Granny’s at Brinkhill – Chapter Six
I enjoyed all my holidays with Granny but one visit was different if interesting and enjoyable in its own way. Daddy and I had come by ourselves, just for the day, leaving my mother at home. I liked having Daddy to myself. It was a day for getting off the bus at South Ormsby, never a favourite experience because of that long walk to Brinkhill, even though I always liked to see the handsome school and the school master’s house. Even before I started school myself, I had decided to be a teacher. I thought that I would like to teach in a school like that and live in a pretty house next door. By the time I was ready to teach, however, my pathway was always into city schools; happy places mainly, but never pretty and never with a fairy-tale house next door!
On this particular day, there was no Auntie Marjorie on her bicycle. It was to be the long walk to Brinkhill. Fortunately, Daddy was fit and strong and could be relied on for intermittent piggy backs and shoulder rides. The only problem was that he liked to stop to talk to Mr Mountain whose house we passed on the way. Mr Mountain liked to talk as well. I had no idea what they were talking about and soon wanted to be on the way.
There was an important reason for this visit. Mrs Bell, the Lady of the Manor, had expressed a wish to see ‘George’s child’. I was to be taken to the Manor House and handed over to Auntie Flo and Auntie Dolly who would pass me on to Mrs Bell. Thus I found myself waiting outside Granny’s house, scuffing my black patent shoes in the dust and watching with interest as it lifted and then settled in the crevices of the rosettes on the toes. Inside the house a heated discussion was going on. I could hear it through the open door. Granny wanted Daddy to tell me that I must call Mrs Bell ‘Madam’, and he was having none of it. “There’s no need for all that,” he said: “She knows how to behave herself.”
Granny no doubt thought there was a need for ‘all that’, given that most members of the family worked for Mr and Mrs Bell and they all lived in tied housing. I listened with interest. In my eyes Daddy could do no wrong. Soon I was whisked off up the road, through the wide gate, past the duck pond and stables – disappointingly empty at that time of the day – and handed over to the aunties. We went through the back door, the large cool dairy – still with a faint smell of butter that had been churned that morning – and the equally large kitchen. Everywhere was quiet and spotless and felt scrubbed. I liked it. I approved. Granny’s genes? Auntie Flo took me through a door which led from the kitchen into a majestic hallway, and tapped on a different door, this one matching the splendour of the hall with its chamfered jambs and carved architrave. She opened it, pushed me inside and shut it behind me.
