Cottage For Sale

With a bit of work, Susanna and Margery could make it a special home . . .

SUSANNA stared at the advertisement in the shop window, excitement bubbling up inside her.

To be sold, a respectable cottage, with coach house and stable, situated in the most eligible part of Willaston, Wirral. Enquire of Mr Beck, carpenter.

A cottage for sale! It had come at precisely the right moment, when dear Papa’s estate had been recently wound up and she and her sister had the resources to act upon their future.

Of course, she had yet to tell Margery her idea. Without doubt the benefits were many, but would her sister see things her way?

No more whispering over meals in the stuffy diningroom of the boarding house that had been home for the past months, aware of the disapproving sniffs of starchy Miss Granger who sat opposite.

No more disgruntled thumps on their bedroom wall should they talk over-loudly or – oh, horrors – dare to bang a door!

No more having to endure Mrs Jukes, the landlady, who’d not taken kindly to having two young misses under her roof, despite having the rent faithfully paid every Friday.

Her heart thudding in anticipation, Susanna delved into her reticule for an old envelope and jotted down the details.

Then she was off, her heels tap-tapping along the road, dodging horse-drawn traffic and pedestrians, her one thought to get back to their lodgings and put her plan to Margery.

****

“A holiday retreat in the country? Are you serious?”

Susanna met her sister’s bemused grey gaze with determination.

“Perfectly. People from the town like to visit the country, and this would give us purpose, as well as bringing in some income.” “But is it quite suitable?” “I don’t see why not. We could be selective over our clients. No small children – too noisy. No lap dogs – too yappy. No . . .”

“. . . persons of male persuasion?” Margery raised a cynical brow. “Can those in the hospitality trade afford to discriminate? Papa would have said business is business.” Susanna’s heart leaped. “You’re keen, then?” “I did not say as much.” “But you will give it some thought?” Susanna asked. “We’d be independent. No more toiling in that odious department store for you, lacing portly matrons into stays to make them look maidenly, and keeping a smile on your face when all you really want to do is pull the laces to fainting point.”

“Susanna!” Margery was shocked.

“Well, it’s true. As for me, no more sweeping and dusting for bothersome Miss Roache.”

“Country cottages need to be swept and dusted,” Margery pointed out.

“But it would be our own. We must put a notice in ‘The Times’ and sort out

our responsibilities. You can leave the garden to me. Oh, and the care of the pony.” “Pony?”

“We shall need a pony and trap for sight-seeing trips. What better reason to come to us rather than some dreary alternative offering nothing more than bed and board?”

“Perhaps we should have kept Jester,” Margery said, making Susanna wonder if her sister was coming round to the idea.

The horse had been sold along with the family house, which had been too large for them, hence the temporary accommodation with Mrs Jukes. Susanna continued. “You could attend to the business side of things; the books and so on. You’ll be good at that. Oh, and the meals. I’m hopeless in the kitchen. Laundry and housework will fall to both of us.”

“It seems you have it all worked out.”

“More or less,” Susanna agreed modestly. “Do let us contact Mr . . .” She flung a glance at her jottings. “Mr Beck. We could at least go to see the cottage.”

Margery, older and more aware of the pitfalls, remained undecided.

“All right,” she agreed at last. “I’ve no objection to living in the country. But running a business?”

“It will be the making of us.”

Leaving her sister shaking her head in doubt, Susanna whirled off to pen a response to the advertisement.

Mr Beck eyed the sisters with misgiving.

“Two sisters? I were reckoning on a wedded couple for Hope Cottage.”

Susanna gave the man her most beguiling smile.

“Hope Cottage. What a delightful name.”

Few could resist Susanna’s dimpled charm and Mr Beck softened.

“’Twere the wife’s idea. Folks allus referred to it as Becks’s before.”

“A very laudable change,” Margery put in. “Perhaps we could view it? We have to catch our train back and time can run away with one.”

When Margery used this tone she meant business, and Susanna, her hopes rising, accompanied her sister to where Mr Beck’s horse and trap awaited them.

It was only a short drive, through the village of Willaston and along a winding lane that Margery pointed out could become quagmired in heavy rain.

She agreed, though, that it looked well on the sunny March day, the hedgerows breaking into leaf and trilling with birdsong.

Hope Cottage was square and staunch and stood in a garden that would soon blaze with colour. There was a cobbled yard with stable and coach house and other small outbuildings.

“There’s even an orchard,” Susanna observed.

“Aye, and it all has to be maintained,” Mr Beck replied dourly.

There was nothing Margery liked less than being thought incapable and she bristled.

“Indeed, we are not without our health and strength, Mr Beck. May we look inside?”

Hope Cottage proved a delight, and having informed the owner of their interest, they left to catch their train with the man’s disgruntled muttering ringing in their ears.

“Odious man,” Margery said on the journey back. “We’ll show him what we’re made of!”

“You’ve had a change of heart?”

“Indeed I have. I shall make an appointment at the bank forthwith. We shall make a success of this or perish in the attempt!”

Six weeks later, on a bright day in May, they were in residence and giving the walls of Hope Cottage a freshening coat of whitewash.

The acquisition of a pony came next. As luck had it, the milkman had one for sale, complete with harness. There was also a smart trap available.

It seemed ideal and Susanna was quick to make her purchases.

With the pony, Starlight, established in the stable and the trap in the carriage house, Susanna spent a productive afternoon giving him the grooming of his life and buffing the brass detail on the trap to a fine shine.

“Tomorrow I shall go for a drive and acquaint myself with the area,” she said to Margery, who was stitching curtains for the guest room.

“Just have a care,” Margery said.

“I drove Papa’s Jester, didn’t I?” Susanna replied with every confidence.

Unfortunately, Starlight was set in his ways. Not only did he insist upon taking the route he had trodden for years rather than his new owner’s direction, but he stopped at every gate to deliver supposed jugs of milk from a churn, as he had always done.

Susanna, very red in the face, her arms aching from fruitless shaking of the reins, had to disembark and lead the pony home.

She was far from happy as she recounted the trying event to her sister.

“Our first clients are due. They specified how much they looked forward to going out in the trap. What shall I do? Starlight has a loose shoe as well.”

“Then take him to the smith and get him seen to. He might be more willing with a new set.”

Abel Timmins knew the pony of old.

“You’ve been sold a pig in a poke. Once a milk ’oss, always a milk ’oss.”

Susanna stammered out her predicament and the smith fingered his beard.

“That’s a pickle, that is. What if I loan you my Daisy? You’ll not have any trouble with her.”

“Wouldn’t it be an imposition?”

“Nay, have her an’ welcome. You can turn this’n out in my field for now.”

These were desperate times and the exchange was duly made.

Dappled, sweet-natured Daisy turned out to be all Susanna could have wished for.

The clients, a genteel, middle-aged couple from Liverpool, were enchanted with the gentle trots around the lush, blossomscented lanes.

They tucked into Margery’s home-made fare with relish and at the end of the week pronounced the holiday the best ever.

“Daisy saved the day,” Susanna told the smith on returning the pony to the forge.

The smith regarded her shyly.

“Being as you need a pony for yon holiday trade, and Daisy’s doing little else but gorging herself in the field, you’d be doing me a favour by keeping her in work. ’Twill keep her good and trim, like.”

Susanna looked into his honest, rugged face and thought how kind his eyes were. He was younger than she had first thought, perhaps in his early thirties.

She liked his quiet strength and the way his big, work-callused hand automatically caressed the pony’s neck as he spoke.

“But Mr Timmins, what if you need Daisy for yourself?” she asked him.

“Then I’d have to borrow her back, wunna I? And folks hereabout call me Abel,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye.

He would not take no for an answer and, more grateful than she could say, Susanna took Daisy back to Hope Cottage.

Gradually the sisters came to grips with their venture

Gradually, as the summer rolled on, the sisters came to grips with their venture, and with the

guest list always full, they needed to.

Abel was a constant help. He found a home for Starlight with another delivery man and reset the brake on the trap following a difficult episode on a steep hill.

He made an iron bootscraper for the front porch, replaced rusting latches and bolts on the doors, and came to the sisters’ aid in countless other ways.

Without Susanna being aware of it, she and Abel became closer.

When time allowed, she offered a helping hand at the forge. She had a calming influence on nervous horses being shod.

She mended a rip in Abel’s coat, and having taken note of her sister’s culinary skills, presented him with her first plum cake.

“That looks good, that does,” Abel said.

“There’s bread, too. A trifle overdone, but it will taste all right.” She drew the loaf from her basket.

Abel’s grin all but cracked his face.

“I shall be feasting well tonight, Miss Doyle. Thank ’ee.”

“You’re welcome. And we’re sufficiently acquainted for you to call me Susanna,” she said, beaming.

It struck her how solitary it must be for him, alone in the cottage once the forge was shut for the night. She guessed how spick he would keep his surroundings, but it would be stark, too, with no homely touches to soften the edges.

“Don’t you miss having someone to chat with of an evening?” she asked him.

“I did after my folks passed, but that’s life. I got my forge and other blessings, so can’t grumble.”

The look he gave her seemed to hold a message.

He picked up his hammer and went back to the ploughshare he was repairing, and the rhythmic thump of metal on metal followed her home.

That night in bed, she came to terms with the obvious. The liking she had felt from the first for Abel had changed. She more than liked him. She loved him. She, Susanna Doyle, was in love with the smith.

But what good could come of it? She was pledged to her sister and the venture that had been her idea. It was an agreement in which wedlock played no part.

With the onset of autumn they had expected a lull in bookings. It didn’t happen.

Guests arrived to marvel at the woods turning to russet and bronze and returned to Hope Cottage to the pleasure of a hot meal and a blazing fire.

One afternoon Margery sought Susanna out, a letter in her hand.

“What do you suppose came in the midday post? Remember the Doddses, our first visitors? They want to know if we are open over Yuletide.”

“And are we? We could be snowed in.”

“That is a risk we would have to take. They wish to bring a friend, but I fear we don’t have room.”

“There’s my bedchamber. I could sleep in the attic.”

“Dearest, you would freeze. I shall have to refuse this time. Perhaps we should consider expanding. We could always build on to the back of the cottage.”

“Mmm.” Susanna’s response lacked enthusiasm and Margery looked at her closely.

“Your mind is occupied elsewhere. Abel, is it not?” “Margery, I –” “Sister, I am not blind. I have seen how events are heading. You have found your soul mate. That is a wonderful thing.”

“But what about us? Our business?”

“What of it? I can carry on by myself and take on help when necessary. You mustn’t be guilt-ridden. Does Abel feel the same about you?” Marjory asked.

“I don’t know,” Susanna said miserably. “There are times when it seems so, but he’s never said.”

“Patience. Let this take its course,” Margery replied.

Over the winter they built up the fire and made summer plans.

Susanna’s heart was not in it. She was glad that her idea was turning out to be a success, and pleased to see Margery engrossed in the enterprise that had brought her such doubts, but heart-sore over Abel.

By Lady Day they were taking bookings and Easter drew ever closer.

“Look at you!” Margery said one blustery March afternoon, with Susanna newly arrived back from the forge. “What a hoyden you are in that old smock and raggle-taggle hair. Do you wonder at Abel not taking the initiative when you dress like a stable hand?”

“That’s what I am to him.” Susanna rubbed at a smudge on her cheek, making it worse.

Margery held out a gleaming gold guinea.

“Go to the milliner’s and buy the most extravagant hat in the shop. Then get a length of twilled poplin from the drapers off the green. We’ll have the mantua-maker fashion you a decent outfit.”

Clothes had not been a priority these past months, every penny being ploughed into the business, and Susanna gawped.

“Fine feathers?” she stammered. “When will I wear them?”

“Abel will be attending the Easter morning service, will he not? You can call at the smithy on the way and suggest going together.” “But what about you?” “I shall be otherwise occupied. Now tidy yourself up and run along to the shops before they close.”

The hat was a glorious creation of rosebuds and ribbon. Gown and pelisse were a matching shade of blue, the latter fashionably frogged and buttoned.

With her best gloves and boots and her hair tamed, Susanna barely recognised herself in the glass.

Margery gave a nod of satisfaction.

“Perfect. If this doesn’t wake Abel Timmins up, I don’t know what will.”

A bright April sun shone as Susanna tripped along the lane.

She rapped on the door of Smithy Cottage. Her summons was answered at once.

One glance and Abel, well scrubbed up and dressed in his Sunday best, blinked in shock.

“What have we here? A real little poppy-show in your Easter bonnet. Susanna, you look a treat.”

“Thank you, Abel. My sister is indisposed. Would you mind accompanying me to church?”

“’Twill be a pleasure.” The bells began pealing, summoning the worshippers to their devotions, but Abel made no move to leave.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“Oh?”

He moistened his lips, mustering courage.

“Susanna, you once remarked on how quiet it must be of an evening, me being on my own here.

“I got to musing on how it would be if that little miss with the mop of golden curls were here with me. Not just popping in now and again, but always and for ever. Dost know what I’m trying to say?”

“I think so,” Susanna replied, her voice quavering.

The church bells rang on, the joyful peals background to the rapture that was stirring in Susanna’s heart.

“Do I stand a chance?” Abel enquired, gazing down at her. “The times I’ve wanted to ask and couldn’t lest I were turned down. Wilt take a buffoon like me for your own?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “And if I hear you call yourself that again, I’ll not be answerable for my actions. Oh, Abel, I’ve longed to be your wife!”

She stood on tiptoe and smacked a kiss on his lips.

The round of peals stopped to be replaced by the tolling of the five-minute bell. Abel looked up. “I reckon us had best go.” He offered his arm, and as they walked away together in the brightening air, it occurred to Susanna what extraordinary things could come from a most ordinary notice of a cottage for sale. n