‘Yes, of course,’ Janet said.
‘Ask her if she’ll be sure to give the cloakroom a good turn-out this evening.’ The headmaster’s face looked strained and weary. ‘Please don’t imply any criticism of her work, she can’t be expected to perform miracles in the time she’s allowed – but the cloakroom has got rather grubby and it makes a bad impression.’
‘I’ll be suitably diplomatic,’ Janet promised. She went back to her classroom to pick up her things. As she came out of the front door a moment later she gave Mrs Lloyd – sitting waiting in the station wagon – a little wave and spoke a word of greeting. Mrs Lloyd nodded and smiled in reply.
Rachel Lloyd was a large, vigorous-looking woman, a couple of years older than her husband but looking somewhat younger than him. Her thick chestnut hair, lightly streaked with grey, was drawn back into a heavy knot at the nape of her neck; she had the fresh complexion and clear skin of a countrywoman.
Janet walked unhurriedly out of the playground and turned right, in the direction of Rose Cottage. As she passed Brookside she saw that Mr Pickthorn had gone in as usual for his tea. She paused for a moment to admire his delphiniums. They were very fine, a dozen or more delicate shades of blue, a colour she particularly liked in a garden; she must definitely try to grow some at Rose Cottage.
She walked on up the lane and turned in at the gate of the first of the pair of cottages. These were a good deal more modern than Rose Cottage, they had been built shortly after the First World War.
No. 1 was an exact twin of its partner except that it sported a magnificent white jasmine clothing the end wall and a blue ceanothus in full flower in the front garden. The late Mr Abell had been a keen gardener and had taken many prizes at local shows. He had tended the garden up at Mayfield Farm in addition to his duties there as stockman.
The light drifting fragrance of the jasmine greeted Janet as she walked up to the front porch. Mrs Abell’s mother, Mrs Perrin, kept a large rocking-chair on the porch in summer, she liked to sit out there knitting on warm afternoons. The chair was empty now, the knitting laid down on the cushions. The front door stood propped open by a large stone and Janet could see Mrs Perrin in the kitchen, standing ironing at the table in the middle of the room. She glanced up at the sound of footsteps and saw Janet coming up the path.
‘Do come in, Miss Marshall,’ she called out. She was a short, heavily-built woman in her middle sixties with coarse grey hair pulled up into a great bun on top of her head. She was solid and unflappable, healthy and active enough in spite of some trouble with her legs, stout tree-trunk legs encased even in the summer heat in thick stockings, to disguise the veins knotted and corded from years of standing over ironing-boards, cookers, sinks. She more than pulled her weight in the household.
‘I expect you want to see my daughter,’ she said as Janet stepped across the threshold. The kitchen smelt of warm ironing and ancient horsehair upholstery – from the two huge sagging black armchairs standing one at each side of the hearth. ‘She’s out in the garden, picking peas.’ Mrs Perrin nodded towards the long back garden carefully planted in geometric rows of vegetables, bordered by sternly disciplined bushes and fruit trees. ‘Heather’s next door, playing with Jill Bryant.’
‘I’ll go out and speak to Mrs Abell, if I may,’ Janet said after a civil enquiry after Mrs Perrin’s health. She went out through the kitchen door.
A belt of tall, thickly-grown trees encircled the far end of the two gardens, completely screening them from Rose Cottage. Halfway down the garden Janet could see Mrs Abell kneeling among the onions and carrots. She stood up suddenly and darted off to a row of peas, she stooped and began filling her wooden trug with plump young pods.
She was a little scuttling, sideways-glancing woman, colourless and careworn, full of anxieties about life, about managing, averting trouble and disaster. Bad enough when her husband was alive but ten times worse after he fell down dead five years ago from a totally unexpected heart attack among the plant pots and the wooden staging in one of the Mayfield greenhouses.
Janet delivered the headmaster’s message and Mrs Abell promised to give particular attention to the cloakroom. As Janet turned to walk back through the garden the two girls, Jill and Heather, came out of the back door of the adjoining cottage and ran down the garden, throwing a ball to each other, laughing and squealing. They caught sight of Janet across the fence and came to a sudden stop.
‘Hello, Miss Marshall!’ Jill cried and Heather gave her a smile. Janet waved and smiled in reply but said nothing and continued on her way.
Jill’s mother, Mrs Bryant, was standing in the back doorway of her cottage. ‘You’re not to pester Miss Marshall,’ she said to the girls in an easy, tolerant tone as soon as Janet had passed out of earshot. ‘I’m sure she sees enough of you children during the day, she must be allowed some peace.’ She yawned widely. ‘I’m going upstairs now for a nap. Don’t get up to any mischief and don’t go making a lot of noise.’
She went slowly upstairs. On her wedding-day twenty-one years ago Mollie Bryant had been slender and pretty with a fine skin, corn-coloured hair and bright blue eyes. She’d put on a great deal of weight since then. Her hair had darkened and she’d taken to bleaching it; it was now a harsh brassy colour. Her skin had grown lined and weather-beaten and had developed a permanent shade of light brick from stooping over the oven in her kitchen.
She was fond of cooking and served a substantial high tea every evening when her husband and son came in. Nowadays she felt more and more the need to toil upstairs out of the hot kitchen in the sultry afternoons, put on something loose and cool, lie down and close her eyes. She opened the bedroom door and began to unbutton her dress; five minutes later she was fast asleep.
Shortly before six her husband Ken walked down from Mayfield Farm for his tea. He would go back again afterwards to work in the turkey sheds for an hour or two.
He came through a wicket gate set in the screen of trees and walked up the back garden towards the house. He was a tall, powerfully-built man in his late forties, with straight black hair sleeked back from his forehead and dark bushy eyebrows meeting across his nose. His sleeves were rolled up, showing muscular brown arms with a strong growth of black hair.
The two girls ran up to him, besieging him with questions about the kitten.
‘I can’t bring it home for another day or two,’ he said, laughing as Jill swung on his arm. ‘We can’t take it from its mother yet – you don’t want the poor creature dying on you.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Jill said reluctantly. She went with him into the house and Heather ran home next door for her tea.
Ken pushed open the back door and went into the kitchen. Mollie had already come downstairs again, somewhat refreshed after her nap. She hadn’t bothered to comb her hair or powder her face – she wasn’t going anywhere and she wasn’t expecting visitors. She had merely slipped on a cotton kimono and thrust her bare and unlovely feet into a pair of flat mules.
She had laid the table and was now busy cutting bread. ‘You’re back then,’ she said to her husband in ritual greeting, looking up at him with a cheerful smile.
He gave her a nod, mastering his irritation at her slatternly appearance. He had to discipline himself these days not to snap at her. He’d tried friendly suggestion, diplomatic hints, outright advice that she should lose weight, do something about her hair, her skin, her clothes. He still felt it not impossible that out of that slack flesh, the lines and folds, the slim nymph of twenty-one years ago might somehow be conjured up again.
But none of his efforts produced the slightest effect. ‘I’m not a girl any more,’ Mollie said with easy acceptance. ‘Can’t expect to stay young and beautiful for ever.’
Ken made a stern effort now to speak amiably to her as he went over to the sink to scrub his hands. ‘Warm old day,’ he said. ‘We’ll end up with