(18/20) Changes at Fairacre by Read Miss

Author:Read, Miss [Read, Miss]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Country life, Fairacre (England : Imaginary Place), Autobiographical Fiction, Country Life - England, Fairacre (England: Imaginary Place)
ISBN: 9780618154579
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 1991-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Mary Linkenhorn turned out to be a middle-aged, cheerful woman with absolutely nothing in her appearance to connect her with Dolly Clare.

She was beautifully dressed with many fine rings and a three-row string of pearls. Her expensive crocodile shoes had high heels and matched an enormous handbag. I felt that she was perhaps a little too exquisitely turned out for a morning visit to a cottage where possibly Wayne Richards's employees were messing about with plaster and emulsion paint. However, I liked her at once. She was friendly and unaffected, and obviously delighted to be going to see Dolly's house. She chattered about her early memories of the place, and of her affection for her Aunt Dolly.

'My mother, I'm sorry to say, rather looked down on her, you know. She was a bit of a social climber, my mother, I mean, and she felt that she couldn't invite Dolly to meet some of her affluent Caxley friends.'

'Dolly Clare,' I said, 'would have been welcomed in any society.'

'I agree, but mother didn't think so. To tell the truth, my brother and I fell out with her when we were old enough to leave home. We visited her, of course, and always kept in touch by letters when we left England, but there wasn't much love lost. She was a headstrong woman, and we were better apart.'

'What happened to your brother?'

'He went sheep farming in New Zealand, and did very well, but he contracted cancer some three years ago, and died last Christmas.'

We drew in to the side of the lane outside Dolly's cottage, and I switched off the engine.

Mary sat, silently gazing at the little thatched house. I was rather relieved to see that no builders were at work this morning. We should have the house to ourselves.

It was very quiet in the lane, and we were both content to sit there in silence. A lark was singing overhead, high above the great whale-back of the downs behind the village. A young pheasant crossed the road a few yards from the car, stepping haughtily from one grass verge to the other, and ignoring a small animal, shrew or vole, which streaked across the road within yards of the bird. There was a fragrance in the air compounded of cut grass, wild flowers and, above all, the pungent scent of a nearby elder bush heavy with creamy flowers.

Mary broke the silence first.

'It's so small,' she said.

'Actually,' I told her, 'it has been enlarged since your time. Dolly had the sitting-room made wider, and the kitchen too. But I agree, it is a little house. I think that's why I like it so much.'

We climbed out of the car, and I unlocked the front door. The familiar smell greeted me of ancient wood, slight dampness, and the faint smell of dried lavender which Dolly had never failed to keep in china bowls in each room.

The furniture remained much as Dolly had left it. Some if it would have to go later to the Caxley auctioneers; I had removed anything portable of value to my school house for safety.

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