Built from Bath stone, with turrets and minarets between the tall golden chimneys, it was an ornate and imposing place. Although fully occupied by the Squire and his servants, it still seemed to belong to the hordes of jackdaws who nested in the complex chimneys and cubbyholes of the roof. At dusk, the blue-eyed birds performed a spectacular ritual of formation flying, swooping to roost and covering the entire roof with their fluttering black bodies. Today they knew, by the arrival of the girl with the billycan, that it was nine o’clock in the morning, and just before the clock tower reverberated with its nine chimes, they flew down and strutted around the lawns.
The young girl bustled up the steps to the oak door which stood in its own archway of golden stone. She pulled the white porcelain knob of the doorbell and waited, listening to the bell jangling deep inside the house, and the tap-tap of footsteps. A flustered-looking maid opened the door.
‘Hello, Miss Kate. The Squire’s waiting for you.’
‘Hello, Millie.’
With her back very straight and her long hair swinging, Kate stepped through the porch and into the great hall of Hilbegut Court. At the far end the Squire of Hilbegut sat at his breakfast table, his legs in brown riding boots stretched wide, his pipe in his hand. His expression was gloomy, but when he saw Kate his eyes lit up and he gave his moustache a tweak. Captivated by her radiance and her confidence, he watched her coming down the hall towards him. She was only a child from the farm, the daughter of his tenant, bringing his milk, but she walked like a princess and smiled like a nurse. He could have had the milk delivered straight to the kitchen, but he wanted to see the child. Sometimes her mother came, or her sister, and then he was disappointed. It was Kate he wanted to see. He loved the way she tried so hard to behave but her eyes had a wicked, expectant sparkle.
‘I’ve brought your milk, Sir.’
‘Is it fresh?’ he asked, not because he wanted to know, but because he wanted her to talk to him. She always had some bright tale to tell him.
‘Oh yes, Sir,’ said Kate. ‘It’s Jenny Lu’s milk. She’s a Jersey cow, and I milked her myself. Ethie helped me. We sat one each side on two three-legged stools and we got the giggles.’
‘The giggles?’ The Squire raised his ginger eyebrows, pretending he didn’t know what the giggles were, just to engage Kate in more conversation.
He was rewarded with the radiant smile which brought such warmth and cheeriness into his neglected heart. The child trusted him like no one else did.
‘The giggles,’ she announced, putting the billycan on the table, ‘is when you can’t stop laughing.’
Since he rarely laughed, that sounded like a song from a party to which he hadn’t been invited. Taking the lid off the billycan he poured the fresh milk into a waiting tumbler, and took a long drink.
‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘More of that tomorrow, please.’
Kate’s eyes had turned solemn.
‘Well – this is the last time I can come,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow my mum will bring it for you.’
‘And why is that?’
‘I’m going away. To boarding school with Ethie. I’m eleven now,’ said Kate, and for the first time the Squire thought he saw a cloud pass through her sunny eyes.
‘Ah,’ he said, hiding his disappointment. ‘So you’re growing up now, are you? And how do you feel about boarding school? Won’t you miss your mum?’
The cloud rushed through her eyes again, but Kate seemed to have an internal light switch. She lifted her chin and gave him a smile that made him feel the whole world was all right, God was in his heaven and all would be well.
‘I’m going to enjoy every minute of it. Especially –’ Kate leaned forward and whispered dramatically, ‘the midnight feasts.’
The Squire put his hand into the pocket of his clean tweed jacket, and fumbled with the coins in there. He took out a silver half-crown and pressed it into Kate’s small hand.
‘Thank you,’ she gasped. ‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘You get some chocolate. For your midnight feasts. And I want to hear all about it when you come home.’ He managed a smile, or what he hoped was a smile. ‘Goodbye now.’
Kate knew she was supposed to walk out of Hilbegut Court in a lady-like manner, but the half-crown was so exciting that she tucked it in her pinafore pocket, lifted the skirt of her red dress and skipped away down the hall, turning once to wave at the sad old Squire who was staring after her. She would have liked to tickle him under his arm and round his ribs and make him laugh out loud like she did with her father, but she knew her mother wouldn’t approve.
She danced all the way home, in and out of the copper beeches, the leaves crackling like cornflakes under her laced boots. Scooping armfuls of leaves from the hollows around the tree roots, she flung them into the air, whirling and laughing as they fluttered down into her hair. At the end of the avenue she paused and took a last look at the turrets and chimneys of Hilbegut Court, and the jackdaws flew up, chack-chacking as if saying goodbye.
It was to be a day of last looks for Kate, and her older sister Ethie, but Ethie was used to it. Ethie was thirteen and bored with it all, and she spent a lot of energy trying to be responsible. This morning she’d said scathingly, ‘You don’t have to say goodbye to each individual chicken, Kate.’
But Kate loved every animal on the farm, even the massive Hereford bull steaming and stamping in his well-barricaded corner of the barn. She wanted to touch the bristly backs of the pigs and watch their ears twitch as she told them her news; she wanted to look into the velvety faces of the sheep, and smooth the coat of every cow. And Daisy, the Shire horse, she’d already said goodbye to about six times, her arms wrapped around the horse’s kindly face.
Kate didn’t want to grow up. She didn’t want to get cross and busty like Ethie. She wanted to stay eleven for the rest of her life.
As she skipped through the gate between the stone lions, it began to rain in a silver downpour. Kate ran for the swing which was set in the barn door on two scratchy ropes. She loved to swing backwards into the high dusty interior and sail out into the glistening rain, and sing: ‘Out in the rain and in again, out in the rain and in again.’ The squeak of the ropes, the rush of air on her face, the extravagant rhythm, created a time to sort out her thoughts, chuck out the bad ones and keep the good.
Tomorrow morning the half past ten train would carry her away, like a log on a swollen river. Her father would turn the pony and cart round and drive home at a brisk trot, without her.
But it didn’t work out quite as expected.
Kate got down from the swing and ran into the kitchen where her mother was making butter at the kitchen table. Her cheeks were tense and pale, and instead of greeting her daughter in her usual peaceful way, she said, ‘We’ll have to change our plans for tomorrow morning, Kate. Your father’s not well, and I’m afraid he’s too poorly to drive to the station. I’ll have to do it, or Ethie will.’
‘What’s wrong with Daddy?’ asked Kate, watching her mother’s eyes.
‘We don’t know,’ said her mother shortly.
Kate sat down at the oak table and rested her chin on her two hands, studying her mother’s face. Sally Loxley was giving nothing away. She went on beating and beating the milk in a round white basin; she wouldn’t stop until it turned to butter and then she would separate the whey, and work the butter between two wooden butter pats, over and over, working the beads of moisture out of it. She’d won prizes for her butter-and cheese-making and the certificates were displayed inside a glass cabinet, along with several silver cups. The largest of these was inscribed with ‘Best all round Farm’, awarded to her husband Gilbert Loxley, Bertie.