went up the narrow stairs, Tom plodding behind her to climb on to her bed and make himself comfortable while she had a bath and got ready for the night. She was almost asleep when she heard Mr Trentham come upstairs. He came with careful stealth, trying to be quiet, but he was a big man and probably not used to considering others all that much. He was nice, though, she thought sleepily, used to doing as he pleased, no doubt, but then according to Charlie, who read the TV Times and watched the box whenever he had a moment to spare, he was an important man in his own particular field. She heard his door on the other side of the landing close quietly and then silence, broken by a subdued bellow of laughter.
She was too tired to wonder about that.
She was up before seven o’clock, creeping downstairs to clear out the ashes and light the fires in both rooms as well as the boiler and then to get dressed before going down to the kitchen to cook the breakfast—porridge and eggs and bacon and toast. By the time Mr Trentham got down the table was laid and the fire was burning brightly. She wished him a sedate good morning and added: ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee, please. God, I haven’t had a night like that in years!’
There seemed no answer to that. Sadie retired to the kitchen, made the coffee and took it in with a bowl of porridge.
‘I never eat the stuff,’ declared Mr Trentham, and then at the sight of her downcast face: ‘Oh, all right, I’ll try it.’
She had the satisfaction of seeing a bowl scraped clean when she took in the eggs and bacon. He demolished those too before polishing off the toast and marmalade.
‘It goes without saying that you made the marmalade as well,’ he observed as she cleared the table.
‘Well, yes, of course. Everyone does.’ She gave him a brief smile and went back to the kitchen, where she ate her breakfast with Tom for company until Charlie interrupted her with a pile of letters.
‘Brought a bit o’ custom to the village,’ he volunteered cheerfully. ‘That’s a posh car outside, all right.’
Sadie gobbled up the last of her bacon, offered a mug of tea and took the letters. Mr Trentham wasn’t in the sitting room and she could hear the typewriter going without pause. She didn’t fancy disturbing him, not after all his remarks about peace and quiet, but she saw no way out of it. She tapped on the door and getting no answer, went in, laid the post down on the edge of the desk and went out again. She rather doubted if he had seen her.
She whisked round the cottage, not finding much to do, for everything had been so scrubbed and polished it had had no time to get even a thin film of dust. And then, since the typewriter was still being pounded without pause, she went silently in with coffee. Without looking up, Mr Trentham said: ‘Open the post for me, Sadie, will you? Do it here.’
She thought of her own coffee cooling in the kitchen and picked up a paper knife on the desk. There were nine letters. Three of them were in handwriting and began Dear Oliver, and she laid them on top of the others—bills and what appeared to be business letters. Having done so she made silently for the door, to be stopped by Mr Trentham’s voice.
‘Where’s your coffee?’
‘In the kitchen.’ She put a hand on the door knob.
‘Fetch it and come back here, I want to have a talk with you.’ He sounded so noncommittal that she guessed that he was going to tell her that she must go. And where to? she asked herself, rejoining him, her tranquil face showing nothing of the panic she was in.
‘Mr Banks was quite right,’ he began. ‘He described you as a sensible countrywoman, and it seems to me you are. What my mother would have called an old head on young shoulders…I think we may suit each other very well, Sadie, but several adjustments must be made. We’ll take our meals together—it’s ridiculous that you should eat in the kitchen of your own home. You will share the sitting room as you wish, all I ask is that I should be left to myself in this room. You will refrain from lugging logs and coals into the house, I’ll do that each morning or if you prefer, each night. And you’re not to wear that depressing overall. We’ll go to Bridport and purchase something more in keeping with your age. What is your age, by the way?’
‘I’m twenty-three.’
He nodded. ‘There are things to be done to the cottage. It needs a new thatch, I need a garage; a shower room would be useful. I’ve already arranged for a telephone to be installed, and someone should be here later today to install television.’ He searched in his pockets and pulled out a cheque book. ‘Here’s housekeeping money until the end of the month, after that you’ll be paid it on the first of each month.’ He started on another cheque. ‘And here’s a week’s salary in advance. You’ll get a month’s money at the same time as the housekeeping.’
He pushed the cheques towards her and she picked them up in a daze.
‘All that, just for housekeeping?’ she wanted to know.
‘I like good food—good plain food, well cooked. I abhor things in tins and packets and frozen peas.’
‘Well, there isn’t a freezer,’ she explained, ‘and I hardly ever buy things in tins because they’re too expensive.’
He smiled at her and her heart lurched. ‘Splendid!’ He gave her an encouraging nod and thought how beautiful her eyes were in her plain little face. There was nothing about her to distract him from his work. ‘The tradespeople call?’ he wanted to know.
‘Yes, and Mrs Beamish has almost all the groceries we need. I get eggs from someone in the village and I’ve ordered some more logs from a farm near by—they’ve cut down some trees and we can buy the awkward logs that won’t sell easily.’
‘Yes.’ He sounded a little impatient and she got up, put the coffee cups on the tray.
‘I’ll be in the garden if you want me for anything, Mr Trentham. What would you like for lunch?’
He had picked up a sheaf of papers and was frowning over them. ‘Oh, anything—we’ll eat this evening.’
There was plenty of soup left over from the previous day and a mackerel pâté she had made; toast wouldn’t take an instant and she could make a Welsh rarebit in no time at all. She got into her wellies and the old mac and went into the garden to cut a cabbage.
At one o’clock precisely she put her head round the door to say that lunch was about to be put on the table, and found him sitting back with a drink in his hand. He got up and followed her into the kitchen and watched while she ladled the soup and then carried the tray for her.
Beyond stating that he seldom stopped for a meal when he was working, he had nothing to say, but Sadie noticed that every drop of soup was eaten and when she replaced that with Welsh rarebit, he ate that too—moreover, the pâté followed it. It was obvious to her that he hadn’t been eating properly. Well, the housekeeping money he had given her was more than enough to buy the best of everything.
She put his coffee on the table by the fire and went away to wash up. He had insisted that she should take her meals with him, but that didn’t mean that she was to bear him company at any other time. She tidied the kitchen, told him that she would be going out for an hour and would be back in good time to get his tea, and wrapped up in her old coat, walked down to the village. Mr Trentham wanted papers to be delivered each morning and they needed to be ordered. She paused outside the gate to look at the car:
