Hope at Holly Cottage (13 page)

The forbidding buildings of Dartmoor Prison loomed out of the murk over to her right as she approached Princetown, making her feel even more depressed. The rain had penetrated right through her gaberdine and she was drenched and shivering. The few minutes she spent in the Post Office drawing out her savings gave her little respite, and then she crossed over the road and made her way towards the station. A group of ponies huddled forlornly against the wall, their coats striped with dark, wet streaks. Poor things. Well, at least
she
would soon be in the waiting room. Would she be glad to get there!

The little station looked so inviting, and Anna gratefully went to open the door. And then she noticed the blackboard propped against the wall, chalk half washed off in the rain.

N
O
T
RAINS
T
ODAY
. R
AIL
S
TRIKE
.

Anna stared at the sign in disbelief and her shoulders slumped. Oh, sod it. She’d read about the strikes in the
Tavistock Gazette
but hadn’t taken much notice. Oh well, she’d just have to take the bus down to Tavistock instead, and catch a bus from there to Plymouth if the mainline trains weren’t running either.

She went to pick up her case again. And then stopped. The Princetown bus ran on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
And today … was Wednesday. A tearing sigh fluttered at the back of her throat. It really wasn’t her day.

Come on. Pull yourself together. There was nothing else for it. She would have to walk to Tavistock. It was what, ten miles maybe? Not impossible, and she thought probably nearer than Yelverton, which was the alternative.

She could have wept as she retraced her steps from the station and began to traipse along the road past the prison and out the other side of Princetown. If anything, it was raining even more heavily now. Her coat hung in a sodden curtain around her knees, water trickling from the hood and down inside her blouse.

Her spirits died inside her as she stumbled forward, one foot placing itself instinctively in front of the other, her vision blurred by the tears that had finally come, running down her cheeks and mingling with the rain. If only her mother hadn’t fallen down the stairs. If only her father hadn’t been changed from the man he once was. If only Hitler hadn’t dropped that bomb.

She didn’t see the pothole. Her ankle corkscrewed beneath her, and the next second, she was lying in the road, pain searing up her leg. It took her a moment to gather her wits. If she didn’t get up, she could be run over, and so she scrambled painfully to her feet. It really hurt to put her weight on her ankle. Oh, God, this was all she needed.

Her chin quivered and a desperate sob broke from her lungs. She tried to brush away the tears from her face, but it was useless. Everything was so wet. She hobbled on, her soul shattered into a million pieces. She’d never make it.

She reached the junction at last and set off down the main Tavistock road. But it was just the beginning. Her ankle
throbbed, her little case now weighed a ton, every inch of her cried out in agony. She couldn’t go on. It was hopeless. She let herself sink down on the long, wet grass at the side of the road, put her head in her hands, and wept.

‘Oh, you poor girl. I sees you from my window, comin’ along the road, limpin’ an’ cryin’. You come on in to Queenie’s cott, cheel, afore you catches your death.’

Anna raised her head and peered through her wet eyelashes. With the rain battering all around her, she hadn’t heard the approach of footsteps and she was startled by the vision that had so suddenly appeared before her. She saw the muddy gumboots first, then the drab, shapeless skirt hanging over them, and finally the gnarled, wizened face that was looming over her, an old sack over the grey hair for protection. But what Anna noticed most were a pair of blue eyes so faded they were almost opal in colour, and yet as clear and bright as crystal.

The wrinkled face creased into a compassionate smile and the stranger picked up Anna’s little case, holding out her other hand to help Anna to her feet. Anna felt she couldn’t resist, as if she was under a spell. She stood up, and with the stranger’s help, hopped across the road. She was led through a gateway and along a stony lane between a bungalow and a stone wall. At the end, not that far from the road, stood
a small, single-storey cottage. Just then, the humble dwelling appeared to Anna like a palace.

The old lady paused in the tiny porchway to pull off her wellingtons and push her feet into some worn slippers. Anna bent to take off her own shoes, but the woman stopped her.

‘No, cheel. Let’s get you off your feet first.’ And with a beaming smile, she took Anna inside.

The front door had opened directly into what was obviously the kitchen-cum-living room. Anna had grown used to the absence of mains gas at Ashcroft Hall and cooking on the massive range instead, and here in this tiny cottage, the arrangements were much the same, but with a far smaller blackleaded stove. The heat it threw out on this cold and miserable summer’s day was, to Anna, like heaven.

‘Take your shoes off now, little maid, an’ get they wet clothes off an’ all. You’m soaked to the skin. I assumes you ’as a change of clothes in that there case? Dry yersel’ on this.’ She went to a hook on the wall, unwound a rope from it and let down a drying rack from the ceiling. The woman then took a towel from the rack and hoisted the thing back up. ‘I’ll leave you a few minutes to get changed,’ she went on, ‘an’ then us’ll ’ave a nice cup o’ tea to warm us up.’

Anna mumbled her thanks, still too overwhelmed to think clearly. But she was engulfed in relief to be out of the rain, and obediently did as the elderly woman had instructed. She peeled off her sodden garments, aware of the rain clattering on the roof, and she took in the rough plaster on the inside of the stone walls, and the window sill that must be two foot deep. It was truly a delightful little cottage, and already its happy atmosphere was soothing Anna’s wounded spirits.

‘Right, then.’

By the time the woman returned, Anna was clad in a complete set of dry clothes since the rain had gone right through to her bra and even her knickers. She watched her saviour lift one of the plate covers on the range and set an old brown kettle to boil. Then she turned to Anna with that lovely twinkling smile again.

‘You sit down an’ let Queenie look at your ankle. Just done it, ’ave we?’

‘Yes, in a pothole down the road. I didn’t notice it.’

‘Hmm.’

Queenie bent down with what seemed to Anna considerable ease for her age, and gently moved her foot this way and that. It was uncomfortable but bearable, and Anna waited for Queenie to straighten up.

‘Cold compress is what you needs on that. I’ll get you one while that old kettle boils.’

She disappeared once more through a door at the back, and Anna heard the swishing of water before she reappeared with a wet flannel which she arranged on Anna’s ankle and then kept in place by winding around it a bandage made of roughly torn-up sheeting. Within minutes, the pain began to ease.

‘Now, you put your foot up on this yere stool, an’ Queenie’ll make the tea. Milk and sugar?’

‘Just milk, no sugar, thank you.’

Anna was coming to her senses as the warmth of the room penetrated her goose-pimply flesh. What an odd situation, but what a stroke of luck that this Queenie had noticed her. Otherwise she didn’t know what she would have done.

‘This is all terribly kind of you,’ she said sincerely.

‘Well, couldn’t leave a little thing like you out in the rain like that, could I now? Besides, there be nort Queenie likes more than a visitor. Scone? Made them this morning, but there’ll be no customers in the tea room, not in this, so us might as well eat them ourselves.’

‘Tea room?’ Anna was astonished. How many other surprises did the old lady have up her sleeve?

‘I’d just brought in my sign when I looks out o’ my window an’ sees you. Cream teas I does. Only in the summer, mind. Queenie’s scones is quite famous wi’ folk coming up on the moor in their motor cars. There’s some as doesn’t ’old wi’ the likes o’ fureiners, but I says why shouldn’t everyone enjoy the moor?’

Anna was growing more intrigued, and her curiosity began to take her mind off her own problems. ‘Have you lived here all your life, then?’

‘I certainly ’as.’ Queenie’s eyes lit up with pride. ‘Born in that there bedroom,’ she said, nodding towards the door to one side of the range. ‘Youngest o’ ten chiller, me.’

‘Ten children? All brought up in this little cottage?’

Queenie bobbed her head. ‘I can mind a time when there were six on us sharing the other room. Three to a bed us was. But they’m all dead an’ gone now. Two died as babbies. Three brothers was killed in the war, an’ then two went to Canada. Broke my mother’s ’eart. Then my other sister marries an’ moves away up north somewheres, so it were just me an’ my brother Albert that stayed at ’ome. Vowed never to leave my parents, I did. An’ when they dies back along, it were just me an’ Albert. Stone mason ’e were. Never married. An’ when ’e dies, it were just Queenie left. Got nephews an’ nieces. Somewheres in the world, I s’ppose. But
I never ’ears from them.’ A sad shadow passed over her face to be replaced a second later by a jolly smile. ‘So this little place be my life. An’ all the visitors God sends to my door, so you’m more than welcome.’

Anna had been listening intently to Queenie’s tale. Evidently liked to talk, did Queenie, Anna could tell already! How tragic to lose one brother, never mind three, in the war. The First World War Anna realised she must mean. All that sadness, and yet to come through it all to such a sprightly old age, well, Queenie must be quite remarkable.

‘And I’m more than grateful. But,’ Anna hesitated, wondering if it was polite to ask, ‘you have a very unusual name, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

Queenie threw up her head with a merry chuckle. ‘’As you never come across it afore, cheel? Oh, my! Tidd’n my real name. I’s Victoria, really. After the queen.’

She raised an enquiring, impish eyebrow, and as the penny dropped, Anna joined in her laughter – when earlier that afternoon she had thought she might never laugh again. ‘Oh, I see!’

‘1893 I were born,’ Queenie nodded emphatically, ‘when old Victoria were still on the throne. Good times, they was. Afore the world went mad. So let’s ’ope things stay settled down again now.’

‘Yes. My friend’s boyfriend’s doing his National Service with the peacekeeping forces in Germany.’

‘An’ long may peace last. Now, then.’ Queenie put down her empty cup with a purposeful flourish. ‘What we’m going to do about you? Where was you going that were so urgent you needed to be dragging yersel’ through this weather an’ carrying a suitcase?’

Anna jolted upright in the chair. She had been so enjoying the conversation with this fascinating woman who seemed to exist in a different world that she had almost forgotten her own dire situation. To be reminded of it so bluntly was an unwanted shock.

‘I was trying to get to Plymouth,’ she answered evasively, ‘but I’d forgotten about the rail strike and didn’t realise there weren’t any trains running. And, of course, there aren’t any buses until Friday.’

‘You’d ’ave missed the last one even if there was. It’s gone five. So why couldn’t you stay where you was till Friday?’

Her bright, piercing eyes held Anna’s gaze with such intensity that Anna had to look away. And yet some instinct compelled her to reply. ‘I couldn’t,’ she mumbled, almost hoping Queenie wouldn’t hear. ‘Stay where I was, I mean.’

There was a short silence, and Anna felt all the misery bearing down on her again. But then she heard Queenie sigh softly. ‘Ah.’ There was another pause before she spoke again. ‘I cas’n imagine a nice, polite young girl like you ’aving to leave somewheres wi’out good reason. If you asks me, there’s a fellow involved. An’ … oh, my, there’s not a babby on the way an’ all?’

Anna blinked at her, horrified. How on earth had she guessed her terrible secret? All the pain and guilt of the last few weeks tumbled down around her. She had no strength to resist and broke down in tears, covering her face to hide her shame.

‘There, there, my lover. You ’ave a good cry.’

Suddenly Queenie was beside her, holding her, rocking her, and she buried her agony in the well-padded shoulder of
this eccentric woman she didn’t know from Adam, and yet she felt she had known all her life. She wept with wrenching sobs, washing away her despair until all that seemed left of her shattered dreams was an empty shell.

‘Now, then,’ she heard Queenie’s voice as her tears began to subside. ‘You can tell me all about it or not, as you wants. But one thing’s certain. You’m not going nowheres today on that ankle. Besides, your clothes’ll take some time to dry, an’ you needs to keep that foot up. So, for tonight at least, you stays yere wi’ Queenie. You can ’ave Albert’s old room. I’ll air some sheets by the stove, so you’ll be quite comfy.’

Anna sat up, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand and sniffing. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly. You’ve already been so kind.’

‘Strikes me there be no alternative. Anyways, I’ll be glad o’ the company. Now I keeps an ’otpot always going. Best thing when you ’as to keep a range alight all the time. An’ mortal useful on a day like this. Can be killing on an ’ot summer’s day, mind. But I’ll need to add some carrots an’ teddies. So if I goes an’ digs a few up, p’r’aps you’ll sit there an’ peel them for us.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Anna felt herself once again swept up in the whirlwind that was Queenie – Queenie what, she wondered? She felt dazed, but infinitely calm as all her emotion was spent and all that remained were the bare facts. As she sat, alone again for a few minutes, it all seemed quite simple. She was pregnant. And the father wasn’t going to help her, so she would have to help herself.

‘There now.’

Queenie was back with the carrots and potatoes, and while Anna peeled them on her lap, the old woman busied herself with hanging Anna’s clothes to dry on the rack. And she wasn’t so old at all, Anna calculated as Queenie chatted away. If she was born in 1893, that only made her sixty-two. No wonder she was so agile. It was her wrinkled skin that made her look so much older. Result of living an outdoor life in such an exposed location, Anna supposed.

‘Do you grow all your own produce?’ she asked as the woman stoked up the range firebox and added more coal.

Queenie shut the cast iron door and turned round with a proud grin. ‘I certainly does. An’ there’s a couple of apple trees and a plum out the back an’ all. An’ I grows lettuces an’ other salad stuff in the cold frames. Larnt it all from my dad. Used the manure from the peg an’ the cow, us did. Only got ’ens an’ the goats now, so makes my own compost from peelings an’ things these days. Only got mesel’ to feed now, though, you sees.’

‘You keep goats and hens?’

‘I does. That were goats’ milk in your tea. An’ I makes goats’ cheese. Only dairy stuff I buys is butter an’ cream. For the tea room mainly. Makes a little bit from that, I does, to top up my little pension. An’ a small income from my savings, I ’as. In’erited everything from my parents an’ Albert, see. So Queenie ’as everything she wants. Peppercorn rent I pays on this, ’cuz no one else’d want it. Not nowadays.’

‘Oh, I think it’s perfect,’ Anna protested. ‘It’s so peaceful.’

‘What? With the rain beating on that old tin roof? Drives you mad, oft times. But I’d never ’ave it any other way.’

She spoke with a passionate contentment that somehow
filtered through to Anna’s spirits like a healing balm. At that moment, she was so envious of Queenie’s peace of mind, even if her lot was a simple one. She was about to find out how simple!

‘Excuse me, Queenie, but please may I use the lavatory?’

She saw the happy smile slip from Queenie’s face. ‘Ah, well,’ she faltered, ‘that won’t be what you’m used to, I’ll be bound. An earth closet in the shed is what I ’as. But us cas’n ’ave you going back out in the rain. So if you just pops in the bedroom, you’ll find a po under the bed. Use that, an’ us can empty it later. An’ you’ll be wanting to wash your ’ands arter. You can do that in the scullery. There be water already in the bowl.’

‘Thank you,’ Anna smiled back, although she wasn’t at all sure about these arrangements! She limped into the room that was going to be her home for the night, on the opposite side of the kitchen from Queenie’s. It was painted white with a little cast iron fireplace, blue gingham curtains at the window and what Anna recognised as a rag rug on the flagstone floor. Anna found the chamber pot under the iron bedstead and was grateful to use it, although pushing it back under the bed went against the grain.

Back in the kitchen, Queenie looked up with a smile as Anna hobbled out to the scullery. As Queenie had said, there was already some water in an enamel bowl in an old stone sink. In fact, it was more like a trough, and instead of a plughole, there seemed to be a little hole going straight out through the wall on a sort of stone spout. And there was something else missing, as well!

‘All right, cheel?’

Anna returned Queenie’s smile as she came back into the
kitchen and sat down again in the old chair. ‘Yes, thank you. But,’ she began curiously, ‘I couldn’t see a tap in the scullery.’

‘That’s ’cuz there bain’t one. It’s outside. Mod con, that. Used to draw water from the well, back along. But then they puts in a pipe an’ now us just turns on the tap.’

Anna nodded dubiously. Mod con? Hardly. But she could hardly say so to Queenie. An earth closet – whatever that was – no gas, no electricity that she could see and the only running water from an outside tap. It was unbelievable, and yet Queenie’s blithe serenity shone from her in a golden aura.