Cassandra By Chance. Betty Neels
toast and ate a great deal of cake as well, and drank quantities of tea from an enormous teapot. It was nice, Cassandra reflected, that Rachel had never allowed Tom’s success and money to interfere with the happy home life she had achieved for them all. The house was roomy, well furnished and there was every comfort one could reasonably wish for, but the children weren’t spoilt; there was no obvious luxury, although she knew that Rachel could have anything she wanted and more besides.
She looked with affection at her sister, sitting curled up in one of the armchairs. She didn’t look her age; her pretty face was smooth and happy and contented—she was a dear; since their parents had died, she had, in the nicest possible way, looked after Cassandra, inviting her for holidays when they went abroad, giving her the pretty things she couldn’t quite afford to buy for herself, but only at birthdays and Christmas, so that Cassandra had never felt patronized. She had even contrived several meetings with young men when she and Tom had been living in London, so that Cassandra should have the opportunity of making their acquaintance. But this hadn’t been entirely successful; there were too many pretty girls around for the young men in question to waste more than a polite few minutes with her. Perhaps if she could have been a sparkling talker she might have achieved something, but she wasn’t, and she had never felt quite at ease with them.
She bit into another slice of cake, thinking how fortunate it was that she could repay Rachel and Tom a little for their kindness by minding the children while they took a holiday. They had wanted to go away together for some time, she knew, but neither of them would consider it unless the children could be looked after by someone they trusted. There were no grandparents now, and Tom’s sister, who lived in London, was heartily disliked by his children—that only left herself, and she had been able to say yes when Rachel had written and asked tentatively if there was any chance of her having a holiday and if so, could she bear to spend it looking after her nephew and niece. She had written back at once and offered to stay as long as they wanted her to, glad of the opportunity to get away from hospital life for a little while.
She loved her work, but a change was good for everyone and for the last six months, while she had been working in theatre, she had fancied herself in love with the young Surgical Registrar, who unfortunately, had barely noticed her—an unrewarding experience which she had the sense to know would get her nowhere. Up here, on this remote island, leading a totally different life, she would forget him quickly enough. She sighed, and Rachel asked anxiously, ‘You won’t miss London, darling?’
‘Me? No. Just think of it, six weeks of this— I shall read and sew and cook and discipline the kids…’
A remark which was greeted with delighted giggles from the children, because the idea of their beloved Aunt Cassandra disciplining anyone or, for that matter, being even faintly stern, was just too funny for words. They were still giggling as they led her away upstairs, where presently a furious uproar signified the fact that they were having their bedtime baths.
The weather had changed when Cassandra got up the next morning; the sun shone from a chilly blue sky, turning the sea to a turbulent green and the hills to yellow and red and brown, and in the distance the snowcapped mountains looked as though they had been painted against the horizon. The village was bright and cosy in the sunshine, its roofs and white walls sparkling, its windows gleaming. The sun was still shining as she drove back from the ferry in the afternoon with the two quiet and rather tearful children. The sky was paler now and already dim around its edges where the dusk was creeping in. Cassandra kept up a flow of cheerful conversation all the way home and as she swung the Landrover up the short track to the house, she asked:
‘How about a walk before tea? Just a short one— Bob needs some exercise and so do I. I’d love to go a little way up the hill behind the house.’
They set off presently, climbing steadily up the path which wound through the trees. It was sheltered from the wind and surprisingly quiet.
‘There’ll be mice here,’ said Cassandra, ‘and rabbits and an owl or two, I daresay, and any number of birds—I wish I knew their names. There’s a squirrel.’
They stood still and watched the creature dart up a tree and Bob, the elderly Labrador, who had grown portly with his advancing years, sat down.
‘Draw him when we get home,’ Penny begged her.
‘Certainly, my dear, if you would like that.’ Her aunt smiled fondly at her and added briskly, ‘Shall we go to that bend in the path and then go back for tea?’
There was a gap in the trees at the path’s turn; it afforded an excellent view of the hill above them, and the sun, gleaming faintly now, shone on something near its summit, in amongst the trees. Cassandra, staring hard, saw that it was a window and what was more, there was a chimney besides, with smoke wreathing above it.
‘A house!’ she exclaimed. ‘Whoever lives there? Why, it’s miles away from the village.’
For the first time since they had parted from their parents, the children perked up.
‘That’s Ogre’s Relish,’ Andrew informed her importantly, and waited confidently for her reply, for unlike other, sillier aunts, she could be depended upon to give the right answers.
‘What an extremely clever name,’ said Cassandra. ‘Do tell.’
She watched his little chest swell with pride. ‘I thought of it—Penny helped,’ he added. ‘There’s a man lives there, and one day I heard Mrs Todd telling Mrs MacGill that he relished his peace and quiet, and of course he’s an ogre because no one’s ever seen him.’
His aunt nodded her complete understanding. ‘Of course. Does he live alone?’
Penny answered her. ‘There’s another man there too—he’s old, and he comes to the shop sometimes and buys things, but he hardly ever speaks and Mrs MacGill says he only buys enough to keep body and soul together. Are ogres poor, Aunt Cassandra?’
‘This one sounds as though he might be.’
‘He can’t see.’
Cassandra stopped to look at her small niece. ‘My darling, are you sure? I mean, not see at all?’
Andrew chipped in: ‘We don’t know, but I heard Daddy tell Mummy, he said. “He can’t see, poor beggar.” That means,’ he explained, just in case his aunt hadn’t quite grasped the point, ‘that he’s not got any money—not if he’s a beggar.’
Cassandra nodded; it seemed hardly the time to start a dull explanation about figures of speech, and even if the poor ogre had enough to live on, it seemed a dreary enough existence. She turned her back on the gap, shivering a little. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said.
She took the children down to the village school the next morning and then went back to give Mrs Todd a hand in the house; but Mrs Todd assured her that she needed no help, so she retired to the kitchen and set about preparing their midday dinner. There was more than enough to choose from; she delved into the deep-freeze and settled on lamb chops and by way of afters she made a queen of puddings, adding homemade strawberry jam with a lavish hand and wondering as she did so if the poor ogre really had enough to eat. She found herself thinking about him as she worked; one day soon, while the children were at school, she would climb the path behind the house and call on him—he might be glad of a visitor, but perhaps he didn’t like callers, so it might be a good idea to walk up the hill and spy out the land first. Still busy with her thoughts, she started on a cake for tea, for the chocolate one had been demolished for all but two slices. She made the coffee, called to Mrs Todd to join her and they sat together in the kitchen, consuming the rest of the cake between them. Mrs Todd, Cassandra discovered, was a perfect fount of knowledge; she was told all about the pastor and the pastor’s sister, who according to her companion, was a proper old termagant. ‘No wonder the puir man has never taken a wife,’ she observed. ‘Who’d want to with him, knowing she’s landed with his sister too?’
Cassandra, her mouth full of cake, agreed fervently, ‘And the man who lives in the cottage behind us on the hill?’ she wanted to know casually.
‘Och,