ONE OF A PAIR ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 10 )

Lucy’ from the Hall appears one night with a problem, and a cardboard box. 

By the sound of it not one I can fix, but I might know soon who can. 

Can it be solves before it’s missed? 

Or will it be the start of a whole load of trouble?

Late one stormy January night there was a knock on my cottage front door. Calls at such a time and when most people are sheltering by their warm fires can be alarming, but I opened the door with a nonchalant air as if it was nothing unusual. Lucy was standing in the porch in a state of extreme distress and holding a cardboard box.

‘I’ve come to see you cos I think your the only person what can help me. Please say you will, please.'

Before I go any further I have to explain that Lucy is not her real name but the name given to her some thirty years ago when she started work as a maid at Blythe Hall. Her real name is Edna Cockle and it’s not unusual for the gentry to change the names of those they employ if their name doesn’t suit them. Lucy had risen from maid-of-allsorts to take on other duties as the staff working in the house was reduced year on year. She was regarded in high esteem by her ladyship particularly with respect to the care of some of the estate’s most valuable artefacts, of which there are many. 

I had managed to calm Lucy down, she had refused alcohol saying she was in too agitated a state and tea would be fine. I gave her as much time as she needed before enquiring what she thought I could help her with. At this she began crying again but offered me the cardboard box gesturing with one hand that I should open it while wiping away tears with the other.

The box tilted slightly and a familiar sound filled me with dread. Raising one of the box’s flaps the blue and off-white opalescence that appeared beneath made me shiver. It was enough to know the piece was priceless, at least if it was in one piece, which it wasn’t.

At this revelation whether Lucy wanted alcohol or not, I certainly did. 

I pictured the entire story resulting in Lucy’s arrival at my door. How it was broken was not important, but I did ask Lucy if it was her, she nodded but before she could say any more, I held up my hand and said,

‘We are where we are.’

I knew that Lady Blythe and several members of her family would be abroad, they always were just after Christmas.

‘When do they return?’ I asked Lucy,

‘About two weeks,’ she replied.

‘Does anyone else know?’

Lucy shook her head then added, 

‘Well, I did ask Dave at the pub if he knew anyone what could mend porcelain and things, and he said you might know someone as you had something to do with antiques.’

‘Ok,’ I said, 'when I see him I’ll mention you wanted something repaired, an ornament of your mother’s, a family heirloom.’

‘How much will it cost?’ Lucy asked, and she could see from my expression that she couldn’t afford it.

‘I shall lose my job, I know I will . . .’ and with that she began crying again.

I put the cardboard box on the table and began removing the pieces, one by one. Eight all together, that once made a vase nearly twenty inches high.

‘One of a pair?’ I asked, and she nodded.

‘Mmmm, can you hide the other one, and move others things around, carefully, and maybe no one will notice. Who’s there at the moment?

‘The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, and some others taking some rugs and drapes for cleaning.’

‘Will Mrs. Danvers notice?’

‘She might, but when her ladyship int about neither is she, lazy cow.’

‘You feeling better?’

‘I think I’m ready for that drink now.’

The following morning I thumbed through my list of ceramics restorers and wondered if any of them owed me a favour. No luck, so I thumbed through again wondering if any of them were gullible enough so I could make them think they owed me a favour. Again no luck, so the only alternative was sheer honesty, meaning I had to find the one with the biggest heart.

Rory Cohen came to mind. Hard as nails when it came to business and usually if you’re desperate, he’ll bleed you dry, but underneath it soft as . . . well, very soft. Maybe he feels it’s a way of balancing the bad and the good. I don’t know if he’s religious but we all need to do a good turn sometimes, you never know when you might need one yourself and when your time comes you can point out something in your favour.

It was a help that the vase was not mine, otherwise Rory would definitely have made me pay. He came to the village and parked is big old Mercedes outside and nearly blocked the lane. He talked to Lucy alone for about twenty minutes then left with the cardboard box under one arm while shaking his head at me then looking at the heavens as if we all had it in for him. He hates anyone knowing he’s an old softy.

It was a close run thing as the family’s return was brought forward a few days, but the vase was back in its usual place on one end of a Venetian side cabinet, with its partner, out of hiding, on the other.

Lucy had offered me a years cooking and cleaning but I declined and for some months I heard nothing other than when I bumped into her in the village shop. I asked about her husband’s arthritis, and then coyly whether everything up at ‘the house’ was ok? She always said it was until one day she tapped on my window. I opened my front door and she told me that her Ladyship had asked her whether there was anybody in the village that knew anything about antiques who could give her some advice. I smelt a rat. My suspicion was based on nothing more than those types of places, in my experience, have their own people who they’ve dealt with for years, maybe generations. Asking Lucy too if she knew someone 'in the village' smacked of she, and maybe me, had been rumbled. I didn’t even know if Lucy had spilled the beans and put me in the frame - if you see what I mean.

I arranged with Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, an appointment and turned up prompt as if I had been called to the headmaster's study. In fact waiting outside her Ladyship's office, was exactly like that. Eventually she appeared and suggested I follow her, perhaps to see the damage I had done and to give an explanation before the appropriate authorities were called, if they weren’t already waiting to rush out and clamp me in irons.

There are parts of the house I have visited but non so private. We turned a corner into a long saloon and stopped by a large window overlooking the grounds and in the distance, the lake. There was some small talk before we turned and there in front of us was a Venetian side cabinet in the middle of which was a silver and gilt centre piece, swags, curlicues and cherubs in abundance to the side of which at each end were a pair of blue and off-white Chinese porcelain vases. One of which, I don’t know which, I recognised having seen parts of it in a cardboard box.

‘Those vases,’ her ladyship used both hands and pointed at the two, ‘what do you think of them?’

I’m no great expert on seventeenth century Chinese vases but I told her what I thought and how excellent I thought they were, and a perfect pair.

‘They are aren’t they,’ she agreed, ‘Can you tell from here which one is broken?’

I nearly fell through the floor, however in honesty, I couldn’t, and I told her so.

‘Neither can I,’ her ladyship replied, ‘and I’ll let you into a little secret. They both are.’

I would have fallen through the floor again if there wasn’t already a gaping hole beneath me. 

‘My father broke one riding a pig through here for a bet and had to have a Swiss restorer mend it. His mark is on the base. Once in a while I pick it up and the mark reminds me of my dear papa winning his bet but having to pay so much more to repair the damage. At first I thought it must be my memory, until I looked at its partner. So they really are matched now.’

Her ladyship looked at me and I steeled myself in preparation for my sentence.

‘If you know anyone,' she began, ‘who could do as good a job as has been done recently, I have several other pieces that my father never got round to having repaired. Perhaps you could ask them to contact my housekeeper.’

I seldom suffer from being speechless, but this was one occasion when all I could do was nod graciously, and avoid eye contact.

As we left, her ladyship made it clear our conversation should be kept secret,

‘What is done is done,’ she said, ‘no one needs to know, I know.’

When Edna Cockle, also known as Lucy, eventually retired her ladyship presented her with a pair of matching vases as a gift and a thank-you for her many years of service. Were they a pair of blue and off-white Chinese Vases? Of course not, that only happens in stories.

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.