get even a thin film of dust. And then, since the typewriter was still being pounded without pause, she went silently in with coffee. Without looking up, Mr Trentham said: ‘Open the post for me, Sadie, will you? Do it here.’
She thought of her own coffee cooling in the kitchen and picked up a paper knife on the desk. There were nine letters. Three of them were in handwriting and began Dear Oliver, and she laid them on top of the others—bills and what appeared to be business letters. Having done so she made silently for the door, to be stopped by Mr Trentham’s voice.
‘Where’s your coffee?’
‘In the kitchen.’ She put a hand on the door knob.
‘Fetch it and come back here, I want to have a talk with you.’ He sounded so noncommittal that she guessed that he was going to tell her that she must go. And where to? she asked herself, rejoining him, her tranquil face showing nothing of the panic she was in.
‘Mr Banks was quite right,’ he began. ‘He described you as a sensible countrywoman, and it seems to me you are. What my mother would have called an old head on young shoulders…I think we may suit each other very well, Sadie, but several adjustments must be made. We’ll take our meals together—it’s ridiculous that you should eat in the kitchen of your own home. You will share the sitting room as you wish, all I ask is that I should be left to myself in this room. You will refrain from lugging logs and coals into the house, I’ll do that each morning or if you prefer, each night. And you’re not to wear that depressing overall. We’ll go to Bridport and purchase something more in keeping with your age. What is your age, by the way?’
‘I’m twenty-three.’
He nodded. ‘There are things to be done to the cottage. It needs a new thatch, I need a garage; a shower room would be useful. I’ve already arranged for a telephone to be installed, and someone should be here later today to install television.’ He searched in his pockets and pulled out a cheque book. ‘Here’s housekeeping money until the end of the month, after that you’ll be paid it on the first of each month.’ He started on another cheque. ‘And here’s a week’s salary in advance. You’ll get a month’s money at the same time as the housekeeping.’
He pushed the cheques towards her and she picked them up in a daze.
‘All that, just for housekeeping?’ she wanted to know.
‘I like good food—good plain food, well cooked. I abhor things in tins and packets and frozen peas.’
‘Well, there isn’t a freezer,’ she explained, ‘and I hardly ever buy things in tins because they’re too expensive.’
He smiled at her and her heart lurched. ‘Splendid!’ He gave her an encouraging nod and thought how beautiful her eyes were in her plain little face. There was nothing about her to distract him from his work. ‘The tradespeople call?’ he wanted to know.
‘Yes, and Mrs Beamish has almost all the groceries we need. I get eggs from someone in the village and I’ve ordered some more logs from a farm near by—they’ve cut down some trees and we can buy the awkward logs that won’t sell easily.’
‘Yes.’ He sounded a little impatient and she got up, put the coffee cups on the tray.
‘I’ll be in the garden if you want me for anything, Mr Trentham. What would you like for lunch?’
He had picked up a sheaf of papers and was frowning over them. ‘Oh, anything—we’ll eat this evening.’
There was plenty of soup left over from the previous day and a mackerel pâté she had made; toast wouldn’t take an instant and she could make a Welsh rarebit in no time at all. She got into her wellies and the old mac and went into the garden to cut a cabbage.
At one o’clock precisely she put her head round the door to say that lunch was about to be put on the table, and found him sitting back with a drink in his hand. He got up and followed her into the kitchen and watched while she ladled the soup and then carried the tray for her.
Beyond stating that he seldom stopped for a meal when he was working, he had nothing to say, but Sadie noticed that every drop of soup was eaten and when she replaced that with Welsh rarebit, he ate that too—moreover, the pâté followed it. It was obvious to her that he hadn’t been eating properly. Well, the housekeeping money he had given her was more than enough to buy the best of everything.
She put his coffee on the table by the fire and went away to wash up. He had insisted that she should take her meals with him, but that didn’t mean that she was to bear him company at any other time. She tidied the kitchen, told him that she would be going out for an hour and would be back in good time to get his tea, and wrapped up in her old coat, walked down to the village. Mr Trentham wanted papers to be delivered each morning and they needed to be ordered. She paused outside the gate to look at the car: an Aston Martin Volante. It looked a nice car, she considered, and beautifully upholstered inside, and she remembered vaguely that it was expensive. It was a shame to keep it out in the cold and damp of November, the sooner Mr Trentham had a garage built the better.
The newspapers were ordered from Mrs Beamish and that entailed a brief gossip about the cottage’s owner. Everyone in the village seemed to have seen him driving through and there was a good deal of speculation about him. Sadie was forced to admit that she knew next to nothing about him and wasn’t likely to.
When she got back there was a van parked behind the car and a man on the roof fixing an aerial and another man inside installing the TV. Sadie went into the kitchen where Tom was drowsing by the stove, laid a tray for tea and made two mugs and carried them out to the men. Judging by the impatient voice coming from the dining room, Mr Trentham was being disturbed in his work and wasn’t best pleased. She smoothed them down, poured them second mugs and gave them a pound from the housekeeping. When they had gone Mr Trentham summoned her into the dining room, where he was sitting at his desk; there were screwed-up balls of paper all over the floor and he looked in a bad temper. ‘How can I work with all that noise?’ he demanded of her.
‘You arranged for the television to be brought,’ she reminded him mildly. ‘They’ve finished and gone, and since you’re not working for the moment I’ll make the tea.’
The ill humour left his face and he smiled at her. ‘You’re not at all like a housekeeper—I have one at my Highgate home and she spends her days running away from me.’
‘Whatever for?’ asked Sadie matter-of-factly. ‘Would you like your tea on a tray here?’
‘No, I would not. I’ll have it with you.’
And later over his second cup of tea and third slice of cake, he observed: ‘I shall get fat.’
‘You can always go for a walk,’ she suggested diffidently. ‘The countryside is pretty and once you’re out you don’t notice the weather.’
‘I’ve too much work to do.’ He sounded impatient again, so she held her tongue and when he had finished, cleared away with no noise at all, and presently, in the kitchen peeling potatoes, she heard the typewriter once more.
The next morning he drove her into Bridport and much to her astonishment stalked into the biggest dress shop there and stood over her while she chose some overalls. Money, it seemed, was no object. The cheaper ones she picked out were cast aside and she was told with what she recognised as deceptive mildness to get something pretty. Taking care not to look at the price tickets, she chose three smocks in cheerful coloured linen and watched him pay for them without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow.
It was two days later when the washing machine arrived, and she had barely got over her delighted surprise at that when someone came to install the telephone with an extension in the dining room so that Mr Trentham could use it without having to move from his desk. It was becoming increasingly apparent to her that his work was very important to him; he made desultory conversation during their meals together and he regarded her with a kind of lazy good humour, but for the rest she was a cog in smooth-running machinery which engineered his comfort.
At