When I was a little sprog, my brothers and I used to go scrumpying, that is raiding the orchard for apples for those that dont know the term.
The orchard was a big white house stood in its own grounds at the edge of the woods. We had two ways we could approach it from where we lived, as we lived just below the woods and about five minutes from the house, we could either go along the bottom of the woods or along the road.
The house was set back off the road and up a drive that climber, so when you viewed it from the road the house was invisible, there was a huge wall and on the top of that a fence showed the bottom of the garden and orchard, the grounds actually sat above the road level.
Because you couldn't be seen from the road by the house, it also meant you couldn't see them, so if we went that way someone had to sneak up the drive to make sure the coast was clear. Being the smallest, the only girl and the fastest this became my job, I really had little choice in the matter.
I didnt go for the apples, they were bitter and I didnt like the taste of them at all. I never climbed the trees, always picking the windfalls from around the base. This was how I persuaded myself that I wasn't really stealing, that those apples would just have been wasted and gone rotten. The reason that I went, apart from my brothers and their mates being bigger than me that is, was the house.
When I said the house was white I meant that is what colour it was painted, the windows and doors were green, there was a quietness about it that appealed to a little girl that lived in a small house with a big family and could never find peace and quiet. But there was something more, something I couldn't define at that age. A homeliness, as though the house itself was welcoming me when I walked (sneaked) up the drive. The kitchen looked out on to the woods, well the back yard and the wall and then the woods, which is why we went the road way more often than not. There were french windows leading out onto a beautiful lawn which the orchard surrounded.
I loved to stand and just look at the house imagining what it was like inside. I was very good at my little job, always vigilant and making sure the coast was clear, or that they were in the kitchen and couldn't see us, we had to be extra quiet and careful if they were in, though we normally waited til they were out.
One day I was not feeling too good and didn't really want to go with them, but again I had no choice, nowadays it would be classed as bullying and abuse, but then it was the way it was, the twisting of the arm, literally, pulling of the hair, nipping. It was all part of being a girl in amongst boys. My vigilance slipped somewhat that day, or the lady of the house was upstairs and I didn't see, the car wasn't there so we assumed they had both gone out.
She caught us, and marched us into the kitchen. I was so mesmerised by actually being in the house I forgot to be scared about being caught. She told us to sit at the table, the boys had gone very pale they knew what to expect from the parents when they were called, and of course there was the possibility of her calling the police, I was just looking at the huuuggge kitchen, with the table and matching chairs, a beautiful old welsh dresser, though it gleamed with polish.
Next thing there is a steaming dish with apple pie and custard placed in front of each of us. She told us if we didint eat it she would be offended and then she would have to report what we had been doing. She told us that she didnt mind us having the apples, as long as we took the windfalls off the floor. We were damaging the trees with jumping about on the branches. She wanted the boys to gather apples for her, but using the right equipment, ladders and stuff,she also wanted them to tidy the lawn and the yard and keep them tidy. She wanted us to knock on the door when we arrived to let her know we were there. If we agreed to the terms she would agree to make two pies a week for the family and to supply lemonade and milk while we were doing chores for her. Of course we agreed.
There began a lovely two year relationship, I got to be in the house and explore while the boys did their outside stuff, I got to do outside stuff too, but being in that house was the best thing.
I couldn't believe that you could have so much furniture in a room and still be able to walk around it and between it without hitting walls or other people. And the books, so many books, in shelves along a wall in the library. She was an artist, and she illustrated books as a job and painted sketched,drew, anything she felt like at other times. Her husband was some kind of financial whiz, and he adored the air that she breathed. They didnt have children, she couldn't have any, I didnt understand that but I was barely eight and though I had a mature mind way above my age, there were things I knew nothing about.
I was devastated the day that they told me they were selling the house. I didnt have friends as such, not being alloowed to visit people and they not being invited to mine meant relationships with other children besides my siblings were few.
It turned out she was very ill, and though I had noticed the dark circles appear under the eyes and the weight loss, it had never occured to me that she was ill, I knew nothing about the big C then. They were going to live by the seaside, they had been told this was better for her. She was sad to go, she had goten to care about me a great deal, she said, and I had grown close to her too. She was the only person that ever listened to the things I had to say, really listen. She encouraged my love of books and my writing. And I would be lost without this haven to run to.
It only took a couple of months to sell the house to one of the mill owners in the town. Anf then they were off.
I never saw her again and after a few letters never heard from them either. It would never have occured to her husband to let me know when she passed away, after all I was only an eight year old and with the way that he felt about her, he would have had no thoughts for anything else but his own grief. I understand that, even then I understood it.
But my dealings with the white house were not over, and though it would be a few years I would once again spend much time there. But that is another story.
