life, to be teased by Margaret—who worked with them—and have a chat with Mary in the gift shop. Yes, the Roundhouse would make a good starting point and, after lunch, she'd walk up to the Beacon so as to ravish herself with the glorious view and examine the broken tablets of stone which were graven with the Ten Commandments.

Her decision made, filled with a sense of anticipation, Louise switched on die engine and set off towards Foxhole. It was odd that, though it was less than twenty-four hours since she'd passed this way with Brigid, she now felt subtly different; driving in her own car, listening to her own music, she was no longer a visitor, a guest, but part of the landscape. She drove over Saddle Bridge, up the hill and turned the car on to the track which bumped unevenly down to the house.

As she parked beside her little cottage and climbed out of the car, a woman and a child came out of the courtyard. Louise stopped, still holding the car door, staring. The tall, sweet-faced mother looked like the woman she'd seen yesterday, but the child was older, too big to be carried, at least six years old. The little girl reached her first; big eyes gazing up at her, long red-gold hair, the colour of ripe corn with the sun on it.

“We've come to fetch our dog,” she said trustfully, distressfully. “Only we can't get in. I can see him through the window. I'm Hermione.”

Hermione? Louise stared down at her, stiff and unresponsive, still clutching the car door.

“Darling,” her mother sounded apologetic, “just wait a moment. I'm so sorry,” she said to Louise. “Only she's been missing him, you see. There was a message on the machine this morning but there's some kind of fault and it crackles terribly. I thought it was Brigid's voice saying something about picking Oscar up before lunch but I think I've got it quite wrong. I'm Thea Lampeter.”

Louise took the outstretched hand unwillingly. Thea was much about her own age, a few years older, perhaps, with her daughter's red-gold colouring. Holding the warm, firm hand, staring into amber-brown eyes, Louise had the strangest experience that she was falling, tumbling through space whilst this tall, strong woman held her from harm. She clung to her madly, dimly aware that the child was talking again.

“But we can't leave him now that he's seen us,” she was saying. “We simply
can't.
What are we going to do?”

“If necessary we'll wait until Brigid comes back.” Thea sounded quite resigned, even contented with this plan. “We'll camp outside the window so that he can see us ”

“He'll get upset,” warned the child. “He'll bark and jump at the door.”

“Of course he won't.” Thea still smiled at Louise, whilst continuing to address her daughter. “He'd find it
much
too exhausting … Are you feeling better now?” She asked the question gently.

Louise nodded, withdrawing her hand reluctantly, but she would not look at the child.

“Yes, of course. I… haven't been too well lately. Just the odd attack of dizziness.” She felt the requirement to excuse her behaviour but another glance into those far-seeing eyes caused her to stumble in her explanation. “It's just… m…

“Are you staying with Brigid?”

“Yes. Well, in this cottage. You could…” she hesitated, “you could wait here if you like.”

“Oh, could we?” The child was beside her again, face alight with eagerness. “Then Mummy could have some coffee and I could talk to Oscar through the window.”

“Hermione,” admonished Thea, “please stop bothering Mrs. … I'm so sorry, you didn't tell us your name.”

“I'm Louise Parry. And of course you can have some coffee. I have to unpack my shopping and get sorted out, so it's not a problem.”

She was talking at random, crossing the paved sitting-out area to the door, digging into her pocket for the key. Hermione had disappeared into the courtyard and could now be heard telling Oscar the new plans at the top of her voice.

“But Brigid could be some time.” Thea was following her. “And you're on holiday. We can't monopolise you for too long.”

“I wish
I
lived here.” Hermione was back. “Isn't it a dear little house? Shall I take my juice out so that I can stay with Oscar? I think he likes to know I'm there.”

“Darling,” remonstrated Thea, “Mrs. Parry hasn't offered you any juice yet.”

“There's some orange juice in the fridge,” muttered Louise. “Could you manage while I fetch the shopping?”

“Of course. This is very kind of you…”

Louise went back out to the car and opened the hatch. She stood quite still, hidden from the house, and presently the child passed her, carefully carrying her glass of orange juice.

“I shall stay with Oscar,” she said. “Mummy's making coffee. Thank you,” she called back, as an afterthought

“This is extraordinarily kind of you.” In the big living room Thea was calmly making coffee. “I can't apologise enough. So silly of me to come rushing out without calling Brigid back or being intelligent. George had taken Amelia and Julia—my two older daughters—to see his mother. She's elderly and he likes to see her as soon as we get home. And, of course, Hermione couldn't wait to fetch Oscar.”

“If it helps,” said Louise, putting her provisions away, “Brigid's having lunch at the pub in Holne with her mother and sister. Perhaps I could drive down and get the key or something while you're having your coffee. No, honestly, it's no trouble at all. I'm sure Brigid will understand.”

Half an hour later she was watching Oscar's ecstatic reunion with his family and waving them off down the track. Brigid had seemed quite resigned to Thea's unexpected arrival, perfectly happy to give her the key, grateful to Louise for coming to her friend's rescue. The estate car accelerated slowly away, Oscar watching from the back window, Hermione waving furiously, and presently Louise went back inside and stared unseeingly at the remains of the small, impromptu feast. It was too late now to worry about lunch, and, anyway, she wasn't hungry. She turned quickly, thinking she heard a footstep, a chuckle. Hermione…?

“Don't!” she warned herself savagely. “Just don't think about it.”

Hastily she began to assemble a picnic: a ham sandwich, an apple, a chunk of cheese. She made up a small bottle of elderflower cordial and put it all into a small, light knapsack. A few minutes later she was quite ready. Shutting the door behind her, dropping the key into her pocket, she set off, walking briskly in the direction of Combestone Tor.

B
RIGID PUT
the car away and went to see if Louise might be at home. The cottage was closed up and there was no answer to her knock. She was feeling guilty that Louise had been obliged to rescue Thea but, luckily, the distraction had done nothing to spoil the amicable atmosphere of the lunch party. Jemima had been on good form and Frummie had been on her best behaviour. Now her mother had disappeared to sleep off the effects of overeating and Brigid went into her own kitchen, wondering if it might be a good idea to get on with some work. Blot was quartering the rooms, looking for Oscar, and she felt all the languid flattening of the spirits which comes after a period of mental and physical effort amongst people with whom one cannot truly relax.

Faintiy dissatisfied with herself, Brigid wandered upstairs, Blot at her heels, passed through the dressing room and bedroom and went into her workroom. This room, directly above the kitchen, looked east and south and was dominated by the huge table on which she did her cutting out. A smaller table, holding her sewing machine, was placed beneath one of the windows and an old-fashioned rosewood sewing box, opening tier upon tier and holding cotton reels, spools of silk, pins and needles, stood on long wooden legs in a corner near the table. On the cream-washed walls hung large picture frames containing collages of photographs. Black-and-white snapshots and glossy colour {Mints, they were records of the family—her own and Humphrey's—and they invariably drew her attention, even after all these years of their company. She paused now to look at them: Michael beaming gap-toothed at the school photographer, and, sixteen years later, in cap and gown at his graduation ceremony. Humphrey, straight-backed, serious-faced, at the Passing Out Parade at Dartmouth, and five years later carrying Julian in his christening gown. How she'd loved those early years when the boys were small; their need of her, their unconditional love, had filled the empty ache of missing Humphrey and, as she'd read to them and cuddled them, she'd vowed that they should never feel unwanted or unloved. How hard it had been to send them off to school, how desperately she'd missed them: wandering from room to room, standing at the doors of their bedrooms, feeling a physical longing for cheerful voices raised in friendly argument, shoes kicked off upon the floor, scattered toys.

“I know it's difficult,” Humphrey had said gently, “but it's only fair to them. We move about too much and they'll always be having to make new friends, struggling with different teachers. You have to let go sometime, my darling.”

“But not yet,” she'd wanted to cry. ‘They're still litde“— but she'd known that it would have been even more unkind to wait until they were older when it would be more difficult for them to be accepted into the system. If she'd known that her father would die so soon after Julian had started at Mount House she might have insisted that they need not go away at all. By the time she'd moved back to Foxhole, he was already happy and setded at school with all his small naval friends and, knowing Michael would follow him there, she hadn't had the heart to uproot them again for her own selfish needs. Instead she'd made the most of exeats and half-terms and had maintained a close and loving relationship with her boys: the kind of relationship she'd longed for with her own parents. Where, she sometimes asked herself, had she fallen short as a child? What had she lacked? Her father had been kind if distant; affectionate but remote. As for her mother..,

She bent closer to look at a tiny snapshot of Frummie, laughing and beautiful, in a ridiculous hat and impossible shoes. It was creased and worn from being carried about and shown: ‘That's my mother.” “Gosh! Isn't she pretty? But hasn't she … you know …left…?” “She's still my mother”