A Summer Promise (13 page)

‘I’d like to be able to say come back with me in the Daimler,’ Alice said ruefully. ‘But I can’t, because the beastly car won’t be back on the road, Mr Browning says, for the best part of a week. I thought Uncle John might borrow the car from the garage for the whole week, but they can’t spare it so I shall be coming by bus like the rest of you.’

‘Good,’ Maddy said. ‘And did you hear Miss Bendon say we’d best get ready for a bit of a rush? Someone told her the boys simply push their way through the waiting girls and bag all the best seats, so we shouldn’t expect any gentlemanly behaviour from them because we won’t get it.’

The bus arrived and Miss Bendon’s informant was proved right. Girls who had stood patiently waiting were brushed aside in the mad rush, and found themselves climbing aboard a bus on which the vast majority of seats were already taken. Some of the older boys, leering horribly, suggested that a girl might like to make use of a boy’s lap, but such remarks were ignored. Maddy sighed aloud at the thought of having to stand all the way to the village, but was heartened by a short and stocky boy with a cream cap on the back of his head and a broad grin on his freckly face. ‘You’ll be all right, kid,’ he told her patronisingly. ‘Me and my pal get off at the next stop, so if you look sharp you can nab our seats.’

Maddy nodded; what with the noise of the engine as it began to grind up a hill and the shouts and the yells of the passengers, even hearing oneself think was a problem, but she got the gist of what the boy was saying and passed the message on to Marigold who, like herself, had failed to get a seat and was strap-hanging. Alice, to no one’s surprise, had secured a window seat.

When the bus was about to stop, Freckle-face poked Maddy in the back. ‘Get ready or you’ll be given the bum’s rush,’ he warned her. ‘I gave your pal the nod, so if you move fast you can sit for the rest of the journey.’

‘Thanks,’ Maddy mumbled. It had just occurred to her that not finding a vacant seat had been a mixed blessing. Alice’s attitude to Marigold had got frostier and frostier as the day went on. At first Marigold had not seemed to notice the drop in temperature and had prattled on, eager to discuss how she would like Maddy and Alice to come down to her house in the next village so that they might do their homework together. But gradually she had realised that Alice was trying to freeze her off, and being only human, Maddy supposed, had begun to resent it. If I
had
got a seat and Marigold had sat beside me, I think Alice might have got really unpleasant, Maddy told herself. Oh lor, I’m like a bone between two dogs . . . no, more like a mouse between two cats! Whatever am I to do? How silly that Alice is jealous, but I think that’s what it is. Oh dear, I can see trouble looming and no way of averting it, or not without being downright rude at any rate.

She realised she had been right when Freckle-face and his companion began to rise in their seats and Alice, who must have been watching them in the reflective window glass, got to her feet too. She caught Maddy’s eye and raised her voice in something perilously akin to a yell. ‘Madeleine! Keep that seat for me.’ Being Alice, she ignored the grumbles as she pushed her way past standing passengers, arriving at Marigold’s side just as the other girl slumped into the aisle seat next to Maddy’s window one. Alice stamped her foot. ‘I
told
you to save that seat for
me
, Madeleine Hebditch,’ she said, her voice loud enough to be heard even above the general hubbub. ‘I
did
tell you that I wanted a bit of help with my homework.’

Marigold looked indignantly up at Alice, who was now strap-hanging, just as Marigold and Maddy had previously been doing themselves. ‘If you want help with your homework, ask someone else. Maddy and I have got our own to do.’

Alice sniffed. ‘Mind your own business,’ she said rudely. ‘If I want advice from you I’ll ask for it.’

Maddy hunched lower in her seat, ignoring them both. Alice and Marigold were like a couple of boxers, slinging punches at each other and not caring who got hurt in the process. If I sit here quietly and say nothing to either of them perhaps they’ll shut up, she thought. In fact, if I read one of my text books I needn’t say a word; I’ll just let them get on with it and see how they like that, but oh what a pity it is! Here am I, with two really nice girls, both wanting to be my best friend, and all they do is snipe at one another. But oh, what a lot I shall have to tell Gran . . . and Mrs O’Halloran, of course. I do like her. She’s kind and sensible and she works every bit as hard as I do, probably harder.

So, taking her own advice, Maddy delved into her satchel, brought out a copy of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and began to read. She was soon absorbed, answering only ‘Mm-hmm’ whenever one of the others spoke directly to her, and when two seats became vacant in front of them and Alice took one of them she refused to move. ‘I’m fine where I am, thanks,’ she said. ‘If you’re bored, find yourself a book.’ And with that she buried her nose in the text once more.

Because it was a school bus, nobody took any notice of the three girls, though the sixth former seated next to Alice had caught Maddy’s eye and winked. At last the bus entered the village where Marigold lived. Maddy waited for her new friend to stand up, and when she did not move said, ‘Marigold, this is your stop! You’d better get up, or you’ll miss it!’

‘Can’t,’ Marigold said briefly. ‘I promised our landlady I’d pick up a couple of loaves and some butter which the lady at your post office is keeping for me.’ She twinkled at Maddy. ‘So don’t think you can get rid of me quite so easily, Miss Hebditch.’

Maddy laughed, trying to ignore the fact that Alice was pulling a grim face, and peered out of the window as the bus approached Crowdale. ‘I say, look who’s come to meet us!’

Alice ignored the remark, but her gaze followed the other girl’s pointing finger. ‘Oh, it’s Tom,’ she said, surprised. ‘And, he’s brought his bicycle. I suppose he’s come to give me a seater back to the Hall.’

When the bus drew up Alice was the first to disembark. She went straight up to Tom, and though Tom raised a hand in acknowledgement when Maddy and Marigold descended on to the lane he and Alice set off at once in the direction of the Hall.

Maddy was disappointed; she and Tom now got along very well and the more she knew of him the more she liked him, but of course Alice had met him first. Still, their ways lay together, and it would have been nice to have company up the two-mile climb.

But Marigold was talking. ‘. . . never told me he was so nice-looking,’ she was saying. ‘You said he had ginger hair, but it’s not ginger, it’s a dark auburn, almost chestnut – wish mine was like that! And he isn’t as freckly as some boys who have the merest trace of red in their hair. Look at that feller who gave up his seat to us; you’d be hard put to it to stick a pin in an unfreckled bit of his face.’ She tugged impatiently at Maddy’s arm. ‘Get a move on, Maddy! You can introduce us.’

‘If you don’t mind I don’t think I will,’ Maddy said apologetically. ‘I’m not saying Alice wouldn’t like it, but . . .’

‘Don’t care whether she’d like it or not,’ Marigold said impatiently. ‘She doesn’t own him. Oh,
do
come on, Maddy, or we’ll lose them.’

Maddy, however, stood her ground. ‘You told me that you had to pop in to the post office to fetch something for your landlady,’ she said accusingly. ‘Or was that just an excuse to stay on the bus for an extra stop? Remember, Marigold, I’ve met you for the first time today and for all I know you might be the biggest liar in the Yorkshire Dales. I’m not saying you are,’ she added hastily, ‘I’m just saying you could be.’

Marigold pouted, but to Maddy’s relief she was also smiling. ‘You’re quite right, of course, but I’m astonished that you’ve clearly never noticed how handsome your friend Tom is. Are you coming with me to the post office? Mrs Timothy – she’s the lady we lodge with – said the post office woman would have the shopping all ready for me. She’s ever so nice, and if you come back home with me – to give me a hand with the shopping, you know – then I’m sure she’ll offer us a bun or one of the little cakes she makes, as well as a glass of her home-made ginger beer.’

Maddy was tempted, but she knew Gran would be waiting for a blow-by-blow account of her first day. If she hurried home now she might still have enough time to come back to the village later, because Gran was not the only one eager for news; Miss Parrott had said, rather wistfully, that she would be delighted if Maddy could find time to pop in and tell her how she had got on. Of course the most sensible thing would be to go to the schoolhouse first, but Maddy feared Gran would be upset if she knew her granddaughter had visited the teacher before returning home.

Marigold was staring at her. ‘Will you or won’t you?’ she said. ‘You say Alice is your pal, and I’m sure she is, but she didn’t wait for you, did she? Not her! She went off with that gorgeous feller . . . oh, sorry, you think we’re too young to notice a chap’s looks. That ginger-headed moron – is that more like it?’

Maddy giggled. She really couldn’t help it and she supposed it was silly to resent her new friend’s noticing that she had been blind to Tom’s looks. But though she comforted herself with the reflection that it was natural not to pay particular attention to the appearance of someone who was just a friend, she did feel an explanation was called for. ‘Tom’s father is Mr Thwaite’s chauffeur; they live in a flat over what used to be the stables, so it’s only natural for Tom and Alice to walk home together.’ She gave the other girl a shove. ‘Go and collect your shopping,’ she said. ‘I’m going to nip into the schoolhouse – the village school finishes at a quarter past three, so Miss Parrott will have been home for a while. Another time you must come with me and I’ll introduce you, but not on the first day.’

Marigold smiled. ‘All right, another time will do,’ she said airily. ‘And another time, Miss Dog-in-the-Manger, I mean to get an introduction to that delicious pal of yours.’ She had stood her satchel down while they talked but now she picked it up and slung it over one shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow! Tell your snooty pal that you’re going to save me a seat. Bye!’

Maddy’s heart sank into her boots. How on earth could she save a seat for Marigold – the implication was the seat beside herself – when Alice would take it for granted that they would sit next to one another? There was always the back seat, of course, but on any bus that was usually bagged by boys, and they would think her an odd sort of girl if she tried to sit there. But that problem would only arise next day; no point in worrying about it now, though she supposed she could see what Miss Parrott advised. The teacher was a sensible woman and might easily come up with a compromise.

Cheered by the thought, Maddy set off across the playground, through the little wicket gate, into the schoolhouse garden and up to the back door. She did not even have to knock, since her teacher had once more seen her coming and ushered her straight into the kitchen, her face reflecting the pleasure that she felt at her ex-pupil’s visit. She had laid lemonade and biscuits out on the kitchen table and now she indicated that Maddy should help herself. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said eagerly. ‘From the moment you got off the bus this morning until you got back on it again this afternoon.’

GRAN AND MRS
O’Halloran had laid the table for tea. Gran had not wanted to do anything special because she still felt in her heart that it would have been better for herself had she refused to let her granddaughter take the scholarship, let alone have a celebratory tea, but Mrs O’Halloran had insisted.

‘’Tis a grand thing, so it is, to get your schoolin’ free,’ she said reproachfully. ‘I remember my mother tellin’ me that if I did well in the schoolin’ I’d either make a good marriage or get a good job, but I never got a chance. Schoolin’ costs.’

The Irish woman surveyed the table with pride. After some urging, Gran had made a batch of Maddy’s favourite cheese scones, and Mrs O’Halloran had baked two fine loaves of bread and made an apple pie from the Bramleys which still remained on the tree. Because the weather was still warm and sunny there was home-made lemonade as well as tea. When the door opened both women looked up expectantly, but it was only Mr O’Halloran. He grinned cheerfully at them. ‘I were down in the village when the school bus arrived. The girl went straight to the schoolhouse, so if she’s givin’ her old teacher the story you don’t want to put the kettle on yet.’

Mrs O’Halloran nodded. ‘’Tis natural, so it is, that she should want to tell the woman what sort of a day she’s had,’ she said. ‘You and me, Mrs Hebditch, we don’t know nothin’ compared with the teacher. There’s questions Maddy’ll want to ask which we couldn’t possibly answer. But that don’t mean she ain’t longin’ to tell her gran every detail of her first day, so I reckon she’ll be here in ten minutes or so. I’ll wet the pot now.’

Gran grunted. ‘Bloody posh school,’ she muttered. ‘I’m a fool to myself, always was. She’ll make posh friends, get on in the world, forget her poor old gran. It’ll be the workhouse for me as soon as she sees I’m nothing but a weight on her back.’

When the door opened for the second time, Gran thought bitterly that it was probably someone else again, but it proved to be the girl herself. Gran was pleased, but did not intend to let it show. She glared at Maddy, chumbling with her lips, an action she had taken to performing lately when annoyed. ‘You’re late!’ she snapped. ‘Don’t think that just because I can’t get down to the village no more, I don’t know what time of day it is. The school bus is reg’lar as clockwork, which means you could have been home half an hour ago.’ She stamped with her walking cane, causing Maddy to flinch. ‘Where were you? Don’t tell me the bus broke down, because I shan’t believe you.’

‘Oh, Gran, I’m sorry if I frightened you . . .’ Maddy began, but was immediately cut down to size.

‘Frightened? Me?’ Gran snorted. ‘If you imagine I was worried, you’re wrong. You can come in any time you choose, I suppose, now you’re at perishin’ senior school. Ho yes, you don’t have to think of your old gran, watching the clock, jumping every time she hears a sound outside . . . well? Now you’re here, you can tell me what’s been going on.’