grateful. My brother’s there. I was going to leave him to it. I expect they’d be glad of some help, though; they usually are.’
I said I’d be happy to. I opened up the passenger door, to let Gyp into the back; and once he had turned and slithered fussily about for a second or two on the rear seat, she moved the front seat back into place and got in beside me.
I felt the weight of her as she sat, in the tilt and creak of the car; and I suddenly wished that the car weren’t quite so small and so ancient. She didn’t seem to mind it, however. She placed the satchel flat on her knees, and rested the bundle of berries on top, and gave a sigh of pleasure, apparently grateful to be sitting down. She was wearing her flat boyish sandals, and her bare legs were still unshaven; each little hair, I noticed, was laden with dust, like an eye-blacked lash.
Once I’d moved off she offered me another blackberry, but this time I shook my head, not wanting to eat up all her crop. When she had taken one herself I asked after her mother and her brother.
‘Mother’s fine,’ she answered, swallowing. ‘Thanks for asking. She was very glad to meet you that time. She does like to know who’s who in the county. We go about so much less than we used to, you see, and she’s rather proud about visitors, with the house so shabby, so she feels a bit cut off. Roddie is—well, how he usually is, working too hard, eating too little … His leg is a nuisance.’
‘Yes, I wondered about that.’
‘I don’t know how much it really troubles him. Quite a lot, I suspect. He says he hasn’t time to get it treated. What he means, I think, is that there isn’t the money for it.’
This was the second time she had mentioned money, but now there was no trace of ruefulness in her voice, she spoke as if merely stating a fact. Changing gear at a bend in the road, I said, ‘Are things as bad as that?’ And then, when she didn’t answer at once: ‘Do you mind my asking?’
‘No, I don’t mind. I was just thinking what to say … They’re pretty bad, to be honest with you. I don’t know how bad, because Rod does all the book-keeping himself, and he’s quite cagey. All he ever says is that he’s going to pull things through. We both try and keep the worst of it from Mother, but it must be obvious even to her that things at Hundreds will never be what they were. We’ve lost too much land, for one thing. The farm’s more or less our only income now. And the world’s a changed place, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve been so keen to hang on to Betty. I can’t tell you what a difference it’s made to Mother’s spirits, our being able to ring for a servant in the old-fashioned way, instead of having to traipse down to the kitchen for a jug of hot water, or something, ourselves. That sort of thing means such a lot. We had servants at Hundreds, you see, right up to the war.’
Again she spoke matter-of-factly; as if to someone of her own class. But she was still for a second, and then she moved as if self-conscious, saying, in quite a different voice, ‘God, how shallow you must think us. I’m so sorry.’
I said, ‘Not at all.’
But it was clear what she meant, and the obviousness of her embarrassment only served to embarrass me. The road we had taken, too, was one I remembered going up and down as a boy at just about this time of year—carrying out the midday ‘snap’ of bread and cheese to my mother’s brothers as they helped with the Hundreds harvest. No doubt those men would have been very tickled to think that, thirty years on, a qualified doctor, I would be driving up that same road in my own car with the squire’s daughter at my side. But I felt overcome suddenly with an absurd sense of gaucheness, and falseness—as if, had my plain labourer uncles actually appeared before me now, they would have seen me for the fraud I was, and laughed at me.
So for a while I said nothing, and neither did Caroline, and all our former
I said I’d be happy to. I opened up the passenger door, to let Gyp into the back; and once he had turned and slithered fussily about for a second or two on the rear seat, she moved the front seat back into place and got in beside me.
I felt the weight of her as she sat, in the tilt and creak of the car; and I suddenly wished that the car weren’t quite so small and so ancient. She didn’t seem to mind it, however. She placed the satchel flat on her knees, and rested the bundle of berries on top, and gave a sigh of pleasure, apparently grateful to be sitting down. She was wearing her flat boyish sandals, and her bare legs were still unshaven; each little hair, I noticed, was laden with dust, like an eye-blacked lash.
Once I’d moved off she offered me another blackberry, but this time I shook my head, not wanting to eat up all her crop. When she had taken one herself I asked after her mother and her brother.
‘Mother’s fine,’ she answered, swallowing. ‘Thanks for asking. She was very glad to meet you that time. She does like to know who’s who in the county. We go about so much less than we used to, you see, and she’s rather proud about visitors, with the house so shabby, so she feels a bit cut off. Roddie is—well, how he usually is, working too hard, eating too little … His leg is a nuisance.’
‘Yes, I wondered about that.’
‘I don’t know how much it really troubles him. Quite a lot, I suspect. He says he hasn’t time to get it treated. What he means, I think, is that there isn’t the money for it.’
This was the second time she had mentioned money, but now there was no trace of ruefulness in her voice, she spoke as if merely stating a fact. Changing gear at a bend in the road, I said, ‘Are things as bad as that?’ And then, when she didn’t answer at once: ‘Do you mind my asking?’
‘No, I don’t mind. I was just thinking what to say … They’re pretty bad, to be honest with you. I don’t know how bad, because Rod does all the book-keeping himself, and he’s quite cagey. All he ever says is that he’s going to pull things through. We both try and keep the worst of it from Mother, but it must be obvious even to her that things at Hundreds will never be what they were. We’ve lost too much land, for one thing. The farm’s more or less our only income now. And the world’s a changed place, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve been so keen to hang on to Betty. I can’t tell you what a difference it’s made to Mother’s spirits, our being able to ring for a servant in the old-fashioned way, instead of having to traipse down to the kitchen for a jug of hot water, or something, ourselves. That sort of thing means such a lot. We had servants at Hundreds, you see, right up to the war.’
Again she spoke matter-of-factly; as if to someone of her own class. But she was still for a second, and then she moved as if self-conscious, saying, in quite a different voice, ‘God, how shallow you must think us. I’m so sorry.’
I said, ‘Not at all.’
But it was clear what she meant, and the obviousness of her embarrassment only served to embarrass me. The road we had taken, too, was one I remembered going up and down as a boy at just about this time of year—carrying out the midday ‘snap’ of bread and cheese to my mother’s brothers as they helped with the Hundreds harvest. No doubt those men would have been very tickled to think that, thirty years on, a qualified doctor, I would be driving up that same road in my own car with the squire’s daughter at my side. But I felt overcome suddenly with an absurd sense of gaucheness, and falseness—as if, had my plain labourer uncles actually appeared before me now, they would have seen me for the fraud I was, and laughed at me.
So for a while I said nothing, and neither did Caroline, and all our former
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