Fremlin Seven Lean Years

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-31292-4
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

Seven Lean Years (1961) was Celia Fremlin's third novel of suspense. Its protagonist is Ellen Fortescue, engaged to be married, but oddly uneasy about her approaching wedding. Her fiance Leonard is a man of varying moods, most combustibly where the subject of his stepmother Laura is concerned. Ellen is inclined to a kinder view; but then the woman Ellen calls 'Cousin Laura' does have a complicated history with the Fortescue family... 'Fremlin wraps up her little mystery cunningly in this accomplished thriller-chiller of a book.' Sunday Times 'Fremlin has a quite extraordinary ability for imbuing the normal with intimations of doom-to-come. And when she begins to develop her elegantly horrible climax, the shivers chase each other down one's spine.'Birmingham Post 'Celia Fremlin is about our best hope to compete with the American intelligent superior suspense school.'Observer

Celia Fremlin (1914-2009) was born in Kent and spent her childhood in Hertfordshire, before studying at Oxford (whilst working as a charwoman). During World War Two, she served as an air-raid warden before becoming involved with the Mass Observation Project, collaborating on a study of women workers, War Factory. In 1942 she married Elia Goller, moved to Hampstead and had three children. In 1968, their youngest daughter committed suicide aged 19; a month later, her husband also killed himself. In the wake of these tragedies, Fremlin briefly relocated to Geneva. In 1985, she married Leslie Minchin, with whom she lived until his death in 1999. Over four decades, Fremlin wrote sixteen celebrated novels - including the classic summer holiday seaside mystery Uncle Paul (1959) - one book of poetry and three story collections. Her debut The Hours Before Dawnwon the Edgar Award in 1960.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fremlin, Celia

Leseproben

CHAPTER I

LAURA LAY STILL, putting off the lovely moment of waking. She did not need to open her eyes to know that the sun was pouring in through the nursery window, for the feel of summer was everywhere. She could feel it in the air, on her face—even in her very limbs under the sheets and blankets.

And there was going to be something specially lovely about today. Laura struggled for a moment in the effort of remembering, and then it all came back with a rush. Yesterday, Nurse had given her and Bessie a piece of material for their doll. Not an old, faded piece cut from someone’s discarded summer dress, but a whole yard of crisp, brand new muslin scattered with tiny rosebuds and their tiny, intricate leaves. This afternoon it would be too hot for a walk, so she and Bessie would be allowed to sit under the old mulberry tree and make the dress—a dress of glorious and perfect workmanship. Lying with her eyes still closed, Laura seemed to see already the impossibly even gathers; the fascinating little puff sleeves that would, surely, come out right this time. And, to add zest to it all, Dick would be there, just back from boarding school. He would lounge at their feet, teasing, flicking at bits of grass, standing Jemima precariously on her china head, and feigning an impossible degree of male ignorance about the construction of the dress. The long golden day stretched before Laura as far as she could see…. Almost, it seemed, like the length of a whole lifetime….

The energy of anticipation gathered in her muscles like wine, and Laura knew that she could lie still no longer. She must spring out of bed now, at once, and let the splendid day begin.

Spring out of bed? But why was her back so stiff? Why were her limbs so slow? It was almost a minute before she had even managed to hoist herself into a sitting position … and her eyes opened on the clean, cream institutional walls. Nurse was gone; Bessie was gone; the rose-sprigged muslin dress had been stuffed into some rag-bag more than seventy years ago, and she, Laura, was left, finishing her days here in this Home for Aged Gentlewomen.

Laura closed her eyes again for a minute, and felt the imagined energy ebbing from her limbs. She did not feel particularly sad; these sort of awakenings were becoming more and more familiar to her, and she knew that as soon as they had brought her her cup of tea it would be all right. And, after all, there was something pleasant to anticipate today. What was it, now …?

“Good morning, Mrs. Rivers! Ups-a-daisy! Oh, what a be-autiful mo-orning!”

The cheerful, though pasty-faced young woman propped Laura expertly against her pillows, and thrust a cup of tea into her hand. These girls never realised how difficult it was to hold things steady when you had only just woken up. No one’s hand steadier than Laura’s for, say, morning coffee, but just now it was terribly hard….

Never mind. Only a little slopped into the saucer this time, no ugly stains on the sheets; and anyway, the young woman was bustling round the room now, noticing nothing.

“There you are! A lovely sunny day!” she pronounced, flinging open the curtains with a gesture of achievement, like a successful cook opening the oven door on a beautifully risen cake. “We must get you up quickly, my dear, today, there’s a lot to see to. You are a lucky girl, aren’t you, your son coming to fetch you tomorrow! The others will be green with envy!”

So that was it. Of course. Laura took another sip of the good hot tea and remembered it all. Leonard was coming to fetch her away tomorrow, fetch her away for good. Though Leonard wasn’t her son, of course; only her stepson. More and more often of late Laura had found herself forgetting that she had never, after all, had a child of her own. Neither Leonard nor Ellen … neither of them was hers. Sipping greedily at the scalding, revivifying tea, Laura felt blessed clarity of thought returning. Of course: Leonard and Ellen were engaged; that must be why she had the feeling that Ellen was her daughter just as much as Leonard was her son. Really, of course, Ellen was Dick’s daughter—young Dick, who was old Uncle Richard now. Laura found it possible, most of the time, to believe that the years had somehow so swiftly tricked and cheated her into becoming an old woman, but not that they had done the same to Dick. Not to gay, teasing, selfish Dick, who had been like a brother to her at first, and then, afterwards …

But she must not allow herself to slip again into daydreams of the past. It was the present that mattered, even at eighty-five; the exciting, demanding present. For tomorrow—or, at latest, the day after—she would see Dick again. And Ellen. And the old, beloved home where Dick still lived.

Laura sipped again at her tea, and pictured the meeting, knowing all the time that her picture was false; for, try as she would, she could not see Dick as anything but a fair-haired, laughing schoolboy.

*

On that same June morning, Ellen Fortescue woke suddenly, with the old familiar feeling that it must be late; that the alarm must have failed to wake her.

Then she remembered. She was no longer working at the office. It was nearly a year now since she had come home to look after Father, and her life was no longer regulated by alarm clocks, but by the needs and whims of an old man and an old house—and, above all, by the demands of the tenants—the perfectly reasonable demands.

For the tenants were reasonable—Ellen was adamant with herself about this, for it would never do to become one of those landladies who spend their lives immersed in a sense of grievance. She had resolved, right from the start, always to see the tenants’ point of view—but how could she have foreseen that the tenants would have so many different points of view, from all of which she would have to see simultaneously? That it would be like trying to look through the right and wrong end of a telescope at the same moment; like reading two books at once, one with each eye?

After all, it was still early; only five minutes to seven. There were no sounds yet from Melissa and her family above. Ellen listened tensely. If only the silence would go on for another five minutes, then the Butlers in what had once been the drawing-room wouldn’t complain of having been woken before seven by thumps and jars from overhead. Not that Melissa’s children were badly behaved—that would be a very landlady-ish thing to think—but after all there were two of them, and you couldn’t expect children to walk when it was possible to run. Indeed, the same could really be said of their busy, efficient mother, who managed, by spending her life with one eye on the clock, to keep a full-time job as well as running her home smoothly and well. It had seemed very hard to have to complain to Melissa about so admirable a virtue as early rising—Melissa liked to have her family up and dressed by half-past six—but what else could you do when the Butlers were so insistent—so justifiably insistent—on their right to sleep undisturbed till seven o’clock?

Ellen sighed. Did other landladies go through these heart-searchings on behalf of their tenants? Or was it that she was new to the job—and perhaps quite unsuited to it? And yet, when the doctor had said that Father shouldn’t be living alone any more, this had seemed the only sensible course—that Ellen should give up her job and come home, and make up for her lost salary by letting off the house in rooms and flats. For it was such a big old house, and quite apart from the need of money, it had seemed wicked, in these days of housing shortage, that so much space should be occupied just by one old man and his daughter.

So first the Butlers had come, and while it was only them, everything had gone fairly smoothly. They were an ideal couple really, quiet and reliable, both out at work all day and so regular in their habits that you could tell the time by their every movement. They had to share the kitchen with Ellen and her father, but the inconvenience of this was reduced to a minimum by their modest and exact requirements. Mrs Butler wanted to use the stove from seven-fifteen to seven-thirty every morning and from six to six forty-five every evening—no other times whatever. There was really no inconvenience of any sort….

Oh dear! Why didn’t I touch wood while I thought about it? Ellen asked herself, starting up in bed and sniffing the air in growing dismay. There could be no mistake. That hot, rich, spicy smell creeping through the cracks of the door could mean only one thing: Father had begun making the rhubarb and ginger wine! Out of all the hours of all the days when he could have messed about in the kitchen to his heart’s content, he had to choose now, seven-fifteen on a weekday morning. The exact minute when Mrs Butler, neat and brisk in her office dress, would be bustling in to make breakfast for herself and her husband.

Ellen leapt out of bed, and began to dress in a flurry on all too familiar apprehensions. Perhaps, if she was quick enough … and if by any improbable chance Mrs Butler was a few minutes late this morning … matters could still be put right.

As soon as she stepped into the kitchen Ellen found herself in a wilderness of scarlet peel, coiled like springs on every available surface. Father must have been up at five to have picked and peeled all that rhubarb! The touching picture of the old man stooping over the great dewy leaves in the summer dawn was swiftly erased from her...