The Bright One (52 page)

‘Oh, we'll not let you down! Not for a minute! I promise faithfully! God's honour!'

There was another pause, then: ‘Very well!' the woman said. ‘I'll hold it until six o'clock. No longer, mind you!'

They were at the house in River Road by a quarter to six.

‘You'll excuse me if I don't go with you,' the woman said. ‘It's a fair walk, and I'm not at my best in the cold weather. Chesty, you see.'

She handed the keys to Graham. ‘I'm sure I can trust you with them, and since you work for Opal's, I can always find you if need be. It's the two rooms on the top floor. The ground floor is let.'

‘We'll return the keys this evening,' Graham promised. ‘Let you know what we think.'

‘Yes. Well, I'm not saying it won't need doing up a bit. The last tenant neglected it, but she was old.'

The woman was right. It was a lengthy walk, all of it uphill. When they reached the edge of the moor the houses ran out and they thought they must have missed it, but another five minutes skirting the edge of the moorland brought them to a small, solitary house.

‘Heather Cottage,' Breda said. ‘This is it! Oh, Graham!'

‘It's quite isolated,' Graham said doubtfully.

‘Does that matter?'

She pushed open the gate. Snow still lay on the short path which led to the front door. It's got to be right, Breda thought! It's just
got
to be right.

They rang the doorbell, but there was no reply from the ground-floor tenants.

‘They must be out,' Breda said. ‘We can let ourselves in.'

Steep, narrow stairs, uncarpeted, ran up from the small front hall and disappeared out of sight around a bend. Graham led the way.

The landlady had also been right about the condition of the rooms. They were shabby, and none too clean, with wallpaper peeling from the living room walls and distemper flaking from the tiny bedroom. The minute kitchen had a stone sink, an ancient gas cooker and one cupboard.

‘But at least there
is
a kitchen,' Breda said. ‘
And
a small bathroom. We won't have to share, which is something.'

‘Part-furnished,' was an accurate description. There was a sideboard, a shabby table, one armchair and three upright chairs in the living room, and in the bedroom a double bed with iron rails and brass knobs, and a chest of drawers. Nothing else.

‘It's not exactly a palace!' Graham looked unimpressed. It's not what he's used to, Breda thought.

‘But it will be a palace by the time we've finished with it!' she said. ‘Our very own palace! Oh, Graham, there's so much we could do with it!' Already, she was teeming with ideas.

‘We'd have to start right from scratch.'

‘And isn't that better than living with someone else's choice?'

She crossed to the window, deep-set, with a seat built into the thickness of the walls.

‘And look at the view, Graham! Will you just look at the view? Isn't it wonderful?'

Graham moved to her side.

‘I'll grant you that,' he said. ‘It's the best thing about the place.'

They looked out over the wide expanse of moor, still rising all the way to the horizon. Daylight had long gone, but there was a brilliant moon which lit up the snow. Rocks and great boulders thrust blackly through the white landscape like primeval sculptures.

‘And in the spring it will be green, and in the summer, covered with heather!' Breda said. ‘Oh, Graham, do say you like it! Do say you think it will do!'

Graham shook his head. ‘I don't have your imagination, love. I don't have your eye . . . '

‘Then trust me!' Breda begged. ‘I
know
it will be all right! I promise you!'

He looked at her eager face, her shining eyes. She was irresistible to him and always would be.

‘Very well!' he said. ‘If you're sure?'

‘I'm quite sure,' Breda said. She put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Give me my first kiss in our new home.'

‘With pleasure!'

‘We're going to be
so
happy,' Breda sighed contentedly.

The time, which had dragged interminably while they had waited for the Bishop's dispensation, now took wings. Each day leading to the wedding seemed to have fewer hours in it than any previous one, and each day was crowded with things to be seen to. Breda gave up all idea of making her own wedding dress, though she had wanted to do that, and bought one in Opal's January sale.

‘It will give me more time to work on Heather Cottage,' she said to Graham. ‘I want to get it as perfect as possible so that we can live in our own place from the moment we're married.'

They had decided to forgo even the short honeymoon they had planned in favour of using the money to buy paint and whatever they could in the way of fabrics to smarten up their new rooms. Every evening saw them leaving Opal's and climbing up to the cottage, where they changed into old clothes and set to with paint brushes. Josephine ran up curtains and a few cushion covers on her sewing machine, and loaned them an armchair until they could afford to buy the sofa they wanted.

After ten days of cleaning and decorating Breda stood in the middle of the living room and looked around her. ‘It's quite good,' she said. ‘Not everything as I want it, but that will come later.'

‘It's marvellous!' Graham said. ‘It's a transformation! I'd like Miss Opal to see this, show her what you can do.'

The new window plan in the store had gone well and had attracted a lot of attention. Changing the ‘room' windows week by week had also given Breda several ideas which she would use in their own home when there was enough money to do so.

‘Perhaps she
will
see it,' Breda said. ‘Who knows? I shall want Mammy to come while she's staying in England. Auntie Josie will bring her over.'

She wondered if Graham's parents would want to visit them here. They were coming to the wedding, having accepted Miss Opal's invitation to stay with her, so she supposed they might. It would be in sharp contrast to the house in Reigate. What would be her future mother-in-law's reaction to two tiny rooms in half a house? But nothing can spoil it for me, Breda thought. It's ours. It's mine and Graham's.

In the event, Henry and Miriam Prince announced their intention, if Opal would have them, of coming up to Yorkshire a day or two before the wedding. ‘I've never been there,' Miriam said to Graham on the telephone. ‘Naturally I want to see something of the place where you'll be living, and Opal seems quite pleased to have us a night or two longer.'

So, on the day before the wedding, Opal drove Mr and Mrs Prince to Hebghyll, and in the afternoon they went, together with Graham and Breda, to inspect Heather Cottage. The Akersfield family, plus Molly, planned to visit in a few days' time.

‘It's very . . . compact,' Miriam Prince said.

Henry Prince squeezed his wife's arm. She was doing well. He knew her feelings, that she felt as though Graham was going to Outer Mongolia. He didn't share them, but they were real to her and he was proud of the way she had determined not to spoil anything by showing them.

Opal looked keenly at every bit of the rooms. ‘It's splendid,' she said. ‘Such clever ideas, such good use of space. And your colour schemes are exactly right.' She turned to Breda. ‘Did you do all this yourself?'

‘Graham helped,' Breda said. ‘I couldn't have done it alone.'

‘All I did was the donkey work,' Graham said. ‘The ideas were all Breda's.'

‘Very good indeed,' Opal said.

Breda smiled happily. ‘Thank you, Miss Opal. It's what I like doing best.'

The day of the wedding was bright and clear. Breda wakened to the sun shining into her bedroom in her aunt's house, from which she was to be married. Graham would come over from Hebghyll during the morning and her first sight of him today would be when she went into church and saw him waiting there. It could not come too soon. She felt that the whole of her life had been a preparation for what was to happen this day.

Josephine came into the room, carrying a tray.

‘Breakfast in bed for the bride!' she said happily. ‘And it's a lovely day! Happy the bride the sun shines on!'

‘Oh, Auntie, I feel as though all the rest of my life is going to be sunny!' Breda said.

‘Well, I hope it will be,' Josephine said. ‘But don't count on it altogether. There might be a shower of rain from time to time. But not today!'

Breda surveyed the breakfast tray: toast, marmalade, a boiled egg.

‘I can't eat a thing,' she objected.

‘Oh yes you can, and you will,' Josephine said firmly.

The small wedding party seemed lost in the vastness of St Peter's Church, especially as they were divided by the centre aisle, Mammy, Grandma Maguire, Auntie Josie and her family on one side; Mr and Mrs Prince, Mr Soames and Miss Opal on the other. But to Breda none of that mattered. She was aware only of Graham by her side, and Father Ddaney speaking the words she had wanted to hear. Nothing else mattered. She made her responses loud and clear.

Afterwards they went back to Waterloo Terrace, where Josephine provided a cup of strong tea, sandwiches and wedding cake. Mrs Prince sat on the edge of a chair, smiling bravely, sipping her tea and eating nothing at all. Molly and Josephine, though they were clearly in awe of her, talked to Miss Opal while Henry Prince did his best to converse with Grandma.

‘I don't like weddings,' Grandma told anyone who would listen. ‘As an occasion, I mean. A good funeral beats a wedding hollow. And there's seldom a meal to compare with a funeral tea!'

She broke off to chase a piece of wedding cake which had lodged under her dental plate. Round and round her mouth she moved her tongue, clicking her false teeth from side to side. If she takes them out in front of Miss Opal I shall die of shame, Josephine thought!

‘Perhaps we should be leaving, Opal,' Miriam Prince said presently. ‘I expect you have things to do.'

‘
I'm
taking the happy couple back to Hebghyll,' George Soames said, ‘whenever they're ready.'

‘Any minute now,' Graham said.

Shortly afterwards, Breda and Graham stepped into George Soames's car and he whisked them away, not stopping until they were at the gate of Heather Cottage. ‘I'll not stay,' he said. ‘Things to do!' He was gone like a puff of smoke.

Breda and Graham looked at each other. ‘You have to carry me over the threshold,' she said.

‘Whatever you say, Mrs Prince!' he replied.

‘Shall we walk to the moor, or are you too tired?' Graham asked.

‘I'm a little tired,' Breda acknowledged. ‘But not too much. I'd like to walk.'

Now that spring was here again, and the evenings were all the time getting lighter, it was what they did almost every day. Home from the store, a very quick cup of tea, a change into casual clothes, and out again.

There was so much to see on the moor now, something new every day. Two winters of snow had melted and gone since they had moved into Heather Cottage. The first spring had given way to a warm summer, when all Breda's hopes of a purple, heather-clad moor had been fulfilled, and now they had come through the winter and emerged into the second spring. Fresh green bracken had uncurled itself on the slopes; birds were busy housekeeping.

‘I wouldn't want you to tire yourself,' Graham said. ‘You must take care.'

‘I know,' Breda agreed. ‘And I will. This baby is precious to me.'

‘To both of us,' Graham corrected her.

‘Of course! I know that!'

It had taken her almost a year to conceive, in spite of the fact that their sex life was full and vigorous; all, and more than all, that either of them had ever dreamt of. It was this which made Breda wonder if she would ever conceive, or if she was cruelly destined to remain childless. But now she was three months pregnant, and everything in the world was fine. The only cloud on the horizon, and it was daily growing closer, was that she would have to give up her job.

Graham, walking slightly ahead, turned around and offered Breda a hand up a steep and rocky part of the slope. She shook her head, smiling, and refused to take it.

‘I can manage perfectly well, love. You mustn't coddle me!'

‘Oh yes I must!' Graham contradicted. ‘I would like to wrap you in cotton wool, wait on you hand and foot every minute until the baby's born.'

‘Well, you're not going to,' Breda said. ‘I won't allow it!'

He sat down on a flat rock, and pulled her down beside him.

‘But you will take care? Promise?'

‘Of course I will,' Breda said. ‘Don't be so anxious.'

‘I don't think you should go on working much longer.'

Breda shook her head. ‘I don't agree, love. I'm absolutely fit and if I had my way, I'd go on working until the last minute. It won't be good for me, hanging around doing nothing. I'll get bored.'

Graham looked doubtful. ‘What about . . . ?'

‘If you mean what about how will I look, those smocks I wear are as good as any maternity dress. But I'll promise to give up working the minute I'm too tired.'

Privately, she couldn't imagine that happening for a long time. She had never felt fitter in her whole life.

‘We must tell Mr Soames,' Graham said. ‘It's only fair!'

‘And Miss Opal,' Breda said.

Miss Opal would be on her side. Auntie Josie said that Miss Opal had worked in the Leasfield store almost up to the time of Emmeline's birth.