NINE

Sunday morning and Aunt Hetty asked Angel, ‘Would you care to come to church with Tony and me?’

She was dabbling her hands in scalding water, waiting for the knob of soda to dissolve to cut the grease from the breakfast plates. Angel turned, looked at Rob. He wore ancient corduroys, his shirt open at the neck; it was obviously going to be just another working day for him, she thought.

He had been rather offhand with her since that day out with Alice, indeed she had begun to wonder if she had offended him in some way. ‘Now,’ he said briefly, ‘no need to ask my permission, Angel. Of course you may go – if ye wish it.’

‘Alice can lie abed until we return,’ Aunt Hetty decided. ‘Nothing as grand as a goose today, but then it’s really hot – shall we cut into that great beef and kidney pie, eh? The gravy’ll be a nice jelly. Dig a few of them little spuds, Rob, they need just a rub not a scrape.’

‘I will do that,’ he agreed. Then he went outside and down the meadow.

By the time they were ready, gloved and hatted despite the heat, with Angel clutching a borrowed prayer book, Rob and two hefty lads from the village were steadily swishing their sharpened scythes in the long grass.

‘It’s a pity to see the wild flowers fall,’ Angel regretted, as the buttercups, poppies and daisies were flattened too.

‘Needs to be done, my dear,’ Aunt Hetty told her. ‘The goat does her best but she can’t keep up with it. Anyway, that’s her winter fodder. When it’s turned regular like, that’s the sweetest hay kissed by the sun.’

Beyond the rhythmic scythes, there was a newly turned patch of earth close to the barn. A dark piece, stitched with green.

Aunt Hetty intercepted Angel’s gaze. ‘Ah, he’s been busy that bugler . . . Jess has got him planting up the spare seedlings. She reckons that’ll get him out by day, but the poor feller prefers to dig by moonlight, it seems.’

Jess had not turned up for work yet this morning – she worked seven days a week, Angel had soon discovered – she wondered if Jess, too, had been wielding a spade last night and was consequently having an unaccustomed lie-in.

They met up with Edith, tightly corseted beneath her long-sleeved brown silk dress. She wore a prim, matching straw, with a self-coloured ribbon, and there were already beads of perspiration showing through the powder she had applied to camouflage her high colour. Angel rather wished she was not wearing that sea-green dress, for she felt conspicuous beside the sober Edith. Aunt Hetty wore a smarter version of her usual attire, with a tiny black velvet bow at her throat. Tony was already wilting in his Norfolk jacket, long woollen socks and highly polished boots.

Angel and Edith walked sedately behind Aunt Hetty and Tony, who was intent on marking their progress with a sharp-ended stick in the dusty road. It was a wavering line he drew.

‘I kept thinking last night, after you had gone,’ Edith said, ‘how good it is that we have been able to pick up the threads of our old friendship after all this time. I really missed you, Angel, when you returned to England – of course, I knew it had to be, but the other nurses seemed to think, so unfairly, that it was my fault that you had left the hospital. You could almost say that I was ostracised . . . I know I gave my all to my job, but it was difficult at times. When it was all over, and I was offered the post at the nursing home, well, it was a great relief. It was a nice surprise when Edmund came to live nearby – he has really taken to you, Angel! How d’you feel about that?’

Angel was uncomfortably aware that Aunt Hetty could well have heard all the foregoing. It was almost as if, she thought, Edith was intent on exposing the events which had caused her so much anguish, despite her previous assurances.

‘We seem to get on well, Edith,’ she replied, somewhat shortly.

It was a relief, after the long walk, to step within the cool interior of the church. Aunt Hetty ushered them into the family pew and closed the little door behind them.

There was a gallery, Angel saw, with youngsters peering over the edge. ‘The bell tower is at the back,’ Aunt Hetty whispered, as she saw Angel gazing upwards. Just then the bells began to ring, calling the faithful to worship. ‘We be early, you see,’ she added.

The smell of polish and the gleaming brasses; the niches in the walls, each with its simple vase of garden flowers; the way the worn blue carpet ran straight and true to the altar; the ornately carved pulpit and the choir benches; and the first swelling notes of the organ, filled Angel with contentment. She read the memorial inscriptions, watched as the hymn numbers were changed, kneeled obediently when bidden. It was some time before she realised that it was Edmund playing the organ. The church was packed, despite the fact that many of the children had already attended morning Sunday school, and would be expected to repeat this again in the afternoon. Parents concurred, for it was precious time on their own.

Tony muttered to Angel, as they knelt side by side, while he jingled the coppers in his pocket, to a reproving ‘tut’ from Edith, ‘See that old lady on her own at the front? That’s Lady Pamela. She looks about one hundred and two, but Aunt Hetty says she’s prob’ly only ninety . . . ’

Lady Pamela was all in black. Her straight back and her elegant, broad-brimmed hat, with nodding feathers, made her seem rather formidable, but Angel thought she must be kind, to loan her motor to ensure a comfortable ride for Alice.

The rector had rather a grating voice and a steely gaze. He paused now and then to stare at the less attentive among his flock, which quelled the shuffler or sweet-sucker immediately. Angel was disappointed to find the sermon uninspiring, and later, when the rector shook her hand, as they emerged into the sunlight through the porch, she felt his clasp to be chill and clammy. She hoped he would not ask her if she were a regular communicant – all I know, she thought, is that I have always been able to pray, when I need to . . . She had certainly prayed, in her despair, in France . . .

Edmund caught them up, along the lane. ‘Hello, again! I could hear you singing, Angel!’

‘She sings in tune,’ Tony remarked candidly, pulling off the stuffy jacket, and slinging it over his shoulder, ‘not like Lady Pamela.’

At that very moment, they were forced to leap hastily to the side, as the Rolls swept by. They glimpsed Lady Pamela, graciously smiling, while giving a little wave of her hand.

‘Tony!’ reproved Aunt Hetty. ‘Show some respect for your elders, my lad. She was a good mistress to me, when I was young – she took me to Scotland with her that summer and there I met my dear old feller. His parents ran the hotel where we stayed – we soon knew we had a lot in common. ‘So I have to lose you, Hetty,’ she said with a sigh, but I came on home and waited till my John follered. When he took me back to Scotland as his wife, I liked it there, though it was wholly cold in winter – but I knew I’d come back to The Angel one day, and so I did.’

‘Whatever are you mardling about?’ came a breathless voice, as Mrs Newsome caught up with them, in her turn. ‘Didn’t you see me in church, Hetty? I have a right job to hurry in this heat, my dear –’

‘Mardle,’ Edith interpreted, sotto voce, for Angel: ‘Gossip!’

Mrs Newsome had some information of her own to impart. ‘Jess – I saw her, when I was nipping along to church – says she missed you and to tell you Nana has been ablaze all night –’ she paused dramatically.

‘Feverish,’ Edith whispered. Angel thought the fiery description fitted a febrile patient exactly.

‘Anyway, she says she can’t come to you, sorry, today, but hopes to, tomorrer.’

‘Could we help, I wonder?’ Angel murmured to her fellow nurse.

‘Leave well alone,’ Aunt Hetty had heard. ‘Jess knows what to do, eh?’

‘Nana don’t go to bed at nights,’ Mrs Newsome went on, ‘she sits in her chair by the old stove. Just like Mr Newsome, when his chest was bad. In the day he shifted into the shop to watch over me, to mardle with folk when he’d got the breath.’ She looked at Angel as she continued with an obviously oft-repeated story. ‘He said, “Jinny, my dear, should I pass on while you’re serving, just drape me quick with a towel or two till the shop be empty . . . ” ’

Tony couldn’t resist it, ‘And she did, Angel, she really did!’

Morbid it might be but everyone laughed, even Mrs Newsome. She concluded happily: ‘He loved a good joke did Mr Newsome – it was a great way to go and, if anyone noticed – well, they never said . . . ’

Time to leave Mrs Newsome, to fork sharp and to walk on home.

‘Oh, you’re still with us –’ Angel remembered, after they had said goodbye to Edith at her gate. Then she felt rather foolish for Edmund laughed aloud.

‘I had begun to feel like the Invisible Man,’ he said wryly, ‘for you were so absorbed in the demise of the late Mr Newsome. I always wet my whistle at The Angel after all that hymn playing and singing, I have to confess.’

Towards them as they crossed over the road came a straggly procession, carefully carrying brimming jugs of beer. Growing lads mainly but also a granny or two, for the bar, as Angel had already discovered, was the domain of men with their dominoes and greasy pack of cards.

As Edmund went through the first door she noticed that the window was up on the saloon. So this was where the jug-bearers were served, tapping on the glass for beer on tap.

Aunt Hetty was in a hurry with lunch to make ready and Rob busy already in the bar with no Jess to hold the fort while he ate, himself.

‘Let me see to Alice, I’ll bring her down, then I’ll organise the food, Aunt Hetty – look, Rob’s set the potatoes to boil already and I do want to help –’ Angel offered.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ Aunt Hetty accepted gratefully.

Angel, Alice and Tony were just wiping their plates clean of the remaining delicious jelly from the pie, when Tony remembered: ‘Oh, the bugler!’

Fortunately, there was still a wedge of pie, and Rob had been generous with his spuds, so she was able to assemble a decent plateful, together with bread and butter. Tony went round to the window, to tap for the bugler’s beer, and Alice spooned stewed apple into a dish.

Tony took the tray and walked easily down the shorn grass to the barn.

In the evening, after the children were in bed, Angel felt restless. Aunt Hetty and Rob were still in the bar. She went quietly along the hall into the front parlour. This room was rarely used in the summer, as Aunt Hetty had told her, when she first arrived: ‘It comes into its own at Christmas when we eat in there, and get a great fire blazing up the chimney.’ In the parlour there was a wall completely lined with books. Angel thought romantically she would take a selection back to her room, to read by the light of the moon.

She took down an old favourite or two. The books smelt musty, the room, flooded by the evening light, seemed rather forlorn – cushions too plump, a sharp odour of fallen soot from the grate. There were pictures around the room, all by Lalla, she saw. The children, baby-faced, laughed down at her from over the mantel. Dark-eyed Tony, curly-haired like Rob: Alice, unbelievably bonny with healthy, rosy cheeks. They were dressed alike in simple, blue smocks, and Alice had a ring of daisies round her head. They looked so happy, well-loved, she thought wistfully – Lalla couldn’t have captured them like that unless she adored them, surely?

She settled down on a hard couch by the window, swung her feet up, and idly opened the first book.

It was a familiar sensation, yet one last experienced long ago, when her father was alive: the gentle removal of the book, which was wedged under her cheek, the stroking back of her hair. Her eyes were wide now, she gazed up at Rob’s smiling face.

‘I’m all pins and needles . . . ’ she apologised, as he helped her rise.

‘I wondered who on earth was in here, seeing the door ajar, when I came back to close up the bar. I thought it might be young Tony, it’s not unknown for him to prowl about if he can’t get to sleep. I apologise, Angel, for disturbing ye, but I thought I should. It would have been a shock to wake up here next morning!’

They walked along the hall together, then upstairs. He paused, before going into his room.

‘Goodnight to ye, Angel – I am very grateful for all you do, not only for Alice, and Tony, but for Aunt Hetty – for me. Do not be in a hurry to leave us.’

She felt a little odd, remembering the tender touching of her hair – just as if she was of an age with his children, she thought. She certainly did not want to leave The Angel, especially now.

‘I won’t,’ she replied softly. ‘Goodnight, Rob.’

If the bugler played that night, Angel did not hear him.