An Inventory of Heaven by Jane Feaver

Author:Jane Feaver
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780330235
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

15

Take a Letter (any letter)

I hadn’t specified to anyone the length of my stay and tactfully no one asked, making the assumption perhaps, as I did, that it was as long as it was long.

‘Tsk, tsk,’ was Auntie’s habitual greeting as I let myself in, Daddy’s failure of duty towards me only another in the roll of failures that she felt extended from her side of the family. She hardly moved from her chair these days, yet she was curiously up-to-date. Father had treated my mother abominably, she said. Only bounders and ruffians behaved like that. She considered my decision to return to Devon to be a moral repudiation of him, the whole family, and therefore – Hallelujah – a good thing. She leapt to Ernest’s anchor cuff links, grasped them in her fist. And it was disgraceful, she said, when she discovered for the fifteenth time of asking, that I was still living at the pub. Surely his allowance would stretch to more than that?

I divided my time almost equally between the kitchen at the Seven Stars and Auntie’s front room. Through Joyce, I was soon abreast with developments in the village. After her daughter Sandy got married, she’d moved to Buckleigh, where she was working in the post office, as if waiting for a parcel of babies to arrive. Victor, on the other hand, with no qualifications to speak of, was still living at home. But he wasn’t doing badly for himself. Old Mr Upcott had taken him on at harvest times, and after he passed on, there was work enough to keep Victor down there permanently.

‘Turns out he’s a perfectly good herdsman,’ Joyce said. ‘So there’s no favours there.’

‘When did he die?’ I asked. ‘Mr Upcott.’

‘Oh, a couple of years ago, now. Heart attack it was.’

‘How are the rest of them?’ I asked, giving the question hardly any weight.

‘Oh, much the same,’ Joyce replied. ‘Airs and graces. Nothing’s changed there.’

‘Joyce!’ It was Mrs McManus, who followed her voice through into the kitchen. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘there you are.’ She tipped her head in my direction, and said, over-politely, ‘If you’ll excuse us? Joyce: can we look at the menus?’

I got to my feet, ready to go back up to my room.

‘Mavis was telling me about her office’, Joyce said, as if she needed to explain, ‘in London. I was hoping I could pick up a few tips.’

Mrs McManus had a smile like an elastic band. ‘Of course, I’d quite forgotten that you’d worked. You must find it dull with us, I’m sure you do.’

It was true that after nearly eight years at Stapleton’s I had become accustomed to a routine and used to being kept busy. After a week or two, twiddling my thumbs, I knew that if I was going to stay on in Shipleigh in any permanent way, I would have to find myself something to do. It was hopeless trying to get Auntie to let me help her with the house. She was too

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.