THE VICAR often liked to go about his business on his push bicycle. He said it was good for him and besides, it left the car free for his wife. She was the better driver and by far the better mechanic of the two. On the morning after the committee meeting, he set out to visit Tom Hobb and his grandmother. The weather at last had taken a turn for the better. The east wind which had blown relentlessly since early April had veered to the south-west and everything beautiful could stop looking brave as well and instead rejoice in shining with a quite remarkable loveliness. The vicar sped along the road leading to the hamlet and as he passed The Haven he waved courteously to the house, thinking that one of the old ladies might chance to be looking out of a window and be cheered at the gesture. Soon he turned into a lane bordered thickly with cow parsley, the hawthorn was out in the hedges and there were great clumps of campion on the banks and here and there a single foxglove reared up like a sentinel. A few white clouds were rapidly disintegrating in a sky of deep secure blue and the sun felt really hot for the first time that year.
The vicar could not contain himself. “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,” he roared out and flew down the lane at a dangerous speed. He was a man given to happiness. He had his bees, a wife who was admirably fitted to be a vicar’s helpmate, two pretty small daughters and an uncomplicated mind. Of course he was sometimes troubled about erring or sorrowful parishioners, and he made himself miserable for a short time once a day by reading or listening to the news. But this he felt was enough. His wants were few and he had no ambitions to speak of, so on this fine May morning he sang the Doxology as he sped through the sunshine.
Tom Hobb’s grandmother lived at the bottom of a steep, rough little footpath leading off the lane that continued on its way to the hamlet. The vicar proceeded down this path on foot. The Hobbs’ cottage was tiny, humped and thatched, and sat square across the path with a lilac bush and an old apple tree, both in flower, on either side of the gate. On the crest of the thatch, which was in need of repair, crouched a black cat watching the sparrows and in the cottage doorway sat old Mrs Hobb stirring something in a basin. She was noted in the hamlet for her herb potions and her homemade wines and was held to be very ancient and crafty. “A hundred years or so ago she would certainly have been the village witch,” thought the vicar, as he propped his bicycle against the hedge, and indeed she looked the part, with her black cat and her pot. The village children were a bit frightened of her, though they all liked Tom. She had had a husband once, it was supposed, and children and other grandchildren, but Tom now seemed to be the only one left. He had always lived with his grandmother and no one could remember his parents being around.
“Good morning, Mrs Hobb,” shouted the vicar, coming up the path, “what a lovely day at last.”
“And so it be, sir,” said the old woman looking up at him with eyes surprisingly bright in a face as brown and crumpled as a winter leaf. “And what can I do for you today?”
It was, as a greeting, the other way round from those he was used to, and took him a little aback.
“Well, it’s about Tom. He’s been helping me with my bee swarms after school, you know, and now he’s finished his schooling, he tells me you’d like him to find a regular job away from home, but not too far away, and I think I’ve found just the place for him.” He paused, she had not taken her eyes from his face and now she nodded vigorously.
“T’would be best for the lad to see a little more of the world,” she said.
“I’m afraid you may miss him and the help he is to you,” said the vicar. He had thought of this before and wondered if the old woman would be all right on her own, but her gaze did not falter.
“I can manage, sir, and if you have somewhere in mind that is not too far, perhaps he can come and see me of a Sunday.”
“It’s at The Haven,” said the vicar. “Miss Blackett, who is warden there, needs help now, though it may be only temporary.”
“The Haven,” said the old woman slowly, “that’s what they calls the New House that was raised where the Old Farmhouse stood.”
“Well, it’s scarcely new now,” said the vicar smiling.
“Why, no to be sure, but my Mammy, she allays called it the Old Farm when she were a slip of a girl. She’d be pleased for Tom to go there, I expect, even though it is the New House now.”
“Miss Blackett wants to see him first,” said the vicar, and felt bound to add: “Of course, she may not think him suitable.”
“My Tom will suit all right, there’ll be no need to be wary of him – there’s more corn than chaff in Tom,” said the old woman quietly.
“She’s as proud of him as if he had left school top of the class instead of not knowing how to read or write and only counting on his fingers,” thought the vicar, but aloud he said: “I know he’s a good boy and will do his best. Miss Blackett would like to see him this evening. Where is he, by the way? I’d better have a word with him if I can.”
“He be gone to gather a bit o’ fire wood, sir, and I can’t say exactly when he’ll be home again.” Then, “Ah yes, but I can,” she added smiling, for the black cat had suddenly leapt to the ground and streaked round the corner of the cottage. “Sweep allays knows afore I do. Tom’ll be here in a moment, you’ll see.”
Sure enough, the boy came up almost at once with Sweep on his shoulders and a bundle of wood under one arm. He was small for his age but with a big head, and his large ears standing out from it made it look even bigger. His arms seemed too long for his body. His hair was straw-coloured, coarse and thick, he had a snub nose, freckles, greenish eyes set wide apart and a large cheerful mouth. Those eyes did not appear at all vacant, yet there was something not quite usual in the way they looked at you: they turned the same intent disinterested gaze on everything alike. It always reminded the vicar of the way babies he christened gazed at him – if they were not yelling, that is.
“What sort of wood have ’ee got there, then?” asked the old woman.
“A bit o’beech, Granny,” said Tom. His voice was pleasantly pitched and he talked like his grandmother and not as they had tried to teach him at school.
The old woman looked pleased. “Good boy, I thought you’d have more sense than to bring any of they dead elm branches from yonder. Burning elm’s no better than burning churchyard mould for the warmth.”
The boy put down the bundle he was carrying without haste and held out his hand, which the vicar took and solemnly shook. He was, by now, used to Tom’s ways.
“Well, Tom,” he said, “I think I’ve found a good place for you and your Granny’s willing for you to try it. You’re to go and see about it this very evening.”
“Where be it then?” asked Tom.
“It’s at the Darnley Ladies’ Home.”
The boy looked puzzled. “There’s many a lady’s home at Darnley,” he said, “there’s Jenny’s mother’s, and Mary’s, and Tim’s and old Mrs Martin’s and –”
“No, no,” said the vicar, “not that kind of home, Tom, but a big house called ‘The Haven’, you must know it well – it stands by itself a little way out of town. A number of old ladies live there together – it’s rather like one of my beehives, Tom,” he went on, warming to his exposition. “They each have a room to themselves like a cell and there’s one lady who looks after them all. Her name is Miss Blackett and you must ask for her when you go there.”
“Be she like the queen bee, then?” asked Tom.
“Well, yes, something like that,” said the vicar. “You are to go and see her at six o’clock and I’ve told her you are a very good boy and will do your best to help her.”
“Aye, that he will,” said the old woman. Tom nodded and held out his hand again as there seemed to him there was nothing more to be said on the subject.
Mrs Hobb got up stiffly to bid the vicar goodbye. She thanked him for coming but it was clear from her manner that she felt she was conferring a benefit and not receiving one. The vicar thought: “I hope she will be able to manage without the boy, but it’s clear she’s made up her mind to part with him and nothing will budge her. Well, anyway, his keep will be a saving for her. I hope, too, he’ll make good at The Haven.”
“You’ll let me know how things go,” he said to them both. “It’ll be easier to start now summer’s really come. We’ve waited long enough for it this year and it was a hard winter, too.”
“Oh, well,” said the old woman, “we’ve never died of a winter yet.”
Tom presented himself at the correct hour that evening. He wore a clean darned pullover with sleeves that were too short for his long arms and his trousers were patched. His hair looked very bristly and he was smaller and more childish looking than Miss Blackett had expected, so altogether he did not make a favourable first impression when Gisela had pushed him disdainfully through the office door. The warden did not think it necessary to get up to receive him but Tom came forward at once and held out his hand in his usual way saying:
“Be you Queen Miss Blackett, lady?”
Miss Blackett mechanically shook his hand but was struck dumb by this unlooked-for greeting. She had expected some stupidity perhaps, certainly shyness and even becoming awe. Tom waited for her to speak and looked round him with his wide detached stare. He saw Lord Jim, asleep on his special cushion and immediately went up to him.
“Don’t touch him,” said Miss Blackett, “he doesn’t like to be disturbed, especially by strangers.” But neither Tom nor Lord Jim took any notice of her words. Tom stooped and stroked him and the big cat opened his eyes, rolled over on his back and began to purr loudly.
“What be his name?” asked Tom.
“Lord Jim,” said Miss Blackett, once more taken aback. Tom nodded his head in approval. Lords, he knew, were very fine people and this was a very fine cat.
“He’s bigger nor our Sweep. Do ’ee know why we calls him Sweep? It was one day, Gran and I be sitting by our fire and right through our window he came a-leaping, and across the room and up the chimney afore we could stop him. Gran says a fox must a bin after him. We got a pail o’ water quick and threw it on the fire, so as it wouldn’t burn him, and after a long while down he comes and all the soot with him. We never found out where he comes from and he’s bin with us ever since. So we called him Sweep – it’s a good name ’cause he’s black as soot anyways.”
“This must stop,” thought Miss Blackett; the interview (which could scarcely yet have been called an interview) was getting out of hand and she decided to ignore all that Tom had said or done since he had come into the room.
“You’re small for your age,” she said disapprovingly. “I hope you’ll be able to manage what I shall need you to do, if I decide whether to give you a trial. I shall want you to rake out the boiler and stoke it every morning and evening and fill the fuel pails and keep the boiler room clean.”
Tom nodded.
“And you must sweep the stairs every day and help Gisela to carry the trays up and down and clean the ladies’ rooms.”
Tom nodded again.
“Well,” said Miss Blackett, “we shall see. I am willing to try you because the vicar says you are a good, hardworking boy, but you must prove to me to be so here as he tells me you have been to him at the vicarage.”
“Yes, Queen, Lady Miss Blackett,” said Tom and he held out his hand again.
“You mustn’t be a silly boy,” said Miss Blackett and this time, being more prepared, she took no notice of his hand but continued: “And you must call me Miss Blackett and nothing else.” What could have made him bestow royalty upon her? Nevertheless, a faint absurd flicker of gratification stirred within her. He had spoken in such a natural sort of way, not at all impertinently, though what he said was so ridiculous, and yet he was not exactly polite either. She could not describe it.
“Be I to come tomorrow then?”
Miss Blackett considered. She did not like doing anything in too much of a hurry, but if the boy was to come at all, there seemed no point in putting it off. “You can come tomorrow afternoon,” she said.
After he had gone she sat for a while thinking. “I don’t know quite what to make of him,” she said to herself, “and I doubt if he’ll be of much use. Oh, well, I didn’t hope for much after all. I’ll just have to see.”
Tom was to sleep in the little attic next to Mrs Thornton. To say that the warden had planned this with a view to reducing Mrs Thornton’s contentment with her room would be untrue, for there was no other place to put the boy. Brenda had shared a room with Gisela. But it certainly crossed her mind. She was sure that Mrs Thornton would see reason eventually but it would be all to the good if the process could be speeded up, and she thought it likely that Mrs Thornton would not welcome Tom’s advent, banging his door morning and night, as likely as not, and probably making his presence felt in other undesirable ways. She went up to the attic floor the next morning to inspect the little room and to tell Mrs Thornton about the boy.
The small attic had retained more of its original appearance than any other part of the house. It still contained the iron bedstead which had been used by the last of the family cooks, and hanging above it was a framed text – “Thou, God, seest me”, illustrated by a huge eye whose black lashes rayed out like beams from a dark sun. There was a scratched deal chest of drawers painted green. Miss Blackett pulled out the drawers, which stuck badly. They were quite empty except for a black-headed hatpin. There was a high bent-wood chair of the kind that used once to be found at every shop counter and a corner washstand, also painted green, holding a chipped white basin and jug. The floor was bare except for a rag rug by the bed. These were all original furnishings but piled along one end of the room were a number of incongruous articles put there to be out of the way – a dressmaker’s dummy topped with a torn red silk lampshade, an old knife-cleaning machine, a pile of bound copies of Sunday at Home and an umbrella.
Miss Blackett decided that Tom’s first job would be to clean the room. She had no intention of doing it for him – he was coming to reduce work, not to add to it. She must look out some bedding for him, however. As for the junk, it would have to stay there. She did not think it would do for jumble even and the dustmen were very choosey about what they consented to take away. If only people wouldn’t collect so many articles round themselves; the old ladies’ rooms were a constant source of irritation to her, cluttered up as they nearly all were, and everything having to be dealt with somehow when the poor old things died, and meanwhile having to be kept clean. She always returned to her own sparsely furnished quarters with a sense of relief. There was Mrs Thornton’s room, for instance, smothered in books, and books of all things attracted dust. She knocked at the door.
Mrs Thornton was sitting by the window in her turret watching for the mid-morning train. She liked to see it punctually on its way.
“Oh, Mrs Thornton,” said Miss Blackett, “there is a boy, recommended by the vicar, coming to help till we can fill Brenda’s place more adequately. He’s to sleep in the little attic. I hope he won’t be a nuisance to you.”
“She doesn’t really hope anything of the sort,” thought Mrs Thornton, well aware by now of the warden’s wish to remove her downstairs.
“I certainly hope not, Miss Blackett,” she said coldly.
There was a slight pause and then Miss Blackett went on: “I am sure there is nothing to worry about, but I think perhaps you should know that, though a nice enough boy – he came to see me yesterday – and highly spoken of by both his school and the vicar, he is rather simple.” She would have preferred not to mention this and to have let Mrs Thornton discover Tom’s deficiencies for herself, but although she was convinced that he was harmless, he certainly was odd and her conscience told her it was only fair to warn Mrs Thornton of this. Miss Blackett was in the habit of obeying her conscience.
Mrs Thornton grew more and more indignant and apprehensive as she listened. “This is really too bad,” she thought, “not only a boy, but a mentally defective boy on my doorstep. I shan’t pretend not to mind.” She didn’t.
“I was afraid you might not like it,” said Miss Blackett, “but it really can’t be helped. I am sure you see that he is needed and there is nowhere else to put him. When Mrs Langley goes you can always move down there, you know, such a nice room.”
She turned and walked briskly away.
“Oh, indeed I can, can I?” said Mrs Thornton grimly, not caring whether she was heard or not. She recognised that the warden had reason on her side but over this she herself could not be reasonable. She looked round her room with something like desperation: its charms and its privacy seemed all the more precious now that they were threatened. She thought of her lost home with a fierce nostalgia. Her attic represented the last little bit of personal choice left to her and she was determined not to be driven out of it by all the demented boys in Christendom.
Gisela had been crying again. Her letter from home was overdue and still hadn’t come that morning. When she brought in Miss Blackett’s eleven o’clock coffee she was sniffing.
“If you’ve caught a cold, it’s your own fault, Gisela,” said Miss Blackett. “In all this cold weather we’ve been having, you’ve been going about in short-sleeved flimsy dresses. We have a very sensible old English saying: “Ne’er cast a clout till May be out.’ That means, don’t leave off your warm clothes till the end of the month. Some people think it refers to the blossom May, but I am sure the month is meant. The boy, Tom Hobb, is coming this afternoon. I want you to take him up to his room and tell him to give it a good sweep out. You must show him where everything is kept.”
Gisela now felt aggrieved as well as unhappy. She hadn’t got a cold and her clothes were the right ones for the time of the year – it was a stupid saying, that! It didn’t even know what it meant, if people had to guess at it – and she resented having to bother with a rough boy. She had not at all liked his clothes or his clumsy looks, so that when Tom arrived she would not shake hands but marched on ahead of him ordering him to follow her. Tom was carrying a small bundle.
“What’s that for luggage!” said Gisela disdainfully as they reached the attic and he put it down. He was looking at her with his unblinking direct gaze. “Why do you look at me so, it is not good,” she said.
“You be so pretty,” said Tom.
Gisela knew she was not pretty. She was, in fact, used to being called the plain one of the family. She was tall and thin with straight string-like fair hair. She was too pale, even her eyes were too pale a blue and her nose was long and a little crooked.
“Like one o’ they moon daisies,” said Tom.
Gisela, in her turn, gazed at him. Just as Miss Blackett had done, she sensed at once that he was not being rude and she began to stop feeling cross and smiled at him unwillingly, for it was rather nice to be called pretty for once, even though it was only by a rough poor boy, and then something in the way his yellow hair stood up like a brush reminded her of her youngest brother, the one she liked the best.
“Come,” she said, “you like that I help you with the room?”
Tom nodded and looked round the attic. When he saw the dummy with the lampshade hat, he pointed at it and crowed with laughter. Gisela laughed too and suddenly she felt happy. Even if he was a peasant boy, he was young and, since Brenda had left, she had felt so lonely among all the ladies and Miss Blackett and Mrs Mills and Fred – all so old.
They set to work together moving everything out on to the landing so that they could clean and sweep properly. They pushed open the window, stiff with years of neglect, and Tom stuck his head out and crowed again with pleasure.
“I’ve never slept so near the sky afore,” he said.
Mrs Thornton had heard all the noise and laughter with dismay. It was going to be just as bad as she had feared. She was too upset to tell herself that it was unreasonable to pass judgement so soon. In this mood she spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening, waiting for every fresh sound, until at last she realized she must take herself in hand, so she found her Radio Times and turned the pages anxiously. Yes, she was in luck, and soon the divine melody of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto flooded the room, routing for the time being the world, the flesh and the devil.
At the end of the first movement she heard a slight scuffling noise outside the room and quickly opened the door. Someone, crouched against it outside, nearly fell in. It was a boy – the boy, she supposed. She switched off the radio and demanded angrily what he was doing there. Tom replied by humming, in time and in tune, the concerto’s opening theme. Mrs Thornton stared down at him and he hummed the tune again and then, pointing beyond her into the room he said:
“Can you play a bit more o’ that, Lady, please?’
Mrs Thornton was amazed. She said, “So you were listening to the music, were you? Have you ever heard that piece before?”
Tom shook his head vigorously.
“And you liked it, I can see. Do you like music?” Tom nodded as vigorously.
Mrs Thornton experienced a blessed sense of relief. She could put up with much from a boy who could hum a Beethoven theme correctly after a first hearing, and there was something else as well as relief. The boy obviously really loved what he had heard. She was as convinced of that as Miss Blackett and Gisela had been of his admiration of them. There was no one at all at The Haven besides herself to whom music mattered. Mrs Perry enjoyed Gilbert & Sullivan and Strauss waltzes from early associations, Mrs Langley loved hymn tunes, and Gisela sometimes strummed “Ach du liebe Augustin” on the old piano in the sitting-room, but that was as far as it went, and now this boy, whose invasion on her attic floor she had so resented, was apparently a comrade in felicity. She felt profoundly grateful that, even in old age, life offered such surprises.