Summer at the Haven (9 page)

But Tom was sure he had heard right, and asked Mrs Thornton, who was his oracle, and she explained, as best she could, the genius and purpose of a White Elephant Stall. The following day she was a little puzzled at a sudden cross-examination from Tom about her furniture.

“Lady Mrs Thornton, be all these things yourn?”

“Why, yes, Tom.”

“All the tables and chairs and the pictures and all they books? Be they yourn as you can do whatever you like with ’em?”

“Certainly.”

“Be all the ladies’ things as are in their rooms theirs?”

“Yes, just the same as mine are.”

Mrs Thornton thought of Tom’s behaviour with regard to the flowers in the garden and that perhaps he had been getting into trouble with Fred or the warden again. Perhaps a word or two at this moment as regards personal property might be opportune.

“At The Haven, in the garden and in the dining-and sitting-room and the hall and the kitchen, Tom, everything is for us all to use and enjoy, and no one of us must take any of the things that are in these places away for their own use. But in our separate rooms, it is different, everything there belongs to the owner of the room as my things belong to me to do what I like with – do you understand now?”

Tom nodded and then crowed his sudden happy laugh and disappeared.

EARLY ON
the morning of the fête a thick, white mist blotted out the landscape, then, gradually, the sun forced its way through. The black August tree tops appeared first and soon the swathes of vapour cleared off, leaving the lawn and the field beyond the copse sparkling and fresh. Everything was extraordinarily still and silent. Through Meg Norton’s open window came the gentle scent of mown grass. Fred had been busy with the mower all the day before. Time was arbitrary at The Haven; often it ceased to be regulated by clocks and watches and took its cue from scents and sounds. So now, Meg, half-awake and half-dozing, smelt the summer of seventy years ago. It was the day of the annual cricket match against Widford. Harry and Paul were both playing and her father captaining the village team. She would help at the scoring board and with the tea. Of course they would win and afterwards there would be a party at the Hall. Oh, it was going to be a lovely, lovely day.

Only why was it so dark on an August morning? Even if she had forgotten to draw back the curtains last night (which she never did, for she liked to see the night sky), but even if she had, it ought not to be so dark as this. She sat up, still only half-awake, and then time swung on again and she remembered. Still, that day had been lived, that perfect day – nothing could alter that now – it was as real as this one
and hers for ever. She went on thinking about it and smiling as she thought. It all happened as she had expected. Harry had carried his bat and Paul had made one marvellous catch, and though poor father had been out for a duck, he didn’t mind, for they won by 46 runs. She remembered the exact number and at the party she had worn her new Shantung silk dress and her greeny-blue Venetian beads, and Mummy had let her do her pigtail up in a doorknocker for the first time, with a big bow to match the beads – though she wasn’t “out” yet, of course. Monica, her cousin, was staying with them. She married a doctor, he joined the RAMC and they went out to India afterwards and Monica died there. Yes, Monica was with them and after supper, they had rolled up the carpet and Mummy had played waltzes – “the Valse Triste”, she could hear it now. She had danced a lot with Paul and he had told her she had the most wonderful eyes, which made her feel silly, but she knew Harry was pleased that she and Paul got on well together. It must have been three years before the War. Here her musings were interrupted by Gisela bringing in her breakfast – Gisela, who was German, and whose grandfather and father had both been killed in the Wars.

“It is the day of the fête, Miss Norton,” said Gisela, “and it will be a very fine day, I think.”

“I’m glad, Gisela,” said Meg. “Be happy and enjoy it.”

Mrs Perry ate her breakfast by her open window, the moisture from the mist was drying off quickly from the ground now and all the later summer colours were solid and thick, like oil paint. Beyond the dark copse was the bright cornfield. Soon the proud upstanding wheat would be reduced to square lifeless packets.

“You never see a lovely wheatsheaf now,” mourned Mrs Perry, “unless it’s made of bread and propped against the chancel screen at Harvest Festival.”

But Fred admired the packets. He was busy tidying up the mess the men had made erecting the marquee.

“And then those hateful stubble fires,” thought Mrs Perry. She leaned out of the window and called to Fred: “Is Mr Jackson going to burn his stubble this summer, Fred? One summer he didn’t.”

Fred straightened himself up to answer her. “That’d be by reason o’ the drought, in case o’ fire,” he said. “I reckon he’ll be burning this year, same as usual.”

“Such a waste,” sighed Mrs Perry, “when I was a girl we went gleaning.”

“Depends how you looks at it, ma’am,” said Fred. “It saves work and it saves time.”

“And then the flowers,” went on Mrs Perry, “the flowers that sprang up immediately after the harvesting, cornflowers, and poppies, and mayweed, and scarlet pimpernel, and yellow bedstraw and speedwell – a perfect carpet.”

“Nobbut weeds,” muttered Fred. “Well, I’d best be getting on – them marquee men’ve mucked up my edges a caution.”

At ten o’clock Fred’s brother’s wife arrived to help in the kitchen. Fred’s wife called her “Old Misery”. She was cockney born and bred. As she unpacked the china, lent for the teas, she held Gisela with her “glittering eye” like the Ancient Mariner, while she regaled her with intimate details about her family (though actually her eye was glassy rather than glittering).

“My grandfather ’ad eighteen children, ’e ’ad, and only reared four. My father, ’e was ’is only son and ’es niver bin right since ’e married, the doctors ’ave niver bin able to do nothing for ’im. My mother, she was five weeks late wiv me and the old cat died the very day I was born, the very same day, she did, and they say she was a lovely cat, too. My mother she went sudden like. It was my washing day, if I’d a’ known she was going I’d ’ave got the washing done before.”

Then the warden came in. “You shouldn’t be standing
here talking when there’s so much to do,” she said crossly to Gisela. “Go and help Tom put up the tables in the marquee”

Gisela went off aggrieved – it wasn’t her that was doing the talking, but Miss Blackett was not in a state to be fair.

Now the stallholders were beginning to arrive to stake out their territory, erect their stalls and assemble their goods. Honor Bredon, who was in charge of the old ladies’ stall, went round to collect their offerings. Mrs Thornton’s patchwork was beautiful and she admired it warmly.

“It ought to bring in a lot, especially the little cushions,” she said, “they are so pretty and so much in request. I shall price them highly – it’s a great mistake to let the nice things go too cheaply on these occasions.”

Mrs Thornton felt flattered, for she valued Miss Bredon’s praise. Mrs Perry wistfully delivered over two splendid white geraniums and a dwarf begonia and even more sadly two charming little streptocarchus. Miss Norton’s distant cousin had responded quite generously; considering he was about the only relative she had left, he felt guiltily grateful to her for making so few demands on him and sent his annual box of foreign souvenirs (for he was a frequent traveller) with a good grace. Leila Ford suggested that what she called “my modest contribution”, which was a large coverlet of knitted squares, would brighten up the stall if hung prominently in the front, “Not upon the stall, Miss Bredon, where it would be hidden and wasted, don’t you think?”

Miss Brown apologetically said she had not been able to finish her crochet jacket in time, but it had been bespoke by the kind vicar for an old lady he knew, and would be paid for in advance. Honor guessed that more than half Leila’s coverlet and all the dull matching and sewing together of its squares would have fallen to her lot.

Miss Hughes had been pleased when she was called upon to take charge of the White Elephant Stall. She decided
that she must have a new oufit for the occasion. It would not do to let The Haven down, especially as she was now a committee member. So she made a special trip to London to a little shop she knew just off Bond Street and bought a summer suit of an expensively subtle shade of lilac. She was lucky enough, too, to find a hat to go with it, a fine soft straw, not easy to get nowadays and really quite reasonable considering. She returned home well satisfied. But beyond that her imagination did not reach, so now, suitably dressed as she was to preside over her stall, she found it was empty except for a small hand-propelled mowing machine from the vicarage and a pair of hideous vases, a wedding present long ago to Mrs Bradshaw from an aunt, now deceased. Miss Hughes was unperturbed, she had not had any idea of what had been expected from her, nor had she now. but with the calm assurance induced by the cushioning of wealth, she assumed that all would be arranged satisfactorily somehow. As of course it was. A hasty roundup was called for; articles, however potentially unsaleable, could not be removed from other stalls without causing offence, but Col. Bradshaw took his car forthwith and set out for a house to house rally, thinking as he did so that he had almost given up Miss Hughes. He returned with an assortment which had mostly been intended for the Guides’ jumble sale the following week. The White Elephant Stall, however, still looked rather thin on the ground, and then he and Mrs Martin, who had the next site for her produce, saw Tom lugging the old knife-cleaning machine across the lawn towards his ladies’ stall. He was intercepted by Miss Blackett.

“Whatever are you doing, Tom?” she cried.

Tom grinned up at her joyfully. “This be for our ladies, Lady Miss Blackett. “I’m a-giving of it.”

“What nonsense,” said Miss Blackett, “It’s not yours to give – besides no one will buy a thing like that – take it back to the house at once.”

“It be from my room, Lady Miss Blackett, and so it be mine to do what I like with. Lady Mrs Thornton, she tell me so.”

“You must have mistaken her – now take it away, there’s a good boy, and go and help Mr Jackson put up the coconut shies.”

“Wait a moment, Miss Blackett,” called out Col. Bradshaw, “I believe Miss Hughes could do with it – it’s a curiosity and might catch someone’s fancy. We want a few more things here if you can spare it, that is.”

“I can’t believe it’s worth the space it’ll take up,” said Miss Blackett, “but you’re welcome to it,” and she hurried off.

Tom was reluctant to deprive his ladies of his gift, but was persuaded that it was more likely to sell if in the company of the mowing machine than surrounded by pieces of embroidery and babies’ woollies. He went off to help Mr Jackson, but in the course of the morning, the dressmaker’s dummy, the chipped jug and basin, the volumes of
Sunday
at
Home,
the lampshade and the umbrella, all found their way to Miss Hughes’s stall, where they certainly helped to fill up the gaps.

The sun was now at its height and it was very hot, everywhere but in Miss Dawson’s room. She had decided to spend the day there. She had never liked parties and liked them even less now. It was pleasant to look down through the slats of the flat black branches of her tree and see everyone else running to and fro in the heat like frenzied ants.

“It’s no use, Mary,” she said to Mrs Perry who was trying to persuade her to come down for a little while later on and listen to the music, “I don’t wish to come, and that’s that. I’ve nothing against your grandchildren and you can come and tell me how wonderful they’ve been afterwards. Now, go along and enjoy yourself and leave me to do so quietly here in my own fashion.”

Lord Jim was of Miss Dawson’s way of thinking. As soon as he realized that the usual civilized order of the day was to be upset by strangers and unseemly bustle, he decided to spend it in a sensible place immune from disturbance. He chose Tom’s attic, and after inspecting the unfamiliar spaces left by the removal of the knife-cleaning machine and other articles, he settled down to a comfortable oblivion. It was fortunate that he had been out hunting the previous night and that a fat mouse had preceded his usual ample breakfast, so that it was unnecessary to bother about a midday meal.

At noon Lady Merivale, coming in from the garden where she had been lifting daffodil bulbs, found her husband in his study, which was a cool room, and sank gratefully into a chair.

“Do you think we should plant a border of narcissi along the west border this year?” she said.

After he had given the matter due thought and pronounced upon it (they were both keen gardeners), she remained there lying back with her head resting on the cushion. This was so unlike her usual habits that he was moved to ask her if anything was wrong.

“The heat’s given me a headache and I was wishing I hadn’t to go and open The Haven fête this afternoon, that’s all.”

“You drive yourself too hard sometimes, my dear. Wasn’t it rather foolish to lift bulbs in this weather? We’re not so young as we once were, you know.”

“I suppose not; it’s curious, isn’t it, that now it does sometimes strike one that one isn’t. I mean, for years and years one regards one’s present state as static, and then suddenly old age looms up as a sea change in the not too distant future – and of course one tends to think of the old as static, too, I mean as if they have always been as they are now. It needs quite an effort of imagination to picture The Haven residents as young, for instance, or even as middle-aged
like us. I wonder sometimes – don’t you? – what we’ll be like at their age, if we’re still here at all, that is.”

“No,” said her husband, “the present’s enough for me and a bit more than enough for you today it seems. You’d better go and have a bit of a rest before luncheon.”

“Oh, I’m all right, and I don’t need to stay long this afternoon, only make my little speech and do the rounds of the stalls, what are you doing?”

“I shall go to sleep,” said her husband firmly, and with a sigh of envy she left him.

Lunch was served early at The Haven that day, but either owing to the heat or to the general excitement, no one but Leila Ford and Old Misery ate very much. Talking, on the other hand, flowed more easily than usual.

“How it livens us up when anything other than the daily routine is happening,” thought Mrs Thornton.

Meg Norton, usually so silent, was speaking with some animation about the county cricket club results to Mrs Perry, and Leila was holding forth to the table at large upon a charity performance of
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream
given long ago in the grounds of Warwick Castle in which she had played Titania.

“Or wished you were playing her,” silently commented Dorothy Brown, “you were really only one of the fairies.”

“It was just before I left the stage for ever,” said Leila. “Ben Greet happened to be in the audience and he congratulated me afterwards. He said I had a bright future before me, but, alas! I was infatuated at the time – my heart has always led me astray.”

“It must have been a wonderful experience,” said Mrs Thornton politely, “and what a lovely setting the grounds of Warwick Castle would have provided for The Dream.”