CHAPTER IX

The three could hardly believe it, yet a week later they were living in the cottage.

Uncle Preston made his inspection of their new home on the day after Francis got the job from Mr Graby.

Followed by an anxious committee consisting of Sophia, Celia, Auntie Loo and Francis, Uncle Preston pattered fretfully and cautiously up and down the one flight of tiny creaking stairs, silently indicated that one of the stairs was giving way, nearly got himself wedged in the narrow bit that led from the kitchen into the bathroom, and asked where the dustbin was kept, and the coals?

Celia, who loved the Cottage extremely and resented Uncle Preston’s attitude of despairing disapproval, silently opened the top half of a little red cupboard which was let into the wall of the kitchen and lo! there was quite a deep coal cellar in which stood a dustbin.

‘I see … it goes under the stairs,’ said Uncle Preston. ‘Now, Sophia, my dear, you must have that cracked stair repaired at once. If it gave way, you would fall through into the cellar and you might be seriously injured.’

‘Yes, Uncle Preston. I’ll see about it tomorrow.’

‘Most unwholesome … the dustbin in the kitchen,’ muttered Uncle Preston. ‘And no garden. Not even a yard in which to dry clothes. And very small. Much too small for three people. One could manage to live here; two would be disagreeably crowded. As for three …’

He went across to the brick fireplace, and tapped a panel above it which looked like a little door.

‘Does this open?’

‘Everybody asks that,’ said Celia complacently. ‘No, it doesn’t. It isn’t a cupboard; it’s just nothing.’

‘Well,’ said Uncle Preston at last, standing on the small worn step which led down on to the pavement. ‘It’s small. Very small indeed. I can only hope that you will none of you catch fever from living in so confined a space. Yes.’

Sophia looked up at the darkening blue sky, where ghostly white clouds like the bosoms of swans were moored. It was incomprehensible to her that anyone could find a fault with the Cottage, when it stood on the Heath, surrounded by trees, water, quietness; but older people were like that. They cared more for being comfortable than they did for anything else in earth or heaven.

‘It’s a pretty little place, dear,’ said Auntie Loo, as Sophia shut the door, ‘but I’m afraid you may find it rather difficult to run. Never mind, we all have to learn.’

And on the following Saturday, having paid the first instalment of rent to Celia and wired to Mrs Carmody, they moved in.

They had a clear windy March day for the move, which took place between two o’clock and three. Mr Cross moved them. Mr Cross kept a greengrocer’s shop in one of the lanes of Enbury Village, and he agreed to transport their few things for twelve and sixpence in his unreliable-looking van.