A Crowded Coffin(5)

‘Karen?’ Edith held out her hands to the other girl who, when she recognized the newcomer, straightened up in surprise, then plonked her baking tray down on the old scrubbed kitchen table and rushed forward. ‘How fantastic! I met Harriet Quigley at the airport and she gave me a lift. She told me you were here but I didn’t really take it in properly. You look amazing! It’s great to see you again – it’s been years. I love the vintage look, very Debbie Reynolds. That’s new, isn’t it?’

The other girl really did look stunning, Edith decided, a 1950s pin-up; her hair was in a bouncy style with a fringe and a perky yellow ribbon, and she wore a pair of what looked like genuine vintage pedal-pushers. Bright red lipstick and a crisp white blouse with a Peter Pan collar completed the picture.

‘Edith?’ Karen Mirowski returned the hug with affection. ‘Goodness yes, it must be at least five years. I’ve been into vintage nearly that long.’ She looked at Edith. You haven’t changed much,’ she said, then she took a step back, casting an appraising glance at her. ‘No, I take that back,’ she said. ‘You actually look tired out. I imagine it was a long flight. I’m so glad to see you, you’re really needed here, I can tell you. But why didn’t you let your grandparents know you were coming home?’

Edith shrugged and smiled. ‘No time. I got the message about Grandpa and hopped on a flight as soon as I could. Besides, my current job had, er, come to a natural close. It was time to come home anyway. Grandpa was cool about me working abroad for a couple of years but I know he wants me to get involved in the place now and I can’t let him down.’

‘Well, I’m glad; you’re certainly needed here,’ Karen told her frankly. ‘They’ll be pleased, your grandparents. You’ll find them a bit shaken up at the moment.’

‘Yes,’ Edith looked anxious. ‘Harriet’s been telling me about Grandpa’s accident. I’d better go and see Gran and break it to her gently that I’m home for good.’

Karen glanced at her watch. ‘I’d leave it for an hour or so,’ she suggested. ‘You know Mr Attlin’s not due out of hospital till tomorrow? And your grandmother usually spends the afternoon resting these days but she was late today and she’s only just gone upstairs to the sitting room. Leave your bags down here. Markus, my husband, can take them up when he gets back. He’s working on a plumbing job in Hursley all day today but he’ll be back soon. He’s got to get ready for a gig in Southampton.’

‘Mmm, all right, thanks.’ Edith sounded distracted as she stared at the array of food she had glimpsed through the open door of the larder, as well as the tray of quiches cooling on the table. ‘What on earth is all this food for, Karen? There’s enough to feed an army here. They haven’t taken in lodgers, have they?’

‘Just the one,’ Karen rolled her eyes. ‘That’s this artist that your grandmother has invited to stay for the summer. He’s—’ She broke off as the phone rang, then reached for a pencil and paper and began to make a list, pointing to the kettle. Edith shook her head, ran the tap for a glass of cold water, then turned away, frustrated. A lodger? What on earth were her grandparents thinking of? She waved to Karen, who was still busy on the phone, and went out of the back door into the courtyard formed by the angle of the mediaeval hall and the house that had been tacked on in the early 1500s.

Out in the sunshine Edith felt again the tremor of excitement that always assailed her when she came home. It had always been home, even when her life during term time was spent in London, where her mother had a high-powered job as a company lawyer. Holidays always meant the far from stately farm of the Attlin family, the old house at Locksley, near Winchester.

When she was a young child her father, an army officer, was blown up by a mortar attack while on a routine deployment with the UN peace-keeping forces in the war in Bosnia. For the four years it took Richard Attlin to die in a hospital outside London, Edith lived in Hampshire with her grandparents while her mother worked to keep them afloat, visiting her husband and daughter as often as she could. After Richard’s death Edith went back to school in London but when she was fourteen her mother married again. Her new husband was a doctor, an old friend from her home town in the Scottish borders, and she moved back there with him, while Edith chose to move permanently to Locksley where she became one of Harriet Quigley’s students at a school just outside Winchester.

Even with the worry about her grandparents, both at present and for the future, Edith felt herself relax. I’m home, she thought, sighing with relief. It had all come together, she realized: a longing for home that had crept up on her and the fact that the children she had been teaching were about to go to boarding school, together with the knowledge that her real job awaited her back at the farm in Hampshire. If only her grandfather was really going to be all right.