‘Indeed I do,’ she answered. ‘I was a country girl before I became a teacher; and although it’s a long time since I used a spade or a hoe I do know how to instruct on how they should be used and what should be planted and when.’
Arthur nodded in agreement, and Delia and Giles exchanged a discreet glance. Both knew that an understanding had been reached and wandered off to look elsewhere.
Before dinner Mrs Crawshaw, whose sharp eyes had seen Giles carrying in his violin case on their arrival, requested that he might play for them, and he agreed that he would. ‘May I also beg Miss Delamour to entertain us too?’ he said. ‘We have previously performed together.’
He raised a questioning eyebrow and Delia agreed. ‘Perhaps Miss Robinson would play the piano as accompaniment?’ she suggested. ‘You were once very accomplished, Jenny.’
A memory of a happy time when she had called one day and been ushered into the Robinsons’ parlour where Jenny was playing a merry melody and Jack was blowing a penny whistle came rushing back to her. She hadn’t been able to stay long as she was on an errand for her mother, but the recollection was sharp and clear.
‘I was,’ Jenny agreed, ‘but I’m very rusty and only play occasionally on the school piano.’
‘The piano needs tuning,’ Arthur broke in. ‘We’ll say it’s to blame for any missed notes.’
And so they played and sang several jolly pieces with much laughter at the whines and squeaks of the piano keys, and Giles deliberately misplayed some notes on the violin, until finally he said, ‘But now to be serious and to thank you for your kind and generous hospitality.’ Here he gave a slight bow to their hostess and a nod in Arthur’s direction. ‘I thought of this piece of music as we drove towards your beautiful home; it’s from The Bohemian Girl.’
Delia knew the music, and whilst Jenny sat on the piano stool with her hands calmly folded on her lap, for she did not, Giles played and Delia began the first verse in a low and wistful voice.
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side,
And of all who assembled within those walls
That I was the hope and the pride.
At the end of the song, Mrs Crawshaw wiped a tear from her cheek and said in a husky voice, ‘I recall that beautiful piece of music from many years ago, and loved it then as I do still.’ In a reedy quavering voice she sang some of the verse that she remembered.
But I also dreamt which pleased me most,
That you loved me still the same.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
From behind the closed barn door and through a narrow gap in the planks, Mrs Deakin saw the stocky figure of their neighbour Aaron Robinson open the gate and come into the yard and knew he was coming to complain about the rifle shot. Old granfer, he’ll be coming to whine that there are children about, she thought contemptuously. But he won’t come near the barn. He’ll go home when nobody answers his knock.
She’d let the mule into the paddock and then closed the barn doors so that she could decide what to do about Deakin. She thought that she’d load him into the cart and cover him up and then after dark hitch the mule up again, but that was easier said than done, for the animal wasn’t always easy to catch and even harder to put in the shafts. ‘As bad-tempered as his master,’ she muttered, ‘but I’ll have to do it. I’ll sweeten him with a carrot.’
She waited until her neighbour, with a last look about him, walked back to the gate, opened it and closed it behind him, and then she got on with the job in hand. She let down the tailboard of the cart and looked down at her late husband, and then touched his hand, just to be sure. Cold, she thought, and he’s not going to warm up. He’ll be heavy, a dead weight so to speak. Am I going to be able to lift him? She had often considered a plan for living without him, but hadn’t reckoned on having to dispose of him.
She wedged a box under the front wheels of the cart to keep it steady, put her hands beneath Deakin’s armpits and with a supreme effort pulled him to a sitting position. Then she bethought herself and felt in his pockets and brought out a bag filled with coins and a wad of paper money. She peered at it and saw the notes were white. Hah! Fivers or tenners; the greedy old miser, and me with never a penny to my name. What was he planning on doing with it? Not sharing it, that’s for certain. Mebbe getting rid of me? She stuffed the money bag in her skirt pocket, took a breath and pulled again, moving him nearer the cart so that he was lolling against it, but she had to keep her hand on him to stop him from falling over, then she grimaced as she saw the bullet wound in his chest.
‘It was quick,’ she muttered. ‘You didn’t feel a thing; you didn’t suffer, though you deserved to, you old devil.’
Another extreme effort and she managed to turn him over on to his knees and heave him half into the cart.
By the time she had hoisted Deakin fully into the cart and covered him with sacks and straw she was exhausted, her back and shoulders red hot with pain. She grumbled and grunted and decided to go inside, make a drink and plan what to do next.
She sat with a cup of strong sweet tea, for now she knew where there was plenty and she didn’t have to skimp with the leaves. She’d bring one of the tea boxes into the house for her future use. She sighed and considered and talked to herself as she so often
