‘Oh no, we could never put anyone to so much trouble. It would be too absurd. No, tomorrow we shall have found our feet.’
But tomorrow when it came was a different kind of day, because with something that disagreed with him in his stomach Sir Giles died in the night. His heart was taxed by sharp little spasms of pain and in the end they were too much for it.
‘We’re going to see to you for a bit,’ Mrs Dankers said after the funeral. ‘We’ll pop you in your room, dear, and Cronin shall attend to all your needs. You can’t be left to suffer your loss alone; you’ve been so kind to us.’
Lady Marston moved her head up and down. The funeral had been rather much for her. Mrs Dankers led her by the arm to her room.
‘Well,’ said Dankers, speaking to Cronin with whom he was left, ‘so that’s that.’
‘I was his servant for forty-eight years, sir.’
‘Indeed, indeed. And you have Lady Marston, to whom you may devote your whole attention. Meals in her room, Cronin, and pause now and then for the occasional chat. The old lady’ll be lonely.’
‘I’ll be lonely myself, sir.’
‘Indeed. Then all the more reason to be good company. And you, more than I, understand the business of being elderly. You know by instinct what to say, how best to seem soothing.’
‘Your car is repaired, sir? At least it moved today. You’ll be on your way? Shall I pack some sandwiches?’
‘Come, come, Cronin, how could we leave two lonely people so easily in the lurch? Chance has sent us to your side in this hour of need: we’ll stay to do what we can. Besides, there are Sir Giles’s wishes.’
What’s this? thought Cronin, examining the eyes of the man who had come in the night and had stayed to see his master buried. They were eyes he would not care to possess himself, for fear of what went with them. He said:
‘His wishes, sir?’
‘That his orchard should again be put in use. The trees repaired and pruned. The fruit sold for its true value. An old man’s dying wish won’t go unheeded.’
‘But, sir, there’s so much work in it. The trees run into many hundreds –’
‘Quite right, Cronin. That’s observant of you. Many men are needed to straighten the confusion and waste. There’s much to do.’
‘Sir Giles wished this, sir?’ said Cronin, playing a part, knowing that Sir Giles could never have passed on to Dankers his dying wish. ‘It’s unlike him, sir, to think about his orchard. He watched it failing.’
‘He wished it, Cronin. He wished it, and a great deal else. You who have seen some changes in your time are in for a couple more. And now, my lad, a glass of that good brandy would not go down amiss. At a time like this one must try to keep one’s spirits up.’
Dankers sat by the fire in the drawing-room, sipping his brandy and writing industriously in a notebook. He was shortly joined by his wife, to whom he handed from time to time a leaf from this book so that she might share his plans. When midnight had passed they rose and walked through the house, measuring the rooms with a practised eye and noting their details on paper. They examined the kitchens and outhouses, and in the moonlight they walked the length of the gardens. Cronin watched them, peeping at them in all their activity.
‘There’s a pretty little room next to Cronin’s that is so much sunnier,’ Mrs Dankers said. ‘Cosier and warmer, dear. We’ll have your things moved there, I think. This one is dreary with memories. And you and Cronin will be company for one another.’
Lady Marston nodded, then changing her mind said: ‘I like this room. It’s big and beautiful and with a view. I’ve become used to it.’
‘Now, now, my dear, we mustn’t be morbid, must we? And we don’t always quite know what’s best. It’s good to be happy, dear, and you’ll be happier there.’
‘I’ll be happier, Mrs Dankers? Happier away from all my odds and ends, and Giles’s too?’
‘My dear, we’ll move them with you. Come, now, look on the bright side. There’s the future too, as well as the past.’
Cronin came, and the things were moved. Not quite everything though, because the bed and the wardrobe and the heavy dressing-table would not fit into the new setting.
In the orchard half a dozen men set about creating order out of chaos. The trees were trimmed and then treated, paths restored, broken walls rebuilt. The sheds were cleared and filled with fruit-boxes in readiness for next year’s harvest.
‘There’s a wickedness here,’ Cronin reported to Lady Marston. ‘There’s a cook in the kitchen, and a man who waits on them. My only task, they tell me, is to carry your food and keep your room in order.’
‘And to see to yourself, Cronin, to take it easy and to watch your rheumatics. Fetch a pack of cards.’
Cronin recalled the house as it once had been, a place that was lively with weekend guests and was regularly wallpapered. Then there had come the years of decline and the drifting towards decay, and now there was a liveliness of a different order; while the days passed by, the liveliness established itself like a season. Mrs Dankers bustled from room to room, in tune with the altered world. Dankers said: ‘It’s good to see you seeming so sprightly, Cronin. The weather suits you, eh? And now that we’ve made these few little changes life is easier, I think.’ Cronin replied that it was certainly true that he had less to do. ‘So you should have less to do,’ said Dankers. ‘Face the facts: you cannot hope to undertake a young chap’s work.’ He smiled, to release the remark of its barb.
Cronin was worried about the passive attitude of Lady Marston. She had gone like a lamb to the small room, which now served as her sitting-room and bedroom combined. She had not stirred from the top of the house since the day of the move; she knew nothing save what he told her of all that was happening.
‘The builders are here,’ he had said; but quite often, midway through a game of cards, she would pause with her head a little to one side, listening to the distant sound of hammering. ‘It is the noise of the builders,’ he would remind her; and she would place a card on the table and say: ‘I did not know that Sir Giles had ordered the
