to explore,’ I told him. ‘I’ll call in at the lodge to see if there’s anything you’d like me to bring back from the shop.’
‘I’ll ask Tilda,’ he promised. ‘You are very kind!’
It seemed to me that, far from being isolated and alone at Old Place, I was going to be inundated with visitors!
The day had gone by in a flash, so I went to put the dried beet to soak in a bucket for Lady’s bedtime mash and then went out with it and some of Billy’s goat munchies to lure them back into the stable.
Thanks to a bit of timely advice from Becca, I knew that if I was carrying the bucket then Lady would simply follow me into her loosebox and Billy would come with her, and so it was. Then I shut them both up all cosily for the night.
After my conversation with Noël, I abandoned my cookbook notes and brought down Gran’s journal and read on steadily into the evening. I was again tempted to flick forward and see if I could spot any mention of Ned Martland, but I’d been enjoying all the details of Gran’s life as she slowly came out of her shell under Hilda and Pearl’s influence and I didn’t want to rush it: this was a girl whose idea of a night of dissipation was a trip to the cinema!
I finished that journal and read the first page or two of the next in bed before I went to sleep. By then Gran had started referring to the new patient as ‘N.M’! It occurred to me that there was a very natural way her path might have crossed with the Old Place Ned Martland – and after what Noël had said about his brother being a black sheep, I’ll be really worried for her if it turns out to be him.
But I suppose even if it is, then given Gran’s upbringing and nature, it could only have been some kind of Brief Encounter !
Chapter 9
Daggers
Hilda and Pearl kindly warned me that N.M. was a flirt and not to take anything he said seriously, but he was very sincere and sweet when I told him about Tom and my intention to devote my life to nursing. He is kind when he is being serious and easy to talk to.
February, 1945
Next morning the wind had died down a bit, but everything was thickly furred with frost. But then, it’s been growing steadily colder since I got here and, according to the radio, the odds on it being a white Christmas were getting shorter and shorter by the minute.
The house was already starting to warm through now I’d lit the fire, though, and I was keeping it going by a lavish application of logs from the cellar. The place will soon feel cosy, despite its size.
After breakfast (which I ate with the latest of Gran’s journals propped in front of me) I let Lady and Billy out. Billy ignored the open gate and jumped straight over the fence like a . . . well, I was going to say goat !
I hung a filled haynet on the rail, high enough so that Lady wouldn’t catch her feet in it when it was empty (another bit of advice from the invaluable Becca!) and broke a thin skin of ice on the trough, before tidying up the loosebox.
Merlin had wandered off up the paddock, which I thought was probably exercise enough for the morning, so I went back in and prepared to give the sitting room the sort of cleaning my Gran always referred to as ‘a good bottoming’, something it clearly hadn’t had for quite some time.
It’s part of the Homebodies remit that we keep the rooms of the house that we actually use neat and clean, it’s just that the houses aren’t usually quite on this scale!
I don’t enjoy the process of cleaning, but I do love a nice clean room, so I suppose you could call that job satisfaction. Although it’s not in the same league as providing an excellent dinner for twenty-five people with mixed dietary requirements every day for a fortnight with effortless expertise. Now that’s satisfying on a creative level, too – I sometimes think cooking is a kind of ephemeral art form.
Anyway, by the time I’d vacuumed the pattern back into existence on the lovely old carpet, mopped the
‘I’ll ask Tilda,’ he promised. ‘You are very kind!’
It seemed to me that, far from being isolated and alone at Old Place, I was going to be inundated with visitors!
The day had gone by in a flash, so I went to put the dried beet to soak in a bucket for Lady’s bedtime mash and then went out with it and some of Billy’s goat munchies to lure them back into the stable.
Thanks to a bit of timely advice from Becca, I knew that if I was carrying the bucket then Lady would simply follow me into her loosebox and Billy would come with her, and so it was. Then I shut them both up all cosily for the night.
After my conversation with Noël, I abandoned my cookbook notes and brought down Gran’s journal and read on steadily into the evening. I was again tempted to flick forward and see if I could spot any mention of Ned Martland, but I’d been enjoying all the details of Gran’s life as she slowly came out of her shell under Hilda and Pearl’s influence and I didn’t want to rush it: this was a girl whose idea of a night of dissipation was a trip to the cinema!
I finished that journal and read the first page or two of the next in bed before I went to sleep. By then Gran had started referring to the new patient as ‘N.M’! It occurred to me that there was a very natural way her path might have crossed with the Old Place Ned Martland – and after what Noël had said about his brother being a black sheep, I’ll be really worried for her if it turns out to be him.
But I suppose even if it is, then given Gran’s upbringing and nature, it could only have been some kind of Brief Encounter !
Chapter 9
Daggers
Hilda and Pearl kindly warned me that N.M. was a flirt and not to take anything he said seriously, but he was very sincere and sweet when I told him about Tom and my intention to devote my life to nursing. He is kind when he is being serious and easy to talk to.
February, 1945
Next morning the wind had died down a bit, but everything was thickly furred with frost. But then, it’s been growing steadily colder since I got here and, according to the radio, the odds on it being a white Christmas were getting shorter and shorter by the minute.
The house was already starting to warm through now I’d lit the fire, though, and I was keeping it going by a lavish application of logs from the cellar. The place will soon feel cosy, despite its size.
After breakfast (which I ate with the latest of Gran’s journals propped in front of me) I let Lady and Billy out. Billy ignored the open gate and jumped straight over the fence like a . . . well, I was going to say goat !
I hung a filled haynet on the rail, high enough so that Lady wouldn’t catch her feet in it when it was empty (another bit of advice from the invaluable Becca!) and broke a thin skin of ice on the trough, before tidying up the loosebox.
Merlin had wandered off up the paddock, which I thought was probably exercise enough for the morning, so I went back in and prepared to give the sitting room the sort of cleaning my Gran always referred to as ‘a good bottoming’, something it clearly hadn’t had for quite some time.
It’s part of the Homebodies remit that we keep the rooms of the house that we actually use neat and clean, it’s just that the houses aren’t usually quite on this scale!
I don’t enjoy the process of cleaning, but I do love a nice clean room, so I suppose you could call that job satisfaction. Although it’s not in the same league as providing an excellent dinner for twenty-five people with mixed dietary requirements every day for a fortnight with effortless expertise. Now that’s satisfying on a creative level, too – I sometimes think cooking is a kind of ephemeral art form.
Anyway, by the time I’d vacuumed the pattern back into existence on the lovely old carpet, mopped the
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