Wind on the Heath: a moving wartime Yorkshire saga Read online

  ‘As most of your ideas do, Mrs. Anderson ‒ admirable. Now, there’s my list, see that it’s sent up, will you?’

  Ada took the list, written in Mrs. Blenkiron’s distinctive but sprawling hand on a sheet of grey note-paper which bore the address ‒ Graystone Manor, and added the information that the telephone number was 26 Huddersley, the nearest station Huddersley, and the the telegraphic address was Graystones, Huddersley.

  ‘It will be there just after luncheon, Madam. And now ‒’ she hesitated, ‘I wonder if I might ask you a great favour? I shan’t keep you long. Perhaps you’d take a cup of coffee ‒ yes, I can send next door for it, though very soon I hope we shall acquire those premises and the shop on the other side ‒ Baines. My husband feels that we ought to expand. What with the drapery and the grocery, and it’s certain that Huddersley can do with a nice, pleasant café ‒ I think that he’s right.’

  ‘I’m certain that he is!’ Mrs. Blenkiron agreed heartily. ‘By all means let’s have that coffee, if I can be of any help ‒ well, you know how happy I shall be.’

  Ada sent for the coffee, adding in a whisper to the assistant, ‘Tell them it must be all right. It’s for Mrs. Colonel Blenkiron’; then led the way into her small office. It was perfectly tidy if austere, Ada could not tolerate what she called ‘muddle and mess’.

  ‘Please take that chair, Madam.’ Mrs. Blenkiron with the two Cairns at her heel, nodded and sat down, the little dogs crowding as near to her as possible. ‘It’s about my sons,’ Ada said, ‘I don’t care for them to grow up with the kind of accent they’ll get at the Grammar School, good though it may be. I’d like them to go to a school they could look back on ‒ well, with pride. I’ve not much knowledge of such places, but that’s why I ventured to speak to you about it, Madam.’

  ‘Ah!’ Mrs. Blenkiron sat bolt upright, inflicting a slight kick on one of the Cairns as she did so, and crying, ‘Get out of the way you silly little ass!’ then stooping to pat the dog and murmuring, ‘My angel, I didn’t really hurt you! Gosh, what a clumsy mother you’ve got! Now, Mrs. Anderson,’ as the Cairn rolled over waving its paws in the air and exposing a well-filled pink stomach, ‘I wonder what you have in mind. Not Eton or Harrow?’

  ‘Madam, no!’ Ada’s tone was reverential. ‘Just something with ‒ well, tone.’

  ‘Umph. Ah, here’s the coffee. Thank you ‒ oh, and biscuits. Here, Timmy, here Tottie ‒ here’s a biscuit each. Greedy little animals. Always longing to eat something ‒ then I have to exercise them like mad to work off their fat. Can’t imagine why I keep the little beasts! That biscuit nice, my poppets? Well, I think that I can recommend the very place. Colonel Blenkiron is one of the governors. He’d put in a word for your boys. Blarney Castle! It’s a school of good standing, not cheap but you get value for money.’

  She laughed, showing her beautiful if large teeth. ‘I’m a true Yorkshire woman! Healthy position, good modern buildings, and the food’s good. I’ve often said to my husband that our boys ‒ Gavin and Eldred ‒ might have done very well there, and saved us money instead of going to Harrow! Mrs. Anderson, I shall ask my husband to have the prospectus sent to you immediately. Go over and see the place. You’ll be completely satisfied, I’m certain. Thanks for the coffee, come on you two idle hounds, stir your stumps. Good-bye, Mrs. Anderson, and in that order include a tin of pâté, will you? My husband adores it.’

  Ada saw her off, watched her bundle the Cairns into the shabby Ford car which she drove, and returned to her office to write down carefully ‒ Blarney Castle.

  That evening during the meal ‒ high tea ‒ which was served at seven, Ada listened to the two boys talking. Jimmy spoke with an accent which she deplored, Michael less so, but even his speech was tinged with the over-broad vowels of the West Riding.

  She asked Jimmy if he would like another sausage, and his reply annoyed her.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said.

  She snapped suddenly, ‘What do you mean ‒ don’t mind! Can’t you say, “Yes, please” or “No, thank you”? And Michael, take your elbow off the table, and sit up! Don’t lounge about like some farm hand for any favour. What’s come to your manners, I cannot imagine. Father,’ to Enoch, ‘another sausage?’

  ‘Yes, please, Ada,’ he answered primly, and Jimmy gave a great guffaw of laughter.

  Grandma, pulling down the corners of her mouth, said, ‘It’s time someone took you in hand, young Jimmy. I’d not like your mother’s cousin to hear you behaving that road, or speaking rude.’

  Ada said sharply, ‘Never mind my cousin, Lizzie. I’ll see to my own bairns, choose how.’

  That night when she and Enoch sat in the charming, if slightly stiff, sitting-room, she talked over her plans. First the boys must go to some school where they would learn to speak properly.

  ‘Nay, they speak all right,’ Enoch said. ‘They both speak better nor what I do, Ada.’

  ‘Times change, Enoch. Education’s a grand thing, and speaking nicely opens many doors. D’you think that I don’t realize my own shortcomings? I do, y’know. I was talking this morning to Mrs. Colonel Blenkiron ‒ yes, she stayed and had a cup of coffee with me in my office ‒’

  Enoch gaped, ‘Mrs. Colonel Blenkiron did! I’ll be damned!’

  ‘Most affable she was too. I asked her about a good school for the boys. It appears that the Colonel is one of the governors of Blarney Castle. He’s going to interest himself ‒ and if you agree, that’s where I plan for the boys to go.’

  Enoch whistled, ‘Making gentry of them, eh?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort. Giving them a good start, what’s the word I want ‒ dash it! ‒ I’ve gotten it ‒ making them equipped for life. You’d not mind?’

  ‘I mind nout so long as brass is there. You know that, Ada luv. You’re the headpiece, you’ve gotten the ideas. I’m just a working farmer, that’s all.’

  She beamed at him, she loved Enoch dearly, true there were times when she wished that he would show a little more ambition, but she consoled herself with the thought that she had sufficient for both of them. She went on to talk about the shop.

  She had told him that she had heard from Mr. Harrison, the auctioneer, that the café was coming on to the market, and not only the café but the nasty little haberdasher’s on the other side of Anderson’s.

  ‘It’s my idea,’ she said, ‘if you approve, to buy them both. To enlarge our place, we’re fairly crowded out. The groceries do well, the heavies and the cottons do well, but we’ve no elbow room.’

  ‘Eh, you’re a one,’ he murmured, but there was admiration in his tone. ‘You’ll have us broke, Ada!’

  ‘I’ll not. Trust me. I’ll have a property that ’ul be worth something. Oh, I was going to tell you, this morning while I listened to Mrs. Colonel Blenkiron, I felt that it was a treat to hear her talk. Really lovely. I thought, “Well, to be able to talk that way will be an asset to our boys when they grow up.” So I just took the bull by the horns and asked her to come in and give me advice. Now tell me that you approve, Enoch luv.’

  He did approve, he approved of everything his wonderful Ada did. He often thought about her when he was going about his work, thought of her with admiration not completely unmixed with awe. He knew himself to be capable and hard working, his farming might not be spectacular but it was sound and ‒ it paid dividends. Enoch never thought of himself as a rich man, or even as a man on the way to becoming rich, but when he made up his books he was mildly surprised at the balance in his bank. He was even more surprised when Ada brought home the auditor’s report on the shop and its takings.

  ‘Aye,’ he would murmur softly, ‘yon wife of mine has a headpiece on her, there’s nothing more certain.’

  The boys received the announcement that they were to go to Blarney Castle the following term. Colonel Blenkiron had taken the matter in hand, and had written and spoken handsomely of both lads and their family. They would enter the Lower School, Michael would pass into the Upper School when he was judged r
eady to do so, James would remain in the Lower School until he was twelve.

  James grumbled a little, ‘I don’t see why I want to leave Huddersley, Mum. It’s not as if I was going to be a teacher when I grow up, I’m going into the shop along of you.’

  ‘Then you can learn to speak properly,’ his mother told him, ‘and not say ‒ along of, when you can say ‒ with. Anyroad, you’ll need education in the shop or out of it. There’ll be accounts to do, bills to check, and a dozen other things they’ll learn you to do at Blarney. And think on, Jimmy, the shop now and the shop as it will be by the time you’re ready to come into it won’t be the same thing at all. Anderson’s is going to be the best and most up-to-date shop between here and Bradford. Your Dad and I have our plans made, we’ve discussed it and he approves. Don’t you, Enoch?’

  He nodded, ‘Aye, that’s right ‒ it’s all settled.’

  Michael watched and listened intently, his eyes grave, his fine hands clasped. He was excited, and didn’t want that excitement to appear too evident. His father glanced at his serious young face.

  ‘What are you thinking, Michael lad?’

  ‘I was thinking that someone told me they have lectures on agriculture at Blarney, and a lab. where they show you how to experiment with all the new artificial manures, and they teach you how to fettle self-binders and tractors if they go wrong. Is that true, Dad?’ He spoke rather breathlessly unable to completely conceal his excitement.

  ‘I’d not doubt it,’ Enoch said, ‘does all that mean you want to be a farmer, lad?’

  ‘More than anything, Dad. Jimmy can work with Mum and I’ll work with you, eh?’ He laughed. ‘There! The family’s future is all settled!’

  They lay awake in their old-fashioned low-ceilinged bedroom that night speculating about Blarney Castle. Jimmy gave it as his opinion that there’d be a ‘school bully’ who would be certain to attack them as new boys. Michael gave it as his that bullying was old fashioned, that it went out with Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Eric, or Little by Little.

  James persisted, ‘I bet you there’ll be fagging and tossing in blankets! And ‒ whackings ‒ they call them swishings. I’m not going to swot, are you, Mike? Other chaps despise fellows who swot.’

  ‘I’m going to get as much out of Blarney as I can,’ Michael said. ‘I’d like to play games well, and be good at sports, but I’d like to be pretty good ‒ at any rate ‒ at lessons. Dad and I are going to have the best farm here and hereabouts one day.’

  ‘I’m going to have the best shop ‒ me and Mum! I’d rather have a smashing shop than a mouldy old farm!’

  Michael reflected that was typical of Jimmy, he could be passionately interested in anything which concerned himself, but he was inclined to deride things which interested other people and did not affect him.

  The farm-house seemed strangely empty without them, even Grandma commented on it. She was chiefly interested in the prospective arrival of her niece ‒ Lizzie Tancred ‒ at Cummings Farm, and walked over several times a week to ‘keep an eye’ on the various alterations which were being made, returning with paeans of praise for the up-to-date methods and machinery which were being installed.

  ‘I never thought such a lot about George Tancred but seemly he’s made some brass, for what he’s doing at Cummings must have cost a mint o’ money. You oughter see the dairy! Like a palace! White tiles right up to the ceiling, an’ all corners rounded. Aye, rounded!’

  ‘Then they’re not corners any longer,’ Enoch said.

  ‘Nay, you know well enough what I mean. T’ foreman told me as they’re going to milk ‒ listen to this ‒ to milk by electricity. Did you ever hear the like.’

  ‘Enoch and me saw it being done at the dairy show. I can’t say I liked the look of it over much. Michael was interested in it, he says it’s hygienic. The things that lad says!’

  Grandma nodded, ‘Aye, he’s a clever one is Michael. Not that our Jimmy isn’t clever and all. I’ll bet the masters at Blarney are properly set up with getting two lads like ours ‒ for they’re as full of brains as an egg’s full of meat.’

  Enoch smiled, ‘They get their brains from their mother.’

  Grandma eyed him sharply, ‘I could have told you that, Enoch.’

  ‘No harm in me saying it! Well, I’ll just go round and see all’s shut up for the night.’

  ‘Now, Enoch, can’t you leave it to Wilson, why must you go trailing out every night?’ Ada said.

  He laughed; she thought what a pleasant, chuckling sound it was.

  ‘You ought to know, aye and you do know, if you want a thing done right, the quickest road is to do it yourself. If I leave anything undone, then no one’s to blame but me.’

  ‘Have it your own way ‒ same as usual,’ she said tolerantly, not wholly displeased to have the chance to make such a remark before her mother.

  As the door closed Ada turned to Grandma, ‘Eh, he’s a masterful chap is that one!’

  ‘There’s some as like to keep dogs and do their own barking.’

  ‘Ah, well, if it pleases him! Mother, what do you think about asking Lizzie and George here while they’re getting straight at Cummings? It was Enoch who suggested it. They could have the spare room, it looks very bonnie with the new curtains and bedspread.’

  Grandma, though secretly pleased at the idea, looked dubious.

  ‘I doubt it ’ul all seem very simple to them after a place like what they’re used to. Still ‒ she’s your own cousin, and ‒ why, write and ask them.’

  Ada was excited at the thought of the visit from Mr. and Mrs. Tancred. She knew comparatively little about either of them, but she was determined that they should find Anderson’s short of nothing which made for comfort and good living. She and Violet indulged in an orgy of cleaning and baking, even Grandma spent a whole day polishing silver which already shone and glittered. Ada took Enoch to the big larder, where food stood on broad stone shelves and asked for his opinion as to whether she had forgotten anything.

  ‘Only one thing,’ he admitted, ‘so far as I can see.’

  ‘Nay, for any favour! What is it?’

  He slipped his arm round her still trim waist, ‘You’ve forgotten that they’re not bringing an army with them, and that they’re only staying for a few days. They’d need to have ten meals a day and to stop for a month if they were to get through all this lot.’

  Their visitors arrived in the late afternoon, they drove up in a smart-looking touring car, Lizzie at the wheel. Ada and Enoch went out to greet them, Grandma remained seated in a dignified manner in the parlour.

  George Tancred called, ‘Well, this is pleasant. It’s awfully good of you to put up with us.’

  His voice, while unmistakably that of a North-countryman, was not marred by any hint of dialect. Ada couldn’t imagine Enoch saying ‘It’s awfully good of you …’ neither could she imagine him wearing that excellent suit of tweeds, well cut and obviously expensive, that clothed George Tancred’s tall, slim figure. But the real shock was Liz, who descended from the car slowly, almost lazily, and moved over to where Ada stood, wearing tweeds not unlike those of her husband, a crisp shirt, loose, wrinkled gloves, and shoes which reminded her of Mrs. Colonel Blenkiron’s.

  Liz said, ‘Hello, Ada, this is nice! And what a lovely old house! Enoch, it’s pleasant to meet you at last. Where’s Aunt Ellen?’

  Ada drew a deep breath, thinking, ‘Oh, she’s ‒ elegant, that’s the word. Looks like the people you see at a point-to-point. When I saw her last she was a dumpy little thing, far too fat. Now ‒ well, I don’t know.’ Aloud she said, ‘Grandma’s ‒ we call her that, because of the boys ‒ waiting for you in the parlour.’

  ‘The parlour!’ Liz repeated. ‘How much nicer than ‒ lounge. George will you help Enoch with the baggage while I go and visit the matriarch? Show me the way, Ada.’

  She moved easily, long limbs, slim hips and well-built shoulders. She was brown-haired, Ada suspected ‘tinting’ but had to admit that the effect
was charming. More ‒ Liz was ‘made up’ ‒ it was done with admirable care, but it was evident just the same. Her voice was low, but full and quite charming.

  ‘It’s a lovely house, Ada. How old is it? You don’t know! My dear, that must be put right at once.’

  Ada said, ‘I don’t doubt that Enoch would know. Here’s the parlour, and Grandma waiting for you.’

  Liz went forward, apparently her eyes were on the old lady, but Ada felt that she saw, and approved of, the Sheraton and the Chippendale; that she noted the curtains, the subdued carpet ‒ in fact, that there was very little Liz Tancred did not see.

  ‘Well, Auntie, this is nice. How are you? Isn’t it kind of Ada and Enoch to allow us to intrude for a few days? We’re both delighted.’

  She stooped and kissed Ellen Cawther’s cheek. The old lady said, ‘How are you, Liz. You’ve got on a lot of paint and powder to my way of thinking. You’re not on the stage surely!’

  Liz smiled, unperturbed, ‘Oh, Auntie, everyone does it now. The only thing is that you must put it on really well. George likes it.’

  ‘More shame to him! I like clean faces myself.’

  Liz laughed, ‘But I assure you my face is meticulously clean. The time I spend cleaning it would surprise you.’

  ‘Good soap and water was the way o’ cleaning it in my day.’

  ‘It is still. If I told you what I spend on soap ‒ from Paris, you’d be surprised. Oh, keeping clean in these days is a very expensive business. Ada, what a lovely room this is. How do you get that exquisite polish on the furniture? It’s out of this world. And that fireplace ‒ what is it? Adams?’

  Ada shook her head, ‘I couldn’t really tell you.’ She made a mental note of that word ‘exquisite’. She would use that with effect in business ‒ but with care ‒ powder, scent, the finer kinds of delicacies, even materials ‒ but for more ordinary things, no, most emphatically ‒ no!