Sarah's Cottage (Sarah Morris Book 2) Read online

  SARAH’S COTTAGE

  D. E. Stevenson

  D. E. Stevenson 1968

  D. E. Stevenson has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1968 by Collins.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Braeside Cottage

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two

  Social Occasion

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Three

  Easter Holiday

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Part Four

  The Magic Bird

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Part Five

  Summer Holidays

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Part Six

  It Never Rains but it Pours

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Part One

  Braeside Cottage

  Chapter One

  “‘There are two things to aim at in life: first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it,’” said Charles, smiling at me. He added, “That was said by Logan Pearsall Smith; he knew what he was talking about. Have you got the key, Sarah?”

  I handed him the key of the cottage door.

  We had got what we wanted, Charles and I. We had planned the cottage; we had waited until the war was over and we were both free; we had been married and had spent our honeymoon in Skye. Now, at last, we had come home to our own place.

  The building of the cottage had presented numerous difficulties for the war was not long over and Mr Waugh the builder had just begun to get his men back—demobilised from the forces—but fortunately my grandfather, Colonel Maitland, was on the spot and was able to keep an eye on the work (the piece of land upon which the cottage was being built was part of his property and had been given to us as a wedding present). Even more fortunately grandpapa and Mr Waugh were comrades in arms; they had fought together in the First World War, and there were few things Andrew Waugh wouldn’t have done “to oblige the Colonel.” Occasionally in the middle of an earnest discussion about rones or drainage or some such matter they would revert to days long past . . . grandpapa would say suddenly, “Andy, d’you remember that day at Malines?” and Mr Waugh would chuckle and reply, “Och, Colonel, I was thinking the same thing this very minnit! It was the rones put me in mind of it.”

  But why the rones put them in mind of Malines remained a mystery to me.

  The restrictions on building were stringent. It was only afterwards, when the work was finished, that Charles and I discovered how much “wangling” had been done to procure bricks and mortar and slates—not to speak of pipes and seasoned wood and window-frames and chimney pots—to build our new home. The two old warriors had enjoyed themselves, no doubt of that, and I could only hope that as Craignethan was tucked away amongst the Border Hills of Southern Scotland their activities had passed unnoticed.

  “The Powers that Be are too busy with more important matters to bother about us,” said Charles cheerfully as he opened the door and we went in.

  “I suppose it’s all right now,” I said doubtfully.

  “Oh, they’re much too busy to come and pull it down.” He took my arm and added, “It has been worth waiting for, hasn’t it?”

  We had been obliged to wait much longer than we expected, for Charles had been attached to a base camp as an interpreter (he had been working an average of eighteen hours a day) and, even after the war in Europe was over, his services were still required, so his demobilisation had been delayed. In my opinion it had been delayed beyond all reason but Charles was patient and conscientious; he wanted to feel that he had earned the right to be free.

  The cottage was very small—we had planned it ourselves. Charles knew a great deal about buildings and we both had definite ideas as to what we wanted: a comfortable kitchen, where we could have our meals; a sitting-room large enough to accommodate Charles’s grand piano; a tiny study with shelves for books; one good-sized bedroom, a dressing-room, a spare room and a bathroom. There were built-in cupboards and an airing cupboard and a heated linen-cupboard. The stairs were steep and narrow, running up from the hall to a good-sized landing. Above the bedrooms there was a floored attic for boxes.

  Grandpapa had wanted us to have a bigger house “while we were about it” but we talked him over and at last he had said, “Oh well, maybe it will do in the meantime but you must have a downstairs cloak-room with a sink for Sarah to mess about with flowers . . . and don’t forget the coal-cellar.”

  Charles and I had been too busy to watch the building operations. We had rushed north to Craignethan for a couple of nights, and had seen the foundations and the complicated jumble of pipes; we had gone again later and inspected the growing walls; there had been several other flying visits at irregular intervals when we had been shown the wooden floors, the windows, the tiny staircase . . . and at last the roof. This afternoon we saw it finished!

  The carpets and the furniture had arrived only three days ago—I had expected to see it stacked in the house higgledy-piggledy—but, to my astonishment, the carpets had been neatly laid and the furniture arranged.

  “It’s all ready!” declared Charles, gazing about him in delight. “It’s ready and waiting for us. We needn’t go to the hotel.”

  “We shall have to go for one night.”

  “Oh, Sarah! Why can’t we stay here, in our own little house?”

  I smiled at his eagerness. “Because there isn’t anything to eat. I told Grandmama that we weren’t coming until Friday; I didn’t want her to have the trouble of ordering our stores.”

  “Quite right,” agreed Charles. “Your grans have had enough trouble over our affairs. Well, let’s have a look round; then we can go to the hotel for dinner and bed.”

  Everything was in apple-pie order. The bed was made, the lamp stood on the bedside table with the plug inserted in the wall; there was a large cake of scented soap in the bathroom; the sitting-room fire was laid and there was a box of matches on the chimney-piece.

  “It’s cosy, isn’t it?” said Charles.

  “Not too small?” I asked anxiously. To tell the truth Charles was so tall and strong that he made the cottage look a great deal smaller than I had expected.

  “Not a bit! The sitting-room is a good size. We can rearrange the furniture when my piano comes. Who gave us that standard lamp?”

  “Father,” I replied. “It used to be in the drawing-room at Fairfield.”

  “I thought I remembered it!” nodde
d Charles. “It stood behind the big sofa where your mother sat with her mending basket. She always seemed to be darning socks.”

  We had received a great many presents from relations and friends: father had given us furniture from the vicarage at Fairfield; my brothers Lewis and Willy had provided glass and china; my sister, Lottie, had given us an electric blanket and cushions and curtains for the sitting-room; my brother-in-law, Sir Clive Hudson, had given us a cheque for £500, part of which I had spent on a comfortable bed, carpets and blankets and chairs. Duncan Barrington, the manager of the big department store in which I had been working as an interpreter, gave us a refrigerator and a washing machine. Grandpapa had given us the piece of land, the larch fencing and the gate; grandmama had said she would “fill in the gaps” which meant that she had provided all sorts of household necessities—things which nobody else had thought of. In addition, there were various other presents from friends, nearly all of which were useful. We had been very fortunate indeed and were suitably grateful.

  “It’s funny that nobody has given us a picture,” said Charles, looking round at the bare walls. “However, perhaps it’s just as well; they might have given us one that we didn’t like. We can choose one for ourselves. You’ve got some money left from Clive’s handsome donation.”

  “Not enough to buy pictures,” I said doubtfully. “Pictures cost a lot of money, don’t they?”

  When we had seen the rest of the house we went into the kitchen.

  “This looks all right,” said Charles.

  To me it seemed quite perfect. For years I had been cooking meals for father and Willy in a dingy little kitchen in a furnished flat in London, trying vainly to cope with the smuts which drifted in through the badly-fitting window-frames. The gas-stove was old-fashioned and unreliable; there were not enough cupboards and the shelves were so high that I couldn’t reach them without standing on a chair.

  This kitchen had been “made to measure”; the shining new sinks and draining boards were exactly the right height for a woman of 5 ft 3 in . . . The plentiful cupboards were within easy reach of my hand. I stretched out my hand and opened the nearest cupboard and was amazed to find it stocked with food!

  “Hi!” exclaimed Charles, who had been poking about on his own, “Hi, Sarah! I thought you said there was nothing to eat? There’s a crusty loaf in the bread bin and the refrigerator is full of food! There’s bacon and butter and a cooked chicken and cheese . . .”

  “Charles, I don’t understand! Who can have ordered the things?”

  “Your grandmama, of course!”

  “But she didn’t know we were coming today!”

  We stood for a few moments, gazing at each other.

  “She didn’t know,” I repeated. “Nobody knew.”

  “Except Proudfoot, of course,” said Charles.

  “Proudfoot?”

  “Yes, I wanted some more shelves put up in the book room (I refuse to call it a study because I have no intention of studying, but I must have plenty of space for books) so I wrote to Proudfoot and asked him to come in early tomorrow morning and bring some suitable wood.”

  “Willy Proudfoot! That explains everything.”

  “You don’t mean Proudfoot stocked our larder?”

  “No, of course not! It would never occur to him for a moment . . . but Willy Proudfoot’s wife is Minnie’s cousin.”

  “Minnie? Who is Minnie?” asked Charles, looking at me in such absolute bewilderment that I had to laugh.

  “Come on,” said Charles, smiling. “Tell me at once: who is Minnie, what is she? Why does her relationship with Willy Proudfoot’s wife explain everything?”

  “Minnie Dell. You remember her, don’t you? Oh, Charles, you must remember her! She was our cook years ago when we lived at Fairfield.”

  “A tiny woman with a merry laugh?”

  “Yes, that’s Minnie. She had ‘the fever’ when she was eight years old—and never grew another inch. She used to tell us about it. When Father gave up the living and we moved to London he gave Minnie a small pension and she came home to Ryddelton to live with her sister. They have a little house in the town.”

  “Is the sister a miniature too?”

  “No, Maggie is outsize. She didn’t have ‘the fever’.”

  Charles perched himself on the edge of the sink. “Maggie and Minnie! They’re well named, aren’t they? Tell me more about them.”

  “They’ve been doing ‘war work’: making new clothes out of old for everyone in the district. Minnie says it’s good for people’s morale to look nice.”

  “So it is,” agreed Charles. “I’m remembering her now: I used to go into the kitchen and chat to her. She made delicious soufflés and read travel books. She wanted to know all about my home in Austria . . . and especially about Vienna and ‘the blue Danube.’ I hadn’t the heart to tell her that it isn’t always blue.” He smiled and added, “But we’ve wandered from the point: I still don’t understand how the cottage has been provisioned.”

  “Because you don’t understand Ryddelton. Half the people in the place are related to each other; they’re first cousins or second cousins—or possibly first cousins once removed. If they aren’t cousins they’re ‘in-laws’ or occasionally just friends. That’s why——”

  “Are they ever enemies?” interrupted Charles.

  “Oh yes! At least they squabble a bit sometimes, but usually they make it up again. A feud is an uncomfortable sort of thing in a small tight community.”

  “We still haven’t got to the point,” complained Charles.

  “The point is that Willy Proudfoot’s wife is Minnie’s first cousin—and they live next door—so naturally Mrs Proudfoot told Minnie that we were coming today and Minnie ordered our provisions.”

  “It’s all guess-work on your part, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. It’s the sort of thing Minnie would do.”

  “Kind,” said Charles thoughtfully. “Very kind indeed. Perhaps she’ll look in later to welcome us.”

  “She won’t,” I replied with conviction. “She won’t come near us because she will know that we’d rather be alone . . . but she and Maggie want to see you some time, of course.”

  “Want to see me?”

  “They’re dying to see you.”

  “Pity to let them die,” said Charles, chuckling. “Why don’t we have them to tea?”

  “Could you bear it?”

  “Quite easily—in fact I’m ‘dying’ to see them! Let’s ask them one day next week when we’ve settled down a bit and got used to the feeling of being alone together in our own little house.” He hesitated for a few moments and then added, “We can stay here tonight, can’t we, Sarah?”

  “Yes. I’ll ring up the hotel and tell them we aren’t coming.”

  “Have I time for a walk before supper?”

  “We can have supper whatever time you like.”

  “You don’t mind being alone?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Good,” said Charles. “I’ve been sitting in the car all day so a walk would be pleasant.” He kissed me and went off without more ado: striding quickly down the little path, turning to the right and taking the road which led to the hills.

  *

  Charles had asked if I minded being alone. I didn’t, of course, but even if I had been nervous I would have let him go just the same. Freedom and solitude were as necessary to Charles as food and drink. For years he had been in a German Oflag, crowded together with other men, hemmed in with barbed wire. It was no wonder that every now and then he felt the urge to walk for miles, to go wherever he wanted, to be alone!

  I had no idea when he would come back, but it didn’t matter. We could have supper when we liked, meantime I could make friends with the little house of my dreams. I wanted to go round every bit of it, to open every cupboard and pry into every corner. I took a duster in my hand but it wasn’t necessary. Minnie had been here; she had cleaned it with her usual thoroughness, she had polished t
he windows and the furniture; she had brought a bunch of Michaelmas daisies from her own little garden and had stuck them firmly into a large white pottery mug. Minnie wasn’t fond of flowers in the house—they were messy things—but she knew I liked flowers so there they were, crammed into the unsuitable container with very little water and no room to breathe! Dear Minnie, what a good creature she was!

  When I had laid the supper table I sat down at my desk in the sitting-room window to write to father, but my head was so full of interesting thoughts that the letter didn’t get on very quickly. How strange it was to be here at Craignethan and yet not living in the old house, where I had spent so many happy holidays! From the window I could look down through a gap in the trees and see the tall chimneys; I could see a corner of the house and the window of grandpapa’s study. He had pulled down the red blind and lighted the reading-lamp which stood on his writing-table so the window shone like a ruby in the gathering dusk. I sat there looking at it and thinking how happy I was, counting my blessings . . . and then I felt Charles’s arm round my shoulders (I hadn’t heard him come in) and his voice whispering softly in my ear.

  “I had to come back quickly,” he said. “I thought of you and the little house waiting for me. This is our first night together in our very own home.”

  “A house without a history.”

  “We shall make the history of our house.” He hesitated and then continued thoughtfully. “I lived in a house that was too full of history, the atmosphere of the past was strong and real, sometimes I felt oppressed as if I were surrounded by an unseen host of people, some good and some bad. I believe it was that which caused the trouble.”

  I knew he was speaking of his father’s castle in Austria.

  “The trouble,” said Charles with a deep sigh. “There was history in the very walls of Schloss Roethke—you couldn’t get away from it. We had too many ancestors; there were pictures of them in the long gallery—not very good pictures, but they all had the Reeder face.”

  I turned and looked at him.

  “Oh, I haven’t got it,” he said smiling. “I resemble my mother who was a MacDonald—as you know. My brother, Rudi, is a true Reeder.”