or two, made excuses and drifted away. He had to seek new places, find strangers to play with; and although he gloated over his winnings he found gambling boring nowadays. The very spirit of the game wilted when you knew, before you turned it over, that the card you had drawn would be the very one you wanted.
In Baildon Mrs Fuller returned to life as soon as a return to Clevely came under discussion. She took out the quilt with the true-lovers’-knot pattern which she had made for Damask and never been able to bring herself to give to Sally and draped it over a screen at the back of the little shop. Every customer who entered for a twopenny pie or a pennyworth of gingerbread adored it; many asked if it was for sale. ‘I dunno,’ said Mrs Fuller. ‘I made it special; thass not a pattern you see every day. I hung it there to brighten the place like.’ Soon people were asking, ‘S’pose it was for sale, what would you be asking for it?’
‘Oh, I’d want five pounds for that one.’ said Mrs Fuller.
Five pounds for a quilt! Over the teacups women asked one another, had such a price ever been heard of? But of course it was a very unusual pattern, and all silk, not a bit of cotton stuff in it. Finally Mrs Thurlow Lamb, assiduously visiting a sick friend of slightly superior social status, saw one of Mrs Fuller’s quilts, ten years old, but as good as new, on the sick-bed; and next day she went to the shop in the Friargate and bought the true-lovers’ knots.
‘So there you are, you can get a horse, Danny; stabling ‘on’t cost nothing back home, and you can ride in and out so long as you hev to—and that’ll on’t be till we get on our feet again. Give me back my dairy and my fowls,’ said Mrs Fuller, ‘and we’ll be on the mend again in no time. We’ll live close for a bit and sell the best.’ She made that concession to fate, thinking of Steve’s mother as she did so. ‘But not for long,’ she added stoutly. ‘I’ll manage.’
Just before the move Danny took two days’ holiday and went to Clevely, where, aided by Matt Ashpole, Spitty
Palfrey, Shad Jarvey and one of the Gardiner boys, he whitewashed the house inside and out, and moved the rack and the manger into the now almost completed bullock shed on Cobbler’s Corner. He noticed how easy it was to get people to work nowadays—the mere smell of a job brought all the Waste-dwellers running. Oh, if only he could lay hands on some more land, arable land, any land–-
By evening of the moving day Fuller’s was, in all but one respect, itself again. The black dresser was back in its rightful place in the kitchen and the firelight was red on the sides of the pewter mugs which Mrs Fuller had set Sally to polish. Mrs Fuller was frying a pan of eggs and bacon, standing to do so within inches of the spot where Steve’s body had hung from the turnip rack. That fact, as fact, she did not bear in mind, but other memories of Steve were there, newly poignant on account of the surroundings, so that her pleasure was dimmed and soured. Deliberately she turned away from them, scowling at the bought eggs as she turned them in the pan. The bacon she had cured herself last summer, taken into Baildon and brought back again; that was all right, but bought eggs at Fuller’s! She thought of fowls clucking around the back door, of brown eggs warm from the nest; she thought of bright yellow butter and pale-yellow cheese. And she thought again of Steve, poor man, poor man; still, she’d done her best for him, dead and alive, and fretting did nobody any good, it’d just weaken her for the long pull and the strong pull which lay ahead if they were to make a success of this new venture. Deliberately she left Steve to his rest and faced her labour. She’d manage–-
In June, Mr Turnbull came to bring Miss Parsons her quarterly allowance, as usual. It was his fourth visit since Miss Greenway had been installed as companion and he had ceased to wonder at the improved appearance of the place and its owner. Miss Parsons was indeed becoming quite plump and placid. Today she was making what
looked like a bead purse—the girl was skilful in contriving little peaceful occupations for her; she seemed always to be busy with something nowadays.
As usual, he chatted a little; handed over the money and watched Miss Greenway put it in a drawer and fetch the ink and the quill-stand. Miss Parsons signed the receipt with her usual flourish, though she muttered something about signing things being dangerous. She then resumed the beadwork.
‘Oh dear,’ Damask said, Tm afraid she has forgotten again. For the last three weeks she has been worrying about something and wanting me to send for you, but I knew you would be coming. May I offer you a glass of
wine?’
‘That would be very kind.’ A decanter and three fluted glasses stood on a table behind the chair in which Miss Parsons sat, and as she went towards it Damask paused and said, as though to an earnest child, ‘You are making it pretty.’ The old lady looked up and smiled in a pleased way and the girl just touched her shoulder, an affectionate, approving pat. It was a pleasing little scene and the old lawyer smiled and then sighed. He could remember a very self-assured, domineering Amelia Caroline Parsons, and he thought it was sad the way age altered people, even their personalities. His own seventieth birthday was in sight! Still, of course, a man, a trained mind, disciplined to a profession …
He let the thought fall as Damask handed him, very prettily, one of the fluted glasses, and at the same moment, as though to underline his mental comment about Miss Parsons’ earlier self, the old lady said with much of her former vigour and decisiveness:
‘I wish to make my will!’
Carrying the wineglass, he moved to a chair and sat
down near her. ‘You made a will, you know. Five years ago … yes,
just five years.’
‘Then I wish to make another.’ That put Mr Turnbull in a quandary. He could hardly
look an old, respected client in the face and say what was in his mind—‘Madam, you made a will when you were competent to do so; you are not now so competent.’ Instead he sipped his wine and murmured, ‘A most excellent Madeira,’ and in the moment so gained framed the next sentence.
‘Five years is not long. With so recent a will I would hardly advise any changes.’
The girl handed Miss Parsons her glass of wine and said soothingly, ‘There, you see, you had made one. So there’s nothing to worry about.’
Her glance met Mr Turnbull’s and he noticed, at Richard Shelmadine had done, the lack of the expected expression. The glance did not say, ‘Poor old thing!’ or ‘I manage her well, don’t I?’ Nothing. Yet the glance itself started a train of thought in the lawyer’s mind. Of course Miss Parsons wished to leave the girl a legacy, and that was reasonable enough. She deserved something. And even if, by the strictest legal standards, Miss Parsons was not in her right mind, she was, on the other hand, certainly not a lunatic and there was nothing in the least out of the way in her wishing to reward the devoted attention of one who had come into her life since the other will was made.
‘I wish to make my will,’ Miss Parsons said. ‘There is no need to make a new will, you know….’ And, dear me, he thought, it would be easier if the young woman were not present.
‘Everything to Damask,’ said Miss Parsons. ‘This is Damask. Damask Greenway, my only friend.’
The girl set down her glass and said, ‘Dear, I told you not to bother. Please don’t bother.’ To the lawyer she said, ‘This is all very embarrassing for me. You talk to her.’ She walked away through the open french window into the garden.
Mr Turnbull breathed more freely and began to make legal phrases in his mind.’… if still in my employ.’ That was it. How much? Well, feeble-minded people often lived to a great old age and became very cantankerous. The
girl might have an ordeal ahead of her… say five hundred pounds.
‘I wish to make my will, Everything to Damask. To Damask Greenway, everything.’
‘Yes, yes, I heard you. I think that would be hasty and unwise. After all, she might leave you, get married or … or leave for some other reason–-‘
‘She would not. She promised. She promised and I