Summer at the Haven (11 page)

“And Tom,” said Jake.

Nell laughed at him again. “You and Tom,” she teased.

“And it’s got the wood with that oak tree,” said Austen, “and the vicar’s bees and Tom’s bats.”

They lapsed into silence. The lanes got narrower and turned about so that Jake had to go slowly and the branches of trees and bushes brushed against them. Summer scents invaded the car. The sky had cleared and a few stars were beginning to glimmer faintly in the dark.

“I’m so sleepy,” said Elizabeth.

“Have a shoulder,” said Austen. He disengaged an arm from his dummy and slipped it round her, drawing her gently towards him.

“Well, that’s over,” said Miss Blackett to herself as night
fell and peace descended on The Haven once more. It had gone well on the whole, she thought; the storm had not really mattered and it had meant that the marquee had been most useful after all. She hated waste. The Lenny child had not been badly hurt, thank goodness it was only his nose and a couple of milk teeth and not his eye, but they must not use those nets another year without a careful mend. She hoped that they might have made a bit more than last year, the attendance had been good. Col. Bradshaw would let her know soon, she knew; he was very reliable. Her door opened gently and Tom appeared with Lord Jim. In spite of constant injunctions, he did not often remember to knock.

“He was on my bed. Lady Miss Blackett. I think he be hungry.”

Lord Jim knew very well that he was, who wouldn’t be after such a well spent day, slightly disturbed by the thunder, but on the whole, satisfactory. He rubbed against Miss Blackett’s legs purring loudly in anticipation of his supper, which she immediately produced for him from his holy fridge. She did not thank Tom; she would have preferred Lord Jim to have sought sanctuary on her own bed, which he had always done before whenever the need arose. Tom stood there smiling.

“It’s bin a grand day, Lady Miss Blackett, weren’t they tunes lovely?”

“I hope you thanked Mr Perry for letting you join with his party, it was extremely kind of him, and Tom, I hope you are grateful for being allowed the time off to do so,” said Miss Blackett.

“That little old drum fair played hisself, he did,” said Tom and hopped out of the room.

“Such an irritating boy,” thought Miss Blackett. “I do wish I could hear of a really reliable girl or woman instead.”

A PERIOD
of calm succeeded the fête. Mrs Nicholson, the new resident, moved in and seemed to Miss Blackett as though she was settling nicely and likely to give little trouble. Of course she brought too much furniture with her, they alawys did, but she was quiet and very cheerful. Her cheerfulness sprang from the fact that she looked upon the home as a real haven and not, like many of the past and present residents, as a depressing necessity. She had given up her own house some time before, owing to heart trouble. It was impossible to get enough domestic help and the garden had got beyond her long ago, so she had gone to live with a married son. But it had not answered. Not that they had been unkind to her, quite the reverse. Her daughter-in-law Carol was dreadfully kind.

“Bob and I have moved out of our room into the guest room, Mother; we thought you should have the sunny one. No, really, we
like
the room and it doesn’t matter a bit not having a guest room. After all, blood’s thicker than water, isn’t it?”

“No Kevin, you can’t have ‘Top of the Pops’ on now, dear; I am sure Granny doesn’t want it – no, Granny, please – he must learn to think of you before himself.”

“Amanda, take your dressmaking things up to your bedroom, dear – no, it isn’t too cold. Remember this is Granny’s sitting-room now as well as your children’s den,
and you see you are taking up the whole table
and
most of the floor as well. Oh, Granny, if you insist, you spoil her, you know, but I’m sure she’s very grateful.”

“No, certainly you mustn’t walk to your church, Mother. No. I’m afraid none of the neighbours do seem to go, it’s rather shocking, isn’t it, but Bob can easily run you there and call for you again later; he only potters about on Sunday mornings and he can fit those two short journeys in nicely.” And Bob, who had been such a downright outspoken boy, now seemed unable to say anything but “Of course,” though in all sorts of ways she felt she was unwillingly adding to the burden of his already too busy days. She could not have borne it had she not put her name down for The Haven, unknown to Carol and Bob. Perhaps if she could have gone to her daughter’s it would have been different. “A son’s a son till he gets him a wife, a daughter’s a daughter all her life.” Yes, but only as far as her circumstances will permit, and Peggy had her plate full, what with her job and three children and, she feared, a rather difficult and exacting husband, let alone that there really wasn’t an inch to spare in their flat. So she had been overjoyed when she heard that there was a vacancy at The Haven and that she could move in at the end of August. Carol and Bob were hurt at her insistence on leaving but, all the same, she could almost feel the relief blowing through the whole household like a freshening breeze. Now, when they came to see her, which she was sure they would do, they could enjoy each other.

Mrs Nicholson liked the warden’s brisk businesslike manner, she liked the little notices stuck up in her room about times of meals, baths, etc. How dreadful it had been when Carol had served the evening meal an hour earlier to suit her. She knew that it suited nobody else and it had even been changed from dinner to a light supper for her sake. (“I know it is much better for you, Granny dear, and I expect it is better for all of us, the children get a good
wholesome midday feed at school, and they do serve cooked dishes as well as sandwiches at Bob’s office canteen.”)

Then Miss Blackett told her that the vicar came regularly to celebrate Holy Communion for those who could not get to church. Depending on Bob and his car for her services on Sunday had worried her so much, as she knew how it cut into his one well-earned leisure morning, and yet they meant so much to her. She loved, too, the solidity of her room with its Victorian sash windows and handsome fireplace, though this of course was filled in now. It reminded her of the rooms she used to know in her childhood. Bob and Carol’s house, with its open-style rooms and great picture windows, had hardly seemd like a house at all. The greater part of her furniture had been sold when she gave up her home, but a few precious pieces and pictures she had put in store as there was really no room for them at Carol and Bob’s. Seeing them all round her again now was like a reunion with old friends. As she hung her carved wooden crucifix over her bed and her print of Raphael’s Madonna over the mantelpiece where she had found two convenient nails, Mrs Nicholson gave “humble and hearty thanks for all God’s goodness and loving-kindness” to her in bringing her to The Haven.

“That Mrs Nicholson, she is Catholic, I think,” said Gisela to Tom. “She has a cross upon the wall and a picture of the Virgin and some lady saints painted on her bookcase also.”

Miss Blackett overheard her. “You shouldn’t gossip about the residents, Gisela,” she said, “and in England such things do not necessarily mean that you are a Roman Catholic; you might well find them in our vicar’s study, for instance.”

Gisela sighed; here was another of those English muddles. In Germany, if you had crucifixes and Virgins and Saints in your room, you were Catholic, if you did not,
you were good Lutherans, like her parents.

Tom had not seen Mrs Nicholson’s room yet. He was pleased that she had come; he did not like rooms to be empty. He decided it was time to pay her a call. Mrs Nicholson was sitting by a small round table which held her work basket and a row of well-worn devotional books between two painted bookends. They were rather poor reproductions of pre-Raphaelite ladies and not saints, as Gisela had supposed, but they held lilies in their hands and looked holy. Mrs Nicholson was knitting and thinking how lovely it was that no one was being kind to her any more, but she had reckoned without Tom. He, together with Lord Jim, who had also decided to call, entered the room without warning. Tom came forward for his handshake.

“You be the first new lady since I comes here,” he announced.

Mrs Nicholson, though she had already heard something about him, was a little startled. She laid down her knitting to respond, her ball of wool rolled on to the floor and Lord Jim decided to put on a juvenile act. He pounced on the ball and rolled on his back, clasping it with his front paws. Tom crowed his funny laugh and Mrs Nicholson began to feel at ease. Tom tickled Lord Jim, who let go the ball to bite his fingers and pretend to claw him, and he retrieved it and rewound it neatly. Lord Jim turned his back on them and began an inspection of all Mrs Nicholson’s furniture and Tom, too, began to look about him. He turned quickly away from the crucifix, but stared up intently at the Raphael Madonna.

“Are you thinking how beautiful that picture is?” asked Mrs Nicholson.

“No,” said Tom, “I do be thinking he be a monster little ’un. I reckon as his Mum’s arms must be aching summat terrible.”

Mrs Nicholson was taken aback; she had never viewed her picture in this light before and there was no denying it,
the divine Child was certainly rather large, but she was quite sure that Tom was wrong about His mother, Raphael’s Virgin had never felt weariness or strain; perhaps her arms were miraculously strengthened to bear the baby’s weight. She suddenly realized that she was thinking of the picture as representing reality rather than the artist’s vision. Did that matter? She thought it might. Ought she to explain to Tom that it wasn’t like a photograph? But his attention had wandered to her two precious Ruskin pottery vases.

“Flowers,” he was saying, “flowers for Lady Mrs Nicholson; which be your favourite flower?”

She could not think, it seemed a long time since anyone had asked her that sort of question really wanting to know the answer.

“I like snapdragons,” said Tom. “Vicar’s bees, they get tricked by ’em sometimes, they be too heavy for ’em.”

“Snapdragons, yes,” said Mrs Nicholson gratefully, “such lovely colours.”

Tom beamed and vanished, leaving the door open behind him, and Lord Jim, having satisfied himself that Mrs Nicholson’s furniture was respectable and bore no traces of undesirable acquaintances, followed him. He was back again in no time with a big bunch of antirrhinums, orange and lemon and pink and crimson; there were plenty to fill the two vases. Mrs Nicholson did not ask where he had got them, though she did wonder about it a little, but he was so extremely pleased and happy she felt it must be all right. The flowers made the room look very bright and pretty, and when they had finished arranging them, they both surveyed the effect with satisfaction. Mrs Nicholson thought it perfect, only one thing worried her a little. The removal men had placed her chest of drawers across one corner, instead of flat against the wall. It looked better that way but she hadn’t thought of the space it would leave behind which could not be reached and where dust would
collect. She found herself explaining this to Tom, who looked strong enough to shift it, which indeed he managed easily. Mrs Nichlson then opened the bottom drawer and took out a tin of fancy biscuits. She did not much like fancy biscuits but Carol thought that all old ladies did and bought it for the childen to give their grandmother as a parting present.

“Thank you for helping me, Tom,” said Mrs Nicholson, “and thank you for the flowers, it was very kind of you. Now, would you like one of these biscuits?”

“I be kind to you and now you be kind to me,” Tom said, looking with pleasure at the biscuits, and Mrs Nicholson found that the distasteful word had somehow lost its sting.

Tom took a long while selecting his biscuit. At last he gravely chose out three and laid them before him on the table and then, after another pause, he replaced one of the three in the tin. Mrs Nicholson smiled at him as she used to smile at her small Bob.

“Keep both of those, if you like,” she said, “and I’ll have the one you put back to keep you company.”

They ate together in silence and the fat Holy Babe looked down on them benevolently.

The weather had been so fine since the fête that harvest was over early and Col. Bradshaw delivered some of the spoils of Harvest Thanksgiving to The Haven for the old ladies in the first week in October. The scent of autumn was already in the air and some leaves were turned. Mrs Perry’s border was a tangle of marigolds and larkspurs and dwarf dahlias. She did not care for the big showy ones, which were Fred’s pride. “Like blowsy barmaids, I always think, though Austen tells me these don’t exist any more, they are all university students earning a bit of extra money to pay for their cars, or even graduates, he says.” She had had also a fine show of antirrhinums. She recognized them when she paid a welcoming call on Mrs Nicholson one day and guessed of course how they had got there. She did not
mind, there would be a second blooming and besides, she was happily looking forward to a visit to her eldest married granddaughter. Austen was fetching her for the christening of her third great-grandchild and she was staying on for at least a week.

The warden had decided that it would be a good thing to get the deodar tree cut down before the autumn damp set in. Mr Martin had supplied her with the name of a firm of tree surgeons and she wrote to them. After some time they phoned saying they would be round one day the following week. Miss Blackett sighed at the typical vagueness of the present day and she had further cause for sighing when the week passed without a sign. A return phone call produced regrets that, owing to unforeseen pressure of work, her job might have to be postponed until November. “How tiresome,” thought Miss Blackett, “and they can’t even say when in November.” Then, without warning, the day after Mrs Perry had left for her visit, two men and a lorry with ladders, ropes and saws, turned up before breakfast and started to take off the top branches of the tree.

Miss Blackett had not felt it necessary to say anything to Miss Dawson about the tree coming down. She thought it better for the news to come as a nice surprise when the day for the felling had actually been fixed. Uncertainty of any kind always made old people fuss. Still, she certainly would have told her the night before had she herself known and, fearing that the old lady might, not unnaturally, be upset by the sight of a man suddenly appearing on a ladder or astride a branch close to her window, she thought she ought to go up to her at once.

Miss Dawson had been dozing after a broken night of arthritic pain – she fancied she was watching a native dance to the beat of drums when it changed to the rhythmic noise of sawing, and she was back in childhood and John, her grandfather’s gardener, was cutting the hazels in the nut-walk. “Doesn’t it hurt them, oh doesn’t it hurt?” “No, Miss
Fanny, they’ll shoot out again fast enough and twice as strong.” But the sawing got louder and louder; John and the hazel trees vanished as she opened her eyes, yet the sawing still went on. She looked towards the window and saw the dark shape of a man impossibly silhouetted against the sky and heard the sudden snap and crash of a branch. At the same moment Miss Blackett knocked and came in without waiting for an answer.

“I’m afraid you may have been startled. Miss Dawson,” she said. “I meant to tell you but the men arrived this morning quite without warning. The old deodar tree is coming down; the committee agreed with me, I am glad to say, that your room would be much brighter and warmer and drier without it, altogether healthier, you won’t know yourself, your rheumatism will feel the benefit this winter, I’m sure.”

Miss Dawson felt she was choking – she had to force the words out: “S’stop them, s’stop them,” she stuttered, “they mustn’t – they must stop, they must stop!”

“It’s quite all right. Miss Dawson, you need not be frightened, they are skilled men who know their job – there is no danger that the tree will fall the wrong way or any of the branches come crashing through your window. It’s all quite safe. They’ll soon finish clearing the top part, they say, and they won’t bring the machine saw for the main trunk till tomorrow, so just don’t worry yourself. I’ll pull your curtains across and Gisela will be here with your breakfast very soon.”

She left the room and Miss Dawson turned her face to the wall, she knew she was defeated. She had fought authority several times in her life, and with some success, but now she knew without any doubt that it would be of no use. She was too old, too alone and too helpless, and it was too late. The sound of the sawing, malignant and relentless, filled the whole room.