‘Clearly,’ Dankers remarked at lunch, ‘we’re not in training. Or perhaps it was the fascination of your magnificent orchard.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t walk to the village?’ Sir Giles inquired, a trifle impatiently.
‘Forgive these city folk,’ cried Dankers loudly. ‘Quite frankly, we got no distance at all.’
‘What are you to do then? Shall you try again this afternoon? There are, of course, various houses on the route. One of them may have a telephone.’
‘Your orchard has greatly excited us. I’ve never seen such trees.’
‘They’re the finest in England.’
‘A pity,’ said Mrs Dankers, nibbling at fish on a fork, ‘to see it in such rack and ruin.’
Dankers blew upwards into his moustache and ended the activity with a smile. ‘It is worth some money, that orchard,’ he said.
Sir Giles eyed him coolly. ‘Yes, sir; it is worth some money. But time is passing and we are wasting it in conversation. You must see to the affair of your motor-car.’
The storm had brought the apples down. They lay in their thousands in the long grass, damp and glistening, like immense, unusual jewels in the afternoon sun. The Dankerses examined them closely, strolling through the orchard, noting the various trees and assessing their yield. For the purpose they had fetched Wellington boots from their car and had covered themselves in waterproof coats of an opaque plastic material. They did not speak, but occasionally, coming across a tree that pleased them, they nodded.
‘A lot could be done, you know,’ Dankers explained at dinner. ‘It is a great orchard and in a mere matter of weeks it could be set on the road to profit and glory.’
‘It has had its glory,’ replied Sir Giles, ‘and probably its profit too. Now it must accept its fate. I cannot keep it up.’
‘Oh, it’s a shame! A terrible shame to see it as it is. Why, you could make a fortune, Sir Giles.’
‘You didn’t get to the village?’ Lady Marston asked.
‘We could not pass the orchard!’
‘Which means,’ Sir Giles said, ‘that you’ll be with us for another night.’
‘Could you bear it?’ Mrs Dankers smiled a thin smile. ‘Could you bear to have us all over again?’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Lady Marston. ‘Perhaps tomorrow you’ll feel a little stronger. I understand your lethargy. It’s natural after an unpleasant experience.’
‘They have been through neither flood nor fire,’ her husband reminded her. ‘And the village will be no nearer tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps,’ Dankers began gently, ‘the postman will call in the morning –’
‘We have no living relatives,’ Sir Giles cut in, ‘and most of our friends are gone. The circulars come once a month or so.’
‘The groceries then?’
‘I have inquired of Cronin about the groceries. They came yesterday. They will come again next week.’
‘The daily milk is left at the foot of the avenue. Cronin walks to fetch it. You could leave a message there,’ Lady Marston suggested. ‘It is the arrangement we have for emergencies, such as summoning the doctor.’
‘The doctor? But surely by the time he got here –?’
‘In greater emergency one of the three of us would walk to the nearest house. We do not,’ Sir Giles added, ‘find it so difficult to pass one leg before the other. Senior though we may be.’
‘Perhaps the milk is an idea,’ Lady Marston said.
‘Oh no, we could never put anyone to so much trouble. It would be too absurd. No, tomorrow we shall have found our feet.’
But tomorrow when it came was a different kind of day, because with something that disagreed with him in his stomach Sir Giles died in the night. His heart was taxed by sharp little spasms of pain and in the end they were too much for it.
‘We’re going to see to you for a bit,’ Mrs Dankers said after the funeral. ‘We’ll pop you in your room, dear, and Cronin shall attend to all your needs. You can’t be left to suffer your loss alone; you’ve been so kind to us.’
Lady Marston moved her head up and down. The funeral had been rather much for her. Mrs Dankers led her by the arm to her room.
‘Well,’ said Dankers, speaking to Cronin with whom he was left, ‘so that’s that.’
‘I was his servant for forty-eight years, sir.’
‘Indeed, indeed. And you have Lady Marston, to whom you may devote your whole attention. Meals in her room, Cronin, and pause now and then for the occasional chat. The old lady’ll be lonely.’
‘I’ll be lonely myself, sir.’
‘Indeed. Then all the more reason to be good company. And you, more than I, understand the business of being elderly. You know by instinct what to say, how best to seem soothing.’
‘Your car is repaired, sir? At least it moved today. You’ll be on your way? Shall I pack some sandwiches?’
‘Come, come, Cronin, how could we leave two lonely people so easily in the lurch? Chance has sent us to your side in this hour of need: we’ll stay to do what we can. Besides, there are Sir Giles’s wishes.’
What’s this? thought Cronin, examining the eyes of the man who had come in the night and had stayed to see his master buried. They were eyes he would not care to possess himself, for fear of what went with them. He said:
‘His wishes, sir?’
‘That his orchard should again be put in use. The trees repaired and pruned. The fruit sold for its true value. An old man’s dying wish won’t go unheeded.’
‘But, sir, there’s so much work in it. The trees run into many hundreds –’
‘Quite right, Cronin. That’s observant of you. Many men are needed to straighten the confusion and waste. There’s much to do.’
‘Sir Giles wished this, sir?’ said Cronin, playing a part, knowing that Sir Giles could never have passed on to Dankers his dying wish. ‘It’s unlike him, sir, to think about his orchard. He watched it failing.’
‘He wished it, Cronin. He wished it, and a great deal else. You who have seen some changes in your time are in for a couple more. And now, my lad, a glass of that good brandy would not go down amiss. At a time like this one must try to keep one’s spirits up.’
Dankers sat by the fire in the drawing-room, sipping his brandy and writing industriously in a notebook. He was shortly joined by his wife, to whom he handed from time to time a leaf from this book so that she might share his plans. When midnight had passed they rose and walked through the house, measuring the rooms with a practised eye and noting their details on paper. They examined the kitchens and outhouses, and in the moonlight they walked the length of the gardens. Cronin watched them, peeping at them in all their activity.
‘There’s a pretty little room next to Cronin’s that is so much sunnier,’ Mrs Dankers said. ‘Cosier and warmer, dear. We’ll have your things moved there, I think. This one is dreary with memories. And you and Cronin will be company for one another.’
Lady Marston nodded, then changing her mind said: ‘I like this room. It’s big and beautiful and with a view. I’ve become used to it.’
‘Now, now, my dear, we mustn’t be morbid, must we? And we don’t always quite know what’s best. It’s good to be happy, dear, and you’ll be happier there.’
‘I’ll be happier, Mrs Dankers? Happier away from all my odds and ends, and Giles’s too?’
‘My dear, we’ll move them with you. Come, now, look on the bright side. There’s the future too, as well as the past.’
Cronin came, and the things were moved. Not quite everything though, because the bed and the wardrobe and the heavy dressing-table would not fit into the new setting.
In the orchard half a dozen men set about creating order out of chaos. The trees were trimmed and then treated, paths restored, broken walls rebuilt. The sheds were cleared and filled with fruit-boxes in readiness for next year’s harvest.