Enbury Heath by Stella Gibbons

Author:Stella Gibbons [Gibbons, Stella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473590472
Publisher: Random House

CHAPTER XII

A period of happiness and apparent prosperity now set in for the inhabitants of the cottage. It may be compared to that burst of radiant hot weather which precedes a thunderstorm.

‘The Racket’ was produced, and was such a success that even the gloomiest persons predicted that it would run through the summer slump until next Christmas. Sophia earned four guineas by writing a series of articles on ‘Canadian Landmarks in London’ for the C.N.A., and another half-guinea for a poem which she sent to a weekly paper. This was the first poem she had had published. The sight of it in print with her name at the bottom gave her so much joy that for days she thought about little else. Francis liked his job at Graby & Bryant’s and seemed to be giving satisfaction to his superiors. Rent and wages and the bill for the milk were paid at once; and the land flowed with sausages, new gramophone records and fresh flowers.

Sophia’s housekeeping methods were simple. She bought, strictly paying cash, as much food as everybody could possibly want, and cooked it. Then, whenever anyone was hungry, they could go to the larder and pick. She bought no tinned food except baked beans (they all liked baked beans heated in milk and put on buttered toast) and she never had time to learn how to make pastry, but she brought the making of stews to a fine art, putting big prunes, herbs, and cheap wine into the pot until the stews smelt paradisal and tasted ambrosial. The cottage may be said to have lived on stew, baked beans, sausages, oranges and China tea. Harry often asked for a joint on Sundays, but here Sophia struck. She liked a little peace and solitude on Sundays and she told Harry that he only wanted a joint because respectable people had joints. He could go without or cook it himself. Harry thereupon did cook a leg of mutton, so beautifully, so reverently and naturally, that he was at once established as a master. Sophia went on doing the ordinary cooking, but that was different. Whenever they had a Sunday joint, Harry cooked it.

As there was always music, much to eat, bustling gaiety or restful indolence in the cottage, it was natural that people should like going there. People popped in. They were put up on the sofa. They slept on mattresses in front of the fire. They overflowed into Celia’s house, fifteen minutes away across the Heath, and exchanged stew and China tea for Lyons’ cakes and grilled steak at half past ten in the morning. Nobody over twenty-five came near the cottage to point out that this way of living was shapeless, extravagant, and queer, and so everyone had a perfectly lovely time; even Sophia, who would sometimes have liked just a little more time to herself, and a pause in the flow of huge, majestic meals.

She had succeeded in keeping the relatives at bay, even though the three had

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