SHE FOUGHT DOWN instant panic. ‘I am a sensible countrywoman,’ she told him in a calm little voice, ‘your housekeeper, and I can’t think why I won’t do, especially as you haven’t eaten a meal here or slept in a bed or had your washing and ironing done yet.’
He had his head a little on one side, watching her, no longer smiling. ‘You don’t understand,’ he told her quite gently. ‘I’m looking for a quiet, experienced woman to run this cottage with perfection and no unnecessary noise. I write for a living and I have to have peace.’
‘I’m as experienced as anyone will ever be. I’ve lived here in this cottage for twenty years, I know every creaking board and squeaking door and how to avoid them…’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Of course, stupid of me—you’re Mrs Gillard’s granddaughter. To turn you out of your home would be decidedly unkind.’ His faint smile came again. ‘At least tonight. We’ll discuss it in the morning.’ He turned to the door again and opened it on to the chilly evening. ‘I’ll get my bags.’
When he came back with the first of them Sadie asked: ‘Would you like tea, sir?’
‘Yes, I would, and for God’s sake don’t call me sir!’ He disappeared into the blackness again and she went to put the kettle on and butter the scones. She had laid a tray with Granny’s best china and one of her old-fashioned traycloths and she carried it into the sitting room and put it on a small table by the fire. By the time he had brought in a considerable amount of luggage and taken off his sheepskin jacket, she had made the tea and carried it in.
‘What about you?’ he asked as he sat down, ‘or have you already had yours?’
‘Yes, thank you, I have. If you want more of anything will you call? I shall be in the kitchen.’ At the door she paused. ‘Would you like your supper at any particular time, Mr Trentham?’
He spread her home-made jam on a scone and took a bite. ‘Did you make these?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Wild strawberry jam,’ he observed to no one in particular, ‘I haven’t tasted it since I was a boy. You made it?’
‘Yes.’ She tried again. ‘Your supper, Mr Trentham?’
‘Oh, any time,’ he told her carelessly. ‘I’ll unpack a few things and get my books put away. Where have you put my desk?’
‘In the other room. If you wouldn’t mind having your meals in here, you could use the dining room to work in.’
He nodded. ‘That sounds all right. Whose cat is that, staring at me from under the table?’
‘Oh, that’s Tom—he’s mine. I did ask about him, and you said you wouldn’t mind…’
‘So I did.’ He buttered another scone. ‘Don’t let me keep you from whatever you’re doing.’
She went out closing the door soundlessly. The kitchen was warm and smelt deliciously of food. She put the custardy part of the Queen of Puddings into the oven and began to whip the egg whites. Her future was tumbling about her ears, but that was no reason to present him with a badly cooked meal. When she heard him go into the hall she opened the kitchen door to tell him: ‘Your bedroom is the one on the right at the top of the stairs. Would you like any more tea, Mr Trentham?’
He paused, his arms full of books. ‘No, thanks. It was the best tea I’ve had in years. In fact I don’t normally have tea, I can see that I shall have to get into the habit again. Did you make that cake too?’
‘Yes.’ She went past him up the stairs and switched on the light in the bedroom and pulled the curtains. It looked very pleasant in a shabby kind of way but a bit chilly, she was glad she’d put hot water bottles in the bed.
‘You can come in here and help,’ he called as she went downstairs, and she spent the next half hour handing him books from the two big cases he had brought with him, while he arranged them on the bookshelves she had luckily cleared. He had a powerful desk lamp too and a typewriter, and a mass of papers and folders which he told her quite sharply to leave alone. Finally he said: ‘That’s enough for this evening.’ He gave her his lazy smile again. ‘Thanks for helping.’
He went outside again presently to the car parked in the lane and came back with a case of bottles which he arranged on the floor in a corner of the sitting room, an arrangement which Sadie didn’t care for at all. There was a small table in one of the empty bedrooms; she would bring it down in the morning and put the bottles on it. She collected the tea tray and started to lay supper at one end of the table, and he asked for a glass.
Granny’s corner cupboard was one of the nicest pieces of furniture in the cottage. Sadie opened its door now and invited him to take what he wanted. He chose a heavy crystal tumbler and held it up to the light.
‘Very nice too—old—Waterford, I believe.’
‘Yes, everything there is mostly Waterford, but there are one or two glasses made by Caspar Wistar. My grandmother had them from her grandmother. I’m not sure how they came into the family.’
‘They’re rare and valuable.’
She closed the cupboard door carefully. ‘I don’t know if you bought them with the cottage. Mr Banks is going to send me a list…’
He had picked up a bottle of whisky and was pouring it. ‘No, I haven’t bought them, and if you think of selling them I should get a very reliable firm to value them first.’
‘Sell them?’ She looked at him quite blankly. ‘But I couldn’t do that!’
He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘No, probably you couldn’t,’ he agreed goodnaturedly. ‘Something smells good,’ he added.
‘It will be ready in ten minutes,’ she told him, and went back to the kitchen.
Washing up in the old-fashioned scullery later, Sadie wondered what her chances of staying were. Undoubtedly, when they had met, Mr Trentham had made up his mind instantly that she wouldn’t do, but now, since making inroads into the splendid supper she had put before him, she had seen his eyes, thoughtful and a little doubtful, resting upon her as she had cleared the table. She hadn’t said a word, just taken in the coffee and put it silently on the table by the fire, then taken herself off to the kitchen, where she and Tom demolished the rest of the steak and kidney pudding and the afters before setting the kitchen to rights again. It was bedtime before she had finished. She refilled the hot water bottle, switched on the bedside light and went downstairs again to tap on the sitting room door and go in.
‘There’s plenty of hot water if you would like a bath,’ she told him, ‘and it will be warm enough by eight o’clock in the morning if you’d prefer one then.’
He looked up from the book he was reading. ‘Oh, the morning, I think.’
‘If you’d put the guard in front of the fire?’ she suggested. ‘I hope you’ll sleep well, Mr Trentham.’
He smiled at her. ‘No doubt of that,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve been sitting here listening for the proverbial pin to drop. I’d forgotten just how quiet it can be in the country.’
She
