The Silence in the Garden by William Trevor

Author:William Trevor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

6. Visitors on the Island

Tom delighted in the kitchen’s turmoil. He kept out of the way, but was allowed to be in the kitchen or its vicinity in case there were errands to be run or a task which might be allocated to him. The house—until recently a wonder to him—became familiar that summer. He carried to the hot-press beside the first-floor bathroom the tins of meringues and brandysnaps and wafer biscuits that had been made. He peeped into rooms when the doors were open—the drawing-room and the dining-room, the breakfast room where the fire smoked, the small study. No one ever asked him where he was going or what he was doing when someone else had commissioned a chore; he did not speak unless he was addressed, which was not often; he felt he was not noticed.

In the sculleries he was allowed to assist Patty and Mrs Haverty with the washing and drying of china that Mrs Haverty said hadn’t been used for years, to judge from the dust on it. He told Patty about the time the cloths hanging above the range had caught fire, and how a storm had blown the slates off the gate-lodge and Haverty had to climb up and replace them. Once a man had come over on the ferry to repair the banister-rail, and he’d knocked at the gate-lodge door to ask if he was in the right place. ‘Show him the way up the avenue,’ Tom’s mother had said, which was the first time Tom had ever done anything like that. Five he was then.

For her part, Patty said, if she’d mended one tablecloth she’d mended forty, and confided to Tom that she was exhausted. The wedding lunch was to be laid out on what would seem to be a single long table when it was disguised by the tablecloths, with baize beneath them. Haverty had already arranged the trestles on the lawn bordered by delphinium beds, which was conveniently close to the dining-room French windows. Chairs had been brought from all over the house, some of them by Tom. ‘Would you marry that fellow?’ Patty whispered in the sculleries, I wouldn’t if he’d won the Sweep.’

Spread out on the kitchen table, silver was cleaned—teapots and trays, cutlery, jugs and gravy boats, embossed napkin-rings, fish knives worn so thin they were almost sharp. In the yard Mrs Haverty beat rugs and carpets. The sideboard door in the dining-room was repaired, a blocked-up lavatory seen to. There was concern about what would happen if the fish went off in the heat, and Tom’s mother said there’d always be the ham to fall back on. Mrs Haverty agreed to kill a few chickens.

Then the first of the visitors arrived. Tom waited with Haverty at the pier, and a man and a woman stepped off the ferryboat and the ferryman handed their suitcases to Haverty. The visitors tool-their places in the trap. Tom led the horse as Haverty had instructed him, Haverty himself following with the luggage in a cart.

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