house every day except Sunday, and her husband would work in the garden. Ralphie repeated most earnestly that he’d told me this before, that he’d quite often mentioned the Stritches, and had asked my opinion of them. I knew he was mistaken, but I didn’t want to say so. Ralphie had a lot on his mind, buying the Fryes’ land and negotiating to buy Mrs Laze’s, and wondering how to go about buying my mother’s. He didn’t know much about farming, but he was keenly endeavouring to learn. All of it took time: he couldn’t be blamed if he made little mistakes about what he’d said to me and what he hadn’t.
‘You see, it’s awkward, Ralphie,’ I explained again one night at supper, smiling at him. ‘Belle Frye and I said terrible things to her.’
‘Oh, Mrs Stritch’ll have forgotten’. Darling, it’s donkeys’ years ago.’
For some reason I didn’t like him using that endearment, especially when he put the word at the beginning of a sentence, as he often for some reason did. I don’t know why I objected so much to that. It was how it sounded, I think, a sort of casualness that seemed out of place in the house. There was another thing: he had a way of turning the pages of a newspaper, one page and then another, until finally he pored over the obituaries and the little advertisements. I didn’t like the way he did that. And I didn’t like the way he sometimes drummed the surface of a table with one hand when he was thinking, as if playing the piano. Another thing was, he wore leather gaiters.
‘It’s just that it’s embarrassing for me,’ I said, still smiling. ‘Having her around.’
He ate beetroot and a sardine salad I had prepared because he’d told me he liked sardines. I’d made him wait that morning in the car while I went into a shop and bought several tins. I wouldn’t let him see what they were, wanting it to be a surprise. He said:
‘Actually, Mrs Stritch is very nice. And he’s doing wonders with the garden.’
‘We called her terrible names. She’ be hanging out her washing or something and we’d deliberately raise our voices. “Worst temper in Dorset,” Belle would say and then we’d giggle. “Driven her husband to drink,” I’d say. “Mrs Stritch is a – very nice lady,” we used to call out in singsong voices.’
‘All children call people names.’
‘Oh, Betty would never have let me do that. Going home from school with Betty and Dick was different. But then they left, you see. They left the Grammar when Belle and I were just finishing at Miss Pritchard’s, the same time that –’
‘Darling, the Stritches have to be here. We have to have help.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, Ralphie.’
‘Do what?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t begin a sentence like that.’
He frowned at my smile, not understanding what was in my mind even though he was an understanding person. He didn’t understand when I explained that I could manage the house on my own, that I didn’t need Mrs Stritch in the way. I explained to him that Mrs Stritch had once taken a pair of gloves from Blow’s. ‘Please let’s try it,’ he said, and of course I didn’t want to be difficult. I wanted him to see that I was prepared to try what he wished to try.
‘Yes,’ I said, smiling at him.
Like a black shadow she was in the drawing-room. She leaned back in her chair, one hand stretched out to the round table in front of her. It was just a memory, not the ghost of Mrs Ashburton, nothing like that. But the memory would have been better if Mrs Stritch hadn’t always been around when Ralphie wasn’t. Ralphie would go off every morning in his gaiters, and then Mrs Stritch would arrive. She would dust and clean and carry buckets of soapy water about the house. Her husband would come to the kitchen to have lunch with her, and Ralphie and I would have lunch in the dining-room. All afternoon I’d continue to be aware of her in the house, making little noises as she did her work. When it was time for her to go Ralphie would be back again.
‘We’re buying the Lazes’ land,’ he said one evening, crossing the drawing-room and pouring some whisky for himself from a decanter. I could see that he was delighted. ‘I think your mother’ll want to sell too,’ he said.
I knew she would. Joe and Arthur were getting old, my stepfather was always saying the day would come. He’d no interest in the farm himself, and my mother would be glad not to have the responsibility.
‘But you’ll let the Lazes stay on in the farmhouse?’ I said, because it worried me that they should have to move away.
He shook his head. He said they didn’t want to. They wanted to go and live nearer the town, like the Fryes did.
‘The Fryes? But the Fryes don’t want to move away. You said they were going to farm a couple of acres –’
‘They’ve changed their minds.’
I didn’t smile at him any more because I didn’t like what he was saying. He’d explained quite clearly that the Fryes would stay in the farmhouse, and that the Lazes could if they wanted to. He had reassured me about that. Yet he said now:
‘You wanted the estate to be all together again, Matilda.’
‘I didn’t want people driven off, Ralphie. Not the Fryes and the Lazes. And what about my mother? Will she go also?’
‘It’ll be your mother’s choice, Matilda. As it was theirs.’
‘You’ve bought them all out. You promised me one thing and –’
‘We need the housing for our own men.’
I felt deceived. I imagined a discussion between Ralphie and the man he’d hired to look after the estate, a cold-faced man called Epstone. I imagined Epstone saying that if you were going to do the thing, do it properly, offer them enough and they’ll go. I imagined a discussion between Ralphie and his father, Ralphie asking if he could have another loan in order to plan his estate correctly, and his father agreeing.
‘Well, I dare say,’ I said to Ralphie, smiling at him again, determined not to be cross.
