The Caxley Chronicles by Miss Read

Author:Miss Read [Miss Read]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Lying in warm water, he ran an appraising eye round the bathroom and mused upon his good fortune. At this time last year he had been living at Rose Lodge, a mile away on the hill south of Caxley, with his mother and grandmother North. It had been his home for seven or eight years, and he had, he supposed, been reasonably happy there in the company of the two women. But these last few months of bachelor independence made him realise the restrictions which he had suffered earlier. Now there was no one to question his comings and goings. If he cared to stay out until two in the morning, there was no waiting tray, complete with hot chocolate in a vacuum flask, to reproach him. No parental note reminded him to bolt the door and switch off the landing light. It wasn't that he didn't love them, poor dear old things, thought Edward indulgently as he added more hot water to his bath, but simply that he had outgrown them.

'God bless Grandpa Howard!' said Edward aloud, as he sank back again.

It was good to be living in Caxley market square where his grandparents on both sides had built up their businesses. Here, in this house, of which he was now the proud owner, Bender North and his wife Hilda had lived for many years over their ironmongery shop. Edward could see his grandfather clearly now, in his mind's eye, a vast figure in a brown coat overall striding among the coal scuttles and patty pans, the spades and milking pails, which jostled together beneath the pairs of hob-nailed boots and hurricane lamps that swung from the ceiling above him. Soon afterwards, Bender and his wife had moved to Rose Lodge—a far more genteel address to Hilda's mind—and the glories of the great drawing room over the shop were no more. But Winnie, Edward's mother, and his Uncle Bertie North had described the red plush furniture, the plethora of ornaments and the floral arrangements of dried grasses and sea-lavender, with such vivid detail, that he felt quite familiar with the Edwardian splendour which had now vanished.

He knew, equally well, the sad story of the decline of Bender's business. It had been bought by a larger firm in the town and, later still, his grandfather Septimus Howard had taken it over. Sep still lived in the market square above his thriving bakery. The whole of the ground floor at North's he had transformed into a restaurant, almost ten years ago. It was, according to Caxley gossip, 'an absolute gold-mine', but there were few who grudged Sep Howard his success. Hardworking, modest, a pillar of the local chapel, and a councillor, the little baker's worth was appreciated by his fellow townsmen.

The business was to go to his son Robert, already a vigorous partner, when Sep could carry on no longer. Sep was now, in the early summer of 1939, a spry seventy-three, and there was no sign of his relinquishing his hold on family affairs.

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