The gloaming may be a good time for lovers, but is not, Judy decided, a good time for seeing your new billet after a long, tiring day. Old House lay at the end of a private road. “At least that’s what old Mr. Former used to call it,” the driver said to Judy. “I wouldn’t call it a road myself, though if this was Blackpool they’d charge a shilling for a ride on it.”
Old House, seen in the half light, seemed to be crouching back to hide amongst the trees that almost surrounded it. It was certainly old, originally Elizabethan, Judy decided, but repaired or brought up to date somewhere about the region of George the First.
“You may have to ring and knock,” the driver said, “and go on ringing and knocking till someone answers. Mrs. Roal is out, I saw her up the village with the boy, and Mrs. Former is a bit deaf, and Miss Rose is a rare one for singing at her work and never hears anything no matter how hard you ring.”
Judy found the driver’s house knowledge to be quite accurate. First she rang and then she knocked, but nothing happened. From somewhere at the back came the squawking of chickens, there was a tremendous to-do among some rooks returning to their home in an elm on the lawn, but of human life not a sound.
“Try the back,” the driver suggested. “Miss Rose is likely enough in the kitchen.”
The back of the house was reached by a cobbled path and a small gate. The back door was open, there seemed no one in the kitchen, but singing came from an outhouse.
“A few more struggles here,
A few more partings o’er,
A few more toils,
A few more tears,
And we shall weep no more!”
Judy went to the door of the outhouse. A round-faced woman, with shiny cheeks and thin grey hair, was stooping over a bowl, pounding at something while she sang. She pounded so vigorously that the hymn came in doleful jerks. Judy stepped forward.
“Excuse me.”
The woman started, the wooden spoon in her hand clattered into the bowl and she turned and faced Judy, her face crimson, one hand on her heart.
“Oh, sakes alive! You did give me a start, I thought you were Clara, you caught me red-handed. You’re the lodger, I suppose.”
“That’s right, I’m Judy Rest. I did come to the front door of your house, but I couldn’t make anyone hear.”
The woman’s eyes were roaming over Judy as if summing her up.
“Nobody would hear. Mother’s out in the wood walking with Mr. Jones, and Clara has gone to Mr. Mutch to see if there’s any honey from his bees this year. Last year was a terribly disappointing year for bees, and I do think the world of a drop of honey, don’t you? It’s because they were out that you caught me. I’d meant to be through before you arrived, but it’s been slow to-day. Time slips by so, doesn’t it?”
Judy approached the bowl and peered in and saw in the bottom some golden, very pre-war butter. “Goodness, that looks nice, Mrs. Former.”
“Oh, my dear, you mustn’t muddle me with Mother. Mother would never break the law. I’m Rose Former.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Since you’ve caught me I may as well tell you the truth. Whenever there’s a drop of milk over I pretend there isn’t and then I put it on one side to set, and sometimes I make a little bit of butter, and sometimes I fancy a little drop of cream. Then Mother and I wait until Clara’s out and we eat it. Of course we always lock the door, because you never know, do you? It’s good for Mother really because she has her diabetes; she’s allowed extra, but she can always do with a bit more. She’s old, you know, and doesn’t understand the rationing, if she did she’d die rather than let a bit pass her lips that wasn’t rightly come by. I’m different. Somehow it seems I get an urge and I can’t resist it. Clara keeps us very short, which is only natural with a child to feed, isn’t it? Mind you, this milk isn’t the child’s, of course. When the farm can spare a bit extra I pay for it on the sly and pretend we’ve never had it.”
The driver came to the door.
“Where am I going to put the bags, Miss Rose?”
Judy patted Miss Rose on the arm to show that she had grasped the need for secrecy.
“Let’s stand them in the kitchen until Miss Rose is ready.” She joined the driver outside. “How much do I owe you?”
He put the bags inside the back door and asked for three shillings. While Judy was getting out the money he leant towards her and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“The old lady’s queer, Miss Rose is funny, and Mrs. Roal’s the strangest of the lot. You haven’t half come to a funny billet!”
Judy beamed at him as if he had handed her some good news. She gave him his money and a tip.
“Thank you so much. I do think a cheerful start makes such a difference, don’t you? Good night.”
Miss Rose came hurrying into the kitchen.
“I must just wash out this basin, dear, and then I’ll take you up to your room. I lock the butter in the little cupboard in my bedroom.” She glanced over her shoulder at Judy, who was standing by the window, the last of the light on her hair. “Dear me, you’re very pretty, and so young. I do hope you’ll be happy with us, but we’re a dull house. Of course Clara’s not very old, and there’s Desmond. Desmond’s eight, but he’s a strange child, you know, so silent, it’s not at all like having a child in the house.”
Judy believed that only the neurotic allowed themselves to get fanciful about things, but she was beginning to admit to herself that her start in this house was hardly encouraging. She rather liked Miss Rose, even if, as the driver had said, she was a bit funny, but that Mrs. Roal who was not yet in should be the strangest of the lot, and Mrs. Former should be queer seemed a bit depressing, and now to hear of a child who was so strange that it was not like having a child in the house, hardly improved the outlook. “Never mind,” she thought, “there is at least one person about whom I’ve heard nothing except that he’s walking out with the old lady, and that’s Mr. Jones. Let’s hope that Mr. Jones is just another boarder like me and proves, even if dull, perfectly normal.”
Miss Rose led the way up the creaking, rather rickety, wooden staircase to Judy’s bedroom.
“Here, dear, this is where we put people billeted on us. I do hope you’ll be happy and comfortable. Now, I’m just going to pop away and lock up the butter. Clara walks so quietly, you know.”
Judy shut the door on Miss Rose and stared round her room. It was fairly large, long and low. In the centre of one wall was an enormous four-poster bed. Facing it on the other side was an equally large mahogany wardrobe. The window, which was at the narrow end of the room, faced the private road and the gate. “It’s probably,” thought Judy, “the only really ugly view in the house.” Under the window there was a small rickety table with a little mirror standing on it, and by this an equally rickety chair. “I bet that’s been added,” Judy thought, “to make the room suitable for a female billetee.” In the corner on the same side as the window there was a vast mahogany chest of drawers. There was just one really delightful piece of furniture. This was in the corner by the door, a little delicate washstand of mahogany with a fitted cream-coloured basin with pink roses running round it, and a cream-coloured water-ewer standing in the basin with roses round its rim and on its handle. There were three pictures, all engravings. The Sermon on the Mount, the marriage at Cana and the miracle of the giant catch of fish. Judy looked up at the roof from which hung one naked electric-light bulb. “Well,” she thought, “it couldn’t possibly be in a worse place, it doesn’t help the dressing-table, and you can’t read in bed by it, but I should think it’s pretty remarkable that there’s electric light here at all. I could have taken a bet on a small piece of flickering candle.” She knelt down beside her suit-cases and unlocked them. “What you’d better do, my girl, is unpack. Nobody’s ever said so far that Judy Rest ran away from anything, but if you look at this room too long you’ll be letting your reputation down, and that’s a certainty.”
Her clothes hung in the wardrobe and packed away in the drawers, her hair combed, her face powdered, and her lips made up, and after the best wash she could manage in the cold water from the ewer, Judy, with her head up, came down the stairs prepared to face the household.
Miss Rose was in the kitchen working and singing.
“Oh, Paradise! Oh, Paradise!
The world is growing old:
Who would not be at rest and free . . .”
The singing stopped as Miss Rose saw Judy.
“There you are, dear. You’ll find Mother in the drawing-room with Mr. Jones, first door on the left.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not a word about the butter mind.”
By the drawing-room window in an armchair sat a frail old lady knitting, and at her feet, snoring abominably, was a small black pug dog. There was nobody else in the room and Judy looked resignedly at the dog. “I might have known it,” she thought; “this is just the kind of house to raise a girl’s hopes by railing their dog Mr. Jones.” She came forward to the old lady and lifted her voice.
“How do you do, Mrs. Former? I’m Judy Rest. You know, I’m billeted on you.”
Mrs. Former was slow in her movements and apparently slow in her thinking. She laid down her knitting, and after a pause smiled at Judy.
“Of course, I remember, you’re going to be billeted here, you’re going to work at the factory making munitions.”
Judy looked round the room at the relics of bygone years. The bead stools, the ornaments, the embroidered fire-screen, the wax flowers under a glass cover, the dents in the chairs made by long sitting in one position, and she felt pity for the old lady. It could not be much fun to go on living in a room that you had shared for years with somebody who was now dead. Old Mr. Former had probably brought Mrs. Former to this room as a bride. In the winter nights they sat facing each other in those twin armchairs by the fireplace, discussing what they would do with their children, or was Miss Rose the only child? Anyway, it must be pretty dreary now, a little deaf, a little out of things, sitting by yourself, the last of your generation, and it could not add to things to have a strange girl billeted on you.
“I shan’t be much trouble. I have to be at the factory by eight and I don’t leave the works until six, so I shan’t be in very much except just Saturday afternoons and Sundays.”
Mrs. Former stared up at Judy, obviously turning over what she had said.
“But, my dear child, I’m delighted to have you. We were always willing to have somebody; we always have had somebody, it’s only since Mr. Former died that we have had nobody. It was a shock, you know. We had never thought him ill, he was only a little run down. Doctor Mead was so kind, my husband was so tiresome about medicine that he arranged to have his injected. You see, he was accustomed to injections. I take insulin.” The old lady’s voice rose in pride. “I’ve learnt to give it to myself. I don’t believe in being dependent. Clara, of course, looked after my husband. Clara’s a splendid nurse.”
Judy thought this was a good occasion to sort out Clara. “Is Clara your granddaughter?”
“By marriage, my only one. We had two daughters, Rose and Millicent. Millicent married a very nice man called Roal, but Mr. Former never quite approved of the marriage because her husband was a chemist. Such a lovely shop, those great big bottles in the window all scarlet and green, but Mr. Former was a vet, you know, and vets are, of course, in a socially different world to chemists.”
Judy still wanted a line on Clara.
“Then Clara is your daughter Millicent’s daughter?” The old lady looked slightly hurt.
“No, indeed. Clara is not at all like my family. So business-like, you know. No, she married Alfred, Millicent’s son. Millicent had only the one boy. She died soon after he was born. When his father died Alfred inherited the shop, such a nice business, so sad to think of it being smashed by one of those nasty bombs. Clara was there first thing in the morning and she said it was a dreadful sight, glass everywhere.”
“Nobody hurt, I hope,” said Judy.
The old lady shook her head.
“No, nobody except Alfred, he was killed, just blown to pieces, Clara says. I’m so glad that when Mr. Former had to go it was not that way, so unseemly, I think. I do like a grave, don’t you, dear?”
Judy had no very strong views on burials so she changed the subject. “So lucky for Mrs. Roal that she had your home to come to.”
“I don’t think she thinks herself lucky. She has always disliked it here very much indeed.”
Like so many deaf people Mrs. Former spoke more loudly than was necessary. Judy was glad the door was shut. It would be a tiresome beginning with Mrs. Roal if she found the lodger gossiping about her with her grandmother-in-law.
She knelt down by Mr. Jones and patted him.
“What a nice dog!”
“He gets asthma; I’m deaf so I don’t hear him wheezing. Clara says he makes a terrible noise.” The old lady’s eyes grew anxious. “I feel nervous sometimes that she thinks he should be destroyed, but he’s such a companion and does so enjoy his food.”
Mr. Jones was wheezing, but contentedly. Judy would have liked to have taken Mrs. Former’s hand and squeezed it, instead she gave her a friendly smile.
“I think he looks splendid. Nobody could want to destroy him.”
Mrs. Former looked slightly cheered, but her eyes were still anxious.
“Clara might. She’s so practical and capable. More like a man really. I have always been foolish, I’ve never understood business. Mr. Former never spoke to me about it, he knew I wouldn’t understand. Sometimes he spoke about his sick animals, but not about money, but he left me provided for. He always said that if he should be taken before I was I would find everything was all right, and it has been. Mr. John, our lawyer, said his arrangements were splendid. Mr. Former found it difficult to understand Clara. He could not understand a woman who was interested in business, but Clara is so clever, she kept trying to persuade my husband to do things with his money which she said would make him richer, but he never would; in fact, he got angry.”
“I don’t wonder,” thought Judy, “it was a bit of sauce from a grandchild-in-law.” Out loud she said, still hoping to get off the subject of Clara,
“It must be an interesting life being a vet. Making sick animals well.”
“Oh, very, and he was splendid, everybody said so. In peace-time he used to be sent for from all over the country, he was particularly clever about bulls. I never quite understood in what way and it’s not a subject for a young girl. Very large fees he earned. I so remember the day when he bought the house and land. ‘It’s yours for ever, Mollykins,’ he said, that’s what he called me, ‘and after that it will belong to Rose, and after that to Millicent’s grandson.’ He rather hoped Desmond might become a vet, but he’s a funny child. Mr. Former used to forget how young he is and lose patience with him.”
“It’s nice you have this lovely house.”
Mrs. Former looked round wistfully.
“Yes, but it’s not the same since Mr. Former was taken. I had always hoped to go first. But I’m very fortunate I have dear Rose and, of course, Clara is a wonderful manager. She arranges everything.”
A creak behind her made Judy look round. The door was opening and in it stood a thin dark girl. Judy scrambled up from the floor.
“How do you do? I was just making friends with Mr. Jones. I’m Judy Rest and you must be Mrs. Roal.” Clara shook Judy’s hand.
“Yes.” She was silent a second while she looked Judy over. “Have you seen your room?”
“She’s rather pretty, or perhaps handsome is a better word,” thought Judy. “If her eyes weren’t too close together she’d be downright lovely.”
“Yes, thank you, and I’ve unpacked. I’ve been telling your grandmother I shan’t be troubling you much. I have to be at the factory at eight and I don’t stop work until six.”
“Yes, we know. We’ve had people billeted before.” Clara smiled kindly. “I expect you’re tired, supper will soon be ready.”
Judy felt that Clara was misunderstood, she obviously meant to be friendly.
“That’s good. It’s a long journey here, or rather, the train’s so slow.”
“Pinlock hadn’t a station before the war, it’s only been put up for the works. It’s a very isolated place, at least to me, but then I’m used to London; but perhaps you’re used to it, you’ve come from another factory, haven’t you?”
“No. This is my first effort in that line. I’ve been working in a hospital.”
Clara had been straightening a chair cover while she talked. On Judy’s last words her hand stopped moving as if it were suddenly paralysed.
“A hospital!” She hesitated, then crossed to the old lady. “Come on, Grandmother, supper will be ready.” She smiled over her shoulder at Judy. “We live in a very old-fashioned way. Granny and Aunt Rose are used to it, but it will be dull for you. I’ll have a rake round and see if I can get you billeted somewhere brighter.”