Lunchtime at Beckfoot
The perambulator had a squeaky wheel, and they heard Mrs. Blackett long before she turned in at the gate.
"Is there any chance we can get some time together to talk for more than about five minutes?" John asked her hurriedly.
"We could take David for another walk this afternoon." she suggested.
"Maybe not on the public highway, and maybe without a baby?"
"Just talk?" her eyes danced
"Maybe not just talk." He grinned.
"I'm sure we'll think of something." and she turned away to greet her mother.
"Considering all the things Peggy and I did with that poor pram when we were younger, it's amazing you can get it to move at all." said Nancy, crossing the stable yard. John had muttered something about having left a parcel in the boat house and slipped away discretely.
"I don't remember it being such hard work." her mother admitted. "But I daresay the exercise did me good. I wish your friend Dick was here to get rid of the squeak though. I know you and John did your best, but Dick seems to be able to do anything with a random assortment of bits and pieces picked from an average garden shed."
"Did David behave himself? Did you meet anyone?" said Nancy, manoeuvring the perambulator back into its new space next to Rattletrap. "You know if you wanted to hide anything this pram would be the ideal place. Look how deep it is."
"It was the fashion of the time." said her mother rather vaguely. "Yes, he seemed quite happy. Babies always are happier outdoors. You and Peggy certainly were."
"Still are." Nancy grinned and held out her arms for David.
"You know, if you ever want to convince people he isn't yours, you'll have to stop doing that."
"What?"
"Picking him up like that."
"What am I doing wrong? How should I be holding him?"
"You're doing it very well, Nancy and quite naturally. Various people have noticed that, probably the day you arrived at the station. I realise that between the two of you, you and John have had to hold David continuously for the best part of two days and I said so to Mary Swainson just now, so I hope I've begun to do some good. Mary as good as said she'd put in a good word for you whenever she could. Except I suppose I shouldn't keep calling her Swainson now she's been married for nearly two years."
"I won't hold David badly, just to make people think better of me, or leave the work of him to other people. Anna and Jan saved us from, well, I don't know what exactly, but it would have been bad. This is trivial next to their problems."
Her mother stopped in the middle of the yard and looked at her very directly.
"I probably don't say this to you often enough, Nancy, but I'm very proud of you. Your father would be too."
Slightly to Mrs Blackett's surprise, John really had left a parcel in the boat house and arrived at the lunch table in a new pair of shorts, plimsolls and a shirt that did not billow out round him.
"Goblin should be back any day, but I really don't think I should keep borrowing." he explained.
"Can you tell me where this is? My geography isn't all it should be." Mrs Blackett passed a picture postcard from Peggy across to John.
"A little way along the coast from Rostock. Tiny place. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. I bet Nancy hasn't either."
"I hadn't." Nancy admitted. "She doesn't say much."
"Some countries only let you put a few words on." John said.
"Still, All well, weather fine, getting lots done, love Peggy?" Nancy said.
"I'm rather relieved. Lots of surveying and no excitement is exactly what we want to hear." John replied.
"It seems rather unfair that you both missed out on so much sailing when you probably care about it the most." said Mrs Blackett. "I know it's not the same thing at all, but why don't you take the Amazon out this afternoon? You've got a good wind and it's not raining."
"It hardly seems fair to leave you with David." said Nancy, tentatively. John could see that she was tempted. He said nothing.
"David and I will be fine." said Mrs Blackett, "Take your tea with you and don't come back until sunset. I might invite a couple of people round for a cup of tea this afternoon. I'll manage much better without you two there. Everyone knows I talk too much, so I might as well put it to good use. Oh, don't worry, John, I've got a very good grasp of what I must and must not artlessly let out." She smiled at him and John thought he knew very well where Nancy got her ability to "read" other people quite so well from.
"Artlessly?" asked Nancy, "As in well we'd rather keep this quiet but I don't mind telling you?"
"Exactly. So long as I don't actually make them promise to keep it secret, I can pretty much guarantee they will tell at least one other person. Telling the doctor was no good, because he's not that sort of person and doctors can't gossip about patients anyway. Two people, three at the most, will be enough – it won't do to over- do it."
"Remember I've had measles."
"Well of course, that's why you needed a little sea cruise to perk you up. Very fortunate you were in the area to help the daughter of Bob's old friend."
"Father's old friend?"
"Yes, I can hardly say They were chased by Nazis through Berlin because they were carrying a secret something from somewhere to somewhere else. Bob's friend's daughter wrote to me, I wrote to you in Helsinki. John came with you because I didn't like the idea of you travelling alone and he speaks German. Susan had to stay behind because someone had to help the Walkers' old friend with the boat."
"That's a pretty good story." said John, "but why not your old friends?"
I've lived here my whole life, apart from a few months in London – everyone one would be suspicious if I came up with a friend no-one had heard of before. You won't remember, Nancy, but your father had a few friends who came to stay on leave during and just after the war and caused a fair bit of local interest. Aunt Maria snubbed all of them, or tried to. In fact, that's how she went to live in Harrogate in the end. She tried telling Bob that he mustn't invite this person or that and he took no notice. It was his house by then after all. She was really rude to one poor chap who had shell shock. He was a bit cutting to her. Then she threatened to leave and go and live in Harrogate. The next person Bob invited was an officer from another regiment who had been shot in the Near-East and was very keen on bird-watching. He had some ideas that Aunt Maria thought completely unacceptable but was quite happy to discuss them when Bob asked him about them. I couldn't tell you if it was the ideas or the really battered old knickerbockers he used for bird-watching that upset her the most. Anyway, off she went to Harrogate in a huff and neither of us had asked her to leave. I was extremely grateful to the bird-watcher."
"What were the ideas?" Nancy was plainly curious.
"Free secondary schools, more university places for women, women being just as intellectually capable as men."
Nancy grinned. "Sounds a good chap. What happened to him?"
"Taught in a secondary school somewhere in Wales, married another teacher in the same school. We gradually lost touch."
"It's a bit ironic really." said Nancy, "More stewed plums, mother?"
Her mother shook her head.
"There are two more each for us then, John"
He passed his dish and she served him and then herself.
"What do you mean by ironic?" asked her mother.
"Well here this bird-watcher is, thoroughly good ideas – did this other teacher have a degree?"
"A first. I remember your father being pleased at that and managing to slip it into conversation with Aunt Maria."
"One in the eye for the great-aunt. Anyway, here he is, dead keen on education for women and secondary education. Then he does the one thing guaranteed to stop her teaching."
"Couldn't she just get a job in a different school? Or he could?" asked John.
"I think they had two children eventually. She would want to look after them." Her mother said.
Nancy looked up at them briefly. "It's not that," she said. "A lot of schools, a lot of counties expect women teachers to resign when they get married. If they don't they get sacked anyway." She chased the last plum around her dish with her spoon. "I expect he would have been delighted for her to continue with her job, but she was in the one career where they couldn't decide that for themselves."
Nancy dealing as neatly as she could with her last plum stone, didn't see John's suddenly appalled expression.
"Well." said her mother. "You two run off and make the best of the afternoon. I'll clear the table and then do a little telephoning. Be back about sunset. And Nancy, I know you couldn't help having to borrow, but try not to ruin Peggy's frock."
After they had left the room, Molly counted the plum stones, first in Nancy's dish then in John's. Six in each. But then, Nancy had served the plums herself, so did it really mean anything? Everyone knew you couldn't manipulate superstitions like that, so it probably meant nothing. Or did it mean everything? You never really knew with Nancy.
Author's notes:
Yes, that really was the situation with teachers before the second world war.
The plums were the smaller and earlier little yellow plums that are very nice stewed, not full-sized Victoria plums, so John and Nancy aren't being too greedy. They do seem a bit early, though, so maybe Cook was using up the last of the bottled fruit from last year or the Beckfoot tree is so old it fruits unusually early, which happens with some elderly fruit trees. For anyone who doesn't know, the rhyme goes "This year, next year, sometime, never, this year, next year….." and supposedly tells you when you are going to marry. It works with cherries, apricots and damsons too. Or perhaps it doesn't work at all.