Sadler's Birthday (2 page)

Smart little cap, nice kid gloves and a lovely shine on his worn boots, Wren sat bolt upright at the wheel, driving as carefully as he dressed. Must be sixty-five, Sadler thought, sitting beside him. More at home with a pony and trap probably than with the Austin. Less than ten miles to do and it took them best part of an hour.

‘She's a good little car,' Wren said as they set out, ‘but she don't go.'

Sadler pondered this saying for most of the journey, sitting silent, smiling to himself, looking out at the wide fields. Wren, intent on the road, liable to slow almost to a halt each time a car came the other way, only spoke a couple more times. Once he said ‘Did you have a good train journey, Mr Sadler?' and Sadler, who liked trains, replied ‘Oh most enjoyable, thank you.' Then, as they neared the house, Wren took a nervous hand off the wheel to point ahead to the gates.

‘There you are, Mr Sadler. The house of course is hidden from the road.'

They swept into the drive, Wren full of daring now that they were off the public road. Sadler put his hat on, thought nervously that it wouldn't be long till dinner-time and of course Madam would expect him to serve. There might even be guests and who knew in what state of preparedness he would find the kitchen staff.

Leaves flew like a flock of golden sparrows as they drove down an avenue of beech, and then there at last was the house, perfect copy, so the history books ran, of one of Queen Victoria's favourite residences, yellowish in its stone skin with a gleam of sun on it.

‘Well,' said Wren, ‘there she is.'

The house he meant, did he? Or was it Mrs Bassett with a nice smile on her lips coming out of the porch? There she stood watching them as Wren brought the car to a stop, got out quickly and stood to attention. Sadler fumbled with his door handle, wished he'd paid the landlady in Charing Cross to press his suit, stepped out on to the gravel and into the orbit of the smile.

‘Sadler.'

‘How d'you do, Madam.'

‘Did you have a pleasant journey?'

‘Most enjoyable, thank you.'

‘You're not too tired, then?'

‘Oh no.'

A voice from within. ‘Did I hear the car, Madge?'

And then the Colonel materialized, shoved a wide red hand into Sadler's and smiled the smile that had earned him a reputation for frankness in the regiment, the smile that had stiffened and narrowed just a little since the day, forty years before, when it had lighted Madge's wedding.

They guided him in, leaving his suitcase in the car and Wren, still stiff and straight like a bowling pin in the middle of the drive. Into the lofty hall, the meeting point for numerous doors and passageways. To the right, Sadler glimpsed a comfortable, heavily curtained room where a coal fire burned, the shut door on the left he guessed would be the dining room. But on of course, away from the splendour, leaving the Colonel behind, to the furthest passageway, cold as they entered it, that led to the kitchen and the servants' hall.

Sadler heard a chatter of voices – Vera and her kitchen maids like a scrawny chicken and her brood of two. But as Sadler and Madge entered they stopped all movement and Sadler found that he was looking at three apprehensive faces. He smiled and heard Madam say ‘This is Mr Sadler', held out his hand to the cook who wiped hers on her apron and shook his limpiy. The kitchen maids bobbed and Sadler felt a blush coming to his face, remembered bitterly how his mother always had her curtsey ready for Milady, used to practise it in front of her looking glass . . .

‘My cook, Mrs Prinz, who likes us to call her Vera, and this is Jane and Betty who help her in the kitchen.'

His army. This thin, tired woman with her pert helpers.

‘Pleased to meet you,' said Vera.

‘You must be tired.' From Madam.

‘Oh no.'

‘Come and see your room and then I expect you'd like to unpack.'

Sadler remembered his suitcase.

‘Thank you.'

He followed Mrs Bassett back down the cold passage, through a door and up a flight of stairs, green linoleum on them. Out on to a landing, carpeted with coconut matting, then past her while she stood at another door, holding it open for him, into such a nice little room, not large by any standards but wonderfully neat.

‘Do you think you'll have enough room for your things?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘You'll find a rug in the wardrobe if there's not enough blankets on your bed.'

‘The nights are getting cold in this part, I wouldn't wonder.'

‘I'm afraid so. It's been such a wonderful summer, but it's over now.'

Sadler was caught by the measure of despair in her voice, looked at her and thought: how will war touch us here? And into his head came this odd picture of the chauffeur falling down where he stood so smartly to attention, knocked down like a skittle and his body rolling away under the car.

‘Wren will bring up your suitcase.'

‘Thank you, Madam.'

‘We dine at eight fifteen.'

‘Very good.'

‘You may wear a short coat to serve in the dining room, except when we entertain.'

And then she was gone, leaving him to his room. He looked all round it, noting the simplicity of the things in it and finding them pleasing. Then he saw the picture above his bed, a gentle pastoral scene, belonging more correctly in a nursery – two fat little children, boy and girl, picking daisies in some wonderland of a meadow. Sparrows and thrushes, fat too and friendly, hopping about near them and in the distance an old water wheel. Sadler laughed. The room reminded him of a room he'd shared with his mother countless years back, the year they'd gone to Milady's house. Put to bed at six without much in the way of supper, he'd lie straight as a stick waiting for his mother to finish work and get into bed beside him. She was usually there by eight for she'd be up again before dawn. He remembered how when she climbed into bed he'd turn towards her, pretending to roll over in his sleep, and feel the warmth and smell of her body soothing him. There'd been a child's picture in that room too. His mother had said Milady had put it there especially for him. But he didn't believe that and one evening, before his mother came up, he took it off the wall to see if there was a pale patch on the wall behind it and there was. There was even dust on the wire.

Sadler got up and closed the window. It looked out over the orchard, untidy with fallen fruit, its leaves reddish and impatient to be gone. So quiet it was up there in this room. Impossible to think of war in that silence. He took his jacket off and hung it up.

Dining alone, the Colonel and his Madge sat either end of the mahogany table and Sadler, smart in his short black jacket, trod the distances in between. His practised hand served them with an ease and elegance which, on that first evening, gave Madge the satisfaction of knowing she had ‘found her man'. Unobtrusive in a corner of the long room, Sadler waited absolutely silent and still while they ate, politely deaf, politely invisible.

‘Did you catch the news at six, dear?'

‘Barricades they're talking about now.'

‘What sort of barricades?'

‘Well, roadblocks on all routes into London from the coast.'

‘Really? That'll be terribly inconvenient, surely.'

‘Yes. And it'll be our lot, us Local Defence chappies, who'll have all the work.'

‘Anything else?'

‘On the news?'

‘Yes.'

‘Nothing much. No one seems to be able to make their minds up about rationing.'

‘Well I wish they would. Its very difficult not knowing where we stand.'

‘Bound to come sooner or later.'

‘I thought it was the Germans that were meant to be having food shortages.'

‘Depends on the blockade, Madge. What no one seems to realize is that Italy is quite unreliable.'

‘What about the children? Nothing about that? I can't believe they won't give us a decent warning.'

‘What children?'

‘On the nine o'clock news last night they said they were preparing to send thousands more out of London. I mean, if people are going to be asked to open their homes to strangers I would have thought it only fair that they should be able to choose whom they get.'

‘May not happen, dear.'

‘It's happening, Geoffrey. They've sent hundreds out already –
millions
I believe.'

‘Well, no one's asked us to take any.'

‘It's probably just a question of time.'

Sadler listened to their talk of the war. It was, he thought, as if an earthquake somewhere else was sending almost imperceptible shudders across their shoulders. And the Colonel, well, he'd do his bit for the Home Guard, but he had to admit that he was glad to be safe at home with Madge and he knew, not without shame, that the part of him that had wanted to die for England had died.

They ambled out of the dining room, asked Sadler to bring their coffee to them by the drawing room fire and gave him a smile as they left, relieved at last to have found a butler who seemed so unobtrusive and careful, and quite determined to treat him well.

His first evening's duties complete, Sadler went to the servants' hall, a long awkward room with a square of carpet in the middle of the floor, a couple of old sofas and a table and four chairs by the window. Vera, half asleep with her knitting on her knee, would have scrambled to her feet when he came in.

‘Lord no, Mrs Prinz,' he said, ‘there's no need for that. I've no doubt at all you've earned the rest.'

She smiled at him, a nervous doubting smile, and said: ‘Don't know what's the matter with me these days; sit down for a couple of minutes and find I'm nodding off.'

‘You have a long day.'

‘No more'n it always were. Course, that's not a complaint when I say that. I wouldn't want you thinking I'd any complaints, for I'm not one for grumbling – only about m'self. You could say it was a complaint againt m'self.'

Sadler sat down, glad to be off his feet. Whenever he found himself with strangers he tooks pains to disguise his limp as much as he could and the effort always made his legs ache. Vera took up her knitting.

‘Of course,' she said after a while, ‘things 'aven't been right 'ere.'

Sadler was cautious. ‘No?'

‘I was on the point of leaving. I'd even told Madam, because I couldn't live in the same house with 'im, Mr Sadler. I had to go and tell her “I can't work with that man any more”.'

‘Who would that be?'

‘Mr Goss. It was a wonder Madam didn't lose all 'er staff. The way he treated some of us.'

‘The butler?'

‘Not good at his job either, you know. Such a big man. Got in the way all the time.'

‘Happy to see him leave, were you then?'

‘I'd say. I told Madam, it was either me or 'im.'

‘What was it that he did, Mrs Prinz?'

‘Vera – I do prefer Vera.' She put down her knitting and leant forward on her chair. ‘There was something evil about that man. He liked to see a person suffer.'

‘That's not right, is it.'

‘Just loved to pass a personal remark, make you feel awkward.'

She went on in a whisper: ‘He sat down on that settee one evening, right where you're sittin' now, Mr Sadler, and he turned to me and said: “Prinz – now that'd be a German name, wouldn't it?” I mean you can't call that kind, can you? In time of war. Of course I didn't answer 'im. I just got right up and walked out of the room. Betty was here. She told me afterwards he'd looked quite surprised when I went out, had the cheek to ask her what he'd done wrong. But it was all over for me then. I couldn't go on working with a man like that. And they value me 'ere, Mr Sadler, the Colonel and Madam, they know what I'm worth, they know I'm loyal. In fact the Colonel was quite upset when he heard about the trouble. He sent for me and said: “I can't be doing with that kind of unpleasantness in the servants' hall.” “There's enough trouble in the world,” he said, “without bringing any into my own house.” Of course, I personally think they'd never taken to Goss. As I say, 'e wasn't a good servant – too cocksure of 'imself and too clumsy. I used to wonder 'e could get between the chairs in the dining room, he had such a girth on 'im.'

‘Where was he from, Mrs Prinz?'

‘Vera, Mr Sadler. I do prefer it.'

‘Oh Vera, yes.'

‘Yorkshire, so he said, but I said to Betty “that doesn't sound like Yorkshire to me” and we never did find out.'

‘My last position was in Yorkshire.'

‘Oh yes, Mr Sadler?'

‘In Scarborough.'

‘On the coast then?'

‘Oh yes, quite near the sea.'

‘I used to like a nice swim. I'm from London – you can tell that can't you? But my mum always took me to the seaside come August. Too 'ot to breathe in town, she used to say, and off we'd go, me and 'er on the train.'

‘And your husband, did he like the sea?'

‘Oh no.'

Then she went quiet, picked up her knitting, middle of a row, and set the needles clacking. Whenever Vera knitted, her jaw dropped and her mouth came open. Sadler felt pity for her, with her thin body and her anxious face and her pride.

It wasn't much after nine by the clock on the mantlepiece, but Sadler found himself yawning, thinking longingly of his neat quiet room. He stood up.

‘I'll be turning in then, Vera.'

‘Oh yes.' She kept her eyes fastened on her knitting.