Read Online Down an English Lane by Margaret Thornton - Free Book Online

throughout, when required, by a central heating boiler which Archie Tremaine had had installed just before the start of the war; one of the few houses in the area that could boast of such a commodity.
    ‘Your father owns a lot of the land around here as well, does he?’ Christine went on. ‘The outlying farms, they belong to him, do they?’
    ‘Only the Nixons’ farm now,’ replied Bruce. ‘There were a couple of others, but my father sold them to the tenants. Walter Nixon might well have bought his farm as well, but he was killed during the war. It’s still run as a family concern though. Ada, Walter’s widow, is very competent, and she has her son, Ted, to help her as well as young Doris. That’s the girl who was in the concert – she’s a friend of Maisie and Audrey – the one who did the poem about Matilda. She’s quite a scream, is Doris.’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure she is,’ said Christine, with an eloquent lift of her eyebrows. ‘How many more little girlfriends are you going to trot out of the woodwork, darling?’
    ‘That’s the last one, I promise,’ laughed Bruce easily. ‘But to get back to the Nixons that I was telling you about…’ As if I am really the slightest bit interested, thought Christine, trying not to look too bored.
    ‘The eldest son, Joe, has just been demobbed – I caught a glimpse of him there tonight – so no doubt he will go back to working on the farm. They’ve had a land girl helping out, but the girls will all be going back home before long, I dare say, as the male farmhands return. They’ve done a marvellous job, though.’
    ‘I’m sure…’ replied Christine, on an exhalationof cigarette smoke. There were three land girls still billetted at Tremaine House, and she had been surprised to see how Bruce’s mother treated them, almost as though they were members of the family.
    ‘My father would like to sell the Nixons’ farm as well, to the family of course. They’ve been invaluable tenants, and I know he’ll be willing to help Ada financially if she would like to own it.’
    ‘But there is still a good bit of land apart from that, isn’t there?’ asked Christine, in a casual tone, not wanting to appear too inquisitive.
    ‘Yes, quite a fair acreage…’
    ‘How does it work, Bruce? I know you have two older sisters…’ Both were married and living a good distance from North Yorkshire, he had told her. ‘But as the only son of the squire, it would all come to you, wouldn’t it?’
    Bruce burst out laughing. ‘Good gracious, darling! We don’t belong to the nobility.’
    ‘But your father is the squire…’
    ‘It’s only a sort of courtesy title, really. It doesn’t mean very much. He just happened to be the largest landowner in the district at one time, as were his father and his grandfather, although the estate was much larger in those days. There was a good deal of touching their forelocks and bowing and scraping went on then, I dare say, but times have changed now, thank goodness. Dad doesn’t care for any of that nonsense – he’s very liberal-minded – but hegoes along with it when they refer to him as the squire.’
    ‘Oh…I see,’ said Christine.
    ‘Anyway, what does it matter to us? My father isn’t going to “pop his clogs” as they say round here, for many a long day, or so I hope, nor my mother.’ He stubbed out his cigarette in the cut glass ashtray on the occasional table at his side, and put his arm around her again.
    ‘What shall we do tomorrow, darling?’ He did not give her time to answer. ‘Church in the morning is obligatory, of course.’
    ‘Is it really?’
    ‘Oh yes… And then it will be the usual Sunday roast and all the trimmings that my mother insists on. And after that… how about a walk up to Middleburgh Castle; that’s the ruin you can see up on the hill? Do you fancy that?’
    ‘Yes, why not?’ she shrugged. So much for asking her what she wanted to do tomorrow… ‘It’s all the same to me… How